The Basket of Tolerance – Introduction
Adi Da Samraj – October 1981
The significance of the Great Tradition is not that every Spiritual way may ultimately be seen to be the same, but that all ways taken together represent a single process of human and Spiritual growth through the seven stages of life. In the following essay – intended as an introduction to The Basket Of Tolerance – Da Love-Ananda emphasizes that traditional literatures are inherently bound to the point of view of one or another stage of life. Even seventh stage literatures do not necessarily account for the practice and discipline that must precede the Realization of Transcendental Consciousness. Therefore, the “Grand Argument” is an essential means to recognize and outgrow the limitations represented by each stage of life.
The Truth Transcends the Body-Mind of Man
Humanity is shrouded and sometimes instructed by the great mass of cultural mind. Each individual is minimized and sometimes expanded by the universal show of ideas. And among this crowd of conceptual influences is the most profound core, which consists of all the forms of religious and esoteric Spiritual presumptions.
Particularly in the time in which we now live, when the ideas of all the provinces of Earth are now gathering together for the first time in human history, and all the absolute dogmas find themselves casually associated, to be judged like a crowd of silly Napoleons or mad Christs in an asylum, the complex mind of Everyman is remembering itself all at once. Therefore, we are obliged to discover the Truth again by penetrating the bizarre consciousness of all the races combined as one.
Those who are seriously involved in the study and agonizing practice of religious and esoteric Spiritual teachings are now confronted by a great mass of doctrines, absolute creeds, sacred histories, secret formulae, and perfect paths. What is the Truth? What stands out in the wilderness of doctrine as singly as the “I” of the body-mind?
My Work in the world is to communicate the summary of religious and Spiritual Wisdom, so that mankind may again be devoted to the Way of Life in Truth, even now that all religious and Spiritual cultures confront us collectively and at once (rather than, as before, when each individual was usually confronted only by the primary institutional or cultic influence in power in his nation or province). The literature I have already produced, and whatever may be produced in my name in the future, serves to clarify the Truth and the Way of Life based on a profound consideration and Realization in the present, prior to all of the doctrines or persuasions of our inherited mind.
The present book is an attempt to allow the great traditions to summarize themselves through their most potent literatures. I have chosen and collected a relatively small number of texts-small enough in number to be capable of being read and surely studied by a serious individual over a finite number of months or years. Study of these books, generally in the sequence in which they are listed, will allow the serious and discriminating student to grasp the fundamental content of religious and Spiritual esotericism. In the process, he will transcend his own provincialism and his attachment to conventional persuasions, including all the downtown absolutes of popular exoteric religion. What is more, he will discover that this sequence of individual books flows, volume by volume, as an argument between all the parts of the religious or Spiritual mind, and as a progressive summary of the whole. And I have surrounded and interspersed this argumentative summary with critical essays and annotations, founded in my own lifetime of actual practice and Realization of all the Ways that you can read. Thus, any serious student of these matters should be able to get his “education” in the “school” of these books, and, as a result, he should at last be able to discriminate the Way of Life from all these Ways of Man, and the Divine Truth from all these moments of human consideration.
The Truth that Man or every individual human being must Realize is that his present and actual Condition is Transcendental – that is, his very Life-Energy and Consciousness (or very Being) presently and eternally exist as a single Transcendental Condition, prior to all the forms of psycho-physical experience, prior to this or any other world, prior to the psychophysical identity or mind or soul or “I” of his present self: reference. Once the Real or Divine Condition is Realized, there is native Ecstasy, or inherent transcendence of all self-limits and all phenomena. Such is true Humor, Liberation, Salvation, or Happiness. And that Realized Enjoyment is fully established whether or not any or all kinds of psycho-physical or subject object conditions arise as experience.
The Way of the Realization of Truth is complicated in any moment by the relative psycho-physical maturity of the individual. The particular practice of the Way that is both appropriate and attractive to the individual during any one period of his life is determined by his relative position in the pattern of the seven stages of human development and his relative freedom (or degree of transcendence) of the stages of life through which he has already passed. Thus, the various traditional literatures, and the various teachers who represent the traditional cultural, religious, and Spiritual motives of mankind, are each and all an expression of one or another degree of intuition of the ultimate Truth from the point of view of one or another relative stage of life, maturity, and self-transcendence. The “problem” inherent in the traditional and conventional literatures is that Truth (or the Realization of Truth) tends to be associated with one or another kind or degree of identification with aspects of the functional psycho-physical anatomy of Man. The Ways described in the various literatures were written by individuals (or prepared through centuries of consideration by a single cultural movement) that were founded in one or another of the seven stages of life, and thus the various and often conflicting religious and Spiritual traditions of Man do not express the Truth or the Way of Life in fully Transcendental terms, free of the limitations of the body-mind of Man.
In this book, I have selected those literatures that are most profound, most insightful, and also most representative of the traditional approaches to Truth. And I have placed these literatures in a sequence, and with certain annotations, that reveal how the traditions speak from various levels of relative maturity (or relative positions in the seven stages of life that I will also describe). This list of books is intended as a guide for serious students and practitioners. And those who find their own minds to be clarified and informed by this study, and who would appreciate the opportunity to consider the Truth and the Way of Life in direct terms, free of the limitations created by fixed cultural association with the stages and psycho-physical patterns of Man, should consult the various other books published in my name.
ADI DA SAMRAJ
at Adi Da Samrajashram, Fiji on May 28, 2008
The Basket of Tolerance is a Tool, not a Book List
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: The principal dimension of The Basket of Tolerance is My Communications in it and the structure of it. In other words, it is a tool, not a book list. So if you simply present the books, it is just going to be conventionally used, like people going to their local bookstore and just randomly reading things off the shelves. There is nothing new about that.
What is new is this system, this tool, and all My Communications about it. So as a system and as a tool, rather than as a booklist. The booklist just proves the rightness of the system or the tool. It demonstrates My Argument. It is not itself simply material to be studied on its own. On its own, it doesn’t amount to a Great Tradition. It is a Great Tradition only through this understanding or the use of this tool, this system that I bring to looking at it or considering it.
