Roberto Pla
Roberto Pla
Roberto Pla Sales (Valencia 16/12/1915 – Madrid 17/2/2004). Musician and writer, he specialized in translating and commentaries on wisdom texts. He lived in Madrid.
In music, he was involved in many significant developments during the course of his career. Founder, director and professor of musicology at the Escuela Superior de Canto, later to become part of the National Orchestra and Choirs, his work on the transcription of early Spanish music was of great importance.
Roberto Pla translated and/or commented extensively on the following:
- Viveka–Suda–Mani: The supreme jewel of discernment (Sankara, Sirio);
- Tao Te King (Lao Tse, Diana);
- Kârikâ and comments on the Mândûkyopanishada (Sirio);
- A Yoga for the West: Arparshayoga (J.M Riviere, Etnos);
- Odas de Salomón (Dharana)
- Treatise of Unity (Ibn Arabi, Sirio);
- Bhagavad Gita (Olañeta)
El Hombre Templo de Dios Vivo (Man, Temple of the Living God) was published in 1990.
Additional information can be found in www.robertopla.com
- Viveka–Suda–Mani: The supreme jewel of discernment (Sankara, Sirio);
- Tao Te King (Lao Tse, Diana);
- Kârikâ and comments on the Mâmdûkyopannhada (Sirio);
- A Yoga for the West: Arparshayoga (J.M Riviere, Etnos);
- Odas de Salomón (Dharana)
- Treatise of Unity (Ibn Arabi, Sirio);
- Bhagavad Gita (Olañeta)
El Hombre Templo de Dios Vivo (Man, Temple of the Living God) was published in 1990.
Additional information can be found in www.robertopla.com
Inner life
Roberto Pla was in the process of completing Man, Temple of the Living God when he met Prof. Lahiry, from Benares, then visiting Madrid. The two struck up a close lifelong friendship as shown by their correspondence (see www.robertopla.com) from which we extract a few paragraphs:
In October 1988 Roberto Pla wrote,
My beloved brother: I am now fulfilling my karma, writing a book that represents the fruition of two far-reaching projects:
To revive to the greatest extent possible the truth of what Jesus Christ said, writing an elegy, a little flower dedicated to him for his love’s lost labors.
To dedicate a little effort of love to those Westerners called Christians who have been deprived of receiving the beautiful realization of Pure Consciousness that Jesus Christ set forth for them.
In February 1989 Prof. Lahiry wrote,
… I am happy knowing that you have finished the book you were writing on the authentic teachings of Jesus Christ. Now, for you the time has come to remain immersed in Supreme Peace, the state beyond qualities and duality, in the perfect union beyond knowledge, the knower and the known.
In May 1989 Roberto Pla wrote,
My dearly beloved brother: The moment I completed my book on what I see as the true teaching of Jesus, I could indeed try to live immersed in the peace of inner silence. Therefore I did so.
… An inner change has taken place … one that has completely transformed my way of viewing the world. This state does not detract from my peace, rather it seems to have made it permanent, stable, fixed, for it moves me to live in constant adoration of That, of the Being that I am and IS.
For many years, the essence of my meditation consisted in objectifying the mind and, undoubtedly, this objectification helped me to understand and live on the basis that there is no psychological self anchored in the mind. Later I understood that what we call “mind” is nothing more than a succession of thoughts, and this understanding meant the destruction of the mind; yet even so, the thought or the silent contemplation that sometimes occurred, was from the mind …
But now there has been a complete change of direction, a radical change that has taken place on its own, almost suddenly, without magic lights or any altered emotional state, and this corresponds accurately and in truth to the phrase I am That. When I am silent, immersed in my conscious peace, or when I live, speak, write, think, I am always That, and not because I think or believe that I am That, but because That is the absolute, eternal and unchanging background of my being, of what I am. Now, I do not seek … happiness, for I am happiness…
It is important for me to explain to you that what I am speaking of is not an abnormal, exalted state, because nothing else has changed. I don’t really see anything. There are no lights, no perceptions of any kind. Nor am I wiser or “fulfilled”, etc… The only thing I could tell you is that I was always on one shore and now I am on the other, eternal, perfect, changeless, forever. As for the landscape of this new shore, I do not know it; it only seems to me to be made of love, of unity with everything and of humility.
