“Vital Shock” From The Divine Siddha-Method Of The
Ruchira Avatar
Author(s): Adi Da Samraj
THE DIVINE SIDDHA-METHOD OF THE RUCHIRA AVATAR
Part Four: The Divine Siddha-Method Of The Ruchira
Avatar
CHAPTER 4
Vital Shock
(1) DEVOTEE: I wonder if You could expand on a discussion
You had with some of us the other day regarding the vital.
You were telling us how people become obsessed with anger,
fear, jealousy, and the like, as a result of a contraction
in the vital.
(2) AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Yes. I have talked about how
the Force of Consciousness operates in life through a
structure, or pattern, of “conductivity”, a Circle of
descending and ascending Force. The special point of view of
“life”, or vitality, is an epitome, or center, in the middle
of the body, in the general area of the navel, this
lower-body area. This center, or this aspect of the larger
Circle of Force, is in the frontal and descending pattern of
life. It is most intimate to human beings. And it is in the
area of life, of vitality, that people experience most
obviously, most directly, the nature of suffering. It is at
the level of vitality that people cognize existence, for the
most part. The entire ascending life, the subtle life, is
more obscure than this vital life. In fact, generally, when
people pursue Spirituality, it is not because they are
responding to something “Spiritual”, so called. What makes
them seek is not a Spiritual motivation, not a subtle
motivation. What motivates them is suffering, and
essentially suffering in the vital, in the life.
(3) The usual man or woman lives in what I have called
“vital shock”. This shock ultimately includes more than the
vital. It operates even on a very subtle level. But its most
obvious and motivating form is the sense of shock in the
vital being. Ordinarily, the vital, at its chief center in
the middle of the body, is contracted, and one continually
feels it, even physically. One may feel a kind of cramp,
this tension in the middle of the body. And everyone tries
to relieve it continually through various experiences,
pleasures.
(4) This vital center is like the shutter in a camera.
Like the shutter in a camera, it curls in on itself in order
to close, or else it unfurls in order to open. It is like
your hand. If you clench your fist and hold it together as
tightly as you can, it begins to become painful. Just so,
this vital center is alive, sentient, and when it contracts,
like your hand, it causes a sensation. Not only does it
cause a physical sensation, but also many other reflections
in life and consciousness. Therefore, when this contraction
occurs in the vital, you not only get a cramp in the
stomach, but you have an entire life of suffering.
(5) Every aspect of vital existence is controlled by this
state, this vital shock. The patterns to which people become
addicted are simply extensions of this contraction. For
instance, in Satsang with Me, you may go through a period of
obsessiveness when this Way of life seems very difficult for
you, when you are continually obsessed with various kinds of
desires, feelings. At the beginning of that period,
something occurred. Something in life, somewhere, suppressed
or appeared to suppress the vital. And all of the patterns,
the rituals, the strategies, that began to arise in you were
reactions to that suppression of the vital. The sensation,
or cognition, of that suppression, or “blow”, is the form of
vital shock that currently obsesses you. But even before you
began the present episode, the vital shock was already your
condition. There is a continuous vital contraction.
(6) In fact, what people are suffering is not their
distinctive life-patterns, or strategies, in themselves, but
this original shock, in the form of a primary reaction, this
contraction of which I speak. People seek through all kinds
of means to become free of their various symptoms, their
various strategies, including the cramped sensation in the
middle of the body. But if a person understands, or
re-cognizes, this contraction itself, this activity, this
drama, in the present, he or she does not have to deal with
all the endless extensions of it. True Spiritual life,
“radical” life, is to deal with this fundamental, present
activity, this contraction, not with the search that is an
expression of it. It is not to deal with the symptoms, not
with the strategies that it manifests, but with this
activity itself, presently. This primary activity, this
contraction, is the root and the support and the form of all
the ordinary manifestations of suffering, all of the
patterns of life that people acknowledge to be their
suffering. This contraction, this avoidance of relationship,
is, fundamentally, a persons continuous, present
activity.
(7) A person can be set into an entire period of
dramatizing his or her suffering by some simple event in
life, a frustration of some kind, a threat, a loss,
whatever-a vital shock. But release is not a matter of
looking into your memory and discovering the various sources
or incidents of these shocks in the past-you know, the day
your father hit you, the day your dog died, and all the
rest. Those are only past instances of this same process.
The process itself is always instant, present, spontaneous.
It is a reaction to life itself. Life is its own shock. The
awakening of Consciousness Itself into apparent
identification with the form of life is that shock. Birth is
that shock-not merely the original physical event that may
be remembered, but every moments cognition of being alive.
All the events within life are just extensions of that
life-shock.
(8) In The Knee Of Listening I mentioned an experience I
had at one point, where I remembered-even relived-My
prenatal state, My awakening into the body. There was a kind
of gloriousness about it, a fantastic form of Energy-shaped,
as I described it then, “like a seahorse”. That was the
original Arousal of the Kundalini, if you will. But in the
same instant there was intense sorrow. The shock was life
itself, the shock of embodiment. The “seahorse” is already
contraction. The spinal form is already this curve. The
ordinary life is already this tendency, this compulsive
qualification of Consciousness Itself, this compulsive
unconsciousness. Everyone, “after birth”, develops a
characteristic drama of this shock. Distinctive experiences
occur during every life, and each individual develops a
characteristic pattern of reaction to them. Therefore,
everyone is living the drama and strategy of suffering in a
unique manner, a peculiarly complex, individual manner. But
in every case there is one fundamental activity. One thing
is the suffering. It is an activity, this activity, this
contraction, this avoidance of relationship, this
differentiation, this separation. Wherever it occurs, that
is suffering.
(9) All ordinary suffering is only a cramp. It is this
contraction. Wherever there is this contraction, there is
obstruction to the flow of the life-force. There is also the
tendency in the living consciousness for there to be the
sense of separate existence. If you cramp the hand together
in a fist, there is a sensation in the hand, as the hand,
that is different from the space around it. When the vital
itself is contracted in this manner, the center of the
“hand” is the ego, the “me”, the separate self sense. The
mind of this “me”, like its form, is separate, separative,
compulsively differentiating. So the entire drama of seeking
that is a reaction to this contraction, or reaction to life,
always begins with this “me”. “Me” is the core of this
experience. It is the center of the “fist”. Every person
seeks by every means to be relieved of his or her suffering,
but the suffering cannot be relieved-this contraction cannot
be uncoiled-unless the “me”, which is its center, dissolves.
The entire affair, at the level of life, of vitality,
involves the dissolution not only of the physical
manifestation of this contraction, not only of the
life-drama, but of all its qualities, all of its
characteristic psychology, all of its mentality, all of its
assumptions. Real Spiritual life involves the undermining of
the entire point of view of vital shock.
(10) When the contraction unwinds, “conductivity”
replaces obstruction. Then there is “conductivity” of the
descending Force of Spiritual Energy and life-energy. As
long as this compulsive contraction, or shock, exists, there
is no “conductivity”. There is only obstruction-or
limitation and constriction-of the flow of life-force. This
may be experienced as intense stimulation of life-force in
the vital, felt as all of the various forms of desire. The
fundamental forms of this intense cramp of energy-felt as
the fire of desires in the vital-are the dramas of money,
food, and sex. And if the cramp of obstruction is too
severe, there is loss of vitality, desire, and function in
these same areas of life. No vitality, no survival.
