Transcription de la visioconférence du 4 avril 2020.
A Master or Cheikh is a person who will guide and help us on our way to God.
What essentially characterizes Masters is their personal spiritual journey with God and the permission they received from their own Masters to transmit the divine breath, the breath of God. Transmission (pranahuti), the quality and the purity of that transmission, here is what specifically distinguishes Heartfulness, the Sahaj Marg. In Sufi books we can find two kinds of transmission. The Sufi tradition says that a Master will transmit at his own spiritual level; he will somehow transmit his ‘self’, which explains why Masters would usually send their disciples to other Masters so that they may receive whatever those Masters had to give. That kind of teaching does not appeal only to human intelligence; it is something that is given from heart-to-heart, directly, and aims at the essence.
At the times of the Khawajas, in the Middle East, it happened that a grand Master passed away. Though the chain of Masters was not broken, it took five generations before they could have access to the capacity to transmit again. There was no disruption in the succession of Masters, but the level of transmission was no longer the same.
What is a Master valued for?
A Master’s worth is his capacity to merge into God and to no longer exist. Here again, that can be found in our spiritual traditions: fana (in Sufism), self-annihilation (among Christians), pralaya (for Yogis and the Vedanta). There is always the very idea that we should no longer exist, that one should annihilate one’s self into God and make that self disappear.
What will be left, then? God and only God.
The greatest Masters, whatever their approaches or the path they followed, have all developed their total capacity to annihilate the self (fana al fana). When they are performing their spiritual work, they are no longer there.
Is a spiritual Master perfect? No, he can’t be perfect since he is human and perfection does not belong here below. Only God is perfect.
Where does perfection abide then? When the self disappears, God is there.
There has been much misunderstanding due to the Masters’ teachings, their practices or the instructions they used to give. That would make sense and be quite useful, but is it what defines a Master’s value? His real worth lies in the fact that he has the capacity to transmit directly to us, through a heart-to-heart connection, mostly without interfering, without his being there, without projecting anything. We are really lucky to have remarkable Masters, from one generation to the next, Masters who are directly connected with God, with the Source, who have the capacity to transmit and permission to do it. We are fortunate to have them down here, because the poor human beings we are could never stand such intensity.
What is the best way and what are the conditions for us to be in a position to receive that transmission?
When we have purified our selves, hence the cleaning practices the various ways available propose. However, the emphasis has usually been put mainly on purifying the body, which is recommended before starting a practice; after it, devotees are also advised to purify their thoughts through chanting prayers, mantras or suras, which should help them attain a specific condition; but that is not enough.
In order to really receive God, directly, as the Masters say, we must be like Him.
That means being what He is, i.e. nothing, which is not easy.
‘Being nothing’: what does that mean for the human beings we are? How can we attain the state ‘Nothingness’ is?
Here is where a Master is required, just as we need a father and a mother who will educate us and accompany our growing into adulthood. A Master will guide us until we become spiritual adults and are directly connected with God. Meanwhile, we do need our Master, his instructions and the model he represents for all of us.
What sort of model?
The spiritual model, what he is within himself.
Some masters will preach in favour of knowledge; knowledge is very useful, of course, but what really matters is their own connection with God, and the connection one can have with God through a Master, or through the chain of Masters, which have existed since the dawn of times in order to lead people towards God. Their quest should be a quest for God, not for a Master, who is there only as a means God offers to the human beings. It is a real blessing for us, when we meet such men, women, saints or mystics who have the capacity to both work at our purification and at adjusting our personalities (here comes the ego again…), but that is not the most important in the role of a Master. First and foremost is the purification of our hearts so that they may become a sanctuary for our meeting with the Divine, firstly, and then, as we plunge deeper and deeper into our hearts, a sanctuary for God Himself.
To achieve this, a heart must be absolutely empty, be freed of the layers of illusions that have accumulated there, and be cleared of all its complexities, of its grossness, or its samskaras (the Sanskrit word).
To that purpose, appropriate steps have to be taken. There are different levels in the depths of the heart, a first and superficial one, and a deeper level: the level of the soul. Then will start the journey of the soul through various points, the chakras, in the naqshbandi tradition as well as in the Sahaj Marg tradition.
The first stage of the heart region involves the five elements we are made of. Purifying that area completely is what concerns what we are at the time of our incarnation. Our practice is there to help us doing it: maintain a good mental balance and keep control over our emotions so that they may not overwhelm us when we are meditating, contemplating God or offering a prayer to God. That first step is quite essential and is also the one when we need a Master who will teach us how to do it, who will help us doing it and who will also intensify our purification, even though we maintain our daily practice.