Yet, when I look at my mind, I laugh at myself for having identified with it for so many years, believing it to be me…
In February 1990 Roberto Pla wrote,
My dear brother: For months now I have put off answering your inestimable letter because I wanted to be careful about how I reply. Today, I can confirm that your appeal to the Gita VII:19 was exactly what needed to be said to me at that very moment. I can tell you that my consciousness is now finding its refuge in THAT like a humble newborn s’arana gata; whenever it slides back inadvertently towards ego, it turns back on itself to that inner emptiness which is its true home. Thereupon, the flame of the lamp burns as steadily as when there is no wind, and there arises an unsuspected timeless Dhyân Mârga. And what else could I tell you from within this new joy when, as now, revived by my remembrance of you, I am overwhelmed by the love of THAT?
In March 1990 Prof. Lahiry wrote,
My dear beloved brother: I am extraordinarily happy to have received your wonderful letter. May God in His Infinite Grace establish you in the Stable State that HE (THAT) IS. What else need I (or can I) say?
In October 1991 Roberto Pla wrote,
My dear brother: I observe that the infrequency of my letters does not interrupt our well-loved communication. I also see that when a thought functions as simple mechanical thought, free from all interference by the thinker, that is, without a subject, without the desire to become, it is then a thought that easily ceases and never breaks the Silence that everything communicates.
I want to tell you that from the Silence—from THAT—there sometimes seems to emanate … a sound, or knowledge that cannot be transformed into the knowledge of the intellect: a reality of consciousness … that makes Peace without limits more intense.
In January 1992 Prof. Lahiry wrote,
… One can say (with Ramana Maharshi): “Silence is the language of Being”. And the … sound without origin (literally not struck), is also the language of the Self. My great-grandfather has said: “Desiring is the only bondage”; the spontaneous and natural cessation of all desires is Liberation in Life …
This is a state in which the triad of knowledge, knower, and the known does not exist. This is the post-meditation state, the… “I and my Father are One”, of Jesus Christ!
In November 1994 Roberto Pla wrote,
My dear brother: THAT is now present in thoughts and even more within, in consciousness, as the real, unique and permanent Presence of a universal oneself.
Everything is THAT and seeing it in everything and everyone is a beautiful reality, an inexplicable Fullness, not sought or imagined, one that comes and lives of its own accord. I am happy to live that love without limits…
In November 1994 Prof. Lahiry wrote,
My dear beloved brother: Many thanks for your beautiful letter of November 2nd. “At the end of many births the man of knowledge surrenders into Me. Very rare is the great soul who knows that Vasudeva, the Omnipresent Being, is all that is”. (Gita VII:19). With profound recognition to THIS Vasudeva and infinite love to the costumes with the names and forms of Roberto and Carmen…
Prayer of Unity
Grant us, Lord, the absolute
and eternal consciousness of Unity.
May our thoughts, words, and deeds be
always His thoughts, His words, His deeds.
May the transformation of our consciousness into His
not make us feel chosen by Him.
Grant us, Lord, to die at last to all attributes,
forever.
May nothingness welcome and pacify us.
May Unity not flourish in us, but simply be,
so that it does not appear stained with our shadow.
Lord, grant that our mind may cease
through real or figurative death.
May something of the mind remember, when it ceases,
that it is Unity.
Let the mind know and not forget that, when it ceases,
it is You.
Grant us, Lord, to know that everything
has been given to us from the beginning.
May we be happy with the happiness that we are.
May we know with the knowledge that we are.
May we love with the flame of love that we are.
Grant us, Lord, the one thing you have not yet granted us:
May the Lord recognize the Lord, in the Lord!