The Basket of Tolerance is more of a university or a system of education than it is a book. It is not really a book list. [inaudible] tradition of establishing a chair or a department or even a school, just depending how large the educational context is. But a university, rather than simply buying this systematic booklist tool, however they might consider it, it’s got to be considered a tool or a system. It should, in effect, be establishing a chair or a department of Adidam studies. Then this would be used within that context, a systematic approach to the global human tradition. So it is more than something within their system. It is itself a system to be added to chairs and departments they already have. It is something like opening up a school within the university. Just as Danny is talking about having it within the educational domain that he is going to be creating, it is a school there within this new paradigm university circumstance that he is creating.
So it’s the same with bringing The Basket of Tolerance, bringing Adidam, really, into the context of universities. It is not merely about the Great Tradition; it is about Adidam. It’s using the tools of Adidam to understand global humanity as a tradition, rather than just a collection of different whatevers.
The Basket of Tolerance shows all of human culture as a prior unity, in other words, a systematic unity with particular features and dimensions, six stages of life worth. So it’s a way of understanding the human totality as a totality or as a whole, as a prior unity, as a Great Tradition.
The Basket of Tolerance
(On The Seven Schools Of The One And Great Tradition Of God Talk)
A Reader’s Introduction to the Historical Traditions of Truly Human Culture, Practical self-Discipline, Perennial Religion, Universal Religious Mysticism, “Esoteric” Spirituality, and Transcendental Wisdom, Compiled, Annotated, and Presented by Heart-Master Da Free John (The Naitauba Avadhoota, Paramahansa Swami Da Love-Ananda Hridayam)
Prepublication Edition: 3/6/88
©1988 The Free Daist Communion.
First printing: 4/88.
Editors’ Note on the Prepublication Edition of The Basket Of Tolerance.
Preface: The Gathering of the Seven Schools of God-Talk.
1987 The Free Daist Communion, All rights reserved.
The Basket Of Tolerance is an essential gathering of traditional and modern literature, which I offer to all students and practitioners of the Way of the Heart (and all students of the traditions of mankind) as a useful and valuable resource for study relative to the historical traditions of human culture, practical self-discipline, religion, religious mysticism, “esoteric” Spirituality, and Transcendental Wisdom. I have selected, arranged, and annotated (or commented upon) the many books listed here, in order to provide a basic, inclusive, and comprehensive (but not overlong) representation (and Revelation) of the “Great Tradition” (or common Wisdom-Inheritance) of mankind.
The texts I have selected for inclusion in The Basket Of Tolerance were originally (or otherwise simultaneously) chosen by me for inclusion in “The Seven Schools Of God-Talk” (an extensive bibliography, consisting of several thousand volumes). “The Seven Schools Of God-Talk” was selected (and is continuously being developed) to fully (and rather exhaustively), represent (or Reveal) the total “Great Tradition” of truly human culture, practical selfdiscipline, perennial religion, universal religious mysticism, “esoteric” Spirituality, and Transcendental Wisdom. The Basket Of Tolerance epitomizes the “Great Tradition” (and “The Seven Schools Of God-Talk”) with approximately one thousand books.
My most fundamental intention relative to the books included in this essential gathering (as well as in “The Seven Schools Of God-Talk” as a whole) is that they should be studied with discrimination, in the context of formal study (and either simultaneous or eventual practice) of the Way of the Heart (which I have thoroughly described in my own Teaching literature).
Although the various texts in this essential gathering may be read individually (either for information or for inspiration and enjoyment), formal study of this literature should be done systematically, by studying the books consecutively, reading some completely and others in part (with the help of good instructors), but reading every one, and reading each and all according to the groupings indicated by the various headings. (For the sake of those who may have only limited possible access to the books listed here, or who otherwise have a less developed disposition toward extensive formal, or even academic, study, I have indicated a smaller number of books in each section, marked by an asterisk. These books, taken together, represent a kind of “short course” of communicative literature that should be most easily accessible to all and usable by all. They should, as in the case of the larger gathering of listed books, be read in the order given, group by group, and although full study of the larger gathering of books is preferred, and, indeed, necessary, for the fullest comprehension of the “Message” of the “Great Tradition”, the discriminative and rightly guided study of this more select group of books, along with the study and consideration of The Basket Of Tolerance list itself, including all its commentaries and headings, and the description of titles and authors given in each entry, is certainly and happily recommended.) The order and the groupings of these various texts generate, from beginning to end, book by book, a continuous and progressive “Grand Argument”. This “Grand Argument”, followed with sensitivity and intelligent understanding, guided by the framework and the considerations developed in my own Teaching literature, should give the serious student a sufficient “basic education” in the total “Great Tradition” and all the traditional fundamentals that must be considered even by modern practitioners of the Wisdom-Way.
The “Great Tradition” as a whole is the (one and inclusive) tradition acknowledged and embraced by practitioners of the Way of the Heart. No one part of that “Great Tradition” is sufficient by itself. Likewise, the individual books listed in this essential gathering are not, in any single case, self-sufficient. No one tradition among many, no one traditional text among many, and no partial (or non-inclusive) group of traditions and traditional texts is sufficient or of exclusively ultimate importance in the study of the “Great Tradition”. Only all these traditions and texts (or an inclusive and comprehensive gathering of the “Great Tradition”), taken together, as a whole, is a sufficient Revelation to the mind, and that Revelation in mind is a useful preparatory foundation (or traditional inspiration) for those who would otherwise Awaken to the Ultimate Revelation that transcends even the mind itself.
Therefore, study this gathered Word of the “Great Tradition”, book by book. “Listen” to the “Grand Argument” of its totality (or “Whole Body”), and (by understanding yourself in the context of real practice) “hear” the summary “message” of its Heart. In this manner (and by many means), prepare yourself also to “see” That Which Is Revealed only by Grace and by stages of Realization in the necessary ordeal of real and inspired practice.