(11) One who exploits the apparent condition of desire no
longer conducts the force of life. There is only the misuse
of it, the exploitation of it, the revulsion of life-force,
the emptying of life-force. One does this because the
contraction is painful. One discovers that if the life-force
itself is diminished, the pain goes away. If the hand falls
asleep, there is no pain. If you empty the vital of its
force, the cramp is not felt, even though the contraction
remains. So one who is self-indulgent empties the vital
constantly and feels relief, feels open, feels satisfied.
But as soon as strength returns, the pain is felt again,
unless one has exhausted and contracted the vital to the
point of impotence. One who is self-indulgent tries by every
means to get satisfied, to be free of pain. But all of such
a persons means are from the point of view of this
contraction, this avoidance. You will continue your efforts
until the entire process of the search fails, and you feel
its failure. At that point, Satsang with Me becomes
possible, the life of understanding becomes possible.
(12) One who is dramatizing, or living, this state of
vital shock is not truly alive, not enjoying life. Such a
one is always self-enclosed, always suffering, always
unconscious, always obsessed, always seeking. Among human
beings, there is always the same malady. Everybody is
asleep, everybody is unconscious, everybody is
self-obsessed, everybody wants to be satisfied. Everyone who
comes to the Guru wants to be satisfied. “When will I become
enlightened? When will I have this experience? What is
happening to me ? I am suffering.” Everyone wants to begin
Spiritual life as a search. People want to carry on
Spiritual life as an extension of the same thing they have
always been doing. They want to be satisfied, they want to
be emptied, they want to be free of this cramp. They want to
be free of it-” me , me , me “. But “me” is the center, the
core of this contraction.
(13) If you go to the usual and traditional religious or
Spiritual sources, you are given forms of satisfaction, the
means to satisfy your inclination to be free of this cramp.
You are given palliatives, seeming remedies, strategies of
belief, and every kind of ego-consoling method designed to
satisfy this search at various levels. All of these things
are responses to the demand in the vital. But those who come
into My Avataric Divine Company in the impulse of that point
of view are not satisfied. They are frustrated. The search
is not the “Point of View” of Truth. This contraction and
its consolations are not the “Point of View” of Satsang.
Satsang with Me, “radical” Spiritual life, is the
undermining of this contraction, at every level, the
undermining of the point of view of this contraction, the
undermining of suffering, of seeking, and its separative
existence. Therefore, it is only those who have become
sensitive to the failure of their search who are able to
tolerate the quality of Satsang with Me.
(14) Satsang with Me is a paradox. For one thing, this
contraction in life is the avoidance of that essential
living condition that is the primary law, or form, of the
cosmos: relationship. Nothing arises on its own, or only as
its “self”. People come to Me who are dissociated, and
separating themselves from all conditions. But Satsang is
the relationship with Me. Therefore, Satsang with Me is an
offense to Narcissus, an offense to this contraction, not a
satisfaction of it. Only one who has become sensitive to his
or her own failure can tolerate that offense.
(15) Living in the condition of relationship stimulates
tremendous resistance in people. And the life of Satsang
with Me, the sadhana (or truly religious and Spiritual
practice) of this Satsang, is to live relationship over
time. It is the same thing that Yogis and religious
practitioners traditionally try to do by putting themselves
into a cave and various other ascetic circumstances. The
most ascetic circumstance is relationship. The condition of
relationship stimulates all of the reaction, all of the
“sinfulness”, all of the impurity that is in a person. All
of it is stimulated in the Condition and relationship that
is Satsang. Satsang with Me is an offense to this
contraction, and It stimulates its content.
(16) Satsang with Me is a relationship, a connection, a
form of “conductivity”. The Force of Truth is Communicated
through that connection. At the same time that all of the
subconscious of buried reactions-the entire search-is being
stimulated by the Condition of relationship in Satsang with
Me, the Force of Satsang is also added to stimulate and
quicken the entire process. This provokes the crisis that is
true Spiritual life. When this activity has loosened the
vital significantly, when functional ease is restored to
vital life, then the subtle life-the true subtle life-may
begin to manifest itself. But, in the beginning, it is at
the level of vitality that this work begins, not at the
level of visions and other phenomena. Such phenomena are not
what is significant at any rate, although a person may tend
to have subtle experiences. Essentially, at the beginning,
there is this apparent work in the vital, dealing with this
vital shock. The person who is just entering the life of
Satsang with Me is like a patient coming to a hospital in
shock. The Force and Condition of Satsang with Me must
unloose the condition of vital shock. When the unconscious,
compulsive point of view and the strategies stimulated by
the characteristic state of vital shock have been critically
loosed in the individual by the practical living of the
life-conditions of Satsang with Me, the Real Conscious
aspect of Spiritual life, which is understanding,
Awakens.
(17) Sitting, functioning, living in My Presence and in
the community of My devotees is the means to release vital
shock. But the means are entirely My Activity, for My
devotee cannot do what My Presence, Force, and Condition
does. My devotee only lives in that Presence and Force under
the conditions communicated to him or her in Satsang with
Me. Such is the True Grace of Spiritual life in My Avataric
Divine Company, for it undermines vital shock with Very
Reality, or Truth, and Real Spiritual Force.
(18) DEVOTEE: It seems that a person who is only seeking
is never dealing fundamentally with this contraction, but is
merely reacting to the shock of life.
(19) AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Yes. To its manifestations,
its symptoms. The secret of suffering is not in the past. It
is not in the universe, “out there”. Your suffering is
entirely your own. It is your own activity. And it is
entirely your present activity, not caused by something
else. Therefore, the Real activity of Spiritual life is not
generated from the point of view of this search, this
reaction, this suffering. It is not a matter of discovering
these devils, or whatever they are-these key memories, these
mortal and cosmic events. It is a matter of re-cognizing,
knowing again, your own activity, your present activity.
(20) There is a present activity, an absolutely present
activity, an only activity, that everyone is performing all
of the time. There are conditions and reactions to
conditions that build up patterns, but the root of all of
this is what is significant, the support of all that, the
paradigm of that. You can go on and recall the incidents,
the conditions, that conditioned you, endlessly-but you will
have done nothing except the practice of your own obsession.
Why are you conditionable? Why are you suffering these
conditions? Your suffering is your own action. When this
contraction does not occur, no conditioning occurs, no
thought binds. There is only Love-Bliss.
(21) The approach of Truth to life is a “radical” one,
not a revolutionary one. It is not a matter of the search
from any point of view within the condition of suffering,
but it is a matter of the absolute re-cognition of this
present activity. You are operating as it.
(22) DEVOTEE: Can You clarify what You mean by
“radical”?
(23) AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: “Radical” insight is an
irreducible insight. Nothing can go behind it, beyond it.
