Transcription
The yoga of consideration and the way that I teach: a summary of the argument of this way, an essay by Darfie John, February the 6th, 1982.
You understand the dilemma of self-contraction, then the way can begin. The self-contraction is always arising in the reality, transcendental self, or unqualifiedly radiant condition that is divine happiness or love bliss. There is never any justification for presuming the standpoint of the self-contraction. That standpoint is assumed, however, as a matter of uninspected convention or automatic reactivity, and we tend to develop a progressive life of seeking on the basis of this self-contraction. This is my fundamental argument.
The great religious and spiritual traditions generally take their standpoint in the plane of conditionality. They propose, analyze, and strive to solve or otherwise overcome or escape a primary problem. However that problem is described—as suffering, belief in a self, illusion, sin, separation from God, forgetfulness of the transcendental self, etc.—it is ultimately nothing but conditional existence itself conceived as a problem. I do not propose a way conceived in a likeness to the traditional mode. Rather, I simply consider conditional existence itself and each and all of the propositions in the form of problems and solutions we tend to build upon our reaction to conditional existence. Conditional existence and our reactions to it, which are themselves nothing but conditional existence, can thus be seen to develop in human form as what I call the first six stages of life.
Those who consider all of this with me begin to develop patterns of action and attention in the form of the basic practices I’ve described under the headings of the way of divine communion, the way of relational inquiry, and the way of recognition. But the way that I teach is not truly identical to those processes. Rather, those processes are simply the natural patterns of action and attention that develop as people consider with me the latest stages of our reaction to our presumption of conditional existence. It is only when this consideration has fulfilled itself, or when it has been utterly transcended in transcendental awakening, that the way that I teach has actually already begun. Thus, the way of radical intuition, which is the fourth or ultimate form of my description of the way, is truly the way of radical understanding or divine ignorance, and all other forms of the way are simply stages in the consideration that must develop and then become awakened insight or radical intuition before the way itself can begin. Therefore, the consideration, the way, is actually a disciplined life of practice wherein the first six stages of life or reaction to conditional existence are progressively and experientially inspected. That life of practical consideration begins when the argument of the spiritual master is first effectively heard and the presence of the spiritual master is first effectively seen or encountered. And that consideration develops as the way of divine communion, the way of relational inquiry, and the way of recognition until awakening into sahaja samadhi or the native standpoint of the way of radical intuition. The way that I teach truly begins only after that process of consideration has become sahaja samadhi.
That is to say, the way that I teach is not a process that takes its standpoint in the problem or the conventions of conditional existence. The way that I teach is not an effort to solve that problem through the exercise or the progressive transcendence of the body-myself or the effort of turning attention away from the body-myself and towards transcendental self-condition or reality. The way that I teach is necessarily founded upon prior or previous understanding of the entire standpoint of conditioned existence or the conditional body-mind-self and all of the possible permutations or stages of reaction or development of experience and presumed knowledge that may arise on the basis of that conditional standpoint. What I consider with you is that the standpoint of conditional existence is, in fact, an arbitrary and false presumption. The standpoint of conditional existence is a conventional or common presumption. That presumption is one in which an independent body-mind is confronted and affected by a great range of possible relations, objects, conditions, experiences, cognitions, or states that are not-self. And that very confrontation, in all of its forms or stages, is always felt to be a limit, a dilemma, a problem to be solved or escaped. Therefore, we live as a total psychophysical reaction to conditional existence, constantly motivated to go beyond the present mode or even to escape conditional existence altogether. In this manner, we develop our individual lives, and all of the paths and philosophies of mankind have this common basis.
What I have always argued is that this entire process should be inspected and understood. I have not proposed that the way itself be built upon this situation. I have not proposed a way based on a problem and developed in the form of one or more of the conditional stages of life. Rather, I have simply considered the situation, the dilemma itself, and all of the stages of action, experience, presumption, and manifest attention that we inevitably build upon this base situation. The way that I propose is simply the way to which we awaken when this consideration has become really understood or radical intuition.
