Nourishing Himself with whatever He finds, wearing anything at all, full of peace, living anywhere, He is liberated. He, the Self of all beings.
Abhinavagupta, Paramarthasara, Verse 69
I
w a s r a i s e d i n a family a n d c u l t u r e t h a t p l a c e d e n o r m o u s i m p o r t a n c e on e d u c a t i o n . Of course, I m e a n First Education. In t h a t w o r l d y o u m o v e d h i g h e r a n d h i g h e r on t h e scale of w o r t h as y o u a c q u i r e d d e g r e e s - B.A., M.A., P h . D . You c o u l d m a k e a lateral m o v e t o w a r d s a professional d e g r e e - m e d i c i n e o r l a w - b u t a l w a y s s e l f - w o r t h a n d s t a t u s c a m e , n o t f r o m m o n e y , b u t f r o m e d u c a t i o n . T h e r e w e r e l o o p h o l e s for a r t i s t s a n d o t h e r ' n o b l e p r i m i t i v e s ' , b u t t h e s u r e p a t h w a s b y m e a n s o f s t e a d y p r o g r e s s t h r o u g h t h e e d u c a t i o n a l s y s t e m .About the same time I realised that my own academic progress was bringing me disappointingly little personal satisfaction, I became aware of the other educational hierarchy. In this second system you do not progress via degrees granted by universities, but by inner landmarks known only to yourself, in which you grow in wisdom and joy. The Ph.D. in this inner education is called by different names in different schools of inner (Second) education - Self-realisation, enlightenment, Buddhahood, satori,
samadhi, God-realisation and so on. But every school agrees that the goal is
One of the major turning points in my life was a meeting with the American spiritual teacher Ram Dass at a dinner party in Chicago in early 1970. That night I first heard about yoga in a meaningful way. What I took away from my discussion with him was this: there are enlightened beings on the planet, now. This struck me as a shattering, life-transforming idea - to feel certain that such beings were here now, not five thousand years ago. Beings like Jesus and Buddha were on earth and had attained that state. They understood the purpose of life and how to live.
I knew that I did not have that understanding. I also knew that even though I moved in academic circles, among people who were extremely well-educated, and had spent a lot of time thinking about things, I knew that not one of them had it either.
There was an indefinable conviction in the way that Ram Dass told me his story. He had gone to India and found a great Guru, Neem Karoli Baba (whom I later met). I was convinced that he was telling the truth. That evening changed the direction of my life. Suddenly there was a real answer. I was determined to find a teacher, work with him and discover the truth.
THE GOAL: SELF-REALISATION
To be a yogi, to search for Self-realisation, is not one of the widely held goals of our culture. I was voted 'most likely to succeed' by my high school class, but I wonder what my old friends say behind my back about the odd (to them) choices I have made in my life. Nonetheless there are many, cultures in which goals in Second Education are acknowledged and understood. Still, in today's world, it remains an esoteric goal.
Every strong spiritual path has the ideal of enlightenment or Self- realisation at its core. An Islamic scholar writes:
The perfected Sufi is great, exalted. He is sublime. Through love, work and harmony he has attained the highest degree of mastership. All secrets are open to him and his whole being is suffused with magical effulgence. He is the guide and the traveller in the way of infinite love, beauty, power, attainment and fulfilment. He is the guardian of the most ancient wisdom, the trailblazer to the highest secret; the beloved friend whose very being elevates us, bringing new meaning to the spirit of humanity.
The master is guide and friend. Here the words suffused, magical
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beloved friend, and elevates illustrate the Sufi's predilection for affect, the Sufi
path is devotional, inspirational and romantic.
Gampoppa, a Tibetan master in Milarepa's tradition, says:
For him who is established in the Self, it is the same whether he refrains from worldly activities or not. For him who is free from attachment to things it is the same whether he practises asceticism or not. For him who controls his mind it is the same whether he partakes of worldly pleasures or not. For him who is unshakeable in his love for his teacher, it is the same whether he lives with him or not. For him who has attained the ultimate it is the same whether he is able to exercise siddhis, psychic powers, or not.
