Enlightenment of the Whole Body - Adi Da Samraj (Bubba Free John)

GROWTH AND SACRIFICE IN THE SEVEN STAGES OF ETERNAL LIFE

The greatest of human cultures have at their source a single, extraordinary individual, a God-Man who restored to the world the Divine Law of Life and communicated the personal and social principles for harmonious, sacred living. Gautama, Krishna, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, and many other Awakened Teachers have performed this cultural sacrifice for Man. In our own time, Bubba Free John has performed a similar service by establishing the unique culture of the Way of Divine Ignorance. In the six years since beginning his formal Teaching Work, Bubba has considered and demonstrated the Lawful form of every kind of human action. He has accounted for every stage of human life, from birth through death. And he has accounted for every stage of religio-spiritual adaptation, from the ordinary self-possessed, self-divided state of Man to the most perfect Enlightenment or Sacrifice of Man into God.

These are the seven stages of Eternal Life:

1. The stage of vital physical adaptation, corresponding to the awakening of the root of the abdominal organs at the base of the body and generally occupying the first seven years of life.

2. The stage of emotional and primitively sexual, or relationally polarized, adaptation, corresponding to the awakening of the sexual center and occupying the second seven years of life.

3. The stage of the development of the thinking mind and the will, and of the integration of the vital physical, emotional-sexual, and mental-intentional functions. This stage corresponds to the awakening of the navel and solar plexus, and it generally occupies the third seven-year period of life.

In the first three stages, the individual is incarnating, physically, emotionally, and mentally, as a human body-mind in the world. The Bodily Current of Life is naturally polarized from crown to toe, or from the subtle range of the being downward and outward into earthly life. And attention naturally moves with the Life-Current into the experiential and relational functions of the centers below the heart.

4. The stage of psychic adaptation, corresponding to the awakening of the feeling dimension of the heart, and the subtle mechanisms in the throat and the lower rear of the brain. The centers above the heart are awakened via the spontaneous placing of attention in the internal Life-Current of the body-mind, and the repolarization of the Life-Current and attention itself toe to crown, rather than crown to toe (which is the polarization of the Life-Current previous to the fourth stage of life). This fourth stage, and all the later stages, cannot be conceived within fixed periods of time. The duration of the higher stages of life depends entirely upon the individual's qualities and his or her spiritual practice of self-transcendence.

5. The stage of higher mental (mystical and superconscious) adaptation, corresponding to the awakening of the brain core and the higher functions of the brain-mind via the fixed establishment of attention and the internal Life-Current in the brain core ("third eye " or "ajna chakra ").

6. The stage of transcendental intuitive adaptation, corresponding to the Awakening of the Free soul at the root of Consciousness in the heart, and culminating in the State traditionally known as "Self-Realization. " Attention, or mind, dissolves in Divine Ignorance, or unqualified Consciousness, at the heart.

7. The stage of the Translation of Man into God, corresponding to the Sacrifice of the whole and entire body-mind into Infinite Conscious Life, and culminating in Divine Translation of the Free soul into the Identity and Life of the Divine Person. In "Self-Realization, " in the sixth stage, Consciousness abides as Divine Ignorance in the root of the heart, excluding awareness of body, mind, and world. The seventh stage begins with the further Awakening Bubba describes as "open eyes, " in which Consciousness is released into perfect Identification-Communion with the Divine Person, or Inherence in the Current of Radiance that Pervades all bodies, minds, and worlds. The bodily Life-Current, liberated from bondage to the mind's tendencies to experience and knowledge in the body-mind, is released into the All-Pervading Radiance via the upper terminal of the brain (above the brain core) and in all directions to Infinity. Thus, in this stage, Transcendental Ignorance and Infinite Radiance become the single Intensity of God-Realized Bliss, until the devotee is Translated, even bodily, beyond all the dimensions of the Realm of Nature, high and low, into the Divine Domain that is that Very Bliss.

Realization of the seven stages of Eternal Life involves two processes:

1. The "vertical" structural growth, or progressive awakening of the functions of body and mind; and

2. The conscious sacrifice of the whole and entire body-mind, and of all the experiential evidence of growth, through heartfelt love, happiness, or unobstructed feeling and free attention under all conditions.

The process of sacrifice, founded in Consciousness, is senior to the process of functional awakening, which is founded in the Realm of Nature, or the bodily and mental modifications of Consciousness.

This "map" of human development and self-transcendence not only expresses a new Vision of God and of the ultimate spiritual potential of Man. It also offers a new understanding of the human being. We do not truly realize our humanity until the fourth stage of life but, as Bubba indicates in his talks and essays, very few men and women have ever entered stably into the fourth or fully human stage of life.

The passage into the fourth stage of life signifies the mastery of body, emotions, sexuality, will, and the thinking mind by the psychic, feeling heart. It does not imply the annihilation of the ego. The functional ego, or independent self-sense, is never annihilated in this Way of Life. It is a necessary function of the whole body, like a muscle or a thought. We cannot mature without having acquired the sense of autonomous functional existence, and we can never act without that function.

However, the autonomous ego-sense must be illumined and transcended through the power of love. The heart must awaken and mature in the feeling and intuition of God, until the soul Realizes its Transcendental Unity and Perfect Communion with the Divine Person. Even then the functional ego persists, since the ego is nothing more than the body-mind itself, until the entire body-mind drops away in perfect psycho physical death, or Divine Translation, in the seventh stage of life.

Top of page -

The Seven Stages of Love

We cannot transcend the body-mind via any potential experience. Transcendence is ecstasy, and, therefore, it is a matter of liberation from experience. Experience is simply the play of the body-mind in itself.

Truth is in the sacrifice of the whole and entire body-mind, via gradual stages of more and more responsible action, or action as Love-Communion with the Living God, prior to all self-reference. Therefore, the seven stages of life are not truly stages of the accumulation of experience. They are degrees of a single or ultimate sacrifice, in which what would otherwise be accumulated is surrendered, through Love.

Top of Page

The Seven Stages of Eternal Life

In the traditions of spiritual culture, the development of a human being has commonly been described in terms of seven stages, each spanning a period of seven years. There is a rational basis in Awakened Wisdom for this scheme. That basis is the very structure of the total bodily being (or body-mind) of every human individual. We are a composite made of elements and of functional relations, a coherent life-form expressed via the nervous system and brain, and levels of mind that may consciously reflect not only the gross or "material" realm but the realms of Life-Energy and all the cosmic realms or media of light. At the root of this system is the heart, the primal organ not only of life but of consciousness in man. It is here that the presumption and conception of egoic independence, or the separate "I," arises in every moment. It is on the basis of this presumption that the human individual is predetermined to a reactive life of fear, vulnerability, flight from mortality, and a universal constitutional state of contraction. That contraction encloses consciousness in the limits of skin and thought, and it separates the whole bodily being of Man from the Divine Radiance and Perfect Consciousness that is otherwise native to it and eternally available to it in every part.

The Way of Divine Ignorance, which I Teach, is a complete Way of Life. It is not merely a system of self-applied methods of inwardness or of exclusively external and worldly functional improvement. It is a whole culture, lived principally among others who do likewise, and in complete touch with every level of our structural humanity, from the gross physical to the subtle and Transcendental ranges of Light: The presumption of independent conscious existence, rooted in the heart prior to mind, and expressed as forms of contraction or self-definition at every functional level of the bodily being, as well as in all relations, is the present foundation of the conventional and chaotic "culture" or habit of adaptation of most human beings. Therefore, if we are to be adapted (or readapted) to another Principle than the ego, or the independent and separative self, we must likewise become involved in a total culture of that alternative.

The culture of the Way of Divine Ignorance may also be related to the traditional scheme of seven stages of growth. But it is founded on the Awakening of the heart, from self-possession to free feeling-attention, via all functions, in all relations, under all conditions. Indeed, the whole Way is the Way of the heart. The first three stages purify and readapt the whole bodily being via the lowest dimension of the heart, the gross physical epitome. Thus, they involve the foundation growth of the vital-physical, the emotional-sexual, and the lower mental dimensions including the will, or integrated responsibility for the whole of the common human foundation. The fourth and fifth stages purify and readapt the whole bodily being via the middle heart, the subtle epitome. Thus, they involve the higher growth of the conceptual mind, the psyche, the subtle intuitive gnosis of the elemental world, and the higher or cosmic gnosis of the planes and "heavens" of the Great Process of manifest experience. The sixth stage purifies and readapts the whole bodily being via the upper or right heart, the epitome of the independent conscious entity and the Place of self-transcendence. Thus, it is in this stage that the presumption of independent, separate, and separative conscious existence is dissolved in the true Heart, the "Ignorance" or Unqualified Consciousness that is our Condition in Truth. The individual bodily being is not "snuffed out" at this stage. It simply persists free of the irreducible illusion of separate existence, and exists in utter Identity, or radical Love-Communion, with the Condition of all beings and conditions. Thus, in the seventh stage, the whole bodily being exists in a fully responsible alignment with its Source, "Food," and Condition, and continues to grow at Infinity. This leads into more and more perfect identification, even bodily, with the Light, Love, and Consciousness that is the Absolute God and Self of Man. Thus, this final stage, which goes on into Eternity, shows the Divine Signs of Transfiguration and Regeneration while alive, and ultimate Ascension or Translation of the individual into the Divine Plane, the Heaven above all heavens, which is God and Truth.

The general culture of the first three stages naturally belongs to the first twenty-one years of life, but men and women in general fail to complete these stages to maturity because of reactive adaptation to the false principle, the experiential ego, untouched by transcendental insight. Thus, most "adults" are only bordering on the awakening of a life committed to love, the life of the heart and of psychic awakening. They phase back and forth from actual commitment to love and spiritual ascent, but they spend most of their time in various forms of problematic concentration in vital-physical, emotional-sexual, and lower mental dilemmas of will, morality, belief, and conventional knowledge. The reason for this is that the first three stages of their adaptation are immature, so they are still foundering in childish and adolescent motivations of character, the theatre of the struggle between dependence and independence. And this chaotic subhuman struggle will continue to bind the individual and also human societies as a whole until there is release from the ego-principle, the chronic contraction of the heart and the whole bodily being, the commitment to separation, avoidance of relationship, loveless self-possession, obsessive self-indulgence, doubt, and unconsciousness of the Source, Light, Love, Living Food, and Eternal Life by which all things are sustained forever.

