Awakened Spiritual Master

 

Awakened spiritual Master

Summary:

 

There are many teachers who teach in many subjects, intellectual, scientific, technical, artistic, religious, philosophical, etc. Depending on the country, the time and the matter, they will be designated by the words masters, teachers, swamis, guru.

 

An awakened master is first of all an awakened guide of the disciples, who have chosen him as their guide, on The PAth in which he himself encountered awakening. The goal of this path is not awakening, but Realization and Liberation.

 

Awakening is a state of consciousness after it has encountered nirvikalpa-samadhi. A nirvikalpa-samadhi is also called, in Christians, ecstasy, when the consciousness merges in Unity, some would say in the light of God.

 

Awakening happens suddenly, like an accident, in the life of a mystic, during a particularly profound meditation. There are many stages of concentration, in meditation and nirvikalpa-samadhi is the highest.

 

Sri Gautama (the historical Buddha) was an awakened one. Some awakened teach, others not. All those who call themselves gurus are not awakened. An awakened is very rare: there are very few. The purpose of the spiritual life is not awakening, it is Realization, then Liberation. We can reach Liberation without going through the awakening box. To do this, one must lead an existence where spiritual practice, the four pillars of The Path and where the agya are omnipresent, however this is another subject.

 

The Path and Its Guide

 

The Path is a revealed spiritual path, that is, it is not based on learning, studies, dogma. If its name is recent, it dates back a long time and would have its origins on the banks of a now extinct river, the saraswati river, mentioned in the Rig Veda, which flowed from the Himalayas to present-day Pakistan, flowing into the Arabian Sea.

 

This spirituality was developing in cities that had disappeared, such as Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, from the Harrapean civilization (or Indus). This period is the Upper Neolithic, in a time when writing did not exist, seven to nine thousand years ago.

 

This civilization disappeared at the same time as the "saraswati" river, following a series of seismic disasters that diverted its course. The cities built on its shores were deserted around 1,600 BCE because of the drought.

 

It was exactly at this time that a spirituality emerged from the plateaus of Iran with the Aryan people: Vedism. These Indo-Aryans did not come at once, like Mongolian hordes, but by interpenetration, mixed with the natives, many of whom were the former inhabitants of the disappeared cities of Harrapian civilization.

 

The Indo-Aryan assimilated the mysticism of these peoples scattered over cashmere and northern India and incorporated it into Vedism. Vedism is not Hinduism or Brahmanism. At the same time the original form of The Path continued to exist, even if not under that name. The name has often changed depending on the time, country and languages of these countries.

 
The Legacy of The Path

 

Like a plant sows its seeds, through the wind and birds, The Path has spread in many mystics. Let us mention Jainism, the practice that was that of Sri Gautama, before he became a (awakened) Buddha.

 

This mysticism had nothing to do with Buddhism. The practice of Buddha Gautama ceased to live in his disciples from the moment Sri Gautama disappeared. Over time, his teaching was distorted, interpreted without him being able to correct the disciples. His words, learned by heart, were written down, almost four hundred and fifty years after the death of Buddha Gautama, of the Sakya clan.

 

Buddhism was invented by the Buddhists, not the Gautama Buddha.

 

Since then Buddha has been transformed into God, an avatar of Vishnu. This statement is not a judgment about Buddhism, but an observation. Between the Buddhism of the great vehicle, practiced by the Tibetans, and the teaching that made Gautama an awakened, there is the same difference as between what Jesus lived and the Russian Orthodox Church.

 

The Path has also infused mystical yoga (Yogasûtras, by Patanjali), taken over by Hinduism, but not only: it continues to exist today in India, in more or less faithful forms according to the practices in force in the various sects (in India this term has nothing pejorative, like the word guru) that have a part of its heritage like, for example, the "Radhasoamis", with their "satguru" lineages.

 

The Path is carried by a master who reveals it, but does not belong to any religion or sect. Oriental spiritualities are taught by masters, guides, swamis and gurus.

The Mystical Corpus of The Path

The Path, its corpus (sadhana) consists of the agya with its four pillars and its guide. The spiritual master is not the automatic and obligatory heir of a teaching given by another master. The spiritual master is not a swami, who took courses and passed a diploma, like a priest of the Catholic Church, for example. He is not elected; like the pope, nor appointed by a master to whom he would succeed.

