The Life and Understanding
of
Franklin Jones
Copyright 1971 By Franklin Jones
All rights reserved
Chapter 16. The Diary of My Pilgrimage
While the experiences with the Virgin and Christ were developing at the Ashram I kept a continuous diary. And I maintained the diary as we traveled to Israel, Europe, and back to the United States. I want to include the major substance of this diary here, and for this reason I did not describe my experience at the Ashram in detail in the previous chapter.
The diary is not only the best, firsthand source for these experiences, but it shows how the entire matter developed, and how I returned to a stable realization of the radical truth that is the substance of my spiritual life. Thus, it is a good introduction to the path of understanding that I will expand in later chapters, and it demonstrates how my thoughts developed out of real experience into quite another thing than the traditional forms of consciousness and seeking.
I will include that diary here, somewhat relieved of length and repetition, and without interpretation, except to indicate certain external details.
You should be prepared to read what at first appears to be the devotional diary of a mystical Catholic Christian. It is my practice to write in the mood and with the precise, unequivocal language of my experience and persuasion at any moment. And, at least for a time, it seemed to me that the revelation of the Church was the fulfilment of my life. Indeed, it was only by allowing it to be so and fully experiencing the course of this modification in my state, as well as all others at other times, that I could come eventually to perceive what is always and stably the underlying truth of all experience.
You should also recognize that this experience was a necessary one for me. It was an extension of that vision of the "Divine Lord" I had experienced the previous winter. And it drew on all the latent imagery, necessity and unfulfilled devotional energy that had been trapped in the heart since childhood. Only when these images were completely and consciously experienced, and the energy surrounding the heart utterly released from its bondage to unconscious symbols, could I remain stable in the true consciousness that is the heart of reality itself.
20 June 1970 - Ganeshpuri, India
I first was visited by Our Lady, Our Mother, in the garden of Shree Gurudev Ashram, Gavdevi-Ganeshpuri. She taught me to honor Her with a form of the prayer "Hail, Mary." Then. She held before my mind an image of a rosary, until, after several days, I bought one in Bombay. Then she showed me Her Son, Our Lord, whose face of whitest Light has appeared directly before me in a total, mystical field of vision that, somehow, seems also. to begin at the level of the physical heart. The description of the exact position of His living face depends on whether I were to see it it relation to the body or the soul. Its brightness always faces me, and it creates the deepest peace, love and bliss in me, so that I feel as if I am nestled before it in the infinite womb of Mary, Whose body seems to contain the soul.
After this revelation, She moved me to read as many books on the Faith as were available to me in my retreat. And, as I grew in knowledge, She instructed me by motivating me to write and become conscious of Her impulses in me. Thus She has brought me to Christ and revealed to me the truth of all that I have undergone in the past many years.
I already feel a suggestion to bury the rosary somewhere in the garden before I leave, so that She has a witness here. She may not require this of me, but instruct me instead to keep it for devotions. I am awed with the absolute Truth of the Church, and how it escaped me all my life. Since this revelation, there has also been a continuous, deep ecstasy and joy in my heart that is so great I dare not even, allow myself to be fully conscious of it, or to experience and manifest it completely.
All paths and practices point to a goal that is either symbolic or transcendent, a state of mind or psyche or soul. These goals are intuited by spiritual experiment, the research of seekers, without benefit of the directly and priorly revealed Divine Presence. What lies beneath all of these coals as their latent, unconscious object or source is Christ. For, all of these goals would already be fully attained if Christ were consciously received on every level of our being. His fulness precludes the great search. It epitomizes and fills each level of our being. And His Presence, from the moment it is known in faith, raises us into the ever more rill realization of that fulness. He is the Source and Object of every spiritual state, to the hidden Truth of which even the earth itself and every miraculous power are only symbols.
The transmitted gospel creates many historical problems in relation to texts, specific interpretations, traditions, etc. This is simply by virtue of the fact that it is a communication through men in the world over time. But, through this gospel, the Form of Reality, which is latent in all things, is communicated, so that the recognition of it draws us into a relationship to things that precludes all seeking and makes possible the victory over life. No other transmission of truth on earth has the effect of this gospel, for all others draw men into the distractions of the great search. The Lord and Reality of this Gospel stands eternally before us and is continually at work to save us. The Gospel immediately puts us in contact with Him. Thus, the Gospel is not mere language and symbols, but the unique tool and communication of Reality. The Living Lord, the Gospel, and the Church are *present, with His Holy bother, to transform all the world by restoring it to the Form of Reality, which is not "natural" or philosophically realizable, but is the knowledge of the Self-Revealed Lord.
I say that form is latent all things only because it is heir only true structure, even though realizable only by Revelation. And that Revelation must become conscious in some direct way in order to be realized. The Form of Reality is consciousness or awareness of the revealed Lord, the Present God. Thus, nothing exists in the fulness of its created state until it receives Him.
Texts that seem peculiarly important to me:
He that seeth me seeth the Father also. (John 14:9) That I may know him and the power of his resurrection.
(Philippians 3:10)
For the first time in many years I am experiencing genuine surrender to God. It is happening by His Grace, since I am not trying to do it at all - it is a seemingly "natural" effect of His Presence in the heart. He is unutterably real to me - and this is a new experience.
My past spiritual efforts were marked by a continuous struggle with exactly and primarily this surrender. It was my first teacher's main sadhana, and, by years of effort, I realized the absolute impossibility of surrender. Then I came to Baba, and he gave me spiritual experiences free, without my surrender. After two years and more of his sadhana, I realized that I had not changed one iota in my essential relationship to things. I had many experiences, and had even developed a spiritual "ego,"-but I was, all in all, still incapable of surrender.
Then the Lord Himself came to me and took up his abode in me. And His Presence is my surrender Hog: could I not love Him? Surrender is a quality in the Form of Reality. As soon as life is returned to that Form it is also surrender.
Reality is not an object, a thing that can be experienced, seen, etc. Reality is an inclusive Form. It is subject and object. The Form of Reality, which is Reality, is the relationship to God, in which we are conscious of being filled by Him. Thus, Reality cannot be sought and found within or without, by spiritual seekers or self-indulgent sinners (the former are generally searching within and the latter without). It is not object, exclusive shape, but Form, inclusive Truth.