Because of the ego-"I," the presumption of separation and independence, we are constitutionally divorced from the Infinite Condition wherein we have appeared. We are separated from our primal Food-Source. Mankind is not merely hungry. We are starving. We cannot even hope to be satisfied, and, therefore, our hunger has become doubt, unlove, fear, self-possession, self-indulgence, violence, disease, and a death that is not merely a change of state but a suppression of existence to the point of the illusion of annihilation.

However, there is Wisdom to the point of freedom, and not merely or only immortality but eternal Bliss in God. There is Truth, Sustenance, Light, and Life. There is Awakening, even bodily, to the utter Consciousness and Radiance or Love that is God and Truth. The Way of that Awakening is expressed through a culture or Way of Life that evolves through seven stages. The first three may generally be associated with the first twenty-one years of life (three periods of seven years), but the last four (which grow beyond the limits of the grosser elements and functions) may not truly be considered in terms of limits of time, whether brief or long. Each stage develops as a process of adaptation (or readaptation) to a specific, functional point of view relative to the totality of experience. That specific point of view in each case depends on the organization of life and consciousness relative to any one of seven primal centers of the functional being of man. Those centers are expressed at the physical level, but they also reach deep into the subtlest and most transcendental planes of light.

The seven primary centers of the human body-mind relate to the seven primary levels of adaptation, integration, and Realization in the case of Man. Adaptation to the whole of existence via each of these centers in succession is the native Process of growth for which we are fitted by virtue of our inherent structure. And growth, at every stage, is a matter of "food," or the success of the functional pattern of reception, ingestion, elimination, and adaptation not only at the physical level, but also at the vital level, the mental level, the psychic and supermental level, the Foundation level of Consciousness, and the Transcendental level of Radiance, Light, Vibratory Power, Love, and Mysterious Creation.

There are as many kinds of food as there are levels of adaptation. Elemental food is the common food of the lowest dimension of our appearance. But we require other kinds of food to sustain us in our parts above or subtler than the elemental physical. All manifest things and beings appear within a universal cosmic theatre of the physics of light. Even the most solid configuration is an illusion, or a mysterious objectification that is not other than light. The essence of things is light, or Life-Radiance, and the right functioning of every individual life depends on right communion with light, or the Light above all lights, and above all the levels of energy or vibration that lie between the subtlest light, or mind, and solidity.

Therefore, there are many kinds of food on which we depend and which we must learn to eat, humbly and in peace. There is the elemental food of the physical aspect of the whole bodily being. There is, at the next level, the etheric food, the Life-Force or pranic' "substance" that is received and ingested via the processes of breathing and feeling. And beyond this are all the ascending and subtle degrees of chemistry and energy associated with each of the primary physical, glandular, and nervous centers of the gross bodily being, and their subtle extensions to Infinity.

The primary centers of the whole bodily being are seven. And we are obliged to adapt our whole bodily being to the view established at each center in succession. Thus, there are seven primary stages of growth or adaptation native to Man. But since we are generally born into conditions where human development is minimal or rudimentary, and where the culture of Wisdom is unknown, in doubt, or denied altogether, we tend to adapt, through random influences, to arbitrary, reactive, ego-based, and even subhuman levels of awareness, ability, experience, and responsibility. We tend to develop in patterns that disintegrate rather than integrate the bodily being, and human societies tend, therefore, to function as "schools" of disintegration, reactivity, and mediocrity, rather than as cultures of adaptation to Wisdom in Truth. Truly, most human beings are human only in the sense that they are specimens of an inherent structure that can realize a human level of expression. If we consider the level of actual adaptation and responsibility of the usual man or woman, he or she is certainly subhuman, either in the sense of being little more than a talking beast without instincts or in the sense of being merely adapted to the physical, emotional-sexual, and mental levels of experience, but severely compromised or unstable in the demonstration of the integrity and natural superiority even such adaptation should represent in action.

1. In the physics of the worlds, ether or functional energy is the senior and most subtle of the gross elements, which also include solid, liquid, fiery, and gaseous substances (the ancient esoteric elements of earth, water, fire, and air). Ether, the most subtle state of gross or material appearance, is the all-pervading element of the physical universe, analogous to space itself. The etheric dimension of force or manifest light pervades and surrounds our universe and every physical body. It is the field of energy, magnetism, and space in which the lower or grosser elements function. Thus, your "etheric body" is the specific concentration of force associated with and surrounding-permeating your physical body. It serves as a conduit for the forces of universal light and energy to the physical body.

In practical terms of daily experience, the etheric aspect of the being is our emotional-sexual, feeling nature. The etheric body functions through and corresponds to the nervous system. Functioning as a medium between the conscious mind and the physical being, it controls the distribution and use of energy and emotion. It is the dimension of vitality or Life-Force. We feel the etheric dimension of life not only as vital energy and power and magnetic-gravitational forces, but also as the endless play of emotional polarization, positive and negative, to others, objects, the world itself, everything that arises.

"Prana" is a Sanskrit term meaning "life-energy'' or life-force. In yogic esoteric teachings, "prana" is also a specific technical name for one of a number of forms of etheric energy in the bodily being. Bubba uses the term here more generally, in reference to the whole dimension of living energy that pervades and sustains the physical and vital processes of Man. Thus, "prana" is the manifest life-energy. It is an aspect of the Transcendental Current of Life, which is All-Pervading, but also Eternal-but manifest or "pranic" energies are only temporary phenomena of the Realm of Nature.

It is necessary, first of all, for each individual to return to all previous levels of functional adaptation that have been developed as reactive and egoic mechanisms. Every functional level must be re-awakened and readapted to the Divine Principle beyond and yet pervading all contractions, all parts of the whole, all defining limits of light and consciousness. Even the cells of the body are obliged by this Principle. Therefore, the Way or Culture of this Process is a Way of total readaptation or rebirth. It is the Culture of Resurrection, or the Enlightenment of the whole bodily being of Man.2 The seven centers of progressive readaptation are (1) the body base (at the perineum), (2) the root of sex, (3) the region of the navel and solar plexus, (4) the heart, (5) the region between the lower throat and the lower rear of the brain, (6) the brain core, and (7) the crown, or the Light-Terminal of the whole bodily being. But the Principle of human adaptation (or readaptation) is not found in either the lower or the higher dimensions of the bodily being. It is at the center, between the lower and the upper divisions or coils, each represented by three centers. The center wherein the human being becomes Awakened to the Principle on which it always already depends is the heart. The heart is the key to human consciousness, human Awakening, and truly human adaptation. Therefore, the culture of human readaptation depends, from the beginning, on the intuitive Awakening of the heart to its Condition in Truth. That Awakening is Realized through true "hearing" of the argument of the Spiritual Master, and it is progressively intensified through spiritual Revelation in a whole life of "hearing," "seeing," and "feeling" in Communion with the Divine Company of the Spiritual Master, wherein devotees are restored to God, even bodily.

2. The written Teaching of Bubba Free John contains all necessary instructions for practical and spiritual life in the Culture of Resurrection, or Enlightenment. The Eating Gorilla Comes In Peace is a book of instruction relative to right adaptation or Lawful practice of diet and health. Love of the Two-Armed Form considers the same responsibility relative to the sexual process. Conscious Exercise and the Transcendental Sun is a manual not only of exercise but of the psycho-physics of feeling-attention, or love. The devotional and higher esoteric or meditative considerations of this culture are discussed in The Paradox of Instruction, Breath and Name, the present book, and others, and are otherwise directly communicated in the private instructional and educational occasions enjoyed by devotees in The Free Communion Church.

Since the Awakened heart is the Principle of the culture of true human adaptation, that Awakening must come at the beginning of the Way and progressively intensify or mature through its stages. Therefore, the Awakening of the heart does not only come, as one might expect, in the fourth stage of life. It is continuous, from the beginning. In the fourth stage, the intelligent psychic dimension of the heart must flower, but the heart must be already Awake. And in the sixth stage of life the Awakening of the heart becomes perfect, so that the presumption of independent or separate consciousness is forever dissolved in radical intuition of the Divine Condition of all beings and things. Therefore, in the seventh stage, the apparent individual (no longer suffering the illusion of separateness, but, paradoxically, still persisting as an integral structure in the conditional realms) is able to be yielded perfectly into Light, Love, the Radiant Bliss that is communicated via the crown of the whole bodily being. In the seventh stage of our Divine readaptation, we are perfectly restored to the primal Food that the ego contraction and all the bodily and psychic locks of our reactive adaptation have denied us. All the centers of the whole bodily being have then become open doors to the stream of Vibratory Bliss, and we are Transfigured, Regenerated, and Translated into Light, in both the spiritual and the literal bodily sense.

The stages of readaptation in this Culture of Resurrection are (1) the physical-vital, (2) the emotional-sexual, (3) the higher vital (will) and lower mental, (4) the truly moral, higher mental, and the lower psychic, (5) the higher psychic, the cosmic "gnosis," (6) the Realization of the unqualified Condition of Consciousness, or the prior Freedom of the soul, and (7) the Sacrifice of the body-mind through the Sacrifice of the Awakened Self into the Infinite Radiance of God, or the Translation of the soul of Man into the Divine Domain.

In the higher stages of readaptation, esoteric spiritual responsibilities in life and meditation become natural, creative extensions of the life of the human being. In the fourth stage of life, the Way of Divine Ignorance, which I Teach, truly begins. Prior to that time, the individual must pass through functional disciplines in the common dimensions of life-physical, emotional, and mental. And it is only when that rudimentary human foundation is established that the esoteric or higher development of Man may begin.

