| Selections |
| Selections on 'Guru, disciple, resonance'
May 2007 MESSAGE FROM WAYNE Hello my loves, My beloved Ramesh, will celebrate his 90th birthday in a few days and if the gods cooperate I will be there in Mumbai to help honor the day. Nothing could give me greater pleasure. I consider myself to be infinitely blessed to have been give this connection with the man I call my guru. When I first met Ramesh I was not looking for a guru. In fact, I didn't consider myself to be the sort of person to 'subjugate' myself to someone else. I subscribed to the notion that we are all equal and thus relationships such as guru and disciple struck me as antiquated and if truth be told, a bit cultish. But I was to learn that the guru/disciple relationship is about love and devotion....not subjugation. The guru asks for nothing and gives everything in return. The disciple gives what he can and with grace, as time goes on, asks for less and less. In the twenty years I have been privelaged to be connected to Ramesh
he has given me more than I could ever hope to repay. I consider it a
blessing to have been able to help support him financially and to have
in some small way contributed to facilitating his Teaching. Whatever I
have done has been done without obligation or demand either by Ramesh
or by me. I suppose you could Some of you reading this already know the unmitigated joy of having found your guru. For those of you who have not yet had this pleasure...know that life is full of surprises...anything can happen! With much love, Wayne
A LIVING GEM FROM RAMESH (previously unpublished) It may be observed that the guru is variable in his attitude towards his disciples. He is not concerned with the equality of his behavior towards the individual disciples. His attitude towards each disciple will be precisely what is necessary for the disciple, and will be naturally so, rarely ever planned. If the disciple compares the guru's attitude towards himself with that towards another and judges it --- he does so at his own peril. It is not that the guru actively responds to the individual devotion of the disciple, whether in the form of service, or gift, or sincerity. The reaction of the guru to an act of devotion by a disciple happens as a natural response dictated by the need and maturity of the disciple himself. The guru, like a mirror, reflects whatever aspect of the relationship, whatever emotion, is displayed by the disciple. January 15, 1990
March 2007 MESSAGE FROM WAYNE Hello my loves, Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to see this Teaching find a home in someone. It is like watching a flower bloom in the spring. To see the furrows relax between someone's eyebrows, to watch their shoulders drop as their tension fades, to see a smile creep onto their lips and the light begin to radiate from their eyes is for me, a thing of surpassing beauty. I notice it happening in nearly every gathering and I am awed by the incredible power of the Teaching. Several years ago, Ramesh began to emphasize the impact of the realization of the Teaching in daily life rather than talking about the esoteric and the philosophical. It upset a lot of his devotees who had grown comfortable and complacent in the belief that they KNEW Ramesh's Teaching. But I thought it was great fun! A true Master shakes things up. He keeps the Teaching vibrant and alive by changing the presentation...because after all, life IS change. This is a Living Teaching! It connects to who you are and what you are RIGHT NOW...in THIS moment. It challenges you and nurtures you. It is at once impossibly difficult and supremely easy. It forces you to work very, very hard but it does all the work itself. We are truly blessed to have such a Teaching! With much love, Wayne
A LIVING GEM FROM RAMESH (previously unpublished) One of the immediate results of th Guru-disciple relation, when it begins to fructify, is that there is a sudden change in the viewpoint of the disciple. The disciple was, until then, in the habit of wanting something and expecting something from others. Now, when he sees the effects of the Teaching of the Guru in his own daily living, when he finds life becoming less stressful because of his being more open to, more vulnerable to, less suspicious towards others, he suddenly appreciates what the Guru has done for him and in turn wants to do something big for the Guru. In other words, there is a great change: instead of wanting something for himself, the disciple finds himself in the position of wanting something for someone else.