The “radical” point of view is not one of seeking, step by
step, through experiences, but of penetrating-prior to any
movement at all-the present condition. You could take the
point of view of the suffering, the symptom, the entire
life-game that you are playing individually, and make that
the point of view of Spiritual life. That is essentially
what people have traditionally and always done. They begin
from the point of view of their suffering. Instead of
resorting to the Truth, they search for It. They go on this
vast circle. But every point on this circle is the same
point of view with which they began. Each point is simply a
different condition or experience perceived from that same
point of view. Every individual begins to know that-however
far on this infinitely wide circle one may go before one
discovers it. When you begin to suspect or see , re-cognize,
the nature of this adventure that you are living, you are at
the center. You are already at the center the moment you
Know what this entire adventure is. Therefore, revolution is
the nature of the search, but Truth is always “radical”,
always already at the core, the center.
(24) DEVOTEE: What is the nature of Paradise?
(25) AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Paradise! What is Paradise?
What is that?
(26) DEVOTEE: Paradise is where there is bliss.
(27) AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Where there is bliss! Bliss is
Paradise. All of this is already Bliss. Love-Bliss is the
Very Nature of all of this. “Paradise” is an hallucination
about what it must be like where many blissful people are!
But Love-Bliss is the Very Nature of Consciousness Itself.
Love-Bliss is the Very Nature of this event. There are many
someplace elses, but they will be no more blissful for you
than this place if you are not already Blissful. The lokas,
or Spiritual realms, of the Siddhas, the great Spiritual
beings, are just as dismal as the Earth for a stupid person.
But the Siddhas are very smart. They find ways to keep the
stupids out! If some commonly distracted being gets anywhere
near, they say, “Psst. Have you been down to uh-Earth?” And
they really sell it hard, so that everybody will come down
here! But this Love-Bliss, this Unqualified Enjoyment, this
Happiness, is the Nature of Truth. The Nature of
Consciousness, your Very Nature, and the Nature of all of
this-the Nature of the cells of the body, the Nature of
Light Itself-is this Unqualified Openness, No-condition.
(28) DEVOTEE: Does that mean there is no separation
between any of us?
(29) AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Do you see any? Do you feel
there is? In Truth there is no separation at all. But from
the point of view of the seeker, one who suffers, there is
only separation, at every level. When one Wakes-when one
re-cognizes ones own adventure, ones own state, in every
form that it takes-one cannot find separations anymore, one
cannot discover them, and one goes “Mad”. But that “Madness”
is True Intelligence.
(30) DEVOTEE: One cannot go higher than that?
(31) AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Higher than that? It would not
occur to you! It is the seeker who is always going
someplace. The one who is already in trouble is always going
someplace else, because he or she is suffering, because this
contraction has occurred. All of the chakras, all of the
so-called “centers” in the subtle body, the ascending
“conductivity”, the subtle life, are in the same form as
this vital chakra, this vital center, this life. And they
are contracted-closed, not conducting this Force of the
descending and ascending Light. When the vital begins to
open a little, when Satsang is lived with Me, when this
“conductivity” begins to occur again, movement also tends to
begin in the subtle life as well. Then these chakras begin
to open, and various phenomena arise. Spontaneous physical
movements, all kinds of things that we have talked about,
that you have read about, may occur. But, as you see, they
are not in themselves the Truth. Whenever there is an
opening of some sort, or a relaxation in any level or center
of the living consciousness, there tend to be experiences
that are associated with that level. These experiences can
be movements, rushes of energy, a blissfulness, various
sensations, various kinds of psychic phenomena, visions,
lights, sounds-but all of these are simply things that were
stuck around inside this “fist”. As the contraction opens
up, they sort of klink off. But the seeker, the one who
endures that process from the point of view of suffering,
thinks that all of these things are it . Ones hand opens up,
and one sees the rings on ones fingers, the lines on ones
hand. Everything becomes very fascinating, and one thinks of
that as Spiritual life. One thinks that these visions are
Truth.
(32) Seekers, for instance, think that the “internal”, so
called, Kundalini Force actually ascends . If the Kundalini
ever for one moment did not retain its connection with the
sahasrar, the upper region of the brain and its subtle
counterparts, you would be dead, from that moment. That
ascending Circuit always exists, just as the descending
Circuit always exists. The Energy is just contracted in
particular forms. As It begins to awaken, to come alive
again, to be free again, various experiences occur at the
different levels, and people think that the Energy Itself is
rising. But it is just that the characteristic centers are
opening, in a kind of progress that seems upward. And
certainly there are sensations that are like rising Force.
But in fact this Circuit is always there, always continuous,
except it is obstructed by this tendency to contract, to be
separate, to avoid relationship at the level of life.
(33) Thoughts themselves, simple thoughts, mind-forms,
are forms of suffering in the seeker. The simplest
mind-form, any mind-form-even a blissful thought of Donald
Duck!-is a condition of suffering, of contraction. If you
examine it while distracted, while happy with that image or
that thought, if you examine yourself in that moment with
any kind of sensitivity, you realize that you are
suffering-distracted, but suffering. When all of this
contraction, all of this life of avoidance, all of this
identification with thinking subsides, there is only the
Absolute “Conductivity” of the Perfect Form of Reality. And
It Lives only as Its own Nature.
(34) The momentary or temporary experience of such a
relaxation of the vital and subtle contraction is samadhi,
Yogic or psycho-physical exaltation, meditative enjoyment.
There are many kinds of samadhi. Most of them-the
traditional kinds of samadhi-are the samadhis of the
life-force, vital and subtle. Therefore, they are temporary,
they are symptomatic, they are experiences that occur when
there is a particular activity in relation to this living
circuitry. When certain forms of concentration are coupled
with certain movements within, people have these samadhis of
the life-force. But the greatest and only True Samadhi is
Truth Itself, the Real Self, or Reality Itself. There are
the temporary samadhis of the life-force, and there is the
Eternal Samadhi of Truth, the most ultimate and final Sahaj
Samadhi, not dissociated from any of the states of
consciousness, ordinary or extraordinary. One who Enjoys
That, permanently, is always Full, and such a one does not
have to go into trance states for the Realization of Truth.
Perhaps such a one may do so for enjoyment, but not for
Realization. Such a one may go into trance states, or
conditional Yogic samadhis, for fun, but not in order to
Realize the Truth. True Samadhi is to live the present
condition Consciously, without bondage to vital shock,
without contraction, without the avoidance of relationship,
without identification with its subtle forms-which are all
forms of thought, modifications of Consciousness Itself.
When all of these modifications come to an end-not
necessarily in fact or terminally, but as a compulsive
activity-then there is already “Paradise”, only Love-Bliss,
only the Divine Self, only Real Consciousness, only Light,
only Truth, only Reality. In such a one, all the forms of
Wisdom are Communicated spontaneously.
(35) This gets us back to the beginning of our
discussion, the notion of vital shock. Every individual
generates his or her own life-drama. Everything that has
happened to you in the past, the things that you feel
uncomfortable about, that you feel upset about, when you
think about them now, are things that you strategically
commanded from beginning to end. Even the most arbitrary
experiences are peculiarly appropriate for the individuals
who enjoy or suffer them. And the manner of an individuals
relationship to events is not only appropriate but also
fundamentally intentional. All of these dramas essentially
take place in relationships of various kinds-because the
avoidance of relationship, the contraction in relation to
the life-force, is that activity to which human beings are
bound compulsively. Where there is relationship at the level
of life, there is the tendency to separate from it-and if
the ordinary man or woman cannot justifiably separate from
it, he or she manufactures reasons to separate from it.