Top of Page

First Become Human

The third stage of life is mature when the individual enjoys integrated responsibility for the whole of the living being (physical, emotional-sexual, and mental). Thus, he is in that case able to be present as a clear will and as love under all the otherwise frustrating or pleasurable conditions of lower experience. Those who seek to begin spiritual life must be mature in this sense in order to move on to higher maturity. Otherwise they will have no stability of will and love to keep them in the practice. Those who are constantly complaining and regressing in the practice of the Way are simply not yet mature in the ordinary human sense. They are weak of will (thus of mind) and of love (thus of life and body and feeling). Prepare yourself first. Approach me when you are strong in the human way. And waste no time in that preparation. Otherwise you will only suffer a life and a future that are mediocre, foolish, frustrated, obsessed, and unawakened to Truth and Happiness.

Top of Page

The True Man

The childish individual wants someone to save him. The adolescent individual wants to fulfill himself, absolutely and independently.

The true man simply serves Good Company and surrenders to Truth, the Living God.

The Mature Individual Is Not Bound or Afraid

The childish individual depends on the Spiritual Master as a parent, seeking his loving attention, expecting to be nurtured and consoled and fascinated and saved from death by his Company. He wants to be saved from that for which he must himself be responsible-which is the demand to love and be a sacrifice, even to the degree of death.

The adolescent individual identifies with the Spiritual Master, thinking himself to be identical and equal to the Realization of the Spiritual Master, and thus requiring no Grace, no practice, no transformation. Such an individual likes to engage in casual association with the Teaching and Person of the Spiritual Master, disguising a secret need and intention to become truly the Master's equal (at least in the eyes of others) by mere association. Such a one also likes the glamorized sense of himself that he appears to acquire or about which he boasts, because his casual friendship with the Spiritual Master seems to indicate an acknowledgment of his own superior qualities. He wants to be known for being what he can only Realize in eternal sacrifice into that which includes him but which is not him in his exclusive independence.

The mature individual or true devotee is free of childish and adolescent approaches to the Spiritual Master. He is neither childishly dependent, as upon a parent, nor adolescently independent, as in revolt against a parent. Rather, he turns to the Spiritual Master freely, in love and service, in gestures of surrender to the Process and the Reality that are always Present and Awakening in that Company. Such an individual is not motivated by the neurotic dilemmas and the self-protective searching for solutions that characterize the usual man. He has been awakened to intuition of his own Real Condition and to the native activity of love in service. He has been awakened through "hearing" the argument and "seeing" the Presence of the Spiritual Master. Thus, he is not bound or afraid. He is free to surrender in love to the Agent of his own Destiny, and in such surrender in love he fulfills the Law of practice wherein Grace may be given and transformation made.

Top of Page

Love Is Freedom from Fear, Doubt, and Despair

Men and women are commonly childish and self-possessed. They fear relational commitment and marriage primarily because they fear the loss of the right of promiscuity, they fear the promiscuity of any other to whom they might become attached, and they fear that the sexual attractiveness of any individual, including themselves, is short-lived. Doubt of self and other, and despair of life itself, are the critically disabling factors that disturb and prevent lasting sexual relationships, as well as friendships, and the stability of life-circumstances in general.

However, all doubt, despair, and fear become insignificant once the intention of life becomes love, rather than the childish dependency on love. Childish dependency on the love and attention given to us by others is disabling because it cannot love or grant attention until it has already been granted a high degree of love and attention. The childish individual is always on the verge of feeling rejected and unloved, and he is bright and lively only when he is the primary object of love, attention, and good fortune from without. But the mature individual is active as love, under all conditions. Such a one always primarily grants love and attention, rather than seeking or watching for whether or not he is being given love and attention.

It is not that the mature individual does not enjoy or need the love of others and the Blessings of God, but the mature individual enjoys such love and Blessings as a happiness that arises in the midst of a life in which he is himself perpetually responsible to love and to be a personally, morally, and spiritually responsible sacrifice in God.

Thus, those who have been initiated into the human principle of responsible love are already free of the burdensome fears, doubts, and reasons for despair that plague the childish and subhuman world.

Top of Page

We Must Consent to Become Agents of Life

We cannot ultimately depend on any of our objective relations (high or low in the scale of manifestation) for love, attention, support, sustenance, or their unchanging continuation through time and space. First of all, we discover that our relations are themselves generally dependent and undependable, changing or mortal, coming and going, and always changing the objects and the quality of their feeling and attention. Thus, if we depend on them, we will surely feel betrayed, and anxious about the line of love or Life that feeds us through our relations. Then we become possessed in our relations with the testing mood of "You don't love me." But, more than this, if we depend on love or Life to come to us through our relations, then we ourselves tend to remain irresponsible as love or attention and Life. Always watching to see if we are loved, fed, and our pleasure and existence protected, we never abide as love simply. Such is the error in our childish and adolescent adaptation to born existence.

We enter our maturity and our true humanity when we come to terms not only with the variability in the energy that comes through our relations, but with our own reaction to that observation. The child adapts to the energy that comes through relations and becomes dependent. Then, as experience becomes more objective and complex, the sense of betrayal (as possibility or actuality) begins to intensify. The mortal news is heard in the very time of children. Consequently, children develop strategies of survival in the midst of their vulnerable dependence. They look for more dependable relations. They sulk. They despair and complain. They break out. They learn to compensate for the variability and ultimate betrayal (by death) of all relations by discovery of private and inward consolations.

Thus, adolescence follows childhood. It is a time of critical awareness that all relations are changing and mortal, and that dependency is futile but yet a profound motivation (because of childhood adaptation). Thus, it is a time spent in testing the worlds of relations and the degrees of consolation or pleasure offered by both inward and objective sources. It is a time of struggle between the motives of absolute dependence and absolute independence, between commitment to self and commitment to the play of relations.

Human beings tend to waste their whole life in that struggle or early awareness of the conditions of manifest existence. The spell is broken only when there is awakening from both the burden of dependence (wherein mortality is still the last word) and of separative independence (which is limited to rituals of self-consolation and of exploitation of relations in a self-possessed mood).

Our human freedom and maturity comes only with the abandonment of the whole disposition of dependence-independence, or the ritual of "You don't love me" and "I don't love you." It comes when we are reestablished in and readapted to the prior Condition of our existence, which precedes all relations (even if the great pattern of human and cosmic relations is the agent of that Condition in the framework of conventional experience). Our parents never were our Food or Life. They were only agents, more or less capable. They were a connection to Life. They were not Life Itself. But in our childish fear, founded in our own bodily and psychic individuation, we began to depend on the agents themselves, to the point that they no longer functioned as a connection to Life, but were objects to which we turned in despair, seeking the Absolute in them, but not yielding enough to find It in them or through them.

Thus, we grow beyond the experiential limits of the parent domain, but we cling to all other relations, conditions, experiences, and objects, high or low, in the same ritual manner. And that pattern does not pass until a new and mature level of understanding, response, and adaptation appears in our case. Otherwise we live until death crying for love and safety, absolute pleasure and help, immortality and an unchanging world of glorious fulfillments of our ordinary functional needs. Such is the root of conventional religion, in which dependence on the parent agency is projected on all relations to Infinity, where we install the cultic Deity of our childhood, the archetypal and immortal Parent, and spend our days alternately pleading for the fulfillment of our needs and turning away, in adolescent fashion, to doubts and the consolations of functional fulfillments themselves.

We must awaken from the spell of our childish presumptions and become human. We must neither depend on (in the absolute sense) nor recoil from any relations. We must discover Life Itself, prior to all agents, mediators, or means. We must become established as love rather than the search for love via agents outside us. We must enter into most direct Communion with the Life and Truth that literally sustains us, and with which we are ultimately identical, in consciousness and even bodily. We must be free of the illusion that the ordinary agents of Life are necessary in themselves. We must come into the responsible disposition of stable love (unobstructed feeling-attention) toward all the numberless and ordinary agents of Life that appear in the universal pattern of our relations, but we must be free of all illusions that bind us to others apart from the Radiant Life Itself. We must ourselves consent to be agents of Life through love, and, through Communion with the All-Pervading Life, we must become less and less obstructed in that function.

The Teaching of Truth, the Way of Divine Ignorance, is an argument or consideration and a path of new adaptation whereby and wherein the childish and adolescent man or woman, of any chronological age, may be awakened to mature responsibility in Communion with the prior Divine Reality. That Reality is not objective, within or without, but the prior, absolute, and most radical Condition of all conditions. It is not our Parent but our Condition, Truth, and Happiness. The Spiritual Master communicates the Teaching and Reveals the Way at every stage of our new adaptation. As such he is an ordinary agent of Life, to which we should turn with love, and not dependence, but responsible surrender. He is not a Parent, but the awakened Agent who abides as love to Infinity in all relations, and in relation to whom we discover the prior Reality as Grace, quickening our new adaptation and liberating sacrifice. He does not ultimately draw us to himself, as an objective and independent entity, but he serves our Awakening, through spiritual relationship to him (wherein we Realize Communion with the Real), to the very Condition that is his own Realization. He is the direct Agent of the Real Condition. He is not other than that Condition, because he is surrendered, beyond all agents or relations, to that Condition. Therefore, the Spiritual Master is the Advantage of all true men and women.

Childish and adolescent individuals also approach the Spiritual Master. Those who are still critically burdened by their childish dependency look to the Spiritual Master, and to the Divine, as an objective, independent "other" or Parent, a Source that is also a perfect Agent. Such individuals must be awakened to the egoic illusion in their own approach, since it will prevent their Realization of the Truth served by the Spiritual Master and his Divine Revelation. Adolescent individuals tend to be interested in and even fascinated by the potential in the Spiritual Master and the Divine, but they remain self-protective and, therefore, possessed by doubt and even critical denials of both the Spiritual Master and the Divine. Just so, they remain self-possessed in all their relations, since doubt and fear of dependency are at their hearts. Love, in its true form (which depends on direct Communion with the Condition prior to all conditions) is not in their capacity, but only seeking, temporary satisfaction, self-protective fantasies of independence, and a constant doubt of love and Bliss. Therefore, such individuals must be tested until they are awakened to love in Divine Communion, or else they will live until death in doubt of love, certain only of their mortal independence, and without connection to the prior Life.

