Beezone Articles ------ Adi Da Articles ------ Tradition Articles ------ Adi Da Books Online------
Adi Da Audio Online------ Intro------ About------ News----- Contact------ Home
INSIGHT and
SELF-WATCHING July 26, 1975 Adi Da Samraj (Bubba Free John) BUBBA: Self-observation is absolutely a key
principle in the affair of understanding, but it is not
self-watching. Self-observation in the manner I use the term
can not be done strategically, methodically from a
philosophical point of view. It may not be initiated as a
kind of solution or motivated by the usual anxieties that
one has in the midst of problems, in the midst of this sense
of dilemma. The only reason why one would observe one's self, watch
one's self, is by reaction to the sense of dilemma, by
reaction to the felt problem. That kind of self-watching,
so-called self-observation, has nothing whatever to do with
understanding, it's just another moment of the avoidance of
relationship, just another moment of the usual life of
suffering. Self-observation is something
you may do at random and within such a process you suddenly
see something, comprehend something. The argument of the
Guru suddenly makes a point of some kind without your having
tried to get it on as a moment of insight. Well, that is the
self-observation that I am talking about. It takes place not
when you are strategically presenting yourself as
a witness to watch yourself, but in moments when you are
free of that exercise, in which you are like a mirror to
your own event, and suddenly the process of your life shows
itself to you. You reflect it. You simply reflect it. You no
longer are interfering with the process. It simply shows
itself in consciousness and there is comprehension, instant
insight. This is the true quality of the self-observation
that I am talking about, not the method of analyzing
experiences. So the process of sadhana for individuals in this Ashram
is not one where you watch yourself methodically,
analytically, taking a kind of witness stance, but one
in which you respond to the Guru through the argument of his
Teaching and accept his discipline, and fulfill it as a
condition from hour to hour in the company of others. That's
the sadhana. In the midst of that sadhana, as I've said,
self-observation in this true sense, that I've just
described, occurs spontaneously as a random event. It occurs
as insight, the undoing of solid conditions through the
sudden appearance of consciousness, free consciousness, free
life. DEVOTEE: Seems like whenever I take on that point
of view of self-observation as an analytical process,
there's always; this fixating in the head, almost as a
necessary aspect of that type of viewpoint and.... Well, it
indicates that that's all I'm doing is taking it on as a
method. BUBBA: Right. The human mechanism is is dual. It's
actually very complex but we can describe it as a dual
process in which the vital function, the vital process,
which contains consciousness only at an unconscious,
subconscious level, and the mental conscious process are
fitted together in a complex kind and of play, and vital
shock is in the vital, the belly, in the subconscious,
unconscious dimension, in the life process itself below the
mind. So one of the strategies for getting out of the
implications of vital shock is to assume the, point of view
of the mind, the conscious mind, the mental, mental-mind,
and self-watching life. This becomes a fixed strategy in the
solid person, but it is also a natural strategy, a
conventional strategy in all persons. All human beings,
unless they are vegetables, idiots, engage in this strategy
consistently, constantly in every moment of life. We also do
it methodically if we sympathize with certain kinds of
philosophy, philosophizing about life, spirituality, and so
forth. We may feel that that strategy is justified and do it
professionally as a technique in our daily life as a kind of
meditation, as a way to become realized or whatever. And
whenever we do that, whenever we do it most intensely, we
naturally will feel concentrated in the head, in the mental
brain. The brain that's encased in the skull, among other
functions, is the seat of the thinking mind. The vital also has a mind, a brain of a kind, in the
solar plexus. And so when we take on the analytical strategy
of watching, self-watching, we opt for the point of view of
the thinking brain in the skull and watch all of the
manifestations that are expressed unconsciously and
subconsciously through the vital brain in the solar plexus.
