The Diary of Pilgrimage

The Knee of Listening, Chapter 15

While the experiences with the Virgin and Jesus were developing at the Ashram, I kept a continuous diary. And I maintained the diary as we traveled to Israel, Europe, and back to the United States.

The diary is not only the best, firsthand source for these experiences, but it shows how the entire matter developed, and how I eventually returned to a stable Realization of the radical Truth that is the substance of my Spiritual life. Thus, it demonstrates how my consideration developed in the midst of extraordinary experiences into quite another thing than the traditional forms of seeking and the realizations based on seeking.

I will include that diary here, somewhat relieved of length and repetition, and without interpretation, except to indicate certain external details.

You should be prepared to read what at first appears to be the devotional diary of a mystical Catholic Christian. It is my practice to write in the mood and with the precise, unequivocal language of my experience and persuasion at any moment. And, for a time, it seemed to me that the revelation of the church was the fulfillment of my life. Indeed, it was only by allowing it to be so and fully experiencing the course of this modification in my state, as well as all others at all other times, that I could come eventually to Realize What is always and stably the underlying Truth of all experience.

You should also recognize that this experience was a necessary one for me. It was an extension of that vision of the "Divine Lord" I had experienced the previous winter. And it drew on all the latent imagery, necessity, and unfulfilled devotional energy that had been trapped in my heart since childhood. Only when these images were completely and consciously experienced, and the feeling-energy surrounding the heart utterly released from its bondage to unconscious symbols, could I remain stably in the True Consciousness that is the Heart of Reality Itself.

20 June 1970—Ganeshpuri, India

I first was visited by our Lady, our Mother, in the garden of Shree Gurudev Ashram, Ganeshpuri. She taught me to honor her with a form of the prayer "Hail Mary". Then she held before my mind an image of a rosary, until, after several days, I bought one in Bombay. Then she showed me her Son, our Lord, whose face of Whitest Light has thus and several times appeared directly before me in a total, mystical field of vision that, somehow, begins at the level of the physical heart. The description of the exact position of his living face depends on whether I examine it in relation to the body or the soul. Its brilliant Luminosity always faces me, and it "creates" the deepest Peace, Love, and Bliss in me, so that I feel as if I am nestled before it in the infinite womb of Mary, whose body seems to contain the soul.

After this revelation, she moved me to read as many books on the Faith as were available to me in my retreat. And, as I grew in this learning, she instructed me by moving me to write, and to become conscious of her impulses in me. By all of this, she has brought me to Christ and revealed to me the Truth of all that I have undergone in the past many years.

I already feel a suggestion to bury the rosary somewhere in the Ashram garden before I leave, so that she has a focus for her Presence there. She may not require this of me, but may instruct me instead to keep it for devotions. I am awed with the Absolute Truth of the church, and how It escaped me all my life. Since this revelation, there has also been a continuous, deep Ecstasy and Joy in my heart that is so great I dare not even allow myself to be fully conscious of It, or to experience and manifest It completely.

All remedial paths and their practices point to a goal that is either symbolic or transcendent, a state of mind or psyche or soul. These goals are intuited by Spiritual experiment, the research of seekers, without benefit of the directly and priorly revealed Divine Presence. What lies beneath all of these goals as their latent, unconscious Object or Source is Christ. Indeed, all of these goals would already be fully attained if Christ were consciously received on every level of our living being. His Fullness precludes the great search. It epitomizes and Fills each level of our living being. And his Presence, from the moment It is Known in faith, raises us into the ever more full Realization of that Fullness. He is the Source and Object of every Spiritual state, and even the earth itself and every miraculous power are only symbols for the hidden Truth that is the Fullness of Christ.

The transmitted gospel itself generates many historical problems in relation to texts, specific interpretations, traditions, and so on. This is simply due to the fact that the transmitted gospel is a communication through human beings in the world over time. But, in this gospel, the living condition of Reality, which is latent in all things, is constantly suggested, and the recognition of the living condition of Reality is what draws us into right relationship to others and things, such that all seeking becomes unnecessary, and such that the victory over an otherwise suffered life is made possible.

All other traditions of Truth draw human beings into the distractions of the great search, but the Lord and Reality of this gospel stands eternally before us and is continually at work to save us. The gospel immediately puts us in contact with him. Thus, the gospel is not mere language and symbols, but the unique tool and revelation of the living condition of Reality. The Living Lord, the gospel, and the church are present, with his Holy Mother, to transform all the world by restoring it to the living condition of Reality, which is not "natural" or philosophically realizable, but which is the Knowledge inherent in one's Knowing of the directly Revealed Lord.

I say that living condition is latent in all things only because it is their only true structure; even though Realizable only by Revelation. And that Revelation must become conscious in some direct manner in order to be Realized. The living condition of Reality is conscious awareness of the Revealed Lord, the Present God. Thus, nothing exists in the fullness of its "created" state until it receives and Knows Him.

Texts that are particularly important to me:

"He that seeth me seeth the Father also" (John 14:9).

"That I may know him and the power of his resurrection" (Philippians 3:10).

For the first time in many years I am experiencing genuine surrender to God. It is happening by His grace, since I am not trying to do it at all—it is a seemingly "natural" effect of His Presence in the heart. He is unutterably Real to me—and this is a new experience.

My past Spiritual efforts were marked by a continuous struggle with exactly and primarily this surrender. It was my first teacher's main sadhana, and, by years of effort, I realized the absolute impossibility of surrender. Then I came to Baba, and he gave me Spiritual experiences free, without my effort of surrender. After two years and more of his sadhana, I realized that I had not changed one iota in my essential relationship to things. I had many experiences, and had even developed a Spiritual "ego", but I was, all in all, still incapable of surrender.

Then the Lord Himself came to me and took up His abode in me. And His Presence is my surrender. How could I not love Him? Surrender is a quality in the living condition of Reality. As soon as life is returned to that condition, it is also surrender.

Reality is not an object, a thing that can be experienced, seen, and so forth. Reality is a living and inclusive condition. It is subject and object. The living condition of Reality, which is Reality, is the relationship to God, in which we are conscious of being Filled by Him. Thus, Reality cannot be sought and found within or without, by Spiritual seekers or self-indulgent sinners (the former are generally searching within and the latter without). It is not object, exclusive shape, but the inclusive condition of life itself.

Our consciousness of God is a participation in and manifestation of that living condition. God's Consciousness of us is the supreme manifestation of that Law Which is Reality. All things are subject to that Law and require the Revelation of Christ.

Previously, I was confused by the ideas of Advaita Vedanta , the Srimad Bhagavatam, and the Bhagavad Gita. I saw that necessary and living condition as being essentially and exclusively a Divine Consciousness Which included us and was in fact our entire being, mind, thought, and so on. Thus, our only Real and True experience was this awareness, in which the Divine is the Subject Who Experiences all our experiences, thoughts, and so on. Our existence was not any of these experiences but the awareness of Him Who was in fact their Ultimate Subject and Center. This mystical awareness in fact upset me deeply after a time. Now I have seen clearly at last. The living condition of Reality is one in which God is Present to us and in us, but not to the point of assuming our identities, in fact, becoming us and excluding our "created" existence by virtue of His inclusive Being. We also participate in that living condition or Law, and, in the fullness of our living being, which He has given us, we are conscious of Him, present with Him. Thus, we are Free and unqualifiedly alive, immediately with God forever, sheerly by His grace.