This is the Way. Be converted to love. Be awakened from the illusory incident of independent incarnation and self-possession and be turned to the Real and Eternal Incident of Divine Bliss, existence as love in all relations, and transcendence of all conditions, within and without, high and low, now and then. Hear me and resort only to the prior Divine in my Company.

Top of Page

The Work of Bubba Free John in Relation to the Stages of Life and Practice of Devotees

The fourth stage of spiritual practice in the Way of Divine Ignorance is also the seventh or perfect stage of human life. It is that stage of life and practice wherein the individual body-mind is Translated into Transcendental Life, or the Divine Ignorance-Radiance. This ultimate stage is named the Way of Radical Intuition.

The first three stages of life precede actual spiritual practice. They are the stages of (1) bodily adaptation, primarily to the cycle of assimilation-elimination, and to the processes of eating, excreting, touching, and moving; (2) vital adaptation, primarily to the cycle of reception-release, and to the processes of breath, emotion, and sexual awareness; and (3) mental adaptation, primarily to the cycle of acceptance-rejection, and to the processes of speech, thought, and intention.

The levels of adaptation that correspond to these first three stages of life develop more or less in coincidence with one another after the initial period of infancy. However, relative maturity in each of the three areas develops or may be expected to develop at a different rate. Thus, the first stage is considered to be relatively mature after seven years. The second stage is considered to be relatively mature at puberty, or at twelve to fourteen years of age. And the third stage is considered to be relatively mature at eighteen to twenty-one years of age.

However, many factors enter into this process of adaptation in the first three stages of life. Each individual, by tendency or capacity at birth, represents a different complex of adaptability. And the circumstances in which each individual learns to adapt are also unique. Also, the higher wisdom that should be brought to the whole affair of human adaptation is almost universally deficient. Therefore, unless the individual is born and raised in a cultural setting of the highest human and spiritual kind, his adaptation in the first three stages of life will necessarily be deficient and more or less subhuman. And such is the situation for most human beings now alive.

The Free Communion Church is the institutional setting for a culture of truly human and spiritual adaptation. It is itself only beginning to develop its potential characteristics and services. Relatively few people are born into this Church. Most come to it after a childhood, adolescence, and even many adult years of struggling at a subhuman level in this subhuman world. Therefore, the Church has had to develop various cultural means to enable people to reexamine and complete the first three stages of their adaptation, so they can be responsibly prepared for a devotional approach to the Spiritual Master and the continuation of their growth and sacrifice in the fourth stage of life and beyond.

Much of the activity of Bubba Free John has had to be devoted to this reeducation of those who came to him. Many came ostensibly to develop a spiritual Way of Life, but they were not generally prepared even for a human life in the truest sense. Therefore, much of the written and spoken Teaching of Bubba Free John is devoted to the consideration of foundation human disciplines of diet and right life practice, emotional reactivity, regenerative sexuality, responsibility or intelligence of the will, and so forth. Individuals have needed a clear and radically new foundation of thought in order to be able to continue to grow in higher human and spiritual ways. Therefore, Bubba Free John has spent many years establishing a rational or intelligent basis for the spiritual understanding of life. Finally, the first three stages of life cannot mature unless the individual is awakened to a tacit sense of Communion and Oneness with the All-Pervading and Transcendental Divine Reality. Otherwise, the sense of separation from Reality creates self-possessed and chronic patterns of reactivity, relational disability, and subjective isolation. Therefore, the Work of Bubba Free John has also been devoted to the Communication and Awakening of a truly religious and feeling intuition of the Divine in the case of all who come to him.

Late in 1976, Bubba Free John began to move out of the form of casual availability that characterized his earlier years with those who came to him. This was the sign that he assumed he had done enough to establish the instructional, cultural, and institutional basis for preparation of individuals in the responsibilities of the first three stages of life. The difficult process of transition to a different kind of availability and activity continued well beyond 1976. During this time of transition, Bubba Free John devoted himself to the production of a complete essential literature relative to the whole Way of Divine Ignorance. And he remained constantly active in an effort to raise his devotees and the cultural institution of The Free Communion Church to a level that represents real preparation in the human and spiritual necessities of this Way.

The second three stages of life (fourth, fifth, and sixth) represent the truly human and higher psycho-physical adaptation to which we are structurally disposed. The fourth stage of life begins when the lower psycho-physical, verbal, moral, and religious adaptations of the first three stages of life are a matter of stable responsibility. When the individual enjoys a sane, moderate, full, and regenerative practice of daily functional existence, then the center or epitome of the body-mind can Awaken as the moral and functional Principle of all future growth and the ultimate Sacrifice in God. That center or single force of the whole body-mind is the dimension of the heart, or the function of unobstructed feeling intuition of the Divine, both All-Pervading and Transcendental.

The fourth stage of life is characterized by submission and adaptation of all functions of the lower body-mind to the sacrificial and moral disposition of the feeling or psychic being. The fourth stage of life corresponds to the first stage of practice that truly belongs to the radical spiritual Way of Divine Ignorance. That stage is named the Way of Divine Communion. And it may begin when the individual is fully and stably prepared in the personal, moral, and religious responsibilities of the first three stages of life. The sign of the beginning is entrance into spiritual intimacy or Communion with the Spiritual Master in formal occasions of meditation, instruction, initiation, and Communication of the Radiant Power of the Divine.

The fourth, fifth, and sixth stages of life coincide with aspects of all three of the first three stages of practice-just as the adaptations of the first three stages of life go on more or less simultaneously. But the maturity of each of the second three stages of life likewise occurs at a different moment or stage of maturity.

Thus, the fourth stage of life may be said to extend from the Way of Divine Communion, into the second stage of practice (the Way of Relational Enquiry), and through the first phase of the third stage of practice (the Way of Re-cognition).

The fifth stage of life involves the awakening of the subtle and higher psycho-physical structures of the body-mind that transcend the gross physical and verbal-mental dimensions of experience. This stage develops and matures in the second phase of the Way of Re-cognition (although aspects of it may be said to begin even in the maturity of the Way of Relational Enquiry).

The sixth stage of life coincides with the terminal phase of the Way of Re-cognition and forms the bridge to the seventh stage of life and the Way of Radical Intuition. The sixth stage of life is the stage of Awakening to the Self, the Transcendental Identity and Condition of the body-mind, the Ultimate Identity of the manifest soul. And the seventh stage of life is the stage of effective Translation into the Divine Condition Itself, so that there is no longer any effective tendency to identify with the conditions of the body-mind and of this or any other world of mental or physical experience, high or low.

As the seventh stage of life matures in the Way of Radical Intuition, the signs of self-identification with the structures of the body-mind also gradually dissolve. Thus, a Transcendental Fullness replaces the conventional signs of egoic or self-possessed existence, and phenomenal signs of Transfiguration, Super-Regeneration, and Radically Ecstatic God-Possession appear in the case of the individual. The last sign of such Ecstasy may, in some cases, be Dissolution of the body-mind in Ignorance-Radiance, or the Divine Reality, leaving no physical or mental signs or remnants behind. In any case, the Transfiguration of the body-mind is effectively the same as such Dissolution, and all true devotees in the Way of Radical Intuition enjoy the same ultimate Destiny of Translation into the Divine, both while alive and after death.

Bubba Free John is now entering into that phase of his Work in which he will confine his activity essentially to the service of true devotees and their necessary adaptation in the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh stages of life. Thus, he has entered into a more secluded daily environment, free of most institutional demands on his time and attention. And devotees are beginning to show the signs of preparation for Spiritual Communion in his Company. For some time he will be active relative to the second three stages of life, until devotees begin to show the signs of preparation that indicate the beginning of the seventh stage of life, wherein the living are granted ecstatic release into Eternal Life.

Even so, much of the demonstration and instructional elaboration for the second three stages of life has already been made by Bubba Free John during the preceding years. And the reactive obstructions to spiritual Realization are fundamentally overcome before the Way of Divine Communion begins. Thus, he is essentially at rest in the Transcendental Radiance of the seventh stage of life, and fundamentally will act as a Goad and a Magnet to move devotees to that radical and perfect stage of spiritual life in his Company. As time goes on, he will enter more and more apparently into the Seclusion of this Native State, beyond the bodymind. And he will do so, as always, in time with the maturity of his devotees and their demonstrated ability to approach and use him in Truth, without conventional, reactive, and problem oriented demands for his attention.

Top of Page

IGNORANCE-RADIANCE IS THE IRREDUCIBLE TRUTH OF ALL EXISTENCE

The traditional paths of esoteric spirituality are commonly founded on the reactive, inward presumption that "I" is not the body. Most traditional yogic and mystical paths identify the "I" with the psychic being or higher mind. Practitioners on these paths identify with this inner, psychic "I" and seek to turn within and to rise to the crown, there to merge with God. In all of these paths, Truth and God are considered to be inward or subjective relative to the body-mind.

The Way of Divine Ignorance is founded in the intuitively Awakened feeling and presumption that "I" is the whole bodymind. That feeling or presumption is itself love, the disposition of relationship. The sense of "I" is not exclusively identified with the inner, psychic, higher mental sense of self, nor even the inwardness of the soul in the heart. Rather, "I" is released as the whole and entire body-mind into relationship, and the Eternal Condition of "I" is intuited to be the All-Pervading Current, or Radiant Life, and the Transcendental Consciousness, or true Self, of all beings and the whole world. One who thus "hears" and "sees" the Truth of Ignorance-Radiance becomes naturally, even bodily, disposed to fulfill the Law of sacrifice. And it is obvious to such a devotee that Truth is not especially within, but that it is the Infinite and All Pervading Real Condition of everything.