June 2006 MESSAGE FROM WAYNE Hello my loves, I am just back from spending Guru Purnima in Mumbai with Ramesh and it was completely glorious. I am often asked, "Is a guru necessary?" The question is actually misconceived. It is not that the guru is needed so that the spiritual seeker can get what he is seeking but rather that the guru is among the greatest of the Universe's gifts. Should you be fortunate to receive this amazing gift it is immediately apparent that the relationship with the guru is an end in itself rather than a means to some further objective. Ramesh at 89 is as strong and as focused in his presentation of the Teaching as he has ever been. As I sit and listen to him it is as if listening to a beloved symphony in which every note is familiar and expected and yet each performance is unique and fresh. This Guru Purnima was particularly meaningful for me as it marked exactly ten years since that startling day when Ramesh concluded his Guru Purnima talk by saying, "You should all come back tomorrow, tomorrow Wayne will be giving the Talk." In that moment I could never have imagined where the Teaching would carry me....all the towns and cities and countries...all the men and women, old and young, some swelling with new life others preparing to die, all the hearts ready to burst open, all the brows unfurrowed and all the eyes bright with a new Understanding. What a surprise and delight this life is! I consider myself to be amongst the most fortunate of men, to have found my guru in Ramesh and to have been filled, a most unlikely vessal to carry this magnificent Teaching. For all of you who have sent donations and gifts and messages on this Guru Purnima, I thank you for your love and support. With much love, Wayne
February 2006 MESSAGE FROM WAYNE Hello my loves, I have recently returned from Mumbai and my annual winter visit to see Ramesh. As always, it was a truly joyous and blessed time. To spend time in the presence of one's guru is life's greatest pleasure. I am often asked why I continue to visit Ramesh even though there is no longer any 'seeking need' to do so. For me, the seeking long ago morphed from a process of acquisition whereby I was hoping to GET something to a state of Acceptance wherein there was not only nothing left to GET but more importantly, no longer an egoic 'me' needing to get IT. What remained was a man named Wayne who loved a little Indian retired banker named Ramesh. For almost twenty years now, that love has flowed unabated. It matters not if we are in the Satsang room together or eating a meal together or watching cricket on television together or simply sitting together in comfortable silence, the love that is the very essence of the guru/disciple relationship is there. Each year when I visit Ramesh I get to watch with amusement, awe and delight how his Teaching evolves and changes its emphasis. Never wavering from the fundamental Understanding, his approach continues to move and dance like a boxer's. This continued movement keeps the more "advanced" and knowledgeable disciples alert and on their toes. One of the greatest obstacles to a deepening of Understanding is the complacency inherent in knowing something. Once you have an answer there is no longer any movement. Inquiry is dead. What remains is a dull and lifeless repetition of a concept that may have once brought insight and is now mistaken for insight itself. Ramesh's continual changes keeps his disciples engaged and active. His current emphasis on the value of the Teaching in daily living is simply another door opening into the corridor of Truth. The value of the guru is not in what you can get from him...it is the guru/disciple relationship itself which is its own reward. With love, Wayne
August 2005 MESSAGE FROM WAYNE Hello my loves, I am often asked, "Does everything happen as part of the functioning of Totality or is effort required by the spiritual aspirant?" Effort by the spiritual aspirant may well be required as part of the functioning of Totality! As always we must look deeply into the source of the effort. Does the spiritual aspirant have the capacity to author the effort? Or is the spiritual aspirant's actions and ultimately the spiritual aspirant himself part of a larger functioning? These are the essential questions raised by this Advaita Teaching. But the Teaching does not truly value the answers. It is the investigation itself which is the heart of the Teaching. It is for this reason that pure Advaita is without doctrine or precepts. The Teaching is humble. It makes no claim on the Truth. It is simply a collection of pointers, encouraging an investigation that ultimately ends in Nothing...the Nothing which we all truly ARE. With much love, Wayne
A LIVING GEM FROM RAMESH (previously unpublished) Affective fixation on the personality of a Guru or Master can be a serious obstacle to what the Master himself may be trying to achieve because the Master himself becomes the jailer holding the disciple in bondage, unwittingly though it might be. A true Guru like Nisargadatta Maharaj makes it repeatedly clear that treating the teaching as from one individual (however exalted) to another individual would be a complete mistake. It is as Consciousness speaking to Consciousness that the true Guru speaks.