Likewise, by this study (and by “listening”, by “hearing”, by “seeing”, by practice, and by Realization) learn the lesson of tolerance. The display of many books in this essential gathering demonstrates the traditional range of divergent views that may, each in their moment, seem to you (or to any one) to be necessary, sufficient, and even absolute. Individuals and cultures all stand and change within a single but progressively developing range of characteristic possibilities (or “seven stages of life’). The ideas or persuasions of any individual or culture are a direct expression of the stage of life (or Realization) that is, to that moment (or in that moment), Realized. Therefore, understand. Understand yourself, understand all others, and, by your speech and activity, promote the culture of tolerance (which understands and allows all temporary views and calls every one to self-study and constant growth and outgrowing, until the conditional self and the conditional worlds are Outshined in their Source). 22
22. Heart-Master Da Love-Ananda, The Basket Of Tolerance manuscript, version dated May 31, 1987.
The table of contents from the manuscript of The Basket Of Tolerance is included for the study and consideration of students and practitioners in The Laughing Man Institute. (No other use or reproduction is authorized). Heart-Master Da Love-Ananda has indicated that students should become intimately familiar with this schematic form of the “Grand Argument ” through re-reading and study, so that the Great Radition may become comprehensible as a single and unified whole.
I. LITERATURE RELATIVE TO THE TOTAL PROCESS OF THE FOURTH STAGE OF LIFE THROUGH THE SEVENTH STAGE OF LIFE
A. Introduction to Religious Philosophy
B. Introduction to Religious History
C. Introduction to the Three Principal Traditions of Western Religion, Including Their
Source-Texts
….. 1. Judaism
….. 2. Christianity
….. 3. Islam
D. Introduction to the Eastern Traditions of Religion and Religious Philosophy
E. The Source-Texts and Principal Traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism
….. I. The Vedas
….. 2. The Upanishads
….. 3. The Vedanta Sutras (or Brahma Sutra) of Badarayana 4. The “Krishna” Literature
a. The Myths of Krishna
b. Bhagavad Gita
….. i. Introductory (and General) Presentations of the Bhagavad Gita and Its Basic Teachings
….. ii. Interpretations of the Bhagavad Gita from the Point of View of the Fourth Stage of Life (With Elements of the Fifth Stage of Life possibly also in Evidence)
….. iii. Interpretations of the Bhagavad Gita from the Point of View of the Fifth Stage of Life (With Elements of the Fourth Stage of Life also in Evidence)
….. iv. Interpretations of the Bhagavad Gita from the Point of View of the Sixth Stage of Life (and, Ultimately, or At Least Potentially, the Seventh Stage of Life)
c. Srimad Bhagavatam (Bhagavata Purana) 5. The “Rama” Literature
….. a. Ramayana
….. b. Yoga Vasistha
6. The Tradition of Jainism
7. The Traditions of Buddhism
….. a. Introductory (and General) Presentations of the Traditions and Teachings of Buddhism
….. b. The Hinayana Tradition (Basically Associated with the Sixth Stage of Life and, At Least Potentially, with the Seventh Stage of Life)
….. c. The Mahayana Tradition (Variously Associated with the First Six Stages of Life and, Ultimately, or At Least Potentially, with the Seventh Stage of Life) d. The Mahayana Buddhist Tradition of the Lotus Sutra (Associated with the First Four Stages of Life)
….. e. The Mahayana Tradition of Shin Buddhism (Associated with the First Four Stages of Life)
….. f. The Ch’an (or Zen) Tradition of Mahayana Buddhism (Basically Associated with the Sixth Stage of Life and, Ultimately, or At Least Potentially, with the Seventh Stage of Life)
….. g. The Mahayana Tradition of Shingon (or “Esoteric”) Buddhism (Generally Associated with the First Six Stages of Life and, Ultimately, or At Least Potentially, with the Seventh Stage of Life)
….. h. The Tibetan (Vajrayana, or Tantric) Tradition (Generally Associated with the First Six Stages of Life and, Ultimately, or At Least Potentially, with the Seventh Stage of Life)
8. Taoism (Generally Associated with the First Six Stages of Life and, Ultimately, or At Least Potentially, with the Seventh Stage of Life) 9. The Tradition of Devotion to the Guru
F. Summaries of the Traditional Hindu Sadhanas (Including References to non-Hindu Practices from a Variety of Other Traditions)
…… 1. Summaries of the Process, the Various Yogas, and the Traditions of Meditation
…… 2. The Fifth Stage of Life (and Its Foundation in the Fourth Stage of Life), from the Point of View of Both Hindu and non-Hindu Proponents
…… 3. The Sixth Stage of Life (and Possibly, or At Least Potentially, the Seventh Stage of Life)
G. Summaries of the Traditional Buddhist and Taoist Varieties of Meditation and Practice
II. PRACTICAL LITERATURE RELATED TO ALL SEVEN STAGES OF LIFE
A. Death (or, Life and Beyond)
B. Mind
……1. Mind and the Brain
….. 2. Mind Science
C. The Vital Center and the Circulation (or “Conductivity”) of Living Energy D. Asana and Pranayama
E. Diet, Health, and Healing
F. Sexual Wisdom
….. 1. The History and the Philosophies of Human Sexual Activity
….. 2. Healing the Emotional-Sexual Character
3. Arguments for Conservation of the Bio-Chemistry of the Reproductive System 4. Traditional Sexual Disciplines that Conserve Both the Bio-Chemistry of the
Reproductive System and the Root-Energy of Sex
….. a. The Tradition of Celibacy
….. b. The Tradition of Yogic (or Spiritualizing) Transformation of Sexual Activity c. The Tradition of Rejuvenative Cultivation of Sexual Activity G. Social Wisdom