Thus, Bubba Free John's Teaching on Ignorance-Radiance and the Nature of "I" is the most perfect, rational, and Transcendental proof and argument that God is Love. It demonstrates that relationship, not inwardness and self-possession, is the Condition of our lives, and that the Way of Truth is the release of the inward self into feeling as the whole body, and release of the whole body into the Infinite Condition of Relationship, or God. If the heart is hardened, or deeply contracted from feeling-sympathy with the Infinite, then the soul will not be able to "hear" this Wisdom, and this argument will confound the mind. But if anyone is truly disposed to listen, then the Power of Truth will Awaken him, and his "hearing " will be the seed of Liberation into the Real.

Top of Page

Fundamental Questions

The fundamental questions of this life are too urgent for us to wait for the perfection of acquired knowledge, and they are too important for us to "answer" with conventional belief.

Therefore, only present and direct insight and Awakening avails. Such is true "hearing" of the Teaching and true "seeing" of the Spiritual Master.

Top of Page

The Living Truth

Our Condition in Truth, and the Domain of the Absolute

Personality, is the Living Current of Radiant Consciousness that Pervades the World, and Man, and every part of the brain and body of the individual or separate self. That Current includes and yet transcends all conditions. It is utterly prior to body and brain and experience and self. It is prior to the recoil from its own Infinite State. It is prior to contractions or modifications of and within Itself. It is prior to "I.

Therefore, the Way to Realize the Condition of this Divine Current of All-Pervading Bliss is to become an ecstatic sacrifice into It. That Process has many stages of growth, until it becomes Radical Intuition of the Divine Condition of Existence in Bliss, or Love. Such is the Way of Divine Ignorance, in which Heaven and Earth become a Sacrifice to the Living Fullness of Bliss beyond Order and Chaos. And when that Fullness is Realized, it is Sacrificed forever toward what is beyond Fullness.

Top of Page

The Star above the Title

All knowledge is meditation on the knower, who bestows the names "true" and "false," "auspicious" and "evil" on experience. Only in natural relationship, before we "know" a thing, do we also value it. Knowledge is naming and differentiating. When it becomes the fundamental form of our connection to everything, then our participation in Reality has ceased.

The seeker bestows the name "awesome mystery" on all the unknown. "To know" is the motive of all knowledge. And once a thing is known, mere knowledge loses its charm. Therefore, things known fall back into unknown.

Nor is the "unknown" the Truth, even though all men seek to know it. The "unknown," like knowledge, describes and points to the knower. Except it bestows the name "ignorant" upon its devotee.

The true Unknown is not that which is not yet known. It is the Eternally Unknowable. If there is such Unknown, then Ignorance is not our misfortune. It is our Nature! And, indeed, we cannot ever know what a single thing is. We may only know about any thing. But what a single thing is is not grasped in any perception, experience, or conception. Therefore, Ignorance is Truth. The Unknown is Reality. Our Condition is obvious.

Top of Page

Magic and Mystery

Magic is when something happens and you don't know how.

Mystery is when everything happens and you don't know why. The result of magic is irony, or mortal surprise. The result of mystery is Awakening. Magic satisfies the ego. Mystery satisfies the devotee of God.

Top of Page

Death Is a Perfect Insult

We live like knowers, striving toward absolute information, but death is a perfect insult that frustrates all knowing. The death of an other convicts us of our own death, and makes us ponder. But no ultimate knowledge comes from this pondering. Death is the frustration of knowledge. The knowledge that an other has died is itself the frustration of all knowledge. We are not knowing in our pondering over death. We are contemplating Mystery, the answerless Paradox of our living existence. The death of an other and the death of "I" confound the whole spectacle and consolation of knowledge. Death is not the attainment of any state we can know. Death is sacrifice. The only way to come to terms with death is to come into a harmony with its Process, its Way. And death is sacrifice, not knowledge or a Way of ultimate knowledge. Death is the sacrifice of knowledge, of independence, of experience, and of self.

The observation of the death of an other and the conviction of one's own necessary death are not a means to knowledge but a means to sacrifice. Sacrifice is the Law. Knowledge or secure independence is that which is sacrificed. If we truly observe and feel the death of an other, we are moved to live by Wisdom rather than knowledge. Wisdom is the presumption of alignment with the Way or Process of existence, which is Sacrifice. But knowledge is only a reflection of or about the way things work. The knower is independent, not a participant in the process that is observed. But Wisdom is always already confounded, relieved of independence, so that there is no option but to submit to the Process of existence itself.

"I" is the whole body. But "I" does not know what a single thing is. "I" cannot inspect the existence of any thing and know what it is. "I" is, therefore, not a point of view toward or other than the existence of any thing or condition that arises. At the level of very existence and very consciousness, "I" is identical to every thing or condition that arises. The "whole body," then, simultaneously includes all that arises (past, present, future, or eternal), since, at the level of very existence and very consciousness, "I" is unable to differentiate itself from any arising in order to know what it is.

At the level of the experiential body-mind, "I" can know about things arising. The manifest body-mind or "me" appears and functions relative to all other arising conditions. Therefore, manifest or born existence is the play of knowing about, but it simultaneously exists as the consciousness than which there is no other, for "I" do not know what a single thing is, and, therefore, "I" is every thing. "I" includes the existence of all that arises. The Condition of "I" is that of which all arising is only a modification or variation-but which is not itself ever in any sense changed.

Such is the Paradox that is "I" in the case of every one. All arising, all beings are described by this Paradox. And the ultimate destiny of "I" is likewise necessarily contained in this same Paradox. It is Mystery. "I" is eternal Sacrifice, without ultimate knowledge. Realization of the Paradox of our existence is not knowledge (a position independent of the Paradox) but it is Wisdom, or the tacit presumption of the Way of the Paradox itself. If "I" presume the Way of Ignorance, the Law is fulfilled, and "I" am free to live and exist prior to fear, even though "I" constantly move in Mystery and am given no ultimate knowledge. If "I" do not presume the Way of Ignorance, the Way of the Process of existence, but seek knowledge instead, then fear is the motive of my life, and existence itself always appears to be at stake.

The recent death of an other and the death of " I," which is yet to come, are a perfect insult to all knowledge. If we rest in this insult, then we are moved to the life of Wisdom, wherein no answer and no experience can ever possess or define us. Wisdom presumes the Paradox and the Mystery of existence. Wisdom is moved to the Way of sacrifice, to love, to present happiness, and not to the Way of ultimate knowledge. Knowledge is never more than knowledge about-and knowledge about is confounded by death. There is no knowledge about things that is senior to death. Death is the transformation of the knower. It is fundamentally a process of the knower rather than a process of his or her knowledge. Death is a process in which the knower is transformed, and all previous or conditional knowing is scrambled or confounded in the process of death. Therefore, to consider death is fruitless, since the knower is what is changed by death.

To confront death in Truth we must be humbled and confounded. The death of an other reminds us that in every moment we are principally confronted not by defined objects that are independent of us but by an indefinable Process that includes us. The death of an other reminds us that sacrifice is the Way of Life. When we confront the death of an other we are confronted by Mystery or Paradox, and we are confronted by the demand for participation or sacrifice founded in the acceptance of the necessary Paradox or Mystery of existence. Wisdom is such acceptance, and the participatory sacrifice is love or present happiness. It is unobstructed feeling-attention in all relations. It is to dwell in the profundity that confounds all knowing. It is to resort to the presumption of absolute Ignorance as the Truth of our unknowable existence.

Hold on to no thing and no one, not even your self. Be certain of no knowledge. Be the sacrifice of all conditions in every moment, and thus abide in Communion with the eternal Truth, wherein the root of our independence is eternally hidden and our common Identity is always already Revealed.

In this Way we will affirm and participate in the necessarily eternal Existence in which we all appear: Let us surrender into Infinity with all our friends and hold on to no thing or condition that ever appears. Let us forget all things in present Happiness, and so forgive the universe for all its playful changes. Let us always love one another, and so forgive one another for appearing, for changing, and for passing out of present sight. So be it.

Top of Page

The Intuition of the Transcendental Source of the Bodily Self

I is the whole bodily being. "I" itself arises prior to any part of "I. " Thus, "I" is prior to any thought, function, or circumstance. Therefore, "I" is prior even to the thought "I." "I" is prior to all internal or functional expressions of itself. "I" is prior to all concepts, all knowledge, all particular experience. "I" is apparently independent as itself, but dependent on the pattern of all other arising phenomena for its continuation as well as its origination. "I" in the present or as a whole is inherently silent, but when "I" considers the whole affair of all time and space and experience, it becomes full of speech and conception, problems, self-defenses, self-serving actions, and strategies of ultimate survival.

The dilemma of "I" in the midst of the patterns of existence is based on its very conception of itself and its chronic defense of itself. "I" seeks within for a separate permanent self or state of self, and "I" seeks without for permanence of self. But Truth is neither within nor without "I." Truth is in the sacrifice of "I," the sacrifice of the whole bodily being. All that is independent and separative body, mind, and self must be released, through simultaneous insight and surrender, into what always transcends and includes "I" and all other beings and conditions.

It is not a matter of going within. Truth is not itself to be found in inward concentration, inverted contemplation, or enquiry into the origin of the "I" thought. Nor is Truth to be found in any Narcissistic exploitation or fulfillment of experience in the pattern outside or in relation to "I."

Truth is first served by radical insight into this whole affair and dilemma of "I," so that "I" may be confessed as the whole bodily being, and thereby release its conception of itself. Once such insight and confession are true, then Truth may be Realized in moral and spiritual sacrifice of and as "I," as all functions, via all relations, under all conditions, into the absolute Intensity wherein even all bodily beings and material conditions arise like thoughts in the mind. In such a manner, "I," already free of the inward identification or conception of itself, also releases all bodily defense of itself.