Hermosa Beach, 6 January 2005 Webcast Transcript Excerpt ...For me there’s resonance here. And I know you’ve talked about the capital ‘G’ guru that’s not in you, but I see myself still attending to you. Thinking (even though there’s a part of me that knows, I don’t say I know, but I think I have an intellectual understanding of what you’ve described enough times about what happened, and yet I sit here thinking) that you’ve got some special supernatural energy that’s going to, I don’t know what it’s going to do. But I’m sitting here, it seems, thinking I’m getting something, something is going to happen differently than if I sit here looking around at random. So with that said, again the question comes up about the nature of these relationships. They’re different almost by definition of who you are and who we are. Wayne: That, what you’re describing are social relationships, number one, and number two you’re talking about a resonant relationship. Now the relationships I’ve had socially with people prior to this event happening and subsequent, for the most part didn’t change. Most people I retained my social relationships with them and they were not impacted in any way by that event. Now there’s others of course - seekers started coming. At first they were highly discouraged and then subsequently through various events the teaching started to happen through me and these kinds of gatherings started happening. Now within this context the people who come do as you say often come with expectations. Sometimes they’re fulfilled and sometimes they’re disappointed. And in those cases where there is resonance then a whole different structure of interaction arises. But you’ve been here enough to see people come and go. People with no resonance whatsoever. And so. The same people are in the room you see. I mean I’m the same person with the same capacities, the same energies. You see. So in the absence of the resonance there is no guru-disciple relationship. You talked about expectations and those arise inevitably in people. And they have to do with your own experiences and your own nature. And sometimes those expectations are fulfilled and sometimes they’re not. If you’re like most people when your expectations are fulfilled you’re gratified and when they’re not you’re disappointed. Does the seeker through their own desire tend to create the resonance that might arise between them and a potential guru? Wayne: I would say that what I call resonance is not created by desire. Desire may accompany it or it may precede it but it is not causal in nature. The understanding is that that resonance is a happening between two organisms. And it happens or it doesn’t. And there are people who approach a guru with tremendous desire for a guru disciple relationship, you see. They want it badly - looking for a guru. And it is something you can fake for a little while but ultimately it’s there or it’s not. And when I say fake it I mean that you can act the part of the disciple and you can make the other person the Guru and you act in accordance with certain ways that are quote unquote guru and disciple rolls. But when I talk about resonance I’m talking about that ineffable connection that occurs, when it occurs, out of which the sense of presence manifests. That connection. And it manifests in a variety of ways. It doesn’t have a single way that disciples experience it. But it is an arising of connection and it arises out of the resonance. If one doesn’t find a guru that one has resonance with, can their understanding still continue to deepen with their studying? Wayne: Of course! Understanding can deepen through a variety of means. And when I talk about resonance, one can have resonance with a book, one can have resonance with a teaching. The object that one has resonance with need not be human. Is that word resonance applicable in the case of very strong human relations of other kinds such as falling madly in love with somebody and worshipping that person? Wayne: I make a distinction in order to keep this term useful. And I use it to describe a very specific kind of interaction and it is not the passionate falling in love kind of thing. Although that may accompany the resonance. You see. I mean when resonance arises we may well respond with that kind of emotional response of falling in love. And that was certainly the case for me with Ramesh. You see. But the resonance we could say preceded it and was independent of that. Because that changed character a number of times over these 17 years that I’ve been associated with Ramesh. What the reaction has been and the initial passionate love with its jealousies and it’s agonies and you know the staying up nights thinking about him and trying to get into his presence. And all of things one does in the throes of that kind of passionate loving feeling. You see. That’s long gone and it’s been replaced over time with a much deeper and different kind of relationship. You’ve heard me describe a number of times how the nature of the relationship shifted dramatically from a grasping kind relationship in which I wanted from him, to one of service and giving, in which I wanted to give. And so it was a dramatic shift in the structure and nature of the relationship. Resonance may not be only with a guru. I feel that my husband and I found the key to resonate together. It was a big part of our life for the last 20 years. We cut out a section of the day to do it to just be together and to look in each other’s eyes and hold each other and there was a definite feeling of presence that was more than the two of us. Wayne: Absolutely, the resonance can take numerous forms and it may be in the form of relationship and as you describe it that may well have been within the context of what I normally talk about as resonance...
