Unit MI 102/08
The Teacher and His Mission Unit MI 102
Lesson 8
The Eighty-four Maha Siddhas
We have discussed two great paths of Awakening, that of the Arahats who when
Awakened, are by their nature Bodhisattvas; and the path which we can call
Bodhisattva Refuge (Mahayana) in which one pledges oneself to the Bodhisattva ideal with certain firm resolutions. There is still a third group of Awakened Buddhists who are generally ignored except in an historical sense. They are the Great Buddhist Siddhis. Here we show the apparently very distinct third path of Bodhisattva Liberation that really, in its essence, is no different that the other two.
Lesson Eight The Eighty-four Maha Siddhas
From all walks of life, farmers and wood-gatherers to royal ministers, scholars, and kings, the great Siddhas, bearers of transcendental knowledge, accepted the awakening. Yet they were in one way quite different than either the earlier Arahats or the original Mahayana Bodhisattvas. Each found within their way of life the keys to realization.
There were eighty-four great Siddhas (‘great realised ones) who transformed ordinary experiences into opportunities for awakening. Their great contribution was to show the closeness of the Nirvanic state to Samsara, and that freedom is available to all human creatures who have the patience and resolution to walk upon the path.
They were Indian seers who were practitioners of Tantra and it is from them that Tibetan Buddhism arose. In early Buddhism the aim was to become an Arahat (Skt. Arahant), in early Mahayana the aim was to become a Bodhisattva and in later Indian Buddhism, the aim was to attain the state of a MahaSiddha. The practitioners generally just called themselves yogis. Do you remember that term in the Vedic lessons?
We say that there were 84 MahaSiddhas, but we must remember that the number 84 was considered to be a transcendentally powerful number signifying “completion and completeness.” Were there really 84 MahaSiddhas then?
The main sources concerning the MahaSiddhas are Tibetan translations of Indian texts, which give the details of the lives of these great Buddhists (works of Abhyadatta and Buddhaguptan-tha); Rhyming couplets (doh); songs called Diamond songs (vajragata) which appear in old Indian manuscripts; and one great single Indian manuscript of Songs of Action.
They can almost be considered as ancient spiritual hippies, for they were against all form of ritualism and lived with strong rejection of the prevailing social systems and the establishment. They also abhorred worldly academic traditions and not only preferred, but advocated, a liberated life style in which there was no hierarchy and complete liberty of expression. For these reasons, they were considered to be a lunatic fringe of society.
They were both men and women and came from every level of society from high caste Brahmin families to untouchables By many, however, they were respected and revered as a crazy seers teaching a crazy wisdom. They were not the simple monks who led a life of restraint with quiet meditations. Neither were they adherents to a Bodhisattva pledge. They moved around India, teaching and receiving new teachings from other masters.
The area in which they were active extended over the whole of India and beyond, and they are particularly associated with a number of sacred places .
They are revered and remembered as transmitters of what are termed tantras, and authors of commentaries upon them. Like Buddha in earlier times, they argued against the ritualism that had begun to develop in Buddhism. They would certainly be against the mindless ritualism practiced today within some Buddhism traditions which have, by spreading them like pearls before swine, reduced both the practical and spiritual values of their tremendous transcendental knowledge and achievements.
Their songs and stories are full of scathing criticism of ritualism and injunctions against Mantra and Tantra. Yet they used both Mantras and Tantra. The reason is that Mantras and Tantras are beyond all words used to describe them. Therefore, one cannot teach either one and can only lead students to the place where they can understand the Mantra process and Tantra process without intellect.
Neither Mantras nor Tantras really exist. They are processes. As such, their position is akin in great measure to the Chan Buddhist position. Like the Koan, both Mantras and Tantras cannot open the way to understanding or realization until the stained mind is dissolved.
In their lives they left behind all convention and thus mirror many of the silent wishes of those who would like to cut themselves off from this mad world. There was an old hippie poster years ago which said, “Stop the world, I want to get off.” That mirrors the feelings of more than wish to admit it. Thus these men and women, who did just that, appear as spiritual heroes.