Our consciousness of God is a participation in and manifestation of that Form. God's consciousness of us is the supreme manifestation of that Law which is Reality. All things are subject to that Law and require the Revelation of Christ.
Previously, I was confused by the ideas of Advaita Vedanta, Srimad Bhagavatam and Bhagavad Gita. I saw that necessary Form as being essentially and exclusively a Divine Consciousness which included us and was in fact our entire being, mind, thought, etc. Thus, our only real and true experience was this awareness, in which the Divine is the subject who experiences all our experiences, thoughts. etc.. Our existence was not any of these experiences but the awareness of Him Who was in fact their subject and center of consciousness. This mystical awareness in fact upset me deeply after a time, and I became quite self-indulgent as a reaction. Now I have seen clearly at last. That Form is one in which God is Present to us and in us, but not to the point of assuming our identities, in fact, becoming us and excluding our created existence by virtue of His inclusive Being. We also participate in that Form or Law, and, in the fulness of our being which He has given us, we are conscious of Him, present with Him. Thus, we are free and unqualifiedly alive, immediately with God forever, sheerly by His Grace.
Thus, the Form of Reality is a gift, revealed, not natural to the understanding, not discernible by experiment. That Form is realized to us only by God's Grace. And it is the totality of Grace. It is the ground of the Beatific Vision, the supreme state, and of the entire life of faith. The Christian life is mystical, a conscious participation in the Mystery of God, wherein we constantly and creatively, in cooperation with Divine Grace, maintain the Form of Reality, the conscious relationship to God.
Christ is that eternal aspect of God which reveals and guarantees forever that the Truth is relationship to God and not absorption into the powers of God or absorption into the transcendent being of God. Life is a meditation on being already filled.
A remarkable thing the Grace of God has given me is that, in a few moments, or hours, I do not know the precise hour of this death, He turned me completely to Himself. So that the Truth of the Catholic Faith, the verity of the Whole Church and its doctrine, a host of details, and, above all, the devotion to Our Lady, were given me in a flash of comprehensive insight. All of this in spite of the fact that I have never been trained as a Catholic, or ever sought it out in the least overt way. All of this has been latent in me, at best a sentiment, all my life. This also shows how our Lord's "mere"' Presence teaches and recollects all things most directly.
The impulses of this Divine grace and faith are so strong that I am scarcely willing to follow them directly. I am abiding in this Hindu Ashram, allowing Christ to mature me, so that I do not proceed out of my own motives and knowledge, deluded again by my own sinful fascinations. For days I struggled with this Truth and its Visions. I tested them, denied them, tried to immerse myself in meditation and the Guru. But there is this constant Christ, and my heart is torn out at the bottom. I am mad with Him. I am about to become too humorous for this place, and too sorrowful for my sins.
In the garden, Our Lord's Mother told me to pray: "Hail, Mary, Mother of God. Blessed art Thou among women. And blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus."
Today I sat to meditate, and asked Her to teach me how to meditate as a Christian, how she wanted me to meditate toward Our Lord. She moved me to begin by praying the "Our Father" several times. Then, She brought me to recite this "Hail, Mary" repetitively, with attention concentrated on its meaning. I saw that it always led through Her to Jesus. Each time I came to "Jesus" I would somehow be fixed firmly in Him. This continued automatically for nearly two hours, through dinner, and ended only when conversations began. This meditation gave me great joy, stilled the mind, and directed me continually to Christ through His Mother.
Then, as I continually concentrated on Him, He taught me a prayer deeper within. It was his own constant "Amen Amen." I saw that the heart's pulse always synchronized with this word: A-men, A-men. And this prayer out of and in Christ constantly directed me to the Father. The "So be it" constantly leaves the mind on Him in silence, in a vast bliss. The movement of Amen seemed to be the Holy Spirit Himself returning through Christ, to God the Father, from whom He Proceeded.
Thus, Our Lord's Mother taught me a way of meditation that leads to contemplation of the Trinity in all the mysteries of Its Form, until all at last draws into the silent brilliance of God, absorbed in blessed Vision.
I will continue to use this blessed contemplation, if it does not offend Our Holy Church, with faith that our Lady intended it for the ultimate good of my soul.
21 June 1970
This morning, as I walked toward the place of my morning meditations, I began to pray the "Our Father" and then the Hail, Mary" as I was taught yesterday. But even though these and all true prayers of the Church lead to contemplation of the Holy Trinity, I felt dry in the praying. I thought of the Holy Sacrament of the Altar, and Christ's promise: "He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me and I in him." (John 6:57) This is the promise of the fulness of God, with which we are filled. It is fulness Given by grace, available by no other means. It is the Presence Itself, and It makes Itself known. There is no way to concentrate upon it. But I desired this fulness, to meditate upon it.
When I sat in meditation, I felt the Presence of Christ. I could not see Him. Even the image of His brightness that I had previously seen in the heart was absent. There was darkness, but only His Presence. Then He moved me to pray the "Amen." And I saw that the "Amen" was said once with each breath. Once on the inhalation and once on the exhalation. And the "Amen" was always said in the center of the heart, wherein we direct ourselves to God. As I prayed the "Amen," I realized that Christ was praying it in me. It is the Holy Spirit in Christ to God the Father. And Christ said: "I am the Amen."
Then I continued in this prayer and was taught the mystery of its use. The heart is the center, where Christ stands to us. And the body is a cross form in which He radiates His fulness. As I prayed, one "Amen" for each inhalation of breath, and one for each exhalation, Christ said: "I am drawing all things to myself." Then, when I inhaled and prayed "Amen," all the energy of desires moved up out of the lower body to the heart, and became a deep concentration of love in Christ. And, when I exhaled and prayed "Amen," all the energy of thought, the entire activity of mental energy and the mind itself, was drawn down to the heart and concentrated in Christ as profound love. This continued, until I was profoundly present in the heart, simply present with Christ in great and ecstatic love. And that love was Christ Himself. He generated it in me, and vet I felt that I was not, but was simply absorbed in Him, in the white fire of His own love.
