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FAITH, SACRIFICE, OR DEPENDENCE ON
GRACE IS HEART-FELT RELEASE FROM THE CAVE OF
SUBJECTIVITY 4.1 The Way of Divine Communion depends
on devotional sacrifice. Heart-felt love of the Divine, of
which all conditions are the objective modifications, within
or without, alone will permit Grace to draw you into the
unconditional Realm which is itself the Divine. 4.2 The actions of devotional sacrifice
in the Way of Divine Communion are extensions of the heart.
They must be felt, not conceptualized. The mind has only a
secondary role to play. Divine Communion is an intuitive
process of the heart (the emotional or feeling core of the
being, which is realized as a profound intensity of
felt-intuition, rather than mere “emotions” of the
conventional life). Realization of the Way of Divine
Communion depends upon response to the Real when it
communicates itself, by Grace, to the heart, or the
feeling-intuition of the whole body (prior to thought), as
all-pervading Presence. And the realizations that arise in
every moment of devotional sacrifice (of attention and of
the whole being) are felt realizations, intuitive rather
than conceptual, not cool, like the witnessing of objects,
but intense, like intentional participation in the sacrifice
of one’s own life. 4.3 Whatever arises, one who lives
action as true practice is obliged to live it as devotional
sacrifice. This discipline must be maintained even under the
most distracting conditions, even through the process of
death, and beyond. Even if, as in sleep or instants of
death, there is apparent loss of consciousness (the
awareness of objects arising), the practice of sacrifice or
feeling-surrender should continue from the instant there is
awareness of any arising. In the perfect stage of practice,
neither the arising nor the non-arising of objects and
attention is significant. 4.4 The true sacrificial approach to the
Divine, the true turning of self to the practice of
devotion, which is the whole life made to serve God under
all conditions, ensures that the spiritual connection to God
is alive and the Divine’s quickening and awakening Power
will be effective. 4.5 The perfect fulfillment of this Way
depends upon the commitment, stability, and intensity of the
devotee. The Divine Grace is reflected in various ways in
each individual and over time, but it is eternally generated
(not merely presently and especially generated, as in the
case of exclusively bodily, yogic, or conditionally manifest
influences). Therefore, it is all a matter of the
availability of the individual to the process of
participation in Grace. 4.6 In the soteriological and
theological disputes of men it would appear as if the Law,
which is Sacrifice, stands over against another great
Principle, called by such names as Grace and Love. Thus, the
Law might be something some men choose to follow or depend
upon, whereas others might choose to follow or depend upon
Grace. Salvation or realization or liberation may thus be
viewed as totally different processes and kinds of
fulfillment, depending upon whether one goes by the way of
Sacrifice or by the way of Grace. But this is all a
confusion, an artifice of human thinking. There is the Law,
and it must in any case be fulfilled, or else experience
will only reflect the failure. Salvation, realization, or
liberation is or, are nothing other than realized
fulfillment of the Law. And fulfillment of the Law is itself
the only way, since, if the Law is not fulfilled in the
present, it is not possible, by that means, to get closer to
fulfillment of the Law. The Law, or sacrifice, is thus the
single and necessary Principle of the processes of
existence, and therefore of every way of salvation,
realization, or liberation. The controversy which is to the
point is relative to the way of fulfillment of the Law,
whether by egoic effort or by Grace. The way of effort is self-made and
serves self. Therefore, it cannot fulfill the Law and is not
true. The only way is the way of dependence on Grace in each
moment. But this way is not a way of by-passing the Law, of
being “let off the hook.” It is the way of fulfilling the
Law. It is simply, that self is not the principle of the
action, but the Reality, the very Divine, is the Principle.