They left their lives, giving up both suffering and false happiness, to seek out the ultimate. That was precisely what Buddha did, but Buddha does not appear as a spiritual hero because he did not step far outside the framework of what was acceptable.
The Different Faces of Mara
Buddha battled with folly-filled ideas and in his path conquered Mara. These new warriors faced the same Mara, who appeared to them as malevolent deities, demons and spirits, worldly religious opponents and convention, defeating all in battle using transcendental weapons not available to Buddha.
Yet it was the same battle and thus they are warrior sages. Accomplished and awakened they are constantly put to the test and legend gives them the same omniscience that all Buddhas possess.
If we look through the extravagant presentations of their history, we can still see them as walking with the presence of the Non Dual in a Dual world. One interesting evolution, however, in the Siddha thinking was that Powers should not be hidden under a bushel, but used as weapons for complete teaching. Thus they used sensory transformations from spiritual essence to form and from form to spiritual essence.
Within each human creature there are qualities which can, with practice, be transformed into visions or visualizations. These visualizations are apparently real representations of the attributes which can be used in a gradual or direct way to overcome Mara.
What Buddha did was beat Mara face to face on his own grounds: clarity of purpose, firmness of intent, and clear virtue.
These Siddhas fought Mara using Mara’s own weapons, clarity of purpose, firmness of intent and illusion. Thus they converted the force of Mara that created delusions and impediments into an equal and opposite force that would eliminate the impediments and release the true nature from bondage.
Devas and other deities manifested themselves within and before the Siddhas, typically presented and disguised in the form of a young or old woman, respectively of great beauty or great ugliness.
In this way, they generally tested the discernment of the MahaSiddhas to distinguish the Truth from Folly. Where Buddha fought one great battle against Mara, the Yogis faced Mara countless times in constant scrimmages. The deity of wisdom, for example, might appear as an old and ugly woman to test his or her discernment of Compassion, Happiness, Benevolence or Equanimity. The correct identification of Truth through a special insight into those conditions, if the yogi is prepared, may bring great advances upon the path in the form of internal revelations.
Certainly this seems, on the surface, a far cry from concentration upon the four Sublime states of Gladness, Compassion, Benevolent Love and Equanimity, but if one penetrates more deeply into the process, one can see that really they are using the same fundamental processes. That is the point we wish to make here.
You will remember that we called them Yogis not monks, but indeed many started their path as monks and rejected that state and became wandering Yogis.
It seems that by the eighth to twelfth centuries, the MahaSiddhas were in the forefront of a trend towards the diminution of differences between Buddhism and Hinduism. The essential difference, however, between the Buddhists and Hindus was in the sometimes elaborate meditation practices they undertook. While the Indian Hindu Siddhas reached out and found Brahmin, the Buddhist Siddhas, using the same methods, reached inward and realized their Buddha Nature.
With the experientially based conviction that the relative world is all vanity, and that any mundane ambition is a futile waste of the opportunity afforded by this precious human body to attain spiritual liberation, together with a realization of the unity of self and other, a Siddha cannot but act for the benefit of himself and others simultaneously. Thus, insofar as the Bodhisattva State permeates his being, the Siddha is driven to action uninhibited by any social or moral norm. The effusion of Benevolent Love and the constant awareness of what is natural and correct override, and eventually eliminate, the conditioned restraints that inhibit natural unstained behavior.
The Bodhisattva State
The Bodhisattva State, or rather the experience of oneness with all sentient beings that determines the quality of a Sridhar’s action, was not the motivating force behind his activity, as it was perhaps with the earlier Bodhisattvas, and thus strangely, he was more spiritually allied to the Arahats than to the Mahayana Bodhisattvas. Directed Benevolence was not the cause of his activity, nor were his actions a function of ordinary karmic cause and effect.
His “explosion” of freedom, stressing the Sridhar’s release from the effects of past karma and his behavior, is characterized as "spontaneous", and should not be considered as either an impulsive reaction against society or an intellectual decision. His spontaneity was an undirected responsiveness to the situation, a natural letting go. It as though his mind/body recognised the ultimate free state of the human mind that is perfectly capable of surviving and operating within a natural world, despite the obfuscations of the cycle of dependent origination. Thus he was exposed to the final stages of release.
