First let me say that I have read through this posting three or four times and it too is very articulate. You wish to share your wisdom that you have gleaned over the years and that can only be good. There was one bit that did puzzle me though. In this article you speak about “self” defense and was wondering if you can amplify on what you mean. The immediate thought that came to me today perhaps glib or humorous but I feel enquiring in its own way is that de fence is what you put around de house to keep out de neighbours.
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Paul - “de fence...” That’s funny!

Regarding self defense, Jiu Jitsu is a self defense art, designed to help you defend yourself against an attack or adversity. When my Sensei pointed out that what I was really studying was ‘self’ defense, defense against myself, I was instantly struck by the truth of what he was saying; I recall my jaw dropping slightly.

I started martial arts when I was 39, and am 55 now; I didn’t begin my studies to learn how to beat in some heads. I was turning to the arts to find salvation, I suppose. My teacher was correct, because the biggest adversity I’ve ever had in my life is me. The main thing keeping me from being more deeply centered and connected today, is me. At 39 I hadn’t accepted that yet, but years later, when uttered that phrase with his particular turn, it all suddenly fit.

Thank you for reading and commenting on the post. I think it is pretty wordy, and I wish we had some kind of forum where it was okay to writelonger pieces. I’ve lost readership on my blog at times, because most of us are so conditioned to short posts, quick fixes and all the other things that accompany 21st century life. I’m guilty of it too. I appreciate Segovias for hosting me here. I emailed him that he was a pretty brave man to put my ‘stuff’ on his site.

I regret throwing down my little challenge in the last paragraph about resonating or not resonating. It was foolish of me to put a post out there as if what I writeis some kind of standard of deeper resonance and conductivity within others. I still have a lot to learn -

Re your challenge in the past paragraph.  I disagree.  It is not possible to authenticate one’s authenticity in such matters, it needs be a subjective judgement on the part of the reader’s and be true for them, it needs to ring true or resonate within them.  There is no language that can adequately describe this sensation.  One just knows that for them it is so.

Thank you, Link. That is the spirit in which I meant it, but this is one of those things that can put people off. Anulios’s site attracts rational, objective minds - not always the case over on my site. Perhaps that’s the reason I submitted a post.

In our scientific world we are too easily put off by the subjective nature of the inner journey, even when a mountain of teachings clearly state that you can be objective within the experience. I have become a bit gun shy because of a few hyper-sensitive bloggers, including those who are like leaves blowing in the winds of ignorance, loudly proclaiming their understandings, and strangely quick to argue and put down the open mind or deeper experiences.

Mark: I have been reading “The Harmonious Circle” by James Webb recently. As you probably know it is a biography of Gurdjieff - a very good one (unlike many).

Anyway, his behaviour at times can best be described as ‘unreasonable’ and it yet his disciples seemed to take it on the chin quite calmly (in some cases anyway).

This got me thinking about the sort of things we do not tolerate in others on a daily basis - that ‘get to us’ - whereas those very same things, were they done by a teacher would be ok.

Why is this?

Because we would make an effort to understand the interchange in the latter case, make the effort to not ‘identify’, make the effort to learn. All because the person in one case has been given (by us) the label ‘teacher’ and the other has not.

But as Shah says: anything can be your teacher if you can learn from it - and in any event, surely the teacher’s job is to enable one to operate in the ‘real world’ and learn there from things there?

So maybe you should not so much worry about whether people are hyper-sensitive or in any way abusive and pretend they are Gurdjieff or someone!

You might discover many ‘Americas’!

Segovius - Well, now - THAT really got me to thinking. I haven’t publically delved into that side of my own student/teacher relationship. Perhaps I don’t have enough faith in my readership.

I am not familiar with “The Harmonious Circle,” so I’m uncertain if parallels exist in Gurdjieff’s relationships with his students, and in the relationship behaviors of my own teacher. However, your statement that perhaps “we would make an effort to understand the interchange in the latter case” is absolutely spot on in terms of my own experience. Here’s why:

The membrane between everyday consciousness and eternal awareness is very thin, but the barriers preventing us from penetrating ‘the veil’ are enormous. Certainly in my case, it has sometimes taken some strong, assertive and (some would claim) outrageous behavior on the part of my teacher to help me overcome my lack of interia.

This was very intimidating in the early stages of my training. Yet, even during those early instances, my deeper inner discernment - the deepest truth barometer - was clanging & ringing ‘TRUE!’ It was actually screaming inside of me saying, “You HAVE to hear this. You HAVE to go through this, and HE [my teacher] knows this.”

