Please note that I respond to this as neither a "Neo-Advaitan," a person in despair, nor a person particularly bestowed of (or seeking) "Transcendental Grace."
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "dhamiltony2k5" <dhamiltony...@...> wrote: > > Neo-Advaitin despair, spiritual practice and Transcendental Grace. > > From e-mail on the side: > <paste> > "I have met a lot of people in the community who have given > up on the whole notion of self-realization, they don't think > it's possible, and that, to me, is the 'despair rakshasa' > showing up and saying, stop your practice. I don't live in Fairfield, and have had limited exposure to "Neo-Advaitan" teaching (attending one talk by Gangaji years ago). So I cannot speak to the things this person perceives in Fairfield. But I can speak to that one talk I attended, and my impressions of it. Because the person who brought me was a long-time friend of Gangaji's, I got to hang with her for a while when she was "offstage." My impression of her was that she was a very nice lady indeed, and seemingly in a good place, both spirit- ually and pragmatically. I happened to meet her on the day that she learned her own teacher (Papaji) had died, and I have rarely seen such composure in what could be a trying situation. That said, I thought her followers sucked. Gangaji sat there in the talk and told them over and over and over that she was "doing" nothing to facilitate or "cause" the periods of awakening that they some- times experienced around her. And afterwards, all that these spiritual hangers-on could talk about was "How powerful her darshan was today." Talk about having completely missed the point! I think that this person's problem comes from the same basic misunderstanding that Gangaji's students had -- trying to associate the word "grace" with self-realization. "Grace" implies that you are being "given a gift" by someone or something "other." Self-realization is the realization of the Self, by the Self. There *is* no "other." Gangaji's followers were more interested in being followers than they were realizing their Self, in my humble opinion. Or they wanted her to "give" them self realization, enough so that they missed everything she was saying, and "heard" only what they wanted to hear. > But what is that grace comes mysteriously and robs you > of your despair. It brings you out from your despair > into the light. "That grace" has IMO nothing to do with "grace." That which "robs you of your despair" is the real- ization of your Self, and the realization that it cannot ever be affected by puny-ass human concepts like "despair." Self is eternal, and has been the basis of your self as long as you have had one. No one needs to "give" it to you or even "show" it to you. Speaking as someone who has had my share of minor awakenings or realizations, I think that the mind- state this person is calling "despair" is his own. He speaks very much like someone who has been seeking for years or decades and has never had such an awak- ening or realization. And yes, some of them "give up." This person has made pursuing a path endlessly and never arriving into a virtue. But that has nothing to do with the "giving up on path" that some -- including some "Neo-Advaitans" -- have expressed. When you *have* such a realization, the first thing that strikes you is that *it is nothing new*, it has always already been present. With that realization "under your belt," where is the urgency to follow some "path" that promises to take you "there?" > That's why rakshasas don't like grace. "Rakshasas" are imaginary. Get over it. > Grace is a very real, mysterious and powerful thing. It's > grace that ultimately bestows neutrality or equanimity. > It has to be bestowed, you can't earn it, you can't work > for it, it has to come from some other place. In other words, "Beam me up, Scotty." Suffice it to say that this does not match my exper- ience. I would venture to suggest that it does not match the *writer's* experience, either, and that he is speaking purely from *theory* -- stuff that has been told to him. There is a big difference between "giving up on self realization" and no longer actively seeking it in the way that this person believes it is "bestowed." It's the same difference that exists between talking the talk of "self realization" and the quiet, simple fact of realizing the self -- walking the walk. Even if it's a temporary realization, in my experience that banishes all silly notions of "path." You may choose to pursue one after having such a realization just out of habit, or out of allegiance to a teacher, but the notion that a "path" is "necessary" becomes silly the moment you realize that you are already where the "path" promises to lead, and have always been there. Giving up on "path" does not mean "giving up on self realization." It may sometimes merely mean giving up on the notion of "striving" or "following," or espec- ially desiring or feeling that you *need* "grace." The last is a term that IMO has no place in the study of self realization, and is out of place in that study as grafting a second nose onto your ass in an attempt to improve your sense of smell.
