the guru, tradition and freedom

THE GURU, TRADITION AND FREEDOM

Dialogue 21


K: Could we relate the whole field of tradition to what we are
talking about to see the divergences, contradictiona and similari-
ties, and also to see if there is anything new in what we are saying?
Let us discuss this, questioning it back and forth.

A: Let us start with the traditional four purusarthas (aims of life):
dharma (duty), artha (wealth), kama (pleasure) and moksa (free-
existence has these aspects, and that each of them is vital for the
development of understanding.

K: Should we not start with the meaning of it all?

A: The traditionalists started with the four aspects as the meaning.

K: should we not inquire what human existence, human sorrow
and conflict mean? How do the professionals answer this question?

SW: In the tradition we find two clear directions--the orthodox
direction which goes by the verbal interpretation of facts and the
breakaway tradition, as seen in Dattatreya and the Yoga-vasistha.
The sers who broke away said: No guru. We have discovered it
for ourselves; we will not swear by the Vedas. The whole of
nature, In Buddha also, there was a breaking away. His teaching
represents the core of the breakaway pattern. Thoses who broke
away were closely linked with life.

If you read the Yoga-Vasistha, it says that the mind is full of
thoughts, conflicts; and these conflicts arise because of desire and
fear; unless you are able to resolve them, you cannot understand.
It talks of negative thinking. Max Muller and some others
misinterpreted the word nirodha. The word does not mean
suppression; it means negation.

A great deal is said about gurus. The Yoga-Vasistha says that
giving intiation and other such actions are meaningless. The

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awakening of the disciple is in right understanding and in aware-
ness. That alone is the primary and responsible fact. These
essentials are the core of the breakaway tradition.

R: And yet there are many places in the Yoga-Vasistha where it
says that without a guru you cannot find anything.

A: Breakway from what? If it is a breakaway from the social
system. then the breakaway tradition also continues the social
system.

SW: To the problem of understanding, tradition gives a formal and
verbal approach. In the breakaway tradition, this is not so. The
break is not away from society. Both traditions exist. In the mathas
or monasteries, they talked of the Vedas but what they said has
nothing to do with life; there were others who related all that they
understood to life. But whatever was said had nothing to do with
society.

R: How is it that the guru tradition has become so important?

K: Shall we discuss this question of the guru? Shall we begin with
that? What does the word 'guru' mean?

SW: Desika is the right word, not guru. Desika means 'one who
helps to awaken the discipe; one who helps the seeker to
understand'. The word means 'one who learns'.

R: The disciple is called a sisya. a sisya is one who is capable of
learning.

SW: Guru means 'vast, beyond, great'.

K: If the guru is one who is great, beyond, one who is profound,
then what relationship has he to a disciple?

SW: In the Upanisads, it is one of love and compassion. The
Upanisads maintain that compassion is the contact between the
guru and the disciple.

K: How has the tradition now become authotriarian? How has a
sense of discipline, of following, of accepting whatever the guru
says been introduced into the relationship? The autjoritatian,
compulsive, destructive relationship comes in the way of real
thinking; it destroys initiative. How has this relationship come into
being?

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SW: It is difficult to say. The two approaches must have existed for
a long time. In one tradition, the guru is taken as a friend, as a
person the disciple loves; in that the guru is not authoritarian at
all. The other tradition exploits. It wants authority, followers.

A: Swamiji's main point is that there has not been a homogeneous
stream. There is the outsider and there is the conformist. A non-
conformist is one who rejects society; he is outside society.

R: We come back to you first question: What is it all about? Apart
from the gurus, what is the fundamental answer to life?

K: I wonder if we could find out. Could you dig into it? Could you
dig everything out of me? Do you understand what I mean? You
come to a well and you get water according to the size of your
bucker; whatever vessel you carry, that is the amount of water you
get. You have read a great deal of the ancient literature, you have
practised, you have read what we have talked about. You are well
equipped from the traditional point of view, and you know what is
happening in the world. Now, you and I meet. Dig out of me as
much as you can. Question me about everything, from the
begining in the end. Question deeply as a conformist and as a
non-conformist, as a guru and as a non-guru, as disciple and as a
non-disciple. It is like going to a well with tremendous thirst,
wanting to find out everything. Do it that way, sir. Then I think it
will be profitable.

SW: Then can I be absolutely free?

K: Break all the windows, because I feel wisdom is infinite; it has
no limits. And because it has no frontiers, it is totally impersonal.
So, with all your experience, knowledge and understanding of
tradition and the breakaway pattern, which also becomes tradi-
tion, with what you know and what you have understood, from
your own meditations, from your own life, you come to me. Do
not be satisfied by just a few words. Dig deep.

SW: I would like to know how you came to it yourself.

K: You want to know how this person came upon it? I could not
tell you. You seee, sir, he apparently never went through any
practice, discipline, jealously, envy, ambition, competition. He did
not want power, position, prestige, fame; he did not want any of
them. And therefore there was never any question of giving up. So


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when I say really do not know, I think that would be the truth.
Most of the traditonal teachers go through, give up, practise,
sacrifice, control; they sit under a tree and come upon clarity.