III. THE FOURTH STAGE OF LIFE
(IN ITS BEGINNINGS, ITS BASICS, AND ITS TRANSITIONAL ROLE AS A MEANS TOWARD THE PROCESS AND THE REALIZATION ASSOCIATED WITH THE FIFTH STAGE OF LIFE)
A. The Hindu (and General Indian) Tradition of Religious and Philosophical Mysticism
1. Bhakti Yoga
2. Narada Bhakti Sutras
3. The Roots of the Modern Bhakti Tradition
4. Modern Teachers of Bhakti Yoga
….. a. Ramakrishna and his Devotees
….. b. Shirdi Sai Baba and his Devotees
….. c. Upasani Baba and his Devotees
d. The Life and Teachings of Meher Baba
e. The Life and Teachings of the Shivapuri Baba
f. The Life and Teachings of Mahatma Gandhi
g. The Life and Teachings of Swami Ramdas (Including the Autobiography of his Principal Devotee, Mother Krishnabai)
h. Rang Avadhoot and the Dattatreya Tradition
i. The Life and Teachings of Anandamayi Ma
5. Modern Hindu Proponents of the Tradition wherein Bodily Transfiguration and Bodily Immortalization may be Achieved by Means of the Descent (or Bodily Contemplation) of Divine Power
B. The Classical Mediterranean Tradition of Religious and Philosophical Mysticism, which is the Root-Tradition of All Western (or All Jewish, Christian, and Islamic) Mysticism, and which (Especially in the Form of Greek Neo-Platonism) is (in Many Respects) Rooted in the Mysticism of the East (Especially that of India)
C. The Jewish Tradition of Religious Mysticism
D. The Christian Tradition of Religious Mysticism
….. 1. The Catholic and Protestant (or “Western Church’) Traditions of Christian Religious Mysticism
….. 2. The Orthodox (or “Eastern Church’) Tradition of Christian Religious Mysticism E. The Islamic Tradition of Religious Mysticism
F. The “Other-Power” Tradition of Shin Buddhism
IV
THE FIFTH STAGE OF LIFE (AND ITS FOUNDATION IN THE ADVANCED PROCESS OF THE FOURTH STAGE OF LIFE)
A. Shamanism (The Root of the Fifth Stage, or Fourth to Fifth Stage, Traditions)
B. The Fifth Stage (or Fourth to Fifth Stage) Experience and Its Way of Practice
C. The Fundamental Energy of Mystical Ascent
D. Patanjali and Raja Yoga
E. Hatha Yoga
F. Summaries of Traditional Yogas (Particularly of the Fifth Stage, or Fourth to Fifth Stage, Variety)
G. The Yogas of Subtly Perceived Life-Energy, Sound, and Light H. Mantra Yoga
I. The Tradition of Shabd Yoga (or Nada Yoga)
J. The Tradition of Kundalini Shakti Yoga
K. The Tantric Tradition of India (Hindu and Buddhist)
L. The Tibetan (Vajrayana, or Tantric) Buddhist Tradition M. Taoist Yoga
V. PRIMARILY THE SIXTH STAGE OF LIFE, INCLUDING SOME EXPRESSIONS OF THE SEVENTH STAGE OF LIFE
A. The Tradition of Advaita Vedanta
….. 1. The Ancient Advaitic (or Non-Dualist) Tradition, Shankara, and the Tradition of
Shankara
2. Modern Teachers of Advaitism
3. Literature on the Life and Teachings of Ramana Maharshi (Including
Interpretations of Ramana Maharshi’s Teachings by Various of his Devotees)
4. Ribhu Gita
5. Sri Devikalottara Agama 6. Yoga Vasistha
B. The Samkhya Tradition
C. The Jain Tradition
D. The Tradition of Buddhism
….. I. The Original (or Classical) Tradition
….. 2. The Fully Developed Hinayana (or Theravada) Tradition
….. 3. The Mahayana Tradition
….. 4. The Ch’an, or Zen, Tradition of Mahayana Buddhism
….. 5. The Tibetan Tradition
….. 6. The Tradition of Taoism
VI. SEVENTH STAGE LITERATURE (OR TEXTS WHICH “CONFESS” THE SEVENTH STAGE REALIZATION, AND WITH CRITICAL, OR OTHERWISE MINIMAL, ADDRESS TO THE POINT OF VIEW, OR THE NECESSARY PROGRESSIVE DISCIPLINES, OF THE FIRST SIX STAGES OF LIFE)
A. Astavakra Gita
B. Avadhoot Gita
C. Tripura Rahasya
D. Mahayanavimsaka
E. Lankavatara Sutra
F. The Diamond Sutra and The Sutra of Hui Neng
EPILOGUE: THE ESSENCE OF THE MESSAGE OF THE GREAT TRADITION
The following titles are reproduced without the annotations of Heart-Master Da LoveAnanda that normally appear after the text being commented upon. Section II of the list, featuring practical literature related to all seven stages of life, is intended to be studied concurrently with the rest of the list, including Section I. The Education Department will provide guided coursework for this literature as well. Heart-Master Da’s annotations of texts throughout the list will be reproduced individually as appropriate during our progressive course of study.
“The reason why Ultimate Divine Self-Realization has not become the case within the context of the Great Tradition is that the Great Tradition always operates on the basis of the self-contraction. The ego-knot is fundamental to all the stages of life previous to the seventh. The key to the transcendence of the psycho-biography of the ego has not been grasped before now, and that is why there has never been Ultimate Divine Self-Realization, or seventh stage Realization, before. Because that is so, other states, which are conditional in nature, or dependent on conditions, have been proposed as God-Realization or Truth-Realization or Reality-Realization. But they are not Ultimate Divine Self-Realization, precisely because they are either conditional in themselves or because they are dependent on that which is conditional. They are founded on the self-contraction, ego-bound, however great they may appear. By comparison to lesser states, the advanced and the ultimate stages of life in the Great Tradition are great—but they are not Ultimate Realization. There is no Ultimate Realization without Most Perfect transcendence of egoity.”
EPILOGUE:
THE ESSENCE OF THE MESSAGE OF THE GREAT TRADITION
Form only changes.
Energy is always conserved. Being Is, never negated.