Every individual continually creates the failure of
relationship. And people become compulsively bound to their
special methods for complicating and destroying
relationship. These strategies are the life-patterns that
people are suffering. And their searches are strategic
methods of trying to get free of the limitations they are
compulsively generating.
(36) If you are going through a time like that now, while
involved in Satsang with Me, the symptoms, the feelings, the
moods, the thoughts, the entire period of days or weeks, or
whatever, of negativity and un-Happiness, of obsession, do
not have to be accepted. They do not have to be lived. All
of that is a secondary affair. The disease has already
occurred. These are just the symptoms of the healing. If you
will look back at the beginning of any of these periods,
there is usually some frustrating event to which all of this
is the strategic reaction. Not that you should always be
looking for these events in your past. All I mean to have
you discover by pointing this out to you is what you do in
relationship to the frustration of life, to the suppression
of life, to the shock that is life. What are you doing about
that? What does your life-drama consist of? It is always
this contraction, this avoidance of relationship.
(37) Relationship is always already the case. If you are
sitting in the house, weeping, screaming, feeling upset and
negative about somebody you live with, then this is your
suffering. This activity is your suffering. Remember that
person. Remember the relationship. Live the relationship.
Let the force of life move again, and there is no suffering
at all. You have obviated that entire “tour”, including the
making up and everything else. None of it has to take place.
All of those things are merely the particularities of your
suffering. But suffering itself is always the avoidance of
relationship . Wherever you re-cognize your activity, that
activity was the avoidance of relationship. Where there is
relationship lived, this contraction does not take place,
and the force of life is conducted as life. And that
“conductivity” is felt as pleasure, as free conscious
awareness, without distraction by thought. It is loving,
open, light, forceful. Therefore, the key to true Spiritual
life is not the life-force itself, not any activity, not the
Kundalini, not any of these secondary manifestations that
occur in Satsang with Me. Such things are not the key to
true Spiritual life, but only some of its possible
phenomena. The key to true Spiritual life is this
re-cognition of your own activity.
(38) In Satsang with Me, the simple relationship to Me
tends to stimulate all of this. There is also the
Communicated Force of Truth, or Real Consciousness. All of
this tends to intensify and to build up in a person at the
beginning. One is also given conditions at the level of
life-simple conditions, practical ones, functional things
for which one is appropriately responsible. Gradually, the
stronger you get, the simpler you get, the more experienced
you become in living this Satsang with Me, then the more you
begin to listen with free attention, so that you begin to
observe yourself, to move toward this insight, this
re-cognition of which I speak. And that is the Real Event of
Satsang with Me. Without this re-cognition, you can have all
the Spiritual phenomena you like, but they will be only more
experience, more suffering. However, if you live from the
point of view of Satsang with Me, these other phenomena can
arise and be of interest, and they will provide conditions
in which understanding must take place.
(39) When most perfect understanding occurs, it will not
be your Divine Enlightenment, because when it occurs there
is no one left. I do not mean that you will be dead, that
you will be unconscious, that you will be in oblivion, but
the entire principle which is the center of this contracted
life will have disappeared. When you open your hand, what
happens to your fist? When you release the contraction, the
“me” is gone, the search is gone, the entire principle of
suffering is undermined. In Satsang with Me, you are moving
toward the time when this “radical” insight will become
significant, Real activity. Until people enter into Satsang,
they are looking for release from their symptoms. They want
to seek, they want relief. They are not prepared for
Truth.
(40) Every moment this curvature is being created. Why do
you think there are thoughts all of the time? Why one
thought after the next? Why does it not come to an end? The
Light is curving compulsively. Why is there suffering all
the time? This activity is compulsive. It is not Real life.
That is not how Real life is. There is compulsive activity,
automatic activity, unnecessary activity. There is
compulsive curvature, shaping, contraction of the Root-Force
of Existence Itself.
(41) DEVOTEE: Why does it happen?
(42) AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Once you already have this
shape, this human body, why is there such a strong tendency
to walk around and talk and be a human being? It has already
occurred! That is the shape of it. It is not that it is
wrong. It is not that you should make a judgment about it.
It is very easy, from a superficial standpoint, to get out
of sympathy with your own craziness, and then start to
resist it again. But all of that is more of the same. When
there is this absolute turnabout-this most perfect
re-cognition of your own activity-then that activity no
longer exists. But the judgment about it, the feeling that
you are disturbed and confused, is another form of the
entire process. It is more of that vital shock. The entire
affair of Satsang with Me is a movement of Conscious
Intensity, looking forward to the moment when you begin to
see your own activity, to Know it.
(43) When present activity is truly understood, the
dilemma no longer exists. That does not mean that from that
moment no more thinking goes on, no more life goes on. This
activity that is ones suffering is not life itself, nor has
it “created” life. It is only the obstruction to life, an
illusory pattern within life. But it is utter, fundamental,
inclusive. You cannot even pick your nose without doing
this. You cannot see without being involved in this
activity, this avoidance of relationship. You cannot think,
feel, move, breathe, you do not live one moment, without
performing this activity and experiencing its
manifestations. So, from the point of view of the dilemma,
everything is a form of this activity. To someone who is
wedded to dilemma, the cosmos seems to be made out of
suffering. That is why people become atheistic, insane,
chronically depressed. The entire universe seems to justify
despair to them, because everything has become a form of it,
an extension of their own activity. Their own activity has
become the means and form of their perception. Therefore,
re-cognition takes place also at every single level, down to
the cells and as high as it can go. On every level where
this contraction occurs, this re-cognition also can take
place. When this activity, this contraction, this avoidance
of relationship is thoroughly undone, undermined, and only
the Truth is lived, then something about the nature of the
phenomenon of universal and cosmic life begins to become
clear. From the “Point of View” of Truth, life is allowable
and good. Perhaps one might choose other forms of life, but
in itself the present form becomes clear.
(44) In its simplest form, its most intimate form, its
most obvious form, the activity I am talking about is the
avoidance of relationship. And it is to be seen in a very
simple, practical observing of life, of you alive in
relationship. There is really no subtlety whatsoever to this
seeing. It is the crudest kind of self-knowledge. But it is
also the most unavailable from the ordinary point of
view-because what is to be understood is the ordinary point
of view.
(45) DEVOTEE: Is it possible, as some have said, for a
person to die and then be reborn as an animal?
(46) AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: This entire question of
reincarnation and the knowledge of processes like that can
be approached from several points of view. For most people
it is a matter of experimental living and experiencing. By
the use of various internal and psychic means they recollect
past lives, see images of other peoples lives, see their
destinies, and so on. These are the usual means,
particularly among Westerners, whereby people have
approached such phenomena, to discover if they are true or
real. But there is another approach. That is the Way of
Divine Self-Realization, the Realization of Truth. When
there is this most perfect re-cognition of which I
speak-when there is most perfect understanding-such a one
lives only as Truth. Then one also Knows what birth is, what
mind is, what life is. One sees it is all the result of
tendencies subtly manifested in the Light of Consciousness,
which take form in and as the conditionally manifested
world. One Knows this with absolute certainty. One sees this
clearly. Truth, therefore, is the basis of ones Knowledge of
all phenomena, including reincarnation. But one may Enjoy
this Realization without the least suggestion or
recollection of reincarnation in ones own case, without
remembering, even vaguely in a dream, a single moment of any
past life. This is because Divine Self-Realization, or
Perfect Knowledge, is not compatible with so-called “birth”.