SW: In your teachings, sensitivity, understanding and passive
awareness are factors that must saturate all one's living. I would
like to ask how you came upon all these.

A: You may have had nothing to give to give up and, therefore, no
discipline, no sadhana, but what about people who have some-
thing to give up?

K: I really could not tell you how I came upon all this. I wonder
why you bother about it. How is it important?

SW: It is curiosity, it is joy.

K: Let us go beyond that.

SW: The moment you say awareness, attention, sensitivity, one is
so full of wonder, appreciation. How did you come to this? How is
it that this man is able to talk like this? And when we analyse what
he says, it is so scientific, rational and full of meaning.

K: You know the story of how the boy was picked up, how he was
born in the most orthodx Brahmin fammily, that he was not
conditioned either by tradition or anything in life--as a Hindu or a
Theosophist. None of it touched him. And I do not know why it
did not touch him.

A: This question which he asks may be put in another idiom. How
did it happen that a person who was in the midst of an environ-
ment which laid maximum stress on phenomenal life did not get
caught in that life?

SW: K came by it. He is not able to explain, but he talks and he
uses certain terms, and whole logic of it is there. It is a wonder
to the listener how, without anything, he has come to it.

K: How is it that a man like K, not having read the sacred books of
the East or of the West, not having gone through the whole gamut
of experience--of giving up, of sacrifice--says these things? I
really could not say, sir.

A: You gave the answer a minute ago when you said that wisdom is
not personal.


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K: But he asks how he came upon wisdom without all this.

SW: I am not asking how he came upon it, but I find a cogency and
a rationality in his taklks that I find beautiful. It is in his heart.

K: When you say that it has come because it is in his heart, I do not
know how to respond. It comes--not from the heart or from the
mind. It comes. Or would you say, sir, that it would come to any
person who is really without the self?

SW: Perfectly so, sir.

K: I think that would be the most logical answer.

SW: Or is it that you saw the misery of mankind and then got it?

K: No. To answer this question properly one has to go into the
whole thing. There was that boy who was picked up and who went
through all kinds of things--he was proclaimed the Messiah, he
was worshipped, large properties were given to him, he had a great
following. None of this touched him: he gave up land as easily as
he accepted it. He did not read any sacred books; he did not read
philosophy or psychology; he never practised anything. And there
was the quality of speaking from emptiness.

SW: Yes.

K: You understand, sir, that there is never any accumulation from
which he speaks. So the question: How do you say such things?
involves the larger question of whether wisdom, or whatever you
might like to call it, can be contained in any particular conscious-
ness, or whether it lies beyond all particuar consciousnesses.

Sir, look at this valley. Look at the hills, the trees, the rocks--
the valley is all that. Without the content of the valley there is no
valley. Now, if there is no content in consciousness, there is no
consciousness--in the sense of the limited. When you ask the
question: How is it that he says these things?--I really do not
know. But the question can be ansered: When it happens, the
mind is completely empty. This does not mean that you become a
medium.

SW: I derive from this that infinity is beauty, rationality, logic. It is
full of symmetry in its expression‎.

K: Sir, having said all this, what do you want to find out? You have


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capacity, you have read a great deal, you have knowledge,
experience, you have practised and meditated--from there, ask.

SW: Consciousness is bondage. Only from emptiness can one have
entry into it.

K: So you are asking: How can a human being being empty his mind?

SW: There is the tradutuional idea of the adhikari, the person who
can learn. And the traditional idea is that there are levels or
differences among the people who can receive or learn. What we
can learn depends on that difference. There are three levels. In the
orthodox texts they are mentioned as sattva, rajas and tamas.
Those who belong to the first category--sattva--can have under-
standing by listening to a teacher. The rajas category have to listen
and recollect when they face a problem of life. The tamasic ones
canot learn because their minds are too gross. In order to make
the mind subtle, there are many methods are or upasanas. Yoga starts
with breath control, meditation, standing on the head. Even so,
they say that asanas (exercise postures of yoga) are meant as a
cleansing. It is said. Be passive, observe 'what is'.

K: You say that, as human beings are constituted, there are levels
or gradations of receptivity. Is it possible for all people who are
still in the process of becoming to come upon this?

SW: That is one part of it. The other is that for most people there
are moments of understanding. But these slip away, and there is a
constant struggle. What are such people to do?

K: Knowing that there are levels, is it possible to cut across these
levels?

SW: Is that a question of time?

K: Can we cut across these levels or are there processes by which
we can transcend the levels?

R: Tradition says that a long process of time is necessary.

SW: I do not agree with that.

R: One must have the competence to understand.

A: I say that my life is a life of becoming. When I come and sit with
you, you say that time is irrelevant. I say, 'Yes', because it is clear.


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But I am soon back again tn the field of time, effort etc..,and this
thing which I feel I understand, slips away.

