THE “BRIGHTENING” WAY TALK
SERIES THE “BRIGHTENING” WAY TALK SERIES – The Yajna Discourses
of Santosha Adi Da (1995-1996) – Gathering “Considerations”
with Beloved Adi Da Samraj, at Sugar Bowl Ski Resort and the
Manner of Flowers, December 29 and 30 1995, and January 3,
1996. THE “BRIGHTENING” WAY TALK SERIE The Yajna Discourses of Santosha Adi Da (1995-1996) Volume 1, Number 1 Theres No Escape, Theres Only Realization A Gathering “Consideration” with Beloved Bhagavan Adi Da
In The Manner of Flowers On January 5, 1995 SECTION I AVATARA ADI DA: So what didnt we come to any conclusion
about in these twenty-three years? KANYA KAIVALYA NAVANEETA: Whoa! Thats the first question
You release into our “consideration”? AVATARA ADI DA: Is there anything? [pause] Do you
all know what anything is yet? [DEVOTEES: No.] STANLEY HASTINGS: Thats one conclusion weve come to. AVATARA ADI DA: But did you find out that you can Realize
What everything is? [silence] Is anybody Realizing It now? [long pause] KANYA NAVANEETA: That was it. MICHAEL WOOD: I think we should keep considering that
. AVATARA ADI DA: Okay. HELLIE KALOGEROS: It feels as though, Beloved, that when
you relax the conceptual mind, the perceptual mind is felt
at heart. AVATARA ADI DA: Mm? And thats a perception. HELLIE: But it also shows you the deepest place to relax
into. AVATARA ADI DA: Yes, well, what if you do that? What if you relax that perception, too? In other words,
where there is no contraction whatsoever. If theres no contraction, then youre not merely
experiencing but in some inherent sense Realizing What Is ,
because youre not adding anything. Theres no “you” in the
active sense affecting What Is. So youre not experiencing
What Is through any kind of medium of thought or
sensation. Its just It. If you feel It utterly, then the perceptual mind that is
even aware of your own physical form relaxes and there are
no boundaries. And no separate self. [pause] There are levels of emotion in it that follow, rather
formless-positive emotions, negative emotions. Thats just
another modification of Energy. Feel through each of those. Add absolutely nothing to What Is. [pause] Theres a kind of anxiety at the root of it. Thats the ego
knot. Feel through it. [very long pause, several minutes] Now do you see how much further youd have to go to allow
it completely? [Devotees answer that they do.] So you have to do the sadhana, you see. [long
pause] STANLEY: Beloved, that was a very extraordinary
experience, because I felt like it began with the conceptual
mind relaxing to begin with, as we have talked about. AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. STANLEY: And now all kinds of perceptions when we were
just silent there. And then even those perceptions kind of
all being just eliminated down to what felt like was the
contraction at the core here. And at the same time I was
seeing You, just Witnessing You. It was like I could simply
see Who You Are. And I felt like there were moments when I
would just evaporate into That in some sense, that this knot
was forgotten for a split second, but then it was right
there. AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. STANLEY: It was so strongly there. And I felt, apart from
conceptions and perceptions and so on, that that was simply
going to be there until completely purified by sadhana.
There was no way of thinking it through or perceiving it
through. It was simply there. And I felt what needed to be
surrendered in order for that to be transcended. AVATARA ADI DA: Yes, if you really feel that knot, you
dont want to feel it. Hm? But it is the ground of your
ordinary life. You try to distract yourself from it
constantly, through seeking and self-indulgence and whatnot.
But if you really find out about yourself, find this knot,
find what your real experience is, then you won’t want to
put up with that. It will oblige you to do sadhana, to feel
constantly more and more beyond it. NINA DAVIS: Beloved, I feel this. I feel this need to go
beyond that, what this illusion is, very strongly now. Its
something that You Gave me this year. AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha. NINA: I feel that its such a profound vision to see life
as an illusion. The Beauty of What is other than that, you
know, is just Shining more and more to me. AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. But to Realize It you must utterly relinquish your
self-position. So that doesnt make life a negative. That
just means that thats what life is about. Life is
inherently, by Law, sadhana, God-wardness, going beyond
separate self. Generally, people dont seem to know anything about that.
So by Grace you may become aware of it, and no longer be
willing to be distracted by your cover-up, to keep yourself
somehow or other unaware of it and becoming very, then,
superficial, peripheral, in your mind, your body, your
feelings. But all the time youre motivated by it. Youre
always seeking something or other. You even forget what the
hell youre seeking. Or in one moment or other its this,
that, or the other particular thing, but always avoiding the
knowledge, the discovery, of your own action that is
producing all of that. So it is a Grace to find it out. But it is not in itself
Graceful. In other words, its not a mere pleasure to find
this knot, you see, if, having found It out, you must do
sadhana. Otherwise, well, maybe youll forget a little bit
again by getting very superficial, but youll give up the
opportunity to deal with it. NINA: Beloved, I feel that everything in the world is
about that. That is all its about, is avoiding that. AVATARA ADI DA: Avoiding this knowledge of this knot. The
whole worlds avoiding this knowledge of the knot. NINA: Everything that Ive done, even in Your Company and
the practice that Youve Given us, Ive had to come to see
that everything I do, everything I do, everything I do,
… AVATARA ADI DA: Mm. NINA: … is intentionally keeping me from feeling that
and going beyond that. AVATARA ADI DA: Well, truly, youre only willing to feel
that knot that motivates you when you simultaneously,
Gracefully, discover What Transcends it and are Given a
Wisdom that communicates itself to you so that you know how
to go beyond it. In other words, individuals will
automatically dissociate from this depth unless they can
somehow come to terms with it through the Graceful discovery
of What Transcends it and the finding of Wisdom to deal with
it. So when all those things coincide, and all of a sudden
you find youre able to feel this thing that motivates you,
this knot, this disturbance, because you know that theres
something you can do about it, then there is the What to
Realize thats beyond it. But still the sadhana is a matter of actually dealing
with this dis-ease. In other words, the religious life, this
Way in particular, is not about consolation merely and
distraction and so forth, in the conventional sense, or
ego-supporting sense. The process, moment to moment, goes
beyond the self-contraction, particularly as hearing
awakens. Thats when there is most profound understanding,
knowing of this self-contraction, and that it is your own
activity. But even the sadhana from the beginning is about
going beyond this knot and not avoiding it through
conventional-mindedness and consolation and such. So the actual process is to stay in place, in this place
of separate self, surrendering to Me, to the point of
self-forgetting Communion with Me, true going beyond it. Its
that from the beginning, not merely after hearing. Even from
the beginning it is so. But you have to understand that
thats what the sadhana is about, or you will miss the point
and think the religious life is about consolation or mere
behavior and so forth. You are to stand in that position of that knot, feeling
your own dis-ease, motivation. CARL PENGELLEY: Its so painful just to feel that,
though. AVATARA ADI DA: But its there anyway. [CARL:
Yeah.] So you must embrace this Way and actually go
beyond it. But that means you have to endure it over the period of
your sadhana. Theres not only the fundamental knot itself.
There are all of its reflections in the body-mind,
tendencies of one kind or another, and so on. You have to
endure the purification of these things by standing in the
knot-position, sensitive to all the limitations of your
disposition, and surrender to Me to the point of forgetting
it, relinquishing it, keeping the faculties all focused in
Me, in this Communion Only then do you make this knot
obsolete. You initially go through a process of purification where
the resultant knots, the different kinds of behaviors,
attitudes, and so forth, that bind you appear. These must be
purified through the initial stages of sadhana, even up to
the “Perfect Practice”. So the initial sadhana is purifying,
and its necessarily, then, a matter of being in touch with
this knot in life-difficulties and so on, all tendencies
that would make life difficult. Instead of dramatizing them,
maintain the discipline of this Way and practice this
Communion every moment. In this manner you will be purified by this Communion
with Me in all those areas that are relaxed, forgotten,
disciplined. So that more and more the practice becomes
extraordinarily concentrated, not in peripheral matters of
experiencing and so on but in the root itself. And then the
“Perfect Practice” can begin. So, once sufficient
purification has occurred, that there is this extraordinary
concentration, then suddenly My Instruction about the
Witness becomes inherently Obvious and is thereafter not
something that can be forgotten. Its not a something that can be forgotten. Its not merely
a thought. Its a noticing that you never forget. Its a
noticing even beyond the mind. Now, you can notice it, of course, for a moment, if I
Call you to. [Beloved Adi Das Voice becomes quiet.] I mean,
isnt it true, right now? No matter what is arising, you are
the Witness of it? [Quiet assent from devotees.] But to Stand in the Witness-Position Itself, truly,
requires purification of attention, and therefore of the
bondage signs in the body-mind altogether, and in life,
experience. So sadhana is tapas. You must be in the place of the
knot, sensitive to the limitations in your own disposition,
but in every moment-instead of dramatizing that-disciplining
it, surrendering it to Me, entering into Communion with Me
by forgetting the content that is simply the garbage result
of not living in Truth in the past. So it has to be made
obsolete. All the modifications of the fundamental Reality
must be purified and transcended. What there is to Realize
is the Unconditional Reality, the Reality that is Always
Already the case, even now. Now you are preoccupied with the modifications of that
Reality, that Divine Reality, distracted by them and
dissociated from the fundamental Reality by this very knot.
You must enter into depth, no superficiality, as you did in
the first part of this consideration. Ordinarily you are not
doing so in the fullest or stable sense, you see. And so as
soon as you relax into your just fundamental feeling, you
feel a knot there. You dont simply feel the inherent
Love-Bliss of Reality-but you do feel It, Flowing through
it, but youre experiencing this knot in the midst of It. To
Realize the Divine Self-Condition, you have to go beyond
that knot. So its not really a matter of thinking, accumulating
experience, and so on. Its a matter of being established in
that place, surrendering to Me to the point of
self-forgetting. And this allows a course of purification
and development that becomes the “Perfect Practice” and
ultimately the seventh stage Demonstration. It is truly an
inevitable process, able to go by its appropriate stages and
so forth, unless you step outside the process itself and
become superficial again. But if you stay with the process
itself, as I have Given it to you altogether, then the
development is inevitable. So if your development in this Way is slow, its because
youre stepping outside the process. Its not that the process
itself is retarded. This is why the hearing matter is so profound and
fundamental to this Way. Its the foundation of the process
that must develop, because its about finding the self-knot,
the self-contraction, finding it as your own activity,
feeling its disturbed, ill-at-ease characteristic but also
even in every moment of such sensitivity enjoying the
capability to feel beyond it in this Communion with Me. So hearing is the first great step beyond the initiation
of Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga. In other words, the first
dimension of the process is concentrated in the awakening of
hearing, because you must enjoy and suffer this capability
to stand in the egoic position and feel beyond it. If you
dont do that, then if you faked your way on to level 2 and
then beyond and so forth, youd simply be involved in a kind
of evolutionary or developmental ego-game. Whereas the Way
of the Heart is about the transcendence of egoity. BRIAN OMAHONY: I saw that, Beloved, when I was
Contemplating You. I was feeling this knot of
self-contraction and the Bliss of Your Beautiful Form at the
same time. I felt Your Current of Energy, and It threw me
back into the sense of the descending Current and something
like “the Thumbs”. But when that happened, I lost sight of
the self-contraction and I also lost sight of the Bliss of
Your Form. So there was something about the … AVATARA ADI DA: You lost sight of that, too? BRIAN: [Laughs.] When that happened, I just
noticed that I got absorbed in myself rather than in
You. AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha. BRIAN: That was an example of the fact that Im not
hearing. Just even that moment of distraction, I could feel
it as such. AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. Because youre experiencing it as
an event happening to You. Whereas hearing is about that
unique understanding in which the self-contraction is not
something happening to you. Its something that you do. Only
when that is discovered have you discovered the capability
itself, so that you can continue doing it. Its a unique
discovery, most profound discovery. And its the basis for
the rest of the Way of the Heart. Its what allows it to be a
truly ego-transcending process and not merely a
developmental or ego-evolving process. BRIAN: Theres never been anything like it, Beloved. AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha. Its also for this reason that in the general case the
transition from maturity at level 3, the transition can be
made at that point to the “Perfect Practice”, in the general
case. Because the Way is not an evolutionary process, but
its about ego-transcendence, and thats the fundamental
understanding associated with true hearing. So in general
what follows from there is simply the fundamental process of
seeing Me, not merely having Spiritual experiences in My
Company but “Locating” Me, and then the next step is the
“Perfect Practice”. So hearing is what allows that unique process. It has
some features to it for which you can find analogies in the
Great Tradition, but fundamentally it is utterly unique. BRIAN: So Beloved, when someone is seeing, that person
never loses sight of Your Form. AVATARA ADI DA: Yes. Youre entered into My Form, not
merely having experiences in your own apparent form, or
body-mind, you see, but felt beyond that into My Spiritual
Person. Then the Force of My Spiritual Attraction will draw
you into the heart place on the right, and the “Perfect
Practice” can begin. CARL: Beloved, I remember one time when I was driving up
to the Mountain Of Attention here when I was living in
Marin. I was a single person at the time. And I believe it
was during the time of the Love of the God-Man Celebration.
I had never seen You before. I was relatively new. Anyway,
for a moment as I was driving my car, I happened to look
across at these two people driving alongside me. They were
an older couple. But it was like You Said, for a moment I
was in the Witness-Position, just for-I dont know how long
it was. But it just became very clear that it was the state
that Im never in, or very, very, rarely. AVATARA ADI DA: Its not uncommon for people to report
something like this, though, having either occasional or
frequent experiences of that kind. CARL: I did recognize that it was through Your Grace that
I was allowed to Witness this. AVATARA ADI DA: Ive told you all about My experience with
Sue Ellen Beckman [when Avatara Adi Da was a
teenager], when Id be standing on her doorstep? Thats
similar to what youre suggesting, Carl. It happened to Me
many times, and it generally would always be in the same
place, too. Id be saying goodnight to her at her house, shed
be about a step above Me, Id be looking at her, and suddenly
there was no familiarity whatsoever. No thinking about
anything, no being a body, no recognizing names, faces, or
what a face is and not only being the Witness as attention
might be, observing, but more than that, such that there was
a direct awareness of the infinite Field that is the True
Domain of the Witness. So this sense that Carl described and that I have
Described is not an uncommon experience. Spontaneously it
happens to people. Maybe sometimes people dont really make
much of it or notice very much about it. They just forget
about it. But of course phenomena such as these are
cultivated in this Way. They are a potential, by Grace, in
My Company, all kinds of experiences. So devotees commonly
report experiences, even as beginners, that are in the
domain of the advanced stages of life and the
Witness-Position, and so on. These experiences should
inspire you and give you a sense of what this Way is all
about and so forth. CARL: Yes. AVATARA ADI DA: But you still have to do the sadhana. The
sadhana is staying in touch with your own very action in
this moment and going beyond it, forgetting it in Communion
with Me. If you just look for experiences-so-called
Spiritual experiences, psychic experiences, or blisses in
the body, whatever-youre becoming superficial again. Those
experiences may come or go, but to look for them, to avoid
the sadhana of staying in place where that knot is and
feeling beyond it is to waste the opportunity of this
Way. So experiences may come and go. Devotees have
experiences, certainly, and basically they serve to inspire
you. Thats about it. The sadhana is just the same thing
every moment. Its not boring. Its the fundamental living
event. But you must persist, moment by moment by moment. To
be renounced in this Way is to be in the disposition of
going beyond the self-contraction. But its also to be in the
disposition of renouncing attachment to or search for
conditional experiences. In other words, you persist in the
fundamental sadhana rather than pursue such things. HELLIE: Then doesnt that occur quite naturally as a
result? AVATARA ADI DA: Which? The experiences? HELLIE: Mm-hm. AVATARA ADI DA: Yes, the experiences, as I Say, come
about spontaneously, but theyre not themselves the sadhana
and theyre not something to cling to or to pursue or try to
repeat and so on. So you must persist in the sadhana. Of
course, that means you have to know what this sadhana is.
Weve been talking about it for a while before you two
[indicating Rod and Julia] arrived. But the others
of you know what we talked about. And the conversations we had at Sugar Bowl and the
conversation I had with the Kanyas the other night that was
recorded are other considerations Ive put to you recently to
serve devotees generally, but also in particular to serve
this Lay Renunciate Order matter. Even up to today, it hasnt
gone very far. Im having to remind everybody what this most
profound sadhana is really all about and Call you all who
are considering this LRO matter to consider all that very
seriously. So its no small matter to hear Me. BRIAN: Its not for fools. AVATARA ADI DA: No. So for individuals to be accepted,
relative to this LRO matter, for level 1.3 or level 2, there
must be the signs of all this profundity. People think its
such a big deal to discipline themselves, that they want to
be patted on the back for a little bit of straightening
themselves out. Sometimes thats enough for some people to
start thinking grandiose things about themselves-hearing,
seeing, advancement, all the rest. Whereas its not enough.
Its just basic practice. The real process goes on from
there. STANLEY: Beloved, it seems the more profound the sadhana,
the less grandiose peoples presumptions are about
themselves. AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. Truly, theres no one to have any
presumptions about. Another thing I was talking to the Kanyas about the other
night, which was in that recording, I guess some of you
heard it, is some matters particular to the seventh stage of
life. I was talking about the fundamental Nature of Reality,
that simply What Is, is What there Is when everything else
is eliminated. Well, broken down into its parts and going
deeper and deeper, you see, when you get to the place you
cant reduce to anything further, thats What Is. Hm? Thats
Reality. Every schoolboy, schoolgirl, knows, from a little bit of
science class, that all there is is light. Everythings
light, energy. Its part of the common presumption of the
present day. With all of its other limitations, this is one
of its presumptions. Its remarkable that it hasnt produced
any cultural changes yet. [Laughter.] Everything
just seems fleshier and fleshier and more and more stupid
and technified, whereas what is really profound about all of
that is not all this invention you can do, preoccupation you
can create, but this fundamental communication about
reality, that its light. All of this is Light! Its just one Buzz, Shakti, Hm? The
Divine Radiance. You can look at a form, get into its parts,
you know-the human body, lets say. Theres that fleshiness,
and then theres the chemical and molecular levels, and
atomic levels, and so forth. Eventually you get to Light, or
Energy Itself. And It cant be reduced to anything else. You
cant break It down into any parts. It doesnt have any parts,
you see. Its fundamental Reality. Theres one other irreducible Reality for you to discover,
likewise, and that is Consciousness. There are conceptions,
perceptions, blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah, hm? At the
root of it all is Consciousness Itself, and It cant be
reduced to anything else. Its like Light. You cant break It
into parts, and theres nothing on the other side of It but
Itself. Light and Consciousness are the same Thing.
Generally Consciousness is what you call the Subjective Part
of It, and Light is the Objective Part of It. But in reality
They are One. Reality Itself, just simply What Is, cant be reduced to
anything. It is Self-Existing. Its Inherent Nature is Radiance. And Its Quality is Love-Bliss, the Very Divine
Person. I am Speaking to you now. It is so! But you are apparently dissociated from Me, from this
Very Condition. The self-knot, the self-contraction, is how
youre doing that. You are doing it. This is what you must
discover, and this is what hearing is about. By entering
into Communion with Me from that position, moment to moment,
going beyond that knot, you enter into the real process of
the Way of the Heart, Which is about Realizing the Condition
that everybody already knows is True-Light Itself,
Love-Bliss Itself, Consciousness Itself, the One Infinitely
Conscious Buzz that you are experiencing right now! But, of course, in the midst of It, you are dissociating
from It also, so you feel this knot of contraction. But you
also feel this Pervasive Presence when you feel the Depth
also, in any moment that you are truly sensitive,
anyway. So the process is about Realizing the Condition That Is,
Realizing My Very Person, by going beyond the self-knot,
utterly. And at first there is a lot of sequence of
purification, as I Said, going beyond distraction by mere
modifications. And then theres entering into the profound
Depth of the Self-Radiant Consciousness in the “Perfect
Practice”. Of course, through that process of purification and
Spiritual Awakening, there are many changes that occur in
the personality of the body-mind and so forth that one could
call Spiritualizing. But its only with the seventh stage
Awakening in Which there is Inherent and Most Perfect
Identification with the Divine Self-Condition, the
Demonstration of That, through the process of Divine
Recognition, is the actual Incarnating of the Divine, the
actual Manifesting of the Divine. So the seventh stage Demonstration is one of
progressively absolute Radiance, or “Brightening”. So there
are stages to that Demonstration, ultimately to the point of
No-Noticing, Divine Translation. BRIAN: And must that process be fulfilled once its begun,
Beloved? In other words, once the seventh stage process is
begun it will be fulfilled? AVATARA ADI DA: Inevitably, yes. But it is a matter of
Indifference when it occurs. Its not that it has yet to happen, either. The
Realization is already the case. The Samadhi is already the
case. BRIAN: Its just a Revelation. AVATARA ADI DA: But its Demonstration is in the context
of conditional existence. MICHAEL: Transfiguration, Transformation … AVATARA ADI DA: Yes, Indifference, and ultimately
Unqualified “Brightness”, Divine Translation. Indifference may sound like a dull thud in the midst of
that. [Laughter.] NINA: Not the way You Show it, Beloved. The “Brightening” Way
Talk Series – Index AVATARA ADI DA: You just sort of go comatose or blank or
something. No, it is beyond the Transfiguring and
Transforming processes. It is immensely Full in the
body-mind. The body-mind is simply Radiant. And that
Radiance is magnified in the Divine Indifference stage to
the point of Divine Translation. But this “Brightness”, this Realization of the “Bright”,
is the seventh stage Awakening. So the “Brightness” is what I have Brought to you. Thats
What I Am. Thats Who I Am. BRIAN: So, Beloved, when Youre Divinely Indifferent,
Youre just Residing in Your Love-Bliss and Giving it to
everyone? Is that it? AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. Thats it. The inherent Nature of Light, or the Divine Conscious
Bliss, is Radiance. I was discussing this with the Kanyas
the other evening, as a way of Helping everyone to
understand something more fundamental of what the sadhana is
about. It is the sadhana of the “Bright”. The ordinary human disposition is attached to
two-sidedness. On the one hand there is pleasure and pursued
pleasurable states. On the other hand there is negativity
and a kind of lightlessness, or darkness. And youre attached
to a body-mind that is mortal, and that makes it more
negative in the balance than positive. And so youre always, by tendency, literally
un-en-lightened, not lighted, not “Bright”, not Radiant.
Youre contracted, not Radiant. Radiance, however, is the
inherent Nature of Reality. So the sadhana is-Ive used many
metaphors, like “living in My Kiln”-through Communion with
Me, self-forgetting Communion with Me, to Reside in My
Self-Radiant Position. It is to be Radiant, rather than
self-contracted. Every moment of Communion with Me is this.
And then with hearing it becomes more profound, and seeing,
and so on. But it is a “Bright” course of identifying with
My inherently Radiant Condition, and thereby being Radiant,
becoming Radiant, being Radiant yourself rather than
contracted. All of the dark, negative, egoic
“self-possessed”, mortal, and so forth lightlessness in you
must become Radiant instead. The Way is literally the Way of
becoming En-Lightened, becoming Perfectly Identified with
“Brightness”. Me. So it is a matter of constantly becoming Radiant instead
of contracted. On Melrose Avenue when I first began to
Instruct devotees, I would often use this gesture of closing
the fist and then opening the fist. [Beloved Adi Da
makes the Gesture with His right hand held at the center of
His chest.] Everybody intuitively felt what that meant.
