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ESOTERIC ANATOMY AND THE GREAT TRADITIONS OF HUMAN HISTORY Human History Is One Great Tradition Adi Da Samraj
August 19, 2004
The Great Tradition did not arise based on understanding that there are seven stages of life. Nobody knew they were seven stage of life until I told you there are seven stages of life. So having explained that to you all, and explaining it in terms of the esoteric anatomy of the human being, I’ve shown you how the traditions can be seen, each and every one of them using this key or this tool can be seen as manifestations of one or the other of the orientations that characterize one or the other of the stages of life. There are many different schools and modes of tradition and practice, many different teachers and many teachers with many different kinds of orientations and manner of working. Many different countries had pre-existing traditions of one kind or another to one degree or another affecting or integrated within virtually all traditions. Any tradition that has any kind of time of existence with any kind of history behind it has developed varieties of itself. So there’s no one thing that’s anything. Well how do you make sense out of all this complexity? Well I’ve told you. If you use the tool of my instruction relative to the esoteric anatomy of man and the seven stages of life, you can understand any communication at all made within the great tradition at any time and the Basket of Tolerance is a demonstration of this fact. If you use this tool then there is no need to be confused because you can identify the universals within all the particulars so you can examine any particular tradition and see by its evidence what elements of the stages of life and of the esoteric anatomy fully understood are being specifically activated or addressed In that tradition. So there is a tool or key for understanding traditions and I’ve given it to you and the Basket of Tolerance is my essential communication about it in relation to the great tradition. If you read the scriptures of the tradition, it’s a lot of doing. It’s a lot of thinking. It’s a lot of talking, a lot of doing, a lot of philosophizing, a lot of kinds of practicing. All of that for a tacit understanding? (Laughter) Nothing else? Nothing more? What is the point? Why don’t you just understand and be quiet then. If it’s that simple and in some sense that’s true. No matter what arises, even attention himself, any thought, anything at all, no matter what arises, you are merely the witness. You’re not doing it. You’re not doing anything whatsoever. You’re not making anything happen. Nothing’s happening to you. It’s always already the case that you are just that so why don’t you get that tacit understanding and nothing more? You know I’ve made it perfectly plain to you, narcissic. (Laughter) Well, as long as there is the presumption of point of view, as long as there is the self-contraction, practices are required. Process is required. Thinking occurs and you think you’re doing it. Actions occur and you think you’re doing them. Reactions occur and you think they’re yours. Because you’re making an error and…you can’t stop committing that error even when it is pointed out to you that you are doing it. Even when I say to you and remind you plainly, no matter what arises, no matter what arises now, even now, apparent now, You are merely the witness neither causing nor experiencing, not separate, always already established as the divine self-condition itself. You know very well that’s not true and that’s the metaphor for your error. That knowledge is false but you can’t be convinced otherwise because it’s true. That’s why it’s impossible to solve this problem. It is impossible to get on the other side of the world. It’s like the motorist who drives up to a man when he was mowing his lawn and was going over to his car and he asked him for directions to a particular location. He thought about it for a while and he said, “You can’t get there from here.” That doesn’t mean there is no process of realization. There is one. There are ways to seek realization but there is an actual process of realization. The way I have revealed to you is a process of realization, not a method or a technique for seeking it. You can change it. You can transform it, revise it into a search or an activity of the separate ego but that’s simply to falsify the teachings to misunderstand the practice or refuse it. The precise way I have given you is the precise way of realization and it exactly entirely from the beginning, the way that does not seek realization. It is the way of realization, the realization of that which is already the case. Therefore, it is the way that is perfectly pure from the beginning. When you find the true water, you give yourself up. Today most of what is being offered is philosophies and techniques. When the word transmission is used they mean the transmission of philosophy and technique. Philosophy and techniques and the company of the Master. That more than anything else is what they received and were offered is that company because that is the principle offering within the esoteric traditions. Any principle instruction maximizes the amount of time we spend in the company of your Realizer Master. This will be purifying in following your master’s instructions explicitly and completely and unreservedly. So fundamentally you’ve got the Company of the Master. Secondarily you get philosophy and instruction and practices. Occasionally there is a direct transmission of the Master’s state, a spiritual means. Blessings of various kinds are given but spiritual transmission itself in the various forms in which it is possible is rare And there are various forms of it depending on the nature of the Master the degree of the Master in terms of realization, the mode of realization associated with the master, the stage of life of which the master’s life is associated, and the master’s degree of realization within it. There are a lot of energy transmissions that occur in some schools of yoga but they’re not great transmissions. They are not, generally speaking, they are not lasting, just temporary phenomena and minor