a discourse given at losing shadow in tushita hermitage ON april 24th

Do not cling to what I say or write; rather, hear and cling to the Mystery behind the words. You can only make knowing from the words, you can only make more knowledge from the words and that is of no use to the Wakening of Self-Discovery. 
These words carry the Mystic intended for your Heart, not your mind. 

I have heard many exclaim they simply want to be a Human Being. Then I say, cease living your conditioning, put down your condition. What does this mean? 

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Every culture is based around particular social/cultural belief systems, in other words, prescriptions of how you should think and behave to be human, a human as the culture perceives a human should be. 

From the moment we come into the world, we are taught who we are, what we are and how we should do things in order to belong to that particular version of human. In other words, we are taught how to modify our Inner, our Being, for the sake of belonging to the outer. We enclose our Being, the Self, in a cellophane bubble made from worn out, recycled human-centric, restrictive ideological perceptions. 

Our conditioning is all about the outer; it is all about outer work, outer appearance. Conditioning is the outer layer – the ego-layer. 

This layer holds and sustains everything we have been told about who we are, what we are and how to be in the world. 
Wrapped tightly in this layer, as we are meant to be, there is very little chance to Self-Discover, to Discover the Being that Lives the Human – the Life that is Being Human. What then, what is left to do? Well, we endeavour to fill the loss of Self and its resulting sense of lack by gaining more knowledge learned in the known for the sake of conquering and controlling the known. 

We set about trying to be happy, which is actually the craving to fill the emptiness, the sense of lack: the loss of the Being. Well, that is understandable. However, not understanding, or more to the point, being unconscious to how we lost the Inherent Happiness of the Being by conformity to the outer, we set about looking for it in the outer. And, as long as we remain unconscious, unaware, we keep looking there, striving there, determined there, working at it there, and bending what we so easily call ‘spiritual practice’ to fit our search in the outer. 

This layer, the outer layer, the ego-layer is emphasised so much that you forget the Inner. The Inner is suppressed for the sake of the outer, the known. The life you call “your life”, who you think you are, how you identify your self, comes from the outer layer. The life you call “your life” or who you think you are, is based on or identified (or known) with the outer layer, the ego-layer. The Inner becomes the Unknown. 

Dearest Beloveds, let us be sober and clear and direct. Spiritual Life is about Inner Transformation not outer change. It is Inner Work. The Heart Hermitage, the Mystery School is not exactly a teaching but a Revelation Way of Inner Work – the neglected Work, the Inner Mystery Life, the invisible Work: the otherwise unknown. It is not a school of answers for self-improvement in the known, the outer layer. It may not have any answers at all for the outer, the known life of you. 

It is Inner Work, an Inner Transformation beyond the ego-layer, not an outer change on the outer layer. It is not another religion, not another meditation method, not another belief, not another “you must do this and not do that” teaching. The Way or Process of Awakening is not another knowledge merely added to the ego-layer, the outer personality layer. That will never do. 

However, people generally cling to the outer layer, the ego-layer. We try to become happy/fulfilled/at “One” out there on that outer layer, the safe known layer. The outer layer that is organised into separate fractionated segments disconnected from each other. Where everything is set apart by human-centric ideologies, where nothing is together. 

Our self-enclosed ideologies on the outer set us apart from each other and everything and create the difference. And then, by association and identity with life in this outer layer, we try to make all kinds of social and spiritual and intellectual changes to our self in order to “get it together,” to be happy, to feel fulfilled. From the known layer, the ego layer, people ask questions and make judgments of each other. They ask - well not really ask, it’s more like an accusation - “So who has become enlightened around him?” And “who has changed? I do not see any difference.” “So what part has changed…?”

They want to see something out on the periphery, the ego layer from where they “make sense” of the world and everyone. That is how the outer layer maintains itself and its existence - by judgments, comparisons, right and wrong, exclusions and outer difference for the sake of a self-enclosed identity and its protection within the known. 

The individual who exists in the outer layer, on the periphery, makes judgments of the outer. For example, merely at the behavioural level, a level always judged on the basis of the acceptable known. Furthermore, the individual her- or himself becomes fractionated, split into parts that very often do not get along with each other. Each segment of the conditioned self passes judgments on other segments of the self. For example, the spiritual segment has judgments about the physical segment, the socially moral segments of self have judgments about the rebellious mischievous segments of self. Each segment judges according to what is important to that part at the time. 

My dear parents could only see the outer, the periphery of me, the known, just as others could only see the outer. They had been good and obedient to the outer, to what was expected of them and had therefore suppressed their Inner. While a human is suppressing the Inner for the sake of the outer - the acceptable known - they cannot see the Inner with the Eyes of the Heart – the unknown. 
The eyes of the Heart into the unknown have not been Opened - Awakened. What one has not seen in her- or him- self they cannot see in the other. 