One who lives as the Real Self has no sense whatsoever of
being born as this body, no sense whatsoever of containment,
of existing now, of being limited now to ones own mind, ones
own life. If you have this kind of relationship to the
apparent phenomena of your present existence, how could you
possibly get involved with knowing anything at all about the
past of your dying personality? What could possibly interest
you about it? How could you possibly discover anything about
it? Every time that you zero in on your own mind, you see
billions of worlds and other beings. How are you going to
pick yourself out? Where is that one? How does that one find
a destiny in the midst of the universes, when he or she
cannot even discover his or her own life as a substantial
and separate event? So this Fullness of Truth has also made
it impossible for such a one to acquire serious and
experimental knowledge about his or her own past or future
as an individual. But that ones Root-Awareness of the Very
Structure of life-Which comes out of the Heart-shows him or
her clearly the Ultimate Nature of all patterns, without
otherwise giving experience on the plane of recollection, on
the plane of mind, on the secondary planes of life.
(47) Examining the nature and fundamental structure of
life itself, it is clear that something like regression, or
apparent rebirth, in animal form after once having lived in
human form, is clearly possible , just as it can occur in
dreams. In dreams you can take on various forms in various
worlds. The same condition applies to birth in these waking
realms of life. But if you begin to become sensitive to your
present condition, you may become terrified even of moving
into this human condition again!
(48) An affinity for plants and animals is another thing
altogether. The vital, descending life in human beings is
made up of mechanisms that are found elsewhere in
conditional Nature. It is made of the same forces, the same
kind of functional life. I have made an analogy between the
human mechanism and a man walking a dog. You are like a mind
walking a dog. The vital mechanism is an animal and vegetal
mind, a mind like that which governs the organisms and
compounds of conditional Nature below the human being in the
scheme of processes. Therefore, in the vital level of the
living consciousness, human beings have a strong affinity
and identification with animals, plants, natural phenomena,
conditional Nature. Because they partake of that same
functional life, that same level of life-energy, they
recognize it in the environment, and enjoy association with
it.
(49) Someone once asked Ramana Maharshi about the
practice of retiring to the forest. As it is described in
certain of the old texts, such as the Bhagavad Gita , one
should set up a seat in the wilderness, in a forest area,
under nice circumstances, with streams nearby, and so on.
This person asked Ramana Maharshis permission to do this.
But Ramana Maharshi pointed out that when people go out to
do this sort of thing, to get away from humanity and all of
the complications of ordinary life, they begin to become
fascinated with animals instead, and animal life, vital
life. They sympathize with it, enjoy it, and gradually
become like it. As a consequence, they wind up in a worse
condition than before. The relationship that one tends to
take up with living beings, animals, plants, conditional
Nature altogether, is a direct indication of ones
relationship to the vital, and that is all. If you become
very sympathetic with the vital movements in yourself, the
forms of vital desire, you will also tend to be very
“sympathetic” with animals. If you tend to exploit your own
vital life, you will tend also to fail to manage animals,
plant life, and the like. If you resist utterly, and are
vitally contracting to the point of interference with your
own vital life, even with life itself, you will tend to have
the same effect on other life-forms. No one, for instance,
can tolerate being disliked by their friends animals! If you
go to visit a friend, it is very upsetting if the dog does
not like you, if the cat does not like you. It is very
upsetting if you cannot grow plants, if flowers die quickly
when placed near your bed! But all of this-your
relationships to plants, to animals, to life-forms-is a
precise dramatization of your relationship to the vital in
your own case.
(50) In many people who live unconsciously, the vital is
smarter than they are. The vital takes over, absorbing their
lives from birth to death, and they never exceed it. You
must have at least seen photographs of people who are wedded
to the earth, who live in isolated farmlands. How
unconscious these people seem, from the point of view of one
who has been brought up in cities, or in sophisticated
social regions. How unconscious these people seem, asleep in
the vital without their minds. They do not speak very much,
they are quiet, they are slow, they seem stupid. They seem
like cattle, but they are often strangely violent. City
people, however, tend to be contracted in relation to the
vital. Western people in general are essentially very
resistive to the entire vital life. Americans, for example,
are obsessed with sex-not really obsessed with the having of
sex but with the failure of sex, and the wanting of it.
There is very little actual or successful having of it,
because the sexual process is so obstructed. The entire
participation in the life-force has been undermined by
Western societys bondage to its symbolic religious path. Not
that all of that symbolic religion was necessarily or
actually contained in the work of Jesus of Nazareth and the
Hebrew men of knowledge, but it is contained certainly in
the religious movements that have been passed down. There is
a strong suppression in relation to the vital. Therefore, in
the West particularly, people are trained in “vital shock”
from the beginning, trained to resist their entire vital
life, their lifeline. Money, food, and sex are problematic
for everybody, in the sense of a chronic resistance, a
chronic doubt about whether or not one is supposed to have
anything to do with such things.
(51) Many people come into My Avataric Divine Company
whose emotional-sexual relationships have failed. There was
a case the other day of a relationship that had broken up
because the man tended to get into the “celibacy” game. In
many other cases, people have come who may not have
dissolved a relationship over this, but they have just never
really been able to sustain an emotional-sexual relationship
over any length of time, and part of the rationale is that
they want to become celibate. They want to become swamis and
nuns! For the most part, this “swami” idealism that many
Westerners are embracing these days is an attempted solution
to their resistance to vitality, their chronic social
reaction to the vital condition, to life. The popular swing
toward “swami-ism”, toward artificially induced, supposedly
“Spiritual” celibacy, is a form of emasculation. This
strategic celibacy is a form of impotence. But there can be
no Spirituality without the life-force. If you cut off the
life-force, you have gone back to zero. The Spiritual
process makes immediate use of the life-force and its
“conductivity”. Really, the problem of Spiritual life, for
anyone, West or East, is not whether to be celibate or not.
Your choices about sexuality are always a manifestation of
your dilemma, not your wisdom-until you understand. The core
of it all is the re-cognition of this contraction in the
vital.
(52) DEVOTEE: Why is it that so many of the Eastern
teachings we read seem to insist on celibacy as necessary
for Spiritual life?
(53) AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Examine the cultural life from
which the Eastern wisdom comes, especially among the Hindus.
It is essentially among the Hindus that celibacy is insisted
upon, not really so much, or at least so universally, in
other cultures. This is because the traditional Hindu notion
of Spiritual Realization is one in which the vital and
subtle life has been abandoned, and the conscious existence
has returned to a subtle or subtlest State, never to be
reborn. Therefore, the processes by which they seek
Realization necessarily involve the reduction of the entire
pattern of life, even the subtle life, to the point of
abandonment. Such is the precondition for Realization in
their terms.
(54) Now, when this pattern of “conductivity” of which I
speak is restored, such a person may, because of his or her
subtle tendencies, be celibate. In fact, when this current
is felt very intensely at the level of the life-vehicles,
very often the sexual impulse just disappears for various
periods of time. In some people it disappears permanently.
