The following has been adapted from
The Golden Great Bright-Foreheaded Warrior
by the Hermitage Order of
The Crazy Wisdom Fellowship,
Published in
“I” Is the Body of Life
Talks and Essays on the Art and Science of Equanimity and the Self-Transcending Process of Radical Understanding
by Da Free John, 1981
Preface
This essay explores the profound teachings of Adi Da Samraj, a spiritual master who dedicated his life to guiding devotees toward a deeper understanding of Divine Enlightenment. Central to his function and work is the concept of Satsang—a term that encapsulates the essential relationship between the Spiritual Master and the devotee. Adi Da’s insights challenge conventional notions of spirituality, urging practitioners to move beyond superficial engagement and embrace the transformative power of genuine spiritual Transmission.
The following excerpts are taken from an address made over 40 years ago, yet their significance endures. They explore what true devotion means, the role of the Spiritual Master, and the understanding of Transmission for those who genuinely claim to be devotees and students of Adi Da Samraj in the true sense of His Word.
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“Without spiritual Transmission, there is no spiritual institution, no spiritual culture, and no relationship with the Spiritual Master.”
Throughout his life, Adi Da Samraj has addressed his devotees to “reclaim” the Teaching and the Sanctuaries from beginners and to reestablish the radical Revelation that purifies the “beginner’s mentality” characterizing the entire culture and institution. He emphasizes that The Way of the Heart is fundamentally about Satsang and the process of spiritual Transmission from the Spiritual Master to the devotee. It is on the basis of this Transmission that one’s life and practice are generated. Without spiritual Transmission, there is no spiritual institution, no spiritual culture, and no relationship with the Spiritual Master. In such a scenario, the Spiritual Master becomes isolated and trapped, lacking the energy needed for spiritual Transmission to devotees.
The refusal of devotees to receive this Transmission and enter into a relationship represents a rejection of Divine Power in the world, amounting to a significant violation of the Divine Siddhi. It constitutes a denial and betrayal of the Spiritual Master and his function. If this function is not valued and utilized, there is little reason for the Spiritual Master to remain alive.
The term “devotee” is often broadly applied to anyone who worships the Divine, encompassing members of religious or spiritual communities and those who merely believe in spirituality. However, this conventional understanding can be misleading. In the God-Inspired language of Adi Da Samraj, a devotee is defined as “one in whom the meditation of understanding has been perfected,” who remains fully conscious of the Divine at all times. In the true devotee, all spiritual processes become responsibilities, engaging in a creative life of service in the world.
We must depart from a conventional fulfillment of Satsang, where practices like meditation and self-discipline are merely tools to attain Truth or Enlightenment. To realize the utmost significance of Satsang, we must explore the mysterious domain of the Free Adepts, who have reached the seventh and most perfect stage of God-Realization.
Satsang, which literally means true or right relationship, is typically associated with spending time in the company of holy or wise persons. It can also be experienced with sacred places, venerated images, or the Deity. Adi Da extends the term to signify the relationship between a genuine Siddha-Master (and thus the Divine Person, the Maha-Siddha) and his devotee. This relationship is an all-inclusive condition that is effective at every level of life and consciousness.
The Master distinguishes between the literal meaning of Satsang and its highest significance, describing it as an “all-inclusive Condition effective at every level of life and consciousness.” It is indeed rare, even among serious practitioners, to find someone who has undergone genuine spiritual transformation. Years of disciplined practice in proximity to an Adept do not guarantee the realization of Satsang in its most perfect sense. The Master points out numerous examples within various traditions of individuals who failed to realize the Truth.
Adi Da Samraj frequently remarked, “There has been no fundamental change in your relationship to the Spiritual Master. The true spiritual process is not about gradual change; it is about immediate response. The devotee responds immediately, experiencing a shift in consciousness.” All who would realize Satsang must respond without delay, entering into this relationship genuinely, hearing the Teaching, and recognizing the Spiritual Master, converting all actions into works of love and surrender to the Spiritual Divine.
“This conversion is fundamental for all who approach this work. Only through this recognition, transformation, and conversion can students become true devotees. Only true devotees can transform the nature of this institution and culture. On this basis of transformation, our Fellowship can grow, serve the world, and remain authentic.”
Original Essay
“I” Is the Body of Life
Talks and Essays on the Art and Science of Equanimity and the Self-Transcending Process of
Radical Understanding
by
Da Free John
The Golden Great Bright-Foreheaded Warrior
by the Hermitage Order of The Crazy Wisdom Fellowship
Part I
The very essence of spiritual practice as taught by the Divine Master Da Free John is the necessity of a direct and right relationship to the Spiritual Master. All the sacred teachings of the Great Tradition regard “Satsang,” “Holy Communion,” “the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha,” or the Good
Company of true devotees, to be the highest means for realizing the Truth. To understand the root of the Siddha Master Da Free John’s Teaching Argument and thus realize the essence of Satsang, we must critically review the history of our own spiritual practice and that of the world’s great traditions.