Hermosa Beach, 27 September 2004 Webcast Transcript Excerpt ...Is the sage a state that a human being is in or aware, or something that goes through a live human being? What is a sage? Wayne: What is a sage? This is one of my favorite things to read:
Part of that sounded very beautiful. Wayne: I think it's wonderful. It's written by a fellow named Leonard Cohen. But that answered the question. Thank you. [Pause] How does the dissolution of the ego come about? Through inquiry? Wayne: It happens. It just happens. Wayne: Not 'just' happens. It happens. It happens. Wayne: Everything happens! That's one of the many things that happen. Then we tell stories about these various happenings, why they happened and how they happened. How did it happen for you? It happens for each person differently? Wayne: Yes. Each person's history is different; each person's story is different. I believe I've experienced that witness and dissolution of it before in my life, and I recognize it. Is it possible that it can come and go? Wayne: That is very much the experience of the seeker - to have moments of presence and witnessing, followed by moments of separation and involvement. That movement back and forth, in and out of that state, is the state of the seeker. That's what I have felt, but that's really not the awakening because it hasn't stayed. Wayne: What we call the awakening is the absence of either the presence or the absence. You see, what you've experienced is that you're going along and the sense of the separate egoic 'me' falls away. Right? Yes. Wayne: Life and living, of course, go on; the universe goes on. Then this 'me' comes back and looks at that period that is quantified by the going and the returning of the 'me' and says that was it. That's been my experience. Wayne: That is the experience of the seeker. And then you say, “I want that all the time.” But that is all the time. Then how can I feel it all the time? Wayne: You cannot feel it all the time; that is the entire point. Because the fantasy is that when 'I' get it, I will know it all the time. You know it because it is quantified. It has a beginning; it has an end; it is knowable as some thing. This is what happens to the organism we call the sage: the sage is going along and that sense of the identified, involved 'me' dies – it's dead; life and living go on, but there is no me to come back and quantify 'what is' as some thing. So, we can say that the sage does not KNOW the Oneness; rather, the sage IS the Oneness. But for the sage, does the 'me' come back? Wayne: No. That involved 'me' does not come back and quantify 'what is' as some thing; therefore, the sage IS the Oneness and does not know or experience the Oneness. The seeker experiences the Oneness because it ends, and so it becomes something quantifiable and knowable. 'What is' is not knowable unless you are separate from it, and then you quantify it as something and then know it as Oneness. That whole model is not available any longer for the sage, because that which would come back and quantify, that which would be separate and know the Oneness, is no more. Obviously, intellectual understanding, or even having the experience of it as a seeker, does not remain in that state. What is the difference of remaining in that state? Why does it just happen and then the 'me' comes back versus it happens for the sage and continues? Wayne: Why do you have blonde hair and I don't have any? Why do you wear glasses and she doesn't? Why? Why? Why? There's no end to those kinds of questions. The point is that it happens. We're simply pointing at what is; we're describing these various things that happen. Your experience has been that the 'me' comes back too? Wayne: No, no. When I was a seeker, I had the experience of the coming and going of the me. What we call that final dissolution or understanding is the death of that which comes back. So, it's not coming back. So, you just have to wait for it to happen. If that's what you want, you wait for it to happen. Wayne: You can wait for it to happen. You can run after it. You can sit on the pillow for twelve hours a day. You can go to the guy in Texas and fuck your way to enlightenment. There is every imaginable methodology for “getting there.” So for you, one day it just happened? The total death – it happened? Wayne: That event happened. It happened, and that was it, and my life fundamentally did not change. The externals of my life continued pretty much the same way for seven more years before I got roped into this business of sitting in this chair doing this. But for seven years, I conducted my business, raised my kids, took care of my guru, generally doing what I was doing before...
