Note from Guru Kurt: This document amounts to, again, a test of the current religious community. A follower of a guru should not seek to preserve that guru's teachings at all costs, but should keep an open mind. A guru himself should not ignore other gurus, but seek to enter into dialog with them. Truth exists, and infinite are its descriptions, all of them harmonious, and all of them true although there are different degrees of truth. I do not think Andrew Cohen, the teacher of the person who received this e-mail, was shown this document, but he should have been shown for it is a very interesting discussion. I disagree with many of the things that Cohen says, in particular his strange idea that the universe is inherently impersonal. I state that he has entered into Brahman's nature in this life, which is his second experience of illumination, and has found no personality, for Brahman will remain forever impersonal to mankind, even to the illumined. He does personify Himself, however, in the Incarnation or Avatar, and when the illumined begin at last to perceive the real spiritual power of the Avatar, they join in the chorus which proclaims that reality is deeply personal and warm, not impersonal and cold. I do not seek support from anyone on earth, relying solely upon my Father's Supreme power on this planet, yet I look forward to happier days, when the illumined will befriend one another and have interesting, though controversial, discussions, instead of seeking exclusivity and isolation.
Dear Editor,
Since the title of your website is "What is Enlightenment?," I
thought I would write a short essay describing my ideas about it. You may find
them interesting. If not, I am not disturbed.
Before the universe was created, God alone existed. God was spirit. God
possessed energy. These two things were all that was, God and his energy or
power, also called his shakti. This being is what the Hindu scriptures call
Brahman. He is also called the Absolute, Sat-Chit-Ananda (Being, Consciousness,
Bliss), and the impersonal Godhead. I prefer the name Brahman, because this term
is defined so that a type of advanced personality is implied, but this great
being possesses such infinite power, and is responsible for such essential
universal dictates, that he must forever seem impersonal to us. He is the
Universal Self, too vast, too unfathomable for any lesser being to comprehend.
The imagination falters. One is better served by dwelling on one of His personal
manifestations, to whom I will later refer. This Brahman and the God of the
Christians, indeed the Gods of all major religions, are all one and the same. He
has revealed himself in many societies, in many cultures, beginning five or six
thousand years ago. Buddhism, which is a "Godless religion," also fits
into this scheme in a definite way, as I will relate later.
For aeons, for measureless time God was alone. The Bible says he
"brooded over the waters." Gradually He conceived the idea of a
creation, and spent immense time in intricate, meticulous planning on how it
could be carried out given his infinite powers and resources. When the planning
stage was finished he acted, creating a vast universe. The entire universe was
created from a non-thinking part of himself. That is, with a part of his spirit
Brahman was able to form ideas, store memories, and make plans. He had a
localized mind that was separate from the universe he created. The universe
itself was created from non-thinking spirit, although Brahman remains conscious
of it. Our entire universe, including matter and all living souls, is spiritual
in nature. Everything is spirit. This is why particle physicists find strange
connections as they investigate the tiniest constituents of matter. They are
encountering a spiritual reality, for all things are connected at the deepest
levels.
Matter is created as a type of folding of spirit. Spirit is a real, living
material. It is folded in very intricate ways in a process requiring tremendous
energy to accomplish. The folding occurs to extreme depths, so that atoms have
the property of almost infinite separation. Einstein outlined correctly the vast
amount of energy held in matter with the equation E = mc2. As stated
in the scriptures, the form of spirit that is matter, the atoms, are maintained
by God as well. God created, maintains, and will destroy matter when it is no
longer useful. Obviously, these attributes require Brahman to have the power of
acting on an sub-atomic level, as indeed he does. Also it follows that Brahman
conceived of the properties of atoms such as electron orbitals, covalent and
ionic bonds, and the ability to form crystals, for example, before he created
the universe. As indeed he did. Life, for instance, demands the unique
properties of the carbon atom to succeed. Water must crystallize and float when
it freezes. All matter has the properties it does because He designed and then
created it to have these properties.
There is nothing science has found, or will find, that contradicts religion.
Religion as it has been revealed to date caters to the superstitious nature of
the majority of mankind, stating truth in poetic and dramatic fashion. The time
has come to meet the scientists, many of whom have become gross materialists,
head on. Many actually believe that consciousness arises from biochemical
reactions in the brain, which is not the truth. The brain reflects and supports
in the material world an underlying spiritual activity. If scientists could but
peer deep enough into matter, or into the inner workings of a cell, they would
find the smile of Brahman waiting patiently. Unfortunately for them, no one but
Brahman can attain these depths. His authority must be established by different
methods.
