"Radical" Devotion
Excerpt from The Ancient Walk-About Way

What is there about the conditionally manifested world that is potentially satisfying to such a degree that human beings can accept it absolutely? In Truth, there is nothing about the world that is thus satisfying. Nevertheless, human beings are patterned in such a manner that, to them, this world seems choosable.

The conditionally manifested world is simply pattern patterning. Enacting their genetic and mental patterning is, in general, all that human beings do.

If you become disenchanted with the patterning world, you look for something Greater. If you are truly disenchanted, you cannot be consoled by believer's nonsense. Rather, the "What" you would have is Something that you cannot yet name. It must be Something that is Inherently and Absolutely Satisfactory, Something That is Greater than all other possibilities. Even though you have things to do in daily life, and you continue to live and breathe, and so forth, you are always looking for That Which is Ultimately and Inherently Satisfactory. And, when you find It, you devote your life to It.

That is how True Spiritual life is supposed to work. That is how it has worked traditionally. Those of the disposition to look for Something Greater would, when they found a True Realizer, fall at the Realizer's Feet, make That One their Spiritual Master, and serve the Spiritual Master with their lives and with all that they had. Such serious people constantly turned to their Spiritual Master by means of the inner discipline of self-forgetting devotion and the outer discipline of self-forgetting service.

Such is the basic traditional Teaching. Such is the fundamental Teaching. That Teaching is not elaborate. That Teaching does not even need to be communicated in words. You turn to the Master, and you serve the Master—and that is it. That is the ancient Teaching. Fundamentally, this practice is not something that can be communicated by words. It is just something you do, having found the Master. This is a self-evident and tacitly communicated Teaching.

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