And there is an apparently “internal” process that replaces
their sexuality entirely. But the arbitrary demand to be
celibate-in the sense of idealistic avoidance of
emotional-sexual intimacy, or avoidance of appropriate
realization of sex in the form of such intimacy-as an
absolute practice for all, is of relatively recent origin
even among the Hindus. The ancient Rishis were almost always
sexually active.
(55) The Divinely Self-Realized Guru is not some impotent
old rascal. The True Guru should be able to populate the
Earth. The True Guru is strong. The True Guru is alive. The
True Guru enjoys mastery over the sex-impulse. The True Guru
may, as a spontaneous practice, be entirely celibate, even
in the context of intimate relationship. But the True Guru
is not in any case empty or obstructed in relation to the
life-force.
(56) For most people, it is not necessary (or even,
perhaps, appropriate) to be celibate, in the exclusive sense
of the avoidance of emotional-sexual intimacy. However, it
is absolutely necessary from the Spiritual point of view for
the entire dilemma in the vital to break down. And it is not
just in terms of sexuality that this dilemma is manifested.
It is money-or exchange of life-force-food, and sex. It is
the entire vital life. Many people have what appears to them
a functional sex-life, one that is enjoyable and seems to
work fine for them. But their relationship to the force of
life may itself be very mediocre. They may have functional
problems in other areas, in other forms of life or psyche,
in the environment, in relation to diet.
(57) In the East, particularly in the culture of India,
there is a tendency to de-vitalize, to separate from the
vital. In the West there is a tendency to exploit the vital.
There is that tendency, but on top of the tendency to
exploit the vital there is a vast system of taboos against
the vital. So, in relation to the vital, the West has a
characteristic problem, and the East has another
characteristic problem. In the East there is an orientation
to what is beyond the vital, and in the West the orientation
is to the vital. In the East it is said that you are here
for the wrong reasons-because you are suffering from
illusion, you have left the Truth, you have left Real God.
In the West it is said that you are here because God sent
you. And in each case there are characteristically different
dramas at the level of ordinary life and vitality. But from
the point of view of the Real process of conscious life, the
vital is a primary seat of Spiritual activity.
(58) Suffering is felt, seen, experienced, from day to
day essentially in vital terms by human beings. The best
“cave” is an ordinary life, a relational life, a functional
life. That is where you find your discipline, that is where
you become strong, that is where you become truly
responsible for yourself. Relational life is the best
circumstance of Spiritual practice. Relationships,
functional conditions, these are the best “Bodhi Tree”.
These are the true “ascetic” practices. Emotional-sexual
commitment is a very difficult “ascetic” practice, as
everyone who is so committed knows! Anyone can be apparently
“religious”, anyone can be apparently “Spiritual”, but
anyone who lives with Me knows how difficult and demanding
true Spiritual life really is. It is easy to play imaginary
games about religious and Spiritual things, but to live
Spiritual life as the condition of relationship is a very
difficult task. To think about sexual experiences-to think
about men, women, pornography, and so on-to have sexual
desires and images, is one thing, but to live sexuality as a
relationship is very difficult. So with Spirituality as a
relationship, it is also very difficult. But just as there
is no real sexuality without relationship, there is no Real
Spirituality without relationship. There is no fulfillment
of Spiritual life without the True Guru, and without
life-conditions for sadhana.
(59) In all traditional religious cultures one finds the
professionally ascetic people. They are not necessarily
living Spiritual life any more than anyone else. In most
cases their “asceticism” is a form of self-indulgence. It is
an expression of the failure of life. It is an expression of
the contraction from life. A vital and subtle shock is the
origin of all ordinary Spiritual and religious means. But
under the Real conditions of Spiritual life, intelligence
begins to arise in relation to sexuality. The individual
becomes very sensitive to that process and its true
nature.
(60) Simple exploitation of sexuality is another method
of trying to exhaust this contracted vital. Most people use
sexuality as a means of letting off steam, as a form of
release. They are attached to the goal of conventional, or
degenerative, orgasm. They manage to achieve temporary
physical stasis by the expulsion, or shedding, of
life-force. But one who lives genuine Spiritual life is
always conducting the force of life, descending as vitality
and ascending as subtlety. Such a one lives these
functions-which appear in the Circuit of
Force-appropriately, in relationship. Such a one gets smart!
When you employ sexual energy out of relationship, or purely
for the sake of orgasm, when you simply exploit it, you only
empty yourself, and you discover that you suffer. So the
truly Spiritual man or woman has simply become intelligent.
Such a persons way of life is not a result of preferences to
be lifeless, sexless, or anything else. Such a one becomes
intelligent. Such a one becomes capable of relationship.
Such a one becomes capable of the real use of the vital
functions. Indeed, such a one knows when not to use them,
and how not to indulge or exploit them. One allows this
force of life to conduct itself fully. One need not, because
of the contraction in the vital, simply waste this force by
vital means. One is not compelled to enjoy it only in the
belly or only in the sex organs. One can enjoy it in the top
of the head. One can enjoy it in the face. One can enjoy it
in the spine. There are all kinds of places where one can
enjoy it. The subtler you become, the more your enjoyments
increase. You discover the source of life-energy, so that
you do not weaken yourself, so that you do not become
involved in a pattern that only empties you, that weakens
and kills you.
(61) There is a process, a spontaneous, “internal”, Yogic
process, that can be felt in the sex organs, in which the
life-force that normally becomes sex-stimulation is felt
going in the opposite direction, backward and upward.
Instead of seeking release in the sex-function and going
down and out, that energy can be felt pulling, drawing,
towards the spine, upwards. When that particular process is
very active, intensely active, there is natural celibacy.
Then even in the emotional-sexual relationship, the event of
degenerative orgasm is not sought, but the relational force
of love and shared pleasure is intensified.
(62) The Kundalini process is closely associated with
what is otherwise felt as sex-energy, although the Kundalini
does not simply come from the sex organs and is not itself
literally or exclusively sex-energy. It is the ascending
movement of the Circle of total Energy in which the human
being lives. It is a continuation of the “conductivity” of
the descending Force. Its lowest terminal in the body is at
the bodily base. And that terminal is the turning point,
from descent to ascent, but it is not the origin of the
Energy Itself. The muladhar is this turning point. The
intense Kundalini manifestations are generally associated
with this ascent of Energy. A person who is going through a
period of strong kriyas, or some such episode of intense
internal activity, will often quite naturally be celibate
during that time. Or the person will discover that if he or
she exploits himself or herself sexually, through
degenerative orgasm, while going through this process,
certain unpleasant things occur, physiologically and
psychically. And so one learns by experience of processes of
this kind how to deal with ones sexuality. Therefore, the
use or non-use of sexuality is a matter of intelligence, not
a matter of preference, not a matter of “how it is supposed
to be if you are getting Spiritual”.