They knew its got something to do with energy and all that,
too, you know. They felt all that in My Company. But what does that mean? You can either be contracted and
therefore dark and dissociated from the Divine
Self-Condition, or you can be Radiant, not only open but
Radiating. Hm? And the more you do this sadhana, the more
obvious the Disposition of Radiance becomes. Even the
“conscious process” becomes a non-verbal feeling beyond
contraction. You can do it in every moment relative to
everything. Instead of being darkened by the tendencies, you
can feel beyond the self-contraction and all the
tendencies. So those who do this sadhana seriously, for real, become
“Brighter” and “Brighter”, literally. It is Light. It can
even be seen. By some it can be felt. So through this
process of purification, you dont just get thinner and
thinner and more and more ascetical. You get Fuller and
Fuller, “Brighter” and “Brighter”. Hm? This is how devotees
should understand it. They always think in terms of getting
disciplined and dried up, so they always want to use
something or other to feel good. But, no, this Way is a
“Brightening” Way. It is not about self-contraction. It is
quite the opposite. Its not about pleasurelessness, but it
is about Happiness Itself, Which is greater than ordinary
pleasure but allows for it also. BRIAN: Theres an Irish saying, Beloved, describing a very
happy person, he was so happy he was like a cat milking the
sun. AVATARA ADI DA: Milking the sun? Ah, Tcha. Thats
good. So when making these observations, as I Said, trying to
assist people in this LRO consideration, and as I was
telling people today, My observation-and obviously Ive been
telling people for a long time-My observation of devotees in
general, including those who apply for this LRO matter,
suggests to Me that theyre struggling with, or otherwise
demonstrating, limitations in the real moment to moment
practice of Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga. And, along with that,
theyre struggling with or otherwise neglecting the various
disciplines. And the struggling with the disciplines produces drama
and lack of results in the gathering. The absence of true
and moment to moment Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga just shows
itself as mediocre practice altogether. So these are My observations of the gathering in general.
And Ive Called for all kinds of positive changes to be made
in all of that, but when I receive a list of people applying
for the Lay Renunciate Order telling Me that theyre 1.3 or
even actually level 2-uh, well lets put it this way, I
generally dont find the list convincing.
[Laughter.] MICHAEL: Delicately put, Lord. AVATARA ADI DA: And so in conversations such as this one
and similar ones recently, including at Sugar Bowl, Ive been
trying to get everybody to understand what a profound
process this is, and what it is as a process. There have to
be the signs, the history of right and serious practice, and
there has to be the “Brightening”. And if youre just
struggling with even what is Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga and how
to do it and only remembering it sometimes and likewise
arguing about the diet or whatever else, and throwing
yourself into, you know, blithely into the bondage or
“bonding”, then how much even of listening is there? How
much of real sadhana? The profound incident of what you could call hearing in
My case was insanity . I mean, all these people who are
declaring themselves to have heard Me-when was that day?
[Laughs.] It is an extraordinary Realization. I have
no doubt that devotees generally even have some sense of
this understanding, because they have My Instruction about
it and theyre doing sadhana with some degree of energy and
attention. And so they do see things getting clearer in
various aspects of their lives, you know. You can say this
about devotees in general. They feel less aberrated about
this, that, and the other thing over a period of time and so
forth, so that, in other words, theyre being purified of
some aspects of their ego-routine and seeing that the Wisdom
works, the Way works. And because they can even explain that
much change in their lives in the language of understanding,
then they imagine theyve heard Me, because they could
describe it as understanding and self-contraction and
avoidance of relationship and “I dont do it now anymore with
my girlfriend”, or whatever it is, “or at least not so
much”. And so they may think that itself is hearing, because
they can describe it in the language of
self-understanding. Its the little bit of the Law that casts out so much fear
you feel good about yourself, you see. But you have to get
the whole Law to hear Me. Hm? And not just the little
bit. NINA: Beloved, thats what I felt after that
feeling-Contemplation that we did of You earlier. AVATARA ADI DA: Mm. This evening. NINA: Mm-hm. That there was such a profound difference
between, you could describe what You were Initiating us into
at that time in the same language … AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. NINA: … that we read all the time in Your
Instruction. AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. NINA: But the difference in the understanding of it
between the exoteric understanding of it … AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. NINA: … at the level that You were just Describing and
the esoteric understanding of it that You Gave all of us
earlier tonight is so profound. Its just an amazingly
profound initiation. AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha. MICHAEL: Night and day. Night and day. STANLEY: Beloved, I felt there was a tacit moment of
recognition and a change in what You just Said, where we
tend to feel good about ourselves and maybe have a good
feeling and so then imagine thats hearing. AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. STANLEY: And then when You asked us to feel our anxiety,
to feel the anxiety there … AVATARA ADI DA: Mm. STANLEY: And right then it snapped into something
entirely different, which was just no bullshit. AVATARA ADI DA: Mm. STANLEY: And its not this, you know, ideal thats going on
but this actual total recognition, conscious recognition, of
the contraction and of Your total Radiance and the Energy
that You Are. And I could feel that when I recognized that,
that it was just a matter of always surrendering into that.
Whenever this is felt … AVATARA ADI DA: Mm. STANLEY: … surrendering into that, and then it more and
more becomes that. AVATARA ADI DA: And not surrendering merely
superficially. NINA: Its not superficial at all. AVATARA ADI DA: Surrendering from that very place of the
knot. And thats the unique hearing capability. Hm? Now, before that capability truly awakens, as I Said, you
can make use of self-understanding as Ive Communicated it to
you and various aspects of the sadhana, and be purified of
some aspects of the behavioral and emotional and mental
aspects of your life, and feel good about that-and should,
of course. Its positive. But its not hearing. Its not itself
the sign of hearing. Hearing is this fundamental
responsibility. You see? STANLEY: Beloved, this is the most unique difference
between Your Teaching and all traditional teachings of all
time. AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha. STANLEY: In that those traditions generally are about our
always experiencing this not feeling good. AVATARA ADI DA: The traditions are based on the
self-contraction. Theyre based on a search generated by
that. MICHAEL: The great path of return. AVATARA ADI DA: Yes. So its a progress of stages, not to
the seventh, but of developmental stages, ego-motivated, and
producing states that are ultimately egoic because they
depend on conditions. But the Way of the Heart is not that.
And Ive been making this point over and over again since the
day I began to Instruct in 1972, and even before then. The
experiences are not it! And then I didnt just Say that thats so. There was the
Garbage and the Goddess time, and all kinds of other times,
for that matter, in which people experienced spontaneously
all kinds of phenomena associated with all those
developmental stages of life. And then I would constantly
point out, “Thats not it. But what are you doing?”
Re-sensitizing them to themselves , to their own action
thats producing the search for those experiences or wanting
to cling to them or wanting to repeat them or make the Way
into a process for achieving such things. Its not at all
that. Ive Communicated to you the uniqueness of this Way from
the very beginning, but your grasping of it is slow. All
experiencing, and all thinking for that matter, all
conditionality, is a development of the self-contraction.
Its a development from a place of anxious dissociativeness,
the ego, wanting to expand its sphere to feel better and
better. And ultimately what will it discover in its own
utter dissolution? The Divine Condition is to be discovered.
But It is simply Reality from the beginning. So the Way of the Heart is not about that developmental
course but about the direct process, in every moment, of
Realizing the Divine Self-Condition, going beyond egoity and
Realizing That. Thats what this Communion with Me is about
from the beginning, then-the direct gesture of going beyond
the ego-knot rather than just surrendering with and as the
body-mind, founded on the ego, to have experiences. I see still even many devotees showing the sign, even as
beginners coming for My Darshan, that what theyre supposed
to be there doing is some kind of working on themselves to
gain some experience for themselves. Whatever that might be.
Often it is obviously shown even in their bodies as wanting
to experience energy, Spiritual signs in the body-mind and
so on. Its not that such experiences do not and will not
arise in the Way, but they are not the point. They are not
it. They are not Realization. Therefore, the process of the
Way is not a matter of seeking such things. The process is
always the one of directly transcending the ego-knot, moving
out of the position of self-contraction into Radiance, My
Condition. Thats the Way of the Heart from the beginning. Do you see
clearly the difference? [Devotees confirm that they
do.] And hearing is simply the establishment, on the
basis of all the foundation practice, the establishment of
this capability, most direct, with fullest comprehension,
fullest responsibility, so that you can do that sadhana, of
going beyond the self-knot, under all the circumstances that
may arise in the developing stages of life. They will not
then become ego-reinforcing. They will not be deluding. They
will simply be purified, like all other tendencies, and
youll move on to the “Perfect Practice”. So Im always trying to find more ways to put it to you.
And so you have this Literature now that is very full, and I
hope it is fully Communicative. [Devotees praise
Beloveds Source-Texts.] Additionally, conversations
still continue from time to time. HAL OKUN: Like tonight. AVATARA ADI DA: Like tonight, yes. Im always Working, and
therefore always Working to have this point become clear,
and have this understanding become clear, have the sadhana
become clear to you so that you can do the sadhana better
and know the difference between the signs that must be there
for real transitions and notions that you all may develop
otherwise somehow, that are less than that. So Im happy to entertain this possibility of a Lay
Renunciate Order, but these matters Ive been putting to you
all during this last week in particular are the measure you
must make of yourselves. Are you doing this sadhana itself that I am Describing to
you, that I have Given you? Are you really practicing
Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga moment to moment? Do you, if youre
claiming to have heard Me, stand in the position of the
self-knot and right there-thats your action, you see?-feel
beyond it in Communion with Me through self-surrendering,
self-forgetting practice? Are you doing that, or not? And
you must really examine yourselves and see if its so. And if
its not so, well, its not 1.3 yet, but hopefully you know
better than before what the sadhana requires and are more
serious about it. Im not looking to not get a Lay Renunciate Order out of
this “consideration”. Im looking to actually get one, but I
have to have the goods. SECTION II AVATARA ADI DA: What more is there to talk about relative
to this? Some of you are on the LRO list in one place or
another, and some of you are conspicuously absent. NINA: The usual suspects. AVATARA ADI DA: Theres another thing I pointed out about
it that we could maybe discuss tonight, too, then. In a very
high number of cases actually, one member of an intimate
couple is on the list and their intimate is not. So I gave a
lot of Notes about that today. NINA: We heard those before we came over. AVATARA ADI DA: Good. BRIAN: Beloved in this moment in this whole conversation
Youve sensitized me more deeply to the self-contraction, and
also to You, more profoundly in this moment. And once that
level of sensitivity is established, couldnt you very
quickly demonstrate the hearing capacity? AVATARA ADI DA: It seems logically so, yes. But, as I
Said, you can step out of the process. People take vacations
all the time, make the practice sort of nominal and
superficial, either consistently or in some occasions. But
if you dont cop out, in other words if you stay with it
seriously, stay focused in it, and maintain all the
disciplines Ive Given you, yes, hearing should come about
readily, inevitably, and it shouldnt take a great long
time. As I said, what are the reasons why it wouldnt happen?
Why would it be delayed? Its taking vacations from the
totality of discipline that covers everything, functional,
practical, relational, cultural. You either dont let the
practice become intense, or you dont let it touch
everything. This is how you let yourself off the hook.
Instead of focusing and listening to Me, in other words
focusing in this discovery of the self-contraction, youre
looking for some gleeful or distracted alternative. So you find this by playing it fast and loose with some
aspects of the discipline, and then you otherwise get sort
of dopey and you dont practice Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga moment
to moment. You just do it sometimes. Well, thats why hearing
could take a long time. And many of you here are proof of
it. Some of you characters are getting old in My Company
already. I remember Rodney making jokes about this-it seems
like yesterday, but it must be twenty years ago-how in the
future, you know, sitting in rocking chairs or whatever, and
everybody would be old here together and so forth. So I
remember him making remarks like this. And, well, its so. A
lot of people are getting up around sixty or so, certainly
into fifties. That doesnt mean middle age or old age. Thats
part of the social message you get, every ten years move
into another social pattern and eventually consent to be an
old asshole. But for the renunciate, the decades dont have
that psychological significance, and even though the body
itself may tend to go through some kind of changes, you
compensate for it Yogically and so forth. Well, in other words many of you are proof, being twenty
years or so in My Company already. Nina has been in My
Company, for what is it, thirty-five years? The longest
listening process to date. So Brian was just suggesting that once there is a basic
grasping, he was just describing that hearing ought to occur
very quickly or readily. It seems so. MICHAEL: Hopefully within just a few hours, Lord. AVATARA ADI DA: Yes, but then again, why havent so many
of you who have been in My Company for a good long while,
and thats basically all here, why havent you heard Me yet,
plain old, and moved on? Because if you tell Me you have, but I see you taking all
kinds of vacations-Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga sometimes,
functional, practical, relational, cultural disciplines,
pick and choose sometimes if I see you doing that, and youre
also telling Me youve heard Me, its not very believable, you
see. So thats another way of saying what is My difficulty when
I get these LRO lists. BRIAN: You can tell shit from shinola, Beloved. AVATARA ADI DA: Yes. You must discriminate. So thats the
first thing I look for in devotees. Thats what it means to
go from student-beginner on to 1.1, 1.2. Thats supposed to
be the sign, the stable establishment and maintenance of all
the foundation practice. No vacations from then. So what
there is to observe, then, in the crisis of hearing are the
unique characteristics associated with that. But whats being
reported to Me in general by people who make this
application to the LRO is that theyre feeling kind of happy
about having disciplined themselves for two weeks, while
they heard My talk on Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga yesterday and
theyre really intending to do it. But they dont have the
history of even the stability that should be there in the
transition from student-beginner. Theyve taken so many vacations that their claims dont
sound very believable. That doesnt mean, however, that they
cant get their act together and make that transition even
readily. And, like I Said, I have to see the goods. They
have to prove it. You have to pass the tests, not just
apologize for failing them and then tell Me youre committed
to do better. Thats Catholic, where you constantly return to
the sanctuary and apologize, and commit yourself to doing
better. And thats all the religious life amounts to is this
constant cycle of failing of tests and apologizing. I guess
we cant say thats exactly how the Catholic hierarchy
intended people to do it, but thats how people in general do
it. They never get purified, they never get intense, they
never get profound about the religious life, and all they
seem to be called upon to do anyway is to be good citizens
or something. Basically just social morality is expected. If
you do anything more than that, as a religious person, you
get raised eyebrows. Youre not supposed to be looking for God-Realization.
Youre supposed to be concentrating on being a productive
citizen. We dont want to see you getting ecstatic. Show up
at the office in an exalted state? I mean really!
[Laughter.] So the usual religious message is to be positive in the
social morality sense. So in the Catholic tradition, for
instance, they have the apology-recommitment cycle, in other
words, theres a conventional revision of Catholicism really,
where people just use the lesser part. So they apologize for
social infractions of one kind or another basically, and
then are asked “Are you sincere about that?”, “Yes.” And
“Okay, do a little penance and do better.” Of course they generally dont do all that much better, so
they just repeat the cycle over and over again. But what its
supposed to be about, even in the Catholic tradition, at
least in its origins, is a true purification-people unburden
themselves and truly change their act and live the life of
prayer and become more and more profound in their conversion
to God-Witness and God-Communion. Its like all traditions,
fundamentally about traditional God-Realization. But it gets
turned into the message of social morality in the common
world. And thats why it seems that so much of the time in
religious history, the esoteric part has been called
esoteric because its hidden. It just wasnt known. Not a
common message. It gives you the impression that the common people were
denied the Truth. Perhaps in some instances that was the
case, but people just prefer the vacation. Even if shown the
Great Revelation, they still want ordinary things instead.
In other words, theyre distracted in their attention. So I
Call you to a sadhana that directly goes beyond all of that,
and Ive Given it to you in every detail, and when people
tell Me that theyve heard Me and so on, I know what Im
looking at. And you all have to know what youre about. You have to
use My Teaching fully, and make it your Law and your
measure. If you do, then, yes, this hearing crisis should
awaken readily. Today we were talking in our meeting [Beloved met
earlier in the day with Stanley, Brian, and Daniel
Bouwmeester] that from the beginning to hearing should
maybe be, about a year and a half seems reasonable.
Student-novice for six months, and then a student-beginner
for six months, 1.1, 1.2, on to 1.3 in another six months
seems like a reasonable period of time over all, for
somebody who is truly serious and doesnt take vacations. So a number of you have been around for a long time and
havent heard Me yet. This is why. Youve been peripheral in
your disposition, and rather casually you take vacations
from discipline and so on, dont maintain the focus, and you
just wind up spinning your wheels instead of hearing Me. If
you really were serious, and could readily establish whats
supposed to be required for mature student-beginner, then
you should have basic certainty that in six months youll
have heard me and move on from there. If you dont take any
more vacations, six months ought to be enough for that, with
the year youve already had behind you, or more, in the
student-novice/student-beginner process, where youre
supposed to be adapting to this foundation practice. So My feeling about most of the people on that list, so
far in our consideration anyway, is that they could be as
little as six months away from it. In other words if they
really are serious in this moment, they should be able to
readily establish this full student-beginner obligation and
then in about six months should have heard Me. In other
words, I feel they are some kind of student-beginner,
basically, but could move beyond that readily if they got
serious. So thats what I was looking for when I asked you for that
second group, the intensive group. I knew there would just
be a small number that should be proposed as having actually
come up to level 2 now. So I wanted a proposal that would
cover the whole worldwide gathering in a short period of
time, reasonably short period of time. So I wanted people on
that list from each region. Its hard to say at this point how many, if any, will come
through this process and actually be part of the LRO now.
But if at least that whole group and maybe even some others
got involved in this intensive, and really got straightened
out with the foundation practice right away, and worked with
one another intensively, certainly many if not all of them
should move on to 1.3 within the next six months, or in as
little as six months. But I dont see a lot of the signs Im
looking for just generally speaking about that group. I see
many deficiencies which Ive described tonight, and in recent
days. But it is a consideration, and if somebody can prove
it to Me, fine. But I dont take this transition to 1.3 or otherwise level
2 lightly. Obviously, to rightly propose anybody for this
transition you have to have been involved in a true cultural
intensive with them. And with their intimate, if they have
one. Today I called all those who are considering this matter
to study the LRO vow, because it clearly describes lay
renunciate practice as a renunciate practice. Its not just a
householder practice, as opposed to real renunciate
practice. Its a renunciate order, made up of people who
generally practice in the lay circumstance but not as lay
people in any conventional sense. So the Lay Renunciate
Order vow describes complete renunciation in the case of its
members. They are here to relinquish the bondage of
“bonding”, to everything and everyone. So to do that
practice in intimacy requires a profound Yoga. How can that
Yoga be done and all the obligations of the Lay Renunciate
Order be done, if you are involved with an intimate who is
not such a renunciate? That other one would always have some kind of demands,
expectations or whatnot, but also would be practicing in a
different disposition, not only in sexual intimacy but in
all aspects of the relationship, one reinforcing at least to
some degree something less than full renunciation. Otherwise
why wouldnt he or she choose to do so, to embrace renunciate
practice? So thats why I was reminding everybody today about this,
because the intimates of many people were not on the list,
on any of those lists. And nobody mentioned it to Me, as if
it had importance. There seemed to be an impression that
single individuals can apply to the LRO, even if theyre
involved in intimacies. But, no, the general rule is that if
youre practicing in intimacy, your intimate must be involved
in that same sadhana, and that there may be exceptional
cases individually, where The list I got today was more or less the general rule.
You could apply just yourself without your intimate, or not,
it didnt seem to make a difference to those who gave Me this
list. If you are a renunciate in this Way, youre entered
into a profound consideration relative to everything. And
therefore you are involved in a profound consideration with
your intimate. So you cant live two lives as a member of the
Lay Renunciate Order. You have to live one-pointed. The difference in the Lay Congregationist Order is not
that theyre not practicing authentically. I expect them to
practice authentically. But they are, generally speaking,
probably encumbering their lives with lots of thiss and
thats and other things, that dont allow for the kind of
intensive of practice expected in the renunciate orders. And also they may have difficulty straightening some
things out, like for instance this matter of intimacy.
Fundamentally to move on to the renunciate practice, Lay
Renunciate Order and so on, you have to transform your
intimacy into Yoga. That means you have to see to it that
your intimate is transformed like everything else. And thats
part of your test of qualifying for the renunciate order,
that you and your intimate can show up at the same time,
prepared to do the same thing. Otherwise, what the hell are
you up to? Intimacies? Stay in the Lay Congregationist
Order. So if youre doing the work, it works, and you cover
everything, you see. Nothing is outside of the sphere of
renunciation for a true renunciate. So, individuals who do
real sadhana and who are involved in intimacy with one
another turn one another into renunciates, or certainly into
authentic devotees. This is what they support in one
another. This is what they oblige one another to do. Now, if
either one neglects it, then it becomes a relationship
purposed to serve egoity in one way or another, or
conventionality, which is basically the same thing, in and
of itself. Do you want to talk about something else, is that it? You
had the bliss part of the evening, and now youre having
reality talk, and you want to get back to the bliss part?
[Laughter.] STANLEY: This part isnt as blissful. AVATARA ADI DA: Oh, yes? Well, Ive Said enough about it,
I think. But what we were initially considering was not your
failures of sadhana and so forth, which we just completed
talking about. Getting back to the first two parts of our consideration,
the first was feeling beyond mind, perception, all the rest,
and entering into the Feeling of Reality directly. And youre
all doing that for a while. And then we began to talk again,
and you confessed noticing the limit on your ability to feel
thus profoundly. So Im interested in talking about sadhana
being about going beyond that, but in this Way of
“Brightness”. In other words, theres a constant
“Brightening” or change in the disposition from
self-contraction to Radiance. Then we talked about your failure of it, your failure to
do that. And you wanted to lay on to Me this hearing
transition stuff, based on something else entirely, not this
Radiance, and having gone through that real sadhana, but
some other positive changes you want to feel good about. But the more limitations you place on this practice of
going beyond the self-knot, the more distracted you are by
other things and so on, the more you delay the course and
the more you oblige yourself to endure dis-ease. Sometimes
without noticing it so much, because you desensitize
yourselves. You simply will not go beyond this inherently
uncomfortable, painful sensation of existence thats at the
root of everything you do and think. And youll live inward.
Its traditionally been called many things, including the
state of sin, which means to miss the mark. Youve become
dissociated from the Inherently Radiant “Bright”, the
Blissful Divine Self-Condition, and became a seeker instead,
you see, instead of a Realizer. So to practice this Way, you have to do the work of going
beyond the ego-knot itself. It is a Graceful process because
its done in the form of Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga. It is a
“Brightening” process, a sort of Radiating process, not
merely a cutting away or a cold process, emptying merely. It
is the Way of Fullness, of “Brightness”, of the “Bright”
Itself. But to live it, you cant just dance around with
conventional religiosity. You must enter into real Communion
with Me at the root of the knot. And you must do this
consistently. And you cant do it if you take vacations from
the whole round of disciplines Ive Given you that covers
everything. And you cant do it without practicing true
Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga moment to moment. So I expect all devotees to understand what Im talking
about and make the culture altogether right on this basis.