Perception and conception, and all their objects (or “things”), including the physical body, every thought, and all the kinds of “others”, are an immense and ultimately unfathomable and (as a whole) unknowable Process of changes. The arising of conditions is a Play of changes, and every form only changes (until it disappears, or otherwise ceases to appear as it was). The entire Process of appearances, or conditions, or forms, or changes is a Dynamic Display (or a Play of opposites). Every positive becomes negative. Every negative becomes positive. Whatever arises changes, positively and negatively, until it disappears (or even reappears, modified, or newly defined).
All appearances, conditions, forms, or changes are modifications of Primal Energy (or Spirit-Power). Primal Energy is the Essence of the body-mind and all “others” and “things”. Primal Energy is the Essence of all opposites and all changes. Primal Energy is the Essence of the activity of change itself. Even so, Primal Energy Itself is inherently changeless. Even in all changes, Primal Energy Itself is forever conserved. Primal Energy Itself cannot be destroyed. Primal Energy Itself is a Constant and Self-Existing Shine, “Brightness” Itself, Merely or Only Self-Radiant.
Primal Energy Itself Merely or Only Is. Therefore, its Totality of changes, and even every form, Merely or Only Is. Being Is the Constant Sign, even in all changes. The Observation (or Intuition) of Being (or Existence Itself) Demonstrates (To and In Consciousness Itself) that non-Being, or non-Existence, is an illusion, or a myth of possibility, generated by fear (or false knowledge). And fear itself is the result of clinging to forms, without Understanding the Process of forms, and without Real Observation of Primal Energy, and without Direct Observation (or “Radical” Intuition) of Being (Itself).
Consciousness Itself Is the “Radical” Intuition of Being (Itself). Consciousness Itself Is the Real Observation of Energy Itself. Consciousness Itself Is Merely Being (or Existence Itself), Self-Radiant (As
Radiance Itself), appearing to be modified as all forms and changes. Consciousness Itself Is Inherently Free Love-Bliss.
Consciousness Itself, Realized As Inherent Freedom and Self-Radiant and Self
Existing Love-Bliss, Is the Realization of God, Truth, or Reality Itself.
Therefore, do not cease to Grow.
Do not prevent (but always serve) the process of Constant Growth (and OutGrowing) in all others.
Always notice when Growth has stopped.
The Study
“You must realize (the) capacity for discrimination, or you really cannot cut it in the Spiritual process.”
The Basket of Tolerance
THE LAUGHING MAN VOL. 7. NO. 1 – 1987
page 14
The Tradition of Truth Is the Tradition of the Adepts
HEART-MASTER DA LOVE-ANANDA: The primary force and root of all the religious traditions are the Adepts, those who actually Realize the Transcendental Divine Reality. Adepts arise in all times and places and become associated with the movements and complex structures existing in the immediate environment. Throughout their lifetime, both before and after their Realization, they move into the existing culture and associate with its influences. Thus, while their Teaching is an expression of actual Realization, their words reflect and comment upon all kinds of cultural complexities and ideals. Where Adepts or the Realizers of Truth arise, they transform the existing culture, eliminating some aspects of traditional religious and Spiritual life and emphasizing others. They are a motion in the midst of the stream of conventions.
The tradition of Truth, of Transcendental Realization, is the tradition of the Adepts. Apart from the Adepts, there is no tradition of Truth. We could say, and rightly, for example, that Buddhism, like all other traditions-Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam-developed through the stream of conventional human processes and creativity, the transmission from one generation to the next of ideas and conventions, ideals, cultural artifacts, cultic techniques and images, and all the rest. Here and there within the Buddhist tradition Adepts appeared. Here and there within the human traditions in general Adepts or actual Realizers have appeared. Other individuals representing advanced levels of experience and knowledge have also appeared, and they too have had an influence on the traditions, very often achieving prominence. But we must distinguish between individuals of extraordinary experience and influence and Adepts who have realized the Transcendental Truth.
The traditions of human culture taken as a whole are a very complex artifact of human activity. If we look at the stream of traditions and examine those who were apparently true Adepts, examine what they said and consider their apparent point of view, it is very difficult to differentiate the pure expression of their Realization from all the conversation and activity that develops in their company, whether we rely on their own statements or interpretations by those who lived with them or by the schools that developed around them.
Even if we could locate the precise Teaching of an Adept, it would difficult to sift out the part that expresses Realization from the that more or less simply reflects the conventions and complexities the human culture, both extant in that time and which evolved in since.
It is very difficult at this point, for instance, to clearly identify Jesus Teaching, what he was all about, what kind of realization he a represents. It is easier in the case of Gautama. There exists a direct transmission of Gautama’s life and Teaching in the Pali t which clearly represent the essential point of view of Gautama. Even, Gautama is associated with a much broader range of communications than those that appear in the Pali texts. The Mahayana Buddhists regard many of their texts, in which all kinds of of esoteric Teachings appear, to have come from Gautama. They say the Pali texts represent the Teaching given to a certain dimension his audience at a certain time. Their own texts, they claim, were higher transmissions from Gautama during his lifetime or after lifetime, received by people in an exalted state who could see Buddha in his glory. But just as the Mahayanists take very seriously their own transmission and regard it to be associated with Gautama himself, all traditions have a similar kind of process. The Christians also want to take very seriously everything that has come through time as something that originated with their Adept -Jesus – and that reflects his Wisdom directly.
It is because of this very conventional process of the development of mind, life, and culture of human beings in general that the Adepts serve a unique function. The actual Realizers appear from time to time in order to accomplish a revolutionary feat. To actually Realize God is most revolutionary, but an individual being, present in time and space, transformed through Realization and expressive of that Realization, can serve as a purifying and transforming influence in the midst of the stream of conventions that human beings in general are collecting about themselves and inheriting arbitrarily.
We as a community should feel aligned most positively, should acknowledge and feel associated most directly, with the Realization of the Adepts-their significance, their actual Realization, and the function that Adepts serve whenever they appear, which is to purify and transform the traditional stream of communications. We can find in the historical records of all kinds of ideas and suggestions of a point of view, practice, philosophy, symbol, and so forth associated with such individuals. And if we examine those histories from the point of view of the Teaching that has been communicated to you directly in this time and place, we will find ourselves disposed to criticize much of what is recorded. By “criticize” I do not mean to reject. I mean that we must consider the traditions from the point of view of this direct expression of the Teaching and dissociate conventions of thought and persuasion from the Realization expressed by any Adept.
