The following is an excerpt from a talk by Adi Da Samraj that was given on April 10, 1987, entitled ‘The Discipline of Participation‘ which is governed by the Beezone Lending Library.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: I am here calling you to Realization and you are called to truly Realize it, which means you must take into account, or really associate yourself with, whatever limitations are associated with your point of view in the present moment. You must outgrow yourself, or transcend yourself, to Realize that ultimate Realization.
The Wisdom Teaching and the Mere Presence of the True Heart-Master are given to you even as a beginner. That Presence and that Teaching are the means whereby you can be drawn beyond yourself to the ultimate point of view. You are not being called and drawn to a lesser realization.
No realization, no stage along the Way is the ultimate or Divine Realization. You are not kissed and fondled and congratulated and given badges for practicing lower stages. These are just phases of your growth and outgrowing. They are not ultimate achievements. Nor are visions. No phenomenal signs are ultimate achievements. No limitations are.
Your practice is therefore governed by this ultimate Teaching and Presence, which is the instrument whereby you can grow even ultimately, just as it is the instrument whereby you can grow in the context of your present limits. Such is the basis of the Way that you practice, at whatever stage you may be practicing-even those at the human stage can consider this Wisdom-Teaching, you see. You may be practicing at the terrestrial stage or the cosmic stage or the transcendental stage. Whatever your stage of practice, you are practicing in response to That which is communicated ultimately.
Therefore, you as practitioners of the Way of the Heart are associated with an authoritative revelation, a revelation you take to be authoritative in the traditional sense, not in any sense that is limiting or negative. The Way should function for you as such authority. You should thoroughly examine it with true discrimination, but ultimately it should function for you as authoritative Revelation. It is intended to. It is intended to serve your integrity and to attract and draw you from the very beginning.
What if there were no such authority? You might, as people ordinarily do, settle into the struggles of the first three stages. Or you might be attracted to some teacher or tradition or book that represented to you the very next stage, or some stage higher than your present stage. You might even try to imitate the higher stages, but you would not have the clarity associated with ultimate authority, perfect Revelation, nor would you be associated in your present-time practice with the Grace of the Revealed Presence. Therefore, for you to practice this Way of the Heart, you must necessarily be associated with its ultimate authority, its ultimate Revelation, which is not only in the form of a Wisdom-Teaching, but in the form of a Presence, a Transmitted Grace.
In fact, then, you have rediscovered a source of authority, just as people traditionally were associated with an authoritative source, a governing principle and reality. You have discovered it in the context of being a practitioner in a particular, yet rather small, community. You should be able to see, then, how important it is that there be such a Revelation, such an authority, and how it should be intelligently approached, but ultimately honored. And, likewise, you should expect that it be honored. You should not be calling for cultism, indiscriminate fascination, and affirmation, but for right honoring and intelligent consideration of the Revelation that is the Way of the Heart.
In addition to serving that very Realization in you, one of the things I am doing, especially in The Basket Of Tolerance, is communicating a reasonable justification for reaccepting a certain kind of authority and making it part of the cultural life of humanity in general. I am calling people specifically to the Way of the Heart in my Spiritual Company, that is true, but even prior to that, through The Basket Of Tolerance I am calling people to the authority represented by the Great Tradition as a whole, not any particular sect or exoteric version of it, but the Great Tradition as a total history of revelation epitomized not only by certain great individuals but by certain great Realizations, which we should be able to affirm as authoritative based on a most intelligent examination of all the realities of the Great Tradition.
Christianity is the traditional authority in the Western world, although it is diminishing in its influence as an institution. Science is, in fact, already more dominant than Christianity. Even so, I do not think science is a good authority, certainly not an ultimate authority, but a local or provincial authority.
In fact, science-I use the word “science” rather than “scientism”, since “scientism” is a rather negative or pejorative term that indicates the cult of materialism-science itself is part of the Great Tradition of human consideration of reality, just as are all religions, including Christianity and all of the religions in the West and all the other religions of the world, great and small. We are no longer Americans or Australians or Hollanders or Japanese or Indians or Saudi-Arabians. In some sense, we are nationals by virtue of our birth and the political realities of where we live.
But nobody is defined as a human being by nationalism anymore for the world is globally intercommunicative. Everyone is receiving everything, and not just what they may receive provincially or locally or for the time being. Everyone receives, or at least is rightfully in the position to receive, the total tradition of human existence, human realization, human struggle. That total tradition is what I call the Great Tradition. That tradition is many things, but in its ultimate expression, as a whole, rather than as parts, it is authoritative, or significant, or worthy of being taken seriously.
The Great Tradition, including science, is not an alternative to science. It is not prescientific. Religion is not prescientific. Religion is simply another orientation, and it is senior to the orientation of science, because the orientation of science is inherently analytical or nonparticipatory. Science is a technique of observation. It is not a way of life, or should not be. Although it is becoming a way of life through technology and political influence, it is not worthy of being accepted as a way of life.