Hermosa Beach, 20 September 2004 Webcast Transcript Excerpt ...Someone said that the guru shows us a reflection of our own true nature. Wayne:I would interpret that to mean that out of the resonance between the disciple and the sage –two objects –arises the experience of the Guru (with a capital G) for the disciple. So there is an experience of Presence, which we call out true nature or Totality. It becomes experiential out of the resonance. But there is recognition of a sort, they’re saying. Wayne: The essence, of course, is the experience of it. What makes it so potent is in that connection with this other object we call the guru object - whether it’s a mountain a person or whatever... It’s an experience, not an object at all. It doesn’t live in time even. Wayne: What I’m saying is that the experience, the resonance, is between two objects. (I’m telling you about the structure.) So that you have the two objects and, for whatever cosmic reason, there is a resonance between them. Lots of people go by Arunachala and don’t have resonance; a lot of people go to visit Ramesh and there’s no resonance. And, yet, when the resonance is present, the experience of the Guru arises out of the resonance. That’s grace? Wayne: We call it grace because it feels so good. It feels so incredibly wonderful. Depending on the nature of the disciple, there is often a heart-opening feeling of gratitude for the object at the other end because it’s the only substantive thing the disciple can attach the gratitude to. You see, the Guru has no form, has no substance; there’s nothing to be grateful to or for. So, it is the guru/object that is the focal point for the gratitude, because it is such a wondrous human experience. But the guru/object at the other end, if he’s a sage, knows that he is not producing the resonance. That’s grace for him too. Wayne: He’s observing that experience in the disciple, and it’s a beautiful thing to see. One can have a deep appreciation seeing a beautiful flower bloom; it is this same appreciation the sage experiences when seeing that resonance happen in the disciple. But you don’t have an appreciation for the bloom because you created it. There’s no personalized sense of having been the source of the flower. It’s an occurrence, a happening. And in this case, it’s very beautiful; the resonance in the disciple is magnificence. This can get funky, however, when there is still an ego present in the sage/object. Because what is seen then is that the disciple is looking at you – the object – and seeing God, experiencing the Totality. If there’s still an ego present, it goes, “looking at me... seeing God... ah ipso facto I must be...” Then you don’t want to drink the Kool Aid. Does there have to be a resonance with the other object or between two objects for the disciple to be awakened? Wayne: No. It has nothing to do with awakening; it has to do with the experience of the Guru - which is not awakening. Awakening is neither experiential nor relative. Could you explain that a little more? I’m not grasping that. Wayne: Awakening is the event in which the sense of personal authorship dies. The event is an experience by the organism, but it does not leave an experiential state that the organism experiences as enlightenment. The disciple, in the presence of the guru/object, experiences resonance. Out of the resonance comes the experience of unity, of Presence, Source, God. So it’s the palpable experience, on the part of the disciple, of this connection. And it comes and goes; that’s its nature: being experiential, it comes and goes. For the sage, the dissolution of that false separation means there is no longer a separate 'one' to know the unity. It is unity. Unity is all there is. It isn’t that the organism has now attained some thing. The language is the problem, because we talk about getting understanding or gaining enlightenment. But it isn’t something that is acquired. The sage doesn’t have anything more; the sage has one fundamental thing less - which is what has been laid on top of everything else – this sense of personal authorship that creates involvement and separation. It simply isn’t there, in the same way that the stone isn’t there in your shoe today. It’s just not there. But there’s no experience of the absence. It simply is what is.
April 2004 MESSAGE FROM WAYNE Hello my loves.. Compassion is a quality that is much valued and discussed in spiritual circles. We need to look at what is generally meant by this term - compassion. The superficial meaning is "kindness"; a caring, heart-centered interaction, in which the recipient leaves feeling good. Compassion is actually deeper than that. I have seen what I would consider to be compassion from a sage, specifically Ramesh, which from the standpoint of the recipient was harsh. Ramesh isn't a harsh character, but sometimes the stripping away of a false belief, while compassionate, is not a gentle or sweet action. As we get older, often we become encrusted with those beliefs that were earlier used to create a sense of personal security. Of course, it never worked for very long. There is no security in life. The essence of life being change, there's always that underlying tickle of uncertainty, of not being secure. The usual solution to this is to try and patch up the structure by applying new and stronger beliefs. Often the demolition of these encrusted false beliefs is a painful process; it leaves a person feeling uncomfortable, discontent, and uncertain. The sage will sometimes raze the whole structure. It is, to quote Hafiz, "to take away those toys that bring you no joy." If you see a two-year-old with a sharp knife, and you take it away from him he's going to scream. As far as he's concerned, you've done him a great harm. "That was MY toy. I was having fun with that." That he was about to chop his leg off and you prevented that from happening, I would say was a compassionate act. But the child doesn't see it as a compassionate act. So, often the action of the sage is not seen as compassionate. If I had to define compassion, I would say that the compassion of the sage is total acceptance. The total acceptance, which means you are accepted completely as you are in the moment. The sage accepts the disciple totally as he is. This acceptance is, in fact, an underlying quality to every action by the sage. The action may be to take away the toys, to push the disciple into areas where the disciple isn't comfortable, to ask difficult questions and not let up. So the disciple goes away unhappy. "How can this be compassion? I'm unhappy. He wasn't kind and gentle with me. I feel worse now then I did when I walked in and met him." It is compassionate for one reason: there is no personal agenda on the part of the sage. Every single act is compassionate because there is no "me" desiring something for itself as part of the action. This is truly the blessing of the sage. With much love, Wayne PS: I leave for Europe in a few days and look forward to seeing some of you there. The retreat at the beautiful and serene Gut Schermau in Germany is always one of the highpoints of my year.