Almost all our human communication and knowledge concerns the outer world, the outer layer, the layer we have enveloped our self in to safeguard us from our bodily mortal insignificance in the total realm of Life. Within this enclosed mind-confinement we make all kinds of pseudo psychological and spiritual statements in order to maintain and reinforce our own self-ideology – our self-adjusted safety harness - and, at the same time with a great deal of stressful effort, look good to others and gain popularity. 

From the enclosure of our own particular ideological niche in the outer layer, we talk of ego and no ego and what is spiritual and what isn’t spiritual, on to what is animal and how we are superior, and what is suppressed and what is not. For example, there are as many therapies and workshops and retreats designed around specific forms of apparently superior human suppression, especially sexual suppression and its release, as there are diet fads. About here, I have found, it’s usually a stretch too far to mention human-created animal suppression. That rarely goes down well. 

However, sexual suppression is only a small part of all your suppression. When I say you are suppressing sexuality, I do not mean you need to be more “sexually free” (whatever that is on the outer layer) or in any way become involved in the sex act nor necessarily concentrate on that particular faculty. 
That is not it. You are not merely the sex act. I am not talking about different forms of suppression in the outer layer, the ego layer. The ego layer IS suppression. It is constructed and held together by the forces of suppression. 

So, what are you ultimately suppressing? Spirit, Life, Being. 

The outer layer, the known layer, the conditioned layer suppresses Spirit. It suppresses Life. In the ego-layer, You, the Being are suppressed, never mind sexual suppression, which is merely one of the many symptoms of Spiritual suppression. 
Spirit cannot survive in the outer layer, the layer of belief, doctrines, dogma and social codes of behaviour. It cannot breathe - It is suffocated. There is no space for Spirit, no room for Life, no expression for Being. 

Oh yes, the outer level can be changed to some degree. You can change your beliefs, your meditation methods, your behaviour, your sexual inclinations, your preferred spiritual practice, your various ways and methods of communicating within the confines of the outer layer, the known layer and so on. You can - if you can - subscribe to another culture’s prescription of how you should behave and what you should believe. You can make relieving changes within the suppression of the ego layer, but never be Free. Why? Because you cannot Transform that which you are suppressing, and it is the Spirit It Self that is suppressed. The Being is suppressed. And, the Being is Love. 
In which case there is a wound in the Being. There is a wound in Love. 
Therefore, the total wound of Love - the wound in the Spirit - must come out. 

Understand this well. The outer layer, the known layer is the acceptably organised suppression of life. Over years from birth we become so adapted to it, so identified with it that we are unconscious to it. We do not see it; we do not see what we are doing to our self, others and the world. 
And, what’s more, there is tremendous resistance to moving out of the ego-layer, mainly because we have become unconscious to it. We call it “my life.” 

This outer layer is a construction, an organization of codes and rituals and laws designed and enforced for specific segments of the fractionated self. That is, we have codes and laws and belief systems for spiritual life, alongside separate and very often opposing codes, laws and belief systems for everyday conventional life. Strict adherence to the outer layer, the ego-layer, renders us unconscious, unaware, so much so, we seem not to notice we have one version of Love that suits our particular ideological disconnection - our personal-self or sense of separateness from Life - and another version of Love that suits our pseudo religious or spiritual practice? 
You know, that Unity, that Universal Being. 

The ego-layer, the known layer is the veneer, the blanket we call socialization or civilisation, which is essentially the indoctrination of an ideology of self, an idea of self, derived from a way of life imposed on the Heart, the Being. A way of organized life constructed and tightly organized before you came in. The methods of socialization, by whatever culture, are a set of already formulated codes of practice designed to break the Spirit into a constructed, organized self that has nothing to do with the Mystic Life of the Heart - the unknown. We must suppress the Spirit in order to behave in a manner acceptable to the ideology. 

When we hang out on this outer layer - that’s right, that is what we “do”, we hang ourselves out - we want structured, organized, once and for all answers; answers and methods that do not disrupt our patterns in the outer layer, the known layer but hopefully, somehow, will make it better. 

We are trying to get ourselves together. As much as we like to claim we think for our self, we want someone to tell us about more of the known and what to think and what to do. We want something that satisfies the sense of lack we experience in this outer layer. We want a practice that fits the known and that would be nice if it was a spiritual practice. Now, there’s nonsense before we even begin. 

You see, that is what conditioning is - structure, organization, rigid prescriptions of behaviour, tidy belief systems and so forth. Furthermore, before long we come to depend on the structure, the organisation. But, it prevents flow. It is against fluidity. The outer is static - the Inner is fluid. 
However, fluidity is messy, unpredictable, exciting and dangerous. Ah, the unknown. It is without certainty, therefore it opens up the possibility of being continually struck by wonder and reverence for Life, rather than the familiarity of how it should be, which breeds discontent. 

The outer layer, the known, the ego-layer prevents self –responsibility. It absolutely abolishes self-responsibility. One is only expected to be responsible to the structure, the organisation, to the prescription - the already given known. You are only asked to act and think responsibly relative to the social/cultural/religious/spiritual ideology – the outer. 
It is a safeguard around the unknown, the very place we need to go for Self-Discovery, for Life. 