Thus, the living condition of Reality is a gift, Revealed, not natural to the understanding, not discernible by experiment. That condition is Revealed to us only by God's grace. And that Revelation is the Totality of grace. It is the Ground of the Beatific Vision, or the Supreme State, and of the entire life of faith. The Christian life is mystical, a conscious participation in the Mystery of God, wherein we constantly and "creatively", in cooperation with Divine grace, maintain the living condition of Reality, the conscious relationship to God.

Christ is that Eternal Aspect of God which reveals and guarantees forever that the Truth is relationship to God and not Absorption into the powers of God or Absorption into the Transcendent Being of God. Life is a meditation on being already Filled.

A remarkable thing the grace of God has given me is that, in a few moments, or hours, I do not know the precise hour of this death, He turned me completely to Himself. So that the Truth of the Catholic Faith, the verity of the church and its doctrine, a host of details, and, above all, the devotion to our Lady, were given me in a flash of comprehensive insight. All of this in spite of the fact that I have never been trained as a Catholic, or ever sought it out in the least overt manner. All of this has been latent in me, at best a sentiment, all my life. This also shows how our Lord's "mere" Presence teaches and recollects all things most directly.

The impulses of this Divine grace and faith are so strong that I am scarcely willing to follow them directly. I am abiding in this Hindu Ashram, allowing Christ to mature me, so that I do not proceed out of my own motives and presumptions, deluded again by my own sinful fascinations. For days I struggled with this Truth and Its visions. I tested them, denied them, tried to immerse myself in meditation and the Guru. But there is this constant Christ, and my heart is torn out at the bottom. I am mad with him. I am about to become too full of ordinary humor for this place, and too sorrowful for my sins.

In the garden, our Lord's Mother told me to pray: "Hail Mary, Mother of God. Blessed art thou among women. And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus."

Today I sat to meditate, and asked her to teach me how to meditate as a Christian, how she wanted me to meditate toward our Lord. She moved me to begin by praying the "Our Father" several times. Then, she brought me to recite this "Hail Mary" repetitively, with attention concentrated on its meaning. I saw that it always led through her to Jesus. Each time I came to the Name "Jesus", I would be fixed firmly in him. This continued automatically for nearly two hours, through dinner, and ended only when conversations began. This meditation gave me great Joy, stilled the mind, and directed me continually to Jesus through his Mother.

Then, as I continually concentrated on him, he taught me a prayer deeper within. It was his own constant "Amen. Amen." I saw that the heart's pulse always synchronized with this word: A-men, A-men. And this prayer out of and in Christ constantly directed me to the Father. The "So be it" constantly leaves the mind on Him in silence, in a vast Bliss. I felt the movement of "Amen" as the Holy Spirit Himself, returning, through Christ, to God the Father, from Whom He proceeded.

Thus, our Lord's Mother taught me a practice of meditation that leads to contemplation of the Trinity in all the Mysteries of Its Form, until all at last draws into the silent Brilliance of God, Absorbed in blessed Vision.

I will continue to use this blessed contemplation, if it does not offend our holy church, with faith that our Lady intended it for the ultimate good of my soul.

21 June 1970

This morning, as I walked toward the place of my morning meditations, I began to pray the "Our Father" and then the "Hail Mary" as I was taught yesterday. But even though these and all true prayers of the church lead to contemplation of the Holy Trinity, I felt dry in the praying. I thought of the Holy Sacrament of the altar, and Christ's promise: "He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me and I in him" (John 6:57). This is the promise of the Fullness of God, with Which we are Filled. It is Fullness given by grace, available by no other means. It is the Presence Itself, and It makes Itself Known. Unless It makes Itself Known, there is no way to concentrate upon It. But I desired this Fullness, in order to meditate upon It.

When I sat in meditation, I felt the Presence of Christ. I could not see him. Even the image of his brilliantly Luminous face that I had previously seen in the heart was absent. There was darkness, but only his Presence. Then he moved me to pray the "Amen". And I saw that the "Amen" was said once with each breath. Once on the inhalation and once on the exhalation. And the "Amen" was always said in the center of the heart wherein we direct ourselves to God. As I prayed the "Amen", I realized that Christ was praying it in me. It is the Holy Spirit in Christ to God the Father. And Christ said: "I am the 'Amen'."

Then I continued in this prayer and was taught the mystery of its use. The heart is the center, where Christ stands to us. And the body is a cross form in which he radiates his Fullness. As I prayed, one "Amen" for each inhalation of breath, and one for each exhalation, Christ said: "I am drawing all things to myself." Then, when I inhaled and prayed "Amen", all the life-energy of desires moved up out of the lower body to the heart, and became a deep concentration of Love in Christ. And, when I exhaled and prayed "Amen", all the life-energy of thought, the entire activity of mental energy and the mind itself, was drawn down to the heart and concentrated in Christ as profound Love. This continued, until I was profoundly Present in the heart, simply Present with Christ in great and ecstatic Love. And that Love was Christ himself. He generated It in me, and yet I felt that I was not, but was simply absorbed in him, in the White Fire of his own Love.

Then I realized that the Fullness whereby we are Filled is Christ himself. The Fullness that is ours in the Sacrament is not simply some Radiance of Christ's Energy, breathed into us like pleasant air. It is Christ himself who comes and is Present, so that we are absorbed in the contemplation of him. He is the "Amen", which we pray, which he prays in us, whereby all prayers come to an end, whereby he draws all things to himself in blessed contemplation. Thus, I was drawn to him, not to concentration on mere breaths or on some fullness moving in me, only distantly connected to him. He is in us as himself, his total Presence, open to our Conscious Love. And he draws us to his very Self, which is an Infinite Fire of Love. Thus, we become only Love in him. The dark nights of sense and of the soul are quickly traced to the heart in the prayer "Amen". Thus, we are not moved toward an emptiness but toward the Fullness of God. God is only Full. "God is light, and in Him there is no darkness,' (I John 1:5). There can be no end to God's Revelation of Himself to us in this Prayer. Each breath surrenders desires and thoughts in Him, and each breath or act of surrender is a movement, by faith and hope and Love, into the State of mere faith and hope and Love. This cross of meditation is a cross of faith. Its pain is Love. Its suffering is Sublime. The cross is never absent from Christ, but it eternally contemplates him in the heart of its beams. In this meditation which Christ inspired in me, I felt that the entire Truth of the church was contained in a perfect symbol.