(63) Perfect “celibacy” is death. Then the Cycle of
life-force turns from descent to ascent, draws up completely
into the sahasrar, and never comes down again. That is
precisely what the traditional Yogi whose point of view is
willful celibacy is trying to do. He or she is trying to die
consciously, and literally. Now, the Yogic process of
“Spiritual death” will take place in any case, whether you
have literal separation from life as your particular goal or
not. True celibacy is Yogic, or Spiritual, “death”. Yogic
“death” is part of the nature of what I Describe as “Real
meditation”, but it does not in itself imply the literal end
of life or the diminution of life-involvement. Continued
living of an ordinary, functional life on every level is
entirely compatible with the Realized State, because life
itself is an expression of What is Real. It is a
manifestation of the Conscious Light. It has tended to take
on this particular form because of certain tendencies, which
are modifications of that Light-but in itself it is not
false. Only its complications are false. The Life of Truth
is absolutely compatible with functional life itself, with
vitality, and with sexuality as regenerative union.
(64) The bellies of the Yogic Siddhas are often full,
soft, and round. The Siddhas are not devitalized beings-even
if they happen to be celibate. That swelling of the abdomen
is a Yogic manifestation. When the Spiritual Energy is fully
conducted, the abdomen becomes Yogically full of Energy.
Bhagavan Nityananda of Ganeshpuri was such a Yogi. He spent
His days sitting and lying around, letting this Current
circle about. He rarely allowed It to turn outwards. That is
why He hardly ever spoke.
(65) I have told you that speech is a form of sacrifice.
It is a sacrifice of the life-force. It is not
entertainment. People generally talk in order to empty
themselves. That is another form of throwing the life-force
out of this contraction so that it is not suffered anymore.
Whenever there is speech, whenever there is communication
with the environment, whenever there is relationship,
whenever there is use of the life-force, it is sacrifice.
Sexuality is a form of sacrifice. It does tend to make you
empty, unless you know fully how to make use of that
process, how to conduct its generative energy into the cycle
of regeneration. If I sat here and talked endlessly,
occasionally going to sleep and taking food here, the
talking alone would eventually kill Me. I would die from
speech! Any exploitation of the life-force will kill a
person, and people are in fact dying from this abuse. People
are dying from a complex exploitation of the life-force.
They do not conduct it. They only use it. They do not
refresh themselves. They do not live this Circuit of Energy
even a little bit. Some of the Yogis only lived It.
Therefore, they left human society. Others continued to be
communicative at the level of life in various ways, knowing
the consequences, knowing what they needed to do to remain
fresh. That is why I look forward to the time when I can
speak less and write less, such that I only need to speak or
write when it is absolutely useful and necessary to do so.
Because this Current is Continuous. When I am sitting, My
teeth are clenched, My tongue presses against the roof of My
mouth. The Circuit is Continuous, and as It Flows even the
cells are transformed.
(66) The death of a Great Siddha is really not separation
from anything. The Great Siddha is simply disappeared into
meditation. After death, meditation itself has become the
“body” of such a Realizer. And the Great Siddhas devotees
have access to such a one through meditation, because
meditation itself is the Great Siddhas True Form. At death,
the Great Siddha simply abandons his or her bodily function,
outward movement, or psycho-physical game, and expands into
his or her deepest Realized State. The Great Siddha was
already in that State before, but, at death, he or she
abandons the peripheral functions that were attached to
It-at least those which were the manifestation of his or her
present life. This is why people prize the samadhi site, or
the burial site, of the Siddha-Guru-because the Siddha-Guru
has gone into meditation in its most intense form while
associated with that body (while alive, and at death).
Indeed, many people find the Force Communicated from the
Siddha-Guru seems even to become stronger after the
Siddha-Gurus death, because it is completely without
complication by the life-form. Therefore, at death, the
Siddha-Guru has moved into the most intense manifestation of
his or her characteristic Realization.
(67) It is said that Saint Jnaneshwar consciously took
mahasamadhi. He had a tomb built for himself, and he went
down inside. He was a young man, only about twenty or
twenty-one years old. He went down inside and sat in his
chair. They sealed it over, and he just did not come out
anymore. It is also said that about three hundred years
later another Indian Saint somehow got into Jnaneshwars tomb
and approached the body. He reported that the body was
apparently still alive. It had a certain heat to it, and it
was not the least decomposed, because the Yogic activity was
going on in this body permanently. The site of Jnaneshwars
tomb is a very potent one. Not that he is conscious of
associating with that body anymore. Bhagavan Nityanandas
tomb is also like that, very strong.
(68) DEVOTEE: Can a Guru who has died still be Guru for
the living?
(69) AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: It is limited only at the
level of life. Such a one cannot function as Guru in any
manner that requires a physical presence. So he or she
usually tries to leave genuine devotees in the world who can
continue certain aspects of the Guru-Function. One who has
had Real experience Spiritually can read a book written by
someone experienced in Spiritual life and see things there
that he or she knows are true. It corroborates his or her
own experience. Just so, one who is already living the Real
form of Spiritual life can approach the burial site of a
deceased Saint or go to holy places, and benefit from the
pilgrimage in that same sense of corroboration, or
acknowledgement. The Current of Spiritual Force continues to
be emanated by such beings after death, but Truth is not
lived by them bodily in the world. At times people appear to
have experiences on a subtle level with people who are dead.
In My own experience, there have been very concrete and
complex experiences of the subtle influence of Bhagavan
Nityananda, Ramana Maharshi, Sai Baba of Shirdi, and others.
Likewise, because My visits with Swami (Baba) Muktananda
were only occasional, My experiences of Him have most often
been of a subtle, although perfectly concrete, variety,
arising entirely apart from the gross physical medium. Just
so, My own Work with My devotees is fundamentally
subtle.
(70) DEVOTEE: You have said that all people are
suffering. I have the feeling that You and those who were
Your Teachers and all the Great Siddhas are the only people
who are not suffering.
(71) AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: The only ones who are not
suffering are those who are living the Truth. Truth is the
most profound Reality, the most “radical” Reality. Truth is
the Ultimate Nature of all beings and the Very Nature of all
life. It is already all human beings. When I see people in
the world, I do not see them as garbage, all disturbed,
simply insane, as nothingness that I am supposed for some
reason or other to turn into Divinity. I see everybody
already as that same Reality. But I see people suffering.
While they are being Truth only, I see them suffering. The
fact that they are suffering does not make them any less the
Truth, any less the same “Thing” that is all beings, all
things. It simply means that they are suffering. If you look
at all beings from the “Point of View” of Truth, there is
only Truth, and the Truth has this little chronic
problem!
(72) From the point of view of human beings, it all seems
very serious, because their point of view is the point of
view of this limitation. But once they themselves begin to
see from the “Point of View” of Truth, they see that every
thing and every one is already Truth. To Realize that you
are already Truth does not make you any more than anybody
else. It makes you the same as everybody else. That Sameness
is the Sameness of Very Truth, the Sameness from which all
the functional inequalities of relative, conditional
existence arise.
(73) DEVOTEE: It seems that, from the “Point of View” of
Truth, the process of being born causes an automatic
reaction that is death.
(74) AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: For every action there is an
equal and opposite reaction. The action of life produces the
reaction of the living, even to the point of death.
(75) DEVOTEE: It seems that we are born with three
strikes against us.
(76) AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Yes. That is why you have to
get smart down here! A living being arising in the midst of
life is automatically the reaction to the preceding action,
which is life itself. It is quite a natural mechanism. If
reaction becomes the principle of life, it creates death.