When a being realises the Self he transcends the path. He is free. Gampoppa tells us that great beings come in all styles and personalities. They may be immersed in the world or not, they may be ascetic or not: the attainment is inside, a state of being.
Tukaram, the great poet-saint of 17th-century Maharashtra, was a humble grocer living in the dusty town of Dehu. He used to sing his ecstatic poems called abhangas in the temple every night. He echoes the paradox of Gampoppa:
I speak and yet I am silent. I have died but I am alive. I live among people but in truth I do not. I appear to enjoy but in fact I have renounced. I am in the world, yet out of it. I have broken free of all bonds. I am not what I appear to be says Tuka. You want to know? Ask the Lord what I really am.
No appearance or concept can limit the perfected master - he transcends the mind.
Whenever a holy man or Jesus is depicted in a Hollywood movie a stereotype emerges. He is usually portrayed as ponderous'and portentous and given to oracular utterances. If you met such as person in real life, you might suspect him of being a serial killer. On the contrary, real masters are vivid, spontaneous and full of life, and cannot be categorised. They are light, not heavy or pretentious. They are real human beings. It is told of the 19th- century saint Sri Ramakrishna that he once took on his devotee, the flamboyant playwright Girish Ghosh, in a competition to decide who knew more risque words. At the end Girish bowed down and told Ramakrishna, 'You are my Guru in this also'.
My teacher used to quote the poet Bhartrihari about the natural state of enlightenment:
Siddhas, realised beings, behave in countless different ways. They
teach scholars and learn from fools. They fight with heroes and run away from cowards. If people give them gifts they renounce everything. If there is no one to give them gifts they go begging. Those in whose heart the master of the world has taken residence behave in contradictory ways. Siddhas, enlightened beings, do not have to pretend because they are saturated with divine bliss. Their senses fall slave to them; they don't fall slave to their senses.
There is no distinction for them between self and other, between sin and virtue; between great and small. They may live like beggars but they are not, they are kings. A Siddha is drunk on the knowledge of the spirit. He knows, 'Aham Brahmasmi', I am God, I am the Absolute reality, while also knowing that everyone is God also. Knowing this he soars with intoxication.
No passage I know better describes the paradoxical nature of the Great Being. Freedom ultimately is freedom. It is not an act or pretence. It is not predictable or limitable.
Baba's Guru, Bhagawan Nityananda, was in an extraordinary state of divine detachment. He was enigmatic and completely indifferent to worldly power and splendour. When the governor visited he was as likely to roll over and present his rear end, as he was to speak to him. Nityananda was so anchored in the Self that he could not be swayed by the outer world.
Baba had his own ways, too. My former brother-in-law, Rishi, met Baba and became transfixed as he watched him meet hundreds of people. If anybody told him something he would say, 'bahut acha', very good. Rishi was amazed that to Baba everything was 'very good'. Rishi started saying
'bahut acha, bahut acha' also. It uplifted him tremendously.
That was Baba's vision, the vision of perfection. In that state even the harsh realities of life are understood from a higher perspective. When we understand things only from a personal perspective, our life is filled with tragedy and misery. The more expanded our awareness becomes, the more acceptance we have. A Siddha sees everything as the will of God or the play of Consciousness. He is at peace with this human condition.
In my Guru's ashram in India there was one meditation room that was extremely powerful. It had no windows - it was below ground level - and
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we called it 'the cave'. After doing ashram work 1 would shower and go there for pre-dinner meditation. It was my refuge. One day as I was meditating peacefully, the lights were suddenly thrown fully on. Visitors were being shown the ashram and the guide was proudly showing off the cave - never mind that 30 of us sat there meditating. The guide, in a loud voice, told the visitors all about the room, who we were, what professions we followed in the West, and what we did in the ashram. I was livid. 1 complained to Baba and it stopped, but only for a week or two. Eventually 1 had to surrender and incorporated these disturbances into my meditation. I began to see them as extremely funny and in the end would almost be disappointed if they did not happen often enough.