I believe most people, when confronted with similar circumstances, deny this; they act as though that inner honest assessment is not occuring, thus building up a conditioned reflex to deny when they are being brought to a point that is perhaps they closest they’ve ever been to a more centered spot. Building such a reflex can be fatal.

From my point of view, the teacher’s behaviors are a sacrifice, not at all unlike the cruxifiction of Jesus. My teacher was prepared to sacrifice whatever it took to bring me into deeper awareness - even to the point of tangible forms of self sacrifice - and not just for my benefit.

It is from that perspective that I respond, “This particular form of outrageous behavior in the teacher is not unreasonable.” That’s because I am both demaning it, and I am the cause of it - not the teacher.

But there’s more, because the true teacher of the inner way is a lonely person. They live minute by minute, day after day and year after year, in state we term ‘a lock’ in Jiu Jitsu. They are pinned - damned if they ‘open up’ and express what needs to be expressed, and damned if they keep their mouths shut.

It can make for a miserable life, because rocks get thrown when they open up, yet there are consequences to keeping their mouths shut: they are holding back the deepest and most powerful forces of nature, forces that exert far more pressure than the hydraulics occuring against the walls of the world’s mightiest dams.

People ask, “Why are the genuine teacher’s hidden?”

What conspires to keep them quiet is the same thing that causes my own reluctance to open up: if the message is experienced as deeply offensive, then who - besides the teacher - is going to be willing to truly go down the path? So, the teacher sits and waits, because the truth is very few people have the conductivity and capacity to experience a genuine teacher. We have too many barriers, and find too many ways to judge something that we are hopelessly underqualified to judge - unless… we center on the turth residing deep within ourselves.

That’s the problem: the message IS offensive. It HAS to be turbulent, overwhelming and caustic in order to burn through the false walls of consciousness that we collectively label ‘awareness.’

Thanks for your generous and informative reply Mark to my original question. There are many interesting things said here some of which I have experience of myself. My teacher found and revealed himself to me. As you say it was not an intellectual demonstration but an incontravertible inner experience as well as a few incontravertable external experiences that showed me what he was. He was also very much in the Malamattiya mode in that he was extremely eccentric, upset people around him, and people often thought he was barking.

Hi nice meeting you. I saw your link at Eternal awareness and here i am. this question has nothing to do with the post...and i hope its okay to ask, but i’m curious as to what your icon on top of blog means? I’ve seen it around on other peoples blog and now for the first time i ask?

thanks

Paul - would you mind giving a bit of insight into the Malamattiya mode? I think that could be a very good topic for a post. Perhaps you should post it here, as the next guest blogger. And yes, my own experiences are incontrovertible both internally and externally. I have seen stars actually go out, heads and hands disappear, and much more.

Will have to think a bit on that one Mark. As you had shared a bit of yourself with us thought I would reciprocate and share a bit of my experiences. However telling my experiences en mass wouldn’t I.M.O serve a useful purpose.  The fact that my teacher was an amazing fellow doesn’t make me any more amazing than the next man. He did rescue me from being a miserable cynic all my life to being a happy cynic. My whole life is full of questions. Yet my teacher used to say. “People always say I wonder why. Why don’t they just stop at wonder? He was unusual in that in no way did he teach control or self control which he considered a hard word. Relax and not trying and everything arises spontaneously in the universe were more his by-words. In some ways he epitomises a lot of the discussions that Segovius has been initiating about Sufism/magik and indeed thought Crowley was a great man. Yet sometimes he would come out with things straight from Ibn al Arabi which he had never read. Some of his very first words to me when I thought he was a harmless nut-case were “the veil of love and the veil of knowledge” and I had listened to these words being translated in Konya some 20 years previously from a scriptof Sheikh Arabi’s that was in the Mevlana museum there.

Happy Days(another one of his expressions)

Paul

Paul - I agree about the wisdom of not telling all experiences en mass. Yet there is, no doubt, a rich harvest of experiences that students of deeper teacher’s can (and perhaps should) pass on.

My own teacher does not want attention. He says he is only here to serve. Among those he is serving the most are his ‘closest disciples,’ although I tend to shun that phrase because of the reaction and backlash that occurs, in American culture, among both conservatives and liberals. Yet it is true. I prefer to say I am his eternal student.

Sharing “a bit of yourself” seems an appropriate approach. Why? Because anyone who has studied with a deeper teacher understands that opening up the faucet - just a tad - is more than sufficient.

One of the things that drives my passion is the pool of experiences I’ll be drinking from the rest of my life. Somehow, someway I have to communicate not necessarily the experiences themselves, but what that experience of studentship is like, how it feels, how it plays out. That is intensely valuable to fellow seekers.