And the natural tendency of organic life is to contract, to
become more solid and lifeless. It begins to die the moment
it makes its appearance. And there are more than three
strikes against you. You are already “out”-already, before
the strikes. I have lost My taste for the usual life. Not
that I cannot enjoy the quality of Real life, but I have
lost My taste for this entire affair of suffering and
compulsive existence. I see perfectly well what it depends
on. I would not choose, on the merits of the experience
itself, ever to be born in this human condition again. There
is no advantage in it. It gains nothing. It is just a period
of time in which to understand. Apart from that, it has no
ultimate value. It never goes beyond that. Human life is not
particularly delightful. It is an endless concern from birth
until death. Every minute is suffering of the limited state,
or an attempt to break out of it through various kinds of
activity, trying to find the answer. From the moment of its
awareness, this life is a question. It seems absurd to be
actually existing and yet not to know what actually existing
is, and to spend the entire period of actually existing
trying to discover what actually existing is! This is an
insane condition! It is a compulsive tour of unconscious
activity for the most part. If Truth begins to Manifest in
life, as life, It Glorifies life to some degree. But the
Glory that enters life is not that of life itself. It is the
Glory of the Fullness of Truth, Which is Manifested as life,
Whose modifications are life. The more the life of Truth
grows, the more taste for Truth you acquire, not for life
apart from or other than Truth. And when Truth is Most
Perfectly Enjoyed, life becomes secondary-perhaps profound,
but unnecessary. Your “death” in Truth should precede your
physical death by at least a few moments! Otherwise the
tendency to regain this condition is there
automatically.
(77) The Condition that is Truth is far superior to this
limitation. And those who live Truth while alive are not
glorifying life in itself. They are glorifying Truth. When
you Enjoy Truth, you are already Free. And if you are Free,
what has all of this compulsive limitation to do with you?
Such a one lives Truth until death, and then slips away. And
everyone will slip away in Truth sooner or later. I am only
looking for company on the way out! I have already
discovered Who you are. I am already living with you in
another sense, as Real Life, as Love, as Truth. I no longer
require your physical existence or My own. I look forward to
your Most Perfect Enjoyment. But I see that those who are
living in the Earth plane are not clear about this, not
certain of it, a little confused. So I Communicate it in as
many forms as I can. But all I am trying to do is to take
you away, to take your separate life away, to snuff you out
of darkness into Light.
(78) The process of “Real meditation” is not unlike
death. The same process goes on in the spontaneous
meditation that happens in death. The only difference is
that in death the life-force permanently moves out of this
vital mechanism, but in “Real meditation”, and in Most
Perfect Sahaj Samadhi, the life-force may continue to
conduct itself in this form. One who has lived this entire
process and Knows it, Knows very well that he or she is not
merely alive. Such a one Knows absolutely well that being
alive is not his or her real limitation. It is absolutely
clear. Such a one is not believing it, not thinking it. Such
a one is already “dead”, presently “dead”, presently not
alive as the limitation that is the psycho-physical life,
the body. If that one were alive as that limitation, he or
she would still be afraid. If I presumed that I were alive
as the limitation of life, I would not have any time to sit
with you. I would be busy hysterically doing all the things
that occupy seekers.
(79) When that “death” is attained and only Truth is
Enjoyed, there is no more of that search. Then there is only
the creative Enjoyment of living this process in relation to
other beings. And that “radical” Activity is continuous,
most perfect-no embodiment, no identification with the
life-force, no identification with the subtle forms of
existence, no identification with the levels of mind, with
thoughts, with visions, with lights, with phenomena of any
kind. They are not lived. That is the paradox of the person
of “radical” understanding. Such a one is like somebody
asleep while awake. While awake, while the conditionally
manifested forms are flying around, while the body hangs out
and all the feelings and sensations are there, while the
thoughts are running along, the one who understands most
perfectly has no sense at all of any containment, any
limitation to that process. Such a one does not have to
meditate in the traditional manner at all in order to feel
free of that. Such a one does not have to stop the
thought-process in order to be free of thoughts. The Samadhi
of such a one is Most Perfect, endless. The entire
life-phenomenon takes on a kind of indefinite, fluid,
homogeneous quality-a paradoxical form, a kind of
brilliance-so that it loses its apparent capability to
define conditional existence or Consciousness Itself. For
such a one, everything becomes Very Consciousness,
everything that appears to such a one is only that ones own
thought. Such a one has nothing left but True Humor while
alive, and that Humor is of a “radical” kind. Such a one is
not necessarily always laughing. The True Humor of such a
one is of the nature of no-identification with all of this.
The Freedom of such a one is extreme, beyond the point of
wildness, so that that one is no longer wild. The extremes
of such a one are manifested as ordinariness. The extremes
of such a one are in that ones natural appearance. Walking
into a room is a maddening extreme from the “Point of View”
of such a one. It is odd. It is wildly imaginative! When
such a one contemplates Consciousness, when such a one
contemplates being Consciousness Itself, that one almost-or
even actually-falls into a trance. So, instead of
contemplating Consciousness, such a one looks at people,
talks, does ordinary things-because everything has become
insubstantial and unnecessary for that one. The Blissfulness
of such a one has exceeded all of the conditional Yogic
states, all of the phenomena of Spirituality, because those
states again are forms of containment, forms of
self-modification. Such a one has lost the taste, the
motive, for mere experiencing. Such a one lives only as that
unmodified Reality-lightless, soundless, formless, without
qualities. And yet, everything is Its modification.
Therefore, in the case of such a one, when living the True
Humor of that ones own Formlessness-the qualityless
characteristic of that ones Very Existence-that one,
paradoxically, Lives. For such a one, all life is paradox.
And life is no longer a question. For such a one there is
not the least trace of dilemma left in the universe. Such a
one has no question, and no answer. Such a one is only
Humorous.
(80) In many cultures, some people of one or another
degree of actual religious or Spiritual advancement have
taken on the role of a fool. They acted “crazy”, so that
people would not burden them with demands for “wisdom”.
Indeed, in their true depth, these fools, so called, really
did not have anything to say. They just enjoyed bubbling in
the street. Truly, bubbling is really, ultimately, what even
My own Work is all about. Having to Work with everyone at
the life-level, the vital level, from day to day tends to
become very humorless, because people are very serious about
their life-problems. Every day people come here with their
crisis, their revolution this week, their game. All of that
is very serious, very disturbing for them, and rightfully
so. But to deal with it-to manufacture seriousness over all
of that-has none of the beauty of bubbling. Therefore, the
more people begin to Enjoy this Satsang with Me, eventually
in Its subtle form, most ultimately in Its Absolute Form,
the sillier I get, the more absurd I get, the more I begin
to act in forms that symbolize or express My own Divinely
Self-Realized State.
Traditionally, those who play the “fool” become very
“odd”, and everything they do becomes a symbol for their own
Realized State. Just so, everything that anyone does
symbolizes his or her own state. Therefore, even I become
less and less involved in trying to point out to people the
contracted nature of their ordinary state, and, ultimately,
I begin simply to Manifest My own Free State as a Playful
Activity.
|