The Life of Understanding Series
A twelve week course
taught by Bubba Free John – January – April/May
1973
The Knee Of Listening
Tapes/transcribed discourses entitled the Life of Understand
took place in Los Angeles in 1973. The following is from an
early (and present) devotee, Tom Riley about the classes
held.
The classes were held from
January – April or so, 1973. I was fortunate to have been
part of a small group invited by Beloved up to His Home @
2509 Thames Place, Laurel Canyon, Hollywood, CA atop the
Hollywood Hills. (In hindsight and thus appropriately
enough, that particular section,where Beloved Resided, atop
these Laurel Canyon Hills was formally named Mt.Olympus). He
was otherwise not present physically at His Ashram on
Melrose Ave. and we implemented, for the first time, some
basic life disciplines as per his instructions to us during
these every – Wednesday Night Sit – Silent Satsang, Life
Discipline Instruction and The audio taped Knee Of Listening
Elaboration/Discourses. The blessings, instruction and
fruits of our formal spiritually – intimate time with
Beloved (still Franklin Jones at this time) were
communicated and brought into the general community of
devotees by those of us in weekly attendence with Beloved in
the living room of His Home.Each and every Wednesday evening
for approximately 12 consecutive we would arrive at 7:00
p.m. sharp. Each Wednesday evening with Him consisted of
Sitting In Silence with Beloved, for approximately one hour.
Beloved would then instruct us on some fundamentals of Right
Life Disciplines including diet, hygiene, etc and He
discoursed and elaborated (the one and only time He’s ever
done this w/The Knee of Listening to my knowledge) on The
Knee Of Listening; His Early Life Spiritual Autobiography.
The handful of us would arrive at 7:00 p.m. and leave His
Residence generally somewhere between midnight and 2:00 a.m.
All of this took place between January of 1973 and into
April or so of same year prior to His Pilgrimmage to India
in August 1973,returning to The Melrose Ashram as Bubba Free
John in September 1973.
THE COSMOS – Section
2 – (see below for
full talk)
by Franklin Jones – Adi Da Samraj –
1973
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 Siddhas 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 psycho-physical 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 is 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 n 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 psycho-physical entity, what he has
become at that point functionally is simply what all beings
should be, use has become truly ordinary he has become the
function in human terms, alive, with full consciousness as a
living instrument or 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
them.
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’s 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 Siddha has
who assist the affair in a particular way.
In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna is
made to say that whenever there is a decline in the dharma,
in other words a decline in the understanding of the true
way of life, He, meaning Krishna, is God, alive, a true
Siddha, an incarnation. Whenever this condition appears in
the world then he takes birth, He takes form in the world,
in order to Instruct men again to restore the dharma, to
restore the way.
The next thing that should be talked
about, is the way In relation to such a One, the path or the
form of life that is generated in relationship to such a
Siddha. The individual, rather than simply resorting to the
teaching, has begun to resort to the Guru. He’s begun to
resort to the Guru as the man of understanding, and in this
process takes on more and more qualities of intensity, and
perceives more and more of the subtlety of the process of
Satsang. So as the student resorts to the teaching, a member
of the Ashram resorts to the teacher.
Continue with the full talk, Week 1
of the Life of Understandig – The
Cosmos
The
Knee of Listening and Study Chapters – Table of
Contents
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