I am not completely familiar with the actual practices associated with your interpretation of Advaita, but it seems to share its core understanding with Zen and Sufism, the two paths with which I seem to resonate the most.
Absolutely. Non-duality is the core of all authentic spiritual traditions, such as Ch’an, Zen, Advaita Vedanta, or Sufism. The apparent contradictions among these various traditions are merely differences in the formulations of the same truth by various sages, at various times, in various contexts. If Huang Po, Rumi, Shankara, Parmenides, and Meister Eckhart were to meet, they would immediately recognize the common ground of their oneness beyond the mind and beyond all apparent differences.
My question regards the role of the guru in the “enlightenment process” of the seeker. I was wondering what kind of relationship you feel is necessary and/or appropriate.
The real teacher is in your heart. This silent presence in your heart will recognize the fragrance of truth, love, and simplicity that emanates from your human teacher, just as the instinct of the bee wakes up when it perceives the perfume exhaled by the distant flower. This direct recognition already contains the essence of enlightenment. This encounter is, in many instances, necessary and is always an act of grace. Without the intervention of grace, enlightenment is impossible, because the ego can’t liberate itself from itself any more than a stain of ink can be washed away in a bucket filled with the same ink. The human teacher is merely an appearance, a shadow against the background of light which is the real teacher. Anything that can be said, any conclusion that can be reached regarding this shadow will be as illusory as the shadow itself. Don’t try to qualify this shadow as being enlightened or non-enlightened, established in light or non-established in light.
Simply be totally open to all possibilities. The real teacher who speaks in your heart will never violate your deep feelings, never try to control your decisions. The real teacher within has no personal agenda. This presence will liberate you from your frustration, anger, and fear, and will help you actualize the beauty, understanding, and love that are already in you. If there is, at any moment, an apparent contradiction between the voice within and the suggestions of your human teacher, give all due consideration to your teacher’s advice. However, if the contradiction persists, follow your heart.
Although the basic identification with the body-mind has been destroyed in the case of an authentic human teacher, students should understand that old egoic patterns may still reappear even in such a teacher. They should welcome these reappearances with equanimity, just as they welcome the reappearances of their own old habits. The “old man” which may reappear in the human teacher is not the real teacher. It is a reminder of the fact that the real teacher is not human. The guru is not the shadow, but the light.
Who was your teacher, and what kind of relationship did you have?
My teacher is the still small voice that speaks in the heart, and my relation with my teacher is perfect love. Whenever I recognize the presence of this still and tender voice in an apparent stranger, this stranger becomes my teacher and our relation is love. However, you are asking about the specific circumstances in my case. I want to reiterate that the circumstances vary with different truth-seekers, and you can’t, therefore, draw any general inference from my specific case. You would like me to describe the relationship between two personalities, two body-minds. I am unable to answer your question at the level of the shadows without going into opinions and judgments, without qualifying. Every time I have tried to do so, I have been unhappy with my answers, and now I do my best to avoid such qualifications.
I am particularly curious about this aspect of the path, for it seems that so many teachers, gurus, or sheiks, require expensive, in-person visits to far away places. It seems to make the path of self-realization pretty inaccessible to common folks.
The modern means of transportation and communication have, in fact, made these encounters extraordinarily easy. Think about ancient times when a student had to walk hundreds or even thousands of miles exposed to all kinds of dangers, in order to visit a sage. The path of self-realization is not for ordinary people, but only for those who have an intense desire for the truth. In the case of an earnest truth-seeker, his desire for the ultimate will overcome all obstacles.
I am averse to most of the guru-disciple language, although I have a deep feeling that there is a teacher “out there” who I can trust, and whose method will not ignite my cynicism.
I understand this aversion. From the vantage point of the true teacher, there is no teacher and no disciple. You don’t have to take yourself for a disciple. Take yourself for nothing. That is a much better position. When you meet your teacher “out there,” you also meet him “in here,” you also meet yourself. Then trust takes life spontaneously, because you naturally trust yourself. There is no point in imagining ahead of time what such an encounter may be like. Simply be open to that possibility, and someday a teacher will ignite in you the light of truth, the flame of beauty, and the warmth of love. This encounter will put an end to your questions and to your doubts.
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How did you discover your real nature?