It is not a matter of acquiring silence through inward inversion and contemplation. It is a matter of realizing that "I," since it is the whole bodily being, is always already prior to speech and thought and knowledge, which are only parts or moments of itself. Then, in the inherent silence of "I," in the Intuition of eternal Ignorance, there is also the direct Intuition of the Condition or Radiance in which the entire bodily self (or body-mind) and all other beings and conditions are presently arising. In that directly Intuited Ignorance-Radiance, the devotee and the Spiritual Master become a voluntary sacrifice of self, of body-mind, in fearless love and transcendental freedom.

Top of Page

There Is No Such Thing as A Being

There is no such thing as a being. We are patterns of functions. "I" is not a being but a pattern of functions within an extended and ultimately indefinite pattern of functions. If "I," the whole bodily being, is considered totally, it may not be absolutely differentiated from the larger pattern within which it appears, since it cannot create or sustain itself by any process in dependent of that total and ultimately undefined pattern within which it appears. "I" is a dependent pattern of functions within a larger, ultimately undefined (in terms of the knowledge possessed by "I") pattern of functions. "I" is not a being, but a dependent pattern of functions that may not be radically differentiated from the greater, ultimately undefined pattern of functions. Therefore, that dimension of the whole bodily being which we intuit as "being," or conscious existence, is not within, behind, or defined by the dependent functional pattern that is the whole bodily being, or "I." Being is not function or pattern. It is not defined or differentiated. It is the prior Condition of "I," of all functions, all patterns. It is the Condition of the ultimately undefined pattern of totality. "Being" is intuition of the Condition of "I" and of all patterns, functions, or differentiated and conditional events.

But "being," which is beyond all differentiation, is not the condition of the differentiated "I. "I" is only a pattern within and continuous with a greater, undefined pattern. It is not a being. However, that presumption may arise as a false conclusion on the basis of witnessing events against the intuition of being and assuming "I" to be independent of the pattern of totality. In that case, being is presumed to be the condition of "I" independently. And the same judgment tends to be made about all other witnessed (and equally dependent) patterns and events, particularly those that imply conscious intuition of being and the capacity to witness patterns as experience. Thus, other "I's" imply numbers of beings- differentiation of beings. But differentiation is among patterns of functions, not at the level or in the dimension of being.

Therefore, our right disposition is not toward the presumption of the independence of "I" as a being but toward responsible or cooperative continuity of "I" with the pattern of totality, so that the Condition of "I" and of the total pattern may be continuously Realized. That continuity is established through Communion, or unobstructed feeling-attention (via all functions, in all relations or patterns, under all conditions) to Infinity. Such is the true Way of love, whereas the false Way is that of independent being, self possession, acquisition of personal attributes and extensions (experience, knowledge, various goods, other beings, etc.).

The Condition of being is not within. It is not me. "I" is the pattern of functions that is the dependent bodily being in the pattern of totality. The Condition of being is the Condition of the totality of patterns. It is the Divine Reality. It is the Self of all. That Self is not within, as a being, nor without. It is not identical to any pattern in itself, not even the pattern of totality. It is the intuited Condition of the totality. It is Infinity. Therefore, to Commune with Infinity, or being (which is inherently unqualified), is to submit or sacrifice all patterns, including the whole bodily being (or "I") and all other patterns, even the pattern of totality, into the unqualified Condition of Being. Such is Ignorance-Radiance. And the Way is love, which is intuition of unqualified being (Ignorance-Radiance), and, on that basis, release of all illusions of independent being presumed on the basis of any witnessed pattern of functions (including "I," all others, all worlds, etc.). That release is submission of attention to Infinity through unqualified feeling. It is the Way of Divine Ignorance. It is the Way that passes from the self-possessed illusion of "I" as a being into the Bliss of unqualified being, prior to all patterns of functions-prior to all differentiation.

Such Realization is Divine Happiness. It does not, in principle, exclude any condition, but all conditions are ultimately, perfectly, and (paradoxically) always already dissolved or assumed in that undifferentiated Bliss beyond self, mind, body, and every kind of pattern or world.

The illusory defined "I" (as a being) proceeds by experience and in accordance with the functional laws pertaining to every discrete dimension of the pattern of totality to enlarge itself toward Infinity through evolutionary accumulations. Once the spell of self definition, other-definition, and separation or unlove is broken, there may be direct release of feeling-attention from the contractions of independent being into the radical intuition of unqualified being. Such is the direct Way into prior being. It is the Way of Divine Ignorance, since it does not proceed by knowledge of the independent being but by radical intuition of unqualified prior being. When that intuitive sacrifice of feeling-attention to Infinity is true in any moment, there is only Bliss or Radiance, prior to all differentiation (subjective or objective). Persistence in this sacrifice Realizes literal Translation of the whole bodily being ("I") into Ignorance-Radiance, or Bliss.

Top of Page

The Current of Eternal Life

All components of "I," the whole body-mind, are mortal, unnecessary, changing, deluding, and a source of sorrow and fear. All of these conditions arise as modifications of a prior Condition or Intensity that is also the very Consciousness (Ignorance) and Life-Current (Radiance) of the whole body-mind. That same Condition is the Identity of all apparently independent bodily beings and of all conditions, subjective and objective, that compose the "world" at every level, high and low, visible and invisible.

Truth and Happiness are identical to that absolute Intensity, and, thus, they are not a matter of any conditional state or change of state, high or low, subjective or objective. Therefore, Truth and Happiness are a matter of radical insight into the processes and components of "I," or the independent body-mind, so that the entire effort toward survival and fulfillment of "I" comes to rest in transcendental Realization of the Condition or Identity of "I" Such is Self-Realization and Whole Body Enlightenment,3 or effortless abiding as the Consciousness from which all forms of attention arise and the Current or Radiance in which the whole body and all objects arise.

Whole Body Enlightenment naturally becomes Divine Translation,' or literal Dissolution of the cognition and objectification of the "I," or whole body-mind, into the Current, Consciousness, or Ignorance-Radiance that is always already the case. Such Dissolution occurs at death, with or without direct or simultaneous disintegration of the physical body into the All Pervading Force Field of Life.

3. Whole Body Enlightenment is the Realization of Unqualified Consciousness in which no conditions are excluded, but in which all conditions, subjective and objective, are always already Transcended through simple, whole body abiding as Love, or the Transcendental Heart, Radiant to Infinity.

In the past, and in such works as The Paradox of Instruction, Bubba has referred to this stage with the traditional term "Sahaj Samadhi," a Sanskrit term meaning "effortless Absorption in God."

4. Divine Translation is the ultimate Stage of God-Realization, or Eternal Life, wherein the limited psycho-physical body, mind, and world are not noticed and there is Only God Eternally. In the past, and in such works as The Paradox of Instruction, Bubba has used the traditional term "Bhava Samadhi," or ''Absorption in Perfect Devotional Rapture," as an equivalent for Divine Translation. It is perfect Identification with the Transcendental Consciousness and perfect Communion with the All-Pervading Radiance of the Divine Person.

Top of Page

"I" Must Dissolve in the "Me" of God

I is not the Self, the Divine Identity. "I" is the body-mind, the mechanical entity, the functionally defined self. The Divine Identity or Self is That from which "I" arises. Not only the subjective self, or the "I" deep within, but the entire bodily self arises from the Divine Self, as an arbitrary or temporary modification of the All-Pervading Divine Radiance. Only deluded fools imagine themselves identical to God in their deep inwardness and their mere self-awareness. The true Man is Awake to the understanding that everything that is self is temporary, mechanical, and dependent on That which transcends self and which is likewise prior to all arising phenomena.

Therefore, we must understand the dependent nature of "l," the psycho-physical entity we would glorify and preserve. "I" is not God. "I" is not Enlightened in and by itself. "I" may Realize its Identity with the Divine Reality only through Ecstasy, or the Sacrifice of the entire self, the entire body-mind, in God.

We are not Enlightened by acts of subtle, inward inversion. Nor are we Enlightened by extraordinary evolutionary development of self. We are Enlightened only in the most radical Realization of the always Present Source of "I," the Transcendental Source wherein the independent, experiential body-mind is always presently arising as a temporary and unnecessary modification. Therefore, Realization of God, or Enlightenment by Awakening to the Radiant Identity of all beings and things, comes only through Ecstatic Sacrifice of self in Communion with the All-Pervading Current of Divine Life. Whenever that Sacrifice of self in God is perfect, then the Divine Identity is Realized, so that "I" is ultimately Translated into God by virtue of its own Dissolution, or self-transcendence.

The experiential self, or "I," must become a Sacrifice in God through natural or intuitive surrender of all psycho-physical functions into the Divine Current of Life. And that surrender is not the extremities of Man - his outward and his inward perceptions of contentional "Reality," the "Reality" of self and other, subject and object. In the Sacrifice of Man and World in God, only the Transcendental Identity is Real, and that Identity is "Me," the Truth of all experience and the Radiant condition that pervades all conditions.

The body and the mind, the "I" of self, are ultimately transcended and Transfigued in Radiant Consciousness, the "Me" of God. The body and mind Dissolve in Ecstatic Communion iwht the Radiant Identity. By this Procession of self into God and God into self, all experience is rendered helpless in Bliss-Full Happiness, and only God is the Reality and Destiny of that One Transcendental Self, Radiant at Infinity.

Top of Page

The Truth of the Body Is Love

The view "I am not the body" is false. "I" is the whole bodily being-body and mind. The false view is upheld by spiritualists, and other philosophical subjectivists. But it is simply a false implication or presumption that appears on the basis of an otherwise true intuition.

If the "I"-thought is considered in terms of the "field" in which it arises, there is direct intuition of the Condition of the "I"-thought. That Condition, so Realized, is called the Atman, or the Self, and is considered to be different not only from the "I"-thought but from all other thoughts and all other objects. But this Self is not truly or radically other than or exclusively independent of any object or thought. The Self is not a Self, other than the body. It is simply the intuition of the Condition of the body.