And this LRO consideration has to go on taking these matters
seriously and establish an intensive of those who can move
on to the LRO in the next six months or so. And then
otherwise discriminate between them and some others you may
feel who are truly qualified to move on, instead of just
presenting Me a bag of who knows what? Horse manure. Do you have any questions about all of this, or any
excuses? Excuses for whatever youve been doing instead? Or
what? Anybody got anything to say about any of this? Besides
Stanley? CARL: Sounds really good, Lord. AVATARA ADI DA: It sounds really good, Lord?!!!!! I cant
believe it! Twenty-three years later, this extraordinary
Ordeal, and the voice comes out of the gathering
representing all, “Sounds really good, Lord.” Cyrano was at
some sort of a gala, and some guy thought he was going to
get really snotty with him. He stepped up to him after much
prodding from his friend and gesticulated with a
handkerchief, and said to Cyrano, “Your nose is rather
large.” [Laughter.] You know that play, right? DEVOTEES: Yes. AVATARA ADI DA: It was really funny. Of all the things
that could have been said, in other words. We could just do the whole thing all over again. Ill talk
for twenty-three years to say all the things I did Say
before, but in order to say what you could have said.
[Laughter.] Thats it? HAL: It could be an interesting thing to try, Lord. Shall
we begin? AVATARA ADI DA: Sadhana? HAL: Consideration. STANLEY: Beloved, I feel like what we considered thus far
this evening, I dont think this is just a casual
conversation, or something we got just in passing. Ive felt
the thread of this since that most extraordinary guided
meditation. AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha. STANLEY: But since that time Ive continued to feel this
same realization that I noticed there in the very beginning,
which was different for me. I really felt the difference
between what I generally engage in and think is real
practice and real recognition of You. And then that actual
moment that I got to and continue to feel in the moment
since the beginning here, of feeling the contraction but
also feeling Your Radiance so “Bright” and beyond it, and
feeling like if I can just stay in that-staying in the
process always and not taking vacations-I can feel how that
can be very quick process. AVATARA ADI DA: Well, thats what its supposed to be. STANLEY: Thats what its supposed to be. AVATARA ADI DA: Ive Given you the process, and Im here to
quicken it, you see. STANLEY: It happened very quickly. AVATARA ADI DA: But then you have to do what I Say. If
you want Me to Do what I Do, you have to do what I Say. You
have to do the sadhana. HELLIE: Master, thats why I value these times with You
during these occasions so greatly, because its such a Gift
and a lesson for me. AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha. HELLIE: And I thank You. AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha. Now, I accept those thanks. But prove it. HELLIE: Yes. I hear You, Lord. AVATARA ADI DA: Youve had a lot of time around Me here,
along with a lot of others. Then this matter is very direct.
Simply establish the practice Ive Given to You. It is very
direct, because its not dependent on the kind of
accumulations and artifices associated with the
ego-developmental religiosity or ego-developmental
esotericism, whatever you want to call it, which is just
buzzing with distractions all the time. There are many reasons why this Way is quick. But its
because its focused on this one matter and not a lot of
distractions. But somehow or other you reverse it. You make
the establishment of all the foundation practices into some
sort of a thing in itself and dont stay one pointed in what
this listening to Me is really all about. We use these kinds of occasions-weve done them in the
past and hopefully now-to focus on real listening to Me. The
ancient texts are called “upanishads”, or some of the
ancient texts, a group of them are. It means “at the foot
of”. Well, what does that mean? Its to be established in the
discipline at the Feet of the Master and to listen, and hear
and see, and Realize. So if there is an occasion such as
this, or any occasion of consideration with Me under any
circumstances, you should use it rightly, use it to your,
advantage. So let this consideration serve real hearing in you. And
whatever correction you have to make in your practice, let
it serve your absolute commitment to doing so. Ive talked to you many times about point of view-being in
a position of the separate personality, but as a
psycho-physical personality-and how this governs your sense
of reality, as long as youre not entered profoundly into the
reality process. Your presumption of a separate point of
view in space is the naive realism of your daily life. Your
sense of reality in space is determined by this being fixed
as a physical body in it. You see? And so you are perceiving
the room to be however it looks to you. But somebody else
sitting in another place in the room is doing the same
thing. But the room doesnt look to that one exactly as it
looks to you. It has some general likeness, of course, but
its a different view altogether, even if its the same room.
And that ones perception of the room is just as authentic as
yours. Its not that one of you is seeing the room rightly
and the other is experiencing an illusion. So both of those
perceptions of the room are true. And so as you add all
other perceivers, they all have a different view of what the
room is, just as authentic as yours. And all of them are
true. What does the room really look like, then? Because the
room itself exists in all kinds of terms. And yet it doesnt
exist merely as you are perceiving it. It exists as it can
be perceived from absolutely every point of view, and not
only from every point of view in space in the room but from
every point of view in space-time. Thats the condition of
the room. And yet you are not experiencing the room as such.
Youre not experiencing the room itself. Youre simply
perceiving it from a point of view. Just consider what the room itself looks like. And yet it
exists. JANIS OHKI: This would really be true in terms of subtle
experience also, then, I mean obviously. AVATARA ADI DA: Any kind of experience, you see, … JANIS: Right. AVATARA ADI DA: … in the mode of a separate
personality, is a partial view, a point of view, and not an
awareness of Reality Itself, even the conditional reality
itself. You are not aware of this room as it is , and yet
the room as it is exists. Contemplations such as this are profound, because Im not
just Calling you to imagine something like a blue elephant.
Im Speaking to you about a Reality that you all share and
need not invent. But It is Itself profound beyond your usual
consideration. BRIAN: And we dont know what it is. AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. Not only dont you know what it is,
you cant even perceive it. BRIAN: You cant feel it, touch it, taste it. AVATARA ADI DA: Right. You cant think it. You cant
comprehend it. HELLIE: Master is that the equivalent to what You were
describing earlier as withdrawing to the point of infinity,
perceiving it from that point of view, except in the
opposite direction? AVATARA ADI DA: Withdrawing to the point of infinity?
Well, I dont like the word “withdrawing”, really. HELLIE: Well, You described it earlier. Reducing, I think
You Said reducing to the point of infinity. AVATARA ADI DA: Yes. You can reduce anything you
perceive, break it down into different physical components,
chemical, molecular components, atomic components.
Eventually you get to That of Which all of it is a
modification, or a level of appearance. It is Light Itself.
You cant reduce Light to anything further. Or Energy, you
cant reduce It to anything further. It doesnt have any
parts. It doesnt have a deeper part. There is nothing on the
other side of It. Likewise, if you enter into the domain of you own
psycho-physical self-awareness, you go through all the
levels of it-the physical, the blood, the chemicals, the
molecular structure, the energy levels, states of mind-you
get to Consciousness Itself, and you cant reduce It further.
Theres nothing on the other side of It. It has no parts. By investigating the objective, you get to the point of
Light. By investigating the subjective, you get to the point
of Consciousness. And They are the same Thing. They are
irreducible, fundamental Reality. They are to be Realized
most profoundly, but this consideration is available to you
even now, regardless of your stage of practice or
Realization. If you investigate physical phenomena or everything
objective, you find Light. Right? [DEVOTEES: Yes.]
Anybody have any doubt of that? Its the same Consciousness
through the subjective investigation. Well, these are ways of entering into the Ultimate Sphere
of Reality, and that is the Sphere in Which the room exists,
but even now. NINA: Beloved, could we go back to “you cant feel it”?
Somebody was saying we cant feel it. AVATARA ADI DA: Yes, I assume Brian must have been saying
it. He was talking about using emotional states to contact
it. Feeling itself is another matter. NINA: It was when we were talking about Consciousness
Itself-you cant see it, you cant- BRIAN: We were talking about the room itself. NINA: But is that what were agreeing, that one cant feel
it? AVATARA ADI DA: No. NINA: No, I dont agree to that. AVATARA ADI DA: Cant feel what exactly? The Divine
Condition? Consciousness? NINA: One cant feel Radiance? I wouldnt say that thats
true. AVATARA ADI DA: The Radiance of Consciousness is what you
call light. NINA: And Love-Bliss, though? Doesnt that-isnt
there-? AVATARA ADI DA: The Inherent Nature of It is Love-Bliss.
It is Self-Existing Consciousness, Self Radiant. And Its
Nature is Love-Bliss. It is the “Bright”. It is Me. This is
what you must Realize in Communion with Me. Well, to do so, you cant just strain your eyeballs to
find the room as it truly is. You have to go beyond point of
view. You have to directly transcend egoity. Its not that then, necessarily, youll be having
perceptions, some extraordinary perceptions, of the room in
some unimaginable condition that you couldnt describe, but
rather youll Realize the Condition in Which the room also
Exists Ultimately, the Divine Self-Condition, Conscious
Light of Divine Being. So to Realize Me, you must transcend point of view,
self-position, egoity, the separate position. You cannot,
through any exercise of the separate position or the
body-mind, Realize the Truth. The body-mind is simply a
modification of That, like the room itself. Its a
complexity, or a maya, that cannot be comprehended. So rather than exercise the separate self, as if to
Realize the Truth in the manner of the “great path of
return”, you see, the separate self is directly transcended.
That is the “radical” nature of this Way that I have Given
you. So thats the work youre here to do. Thats the sadhana
youre here to do. And you must have a clear understanding
that it is so, or you will re-invent the Way, as you all
have done, individually, even collectively-re-invented it in
your own likeness or according to your own egoic
disposition, instead of adhering to My Word and maintaining
this profound consideration moment to moment, and doing so
in the context of embracing all the disciplines Ive Given
you. Then you are involved in the direct listening
process. See, the listening process is not just struggling with
the practices, the disciplines, all that. Thats all just
something to do. The listening process is this profound
consideration, engages Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga, making use of
the technical elements of practice, of the “conscious
process” and conductivity”. The disciplines and such are
simply the order, the structure, within which you do this
profound consideration, because you cannot become profound
in it or one pointed in it if you dont simply establish
those disciplines covering everything. Therell always be
vacation-land for you. So it has always been My expectation, even, that you
would embrace all these disciplines, all these forms of
practice, and enter seriously, profoundly, into this
consideration, and move on through these stages, get on with
this process. But individually and collectively youve been
rather retarded about it. Obviously, then, a Lay Renunciate Order must be made up
of people who are most profoundly engaged in this Yoga of
ego-transcendence, for real, rather than just being people
who are really in the world of the first three stages of
life and want the religious life to essentially be a social
order and a cultural distraction, a cultural consolation. So
I Call all My devotees to this seriousness, and the formal
renunciates must be the most exemplary. And others should be
moved to do likewise. To really be in touch with the self-contraction in this
Communion with Me is to be on the verge of hearing. It
shouldnt take long, if you drop your vacations and just stay
on the job. BRIAN: Every time we find You, Beloved, we drop the
vacation right away. AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha. If youve heard Me, then youre in that position of your
own making, that knot youre making, or that pinch youre
giving yourself. And you cant get rid of it, you cant shake
it. You dont allow yourself to even make an effort in that
direction. So it is tapas. It is a profound ordeal. At the same
time, it is full of absorptive Communion with Me and all the
things associated with right life. You must constantly be dealing directly with this
self-contraction. And if you are in touch with it, then you
dont like it. You want only this Communion with Me. You dont
want this self-contraction, but youre having to feel it
every moment. And its your doing, you see. Its kind of in a
spasm. Youve got to do the sadhana to relax it and be full
of Me, so that My “Brightness” Radiates through it and
releases it quickly. So if you have heard Me, you dont want to spend a lot of
time getting beyond that knot, because its not comfortable
at all. You become profoundly sensitized to it if youve
heard Me, and likewise profoundly sensitized to Me. Thats
why seeing is next. But the knot is there, and its unavoidable, and you dont
like it. It is pain. It is fear. This is what makes a
renunciate out of people, the discovery of Me and the
self-contraction at the same time. In full hearing and
seeing, thats what makes people renunciates, because it is
pain. Its extraordinary pain, at the same time extraordinary
bliss but the pain is where you sit, and you are moved to
feel out of it, and be relieved of that enclosure, that
divorce from the Divine, that sinfulness. You dislike it so
much, you dislike that knot so much, that you become utterly
concentrated in going beyond it. Its not that you have to
just sit in a room all the time, but youre just all the time
feeling beyond it, practicing the exercise of going beyond
self-contraction into the state of Radiance, Love-Bliss,
Energy, Light. And you would not be distracted from It,
because you do not want to be simply sitting in that pain of
self-contraction. This is basically what Rudi was referring to, not really
knowing altogether what He was talking about. He just wanted
to deal with this incredible stress, frontal stress. But its
the ego-knot. You cant bust it from outside. You cant relax
the body that much. You have to deal with the root of egoity
itself-its in the conscious domain-and in Communion with Me
move beyond it. You cant just work on the body-mind. You
have to find out the ego-act, and exercise the flower
constantly, every moment. But it is a pain, and its associated with lots of
adaptations that keep producing results somehow. So youre
always going to have to feel beyond egoity itself, but also
all of its results. So that makes it an ordeal of pain, of
tapas, which you endure because youre also in Communion with
Me and have My Wisdom. But its still pain. Hm? But you
become intelligent with it. You know what youre doing and
can make this exercise of going beyond the contraction, the
self-contraction. In the process, there are things to be endured and felt
beyond, and thats a purifying process. But you would not-if
you really truly have heard Me and are sensitive
altogether-you would not have that take a long time. Now up to 1.3, you dont want to waste much more than the
weekend getting to the “Perfect Practice”. If you really
heard Me, its an urgent matter then. JANIS: Beloved, I wanted to thank You, like everyone else
has, for that guided meditation. It was so Graceful. But at
one point You were suggesting that we allow ourselves to
feel that speck of egoity, allow ourselves to just feel
that, the epitome of egoity. AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. You liked that reference, didnt
you? JANIS: Well, yeah, I did. AVATARA ADI DA: It made some sense to you. JANIS: It did. Well, I just had an instant response to
it, because I felt this spot immediately. It was right,
right, bodily right here … AVATARA ADI DA: On the right side of the heart, youre
saying? JANIS: Yeah. It felt like a black spot, though. AVATARA ADI DA: Mmm. JANIS: And the more I allowed myself to feel into it, the
more I felt it was like utter pain, torture, disease,
suffering. It was everything in that speck. Its everything
that I fear, everything that I avoid, because its so
intense. And for me I got- AVATARA ADI DA: Do you feel outside the speck or inside
the speck? JANIS: I was outside the
speck-well, I dont know. There were some points I wasnt
sure, but I could see it visually. But then I would get
overwhelmed by it so I dont know exactly where I was. AVATARA ADI DA: Well, to feel like its inside you, or
feeling that psycho-physical result, is to be outside, is to
objectify it. To be inside it, on the Source side of it, is
what hearing is about. And at the same time that its a
knowledge of a knot, its a knowledge of how to go beyond it.
Its a most fundamental self-understanding to realize that
you are always in the position of manufacturing this pain
and can feel beyond it. JANIS: Ive never felt the overwhelming strength of that
so fiercely as tonight. AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha. NINA: Ive experienced this bindu that shes talking about,
this place, too, recently. AVATARA ADI DA: Thats to be outside it, as I just said.
Its not wrong. Its just a level of finding it, of locating
it. Any of you could perhaps, by some exercise of attention,
feel something about the right side of the heart. That
doesnt mean that youre established in that position. NINA: Oh, I didnt feel it there. AVATARA ADI DA: Well, she was talking about it, Janis
was. JANIS: Well, thats just where it was. AVATARA ADI DA: But the profound transitions in practice
are about being inside, or at the Source-Position. The exercise of hearing, then, is to be sensitive to it
as contraction itself, to be in the position of the pain,
not outside it or avoiding it but actually in that position.
It is not comfortable at all, not likable. It has all kinds
of artifacts-physical, emotional, mental, and so forth, even
in the breath. So the self-contraction itself is fundamental
pain altogether, disturbance altogether, and ordinary life
is motivated by it, because it is so profound, and it is
detached from the fundamental Reality, the Divine Reality.
It is lost in maya, in appearances, presumptions, even
imagining that you are seeing the room, whereas in fact
youre just seeing one little view. So its confusing. Youre not seeing Reality, then. Youre
seeing an appearance associated with your own egoity. You
cant be in another position. You cant be in the position of
the totality of the room. What position are you in? Some
self-enclosure of thoughts and perceptions. So its very uncomfortable to make this discovery of
egoity. But as I said to you earlier, its not truly
profoundly discovered except in the condition of Grace, of
Communion with Me, and reception of My Teaching, and then,
its in that total context that the ego is located also.
Thats hearing, the true discovery of the self-knot,
coincident with this whole process of Communion with Me,
full of the Wisdom of Instruction that you apply. What about that? BRIAN: I think Youre talking about the matter of hearing
includes, then, this reception of You. AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. I know what we were talking about!
[Laughter.] I wanted to know if you had a response
to it. BRIAN: Beloved, I feel, like Youve always Said,
feeling-Contemplation of You is primary. The first thing you
have to do is “Locate” You before you can even become
sensitive to the self-con traction. AVATARA ADI DA: Yes. BRIAN: It seems the whole listening process is just
staying with that feeling-Contemplation of You, but along
with whatever the body-mind goes through. AVATARA ADI DA: But always give Me the leading faculties.
Dont be played upon by these natural arisings. Even the
intensity of converting life to sadhana can sometimes
produce more arisings, reveal more things, that require to
be purified or made “Bright”, which is what purification is
really all about. Once you dare to allow yourself to hear Me, then the
process becomes intensive and profound. Maybe you have some
sense of that, those of you who are taking a long time to
get to that point. And thats why youre taking vacations. Its
even a kind of fear of the self-contraction, a fear of
becoming aware of the limited nature of your experiencing,
and then the mortality that youre locked into because of
that. Youre afraid of it. Youre not merely afraid of it. It
is fear. NINA: It is fear. AVATARA ADI DA: You dont want to be afraid, so you
distract yourself and minimize your awareness of this. But
you must stand in that position. That doesnt mean to go
insane with fear or anything like that. Its about being in
that place where you make this knot, this fundamental
discomfort. Yes, it has the characteristic of fear, but you
basically experience that fear as a kind of anxiety in the
pit of your stomach or something. If you are but really-in touch with the self-contraction,
you do experience the anxiety that is the constant
underlying everyones behavior, everyones moment to moment
existence. They just build all kinds of stuff on top of it
and desensitize themselves, but the self-contraction is the
quality of anxiety, stressful anxiety, and so on. So, as I Said, you may want to forestall that
realization, because you cant get rid of it once you got it.
Once you get bit, thats it. Unless you find yourself out,
you cant escape it. And so thats when the sadhana really
begins, you see. Thats when it starts becoming effective at
a profound level. Before then, there are life-improvements
and so on, fine. But this is how the sadhana gets
intensified, quickened, full of light, full of heat,
therefore. And it should then be quick to the “Perfect Practice”.
But it requires the Spiritual transition So there is the
basic minimum of the level 2 and level 3 process, as the
means for moving on to the “Perfect Practice”. Most devotees, as I said, wont have anything to do with
levels 4 and 5. Some might. Some will have experiences
certainly associated with the ascending process. But very
few will actually do sadhana in the context of the fourth or
the fifth stages of practice. They will do the sadhana in
level 2 and level 3 and move directly from there to the
“Perfect Practice”. Level 2 and level 3, then, for them will be just this
fundamental true seeing of Me, not a tour of experiences but
an entering into My Spiritual Sphere, so that I can Attract
you into the situation of the “Perfect Practice”. Those who
make much of the experiences otherwise will add time and may
in some cases have to practice at level 4 or 5, or both,
rather. You see even student-beginners and so on having-even
apparent to all-experiences, kriyas and all kinds of things
going on with them. But thats not seeing Me. Those are
effects, and they can be sought or clung to and whatnot, and
become means to delay the course like anything else. So those who are involved in the seeing Yoga may very
well have kriyas and so on as spontaneous happenings, but
theyll be focused in this direct Spiritual “Locating” of Me,
given up in Me utterly, because of the foundation of
hearing, so that you can be entered into the Source Point of
the “Perfect Practice”. To engage in the “Perfect Practice”
you must be at the Source Point of egoity, not on the other
side of it, wandering in the body-mind. To Awaken to the
Witness and then enter into the profound “Perfect Practice”
is to Stand on the other side of the ego, and the focus of
the practice is no longer dealing with the body-mind,
feeling beyond egoity in the mechanism of the body-mind. Its
a matter of entering directly into the Self-Radiant Sphere
of Divine Being. Of course its done most profoundly in meditation, where
you separate yourself from other matters. And so, even
though the practice is also engaged in a fundamental sense
in every moment, there still is, after the profound
meditation, return of ordinary associations. And the associations will not necessarily themselves
change all that much. Its in the seventh stage of life, the
third stage of the “Perfect Practice”, that the
Source-Position Itself is Realized utterly, and no
conditions are placed on It. It is not held in place by
anything whatsoever. So the gesture of dissociation drops,
and the “Bright” Realizer Expands into the sphere of the
body-mind. And through the process of Recognition, all
aspects of the body-mind are “Brightened” by that already
Realized Condition. So someone engaged in the “Perfect
Practice” in the context of the sixth stage of life shows a
very different sign than a devotee who will have Realized Me
in the seventh stage of life. So once you truly hear Me, once you get the taste of all
of this, you will not want to delay the course. Everybody
has their own manner, and the imperfect qualities of the
body-mind in its adaptations, so everybodys sign in the
course is different. Some may be, in their depth, apparently
more a renunciate than others and so on, or more intensively
involved in all the aspects of practice than some other. If
theyve truly heard Me, they all practice from the same
disposition and would not delay the course. Its just like if youre ill, you dont want it to last.
Maybe sometimes you dont mind feeling a little woozy, a
little sniffly, and hanging around in bed all day. But if
youre really sick, you dont want it to go on. Well, to hear
Me is to be really sick, you see. [Laughter.] Its to
get really sick, at the same time really well altogether and
knowing what to do, but otherwise really sick, really in
touch with the ego-act and its result and its disposition
and so on. And you do real work with it, because its such an
urgent matter. You dont want to be sick anymore. Thats how
sick you have to be, in other words, to have heard Me,
because it is a profound motivator, a profound
capability. SECTION III CARL: Beloved, you mentioned that if a person was serious
it shouldnt take them more than six months. AVATARA ADI DA: I talked about if someone is truly
serious, to spend six months as a student-novice, six months
as a student-beginner, and then six months for 1.1 and 1.2
to hearing. Thats a reasonable course. It could even be the
basically common one if people were really serious. And what
about that then? CARL: No, I was just considering it. AVATARA ADI DA: Sure. So in particular, we talked about
the transition from mature student beginner to 1.3, and I
Said if you really consented to fully adapt to all the
foundation practice, no vacations, you see, and actually
establish that, then if youre really serious, to hear Me in
six months is perfectly reasonable. But some people carry a
lot more baggage than others, and it might take somewhat
longer, even though they are serious. But six months is a
fairly reasonable general idea. And how long have you taken so far? CARL: About fourteen years. AVATARA ADI DA: So much the worse for you, Carl.