Then I realized that the fulness whereby we are filled is Christ Himself. The fulness that is ours in the Sacrament is not simply some radiance of Christ's energy breathed into us like pleasant air. It is Christ Who comes and is Present, so that we are absorbed in the contemplation of Him. He is the Amen, which we pray, which He prays in us, whereby all prayers come to an end, whereby He draws all things to Himself in blessed contemplation. Thus I was drawn to Him, not to concentration on mere breaths or on some fulness moving in me, only distantly connected to Him. He is in us as Himself, His total Presence, open to our conscious love. And He draws us to His very Self, which is an infinite fire of Love. Thus, we become only love in Him. The dark nights of sense and of the soul are quickly traced to the heart in the prayer "Amen." Thus, we are not moved toward an emptiness, but the fulness of God. God is only full. "God is light and in him there is no darkness." (I John 1:5) There can be no end to God's Revelation of Himself to us in this Prayer. Each breath surrenders desires and thoughts in Him, and each breath or act of surrender is a movement, by faith and hope and love, into the state of mere faith and hope and love. This cross of meditation is a cross of faith. Its pain is love. Its suffering is sublime. The cross is never absent from Christ but eternally contemplates Him in the heart of its beams. In this meditation which Christ inspired in me I felt that the entire Truth of the Church was contained in a perfect symbol.
"Amen" is the Christ, the Name of God. "Amen" is the beginnings of all things, the "So be it" of God. "Amen" is the acceptance of all things as the will of God, the "So be it" of man. Christ has given us the Name of God by giving us Himself. The Person, Christ Himself, is the Name of God which He revealed to us. Thus, we are told to ask in His name and we will receive. That is, to contemplate God in and through and as Christ, the Amen, is to be given the totality of gifts, now and forever. Anyone who, by God's grace, deeply contemplates the Name of God, and through it approaches the Father in his need, will be given whatever he requires The power of the Name is not available to those who do not ester it profoundly in faith, for the Name is not a mere word, a "mantra," but God Himself as Christ.
The love of Christ is the support and source of bliss, the conscious energy of spiritual existence, under all conditions. It makes life madly joyful, even in the cross. Under the worst trials, it does not guarantee a mood of playful happiness, but it supports the deep joy of faith and mystical communion. This love is the internal condition of the soul, whereby Christ draws it to Himself. It is not our uncreated, original love for Him, but His love generated in us by His Presence to the soul.
The Word Amen.
I sat in meditation again. Our Lord's Mother has moved me, and I have decided to leave the Ashram in order to make a pilgrimage and communicate with the Church. In meditation, I pleaded for guidance, so that I would not be tempted to uncertainty, so that I would certainly know the Truth without fear that I am deluded. I waited. I had prayed the "Our Father" and "Hail, Mary." I prayed the "Amen," as I had been taught. The meditation was dry. Then I kept enquiring with each breath, as I tried to surrender the energies of desires to the Amen with each inhalation, and the energies of thought with each exhalation. I enquired, "Avoiding relationship?" Each time, this enquiry loosened me from flight, so that I concentrated in Him at the heart. And then He spoke, regarding those great Teachers whom I have pursued for years: "They are infinitely Returned, but I am eternally Present." Then He drew me to Himself, and I was ecstatic, open-armed, crying, Dear Lord, Dear Dear Lord.
The Lord said this to me during my meditation on Him:
"They are infinitely Returned,
But I am eternally Present.
One who knows me
Is free from liberation
And desires.
One who neither seeks
Nor lusts,
I no longer prevent from me.
Those who are sought
For liberation
Are an imitation of my
Symbol.
They lead men into the Great Search,
In caves, seclusions and their homes.
But I am
One who cannot be found,
Unless I reveal myself.
I lead men home to
Everything
Today.
But I am always with them.
I am He."
"I am He." Thus the Lord took the mantra from me that I had learned from the Guru, Muktananda. He relieved me of the way of the mantra, "So-ham," "I am He." He showed me the Truth of the mantra, that it is His mantra, His symbol, Himself.
22 June 1970
"They are the Witness.
I am the Presence."
In meditation this morning I came to a profound point of passionate stillness. I simply contemplated Him, and there was even physical pain in the heart, as if the rising current of love and its force concentrated in the heart had made a wound, so that the heart was open and gaped forward from the chest. I felt the Father, and the Lord said of Him, "Be still, and know that I am God." That appears to be the final and essential key to contemplation.
Until a man is reborn by God's revelation, hr knows his sin by its effects. Thus, he becomes naturally wise, renounces the field of suffering, and devotes himself to self-transformation or liberation. But after he is reborn in Christ he understands his sin in a radically new way. He no longer see's it as mere effects, or even as various significant causes in life-action. He sees sin as the avoidance of Christ. When he is thus convicted, knowing well the reality of sin and of Christ, he is drawn to Christ in the ease of surrender.
23 June 1970 - Bombay, India
The seeker is incapable of relationship because he is always consciously trying to transcend it. The self-indulgent sinner is incapable of relationship because he is always exploiting it into excess and confusion, and thus descending below it. The former escapes Christ within, the latter without. Christ is God confronting us in relationship, thus making life real and necessarily moral.
Prayer, meditation and fasting (responsible, controlled and lawful use) restore us to the conscious relationship to Christ, stabilized, free of the motion of avoidance.
Thus, the meditation I have learned ends in a deeply silent and blissful contemplation of God. But it is not a mere staring. It is not at last a concentration in a point, but an opening, an awareness of a total, conscious Presence. Then, frequently, I pass into a free mental prayer, truly asking and interceding in the Name of Christ.
The natural, Oriental, seeker-saints and avatars are all self-absorbed fanatics who draw men into desperate self denials or dependence on them and their powers to liberate, satisfy, etc.. They are maharajas. They have disincarnated the force of reality, which is relationship and love. We go to them after despair of love and faith and hope and charity. And we project on them the symbols of love, particularly the image of Christ. Thus, we follow, unconscious that we are really seeking love, the fulfilment of relationship. Thus, I finally became absorbed in the symbols of Christ and was free of my false discipleship.
(Note: By the time we arrived in Jerusalem the overwhelming and exclusive Presence and visions of the Virgin and Christ had begun to subside, and these were replaced by a tacit, immediate experience and understanding. The change in my thought that accompanied this becomes clear in the writing that follows.