Amen" is the Christ, the Name of God. "Amen" is the beginning of all things, the "So be it" of God. "Amen" is the acceptance of all things as the Will of God, the "So be it" of mankind. Christ has given us the Name of God by giving us himself. The Person, Christ himself, is the Name of God Which he revealed to us. Thus, we are told to ask in his Name and we will receive. That is, to contemplate God in and through and as Christ, the "Amen", is to be given the totality of gifts, now and forever. Anyone who, by God's grace, deeply contemplates the Name of God, and through It approaches the Father in his or her need, will be given whatever he or she requires. The power of the Name is not available to those who do not enter It profoundly, in faith, for the Name is not a mere word, but the Name is God Himself as Christ.

The Love of Christ is the Support and Source of living Bliss, even the Conscious Energy of Spiritual existence, under all conditions. It makes life madly into Joy. Under the worst trials, It does not guarantee a mood of ordinary playful happiness, but It supports the deep Joy of faith and mystical communion. This Love is the internal condition of the soul, whereby Christ draws it to himself. It is not our un-"created", original Love for him, but his Love generated in us by his Presence to the soul.

I sat in meditation again. Our Lord's Mother has moved me, and I have decided to leave the Ashram in order to make a pilgrimage and communicate with the church. In meditation, I pleaded for guidance, so that I would not be tempted to uncertainty, so that I would certainly Know the Truth without fear that I am deluded. I waited. I had prayed the "Our Father" and "Hail Mary". I prayed the "Amen", as I had been taught. The meditation was dry. Then I kept Enquiring with each breath, as I tried to surrender the energies of desires to the "Amen" with each inhalation, and the energies of thought with each exhalation. I Enquired, "Avoiding relationship?" Each time, this self-Enquiry loosened me from flight, so that I concentrated in him at the heart. And then he spoke, regarding those great teachers whom I have pursued for years: "They are infinitely Returned, but I am eternally Present." Then he drew me to himself, and I was ecstatic, open-armed, crying, Dear Lord, Dear Dear Lord.

The Lord said this to me during my meditation on him:

"They are infinitely Returned,
But I am eternally Present.
One who Knows me
Is free from liberation
And desires.
One who neither seeks
Nor lusts,
I no longer prevent from me.
Those who are sought
For liberation
Are an imitation of my
Symbol.
They lead men into the
Great Search,
In caves, seclusions, and their homes.
But I am One who cannot be found
Unless I Reveal myself.
I lead men home to
Everything,
Today.
But I am always with them.
I am He."

"I am He." Thus, the Lord took the mantra from me that I had learned from the Guru, Muktananda. He relieved me of the way of the mantra, "So Ham", "I am He". He showed me the Truth of the mantra, that it is His mantra, His symbol, Himself.

22 June 1970

They are the Witness.
I am the Presence."

In meditation this morning I came to a profound point of passionate Stillness. I simply contemplated him, and there was even physical pain in the heart, as if the rising current of love and its Force concentrated in the heart had made a wound, so that the heart was open and gaped forward from the chest. I felt the Father, and the Lord said of Him, "Be Still, and Know that I am God." That appears to be the final and essential key to contemplation.

Until a man or woman is reborn by God's revelation he or she knows sin by its effects. Thus, a man or woman becomes naturally wise, renounces the field of suffering, and devotes himself or herself to self-transformation or liberation. But after a man or woman is reborn in Christ, he or she understands sin in a new manner. Such a one no longer sees sin as mere effects, or even as various significant causes in life-action. Rather, such a one sees sin as the avoidance of Christ. When such a one is thus convicted, knowing well the reality of sin and of Christ, he or she is drawn to Christ in the ease of surrender.

23 June 1970 —Bombay, India

The seeker is incapable of relationship because he or she is always consciously trying to transcend it. The self-indulgent sinner is incapable of relationship because he or she is always exploiting it into excess and confusion, and thus descending below it. The former escapes Christ within, the latter without. Christ is God confronting us in relationship, thus making life Real and necessarily moral.

Prayer, meditation, and fasting (responsible, controlled, and lawfully used) restore us to the conscious relationship to Christ, stabilized, free of the motion of avoidance.

Thus, the meditation I have learned ends in a deeply silent and blissful contemplation of God. But it is not a mere staring. It is not at last a concentration in a point, but an opening, an awareness of a Total, Conscious Presence. Then, frequently, I pass into a free mental prayer, truly asking and interceding in the Name of Christ.

The oriental seeker-saints and imperfect God-men are all maharajas of the great search. They tend to strategically disincarnate (and would likewise have us strategically disincarnate) the living condition of Reality, which condition is relationship and love. We go to them after we have ourselves despaired of love and faith and hope and charity. And we may even project on them the symbols of love, even the image of Christ. Thus, we follow, unconscious that we are really seeking love, the fulfillment of relationship. Therefore, when (suddenly) I became absorbed in the symbols of Christ, I was free of my false discipleship.

(Note: By the time we arrived in Jerusalem, the overwhelming and exclusive Presence and visions of the Virgin and Jesus had begun to subside, and these were replaced by a tacit, immediate experience and understanding. The change in my consideration that accompanied this becomes clear in the writing that follows.)
 

We stayed in the ancient sector of Jerusalem, within the old walls, at Socurs de Sion, a convent run by an order of Catholic nuns. Our dwelling was built on the Via Dolorosa, the road of Christ's last walk. Our convent itself was built on the ground where Pilate interviewed Christ. On the ground floor some ancient pavements stand, and a chapel has been built there. In the rooms below stand the actual pavements on which Christ was scourged.

One night I was awakened to feel a tremendous Force straining my body. I felt the entirety of my living being concentrated beyond and above my physical form, and my head felt about to explode.

I got up and began to wander in the convent. It was all in shadowy darkness. I felt drunken and possessed. I swayed through the halls. I felt surrounded with ancient spirits and the air of a terrible holocaust. I went into the chapel where Christ was judged, and then I went into the cellar where he was scourged. I saw the inscriptions in the floor made by soldiers while they trapped him in an ancient game and made him the "scapegoat".

The strangeness and fear in the atmosphere quickened me, and I returned to my room. But I was unable to sleep for some time. I felt my mind to be separated and settled above my head, concentrated in the ascended Christ.

25 June 1970 —Jerusalem, Israel

In the end, perhaps there is only the Profound. Perhaps there is no religion for me.

When I was a child, I enjoyed a semiconscious participation in the living condition of Reality. I recognized it in the symbol of Christianity. Then I lost Christianity and, thereby, also the perception that made me at least distantly conscious of the living condition of Reality. Then I sought, by semiconscious and unconscious motivation, to recover that living condition. Always I held that symbol before me and superimposed it on the objects by which I sought. Finally, lately, the symbol returned overtly, by force of some recovery of consciousness of the living condition of Reality. Then the symbol began to subside again, but I continue to abide in the living condition of Reality. Christianity is in many ways a wonderful symbol for that living condition. But it limits the experience by distracting the mind and organizing it in ways that "create" unconsciousness again (by submerging me in the symbol). Thus, it "creates" the search again in a muted form, while also allowing the enjoyment of some of the drama, aesthetic, and peace of the living condition of Reality.

