There are No Advanced Teachings
Tuesday, March 14th, 2006There are no advanced teachings, or beginning teachings. All of life is a teaching of the openness of the natural state.
There are no superior or inferior teachings. Or open versus secret teachings.
For instance, wisdom of body, wisdom of energy, and wisdom of your real situation (the open potentiality of the natural state), are the same if these wisdoms are fully integrated, not just conceptual. None is higher, lower, beginning, advanced, or any such thing.
Teachings are sometimes declared “secret” for the purpose of grabbing power for a group or individual.
For instance, the male-dominated Brahminical culture in India has deemed Sri Vidya upasana to be literally a secret, that is, a cultural power-secret. Sri Karunamayi, a South Indian teacher who openly teaches Sri Vidya to “the masses,” has been severely criticized.
On the other hand, within the actual Sri Vidya practices, Sri Lalita Tripurasundari has various manifestations called “open,” “secret,” “most secret,” “supremely secret,” and so on. These secrets are not the practices themselves, but the manifestations of life that the practices reveal. And the most supreme secret is the open secret of Reality. Sri Vidya upasana has playfully embedded within it the wisdom that Life is an open secret.
Only our tensions, our samskaric limitations, create the experience of difficulty in finding out about life. A few of us can “get” this immediately, or with minimal help. The rest of us need a variety of practices to help us relax our tensions.
In terms of receiving teachings, the only useful interpretation of labels such as “secret” is “appropriate.” Not all teachings are appropriate for all students at all times. Different teachings are reserved for students with the capacity to absorb and integrate them. This also prevents teachings from becoming distorted over time by those who have not really understood them.
Sometimes we criticize a teacher for offering incorrect, distorted, or incomplete teachings. But life’s teaching aspect, the Guru tattva, is always presenting us with opportunities to grow. Discerning the opportunity should be our focus. In any situation, our job is to be diligent students, to look for and answer opportunities for appropriate teachings and learn to discriminate when teachings are inappropriate for us.
In large part due to the current wealth of itinerant teachers traveling the world, many students rush to get teachings that have been deemed “advanced.” A common example of this is students who flock to Mahamudra and Trekchod teachings. Some students are just not attuned to this kind of practice. Others might be, but their pranas are still over-agitated, and they are unable to sit for any length of time. There is nothing good or bad about either the teachings or the students. It is just a matter of inappropriate temperment or inappropriate timing.
So, appropriateness is the key. Appropriate means a teaching that will work for a student at a particular time if diligently applied.
Teachings are appropriate for students in various ways. We all have personalities, capacities, and histories. We come in “flavors.” Teachers help students shape a daily practice based on their particular flavors. Unless you have fallen prey to “shoulds, oughts, and wannabes,” you will be naturally drawn to practices, traditions, and teachers that are suited to you.
Within Tantra, there are various upayas, or skillful means. Some of these upayas are vows, chanting, hatha yoga, puja, deity and guru yogas, various kinds of meditation, mantra, yantra, kundalini and kriya yoga, and so on.
Within Kashmir Shaivism, and other nondual traditions, upayas are grouped from those that most directly engage the body and the senses, to, well, those that directly engage the body and the senses! In between there are practices of more or less withdrawal, more or less abstraction, more or less direct engagement with the energy body.
But in the end, integration of the entire human experience is the fruit of all practice. And if you desire to realize this fruit, the appropriate practices are always the best practices. Investigating your real situation, using discrimination, and dilgently applying the practices that are appropriate for you will move you steadily toward this open, integrated state.
OM Shanti,
Shambhavi
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