Having described matter, what then is the spirit of man, or soul? Brahman’s
idea was to create many eternal beings, along with matter, from his non-thinking
spirit. Matter is meant for service to these beings. To the souls that he
created he gave the power of independent thought and experience, and thus in a
very real sense they are separate from Him. Souls are started, they are created
in seed form, as very small packets of independent, self-conscious spirit.
Although created from his own immense spirit, he enters them in an Absolute
sense only as consciousness, not as thought, as I stated above.
Brahman wanted to create a universe without sorrow, and in the ultimate sense
all are one in the Absolute and free from sorrow, as stated in the Hindu
scriptures. The mystery of creation is that while Brahman has become everything,
yet each being experiences itself as completely separate, capable of both
happiness and sorrow. The sorrow that embodied beings experience is a necessary
consequence of the type of beings that they are, and their mode of evolution.
Brahman wanted the individual soul or jiva to be as happy as it can be in
itself, without considering itself as merged in the Absolute. He wanted happy
worlds at all levels. He therefore gave all souls the properties they need to
attain happiness. Earth is a blessed place, for all beings existing here are by
their very nature eternal and can attain happiness.
It is a real world, a real creation. It is not imaginary. All souls begin
their journey on the path of evolution as the lowest form of life, single-celled
entities, prokaryotes. They then slowly journey up the chain of embodied beings,
travelling through single-celled entities to simple multi-cellular creatures,
and then to higher types of animals, until they finally attain human birth. This
is why the Buddha said that a man is blessed just to attain human birth. Such a
soul is indeed rare in the universe, when one considers the vast multitude of
lower forms of life. Since they are real beings, when travelling up the chain of
evolution souls are naturally attracted to and become attached to sense objects.
They must survive in the world they encounter and make sense of it for
themselves. They naturally think happiness is found in possessing sense objects
and because they perceive other people with their senses, in prestige, in fame.
This is called avidya, ignorance, and it is a profound error that results in
misery for the soul, since true happiness can never be found in the material
world. Only a transitory, short-lived happiness may be found there. In the human
context the soul finally begins to look for the source of the misery caused by
this ignorance, and begins to strive consciously to go beyond it in
enlightenment.
What happens in the process of enlightenment, as described in for instance
the Bhagavad Gita, is that the soul burns out all its attachments to objects in
the world and forgets selfish quests such as prestige and personal power. It
beholds itself, amazed, as it really exists, separate from everything and
everyone else in the world, which it now finds to be illusory, or maya. The soul
revels in its own purity and inner radiance, and wonders how it could ever have
dreamed that happiness could be found in external pursuits. It encounters
unalloyed bliss and joy, and lives the rest of its embodied life in freedom.
Brahman has an external manifestation, as I stated earlier, which is a
cognitive spiritual region outside of our universe. He also has an internal
manifestation deep in the heart of each created being. When the individual soul
finally breaks out of its ego cage, which requires intense efforts of the soul
as well as the grace and power of the Lord within, the person’s deepest Self
emerges through the existing channels of personality, which are no longer
clogged by loathsome self-will, and begins a teaching work. The person becomes a
divine force for good in the world. The experiences of a person in such a state
are well-described. The works of illumined men are filled with descriptions of
the states that are attained: security, fulfillment, and happiness that never
fades, combined with the ability to truly help other beings struggling on their
own individual paths. The Self-realized man or woman has nothing left to gain
from the world, but much to give.
There is another class of being, known as the incarnation or Avatar. This
being is not human. It did not travel up the path of evolution, but existed in a
state of perfect bliss before the earth was created. It is the embodiment of the
creative aspect of Brahman, and it is actually God Himself born in human form.
The Avatar is born to reveal to man the truth about his real nature, and to
point the way to increased happiness and finally enlightenment. The Avatars
include Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Rama and in the modern age, Chaitanya and
Ramakrishna. (This is not a complete list.)