Life in the living condition of Reality is Silent. But, if its structure were to be described, it would be as complicated as the literature of the church. Thus, I am involved in a meditation on the living condition of Reality, and on the church, which is superimposed on it. Thus, I learn, but I look forward to the "Advaita" of the pure Truth of the living (and, ultimately, perfect) Form of Reality. I want to experience It fully, directly, unqualifiedly, dependent on nothing outside of It—indeed, all symbols fall away from It, and only It is Revealing Itself, even in that wonderful symbol.

[ Photographs of Jerusalem taken by Adi Da on His Pilgrimage in 1970 ]

26 June 1970

I was standing on the porches of the roof, photographing the "Holy City, Jerusalem. The life of the city had made a strange impression on me. There is an absence "created" in all of these commemorations of Christ. There is no Spiritual Force in any of the holy places, and no feeling of higher life, higher aspiration, and higher consciousness in the people. There is no unusual Presence here. So that, if you look for It, you lose It. There is only the "usual" Presence. But, the contrast of the Holy City taught me the meaning of this Presence in a new way. Holy places are a kind of Spiritual kingdom that implicate God in the world. They tend to call us into the search for Him, the evidence of His manifestation as the form of the world. But Jerusalem has been strangely emptied, if only by force of the symbol of Christ's resurrection. The entire city stands like a Sivalingam, pointing away to God. As I stood to photograph the city, to feel somehow the form and aesthetic of the Perfect manifested as Jerusalem, I was blessed to recall Christ's words: "My Kingdom is not of this world."

Lately I have been impressed with the classical attitude of Christian saints, the attitude of exile. I have begun to experience it myself, and it is accompanied by a relief of anxiety, concern, and despair in the face of this world. I had been living in the image of the Kingdom, but it was unconscious. And so I projected it on the world. I sought in every fashion to enforce an aesthetic and a Presence on the world, and even to identify God and myself with it (while also maintaining the idea of absolute transcendence). But the Presence is Known here in absence. We Know Him and are Filled by Him but this only lifts us into the Kingdom not of this world. To be concentrated in Him in faith and love and openness is to remain free of qualification by life. At the same time, it is to Know the Truth about life, and it is also to love life, and help it, and freely remain "creative" in it.

Previously, I sought Powerful holy places—now I know the world is empty, containing no Spiritual Force at all. All the places of Power draw us into some sphere of the world, away from God and His real Kingdom. The "sex appeal" of holy people, holy places, Spiritual symbols, methods, and objects of Power has disappeared by virtue of understanding. The Presence of God is in His Kingdom—He is Known only to faith, by acceptance of the grace that draws us out of the world, the exclusive separative forces, into the Kingdom of God. God is not the world, nor is He within it. Nor is the world apart from God, since He "created" it, except that the world lives estranged from Him, radically estranged from Him, because of sin. To be drawn into the Realization of the Kingdom is to be free of qualification by sin and the world, and to live as a free human being, but it is not to know and enjoy any particular circumstance. It is to Know God and be drawn into His Kingdom of Love, but it is to remain in the world in fact, for now. Sin is not merely a condition of the psyche that is dissolved by the techniques and experiences of ordinary religion and conventional Spiritual life. Sin is a root-force in the world itself. The origin of the world is in God, but it has also fallen entirely away. The hope of the world itself, down to the very structures of natural energy, is in the resurrected and ascended Lord, who must come again to make a new "creation".

27 June 1970

In Jerusalem I have been drawn into a Knowledge that is different from any I have Known before. I feel the current of Life in me being drawn upwards, bursting through the heart and straining toward heaven, infinitely above. This strain is made a tension, because it cannot yet be fulfilled. I am born in the world and this "created" state. Yet, I am aware of exile, and the risen Lord is pulling me to himself. The primary symbol is the empty tomb, or the empty cross. Wherever you go, he is not here. This is not paradise, not the Kingdom, nor is it our task to "create" the Kingdom here. Wherever we are, whatever the time of life, Christ is drawing us to our true home in the fully Divine "creation".

The heart, the cave, is not full. It is empty. Its locus is above. Thus, we are able to live in the world without being qualified by it. If we surrender the circumstances of suffering, death becomes easy. We are happy to serve, to love, and thus, by remaining empty as the tomb, to continue always in the Transcendent State of Christ-Consciousness, fully related to him who draws all things to himself above.

The Kingdom and the Lord are not here. We are free of the burden to Realize him here. It is obvious where he is. Jerusalem is empty! Our Fullness is constant and above. We enjoy our life in him above, and he in us below. Our life in him does not exclude the world, but it frees us from all qualification by the separated world. And we are always drawn above, even out of the body, all powers, all visions, and all success. Our faith, our hope, and our charity are empty. We are infinitely consoled, Fullness above, but without support of visions or any certainty that is not the Lord himself, intangible in the heart of faith. The empty tomb is the Siva-Lingam of the Truth. It points and draws us beyond all things into the unqualified Bliss of faith, entirely rested in the Lord and doing his Will. I have been to the Holy Places and seen that he is gone. And I Know that it is impossible to be separated from him, since relationship s the living condition of Reality. Thus, I Knew him where he is, not apart, in the places of his absence, but in the Force of his ascended State.

The Lord is Present to faith because the soul is not separated from him. But the soul is conscious more deeply and higher than the world. The soul in faith is a participant in the unqualified, eternal dimension of Reality. Just as the soul is drawn above to Christ, the soul and Christ thereafter live by including the world. The Presence Known to faith is True. But the "Presence" known to seekers is merely the reflection of God in His "creation". It is one or the other modification of God's glorious expression. To know such a "Presence", such a philosophical immanence, is yet to remain in the separated state, without the unqualified vision, life, understanding, and Knowledge of the faithful.

True Spiritual life is not a search, or an effort of ultimate self-transformation, but it is an ascent. All its actions are practical, having limited, efficient ends. It is not involved in the ultimate and desperate effort, the Narcissistic drive for supreme immunity and power. The ultimate aspects of genuine Spiritual life are outside the realms of cause and effect, and outside of all goal-directed, transformative effort.

The ascent is the natural movement of faith, drawn by the risen Lord. It is simply the rising tendency, the aspiring, surrendered Spire of Energy and Love. It is not an ordinary Yoga, an ego-willful and strategic means of seeking toward some great and even perfect goal. It is already a relationship to the Perfect One. It is an unqualified, unburdened Bliss. lt is a cooperative ease of Joy that purifies in Spiritual Fire. It is the living condition of Reality.

A man or woman of real faith is not working out his or her salvation in any manner. He or she has recognized the symbol itself, and suffers no confusion in relation to the world, the horizontal and descending context of life. By the power of salvation and the power of Christ's resurrection, a man or woman becomes transformed by grace. The attention of such a one is above, always. He or she finds no motivation in life, but moves by means of grace. Thus, such a one is already empty, wherever he or she is. Such a one loves and understands, brings Truth and comfort and help, Ucreates" everywhere the symbol that promotes the recognition of Truth, and always Communicates what heals and makes salvation.

