reconsidering stories and parables

I received the message below, including the story/parable/lesson entitled Light-Heartedness, from a student, who had found it in the writings of a wonderful teacher called Anthony de Mello. 

The essay that follows is a response to the student’s, well…the student’s mischievous relief at having found some evidence supporting his or her slackness (the student’s word, not mine!) And, finally the student’s acknowledgement of Satsang. 

He/she writes: 
Yanchiji, this made me feel better about being slack with putting your exercise instructions into practice – namely, writing love letters to one’s self. 

LIGHT-HEARTEDNESS
In keeping with his doctrine that nothing be taken too seriously, not even his own teachings, the Master loved to tell this story of himself: 
“My very first disciple was so weak that the exercises killed him. 
My second disciple drove himself crazy from his earnest practice of the exercises I gave him. 
My third disciple dulled his intellect through too much contemplation. 
But the fourth managed to keep his sanity.” 
“Why was that?” someone would invariably ask. 
“Possibly because he was the only one who refused to do the exercises.” 
And the Master’s words would be drowned out by his howls of laughter. 

The student signs off: 
I'm blessed with your company, also when I'm not in your physical presence. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ah, yes, whether one is aware of it or not, one is Inherently Blessed with the company of one’s Natural State of Being, in the midst of all conditions, at all times. 
However, as well you know, our Natural State of Being is impoverished and pulverized by human-centric ambition, arising from our species’ vain-glorious ideas of ourselves, all of which are conveniently aided and abetted and justified by all the gods we have invented for the sake of our own self-appointed superiority complex. 

Okay, having got that out of the way (I am sure you can imagine my tongue in my cheek) let’s take an unbiased reflective look at this “story.” 
And my word, what a wonderful yarn it is. 

Let’s see, without arriving at any definitive counterstatement or even intending to, I feel a smiling inclination to apply my liberal (well, maybe unreasonable) state of the art Love humour to this entertaining parable, from which you have capriciously derived some relief. Well, relief relative to your own motives, of course. Why do I say this? Because different motives lead to different interpretations and therefore to different understandings. 
I will say a little more about the subjective entanglement of interpretation at the end of this essay. ** 

At the same time, this report of warm-hearted jovial selfless-ness on the part of the Master does – however much obscured by the entertaining value of the parable - unveil a Profound Insight if one is prepared to “hear” it. And what is that? It is that One’s Natural State of Consciousness is a Self Evident Truth. In other words, It is not reliant on anything at all. 
Well then, that being our always-present Truth Condition, what is all this need to prove our self to others and compete with one another and so desperately want to be right? Why do we get more upset, more concerned about the conditions and what other people are doing and saying or not doing at the Ashram Hermitage, than inspiring and suffusing our Natural State of Being into all conditions? 

Perhaps I could, with humour rather than the over-exacting fussiness of the usual mind about final and forever correctness, briefly lay out, within the context of a Master/Student covenant, a couple of… well, shall we say underlying motivating forces that this intriguing yarn about a Master and Students could lay bare. 

First consideration 

So, an individual who aspires to be a kung-fu martial arts practitioner goes to a kung-fu Master – oh, and the term “kung-fu” literally means “achievement through great effort.” 

Well, the Master instructs and imparts certain exercises for him or her to do. But, ah, the individual just wants to be a kung-fu practitioner in the mind; that way he can reshape the art, the practice and the disciplines to suit his own particular wants and desires. Oh, he goes along to the Master and listens and eats well and he does a goodly number of push-ups (but not as many as the push backs he exercises upon the Master). He feels he is a “good” student, in fact, he feels most others have lost the plot but not him. What’s more, he tells the Master about this and in so doing, relates to the Master as his parent figure, and then complains about mummy/daddy dynamics. 

In any case, the Master instructs him in ways to strengthen his arms, his body, his will power and his single-minded focus, in order to become a confident kung-fu practitioner. But, all the time this individual is never quite sure if the Master is trying to defeat him or enliven him. In which case, even if this particular individual did do the exercises, they would be done in a perfunctory manner and thus eventually the student would either “pass on” or “check out.” 

Or, alternatively, he persists but drives him-self crazy trying to manipulate the circumstance in order to satisfy his own conflicted motives with the Master. He wants it but he does not want to Be it. Perhaps the Master knew that this so- called student desired the status much more than Being kung-fu itself. 

Then there is the student who carries on acting out his same body/mind habits in the hope he will get what he wants but all the while only thinking about whatever he thinks the practice is and, furthermore, thinking why the hell should he do it anyway? This one harbours a bedrock attitude that no one is going to tell him what to do or what to think, not by any stretch of the ego. This one fundamentally uses defiance and/or flattery to maintain the status quo. He stirs a little for the sake of self-interested expedience and then goes back to sleep. 

The second consideration 

An individual goes to someone Mastered in Life. That’s right, not Mastered in kung-fu or Japanese yoga or Hindu guru-ism or Pranayama meditation or guitar. Mind you, guitar would be pretty good. 

No, this individual has, at very least, come to understand or suspect she/he does not want to be Mastered by anything outside of her/his Very Self. 
Perhaps this one suspects that there is nothing “between” (at this stage “between” implies duality, but we will eventually get past that) her and God - otherwise called Life. She/he is not looking any more to become something or to learn another method or technique. However, the Realization of Unity with Life seems to evade her. However, she does at least seek the Truth Condition of her body-mind. 