In my commentary on the traditions, for instance, I have discussed many Adepts and many traditions that have developed in the name of Adepts. Most recently I have spoken in such critical terms of Gautama and the Buddhist tradition, and the Vedantic tradition and the Upanishadic tradition, and in general all Spiritual and religious traditions. In all the literature I have produced are many such criticisms, communicated in the same spirit as the Adepts in the past. They have done very much the same thing in their own time and place relative to the accretions associated with other Adepts, about whose Realization they might feel positive but about the expression of which through the media of transmission they are critical.
The Lankavatara Sutra is an example of a primary text in the tradition of Buddhism that is founded in the Realization of one or more Adepts and that expresses a critical point of view based in such Realization. That book is not really about how to Realize Transcendental Liberation, but how to understand all other ways of life from the point of view of Enlightenment. The Lankavatara Sutra reflects the critical process that Adepts generate whenever they appear. Gautama in his time did the same thing. On the one hand, he is interpreted to be engaged in repudiating the Upanishadic and Vedic cultures, just as you could say the Adept or Avatar of the Lankavatara Sutra is repudiating many of the ideals and processes that have appeared in the history of Buddhism.
We must keep in mind, however, that the Truth that is reflected in the Teaching of any Adept is not to be associated or identified with that which is criticized or that which is offered as an alternative. That which is criticized could still be criticized. That which is offered as an alternative could also, at another time or in another setting and by another Adept, be criticized. The dominant force in the occasion of any Adept is actual Realization, which is a Transcendental and Free disposition. Clearly Gautama and the Adept implied in the Lankavatara Sutra – whoever it really is or however many there really were are Adepts in the highest sense. Other individuals associated with other traditions likewise, from the point of view of their Realization, have been involved in a process of criticism and the offering of an alternative in their time and place. Such individuals could likewise be regarded as true Adepts if we would free ourselves from identifying them with either what they criticized or what they offered as an alternative. The alternative they offered might have been appropriate, and, in terms of the configuration of mind in their time, might even have been a radical alternative to what they were criticizing. But when the mode of mind and culture associated with them and their Realization in their time and place has passed, then the alternative they offered becomes a subject of right criticism by another Adept in another time and place.
Thus, my Work involves a critical overview of everything that is taking place around me, everything that people bring to me, and all traditions. My Teaching Work is like that of the Lankavatara Sutra, like that of Gautama. On one level it seems to be a repudiation. On another level it is a criticism or a reinterpretation, even a positive interpretation. On another level it offers an alternative course or Way. But this entire process, this cultural process, this Teaching process that I have engaged both with you who have come to me and relative to the traditions, is expressed on the basis of prior Realization.
Like Gautama, I arose in an isolated environment, although not in a specifically religious or esoteric cultural environment. I did not grow up in a palace, but in a lower middle-class household without any contact whatsoever with the total stream of human life or the stream of higher religious and Spiritual activity. Over the years of my living in the midst of that circumstance its limitations, which had been noticeable from the beginning, became absolutely clear. It was a dead end, a form of entrapment. Therefore, I moved freely into the world, became associated with all kinds of traditional sources in this country and elsewhere, actually practiced in the company of many people, became associated with all kinds of states of knowledge and experience. Ultimately, the process of my life was summarized as regenerated Enlightenment, which had been tacitly my condition from birth.
Since that time I have engaged those who came to me and have familiarized myself with the various traditions, past and present, and have discussed them all from the point of view of this Realization. Thus, the activity of my own lifetime is very similar to the activity of other Adepts in their occasion. And having done all this, I still feel a clear affinity with the great Adepts of the past, not a sense of identification with their cultural environment or even an identification with the alternative they may have offered, which was a way of dealing with the mind and cultural state of their time, their attempt to make Realization possible in their own time. I feel a sense of intimate identification with them at the level of their Realization.
I can understand and sympathize with most highly developed exponents of every form of human and religious and Spiritual and philosophical endeavor. I am not disposed to suppress them, to make nothing out of them On the other hand, having been involved in the same Process, I can clearly see the stage of life that their Realization represents and its limits.
I can also see that there are many individuals who, though they express themselves through the ideal of a lower stage of life than that which expresses the highest Realization, did themselves transcend that very limitation. I can see clearly that there were some among them, at any rate, who, in the extremities of the fulfillment of their own discipline, transcended its limitation. It is often a tacit or intuitive sense rather than a reading of historical evidence, although there may also be historical evidence. Apart from that, however, I must evaluate through criticism their influence, their historical character, and their instruction and view them within the developmental process of the stages of life.
Even so, I feel a profound sympathy with the great Adepts in all the traditions and all the stages, and this sympathy naturally aligns our Communion with the tradition of Realization, the tradition of the Adepts themselves. Further, because Adepts appear in many times and places and in many traditions and reflect all of the stages of life, in some sense, therefore, we must say that the tradition with which we are naturally associated is on that includes all traditions, all stages of life, rather than any single one of them.
This Way of life has not been developed synthetically, that is, by selecting parts of many traditions and creating a synthetic new tradition, nor did my own Realization develop in that fashion. This Way of life we consider was developed on the basis of literal Realization. Neither has our Way of life emerged causally. For instance, in 1970, when I was looking for likenesses to my Realization, I found in Ramana Maharshi the corroboration of an aspect of my own Realization. Although I critically evaluated aspects of what he represented, I also acknowledged a basic corroboration. But there was no causal relationship. I had never gone to Ramana Maharshi’s Ashram, nor had I ever used his Teaching as a basis on which to construct my practice. Yet, there was a likeness.
