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The
Paradox of Instruction
By Bubba
Free John.
An
Introduction to the Esoteric Spiritual Teaching of
Bubba Free John -
1977
Vision Mound Ceremony
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Prologue
THE
PARADOX OF INSTRUCTION
All truly
or fully human communication is art. All human art
or true communication is a paradoxical presentation
of primal psycho-physical knowledge, or total
experience. It is always a partial or summary
description of the present state of realization of
the condition of the whole body, the
psycho-physical condition of all human awareness,
or the totality of everything as it is
felt-conceived by human agency. The more conceptual
or discursive aspect of any such presentation is
its exoteric part, while that aspect which belongs
to the more feeling or non-discursive dimension of
total experience is its esoteric part. The
combination of the two dimensions makes all art a
communication of paradox.
Paradox is
the essential or ultimate content of all human
experience, all art. The realization and
communication of paradox, or total experience, is
the principal motive of the human adventure in
every moment. Art, or truly human communication, is
the argument of paradox. The action wherein such
communication is expressed is love. The realized
manifestation of the human being is love, or the
sacrifice of energy-attention, on the basis of the
tacit, prior, and most summary configuration of the
being, which is Paradox.
The
Paradox of our existence, our essential or total
experience, is realized in Ignorance, or the
Mystery which precedes, pervades, and confounds all
particular experience, all knowing, whether
exoteric or esoteric. This Ignorance undermines the
force of all objects, high or low, and belies the
presumptive rationality of subjectivity, or
independent conscious existence. Implicit in this
Ignorance is the impulse as and toward the whole -
the whole body, and the totality of everything. The
Mystery is Fullness, or Radiance. Therefore, Love,
or Sacrifice, is the Law and Destiny of
Man.
The
Spiritual Master is the servant of Man. The Life
and Work and Teaching of the Spiritual Master
epitomizes Man, or the whole body in the
configuration of totality. That Work and Teaching
is recourse to art, or true and fully human
communication, the primal ceremony-the implicit and
explicit Act which cannot be avoided. That Work is
Sacrifice or Love or Radiance, the Impulsive
Destiny of every man or woman. That Teaching is the
Communication of Ignorance, or Paradox, the Truth
of every man or woman. Its exoteric aspect is
instruction. Its esoteric aspect is initiation. Its
Realization in the case of any man or woman is the
Radiance of Ignorance, the Summary and Truth of
what is Man and the Whole that is appearing. Such
is the Process of Translation of Man into God, the
Divine Condition or Perfect Domain.
Therefore,
Bubba names this book The Paradox of
Instruction.
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THE
GROUND AND ROOT OF
THIS
INSTRUCTION
Bubba Free
John was served by two principal teachers in gross
bodily form. These were an American Tantric Yogi
named Albert Rudolph (Rudi, or Swami Rudrananda,
now deceased) and Swami Muktananda, of Ganeshpuri,
India. He was also served by others in subtle form
or through subtle agency, including Swami
Nityananda (formerly of Ganeshpuri, India, the
acknowledged Spiritual Master of both Rudi and
Swami Muktananda). But the Spiritual Master whose
Teaching and incomparable Spiritual Power or Siddhi
confirmed by Grace the very and perfect Truth
beyond all doubt is known as Sri Ramana
Maharshi.
In the
company of Rudi, Bubba learned the yogic discipline
of the life-force, which discipline presses beyond
vital limitations, especially the "tamasic" or
helpless and sleepy quality that creates only
self-indulgence and the disabling moods of
self-pity and negativity. Rudi was a teacher in the
vital. It was his school and his limitation. He
worked to transcend its power of inertia, but he
was also a child of the navel. Once Bubba learned
the transcendent and yogic discipline of the vital,
he also realized the inherently oppressive nature
of the gross point of view in practice, and he came
to rest, so that the fulfillment of gross existence
in itself was no longer profoundly attractive,
necessary, or binding-without on the other hand
justifying a conventionally ascetic disposition
toward it.
Swami
Muktananda was the next to serve Bubba in his own
clarification of the Way of Truth. In Swami
Muktananda's company Bubba realized the contents of
subtle possibility, within and above the gross
plane. Swami Muktananda is one whose school and
limitations are in the subtle sphere, associated
with the crown of the body-being. Once Bubba
realized the marvelous distractions of subtle
consciousness, he also became aware of the
inherently oppressive nature of the subtle point of
view in practice and experience - so that the
fulfillment of subtle possibility in itself ceased
to be profoundly attractive, necessary, or
binding.