We stayed in the ancient sector of Jerusalem, within the old walls, at Soeurs de Sion, a convent run by an order of Catholic nuns. Our dwelling was built on the Via Dolorosa, the way of Christ's last walk. Our convent itself was built on the ground where Pilate interviewed Christ. On the ground floor some ancient pavements stand, and a chapel has been built there. In the rooms below stand the actual pavements on which Christ was scourged.
One night I was awakened to feel a tremendous force straining my body. My whole being seemed concentrated beyond and above my physical form, and it seemed as if the head were about to explode.
I got up and began to wander in the convent. It was all in shadowy darkness. I felt drunken and possessed. I swayed through the halls. I felt surrounded with ancient spirits and the air of a terrible holocaust. I went into the chapel where Christ was judged, and then I went into the cellar where he was scourged. I saw the inscriptions in the floor made by soldiers while they trapped him in an ancient game and made him the "scapegoat."
The strangeness and fear in the atmosphere quickened me, and I returned to my room. But I was unable to sleep for some time. My mind seemed to be separated and settled above my head, concentrated in the ascended Christ.)
25 June 1970 - Jerusalem, Israel
In the end, perhaps there is only the profound. Perhaps there is no religion for me.
When I was a child I enjoyed a semi-conscious relationship to the Form of Reality. I recognized it in the symbol of Christianity. Then I lost Christianity and also the Form that made me at least distantly conscious of it. Then I sought, by semi-conscious and unconscious motivation, to recover that Form. Always I held that symbol before me and superimposed it on the objects by which I sought. Finally, lately, the symbol returned overtly, by force of some recovery of consciousness of the Form. Then the symbol began to subside again, and I abide in the Form of Reality. Christianity is in many ways a wonderful symbol for that Form. But it limits the experience by distracting the mind and organizing it in ways that create unconsciousness again (by submerging me in the symbol). Thus it creates the search again in a muted form, while also enjoying some of the drama, aesthetic and peace of the Form of Reality.
Life in the Form of Reality is silent. But, if its structure were to be described, it would be as complicated as the literature of the Church. Thus, I am involved in a meditation on the Form, and on the Church, which is superimposed on it. Thus I learn, but look forward to the "Advaita" of the pure truth of the Form of Reality. I want to experience it fully, directly, unqualifiedly, dependent on nothing outside of it - indeed, all symbols fall away from it, and only it is revealing itself, even in that wonderful symbol.
26 June 1970
I was standing on the porches of the roof, photographing the "Holy City," Jerusalem. The life of the city had made a strange impression on me. There is an absence created in all of these commemorations of Christ. There is no spiritual force in any of the holy places, and no feeling of higher life, aspiration and consciousness in the people. There is no unusual Presence here. So that, if you look for it, you lose it. There is only the "usual" Presence. But, the contrast of the Holy City taught me the meaning of this Presence in a new way. Holy places are a kind of spiritual kingdom that implicate God in the world. They tend to call us into the search for Him, the evidence of His manifestation as the form of the world. But Jerusalem has been strangely emptied, if only by force of the symbol of Christ's resurrection. The entire city stands like a Siva-lingam, pointing away to God. As I stood to photograph the city, to feel somehow form and aesthetic of the Perfect manifest as Jerusalem, I was blessed to recall Christ's words: "My Kingdom is not of this world."
Lately I have been impressed with the classical attitude of Christian saints, the attitude of exile. I have begun to experience it myself, and it is accompanied by a relief of anxiety, concern and despair in the face of this world. I had been living in the image of the Kingdom, but it was unconscious. And so I projected it on the world. I sought in every way to enforce an aesthetic and a Presence on the world, and even to identify God and myself with it (while also maintaining the idea of absolute transcendence). But the Presence is known here in absence. We know Him and are filled by Him, but this only lifts us into the Kingdom not of this world. To be concentrated in Him in faith and love and it is to know the truth about life, and love it, help it, and freely remain creative in it. same time,
Previously I sought powerful holy places now I know the world is empty, containing no spiritual force at all. All the places of power draw us into some sphere of the world, away from God and His real kingdom. The "sex appeal" of holy men, holy places, Gurus, spiritual symbols, methods, and objects of power has disappeared by virtue of understanding. The Presence of God is in His Kingdom - He is known only to faith, by acceptance of the grace that draws us out of the wood, the exclusive, separative forces, into the Kingdom of God. God is not the world, nor Present in it. Nor is the world apart from God, since He created it, except that the world lives estranged from Him, radically estranged from Him, because of sin. To be drawn into the consciousness of the Kingdom is to be unqualified by sin and the world, and to live as a free man, but it is not to know and enjoy any particular circumstance. It is to know God and be drawn into His Kingdom of love, but it is to remain in the world in fact, for now. Sin is not merely a condition of the psyche that is dissolved by the techniques and experiences of religions and spiritual life. Sin is a radical force in the world itself. The origin of the world is in God, but it has also fallen radically away. The hope of the world itself, down to the very structures of energy, is in the resurrected and ascended Lord, who must come again to make a new creation.
27 June 1970
In Jerusalem I have been drawn into a knowledge that is different from any I have known before. I feel the current of life in me being drawn upwards, bursting through the heart and straining toward heaven, infinitely above. This strain is made a tension, because it cannot yet be fulfilled. I am born in the world and this created state. Yet, I am aware of exile, and the risen Lord is pulling me to Himself. The primary symbol is the empty tomb, or the empty cross. Wherever you go, He is not here. This is not paradise, not the Kingdom, nor is it our task to create the Kingdom here. Wherever we are, whatever the time of life, Christ is drawing us to our true home in the fully Divine creation.
The heart, the cave, is not full. It is empty, Its locus is above. Thus, we are able to live in the world without being qualified by it. Surrender, the circumstances of suffering, and death become easy. We are happy to serve, to love, and thus, by remaining empty as the tomb, to continue always in the transcendent state of Christ-consciousness, fully related to Him who draws all things to Himself above.
The Kingdom and the Lord are not here. We are free of the burden to realize Him here. It is obvious where He is. Jerusalem is empty: Our fulness is constant and above. We enjoy our life in Him above, and He in us below. Our life in Him does not exclude the world, but it frees us from all qualification by the separated world. And we are always drawn above, even out of the body, all powers, all visions and all success. Our faith, our hope, and our charity are empty. We are infinitely consoled, fulness above, but without support of visions or any certainty that is not the Lord Himself, intangible in the heart of faith. The empty tomb is the Siva-lingam of the Truth. It points and draws us beyond all things into the unqualified bliss of faith, entirely rested in the Lord and doing His will. I have been to the Holy Places and seen that He is gone. And I know that it is impossible to be separated from Him, since relationship is the Form of Reality. Thus I knew Him where He is, not apart, in the places of His absence, but in the force of His ascended state.