The Master describes Satsang in The Method of the Siddhas:
Satsang literally means true or right relationship. It is commonly used to refer to the practice of spending time in the company of holy or wise persons. One can also enjoy Satsang with a holy place, a venerated image, the burial shrine of a saint, or with the Deity. Da Free John uses the term in its fullest sense to signify the relationship between a genuine Siddha-Master [and thus the Divine Person, the Maha-Siddha] and his devotee. That relationship is seen to
be an all-inclusive condition, effective at every level of life and consciousness.
The Master distinguishes between the literal meaning of the word and its highest meaning. Satsang thus is defined as an “all inclusive Condition effective at every level of life and consciousness.
Commonly, people do not act on or sense “every level of life and consciousness.” It is indeed rare even among serious spiritual practitioners to find someone who has passed through the ordeal of genuine spiritual transformation. Years of disciplined practice and proximity to an Adept may not realize Satsang in the most perfect sense. In fact, as the Master points out, there are many examples within the traditions of people who did not realize the Truth. Thus, we must gain a right understanding of what Master Da Free John actually means by the term Satsang. Nor should we take for granted that “Satsang or the relationship between a genuine Siddha Master and his devotee” is what we ourselves have realized or what the spiritual history of mankind has demonstrated.
We can observe in religious and traditional cultures all over the world the practice of gathering in sacred places, listening to the “gospel” or word of the Teacher, adapting to disciplines and modes of thinking, and, in the small and essentially “hidden” schools of esotericism, engaging in meditative and mystical techniques for achieving union with the Shakti or “Holy Spirit.” Satsang has long been considered fundamental to spiritual development throughout the religious and spiritual cultures of the world.
The Teaching and culture of The Crazy Wisdom Fellowship is based in this same logic, since it was via “Satsang” that Da Free John passed through the extraordinary conversion and living testimony of his spiritual adventure. Devotees in the Way that he Teaches likewise have been called to study the Way, to serve, practice, meditate, and enter into direct spiritual association with the “mere presence” or Transcendental Company of our Spiritual Master. We could say that as a result the bare formality of Satsang has been established.
We must now depart from the conventional fulfillment of Satsang, where mere experience, philosophical ideas, rote adherence to self-disciplines, meditation, celibacy, and the like are fulfilled in order to attain to Truth or merely to affect Enlightenment. To discover and realize the utmost significance of Satsang, and thus the ultimate relationship between Spiritual Master and devotee, we must enter the mysterious domain of the Free Adepts, or those who have realized the seventh and most perfect stage of God-Realization.
For one year, from November 1980 to November 1981, practitioners of the Way of Radical Understanding neither saw the Spiritual Master, Da Free John, nor had the opportunity to sit in his radiant Company. This year of physical separation was a remarkable departure from the history of even recent years, on some level a reflection of the Master’s retirement from the more active Teaching demonstration that had occupied him for so long. But beyond that, it was also a symbol for the longest “lesson” in the history of the Master’s Teaching involvement.
At the end of November 1981, after a year of secluded retreat from The Mountain of Attention Sanctuary and the general community of devotees, the Master returned to The Mountain of Attention in order to “reclaim” the Teaching and the Sanctuary from beginners and to reestablish the radical Teaching of understanding, purifying the “beginner’s mentality” that now overspread the entire culture and institution. It had been a most difficult and trying year. The Master said about it:
This entire period of separation from people has been to point out the necessity that they become responsible for the direct relationship with the Spiritual Master, which is at the very core of one’s spiritual practice. No one has gotten the point of this lesson.
This Way is about Satsang and the process of spiritual Transmission from the Spiritual Master to the devotee. It is on the basis of Transmission that one’s life and practice are generated. Without spiritual Transmission there is no spiritual institution, no spiritual culture, and no relationship to the Spiritual Master. The Spiritual Master has no function. He is isolated and trapped. The energy he has for spiritual Transmission to devotees is blocked, and therefore it backs up in the Spiritual Master and creates great psychic pain. The refusal of devotees to receive the Transmission and to enter into relationship is a refusal of the Divine Power in the world, and it is a great violation of the Divine Siddhi. It is a denial, and a betrayal, of the Spiritual Master and his function. If this function is not valued and used, then there is no reason for the Spiritual Master to be alive. If it is not used, it only creates great difficulty in the One who is only here to serve his devotees.