July 2003 MESSAGE FROM WAYNE Hello my loves.. This is the month of Guru Pournima, a time when the Guru (both as the Source and as the teacher) is honored and celebrated. This year the Guru's Full Moon falls on July 13. In Mumbai, at Ramesh's flat, there will be refreshments served (Ramesh's wife Sharda will provide her famous iced coffee and some lovely sweets). For those of us not fortunate enough to physically make it to India for the occasion we might content ourselves with Ramesh's latest book entitled (aptly enough)...Guru Pournima in which Ramesh and some of us who love him have written about this most joyous and profound of all human relationships. If you are in the Los Angeles area on Saturday, July 12, please come join us for our own little celebration to follow the 10AM Talk at my house in Hermosa Beach. The Talk will undoubtedly center on my history with my Beloved Ramesh. It is one of my favorite topics and one I am never tired of discussing though some of you may, by now, be tired of hearing about it. So consider yourself warned! If you are unable to come to the Talk, please join us via the live webcast. Like the Teaching itself, it is free for the taking. I am very grateful to those who have, through their generosity, made it possible for me to live and Teach. Many of you have offered your love and support either directly or through your membership in the Advaita Fellowship. I want you to know that I have noticed and that I am most appreciative. It matters not if we have spoken or seen each other recently. This relationship makes no demands and has no set form. There are no requirements other than an open heart...and even that is seen as subject to change. So, whereever you find yourself on this Guru Pournima, whatever your current thoughts, whoever you find yourself attracted to....know that you are well and truly Loved. With much love, Wayne PS: I leave for Europe in a few days and look forward to seeing some of you there. The retreat at the beautiful and serene Gut Schermau in Germany is always one of the highpoints of my year.
June 2003 MESSAGE FROM WAYNE Hello my loves.. I am recently returned home from Europe and I am again struck with what an incredible blessing this Teaching is and how tenacious. It reminds me sometimes of the plant that grows up through a crack in the sidewalk... unexpected and rare and strong. On this trip I met Paolo, who came to the Talks in Rome from his home in Sicily. Somehow a translated copy of Consciousness Speaks had found its way into his hands and had affected him deeply. He talked about how the Teaching had changed his life, bringing a sense of Knowingness where before there had only been questions and confusion. As I listened to him and watched the tears of gratitude well up in his eyes I felt renewed. This Teaching, appreciated by so few, misunderstood by so many, has the power to transform lives in ways unimaginable. It goes where it needs to go, takes root in seemingly the most unlikely of places and just at the moment when we take it for granted it always surprises us. It is indeed Grace to be the instrument through which this magnificent Teaching happens. With much love, Wayne
A LIVING GEM FROM RAMESH (previously unpublished) One of the visitors, on his first day, asked why so many people come to the Satsang day after day - some for several weeks and a few for several months. Promptly, several hands were raised, wanting to give the answer. The consensus was that the repetition of the basics, day after day, served not only as a reminder but that it gave them the opportunity to see, in depth, the interconnection between mind, thought-word, concept and knowledge. There are certain moments when the whole subject in its entirety - and its strange significance - in day -to-day living, seems absurdly simple and clear, though by no means easy to communicate. What we are endeavoring to see in duration - with one sentence following another in the relativity of time - could really be apperceived only sub spacie aeternitatis,* its essential nature seen only under the aspect of eternity. Therefore the essential nature of the basics which had eluded one earlier might suddenly, intuitively, flash itself in Consciousness, only when repeated the umpteenth time. [*roughly "from the perspective of the eternal"]
Interview by Blayne Bardo, May 1998 ...Blayne: What role, if any, does the guru play in the seeking process? Wayne: The common question is, "Is the guru necessary?" My answer is that there are no requirements set forth by Consciousness. Consciousness can do anything It wants within the manifestation. Seeking is a phenomenal process, and that's what's crucial to understand-seeking is a phenomenal process. It happens within phenomenality; the various progressions that occur are in phenomenality; the impulse is in phenomenality; and the final event which is the dissolution of the seeking, actually the dissolution of personal doership, is in phenomenality. All that happens is in phenomenality. The result of the process of seeking is only notionally a result, because what it reveals is what is