from a Talk by
Avatar Adi Da Samraj
The three fundamental disturbances to the ego-made order
of life are sex, laughter, and Real-God-Realization.
1
Sex (or bodily pleasure), laughter (or genuine, and heart-open, humor),
and Real-God-Realization (or Most Perfect 2
Identification with the Divine Reality Itself) are, each and all, forms
of ecstasy (or of ego-transcending enjoyment). For that reason, all three
are, in various ways (and by various means, both personal and collective),
suppressed, manipulated, prevented, falsified, and culturally excised from
your daily lives.
Sex is an obsessive concern in human societies. Human
beings are always seeking pleasure, including sexual pleasure in particular,
but, for reasons they do not understand, they are also always tending to
be involved in the suppression, manipulation, and non-enjoyment of sex,
or of the bodily pleasurableness of existence altogether. As a result,
life is not lived as an intentionally (and truly) pleasurable event. Whenever
there is enjoyment to the point of ecstasy, to the point of no stressful
concern whatsoever, to the point of ragged pleasure, it is threatening
to the ego-“I”. In the circumstance of such ecstasy, you (as the ego-“I”)
feel that something is coming into the world that is going to destroy your
life, or destroy the order of society! Thus, you do not consistently, truly,
and freely allow ecstasy to appearexcept in the double-minded
(or ritualized yes/no) moments that you have (generally, according to relatively
sex-negative and pleasure-negative social and religious conventions) fitted
into your life.
Along with the fact that every individual is socially
conditioned to suppress, control, and manipulate the sense of bodily pleasure
and the animation of bodily pleasure, there is the presumed necessity of
being “serious”, being humorless, being a stressful seeker, being someone
in dilemmain other words, being the “usual” (or “normal”) person. Thus,
whenever there is the suppression of bodily pleasure, there is also the
suppression of genuine humor. And, where there is no bodily (or psycho-physically
allowed) pleasure and no genuine (or heart-allowed) humor, there is no
Real-God-Realization!
It is not possible for one who is devoid of bodily (or
psycho-physically un-contracted) pleasure and genuine (or truly open-hearted)
humor to Most Perfectly Comprehend the True Divine Nature and Self-Condition
of all and All. Therefore, neither true (or most perfectly ego-transcending)
pleasure, nor true (or most perfectly ego-transcending) humor, nor True
(or most perfectly ego-transcending) Real-God-Realization can be the case
unless all three are, simultaneously, the case.
If ego-transcendence (in the context of the formally
accountable practice of comprehensive self-discipline in the only-by-Me
Revealed and Given Way of Adidam) were not required (or inherently necessary)
in order to Realize true pleasure and true humor and Real
God (or Truth Itself, or Reality Itself), then the life to which I Call
My devotees would be quite different from the Way of Adidam as I have Revealed
and Given It. If ego-transcendence (and truly and really counter-egoic
practice) were not required (and inherently necessary) in order to Realize
true pleasure, true humor, and Real God, I would simply say to you,
“Enjoy yourselves, exploit yourselves, create as many exotic pleasures
as you possibly can (all the time), and always laugh yourself sillyand,
instead of transcending egoity, merely believe in God.” However, in Truth,
this would not be a useful (or ultimately and Divinely fruitful) recommendation.
You cannot Realize the Truth by leading such a foolish and superficial
life. You can exploit yourself to the point of ordinary pleasure, you can
be put in the mood of ordinary humor, and you can feel sympathetic with
the idea of “God-Realization”but you cannot Realize true pleasure,
you cannot Realize true humor, and you cannot Realize Real
God (or Truth Itself, or Reality Itself) without most intensive and truly
and really ego-transcending discipline of your body-mind-self.
The “right life” to which I Call My each and every devotee
is (certainly) life-positive, and (therefore) a life of “right” bodily
pleasure (including “right” sexual pleasure), and it is (certainly) a heart-open
life, and (therefore) a life based on true (or “right”) humor, and it is
(above all) a life dedicated to the “right” Process of Real-God-Realizationbut
that “right life” is enjoyed as such only when the (according
to My Instructions) “right” (and true, full, fully devotional, and inherently
and really counter-egoic) practice of Ruchira Avatara Bhakti Yoga 4
(including comprehensive “right” disciplining of the body-mind-self) is
really and consistently lived.
