RECENTLY THE WEST HAS DEVISED MANY TECHNIQUES TO RETURN TO THE SOURCE. THESE TECHNIQUES ALL SEEM TO HAVE ONE THING IN COMMON: THEY ADMIT THAT AN INDIVIDUAL CANNOT AUTHENTICALLY RETURN TO THESE TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCES BY HIMSELF.
THE MIND IS TOO DEVIOUS, THE EGO TOO COMPLEX, SO ANALYSIS HAS BEEN INVENTED: PRIMAL THERAPY, FISHER-HOFFMAN, AND THE KARMA-CLEANING TOOLS OF ARICA, TO NAME A FEW. THE BASIC PREMISE SEEMS TO BE THAT THE INDIVIDUAL WILL NOT PURSUE THIS JOURNEY ALONE; THE OTHER IS NEEDED – THE DYNAMICS OF A GROUP, OR AN OBJECTIVE GUIDE. IS IT NECESSARY TO BECOME SO SELF CONSCIOUS ABOUT THE PAST? DOES THIS NOT RESOLVE ITSELF AS ONE GOES DEEPER INTO MEDITATION?
First, there is no absolute necessity for going into the past. If you really meditate, everything is automatically resolved. But if your meditation is not going well, then going into the past can be a great help. So it is not an absolute necessity to go into the past. If you are going well in meditation, forget about it. If you are not going well in meditation, only then does it become important. Then it can be a great help. Then it will solve the difficulties of meditation, but it is a secondary, a complementary phenomenon.
Prati-prasav, going into the past, is a complementary technique to meditation.
First try meditation; if it works, forget about the past. There is no need to go into the past. If you feel that meditation is not functioning, something comes again and again like a cul-de-sac, a deadlock happens, a block comes and you cannot move, that means that your past is very loaded – you will need prati-prasav. You will need to go into the past while simultaneously working for meditation. If meditation works well, that means that your past is not very loaded, you don’t have blocks in the past. Simply meditation will do. But if the blocks are there and meditation is not working, then, as a help, prati-prasav is wonderful – going into the past helps tremendously.
It is up to you. First work hard on meditation, make every effort to know whether it can happen or not. If you feel that it is not possible, nothing is happening, only then look at prati-prasav. It is a good method, but secondary. It is not a very primary thing.
The second thing is that it is absolutely true that alone you cannot go, alone you cannot grow. Alone, it will take millions of lives to come to a certain conclusion, to come to a certain being, and that too is not certain. It is not possible for many reasons, because whatsoever you are is a closed system and the system is autonomous, self-sufficient. It works on its own and it has very deep roots in the past. The system is very sufficient and efficient. To come out of the system is almost impossible unless somebody helps you. Some foreign element is needed to give you a break, to give you a shock, to jog you out. It is just as if you are asleep – and you have been asleep for many, many lives. How can you make yourself awake? Even to start you will have to be at least a little awake, and even that little awakening is not there. You are completely asleep; you are in a coma.
Who will start working? How will you wake yourself? Somebody is needed, somebody who can shock you out of the coma, who can help you to come out.
Even an alarm clock will be helpful.
A group is needed. Because once you are awakening, the whole past will try to bring you back to the unconscious state because the mind follows the path of least resistance. You will fall asleep again and again. Either a perfect Master is needed who can help you to come out of it, or a group of seekers if the perfect Master is not available, so the people in the group can help each other.
Gurdjieff used to say, ‘It is as if you are in a forest, afraid of wild animals, but you have a group. Ten people are there, so you can do one thing: while nine are asleep, one remains awake.’ If there is some danger from wild animals, thieves or robbers, he wakes the others. If he feels that he is falling asleep, he wakes others.
But one remains alert – that becomes the protection. If a perfect Master is available, if a Buddha is available, then there is no need to work in a group because he is aware; twenty four hours. If he is not there, then the second possibility is to work in a group. Sometimes somebody comes to a little awareness; he can help. By the time he starts falling asleep, somebody else has come to a little awareness. He helps, and the group helps.
It is as if you are imprisoned: alone it would be difficult for you to get out because heavy guarding is there. But if all the prisoners unite and make a united effort to get out, the guards may not prove enough. But if you know somebody who is outside, outside of the prison and can be of some help, then there is also no need for the group effort. Somebody from the outside can create situations: he can throw a ladder, he can bribe the guard, he can drug the guard; he can do something from the outside because he is free. He can find ways to create a situation so that you can come out. A perfect Master is like a man who is outside the prison. He has much freedom to do something. Many possibilities are there and all are open to him because he is free. If you don’t have contact with a Master who is free, out of the prison, then the only possibility for the prisoners is to create a group.