The Lord is Present to faith because the soul is not separated from Him. But the soul is conscious more deeply and higher than the world. The soul in faith is a participant in the unqualified, eternal dimension of Reality. Just as the soul is drawn above to Christ, he and Christ thereafter live by including the world. The Presence known to faith is true. But the Presence known to seekers is merely the reflection of God in His creation. It is one or the other energy of God's glorious expression. To know such a Presence, such a philosophical immanence, is yet to remain in the separated state, without the unqualified vision, life, knowledge and understanding of the faithful.
True spiritual life is not a search, or an effort of ultimate self-transformation, but it is an ascent. All its actions are practical, having limited, efficient ends. it is not involved in the ultimate and desperate effort, the narcissistic drive for supreme immunity and power. The ultimate aspects of genuine spiritual life are outside the realms of cause and effect, of all goal-directed, transformative effort.
The ascent is the natural movement of faith, drawn by the risen Lord. It is simply the rising tendency, the aspiring, surrendered spire of energy and love. It is not a yoga, a willful means to a self-transcending end. It is already a relationship to the Perfect One, an unqualified, unburdened bliss. It is a cooperative ease of joy that purifies in spiritual fire. It is the Form of Reality.
A man of real faith is not working out his salvation in any way. He has recognized the symbol itself and suffers no confusion in relation to the world, the horizontal and descending force of life. By the power of salvation and the power of His resurrection, a man becomes transformed by grace. His attention is above, always. He finds no motivation in life, but moves out of grace. Thus, he is already empty, wherever he is. He loves and understands, brings truth and comfort and help, creates everywhere the symbol that promotes the recognition of Truth, and always communicates what heals and makes salvation.
(Note: At this point the movements in vision and the mind had almost ceased. They came again only on occasion, as we went to the ancient holy places. But they were no longer in the form of visions and religious motivations. They were only the sense of Presence and power that is generated in genuine holy sites, whether in the Hindu temples and shrines of the Gurus, or in the ancient temples and churches of the Virgin and Christ. Now I approached them with great love, understanding, and a direct experience of the reality that they manifest.
Arid now I also bore a critical understanding of the various "paths" and religions. I had been entirely emptied of the movement in myself toward any path or goal. Thus, not only Christianity became understandable and its true life recognized to be reality itself, but also Vedanta and all the paths of the Gurus.
My own way had become a simplicity of direct understanding and enquiry. It was only that, radically and entirely.)
28 June 1970 - Athens, Greece
The truth is non-separation. Non-separation is the perception, the fact, the condition, the attainment, the bliss, and the reality. It is already the case and can never be acquired. To be deeply attentive to oneself and enquire: "Avoiding relationship?" consciously realizes the structure and movement of suffering and unconsciousness. But there is also the sudden vanishing of this in the same process, as one recognizes or simply abides as and in that which the previous state prevented. This is the entire truth. It depends on no dogma, implications or suggestions of the mind. It is contained in no exclusive theory or system of reality. Men have anciently realized this truth, but they limited its power and clarity by the accretions of thought or the psychic process by which they sought or supported the truth.
The truth of Advaita Vedanta is non-separation, but it is expressed and made unavailable in a philosophy that has only one term: the pure, exclusive, relationless Identity. The truth is in no way contrary to relationship, but perfectly enjoyed as relationship. The adventure of Advaita Vedanta is, then, a mental problem that prevents the form of reality.
The truth of Christianity is non-separation, but it is expressed and made unavailable in a theology that necessarily has two exclusive terms: God (Trinity) and creature. Thus, even its mysticism is a profession allowed to but a cloistered few, whose expressions are carefully monitored. And the mystics become doubtful to the Church when they speak of non-separation from God.
But the truth is not identity with Self, nor non-separation from God. Both of these, by adding the term "Self" or "God," limit the truth itself and burden it with mental implications that surround it in mystery. All mental forces subside in the basic, continuous enquiry: "Avoiding relationship?"
The truth is non-separation itself, which is a profound perception, unqualified, not exclusive, unproblematic, direct, unburdened, pure, relational and yet not qualified by forms or concepts of self or that to which self is related or that which relates itself to self. There is no useful dogma of self, Self or God. All dogmas are heavy with implication,
and they drive the mind through ancient courses and holocausts of symbols to the same, primary event of consciousness. But that event is reality. That consciousness is the necessary and continuous form of life. It is not the distant goal of life. It seems so only to the dogmaticians and philosophers, who are children of their own minds. It is the present structure of life. Thus, it is now, and should be creatively, consciously aspired, moment to moment.
By the process of enquiry, engaged by a serious person, who has thoroughly investigated the alternatives to truth, there is the form of reality. At first the state will seem to be realized, and the process will seem to purify and stabilize the mind and life. But these are only peripheral effects or matters of relationship seen in themselves. What is in fact the case, from the beginning, is the form of reality, without qualification.
The form of reality is the basis of all creativity. It is full, yet unanswered. That form itself can be felt so directly and profoundly that any of the traditional "spiritual" experiences may be simulated in the conditions of consciousness. But all visions and unusual perceptions will cease as the enquiry continues. The enquiry should become the radical, basic act of conscious life. No one has done this before, since all have previously thought the truth involved the mind, a path and a goal. But, free of all these, the enquiry, the form of reality, will move into a profundity of awareness that will revolutionize conscious life, since, for the first time, it is already real.
This most direct and radical simplicity, the form of reality, is awakening in me with such force as I continue it moment to moment that it feels as if my body and all its deep centers is about to burst and disappear. Reality is a madness of light, an unqualified air of space, a vowel of consciousness!
The truth is not a dogma, not an affirmation. Thus, all positive statements only place conditions on consciousness. "I am He," or the ideas of God, etc.., do not realize us as reality, except perhaps in temporary intuitions that fall away again in the mental adventure. The only useful language is not affirmation but enquiry, which creates a sudden absence, like the empty tomb near Golgotha, and that absence leaves the form of reality standing. Such an absence is the only perfect and true implication. Thus, it is the essential, creative activity of conscious life.