K: The question is fairly clear. The question is: When I listen, I
seem to understand, but when I go away, it is gone. And the other
question is: How is one who is not bright, who is not rational, to
break through his conditioning and come upon it? What is your
answer to this?

SW: My answer which is based on experience, and which is also
the traditional answer, is this: Let such a man practise some form
of meditation which makes the mind more alert.

K: That is, do certain practices, do certain exercises, breathing,
etc.,untill the mind is capable of understanding. And the other
man says: When I listen to you, I understand, but it slips away.
These are the two problems. First of all take a mind that has no
capacity, how is it capable of seeing? How is such a mind capable
of seeing, understanding, without practice, without the time
process? Time implies a process, right? Without time, how is such
a mind to come upon this?

My mind is dull. My mind has not the clarity to understand this
thing immediately. So you tell me to practise, to breathe, to eat
less; you ask me to practise all the methods and systems which will
help to make my mind sharp, clear, sensitive. All that involves
time and, when you allow time, there are other factors which enter
into the mind. If I have to go from here to there, to cover that
distance takes time. In covering that distance, there are other
factors which enter during the voyage so that I never reach there.
before I reach there I see something beautiful and I am carried
away. The way is not a straight, narrow path in which I walk.
Innumerable factors are present. These incidents, happenings,
impressions are going to change the movement of my direction.
And that thing which I am trying to understand is not a fixed point
either.

A: The point that it is not a fixed thing should be explored.

K: I say that my mind is confused, is disturbed; I do not
understand. You tell me to understand by doing these things. So
you have established understanding as a fixed point, but it is not a


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SW: True, it is not a fixed point.

K: Obviously. If it is a fixed point, and I am going towards it, there
are other factors which enter in my journey towards it, and these
factors are going to influence me much more than the end.

A: That end is a projection of the unknowing mind.

K: That way is not the way at all. First see it. it is not a fixed point,
and it can never be a fixed point; therefore, I say: That is a false
thing altogether. Then, as it is not the way, I deny the whole thing;
I wipe away a tremendous field--all practices, all meditations, all
knowlege. Then what have I left? I am left with the fact that I am
confused, that I am dull.

Now, how do I know I am dull? How do I know I am
confused?--Only through comparison, because I see that you
are very perceptive. I see through comparison, through mea-
surement that I am dull. I do not compare, and I now see what I
have done through comparison: I have reduced myself to a state
which I call dull. And I see that is not the way either. So I
reject comparison. Am I dull then, if I do not compare? So I
have rejected the system--a process, a fixed end which you
have evolved as a means of enlightenment through time. I say:
Comparison is not the way; measurement means distance.

SW: Does it mean that this understanding is not a matter vitally
connected with capacity at all? We started with capacity.

K: I listen to you. Swamiji, but I do not understand. I do not know
what it is that I do not understand, but you show me--tme,
process, fixed point, etc. You show it to me, and I deny them. So
what has happened to my mind? In the very rejection, in the very
denual, the mind has become less dull. The rejection of the false
makes the mind clear; and the rejection of comparison,, which is
also the false, makes the mind sharp.

So, what have I left now? I know I am dull only in comparison
with you. Dullness exists in my meeasuring myself with what is
called brightness. And so I say: I will not measure. Am I dull then?
I have completely rejected comparison, and comparison means
conformity. What have I left? The thing I have called dull is not
dull; it is what it is. What have I left at the end of all this? All that I

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have left is: I will not compare any more; I will not me measure myself
with somebody who is superior to me; and I will not tread ths path
which is beautiful laid down for me. So I reject all the structures
which man has imposed upon me to achieve enlightement.

So, where am I? I start from the beginning. I know nothing
about enlightenment, understanding, process, comparison, becom-
ing. I have thrown them away. I do not know. Knowledge is the
means of getting hurt and tradition is the instrument by which I get
hurt. I do not want that instrument and, therefore, I am not hurt. I
start with complete innocence. Innocence means a mind that is
incapable of being hurt.

Now, I say to myself: Why did they not see this simple fact that
there is no fixed point? Why? Why did they pile all this on the
human mind so that I have to wade through all this, in order to
discard all this?

It is very interesting, sir. Why go through all this process if I
have to discard it? Why did you not tell me: Do not compare; truth
is not a fixed point?

Do I flower in goodness through comparison? Can humility be
gained through time, practice? Obviously not. And yet you have
insisted in practice. Why? When you insist on practice, you think
that you are going to a fixed point. So you have deceived yourself,
and you are deceiving me.

You do not say to me: You know nothing, and I know nothing;
let us find out whether all the things that human beings have
imposed on other human beings are true or false. You say:
Enlightenment is something to be achieved through time, through
dscplne, through the guru.

Let us find out why human bengs have imposed upon human
beings something which is not true. Human beings have tortured
themselves, castigated themselves to get enlightenment--as though
enlightement were a fixed point. And they end up blind. I think
that is why, sir. the so-called man of error is much nearer the truth
than the man who practises to reach the truth. A man who
practises truth becomes impure, unchaste.


Rishi Valley
January 21, 1971