We become dependent on the organization, the structure, the rational method on the circumference - the ego-layer. 
We become dependent on authorities who profit from our loss - the loss of Self. Oh, those authorities, the most powerful ones are hanging out in the ego-layer, in the mind. And the mind, the mind is the container and custodian and juggler of the outer layer. It’s a tricky circus monkey that can learn new tricks merely to survive. 

Spiritual Practice or the Process of Awakening has nothing to do with trying to make changes for the better in the outer layer, the ego-layer, the known layer. We do not Awaken to the Holistic Mystic Heart by trying to make adjustments and changes to the outer layer. We must leave the outer layer, the ego layer. 

This being so, we must also be very clear that Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Understanding is not about renouncing the world or anybody else or any ordinary daily functions. It is renouncing the conditioning that was given to you, instilled in you by those of the world, the outer-layer – the ego-layer, the layer that is not leaving you in peace. 

The renunciate consciousness is One who has renounced the outer layer or is well on the way to leaving the outer layer. The renunciate consciousness is a consciousness not cluttered with an identity within the outer layer, the ego-layer. Such a One has moved into the unknown, into Life. The renunciate consciousness is one who has submitted all the faculties of human-ness that were previously fragmented and often opposed to each other, into the Super-Vision of the Heart. 

What a great pity, what a shame, that so very often the first thing people of the mind, of the outer layer, want to do is create a dogma, a doctrine, a set of behaviours, an organised rational method, something that can be merely learned, out of the Mystic’s Revelations. They quickly want to organize and structure the Heart, the Spirit into the known, the outer layer, the ego-layer and thus prevent any movement into the Unknown. The Mystic’s Revelations behind the words are rarely heard and entered into but, rather, the words are consumed into the mind in knowledge bites, where they are added to the files of knowledge we got from the known that, in Truth, we do not know. We only know at the level of mind. 

Because people cling to their “idea” of themselves (this is the main ideology - the ideology of self – the known) they think, even demand that the Transformation of “self” is an “outer” thing, something changed on the outside that can be recognised from the outside; something that will not disrupt their self-ideology. But it is an Inner Transformation, not an outer change. The outer is only about change and that is not Transformation of the Inner. And the Inner requires no ideology what so ever.

Everyone who “comes” to a Master is entering into a friction, a conflict, a dispute. They want to revive their damaged ego, their unfulfilled ego – the ego layer they could not fulfil in the world. This being so, there is tremendous resistance to moving out of the ego layer. Why? As I said before, they are unconscious to what they are actually doing in the ego layer, or what the ego layer actually is and its suppression of the Being. 
And equally they do not understand ego-renunciation and the Real Purpose of that death. Not the death of the body - the death of the one we call I, me, you, us, them. They want to stay in the false safety of the known. The one we call, erroneously, “my life.” 

They want to stay with the known, with their conditioning, with their rigidly organised ideas of how they think things should be. They tenaciously argue for the known, even though the known does not fulfil them in any lasting way. 

They ask the Master questions from the known. And they are always trying to catch Her or Him out. Trying to prove to themselves “see He or She is not in some higher state of Consciousness… a clearer state of Consciousness”. They want answers that make some “spiritual sense” to their known state. Oh, and they love it when the Master comes into their known – that is much more reasonable! 

But the Master is not in the known state - the known life. A Master is someone who crossed the border into the unknown and from there, the Spiritual Process began. 

And, then sometimes, a Master consents to Give Her or Him Self to Students, where most fundamentally She or He creates situations and circumstances and discourse and uncertainty all around the students’ otherwise unknown self, in order to push and pull the student into the unknown. Why? Because a Master knows that is where we need the Real Help – in the unknown - not in the known. 

 It is difficult for a Master and difficult for a Student and many Students feel hurt because they do not want to go into the unknown, it is too scary. They want the Master to come into the known…speak about the known. Well, it is scary, scary because once you have stepped into the unknown you can never go back, but you also cannot go on, it’s too dark, too unknown, but at least you have crossed over. That’s the biggest step. That is where the Spiritual Master's Help is required by all of us - in the unknown. When we enter the unknown, we have entered into Relationship with the Master, we have entered into the Being of our human form, we have entered into our Being. 

To fall from the head (the mind) into the Heart (the Spirit – the unknown) is to fall into Love. 

 If you try to save “your life” (the known) you will lose the Life. If you lose “your life,” you will have Life. 

To fall from the mind into the Heart is to fall from the ego-layer. It is to follow the Stream of Life-Force, the Stream of Bodily Life-Force – called the Stream of Kundalini - that fluidly moves up from the Instinctive Primal Gut region, through the chest, up to the head and then falls into the Heart. 

To fall in Love is exactly that. It is to fall out of the known and into the unknown. And, we will not fall unless there is Love. In Love we fall into Life.