(Note: At this point, the Christian" movements in vision and the mind had almost ceased. They came again only on occasion, as we went to the ancient holy places. But they were no longer in the form of Christian visions and Christian religious motivations. They were only the sense of Presence and Power that is generated in all genuine holy sites, whether in the Hindu temples and shrines of the Gurus or in the ancient temples and churches of the Virgin and Jesus. Now I approached them with great love, understanding, and a direct experience of the One and Prior Reality that they all manifest.

And now I also bore a critical understanding of the various remedial paths and religions. I had been entirely emptied of the movement in myself toward any remedial path or goal. Thus, not only Christianity became understandable, such that Reality Itself was recognized to be its only Truth, but so also was the remedial path of Advaita Vedanta, and all the remedial paths of Yoga and Spirituality.

My own way had become a simplicity of direct understanding and self-Enquiry. It was only that, radically and entirely.)

28 June 1970—Athens, Greece

The Truth is Non-separateness. Non-separateness is the Realization, the fact, the Condition, the Bliss, and the Reality. It is already the case and can never be acquired. To be deeply attentive to oneself and Enquire: "Avoiding relationship?" consciously realizes the structure and movement of suffering and unconsciousness. But there is also the sudden vanishing of this in the same process, as one recognizes or simply abides as and in That Which the previous state prevented. This is the entire Truth. It depends on no dogma, implications, or suggestions of the mind. It is contained in no exclusive theory or system of Reality. Human beings have anciently Realized this Truth, but they limited Its Power and Clarity by the accretions of thought, or the psychic process by which they sought or supported the Truth.

The Truth of Advaita Vedanta is Non-separateness, but It is expressed and made unavailable in a philosophy that has only one term: the pure, exclusive, relationless Identity. The Truth is in no way contrary to relationship, but It is perfectly Enjoyed as unqualified relatedness. The adventure of Advaita Vedanta is, then, a mental problem that prevents the living condition of Reality.

The Truth of Christianity is Non-separateness, but It is expressed and made unavailable in a theology that necessarily has two exclusive terms: God (or the Trinity) and creature. Thus, even the mysticism of Christianity is a profession allowed to but a cloistered few, whose expressions are carefully monitored. And the mystics become doubtful to the church when they speak of non-separation from God.

But the Truth is not Realized by the strategy of exclusive identification with the transcendental Self, nor by the strategy of seeking union with God. Both of these strategies limit the Truth Itself. They burden It with mental implications that surround It in mystery. But all mental forces subside in the basic, continuous self-Enquiry: "Avoiding relationship?"

The Truth is Non-separateness Itself, Which is a profound Realization, unqualified, not exclusive, unproblematic, direct, unburdened, pure, unqualifiedly relational, not qualified by forms or concepts of the egoic self, or that to which the egoic self is related, or that which relates itself to the egoic self. There is no useful dogma of egoic self, transcendental Self, or separate God. All dogmas are heavy with implication, and they drive the mind through ancient courses and holocausts of symbols, forever toward the same, primary Realization. And that Realization is Reality Itself. But that Realization is the necessary and continuous foundation and process of life. It is not the distant goal of life. Only to the dogmaticians and philosophers does Reality seem to be the distant goal of life, because they are children of their own minds. Reality Itself is the always present Nature and Condition of the living condition of existence. And Reality Itself always already is, always already now, in every context of the living condition of existence. Therefore, Reality Itself (and the living condition of Reality) must be "creatively", consciously lived and breathed, moment to moment.

In the moment to moment process of true self-Enquiry ("Avoiding relationship?"), engaged after a thorough investigation of the alternatives to Truth, there is the moment to moment Realization of the living condition of Reality. At first the state will seem to be realized, and the process will seem to purify and stabilize the mind and life. But these are only peripheral effects, or matters of relationship seen in themselves. What is in fact the case, from the beginning, is the living condition of Reality, relationship itself, without qualification.

The living condition of Reality is the basis of all "creativity". It is full, yet unanswered. That condition can itself be felt so directly and profoundly that any of the traditional "Spiritual" experiences may be simulated in the conditions of the living consciousness. But all visions and unusual perceptions will, in due course, cease as self-Enquiry continues. The prnaice of self-Enquiry should become the radical, basic act of conscious life. No one has done this before, since all have previously thought the Truth involved the mind, a remedial path of seeking and a goal. But, free of all these, self-Enquiry, the living condition of Reality, will move into a profundity of Awareness that will revolutionize conscious life, since, for the first time, it is already Real.

This most direct and radical simplicity, the living condition of Reality, is awakening in me with such force as I continue it moment to moment that it feels as if my body, with all its deep centers, is about to burst and disappear. Reality is a madness of Light, an unqualified air of Space, a vowel of Consciousness!

The Truth is not a dogma, not an affirmation. Thus, all positive statements only place conditions on Consciousness Itself. "I am He", or the ideas of God, and so forth, do not Realize us as Reality, except perhaps in temporary intuitions that fall away again in the mental adventure. The only useful language is not amrmation but true self-Enquiry, which "creates" a sudden absence like the empty tomb near Golgotha. And that absence leayes the living condition of Reality standing. Such an absence is the only perfect and true implication. Thus, it is the essential, "creative" activity of conscious life.

This practice of self-Enquiry will continue as a deliberate activity of the mind as long as an individual tends to identify with various states. But it is also the living condition of Reality Itself, and that which was selfEnquiry is simply the basic movement and form of the living consciousness when the false tendency subsides.

From the living condition of Reality all value and virtue emanate and transform the world. Apart from that living condition, there is either the chaos of avoidance and Narcissistic enterprise, or, at best, the systematic, remedial religious and Spiritual path, exclusiv'e in concept, temporary in effect, and short of the Fullness of Reality.

This Truth was in Gautama, in Shankara,  in Ramakrishna, and in Nityananda. This Truth was in Jesus and in all his saints. Yet, this Truth has nothing to do with any of them. The Truth Itself is simpler, more direct, more obvious.

In the process of true self-Enquiry ("Avoiding relationship?"), one may pass through periods of marvelous insight, wherein the Truth of "Christ", or of Advaita Vedanta, or of any system, symbol, remedial path, and so forth, may suddenly risep in the mind as the overwhelming Answer and Reality. But if one continues selfEnquiry, which is itself the living condition of Reality, all conditional or temporary truths will pass, just as will all the effects of separative activity. Enough said about my Christianity, my Vedanta, and all my paths of seeking.

7 July 1970 —Rome, Italy

Until now, all religions, all remedial paths, and even all forms of Spiritual Knowledge, have been based on a single, primary, elemental presumption. All the various paths of effort have been different forms of reaction to the elemental problem of Reality. In every case, there is an intuition of the living condition of Reality—but the living condition of Reality has been conceived and approached as a problem, a necessary dilemma. Thus, in every case, the religion or remedial path has been an attempt or a design which proposes to solve that primary problem.

The problem on which all has been founded is relationship itself, perceived as autonomy, separateness, antinomy, duality, division, and multiplicity. Reality has been chronically intuited in this negative sense, and the solution has always been to enforce a "Oneness" or a "union" which is the opposite, and the ultimate dissolution, of the primary dilemma.