He is going to accompany us as our soul is moving forward through the area called the heart region, then as it is reaching a higher region, the cosmic region, which is also called the Kingdom of God. There, we have a whole series of points, of chakras, and at that same level, the union with God. That union, referred to in all the monotheistic religions, operates at the point named sahasrara-chakra, or sahasra-dal-kamal. The entrance to the kingdom of God is there; then, there are several other points, some of which are located even at the back of the head. Reaching that level means that we are determined to totally surrender to God. It is the level where the spiritual journey will really begin.
In the heart region, we had been busy purifying, with the help of our Master and of our trainers. They helped us progress and allow the soul to be so deeply connected that when we enter that region we have already decided to be submitted to God’s will. Since it might be difficult for us to do it all by ourselves, here again having a Master is very important.
That is what submitting, surrendering to the Master is all about: we give away our hearts, our egos and everything to Him. And once that has become possible, it all ends with the ego having completely retreated. We say that we have realized our merging with God, or with the Master, which is about the same in the way the Master has entirely surrendered and merged into God (fana, pralaya). Though he is incarnated, he does not exist anymore, his soul has been dissolved, totally dissolved.
What is most interesting is that, for the first part of the journey, the one concerning he heart, we have to be very active with practice, rituals or other observance recommended, whereas in the last part of it we just have to be led by the Master, by God, directly, surrendering more and more, up to total submission and dissolution.
Our way is the way of love and it goes through the heart, not through contrition. Love is what operates. Therefore, it is most important to let the self be absorbed into the love of God. That is more or less easy, because we will naturally be somewhat reluctant since we are mere students, mere aspirants, progressing thanks to the well-needed help and the guidance of a Master, as our egos will become subtler and subtler. In some cases, however, that ego may claim it has reached spiritual positions where it stands, here and there, showing off a fake humility, our need to be very humble being of renown. Yet, the only humility that can be shown is related to God, and the Master knows perfectly whether we are really submitted to God and whether our humility is genuine. We should not be under any illusions concerning ourselves; we certainly know what we are, we know all about our weaknesses, and we still better know much about other people’s weaknesses. That is another reason why we need our Masters because they are human beings; as such, they experience the same sort of difficulties as we do, they travel the same path, and their only and necessary advantage must at least be the realization of their union with God. Otherwise, they would be mere teachers, mere serving persons having the capacity to help, just as trainers who have been trained and permitted to transmit what we call pranahuti, or to transmit the baraka, as certain Masters of high calibre have been able to do, though it was not always the case.
What is a mystery is that God will always offer us various possibilities, different religions or approaches, and also different persons: we shall always be given a chance. That is because God is seeking Himself within each and every one of us, within all the human beings, within the seven billion human beings all over the world, and not only the spiritual seekers and the volunteers. God has no problem, as He is beyond time, so that we will all come back to Him sooner or later. Some of us may have to take their time, wandering about, exploring the world or testing their possibilities. Some of us may also mess around, but that is not a problem, because God is love. Actually, we are punishing ourselves.
A spiritual quest is in fact a quest for the heart; it begins with God, with the help of our Masters. After that, once that level has been reached, the quest will go on. It is no longer possible to talk about it because it is ‘in progress’ and because God is the One who is directly working. The Master is less and less present in this dimension, though some grand Masters such as the Khawajas have been able to bring their disciples up to the absolute dimension of God, to the Creator’s dimension, a dimension whose seat is at the back of the head (Point N° 13). In that dimension, He has no name, no attribute, He does not think and is neither this nor that (Neti, neti.) … He is God. That is where everything comes from.
Many beautiful books exist, in this respect, but there is still more beauty in living it, in experiencing such a meeting: it is the third level of the heart, the deepest depth of the heart, where we lose our selves completely. It is fana al fana, the dissolution into God. There, we are in the dimension requiring our giving full way to something that is immense, extraordinary, but where we also have a place, which does not go through us, through the ego, but which gives us a universal dimension. When we attain that level, we become a universal human being, the one the Kabbalah names Adam Kadmon, who is totally connected with God and has all the attributes and other manifestations God might have. Yet, here again, that is only a stage, as the journey goes on.
The farther we go, the less we exist there. The farther we go, the less practices are required, and the more things go in the way of God. Our good fortune has given us saints, mystics and Masters, who have been there for immemorial times, who are a manifestation of That, and who have known how to be His incarnation, His manifestation here below. Some of them have been able to write about it, some times through a poetic form. What a wonderful food for us is the fact of knowing they will always be there to accompany humankind through their having given way to God in all His glory.
Theophile the Elder
An excerpt from Theophile’s journal
Essays
I read further about the issues already approached:
- The quality of a Master
- Receive the transmission a purified heart
- Role of the Master
- The journey of the soul
- Surrender
- The spiritual dimension
- The Mystics