But it's a kind of schizophrenia, split, in this dual play
that is the human mechanism. And, in fact, the only moments
of real self-observation occur when that split between the
thinking brain and the vital brain is not being
strategically lived, when we are not occupied with that
set-up, that split, but are just naturally involved in the
synthetic play of life and mind. When we are doing that in random moments, we suddenly
comprehend something about the nature of that total play.
And when that comprehension occurs, we are, at least for the
moment, seated in the dimension of consciousness itself, not
in the seat of some function, some brain, some strategic
position. So real self-observation then doesn't occur in the
thinking mind. It occurs when the thinking mind is relaxed,
naturally involved in functioning, being a reflector rather
than an aggressor, a presence, a self. On those occasions we
grasp the nature of the entire play that is our humanity.
And that is self-observation. On such occasions we're not fixed in the thinking mind or
in the vital mind, not in vital shock or in the strategy of
thought, but in that prior conscious dimension that
fundamentally can't be described. When we intuitively fall
into that prior kind of consciousness, then we are seated in
that...in another dimension entirely, and from that point of
view the whole play of our humanity, our mentality, our
vitality, the whole affair, is controllable, knowable,
becomes usable, changeable. From that point of view we can
make the whole affair of life, mental and vital, a
sacrificial and creative process that doesn't bind. All of the strategies assumed from that kind of solid
point of view of the mind in itself are limiting. They are
ways of controlling the vital from the point of view of the
thinking mind. They don't work then. They're just a kind of
solution. It's possible by resting in the thinking brain or
in that point of view to feel somehow liberated from vital
life, and that's why the tendency toward the solid position
is very strong in some people because it gives them the
sense of being free of the implications, at any rate, of
vital shock and of the whole threatening play of vitality.
They are able to step out of it entirely into this
super-analytical position in which they are basically
unaffected, in which they can willfully stand on top of the
vital. But in the process of understanding, of real insight,
real self-observation, the vital is released, and also the
strategy of the mind, the thinking mind, is released. The
whole affair is released and no longer binds, no longer
represents a true strategic possibility. Self-observation is
not a process of one's conventional life. Self-observation
is a specific process valued from the point of view of
understanding. You can certainly add conditions to your life, add
conventional changes to your life, on the basis of the
things that people have seen about you. Of course what
somebody else has seen in you is not your self-observation.
It doesn't have the force of understanding, but it has a
conventional value. It can be of use in the scheme of
sadhana. It's just that self-observation relates to this
process of understanding. Self-watching is not,
self-watching or just any kind of way of gathering data
useful in conventional terms is useful enough at the
conventional level of sadhana. In fact you will watch yourself all the time. There are
that specific things you may notice about yourself that are
completely useful, that have nothing whatever to do with
your illumined consciousness. Somebody notices that you
always kick dogs as you walk down the street. They could
tell you that and you could stop kicking dogs and that would
be good and it would not the least thing, to do with
understanding. Self watching itself has nothing whatever to
do with understanding. Only self-observation does. But
self-watching can produce conventional information and so
forth that can have value at the conventional level of
sadhana. That is why the conditions of sadhana are so important.
They serve this process of self-observation. The conditions
themselves obviously are not understanding. But they can
generally help establish a more appropriate order of
sadhana.
SOLIDS, VITALS and PECULIARS DEVOTEE: Bubba in the thing Billy read, talking
about how the solid, peculiar and vital, I don'`t remember
the exact quote but they must consciously balance their
lives in terms of what they've seen. And you spoke about
strategies relative to body, mind, and life-force. We were
talking in our group today and one of the things that came
up was, well like it seemed appropriate as solid people were
talking, that there be even almost a discipline of breathing
and coming into life. And we were talking with a person who
is more or less peculiar, and it seemed that that person
should not manipulate energies. And I was wondering if you
could talk about those three forms of sadhana, sadhana for
those forms of strategies in those terms. BUBBA: Well, to talk about it in those kind of
terms, we'd have to really be talking about something very
specific, somebody very specific. This would always have to
be something done face to face with somebody, otherwise it's
not really worth talking about. But in general and for our discussion here, if you
notice, the vital type, vital types are not very
intelligent. They may be smart in what we call "moxie," you
know a good guy and sort of practically intelligent, gets
along and so forth. But vitals are never intellects. They
just never get into that, really get into that. They may be
tacky sort of intellects, but not really intellectual.