The "I"-thought is not "I ." "I" is a sense that arises prior to thought and coincides with the whole and entire bodily being. It may not be reduced to the thought "I," since thought is only one kind of modification, a permutation of only one aspect of the whole bodily being. To arbitrarily select a mental object, intuit its ground, and then exclude the object, even all objects, from the ground is a conventional, strategically reductive approach to Truth. When it is done to the point of absorption (Self-Knowledge), its limitations must ultimately reveal themselves. Thus, Self Knowledge is followed by Whole Body Enlightenment.

In Whole Body Enlightenment in its true or full form, the Self is Realized to be not other than or exclusive of the world, the body, the mind, or even the "I"-thought. The Self, or the intuition of the ground from which the "I"-thought and all other conditions arise as modifications, is not radically independent from the body or any other condition. It is simply the Truth or Condition of the body and all other conditions.

The difference indicated here is that between the subjectivist view and the whole body view. The Condition of conditions is not truly known in itself, exclusive of objects. The Condition of conditions is their Truth, or the right Realization of conditions. The subjectivist holds on to the Self, via intuition or analysis of the ground of cognition, to the exclusion of objects, because he is already convinced, on the basis of his strategic approach to Self-Knowledge, that the Self is other than the objects that arise. Thus, he seeks to abide in exclusive trance inwardness, indifferent to mind, body, and world. But this exclusive disposition is itself a strategic tension that must yield to more perfect or radical intuition. When that occurs, the exclusive view of the Self is released.

From the nonstrategic or nonproblematic whole body view, the Condition of conditions is not ultimately Realized by excluding objects or conditions from their ground. Such is only, at best, a preliminary approach to the ultimate Intuition. The Truth is not interior to the body. It is the Condition of the whole bodily being. Thus, that Condition is the native view toward or relative to the whole bodily being and all conditions. Once established in that view (in Whole Body Enlightenment), it is not a matter of excluding (or strategically including) any conditions. If they arise, they arise, and exclusion or inclusion are only arbitrary considerations. The essential matter is that arising conditions must be Realized in terms of their Condition (the Self, or nonseparation from unqualified Ignorance-Radiance).

Thus, true Self-Realization does not imply exclusion of objects or the body. Rather, all objects arise as modifications of that Self. "I" is not itself interior to the body (as the "I"-thought appears to be). Therefore, the Condition of the whole bodily being or "I" is not ultimately Realized by reductive and exclusive interiorization. Rather, in Whole Body Enlightenment, all arising, and all aspects of the whole bodily being, are Realized to be only modifications of the Condition of all conditions (not just the Condition of the "I"-thought).

Thus, ultimately, Enlightenment is not a matter of the exclusive within. The Truth is not a matter of going within the whole bodily being but of establishing the whole bodily being and all other or relative conditions in their Condition. That involves whole body Sacrifice into the Condition of conditions. It is the Way of Radiance, or Love. At last, Enlightenment is a matter of the Destiny of the whole bodily being, not the exclusion of the whole bodily being from that Destiny. Even the flesh must be Translated into Light. We must be Transfigured in the Divine through Surrender. Our Intuition must be radical. That is, not only must the ground of thought be Realized, but the body itself must be converted. This is the Great Mystery. Love must not be prevented by detachment, inwardness, and illusory exclusive peace. Love is the Way. When we awaken from ego and inwardness, we must yield as the whole bodily being into the Infinity of Radiance and allow ourselves to be dissolved beyond fear into the Condition of even the body and the room. This is the Vision I have felt since birth.

Top of Page

The Body-Mind, or " I, " Is Mortal, but It Arises within Immortal Consciousness and Eternal Life

There is nothing permanent that is body or mind. Everything, above or below, is only hallucination and change. "I" is ultimately mortal, however soon or late it passes. But when all our childish hopes have been tested and ceased, there may be Awakening to the Condition (which is Ignorance) and the Law (which is Radiance) of all these conditions in which "I" would hope to extend itself forever. The "problem of survival beyond death" is only the logic of the apparent contradiction between subjectivity and objective relations. The logic of self-possession is motivated by the concept of survival, whereas our true Awakening is into Sacrifice and the Present Realization of Formless Bliss, wherein there is always already no independent condition or entity. When we are yielded to the Process in which we exist, then we are also relieved of all the petty, terrified logic of independence. Then we are moved by love, relationship, the Process, and not merely by the threat to self that not only mortality but all experience represents. There is no Answer in time and space. Except that the Process, the Condition, and the conditions in which we are happy imply a benign Destiny hidden in all our contemplation and experience. Our happiness somehow describes the Disposition of the universe and all the consequences of time and space.

Top of Page

You Are Only Born Once, but You Live Many Times

There is no subtle "entity" that enters the gross or elemental physical body at conception or birth and that leaves it at death. Rather, the entire body-mind, subtle and gross, originally and presently arises from a prior Condition that is absolute, All-Pervading, unqualified, and identical in the case of all beings. There are indeed both subtler and grosser aspects to the apparent whole or single body-mind, the incarnate or manifest "I," but all aspects originally and always arise simultaneously, and they are mutually dependent on one another and on their total environment. At death (as well as in any fully Awakened moment while alive) the whole body-mind tends to dissolve or radiate into identity with the Bodily Current of Radiance, or the absolute Intensity of Consciousness from and in which it arises. However, confusion and attachment and fear prevent this dissolution from occurring completely, voluntarily, and consciously. Thus, dissolution of the separate and separative force of "I" is usually halted or prevented at any one of many complex levels. In most cases, dissolution at death is halted at a level of subtlety just a degree subtler than the elemental body. Thus, after an interval of sleeplike and dreamlike subtler experience an elemental body (or perhaps a subtler but equally finite body in a subtler finite realm) may be re-projected from this fixed psychic configuration, in order to satisfy the lingering gross or subtle orientation. But even in that case, all the parts, grosser and subtler, arise simultaneously as a single, mysteriously existing entity, or body-mind, and there is no exclusively independent or alternative Reality that may be found either interior or exterior to it. Truth, or Liberation from the apparent dilemma of this whole bodily egoic mystery of "l," is not Realized by any appeal to inward or outward conditions of experience, but only in radical intuition, prior to thought and the force of all subject-object relations, of the Condition or Intensity in which all conditions are arising.

The cycles of experience, even of apparent birth and death, go on and on, passing through the limiting cause and effect adventure of all kinds of finite or temporary states of awareness, until the natural and voluntary and conscious dissolution of the total born self or body-mind can take place completely in which case there is release into the Liberated Bliss of the prior Reality. And even while experiential independence persists, the total born entity is not itself to be attributed with Consciousness. The whole body-mind is a mechanical affair that comes and goes. It is only a modification or play upon Consciousness or absolute Intensity. Thus, when the Nature of what we presume to be our independent consciousness, life, and existence is intuited, all of body and mind begin to radiate and dissolve in Bliss.

Realms of possible experience, high and low, are eternally arising. Cause and effect pertain within those realms, but there is no knowable or independent Cause for all of it. There is simply absolute Intensity, or Radiance, and every possible kind of subintensity, modification, or emanation of It. Experience, or bondage to the automaticities and involuntary destinies of the realms of modification, may perpetuate itself as long as there is no radical intuition of the Intensity that is the Condition, Radiant Current, and Consciousness of all of it. But as soon as such radical intuition awakens, the dissolution of experience, modification, or the illusions of the sub-intensities of the Real, begins.

Truly, each apparent individual is only born once. And that total birth is always in the present moment. But dissolution in the prior Reality is frustrated and halted by confusion with the processes of experience. Thus, true death, or dissolution in the Real, does not occur until perfect Enlightenment is established. There is only one true or total death for any individual, just as there is only one total birth (the simultaneous appearance of all components of the body-mind). Between these two great events are all of the secondary or partial "births" and "deaths," or cycles of experience, that compose the common illusions of independent consciousness. As long as we are deluded and afraid we prize these illusions as themselves necessary, real, and a source or guarantee of happiness. But when we Awaken, then we gratefully yield this parasite of independent existence and Realize the Radiant Consciousness of Bliss, while alive in the realms of change as well as in the process of death.

Top of Page

Simultaneity

The temporal realms are a spatial dramatization of disintegration, or a "fall" from simultaneity. All conditions are connected spatially, but they only coincide occasionally.

The primal sympathy in us is a nostalgia for simultaneity, to exist totally in a single moment, coincident with everything. That coincidence is not the "present," for the present moment in manifestation is one in which conditions do not perfectly coincide, in a harmony with one another, since each condition arose in a different moment, and each must come to an end in a unique moment. Therefore, the moment of coincidence is not the mere present, but it is the Instant of Eternity, in which we are Translated into Infinity. Ordinary, partial coincidences are signs of the ultimate and necessary Simultaneity of all conditions. But the Realization of Absolute Simultaneity depends on our perfect integration with the Law of Sacrifice.

Top of Page

The Two Stages of Enlightenment

Truth is not within.

The root of inwardness is the world itself.

Everything to be found within, and everything that is "I" altogether, is only a temporary duplication or mortal human reflection of structures that are universal and equally finite.

"I" is the whole body-mind, not just the inward and self referring mind. And "I" is mortal, changing, temporary. The present body-mind, or "I," only characterizes a moment and a fraction of cosmic history.

The world as a whole is the single and astonishing process. The self, "I," the temporarily independent body-mind, is not self-contained. It is a dependent expression, a playful duplication of the whole, continuous with the total pattern, and only partially awake, struggling toward self-sufficiency, obligated to self-sacrifice.

There are two great releases in the life of the mortal individual.

The first release is the recognition of the illusion of inwardness, of mystical inversion, of mind and knowledge. The path to inner glory, moving toward the independent root of freedom within, is the ultimate gesture of Narcissus. When there is awakening from childish fascinations, there is the confession: "I" is the body, the entire body-mind, inseparable from the greater play that is the whole cosmic world.