I do not mean to imply that my personal experiences are meant to transform the world; that would be very egotistical - yet, there is a side to that statement which is quite true, and it is not egotistical at all.

"I want to learn from a teacher who not only stimulates me intellectually, but helps me to practically and genuinely connect and balance myself in all dimensions of being: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. I want a teacher who doesn’t just hand me the task to perform, as you suggest, but allows me to look at his face and into his eyes and… well, see… experience… realize.”

It is not what you want that is important, it is what you need... As Ibn Arabi said, a true teacher is not the one who shows miracles, but the one who give you what you need....

Peace,
Matahari

Matahari - A great insight. I never understood what I truly needed/wanted until I was willing to sit at the feet of my teacher to be given what I neither understood nor wanted. It was only after many years of struggling in that mind set that I slowly began to realize that what I was wanting wasn’t what I truly wanted. Of course, when I came to realize what it was I truly wanted and began experiencing it, I discovered it was actually something I had been wanting along - it was just too masked by confusion and denial.

Mark, thank you very much for your lovely piece, which I’ve only just come across.

This issue of ‘authenticity’ is something of a paradox, I think. As I read what you had written, I was struck by the feeling that ‘here is someone who knows what it means to be on a true way’. There was a recognition there. It’s not that I’ve shared the same experiences as you, or even necessarily see things the way you do, but there is a quality in what you say (and how you say it) that is familiar. However, if I hadn’t experienced this myself, I don’t suppose I could have recognized it in what you said.

I find it interesting that the Greek word ‘gnosis’ - which is sometimes used to distinguish ‘spiritual’ from other types of knowledge - gives us the English word ‘recognition’. And that in Arabic, the word the Sufis use to designate this same kind of knowledge, ‘Ma’rifah’, comes from a root whose primary meanings are: ‘to recognize, to perceive, to be acquainted, to acknowledge’. Certainly in my experience the way I knew my master was my master was fundamentally a matter of recognition. Indeed, in my very first encounter, there was no exchange of words, I didn’t know who he was, I had no expectation to meet someone of that kind in that situation. And yet there was something about his bearing, his presence, his being that was recognizable.

At the risk of making this a long response, I want to dwell on this a bit more - because it also touches on the way one relates to others in a group. The first time I met my friends in our master’s London group, I felt they were very familiar in some indefinable way. It was as if we already knew each other. But in another - more conventional - sense we were clearly strangers encountering each other for the first time. I had experienced something of this quality of familiarity before, not always in this kind of setting, but I have felt it far more frequently and more intensely since being in this school. It seems to be a characteristic of the ‘reunion’ (’jam’, in Arabic) of people that takes place in these situations.

However - and this is the bit I want to come to - there have been times when this sense of familiarity disappeared altogether. Particularly during the first and second years. And I was left interacting with a group of people whose presence could sometimes feel abrasive in the extreme. There were many points when I could have levelled at some or all of them this accusation of: ‘arrogance, fanaticism, cultic behavior, wooly thinking, rudeness and general impoliteness’. Beautifully unaware that, in my self-righteousness, I was probably modelling every one of those hideous attributes!

And the thing I come to realize about a group is that it is a Hall of Mirrors. What most exercises us about the supposed faults of our friends is that they are our own faults, the things that we are most resistant to recognising in ourselves. And there is that word again. It seems to me that it’s all about recognition, or the failure of it. There is something about these phenomena of recognition and projection - which is really what happens when we need to see something, but can only do so by throwing it outwards onto the ‘screen’ of others - that underlies the relationship with the master and the group.

Fortunately one day there comes a moment when, after all this turmoil, one comes to realize that one’s fellow members of the group are simply ordinary people like oneself, with the same scars and baggage everybody carries, but united in a common bond of intention, effort and friendship. And one finds oneself wondering ‘what was all that about?’ Realizing - recognizing - that the stupidity, rudeness, carelessness and malice, or whatever it was that we saw in them, were never really there (at least, in the way we imagined). Sure, as people work through difficult stretches of the way - particularly when they are struggling with negative projections - they can rub each other up the wrong way, big time. But it is a case of the beam in our eye, not the mote in theirs.

I also come to realize that this is simply a part of the work, just as it is in a relationship. And as in a relationship, the honeymoon of joy at finding each other soon gives way to the issues we need to work through. It can be hard, too, when someone new comes into a group situation when the members are all - or mostly - at this stage. As it can be incredibly hard for the person put in charge of the group by the master, who is - inevitably - on the receiving end of everyone’s issues with authority, direction and control. Equally, though, when one understands this, it is impossible not to be overwhelmed with love and gratitude for what that someone else has had to go through. Most especially, for what one has put them through.