The root of this intuition is contained in the idea of the object. The "object" implies a subject, distinct from it. On the basis of this elemental presumption, all existence has been described in terms of cause and effect, subject and object, matter and consciousness (or mind). From this description of existence, joined with the concept of liberation or atonement which seeks to overcome it, a great chain or hierarchy has been extended toward the idea of the "Primary Solution".

In the West, the way has essentially been tied to contemplation of the highest Object, Which is God, or Jesus (as the "Christ"), and so forth. Its traditional Spirituality and religion is based on a meditation on, or contemplation of, hierarchic symbols. Prayer, or aspiration, is its symbolic and effective mood.

In the East, the way has traditionally been tied to the Realization of the highest, or even the Ultimate, State, Which is inherently Objectless. The Spirituality and the religion of the traditional East are grounded in.a progressively world-transcending experience or consciousness, which ultimately extends beyond the structure of subject and object. In the East, there is the way of utter transcendence, which extends (even by the grace of the highest or ultimate Power) beyond all objects, all relationship, into the exclusive domain of Being Itself. In the West, there is the way of persistent living, which seeks to escape all harm by idealistic and affirmative association with the highest Power and Being.

Clearly, both primary approaches are founded in the same fundamental problem. And all such efforts involve a genius of characteristic phenomena which both justify them and point to the ground of their existence.

I have no argument with these means themselves. They are the pure and greatest fruit of all traditional culture. It is only that I have been involved in them all, and always I have been led to see them in their most basic shapes. Always I am looking at these roots while wailing in the torment of effort.

And I see this foundation of all religion and Spirituality. I see their entire beauty and how they exceed all the suffering and enjoyment of mere life. But I also see they are not necessary, they are not possible, they are absolutely false.

Thus, I have no heart for the struggles of the great search. All remedial paths, or merely remedial ways, have fallen away from me. Even when I adored them most and lay prostrate before each Lord, the way and the salvation have been torn away, leaving the naked dilemma of all times in my sight without a symbol left to lead me away.

As a result, I have over time found myself alone with this perception, and, in spite of myself, I have been led to see and examine and Know this Truth, this Reality. And It is the radical Truth, Reality Itself, entirely free of the ancient dilemma.

All previous religion and Spirituality is based on the presumption of a necessary dilemma. For this reason, it is all false, unnecessary, and un-Real. I do not speak from the viewpoint of ordinary experience, which not only identifies with the dilemma but does so unconsciously, and compulsively exploits its effects. To the religious or Spiritual viewpoint that is based on the usual foundation of dilemma and egoity, my assertion that ordinary religion and conventional Spirituality are, at their foundation, false, unnecessary, and un-Real may, at first (and for the same reason), appear to be false, unnecessary, and un-Real. And, therefore, ordinary religion and conventional Spirituality, and every other form of the great search, will continue, in any individual case, until the dilemma and the ego are radically understood. But I speak from the "Viewpoint" of Reality-Experience, Which not only is free of the ordinary suffering of existence, but is also already and forever free of its solution in the productions of the great search.

What, then, do I see? The traditional ways have presumed the living condition of Reality to be a dilemma. Thus, whether the solution is in terms of the most transcendent Object, or even in terms of the transcendence of the entire subject-object structure of consciousness, that solution has always been itself a symbol of the dilemma on which it is founded. The atonement, or salvation, by which one is eventually and gracefully saved from inevitable sin and the effort of liberation by which one is finally Realized beyond the superimposition of unnecessary ignorance are both superimpositions on the primary Intuition of Reality.

If Reality Itself is recognized, and there is therefore no longer any conscious or living separation from Reality, or aberration from the living condition of Reality, then there is no necessity at all for any separate solution or remedial path. Once Reality is intuited as It is, without the superimposed conception of the dilemma, then atonement and liberation, salvation and Realization, as well as compulsive experience based on identification with separated functions, cease to be involved in the form of life.

All that I have written, and all that I have experienced in my unique order of life, has been a means to this very end, and, I am certain, a proof of what I contend.

Reality Itself, whose living condition is unqualifed relatedness, or non-separateness, is totally free of necessary dilemma. Real life has nothing whatever to do with conventional Spiritual and religious goals, or any of their symbols in consciousness and tradition. And, since Reality is What is, It is the simplest intuition, prior to any separative act of identification. Real life requires none of the heroic ego-efforts of ordinary religion and conventional Spiritual life, because it can never identify with the primary dilemma which supports these efforts. It is Free, profoundly marvelous in its Blissful dimensions and depth, and unencumbered with searches and egoic efforts, problems and degrees of success. It is childishly irreverent and unserious, and yet it is as profoundly heart-Joyous and Deep as an Incarnation of God. It cannot, it must not, be proclaimed, identified, or symbolized in the usual ways. All languages and poetry stink with symbols of Man's even ancient and great search. All the usual images, every ego-based point of view, every ordinary suggestion, every commonly given recommendation, only motivates mankind to the same ancient trial, the same ultimately un-Real realization.

The ordinary consciousness is an objective fascination and obsession, an unbroken chain of compulsive experience, moment to moment, which, in the deep heart of awareness, is a desperate, unyielding distraction. Thus, understanding and self-Enquiry suddenly relax the concentration on the stream of objects, and Reality stands as primary Experience.

To one who is un-Real, there is only the constant experience of objects by his or her own separate and functional nature. Every moment is an experience of something itselfÑby oneself. Real life is not this at all. It is certainly alive in the ordinary functional manner, with real, effective, "creative" life-energies, and an awareness equipped to heal itself constantly from the effects of experience and deepen its existence as Reality. However, it does not experience objects in themselves and moments one by one. It does not know and act and feel itself as a separate, functional consciousness and experiential identity. It constantly and only Knows Reality, the living condition of Which is unqualified relatedness, or non-separateness. It is not qualified by conditional experience or conditional existence. Moment to moment, it Enjoys the Knowledge and Experience of Reality, no matter what the content of the moment. Basically, Real life has only one, unqualified Experience, which is a profound State of Awareness of Reality. It is free of the fascination with experience, and the consequent repetition of experience. It is free of the great search, and all of the effort to solve the primary dilemma. It has understood the mechanism of suffering and un-Reality. The content of the moment's experience does not overwhelm it, even though it experiences with great intensity and openness. It is constantly, by its non-avoidance of Reality, empty of its own experience. True life is radical contemplation "Real" meditation, and Blissful Knowledge, free of all conditional states, high or low. In regard to Reality, it has nether questions nor answers.

11 July 1970 —Paris, France

 For some time I was involved in the paths leading to the Ultimate Goal (or the Realization of Truth, Reality, Joy, and so on). But, then I realized that all the paths to the Ultimate Goal were actually the avoidance of the Ultimate Goal Itself, since the ultimate Realization is, necessarily, the Realization of What always already is. This understanding burdened and qualified my seekng for some time. At times I abandoned my course completely in despair, or by a temporary festival of self-indulgence. The paths "to" were endless and burdensome, and, now, apparently also false and destructive. I could not find a Real alternative to this double-bind. Then I saw that this recognition was itself my Freedom from this double-bind. It was understanding. Then I Knew that understanding was the Foundation and itself the primary State of Real life. Then I was no longer excited to the paths of seeking, and neither did I seek their desperate abandonment. My living consciousness became a direct simplicity, without ultimate questions or answers.