"I" is not independent of any condition in the world. "I" cannot inspect, know, and differentiate itself from the existence of anything whatsoever. "I" may reflect or engage any condition in relationship, and so know about it. But "I" can never know what even a single thing is. Very Ignorance is the ultimate consciousness of Man, and that Ignorance may be felt to pervade the whole world as the Principle of existence.

When all hope disappears, of salvation, release, or perfect knowledge through inversion of awareness toward the internal mind or self, then the first release comes. It is sudden freedom from all illusions, all of the madness of inward solutions, the entire flight from relational and bodily frustration and mortality.

But then comes the dark mood of hopeless inclusion in the witless, mechanical affair of mortality and cosmic absurdity. A deadly order, a chaos of repetitions, duplications, and endings is everywhere seen by the clear and undeluded eye.

Contraction upon the self, into within the self, is no longer possible. All subjectivity is renounced in recognition of the whole body-mind. Therefore, a second release follows that penetrates the dark mood of mechanical mortality.

The second release is the whole Way of life or the sacrifice of "I," the whole self, the independent body-mind, into the unqualified Truth, Reality or Condition of the whole world. It is the passage from subjective inwardness to whole bodily release. It is the release of the gestures of self-meditation and self-protection into the degree or Intensity of Infinity and Infinite Feeling Consciousness.

The way of inwardness is the way into consoling subjective illusions, reflections of the mortal brain-mind, fantasies of the nervous system. It is the mystical way of the salvation or permanent rescue of the independent self from mortality. It is an illusion at every stage, and a victory that dies in ultimate Nature like fleshes and all edible things.

When the inward way of self-glorification is released in recognition of the whole self, then comes the second release, which is the whole life of sacrifice of the independent self. The first release is the surrender of time into space, inward into outward, left into right, permitting the balance or harmony of the dual mechanisms in man and the world. The second release is the every moment sacrifice of independent self, the whole body-mind, via the cosmic play of relations, into the Condition, the Truth, the Real God of all things and beings-thus permitting the intuition of unqualified, absolute Happiness.

The way within is the inverted way, amoral, self-possessed, negative, turned away from all relations like Narcissus, essentially loveless, ultimately self-destructive, and strategically yearned toward what itself contains when all impingement is forgotten. It is the anti-ecstatic trend, the mad solution to fear.

The true way is the way of the relational sacrifice of the whole self, the entire body-mind, into the Condition beyond fear or self concern. That way is the way of ecstasy, of self-surrender, of love, of life, of extension in the cosmos, of moral and responsible self presentation in all relations, of esoteric intuition, and of Translation into the Intensity of Real God, the Truth of the cosmos.

When inwardness is undone in recognition of the lie, then self is confessed as the whole body-mind. And Ignorance is Realized to be the Condition of existence. This is the first stage of Enlightenment.

When Ignorance is the State of mind, then the terrified and self-possessed visions of mortality and orderly absurdity also dissolve. The native disposition is intuitively felt as no-contraction and release of all independent forms and states. Sacrifice is Realized to be the Law of all spontaneity, the Law of the sudden astonishing arising of anything.

In sacrifice of self, love is the medium, the human mood at Infinity. In love, unqualified Radiance may be felt to be the Principle of all manifestation. This is the second stage of Enlightenment.

Therefore, one who is twice-released is yielded into the Realization of unqualified Ignorance-Radiance, the Truth, Condition, and Real God that pervades the world of countless temporary selves and incidents. In sacrifice of self, even while alive, we are not preserved. We are released from all illusions, all limits, all destinies of body and mind. We are released from all concerns for the destiny or continuation of independent self or soul, and "I" is Translated into the yet unknown Delight of the Radiant Consciousness beyond the human, the Earthly, the cosmic, and the separately manifested.

Top of Page

The Two Stages of the Great Cycle of Our Sacrifice

The first Great Stage of the true spiritual Process is not a matter of inversion of attention toward subjective inwardness, or the concentration of attention on the phenomena of the nervous system and the brain core, to the exclusion of the extended body-mind. Rather, it is a matter of identification of the self with the disposition of the nervous system in its Native State, by relaxation of all contractions of the body-mind, or the recoil of the nervous system from the Infinite Life and toward self-possession and exclusive subjectivity.

Therefore, the necessary confession, " `I' is the whole body," is not-as it would appear-the act of exclusive egoic identification with the physical body. Rather, it is the gesture of the heart, Awakened to the Truth and Radiance of Divine Ignorance. It is the liberated gesture of love, self-surrender, or ecstasy, wherein the disposition of the nervous system in its Native State becomes the disposition of the whole and entire body.

The second Great Stage of the true spiritual Process is not the one of the ascent of attention toward superconscious fascinations of the nervous system, the brain, and the bodily self. Rather, it is a matter of the dissolution of the limiting force of the gesture of attention, which is the recoil of the nervous system toward self definition and separated experience.

Therefore, the second Great Stage of the true spiritual Process is the one of the transcendence of all reaction, concentration, recoil, or experiential modification of the nervous system and the complex of psycho-physical individuality. It is a matter of the utter sacrifice of the nervous system, the "soul," or the individuated point of view, into the Infinite, All-Pervading, Transcendental Life, the "Holy Spirit," the "Breath of God."

Thus, the Great Cycle of the Way of Divine Ignorance involves, first of all, identification with the "soul," or the disposition of the nervous system in its Native State, which is love. Thence, it is a matter of the sacrifice of the "soul," through love, into the "Oversoul," or the Absolute Personality of Life, which Pervades the nervous system and the entire World, even as the nervous system pervades the body-mind and grants the World the Mystery of conscious experience and the appearance of relationships between independently conscious entities.

Only the psycho-physical Realization of the Free disposition of the nervous system, and subsequent surrender of the separated self into the Transcendental Disposition of the Life of the nervous system, makes experience a matter of Humor, or unfettered Bliss, relieved of illusions by the Wisdom of God.

Top of Page

The Perfect Destiny of Man Is Dissolution and Translation into the Spirit of God

What the usual man primarily seeks is consoling bodily and vital states, in the realm of physical circumstances below love and responsibility.

The less common but equally conventional man seeks consoling mental and psychic states, and would even attain a state of consciousness or mind that excludes bodily awareness and ordinary relational sacrifice.

But the man of understanding, the devotee in the Way of Divine Ignorance, enjoys insight into the entire motivation that transforms life itself into a process that seeks to solve an inherent dilemma. He is consciously and intuitively responsible for his own primal self-division, his subjective "problem," and that responsibility is expressed through the life of love, or sacrifice, as a personal, moral, and higher psycho-physical discipline. Thus, for such a one, the Lawful life of love, or the single and relational force of psycho-physical wholeness, is the inherent nature of his existence, and it transcends and obviates the negative force of every dilemma or problem, and every interpretation of life as a strategy of solutions.

Therefore, the man of understanding is always already awake to the certainty that the self or ego is the body-mind as a whole, and the true Destiny of the body-mind is in sacrifice rather than self preserving solutions to fear and mystery. Neither knowledge nor pleasure consoles him. But radical Ignorance and the native Radiance of existence are his Domain. Such a one is not ended by the disintegration of the body, nor preserved by the display of mind. Rather, he is the always present dissolution of the whole and entire body-mind in the Bliss of unqualified Consciousness (which is Divine Ignorance) and dimensionless Radiance or Glory.

The Perfect Destiny of true Man is literal Dissolution and Translation of body and mind into unqualified or transcendental Ignorance-Radiance, the Radiant Transcendental Consciousness, which is commonly referred to as the Spirit of God.

Top of Page

There Is No Independent Self That Is Body or Mind

The body-mind as a whole is not an independent self, nor does it contain such a self. When the subject-object illusions of the verbal part of the brain are released in whole brain, whole mind, and whole body awareness, no self or even body is defined by mind.

There is not even any self that is to be sacrificed in ecstatic acts. The body-mind is inherently ecstatic, without center or limits in consciousness or space. This Realization is itself the primal and only true ecstasy.

The ego is not within. It is the whole and entire body-mind. But the whole and entire body-mind is also not a self. It is non self, or ecstasy-undefined Ignorance-Radiance, or Love prior to knowledge and form.

The whole mind is not merely the self-divided subject-object cell of independence that is the verbal mind. It is the whole and entire mind, the mind of the body as a whole. It is conscious, subconscious, unconscious, superconscious, and transcendental or non conscious. It is the body itself, rather than inwardness and mind. But even the body is only a dependent and nonseparate part or instant of a great process that stretches beyond visibility and form, beyond chemical and etheric forces, into the universal physics, of which even visible light is a solid part. The body is also absolutely that.

In the Way of Divine Ignorance, it is not that the independent body-mind is sacrificed through acts of its own intention. Rather, there is simply the moment to moment Realization that no self exists or is defined, even though the body-mind persists. On the basis of this Realization-the Realization that the Condition or Truth of "I" is unqualified Ignorance-Radiance-the whole life expresses its own Condition or Truth in forms of love and transcendental happiness, until happiness itself dissolves the persistent forms. Then, by Grace, the illusory individual passes out of sight into the cycle of Divinity that is God to this world but only Bliss in itself.

Oh friends, do not fail to mind me in and out. I am the sweetness, the taste of unmortal and unimagined Grace. I am beyond incarnation, neither here nor there. I am only for a moment-not merely to save you all, but all to warn and all to call to this Wonder that I am. And every one is as I am, unless they fail to love me.

Top of Page

The Incarnation of Silence

Truth is in the moment, this instant in which there is no meaning, no cause, no implication, no necessity, no motive to any effect. The Radiance of Ignorance is the Reality, and all phenomena only test our Realization of the necessity and sufficiency of That. It is the Condition of all conditions. It is neither subjective nor objective relative to this moment. It is Only, and It is unspeakable.

The Enlightenment of the Whole Body