October 1, 2004
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Every day speech is the language of the ego, and no matter how refined the speech becomes, it’s still ego speech, intelligible to others who presume the presumptions of egoity.
And that’s what’s untrue about it, and so it is not about, or the matter of Realization is not about any perfection of words or the achieving of some ultimate thought. It is about realizing that which inherently transcends egoity and therefore, all thought. It’s not about getting rid of thoughts. It’s about Realizing that which is inherently free of thoughts which is prior to thought. Any effort to seek it is driven by mind, and therefore has nothing to do with Realization.
And what is to be Realized, not only cannot fruitfully be sought, it is always already the case. That’s why it can’t fruitfully be sought. You can’t seek for something that’s already the case without avoiding it, by seeking it. This is My Instruction, but I don’t limit it to merely saying such a thing, which is a rather paradoxical statement, and having you screw up your brows and think it through, you see, until your brain pops, and you go “Ohhhhh”, you see. No, that’s a stroke or something. [Laughter]
So, what is the question? And if you’re content with your condition of existence fundamentally. By that, I don’t mean liking it, everything about your experience every moment, but if you’re fundamentally not disturbed by the state associated with or inherent in being alive, as a mortal organism, then it’s not important to you to Realize Truth, Reality Itself, or the Divine Condition. It wouldn’t even come up as a notion, seriously.
So, it is necessary to become disturbed before there is any possibility of realizing the Truth. Because, until you become disturbed, you’re not going to be concerned about whether there’s any truth there anyway. You see, you’ll be too busy pursuing the associations of your own would be contentedness.
So, you must first become disillusioned with your seeking, disturbed about the results or fruitlessness, in other words, of your life of seeking in all of its forms. You have to come to the end of your rope, so to speak, and then it becomes important to get down to it. It becomes important to be free of your suffering.
Oh yes, I, I, I, I, the ego, self-contraction, while you carelessly pick at your right nostril with great intent and satisfaction. You see, it’s not serious. You can be interested in My Instruction or Commentary on things, but it doesn’t make any difference as long as you are content, content with your illusions, content with the way things seem, content with the associations that are apparent at this time in your life, whatever. It’s discontent that’s the root of real Spiritual life, and the process in which Reality is Realized. Not contentedness, but discontent, disillusionment. The failure of life to satisfy is the root of the process wherein Realization is possible.
But of course, people, characteristically, are trying to avoid the failure of life at all costs. You’re efforting to succeed at what you would imagine would be satisfactory. You’re seeking to hold on to what is consoling but not really satisfactory in the present. And at a later time, it won’t be consoling as it was. It will be even less satisfactory, and then eventually it won’t be consoling at all, and will not be even the slightest bit satisfactory. So, you can get serious about it now, or you can wait until you have completely ruined your life, used up all the virtue with which you were born, all the energy of life, all the clarity available for the great process, and the only thing you’ll be serious about at that point is how afraid you are and how much regret has overwhelmed your life.
And what will you have then? Some beliefs that you console yourself with? Will you be able to console yourself with them if you really examine them?
I’m not suggesting you must become dark-minded.
DEVOTEE: I understand that.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: It’s a matter however of truly inspecting and understanding the nature of your ordinary existence. Some people, like My uncle Gene, never learned from the failures of life. Other people can get the point without having to suffer much at all, it seems, although everyone does in time. Everyone suffers in time. But there needn’t be exaggerated failures in life for you to come to understanding of its essential futility and the illusions on which you are basing your existence.
And My Address to you is of this nature. The questions you ask Me are useful to ask Me if they allow a process of My Address to you that deals with your illusions, and that not merely entertains your mental inclinations.
DEVOTEE: Beloved, what You have said to me tonight has…I can feel a gift You have already given me tonight, which is, it’s a very simple matter, but just to understand that my grudge kind of against Christianity as my background is completely irrelevant, because what I don’t like about what I feel to be my inheritance from that tradition is exactly what I’m doing anyway. So, why pinpoint that as something to blame?
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Then, it’s obviously very oedipal as well.
DEVOTEE: Yeah. Yes, it is.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: So, it’s another variant on not liking mommy and daddy, and so forth. It’s all about the same thing. You grew up. Santa Claus isn’t real either. Would you prefer to have a lobotomy or something so you can go back to believing it?
DEVOTEE: No thank You. Well, You’ve addressed this so many times in recent months about coming up with some experience or other and then pretending to be confused about the practice, and I can see this is exactly that, that you pointed out so many times. For some reason, I felt entitled to regard my religious inheritance as something to have a gripe about, and it’s really not any different than anything else.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: No, especially since, as I’ve pointed out to you, you can’t even have so much as a single thought without participating in a completely false presumption about reality.
DEVOTEE: Yes.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Until you transcend all those illusions, you can’t even use the language as I’m doing for the purposes of this Discourse, you see. What I am speaking to you is not the product of the bondage that conventional language naturally presupposes. So, I’m not trying to give you an ego-based or ego-satisfying answer. In fact, I couldn’t.
DEVOTEE: Thank You, Beloved.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: So it is useful to ask Me questions, in order to be disabused of your illusions, not to have Me satisfy them further.
DEVOTEE: Yes. Thank You for that gift.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: I’m not merely a source of information. It’s not fruitful to approach Me for conventional, or casual conversation. Inevitably, I wouldn’t be doing that even if I seem to be. So, you should make right use of My Company and not confuse Me with your own mind, being at least in some sense aware of Me. If then you approach Me to ask a question, you will approach Me based on that understanding. I can talk about traditions for the evening, if you like, but what difference do they make? We might as well talk about any random sentence that you spoke without even thinking about it. And just take a look at it and examine its parts and so forth, and see that it doesn’t make any difference what sentence you put together, even sheer nonsense, it is based on an illusion, an uninspected illusion.
So, it doesn’t make any difference what questions people ask Me or what descriptions of themselves they offer to Me, including their experiences, and so forth. I’m not your approving parental other.Nor am I interested in being your disapproving parental other, you see. I become very weary of this role that you all superimpose on Me.
So, what is the point of asking Me a question anyway? Well, if you are serious, you’ll be asking Me questions that are on the edge of your own real practice and the dilemma somehow associated with the moment of it such that in discourse or exchange with Me, by My Discourse or otherwise in an exchange with Me, the process of your real, right practice will be furthered, and your bondage to your illusions will be weakened, purified, even removed.
This is the purpose of the relationship to Me altogether. Not to use Me to support egos. But to realize that I Am egolessly Present here. And if you are turned to Me, it is not going to enable you to survive egoically.
So, to ask Me a question is dangerous in that sense. Not dangerous to someone serious, but it is. To come to Me with a question or as a question is to be required to surrender further.
Every utterance made by you all in questions is an egoic self-representation, which you are calling Me to defeat by Skillful Means or perhaps even by not responding, or responding however I might.