To find such likenesses and in effect acknowledge a tradition was one of the first things I did, and over the years we have been engaged in a much more elaborate consideration of such likenesses. But we do not have a caused relationship to other traditions. We cannot say that because I studied with Tibetan Teachers that now we are a Tibetan Buddhist school. Still, what are the dominant likenesses? If we observe and acknowledge those likenesses, how would we define and name ourselves, represent ourselves in the world in which the stream of traditions and conventions exists?
I had many Teachers, but nobody Taught me Realization. Gautama was not Taught Realization, either. He went to, and was instructed by, and given experiences by many Teachers. Yet his Realization was determined by a disposition uniquely his own, on the basis of which he evaluated and transcended all the influences that he confronted. The process in my own life is very much the same. Therefore, the ultimate event or Realization of my own practice is not associated with any Teacher or tradition. It did not occur under the auspices of any Teacher or tradition. It was not caused by any Teacher or tradition. The disposition to God-Realization was there from the beginning. It broke through in dramatic form at many times throughout my life, even before I became associated with Teachers. It is a direct Realization on the basis of which I can evaluate and criticize my Teachers and the traditions that influenced me.
You should understand that the process of my going to Teachers was very much like Gautama’s. He went to Teachers in the disposition that ultimately became his Enlightenment. And that is precisely what occurred in my own case. Therefore, I have no sense of a direct link to any Teacher or tradition and have rather transcended them all, much as Gautama can be said to have transcended all his Teachers and all the traditions extant in his time.
Thus, in this Community we do not represent a previously existing tradition. I did not link up with a tradition and a Teacher or series of Teachers who themselves belonged to a tradition. Rather, like Gautama, I freely entered into the process of my own Enlightenment and met people and came under various influences only to discard and transcend them. And after the culminating Realization of that process, I criticized and evaluated all the ordinary human alternatives as well as the traditional approaches to Realization.
Nevertheless, I feel positively aligned to certain characters in human history and certain communications about Realization. I feel a great deal of sympathy with all kinds of Teachers and Teachings, even of the secondary kind, but most fundamentally with some in particular, who have in common a certain quality of Realization and transcendence of the conventions of our existence. Gautama also, at least in the texts where he is shown to be thinking about such things, talked about a line of Buddhists and great individuals before him who he felt were Enlightened exactly as he was Enlightened. He also envisioned many others who were yet to appear, some of whom might be called Buddhas – who knows what else they might be called – and as a result, today many Buddhists, like the practitioners of any other fixed tradition, want to acknowledge only the Great Ones of their own lineage, both past and future.
But we, not having a traditional lineage, can enjoy a transcendent view of all the traditions. We see Adepts and Great Ones wherever they happen to appear. We critically appreciate their appearance, their sacred ordeal, and their human influence. We also honor, celebrate, and draw attention to their Realization.
The first exerpt if from a talk given by Adi Da on January 22, 1983.
The second exerpt if from a talk given by Adi Da on April 20, 1987 and the third is from April 4, 1987.
“I myself have suggested on occasion that it is useful to study religion and spiritual philosophy in terms of the Great Tradition. The reason such critical study is useful is that you already have all kinds of inherited, thought-up, and propagandized ideas that correspond to ideas that can be found in the traditions. Thus, you can see how those ideas traditionally get elaborated as a way of life, and you can see their limitations. Doing philosophy in these terms, then, can be said to have a purpose. Doing philosophy is thus a way of undoing philosophy
Part of what I am doing [with the “Seven Schools Of God-Talk” list] is to help people break out of the mold of religious provincialism, the mold of feeling that you are somehow obliged by virtue of childhood training to presume that you are related to just one tradition, a specific dogmatic tradition, or a Western orientation, or whatever your birth signs and early cultural life or society determined was to be your religious background. In fact, we are not truly the inheritors of these provincial religious traditions. At this point in history we are all the inheritors of the Great Tradition, the total tradition, and we should acknowledge this.
One of the great traditional means of Realization and of practice toward Realization is the affirmation of the sacred tradition. If you study the Hindu scriptures, for instance, they outline various means that should help you to become convinced of the Way and equipped to practice it, and ultimately to enter into its Realization. Discriminative intelligence and insight are prominent among all those means. The authority, rightly understood, of the sacred tradition – represented by Realizers of the past and their reports is one of the great aids to practice of the Way.
In this time of doubt people are highly secularized, not even religious. If they are religious they are basically provincial and associated with religion in its lowest form, the form it takes in the lesser stages of life. In this epoch, people tend to live on the basis of doubt. Doubt informs our culture, it is a primary principle of our world society. One of the great traditional means to restore faith is to consider the testimony of those Realizers who have come before and those now communicating the Way of Realization. Having entered into this Domain of Realization, I can affirm to you the force of this Great Tradition as a whole. I help you to understand all those features of it which represent its primary force, which we should take into account and affirm, and use to heal our doubt and transcend the mechanical disposition of doubt.”
January 22, 1983
“I do not mean that you should just read a couple of lines [of traditional literature] here and there. You should be obliged to read and formally study a complete book every week or two. All the meetings that occur on a weekly basis-devotional meetings, study groups, and seminars – should have something to do with the traditional reading for that week. Thus, you will eventually become familiar with these works and become responsible for the hash of ideas you have in the back of your mind.
In the present moment, no matter what stage of practice any one is at, he or she has to go to school relative to the Way of the Heart and the Great Tradition. Everybody must understand that their formal study of these matters is just as much a part of this Way of life as their service, their meditation, and their devotional activities.
You cannot see the subtle uniqueness in the various aspects of this Teaching because you do not know what the Great Tradition itself is. The religion you all know is Sunday school or its equivalent at the synagogue. Beyond that, there is very little that you represent in terms of an educated understanding of this Great Tradition. My own Teaching is not an effort to brainwash you or lay arbitrary notions on you. I represent the entire Great Tradition. However, it requires great understanding of that tradition to practice this Way. It does not require a doctoral degree, or something like that. It is fine that there are various levels of the capacity for study. Nonetheless, there must be some fundamental understanding of the Great Tradition.