there all the time anyway. So there is really no progress in the absolute sense. Yet within the phenomenal structure of seeking and the seeker, the guru may play a role. In fact, in the lives of many seekers the guru is a figure central to the seeking. For those who have found a guru, who have found their true guru, there is no greater phenomenal experience. When I first met Ramesh I fell more in love than I have ever been in my life. To that point I had been fortunate enough to have experienced deep and profound love with several people-my children and wife and parents-but this kind of love pales in comparison to the love between the disciple and the guru. That is because the guru-disciple relationship has an additional quality that is of an entirely different dimension. When there is what I call resonance between the body-mind mechanism of the disciple and the body-mind mechanism of the guru, when that resonance is there, there is for the disciple an experience of the Oneness, which is the abiding non-phenomenal state of the guru. And that Oneness is one of inexpressible Love. This Love you're referring to is not the love that is commonly used in everyday speech. No. It is not that love. That kind of love is essentially a social contract: as long as you continue to give me that which fulfills me, then I will continue to love you. The love which one experiences with the guru is what might be called love without condition, unconditional love, because there is no social contract implied or in any way associated with the interaction. It is one in which there is unbridled love, a desire to freely give with no thought of getting. From the disciple's side the pure love is often mixed with the phenomenal quality that is the counterpoint of hate and that we might call romantic love. There is often an element of that on the disciple's side of the relationship. And thus, the disciple may find himself jealous of other disciples. I can speak for myself. When I first met Ramesh I was always scheming to get into his presence, to be with him as much as possible, and I hated the guy who was taking him out for meals and drives and who had the kind of relationship with him that I wanted. I mean I hated that guy with a jealous passion since he had the object of my love and devotion in his car. There was a 'me' that wanted Ramesh for its own purposes. Now, from the guru's side there is no desire in the relationship. There is no 'me' wanting anything from the disciple. Yet, there is an experience in phenomenality from the standpoint of the body-mind mechanism of the guru of pleasure in the love that exists in that resonance between the disciple and the guru. But there is no involvement in any of this by the guru. So from the guru's side it is an absolutely pure love. From the disciple's side it is that pure love mixed with a more romantic, personal kind of love. How is it possible for the guru to have these feelings of 'pleasure' since there is no 'me' left to experience them? Well, that is a common misconception. When we say that the 'me' is absent in the guru, the 'me' is not absent to the extent that there is no reaction on the part of the guru. The guru is not some slab of human tofu, not some bland colorless blob without any characteristics of its own. He has a body, which has certain demands attendant to it. He has a mind that has been conditioned in certain ways and reacts in certain ways. You can say that there is a personality there-a person-ality. That personality has to exist or the body-mind mechanism of the guru could not function. What is absent, utterly and completely absent in the guru, is any sense of personal doership. The body-mind mechanism of the sage is like any other body-mind mechanism-an instrument through which God, or Consciousness or Totality, functions. But in the sage there is no sense of personal doership. In the personally identified individual there is a sense of "I am the doer" even where there is absolute intellectual conviction that that is not the case. The subjective experience of the ordinary individual is that of personal doership. This is what Ramesh calls 'divine hypnosis'. The sense of personal doership persists despite all evidence to the contrary. If you look at any of your actions in a bigger context, if you examine your own life, then the sense that "I'm doing it" falls apart immediately. Yet there is that sense within the body-mind mechanism of the identified individual that he is the doer, and until that is removed, it's there! For the sage there is only pure action or pure emotion-without any sense of personal doership. How does one find a guru? You do not find a guru. The understanding is that the guru appears as part of the functioning of God, or Totality. The same Power that turns an otherwise happy and well-adjusted body-mind mechanism into a seeker either delivers onto that seeker a guru or does not. It may deliver onto that seeker a false guru, one with whom the interaction leads into the exact opposite direction of realization of one's true nature...
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