More on Father Identification

In the end, the yogic concern was actually a kind of conception, if you were to regard ‘unification’ with the guru to be an intensification of his vitality in the follower. As I indicated above, this was highly distinct in the ‘instructions’ given by the teacher. These are given ‘spiritually’ as in contraception and delivery, and were subsequently supposed to continue the development of the master’s work and to mature, just as a child would.

Early ‘father identification’ is identification with the parent’s hypothetic background (assumed unified) of the SPEAKS / SHINES. The Indian psychoanalysts don’t seem to have missed the mark when using deeply rooted, contrary wishes as a starting point, i.e. as a man, being masculine-fatherly and simultaneously feminine-motherly.

Sant Mat represents these desires as being unified and at least somehow (‘astral’, but also mentally) fulfilled. This leads to Surat Shabd pupils not taking part in western scientific life, because nowhere would they be understood.

Of course, psychologists are fairly quick in finding an explanation for such ‘masculinity-fatherly / motherly’-femininity. Freud claims dual sexuality to be laid out in each human being. And thus, Indian psychoanalyst S. Kakar described the well-known Indian saint Ramakrishna as being a yogi tormented by trans-sexuality, who had to go through all kinds of physical, psychic and sexual transformations in order to combine ‘masculinity / femininity’ within himself.1

Actually, Ramakrishna was highly neurotic; he would come up with a nettle-rash by only a woman touching him. At length, I’ve already mentioned that psychoanalysis does not offer a more distinct concept for ‘femininity’. Lacan’s thesis, that “t h e woman does not exist” – with emphasis on ‘t h e’ – is to be interpreted such that there is no universal image of the woman, no opportunity of comprehending the woman scientifically, universally, nor of describing her in terms of Freud’s libido theory.

Thus – and seen from an external point of view – a celibate yogi, such as Kirpal Singh, transposes the term ‚unio mystica’, ‚fusion’, or incorporation in ‚femininity’ to the ‚chid akash’, to a center in the head where he described it to be in Laya yoga.2 Fusion to Freud means identification, one that occurs before the backgrounds of an assimilating interlace (oral drive). But, you probably wouldn’t be able to see it that way in Surat Shabd Yoga.

It surely concerns a pure gaze fusion that is only possible through the counterbalance of extreme asceticism. But do we need to travel such detours?

 

1 Kakar, S., Der Mystiker, Verlag CH. Beck (2001)

2 Kirpal Singh, Die Krone des Lebens, Günther (1974) p. 113. Kirpal Singh refers to a ‚mergence’ of purusha (the rather masculine-fatherly spirit) with prakriti (of rather feminine nature). Since this bears the danger of a psychosis, Kirpal Singh contrasts Surat Shabd Yoga against the method in Laya Yoga by merging with the astro-mental form of the ‚master’. Since this also includes a SPEAKS (the master’s set of rules, the form of which I call: echo-discourse), a psychosis is avoided. This is at the cost of accepting a variety of ascetic rules, because the ‚assignment’ subsequently becomes the sole object of concentration and love (also see later on), and the enjoyment of ‚mergence’ is forebeared.

 

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Letztendlich ist es so, dass, wenn ich es geschaftt habe, Sie es auch schaffen können. Ich wurde ohne den Vorteilen höherer Bildung oder einem Cent an Eigenkapital reich, aber machte auf dem ganzen Weg dorthin Fehler. Ich war arm ... dann ein Hippie-Aussteiger auf Stütze, dann hauste ich in einem heruntergekommenen Zimmer ohne dem sprichwörtlichen Urintopf, ohne genügend Geld die Miete zu bezahlen, ahnungslos was als Nächstes zu tun sei ... und wurde reich.

Felix Dennis

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