The word “devotee” is so often used to refer to anyone who worships the Divine that, generally speaking, any member of a religious or spiritual community, or anyone who simply believes and reads about spirituality, qualifies as a devotee, regardless of his or her level of actual commitment, practice, and spiritual maturity. Once again, however, a conventional understanding of the word devotee is not sufficient, and in fact can be misleading if we are to understand and practice the “hearing” taught by Da Free John. A devotee, in the God-Inspired language of Da Free John, is “one in whom the meditation of understanding has been perfected, who remains perfectly conscious in the Divine at all times, and in whom the activities of enquiry, conductivity, and attention to the Divine as Amrita Nadi have become full. The primary orientation of the devotee is to the Spiritual Master as Divine Siddhi or Presence. In the true devotee, all spiritual processes become responsibilities, and he engages in a creative life of service in the world.” The new student adapting to the Way of Radical Understanding would do well to note the unique description of what is considered to be a mature practitioner. Likewise, all who practice a way of life in the Spirit, regardless of tradition, would benefit from the compassionate but “realistic” eye of Da Free John. For what does it matter what we call ourselves if Truth is not its basis? Thus, for all who claim allegiance to a teacher and a spiritual way of life, the help of the God-Awakened Master should be valued and respectfully considered.
The Master has also described the beginner’s level of approach to Satsang. A student is “one who is first approaching the Spiritual Master and beginning the Way of understanding. He gratefully turns to the Spiritual Master as Teacher, studies the Teaching, responsibly adheres to the life-conditions required by the Spiritual Master, and observes the discipline of relationship or life as service. He begins to observe his own activities in relationship to the Spiritual Master’s Presence and demands. The student stage matures as enquiry in the form: “‘Avoiding relationship?'” The first orientation of the student is toward the Spiritual Master as Teacher and as the Source of the Teaching. Then the student’s orientation to the Spiritual Master matures to the point of recognizing the Spiritual Master as Siddhi or the Unqualified Agent of the Living Divine Person.
The purpose of the Divine appearance among men is not merely to gather students but to awaken true devotees, and it is only in the devotee that we can honestly say the condition of Satsang is eternal. The devotee becomes functionally and spiritually responsible through years of self-discipline, study, testing, service, “real meditation,” and actual realization. The Awakening of the devotee is a great moment. And as the Master has always indicated, no amount of time, discipline, knowledge, or experience is sufficient in and of itself to be called God-Realization. The Awakening is fundamental.
Many people claim conversion experiences of one form or another, and the history of Da Free John’s Teaching work with people is a story of remarkable healing, life change, and positive growth. Many people have become students, but in all truthfulness the awakened devotee is what Da Free John calls a spiritual practitioner.
The true Guru is not different from Truth. He is simply the function of God. He is not an idol, a fascination. He does not attach individuals to his conditional presence, but leads men to enjoy the Perfect Presence and Reality in the condition of relationship. His instrument is the relationship and mutual drama of the Guru and his perfect devotee. This relationship or drama is the special, immediately salvatory function and process of God. That same Satsang is available apart from his physical presence and after his death in the form of respectful, intelligent and loving obedience to his radical or perfect Presence, his Teaching, and his Community. The Satsang he teaches is the Eternal Principle which is the very condition of all beings, and which was always their condition even before the human form of the Guru appeared. While the Guru lives he teaches that Satsang which can be enjoyed by all even after his death, not in the special form it may be enjoyed by a relative few during his lifetime, but which could have been enjoyed by all prior to his lifetime. He acts to help his disciples and devotees to realize this form of Satsang even while he lives in the world. The purpose or function of his life is to make this true Principle of Satsang known, and to guarantee the perpetuation of the Teaching and Practice of Satsang beyond his lifetime.
Of course, it goes without saying that the Teaching and Divine Siddhi transmitted universally through the perpetual “Blessing Power” of the Radiant Master of Love is of great necessity and help to students
and the world. For on this very foundation of Grace our life and practice are generated. But if the Adept’s purpose among us is to be fulfilled, the higher Transmission must be received in the most perfect form of the Adept’s surrender and love, which is the help of the devotee.
Master Da Free John has recently commented, “There has been no fundamental change in your relationship to the Spiritual Master. The true spiritual process is not about a gradual change, not a matter of changing a little bit in one area and then getting closer and closer to being in right alignment with the Source or the Spiritual Master. It is a matter of immediate response! The devotee responds immediately. His change is immediate, a response in consciousness. All who would realize Satsang must respond immediately, must enter into this relationship truly, must hear the Teaching and see the Spiritual Master and convert all action into works of love for the Spiritual Master and surrender to the Spiritual Divine.”
“This conversion is the fundamental matter that must be addressed in all who approach this work. Only this recognition, this transformation, this conversion will transform students into devotees, and only devotees will transform the nature of this institution and this culture. Only on the basis of such transformation can our Fellowship grow and be of service to the world and truly be authentic. “Anyone who understands this message, who hears it, who can recognize the Spiritual Master and the Divine Process, who values Satsang, who values the relationship with the Spiritual Master, who desires to create and cultivate this relationship and to create access and to serve the Teaching and the Way and the Sanctuary and the Spiritual Master, should not allow the denial of the Transmission of Siddhi to exist one more minute. Such a person should allow himself or herself to be transformed. Through Satsang his service will transform this institution and culture immediately.”