All these years, I have been calling on students and practitioners to study and gain this understanding. I have talked about the traditions in all kinds of ways. I have generated an educational process through my own Work with you. Through all these years, I have also been creating what is now known as The Basket Of Tolerance, which is a very specific design for your study of the Great Tradition – something that is workable, and usable by everyone.
Becoming familiar with the Great Tradition is another fundamental that you must have established in order to practice as a devotee. If you do not have some true familiarity and understanding of the Great Tradition, how can you be practicing at level three? You could practice it in some rudimentary sense without verbal education, but you are so full of prejudices relative to sadhana and what it requires that you freeze yourself out of real participation in the process. So you must get an education to unlearn your own prejudices and mental blocks against the Spiritual process.
You not only need an education in this Way in particular. You need an education in the whole history of human religion and Spirituality, so that you can overcome your prejudices, your failed religion neurosis and all the rest of it. You have to set yourself free for the Spiritual process. It is not that you have to encumber yourself with this education. You have to use it as a means for transcending your own fit, limitations relative to the Spiritual process. That is what I call you to do by using The Basket Of Tolerance-not to get involved in the stuff of the Great Tradition for its own sake, but to use that study critically as a means for clarifying your own mind, relieving your own prejudices, and making the Great Tradition your tradition in some fundamental sense. Through that study, you overcome your religious prejudices and free yourself for the real practice.
April 20, 1987
“I did not enter into and endure or pass through the Spiritual process by being an asshole or true believer. Doubt was my Siddhi, the kind of Siddhi I acquired through that intellectual discipline, I do not believe or communicate bullshit, nor do I suggest that you bullshit yourself. Put yourself through the hard school, and really consider it. You must realize that capacity for discrimination, or you really cannot cut it in the Spiritual process. It takes a long time to be really schooled in discrimination. There is more to discrimination than just things of the mind, ideas and so forth. Discrimination is a tool you also bring to non-ideas – to impressions and events that have nothing to do with intellect or mentality or culture or society. You ‘must bring discrimination to events that transcend the conventional or lower bodymind, that transcend the first three stages of life. I was able to use that tool in the higher stages of life. I know how important it is as an instrument for growth into the higher stages. Therefore, you must acquire a similar capability.
Developing the discriminative mind is not a matter of absorbing content. You do not have to absorb all the books in The Basket Of Tolerance and be full of thoughts. You must use The Basket Of Tolerance as a means for polishing the discriminative intelligence, and let it serve the Spiritual process. You must use it to relieve yourself of mind, not to build it up, or create accumulations of thought. Something like that may occur for you in the beginning. But if you truly and seriously enter into this consideration of the Great Tradition, it will break your mind like the Spiritual process breaks your heart. It does not break your mind in a negative sense-it will relieve you of your egoic prejudice, your provincialism, your small-mindedness, your self-possession in mind. It will give you an instrument that is beyond the body and beyond mere energies and sensory impressions and casual thoughts. It will grant you an instrument that will be useful to you in the transition from the whole cosmic game of the first five stages of life.
That is a hard school, yes. That is the way it is. It is not that you are born in this lifetime to realize the Ultimate. You exist to realize the Ultimate. You will have many opportunities in life. This is one of them. If you can fulfill this grand passion of the Way, then maybe you will realize it perfectly. If you cannot, then you will realize a lesser stage, and that is the way it is. It is not damnation. It is reality. To realize the great stages of the Way, you must become a Genius of Realization, a Saint, a great Yogi, a true Seer, a true Siddha. That is what it takes, absolutely nothing less. You are given every advantage, but it nonetheless requires a great deal of you.
In My Company you can Realize Happiness. But if you are to Realize Happiness of Self, you must learn how to think, learn how to discriminate, learn how to transcend, learn how to overcome yourself. You must go through this hard school here. It was Columbia for me, but for you it is this hard school of consideration. There is no easy way to go through it. You all want to be calm and congratulate yourselves into the ultimate Realization of existence! It is absolutely impossible to do it that way! You must be refined and hardened, polished, brightened, awakened, quickened, transcended, perfected, or else you can be a level 1.1 practitioner or something just a little bit beyond it for the rest of your life. That is the way it is. There is not a damn thing I can do about it. Cult be damned! The cult cannot enlighten you.
The real process is a kind of extraordinary asceticism, but not asceticism as it is commonly understood just putting on a hair shirt, keeping your genitals in your pants, eating very little and so on. It is a superior asceticism, the asceticism of the total being, whereby it transcends itself. Apart from that asceticism, you cannot realize the Ultimate. You cannot realize much beyond the beginning without it. A little bit of discipline, a little bit of understanding, a little bit of responsiveness can enable you to enter into the process of the Way. But you cannot fulfill it without being hardened, polished, brightened, made into a fire by discipline. It is impossible. So the choice is up to you. What will you do about it? You tend to cop out by assuming the point of view of limitation, choosing associations that make you feel comfortable. Notice how you make this choice, then discipline yourself. If you choose not to discipline yourself and overcome your point of view, do not blame me. Do not suggest that I said that is what you should do.
Of course, there is not only that sheer discipline in this Way, that hard school – there is also the Grace of the Presence of Samadhi, the Attractive Power. That unique Gift is also given to you. That Power does not make this Way into a silly middle-class religion business. The Way itself remains a hard school. But the hard school becomes effective and quickened by that Attractive Power.
That is the Gift I give to you, and I cannot give you any relief from the hard school itself. I do not suggest to you that there is a cultic way to realize the Ultimate. I do not suggest that you can choose the disposition or the way of the ego, be self-consoling, and somehow fulfill this practice. You absolutely cannot. Look at all the details that I communicate to you and the summaries of the Teaching. There are very real disciplines, very real requirements, and there is no way to cop out and still grow and Realize.
Easy for me to say? No. My life became really difficult when I started to Teach. It certainly was difficult before, but compared to the difficulties that have developed since I began to Teach, my earlier life and ordeal of Realization was nothing. So I have had to live the hard school, and so must you. And I have not, by fulfilling that process in Realization, relieved myself of difficulty, you see. It becomes more and more difficult, never less and less. So what is the moral?
April 4, 1987