This enquiry will continue as a deliberate activity-of the mind as long as an individual tends to identify with various states. But it is also the form of reality itself, and that which was enquiry is simply the basic movement and form of consciousness when the false tendency subsides.
Out of that form all value and virtue emanate and transform the world. Apart from it, there is either the chaos of avoidance and narcissistic enterprise, or, at best, the systematic religious and spiritual path, exclusive in concept, temporary in effect, and short of the fulness of reality.
This truth was in the Buddha, in Sankara, in Ramakrishna and Nityananda. This truth was in Christ and all His saints. Yet, this truth has nothing to do with any of them. They are nothing more than images that torment unrealized. men. The truth itself is simpler, more direct, more obvious.
In the process of enquiry one may pass through periods of marvelous insight, wherein the truth of Christ, or Advaita Vedanta, or any system, way, symbol, yoga, path, etc., may suddenly rise up in the mind as the overwhelming answer and reality. Continue the enquiry, which is itself the form of reality, and all truths will pass, just as all the effects of separative activity. Enough said about my Vedanta, my discipleship, my yoga, and my Christianity.
Franklin Jones 345 7 July 1970 - Rome, Italy
Until now, all religions, all forms of spiritual knowledge, and all paths have been based on a single, primary, elemental perception. All the various ways have been different forms of reaction to the elemental problem of reality. In every case, there is an intuition of the form of reality - but the form of reality has been intuited as a problem, a necessary dilemma. Thus, in every case, the religion or path has been an attempt or a design which proposes to solve that primary problem.
The problem or which all has been founded is relationship itself, perceived as autonomy, separateness, antinomy, duality, division and multiplicity. Reality has been chronically intuited in this negative sense, and the solution has always been to enforce a oneness or union which is the opposite and ultimate dissolution of the primary dilemma.
The root of this intuition is contained in the idea of the object. The "object" implies a subject, distinct from it. From this elemental cognition all existence has been described in terms of cause and effect, subject and object, matter and consciousness or mind. From this description of existence, joined with the concept of liberation or atonement which seeks to overcome it, a great chain or hierarchy has been extended toward the idea of the primary solution.
In the West, the way has essentially been tied to contemplation of the highest object, which is God or Christ, etc.. Its traditional spirituality and religion is based on a meditation or contemplation of hierarchic symbols. Prayer or aspiration is its symbolic and effective mood.
In the East, the way has traditionally been tied to the highest state or realization, which is objectless. Its spirituality and religion are grounded in a progressively self-transcending experience or consciousness, which extends beyond the structure of subject and object. In the East there is the way of consciousness which extends beyond all ways, all objects, all relationship. In the West there is the way of existence which escapes all ultimate harm by association with the highest.
Clearly, both primary approaches are founded in the same intuitive problem. And all such paths involve a genius of peculiar phenomena which both justify them and point to the ground of their existence.
I have no argument with these means themselves. They are the pure and highest fruit of all culture. It is only that I have been involved in them all, and always I have been led to see them in their most basic shapes. Always I am looking at these roots while wailing in the torment of effort. And I see this foundation of all religion and spirituality. I see their entire beauty and how they exceed all the suffering and enjoyment of mere life. But I also see they are not necessary, they are not possible, they are absolutely false.
Thus, I have had no heart for the struggles of great search. All paths have fallen away from me. Even when I adored them most and lay prostrate before each Lord, the way and the salvation have been torn away, leaving the naked dilemma of all times in my sight without a symbol left to lead me away.
As a result, I have over time found myself alone with this perception. In spite of myself, I have been led to see and examine and know this thing itself. And it is a radical truth, reality itself, entirely free of the ancient dilemma.
Since all previous religion and spirituality is based on the intuition of reality as a necessary dilemma, it is all, without qualification, false, unnecessary and unreal. I do not speak from the viewpoint of ordinary experience, which not only identifies with the dilemma but does so unconsciously and compulsively exploits its effects. To such common experience and knowledge, what I have said of the profound ways of the past can only appear to be an obscenity, a blasphemy and a desperate lie. But I speak from the viewpoint of reality, which not only is free of the ordinary suffering of existence, but is also already and forever free of its solution in the productions of the great search.
What, then, do I see? The traditional ways have intuited reality or the form of reality as a dilemma. Thus, whether the solution is in terms of the highest, even most transcendent object, or in terms of the transcendence of the entice subject-object structure of consciousness, that solution on has always been itself a symbol of the dilemma on which it is founded. The atonement or salvation by which one is eventually and gracefully saved from necessary sin, or the path of liberation by which one is finally realized beyond the superimposition of unnecessary ignorance are both superimpositions on the primary intuition of reality.
If reality itself is recognized, and there is therefore no longer any conscious or living separation from reality or aberration from the form of reality, then there is no necessity at all for any transcendent solution or path. Once reality is intuited as it is, without the superimposed conception of the dilemma, then atonement and liberation, salvation and realization, as well as compulsive experience based on identification with separated functions cease to be involved in the form of life.
All that I have written, and all that I have experienced in my peculiar order of life, has been a means to this very end, and, I am certain, a proof of what I contend.
Reality itself, whose living form is unqualified relationship or non-separation, is totally free of necessary dilemma. Real life has nothing whatever to do with spiritual and religious goals, or any of their symbols in consciousness and tradition. And, since reality is what is, it is the simplest intuition, prior to any separative act of identification. Real life requires none of the heroic efforts of religion and spiritual life because it can never identify with the primary dilemma which supports these efforts. It is free, so profoundly marvelous in its blissful dimensions and depth, so unencumbered with forces and efforts, problems and degrees of transformation. It is so childishly irreverent and unserious, yet as profoundly heart-joyous and deep as an incarnation of God. It cannot, it must not be proclaimed, identified or symbolized in our exclusive ways. All languages and poetry stink with symbols of our former intuition. =:11 understanding, all imagery, every suggestion every recommendation only motivates men to the same ancient trial, the same ultimate and unreal cognition.
