“…..There’s an aspect of the fullness of the
Divine to reflect itself, so the Real-God becomes God-Light,
but without limitation, without illusion, without suffering.
Just so, God-Light is becoming all of the manifest worlds.
But if the Divine reflects itself without comprehending its
own activity…”
In 1974 Bubba Free John (Adi Da Samraj) taught lesson
on the Knee of Listening. There are twelve lessons in all.
The Cosmos is the first of these talks.
For the whole talk go to: The Cosmos
There is an absolute, timeless infinite,
untouched, perfect realm, not describable, which is eternal.
And you can call that heaven if you want. It is the
God-world. Coming out of the God-world, the God-Light,
descending from it, just as the God-Light reflects the
perfect God, the Real God, there is a reflection of the
God-Light. That reflection is all of the infinite numbers of
universes and non-universes, the entire, indescribable
cosmos, of billions upon billions upon billions of
universes, and possible states and worlds with all kinds of
paradoxes, Within our single universe there can be infinite
numbers of other universes, Within this universe, simple and
apparent and visible to us, there are infinite numbers of
other universes, existing coincident with this one, and yet
with different energy frequencies, different time,
relationships, The entire manifest cosmos is a vast,
paradoxical entity, and it is a reflection of the
God-Light.
So all of these manifest worlds appear as
reflections of the Divine. And just so, just as they reflect
it, the energy that is being reflected also returns, no
light simply gets thrown onto a mirror. It is bounced off a
mirror, so that manifest cosmos, the conditional universes
which reflect the infinite God-Light, all have this
circular, descending-ascending structure, the worlds descend
from the God-Light and return, like an infinite circle or
bridge of qualities, from the most perfectly subtle
descending down to the most absolutely solid, inert forms,
and then again ascending through degrees of subtlety.
Real-God and the God-Light are infinite and perfect,
beginningless, endless. The light that reflects Real God is
as infinite and perfect as Real-God, They are both the
qualities of the ultimate God or Reality.
But all of the reflected dimensions, all
of the billions upon billions of conditional states and
worlds and entities are mortal, conditional, temporary, not
themselves the Truth. They are a process. And quite
naturally, then, there are two ways in which to live in say
manifest condition. There is the way of living it as it is,
in right relationship to its source and ultimate function;
and then there is the other way, of buying it, of living the
condition itself, living from the point of view of the
apparent condition, without taking into conscious and living
account all of the subtler implied and not necessarily
conscious aspects,
So all beings are obliged to become
conscious of their actual condition and their actual or real
condition is God, God is our condition, is is both our
ultimate nature and also the form of the process in which we
are appearing. Now within the range of reflections of the
ultimate Divinity there are many worlds, certainly many
conditions that are superior perhaps to the present world or
the condition that you’re in at this moment. And these can
be very distracting.
But there is no world, no condition that
is a reflection of the God-Light that is not temporary, that
is not simply a form of change, (so to become attached to
any condition in itself is the first rule of suffering, to
become identified with it, to assume the dilemma, the
proposition that it represents, and to pursue life as a goal
of release from that state or fulfillment of that state in
itself, ally such movement is the rule of ignorance, the
rule of suffering.
So even the subtler forms of cosmic
existence are not the goal of consciousness, not the goal of
life. Any subtle process that distracts you from your
present state, is only a form of distraction into another
similar state. It’s an illusion, because to be moved into
another state, condition or world is not to have changed
your essential condition.
To be put into another condition has not
modified your strategy, has not modified your position as a
conscious entity. So you are brought into the same condition
of suffering ultimately, wherever you go. And it certainly
is possible to be distracted. It is possible to be put into
another condition. But as soon as that occurs, we settle
into the other condition, that other condition becomes our
present condition, and we begin to realize the subtle
suffering involved with being in a condition, being within a
karmic limitation.
So life in the universes always becomes
moment by moment the motivation to release. Ordinary living
always becomes dilemma and always instigates the striving
for release from dilemma, regardless of where an entity
appears, what karmic condition he arrives at. And so he’s
continually only exchanging one karmic condition for the
other, until the real process, the Divine process begins.
There’s an aspect of the fullness of the Divine to reflect
itself, so the Real-God becomes God-Light, but without
limitation, without illusion, without suffering. Just so,
God-Light is becoming all of the manifest worlds. But if the
Divine reflects itself without comprehending its own
activity, the Divine is becoming obsessed with its own
reflection. That’s the nature of Narcissus. So any manifest
entity, any conditional entity, who has not understood his
ultimate condition, his perfect and present condition, is
simply duplicating a possibility of ignorance that is latent
in the reflecting work of the Divine. Fullness
itself.
So we could say that the entire cosmic
process is a form of self-realizing activity within the
Divine Nature. And in the case of any individual appearing
in any time and place, the apparent purpose of present
existence is to create a confrontation between the internal
karmic tendencies that are latent within the subtle life of
that entity, confrontation between that and the solidified,
external conditions. So the karmic entity, with all his
arbitrary tendencies, confronts a solidified, lawful
universe that exists over against his tendencies, in spite
of his tendencies. This demands adaptation on his part. The
process of that adaptation, is on the one hand the means of
purifying him of his tendencies, his karmic destiny. It can
either be a means to that purification or let can be a means
to the manipulation of karmic life itself, so that he only
takes on other tendencies, or exchanges present tendencies
for others. So there are two ways of life. There is one
lived by the law of karma, or change itself, in
confrontation with the solid world, the appearing world; or
there is the way of living from the point of view of Truth
or the actual, the real condition. When the entity lives
from the point of view of the real condition, then the
karmic condition, living within a manifest world, becomes a
purifying event, and he moves always into more and more
appropriate forms of action, and is released from the
limitation of tendencies so that he falls, ever more
perfectly into the prior condition, the Divine condition.
