Hearing – A Unique Process in the Way of Adidam
The Stage from Beginner to the Perfect Practice
Adi Da Samraj
August 22, 2004
The phenomena that belong to the beginning bring the devotee into the range of spiritual communion with Me. The first significant demonstration to follow that is True Hearing, which in a context of the feeling context of Me, full technical spiritual reception of Me drives to the Heart-Root and establishes the basis of the Perfect Practice.
So all spiritual phenomena that proceed that actual transition to the Perfect Practice are signs of developing devotion to Me in terms of spiritual communion – whole bodily. They continue the process of purification that is already the purpose and the sign associated with turning to Me, turning the faculties to Me, being surrendered into My Company, in My Physical Company constantly.
Hearing, as I’ve described it to you, is profoundly significant. Necessarily so, because it is a unique development of the Spiritual Process that uniquely characterizes the Way of Adidam, which is about the transcending of egoity of separateness and separativeness, therefore, transcending the point of view of the body-mind altogether rather than being a process that could be called “evolutionary” in nature, or “developmental” in the sense of developing subtler characteristics or potentials of the body-mind. Such purposes are seen in the Great Tradition. These developmental or evolutionary purposes are characteristics of the Great Tradition, especially in all the stages previous to the Sixth Stage of life.
Hearing, True Hearing, is that fundamental understanding which inherently transcends such purposes, and the search for phenomena that are of a developmental or experiential kind, because the very point of view of the body-mind is understood to be false, and a false basis for the spiritual process. The Perfect Practice is not practiced from the point of view of the body-mind. All stages and signs of practice previous to the Perfect Practice in this Way are founded in identification with the body-mind and the disposition of separateness.
Therefore the beginner’s phenomena of spiritual communion with Me, spiritual experience of Me, should inspire My devotee and bring the devotee into fuller knowledge of Me and My Real Spiritual Existence and the Reality of My Spiritual Transmission Work. But the process isn’t maturing until it goes beyond such experiencing. That doesn’t mean that such experiencing ceases ever to occur in some manner or another, it is simply that the point of view of the body-mind must cease to be the functioning or working basis of the practice, the sadhana.
So if there are degrees of descent of My Spiritual Presence felt in the body, frontally and spinally, coming down to one depth or another, circulating, expanding, showing visions, lights, whatever – these are not negative events, of course. But they are, from the perspective of This Way in its Ultimacy, beginner’s signs, inherently.
You, of course, have been having beginner’s signs in one form or another for a long time.
DEVOTEE: Yes, my Lord.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: So, My question is, “Why are you being a beginner for so long?” There is something fundamental not yet understood.
True Hearing is that fundamental understanding. It is not an intellectual matter. And it’s not a part of Yogic processes in the Great Tradition. It is a unique characteristic of the Way of Adidam.
My devotee remains a beginner, still, even in the case of My devotee who has spiritual sensitivity to Me and experiences that affect the body-mind, or are shown as evidence in the body-mind, the circulation of My Presence in the body-mind. Even in that case, the devotee remains a beginner until the Perfect Practice. There is a stage in between being a rather early beginner, a Listener, and the Perfect Practice and that is everything from Hearing until the Perfect Practice is established.
The practice of This Way that develops on the basis of True Hearing of Me is not merely a yogic practice in the form of the circulation of energies in the circle. There may be the experiences, but the practice, the sadhana, is not about this. It is not about enacting such processes, nor is it about experiencing of them, even though they may arise. Rather it is fundamentally about a process that, in due course, by virtue of My Spiritual Work with My devotee, My Spiritual Transmission drives to the Heart-Root and establishes the basis for the Perfect Practice.
Hearing is means in response to Me. It moves beyond the Listening stage and beginners’ spiritual experiences into a continuation of the devotional and spiritual process that more and more profoundly and enters into, or toward, the Domain of the Perfect Practice.
So your experiences are beginner’s signs of spiritual reception of Me in the Listening sense. How long they go on, what their patter is when they occur, what accompanies them in terms of other kinds of phenomena other than conductivity phenomena – in other words visions, dreams, auditions, whatever – none of that is the point. And therefore it really doesn’t make any difference what they are or how often they occur, or any such things, you see. Because they are not to the point of the sadhana. They are simply signs in the body-mind. They are purifying if devotional surrender to Me is truly practiced. But otherwise they are simply indicators of the potential in the body-mind itself. The experiential potential, the stages of life potential, the evolutionary potential, in the conditional sense.
So what is important about them? That they be allowed to be purifying because you are turned and surrendered to Me, regardless of the pattern of their arising.
If this is done, then, in due course, the spiritual practice of devotion to Me – the spiritually infused practice of devotion to Me – will become True Hearing, which is a unique capability that allows spiritually-infused and spiritually-receptive devotion to Me to transfer the entire process from the conditional domain of the body-mind. From the left and central elements of the heart into the right side and beyond. Beyond, truly, meaning beyond the causal.
This is the significance of the sadhana. Not phenomenal developments in the body-mind which ultimately have no consoling value or importance or permanence.
So you should be related to Me in the utterly turned to Me surrendered sense such that these phenomena are purifying, such that they lead to True Hearing of Me, such that they always serve the growing profundity of this devotion and the deepening of practice as I have Given it. It is not kundalini yoga, it is not developmental evolutionary spirituality. It is not spirituality in the context of the first five stages of life as conventionally given.
This is why the primary importance, or mode of the practice, is Ruchira Avatara Bhakti Yoga – NOT pursuit of experiences or the cultivation of experiences through application to techniques. Not clinging to phenomena or being distracted by them, but always this devotion, always this turning. Always, therefore, the forgetting of phenomena, conditionally arising phenomena.
Why are these phenomena arising? Because of the self-contraction. If it were not for the self-contraction, My Transmission, My Own Person–rather than being experienced in terms of “conductivity” in the body–would readily become the Realization of My Divine Self-Condition. The phenomena that are demonstrated in the case of My any devotee are just as much evidence, or signs and proofs, of egoity as My devotees’ questions. They characterize you. They point to your bondage so that when you tell Me of your experiences, or ask Me a question, I always address the egoic root of this and, therefore, the fault in it–the continuing fault, the continuation of the self-contraction.
What is the import of these phenomena? This is the import. [Holds His hand up into knotted fist.] Perpetuation of this total psycho-physical self-contraction, such that you presume you are, in fact, the body-mind. And you are on the wrong side of the water. You are looking at reflections. You are presuming to be a certain shape, living by a certain name and so on. There are various kinds of phenomena that are passing, or not even happening, you would have them happen, you would have them continue, you wonder about them, they make you feel supported in your illusions or happy that there is something going on that is Spiritual.
Something about all that is positive enough, if it is simply a matter of positive inspiration to continue this devotional surrender to Me. But, otherwise, they are utter nonsense–garbage.