In Truth, and in Reality, Divine Self-Realization is notpossible
without true pleasure and true humor. Because of your egoic (or self-contracted)
orientation to life (and your indoctrination by all of the ego-based illusions
and control-signals of the collective ego-world of mankind), you tend to
presume that Real-God-Realization (or the Realization of Truth Itself,
or of Reality Itself) must be pleasureless, humorless, lifeless, silent,
and “elsewhere”. The mental images you have of traditional saints and mystics
are all, most characteristically, pleasureless and humorless. These images
carry the implication that such beings are involved in some “thing” somewhere
“else”. Therefore, from the conventional point of view of ego-“I”, if any
Realizer (of whatever degree, or stage of life) is seen to be laughing,
dancing, or bodily enjoying himself or herself here, he or she immediately
becomes suspect. That is why some people have, sometimes, become (it seemed)
very (and very humorlessly) “offended” by My “Crazy” Manner. 5
Such people have presumed that I Am “Being the Divine Master” and “Doing
the Divine-Master-Work” only when I sit in absolute silence, with
the outward appearance of being very “serious” and “inward” and disembodied
“holy”. But such is not the case. I Am always only Meand
I Am always Doing My Avataric 6
Divine Work, whether I Am (at times) “conservative” and silent or (at other
times) animated “Crazily” (in order to Teach, and Serve, and Bless, and
Awaken My devotees).
Devotee: Beloved Bhagavan,
7
You Said that practice of Ruchira Avatara Bhakti Yoga is the necessary
prerequisite for the Realization of true pleasure, true humor, and Real
God. Does that mean that there is no true pleasure or true humor or Real-God-Realization
at all, previous to the Most Perfect “Practice” of Ruchira Avatara Bhakti
Yoga in the seventh stage of life? 8
Avatar Adi Da Samraj: No. It is simply that, previous
to the Realization of the only-by-Me Revealed and Given seventh stage of
life, the arising conditions of psycho-physical experience are all karmic
(or conditional, and ego-based) in nature. Previous to Most Perfect (seventh
stage) Awakening, the (necessarily) egoic individual tends to participate
in all experience from the point of view of the self-contracted (and separative)
strategy of “Narcissus” 9
and, therefore, previous to the only-by-Me Revealed and Given seventh
stage of life, there must be consistent real and true counter-egoic self-discipline.
Previous to Most Perfect (or seventh stage) Awakening,
it is not possible for any plane of conditionally manifested existence,
high or low, to be Most Perfectly lived in Truth, or as an absolutefulfillment
of the Divine Law. In the course of the developmental process that precedes
(and is preliminary to) Most Perfect Real-God-Realization in the only-by-Me
Revealed and Given Way of Adidam, My fully practicing devotee conforms
all
aspects of his or her life to Me by living in accordance with the by-Me-Given
forms of functional, practical, relational, and cultural self-discipline
10
all of which demonstrate (and serve to magnify) the fundamental by-Me-Given
(and counter-egoic) practice of Ruchira Avatara Bhakti Yoga. And, as My
devotee’s practice of Ruchira Avatara Bhakti Yoga matures, his or her life
of self-discipline becomes more and more a matter of simple, and pleasurable,
and humorous, and Truly Happy (and Divinely Lawful) responsibility. Thus,
one of the signs of right, true, full, fully devotional, and inherently
and really counter-egoic practice of the Way of Adidam is the ever-increasing
enjoyment of True Happinessnot merely in an exclusive, compartmented
plane of super-consciousness (divorced from gross physical existence),
but even in the context of ordinary gross physical life.
The only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way of Adidam is not
about becoming less and less capable of enjoying gross physical life, or
becoming more and more dissociated from it. My true devotee is becoming
(more and more) Divinely Illumined (or by-Me-“Brightened” 11
) and (more and more) Truly Happy in the midst of conditional existence,
and not more and more obsessively concerned with either the attainment
or the avoidance of any particular aspect of conditional existence.
One who has (by Means of My Avatarically Self-Transmitted
Divine Grace) Most Perfectly Awakened to the seventh stage of life is utterly
Free of any suppressive, or puritanical, or life-negative orientation toward
the body and its functions. Therefore, he or she enjoys true pleasure in
the midst of life. One who has (by Means of My Avatarically Self-Transmitted
Divine Grace) Most Perfectly Awakened to the seventh stage of life is utterly
Free of any suppressive, or overly controlling, or life-negative orientation
toward laughter, toward the mind, or toward genuine humor altogether. Therefore,
he or she enjoys true humor in the midst of life. And one who has (by Means
of My Avatarically Self-Transmitted Divine Grace) Most Perfectly Awakened
to the seventh stage of life is, altogether (and even psycho-physically),
utterly
Free in Real-God-Realization.