His path as a master was equally explosive and he responded to whatever stimulus presented itself in order to interact with and teach his disciples and release their human limitations. Telling his disciples to jump off cliffs and run through fire, damaging their physical body is not essentially different than the Chan act of beating a bamboo cane across the back of a disciple or shouting and screaming to break the traditional mind. Thus he too acts to liberate the people he encounters from the confines of their emotional and mental prisons.
Since the Siddha's personal karma has no place in determining the nature of his action, and because his action is a reflex without Identity, it "no-action", a concept that the Taoist and Chan Buddhists expresses as “wu wei”. Furthermore, to further liken his mode of expression and his teachings to the Buddhist Chan way, he is free of thought or effort, totally absorbed in awareness of the moment. Appearing to think, there is no thought. His actions and speech are unmotivated by the stained mind and without objectives.
Likened also to his Arahat brothers, he may contemplate the stream of his consciousness with the detached awareness of right attention, directed in the way of contemplative insight, with the minimal energy necessary to maintain that observation, his actions making no ripples - that is the Buddha Path.
Ego-motivated concentration or contemplation is an attempt to divert the river's flow for personal or social advantage, and such action creates a concatenation of cause and effect that simply changes the stream’s flow without progress whatsoever.
The Siddhas were aware, as were the previous Buddhists, that the phenomenal world as we perceive it is a lie, that moral and social values are mind-created and therefore purely utilitarian. Without denying that utility function, divorcing themselves from the common stream of activity around them, they lived with this empty awareness twenty-four hours a day as a meditation practice. This empty awareness is just one step beyond the constant mindfulness of Theravadin Buddhism and the continual oration of Tibetan Buddhism and is the same as the constant No Mind of Chan and the walking with the “Presence” in Dzogchen.
They saw clearly, -and this perception is today of great benefit to us-, that only when "action" becomes "non-action", is a bridge constructed between the Truth and the world of the senses. In this way they were no different from the Taoists who lauded the path of Non-Action that allows the stained human consciousness that corrupts Earth (form) to combine with Heaven (Vacuity) so that the Eternal Tao can be revealed.
At this point we are not interested in discussing the meditation techniques themselves except by giving a general description, which is sufficiently uninformative to be unusable. However, since we have mentioned the use of Tantra, which certainly was not a part of the earlier traditions, we should explain what Tantra is.
The Path of Tantra
The evolution of Tantra as the dominant spiritual power in Indian life coincided with the growth of a destructive menace on India's north-west frontier and may not be unrelated to that event. At the beginning of the eighth century, India was engaged in internal conflicts, and Indian culture was in a state of decay.
The inflexible caste rules and regulations governed life, and the ritual which Buddha rejected was dominant. The fanatical Islamic armies took that opportunity to invade with their usual destruction, pillage and massacre. They were a new kind of enemy, far more destructive than Mara dominated earlier Vedic warrior immigrants, because they compelled conversion, leaving the only other alternative as death. Buddhist refugees brought tales of the destruction to all parts of India. It was at this time that Tantra was increasing its influence, particularly in Oddiyana, and in eastern India.
The origin of Tantra is not known, but it is most probable that as fertility cults, it belonged to the pre-Aryan, tribal worshippers of the Mother Goddess, and thus was not Aryan in origin. As such, it became adopted by the low castes and out-castes of Hindu society. A body of knowledge was available within the Vedic system, which included magic chants for a variety of mundane purposes such as healing, bringing good fortune and rejecting evil, and these were very deeply entrenched in the Mother Goddess cults. Over the centuries, they naturally assimilated into the Indian main culture and became more sophisticated, and even assimilated Brahmic deities, their rituals and the Brahmic principles of mantra.
With the presence of the great mental openness and flexibility of the Indian mind, the Upanishadic philosophy, Patanjali's Yoga-sutras and the principles of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy were also assimilated. A great transformation then began, and gradually this body of ritual magic became centered on a greater cause, -the liberation of human creatures from suffering.
We do not know whether the evolution took its impetus from heretical Buddhist monks, Shiva worshipers, or other groups, but the first lineage, (the passing on of the knowledge of the thread) began.