Because it never happens. And one of the ways of knowing if
somebody is a vital type is observing this in them, do they
really get into the head game. If they don't, well that's a
sign that they're possibly, most characteristically, a vital
type. DEVOTEE: So their attention is like in the, I
don't know why I still don't see this, but I don't quite see
where the attention lies is it on their bodies. BUBBA: By tendency each of these types has a fixed
meditation in one of three chakras. There's the head chakra,
the body chakra, and there's a life-force chakra. And it's
not like conceptually he's always thinking about his body or
something. He's just fixed in the dimension of, that
dimension of manifestation. And the others play upon it
without his involvement really. He has no real engagement
with these others. He fundamentally depends on the one in
which he is by tendency involved. And this is reflected in
his own case in various ways. The peculiar person is fixed upon the life-force, and
they're generally very emotional types and they're also most
often physically weak in various ways, have physical
problems, because the life-force is dissociated from the
body and they're more emotional than they are mental,
although they can get into some mentalizing because of the
type of guy. The really classic peculiar is not even very
much of an intellectual. He's sort of got a very weak
relationship to the body and he's not very intelligent in
the sense of a head intellectual type. And he is generally
very mystical, poetic, and excapist in his tendencies.
Always moving, into some more or less psychotic or
schizophrenic kind of solution, although the extreme kind of
model of a peculiar person may be the schizophrenic but in
general he's just the kind of guy who tends to get into the
whole mystical, mysterious beauty of it all. And has a weak
relationship to the physical, and bypasses the mental
through emotion. So when you see those kinds of signs
manifested outwardly, this is the indication that the person
is in a fixed meditation upon the dimension of the
life-force and this excludes the other two qualities of his
conventional life. The vital person is gravitated toward the mere physical,
the grossest end of this human spectrum. And he tends to
cancel out the whole moving life-force level and the
emotional level and the mental level, so he's not a super
intellect, not a super-feeling person, not a mystic, your
vital person is typically a very worldly type, either very
robust, they usually are physically strong because they're
so much grounded in it. Although there can be other problems
created because of irresponsibility relative to the
life-force or something. Vitals are usually sort of hearty
types. But of course the play of the mind and of the
life-force is still present in them and they appear as
cycles in their own case and phases and so forth. And so
they're up and down all the time, in the phases of emotions
because they don t get into the emotion, they don't get into
life, they don't yield to the mind, they don't get into the
expanded dimension of things very much. They're very much a
gross personality, not necessarily in a negative sense, but
very much a grounded personality. And so movements, changes,
and so forth, are not things they very respond to well, and
because they are much grounded in the the grossest terminal
of the human process they feel frightened in the crudest
sense, frightened of mortality, and so forth. And this is
also usually a basic aspect of their quality as well. The solid type is a person who by tendency fixes in the
mental dimension and stands on top of the whole affair of
life-force, emotions, bodily existence and so forth. Very
analytical, very descriptive, very much a self-watcher and
so forth. And they're very subject to emotions but they
don't deal with them very well, because they try to keep
them out of the picture all the time. Not mystical at all,
obviously. Essentially not, not by tendency that is. So these are just kinds of karmic strategy, kinds of
disposition, that must be accounted for in the individual at
a certain stage of his sadhana, just as he accounts for
physical liability of some sort. So he must take on
conditions that include the whole life process in him more
in its total form, in its ordinary form. And this prevents
dramatization then, serves him. Most people aren't a classic one or the other of these.
Most people will simply see aspects of these kinds of
strategies in themselves and will appear much, generally,
more complex, a more complex representation of this
possibility, that is a play upon mind, life-force and body.