[Laughter.] But we already covered that, though, the
why of that. If it takes a long time, its because you are
taking a vacation. So its easy to know what to do about it
then. So what else do you want to talk about then? [long
silent pause] Shall we adjourn? DEVOTEES: No, no, no. AVATARA ADI DA: No what? JULIA: I have a question. AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha. JULIA: This intensive period of hearing, six months
period culminating in hearing, in a somewhat summary and all
inclusive event … AVATARA ADI DA: Even a better way of putting it, it is a
most fundamental event, not just a whole lot of things
coming together. Its getting at the root. JULIA: And at that summary point of the crisis of hearing
which is severe is the way that we dont prolong its course,
through the process of seeing? AVATARA ADI DA: Through intensive practice. Intensive
practice altogether. Most intensive practice, one-pointed
practice. JULIA: That process doesnt come together at that point,
hearing, in the sense of seeing immediately. AVATARA ADI DA: Not seeing immediately, no. What follows
is a period, which in general wouldnt be very long, of
preparing for the Yoga of seeing. So seeing doesnt arise
coincident with hearing, certainly not in any fullest sense.
But it is because of hearing that you become truly
Spiritually sensitized to Me. Devotees, even without hearing Me, have Spiritual
experiences of Me in the body-mind, one way or another. But
thats not seeing. Hearing must be active in order to see Me.
There must be the capability of feeling beyond the
self-contraction and making that the basis for your practice
of Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga. So when there is true hearing of Me, a sensitivity
develops and is cultivated through that 1.3 period of
sadhana so that you can make use of My Spiritual
Transmission directly and “Locate” Me directly, rather than
just have My Spiritual Force wash over you and generate
experiences in the body-mind for their own sake. So hearing
is cultivated in the 1.3 stage such that you become capable
of this Spiritual submission to Me. The 1.3 stage is
sometimes thought of by devotees as a period to test whether
you have heard Me or not. Truly that is not what it should
be. It should simply be so, that youve heard Me. Its most
fundamentally a period of preparation for seeing Me, of
organizing the practice based on hearing in a focused way in
order to be sensitized to Me Spiritually. And then there is
the level 2 practice, which is the direct approach to Me
Spiritually. So the true process of seeing, not just
Spiritual experiencing of Me but real seeing of Me, becomes
the Yoga for you at level 3. Again, some think that seeing
is about some Spiritual reception of Me in the body-mind,
that kriyas and visions and so forth are supposed to be what
happens. Such things may happen, but they are not the Yoga.
The Yoga is to feel beyond all effects and “Locate” Me
directly so that you can be drawn into the position of the
“Perfect Practice”. So it is a special kind of Spiritual preparation that is
based on hearing. Its a process that you enter into as soon
as youve heard Me. But its first stage, we call it
preparation for fully entering into Spiritual Communion with
Me. Whereas I Said, even before then, you may have had
Spiritual experiences of Me, but they are not the point in
the Spiritual stages of this Way. But what about all
that? JULIA: Thank you, Beloved. I have another question. AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha. JULIA: In the 1.3 period, which is, as you were Saying,
an aspect of the seeing practice … AVATARA ADI DA: Its preparation for it. JULIA: … its not fully entering into Your Spiritual
Presence but it is preparation for that, in that stage-and I
apologize if this question is so backwards in terms of my
understanding of it in the Teaching. AVATARA ADI DA: Well, the bench accepts your motion.
[Laughter.] JULIA: In that 1.3 period, your life becomes organized
around putting yourself in the position of preparing to see
You, or cultivating that understanding, or that development,
into full seeing by, You were Saying, organizing your life
in a certain way. And I just wanted to clarify that. AVATARA ADI DA: Yes, through that focus of the hearing
exercise. Not just working on peripheral behaviors or
checking out whats going on with you in emotional-sexual
terms and so forth-not really that-but this direct exercise,
moment to moment, of feeling beyond the self-contraction.
And maybe it wouldnt involve so many outward changes in your
life. But it is a matter of realizing your life in this
focus of hearing, in this exercise of hearing. And during
that period, another thing that makes it a period of
preparation is that the whole matter of seeing Me is studied
and the Yoga you must practice once you have entered into
the seeing process, what all of its responsibilities are and
so forth. So it is preparation in the educational sense as
well. Also, the “conscious process” in one who has heard Me has
a mental-verbal aspect to it. Like the Enquiry, “Avoiding
relationship?”, or Mantra-Japa and so forth. One who has
heard Me will in that moment still be practicing in that
fashion, but the exercise of hearing has such power that it
becomes a tacit process more and more rather than a verbal
process. There is always the occasion of the Enquiry and so
on, but fundamentally it becomes simply this exercising the
flower, this constant pressing beyond all forms of
contraction. [Beloved opens His hand at the level of the
heart on the right side.] That means all forms of
thought, all forms of perception, everything. So to realize
your life in those terms is a profound matter. Thats what
hearing initiates, and thats what the 1.3 period is really
all about. Its a period of study and preparation for the
specifics of the Yoga of seeing. Its not expected to be a
very long period. JULIA: Thank you, Beloved. AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha. What else? You got anything else, Stanley? STANLEY: Beloved, I thought it was interesting that
awhile back You brought up this example of all perceptions
of the room. And most strongly in the beginning of this
consideration this evening, when we all took that moment to
drop deeply in that space, the very sensation that I had at
that time was that of feeling the self-contraction when You
Spoke of noticing the anxiety but then also seeing You and
feeling You as “Bright” Energy, all Energy and Light-that I
was phasing between these two, of actually feeling that
sensation. And there wasnt even any one to be sensing
it. AVATARA ADI DA: Yes, but dont misunderstand Me. The
course need not take long to get out of this lock. Its not
that sadhana has to go on for years, once youve heard Me, of
painful meditation on the stress in your abdomen, or
something. Yes, hearing is association with the pain of the
self-contraction, but it is in the context of the capability
for Communion with Me. So in any moment where you have
lapsed from Communion with Me, youve got to re-initiate it,
and you must function from the point of the self-contraction
then. But as you mature, if you are practicing with
intensity, you get to the point where you dont lapse so
much. You dont have to re-initiate it all the time by going
back into the sensation of the knot of self-contraction, you
see, because youre always moved beyond it-at least to some
sufficient degree-and, rarely, expand even further. So its not that the lapsing to the point where youve got
to re-initiate it totally stops quickly, but it shouldnt
take very long before you are beyond that relapse a lot of
the time. So you would not have the painful self-meditation
persist. But you are not there to meditate on the pain of
the self-contraction, and you are there with the capability
to feel beyond it into Communion with Me. And having that
taste, then you dont want to relapse. So the exercise becomes more and more purifying, more and
more steady, and the fall from blissful Communion with Me,
or even the diminishment of it, becomes less and less
frequent because you would not have it be otherwise. You
would not waste your time having to constantly start from
the position of pain and be somewhat bewildered but press
through and then youre on the outside of it again. You dont
want to do that too much. Once a philosopher, twice a
pervert. So having entered into Communion with Me, you stay there
if you are smart. And you dont lapse. If the tendencies draw
you back again, well, you know what to do and you get out of
it quickly. So thats what it means to have the arms of
hearing or to exercise those arms. So it isnt, then, if you do effective sadhana, a matter
of having to be constantly feeling this stress of
self-contraction, the pain of dissociation from the Radiant
Condition. You can move beyond it by Grace and in this right
sadhana, and do so readily if you are smart, if you heard
Me. Read My Words and come quickly and see Me, and then
thats the end of that. If you are smart, you dont lapse from
Communion with Me. You dont have to. And if you are drawn
back, you know what to do-but you dont like having to do
that so much. So you consent to be in Samadhi. You consent
to be Happy instead. And thats true renunciation, you see. The outward details
of a life of renunciation can look different from person to
person, but its this abiding in Samadhi, in Blissful
Communion, ultimately in Inherent Realization of Me, that is
right life, is true renunciation. And it will show itself as
true renunciation in whatever is your particular manner. You
may be sexually active in intimacy or a celibate renunciate,
whatever. But it will be utterly conformed. Your life will
be utterly conformed to that Blissful Communion. And you
wont lapse from it so that you get busied with doing other
things to satisfy the broken impulses of egoity. So you dont have to persist in feeling the self-knot,
having discovered it and become responsible for it. You
simply move from there into Communion with Me. Do so
steadily. Manage the discipline of your life accordingly,
altogether. And that is simply a matter of always being in a
Radiant Condition, in body, in feeling, in the whole face of
attention, in every breath. There is no self-knot, effective
anyway. You are making it ineffective, and more and more
profoundly so. And such it is when you enter into the “Perfect Practice”
and pass on to the Awakening to the seventh stage. Its not
that then Samadhi begins. It is then the Samadhi is
Perfected. Samadhi must be the life before then. And you
must get to the point where you can persist in It. There are
variations in the mode of this Samadhi, but the fundamental
Samadhi that I am talking about is the Samadhi of being
beyond the self-contraction and Communing with Me. It is a
different state of Consciousness and of Being than the
personality that is registering the self-knot, or otherwise
dramatizing it. So I am talking about the Samadhi of Radiance, of
no-contraction. It is just that. It does not have any other
characteristics. There are the Samadhis that pertain to each
of the stages, but they are just another expression of this
fundamental Samadhi, this Bhava. So then, having become that
much proficient, having seen Me, you do right Yoga of
Communion with Me, and the body feels Radiant. The heart,
the feeling, feels Radiant instead of becoming complicated
by contracting emotions. If the mind becomes clear, it
relaxes and becomes usable by intention instead of just
being a babble of garbage that you feel is out of your
control. So it is a Spiritual life, a life in utter
Communion with Me according to the characteristics of that
stage. And it is a life in Samadhi rather than the ego. So
it is a Radiant Condition, a “Bright” Condition that is the
basis for devotees moving on to the “Perfect Practice”. To see Me is to have your Spiritual sadhana be simply
this one of self-forgetting Communion with Me rather than
relaxing the body-mind in order to have an energy
experience. So thats the difference between seeing and just
being there to have experiences in the body-mind. So the
transition from level 2 to level 3 requires that sign, not
rigidity and not merely a person exaggeratedly motivated
towards psycho-physical experiences of the Spiritual kind,
but this Samadhi, this “Locating” of Me beyond the self-knot
and being able to “Locate” Me thus Spiritually so that you
become Radiant in Communion with Me. So thats what there is to look for when somebody says
that theyve seen Me. That confession and also that
observable sign is visible in various ways that you almost
immediately become sensitive to. So I am trying to impress you all and everyone who will
read this and so on what the process of listening, hearing,
and seeing is really all about. Not to turn you away from it
but to welcome you to it, to inspire you to it, because it
is within the capability of every single one of you if you
will accept the life I have Given you with all of its
details and the practice I have Given to you in all its
profundity. How could you come into My Company and be
inclined toward anything else? It always seems remarkable to
Me. But when this seeing process truly develops founded on
true hearing, which is the capability to go beyond the
self-knot, then you are in the Sphere of My “Brightness” in
a very profound sense and are constantly absorbed in Me.
Even the body-mind starts flowering in various ways, you
might notice, indicating Spiritual signs. But they are not
the thing itself. They are not the sadhana, theyre not the
import of the process. Its when youve allowed, then, the body-mind to be
thoroughly Irradiated in the third practicing stage by
showing signs like the Samadhi of “the Thumbs” and so on at
times, but altogether given yourself up in Communion with Me
Spiritually and altogether beyond the self-knot, then
various purifying signs are noticed in various ways in the
body-mind that are really just about the circuitry of the
body-mind adapting to accommodate My Spiritual Force. So
there are things to notice, things to breathe through, all
of that, you know, things to exercise beyond. And the third
practicing stage ought to be sufficient. It should be a
purification based on the sadhana I have just Described to
you such that you are drawn into the Root-Place of My
Presence. The changes in the body-mind are just signs of
purification leading to this foundation for the “Perfect
Practice”. So thats what the level 3 practice is about. It is about
a process that is sufficient in itself for the transition to
the “Perfect Practice”. So it is not a preliminary to
ascending Yoga and so forth. It is not about developmental
Yoga at all. It is about the Yoga of ego-transcendence in
Communion with Me. All of this is very direct, and Ive made
everything clear to you in all the details of what it is all
about. So thats why I have Described this time from now on as
the Santosha Epoch, because I have thoroughly Communicated
everything to You. And I could repeat My Self and elaborate
on it if I feel like talking to devotees sometimes, but Ive
made My Communication to you all and you have to live it in
relation to Me and prove yourself as a serious devotee of
Mine so that I can Work with you. But perhaps some of the
Words in this discussion and discussions in recent days
could be added to the Adi Da Upanishad if you find some of
this language serving your understanding, to add something
to the other forms of My Consideration. Is there anything else youd like to talk about?
[pause] The seventh stage Realizer doesnt like the life anymore
than a six stage Realizer does. Its just that the seventh
stage Realizer doesnt do anything to prevent it or to
dissociate from it. The seventh stage Realization is not
about having an inclination to cling to conditions. It is
utterly renounced, in other words, and not a return to the
world or another version of egoity. The Disposition is
absolutely Radiant, and so It is the Disposition that would
Outshine conditional existence, not perpetuate it. It
simply, as I Said, does nothing to prevent it. On the other
hand, the process of Divine Recognition goes on inevitably,
moment to moment. So association with conditional existence
will not be infinitely prolonged, if there is that force of
Recognition Divine. So the Disposition even in the total body-mind is to
Glow, to be Radiant to the point of no-noticing. No-noticing
of conditions, no modifications, the Divine Condition
without any further association with conditional
limitations. Just as I was Saying to you earlier, in the
event of hearing the process goes on. You would not have it
be prolonged as a process of being aware of the
self-contraction. You enter into Samadhi more and more
continuously. Well, so in the seventh stage Disposition. It is not a
lapse into conditions. It is a Demonstration of the Divine
Recognition of conditions. There is no dissociation, no
contraction, but Recognition. All this is nothing but an
apparent, non-binding modification of the Divine
Self-Condition. It is Realized to be Self-Radiant,
Self-Existing Consciousness, Love-Bliss-Being, already the
case, and so it Recognizes everything as just That. And
thats the seventh stage Demonstration. So it is not an
intention to prolong association with conditional existence
at all, but it is not an effort to dissociate from it. You see the difference? Now, some may move rather readily into the Divine
Translation Demonstration. Others may, on the basis of the
same Samadhi of Most Perfect Realization, remain in the
Transfiguration, Transformation Sign, and they reappear in
this world or reappear in some other plane, continually a
Demonstration of this Way that serves until the process of
Divine Recognition moves beyond that, into Divine
Translation. But the Disposition is not about lingering. It
is about “Brightening”. So I tell the Kanyas, one of their
unique functions or conditions of sadhana is to keep Me from
Outshining this place too quickly, to keep Me associated
with it in some pleasurable way, as devotees altogether
should do. You should be here to perpetuate My Incarnation,
not to cause My Indifference too soon, My total
Indifference. So it can serve you. So no more making Me sarvadhikari
and so on. I am not here to do any of that. You are here to
preserve Me and do the sadhana. Give Me the means to Work by
bringing Me devotees, yourselves and many others. But to
have time to do so, I must be pleasurized, odalisqued
somehow into an association with you all, pleasurably,
though, because the seventh stage Sign, Disposition, is
simply Radiant. It doesnt prolong associations unless it is
somehow coaxed, moved to exercise that Bhava in place
somehow for some time. You get the God to stay by feeding it
milk and sweets. Otherwise the temple dies, and they sell
energies left over from that Puja. So you should keep the God Alive in This Body, you see.
You have to coax Me into a less Indifferent disposition.
Otherwise the flower magnifies beyond interest. But the ultimate fulfillment of the Way, then, is not
evolutionary and visionary and so forth in all that
conditional sense. The ultimate Demonstration of this Way is
the absolute Outshining of conditional existence without a
jot left behind. So thats what it is to be My devotee. It is
to be moved, to flower to infinity and not hold on to
conditional existence. You use the circumstances by
transforming it into sadhana, into Yoga, but you dont bind
yourself to it. HELLIE: Beloved, this is why I love Your Description of
the clay pigs. AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha. [Indicating a small clay pig on
a table.] I have a little example over here. I used that
simile for a while last year when we were in Suva. I guess
when I first arrived there, the devotees there gave Me a
whole bunch of these little clay pigs. It turns out its an
apt metaphor in the situation in Fiji, because they have a
long history of the use of the pig sacredly. And so in
making this little image, its something they sell in a
museum or to tourists or whatever, but it is also an example
of something more or less like they would have done in their
ritual life and so forth. So I have actual clay pigs I can
get all the time. I have suggested that these be made for
devotees. I dont think that was ever done, was it? We should sell them on the island, for instance. We sell
all kinds of other things. Its a reminder of this aspect of
My Teaching. IO FREE JONES: You have them all over Your rooms. AVATARA ADI DA: Every time I get another one, I put them
around someplace in the environment. But I am not talking about an ordinary little clay-baking
machine. NINA: No, You are talking about a Maha-furnace. AVATARA ADI DA: A smelting furnace in some sense. But I
like the metaphor of the clay pig because if you look at a
clay object in an oven, initially it is cold and so forth.
As it heats, the clay reddens but the surrounding space also
glows more and more. And after a time you cant distinguish
the pig from the space. The pig is Outshined. There is only
the Space Itself, the Condition Itself in Which that
apparent modification is arising. So this Way is about
realizing the Source, the Source-Condition, and not about
perpetuating conditional existence for its own sake or
looking for some kind of tour of the cosmic domain. See, there are Yogas and traditions that are about doing
just all of that, taking a tour of the worlds and so forth
through developmental stages. Swami Muktananda had a lot of
this orientation. So there are developmental Yogas, and
teachers who serve that and so forth, but it is not about
the Truth Itself. It is not about Divine Self-Realization
Itself. It is about egoic life perpetuated for the sake of
achieving some glorious condition, immortal and in an
extraordinary play-land of some kind. CARL: Right to the heart of it, Lord. AVATARA ADI DA: Mm. So if you are looking to perpetuate
that, and you are afraid of being without a world, then you
wont do the “radical” sadhana, which cuts it to the quick,
goes to the Source direct, by transcending egoity itself
rather than engaging in an egoic adventure. What else? BRIAN: Beloved, You said today that we have to have an
utterly surrendered body-mind to practice in the level 2 of
practice in relationship to You and the Yogic process. AVATARA ADI DA: Yes. Earlier in the year, so that others
know the background of it, there were some individuals who
were supposedly prepared for the level 2 sadhana, and I sat
with them every couple of days or so for a period of time.
Some obviously disqualified themselves for various reasons
of even ordinary matters in their practice that werent
handled, but at the end there, there were maybe half a dozen
or so. And among the things I had to criticize them about
was the unavailability of their body-minds. Some would sit there. I would look about. And some of
them were sitting there as if they were practicing some sort
of a technique, just sort of doing something with
themselves, not profoundly entered into Communion with Me.
Some others would maintain some regard of Me, but they were
minimally moved obviously. And then some others would even
show some signs of some kriyas, spontaneous vocalizations,
and so on, but no greater depth than that. So we stopped
those groups at one time finally and then just considered
lots of matters that I had observed about it all as well as
other things that we were discussing. But if hearing is true, and the approach to Me for the
sake of seeing Me is engaged as I have Given it, if all the
requirements of practice are truly there, the one who enters
into this seeing approach to Me is completely available to
Me, thoroughly given over to Me, thoroughly entered into
Communion with Me, is not practicing some self-meditative
technique but is thoroughly given over to Me, whole bodily
surrendered, self-forgetting. Then the body-mind is allowed to be a mechanism of
“conductivity”, of Yoga, in Communion with Me. And all
aspects of the body-mind then become thoroughly oriented to
Me in the level 3 practice so that the root is discovered
and the “Perfect Practice” can be done. BRIAN: Is this why the level 2 period is relatively
brief? AVATARA ADI DA: It should be, but, as I Said, seeing is
not true unless there is this Yoga I have Described to you
about the pursuing of experiences, about this Samadhi of
constantly being beyond the self-contraction in Spiritual
Communion with Me. That shouldnt take a long time if
somebody has truly heard Me, but it does require the entire
body-mind, the entire person, to be in this disposition of
surrendered Communion with Me. Now, if somebody has truly
heard Me, then that will be so. But I have to see that
sign. [Leaning back and speaking to Kanya Tripura] Is
this the Ivy League bus? What is this group?
[Laughter] Is anyone else considering anything here
but Me? Am I the only one considering something and youre
all just eating, or whats happening? DEVOTEES: No. No, were not eating Beloved. AVATARA ADI DA: Theres coughing. [Everyone has had
the flu.] Dont do it too much or youll make Me start
coughing. Im thinking of indulging in a cough right now, but
I know it will go on for awhile if I get into it.