The practices were disperse and clearly anarchist in nature, so by the fourth or fifth century, there began to arise some order and consistency by committing to palm leaf manuscripts what until then had been purely oral transmission.
The Manjusrimulakalpa contains a body of Mahayana lore and the basic father-tantra mandala of the Five Dhyani Buddhas; but the Guhyasamaja-tantra, probably compiled at a critical moment, is considered to be the first of the root-tantras. It describes the yoga techniques as well as the mandalas, mantras and rites associated with the propitiation of a particular deity, Guhyasamaja, and his retinue.
This tantra reached its final form when one of the great Buddhist Siddhas, Indrabhuti, "revealed" it in the eighth century. Thus, in the eighth and ninth centuries most of the major tantras transcendental methods of support and practice) , particularly the mother-tantras, were revealed, owing their success probably to the inclusion of many elements from the sakta, Goddess-worshipping cults.
Once written down, Tantra was no longer a closed system. The methods could no longer be kept secret. There were originally many reasons for secrecy, the most important being the need to avoid the hostile pressure from Brahmin orthodoxy, because initiation was open to all castes and both sexes, a practice that militated against the priestly supremacy of the Brahmins.
Practices such as meat-eating, drinking liquor and, in some sakta-influenced tantras, sexual intercourse between untouchables and twice-born initiates, were abhorrent to the Brahmins, but these apparently un-Buddhist practices were a part of the Esoteric Tantra and became accepted by the masses.
In the same way that Buddhism had attracted India's greatest minds to its past forms, Tantric Buddhism attracted men of learning and fine discrimination and with the ability to write great commentaries on the tantras. In the process, they interpreted ambiguities in terms consistent with Mahayana ethics and principles, and thus eliminated all traces of gross identity-ridden elements in the practices that were inconsistent with the main thread of Buddhism. That is why today there is virtually no relation between what is called Indian Tantra and Buddhist Tantra, which is directed fully at Liberation alone.
The mind of the normal Indian population, having inherited the faith in the early Vedic Gods, took refuge in the new potential saviours, not really understanding any of the transcendental significance, similar to when invaded people run to the churches to pray to god.
Thus the Indian people looked to Tantra with its uncompromising non-dualist metaphysics, its school of spontaneous liberation, and its fierce flesh-eating, blood-drinking deities.
Between 711 CE when Sindh (S. Pakistan) was conquered, and the end of the twelfth century, when the Buddha's Tree of Enlightenment was finally desecrated by Turkish soldiers, Hindu civilization nonetheless developed and flourished with spiritual firmness. Those guides who led that rejuvenation were the Siddhas.
The eighty-four Siddhas whose lives and practices are described in Buddhist legends were the Siddhas who practiced the Buddhist Tantra, as opposed to the Siva (saivas) Tantra and Great Mother (saktas) Tantra, also practiced at that time.
The literal meaning of the word Tantra has, in the West, been absorbed by sexual fantasy, but its true meaning is “thread," or "continuity". This thread is the essential, immutable and continuous element in life. That is the truth of its emptiness or the "such-ness," that we spoke of. It is this emptiness or vacuity which is the ultimate, indeterminate, existential reality of all things perceived in ordinary consciousness.
Tantra was used then to indicate the true thread or way of life governed by a body of practices which slowly evolved and were called Tantras.
There are four classes of Buddhist Tantra, the two lower levels are predominantly concerned with methods to attain temporal goals and, it is claimed, magical powers.
The higher levels of Tantra involve meditations which appear ritualised, but are profound in psychological methodology. This ritualism is completely foreign to the Supreme Tantra (anuttarayoga-tantra) which leads to mahamudra-siddhi.
Mahamudra
The Buddha's Awakening is clearly coincident with true happiness, compassion and benevolence. That is precisely mahamudra-siddhi (Mahamudra Power)
The Mahayana explains Buddha in terms of three "bodies" or rather three modes of being.
1: “being”, as empty awareness. The ultimate existential mode of experience that is emptiness, the Dharmakaya is all-inclusive, and the words which characterize it are expressive of the inexpressible, an inconceivable non-duality: pure awareness, emptiness, pure pleasure, all-pervasive space, and clear light.