But at some point they can see what that is, they can see
pretty basically what their characteristic life strategy or
play is about, what their characteristic ritual is about,
how it generally appears. And usually they will see that
they gravitate toward one of these three areas, most
basically, although they will include the others in the play
in a typical repetitive form, kind of ritual order. So at
some point they will observe that and they can account for
it and be responsible for it, even take on, add conditions
beyond the nominal ones that are based on that, on having
observed this and it having been pointed out to them by
others. Are there any other things we should talk about that deal
with this specific moment in this course? Today's topic is
self-observation. DEVOTEE: From what I understand about
self-observation it has a fundamental insight to it the
penetrates the content and in this profound insight you see
the totality of your existence and that avoidance of
relationship. Is that like a more advanced or mature stage
of sadhana or is the difference between a random moment of
self-observation and at the same time that profundity of
insight exists? BUBBA: Well obviously this observation of a
fragment is not sufficient to become the basis of a
conscious life, a conscious approach to the totality of your
life. This self observation must become summary. It must
become fundamental to the whole of your life, then it can
become the principle of your conscious approach to your life
from moment to moment. Observation of some fragment can't,
is not significant enough, is not central enough. Something
comes up in the next moment and you haven't accounted for
that. So you've got to see it again. This seminar today is intended to be a lesson relative to
self-observation. We could get into all kinds of complicated
descriptions about things, but what it is to serve in you if
this lesson is about self-watching. You will tend to
identify the process of understanding in the form of
self-observation with this game of self-watching, with
analyzing yourself, with collecting information about
yourself, and so forth. These kinds of things will take
place in any case. And they are conventional aspects of your
life and of your sadhana. But it's simply that you tend to
identify that with self-observation, with the affair of
understanding. This seminar today is to serve as a lesson relative to
that particular tendency. And it is at this stage in your
sadhana as it is maturing to the point of enquiry, it is at
this stage in your sadhana that you must enjoy that lesson,
you must clearly understand that what you are doing. This
thing that you see yourself doing commonly which is
self-watching, collecting information and having insight
based upon information analyzed insights and so forth, when
you are doing that that is not understanding. If that can
become very clear to you then this seminar has served its
purpose. The purpose of this seminar is not to go on and describe
in endless elaborated detail what self-observation is and
what a moment of self-observation is and so forth. That
gets, that becomes kind of poetic. And you must resort again
to the practical form of your sadhana, and lessons must
appear in this practical affair of sadhana that eliminate
aspects from of your conventional life, from the picture you
have of this real understanding. You must cease to identify the whole game of
self-watching with understanding. And today we've just
approached it from many different directions to help make
that differentiation, help you make that differentiation.
And so we shouldn't end this discussion tonight until it is
apparent, clear to you, apparent to you simply obvious to
you that self-watching is not this conscious process. If it
isn't clear to you on the basis of everything that you've
gone through today, then you should ask some questions about
that. If it's clear to you, then we don't have to go over
it.
RESPONSIBILITY DEVOTEE: I just want to bring up another point
again. The question of responsibility. I think that's
another big area of confusion, because what you describe
tonight, self-watching is not self-observation and
self-observation occurs spontaneously in the very simple
process of this sadhana in living the conditions in
relationship to you. The question of responsibility seems to have already come
up. It's very often put to people, and I guess you did talk
about it with regard to someone who may have already
evidenced a certain degree of understanding who then can be
made to be consistent and take responsibility for that. But
the question of responsibility, from what I gather that you
said tonight doesn't even enter in until quite a substantial
degree of understanding has been realized. BUBBA: Responsibility as a term that applies to
the affair of understanding, not to your conventional life.