[Beloved coughs quickly.] Ill just give it brief
satisfaction. HAL: We could call this tape, “It sounds good to me,
Lord.” AVATARA ADI DA: We could. HAL: From your Point of View, Lord. AVATARA ADI DA: Well, its an amusing enough comment that
did summarize something about our consideration-maybe. But is there anything more about this? Have we exhausted
it or what? BRIAN: I just felt earlier on in the guided meditation,
Beloved, that in the moment in which You were Drawing us
deeply into perceiving You, I actually saw You as the Divine
Person, as Spiritual Presence, and it was just a remarkable
Gift. And it reminded me that the level 2 process is about
“Locating” You Spiritually, finding You Present in that
Form. AVATARA ADI DA: And it is even “Locating” Me whole
bodily. It is not you just sort of having a generalized
sense of your body and feeling like I am here or feeling Me
here in your heart somewhere. Of course there are sensations
like that, but thats not the It of it. Its whole bodily
participation in Me, everything about the body-mind given
over. Its the point of being Spiritually immersed in Me,
“Brightened”. And then, the Force of that “Brightness”
Invading the body-mind altogether, I Attract You to the
Source Point. So thats the unique Spiritual Yoga in this
Way, rather than a tour of the chakras and planes of
perceptions and so forth. Although these things may occur
spontaneously, they are not the It of it, they are not the
Yoga, they are not the intention. And ultimately they are
nothing more than a distraction anyway, in themselves. There is one-pointed Communion with Me, just that
Samadhi, beyond the self-contraction. Thats the real
process. Everything else is at least potentially a
distraction from it, whether it is subtle experiences or
gross ones. So you dont go seeking for anything. And whats
already there, what arises on its own, you deal with it as a
Yogi in this Way, transcending the ego itself directly,
always. (3.90) Until this purification enables the whole
body-mind to conduct Me and be drawn to the heart on the
right, until that occurs, there are the symptoms of all of
that happening and you must persist in the Yoga I have Given
you. But then it comes to a point, and it would naturally be
associated with all of the other signs of being mature at
level 3, where there is no interference in “conductivity” at
all and it becomes immediately and tacitly obvious that you
Stand in the Witness-Position and dont have to think
yourself into or go through an argument to “Locate” It. It
is a tacit and direct state of awareness. (3.91) But then you must exercise the Yoga further on
that basis. So you dont just sit around Witnessing. That
Disposition is simply acknowledged, but it is activated very
directly, rather immediately-the second form of the “Perfect
Practice”, which is to enter into My Sphere without
“Difference”, on the Source side of attention, Prior to
attention and being Drawn to Jnana Samadhi. But even in that
Drawing, in that very process and the coming back from it,
the sadhana goes on, to locate and pass beyond the last
knot. The gesture that has you moving deeper, the gesture
that has you moving away from conditions, is found to be the
last contraction, or the source contraction. (3.92) So then the condition of Open Eyes, or the seventh
stage Awakening, occurs. And, in effect, Jnana Samadhi is
perpetual but without dissociation. So it is a state of
Samadhi beyond description, but It doesnt dissociate from
conditions. It Recognizes them. So It is an ever
“Brightening” Force of Realization that expands through and
beyond conditions. It can show Itself in various remarkable
ways in the Transfiguration, Transformation stages, perhaps,
because the Force of Divine Recognition stimulates,
“Brightens”, every organism, every mechanism. But it need
not be very elaborate in those terms. And then it becomes a
very simple matter of this Force of Recognition, this
sublime Samadhi, simply “Brightening”. And thats the
initiation in the Indifference Demonstration, but it has no
time-frame. It can be prolonged. (3.93) You managed to be indifferent to Me in the egoic
sense, and that does not make for right sadhana. It doesnt
allow you to use My Blessing. It doesnt allow you to Realize
anything, and it doesnt incline Me to persist. I have no
karma. The body-mind is a karmic entity itself, but it is
being Outshined by Me. So at this stage it is not My
business or inclination to be prolonging any conditional
association. So you have to take hold of Me. This is what is
done in the traditions with Realizers of any degree. At some
point their existence is perpetuated only by devotees. And
then if it is not there, if it lapses or whatever, they go
on. (3.94) So you are all in the best possible position any
human being can be in with the Revelation and the obligation
to respond to it for real. Both of these. So not only the
Kanyas and My children and their intimates and so forth are
Given this special Calling to move Me into association with
you all, but all devotees have this obligation. Those who do
it around Me in My immediate physical sphere every day are
supposed to just be a sign to you all of how to do it. This
is what its all about. Do this. Dont ask us what to do-do
what we do. (3.95) So you must let the immediate physical circle
around Me live this life of ecstatic devotion and
Realization, not make them into managers and so. And then
thats the function of these immediate circles around Me, to
make that sign to everyone. Without it, how would everyone
know what to do? They just have to see devotees do it. So
thats the special Calling and Gift to some, because there
can only be some numbers of that. But they must understand
it as a real obligation. Thats their function, and everyone
must see that thats what they must do and do it in their
fashion and in their relative proximity to Me or whatever or
relative distance apparently. So thats why I keep Saying,
“Dont come to Me empty-handed anymore. Lets see your gifts.
Where is the good news about institution, culture,
community, and mission? And wheres My true Hermitage? Where
are the devotees moving on in practice? Where is the Lay
Renunciate Order?” It is not amusing. (3.96) In one weeks time you are going to be celebrating
the tenth anniversary of the initiation of My Divine
Emergence here, which is supposed to be the turning point in
the orientation of devotees so that they would make their
relationship to Me right, and make the sadhana right. And we
are about to celebrate the tenth anniversary of your not
doing this yet. Obviously the Event should be celebrated,
but it should be celebrated by this gift of right practice
and right signs altogether. Otherwise, you are not even
noticing Who I Am. So thats what it means to celebrate the
celebrations I have Given you. (3.97) Every one of the celebrations is a celebration in
the sadhana sense, not really in the social sense. Every one
of the celebrations is about the same thing, this
celebration of Me, this Communion with Me. But each
celebration also has some special focus of one kind or
another. But you celebrate Me by doing sadhana and
magnifying your sadhana, having special events where you get
together collectively to do the same, serve one another by
doing that. (3.98) But you can turn them into social celebrations or
cultural celebrations in the ordinary sense, you see. So its
all about lectures and meals and socializing, and thats
that. I mean, its fine to have a meal and talk to your
friends and hear some good considerations, but it cant be
just that alone. Its got to be the actual sadhana of
Communion with Me, individually and collectively, not
ignoring My Divine Emergence, but really celebrating Me and
making use of My Revelation. (3.99) The way you do that is not merely by making it a
bigger and bigger apparent celebration outwardly, but really
practicing the Way in that and every other circumstance. Use
the celebratory means to magnify your Communion with Me
rather than merely to socialize with one another and have a
cultural day, so to speak. (3.100) So you know what January the 10th here, January
the 11th in Fiji, is about-My Divine Emergence here. If
youre My devotee, then you celebrate it by doing the sadhana
of it. So you completely abandon this wrong way of relating
to Me and this vacation-land relative to your sadhana, and
you straighten out. Otherwise, what is the point of going
and throwing little pieces of paper in the fire and getting
a nice new colorful piece of orange stuff to put around your
neck. Its nothing more than that if you dont really embrace
the sadhana. (3.101) So the purpose of the celebrations is to enhance
everyones involvement in the real sadhana. Even every weeks
Guruvara is about that. So really all celebration days in
this Way are retreat days. That doesnt mean theres no
outwardness to the celebration, but its still everyone
thoroughly concentrated in Communion with Me and being
served relative to that by everything they do all the day or
in that event. (3.102) Do you all have any idea what Im talking
about? (3.103) DEVOTEES: Yes, Beloved. [All talk at
once.] (3.104) JANIS: One of the most profound Gifts I felt in
the Celebration circumstance was actually last year at the
Da Ashvamedha Celebration. We were watching the production
of The Mummery . (3.105) AVATARA ADI DA: Live here? (3.106) JANIS: Yeah, last year, and … (3.107) AVATARA ADI DA: It was only a partial production,
I hear, but go on-well get into that later. (3.108) JANIS: And I had heard The Mummery and seen it
enacted a number of times, but what was really the most
wonderful Gift for me was at the end, just right at the very
end of the production. I could feel it was such a direct
communication of You, Who You Are altogether. It felt like
every way I had of sensing You was addressed through that
whole Mummery , and touched. So at the very end of the
production, I just felt this- (3.109) AVATARA ADI DA: If you say that word one more
time, … (3.110) JANIS: Oh. (3.111) AVATARA ADI DA: … Im going to have to comment
on it. [Laughter.] (3.112) JANIS: Okay. At the end of The Mummery … (3.113) AVATARA ADI DA: I guess I am going to have to
comment on it. [Laughter.] (3.114) The Mummery is not just some book I Wrote a long
time ago and you like to do some theatre with it every year.
It is a liturgical script to be done in the context of a
great puja. Thats how its to be used by devotees. Ive
explained this thoroughly, and thats what theyre supposed to
do with it. And-but I do hear language like “the production”
and so forth-you just used it-and I do have a sense that The
Mummery is not being fully used yet in this truly liturgical
sense, so that to refer to it as theatre or a production
wouldnt make sense to you. (3.115) And when people go to the Catholic mass for
instance, they dont talk about it like its a theatrical
production. Maybe it is, but they dont think of it as a
theatrical production. In other words, they dont use the
references of theatre when talking about going to the
Catholic mass, because its a sacred, real event of Divine
participation for those who take it seriously. (3.116) So it is with The Mummery . It is part of a cycle
of pujas and sacred Communion enhanced by every act. So its
a portion of that liturgy. (3.117) JANIS: Thats what I felt occurred to me, for some
reason right at the end, was the Communication of You was so
potent. For the first time I felt it in a certain kind of
way. It was a true puja in that sense, where You just-the
deepening, just Force of Your Presence was so strong
altogether. (3.118) AVATARA ADI DA: But the Puja of the Ashvamedha
Sacrifice follows it, you see. Its part of it. Thats how
devotees should understand this. Yes, I dropped everything
in the temple. But then there is everything more, everything
that means, everything that My Work is about, everything Ive
had to Do since then. That Sacrifice had to be made,
altogether, that Ashvamedha Sacrifice. So the liturgy of The
Mummery is done, and then the puja of the Horse Sacrifice is
repeated, and all of it, is about Me, but all of it
altogether. (3.119) After I had Written The Mummery , for some years
afterwards, I kept considering another book. It was just a
kind of entertainment I would amuse My Self with in some
sense, because it was appearing simultaneous with all the
developments in My own Manifestation and Re-Awakening and
Work and so on. But as a reflection of that, not of a novel
or mere artistic invention. It was a reflection of what was
going on in My own case, and what My own Work was becoming
and was always. (3.120) I continued to play with this book idea that
would follow The Mummery , and I named him Da Blueso, again
as an expression again of My own Name. But I never wrote
that book. I Lived that Life, you see. But there is a
follow-up to the final event in The Mummery . It was
Realization time, the Life that followed that. So that is
commemorated, celebrated in a puja sense, by devotees every
year by doing The Mummery and then the Ashvamedha
Sacrifice. (3.121) My own Life, and therefore you could also say the
Ashvamedha Sacrifice that you all perform, is that second
hook, the Da Blueso book, the Adi Da book. So you cannot
really understand The Mummery without understanding the
Ashvamedha. Its the meaning of the dropping of the egg and
is what comes from it. (3.122) But, again, as I Said, I dont feel that you all-I
mean, you do these things, you do this process every year,
but not yet profoundly. Youre not converted by it. (3.123) The purpose of all these celebrations is to
convert everyone to right practice and move them to greater
practice, reorient everyone rightly. If you understood The
Mummery and the Ashvamedha that follows it truly in terms of
your real practice in relation to Me, truly profoundly did
that, then that would be fulfilling the purpose of going
through that puja. (3.124) Like today, I heard last year when The Mummery
was done here, it wasnt done complete. There has been
selective dramatization, so called, of The Mummery , before
people were supposed to have come to the point of
understanding what its for and what its about, how its to be
used. But that seems still to be continuing. My Instruction
to devotees is they do the entire Mummery at that time every
year, the entire thing. And some of it can be dramatized,
some of it can be recited, whatever, but the entire thing is
to be done. You must participate in it fully. I didnt Write
an edited version of it. I didnt Write a shorter version or
an alternate version. There is only one version. And every
part of, not just your favorites or whatever, every part of
it is necessary. (3.125) So you cant pick and choose because the Mummery
guild likes a particular scene and so on. You have to do the
whole thing. Optimally, the whole thing should be dramatized
using all kinds of media. You can at least walk it out. You
can do something with it, even if youre just reciting it.
But the whole thing must be gone through in a way that
impresses the devotees present, involves them profoundly,
and prepares them for the Ashvamedha Puja. Its to be the
culmination of attending the event of The Mummery . Thats
what its all about. So its not just a bit of theatre before
you do the puja the next day. (3.126) And therefore it rightly should be entered into
in a kind of retreat circumstance, everyone preparing for it
so that they can participate most profoundly in this total
puja that takes probably a couple of days, certainly one
very full day. People would prepare for it, be totally
focused in it. They wouldnt just be an audience for it. They
could respond and all that, thats fine, but they should be
intensively involved in it, and not merely socializing with
one another during it. (3.127) The men should sit apart from the women as in any
of the puja circumstances for the same reason-so everyone is
focused, not being part of a unit, so to speak, all
that. (3.128) So thats how to do and attend puja. It requires
profound participation. Therefore, it requires some
preparation, not only on the part of those who may be
performing the liturgy and so on but on the part of everyone
whos attending. (3.129) So it should be a celebration characterized by
great seriousness and true involvement in My Divine
Emergence. All the celebrations should be used that way, not
merely socially, or in the churchy sense merely, you see. If
you use it just in that churchy and social sense, then its
Presbyterian or whatever, local church, local synagogue, you
know, just your ordinary sort of religious people, slightly
consoled, slightly doubting everything, getting together a
little bit reluctantly, some hugs, handshakes, maybe hardly
even a glance to some. (3.130) STANLEY: In the tabernacle with Evelyn Disk. (3.131) AVATARA ADI DA: You go through these ritual
routines, and every now and then the kids do a little
theatrical something dramatizing some myth or whatever. Its
conventional religiosity, the main purpose of which is to
control your behavior. Right behavior is positive enough,
but thats about all there is to it, when it gets down to
that ordinary level of religiosity. So you can easily
transform everything in this Way likewise, and have been
doing so in fact. (3.132) STANLEY: Right. (3.133) AVATARA ADI DA: Do the puja. (3.134) STANLEY: It seems that was the point of Evelyn
Disk in The Mummery , Beloved. (3.135) AVATARA ADI DA: What about it? (3.136) STANLEY: Well, I was just thinking that this
whole matter of conventional religiosity is exemplified in
what hes trying to do in inviting Raymond Darling to regular
religious life and not going beyond that. (3.137) AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. And even Raymonds life in
some sense was a ritual, a liturgy, a sacred enactment.
Theres a continuity in The Mummery , but its also all
shattered and moves through all kinds of dimensions of time
and space and psyche and so on. Its not quite linear, and
yet it is at the same time. (3.138) And so his life is ritualized. Even what he seeks
at the end is all part of a ritual created in some sense
from without, but just a condition to be borne or suffered,
searched through, until he came to the ultimate moment of
that open-hearted consideration. And he didnt choose to
return. He didnt choose anything in limitation, and didnt
choose illusion. He dropped the egg. (3.139) STANLEY: He saw it all. (3.140) AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. He understood perfectly.
So he even went through the conventional religiosity tour,
or had to suffer being the central subject of such a
church. (3.141) Dont you know? (3.142) So youre all in The Mummery . Thats part of the
profound participation that you must understand. Its not
just the story of My Life in the past, somehow poeticized
and so forth. It is a living liturgy, a present-time reality
on many levels, always will be experienced differently by
different individuals or differently at different times in
the community altogether. It must constantly be re-enacted,
but it must also in its re-enactment be participated in with
greater and greater focus and greater and greater
understanding, so that you go through The Mummery , you go
through the passage, not merely in that ritual event, but in
your practice altogether (3.143) STANLEY: It seems, then, there is no real way
to-one way to interpret The Mummery . (3.144) AVATARA ADI DA: No. (3.145) STANLEY: In all the times Ive read it, always
something else reveals itself. Its an eternal book. (3.146) AVATARA ADI DA: Ive said the same thing of The
Dawn Horse Testament . (3.147) MICHAEL: Eternal conversation. (3.148) AVATARA ADI DA: Yes, eternal conversation,
eternal liturgy, eternal Communion. And so its always new.
Youre always in a somewhat different disposition, different
moment in practice, and so your reading always coincides
with your understanding or the particular moment. So theres
always more and more to understand from it. (3.149) So The Mummery is not just a nice book-if you
like it anyway-to be read and put down, and thats another
book you read, and maybe you remember it every now and then.
It is like the Catholic mass, or like the other pujas you do
all throughout the year. Its a liturgical obligation as part
of your meditation, part of your study of My Revelation,
part of your participation in My Revelation. (3.150) And this is what moved people in the religious
traditions previously. They had things that had great
meaning to them, and they elaborated it using all the arts,
including architecture and everything in the church. This is
how they made their traditions great. SECTION IV (4.1) AVATARA ADI DA: So I had to come inside the church
and drop the egg here, too. And thats what this tenth year
anniversary is about. You see? So that Event ten years ago
was Raymond Darling in the church dropping the egg. Yet the
thing itself was written twenty-five, going on twenty-six,
years ago. And it was actually worked on for many years
previous to that. And yet you can see the corresponding
Event, as I just Indicated to you, as a spontaneous Event in
My own Play, My own Work with you, My own Sign among you.
And a most profound one, from inside the church, trapped
inside the church, like Raymond Darling, in this ritual
confinement, la-de-da repetitiveness and self-indulgence.
Its mummery, its mockery of the profundity of religion,
wherein I am exploited and abused. Thats My history among
you. (4.2) So what you celebrate from ten years ago is the
culminating Event in that situation. But even so, ten years
later, youve still been working Me over, especially up until
a couple of few weeks ago, and Im still Instructing you in
some very basic matters that have to do with the beginning
process and Im still looking for people to advance. (4.3) So Im still in the church. I didnt leave, but Im
just Radiant here, waiting for you to find Me out, for real,
and get on with this practice. You do your work and I Do
Mine. And rightly you should keep it amusing for Me. Thats
how you keep Me involved in it. [long pause] (4.4) [to Janis] Did you finish what you wanted
to say? (4.5) JANIS: Well, I was just, for me it was just an
extraordinary Communication of Who You Are altogether. And I
was just completely grateful for that. (4.6) AVATARA ADI DA: Good old Who I Am. Yes, go on.
Anything else? (4.7) JANIS: No, I think thats it. (4.8) AVATARA ADI DA: Anybody else? Are we still having a
consideration? (4.9) HAL: We are. (4.10) STANLEY: Beloved, I was considering something
relative to The Mummery in a whole new light this evening.
Which is that before having fully heard You and then seen
You, theres this identification with egoic self. And I felt
like the places where Meridian Smith appears in The Mummery
I assume to be places where Raymond is identified with egoic
self in some way. (4.11) AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. (4.12) STANLEY: Hes always slapping him and waking him
back up to reality. (4.13) AVATARA ADI DA: Moving him on. Mm-hm. (4.14) STANLEY: But then, about half way through The
Mummery , theres a point where Meridian Smith walks off into
the woods, and thats it. And then it seems that he moves
more into the Witness, and just having that simple knot
which is then totally exemplified with the death of his
beloved Quandra, observing her in the casket. (4.15) AVATARA ADI DA: And what is that a reference to?
This is something else profound to understand. Thats why Ive
added a quote at the beginning of The Mummery . (4.16) STANLEY: “This Maya is such . . .” (4.17) AVATARA ADI DA: Yes. That this, in so many words,
this great Shakti Manifesting as the world reveals the Truth
by dying, or by being sacrificed to the Divine
Source-Condition-the Vedanta Temple Event. But that quote,
not only is that a forward or reference to the ultimate
Vedanta Temple Event, but it is also a clue to the meaning
of the dead Quandra. It is the Radiance, the Shakti-Force,
turning in on Itself, dying so to speak, turning back in on
Its Source instead of being just oriented toward the
production of modifications. (4.18) Thats the dead Quandra. But then there are visions
and such that follow, staring in the door, into the egg. So
this death relinquishes the body, but the mind also, and
there are subtle dimensions to the purification. But
ultimately the egg is dropped. The ego is relinquished. The
knot is smashed, the knot is broken. (4.19) So its the secret of the Vedanta Temple, the
Submission of the Divine Power into the Source-Position,
Outshining all illusion, all mere objectivity. (4.20) You know? (4.21) So it is the end of the adventure, the Perfect
Realization of the “Bright”, the Perfect Manifestation of
the “Bright”. No more adventure, no more Meridian Smith,
nothing more to Realize. No more separation from That Which
was Guiding. Perfect Identification with It. Thats what The
Mummery is about. Thats what the Vedanta Temple is about.
But then theres all kinds of other aspects of My Work, as I
just Described to you, about ten years, that are also inside
The Mummery . (4.22) So the end of The Mummery is the Vedanta Temple
Event, yes, thats true-theres all kinds of things about it
that are true. But the various other aspects of what was
inside before then have been unfolded also in various
moments of My Sign among you. So ultimately, then, the
dropping of the egg is Divine Translation. (4.23) So youre here to Realize Me, but youre also here
to keep Me in the church. So you dont want to be working Me
over. You want to transcend the mummery, keep Me among you,
and practice truly. Then its not a mummery anymore. Until
then, The Mummery is a mockery of you, in some sense, you
see. But, instead, it should be something you could truly
laugh at and be clowns in because youve transcended it. (4.24) What else? [pause] (4.25) You dont know what youre going to think or what
youre going to say. Because where do thinking and speaking
come from? (4.26) You dont think in order to have a thought. So how
do you get to think? (4.27) Why doesnt just babble happen? [Laughter.]
Because you cant think your thoughts before you think them.
So what do you do to get them to happen? What do you
actually do to think or to speak? Which is very often just
coincident with thinking. How do you get it to happen? (4.28) What do you do to make them happen, because you
dont think them until you think them. But what do you do to
get yourself to think them? (4.29) HELLIE: Feel. (4.30) AVATARA ADI DA: You also seem to think of yourself
as mind. But actually youre in a position that precedes your
thinking, and cant really account for it. When you step back
from your thoughts, you cant altogether grasp how you get to
think. Because you cant think before you think. So how do
you make it happen? (4.31) Youre in that position. But you identify with your
mind, your thoughts, all the time, and talk yourself into
identifying with the body and so forth, too. But youre in
the position before all this! (4.32) What are you exerting, then, to generate the next
thought, or the next word, if you speak, or the next gesture
you make bodily? What kind of an operation are you going
through to make that happen? (4.33) So what would you like to consider, then? (4.34) STANLEY: Well, theres just something about the
Ignorance consideration that is Shining real “Bright” right
now. [Laughter.] (4.35) AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. Not what it is . Youll
blithely presume that you know the room. What is it? (4.36) CARL: It looks pretty Radiant right now,
Beloved. (4.37) AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha. So to be in the state of
Ignorance doesnt simply mean you dont know. It means that
knowing is not how youre Realizing it. (4.38) Well, you all entered into the state of Ignorance.
Which means you dont know what anything is, but knowing is
not how youre Realizing it. [Laughter.] (4.39) You see, your mind disappeared . Where is it
anyway? You seem to be able to call upon it in any moment
and seem to have a kind of a reflex that makes it happen
anyway. Youre in the position of making that happen. At
least you think thats the position youre in. (4.40) The mind appears because the mind is something
youre identified with. Its signs then appear rather
automatically. So to Realize the Witness is not to simply
stand around watching the thoughts and so on. Its Prior to
them. Its about the process, then, of turning back on the
other side, entering into the Sphere that is otherwise
appearing as the Witness, the in-depth Domain of
Consciousness Itself, without a thought, without a
sensation. Yet Communing with Me in this “Bright” Fullness,
without “difference”, utter Immersion in Me, “Atma-Murti”,
without “difference”. (4.41) So you can struggle all you like with the
peripheral knots and so forth, but then youre always on the
other side of It, on the other side of the Source. So the
time comes when youre not inclined toward that further. You
want to enter into the Source-Domain. [pause] (4.42) So its not itself a process of opening some knot.
Its deeper than that, more profound than that, Prior to
that-simply Standing in the Position rather than working
toward it. Thats this unique turnabout of Realizing the
Witness-Position. You cant strain yourself to Realize It.
Itll just occur in the midst of the right practice. (4.43) BRIAN: And is that a permanent Realization,
Beloved? (4.44) AVATARA ADI DA: Yes, because youre It and youre
not on the other side of It. You dont do anything to keep It
in place. It is inherently the case. But to Realize It you
must have gone through that process of purification and
turnabout that makes It Obvious. Really Obvious, As It
really Is. And when thats the case, it cant be lost now, it
cant, doesnt disappear. Unless you do. (4.45) But you do not. Consciousness cannot disappear.