The 13th-century Zen master Daikaku, who brought Buddhism from China to Japan, says:
If you take peace and quiet to be bliss, all things are afflictions. But when you are enlightened all things are enlightenment.
If you have a strong preference for peace and quiet then you are always in a control battle with your world. The world is unpredictable and unruly. But if you regard everything that arises as a spiritual opportunity, or as God coming to you in that form, everything is enlightenment. This is the vision that sees Shiva everywhere.
GURDJIEFF'S SEVEN MEN
Gurdjieff gave one of the most lucid maps of the stages of inner evolution. In his teaching there are seven levels of spiritual development: man number one, man number two, man three, up to man seven. Man seven is a spiritual master at the level of Jesus or the Buddha. The first three are ordinary people and spiritually equal. Gurdjieff said that everyone is born man number one, two or three. Man number one is action-oriented, the doing type; man two is emotional, the feeling type; and man three is intellectual, the thinking type.
It is only when a person consciously begins to evolve spiritually through 'school work' does he become man four and beyonci. School work refers to esoteric schools or schools of Second Education. A person may reach the summit of First Education - hold a Ph.D. or even be a Nobel Laureate - but he will remain man number one, two or three if he hasn't entered Second Education.
Kashmir Shaivism can be looked at from the perspective of both First and Second Education. Under the lens of First Education, Kashmir Shaivism is a philosophical system that gives unusually convincing perspectives on fundamental questions.
From the point of view of Second Education, Kashmir Shaivism is a way of sadhana, a path of enlightenment that provides yogic techniques designed to expand awareness.
A Shaivite master would not disagree with Gurdjieff when the latter says, 'The knowledge of man number seven is his own knowledge, which cannot be taken away from him; it is the objective and completely practical knowledge of all'. A master is anchored or established in the highest truth. He doesn't have glimpses only to lose it, nor does he go up and down according to his moods. His knowledge is 'objective' in the sense that it is not an emotional position. It is held in his being. It is practical: it flows into every aspect of his physical, emotional and worldly life.
It is interesting to notice that Shaivism also defines seven different 'experients', seven knowers at different levels of evolution. The level of man one to three, which is the level of ordinary life in Gurdjieff's system, I w o u l d call the level of religion. Here there is no commonly held understanding and consequently, strife and misunderstanding among different groups, which are actually more alike than they think.
At the level of man four, spirituality or true Second Education begins. N o w a seeker d o e s sadhana. His r e l i g i o n b e c o m e s practical a n d transforming. The influence of man seven is more keenly felt. The seeker studies the spiritual ideas and G-Statements (noble understandings) that come from man seven, submits himself to the discipline given by man seven, practises the contemplative techniques of man seven, and perhaps repeats the mantra received from man seven.
The more directly the influence of man seven (who is the agent of the Absolute, and indeed, is not different from the Absolute) is felt, the more powerful are the transformational possibilities. That is why a living Guru, and also the proximity to such a Guru, are both highly desirable. At the level of ordinary life (man one to three), the ideas of man seven show up in church homilies, scriptural stories and ethical codes. The key turning point happens at the level of man four, when one embraces the teachings of man seven as a practical path or Way.
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a blend of feeling, thought and.activity, or in Shaivite terms, iccha, jnana and kriya. Also, he has a 'permanent centre of gravity', which means that he is
consistent in his spirituality; not spiritual on his good days and afflicted by spiritual amnesia on his bad days. In our terms; Shaivite man four would deeply value his sadhana and be constantly'contemplating and rotating the Shaivite G-Statements in his mind, trying to uplift himself.
Gurdjieff says that man five has reached unity and man six has reached full development, though under certain circumstances, he could still suffer a fall. That is not possible for man seven, who is established permanently in the Self and in objective wisdom. From a Shaivite perspective, man seven has attained a state of complete inner freedom and connectedness with universal Consciousness.