In all of this, the master can sometimes seem to make things more difficult rather than easier. Like Al Khidr in the famous story from the Qur’an, where he travels with Moses performing incomprehensible acts, it can appear that the master is covering postive things up as soon as they develop, rather than encouraging them. So no sooner has one experienced this wonderful recognition - feeling truly ‘at home’, perhaps for the first time - than it is taken away, leaving one prey to the worst kinds of doubts and suspicions. And one has to go through all sorts of trials even just to get back to that point. But by then something fundamental has changed, the world is no longer full of unconscious projections and other people are suddenly and surprisingly full of qualities rather than deficiencies!

James - I appreciate your lucid and though-filled response.

This ‘recognition’ is more or less present in a person depending mostly on the extent to which they are living in denial. We all possess, as Emerson called it, that deep star burning within us. It really comes down to choice: do I acknowledge this encounter with a deeper experience or expression, or do I deny it?

While we may not be able to quantify it, which only comes from developing discernment skills, the deeper presence IS present. Music has a way of uniting us in experiencing that presence through others, particularly music that is expressing from a deeper point. Music is a universal language, transcending many barriers. Writing, of course, is very different: it is much harder to communicate the inexpressible through writing. Yet, you have picked up on the ‘signal’ in my writing as I have in yours.

Groups that center on a genuine master have a tendency to get caught up in the euphoric aspects of the experience, and in the club-like atmosphere that can develop. It is very easy to become exclusive when you are among the few tapping into what you believe are the inner secrets. This is where the skills of the teacher become critical and when his/her burden becomes even heavier. It also explains why deeper teachers rarely choose to expose themselves. Why put up with all the nonsense and weight?

In my experience, many of the people who get around a truly deep teacher don’t get the truly deep experiences. It is way over their heads. Yet, understandably, many of them believe they are getting deeper experiences, because they are - relative to them.

Groups that center on a master tend to deify the teacher, and a super-charged field of hype develops, while, simultaneously, everyone (sometimes including the teacher) believes that this super-charged feeling defines the deeper experience. If word gets out, visitors and pilgrims begin to come in, departing the premises with reluctance because they are now addicted to the sugar-high atmosphere. That’s why they come back again and again, often paying a lot of money: they are feeding their newly found addiction, disguised as deeper spiritual work.

The deepest work is quiet and unseen. I am not familiar with the Moses story to which you refer, but I have seen many – call it ‘Moses-like – demonstrations, miracles, etc. They typically had the effect of shutting me down, as much as I struggled to remain open. I wasn’t shutting down in disbelief, but rather in an inability to process what I had witnessed. I was often left wondering, “What am I supposed to do with this?”

My greatest growth was never in the witnessing of outer phenomenon. My greatest growth always occurred through inner, transformative changes and experiences, coupled with (and here is the critical part) everyday life applications, getting out there and working it.

Similar to the issues you are describing among students, issues arrive in the student-teacher relationship itself. Just as students become jealous or petty with each other, students become intolerant of the Master. While everyone eagerly accepts the Master’s forgiveness and his/her constantly open ear and welcoming arms, God forbid if the Master screws up. There is no forgiveness for that, even from the student who has been forgiven a thousand times ten thousand.

Mark

You’re not familiar with the story of Moses and Al Khidr? Then there is a treat in store for you!

This is one of the great stories told and retold amongst Sufis, since it deals with the very essence of the master-disciple relationship. It comes from Surah XVIII of the Qur’an, ‘The Cave’, although the mysterious ‘one of Our servants’ is not identified in this version. By convention, he is taken to be Al Khidr - the colourful (literally, since his name means ‘the green’ hidden guide of the Sufis, who has drunk from the fountain of eternal life and is ever carrying on the Great Work, in secret. Oral versions elaborate on the details - the fishermen’s boat is often desired by a marauding army wanting to cross the river, and will be restored later by a travelling carpenter, etc. But here is the original story, which loses nothing from its brevity, in the Penguin Classics translation of N. J. Dawood.

Moses said to his servant: ‘I will journey on until I reach the land where the two seas meet, though I may march for ages.’

But when at last they came to the land where the two seas met, they forgot their fish, which made its way into the water, swimming at will.

And when they had journeyed farther on, Moses said to his servant: ‘Bring us some food; we are worn out with travelling.’