The things that Consciousness appears to attach Itself to
can disappear. So there are all kinds of changes that can be
Witnessed. But Consciousness Itself never changes, never
disappears. It is not merely awareness. Its just the
Infinite Well of Being, Self-Existent but also Self-Radiant,
without limit, “Bright”. [pause] (4.46) But you are the Witness now, are you not?
[Devotees agree.] If you make an utterance now, you
will observe Where you Are. Say something, anything. I mean
actual language that youre otherwise familiar with. Go
ahead! Say it, vocally-out with it. [Devotees speak
quietly to themselves.] See, youre not in the position
of thinking those thoughts. Youre noticing these thoughts,
but there doesnt seem to be that direct connection. Youre
not in the position of the thinker. And yet the Position
youre in doesnt exactly have anything to do with the
thoughts, either. Theres nothing like thought in It. Youre
just simply a Presence, Consciousness. Thats your actual
Position. The thoughts or perceptions, whatever, are somehow
apparent in That. (4.47) But youre not the body, youre not the emotions,
youre not the thoughts, not the perceptions. You dont do any
of those things. Theyre somehow happening, mysteriously, but
you dont do any of them. What are you ? What is your actual
Condition? (4.48) To Realize It truly, you must go beyond knots and
so on, presumptions. But at the very least, even before
great Realization, or great sadhana, you can experience,
feel, and know, right as you are now, that you are Standing
in a Position Prior to thought, Prior to the body-mind. To
fully enter into It is disorienting. In other words, you
have to be re-oriented to get into It. Otherwise, youll
always be just moving out of that Position, presuming
yourself to be just the separate self, intending this and
that, and combining with thoughts and all the rest of it,
such that you forget the Position youre in. (4.49) Are you all having some feeling for this?
[Devotees say yes.] (4.50) If you allow It to be the case, even the entire
body-mind relaxes. Because the body-mind is ordinarily under
stress, the stress of self-contraction. When you feel into
your Condition Prior to it, the Condition Prior to it, then
the body-mind follows, relaxes. Whereas if you try to make
the body-mind relax, you cause stress of one kind or
another. But it happens automatically if you allow the
Witness-Position to be the case. And not try to struggle
back into so-called ordinary awareness, identified with the
body-mind. (4.51) There is simply fundamental feeling awareness. But
not a blank awareness. It is full of energy. (4.52) You see? (4.53) Thats your actual Condition. Everything else
passes. Everything else is just a moment. [Beloved Adi
Da snaps His fingers several times, to indicate the passing
moments.] Hung up for a moment on this or that
perception or thought or idea or action or whatever. But if
you allow the Witness-Position to be your Position, then all
that groveling for effects relaxes. And you begin to become
Transfigured by It. [Devotees make ecstatic sounds of
swooning.] (4.54) So you feel that It is inherently a Radiant Force,
Expansive, Flowering, not contracted. And it would move the
entire body-mind in that manner. This is how the Samadhi of
“the Thumbs” appears. Essentially by allowing the body-mind
to be Transfigured by My Crashing-Down Presence. (4.55) At some point, in the midst of “the Thumbs” or
something like it, that Communion with Me, instead of just
going back into body consciousness, falling out of “the
Thumbs”, theres the discovery of this root on the right. And
the Awakening to the surety of the Witness-Position. It goes
on quite spontaneously from that point. Theres movement in
to the Depth of That Which is appearing to be Witnessing.
And even if there is peripheral body consciousness, the
Current can be felt in the right side. You may feel it also
moving down from inside the head, into the chest, into the
right side of the heart. (4.56) So it becomes My Crashing Down into the right side
of the heart. (4.57) And relaxing into the Immensity of Self-Radiant
Consciousness. (4.58) And with your eyes open, you can see that It is
So. (4.59) There is perception, but it is a field of Energy,
the Energy of Transcendental Self, of Consciousness Itself.
If you focus on It without moving your eyes, you can see and
feel that It is all in motion, energetic. (4.60) Everything that appears is just a vibratory
modification of That Which you are Always Already
Realizing. (4.61) You need not depart from It. (4.62) There is simply the Self-Existing Force of
Being. (4.63) And all the perceptions with your eyes open are
transparently That. (4.64) Dont look to the right or left. (4.65) Allow the eyes to relax open. (4.66) Regard that simple perception rather than moving
the eyes about and trying to perceive something else. (4.67) Allow It to be What It Is. (4.68) Your only experience ever is This. This is your
only experience. Ever. It is utterly without familiarity,
dont you see? It is absolutely Transparent, Transfigured,
not an interruption in the Force of Being. Its not merely
your own interior being. Its One, All-Inclusive. (4.69) All are That Same One. In this Disposition, the
apparent perceptions could come and go. They could change,
they could disappear. This Disposition is not at all
threatened by any such changes. And therefore in Itself has
no motive to create them, to seek them. (4.70) When this Realization becomes perpetual, most
profound, then there is no life-business. There is no
business in any realm. The body-mind is simply a left-over.
Its only an appearance. (4.71) But to Awaken in the seventh stage is to Realize
This Most Profoundly, to experience This, as now, most
profoundly and perpetually. (4.72) Theres no need to do anything within or without in
order to Realize. (4.73) So all the doing, the apparent doings, of the
body-mind simply become expressions of That. (4.74) Do you have a sense of a sphere? (4.75) HELLIE: Yes. (4.76) AVATARA ADI DA: Do many of you have that sense?
[DEVOTEES: Yes.] If you sit in a natural asana,
stable, like I suggested to you a moment before, and focus
your eyes rather than move them about, the purpose of right
asana, then, is to focus the body likewise. And then
spontaneous right “conductivity” will be felt by you in this
moment. (4.77) And as you relax into It, feel this Force, do you
feel something of a sphere about It? [DEVOTEES:
Yes.] (4.78) You must thoroughly relax your body into It. (4.79) Its “the Thumbs”, if you allow Me to Crash Down in
there, and relax. (4.80) Put all attention in Communion with Me, forgetting
everything. (4.81) Now keep your eyes open. (4.82) Keep your eyes open and focused, relaxed into a
simple focus without moving about. (4.83) Feel the room and everyone and everything in
it. (4.84) Allow yourself to see it without moving your eyes
about. (4.85) Do you see it, the shape of it? Actually feel the
shape of it. (4.86) Now Realize you are simply Witnessing it. (4.87) Feel the Forceful downward Energy in the frontal
line all over it, Pressing you to the base. (4.88) Do you feel and perceive the Radiance in the
room? (4.89) And something of the shape of it? (4.90) Its all arising in Consciousness Itself. It is
Consciousness Itself. (4.91) The more profoundly you Recognize it, the greater
its Shine, and ultimately its Outshined. (4.92) Feel the space through and beyond the walls. (4.93) Dont be confined to the room. (4.94) Dont be confined! (4.95) Sense the Reality of space. Space and Light and
Consciousness are identical. (4.96) So in this Contemplation youre not meditating on
the pain of self-contraction. (4.97) But maybe youll remember it now. (4.98) DEVOTEES: [exclamations of all kinds] (4.99) AVATARA ADI DA: So you see this Yoga covers
everything. It Realizes everything. Ultimately Realizing the
Primal Room of Infinite Space, All Love-Bliss, Absolute,
Uncaused and Unchanging. Theres nothing interior about
Divine Translation, somehow by going within and
dissociating. Its a matter of Standing in the Divine
Self-Condition, As That. So the seventh stage Yoga is
perpetual Radiation, Unbounded, such that everything It
contacts It Recognizes and Expands Infinitely, in Its
Demonstration. And that ultimately, then, is Divine
Translation. (4.100) Now, its interesting to make this extraordinary
and incomparable Demonstration in the company of people who
seem to know nothing about it. [quiet comments] Have
you got twenty-three years? (4.101) But thats how the Way got fully Communicated,
this interaction with you all in your limitations, good
qualities, everything. I had the opportunity to address all
kinds of things, ultimately everything. So if it werent for
that interaction, under all the circumstances in which it
occurred, the fullest Revelation wouldnt have been
possible. (4.102) Even the unfortunate sufferings of lack of
response that, as you know, Ive had to endure, remarkably
its all part of a Revelation-Which is now Complete, by the
way-so I neednt do that anymore. So now, as I Said, the time
has come when theres nothing more for Me to Say or Do to
Instruct you. You have to do the sadhana. And you have to
choose it profoundly in the manner weve been
considering. (4.103) I dont regard interaction with devotees to be a
necessity any longer. Maybe every now and then
spontaneously, as tonight, for instance, but not generally.
You have to do the sadhana. Its your answer time. And a
great number of you here, in fact, have had a lot of those
twenty-three years of consideration with Me. Even face to
face on many occasions. (4.104) [paraphrasing a line from the movie The
Godfather ] Are you ready to pay Me the favor you owe
Me? [Chuckles.] (4.105) CARL: Yes, Lord. (4.106) AVATARA ADI DA: Well, thats the sadhana. I Do
what I Do to Reveal it to you, and now you have to choose it
and not play games with Me anymore. (4.107) Anybody want to talk about anything else? (4.108) HELLIE: Master, I think of that great story in
the Ribhu Gita , where Ribhu, I guess, there are two sets of
footprints in the sand and all of a sudden there was one set
of footprints. And Nidhaga said, “Master, why have you
deserted me? You know how difficult it is. Why have you
deserted me?” And Ribhu says, “That one set of footprints
you saw in the sand. It wasnt me deserting you. It was me
carrying you on my shoulders.” (4.109) AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha. [Chuckles.] Yes,
thats what its about. There are many ways to put it. (4.110) I told you about going to Upasani Babas Ashram.
Some of his devotees were there, and one of thems been
trying to capsulize Upasani Babas Teaching. He said, he was
quoting Upasani Baba about it, Upasani Baba was saying, “Im
a letter, and youre the stamp.” (4.111) Youve got to attach yourself to Me, get into the
mail. Thats just another way of putting it, or “catch the
Horses Tail”. And so on. (4.112) So you must use the Advantage Ive Given you. You
must use My Company, let Me Do what I Do. And as I Said, I
cant Do what I Do if you wont do what I Say . (4.113) What else? (4.114) Want to have some fruit? For a little blood
sugar? (4.115) DEVOTEES: Sounds good. [A few ladies leave
the room to serve a fruit meal to Beloved Adi Da and a fruit
snack to devotees.] (4.116) AVATARA ADI DA: As the guy said in A Christmas
Carol , “But touch my arm and you will be upheld in more
than this.” (4.117) HELLIE: Its one of our favorite movies. (4.118) AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. Its going to be on The
Basket of Tolerance . I guess that means you can indulge
yourselves in watching it as much as you like. (4.119) HELLIE: The Basket of Tolerance is so wonderful,
Master. Its perfect discrimination relative to
everything. (4.120) AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha. (4.121) HELLIE: Beloved, do You remember the most
disgusting movie You Said You ever watched? (4.122) AVATARA ADI DA: You mean Pink Flamingos ? Thats
soon to be on The Basket of Tolerance also. A kind of
example of tricksterism in the modern world. Tricksters are
identified in various traditional cultures. Theyre called
various names and so forth, but in traditional cultures they
looked for people to play this role of the trickster. Theyd
virtually be appointed, chosen, or certain signs would be
noticed and the person encouraged. Or sometimes an
individual would just do it spontaneously, and people would
just use it somehow. (4.123) BRIAN: Thats very evident in Fiji, Beloved, in
that culture, also. (4.124) AVATARA ADI DA: People being tricksterish with
one another all the time is a Fijian characteristic. There
may be individuals in certain villages or groups or whatever
who very overtly do it in a special way. Part of what its
about is that certain people are given permission or license
by the community or whatever to offend or even violate
conventional behavior and conventional attitudes and so
forth. (4.125) Look at things like this movie-comedians commonly
play this role. Theyre supposed to be as exaggeratedly
offensive and creative about it as they can possibly get,
you see. Some people think at some point it starts getting
tasteless and then its not liked. Well, very often thats
when its doing its work. It shocks you out of the rigidity
of a life that should be a play, a sacred play. When the
clown or the trickster makes you notice that youre sort of
grim and uptight about being this good person, hes not
saying not to be a good person. Hes saying dont be uptight.
Its supposed to be a play, you know. Be really good, not
puritanical and nasty. (4.126) So youve got to be shown all this and so forth by
comedians and tricksters of all kinds, so you can get
playful about it again. Dont get lunch-righteous. Practice
the diet, but dont get lunch righteous. You should be
playful. Its just right life, right discipline, totally
coincides with your point of view of what youre supposed to
be doing altogether. So its nothing to be righteous
about. (4.127) But in living the conventional life day to day,
with all the expectations presumably, people do get rather
grim and dried up about it. So this is understood in
traditional societies, and therefore they always had
tricksters. But, come to think of it, so do people in the
modern day. They hire comedians, pay for them in night
clubs. You pay people to mock you. You select certain people
to do this. Youve employed Me to Do it. (4.128) HAL: They have traditional roasts for
individuals. Its a very common thing that they do. (4.129) AVATARA ADI DA: [Chuckles.] Yes, people
have always valued, under the right conditions, people
mocking everyone. It has a real and right function, as I
just Described it to you. (4.130) So in My Play with you all, Ive had to be all
kinds of exaggerated, a shape-shifter, and everything
altogether, Crazy-Wise, in order to break you out of your
self-conscious rigidity and wake you up to the profundity of
this Way. (4.131) [Devotees talk quietly as Beloveds meal is
served. Beloved Adi Da continues to Speak as He
eats.] (4.132) Hasnt it ever occurred to you all to be rather
strange, all these things appearing that go together and yet
they have no perception or capability that would have made
it to begin with? Ordinary evolution theories suggest all
the happenings go on at the exterior, you know, in the
material exchanges and reactions. But that doesnt explain
it. It explains some adaptations of form here and there,
rather peripheral adaptations. Why all this simultaneity,
unity? If plants had to somehow insist, or will themselves,
or from some sort of natural exchange develop themselves,
into flowers that produced nectar and so forth so that the
bee over there could get satisfied, by then, the bee and the
plant would all be dead, because they wouldnt have had any
interaction in the meantime! (4.133) NINA: Now, whos in charge of that beautiful
process? (4.134) AVATARA ADI DA: In charge? What makes you think
there is such a thing? (4.135) NINA: Well, the fact that its, uh-I can see my
conventional mind kicks in because the fact that its, it
suggests beauty, you know, love, that relationship between
the flower and the bee. (4.136) AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. [Laughter.] But
also what I was suggesting-yes, thats true. But what I was
just talking about is how they get to develop into that form
where they can interact in the way that they now depend. In
other words, its not just exterior adaptations and reactions
that is what all this great process of appearance here is
about. There is something at the level of Unity, prior to
the outward appearances, that is the primary Source even of
the changes. And it governs the changes in a mass of
appearances simultaneously, and its not just about cause and
effect, long time, over time, this and that. It enforces or
manifests certain signs spontaneously, because it is an
immense structure, itself so complex and all-containing that
it doesnt need an operator. (4.137) It is simply focused in that which is its Source,
but it doesnt need an operator. (4.138) HELLIE: Then wouldnt the operator and the Source
be one and the same? (4.139) AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. Theres no operator
outside. The process itself is the process itself. Do you
know what I mean? (4.140) So at the level of the Source, there is no
action. At the level of the appearances, its all action. So
you must be free of involvement in the sphere of actions, to
find the Source. Because the more you involve yourself in
the conditional domain itself, the longer youre going to be
there. You just become further and further embedded in it.
So the Way of the Heart is the direct process of going
beyond the entire affair. (4.141) Do you all have a snack there yet? What kind of
restaurant is this? (4.142) What time is it? (4.143) MICHAEL: Three twenty. (4.144) AVATARA ADI DA: Does that sound late? (4.145) HELLIE: Its just amazing where the time went. (4.146) AVATARA ADI DA: Hm. (4.147) HELLIE: There is no time in Your Company,
Beloved. (4.148) AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha. So now that theyve served
you all, youre all quiet again. [Beloved Adi Da gives
the dish of watermelon from His tray to a devotee.] (4.149) HELLIE: Youre getting on your nocturnal schedule
again, Beloved. (4.150) AVATARA ADI DA: Yeah, I know. (4.151) HELLIE: Something about the quiet of this time
You really enjoy. (4.152) AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha. All night meditations are
the best. (4.153) HELLIE: Yes, Youve always Said this. Theres a
beautiful corona around the moon tonight. (4.154) AVATARA ADI DA: You could see it outside? (4.155) HELLIE: Well, when we came, which was hours
ago. (4.156) CARL: Theres a full moon. (4.157) AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha. (4.158) HELLIE: A very large corona, very pretty. (4.159) BRIAN: Another thing You did today, Beloved, was
You talked a lot about the difference between the
householder and renunciate sadhana. I found that really
clarifying. (4.160) AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha. Well, we talked about that
thoroughly at the time, so you already have the notes.
Unless you want to talk about something in particular about
it. (4.161) BRIAN: Just the fact of the renunciate choice
being one of no compromise with the body-mind. (4.162) AVATARA ADI DA: Its a one-pointed vow.
[pause] What else? (4.163) HELLIE: Beloved, I was feeling the difference in
energy now that everyones eaten. (4.164) AVATARA ADI DA: Mm. Takes a while to circulate.
[Chuckles.] Thats why in Europe theres the tradition
of a sleep-time, a rest-time, after the main meal of the
day. Hm? Because it tends to put everybody down and sort of
sleepy. (4.165) I was watching an antiques program last night,
learned a couple of things about dining. One is that the
older European, certainly British, tradition is that you
dont put the silverware on the table. Like you all do, you
put it all out there. But they bring in the utensils with
each dish or whatever. And then another thing they pointed
out is that traditionally, and it seemed to the interviewer
more practically, when people had fish they would use two
forks. Instead of a knife and fork and so on. So when they
served the fish course, they would serve two forks and not a
knife and fork. (4.166) HELLIE: It makes more sense. (4.167) AVATARA ADI DA: But I do like the idea of when
meals are served fully, like we do at table and so on, that
since the meals are being served to the table anyway, that
the silverware be brought out with each dish instead of
having it all lined up around your elbows. (4.168) If we ever do have fish, Im going to try two
forks. (4.169) KRYSIA BANACHOWSKI: Did they place one on either
side of the plate? (4.170) AVATARA ADI DA: They didnt actually demonstrate
it. Oh, in terms of the placement, I believe so, yes. (4.171) KANYA NAVANEETA: Is it to do deboning? (4.172) AVATARA ADI DA: Yes, you may still have to clear
the bones and such, and you can get it onto one fork from
another fork more readily, I guess, in some cases. (4.173) HELLIE: Youll have to have a fish meal just to
try it out. (4.174) AVATARA ADI DA: [Chuckles.] Supposed to
be having a smorgasbord on Sunday. (4.175) DEVOTEES: Smorgasbord. Swedish smorgasbord? (4.176) AVATARA ADI DA: Smorgasbord, right? (4.177) HELLIE: Whats on a smorgasbord? (4.178) AVATARA ADI DA: Its a meal of many dishes. Its
usually, the times Ive had it, many years ago, kind of in a
buffet area but, you know, fifty or a hundred dishes,
whatever, all around on it and decorated and so forth. So
people would keep going up and having some other tastes. So
there were many, many dishes, like Swedish meatballs, well,
thats a kind of smorgasbord thing, for one thing. (4.179) HELLIE: So the poor mans version is pot luck? (4.180) AVATARA ADI DA: If youre lucky! Its many, many
courses, in other words. (4.181) HELLIE: Is it served at a particular
celebration? (4.182) AVATARA ADI DA: No, its a common food tradition,
I gather, although I havent had it in Sweden. Just another
cuisine. (4.183) JANIS: There was a funny incident when I was
growing up. I just remembered it. I worked at this place
called Fjord Smorgette, or something like that. I was
probably about eighteen . . (4.184) AVATARA ADI DA: Smorgette? (4.185) JANIS: I cant remember exactly, but something
around eighteen, and the funniest incident happened to me.
One day somebody had dropped something on the floor, and my
job was to always put the hot dishes into the hot thing, you
know the whole long table with all the stuff on it. So
anyway, somebody had dropped something slippery on the
floor, and I had this basket of fried chicken with crumbs
all over it. I hit this thing, and I flew up and I landed
flat on my back with the pan on my stomach, and thousands of
crumbs all over the floor. (4.186) AVATARA ADI DA: [Laughter] That reminds
me of a story Ive told, I dont know if youve all heard it,
so Ill tell it again. There used to be this program on very
early television, around 1950, called the Stork Club. It
actually took place live in the club called the Stork Club
in New York. Sherman Billingsley, I guess, was the owner,
and he was the host of this program. The Stork Club was
considered the posh super club, dinner club, for the early
evening and so on, and so to have a television program there
and see the stars and so forth, this was a big new thing on
television. This guy would, Sherman Billingsley, would
interview movie stars, whatever, people of one or another
kind of prominence. (4.187) And on one occasion he had a special friend on,
George McManus, who did the Maggie and Jiggs cartoons and
such. He was a special friend of his. And he knew the
cuisine usually served in this club wasnt exactly his
favorite kind of thing, so he wanted to do a special thing
for him. So he had a corned beef and cabbage meal made for
him. And so in the middle of their conversation, where they
usually would be served some sort of Stork Club French
whatever it was, Sherman Billingsley dramatically waves his
hand toward a waiter offstage, and says something like,
“George, I have a surprise for you.” You know, “Your
favorite cuisine and blah-blah-blah-blah-blah.” (4.188) And then the camera pans on the waiter, very
ostentatiously carrying this huge tray with all these things
on it. Then he had to rotate around, the camera followed
him, and he must have tripped on the cord for the TV camera.
So the last shot you see is Sherman Billingsley and George
McManus looking up into the camera with this astonished look
on their faces as the corned beef and cabbage landed all
over them. [Laughter.] (4.189) That was the kind of thing you got on early
television when it was live. I remember watching the Johnny
Carson Show one time, and usually that was taped years
later, I guess, but this was a live broadcast, because they
wouldnt have done it again unedited. He was sitting at his
desk kind of place, and there was a man and woman sitting
next to him talking about fashion or something, they were
fashion designers or something or other, and the woman a
model as well as a designer. She was wearing this very slim
gown with little tiny straps over her shoulders to hold it
up. And at one moment Johnny Carson happened to look over at
her, and accidentally the shoulder strap feel over and her
breast was completely exposed! [Laughter.] (4.190) And she, you know, within a second or so, reached
down and flipped it back up. It was almost as if the whole
thing occurred with the blink of an eye. But Johnny Carson
happened to turn to her just as this thing happened, and he
saw her breast exposed and he saw her pull the strap up, all
of this happened just like that [snaps His fingers].
Its impossible to imitate the expression on his face. One of
those [makes a face to imitate Johnny Carsons
amazement] takes afterwards. [Laughs.] (4.191) HELLIE: Beloved, I saw a funny one the other day.