At the h i g h e r levels t h e r e is c o m m o n d i s c o u r s e a n d m u t u a l understanding. For example, the Buddha would understand the Christ more truly than a Christian at the level of man one, two or three. As evolution continues, understanding increases and discord diminishes. It is clear to everyone that the current level of spiritual evolution on earth leaves much to be desired. We should not, however, be blind to the increasing influences from higher Consciousness that are filtering into the general culture, such as yoga and meditation, and even alternative therapies.
THERE IS NOTHING THAT IS NOT SHIVA
I grew up in Brooklyn surrounded by communities of Hasidic Jews. I do not know if any of them were spiritual masters, but a few hundred years ago there was a great master in that tradition named the Bal Shem Tov. He was truly a God-intoxicated being.
A scholar says:
The mystical ecstasy of Hasidism flows from the rediscovery that God is present in all of human life. All things and moments are vessels that contain divinity. 'There is no place devoid of Him' was the ecstatic cry of early Hasidism. There is neither place nor moment that cannot become an opening in which one may encounter Him.
This is pure Shaivism, too. The Svacchanda Tantra says, Na shivam vidyate
kvachit: Nothing that is not Shiva exists anywhere. There is no thought, no
feeling, and no event that is not Shiva. When our minds, through practice, through meditation, through contemplation, become subtle then we
experience that Shiva, Consciousness, is everywhere. The ground of our vision has changed.
Spiritual practice unfolds our understanding. We see the pattern of meaning in our life. We see that events teach us and make us grow. Things happen for a reason. As we grow we begin to see divinity at the core of everything. We catch a glimpse of the wonder of existence. We have the intuition, Na shivam vidyate kvachit: Nothing that is not Shiva exists anywhere. The Shiva Sutras say that when a seeker attains the turiya state, the state of enlightenment his senses become powers intent on abolishing all sense of difference and are no longer mere senses. A change takes place in the way we view things. Instead of our previous predilection for separation and negativity, in that state everything is directed to Consciousness.
Yogis think of the mind as the sixth sense, so when the sutra says, 'senses', we can include the mind. Imagine how it would be if instead of seeing differences or threat, you saw oneness and love everywhere. Imagine if you always had the uplifting vision of harmony and peace. Whatever arose in your life, your mind would have the tendency to return to peace. Now sometimes when good things happen, our minds make them into negatives.
Another significant sutra (111.13) says:
Siddhah svatantrabhavah A Siddha is supremely free.
Siddha means a perfect yogi, svatantrya means freedom and bhava means
attitude, or the state. Taken together it means that a Siddha has the attitude of perfect freedom. It can also be translated as 'the state of freedom is achieved'. A Siddha is a realised soul, one who has attained the ultimate, and is supremely free. He is man number seven.
My teacher writes:
A Siddha lives in total freedom. The state of a Siddha is the state of freedom. Freedom is his very nature. He knows everything and can do anything.
A two-year-old wants to do what he wants and hates it when he does not get his way. We have to distinguish the state of a two-year-old from that of a Siddha. Self-realisation is not a state of ultimate self-indulgence.
We have strategies for getting what we want. If you are rich enough you can buy whatever things you want. Failing normal methods of fulfilling
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desire, some people use intimidation and terrorism.-By the judicious use of anger they strike fear in people and get them to do what they want. Another t i m e - h o n o u r e d m e t h o d i s p o u t i n g a n d s u l k i n g . W i t h d r a w a l a n d manipulation are also good strategies. You can work inwardly and outwardly. These are all methods. However, the Siddhas have taken a different point of view. They recognise that your outer life will never be exactly the way you want. They suggest that surrender is the way. Zen adherents would say they conform to what is. They teach us to mould ourselves to what is, and surrender.
In what way then, do we say that a Siddha is supremely free? Isn't a
Siddha the biggest puppet of all, since he is totally surrendered to the Divine?
Such surrender is true liberation. The Siddha has merged in God's will. He