Responsibility relative to the affair of understanding does
only enter in when consciousness is your position. And it
really is not there until enquiry in its real form is
there. That is the first form of real responsibility. Of course
there's responsibility before that, but it's essentially a
conventional kind of responsibility. You're responsible to
maintain the conditions and so forth. Those are
responsibilities that you, those are forms of obligation
that you assume on the basis of some kind of understanding,
your sympathy with the Teaching and so forth. But they're
not responsibilities in the radical sense that applies to
the process of understanding. They are responsibilities that
serve it, that are just as binding, but they don't have the
significance that responsibility in consciousness has. DEVOTEE: Bubba frequently in the past you fairly
clearly demanded that we assume greater responsibility for
what you've already shown us, and I have a hard time fitting
that demand into what you've just said. Are you just talking
about the conventional end of things? Just bringing greater
intensity to our conventional way of dealing with student
sadhana? BUBBA: Hm? DEVOTEE: You're always going around kicking ass
and being very impatient because we're not really being
responsible for what you've shown us. I don't understand
what that means in the context of the answer you just gave
Bonnie. BUBBA: Now my business is to make demands. That is
my business, to make demands of you to the point of doing
you in, to the point of crisis, to the point where you see
something and so forth. So I make demands not because
creates a problem for you, most generally it creates a
situation, a condition for you, in which something may be
seen and so forth. Generally however you can respond to the
conventional aspect of that demand by doing very practical
things. Like if the kitchen's not being run right, I go over
there and tell them what I want done, and people can then do
that. But if I tell you to enquire, you can't do that. If I
tell you to understand, you can't do that. But you can
establish yourself with more intensity in the conventional
areas of your sadhana and that ultimately does serve the
event of enquiry and that kind of responsibility. There is a kind of demand that can be made at one point
for enquiry that is true enough and that can be fulfilled.
And that's the kind of situation I was describing earlier
where clearly the guy has passed through the whole affair of
self observation in real terms and has seen in summary terms
the ritual of his life. And has seen it as this
dramatization, this avoidance of relationship. And has
really seen it. And it has even made a real difference to him, but even
so the whole affair of enquiry is still very mysterious, and
he does it sometimes, sometimes he doesn't, and he's still
waiting and rat-a-tat. Well, you can oblige him to seen and
so forth.
Self Observation, Vital Shock and Crisis DEVOTEE: Bubba, the release of vital
shock to me seems to be the equivalent of real
self-observation and insight. How does ego death fit in with
that? Is that, on a life level where the release of vital
shock occurs? Is ego death something that takes place in the
causal heart or is that impossible in the release of vital
shock? BUBBA: Well, in its ultimate sense,
certainly, yes. It is when the causal being is opened, when
that knot in the causal being is opened. But that event as
well as a lot of more superficial versions of it essentially
amounts to forgetting of the self-definition, release of it.
And that occurs whenever there is real insight, real
enquiry. such a moment consciousness falls into its natural
position and releases ego, mind, and desire. So at the same time is the mind is perhaps effected,
stilled in some moments in this affair of enquiry and
desires also come to rest at random times. Well, just so
this self-meditation, this activity of self definition, also
comes to rest in the same insight, the same enquiry. Ego death is simply the absence of self-definition, the
absence of self meditation. And that occurs whenever the
consciousness that is otherwise defining itself as a "me"
rests in its prior condition of the Self, of the Divine.
Whenever that occurs there is not unconsciousness, there's
not the death of somebody and then you sit in the darkness
feeling dead. No, there's the passage of consciousness from
one assumed condition into another that is not assumed. Ego is a matter of attention, contraction of the field of
consciousness. When consciousness rests in its prior
condition, there is no attention, no contraction in the
field of consciousness, natural, prior happiness, radiance,
without a sense of being separate one, without the sense of
having died and now become a big one either. It's the prior
condition, not an achieved condition. So another one of the
lessons in these series of seminars is that passage through
the principal mood is not to go through an episode of fear.