The ordinary consciousness is an objective fascination and obsession, an unbroken chain of compulsive experience, moment to moment, which, in the deep heart of awareness is a desperate, unyielding distraction. Thus, understanding and enquiry suddenly relax the concentration on the stream of objects, and reality stands as primary experience.
To the unreal man, there is only the constant experience of objects by his own, separate and functional nature. Every moment is an experience of something itself - by himself.
Real life is not this at all. It is certainly alive in the usual way, with real, effective, creative energies and an awareness equipped to heal itself constantly from the effects of experience and deepen its existence as reality. However, it does not experience objects in themselves and moments one by one. It does not know and act and feel itself as a separate, functional consciousness and experiential identity. It constantly and only knows reality, whose form is unqualified relationship or non-separation. It is not qualified by experience or existence. Moment to moment, it enjoys the knowledge and experience of reality as whatever the content of the moment. Basically, it has only one, unqualified experience, which is a profound state of awareness of reality. It is free of the fascination and repetition of experience. It is free of the consequent and great search and all of the effort of solution to the primary dilemma. It has understood the mechanism of suffering and unreality. The content of the moment's experience does not overwhelm it, even though it experiences with great intensity and openness. It is constantly, by its absorption in reality, empty of its own experience. True life is meditation, blissful knowledge, free of all states, high or low. In regard to reality, it has neither questions nor answers.
11 July 1970 - Paris, France
For some time I was involved in the ways leading to the goals of truth, realization, joy, etc.. But, then I realized that all the ways to it were actually the avoidance of it, since it is already what is. This understanding burdened and qualified my seeking for some time. At times I abandoned my path completely in despair, or by a temporary festival of self-indulgence. The ways "to" were endless and burdensome, and, now, apparently also false and destructive. I could not find a real alternative to this double-bind. Then I saw that this recognition was my actual awareness. It was understanding. Then I knew that understanding was the foundation and itself the primary state of real life. Then I was no longer excited to the paths of seeking nor to their desperate abandonment. My life and consciousness became a direct simplicity, without ultimate questions or answers.
12 July 1970 - London, England
In the past men have been concerned with what is salvatory or what is liberating. But we are real only in the knowledge of what is necessary. Understanding is the perception of primary necessity, and this perception transcends the great search in all its forms.
14 July 1970 - "Madrid, Spain
Many expressions of truth can seem, and indeed are, beautiful, plausible, true, even necessary. This is because, like everything else that is, they are intuitions of reality. We are attracted to them because of what they imply. They are marvelous art forms, just as churches, ceremony and liturgy, painting, sculpture and song are art forms. They are creations in response, just as our lives, the peculiar forms of our lives are creations in response. Perhaps even our very forms and material bodies are also creations in response. But such is hidden in the mystery of reality.
Just so, all things can appear beautiful, true and necessary. Trees, landscapes, water are beautiful under various circumstances. Women appear beautiful to the energy of men. All things loved are apparently beautiful, true and necessary. But all things are beautiful, true and necessary only because they are real - they are so in their non separateness.
Thus reality is the test of all things, all expressions, all intuitions. They become false or tend to be illusory and destructive when we experience them exclusively and assert, even unconsciously, their beauty, truth and necessity exclusively, in separateness. Thus, men become bound by sexual exploitation and other addictions. Similarly, they become bound by exclusive adherence to various expressions, the arts and forms of conscious life. All things must be tested in reality. Thus all expressions must be known in reality, by those who remain unqualifiedly real, non-separate.
Every expression, then, must be tested by reality, not by some rule, some priority of their own. But the adherents of various religions and paths have tended to assert them exclusively because they have tested them by their own laws, the laws which support their view, and not by reality. In reality, then, we must test such expressions, and so we must discover the prior rule that men use to support them exclusively.
The Christian view is founded always and traditionally in one, primary Biblical idea. It is the idea of creation ex nihilo "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." This idea is the foundation of exclusive Christian theology. This idea is the motive which has created and made necessary the entire edifice of Christianity. By this view, God and creation are understood to be exclusive, not by virtue of sin or ignorance, etc., but in reality. All evil overcome, there remains a primary separation which is eternal relationship.
Relationship, then, is the a priori assumption of Christian religion. But it is relationship intuited by the addition of error, a form that is not real. Relationship is in fact unqualifiedly true and necessary. It is not reducible to identity. This is my experience. But it is real, not exclusive. This is my experience. Reality is relationship, but relationship, because it is the form of reality, is unqualified. It is non-separation. Non-separation is the very force of our being, and only as it are we truly in relationship. Only as non-separation are we truly in relationship to "God," who is not exclusive from us. Reality is the argument against this primary tendency to exclusiveness in the Christian view.
Just so, in the Vedantic view there is also a primary assumption which supports exclusiveness. It is the idea of no-creation, of unqualified identity, of Brahman. Just as the Christian view tends to edify the separation of the creation, not in the perverse sense, but in its consciousness, its point of reality, the Vedantic view tends to require the separation from the "creation" or manifestation in a pure state of unqualified being. But, in reality, the truth is non-separation, which is unqualified relationship. This is my experience.
True dogma or necessary expression, the unqualified intuition of reality, is neither Christian nor Vedantic. These two primary, exclusive views and creations are seen, in reality, to prevent the fullest truth. Thus, they have never and could never be reconciled, even as their various offshoots and analogies in other traditions can never be reconciled with them.
I have continually sought or, rather, been led to seek an expression of the truth in some one of the great traditions and ways. But all become impossible to me in their exclusiveness. Thus I am required to stand in reality and remain radically related to the great expressions. I have tested them in reality. Reality has tested them, and now and forever I must stand in the eternal truth which is only real, supported only in reality, reduced of all exclusive assumptions.
1 July 1970 - Fatima, Portugal
Reality is not a single, exclusive force. It is not meaningful, symbolic, nor attained by revolutionary means. Reality itself must be radically assumed and lived. This positive realization and freedom precedes and precludes all seeking and all revolutionary attainment. It is the ground of true, creative, sublime existence, unqualified by the fact of life or any of its lawful excursions, adventures and consequences. Life as non-separation is the unqualified truth, from which there is no necessary path, no radical forces, no fascination, high or low. It is one with what is, which includes all dual terms, subject and object, cause and effect, etc.. Thus, the real life is radically conscious and free of primary dilemma and conflict. Its ordinary life is creative play ii which reality is continually realized, moment to moment, under all kinds of conditions. Reality cannot be - an object of consciousness, since it is inclusive, not separate, not distinct. Thus, real life also is not identified with any single motive, force, function or object. It is radically, presently identified with reality itself. To such a life, there is nothing "holy" (set apart), no God, no Guru, no Saint, no Goal, no necessary state apart from the present real state.