I include the Buddha here for, although he did not propound teachings about
God or the human soul in his life’s work, he described the Way to
enlightenment, to nirvana, perfectly. He merely omitted all reference to God. He
did not describe the soul as an existing spiritual entity because to do so would
have presupposed a Creator of the soul. He tailored his teachings in this way in
order to reach those people on earth who did not respond quickly and easily to
the idea of God. His focus was on independent man, and that his teachings were
effective is made obvious by observing the vast following that he still has. I
maintain that he was an embodiment of earth’s Creator, a true incarnation of
God, wise enough to withhold key information in order to foster the spiritual
growth of certain types of individuals who find the idea of God abhorrent.
Jesus also gave a partial teaching. He knew very well about reincarnation and
the attainment of nirvana, but these things were omitted. His message was
tailored to the lowest of the low, the sinners and lost souls. He gave a message
of mercy, to emphasize the compassionate aspect of God’s character. The times
were too violent, and the people too unreceptive, to respond to a full message.
By heaven and hell he did have specific meanings. Hell, for instance, is
evolution running in reverse. In the case of unrepentant sinners, the
possibility exists that they will be cast down into the animal world again.
There is great suffering and torment that accompanies such action that is
extremely effective at reforming people. Jesus emphasized that sinners can
appeal to God for forgiveness, and avoid this terrible fate. When he returns to
earth, as promised, he will give a complete message, along with exercising the
judgement that is upon man.
There are differences among illumined teachers. Some are better than others.
Some have no or few scandals during their period of teaching. Some have many
scandals. Indignities arise because although the soul has burned through its
attachments to the external world, many of its hidden internal tendencies, or
samskaras, remain. These subtle tendencies are much deeper than sense
attachment, which has been totally burned out. The soul is now free and
blissful, yet still contains deep within itself desires for enjoyment. Selfish
desire has been extinguished, but some desire remains or the being would die.
The soul of man is not simple, like a log that can be burned completely to
ashes. Through trillions of lives, it has acquired deep tendencies that often do
not manifest themselves until later in the teaching career. These desires
express themselves through channels that are available, with results that are
not always pleasant for a guru’s followers. Many become disillusioned to see
behavior they previously associated with people in a degraded state of mind.
You see, every soul has an unquenchable thirst for life! The desire for life
is very deep indeed, and after illumination this tremendous drive remains, which
is why illumined men return again and again to continue to teach mankind. A
superior teacher will find his satisfactions in living innocently, through
channels that are more acceptable to society. Every being, even the illumined
person, still wants to enjoy life. This desire can ultimately be extinguished
too, but only after many teaching lives. Only very advanced teachers attain the
discrimination necessary to channel this desire appropriately.
When a soul first attains illumination, it is not a good teacher of others.
It does not comprehend in a creative way what has happened to it. It may not
even teach at all, but merely go about muttering "I am That." However,
the attainment of illumination in one life assures its attainment in future
lives. The experience deepens, and becomes richer. It is like the way a Japanese
samurai sword is manufactured. The white-hot steel is hammered flat and folded,
and if one wanted to stop after the first fold one would still have a sword. The
sword-maker doesn’t stop, however. He hammers and folds, hammers and folds,
driving out impurities from the steel, until the sword has been folded twenty or
more times. The resulting sword is suppler and stronger than it would have been
without this process. Thus teachers differ in their level of purity and
effectiveness.
The process of evolution has enlightenment as its natural end. This is due to
the design of Brahman, who wanted above all that every being should ultimately
be happy. There are different degrees of enlightenment, for the enlightened
being invariably is born again and again, attaining deeper, sweeter, and
enhanced enlightenment with each birth. An illumined teacher purifies himself as
he engages in his teaching work, and returns to earth as a better teacher in his
next life. Eventually he will attain final liberation, total freedom from birth
and death. In the meantime, he enjoys the fruits of his accomplishment. A truly
illumined teacher lives free from all sorrow.
The suffering and unhappiness of human life on earth, all the wars, violence,
poverty, and social disharmony, are caused ultimately by ignorance that exists
because each soul began its eternal march as a lowly creature, and has grown
mainly by accumulating sense experience. Avatars come to show the path to
fulfillment, since it is possible for the human soul to break all the chains
holding it to material existence, and blossom into an effulgent and joyful
spiritual being, the enlightened man or woman.
If this has thrown some light on the process of enlightenment for you, I am
glad. If not, that is all very well too.
Sincerely,
Kurt Jxxxxxx