The Divine is itself the process of the Law. Thus, the Way
is not a matter of stepping out of the realms of the Law
into the realms of Grace. It is the Way of participating
with conscious enjoyment in the process of the Law, or
sacrifice. It involves abandonment of the principle of
self-effort, of subjective and objective strategies and
results, of mind and body, and yielding as total
felt-attention of life and consciousness to the Divine
Reality through every form of existence as service. The
difference is between the cool and self-possessed way of
effort, in which self is the center, and the loving way of
devotion, in, which the Divine is the center. Both ways require great
concentration and energy. But the way of effort requires
concern for action and results, whereas the way of
dependence on Grace is free of concerns and is simply
present absorption in-the Divine Reality, which is Perfect
Sacrifice. The Divine is not an Object or an
Objective Subject, an Other, but a Process, which is
Sacrifice. The Divine includes all, is all, and yet is no
thing and no one. The Divine is a Paradox. Salvation,
realization, liberation, or true existence involves present
alignment of the whole being (all functions) with the
Process of Sacrifice. The self is not the root of the method
of this alignment, but must itself be included in the
sacrifice. Therefore, sacrifice may not be achieved, it is
not a rule that can be obeyed, but it is the Law, which
demands to be realized, not followed like a rule. The way of
realization of the Law is dependence on or complete yielding
to the position of Grace, or the Divine itself. In this way,
the Divine is approached first as Presence, and, at last, it
is Realized as the unqualified Reality, the Condition of
conditions. The quality of approach is determined by the
quality of realization in any moment. But, since Grace is
not other than the Law itself, sacrifice is the Principle
that constantly tests the consciousness and the life. We are
able to fulfill the Law because God is the Law and includes
us. We cannot fulfill the Law if we are presently and in
principle separate from the Law and alienated from its
fulfillment. The negative view produces the reaction of
self-effort. The positive or right view produces the natural
enjoyment of the Law’s fulfillment. 4.7 Enjoyment, or prior Happiness, is
the foundation of the fulfillment of the Law in the true
man. Such a one is tested by the Law. And he or she must be
considered, measured, and known through the Law Sacrifice is
God. Realization or liberation is worship of God in Spirit,
Truth. 4.8 There is the present life. There is
the event of death that involves abandonment of this life.
There are further events of transition beyond this life. And
there are all the lives and events that follow. These are
not many things, but a single process that requires the same
of us in each instance: fulfillment of the Law, which is
sacrifice. We are obliged to realize each moment, each
event, each life, every instance as sacrifice. In this
sense, it is all death, and. death is the source of life or
regeneration. Wherever we have failed to realize or live the
Law, we are obliged to be humbled and tested by the Law.
This is karma, the root of the usual adventure of life and
death. But for one who is true, death does not follow life ,
life follows upon death, or sacrifice. Such a one is
relieved of obligations and is happy. What arises for such a
one has not the force of karmic destiny but the quality of
Only God. 4.9 Immortality is not mere factual
survival-as it would be if immortality were simply the
answer or solution to the problem-dilemma of death. It is to
abide in the natural position (Intuition of the Real
Condition), even if death occurs because, from the point of
view of such Intuition, death if it arises, can only be
understood to be a moment of the very process that is
already immortal and glorifying. In that case, death is not
a problem-dilemma, and, therefore, it requires no solution
or answer. It is perfectly coincident, if it occurs (and it
is not to be sought), with immortality and is simply another
moment of love, sacrifice, or devotion. 4.10 I saw a man walking on the beach.
His body was slightly bent, he did not look up, and he
appeared thus to be pondering deeply, undistracted by outer
and worldly concerns or observations. But then, all of a
sudden, he stooped to the ground and began to examine some
small shells in the sand. It became clear that, all the
while, he had been walking the beach, eyes fixed to the
ground, looking for sea shells. There is a lesson in this.
By virtue of ordinary yogic practice, and the concern and
concentration upon common objects, high and low, within the
field of cognition, the individual may appear profoundly
detached, spiritual, occupied with the Divine Reality or
Truth. But this is an illusion that both he and any observer
of his appearance may share. Beware of such an illusion in
yourself. True devotion is not in itself an activity
relative to functions, objects, and arising conditions
themselves, but it is a process of attention directly and
presently relative to the revealed Divine, the Source and
Real Condition of what presently arises, including the sense
of separate and defined self. 4.11 There is no inwardness in God, and
nothing is external to God. The same is true of the devotee
of God, who enjoys the present Realization of God as the
Only Condition. 4.12 At every stage of practice attention
is to, be constantly turned from conditions in themselves to
the revealed Divine Reality. However, attention alone is not
sufficient. In every moment, attention must be followed
yielding of the whole being,-with feeling and in the same
“direction.” Only thus is the obligation of devotional
sacrifice fulfilled. 4.13 Devotional sacrifice is
the-sacrifice-or yielding of attention rather than the
demanding of attention (or the obsession with self-attention
in the devotee, the whole being must become felt attention
to the Divine. It is not mere mental attention, but felt
attention or felt yielding of the whole being. Nothing short