Some people just like to go through phases and then have
experiences of that kind they way I've described it. But
passage though the principal mood is to go beyond the
contraction of fear and of self and so forth into the
natural intuition that is the condition of enquiry. And that
obviates fear, that obviates the principal mood. It doesn't
bring it on so that you can cut it out of yourself and so
forth. There's no ego death experience either that is a
necessary aspect of this affair of understanding. It's not a
required experience. It doesn't have to happen, at all.
There needn't be anything, in experiential terms, that's
particularly far out about this whole affair of
understanding, from beginning to end. If you really grasp it, that fundamental realization,
which is not just a minor little psychological adjustment,
but an absolute realization of the Divine, as long as that
is served, there needn't be any karmic dramas that amount to
anything. There may be, but there needn't be, it's not
necessary. And you shouldn't try to manipulate yourself into
a very dramatic and heroic kind of spiritual life because
you think that otherwise you're not having it or something.
So you must be sensitive to what the process itself
fundamentally is and you're responsible for what sadhana is
by description, what it is as a natural process. And if in
the midst of doing all of that there is no special drama
well, that's fine. DEVOTEE: I don't know if it's useful for
this or not, but today I was in study group, I was
mentioning to people that sometimes a confusion arises in my
own case as to, what, like a sensation of the experience of
clarity, what I would call Presence. I'm beginning to wonder
about that, it's a sense of, like, maybe a sense of great
immunity, just sort of removing myself somehow. I don't
know, it's not some little trick that I do, you know, I
never really got it out, but, maybe a little trick that,
some internal trick that I'm fooling with that clears out
the mechanism, as a sense of community as opposed to BUBBA: Is this true? DEVOTEE: Yeah, like the effect BUBBA: Is that what you do? DEVOTEE: It seems like there suspecting
myself. BUBBA: Well, in some moment without
really getting concerned about it now, trying to look at it
and watch it, at some moment it may be very clear to you
that that's what you're doing. That's the difference between
understanding relative to the mind in your own case and
watching it. You can sit here and watch it now and see what
you're doing. But all you'll get out of that is some data
about it some information. But just by doing sadhana in the practical terms in which
at some random it's been given to you at some random moment
you may see something specifically about that.
SELF OBSERVATION, INSIGHT, ENQUIRY AND RADICAL
INTUITION DEVOTEE: Bubba, another question that
came up in our group was, we were talking about observation,
and it was always described as a moment, you know, a moment
of self-observation and insight. And the question arose
about the continuation of that, whether that same enjoyment
was enquiry, the same thing that is sustained by enquiry,
that same insight. In other words it was always described as
something that arose, and then it seemed to pass with the
next moment. There wasn't any sustaining of that insight.
The question was, you know was the sustaining of that that
enquiry or was it, you know, could self observation be
sustained for periods of time. BUBBA: Observation or insight, which is
fundamentally the same thing, lasts only when it is perfect,
because if it is perfect it includes all other possible
things that may be observed, and so it goes on and on and
on. Any moment of self-observation can't last because
something else arises. You must be present in the next
moment. So it's only when this whole affair of
self-observation and insight becomes summary, conclusive,
total comprehension of fundamentally what you are as an
activity. It's only then that it can appear as a real
responsibility in consciousness. But it appears at random.
You don't forever from that moment understand. You must
enquire. In other words, Self Observation has brought you to the
point of Enquiry and responsibility at that point. You have
now had the fundamental insight which give you to tools of
enquiry. You now enquire at random. You must initiate it
consciously initiate it and reinitiate it in random moments
from then. And the process of enquiry itself is summarized
in a greater process, re-cognition. And in the case of
radical intuition we have the perfect form of the conscious
process. And in the case of radical intuition, the perfect
form of insight or the natural state is not itself
reinitiated from moment to moment. It is constantly enjoyed
because it is realized in the perfect sense so it includes
all possible moments.