12 July 1970 —London, England

n the past, mankind has been concerned with either what is salvatory or what is liberating. But we are

Real only in the acknowledgement of what is necessary. Understanding is the acknowledgement of primary necessity, and this acknowledgement transcends the great search in all its forms.

14 July 1970 —Madrid, Spain

Many limited expressions of Truth can seem, and indeed are, beautiful, plausible, true, even necessary. This is because, like even everything else that arises conditionally (in Reality), they, intrinsically, are intuitions of Reality Itself. We are attracted to them because of the Reality they imply. Such expressions are themselves marvelous art forms, just as churches, ceremony, liturgy, painting, sculpture, and song are art forms. They are "creations" in response, just as our Iives, the characteristic forms of our lives, are "creations" in response. Perhaps even our living forms, including our material bodies, are also "creations" in response. But such is hidden in the Mystery of Reality.

Just so, all things can appear beautiful, true, and necessary. Trees, landscapes, and water are beautiful under various circumstances. Women appear beautiful to the living energy in men. All things loved are apparently beautiful, true, and necessary. But all things are beautiful, true, and necessary only because they are Real—they are so in their non-separateness.

Thus, Reality is the test of all things, all expressions, all intuitions. They become false or tend to be illusory and destructive when we experience them exclusively and assert, even unconsciously, their beauty, truth, and necessity exclusively, in separateness. Thus, the human being becomes bound by sexual exploitation and other addictions. Similarly, the human being becomes bound by exclusive adherence to various expressions, the arts and forms of conscious life. All things must be tested in Reality. Thus, all expressions must be Known in Reality, by those who remain unqualifiedly Real, Non-separate. Every expression, then, must be tested by Reality not by some independent rule, some priority of its own. But the adherents of various seekers' religions and remedial paths have tended to assert their own expressions exclusively, because they have tested them only by their own independent laws, the laws which support their view, and not by Reality. In Reality, then, we must test such expressions, and so we must discover and transcend the limited rule that the human being uses to support them exclusively.

The Christian view is founded always and traditionally in one primary Biblical idea. It is the idea of "creation" ex nihilo. 3  "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." This idea is the foundation of exclusive Christian theology. This idea is the motive which has "created'' and made necessary the entire edifice of Christianity. By this view, "God" and "creation" are understood to be exclusive (or inherently separate from one another), not by virtue of sin, or egoic ignorance, or whatever, but in Reality. Therefore, even all "evil" overcome, there remains a primary separation, which is the relationship between "creature" and "Creator". (And, thus, the ordinary conceptual convention of "subject versus object" is projected onto the Ultimate Condition of Reality.)

Relationship, then, is the a priori assumption of Christian religion. But it is relationship intuited by the addition of error, a form that is not Real. Relationship is in fact unqualifiedly True and, in the living context, necessary. Our living existence is not itself reducible to Identity. This is my experience. Reality does not exclude. Reality does not separate. Reality is not separate. This is my experience. Reality is manifested as relationship, but relationship itself, because it is the living condition of Reality Itself, is unqualified. Indeed, anything less than unqualified relatedness is not the demonstration of relationship (or relatedness) itself, but a qualification of (or a limitation on) relationship (or relatedness) itself. Relationship (or relatedness) is nonseparation. Non-separateness is the very form (or manifested condition) of the living being, and only in the unqualified demonstration of non-separateness is one truly (unqualifiedly) in relationship. Only in one's nonseparateness is one truly "in relationship to God", Who does not exclude any one. Therefore, Reality is the effective argument against the primary tendency to exclusiveness that is associated with the Christian view, and, in general, with the conventional, or merely exoteric, religious views of mankind.

Just so, in the view of the tradition of Advaita Vedanta, there is also a primary assumption which supports exclusiveness. It is the idea of "no-creation", of unqualified Identity, of Brahman (or the One and Only Reality) as the denial of objects. Just as the Christian view is predisposed to presume the separateness of the "creation", not in the perverse sense, but in its presumed point of view, the point of view of the tradition of Advaita Vedanta is predisposed to presume (and to require) strategic separation from the "creation", or from conditional manifestation, in an object-excluding State of inverted Awareness. But, in Reality, the Truth is Non-separateness, Which is also unqualified relatedness. This is my experience.

I have continually sought or, rather, been led to seek, an expression of the Truth in some one or other of the existing traditions and traditional ways. But all become impossible to me in their exclusiveness. Thus, I am required to stand in Reality and remain radically related to the great expressions. I have tested them in Reality. Reality has tested them, and, now and forever, I must Stand in the Eternal Truth, Which is Only Real, supported only in Reality, purified of all exclusive assumptions.

16 July 1970 —Fatima, Portugal

Reality is not a separate, exclusive Condition. It is not merely meaningful, or symbolic, nor is It attained by the seeker's means. Reality Itself must be radically presumed and lived. This positive Realization and Freedom precedes and precludes all seeking and all revolutionary attainment. It is the ground of true, "creative", sublime existence, free of qualification by the facts and the activities of life. Life as non-separation is the unqualified Truth, from Which there is no necessary remedial path or search, no deluding forces, no fascinations high or low. It is One with What is, Which includes all dual terms, subject and object, cause and effect, and so on. Thus, Real life is radically Conscious, and Free of primary dilemma and conflict. Its ordinary life is "creative" play in which Reality is continually Realized, moment to moment, under all the kinds of conditions. Reality cannot be an object (or even the highest Object) of consciousness, since Reality is inclusive, not separate, not distinct. Thus, Real life is also not exclusively identified with any one life-motive, any one life-function, or any one object. Real life is radically, and always presently, identified with Reality Itself. To such a Real life, there is no separate Reality, no Reality that is the Goal of life, and no necessary Realization apart from the always present Real State.

17 July 1970 —Estoril, Portugal

Rality Itself is not in any sense the answer to the question "What is Reality?" Reality Itself does not satisfy the seeker or answer the seeker's questions, which are actually only doubts about Reality Itself, or indications of separateness from Reality Itself. Reality Itself is not that which is pursued or implied by seeking. The entire realm and corpus of seeking, of conventional religion, conventional Spirituality, and conventional science in all their forms, has, for all its appearance of sublimity, seriousness, depth, and Truth, nothing to do with Reality Itself. At most, Reality intuited as a dilemma forms the substructure of the unconscious motives of seekers. But they are pursuing a "Union", an "Answer", a "Presence", a "Home", an "Other". The "Reality" they pursue is the opposite to all they experience and all they know. The "Reality'' they seek is the contradiction, the alternative, the opposite. It is merely the "Highest Proof" and the "Ultimate Goal" of their dilemma. Even so, the efforts of seekers appear to them to have practical significance, and, in general, the positive effects of their efforts appear to them to be desirable when viewed in contrast to the arbitrary suffering of unconscious life-exploitation. Thus, they consider their efforts and their seekers' realizations Proven, True, and Truth.

