Going Beyond Some Basics part 5 – importance of the Guru

        [Black Mamaba (though not black in color) gets "defanged" in our next episode]

Please take the details of the following scenario "with a grain of salt", with a little latitude, some suspension of judgment.  What matters in the following is the essence or fundamental idea.  Providing simple & yet accurate analogies may be difficult, but the "flavor" of the situation is somewhat like this.

Love is natural, valued, something we want.  As infants in the Waking Dream, the fortunate children find themselves loved & care for by 1, or better yet, 2 parents.  More or less, friends show up in our lives.  With luck, Life rewards us with a lover, a spouse, whatever.

Other dimensions of Life: learning, sport, art, etc. follow the same pattern.  We have teachers, coaches, masters,  & so on.  This is simply the way this Waking Dream works.

Why imagine or assume that the most important endeavor, waking from this Dream, should be an exception, why should we expect it to be different.  If you take the Waking Dream World to be Real, then random chance militates against odds & probabilities involved in the Great Pattern we now summarize:

Initial transcendent intuition & spiritual aspiration may begin with a sense of the Presence of God.  Whether formally religious, counter-culture spiritual, or otherwise, a dyad is imagined: self & God.  Other patterns of entry can be found, but let this one stand in for all the others, for the sake of discussion.

When Ego is attenuated & Desire for Liberation grows, perhaps for many decades, perhaps for many lifetimes [all in the Waking Dreams], "Grace" allows one to "hear" about a higher Teaching.  Pursuing in good faith that form of the Teaching, however imperfect & partial, leads to access to a higher version of the Teaching that leads to Liberation. Ultimately, like the parent, friend, lover, spouse, teacher, coach, master, …, the Guru appears in one’s Life.  Some overlook that precious opportunity, some check it out, only to drift away later.  Others follow the "breadcrumbs", thus leading them out of the forest of Ignorance, and attain Liberation in minutes, days, weeks, years, or decades.  Some will only "make it" in the next or some subsequent Lifetime.  Ultimately all are freed, to gloriously find there never was an "all", an Ego, an Individual at all.  But Grace does take the form of the Guru, 99% of the time,  In that Great Pattern, the individual is found to be a fiction.  The Guru was the True Self all along.

Some more of the instruction of Master Nome [Maharshi disciple] regarding this Waking Dream World:

 In as much as the view of the world is a mirror image of the view of oneself, as the identity of oneself determines the definition of the World since the Seer himself appears as the Seen, the “I” as “this”. For the purpose of knowing Reality without veils, one should inquire to know oneself, giving up the objective outlook, as well as the Ego to whom it belongs.  Those who are detached from the World & the Senses, who are not identified with the Body, who perceive the transient nature of all in the World & who yearn for the direct experience of the Knowledge of Reality as it is should so inquire. View the World as transitory, as inert, & as in a passing Dream. Never expect the World to provide what is one’s own Happiness, Identity, & Reality. To transcend it is to remain blissful, at free in the Knowledge of the unreality of the World & the Self’s freedom from that illusion. This is the perception of Reality free of the forms of illusion.  Abidance in worldless Being, true perception, transcendence of the World, experience of indivisible Existence, & true experience beyond debate or doubt are for those who inquire to know the Self which is the sole-existent Reality.

 By the term World is meant all that is perceived, all objects, all activities, all events, the forms of living beings, anything in Space & Time, & anything seen, heard, touched, or sensed in any manner. Transcendence of the World is Liberation from bondage & suffering in relation to all of this.

Abandoning the objective outlook constituting the World yields the perception of Reality as it is.  Such cannot be by anything of the World, but only by Knowledge of the Self, the Reality that is.  Where could one go in the World so that one would be beyond World ?  Yet one's real Being is ever beyond the World, & Knowledge reveals its nature.

 The Self is changeless & permanent.  The World is changeful & impermanent. Each Object has a creation, a changeful duration & a destruction.  This is true for all objects & for the World as a whole, without exception.  The Self is permanent with no creation or destruction.  The perception of the World depends on the changeful senses.  A change in the Senses brings a change in the Object & the World perceived.  The Self does not change as the senses do because it is immutable Being & the unchanging Witness of all the changing Senses.  A change of mode or state of Mind yields a corresponding change in the Senses & the perceived World.  The Self is not changed, being immutable Existence & Consciousness  & the witness of the Mind as well as the Senses.

 [The above themes & 1600 pages more are freely available as perused or downloaded PDF’s, the sole occupants of a Public Microsoft Skydrive “Public Folder” accessible through  www.jpstiga.com ]