17 July 1970 - Estoril, Portugal
Reality is not in any sense the answer to the question: What is Reality? It does not satisfy the seeker or answer his questions, which are really doubts, indications of separateness. Reality is not that which is pursued or implied by seeking, questioning and practicing. The entire realm and corpus of seeking, of religion, spirituality and science in all their forms, has, for all its affection of sublimity, seriousness, depth and truth, nothing to do with reality. At most, reality intuited as a dilemma forms. the substructure of-the unconscious motives of seekers. But they are pursuing a union, an answer, a presence, a home, an other. The "Reality" hey pursue is the opposite to all things and all they know.
The "Reality" they seek is the contradiction, the alternative, the opposite. It is merely the highest proof and object of their dilemma. Even so, their movement is practically in the form of consciousness and its effects appear desirable in contrast to the arbitrary suffering of unconscious exploitation. Thus, they consider their efforts and realizations proven and veritable.
But reality always, already is the case, under any conditions. When there is despair even of seeking, as of unconscious, exploitive life, then there is the beginning of real understanding. And such understanding has no necessary effects of any kind. It does not make even a little bit of difference. I is not an exception to anything. It is not appealing, fascinating, a great relief, profound, the answer and end to all questions and suffering. It simply is what always already is. It is not desirable and so it is not sought. Therefore, it is the most extreme, subtle, radical and necessary force. It is unqualified, nor does it qualify. Those who know and are this must appear mad, since they are not identified with anything at all. Yet they are, of all men, the least mysterious, being founded in no mystery at all.
(End of journal.)
Our last stop in Europe was Portugal. We visited the great shrine at Fatima. It was perhaps my last emotional gesture to Christianity. Years before, when my mind was changed by Jung, the miracle at Fatima was also primary evidence for me of spiritual reality. Now I visited that place at the end of all my seeking. As I walked around the shrine there was not a single movement in me. The place held no more fascination than a parking lot, or, in reality, it held equal fascination. My pilgrimage was over.
We spent a couple of days resting in the sea resort at Estoril, and then we flew to New York. We spent another couple of days with my parents, and then flew off again, this time to San Francisco. The long history of my internal exile was over. I felt no resistance to America. I had become available to life, free of the need to abandon life. I looked forward to finding a place to live in the area that Nina and I had enjoyed so much in previous years.
But we were unable to find a suitable place in northern California, and eventually we found ourselves in Los Angeles. There we settled in the sun, and I began to prepare this book.
I had passed through an internal violence that left me finally still. And I had become naturally, effortlessly concentrated in something that stood apart from all movement, all modification. The force of silence, of reality that stood before me in understanding and enquiry, now stood as myself and all things.
I was given to understand the truth of all my visions The age of Christ and his poem, "They are infinitely returned, but I am eternally Present," was my own nature communicating to me as a symbol. I had stood in the mind, feeling my separate being, but it had come to me through the heart. Later, I would realize my own being, the very nature of reality itself, standing present as the heart.
Even now, as a result of the liberation of all my Christian visions from the heart, I understood the mysticism of Christianity and all my latent urges to mystical devotion. All hose symbols were communications of the latent form of energy and consciousness that is the heart itself. The more devotion arose the more I enjoyed the heart's source as a perfect object of contemplation.
But, in my case, these experiences came beyond the time of seeking. As I observed them in passing the heart itself was released from images, and it ceased to communicate itself as if outside me. The face of Christ ceased to hold the source of the heart away as object to the heart. Gradually, the heart appeared as myself. And I am That.
When the energies were released from the heart in understanding I realized that I am that very source which appeared in symbols. Afterwards, I ceased to seek for anything but remained absorbed in the heart itself, observing the play of Shakti.
The course of instruction or understanding through which I had passed corresponded exactly to every other significant event in my past. I began to see the structure involved in each case. Always there was first a concentration in some object or desire, some problem or dilemma equal to life itself, some activity of self. As a result of this concentration or observation there was a penetration of that object, problem or activity in a moment of understanding. Then these things were replaced by the enjoyment of bliss, freedom and the sense of unqualified reality that stood hidden by that imposed object, problem or activity. Finally, this unqualified consciousness was recognized as reality and there was the certainty that understanding, rather than any object, problem or activity of seeking, is in fact the way and truth of real life.
This same series of realizations formed the core of my experience in college and at seminary. That same understanding and real consciousness was their truth as well as the truth of the "bright," and all of my realizations in yoga, at the Ashram, or in my own experiments. Thus, this pattern of realization became the structure wherein I interpreted the way, the truth and the reality of life. And Christ, along with all of the great objects of spiritual life in India, became known at last, by this same natural process of understanding, to be symbols in the heart for the reality that was not yet self-conscious.
The Christian visions were not false. It was necessary for me to have them and realize their truth. Those frozen imageries formed part of the last barrier to the full awareness of existence. Thus, Christ-consciousness, the vision in the heart, became absolutely real. What in fact animated these things and became visible beneath them was Reality, no-seeking, the Self-existent nature in the heart. When this Reality absorbed my attention, the images faded away.
The Virgin and the prayer she taught me, Christ and his mystical instructions, all my visions were not important as revelations of Divine personalities outside myself. They were simply forms of the universal Shakti. When that energy became active in the heart, all of the latent imagery of my own mind, memory, and tendencies combined with universal sources of imagery to unlock my devotion. And I continued as devotion until I became fully aware of the source of these imageries in the universal Shakti and my own heart's mind. Then the mind and the Shakti ceased to create the secondary images of themselves. And the devotion of the heart to its images was replaced by an awareness of the identity of the heart, the Shakti, and fundamental consciousness.
Soon I would see that the Shakti had always taken on the forms of my own tendencies, my own mind. Then I would see directly, prior to the mind and confusion with the mind.
Then even the Shakti, the source of all forms, would become resolved into my own nature, which is Reality.