of this is the foundation condition of right action or real
and spiritual practice. 4.14 The principle or key motivation
behind all the negative dramatizations enacted by human
beings in the relational play of life is the demand or
search for attention. The demand for attention is generated
as a search for a solution to the dilemma or inherent
tension in the being created by its identification with a
defined, separated, and thus separative condition of
conscious or manifest existence. Right action is a response to the
demand for action as relationship, Lawful action, rather
than action as a self-referential or negative dramatization
(which always engages in relationship indirectly, or is
antagonistic to relational conditions, and which secretly
and strategically pursues the acquisition of the attention
of others, of the world, of God, etc.). The demand for the
devotee to realize the conditions of life as service to the
Divine through the Spiritual Master is, in effect, relative
to all the conditions of relational life, a demand for
action as direct, sacrificial participation in the true
condition of relationship, rather than a strategic search
for consoling attention to the ego from the realm outside
the ego. The search for attention to one’s own being is the
search for power, high and low, spiritual and
mundane. Maturity in the Way of Divine
Communion is shown be the signs of relaxation from such
childish self-meditation and demands for attention, the
general relaxation of obsessive negative patterns and
unlawful, self-indulgent habits (the practical disciplines
or “conditions’, should be stable maintained), and a
restoration of the natural process of relational rather than
reflexive (self-referring) attention. All of this is
epitomized in the stable realization, as a revelation be
Grace, of the natural, direct, and primary form of devotion,
or sacrifice of attention, from the heart or psychic being,
to the revealed all-pervading Presence. Those who do not demonstrate such
maturity with great stability should not presume or be given
responsibility for the formal study or the practices of the
Way of Relational Enquire. 4.15 When the individual is established
in this Way of Divine Communion, in a mutually sacrificial
relationship with me, and when he or she begins to spend
time in me Company, the workings of me spiritual influence
will be demonstrated in the stirring up of the hidden well
of his or her subjective life, and the progressive
quickening of the whole affair of true hearing, random and
spontaneous self-observation insight, and devotional
sacrifice. Thus, the Way of Divine Communion develops when
the individual becomes truly or sacrificially established in
this Divine through me. 4.16 Literal, heart-felt surrender, true
of the whole and undefined body-being, is the fundamental
necessity of the whole Way of Divine Ignorance. Insofar as
it is literal and heart-felt, it does not “happen” to us,
but it is natural (and, in that sense, spontaneous),
voluntary, and even intentional. However, it does not also
become true by willful, subjective, or self-manipulative
effort goal-oriented strategy in dilemma. It cannot become
true by any sequence of changes. It only is true, or not,
while at the same time literal. It is true on the basis of
Ignorance, or unqualified intuition of the Real Condition of
all conditions. Not any other fact or condition, effort or
surmise makes our surrender true. In the Way of Divine Communion,
surrender (or literal and true fulfillment of the Law, which
is Sacrifice) is obliged upon us via all the practical and
spiritual conditions. Literal, intense, heart-felt surrender
is thus our obligation relative to the Divine Presence of
the Spiritual Master under all conditions, moment to moment.
This surrender becomes literal through our right response
and action. However, our surrender does not become true by
the same means. It is true only on the basis of direct,
intuitive Communion with the Divine Presence, to which we
are constantly reawakened by undefined Grace, and through
the Teaching and Initiatory Service of the Spiritual Master.
Surrender is true only in Divine Ignorance. In the Way of
Divine Communion, our surrender is tacitly true of us, prior
to all causation and every effect, in egoless or
uncontracted contemplative Communion with the Divine
Presence. Thus, our own surrender is true only by Grace, but
literal only by right action in response to Grace.
The Grace of true surrender must be
awakened in us, and cannot be intended or willed into being.
Therefore, do not presume the Divine Presence, in the manner
of self-possessed knowers and believers. Allow yourself, to
be awakened to the Divine Presence, moment to moment. Allow,
the Divine Presence to reveal and communicate itself, and to
become attractive to the point where your natural activities
became, literal expressions of surrender. The Spiritual Master constantly
serves a transcendental Initiatory Function, prior to time
and space, whereby true hearers of the Teaching are awakened
to the Divine Presence and Real Condition of all conditions.
Therefore, this same Function makes devotees, or those whose
surrender is both literal and true, out of ordinary men and
women. The perpetual Samadhi of the Spiritual Master is the
Agent or Function of such awakening. Therefore, it is
appropriate to contact such a one through true hearing and
right preparation, so that we may be awakened to true Divine
Communion in his Company and mature more and more perfectly
in literal Realization of the Truth of the Real Divine
Presence. 4.17 Whatever is not Lawful is fateful.
Whatever is not sacrifice in Truth cannot fulfill the Law,
and, therefore, deceives all parties. Sacrifice in Truth is
not self-effort but present intuition of the Condition of
the world, the body, the life, the mind,, all knowledge
(high and low), and the ego-soul. Fulfill the ordinary
obligations of life with humor, peacefully, and allow the
spiritual and meditative discipline to awaken truly and
become constant. What may be gained by dreaming is no
consolation to one who is truly awake.