These old commercials from the 50s. Remember the Amana, the
Amana refrigerator, and-I cant remember her name. But she
walks out, and shes talking about the Amana . . . (4.192) AVATARA ADI DA: Well, it was supposed to be Betty
Furness. (4.193) HELLIE: That was it, Betty Furness. (4.194) AVATARA ADI DA: But it turns out it was a
stand-in for her. (4.195) KANYA NAVANEETA: It was? I never heard that. (4.196) HELLIE: Oh, youre kidding! (4.197) AVATARA ADI DA: Yes, I saw it on some resume of
TV commercial history or something recently. And everybody
thinks that this is Betty Furness, and so they stopped it, I
guess, or panned in on it, whatever, and showed that it was
another woman. And it turned out that, I dont know, far some
reason or other she was a replacement on the live commercial
that night. And it clearly wasnt Betty Furness. You could
see when they drew your attention to it. (4.198) HELLIE: Thats an historic commercial. (4.199) AVATARA ADI DA: Yes, when she couldnt get the
refrigerator open. (4.200) HELLIE: Couldnt get her refrigerator door
open. (4.201) HAL: So it doesnt mean that for all of her life
somebody else played her part on TV. It just happened to be
that one night, Beloved? (4.202) AVATARA ADI DA: Yeah. But she was otherwise known
as the woman on the program, so it was attributed to
her. (4.203) I love a bit I saw on the Ernie Kovacs Show. He
used to do a thing called Percy Dovetonsils. And, hed have
this little cup of tea, you know, sip it, and it was sort of
a grotesque Liberace kind of thing. And he had this long
bit, it was a routine he would do regularly. Hed say,
“Blah-blah-blah,” and hed take a sip, “Blah-blah-blah,” and
take a sip. It was an expected routine. Where he had to be
constantly sipping some tea and pouring some more for
himself and so on. (4.204) And this was live, but it happened to be
kinescoped so thats how it happened to get preserved. So it
comes time in the midst of his little skit where hes
supposed to take his first full cup of tea, and he realizes
in the middle of the sip that the people on the set have
played a joke on him and filled his cup and his teapot with
whiskey. And so you could see he knew he had a long skit he
was going to have to do, and he had to drink all of this
stuff in the meantime, and he was thinking of the condition
he was going to be in by the time he got through. The look
on his face. [Laughs.] (4.205) HELLIE: Beloved, do You remember that video I
sent You of the guy falling down this huge hill, he was a
skier? (4.206) AVATARA ADI DA: Yeah I guess I remember something
like that. (4.207) HELLIE: Oh it was the most unbelievable fall ever
filmed. And he just suffered a few minor-a cut on the head
and a broken leg. But he could have been really seriously
injured and he wasnt. (4.208) MICHAEL: Did he keep bouncing or was it a free
fall? (4.209) HELLIE: He just, he started from the top of this
hill, he was a racer. And I guess the idea was the time to
get down and he started down and he hit a, like a bump, I
guess it was a bump… (4.210) AVATARA ADI DA: Something. (4.211) HELLIE: Rocks. And he just kept tumbling and
tumbling and tumbling. And you could see his body flailing
all over. But at the end he just lay there and everyone was
just mortified. And when the guy walked over to him he could
see that he was conscious. And the thing that had saved his
life was he hit some rocks or something, and in fact the way
it tumbled him saved his life. That was amazing. (4.212) AVATARA ADI DA: But what about the Condition you
were in when we were having our discussion about an hour
ago? And how is It different from the condition you are in
presently? (4.213) BRIAN: Well Beloved you drew us into the depths
of that Condition through Your Words. (4.214) AVATARA ADI DA: But you see how you get out of It
too. (4.215) DEVOTEES: Right. Yes. (4.216) AVATARA ADI DA: Even though in the meantime you
are also being amused and so forth so, you werent in an
unpleasant condition. But even that throws you out of the
fundamental sadhana. So you have to practice the sadhana
moment to moment. Then there is more and more of this
profound absorptive Samadhi, and ultimately the “Perfect
Practice”. But Samadhi it is, moved beyond the
self-contraction in Communion with Me. (4.217) Now the Free Renunciate Order is supposed to be,
must be, a permanent retreat order. Up until very recently
it has been appended to management. So among the other
things that must change in My Circumstance ix that the Free
Renunciate Order gets to do the practice Ive Given it to do,
and the Lay Renunciate Order, and so on. I My Self, and also
Tripura and Navaneeta, all this time have had to function in
that sarvadhikari role. So they couldnt live the form Ive
Given them. They practice under the circumstances, but they
didnt live the form I Gave them to live, which is supposed
to be the circumstance of their practice. For reasons that
have everything to do with the expansion of My Work beyond
that Circle. (4.218) So everyone in the Free Renunciate Order must be
able to live a retreat life, not necessarily absolutely
secluded in solitude, all the time anyway, but in a
circumstance in which they could totally live the form of
retreat twenty-four hours a day, and principally associate
with others who do likewise. Its a different kind of service
such people must do. They have a role of communication and
so on, and guidance within the culture. But fundamentally
they live the one-pointed life of most direct and “radical”
practice. They have to be free to put real time into that,
and not be obliged to put on the social personality
suit. (4.219) You shouldnt oblige Me to do it. You shouldnt
oblige the Free Renunciate Order to do that, either. It is a
sannyasin order, so it is set apart from the world, free of
those kinds of obligations. So you must relate to those in
the Free Renunciate Order as sannyasins and not oblige them
to become social personalities but allow them to demonstrate
their practice completely outside that kind of circumstance,
show you their sign in that mode, that disposition, in
relation to Me, as a sign to all devotees. The Free
Renunciate Order has this unique function of principal
Instrumentality. (4.220) Of course it is especially the case with those in
the seventh stage of life. (4.221) Of all the places Ive ever been to, in
traditional settings, this gathering treats its sannyasins
the most miserably of all. [Chuckles.] You require
the Free Renunciates to become organization people so that
you can dream of religion. At least thats the way its been
up to now. Devotees must take on all these responsibilities
and truly fulfill them and let the Free Renunciate Order do
what its supposed to do. And by the way, I could use some
more members of the Free Renunciate Order, and Im not going
to get any till I get a Lay Renunciate Order first,
obviously. (4.222) Ive talked about the hive principle. Looking at
it from various points of view. Traditional sacred society,
large or small, has had a kind of hierarchical way of
organizing itself. And something of that can be considered
in the context of this Way. The general congregation in the
hive is the kind of worker bee zone, keeps going in and out
of the hive and serving the hive in various ways through all
of that. And then theres a core of others who are interior
to the hive but busy interfacing with those who go in and
out and yet directed toward serving something at the center.
And then-we could say thats the Lay Renunciate Order. (4.223) And then at the center of it is the Free
Renunciate Order and My Self, of course, which has no
function whatsoever, except to be there, basically, to Shine
from the center. The Lay Renunciate Order should, by virtue
of its function, its general function, be rather interior to
the hive. Its supposed to serve a cultural role. And the
general congregation is supposed to fully participate in
this Way, but it should basically be that dimension of the
entire gathering that is involved in the work in the
communities and doing a lot of the work for the institution
and so on, in order to allow there to be these other
functions as well, not everybody doing the same thing. (4.224) I mean, what there is of the potential for a Lay
Renunciate Order now had to be composed largely of people
who are not fulltime serving a cultural role but always have
this or that other thing they have to do, or jobs to keep,
or whatever. So theyre being required, in other words, to
function in the general congregation manner. Whereas the Lay
Renunciate Order should essentially be people who do
fulltime cultural service, and they should be supported by
the gathering to do so. And the Free Renunciate Order is
supposed to be in Hermitage. (4.225) So in Hermitage it must be, now, that the Free
Renunciate Order is free to live in perpetual retreat,
rightly understood what that means. But there must be a Lay
Renunciate Order there, a true one, also. And it shouldnt
have to be made up of people who have to do the management
work and the what could be called-outer temple kind of
occupations. They should be doing cultural work fulltime and
not have to do those other kinds of things. Of course, there
are just so many-perhaps at some point you get such a huge
group you cant have them all just doing cultural work.
Unless it was a very much larger community that exists there
presently. If it continued to grow, then, fine. But at a
certain point it wont grow, and then therell be maybe
eventually only members of the Free Renunciate Order
there. (4.226) And then whos going to do anything?
[Laughter.] You see, there wont be any room for any
more residents, because we will have had as many people as
can fit on the island. And if they all became members of the
Free Renunciate Order, we couldnt bring in anybody else to
run the facility and do all the thises and thats. The Free
Renunciate Order would just be sitting around in Bliss. So
thatd be the end. Everybodyd just sit there until theyd
Translate. Right? [Laughter.] No, you didnt
understand Me. (4.227) The point I want to make is its ridiculous to
propose that would be the situation. The members of the Free
Renunciate Order, if the gatheringd be fortunate enough to
have that Island inhabited just by such people, can do the
necessities of maintaining the place. And there would always
be retreatants coming there as well, so they would be
working culturally with people. But nonetheless you can
understand that kind of hive structure I was just telling
you about and how the gathering has to allow for an LRO that
just does cultural work and has to allow a true Free
Renunciate Order that lives the retreat life. All these are
necessary. (4.228) If it ever got to the point where everybody in
the entire Communion was in the Free Renunciate Order,
fine-youd still do all the things necessary. But therell
always be more new devotees. So you can never get too many
members of the Free Renunciate Order or, in fact, thats
everybody. You cant get into the seventh stage of life
without being a member of the Free Renunciate Order, more or
less, anyway. (4.229) So it seemed remarkable to Me that human beings
can be feeling so uncomfortable fundamentally in their
depth, so uncomfortable about being physically alive that
they are so willing to devote themselves entirely to just
being an organism, knowing its mortality, its limitations,
and all the rest. Its remarkable. It must be being heavily
propagandized by something or other that you would make that
choice given an option, given the eternal option. But if
youre deprived of the knowledge of it, the knowledge of this
Revelation and this practice, you wont know any better. (4.230) So the Revelation had to be made. But thats been
done, and now you have to do the practice. And the practice
is not at all about being content or driven to be merely
fulfill the body. Its about ego-transcendence, and therefore
its about transcendence of everything. Being aware of the
real nature of the body is like being aware of the
self-contraction, which we discussed earlier. Its itself a
terrible knot, in itself an horrific condition. Thats why
people find all kinds of ways to desensitize themselves to
it, forget about it, or be relieved of some kind of stress
all the time-because you do know the nature of the body, and
youre afraid of it. You feel trapped in it. You dont know
that there is a way to be free. (4.231) But having found out about that from Me, you have
to practice and actually Realize what there is to be
Realized. Otherwise, youre always consenting to be the
organism, consenting to be its fate, its possibilities in
every moment, not a lot different from poor little beings in
the forest, whatever, who are prey to a lot of others. The
machine is so vulnerable, and ultimately mortal, how can one
be content with it? How can one be willing to live an
ordinary life? (4.232) Well, of course you all made those choices, but
it was not even a remote possibility for Me. Ive always
been, My Self, in this conjunction. I had to endure the
conjunction in order to conform it to My Self. So My
Disposition has never been one to come and fulfill karma, to
fulfill the motivation to be the body. To Me that is in
itself horrific. So confined that way, I couldnt live an
ordinary life. I had to persist in that most profound
consideration of the “Bright” in this conjunction. (4.233) Now you all chose, generally speaking, the
ordinary course, instead of living impulsed to Realize Me,
go beyond this knot, this mortality. But you neednt make
that choice anymore. You can reverse the course entirely.
And then your life becomes all about transcending this
condition youre attached to but which youre afraid of, for
good reason. You dont have to live on that basis. You have
My Revelation, even in your experience, not merely in
concepts. Knowing that and knowing that Way, how could you
be content with the pursuit of mere organism? Your
disposition should be in the direction of Samadhi, not
indulging in the body. (4.234) Why would you want to persist in being identified
with something that dies? Especially knowing the option and
knowing that its not necessary, and that it can be
transcended. So even though you functioned in the body from
that point, you would transform your life altogether,
unwilling to be merely mortal and afraid, unwilling to be
committed to un-Happiness, non-Happiness. (4.235) Its not a matter of leaving the body. Its a
matter of transcending the body, reorienting the body
altogether, the body-mind altogether. [pause] (4.236) The Native State is to be Perfectly Radiant and
not afraid. You know? Even getting a taste of it, why would
you choose otherwise? But there is a lot of propaganda in
the world that would tell you to do otherwise, so you have
to exercise your discrimination and really consider these
matters. Then when you get
be-merely-the-productive-social-personality signals and
nothing else, youll have the strength to transcend it and
the humor also to relate to it. And youll change your own
life, so youre not merely a social personality, by living
profoundly. (4.237) However, much is made in the universal pop
religion about the “love thy neighbor” messages in the
traditions. And in the Christian tradition, which you may
know of, the declaration is made to “love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart and all thy soul and all thy mind and all
thy strength, and thy neighbor as thyself”. In other words,
the principal communication there, and the same
communication is found in other traditions, is to “love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and mind and
strength”-in other words, to be focused in the Divine, and
in the whole process of God-Realization. And if you do this
in your relations, you will be benign, you will not do to
another what is hateful to you. (4.238) But to make the second principle the dominant one
is to forget the Divine life and be reduced to a drone in a
hive without a core-no honey, no queen, no Lord, just you
reduced to the social personality game, living the organism
life, you know, downtown, suburbs, up in the country,
wherever you are, just cranking out the social interactions
and the meals and the amusements, and the
blah-blah-blah-blah-blah. Thats what I mean. Its to be
reduced to that and to forget the sadhana. So then youre
being the organism again, magnifying identification with the
very thing you fear. So you throw in a few consolation
messages so you desensitize yourselves to it. Thats not the
Way Ive Given you. (4.239) The Way Ive Given you is this profound listening,
hearing, and seeing concentration, ultimately to the degree
of Most Perfect Realization. (4.240) But you see how busy, generally speaking, youve
all been with human ordinariness. And theres a kind of
universal pop religion message everywhere. So it suggests
thats what youre supposed to do. Youre not supposed to be
too profound about it all. Youre basically just supposed to
be an as-much-as-you-can benign human personality and be
very functional about it. And thats that. (4.241) So use your discrimination and experience in My
Company. Decide whether thats the way to do it. Is that
really the direction with which you want to be identified
and the results that you want to be identified with, living
out an organism life and trying to smile your way out of it?
Or do you really want to transcend the bondage and the
suffering and the separation from the Divine Condition?
[pause] (4.242) You must consent to be identified with the
Condition of Radiance. (4.243) And you must consent with every particle of the
body-mind and your being altogether. (4.244) And then all contraction ceases, is overcome,
replaced with Non-Dual Radiance, (4.245) or Love-Bliss Itself, (4.246) Being Itself, (4.247) Consciousness Itself, (4.248) Light Itself, (4.249) Energy Itself, (4.250) Reality Itself. (4.251) Reality Itself is the only God there is. (4.252) There is no escape. (4.253) Theres only Realization. (4.254) You know what I mean? (4.255) So to be turned into Light again, youre going to
have to be cooked real good. (4.256) You have to go up in Light. What else is there to
talk about? You all going to get serious? (4.257) CARL: Yes, Lord. (4.258) AVATARA ADI DA: Anybody not planning to get
serious? (4.259) HELLIE: Nobody. (4.260) AVATARA ADI DA: So what else do you want to talk
about, then? Lets talk about something else. (4.261) HELLIE: There is nothing else to talk about. (4.262) AVATARA ADI DA: I mean something else than “Are
you all going to get serious?” Well just presume that and
talk about something else. SECTION V (5.1) BRIAN: Beloved, I was thinking about the thing
where You were talking about does a bee and flower know what
color-that whole phenomenon. And I was reading a book called
Before Civilisation . I picked it up in Ireland when I was
over there. (5.2) AVATARA ADI DA: Who wrote that one? It sounds
familiar. (5.3) BRIAN OMAHONY: It was . . . (5.4) AVATARA ADI DA: Frankfurt? No, thats Before
Philosophy . (5.5) BRIAN: It was written in 1972 originally, but it
was about the Syrian civilization and how classically the
original architectural, archeological, and anthropological
thing was that civilization all began from one spot in the
Middle East. And they, by more sophisticated dating methods
now, have established that civilizations occur spontaneously
at the same level of development in different areas of the
world, which was to me like a wonderful statement, because
it proved what You always Said, which is that Consciousness
and Being are Prior to any kind of evolutionary process. (5.6) AVATARA ADI DA: And theres an eternal structure,
structuring-not just outer events making modifications. So
its not just the interaction between the bee and the flower
that gets to take on the shape they want for one another.
Its something behind and internal, a structure enforcing
itself with both simultaneously. If it all depended on
survival of the species kind of techniques to make changes .
. . (5.7) NINA: It would never happen. (5.8) AVATARA ADI DA: . . . survival of the fittest and
all that, it would take too long for any fundamental changes
to take place. And how could anything appear anyway? Its
moved from within, or from the structural level, and not
merely from without. Even Prior to that is the Source. The
more directed you become away from the Source, the more
dissociated from it you become inevitably. (5.9) So even in the midst of this sphere of appearance
and action, you must be focused in the Source, focused in
the Realization of the Source-Condition, because any gesture
otherwise returns you to the mode of self-contraction, fear,
and seeking. (5.10) HELLIE: Were never really separated from the
Source, Beloved. It may appear to be so at times, but thats
not really true. (5.11) AVATARA ADI DA: No. But thats no consolation in
the moments when youre not in touch with It as It. And you
can be really out of touch with It, and for a really long
time. So its no consolation, no great one anyway, or not
enough, to simply have some feeling that everythings really
okay somehow, you know, or you can never be finally
dissociated from the Divine. (5.12) But nonetheless, presently in your experience,
thats what youre demonstrating, the feeling of separation
from the Divine, from the Free Condition, from Happiness
Itself. You show it all over your life, all over your
body-mind, inside and out. Its written all over you, the
scar of mortality, of conditional existence even altogether.
Thats your experience, even though you say to yourself, “Its
not really true. And ultimately Ill Realize it again.” In
the meantime theres all this suffering, disturbance,
seeking, particularly if youre sensitive and are not trying
to constantly desensitize yourself or vacation from
sensitivity. (5.13) Your experience is that of being separated from
the Source-Condition, the Free Condition, the Condition of
Happiness Itself, Unalloyed, not changing, not having to be
sought. Reality is Always Already the case, but you can
believe otherwise, you can presume otherwise, you can
experience otherwise. And that is in fact whats happening.
The Way Ive Given you is the Way out of that, the Way beyond
it, not by dissociating from it but by Outshining
it-Outshining it. (5.14) So then you must be directed to Me, directed to
the whole process of Realization, and not always falling
back into the gross self-position and exclusively ordinary
pursuits. (5.15) HELLIE: Beloved, isnt that the establishment of
true faith? You talked of the knowledge that even though
there is an appearance of separation, there really is no
separation. That is whole-heartedly believed and felt. (5.16) AVATARA ADI DA: Yes, thats good. Thats a factor in
your disposition. But its not itself sufficient to be
relieved of the disturbance. So its fine to, with
full-heartedness, feel that that is so. But you must also do
the sadhana altogether, such that it is so altogether in
your experience, so you dont have to keep telling yourself,
“No matter how Im suffering, there still is blah-blah-blah,
and Im going to get there some day by golly. [Hellie
laughs.] Im coming, Lord.” You know what I mean? No. In
the meantime with all that blah-blah-blah, youre suffering,
thats it. The self-contraction, your own act of dissociation
from the Divine. (5.17) So you have to find yourself out, and find Me out,
and transcend the act of dissociation from the Divine
Condition, Radiate beyond it. Thats fruitful religion. Other
things are consolations under unchanging conditions of
bondage. (5.18) So you get a lot of political and social
propaganda about being good citizens, but the Law has a
senior part. Youre here to Realize Me. So you cant just get
a political and social message. You have to get the true
religious message, in order to be complete and rightly
directed. In all My Work with you for these twenty-three
years Ive been struggling with you in your misdirectedness,
Working to turn you about, redirect the tide here, by
reorienting you to Divine Realization. (5.19) Its been a struggle with, as you know yourselves,
very ordinary people, obsessed, driven to conditional
existence, identification with the mortal body-mind, even
though its what they fear. So you come up with all kinds of
resistance and arguments to the contrary and dullness and so
on. And Ive been addressing you in the midst of everything
to bring you to the point of true practice, true listening,
true devotion, and very quickly potential hearing, and then
on. [pause] (5.20) Faith is fundamental to why you keep on doing that
sadhana, then. But it should be made the basis for a sadhana
, not merely for consolation. (5.21) STANLEY: I was just remembering a time when
earlier in the evening, Beloved, You just took the moment
and transported every one of us into the Samadhi of “the
Thumbs”. (5.22) AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. (5.23) STANLEY: And it happened-its full bodily-and then
You Said, something with a wave of Your hand or something,
You Said, “And now its gone.” All of a sudden [snaps
fingers] You just stopped every one of us. And it was
such an incredibly strong Yogic Force in my body, which this
body isnt used to. And I could just feel like afterwards the
body was doing a great deal to recover from it even, it was
so strong, and that there was so much to be purified
yet. (5.24) AVATARA ADI DA: You reminded Me of the story that
Baba Muktananda told. It was written in Chitshakti Vilas
about a Kundalini Master at an Ashram, some number of people
residing there on retreat and so forth. And he knew that by
an act of will he could instill the Kundalini process in
anybody, and He could turn it off, too. So in order to test
the people who were there, to see who was faking it, whos
looking for status, not really going through the process, he
would sometimes magnify the Kundalini Energy, and the people
would make various signs of that. And at other times he
would even look like hes doing it, but he wouldnt. And the
ones that would just sit there composed he knew were his
true devotees, whereas the ones crowing and all the rest of
it and hooting, he knew they were self-generating it. They
were faking it in some respects, then, you see. (5.25) NINA: I know that You do that, Beloved. Sometimes,
to test people. I know You do. (5.26) AVATARA ADI DA: In order to Instruct them or
whatever, I Work in all kinds of ways, and most of it is not
visible. So theres different signs that appear in the case
of each one in their moments. (5.27) You cant blame Me for the conditions of your
existence, however, all those happenings. They are
structured inevitabilities, like the form of the flower. My
Intervention is a Spiritual one that enables you to be
purified in the midst of all that and rightly directed in
the midst of all that, and to live this process of Realizing
Me. (5.28) Therefore, the profound Influence would be in the
case of people who are doing the sadhana most profoundly.
Others may have a hectic or busy life or whatever and want
to thank Me for it, or some things they like about it and
want to thank Me for it, but still basically, rather than
indulging in profound sadhana, they are indulging mostly in
conditions, especially conditions of the ordinary bodily
life. (5.29) HELLIE: Beloved, I remember when I first came here
in 1972 . . . (5.30) AVATARA ADI DA: Dont remind Me.
[Laughter] (5.31) HELLIE: Oh. (5.32) AVATARA ADI DA: Its going on twenty-four years,
then, now, right? In a few months. Twenty-four years, nearly
a quarter of a century of this direct consideration with Me.