In the Radhasoamis ashrams, whose teaching is a cousin of The Path, as are Jainism, Zen, Sikhism and Taoism, the masters are appointed, co-opted by their predecessors.

Thus, in place of a satguru, many are fighting over the inheritance. It is like a farm or forest property: the founder dies and the land is shared as much as there are heirs.

There are many maharaj ji gurus (title of satguru). It has become a title rather than the qualifier of a state of consciousness (awakening). To find the right one takes courage and time! Even if some have been more successful, have made more "buzz" than others in the West.

The Path is made up of the agya, its pillars: deep meditation, meditation in action, or service (the inaction of Lao-Tzu), satsang and angas.

The Path is embodied by its guide. It is he who gives Revelation and inspires and encourages the seekers who practice through his satsang and by answering their questions.

What Is a Spiritual Master?

For The Path what is a spiritual master, a guide? Or rather, what qualifies him as such? A spiritual master is not just a teacher. To be a teacher or guide, one must be an awakened one. An awakened person is not necessarily a spiritual master, but a spiritual master, according to The Path, must absolutely be an awakened person.

“The guide is a guide because he knows the way and because he disappears.”

Bhaktimàrga 427

 

What is an awakened person? He is a practitioner who has lived at least one Nirvikâlpa-samadhi. Samadhi is a fusion in inner light, total concentration of mind, ecstasy, contemplation. When one is in nirvikalppa-samadhi, one cannot make any gesture: one is absorbed in contemplation beyond space and time.

Now the words “awakening”, “awakened” are not deposited and everyone uses them as they see fit. I simply give you the meaning that is given to these words by the great spiritual traditions of Eastern and Near Eastern origin as described in books such as the “Dao-De-Jing”, “The Bhagavad-Gita”, “Yogasûtra”, etc.

The Awakening

It does not take any particular skill or merit to enter samadhi, it is more about «accident» than merit. However, to guide others, you need certain skills to facilitate this dharma. That is why not all the awakened are guides if all the guides of The Path are awakened. One can be a swami, a saint, a very respectable teacher of holy scripture without being an enlightened guide.

We can find awakening on other ways, we can even find it accidentally without going on a spiritual path. Some have known it through a combination of circumstances, a disruption in their existence and an accident that has thrown them into the fusion of their consciousness.

Without knowing what we have experienced we do not feel awake. An “accidental” awakener cannot help others to awaken because he cannot reproduce this experience, he does not have the “tools”.

An awakened what is it? He was a human being before awakening and he remains so after: he is not an avatar, an incarnation of God. The awakened has no special powers, he is not telepathic, he does not change water into wine, nor does he cure diseases. He does not dress in a particular way any more than his diet is dictated by the fantasies of seekers.

The Three Qualities of an Awakened Person

Three things differentiate him from those who are not awake, first of all: he has the right view, that immediate discernment of what is true, what is good and what is false and evil. He immediately recognizes what is Grace and what is false ego (what most people call ego). He knows unity. Which doesn’t mean he’s always right about everything.

Second thing: it enters easily and deeply into meditation. Third thing: he can easily let the satsang pass through him and express it, that is to say be like a medium, erasing himself to let the consciousness express itself through his mouth, through the satsang. It is these qualities that qualify him to guide others.

Fade Away for the Better

An awakened person is not free of ego, without ego the soul cannot remain incarnate and his personality does not disappear. The ego is given to the soul so that it has a conscience. By being able to say “I”, the ethereal soul can incarnate and be self-aware. At the same time he is given free will, the choice to say “yes” or to say “no” to unity or duality.

The awakened guide is a living human being and because of this he has an ego and like every living person, if he has an ego, he also has a false ego. The false ego is what people usually call the ego. So, an awakened to a false ego. But he identifies it immediately and does not fall into its traps, or he gets up quickly.

A spiritual master may come from within a spiritual group, having been initiated by an awakened or not. But, once he has experienced awakening, the spiritual master no longer belongs to any sect or religion: he is the guide of The Path, he gives Revelation and serves the observants by inspiring them, by giving them satsang.

To discern a bona fide master, refer to the quotation of Jesus given above: «You will recognize them by their fruits»'. A teacher is recognized by his teaching.

The number of disciples is not a guarantee of the truth of a teaching: many teachers have had very few disciples. Some have only had one or two, others have had 20 or 12. Are the spiritual paths that attract millions of faithful the purest and closest to the truth?

 

 

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