You might as well say that materialism is worthy of being a way of life. Very few people in human history who have been serious about great matters would say that materialism is an ultimately worthy philosophy. Some people want to argue for it, of course, as people want to argue for all kinds of things, but great Realizers, truly serious individuals who overcame themselves, did not affirm materialism in any single case. None of them did. Materialism is an expression of a certain point of view that basically belongs to the human sequence, or the first three stages of life.
Science is therefore not worthy of being the authority, or the source of certainty, in human societies. First of all, it is not about certainty. It is about uncertainty and dissociation, or nonparticipation, rather than participation. Human existence must be fundamentally participatory, or it is self-bound, self-contracted, not free. Science is perhaps a worthy enterprise when entered into intelligently, but it is not worthy of being the authoritative revelation in human society. It must be seen in its right context, in its place. It must be seen as it is in terms of the seven stages of life. And it must not be made much of beyond that.
What should be authoritative is the Great Tradition as a whole. In other words, we should not be provincial. We must take seriously the greater aspects of the Great Tradition and not be localized or diminished in our humanity by identification with merely exoteric things, or a lower order of existence. But if we use the Great Tradition as our tradition, we will inherit, you see, even the greatest of considerations through to the seventh stage.
If humankind could reassociate itself with the Great Tradition as an authoritative revelation, then the great traditional principle of authority would be reintroduced into human society. This is not at all the conventional, political authority of domination and suppression, which has nothing to do with the great matters considered in the Great Tradition.
If you understand me rightly, you will acknowledge that the reassertion of the true, great, traditional principle of authority is essential for human well-being, and it can be reintroduced into human societies by our acknowledging the Great Tradition, which relieves us of provincialism, relieves us of the point of view of merely the first three stages of life. This would be good.
Now, you all are certainly examples of people who have reconnected with authority as it has been acknowledged in the Great Tradition. You therefore have a governor or a source of certainty, of balance, of integrity, which, of course, you must approach intelligently, not at all as true believers or as cultists. By virtue of your affirming the principle of certainty, balance, and integrity, you are suggesting that you have found a resolution to a fundamental human need. I suggest, then, that the Great Tradition is worthy of being reaffirmed as the tradition of all humanity, and of being reasserted, therefore, in the context of human societies. If it were so asserted the edge of all kinds of social, political, cultural, and economic difficulties would certainly be softened. Mankind would see a progressive education, a progressive process of growth, an opening to growth on the part of people everywhere.
I think this is a good idea, and you, by virtue of what you are doing, are suggesting it is a good idea. The question is: Is it possible? And I would say that in principle, it is possible in the longest term. Through my Spiritual Work I am providing a seed for the possibility. However, I do not feel it is truly possible at the present time. It is always possible in principle, but I do not think it is at all likely now. The political and social realities, the cultural realities, the reality of scientism as it is, economic realities, the continued residual dominance of exoteric institutions, religious and otherwise-all of that would obviously prevent such a global cultural transformation.
This is another reason I playfully suggest to you that I am talking to people who will appear a long time into the future. I am. I am also talking to you all, but I am talking to people yet to come and trying to introduce a seed of possibility. The fullest Realization of what I am presenting to human beings through my Work is not likely for some time to come. But if this institution continues, and authentically, then it will be an instrument for this possibility. It will communicate this possibility, and if it is successful in its communications, it will find intelligent responses. Obviously, in principle, this is something that should be done.
The success I look forward to in my lifetime is, of course, the actual communication of my Teaching Revelation, and that has been done to some significant degree already. But beyond that, I look for the gathering of devotees to be authentic and for the Communion to establish itself and show all the signs that it can not only survive in the present context but perpetuate itself and be a living seed, an instrument, for the accomplishment of good things for humanity in the future.
Of course, those good things include people entering into greater and greater stages of growth and realization, and also being an influence at the level of humanity at large. This Communion functions on many levels. It provides a culture for people who grow through the stages, but it also maintains its work with the public, friends, and beginners. Likewise, its influence in the future will be effective at many levels.
You see the reason for my urgency, then, in ensuring the success of the response that is this Communion. Among other things, the Communion is purposed to re-establish a fundamental authority for human beings – to help humanity become grounded once again, associated with the great Realization that permits that authority to be effective through various cultural means, even at the beginning level of human adaptation.
Human beings would not thereby become Spiritualized robots – nothing of the kind. Uncertainty in the ordinary sense remains, and there are still things to learn. The lower levels of adaptation or growth remain part of human existence, and all kinds of limitations must still be dealt with creatively, but there is a grand difference between dealing with all those things in the context of sheer doubt and no understanding of the great matter at all and confronting them in the context of a real, living culture of ultimate, perfect Realization.