Thereafter,
Bubba was guided-or distracted-by higher subtle or
spiritual agents for a time. But all experiential
fulfillment, high or low, failed to demonstrate
Truth. At last, his whole adventure, at times
served and tutored by various beings and
influences, was made unusable and obsolete-its
motive penetrated, its argument undermined. There
was a single, absolute, and ultimately unspeakable
Revelation of both the Heart or Condition of all
arising and the simple activity whereby error,
deflection, and self-possession
intervene.
Bubba
communicated essential aspects of this Revelation
to Rudi, Swami Muktananda, and numerous
others-personally and through his published
writings. But there was great hostility and general
resistance to his point of view. At last, in the
summer of 1973, Bubba approached the Presence of
the late Sage, Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi, at his
place of burial in Tiruvannamalai, South India. It
was only there and then that the Revelation of
Truth to which Bubba's whole life has been oriented
was tested and confirmed as it is.
Since that
time, Bubba has been refreshed and liberally
disposed to communicate, demonstrate, and serve
this Revelation and its Way to those who are moved
to consider him and his argument.
Bubba Free
John has previously written that "the Divine Lord
or very God" has been his Spiritual Master. In this
manner, he describes and confirms the Divine nature
rather than merely manifest yogic nature of the
Spiritual Grace that has been overwhelmingly
active, communicative, and effective in his case
since birth. The benign workings of this Grace
culminated in the spiritual confrontation at the
tomb and former places of residence of Bhagavan Sri
Ramana Maharshi, where Bubba found the undeniable
Realization of his life to be confirmed most
directly, beyond all doubt.
Bubba
teaches in his own time and place from the impulse
of Enjoyment of the Radiant Condition of the Real
or Eternal Divine, to which he is Awakened by
eternal Grace, even as Sri Ramana Maharshi, in whom
Bubba recognizes that Grace, was so Awakened.
Therefore, Bubba claims that perfect surrender, or
devotional sacrifice, necessarily precedes and
coincides with radical intuition of the
Real.
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WHAT
IS TRUTH?
The
beginning of the commitment to Truth is in radical
revulsion to any confinement by the destiny or the
limits that are or could be set before us. But,
even so, the Realization of Truth is not attained
by any reaction to the present conditions of
existence. Whatever is the Truth, it must be True
at this moment. It must be always already True,
both in and prior to every moment of space-time.
Therefore, the Realization of Truth is not attained
in the search for Truth, since seeking must
necessarily bypass the Truth in this moment in
order to pursue it as an eventual Goal of action in
time and space. Whatever can be attained by seeking
and strategy is necessarily an occasion, an
incident, a form of experience, space-time, or
time-space itself. But Truth must be the Truth of
even that incident or Attainment. Therefore, there
is no Realization of Truth other than the
presumption of Truth.
This is
so. The Way of Truth is not itself identical to any
progressive or summary process of experience. But
it is a matter of radical insight into the process
of experience in the present moment. This insight
is itself a formless presumption. It is the
presumption of Truth. This insight or presumption,
projected moment to moment, is the Way of Truth. It
is Sacrifice into Truth, or the Condition that is
Truth.
What is
Truth? "I" may find out or know all kinds of facts
or truths about any thing, or everything, or the
whole world. But I may never discover or know what
that thing, or everything, or any thing is. No
matter how much time passes, or how much knowledge
is attained, this fundamental Ignorance can never
be changed to any degree. This Ignorance is Truth
and the Way of Truth. It is the Truth or Condition
of any thing and everything. It confounds the dream
of knowing. It is Awake. It is Intuition, prior to
all knowledge. The radical Realization of this
Ignorance under all conditions is the presumption
of Truth. Such is Enlightenment or
God-Realization.
That which
is Revealed in Ignorance, or perfect Sacrifice, is
the Truth or Condition of all conditions. It is
Paradox. It is Revealed in the moment of every
condition and all conditions, but it may not be
defined or grasped in itself. Those who are
Awakened by Grace, through hearing, are a constant
party to this Revelation, but it is never known in
itself over against anything else.
Fear and
revulsion account for most of the spiritual
adventure of mankind. The "Truth" that is offered
to us, independent of perfect insight or
Revelation, is an Idol, high or low. That which may
be sought and found is not God.