But Reality Itself is always already the case, under any conditions. When there is despair of seeking, then there is the beginning of radical understanding. And radical understanding has, itself, no necessary or characteristic effects of any kind. It does not make even a little bit of difference. It is not an exception to anything. It is not appealing, fascinating, a great relief, the answer and the end to all questions and all suffering. Reality Itself is simply What always already is. It is not desirable, and so It cannot be sought. Therefore, the understanding that Realizes Reality Itself is most extreme, most subtle, most radical, and most necessary. Such understanding is not qualified, not limited, nor does it qualify, or limit. One who Knows and is Reality Itself must appear mad, since such a one is not identified with anything at all. Yet such a one must be, of all mankind, the least mysterious, being founded in no mystery at all.

(End of journal)

Our last stop in Europe was Portugal. We visited the great shrine at Fatima. It was to be my last emotional gesture to Christianity. Years before, when my mind was changed by Jung, the miracle at Fatima was also primary evidence for me of Spiritual Reality. Now I visited that place at the end of all my seeking. As I walked around the shrine, there was not a single movement in me. The place held no more fascination than a parking lot, or, in Reality, it held equal fascination. My pilgrimage was over. In my vision-inspired travels, which had continued from Israel to Greece and Italy, then through France and England to Spain and Portugal, the entire world seemed to become empty of its own imagery. The Virgin was resolved into landscape and monument, until she no longer appeared on her own.

We spent a couple of days resting in the sea resort at Estoril, and then we flew to New York. We spent another couple of days with my parents, and then flew off again, this time to San Francisco. The long history of my internal exile was over. I felt no resistance to America. I had become available to life, free of the need to abandon life. I looked forward to finding a place to live in the area that Nina and I had enjoyed so much in previous years. But we were unable to find a suitable place in northern California, and eventually we found ourselves in Los Angeles.

I had passed through an internal violence that left me finally Still. And I had become naturally, effortlessly, concentrated in contemplation of the Condition of Consciousness Itself, Standing apart from all movement, all modification, even Prior to the "Witness". The Force of Silence, of Reality Itself, that Stood before me in understanding and self-Enquiry, now Stood as my own Self-Nature and as the Source-Condition of all things.

I was given to understand the Truth of all my visions. The image of Jesus (or the "Christ") and the revelation of his poem ("They are infinitely Returned, but I am eternally Present") was my own Ultimate Self-Nature Communicating Itself to me via a symbol. I had stood in the mind, feeling my separate being, but the image and the poem of Jesus had come to me through the heart. Soon, I would Realize my own Being, the Very Nature of Reality Itself, standing Present as the inherently perfect Condition and "Bright" Form that is the Heart Itself.

Even now, as a result of my liberation from all my Christian heart-visions, I understood the mysticism of Christianity and all my latent urges to mystical devotion. All those symbols were Communications (or representations) of the latent Energy and Consciousness that is the Heart Itself. Therefore, the more devotion arose, the more I Enjoyed the Heart Itself as the perfect Domain of contemplation.

In my case, all conditional experiences came and went, until I stood beyond the time of seeking. As I observed those experiences in their passing, the heart was released from images, and, in due course, the Heart Itself ceased to Communicate Itself as if It were outside me. Therefore, the envisioned face of Jesus, like all other visions, eventually ceased to hold the Heart Itself away, as an Object to me. Gradually, the Heart Revealed Itself as my own Self-Nature.

When the images were released from the Heart in understanding, I Realized that I am that very Source Which had appeared in symbols. Afterwards, I ceased to seek for anything, but, instead, I remained absorbed in the Heart, and, eventually, as the Heart Itself, Freely Allowing the Play of Its own Radiant Energy, the Shakti.

The course of purification and understanding through which I had passed corresponded exactly to every other significant Event in my past. I saw the structure involved in each case. Always there was first a concentration in some object or desire, some problem or dilemma equal to life itself, some activity of the egoic self. As a result of this concentration or observation, there was a penetration of that object, problem, or activity in a homent of understanding. Then these things were replaced by the Enjoyment of Bliss, Freedom, and the Feeling of unqualified Reality that stood hidden by that imposed object, problem, or activity. Finally, this unqualified Consciousness was Itself recognized as Reality, and there was the certainty that understanding, rather than any object, problem, or activity of seeking, is in fact the way and the Truth of Real life.

This same series of Realizations formed the core of my experience in college and at seminary. That same understanding and Real Consciousness was their Truth as well as the Truth of the "Bright", and all of my Realizations in Yoga, at the Ashram, or in my own experiments. Thus, this pattern of Realization became the structure wherein I interpreted the way, the Truth, and the Reality of life. And Jesus (or the "Christ"), and all of the great objects of Spiritual life in India, became recognized at last, by this same natural process of understanding, as symbols in the heart for the Reality that was not yet directly Realized.

The Christian visions were not false. It was necessary for me to have them, in order to Realize the Truth that transcends them. Those frozen imageries formed part of the last barrier to the full Awareness of Reality. Thus, "Christ"-consciousness, the vision in the heart, became, by its dissolution, the Realization of What is absolutely Real, Which is the Heart Itself. What in fact animated these things and became visible beneath them was Reality, no-seeking, the Self-Existing and Self-Radiant Nature that is the Heart Itself. When this Reality absorbed my attention, the images faded away.

The Virgin and the prayer she taught me, Jesus (or the "Christ") and his mystical instructions, and even all my visions were not important as revelations of Divine personalities outside myself. They were simply mystical (or psychically determined) forms of the universal Shakti. When that Energy became active in the heart, all of the latent imagery of my own mind, memory, and tendencies combined with universal sources of imagery to unlock my devotion. And I continued as devotion until I became fully aware of the origin of these imageries, in the universal Shakti and my own heart's mind. Then the mind and the Shakti ceased to "create" the secondary images. And the devotion of the heart's mind to its images was replaced by a direct Realization of the Heart Itself, or the Shakti of the Heart Itself and the fundamental Consciousness that is the Heart Itself.

Soon I would see that the Shakti had always taken on the forms of my own tendencies, my own mind. Then I would see directly, Prior to the mind, and Prior to confusion with the mind. Then even the Shakti, the Energy-Source of all forms, would become resolved into my own Ultimate Self-Nature, or Consciousness Itself, Which is Reality Itself.

Notes

1. Gautama (ca. 563 - 483 B.C.E) was the great Indian Sage commonly known as "the Buddha".

2. Shankara (ca. 788 - 820) was a revered Hindu Sage who is regarded as the founder of the school of Advaita Vedanta, or non-dualism (see note 36, p. 212).

3. Latin for "from nothing".

4.  In the Hindu tradition, Brahman is the Ultimate Divine Reality that is the Source and Substance of all things, all worlds, and all beings.

(Chapter 16 (excerpt from next chapter)

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