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Almost everyone
who realizes their true nature agrees that a certain
period of integrating the realisation is necessary,
as a so-called ‘ripening’ stage. But
not everyone shares the necessity of exchanging
information about that particular stage. Many
people indicate, or show, that speaking about
it simply is impossible, since consciousness is
all there is and anything that looks slightly
‘different’ does not need further attention.
The integration, which is happening by itself
because any form of ‘doership’ is gone,
does not require any comment at all.
For me that is not only a pity but incorrect as
well.
Why? Because this way all kinds of elementary
things, that will no doubt present themselves
on the level of ordinary human interrelating,
can be stashed away.
Andrew Cohen created an expression for this, he
calls it the ‘Advaita Shuffle’, the
Advaita fast-change trick. Although Andrew is
holding on too strongly to this issue (based upon
the fundamental mistake that ‘one is what
one does’), I still like the expression ‘Advaita
Shuffle’ for what I mean here. It points
to secretly (or unconsciously) removing a subject
that is experienced as threatening or uneasy to
a level where that uneasy matter has ‘dissolved’;
in other words dissolved into the very substance
it consists of indeed: Consciousness itself, pure
Knowing. A smuggletrick is used in order not to
be accountable as an individual (because ‘the
individual’ is seen as unreal). And that
accountability is precisely what this is all about.
What actually is accountability?
It means being open to the reality of all levels,
no matter how temporal and relative, and being
ready to resonate with those levels. It also means
a readiness to listen to comments or observations
that may refer to a specific attitude which could
be a blind spot for us. Even though one has seen
and ‘experienced’ deeply that one is
nothing else but undifferentiated, homogeneous
Consciousness, one still is, when relating to
people, a visual and behaving figure who could
be mistaken sometimes. And nothing or no one is
getting any benefit from hiding behind ‘Consciousness’
when one is mistaken.
Padmasambhava, who was one of the masters that
introduced in the 8th century with Dzogchen the
most essential element into Tibetan Buddhism,
had no doubts whatsoever about this subject. In
a text (in which the expression ‘view’
- ltaba in Tibetan - refers to seeing from the
recognition of one‘s true nature) he says:
“Do not lose the view
in the conduct;
If you lose the view in the conduct, you will
never
have the chance to be liberated.
Do not lose the conduct in the view;
If you lose the conduct in the view, you stray
into black diffusion.”
He shows us the two poles of error. The first
pole is the unending polishing of the person,
the attitudes or conduct, leading to the fact
that the ‘view’ of one‘s true nature
stays hidden behind the horizon. The second pole
- which the great 20th century Dzogchen teacher
Tulku Urgyen calls even worse than the first pole
- points to the fact that, because the view shows
that good and bad do not exist, one thinks that
in his conduct there is no good and bad either.
That is the reason why Tulku Urgyen emphasizes
that view and conduct should be clearly distinguished.
The way one behaves should be in harmony with
ordinary human ‘worldly’ values and
distinctions.
Padmasambhava also said: “Though the view
should be as vast as the sky, keep your conduct
as fine as barley flour.” In other words,
even someone like Padmasambhava, who is considered
in Tibet a ‘second Buddha’, with his
complete realisation of nonduality, kept emphasizing
that every inch of our behavior is worth our attention.
And until today that is being taught in this form
of Tibetan Buddhism. (Maybe it is good to mention
here that the Tibetan Buddhism we talk about -
Dzogchen - is totally based upon immediate recognition.
So nobody will get the impression that the attention
for earthly things stands for an unending preparatory
period as is the case in so many other schools
of Buddhism).
Why do I give this so much attention here, in
the context of Advaita, and why do I refer to
it as a ‘hot potato’? Because I myself
have experienced directly how unaccountable (and
undisputable) certain conduct still is in Advaita
circles. Especially when a teacher’s conduct
is concerned, everything becomes very vague. Because
it is always a matter of power. And I don’t
mean power in the sense of open tyranny. No, that
would be too easy, since it is so obvious. Rather
we talk here about power that is seductive, that
operates through seduction, through charisma,
through the use of invisible attraction. By the
attraction the students find themselves in the
position of wanting very badly to receive something
- spiritual ‘food’ - and through that
hunger their own integrity is sacrificed.
That is caused by what in psychology is called
‘transference’. Transference means that
those who raised us as a kid - father, mother,
caretakers - are existing in us as psychic ‘slides’.
We are projecting those slides on anyone from
whom we, in the present, hope to get food (in
this case spiritual food). This projecting happens
spontaneously, completely unconsciously. Fearing
that we won’t get any more food if we honestly
say that a certain kind of behavior is hurting,
we’ll keep our mouth shut. This is the only
way a powergame can keep on going: thanks to the
fear of being cut off from the food source.
Alexander Smit, who was my teacher in the eighty’s,
told us that a teacher is confronted with three
pitfalls: power, sex and money. Later, when I
said that according to me he had stepped into
all three pitfalls, he wasn’t willing to
go into this. In spite of his emphasis on the
importance that ‘nothing should be denied’
he did not seem to be open for the invitation
to investigate whether he might have been mistaken
about certain things.
It is not my intention to discredit Alexander.