The vulgar
world is an offering of elemental Idols, but fear
and revulsion may escape what is vulgar, and then
what is proclaimed as Truth is subtler than the
elements. Spiritual proclamations offer us Idols of
inwardness, Idols of the better part, Idols of
highness, Idols of the subtlest and highest. At
last the Idol of Origin is offered. Since we are
what we appear to be, the Creator of it would seem
to be Truth. Therefore, men worship and seek
visions of the Creator. But we do not worship Truth
as Creator, Origin, or Source. We worship the
Creator, the Origin, the Making Source as God or
Truth. Truth is valued as a way of valuing or
preserving the world and our pleasurable
independence or invulnerability. We worship the
Creator because we value and cling to the world and
our present and future life or self. We are afraid.
Our worship of the Origin, the subtlest, the
highest, the high or higher, the better part, or
what is within is an expression of the same motive
that pursues the Idols of vulgar experience, the
Idols of sensation and release.
It is not
Truth that is attained or even sought by all this
seeking. Survival, not Truth, is what is sought by
all of it. Seeking is itself survival. It is action
as meditation on self. Seeking is self-possession,
not possession by God, or Truth, or the Real. It is
not God or Truth that is valued by the seeker. The
seeker is afraid, and he values continued delight.
He turns to pleasures of the body, within the body,
above the body, or at the Origin of the body, in
hope of continuation. He turns because he values
what he is, not what is Truth. But he does not know
what a single thing is, not even his own self. If
this Ignorance were Realized to be the present
Truth of the motivated self, then Truth and not any
goal or Idol would determine the Way. Therefore,
the matter of Truth is the matter of present
insight or penetration of the circle of experience,
seeking, and self-possession.
Truth is
the Condition of conditions. It is not itself a
condition. It has no independent objective or
subjective existence. Whatever is presently arising
as a spontaneous condition, Truth is not other or
objective, nor inner and subjective relative to it.
Truth is simply the Condition of the present
condition. Truth, or the Condition of present
conditions, is always already the case. Therefore,
the Realization of Truth is not to be gained by
reaction to any or all present conditions, nor by
any progressive search to attain other or superior
conditions. The Realization of Truth is a matter of
radical, present insight into the arising process
of existence. The Realization is not progressive
but instant. But on the basis of such Realization
or insight, moment to moment, the Revelation of
existence in Truth is never-ending, like a
succession of infinities.
The
conventional offering of "Truth" is of an
experiential object or Object. It is outside, or
inside, or upside, or Topside, or Not-side. It is a
part. It is in a certain direction. It is found
over time and progressively. It is independent. It
is consoling. Such Truth or God is reasonable
nonsense. It is gotten only by those who crave
enough. But no matter what is gotten, whatever is
presently arising, "I" do not know what it is.
However much "I" may know about it, "I" do not and
can never know what it is. Therefore, every present
configuration, high or low, is Paradox. Since none
of it or me can be accounted for, it is all an
Illusion, unnecessary and Mysterious.
Truth is
the Truth of every part. It is not only the Truth
of the spine, the midbrain, the mind, and the
Light. It is equally, presently, and simultaneously
the Truth of the knee, the toe, the shawl, the
eyeglass, and the hair on my lover's arm.
Therefore, where shall "I" go for Truth's
sake?
If "I" am
afraid - only afraid - then "I" may search among
the parts of me or the parts of things. "I" may
reduce it all to a better or highest part. "I" may
turn in and up. "I" may desire to the point of
ecstasy above and beyond. But Truth is not my
Object then. "I" am thus only an adventurer in time
and space, propelled to destiny for my own sake.
Very good. An excellent dream. Except for the fear,
the doubt, and the agony of striving.
But when
"I" hear the argument of Truth, and insight breaks
my stride, the whole adventure and Illusion of
experience is undermined, and its dilemma
dissolved. When "I" am confessed in Ignorance, then
all of this arising is no longer confounding and
motivating me to objective and subjective
absolutes. Then all pairs have become a Paradox,
and the Way of Truth is not a path to anywhere that
is Truth, but it is Truth itself, Sacrifice of self
and everything in the Condition of our Mystery.
Bubba says, Truth is Surrender of the whole
body-"I" into Happiness, whatever
arises.
"I" is the
whole body. Liberation is founded on intuitive
insight into the separative gesture that is the
whole body itself. The natural practice is
spontaneous sacrifice and loving service, not
motivated inwardness and the unending strategy of
thought. Real meditation is direct and present
penetration of the lie of independent existence,
the whole reflex of contraction toward a point,
including the lie of time and space, which is the
pervasive scheme of objective points of attention,
above and below.
Bubba Free
John
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