2: “being”, as instructive visionary enjoyment. The male co-ordinate of skilful means, Sambhogakaya, corresponds to the mode of visionary enjoyment and discriminating aesthetic delight, the essence being radiant light. Here spiritual guidance can be obtained in the form of ubiquitous, divine archetypes and symbolic indications
3: “being” as compassionate apparition. The female coordinate, of perfect insight, Nirmanakaya, is manifest Compassion and corresponds to the mode of apparitional incarnation in which the Dakini dances her magical display.
The fourth mode of “being”, integrates the other three, and this is called Mahamudra - the Great Seal, Magnificent Symbol, Sublime Stance, Absolute Reality. The relative modes of visionary enjoyment, the Sambhogakaya and apparitional incarnation, the Nirmanakaya, are the duality that unites as the ultimate Mahamudra mode.
The explanations of all are now embedded with camouflaging metaphysical appearances, but Mahamudra is synonymous with an essential Indian symbol for ultimate reality, the vulva, and it is useful to bear that meaning in mind.
Sex
Although sex is renounced in orthodox Buddhism, in Tantra it is accepted as a valid means by which Mahamudra can be attained. The delusion that all tantric yoga is sexual yoga is fostered by the tantras' frequent use of sexual analogy, metaphor and symbol to describe psychic processes.
Mahamudra may be considered as the sexual analogy of lovers achieving a sense of complete oneness while still apparently in their own separate bodies. This is expressed in the sculptures that one often sees of Deity and Consort
These figures are elements of the Mahamudra union in one dimension as the skillful means (Compassion) and perfect insight (Wisdom). It is the Master who embodies the skillful means necessary to achieve the pure ecstasy of the Awakening, and the Dakini brings perfect insight and wisdom. Compassion is not pity, empathy, or emotional union; those are all mundane mental compassion. True Compassion is the Bodhisattva sensibility that responds with the spontaneous natural and correct Intention to any external or internal stimulation with diverse intentions to employ skillful means for the benefit of all sentient beings.
Thus, neither Compassion or Wisdom are ever considered as passive and active or positive and negative in the Ying Yang sense. But the Means and Wisdom are flexible and may be used and interpreted in different ways depending on the sadhana, the level of its use and its purpose.
The counterpart of male Compassion is the female “Wisdom” of emptiness, penetrating insight into the nature of all things as emptiness. When Compassion and the Wisdom of emptiness unite, it is the full awareness beyond all mind which is the Dakini's blessing.
The Siddha
A Siddha is a practitioner of Tantra who has encountered Awakening. This achievement is known as siddhi. But this awakening is stated in a way which once more brings it close to the Chan concept that Nirvana cannot be divorced from Samsara. Siddhi is two-fold: first the magical mundane power and second the Buddha Awakening.
For those who did not understand the Tantric Buddhist, the Siddha evoked concepts and ideas of magical power. Thus he can be imagined as levitating, transporting himself through space, performing miracles and curing all manner of sickness.
Being thus accepted, his actions of apparent insanity, smearing himself with ashes, painting his body, walking always completely nude, singing while he cried with his happiness and awe, calming street mongrels by his presence, tearing a family apart by his words, wearing symbols and signs of unity and immutability, wearing his hair in yard-long hair-knot, eating from empty skulls, eating nothing but fish guts, talking with the animals, sleeping with lepers, untouchables and derelicts, ranting against all for mundane folly, are all accepted as holy.
Few ordinary people of his time had any conception of the Siddha's esoteric aim – Mahamudra, the attainment of the ultimate mystical experience of the oneness of all things, the non-dual cognition of ultimate reality, clear light, gnostic awareness - the dissolution of the individuated personality in the universal mind, Buddhahood.
The Eighty-four Siddhas
The greatest names amongst the eighty-four were: –Virupa, Nagarjuna, Tilopa, Naropa, Saraha, Luipa, Ghantapa, Dombipa, Kanhapa, Savari, and Bhusuku (Santideva).Most were sadhu Siddhas, mendicant yogins living with the people on a grass-roots level of society, teaching more by psychic vibration, posture and attitude - mantra, mudra and tantra - than by sermonizing.