Yours is a remarkable history in My Company in itself. But
still twenty-four years later, and youre still bargaining
about student-beginner business. You know what I mean? (5.33) HELLIE: Yes, I do, Beloved. (5.34) AVATARA ADI DA: And you do like to take the
consoling ride a lot. No matter what you do, even if you
dont really do any great sadhana, youll never be separated
from Me, right? (5.35) HELLIE: No, I never will, Lord. (5.36) AVATARA ADI DA: Right. Well this is-in fact, youve
told Me this, that this is your point of view. I remember
you even wrote this to Me this last year some time in some
letter you wrote. Like the remark you made before, that no
matter how things appear, you still never can be separated
from the Divine Condition and so on. (5.37) These things are certainly true, but you so often
find it sufficient just to affirm those things and not do
any sadhana or not do anything about the condition that
youre actually experiencing or as youre experiencing it. (5.38) HELLIE: And Youre always showing me that I cant
truly Realize You unless I fulfill the Law. (5.39) AVATARA ADI DA: Right. So this has been the
substance of our relationship. [Chuckles.] (5.40) RODNEY: Beloved, when You were talking about the
hive, I was reminded that the queen bee in a hive, in a
beehive, is the source of every individual in the hive. Shes
the only one that lays eggs. So theres nothing that exists
in that that isnt directly related to her. (5.41) AVATARA ADI DA: And its all structured from the
beginning. These arent a lot of little guys, you know,
making it up as they go along, nor are they thinking it in
the conceptual way you know about thinking. They are
structured inherently. They are participating in a
structuring energy. So they do all of this spontaneously,
very orderly but entirely spontaneous, because its
controlled at the structural level. It doesnt involve
individuation or figuring-it-out kind of business. And so
the entire group goes through a cycle, and then thats the
end of that one-like a plant or a flower. Its just as
structured as that. Even though they look like individuated
beings, theyre not. (5.42) NINA: Its really a plant or-the hive is really a
plant-a flower. (5.43) AVATARA ADI DA: Yes. Its just like that. They
thrive on flowers. You become what you meditate on, you see.
There is a kind of identity there. They are identical,
structured the same, and this is how they relate to one
another. This is how they get in touch with one another,
because they are structured to do so, from the structural
side, not from the outer interaction side merely. (5.44) So the bees arent making it up as they go along,
and theyre not individually creative. Theyre doing something
they are structured to do, just like a plant grows flowers,
petals, gets bushy and all the rest, and then fades or
whatever, goes through all these cycles. Its structured
exactly the same way. Theres force there and pattern
enforcing itself. (5.45) You all like to think that youre not quite like
that, that all of your movements, behaviors, thoughts,
internal activities, and so forth are some kind of creative
thing youre generating, and youre very individuated, very
independent, very individual altogether, and not part of a
structure immense, universal, just patterned. You dont even
like to think of yourselves being patterned. Its a
particular part of the modern consciousness. It was more
acceptable to past generations, many generations ago, to
think of being part of a pattern and controlled by it, the
Divine Will being behind it, but nonetheless a pattern that
fixed all events and determined your destiny, the
everything-is-at-the-mercy-of-God point of view. (5.46) But, in reality, you are as structured as the
hive, as structured as the rest of the cosmic domain. You
are imagining individuation in a unique modern way, and
separation in a more excruciating way, but you are
manifesting a pattern. The pattern can go haywire. Not
everything that grows survives and becomes great. There are
all different kinds of fates. And you are the examples of
that, you see. Thats what egoity is about. Thats being
haywire. (5.47) So Im here to show you how to wire it up straight,
and make it fulfill its real purpose. Otherwise you have a
bad destiny as a plant or a bee or a beehive really-there is
no such thing as a bee. There are only bees. There is no
such thing as a person in the absolute sense, in the
separate sense. (5.48) So youre all kinds of patterned to move in the
total direction of the seven stages of life, to Perfect
Realization, but youre aberrated in the midst of that
pattern. The hive doesnt work. All the apparent individuals
in it are messed up from going all kinds of directions and
feeling unpleasant feelings. They are out of the pattern.
Theyre misdirected-you are, in your ordinariness. (5.49) The force of the hive must redirect you. The
Person of the hive must reconform you to Himself. (5.50) You see what I Do. (5.51) Then the structure of the human being can show its
greatness, living the law of its purpose, sacrificed to it,
in the Realization sense. And all the human faculties and
designs demonstrate their real purpose, fulfill their real
purpose. Paradoxically that real purpose is not about
preserving the body-mind forever, but about transcending it
in the Divine Condition. (5.52) So its got to be hip and cool again to be
conformed to the hive, to the Law, to unity and cooperation
and Godwardness in the fullest sense, the most profound
sense. (5.53) The body-mind of Man is structured for
Enlightenment. Its structured to self-destruct in God. But
you are diverting yourself from that purpose, by identifying
with the body-mind independently, separatively, egoically,
in the self-contracted manner. Youre becoming eccentric,
falling out of the pattern. The structure, if allowed to
fulfill itself, leads to perfect Divine Realization, but you
want to stop along the way. You want to be possessed of
separate self and carry on an adventure from that frightened
point of view. (5.54) Thats “no watermelons this season”, you see.
[Beloved is making reference to devotees inability to
consistently grow watermelons on Naitauba] Its not
fruitful. Its just a complaint, a form of suffering. Do
sadhana, and the body-mind is conformed to its law, and you
to your great purpose, and it all falls in line. The force
of structure is there, if you allow it to be so. And youll
see that the body-mind has to be a sacrifice in the Divine
Person. There is suffering in the mortal condition itself,
and you must feel beyond it. You must submit it to the
Divine Condition. Play your role in life, but as sadhana.
Dont be bound to the form itself, but be given up. (5.55) It started a few hundred years ago, this modern
consciousness of individuation as it is politically made.
Its an extraordinary exaggeration of egoity made into
politics. Of course, it has some attractive and positive
elements, but it has great faults, and supports the culture
of body-identification and so-called materialism and so
forth, and dissonance from the structure, the purposes of
right life, but also Ultimate Realization. (5.56) That great pattern is structuring you like it
structured the flowers and bees to go with them
simultaneously, and every other form. You are structured in
that particular fashion to experience in certain ways common
to others, and then some may be unique, but to struggle in
that limitation, to go beyond it. Your brains and other
structures are purposed to allow the operation of the
body-mind, even from a subtle level. But theyre also
purposed to keep out all kinds of things, all kinds of
experiences, perceptions, that if you had them fully and
directly, you couldnt function bodily, you couldnt function
in the human form. So all kinds of experiences and
perceptions, etc., shut off. It is possible to go beyond
those structural knots and be purposed to do that for its
own sake in order to have the experiences that result from
it, but its not Liberation yet. (5.57) So right purpose is to transcend the knots in
directedness to the Divine Person, and to allow the
body-mind, all experience, simply to be a structure of
inevitability. Align it rightly, lawfully, and then let it
be. Then you have the sufficient purity to advance further,
to grow beyond it. (5.58) So the politics of individuation is, apart from
some of its merits one might presume, basically the politics
of egoity. And it glorifies egoity. And the messages
commonly given in such a disorderly hive, hiveless
gathering, tend to support a point of view that keeps you
from considering a greater resolution, a greater principle.
Its all this “me, me, me independently doing my own thing”
kind of business, failure to be aligned to the lawful
structure of existence and oriented toward Ultimate
Realization. (5.59) So its certainly appropriate and necessary to be
individually responsible. Thats a good democratic idea. But
its also necessary to be combined by right life with the
structure of existence and the ultimate purpose of
existence. So you cant just have the politics of
individuation. You must have the politics of cooperation and
tolerance, but demonstrated by free individuals, rightly
aligned individuals. (5.60) So the culture and politics of individuation is
abandonment of the structure that is universal and making
the apparent individual separated being into the principle
of existence. There must be some kind of a balance between
participation in the universal and functioning clearly and
freely as an individual individually responsible. But you
must participate in the structure of reality, and be
disposed in it such that you transcend all limitations
ultimately. (5.61) A true democratic order, then, is responsible
individuals in tolerant cooperation with one another,
handling the business of life but keeping it straight and
simple, supporting one another in the sadhana of going
beyond. But if you reverse it, turn it away from that
directedness, just focus on the individual, the single
conditional manifestation, that is what egoity does. Thats
the fault from which youre suffering. You must reverse that
orientation. (5.62) Dont you all profoundly prefer never to have to be
afraid again? (5.63) HELLIE: Yes. (5.64) NINA: Profoundly. (5.65) BRIAN: Absolutely. (5.66) AVATARA ADI DA: Dont you most profoundly wish
never to experience anxiety? (5.67) DEVOTEES: Yes. (5.68) AVATARA ADI DA: And the collapse on separateness
altogether? I mean, if you really examine yourself, do you
have any greater impulse than that impulse to be free of all
this? In your ordinary distractedness and preoccupations and
so forth you may seem to be choosing something else. But if
you really examine yourself, is there anything at all more
important to you than to be utterly free of fear, utterly
free altogether, in a state of unalloyed Happiness? (5.69) So if you know this, whenever you get serious with
yourself and examine yourself, then you show your maturity,
your real humanity, by being willing to commit yourself to
it, to do that in fact, rather than continue the
preoccupations, the superficialities, of your current grind.
You choose the profound life instead-if youre really serious
about not wanting to be afraid anymore. How can one not be
serious about it? But it seems like youre not all that
serious. (5.70) You want never to be snuffed out, never thrown
into unconsciousness, darkness, and yet somehow aware of
your isolation and disturbance. You dont want that. So why
should you play life unconsciously, such that it produces
that very thing? You have to use your discrimination, your
listening to Me, to profoundly consider these matters and
really choose a reorientation of life. You have to become
thoroughly intelligent about it and intelligent with it. (5.71) Thats why I have down here, in the back of the
Ashram here, Fear No More Zoo. Come in and get involved.
Living things are there being without fear, human beings
without fear, all beings without fear. Theres a kind of
congeniality in the Zoo-almost any zoo really, at least some
level of it, especially as we do it here-that is immediately
capturing, like going to Disneyland or something like
that. (5.72) So Fear No More Zoo is one of the sacred places in
this Ashram. Just as you go to Earth Fire and Skyway and so
on, you should go to the Zoo as a sacred place. Feel what
its particular components are. The more I get to do what I
Intend there, the more you will observe it. But even as it
is, as simple as it is, it immediately awakens a certain
congenial disposition in you, if you go down there
sensitively of course and free to do so. (5.73) Its another place of puja, a kind of walking,
petting puja. [Laughter.] (5.74) NINA: It awakens compassion for all living beings
just to be down there. (5.75) AVATARA ADI DA: And a feeling of non-difference,
of Unity, and non-difference too. (5.76) I spend a lot of time around non-human guys, you
know, keep pets and so forth. To Me theyre the same as human
beings, in the ultimate sense the same. (5.77) ANTONINA: I was just going to say, its wonderful
to observe Your relationship with animals, Beloved, and the
way they respond to You. (5.78) AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. Tcha. (5.79) ANTONINA: Its such a unique relationship. (5.80) AVATARA ADI DA: But I dont imagine them being
lowly or separate, or different in any sense whatsoever. And
thats what you should realize when you go there. Thats how
you should use it, to support your sadhana. The entire
Ashram here is a kind of Yajna. All the places are sacred,
have a special meaning, purpose, and significance, and all
the rest, a special purpose. And the Zoo is one of them. Its
about fearing no more, about going beyond the knot of
separate self, being in the condition of the Samadhi of
God-Communion, and, at the level of form, feeling structured
and a great Unity. (5.81) NINA: And all in You, Beloved. Its all-its all in
You . . . (5.82) AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. (5.83) NINA: . . . all of that structure. (5.84) HELLIE: Thats whats so wonderful about watching
Your Demonstration, Beloved. Its not just the animals and
humans that You treat that way. Everything You touch is a
puja article. (5.85) AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha. (5.86) HELLIE: Everything we have You treat that way.
[pause] (5.87) AVATARA ADI DA: If you understand all these that
weve been talking about so far, then you should be able to
understand better what I mean by true Hermitage. This is how
we get the “religion business” out of Hermitage, by people
seriously practicing in the manner weve been discussing,
handling business there but involved in this profundity with
Me. (5.88) Are you all cold? (5.89) DEVOTEE: No, Lord. (5.90) HELLIE: Not now. (5.91) AVATARA ADI DA: A lot of you are wearing jackets
or something. You are cold? (5.92) DEVOTEE: On and off when we open the door. (5.93) AVATARA ADI DA: I dont get cold very readily. (5.94) DEVOTEE: No, Youre a Fire. (5.95) AVATARA ADI DA: I have to get all My yin from
without [Laughs.]-so to speak. SECTION VI (6.1) AVATARA ADI DA: Well, you got any more
consideration left in you? There is nothing left to this
consideration? (6.2) [In a scary voice] We could talk about
fear. (6.3) STANLEY: Thats kind of what I was feeling. (6.4) CARL: I was just feeling earlier when You were
talking about making the choice of fear or making the choice
of the Teaching, I just felt that fear so much, like You
have been describing. Fear is what we try to get out of, but
yet we keep choosing to stay in that place. And it was just
really nerve uh . . . (6.5) AVATARA ADI DA: Racking? (6.6) CARL: . . . racking. (6.7) AVATARA ADI DA: Yes. Fear isnt any fun, and yet its
the ground of everything you do. And youre always trying to
escape it. And youre always seeking release. So if you
really dont want to be afraid, you have to get serious with
Me here. (6.8) CARL: But even that scares me, you know. (6.9) AVATARA ADI DA: Like what? (6.10) CARL: That fear. (6.11) AVATARA ADI DA: Fear scares you. (6.12) CARL: Well, I mean, like [Laughter.]
somehow what Youre saying puts fear in me. (6.13) AVATARA ADI DA: Well, good. What about that? (6.14) CARL: Well, I mean, you know, it just-its just the
fear of letting go of the separate self, you know, thinking
that “if I let that go, then what else is there?” Now I know
Youre describing Whats there. I understand that, sure. But
theres still a certain part in me that is still, I guess,
fearful to do what is necessary. (6.15) AVATARA ADI DA: Well, thats kind of stupid, isnt
it, Carl? (6.16) CARL: That makes no sense. I know. (6.17) AVATARA ADI DA: It doesnt make any sense to Me at
all. [Laughter.] (6.18) CARL: I know. (6.19) AVATARA ADI DA: Doesnt sound like a good way to do
it. (6.20) CARL: No, no its not. (6.21) AVATARA ADI DA: You dont have enough respect for
your fundamental fear. You think its just a piece of you or
just an experience hanging out there, you can get rid of it
or ignore it, you know. And its not so. You have to find out
your fear is you. But its also your own act. And you dont
have to do it. You dont have to be it. So there is nothing
frightening about that process-just the opposite. Its not
merely giving up self, like going into darkness. Its about
forgetting yourself in Communion with Me. Its a loss of
egoity, not a loss of self. Its Realization of Self, the
Self-Condition, the Root-Condition, the Source-Condition.
Its egoity that is lost, the pain of self-contraction and
the bewilderment that comes from it. (6.22) HELLIE: This reminds me of that line from Lawrence
of Arabia , Beloved, that You always quote thats so amusing,
“The trick is not minding that it hurts.” (6.23) AVATARA ADI DA: Thats not true. Its not enough,
anyway. Thats the way you like to look at things, you
see. (6.24) HELLIE: Well, I was also thinking . . . (6.25) AVATARA ADI DA: It hurts, but theres some great
Truth that still exists. You just proposed it again, this
downer kind of attitude you have that somehow or other you
have to be committed to suffering. It must be given up. You
must really not like suffering. Its not a matter of merely
being immune to it. You must really not like it. You must
really not like being afraid, not like being mortal and all
the possible difficulties that come with that. You have to
really not like it. You have desensitized yourself to
discriminating about these things with all kinds of
propaganda and self-indulgence, and forgotten that you
really dont like all of that pain at all . But its your own
pain, self-created, by self-contraction. And thats how you
fail to participate in Reality, in Truth, the Divine. That
makes you dark and troubled and a seeker, and you feel stuck
in some bewildering trap. (6.26) This maya cannot be comprehended, but it can be
transcended. So you must allow all your energies to be
Husbanded, Gurued, Mastered, and be directed to a truly free
life of Realization, but maintaining all the necessary
responsibilities that belong to that at its foundation, not
chaotic, not directed by a separative disposition, but
rightly aligned, established at Source-all that instead. You
must be conformed to right relatedness and to true structure
and to Ultimate Reality. (6.27) You all must know that Reality exists, that Im
here. You experience it sitting here with Me. Its proven in
your own experience by sitting with Me here this evening.
Its not merely an argument in verbal form. But youre always
arguing with yourselves, as if you dont have a greater
impulse and a greater experience. You feel obliged to be
conventional, to play Johnny Carson, the guy who doesnt know
how to do anything, you know. (6.28) NINA: Yeah, why is that? (6.29) AVATARA ADI DA: In order to interview his guests
and let them show themselves off. So he pretends to know
nothing, be inept at everything. But strangely enough, hes
exemplifying what everybody is doing. There are no guests.
Everybody is Johnny Carson, deciding that youre supposed to
make life out of not knowing how to do anything and not
understand anything, no great Realization, ordinary Joe and
Betty, you know, not making profound use of life, of
discrimination, of possibility. (6.30) So to take up the religious life for real, you
see, is to turn about from mere convention, or the common
way its supposed to be, and to enter into a most profound
process of life. But you wont necessarily be congratulated
by it in your common associations, ordinary associations.
Its within the community of devotees where that disposition
is supported. Here and there maybe you find somebody
sympathetic every now and then that you meet otherwise. So
you serve one another by serving this orientation in one
another. You dont serve one another merely by being adjacent
to one another, or involved in some community in the merely
social sense. You dont just belong to a community. You
belong to a religious community, and not merely a religious
community in the conventional sense, here only to do good
works and so on, but here to Realize and do it for real, no
gimmicks and no bullshit, just the real practice. Prove it.
Thats how Ill get an LRO and an institution, culture,
community, and mission that does its job. (6.31) If one is not at all inclined to put up with fear,
why would one do anything but live a life of Contemplation
and Realization? Whatever you were apparently doing, it
wouldnt be an “else” than that profundity. If youre not
interested in settling for fear, then you must embrace
Samadhi as the orientation of your living. But its about
Radiance, transcending self-contraction, therefore
transcending fear. To not be afraid, you have to be
identified with That Which Is inherently Fearless. If youre
identified with what passes, youre afraid inherently,
because you cant hold onto it, you cant perpetuate it, you
cant depend on anything. To identify with any condition or
conditional state, you identify with fear. Contract, and you
identify with fear. You make fear, you are fear. (6.32) So to be free of fear, you cant just do some
psychological or mental trick with yourself. Thats an
exercise of what dies. To be free of fear you must Realize
the Divine Self-Condition and conform the entire body-mind
to It through the Power of Divine Recognition. (6.33) The bodys a poor little thing. Its an animal. Its
very wary and frightened. It can relax sometimes, too, but
its always aware of its vulnerable situation. You inherit
that feeling, all of that, when you identify with the body.
So you must make the body a sacrifice in the Divine, in the
Contemplative sense, not in the sense of religious martyrdom
but in the sense of Divine Communion. You must orient the
entire body-mind to Divine Communion. It is Love, Radiance,
Blissful. It is not that the body is a negative merely. It
is nothing but That-Divine Reality-not separate from It in
the slightest. But in the Realization of That, it is
Outshined. (6.34) So you must make positive use of the body, and not
engage in the reaction to it, play games with it. But you
must make positive use of it in this Divine Alignment, Which
is ultimately a Sacrifice of the body-mind, but in the
Realization sense. In every moment in which you truly give
yourself up In that fashion, you are Happy. (6.35) Dont you know? (6.36) You all confessed a little earlier that you
wouldnt have it be otherwise. Happiness is your will. You
would have it be so. And you dont have any inclinations
superior to that, though they may override it sometimes,
egoically “self-possessed” this and that. (6.37) Happiness is not a characteristic of anything you
are looking at in the conventional sense. In other words,
all of your experiencings, doings, thinkings, and so forth
are not about Happiness. Although you pursue happiness
through these exercises, it never turns out to be so because
every resolution and every attainment passes. Passing
happiness is not whats fundamentally interesting to you.
What youre moved to is true Happiness, unqualified
Happiness. Thats the heart-aspiration to the ultimate
Condition. Its already feeling It. (6.38) I was in Bombay with Baba Muktananda in 1969. The
room was filled with these well-fed, well-dressed, generally
Hindus, all cleanly dressed in their finest. And this man
came wandering in off the street. He had nothing on but some
sort of a rag that was sort of hanging around his lower body
somehow. He was rather filthy. He was incredibly emaciated.
You could see he had been spending years just sitting,
because his backside and his legs were flattened, and the
muscles werent working quite well there. And, as is the
tradition, he was offered something, some fruit or
something. Basically there was a lot of laughing and so
forth from all these clean, middle-class types, upper
middle-class types, or various signs, at any rate, of their
feeling uncomfortable about it and wanting to get him out of
there as quickly as possible. (6.39) But Baba asked him what he wanted. And he said he
wanted to be in Samadhi, thats it. [Laughs quietly.]
He wasnt interested in anything else. And truly he was one
of the most serious people there. He was a little used up
and nutty, crazy like some get in their independent pursuit
of such a thing, but he was really serious about it, about
this great purpose. He hadnt quite gotten there yet, but he
knew it was not about sitting around being a body-mind and
doing the usual thing with it. He knew that damn well. So he
just crawled off into the jungle to sit around in there and
try and get out of it. But he wasnt being successful at it
in that independent way. He really wanted to find out how to
do it. He was really serious about it. He didnt want to be
associated with the body-mind. He really didnt like it. (6.40) Thats one way of getting serious. Its not
necessary for it to be that way. Maybe in some cases here
and there, but essentially its not necessary for it to be
that way. Once you get the thread of seriousness and find
what its really all about, you neednt go off in the jungle
necessarily. You have to discipline the life, but you can
remain in relatively ordinary circumstances and be just as
serious as that man. You could. In fact, thats what Im
calling you to do. You cant play a trick with it and try and
get rid of the body like that man, though. It doesnt work
that way. You have to submit it. You have to be conformed to
mastery and to Divine Initiation. (6.41) Its not enough to presume that youll be reborn
here, or that you will go some other place or dimension and
so on. Its not enough to presume that. Nor is it enough to
experience that, if the experience were to occur. Its not
consoling to the quick. Its not enough to be consoled. Its
not sufficient for one just to be consoled. What you really
require is that freedom from fear, Happiness Itself, Divine
Self-Realization. And you cant play a trick to do it, some
mechanical trick. Its about submitting beyond, to Me. (6.42) Hm? Dont you know? (6.43) To be conformed to Me, your life is restructured
lawfully. Its more interesting than you can imagine. (6.44) Well, do any of you have any questions about all
of this? (6.45) Do you all know what this is all about and how to
do it? (6.46) DEVOTEES: Yes. (6.47) AVATARA ADI DA: And why to do it,
[pause] (6.48) Well? Anything at all? Does that mean “no”?
[to Kanya Tripura] Are they done? (6.49) KANYA TRIPURA: It feels like it. (6.50) CARL: Beloved, Youre the Perfect Demonstration of
that State, as I see You now, the Perfect Demonstration. (6.51) AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha. Om Sri Adi Da, Avatara Hridayam << Previous Section Next Section >> © The Avataric Samrajya of Adidam Pty Ltd, as
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Tripura
Rahasya,
Chap XX, –
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