SELF-WATCHING, SELF-OBSERVATION AND ENQUIRY DEVOTEE: People were talking about the
relationship between observation and enquiry, Some said you
couldn' t separate the to two out and other people felt that
they could. BUBBA: Obviously they're two distinct
things. Enquiry is "Avoiding relationship?" Observation is
when you are at random present in a passive state, an
uncaused, passive state, and see suddenly the nature of some
condition. observation is a conscious activity, rather,
enquiry is a conscious activity in which you initiate
enquiry in the form "Avoiding relationship?" And enquiry is
something you do deliberately, intentionally, from the
position of that insight, from the point of view of that
insight. But self-observation you can't initiate. Anything that is
initiated that looks like self-observation is self-watching.
So there's that distinction also. Self-observation is
essentially a random and passive moment in which no self is
presented in you fulfilling a natural condition of life in
Satsang. And the whole affair of this self-observation
ultimately becomes summary and conclusive, it becomes
comprehension. Then you may enquire. And since enquiry is
founded in this insight, this prior insight, this real
process, it can be intentionally initiated at random in the
formal setting of meditation in Satsang or just any time.
Self-observation is not a matter of responsibility. It is a
matter of conventional responsibility: you must fulfill the
conditions and so forth in Satsang. But you cannot be
responsible for this process of self obsevrvation itself.
You can for self-watching. You can decide to do that and be
responsible for doing it every five minutes. DEVOTEE: Bubba, it is like there s
something elusive about self-observation. And we were saying
in our group today there may be one reason for that is an
evolving and changing thing. And It kind of perturbs and
offends the mind approach to have anything change its
definition because you can't pin it down. Just like I was
having residual desires to pin it down. One question that
came to my mind a while ago was, can self-observation occur
without the mental cognition that it's occurring. BUBBA: Well, something very much like
real self-observation may occur, but relative to the affair
of understanding we can really only talk about it when there
is some sort of reflection, real awareness, cause there
can't be any responsibility otherwise. But there can be
moments in the process that are the equivalent of
self-observation that sweep some things out of the picture,
and so forth. Just like you can have a dream at night that's
the equivalent of twenty years of karma and yet have no
responsible relationship to it. But fundamentally the affair
of self-observation is part of the whole affair of
understanding and so it must involve responsibility. Self-observation as it really is is really not very
really significant until it has taken place in your own
case. All the conversation about it and so forth is not
terribly conclusive. And that's why I, said a little earlier
that the purpose of our meeting together here today is not
to ready or define and get you strategically oriented
towards something that is self-observation. It's to give this lesson about self-watching, something
with which you are already involved, with which you have had
experience with, in which you all did confess to at various
times in these conversations today. You described
self-observation in terms of content and so forth. And this
whole process we've gone through today is to make it clear
as a lesson in your own case, but when you are doing that it
is not understanding that you are up to, it's just that that
you are up to. And that in itself must be understood, that
affair of self-watching. On the other hand you're not told
well, now that you know that go home and self-observe. You
are simply returned as before to the natural condition of
your sadhana, which is a very practical condition in which
you live this Satsang in the form of these practical
conditions, and in doing so there will be times when you
observe something about yourself, and in that moment
comprehend it also. But the other times in which you see
things and watch yourself, and get data about yourself,
that's another thing and we've been talking about that
today. But there are moments in which you also see yourself
in which you comprehend yourself. And self-observation in
its real sense is of that nature. You not only get
information about yourself, you comprehend that area of
drama in your life and are fundamentally free of it on the
basis of that observation, on the basis of that insight. And
these moments of observation, each time they appear, have a
more summary form each time they appear. You still see
yourself, you're still comprehending yourself. The content is not what is this significant. it's the
comprehension that's significant, in the sense of release
from that particular binding process. It becomes more and
more summary and ultimately becomes a perfect tacit, total
comprehension of yourself as an activity and after that
moment you may enquire. Then you are obliged to be
responsible, take a responsible position relative to the
conscious process.
|
Adi Da Audio Online------ Intro------ About------ News----- Contact------ Home
|