‘Know,’ he replied, ‘that I forgot the fish when we were resting on the rock. It was Satan who made me forget to mention this. The fish made its way miraculously into the sea.’

‘This is what we have been seeking,’ said Moses. They went back the way they came, and found one of Our servants to whom We had vouchsafed Our mercy and whom We had endowed with knowledge of Our own. Moses said to him: ‘May I follow you, so that you may guide me by that which you have been taught?’

‘You will not bear with me,’ replied the other. ‘For how can you bear with that which is beyond your knowledge?’

Moses said: ‘If God wills, you shall find me patient: I shall in no way cross you.’

He said: ‘If you are bent on following me, you must not question me about anything until I mention it to you myself.’

The two set forth, but as soon as they embarked, Moses’ companion bored a hole in the bottom of the ship.

‘Is it to drown the passengers that you have bored a hole in her?’ Moses asked. ‘A strange thing you have done.’

‘Did I not tell you,’ he replied, ‘that you would not bear with me?’

‘Pardon my forgetfulness,’ said Moses. ‘Do not be angry with me on account of this.’

They journeyed on until they fell in with a certain youth. Moses’ companion slew him, and Moses said: ‘You have killed an innocent man who has slain no one. Surely you have done a wicked thing.’

‘Did I not tell you,’ he replied, ‘that you would not bear with me?’

Moses said: ‘If I ever question you again, abandon me; for then I should deserve it.’

They travelled on until they came to a city. They asked its people for some food, but they declined to receive them as their guests. There they found a wall on the point of falling down. His companion restored it, and Moses said: ‘Had you wished, you could have demanded payment for your labours.’

‘Now has the time arrived when we must part,’ said the other. ‘But first I will explain to you those acts of mine which you could not bear to watch with patience.

‘Know that the ship belonged to some poor fishermen. I damaged it because at their rear there was a king who was taking every ship by force.

‘As for the youth, his parents are both true believers, and we feared lest he should plague them with wickedness and unbelief. It was our wish that their Lord should grant them another in his place, a son more righteous and more filial.

‘As for the wall, it belonged to two orphan boys in the city whose father was an honest man, Beneath it their treasure is buried. Your Lord decreed, as a mercy from your Lord, that they should dig up their treasure wen they grew to manhood. WhatI did was not by my will.

‘That is the meaning of what you could not bear to watch with patience.’

Now to pick up on some connections between the story and your last message…

There definitely does seem to be an (inborn?) part of us that can ‘recognize’ the master. Whether or not we’ve kept that part of us alive long enough to experience this encounter when it comes is another matter - it seems to easily get buried under a lifetime’s conditioning. I also think that it is this part of us that the master develops - that that initial act of recognition is the first glimmer of a higher organ of perception.

The question is, though, ‘how can you bear with that which is beyond your knowledge?’ In practice many people can’t. To allow this nascent organ to flourish, the master has to destroy our faith in our intellectual and emotional faculties. Often after the first encounter a wall of doubt seems to hit the seeker - at least, this is what happened to me - and it is a question of whether we can stick with our irrational ‘recognition’, or allow our ‘reason’ to convince us that it doesn’t make any sense, that such things don’t really happen to us, that this person must be an exploiter. (The irony being that, later, these doubts don’t really stand up to an ‘objective’ appraisal - so intermixed are our emotions and our logic).

In a lovely piece on the nature of discipleship amongst the Sufis, Peter Brent writes:

‘Of necessity the first stages in a novice’s progress will often seem to him threatening, even destructive. Rumi makes Shamsuddin ask, ‘Unless you are first disintegrated, how can I reintegrate you?’ The breakdown of long-established modes of thinking, of being, is bound to be experienced by the immature as some sort of personal demolition. It will frequently be painful, and it is because of such moments of anguish that the novice’s trust in the teacher must be absolutely established. Only on that basis will be be able to go through the desperate struggle in which he is engaged. For it is often at the start a darkness and a turmoil, an overturning of what had seemed established, an obliteration of all north and south. Only as the novice continues will he understand with his newly-developed perceptions the beginnings of a different logic, a differently ordered cosmos. Once he has glimpsed it, all his efforts will make retrospective sense; he sees that he has after all been moving steadily along the path. It is lack of resolution, or unfitness for the Path, which make people criticize or abandon the teaching at this point, and makes outsiders object.’

[’Learning and Teaching’ in ‘The World of the Sufi’, London: Octagon Press, 1979.

