A Personal Journey from the Outer Guru, to the Inner Guru
During my second Jupiter return, in the summer of 1977, I began to seriously deepen my search for spiritual teachings and practices. This is when the writings of Dane Rudhyar spoke to me. I voraciously read texts of various spiritual disciplines, from various cultures. The first thing I read of Steiner’s was the lecture, The Etherization of the Blood. Having had a background in psychology, with a focus on Gestalt therapy, I thought Steiner was crazy. Two weeks later, I started reading his book, Knowledge of Higher Worlds and its Attainment, and felt that I found what I was looking for. Of course, I still read other sources, but I began my immersion myself into Steiner’s anthroposophy, or science of the spirit.
Out of respect for a professor, I attended a talk by a swami from a Siddha yoga ashram, early in the autumn of 1979. As I turned the handle of the door to the lecture room, I distinctly remember thinking, “I don’t need no stinking guru!” (ala UHF-movie by Weird Al Yankovich) What ensued after sitting and listening to the swami, there was a meditation time. After there was silence for a few minutes I sensed someone walking around the room, swatting everyone over the head with what I assumed was a wand of peacock feathers. I knew about shaktipat initiation, which often happened through being swatted, or brushed with peacock feathers. I peeked only to see the swami still sitting in her chair, and no one else walking around. Soon after closing my eyes, I inwardly felt, and saw a large man in a loincloth hitting me over the head with feathers. I immediately had a very powerful inner experience. I left with the thought that the large man was Muktananda, but later discovered, through photos, it was Muktananda’s guru, Nityananda, who had passed away decades before. I was intrigued to experience more of this path. I participated in a few shaktipat initiations in the Ann Arbor ashram, and later went to Upstate New York, to have shaktipat directly from Muktananda. I began to feel that I had the best of the East in Siddha Yoga, and the best of the West in anthroposophy.
The more I studied and experienced both paths, I increasingly felt torn. It became a moral dilemma for me. Interestingly, on January 18, 1985 (the 32nd anniversary of my conception), when the transiting lunar north node was in opposition to my natal Pluto, and Jupiter was transiting my natal lunar north node, I decided to drop the Siddha yoga path, and focus on the anthroposophical/Rosicrucian path. This period of Saturn transiting through two signs, starting from a conjunction to my natal Pluto, and ending in my 8th house, and the lunar north node opposing my natal sun left me with a few lessons.
The nature of human consciousness changes as time elapses. Individual growth and maturity manifests in the gestalt of the inter-working of the different bodies; the physical body, the formative life force body, the emotional/mind body, and the individual ego, that make up the human being.
The relationship between the different bodies and how they incorporate in each other change in a rhythmic timing throughout one’s life. There is an archetypal timing for everyone, and individual karmic necessities determine how this manifests in each person. The archetypal timing can be seen as birthings, occurring every seven years. We are physically born, then seven years later, our etheric formative force body is born from the life body of the mother, later our astral, or emotion/mind/karma body is born, making one more individualized, and later at 21, our individual ego, or I is born. I won’t go into the subsequent 7-year phases here, but, from this point we are incorporated enough to autonomously take charge of our thinking, feeling, and doing.
Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. The individual human being develops and evolves in a lifetime, recapitulating and reflecting the evolution and development of the human species, as a whole. There is a broadly held perception that the consciousness of human beings who lived ages ago, is the same consciousness of those living today. Today, as recognized by most, a child’s consciousness is not the same as an adult’s. We can learn to view the development of humanity in this same light, just as we are still discovering what the differences are between children and adults, and what ways to best support a child’s development.
Generally speaking, an individual grows from a more dreamlike state of being, to a more awake state of thinking, feeling, and purpose. We can look similarly at the evolution of humanity. Through the ages, humanity has had different experiences and perceptions of itself and its relationship to the wider world. This is the basis of culture and society. Like an individual, humanity as a whole, has developed from a dreamlike awareness and a sense of identity based on blood and national ties, to one of wakeful individuality, not reliant upon external definitions.
At every stage of development, there have been methodologies of training to retain, or develop consciousness of the spiritual world. Techniques from ancient times have been historically recorded for the last two thousand years. Prior to then, these teachings were solely handed down orally. The effectiveness of the teachings have been mainly relevant for the particular epoch and culture in which they were introduced, or developed. They existed not only for their time, but also as stepping stones for subsequent ages of humanity’s spiritual development. Of course, many traditions from the past still exist, and are widely practiced throughout the world. Each include timeless teachings, yet have practices that don’t necessarily meet the modern human being. The understanding and practices concerning kundalini, or sacred fire is the main focus in this writing.
There are different practices, originating mainly in Asia, that have the goal raising the kundalini from its seat in the sacral chakra, up through the rest of the chakras, until it reaches the crown chakra, thus achieving total unity with the higher self, or cosmic consciousness. These practices, as a rule, require devotion and surrender to a guru, who is often seen as the embodiment of kundalini shakti. The guru is not the person before you, but is the merciful power of god, your own higher self, and has the ability to transmit shakti to burn, or dissolve the karma of an individual, providing one devotedly recites a given mantra, and meditates. The guru enters you through the mantra and brings the mantra to realization in your total soul liberation. Through this process, your experience of your ego disappears. What remains is the pure, eternally blissful consciousness of the highest being, which is you.
Total dependence on the guru is central. The guru enters the pupils via the mantra, freeing them from their karma, taking the burden from them. The pupils allow their evolution to be developed by the guru. The goal is the extinguishing of the personal ego, the individuality, and thus the guru brings bliss. The pupil does not have to understand the mantra.
For all the spiritual food that exists in the teachings associated with such practices, there is something amiss in this surrender. In ancient times, suppression of the ego was necessary, for it was permeated with egotism, which had to be eliminated. In our time, the force of love, which works in a germinal form in the human ego, a non-egoistic individual development becomes possible. This is why the relationship between teacher and pupil must change. Dependence must give way to freedom. The individual of today who is striving for a conscious path of development, may accept the advice of an initiate, but is solely responsible for his path. This is only possible if one has insight into what one is to do. It is the task the modern initiate to make this insight possible. Through our study, learning, and verifying, we arrive at our own insights.
This modern path of meditation is different from those of the Ancient East. Like other original languages of the East, Sanskrit, has a magic power to it. At a time when people were more open, in a dream-like way, to the spiritual world, the qualities of the sounds of the language had a direct influence upon the human soul. Modern mantras and verses, as given by Rudolf Steiner, were formed so that the content is understandable and clear, so as to penetrate the human soul with its meaning. It is through the meaning, and the personal endeavor that the meditator consciously connects with the spiritual world. In this way, those who understand and make their own decisions, can take responsibility for their own individual path.
The modern path is also very different in that through specific exercises, spiritual energy moves, from one point of view, from above to below, with a focus on the 4th, 5th, and 6th chakras, the heart, throat, and third eye. From another point of view, such conscious self development spiritualizes one’s whole being, as an offering up of one’s self to spirit, so that universal spirit can be embodied in the individual, to help transform not only oneself, but the rest of the world. This differs greatly from the gesture of surrendering oneself to be dissolved into spirit, to escape the wheel of karma, and not having to reincarnate again.
February 27, 2021
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