My devotee who is Most Perfectly Free in Me is absolutely
(and non-dualistically) Freenot just a “little bit” (or dualistically,
and
as an ego) free. Therefore, there is no need for such a one
to be cut off from life. The nature of his or her Freedom is not pleasurelessness
and humorlessness relative to the world. Rather, in his or her Freedom,
My seventh stage Realizer-devotee is absolutely capable of true
pleasure, or Free (egoless) enjoyment, in the midst of the conditional
forms that are arising, and absolutely capable of true (egoless)
humor
in the midst of life. Such is the Fullness of Most Perfect Real-God-Realization.
The pleasureless and humorless orientation to conditional experience that
is traditionally often presumed to be a necessary prerequisite for “God-Realization”
does notin Truth, and in Realityhave anything to do with Real-God-Realization
as I have Fully and Finally and Completely Revealed It to Be.
Devotee: It seems that a person who is truly and
rightly capable of pleasure would not be impulsed to exploit that capability.
In my experience, the impulse to exploit pleasure comes from the inability
to truly experience pleasure in anything I do.
Avatar Adi Da Samraj: Yes. But what may, from the
frustrated egoic point of view of the usual person,
look like
exploitation of the possibilities for pleasure is simply “dance” to one
who is Free.
Look at how exaggerated the universe is! Look at how fearlessly
exaggerated the Earth is, compared to all these monotonous human beings!
The Earth is always in upheavalearthquakes are happening, there is every
kind of weather, things are growing and dying, and “creatures” are eating
one another. Life in the “wild” is a mad and lusty and egoless “crazy”
affair, compared to what human beings are always (self-consciously, and
merely aggressively, or, otherwise, self-indulgently, and always fearfully)
doing! The Earth and the sky and the non-human “creatures” constantly
do things that you, as the self-concerned ego-“I”, would not even dream
of doing! And you are “offended” by all of that! That is why you want there
to be a “heaven”. You hope that, after death, you will find yourself in
a “place” where there are no earthquakes, no bad weather, no “creatures”
eating other “creatures”, no death, nothing “offensive” to
the self-concerned ego-“I”. Such hopeful presumptions about the “after-life”
are a reflection of your own strategy of trying to ensure egoic bodymind-survival,
and (altogether) a reflection of the totality of your psycho-physical reaction
to the chaos and unpredictability of life.
I am not “blaming” you for thisand, indeed, your fear-based
self-consciousness does serve your even bodily survival of life’s inherent
dangersbut I am simply pointing to all of this, so that you will notice
it, and “consider” it. Indeed, the typically human strategy of ego-survival
is not something that you have invented, merely on your own. All
human beings are, collectively, involved in this strategy. They communicate
it to one another through political, social, and cultural norms, rules,
laws, and signals, as well as through the genes, and through the “unconscious”
patterns of the collective human mind. Nevertheless, the experiencing of
egoic self-identity, and its fear-base, and its dilemma, and all the limitations
of its seeking, its strategies, and its pattern of results is the personal
burden of every human individual.
The ego-based exploitation of the capability for
ordinary pleasure in the body (via food, sex, and so on) and in the mind
(via ordinary thought, laughter, mystical experience, and so on) is, fundamentally,
negative (or bondage-producing, and bondage-reinforcing). Whatever enjoyment
is apparently achieved through such exploitation of the human psycho-physical
mechanism is karmic (or limited, and ego-based) in nature, and merely part
of the universal pattern of separativeness that characterizes the human
lifedrama. But, in the case of Most Perfect Real-GodRealization (or Most
Perfect Enjoyment of the Divine Reality), the simple pleasures of a human
life become playful (or spontaneous, and humorous) and non-karmic (or centerless,
boundless, and inherently egoless) in nature. The very same aspects of
human existence that are lived as karma (or egoic limitation) by the usual
person are lived as the Divine Play by one who has Most Perfectly Realized
Real God.
Devotee: You said that sex, laughter, and
Real-GodRealization are the three basic states (or conditions). Are these
the only three?