phenomena, generally speaking, lower based. They are more on the nature of what is traditionally called a pranathon or a transmission of prana or simply bio energy. Taoist traditions, Chinese martial arts traditions and so forth that speak of chi and all kinds of activities that are brought to this. We’re not talking about bio energies. It’s just not spiritual of course in the ultimate sense of what that term should be and understood to me and so also then many yoga transmitters are transmitting bio or lower based energy. That’s why also the kundalini tradition described the way it is, described his energy rising up from below in a gradual progress upwards. That involves purification of various levels and degrees getting from the lowest level on up with different manifestations as it rises. It is being described as an energy already in the human body and it has to be simply stimulated and made to rise and do various kinds of purification and so forth and be occasionally re-identified and intensified by the transmitter and so on. So there are many kinds of traditions that are called spiritual traditions. It’s not just one thing but I’ve explained these things to you given the means and tools to understand them. If you were to study the great tradition and I call upon you to study the great tradition to some significant degree and to do so formally. What’s the purpose of this? It’s like reading a menu at select a tradition time. No, it’s not about doing any of that nonsense. It’s about being purified of your own provincialism as taught to you in some matters of belief and traditions here and the last occasion or two we met. There are all kinds of beliefs that people believe or say they believe or want to believe, would like to have be true, whatever. It doesn’t mean they are true. If you study in depth and altogether have comprehension of the nature of the phenomena associated with these traditions and you can see them in terms of the stages of life, the esoteric anatomy of human possibility, and you can also see them in the historical terms and how they developed in the social and cultural context of human history. Then instead of simply being a naïve believer or naïve agnostic, naïve atheist or a naïve anything, you transcend the limitations of your own thinking, your own provincialism of mind, and can see any and all traditions clearly. They all are authentic in the sense that they all exhibit dimensions of the stages of life aspects of the esoteric anatomy of human possibility. Myths aren’t merely false. They are ways of conveying meaning that has religious significance or philosophical significance with some relevance to a spiritual understanding of life and so forth. Some things may not be historically true and some traditions where something is said to a fact may historically be true but that doesn’t mean that what is said is not true in any sense at all. Most people, even Hindus, whose culture is the source of the Bhagavad Gita are not concerned whether or not Krishna actually lived as a historical person or Arjuna. Some people want very much to believe that but that’s just some sectarians. Generally speaking, that’s not the point. It’s a story form, a literary form used to convey certain meanings about the nature of life and realization of the divine condition. So as a conveyor of that it has its kinds of authenticity and its references to stages of life and esoteric anatomy and so forth. It’s true in relation to universals. Christianity is true in relation to certain universals. Judaism is as all traditions are true with respect to the universals. Whether they are true in their various parts historically is another question and very often things that are said to be true some people believe to be true historically are not historically true. That doesn’t mean there is something extremely negative there or just plain old wrong. What is the difference between Christianity as a metaphor for spiritual things and Christianity as an historical polaroid of real happenings. Well that of course is important to some but to many it wouldn’t seem to be of any great importance. It’s still conveying truths through metaphors, various kinds of stories and moral pronouncements and so on. So it can be seen in the circumstance of the great tradition as being authentic relative to universals and can be accepted in those terms like virtually all traditions. So when you dogmatically insist that something is true in a sense that it is not, that’s your provincial mind and force of egoity start working in the name of religion and that’s a great source of conflict in the world and in the lives of individuals. I made this Basket of Tolerance to use these tools to go beyond provincialism of your own limitations of your own mind and learning and upbringing and everything that was absorbed by you in your childhood in your life altogether and in many ways it has been shocking to do this. Getting your real education is to get a real comeuppance and that’s relative to all elements of the great tradition then. To cease to be naïve about it all is a difficult experience, a difficult education, but it doesn’t lead to despair if rightly done and if you understand all of human history in terms, of as I’ve shown you as being one great tradition dealing with universals beginning with that universal context which is the structure of the human being properly understood as a full esoterical aberration, then it is possible to be free of all provincialism and not despair. It is possible to have all of your belief systems ripped off and not despair because you can understand even tacitly what it is about even in universally real terms. So I call all of my devotees to endure this basic education about the great traditions of everybody altogether: one boat, one tradition, and still that which is truth, that which is real god, reality itself, remains and is not in doubt. If you read the book of life only in part, doubts will kill you. They will drive you mad. You have to read the whole book and then when you lift your head up from the last page, it will be self-evidently obviously clearly so that it is pure from the beginning.
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