Fundamentally, I ask you, in every moment and state of life, avoiding relationship, this question: This question reminds you of the inherent dilemma or contraction in every context of conditional existence. If this question or subtle inquiry becomes most profound insight, then no path based on the conditional standpoint of any of the six progressive stages of life, all the traditions associated with them, will continue to motivate you. When this insight or true hearing is perfect, the conditional standpoint, which is self-contraction, is no longer presumed, and the search based on that standpoint is no longer animated. We are not truly or really in the situation we presume as a matter of convention. There is no problem to solve, no dilemma to escape, no self to transcend, no God or reality or happiness or transcendental self to be located. All of that is a presumption that is based on the uninspected convention of a self-contraction or the presumption that the self-contraction is our actual situation and the not-self or all objects, including gross relations, thoughts, subtle forms and states, and the transcendental reality, condition, or self is to be sought and found. If you will rightly consider the entire process of self and not-self or all of the progressive stages of life, you will ultimately awaken naturally into the real condition, self, or happiness that is always already the case. That awakening, or that real condition or self or happiness, is not separate from us now; it is only presumed to be so, and the stages of life are our progressive strategy for attaining or acquiring that reality that is already the case. The search is unnecessary, even as its motivating standpoint is false. We are already in the transcendental condition, but we are presuming otherwise because of our uninspected assumption of the conditional standpoint of self-contraction in relation to the conditions of manifest existence.
The traditions recommend various paths that are based on the conventional standpoint of self-contraction, egoity, psychophysical individuality, dis-ease, desire, pleasure, higher aspiration, evolutionary motivation, despair, philosophical analysis of phenomena, and metaphysical speculation. I do not recommend any such path. I simply consider all of that, even while people are in the midst of the stages of it all, until there is understanding and transcendence of the viewpoint of the first six stages of life. When you have considered all of this with me, so that you understand the dilemma of self-contraction, then the way can begin. The self-contraction is always arising, or apparently arising, in the reality, transcendental self, or unqualifiedly radiant condition that is divine happiness or love bliss. There is never any justification for presuming the standpoint of the self-contraction or the body-myself in the midst of its relations. That standpoint is assumed, however, as a matter of uninspected convention or automatic reactivity, and we tend to develop a progressive life of seeking, which becomes the first six stages of life, on the basis of this self-contraction. This is my fundamental argument.
Those who come to me consider this in the context of their ordinary lives, and they go on to consider it as their lives develop into the higher or progressive stages of experience and presumed knowledge. I have communicated all the kinds of discipline and practice whereby this consideration may be continuously generated in the midst of the progressive stages. But the way that I argue truly begins only when this progress is transcended in truly radical understanding, or that understanding that is the transcendence of self and not-self for all the patterns of self-contraction that appear as the first six stages of life. When that understanding is awakened, then the self-contraction or the body-mind-self is no longer presumed to be the actual limit of present existence. Instead of being the body-mind-self and pursuing either its various possible objects, high or low in the scale, or the transcendence of the body-mind-self itself in the transcendental reality or self, there is simply the recognition of the body-myself, all objects, the substantial energy of the cosmos, and the sense of the divine will, transcendental self, as other. All forms of self and not-self are recognized as merely apparent, transparent, unnecessary, and non-binding modifications of that which is always already the case. The standpoint of the way that I teach is not the self-contraction, but the condition that is already the case and in which the self-contraction or the body-myself and all its objects can naturally be seen to be arising as a modification of itself in belief. The traditions begin by being the seeking self or the transcendental transcendence of the self, whereas the way of radical understanding begins by being the transcendental self or the condition that is always already the case and recognizing the self and all its objects in that. Therefore, the process of consideration is to inspect all the forms of self-contraction until that which is prior to contraction, or in which contraction in the form of self and objects arises as a modification of itself, becomes obvious. And the way itself is simply to abide as that, recognizing all that arises naturally, transcending all that arises, ultimately outshining all that can arise.
The consideration of the way that I teach begins within, when an individual first responds to my argument in the form of the primary question, avoiding relationship, as well as any of the other fundamental questions I have proposed, such as “Do you know what anything is?” That consideration then develops on the basis of the individual’s response to the transcendental, to the transmission of the divine influence in my company, and so the various stages, all levels of discipline and practice, evolve. Those who hear me and see me most profoundly are quickened in this practice, and so they are able to evolve through the planting stages of this consideration and come directly into the disposition of radical understanding. It is only those who have thus understood who are free of the bewildering and deluded adventure of the ego, narcissus, or the stages of life. It is only those, it is only those who have so understood that simply abide in the native condition, what is always already the case: the nirvanic reality or full void, the divine love bliss, the raging transcendental being-self, or three-domain. In that position, all arising conditions and objects are inherently transcended, fantastically trans-recognized, and that is the way that I teach.