Knowledge, Power & Responsibility

PART 2 OF A QUESTION AND ANSWER SERIES WITH JACK BARRATT, WHICH ADDRESSES VARIOUS QUERIES ABOUT MANY DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF SPIRITUAL LIFE THROUGH THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE DATTATREYA-AVADHUTA TRADITION. 

Q: Whilst walking the Avadhuta Path, is there any need to study texts or attend courses to gain specific types of spiritual knowledge or abilities? 

A: If you are truly walking the Path of Avadhutas, that is, you are directly connected in consciousness to a Master of the Dattatreya Tradition, then you don’t need to take anything from any other external source. Everything will be given to you at the correct time.

One of key principles of the Dattatreya Tradition is this: knowledge and power are given and transmitted as per the need, responsibility level and purity of the student/aspirant. In other words, if a Datta Master gives us a specific type of work to do, then he must also give us the power and knowledge to carry out that work. We should rest assured that if we are asked to do a certain type of work by the Tradition, then we are simultaneously empowered to carry it out perfectly. The degree to which we are able to accomplish the work is only determined by our ability to have faith, surrender and remain empty. 

Real spiritual power and knowledge can never be gained through desiring it – through ambitiously willing to become knowledgeable and powerful. Such knowledge and power that arises through the means of ambition and desire can only be temporary and superficial. There are many forces in the subtle realms of existence that can bestow certain types of knowledge and powers, but these come at a price – and it is difficult to know this price at the moment we accept whatever knowledge or power is apparently given to us. When the time to repay the debt arrives, those who attain knowledge and power through such means often lose that knowledge and power along with everything else that they have. This is the result of the path that aims at trying to becoming something – something special, powerful or more important, etc. This is not the path of Avadhutas. 

The path of Avadhutas is the path of emptying ourselves out of all residual karmic information that came along with our physical embodiment in this earthly realm. The more we empty ourselves out of karmic patterns and imprints, the more we merge with and become filled up by the natural flow of life, which is the essence of Sanatana Dharma – the flow of Eternal Truth and Its harmonious expression in manifestation.

The more empty we become, the more knowledge and power is able to be delivered through us from the Master or Tradition to which we are connected. When we are truly empty, then we are devoid of ego, we are naturally non-violent, benevolent and selfless. It is only such beings who possess these pure qualities who can be reliable conduits of great spiritual power and knowledge. There is no cheating in this system. We cannot pretend to be pure. In reality, beyond the lens of duality, it is actually one Consciousness that, when purified and existing in a more expanded state, naturally expresses Itself through a greater flow of knowledge and power. Similarly, when Consciousness is contracted, it is not possible to utilise such knowledge and power beyond a certain limited level.

Thus, the upshot of all of this is: the Datta Tradition provides. It provides fully accomplished Masters and the relevant teachings, practices, methods and connections for human beings who wish to evolve and develop spiritually. When such beings come into the sphere of selfless service, they are, to the extent that they are pure, provided with the required knowledge and power in order to carry out their work of benefiting other beings. Through becoming instruments of benevolence, these beings are gradually carved into Masters themselves.

Finally, the Master is the one who is totally empty – who is simply a pure instrument of dharma. Their external personality only exists for the sake others. For themselves, they have no personality. The consciousness of such a Being, an Avadhuta, is utterly incomprehensible. The closest thing that we can say is that such a consciousness is a vibrant sphere of benevolent, multidimensional dharmic activity, which is constantly supported by a complete and perfect establishment in the very substratum of existence—in Reality Itself—in the Heart of the Great Avadhuta-King—Lord Dattatreya.