Avatar Adi Da Samraj: They are good enough! In
sex (or bodily pleasure altogether), the body and the life-force are overwhelmed.
In laughter, the mind is overwhelmed. In Real-God-Realization, the ego-self
is overwhelmed. When true pleasure, true humor, and Real-God-Realization
are all Most Perfectly enjoyed, then everything is permanently
overwhelmed, and the world (as the ego-“I” presumes it to be) is Exploded.
That Explosion is the egoless “Play” of Real God.
In Truth, and in Reality, the world is not anything but
the “Play” (or Free, egoless Manifestation, or Manifest Form) of Real God.
Therefore, the world is Always Already Free, AlwaysAlready
Divine “Madness”. You think of the world egoically, as if it were inherently
a very solid, humorless “something”but, when you Really (and truly egolessly)
see the world (As it Is), you will see the Divine “Madness”
of it, the Divine “Play” of it, the Formlessness, the Ecstasy, the egoless
Free Happiness of it. Now you are weighted down by your ego-“philosophy”,
by your assumption of a separate self sense, by your striving to perpetuate
and to satisfy the ego-“I”. As a result, you see the world apart from its
Divine (and, therefore, egoless) Self-Condition and Source-Condition. Because
you (as the ego-“I”, or separative self-contraction) are unable to see
the world in Truth (or in the Context of the egoless Divine Reality and
Person), you (in your “serious” ego-depth) see the world
only and
merely
as a condition of suffering, and, therefore, there are many things about
the world and about your body-mind-self (and its situation and destiny)
that “you” do not “like”. These are the things that you suppress, the things
that you hope will go away, or that you hope will be brought to an end
by some fairy-tale “God” who will grant you whatever you desire. And there
can be no truly Divine life for you unless you submit to understand
and transcend of that ego-“philosophy”.
There is no pleasureless love, if love is real
and true. There is no humorless compassion, if compassion is real
and true. There is no Godless (or non-Divine) Freedom, if Freedom
Is Real and True. When you are alive as Divine ecstasy in heart-Communion
with Me, and (thus) when you are alive as Real (and really ego-transcending)
enjoyment, and as true selfless pleasure, then you can lovethen you have
no option but to love, because the egoless heart is only love. When
you are established in true heart-open (or truly ego-transcending) humor,
beyond any limitation, beyond the possibility of its being lost, then you
are compassionatethen you are only compassion, because egoless
love is only compassion. When Real-God-Realization is Most Perfect,
then There Is Only Real Godthen “you” are Free, of “you”, in Me.
Devotee: It seems that what people tend to
do is cling to positive changes in their experience, as if those changes
were (in and of themselves) the Truth. But I see the inappropriateness
of that search. The pleasure You are Speaking of has to do with real Spiritual
life.
Avatar Adi Da Samraj: Yes. As long as there is
confinement to (and by) the act of self-contraction (and, thus and thereby,
identification with the separate and separative ego-“I”, and its seeking
adventure), sex (or bodily pleasure), and laughter (or open-hearted humor),
and Real-God-Realization seem to pose a threat to the (necessarily, anxious
and fearful) ego-“I”. I Call My each and every devotee to surrender, forget,
and really transcend self-contraction, and (thus and thereby), whether
male or female, to be present (and “rightly” active) in this world with
real “manliness” (or egoless, Me-Filled clarity and strength).
My devotee must consistently live on the basis of what
he or she has understood in My Avataric Divine Heart-Company, and on the
basis of all that has been Revealed and Given to (and Received by) him
or her in the course of really counter-egoic devotional sadhana in My Avataric
Divine HeartCompany. Then My devotee will truly and “rightly” enjoy bodily
(or total psycho-physical) pleasure (or well-being)no matter what is
the current content of the “news”, and no matter what are the “signs” of
others on the day. Then My devotee will, likewise, be truly capable of
“right” true humorno matter what are the present-time “signs” of the
“times” Then, likewise, My devotee will be truly capable of True Happiness,
no matter what “happens” as the daybecause he or she will know Me to
Be
the boundlessly All-and-all-Surrounding and egolessly All-and-all-Pervading
Reality and Condition, even of the body-mind, and of all its passing patterns
of world-space and seeking-time.
Notes
1. The term “Real God” indicates the
True Source of all conditions, the True and Spiritual Divine Person, rather
than any egoic (and, thus, false, or limited) presumptions about “God”.
