- françaisConference held by Jaya Yogācārya on Dec. 6th, 2019 during meditation class
Here we are at the end of a year of practice. For my passionate students, this year was marked by great moments in terms of activation of higher consciousness, energy awakening, mind and heart opening, advanced metaphysical reflection, and transcendental meditative practices.
True seekers, those who preserve this spiritual gold I give them, harvest, on the one hand, the fruit of this work in life’s practical work, and on the other hand, precious understandings that make them grow.
One grows up at any age!
This spiritual work requires to be constant because life is constant, even though it is changing at the same time.
Growing older, without working on oneself, does not always guarantee spiritual maturity, and a true Sādhaka साधक should stop learning only at his last breath.
In this world difficult for fragile minds, in this world without pilot, spiritual practice and the spiritual guide are the most priceless things.
Generally, westerners really lack appreciation and discernment regarding the search of a guide or the way to behave in front of him.
If one shows to a child a high-value gem and a shinier and more multicolored artifact, the child will choose the latter in order to impress.
However, a jeweler will make no mistake about it.
This is the difference between appreciation and judgment.
Many people opening up to spirituality and yoga do not know much in this area. Many want a cheap spiritual guide and want to acquire the gem without spending too much.
And this does not include those who want to be masters before being disciples.
This is due to the acquisition of popularized knowledge.
This is how some guides end up with ten thousand students after three years. These ten thousand people want a cheap guru. So, they follow such and such person on YouTube pretending to be one.
Neophytes are unable to evaluate the price of what is most precious in the world, and that is why so many masters, be them Sufis, Zen, Tibetans, made it difficult to approach them.
In today’s world, millennial spiritual messages are being popularized.
The ancient masters used to test candidates in order to evaluate their qualification before accepting them as disciples.
The master needed to be able to say no.
Today’s master or spiritual guide needs even more to be able to say no, in front of the arrogant pretentions of new aspirants.
With this same firmness, Maheśvarī and I, Jaya, very often had to say no to some people. We have certainly had to say no, but we have also said yes to many.
Thanks to this firmness, we have devoted a lot of time and energy to those who came to us, twenty, thirty years ago, and they have deeply changed during those long years.
Today, we still have the same passion and interest in the evolution of a student, whether he has thirty years of practice with us or he is a newcomer. Hence, our, my, high involvement in classes by level in order to make you move forward.
I am concerned about each one of you.
But I hope you don’t imagine that our days, even though they are very busy, last thirty hours and our energy is limitless. This is not possible.
We try to be a sun for each one of you, but like the sun, we are neither inexhaustible nor eternal.
I have always told you that I prefer three smart students in front of me than three thousand idiots. The one who has ten thousand disciples shines for everyone but doesn’t know anybody.
As far as I am concerned, I know you.
I see you and often observe you in silence when you practice with your eyes closed.
Jaya is not into your gossip, she is not interested by it.
Some of you are, unfortunately! Everything comes back to me.
Maheśvarī listens to you, takes care of you, heals your wounds.
Jaya receives you, observes you, sends you messages, offers beautiful experiences, subtle reflection, gives you tools, lifts you up.
How many times have we wiped your tears, when you were grief-stricken or had lost a loved one, in the course of your lives!
We were there, and we are still there!
But we are also able to not answer you when you go past the limits, when you offend us without knowing it, because you are too busy with your own story or your personal problems, to the point that you choose the wrong target.
In Orient, among the Sufis as well, the master is what is most valuable in the world.
In Tibetan, the word "Rinpoche" means "precious".
Most Western aspirants have no idea of what this means. Many want to be received by great souls without realizing that their request is disproportionate compared to the development level of their being.
This is pretentiousness.
Only the guide can give liberation. God doesn’t give it.
The guide can give the liberation that will lead you to the absolute, to God, and he does it by giving you the right tools to teach you how to free yourself from yourself. I always tell to my students, whether they are beginners or advanced, that they are the only ones who can experience the teaching that I give. It is only by experimenting that they can validate the effectiveness of this teaching to optimize their life and consciousness.
Today, aspirants to spiritual knowledge act like three-year-olds. A child of this age doesn’t care about what he can give to his parents besides smiles and vomit.
During this year, I insisted, among other things, on the devotional aspect with the detailed analysis of Guru Brahmā गुरु ब्रह्मा, internal rituals, the learning of the progressive ritual of Lalita Tripurasundarī ललित त्रिपुरसुन्दरी, and many other approaches in order to unlock your contemporary hearts.
It is important that you get rid of this critical sense which is afraid of zealotry or superstition which are the opposite of understanding.
I hope you are emancipated enough and have enough free will to work on this. I am not here to get irrational adoration from you.
I am here to open your heart and your mind on the quest for perfection and the subtle.
The essence of the spiritual path is what unites us in this relationship of guide to student, of master to disciple. This essence is made of love and union.
The right attitude is to go back from two to One, to be One with the other, to enter in communion with him.
When your heart is darkened by mundane deposits, you make a lot of understanding and judgment errors and get out of this union relationship.
Every day, the guide works at maintaining no darkness inside him.
He works on it through the detachment process.
For the spiritual seeker, the entire life is a teaching in itself.
At any moment, in an unexpected situation, life can give us a truth that enlightens us and leads us to a realization, whether it comes from a child or anyone else.
These circumstances are called Upaguru उपगुरु, but we have to know how to recognize them.
Ordinary people can give you without knowing it a spiritual truth which triggers a realization in you or takes you back to the teaching you have already received.
Upaguru can also be our advanced students who help and enlighten you when they assist us during their karma yoga.
These students show solidarity between one another and around the guide, which reflects their level of development and understanding, beyond their practice and knowledge levels.
They are spiritual brothers and sisters.
Loosening these connections is losing practice, at least, this practice, the practice of the center, the practice I teach you.
Losing practice is also losing these precious connections.
Despite that, you will always have only one master, only one true guide.
Only at the end of your life will you know who that was, unless you already know intimately who it is.
Being a disciple is becoming part of a lineage of masters, finding a shelter in this lineage. The master himself had a master who had a master who had a master...
Connecting with a guide is connecting with a whole wider than the individual man-to-man relationship.
The guide is not in an individual and selfish relationship.
At first, any aspirant has an ego who wants to have a master and thinks "my master, my guru, my school, etc.".
This is not the right approach to develop.
The point is rather to feel "I am his student, I am his disciple".
What does he expect from me? What does he ask me?
Being a student is understanding that this relationship with the guide is not a relationship with a person and an ego.
It is taking one’s place in this lineage which existed before us and will still exist after us.
It is understanding that this relationship is the most precious one and is not ordinary.
The spiritual guide tries to serve the cosmic truth, the divine will.
He is a servant and he serves you.
Being his student is becoming, in your turn, the servant of this absolute.
It is becoming, in your turn, the servant of the servant of the servant...
When you work on perfecting yourself and achieving high personal development, you create a precious inwardness which will make you peaceful and regenerated when necessary.
Turning inward will help you find the truth of accomplished work, your inner beauty, your integrity, and turning inward will be like a balm enabling you to go on living in this troubled world.
Hari om tat sat
Jaya Yogācārya
Bibliography:
– "Contemplez ces vérités" (Ponder these Truths) by Swami Chidananda, Terre du Ciel Editions
– "L’ami spirituel" by Arnaud Desjardins, La Table ronde Editions
– Adaptation and comments by Jaya Yogācārya
translated by Stéphanie Bosco
©Centre Jaya de Yoga Vedanta La Réunion