You are asking about the specifics in my case. Before I give you the details, I have to forewarn you that this is not a “one size fits all” path to the truth. The way to the discovery of our true nature varies from one seeker to another. It may be a sudden and dramatic experience or a subtle, seemingly gradual path. The touchstone, in all cases, is the peace and understanding that prevails at the end of the road. Although a first glimpse of reality is an event of cosmic proportions, it may remain unnoticed at first and work its way in the background of the mind until the egoistic structure collapses, just as a building severely damaged by an earthquake remains standing for some time and collapses a few months later, gradually or suddenly. This effect is due to the fact that the glimpse does not belong to the mind. The mind, which until now was the slave of the ego, becomes the servant and lover of the eternal splendor that illuminates thoughts and perceptions. As a slave of the ego, the mind was the warden of the jail of time, space, and causation; as a servant of the highest intelligence and a lover of the supreme beauty, it becomes the instrument of our liberation.
The glimpse that ignited my interest for the truth occurred while I was reading a book by J. Krishnamurti. It was the point of departure of an intense quest which became the central and exclusive focus in my life. I read Krishnamurti’s books again and again, along with the main texts of Advaita Vedanta and Zen Buddhism. I made important changes in my life in order to live in accordance with my spiritual understanding. I renounced what many people would call an excellent career, because it implied my involvement as a scientist with the design and development of sophisticated weapons for the French military.
Two years after the first glimpse, I had achieved a good intellectual understanding of the non-dual perspective, although a few questions still remained unanswered. I knew from experience that any attempt to fulfill my desires was doomed to failure. It had become clear to me that I was consciousness, rather than my body or my mind. This knowledge was not a purely intellectual one, a mere concept, but seemed to somehow originate from experience, a particular kind of experience devoid of any objectivity. I had experienced, on several occasions, states in which perceptions were surrounded and permeated by bliss, light, and silence. The physical objects seemed more remote from me, more unreal, as if reality had moved away from them and shifted toward that light and that silence which was at the center of the stage. Along with it came the feeling that everything was all right, just as it should be, and, as a matter of fact, just as it had always been. However, I still believed that awareness was subject to the same limitations as the mind, that it was of a personal, rather than universal nature.
Sometimes, I had a foretaste of its limitlessness, usually while reading Ch’an or Advaitic texts or while thinking deeply about the non-dual perspective. Due to my upbringing by materialistic and anti-
religious parents and to my training in mathematics and physics, I was both reluctant to adopt any religious belief and suspicious of any non-logically or non-scientifically validated hypothesis. An unlimited, universal awareness seemed to me to be such a belief or hypothesis, but I was open to explore this possibility. The perfume of this limitlessness had, in fact, been the determining factor that sustained my search for the truth. Two years after the first glimpse, this possibility had taken a center-stage position.
That is when the radical change, the “Copernican shift,” happened. This event, or, more precisely, this non-event, stands alone, uncaused. The certainty that flows from it has an absolute strength, a strength independent from any event, object, or person. It can only be compared to our immediate certainty to be conscious.
I was sitting in silence, meditating in my living room with two friends. It was too early to fix dinner, our next activity. Having nothing to do, expecting nothing, I was available. My mind was free of dynamism, my body relaxed and sensitive, although I could feel some discomfort in my back and in my neck.
After some time, one of my friends unexpectedly began to chant a traditional incantation in Sanskrit, the Gayatri Mantra. The sacred syllables entered mysteriously in resonance with my silent presence which seemed to become intensely alive. I felt a deep longing in me, but at the same time a resistance was preventing me from living the current situation to the fullest, from responding with all my being to this invitation from the now, and from merging with it. As the attraction toward the beauty heralded by the chant increased, so did the resistance, revealing itself as a growing fear that transformed into an intense terror.
At this point, I felt that my death was imminent, and that this horrendous event would surely be triggered by any further letting go on my behalf, by any further welcoming of that beauty. I had reached a crucial point in my life. As a result of my spiritual search, the world and its objects had lost their attraction. I didn’t really expect anything substantial from them. I was exclusively in love with the absolute, and this love gave me the boldness to jump into the great void of death, to die for the sake of that beauty, now so close, that beauty which was calling me beyond the Sanskrit words.
As a result of this abandon, the intense terror which had been holding me instantaneously released its grip and changed into a flow of bodily sensations and thoughts which rapidly converged toward a single thought, the I-thought, just as the roots and the branches of a tree converge toward its single trunk. In an almost simultaneous apperception, the personal entity with which I was identifying revealed itself in its totality. I saw its superstructure, the thoughts originating from the I-concept and its infrastructure, the traces of my fears and desires at the physical level. Now the entire tree was contemplated by an impersonal eye, and both the superstructure of thoughts and the infrastructure of bodily sensations rapidly dissolved, leaving the I-thought alone in the field of consciousness. For a few moments, this pure I-thought vacillated like the flame of an oil lamp running out of fuel, until it suddenly vanished in the eternal splendor of being.
For information about Retreats and Dialogues with Francis Lucille, and for details of videos, books, and cassettes, please see his Web site, www.francislucille.com.
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