The Master this one “goes to” is one who helps her see everything she is putting between her and her Natural State of Consciousness. This Master gives her nothing to further her ego-self search, only the Gift of Awakening her own self-critical Insight into what she is “doing” that denies her the Realisation of her Natural State of Consciousness. 

The Life-Guru (well, one in the same thing) fundamentally takes away everything that the individual has put between him- or herself and Life - God the Real or One’s Natural State of Consciousness. Oh, and by the way, Master Death performs the same function. If you prefer, you can wait awhile for that One. Shouldn’t be too far away. 

Well, this Master may very well instruct and impart exercises also. But these instructions and exercises are not for the sake of the individual getting somewhere or, in order to Master something like one of the many bodily yogas. 
In this case, you are not expected to become a Master of something. A Spiritual Master is for those who truly desire the Life that Lives them to Master them, not something else. 

The exercises and disciplines such a Master may impart to a Student are for the sake of enabling the individual to actually experience their own resistance to letting go their closely defended self-idea, everything he/she holds in place that “makes one” feel separated from one’s Natural State of Consciousness. 

Oh, in this way it becomes very obvious what the student is prepared to do or not do for the sake of Realising the Real Freedom and Treasure of their Natural State of Consciousness. It soon sorts out those who want it to be an intellectual knowing, a talking knowing, a comparative knowing, a personal knowing, from those who are willing to submit to the whole bodily experience of the Natural State of Consciousness. The Feeling State of Unity. 

Ah, however, now this one, this person, (again relative to the parable) he/she does not want to do the exercises either, she just wants to contemplate. Well, she says the word contemplate but she has conflated the word contemplate with the word think. So, this one thinks and thinks and thinks, and then does some more thinking and, in so doing further dulls her True Heart Intellect. Eventually (and perhaps probably all along) this person begins to wonder if the Master is trying to defeat her or Liberate her. Well, of course this one does not understand Liberation, she thinks Liberation is a person doing or not doing whatever they want. 

If those who “go to” a Life Master merely do the exercises, the disciplines, the talk and so on as a means to “get somewhere,” or if they perceive the practice as some kind of method that “sorts everyone out,” then they will only end up disenchanted, resentful, holding on to hurts and full of blame. 
They will eventually exclaim they are fed up to the back teeth with “enlightenment.” They have conflated enlightenment with the pursuit of happiness. Ah, they will only cook their noodle - a relatively modern English saying - or it could be Swiss but I suspect it was lifted from the Chinese culture. 

One more thing perhaps worth mentioning - I am pretty sure it was Philip Larkin - an English poet and novelist (admittedly a somewhat sexually defeated or damaged man) who described the sexual act as a futile attempt to get someone else to blow your nose for you. 

So what’s my point? Most of what people consider their individual-self and/or their spiritual practice, and therefore their subsequent right to defend and argue for their point of view, comes down to a futile attempt to get someone else to love them rather than being Love-Itself. Most individuals are looking for someone or something that will confirm they exist, someone or something that will save them for the sake of their self, some one who will stimulate the orgasm of happiness in them. 

We want someone else to appreciate us, to make us feel special. Oh, how wonderful it is to go somewhere, somewhere new where you feel wanted, appreciated and worthy. Watch out now, that wretched beggar familiarity is already seducing you, patting your ego and lulling you to sleep. You thought you had got what you wanted but very soon the dis-ease of unfulfilled self-centered intentions comes lurking round again and before long, you are back where you started. 

The mind’s extraordinary ability to come up with clever reasons and arguments in order to normalise our resistance to falling into self-forgetting Love seems endless. 

The concern for personal-self finds objections and dissatisfaction everywhere, as if that is proof of one’s well- sorted, free thinking Being. Such an individual avoids surrender into self-forgetting love by many means, none more obvious than his or her endless pseudo-spiritual debates and linguistically tortured interpretations of the dynamics of non-duality and the importance of action or no action, do it or don’t do it, right or wrong and how other people are this or that, and so forth. Another feel good avoidance is the fascination with parables and popularised yarns about the weird and wonderful lessons that either apparently took place or took place apparently between a Master and Devotee.  

** Interpretation (and it is extremely popular) is only for those who have knowledge of something but do not Live it. For example, interpretation is only for those who have knowledge of art. Those who live the art do not interpret. There is no separation to enable the interpretation. They are the art. 

The same can be said for the Guru/Devotee Relationship (the Mutual Reciprocity of the Natural State of Consciousness). Interpretation is for those who only have some knowledge of it. Those who are Living the Relationship have no need to interpret. 

Finally (well, for now) the last few lines of the story are a little more ticklish – well, certainly touchy - to render unambiguous. Why? Sanity. 

In the parable, the Master is reported to have said that the fourth student managed to keep his sanity. What sanity? 
Is it the state of sanity the student came to the Master with in the first place? Is it the sanity defined and measured by the egocentric society?
There is something a bit catawampus here. Although, the last line of the yarn makes very clear that the risibility of the statement was certainly not lost on the Master. 

In any case it’s a great pity that what most people think or perceive Spiritual Masters to be is based largely on allegorical and anecdotal stories. Fanatical believers and hopeful seekers around Shamans, Mystics and Spiritual Adepts have always concocted stories and mistranslated and distorted teachings according to their conditional hopefulness or conditional displeasure with such Creatures. For example, did a Spiritual Master called Yeshua/Jesus really bake up a storm of loaves and fishes? 
And did “God” (well, “he” is the big honcho for many people) really say, “Go forth and multiply?” What the hell was “he” thinking? Evidence very clearly shows that was one exercise we should have gone slack on.