All these siddhis must be understood in the light of the basic precept "all is mind;" for the Siddha there is no body/mind or matter/spirit duality. Lastly, what makes these siddhis different is their use as technical aids to Mahamudra-siddhi in sadhanas, which are means of "spiritual discipline."
The sadhana is almost always a practice which generates the activity of an integrated body, speech and mind motivated by the Bodhisattva Pledge
The forms of the MahaSiddhas' sadhanas are as varied as their personalities, although seen by an unclouded vision all the Sadhanas are a creative way of meditation directed at fulfilment of one aspect or other of the Buddha Nature.
The sadhana then is the Siddha’s whole life. His life is the sadhana, thus he selflessly devotes his entire being to the non-dual, gnostic enlightenment experience for the benefit of all sentient creatures.
Duality is exposed as folly in songs written in a style very similar to the Chan poems of Awakening, teaching existential involvement rather than metaphysical speculation. They teach the ideal of aware living in the world but being apart from it. They took no path of asceticism or renunciation, and were characterized by a lack of external uniformity and formal discipline.
In this non-dual way of life, absolute reality is an everyday experience, not a philosophical or psychological experience. It is therefore unutterable, and so the Siddhas had a distain for speculative metaphysics.
But these experiences are nonetheless based upon an instated metaphysical base. All the Tantric texts are founded in root-tantras. Each deals with practices associated with a particular deity.
The deities Guhyasamaja, Cakrasamvara, Hevajra, Mahamaya and Yamari, were the most important deities used by the Siddhas. Each has a root-tantra that gives a description of a pertinent mandala in terms of a divine entourage of psychic powers that comprise the Siddha mind, the creative and fulfilment modes of meditation, together with subsidiary detailed descriptions of symbology and materials for symbolic offerings, and the specific requirements of the Tantra.
Thus enjoyment was both the result of sadhana and also the means. Amongst the eighty-four Siddhas there were many individuals whose object of meditation was sensually delightful, like flowers, bird-song, music, and also sexual intercourse.
The consequence of sadhana practice is not pure mundane pleasure, it is a combination of the joy and awe that in Buddhism is pure devotion.
Look at their names, this alone will be a revelation. They are a far cry from the Arahats and Mahayana’s first Bodhisattvas. But do not make the mistake of making judgement about their worth or the state of their Buddhism. Reach Awakening first and then you will discover that understanding will dissolve all apparent differences.
The MahaSiddhas
Minapa, The Bengali Jonah
Luipa, The Fish-Gut Eater
Virupa, Master of Dakinis
Dombipa, The Tiger Rider
Saraha, The Great Brahmin
Lilapa, The Royal Hedonist
Savaripa, The Hunter
Goraksa, The Immortal Cowherd
Tantipa, The Senile Weaver
Khadgapa, The Master Thief
Caurangipa, The Limbless One
Kankaripa, The Lovelorn Widower
Aryadeva, The Lotus-Born
Nagarjuna, Philosopher and Alchemist
Vinapa, The Music Lover
Thaganapa, Master of the Lie
Camaripa, The Divine Cobbler
Syalipa, The Jackal Yogin
Naropa, The Dauntless Disciple
Tilopa, The Great Renunciate
Santipa, The Academic
Mekopa, The Wild-Eyed Guru
Kambala, The Yogin of the Black Blanket
Vyalipa, The Courtesan's Alchemist
Tantepa, The Gambler
Kukkuripa, The Dog Lover
Kanhapa, The Dark-Skinned One
Acinta, The Avaricious Hermit
Bhadrapa, The Snob
Kalapa, The Handsome Madman
Bhusuku (Santideva), The Lazy Monk
Kotalipa, The Peasant Guru
Indrabhuti, The Enlightened King
Jalandhara, The Chosen One
Bhiksanapa, Siddha Two-Teeth
Ghantapa, The Celibate Monk
Campaka, The Flower King
Kumbharipa, the Potter
Godhuripa, The Bird Catcher
Kapalapa, The Skull Bearer
Carbaripa (Carpati), The Siddha Who Turned People to Stone
Kantalipa, The Rag Picker
Jayananda, The Crow Master
Dhilipa, The Epicure
Darikapa, Slave-King of the Temple Whore
Udhipipa, The Flying Siddha
Laksminkara, The Mad Princess
Nirgunapa, The Enlightened Moron
Mekhala and Kanakhala, The Headless Sisters
Kirapalapa (Kilapa), The Repentant Conqueror
Nagabodhi, The Red Horned Thief
Saravabhaksa, The Empty-Bellied Siddha
Manibhadra, The Model Wife
Saroruha, The Lotus Child
Master and Disciple
These Siddhas taught their disciples and generated something that was quite unique, the relationship between a student and his master. The Master Osho, who spent his last years with Buddhism, wrote a fantastic account of this relationship between the Siddhis which is well worth repeating here. He called it “The Ultimate Experience”, and he talks about two of these great Siddhas.