And in the midst of this purifying, spiritual form of life,
the entity falls through degrees of karma, from life to
life, until he falls into the God-world, or the world of the
true Siddhas. There are many worlds that are sometimes
called the world of the Siddhas in traditional literature,
but these worlds are not the God-world. There are many kinds
of Siddhas. ( Siddha just means, in common language,
somebody who has accomplished or realized some sort of
extraordinary function, a siddhi of some sort.) So many, by
virtue of evolving subtle capacities, pass into cosmic
dimensions that are extraordinary. And such beings can be
called Siddhas, and such worlds could be called
Siddha-worlds. But the true Siddha is the God-realized
Siddha, completed, fallen into the prior and perfect
condition. And the true world of the Siddhas is simply the
Divine Reality, the Divine World, which cannot be described,
What I mean by it truly is the Godworld. Within the
traditional literature what is called a Siddha Loka is still
a conditional world, a dimension within the reflected
cosmos,
So the true Siddha is One who comes out
of the God-Light, out of the God-World, not just one who
comes out of some extraordinary state into a human birth,
with various powers or whatever, The true Siddha is one who
lives in the God condition, while alive in the manifest
worlds, And he is not extraordinary, in the most genuine
sense, he is living, simply living, the appropriate form of
life. He is living the appropriate or natural state, He
appears extraordinary only over against those who are living
from the point of view of karma limitation, ignorance. But
his assumption is that there is only truth already, and that
there is only God already and that there is no world to be
sought, no change of state to be sought, as if it were the
truth. But in the present condition, Truth is the condition,
God is the condition, in this instant. So that Truth
wherever you appear, whatever condition has arisen at this
moment, Truth is appropriate; understanding is real
intelligence. It’s never a matter of seeking a change of
condition or state or world, as if that were Truth. It’s
always a matter of, realizing Truth or the real condition
under present appearances.
One who moves into relationship with such
a Siddha has fallen face to face with Real-God and the
God-Light. The Siddha, Heaven-Born One, manifests the heaven
condition to his devotee, so the devotee of such a Siddha
lives the heaven condition while alive, whatever condition
he may apparently be living. The Siddha brings the heaven
condition into the world and lives it and makes it entirely
available to those who will turn to Him, or Her. Such a One
doesn’t create the heaven appearance. In other words, he
doesn’t do all kinds of magic and make this seem like the
God-world. This world remains what it is, what its
appropriate, lawful appearance is. Perhaps he expands the
range of some of its faculties, but essentially it remains
what it is, what it latently is. It’s just that the God
condition becomes also the condition of the world in which
he is appearing. So this is the purpose of such Siddhas, to
appear in the conditional worlds and live the real condition
in the midst of those worlds for those who turn to
them.
Now such beings have appeared since
beginningless time in all the worlds, and in all forms.
They’ve appeared not just as human beings among human
beings; they’ve appeared as every kind of form or creature,
in every kind of dimension.
It is the Divine work. But the form of
the Siddha that we are specifically concerned with and that
can become apparent to us and to this human condition is the
human Siddha, and the particular work of the human Siddha
is, first of all, after taking birth, to transform the
psycho-physical entity, or function, in which they are
manifest. So you usually see in the lifetime of such a One,
a period of time of very difficult struggle, because they
must transform or evolve the psycho-physical life that they
are animating in a very brief period of time; they must do
in a very short time what all other beings by tendency would
take eons to do. So the apparent life of such an individual
is usually very dramatic, very intense, The sadhana of such
individuals is very intense, usually under difficult
circumstances, or very often is, at any rate.
But in any case, their work is to
transform the psychophysical entity, because when such a
Being manifests in the world, the levels on which He or She
is conscious, fully conscious of the function and perfect
condition they’ve come to demonstrate, that consciousness is
on a higher level, above the mind, What is gained by such an
entity coming into the human plane is all of the faculties,
beginning with the conscious mind down through the gross
physical existence, and those qualities are not in
themselves enlightened, full, unobstructed, They are karmic
in nature. So the same thing is required in such a One
that’s required in anyone else: transformation of this
obstructed, karmic, condition. It’s just that such an entity
brings with it, latently, spontaneously, at the profoundest
level, the true movement that makes it possible for this
work to be realized, and so it generally does take place in
a relatively short time. Commonly it takes place in some
time in what would ordinarily be the first half of life, and
so many such individuals emerge to carry on the next phase
of their work about middle age, or in their thirties. This
is common, although it’s not an inflexible rule. Many have
begun their peculiar work very early in life; others much
later in life. This is just a common case.
What the Siddha has become once this
period is done, this period of purification and
transformation of the psychophysical entity, what he has
become at that point functionally is simply what all beings
should be. He has become the function of the Divine life,
and then at that point the next phase of his work
begins.
The first phase of his life is this
purification and demonstration actually of the process of
transformation. The early life of such an individual then
acts as a symbol and a guide to those that the individual
teaches later in life. But after this first phase of
transformation then comes the phase in which the Siddha
presents himself outwardly as teacher, Guru, master, to
others. So in a sense the individual announces his presence,
announces his work in some form or other and then lives that
process in relationship to beings who turn to
him.
So such Siddhas, these are the true
Siddhas, are the manifest expressions of the Divine work,
the Divine process, and this work is going on endlessly. It
a coincident with the other work of creation or reflection
itself. It’s coexistent with it always. It’s not a
once-and-for-all process, there’s not just one Siddha, one
event of the Divine work. It’s continuous activity, and all
beings actually serve this activity, it’s just that there
are periodically and randomly the appearance of Siddhas who
assist the affair in a particular way.