That’s why in the West many types of groups are working: Arica, Gurdjieff groups, and others. Group consciousness is becoming more and more important in the West. It is good. It is better than Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, it is better than Bal Yogeshwar – because these are not Masters. It is better to work in a group, because the man who says that he is outside is not outside; he is also inside. The man who says that he has got contacts on the outside has no contacts outside. He is just deceiving you. In the West there is only one man from the East, and he is Krishnamurti. If you can be with Krishnamurti it can be helpful, but it is difficult to be with him. He has been trying to help people in such an indirect way that even the people who are helped will not ever be able to know that he has been helping. This has created trouble. Otherwise, all so-called Masters in the West are just salesmen, nothing of worth.
If you can find a Master, that is the best, because even in a group you will all be prisoners, fast asleep. You may try, but it will take a long time. Or, it may not succeed at all, because you will all be of the same calibre, the same plane of consciousness. For example, Arica people are people of the same consciousness working together, groping in the dark. Something may happen, something may not happen. One thing is certain, and that is that nothing is certain. There is just a probability.
Gurdjieff is not there and all the Gurdjieff groups are more dominated by Ouspensky’s books than by Gurdjieff. In fact, all the groups are Ouspensky groups, not exactly Gurdjieff groups. Much is not possible. You can talk about theories, you can explain to each other, but if you belong to the same plane of consciousness, much talking, much discussion, much knowledge will happen, but not knowing, not awakening. When Gurdjieff was there it was totally different – a Master was there. He could have brought you out of your imprisonment.
The first thing is to seek a Master who can help you. If it is impossible to find a Master, then make a group and a group effort. Alone is the last possibility. These are the three ways: alone you work, with a group you work, or with a Master you work. The best is with a Master, the second best is with a group, the third is alone. Even people who have attained to the ultimate alone have been working through many lives with Masters and groups. So don’t be deceived by the appearance.
Even Krishnamurti goes on saying that alone you can attain. But why does he insist on this, that alone you can attain? This is because his method is an indirect method. He will not allow you to know that he is helping, and he will not say to you ‘Surrender to me.’ There is so much ego in the West, and he has been working the whole time in the West. The ego is so much that he cannot say, ‘Surrender to me,’ as Krishna said to Arjuna – ‘Leave everything and come and surrender to me.’ Arjuna was of a different world, the East, which knew how to surrender, which knew the ugliness of the ego and the beauty of surrender.
Krishna could say this without any ego on his part. The assertion seems to be very egoistic: ‘Come and surrender to me.’ But Krishna could say it naturally, and Arjuna never raised the question, ‘Why do you say this? Why should I surrender to you? Who are you?’ In the East, surrender was accepted as a known path.
Everybody knew, was raised in the very knowledge that finally, one has to surrender to a Master. It was simple, it fitted.
Krishnamurti worked in the West. He himself was raised by Masters. In a very, very esoteric way, he was helped by the Masters. Masters who were in the body and Masters who were not in the body all helped him, they helped him to flower.
But then he worked in the West and he became aware, as anybody will become, that the West is not ready to surrender. So he cannot say like Krishna, ‘Come and surrender to me.’ For the Western ego, the best way is that you can attain it on your own. This is a device: no need to surrender to a Master. This is the base to attract you: no need to surrender, no need to drop your ego, you be yourself. This is a device and people got trapped in that device. They thought that there was no need to surrender, that they could be themselves, that there was no need to learn from the other, only one’s own effort is needed. Continuously, for years they have been going to Krishnamurti. For what? – To learn? If you can be alone then why go to Krishnamurti? Once you have heard that he says, ‘Alone you can attain,’ you should be finished with him. But you have not been finished with him. In fact, unknowingly you have become a follower. Without your knowledge you have been trapped. Deep down, the surrender has happened. He is saving your surface ego to kill you deep down. His way is indirect.
But nobody attains alone. Nobody has ever attained alone because many, many lives one has to work. I have worked with Masters, I have worked with groups, I have worked alone, but I tell you that the ultimate phenomenon is a cumulative effect. Working alone, working with a group, working with Masters; it is a cumulative effect. Don’t insist on going alone, because that very insistence will become a barrier. Seek groups. And if you can find a Master, you are fortunate.
Don’t miss that opportunity.
Tags: Nobody Attains Alone Patanjali