“Tilopa is the Master, Naropa is the disciple, and Tilopa says:
Mahamudra is beyond all words and symbols,
But for you, Naropa, earnest and loyal,
Must this be said…
If it is beyond all words and symbols, then how can it be said? Is there any way? Yes, there is a way; if there is a Naropa there is a way; if there is really a disciple there is a way. It depends on the disciple whether the way will be found or not.
If the disciple is so receptive that he has no mind of his own – he does not judge whether it is right or wrong, he has surrendered his mind to the Master, he is simply a receptivity, an emptiness, ready to welcome whatsoever is given unconditionally – then words and symbols are not needed.
Words are just a trick, a device. The real thing follows the words like a shadow. If you are too much of the mind, you will listen to the words, but then it cannot be communicated. However, if you are not a mind at all, then the subtle shadows that follow the words, very subtle, invisible shadows, invisible ripples of consciousness, make communion immediately possible.
There have been a few Masters, unfortunate, who never could find a disciple like Naropa. So whatsoever they had gained disappeared with them, because there was nobody to receive it.
Tilopa was fortunate to find a Naropa. Sometimes Masters have travelled thousands of miles to find a disciple. Tilopa himself wandered all over India until he found a man of that quality, who would receive such a gift, who would appreciate such a gift, who would be able to absorb it, to be reborn through it. And once the gift was received by Naropa, Naropa became totally transformed. Then Tilopa is reported to have said to Naropa: “Now you go and find your own Naropa.”
Naropa was also fortunate in that way: he was able to find a disciple whose name was Marpa. Marpa was also very fortunate, he was able to find a disciple whose name was Milarepa. But then the tradition disappeared, then no more disciples of that great calibre could be found.
Many times religion has come to the earth and disappeared; many times it will come and disappear. A religion cannot become a church, a religion cannot become a sect; a religion depends on personal communication, on personal communion. The religion of Tilopa existed only for four generations, from Naropa to Milarepa, then it disappeared.
Religion is just like an oasis; the desert is vast, and sometimes in tiny parts of the desert an oasis appears. While it lasts, seek it; while it is there, drink of it – it is very rare.
Jesus says many times to his disciples, “A little while more I am here. And while I am here, eat me, drink me. Don’t miss the opportunity” – because then for thousands of years a man like Jesus may not be there.
The desert is vast. The oasis sometimes appears and disappears, because the oasis comes from the unknown and it needs an anchor on this earth. If the anchor is not there, it cannot remain here. A Naropa is an anchor.
The same I would like to say to you: While I am here, a little while more, don’t miss the opportunity. And you can miss it in trivial things; you can remain occupied with nonsense, with mental garbage; you can go on thinking for and against – and the oasis will disappear soon. You can think for and against later on. Right now, drink of it, because then there will be many lives for you to think for and against, there is no hurry for it. But while it lasts, drink of it.
Once you are drunk with a Jesus or a Naropa, you are totally transformed. The transformation is very very easy and simple; it is a natural process. All that is needed is to become a soil, a womb, and receive the seed.
Lesson Eight
This lesson should be quite a delightful one. On the basis of the names alone, excluding those whose histories you have read, choose the five that you would like to study with and tell me why for each one. Then choose two you would (with your stained mind of course) reject.