THE CHINESE MASTER KAO FENG entered the Priesthood at fifteen years of age and was ordained at twenty, in the Monastery of Chin Tzu.
KAO FENG understood that all human beings are miserable, sleeping automatons, and he resolved as soon as possible to “Awaken Consciousness” through the Science of Meditation.
KAO FENG carried out his first works under the intelligent and wise guidance of MASTER Tuan Chiao, who taught him to work with the HUA TOU (Mysterious Phrase):
“Where was I before birth, where shall I be after death?”
KAO FENG set out to work with this HUA TOU, but he could not concentrate his mind due to the bifurcation of that phrase; his mind divided into many opinions and opposing concepts, and Kao Feng suffered beyond words, for he longed with all his heart and soul to free himself from MENTAL DUALISM.
The experience of the REAL is impossible so long as the ESSENCE, the BUDDHATA, the SOUL, remains bottled up between intellectual DUALISM.
The opposing opinions, the battle of contradictory concepts, the antithetical ideas, all correspond to the various illusory functionalities of the mind.
KAO FENG wept tears of blood, yearning to unbottle himself from MENTAL DUALISM, yet he failed with the HUA TOU of MASTER Tuan Chiao.
Tradition tells that, in a state of terrible anguish and despair, Kao Feng sought out MASTER HSUEH YEN, who, moved by compassion for his pain, taught him the powerful Mantram WU, demanding daily reports of his practices.
The Mantram WU is chanted as a double “U… U…”, imitating the howl of the hurricane among the tempestuous waves of the furious sea. During this practice, the mind must be absolutely still, in profound and dreadful SILENCE, both internally and externally; not the slightest desire, not the most insignificant thought must stir the deep lake of the mind.
The explanations of MASTER HSUEH YEN were indeed so simple and clear that his disciple KAO FENG fell into negligence and laziness, since frankly he needed no effort to understand them.
Master Hsueh Yen, despite his usual gentleness, could also be very severe when necessary.
One day, as usual, Kao Feng entered the room of his MASTER, but this time, in a very severe tone, the Master said: “Who has brought this corpse in your name?” No sooner had he said this than he expelled him from the room.
Later, Kao Feng followed the example of Chin Shan and sought refuge in the Meditation Hall.
The practices of INNER MEDITATION gradually provoke the Awakening of Consciousness, the awakening of the Buddhata.
The NEOPHYTE begins to react to suprasensible inner representations in a very different, very unusual way. He begins by saying: I am dreaming, this is a dream; later he exclaims with joy: I AM OUT OF THE PHYSICAL BODY; MY PHYSICAL BODY is asleep, but I am outside the body, fully CONSCIOUS and AWAKE.
On one occasion, while Kao Feng was outside his sleeping body that snored upon the bed, he clearly remembered that KOAN which says: ALL THINGS RETURN TO THE ONE, BUT TO WHAT DOES THE ONE RETURN?
Chinese tradition tells that at that moment his mind filled with terrible confusion, to the point that he could no longer distinguish EAST from WEST, or NORTH from SOUTH.
On the sixth day of that wretched mental state, while he was chanting with infinite devotion the collective prayers in the Lumisial of meditation, he lifted his head and saw with CLAIRVOYANT vision those two final mysterious lines of that Eastern poem composed by the Fifth Patriarch, FA YAN:
“Oh, it is you, whom I have always known, who come and go through the thirty thousand days of a century.”
Immediately, Kao Feng began to work with the mysterious and enigmatic phrase: “Who has brought this corpse in your name?”
That phrase had remained so deeply engraved in his mind since the day Master Hsueh Yen had spoken it that it was impossible to forget.
He felt as if his mind and personality had perished, and as if his Divine Spirit had resurrected after death. He felt happy, as though a great and heavy burden had been lifted from his shoulders. Then he was twenty-four years old and had achieved the desire of reaching the “Awakening of Consciousness” in three years.
When Kao Feng was asked: “Can you master yourself in broad daylight?” — “I can,” he answered firmly.
“Can you master yourself when you are dreaming?” — Again he answered, “I can.”
“When you sleep without dreaming, where is the Master?”
Kao Feng could not find an answer to this last question, and new inner sufferings afflicted the depths of his SOUL.
The MASTER said to him:
“From now on I do not want you to study Buddhism or Dharma; I do not want you to study anything, neither old nor new. I only want you to eat when you are hungry and sleep when you are tired. When you awaken, keep your mind alert and ask yourself: Who is the MASTER of this awakening, and where does his body rest, and where does his life lead?”
Kao Feng was indeed a man of THELEMA (Will) and decided firmly that he would understand this somehow, even if in the attempt he appeared to be an idiot for the rest of his days.
Five years of intensive work passed. One day, while he was working on this point in the midst of sleep, a fellow monk sleeping beside him in the common dormitory unconsciously pushed his pillow, which fell noisily to the floor. In that instant, his doubts vanished immediately. He felt with immense joy that he had leapt out of a trap. All the mysterious phrases of the Masters and Buddhas, and all the manifold problems of past, present, and future, became clear to him. From that moment, Kao Feng was enlightened.
There are two kinds of enlightenment: the first is often called DEAD WATER, because it has attachments. The second is praised as the GREAT LIFE, for it is enlightenment without bonds — the ILLUMINATING VOID.
The first type of ILLUMINATION is AWAKENED SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. The second, though called in the Fourth Way Objective Knowledge, Objective Consciousness, truly transcends what is called CONSCIOUSNESS. The second type of ILLUMINATION has nothing to do with consciousness; it is BEING, and the reason for BEING is the BEING itself.
KAO FENG became in fact a TURIYA, for he achieved absolute independence from the mind through background meditation.
The world is crystallized mind, and therefore it is MAYA, illusion.
When the GREAT COSMIC DAY ends, this illusory form of mind will be reduced to COSMIC dust.
Truly, my person, persons, your person, things, creatures of all kinds — DO NOT EXIST; they are only illusory MENTAL forms that must be reduced to COSMIC dust.
The only REAL thing is BRAHMA, the INFINITE SPIRIT-SPACE within which are contained the Eternal Feminine and the Sacred Monad; all else is ILLUSION.
In something we must lose ourselves… millions of human beings are lost in the INFERNAL WORLDS; we, the Gnostics, prefer to lose ourselves in BRAHMA.
It is urgent to prevent the MENTAL CONTENT (CHITA) from taking diverse forms (Vrittis) during DEEP INNER MEDITATION. When the mental waves have ceased and the intellectual lake has become still, the illusion caused by the oscillation of opposites ceases — and the experience of the REAL arrives.
When the INFINITE SPIRIT-SPACE called BRAHMA assumes some form to speak to his AVATARS, he is then ISHVARA, THE MASTER OF ALL MASTERS — a very special PURUSHA, devoid of mind, exempt from suffering, action, result, and desire.
The only thing the LUCIFERIC INTELLECT is good for, unfortunately, is to torment us with the incessant battle of opposites. Kao Feng freed himself from the mind and became a Turiya.
Samael Aun Weor