I will always be grateful for what he has given
me concerning the ‘view’. Also our friendship
is still alive in my heart. So this is not about
blaming someone. Everyone makes mistakes - perfect
behavior is not possible. That’s not what
this is all about. This is about being ready to
communicate, being open to investigate one’s
own inclinations if they bother others, including
the drive for power, dishonesty, disloyalty, greed,
etc.: anything that causes pain in someone else.
If this readiness is lacking, one is passing on
untruth. If one escapes to the level of undefined
Consciousness, something that is definitely experienced
by someone is changed into something that is doubted.
And that will surely happen if someone else is
considered ‘further’ or ‘higher’.
It means undermining the trust in one’s own
intuition, the deepest knowing of the ‘individual’,
which at the same time carries the seed of the
timeless that one is. Hence the importance of
especially not undermining this.
This phenomenon is even more prevalent when ‘enlightenment’
is the issue. “He is enlightened and I am
not” is about the deepest base for the abovementioned
balance of power, hand in hand with the giving
up of truth. For that reason I do object against
easy claiming things like ‘enlightenment’
and ‘Self-realisation’. They have become
status expressions. I would for instance only
use the term ‘enlightenment’ for some
rare cases, such as Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta
Maharaj, Dilgo Khyentse, Tulku Urgyen, etcetera,
since all classic scriptures concerning the ‘Direct
Path’ (be it Dzogchen, Zen or Advaita) agree
about one thing: ‘enlightenment’ (that
is ‘complete ‘Self-realisation’,
or ‘complete liberation’, or ‘complete
buddhahood’) means that all karmic traces
have burned up. And that is exactly what the expression
‘liberation’ means: liberation from
the karmic traces which make us move on and on
in the form of ‘inclinations’ (vasana’s).
For an enlightened one all potential inclinations
have simply ended, leaving no traces behind.
Who of us can claim that? Yes, we can say that
we do not any longer identify with the inclinations.
That is certainly one step. Hence I prefer the
expression ‘realisation’ for a certain
stabilisation (in Dzogchen one speaks in terms
of different realisations, as in stages. In modern
Advaita such things are considered nonsense, due
to Ramana who said that in realisation or mukti
there are no stages. However, he also said that
realisation is the state in which presence and
absence of the body is no longer noticed).
This ‘being stabilised’ is the acknowledgment
that seeking has came to an end. By using a different
expression for ‘enlightenment’, I do
not mean that after ‘realisation’ there
is still a seeking for ‘enlightenment’.
No, absolutely not. Seeking is no more possible,
since there is a deep seeing that one exists of
nothing else but that what’s being sought.
The functioning figure however, is still reacting
on impulses from a (possibly contaminated) past,
and any denial of that is not useful and often
very painful.
Seen in that light it may be interesting to know
(as I was told by a very reliable source) that
Papaji, who is one of the teachers that can be
considered responsible for the outburst of enlightened
people at this time and age, when asked to name
the people that he considered enlightened, wrote
down some names but none of his enlightened students
was mentioned!
Fortunately there are signals showing a certain
acknowledgement of the difference between the
state of realisation and the state of complete
enlightenment, even though other expressions are
used. For instance, Papaji’s student Isaac
Shapiro is becoming more and more open about acknowledging
that difference. There is a video available where
Isaac and Francis Lucille are talking with one
another (in 1999 Amsterdam). At the end there
is a very interesting fragment which could be
used to communicate in follow up conversations.
Isaac and Francis talk about the miracle of consciousness
offering everything as a kind of awesome disclosure
or revelation that has no end to it. At a certain
point Isaac remarks: “Ramana says that there
is an end to it”, and the way he says it
makes it clear to me that he is confronted with
the difference between Ramana and himself. Francis
does not agree with any of this and says that
there would be no life left if there would be
an end to it. Isaac however keeps pointing to
the special fact that Ramana (“as one of
the utterly rare ones, one in a billion”)
has possibly pointed to the stage in which “ripples
are no more appearing”. Then Isaac says that
it feels to him that something like that is also
meant by Buddhists.
I agree with what Isaac is saying here (and may
have said before, but I don’t know about
that). Here he is actually breaking the ‘code’
that seems to go with the idea that ‘having
seen it’ would be sufficient and that results
in the fact that possible mistakes and confusion
stay hidden behind the scenes.
In the phase between what I call ‘actual
realisation’ and ‘complete enlightenment’
pitfalls are still possible. According to me acknowledg-ment
of that creates the necessity to exchange thoughts.
Without that acknowledgment exchange is indeed
out of the question.
“A jnani is no saint,” Alexander used
to say. Indeed, that is a very useful statement
when talking to a seeker. A seeker is not helped
with a roundabout of judging behavior - he knows
that road too well. Only the invitation to recognize
one’s true nature now, is useful for the
seeker. I call that ‘the first level’.
For those who are sufficiently rooted in their
true nature though, the ‘saint’-concept
is not something that means forcing yourself.
Any movement of aspiration has disappeared, so
why emphasis on the aspect of ‘not being
a saint’? On what I call ‘the second
level’ (the level where inclinations can
be witnessed from one’s true nature, or from
love) such a statement can only work as a defence.
This is what I call the ‘hot potato’.
According to me there is no need anymore to fear
the heat. Let’s simply touch it and communicate.
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