Pure visión and the visión of the guru: A phenomenology of bewilderment

Introduction

It is not easy to understand the nature of the guru and understanding the nature of the guru can be bewildering. There is often bewilderment about the guru. One source of the bewilderment is that people think that the guru is an individual person and for most people the understanding that the guru is not a person has been foreclosed. The guru is not a person. And when people see and believe the guru is a person, such a belief will create illusions about the person whom they think is the guru, and their own relationship with the person whom they see as the guru will fall into various forms of the psychology of transference.

Moreover, the true and pervasive nature of the guru will be concealed and the power of the guru limited and anthropomorphized, and politicized. To use Heideggerian language the ontic dimension will become the focus and the ontological dimension becomes foreclosed. In fact, the guru is not an entity, the guru is not a thing, and the guru is not even a being. The guru is the field of Being. The guru is the field of Being’s manifestation of understanding, manifestation of protection and manifestation of self- revelation. The guru is the radiance of primordial awareness. The contemporary master of Kashmir Shavism, Swami Muktananda would teach, using the language of theology, “the guru is the grace bestowing power of God.” He would also say “The guru is your own innermost awareness and you must get beyond your mind to experience the guru as your own awareness.”

Vehicle-ness

It is also equally true that a person can be vehicle of the guru. Even you and I can be a vehicle for the guru. The light of the guru can manifest and shine forth through you and me, and through everyone. The power of the guru does not manifest only through institutional religious teachers as some would like you to think, but most often this manifestation is through ordinary people and through the ordinary events of life. Even an event can be a vehicle for guru to manifest and shine forth through the event. Even a place like a house can be a vehicle for the guru to manifest and shine forth within the field of radiance, as the field of radiance. The experience of the guru can take place both local and non- locally simultaneously. The manifestation is not bound by time and place, yet takes place in time and place.

The guru is the field of primordial awareness manifesting within us and through us and around us. The word guru is a metaphor for this self- manifestation of primordial awareness in us as awareness itself.

Desire

One may experience the unfolding of non-conceptual desire to know the guru within our own being and within the being of another. This desire is the desire for self- liberation in unfolding circumstances. This desire for self-liberation is the desire for gnosis, for pure vision, for jnana, for the direct knowing and direct experience of luminous Being-ness within our self and within others and within every situation. This desire is to experience the luminous pure Being-ness of Being, and to experience it clearly and purely in every situation.

Of course this desire is often an intense and deeply felt sense. This desire, as most desires, may not have conceptual understanding or elaboration. As Lacan would often teach in his psychoanalytic seminars the unconsciousness is structured like language and yet we may not know the meaning or the full meaning of this language of what we desire.

Pure Desire

This pure desire for self- liberation is the desire for experiencing non- duality within the realm of dualistic experience. And within the realm of dualistic phenomena, to experience the vast pervasive purity of non-duality. This foundational desire is the desire to experience within the duality of appearances, the simultaneous experience of pure non- duality of primordial awareness. This foundational desire is the manifestation of the great compassion and is the pure vision of compassion. This desire does not arise from mind alone, but from the very nature of our innate awareness.

The Pure View

This pure view is our direct knowing of Pure Being through and within the appearance of phenomenal existence. The Pure View as expressed by the 19th century Dzogchen Master Dudjom Lingpa is to know “phenomenal existence as all pervasive purity.”

All phenomenal existence is pervasively pure. This desire of the pure view is to go beyond our continuous containment within dualistic experience. Of course pure vision can be pure love. Pure Love takes us through the doorway of dualistic experience into the non-duality of pure being. This is the mysterious conjunctio that Jung was so focused upon. This pure view is not a mental cognition or mental belief such as a belief of our mind, but is the fullness of direct knowingness of our own Being as direct perception, as gnosis, and as jnana. Being is knowingness. The guru is the knowingness of Being, the knowingness of awareness. The guru is not a function of the conceptual knowingness of mind alone. The guru is not a function of mental belief.

Pure Vision

Pure vision is our experience of the indivisibleness of non-duality within duality and the indivisibleness of dualistic experience within non-dual awareness. Pure vision is a non-dual view and a non-dual knowingness in a dualistic context. Pure vision is not a mental belief as some would have you think. Pure vision is not the simplistic view of imagining the other as a pure person. Pure vision is the non-dualistic knowingness arising out of non-dual relatedness with another person.

As a luminous Dakini said once in the late 19th century to the Dzogchen Master Dudjom Lingpa “You and I are indivisible.” The indivisibleness is the capacity to experience oneness and separateness simultaneously. This capacity is the capacity of human beings to experience timeless awareness and time simultaneously. We have capacity is to experience mind knowing time and awareness knowing timelessness simultaneously. Timeless awareness in time is the realm of guru.

Pure vision is the gaze of trans-lucidity. Pure vision is experiencing the pure lucidity within our own awareness and the pure lucidity within phenomena. This experience of pure luminosity is trans-lucidness of our non-dual awareness within the non-duality of pure phenomenal existing-ness as lucidity. The non-dual light of intrinsic awareness is experiencing the light of phenomena.

Pure vision is the experience of the duality of the appearance of phenomena as well of the non-dual Being-ness of the phenomena. To experience the pure view of the purity of Being of the other, we must be in the purity of our own embodied awareness. We must be experiencing the Being-ness of our own being to know the Being-ness of the being of the other. Actually it takes one to know one. Pure vision is the perceiving and experiencing the purity of being as phenomena, and phenomena as the purity of being.

Conventional View of Purity

Pure vision is not the conventional view of purity which is found in many religions and ethical traditions. The conventional view is preoccupied with the purity of a person’s psychology, or purity of eating habits, or purity of sexual habits, or purity of prayer habits, or purity of dressing habits, or purity of affective states, or purity of speech or the purity of mind, or the purity of moral character, or the purity of intention. Pure vision is not a function of the other’s excellent moral character or excellent psychological maturity. The purity of vision is the experiencing the purity of phenomenological essence as Being. The purity of appearance is the purity of the essence of the phenomena. This essence is openness, this essence is ground awareness. This essence is luminous awareness. This essence is luminous emptiness. This understanding will free you of bewilderment. The purity of the guru is not the purity of a person but the purity of the guru as the Being-ness of awareness and the Being-ness of phenomena. All phenomena is experienced as pervasive purity.

Time within Timelessness

Pure vision is also the experience of experiencing the purity of time within the purity of timeless awareness and timeless awareness within time. Time is the manifestation of pure being and the phenomena of time is completely pure. Time is the manifestation of pure timeless awareness. Timeless awareness is ground awareness, the ground of being as pure source of time. Time is the manifestation of primordial awareness. Time is the drama of Being’s manifestation of being. Being, which is not a being is ceaselessly manifesting beings in the Being-ness of their own being. And this manifesting is time unfolding.

Pure vision is experiencing the purity of phenomenal time within timelessness, and timelessness within the duality of time. We have the capacity to experience timeless awareness and time simultaneously. We can experience the non-duality of timeless and time within the duality of time. There are four times. The time of the present moment, the time of the past moments and the time of the future moments. The fourth time is timeless awareness in which we can actually extend the power of timeless awareness into the present moment of a person, in the past situation of a person, and into the future situation of a person. This is action of the great compassion of extending timeless awareness into time. The mind knows time of past, present and future, and awareness knows timelessness. The mind knows time, and awareness knows timelessness. The indivisibleness is the self-manifestation. Time is the self-manifestation of Pure Being, which is not a being, and the very manifestation of beings is the manifestation of pure time.