‘It’s not “can I help you?” but “can you let yourself be helped?“‘

In the early stages of the way, it really does seem to be a matter of simply ‘staying on the horse’ - with the twist that it is we ourselves, or at least the personae we identify with, that are most intent on unseating the rider. And this is where the story is so illuminating, because rather than helping to convince us that we’ve done the right thing, at this moment when we most crave confirmation, the master is instead doing all this incomprehensible stuff. We’re just marvelling that there is a ‘boat’ - and he sinks it. The brightest and best part of ourselves - the ‘crown prince’ we imagined he would want to work with - he ‘kills’. And the perceptive capacity - the ‘treasure’ - that is just beginning to come to the surface, he buries under a heap of fresh mud.

Little do we know at the time that, following close behind us on the riverbank, is a horde of personalities, conditionings, traumas that simply must not be allowed to get accross. Only later, when they’ve dissipated, can the ‘boat’ be restored to use. And that the part of ourselves on which we projected all our best qualities is in fact simply a constellated form of egocentricity that under no circumstances should be allowed to assume control (’inherit the kingdom’. Once it’s out of the picture, there is then an opportunity for the real ‘heir’ - still weak and powerless - to take its rightful place. Finally, the ‘treasure’ needs to be reburied until its inheritor - again, the real part of ourselves, the true being - is strong enough to claim its birthright, and make use of it wisely. For such an ancient artefact, it is amazing that this story can still be so insightful and relevant.

Another of the roles of the master appears to be to allow us to project onto him or her all of the qualities and attributes that really belong to our true self. This is why, I think, disciples at a certain stage are often inclined to deify and supercharge the figure of the master. They are beginning to recognize ‘the divine’ as a real, present element in their lives - but still see it as other than themselves. It’s not surprising, really, because the master is manifesting qualities - as you say, of love, forgiveness, wisdom - that seem to totally surpass anything we imagine we could be capable of. But the final task of a true master is to break this image of himself - symbolized in a sublime way in the crucifixion - so the disciple can come to recognize the true source of the light.

Brent again:

‘...the teacher is by his nature transient, operating on the disciple for the necessary length of time, then moving on. What he represents is permanent in the disciple and remains with him, often personified in the remembered shape of the teacher. But the teacher himself is neither permanent nor immortal. He is not an idol to be worshipped, but truly exists, to state it once again, only in action. Indeed, were he venerated as and for himself, he might be said to have failed in his task, for there is a limit to the dynamism possible in such a relationship. At some moment there would have to be an end to the disciple’s development, since it would be implicit in his standing with such a teacher that he could not, perhapes even must not, aspire to the latter’s level. Yet Sufism teaches that the process, not the person who inducts one in it, is primary, and that its end is self-perfection. Perfection, after all, is absolute; in this religious context, it implies, too, that one may be directly filled with a sense of the Absolute. At that level hierarchy vanishes, and erstwhile teacher and erstwhile taught become indistinguishable. ‘The teacher as God’ is thus a kind of shorthand sifting out the essence of this final stage in the disciple’s progress as disciple.

James - I am respectful of the time and thought you have put into these recent comments. Thank you.

And thanks for sharing the story of Moses. ‘Don’t question me’ is impossible for the novice student.

With respect to your second series of comments, I understand and say quite simply I agree. I will add something, with respect to the first paragraph:

“Whether or not we’ve kept that part of us alive long enough to experience this encounter when it comes is another matter - it seems to easily get buried under a lifetime’s conditioning. I also think that it is this part of us that the master develops - that that initial act of recognition is the first glimmer of a higher organ of perception.”

Agreed. However, there are some ways to circumnavigate this, but not a shortcut in the traditional sense of the word. If a student has studied repeatedly with a particular Master in past lives, it is going to be far easier for them to connect and rekindle their relationship if they encounter each other in a subsequent life. Second, if a student has studied with similar deep Masters, the same holds true.

However, in each of these cases cited, past studies or even companionship with the Master is not, in itself, a qualifier to allow either example one or two to effectively occur. The student must also be conductive to a sufficient depth. A first grader in many past lives of ‘study’ with any teacher cannot reap the deeper harvests of Master’s field until they have reached a minimum of graduate level studies.

Therefore, deep development and conductivity becomes the most essential qualifier for genuinely deeper studies with the Master. In this example, it matters less about their past relationship and matters far more whether the student is conductive on the deeper levels.

The best case is a student of a particular Master who, upon meeting up again with his/her teacher, has been faithfully studying over many lives and has sufficiently developed his/her self to be a capable apprentice. Yet, if that student fails to ‘wake up’, a less developed student who, in this particular life, is more conductive and willing, can surpass the more developed student in their current efforts.