2 Avatar Adi Da uses the phrase “Most
Perfect(ly)” in the sense of “Absolutely Perfect(ly)”, indicating a reference
to the Divinely Enlightened stage of life.
3. The ego-“l” is the fundamental activity
of self-contraction, or the presumption of separate and separative existence.
4. Ruchira Avatara Bhakti Yoga is the
principal Gift, Calling, and Discipline Offered by Adi Da Samraj to all
who practice the Way of Adidam.
The phrase “Ruchira Avatara Bhakti Yoga” is itself a
summary of the Way of Adidam. “Bhakti”, in Sanskrit, is love, adoration,
or devotion, while “Yoga” is a Real-God-Realizing discipline or practice.
“Ruchira Avatara Bhakti Yoga” is, thus “the Divinely Revealed practice
of devotional love for (and devotional response to) the Ruchira Avatar,
Adi Da Samraj”
The technical practice of Ruchira Avatara Bhakti Yoga
is a four-part process of Invoking, feeling, breathing, and serving Avatar
Adi Da in every moment.
5. Avatar Adi Da has always had a unique
method of “Crazy” Work, which involved His literal Submission to the limited
conditions of humankind in order to discover the Way to transform and illumine
humankind. His “Crazy” Manner of Submission is a Divine Siddhi (or Power),
an inherent aspect of His Avataric Incarnation.
6. The term “Avataric” indicates that
Avatar Adi Da’s human Incarnation is not merely the life of an ordinary
man, but the utterly Divine “Descent” of Real God in human Form.
7. The Title “Bhagavan” is Sanskrit for
“blessed”, “holy”. When applied to a great Spiritual Master, “Bhagavan”
is understood to mean “bountiful God”, or “Great God”, or “Divine Lord”.
8. The entire Spiritual Process culminating
in Divine Enlightenment has been exactly “mapped” by Avatar Adi Da, Who
Describes It in terms of seven stages of life.
In the total (or full and complete) practice of the Way of Adidam, the
seven stages of life are, from first to last, a Process in Consciousness,
Revealing (ultimately) that you are Consciousness, and not merely the body-mind.
The first three (or foundation) stages of life constitute
the ordinary course of human adaptationbodily, emotional, and mental
growth. The fourth and fifth (or advanced) stages of life are charactenzed
by the Awakening to Spirit or the Spiritualizing of the body-mind.
In the sixth and seventh (or ultimate) stages of life
Consciousness Itself is directly Realized, beyond identification with the
body-mind. In the sixth stage of life the Realizer Identifies with Consciousness
(in profound states of meditation) by excluding all awareness of phenomena.
Avatar Adi Da has Revealed that this was the highest form of Realization
known in the religious and Spiritual traditions previous to His Appearance.
But this Realization is incomplete. Even the necessity to turn away from
the world in order to fully Enjoy Consciousness represents a contraction
a refusal of Reality in its totality. The seventh stage of life (or the
Realization of “Open Eyes”), which is Revealed and Given only by Avatar
Adi Da, transcends this last limit. No exclusion is necessary, because
the world is Realized to be a mere modification of Consciousness, not separate
(or “different”) from Consciousness at all.
9. In Avatar Adi Da’s Teaching-Revelation,
“Narcissus” (taken from the Greek myth) is a key symbol of the unEnlightened
individual as a self-obsessed seeker, enamored of his or her own self-image
and egoic self-consciousness.
10. The functional, practical, and relational
disciplines of the Way of Adidam are forms of appropriate human action
and responsibility for diet, health, exercise, sexuality, work, service
to and support of Avatar Adi Da’s Circumstance and Work, and cooperative
(formal community) association (or at least significantly participatory
affiliation) with other practitioners of the Way of Adidam. The cultural
obligations of the Way of Adidam include meditation, sacramental worship,
study of Ruchira Avatar Adi Da’s Wisdom-Teaching (and also at least a basic
discriminative study of the Great Tradition of religion and Spirituality
that is the Wisdom-inheritance of mankind), and regular participation in
the “form” (or schedule) of daily, weekly, monthly, and annual devotional
activities.
11. By the word “Bright” (and its variations,
such as “Brightened” or “Brightness”), Avatar Adi Da refers to the eternally,
infinitely, and inherently Self-Radiant Divine, Indivisible and Indestructible
Light Itself
from Part Eight of
Ruchira Avatara Hridaya-Tantra Yoga
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