To address one of your other points just a bit - When I began my studies with my teacher, the early years were misery. The last thing it felt like was ‘deeper’ studies. It was awful. I could go on and on about this, but won’t because your comments summed it up well. I only bring it up to allow me to say this: when I said I understand what you are saying and agree, it is not because I intellectually understand and agree; it is because I have experienced these things. The experiences bring something that is beyond the understanding - they bring realization.
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I am very grateful for Segovius allowing me to be a guest contributor, and giving me the opportunity to interact within the wonderful atmosphere of Anulios and all the great people who visit and comment here. Thank you very much, Tarquin. I deeply appreciate what you have built here, including the rich environment of truly thoughtful dialogue. You, and each of your commenters, are very inspirational. To you and all of your fellow travelers here, please accept my modest and very sincere bow.

My first time to this wonderful site, and I offer my gratitude for this exchange in this comment section, for this thoughtful site assembled by Segovius, and for this powerfully written guest post by Mark. 

First of all, I too offer my words of encouragement to you, Mark, that your last paragraph is not regrettable in any fashion as far as I am concerned.  I too have had times when my language has put people off, and discovering the balance between language that is reflective of personal truth and not completely turning someone off can at times lead us into confusion about what language we are to be using in expressing ourselves.  On the other hand, perhaps the language needs to be heard more, and the very off-putting that occurs is an opportunity for furtherance of experience, of depth, for those who will take those words away and truly reflect on them, rather than allow a moment of reactivity to send them spiraling down into outright rejection.  I have seen both in my experience.

Segovius then says, “anything can be your teacher if you can learn from it”.  I wholeheartedly agree with this.  This relates once again to the above.  If my perception is to look at those I encounter as well as experiences I have through the lens of discernment and soaking in that which I can learn from, rather than through an immediate lens of reactivity and resistance, I have the opportunity for true learning as that which resonates within will reveal itself in Truth, and that which diverges from my Truth is gently released and appreciated for the role it played in my learning process.

“...and find too many ways to judge something that we are hopelessly underqualified to judge - unless… we center on the truth residing deep within ourselves.

That’s the problem: the message IS offensive. It HAS to be turbulent, overwhelming and caustic in order to burn through the false walls of consciousness that we collectively label ‘awareness.’ “

And for some, the honest examination of this Truth is just too painful to walk though.  Their preference instead is to look for “feel good” experiences, and this will always keep the barriers in place as defense mechanisms, but also serve as limitation for deeper explorations.  I deliberately seek my brokeness and heartbreak that resides within. I gaze into the mirror of self and force myself to look at Truths that live there. As the turbulence of my pain increases, my surrender is more complete, and the Light is always found on the other side.  With each surrender I find an advancement to a new level.

Paul then says, “Relax and not trying and everything arises spontaneously in the universe were more his by-words”.  There is great truth in this for me too.  The “relaxing”, the surrendering to the openness of what is simply just available when I get out of my own way, often has no words for expression, but is something that is very true and very important.

Something about quiet service in Mark’s next comment regarding his teacher seems to me related to this idea of simplicity.  And just to use Jesus as an example for a moment who saw those who were praying elaborate prayers in public displays, and instead taught to pray in private as a reflection of something very genuine and quiet and connected.  In fact, he would often retreat to private times of prayer and reflection and rejuvenation himself.  This related to fasting as well, to be done without the agonizing twisting of the face and gestures to indicate one’s suffering, but was rather to be done quietly and without attention.

As I read the exchange between James and Mark, there is far more I could add to here, too, but in my feeling of overstaying my first visit to a guest’s blog home, I will simply say that the very way you ended your guest post, Mark, is the very circle I find myself arriving to in concluding reading these thoughtful, genuine comments here...finding much Truth and resonance through discernment.  As I expressed earlier, I also deliberately seek out divergence in addition to resonance in what I expose myself to for the exercise in discernment I am afforded in doing so.

Again, my gratitude for your patience, this opportunity, this site and this post, and for all of these wonderful, thoughtful comments and commenters.

Peace, joy and well being to all.

Rereading this exchange from the beginning, I notice something I hadn’t picked up before, which is that Mark, serenity and I have all drawn on images from the life and teaching of Christ. In one sense, this probably isn’t that remarkable, given that we’ve probably all been brought up in a Christian milieu. But in another sense, it is curious that we so readily call on this for examples of the relationship between master and disciple, and between travellers on the way, when mainstream Christianity would undoubtedly reject our interpretations. It wouldn’t be the first time that I’ve wondered if we’re witnessing the beginning of a major shift in the way the Gospel message is received in Western societies.

In part, these thoughts are prompted by another Christian reference that I haven’t been able to get out of my mind since I read Mark’s first post - that of Jesus’ encounter with Matthew. I’ve been fascinated by ‘Come follow me’ ever since I was a small child in infants Scripture class. There is such a lot going on in this brief encounter: the master finding the disciple, immediate mutual recognition, an invitation that doesn’t make any attempt to convince or set out a pitch, a man prepared to completely change the direction of his life at the behest of a stranger, the unmistakable authority of someone who really knows. In my experience, at least, this is exactly how it is.

The funny thing is, I still don’t have a clue what kind of teaching Mark and Paul and serenity follow. I don’t suppose you have much idea what I follow, either. But what we do know is that we seem to understand one another. And I suspect we could happily communicate our experiences through the ‘language’ of the Gospels, almost as a kind of lingua franca - even if none of our traditions had any explicit Christian connection. Is this the future of all esoteric education, I wonder? Convergence around some common themes to do with the realtionship with the master and the experience of the way? And a new role for the Evangelist’s words as a means of communication between traditions and paths?

I’m just thinking aloud, really.

James - You comments put me into tears, felt as deeply as if I had lost a child. For seeing three names next to each other, and hearing you so assertively connecting “the examples of the relationship between master and disciple, and between travelers on the way,” further more associating an “immediate mutual recognition, an invitation that doesn’t make any attempt to convince or set out a pitch” - declared for me, in clear terms, what has been building in this series of posts and comments.

I am a lowly student of the Way, but I unequivocally claim a recognition of both of you. Overwhelmed in some senses, I cannot yet bear to comment on Serenity’s comments.

I certainly did not enter into this discussion planning to become so exposed and laid bare. In fact, I felt it coming and looked to defuse it in my prior comment, attempting through thanking Segovius and everyone else, to bring this fun series and crisp and thought-filled dialog to a close.

If I offend you by declaring something you feel uncomfortable with, I apolgize; and I am quite comfortable with being blown off as a prattling crank, or some overly zealous cultist.

Without question, we are “witnessing the beginning of a major shift in the way the Gospel message is received in Western societies.” Yes, I am comfortable in the Christian mileu, but am equally so in many others, because beneath each is the ceaseless effort of a group of intrepid souls who are dedicated and relentless in their determination to rebuild the bridge of conscious awareness of the eternal, willing to dedicate and, if needed, prepared to lay down their very lives.

“But what we do know is that we seem to understand one another.” Yes, I understand you, because you are a brother traveler, a fellow student who has been taught in the way of universal principles. I recognize that.

A new and more effective for of esoteric education is ready to spring forth, and it will not come through the church or out of standard spiritual traditions. It will come percolating up, as it always has, through the people - the people who have so relentlessly set about the task of bringing into manifestation and form the experience that is beyond words.

James said,
“...an invitation that doesn’t make any attempt to convince or set out a pitch”

“Convergence around some common themes to do with the realtionship with the master and the experience of the way? And a new role for the Evangelist’s words as a means of communication between traditions and paths?”

and from Mark,
“It will come percolating up, as it always has, through the people - the people who have so relentlessly set about the task of bringing into manifestation and form the experience that is beyond words.”

From myself,
I find I am so overwhelmed with the sacred Truth of the words you both share, the only word I find can add in this moment is,

yes

um, all I can say is wow, just wow.  Mark called me up a bit ago and sent me over here to read this and I am just speechless.  Maybe I can put a rational thought together later, but for now...wow.

Many thanks, Mark. I’ve been deeply touched by something in this dialogue, too. Thanks to everyone, in fact, to Tarquin, Serenity, Paul and others.

If it has helped me to see anything, it has been to appreciate quite how much we need others in this Way. It’s so easy to see the frustrations and abrasion in our interactions with our fellow travellers. And it can be difficut to appreciate how much they bring to us. It is also easy to get caught up in the world within a world which is a school.

But to connect with others who are also on a true way, if only briefly, is to have a glimpse of the magnificence and the grandeur of the cosmic pattern that orchestrates our puny individual efforts into something far greater than we are aware. That’s the feeling that I take away from this experience, anyway, and - for reasons that I don’t quite understand - I’m also somewhat overwhelmed by it.

In love and friendship

James

Gretchen - I am so happy you made it over here to share in this moving experience.

Yes, James, we very much need each other. There are certainly multiple contexts in which that is true, but none so valuable to me as the need for those of us who are here to ‘do the work’ to start recognizing each other, and to start helping each other become more deeply centered on the deepest inner point, and from that spot going about doing the work in conscious awareness of the eternal.