Have I Said It? – Devotee

Have I Said It?

Franklin Jones, 1973 (Adi Da Samraj)

Note to reader:

As a member of Adi Da’s (then Bubba Free John’s) community from about 1973-1975, during which time I lived for nine months in Persimmon, the sanctuary where he lived. My service was to create an index of his early books. I found these writings to be compelling, along with some of the outrageous talks that have not found their way into print. Around his birthday in 1975 (to the best of my recollection), Adi Da was planning on moving with a small group to Hawaii. For that occasion, I arranged a selection of his compelling words by topic (mostly selected from his books) and hand-wrote them in a blank book for his enjoyment. As far as I know, nothing ever came of that compilation. That became Book One of two parts, the second of which I completed some time thereafter. Now through the Internet, I make both parts available to interested readers. These blank books (I made a copy for myself) have been sitting on my bookshelves all this time, and after Adi Da’s passing, it occurred to me that this compilation would be very useful to many readers.

Enjoy,

Ed Hirsch
presenceofone@yahoo.com
Ashland, Oregon


 

Bubba Free John, 1974 – Adi Da Samraj, 2008

Chapter 15

The Devotee

My Devotee Knows Me in Truth.

 

The sadhana of the student

Is to become human.

The sadhana of the disciple

Is to become spiritual.

The sadhana of the devotee

Is to become God.

My disciples embrace

The discipline of the teaching

Most fully.

And they know that I am

The principal discipline.

They find the Siddhi

Of the Divine Person

Alive in my company.

For them, I am always present

And active as the perfect

Communication of the nature,

Condition, form, source,

And process

That is the world.

The discipline

Lives a life of revelation.

The life of a disciple

Is a waking life.

It is to live

Already awake.

In the life of every true
disciple,

There has only been

The sudden communication

Of the Heart.

The disciple’s attention

Is turned to the guru

Without conflict,

Without limitation.

Then the very living force

Of the disciple

Is manifested as bliss,

Happiness, love, intensity,
devotion.

My disciple is turned to mem

But my devotee

Knows me in truth.

The true disciple

Is a devotee

Who simply lives

With his guru.

When you become

Communicative,

When you become

A real instrument,

When you cease to be

Involved in your own sadhana,

And have become happy

To live with each other

And make satsang available

Those are the signs

Of the devotee.

The true devotee’s attention

Is absolutely intense,

Absolutely constant,

Absolutely unwavering and
pure.

That is what makes

A devotee valuable.

His self-sacrifice

Or surrender

Is spontaneous,

Coincident with his life

From moment to moment.

His realization

Is spontaneous, absolute,

Continuous.

There is absolute

Continuousness of Bliss.

The devotee abides

Without dilemma

As that which cannot be

Avoided,

The form of Reality.

His very existence

Is a paradox.

His enjoyment

Is a paradox.

He is not a man of concerns

Or of programs

Or of descriptions.

He is utterly free of all
that.

He has become always

Already ecstatic.

And for such a one

There is therefore

No straightforward description

Of Reality, or of the cosmos,

Or of life.

Only God is apparent

To such a one.

Only the paradox survives.

To be a devotee,

To live in Satsang,

Is to live God, Truth and
Reality

As your present condition.

The devotee is continually,

Effortlessly

Meditating upon

The Divine Person.

 

The Divine Process

Is activated

As a literal force

In the devotee.

Every devotee

Is wildly and priorly

Free in God.

They live in the Divine,

And are free to put up with

The randomness of this world

In which there is no

Apparent security,

Because they depend utterly

On the Divine.

When you become bound

To the principle of truth,

You will become active

As a devotee.

And the signs

Of the devotee

Will become active in you,

And you will be happy.

The devotee

Is always happy,

And he lives

With great intensity.

The most intense life

Of a devotee

Is a very active life,

Constant sadhana.

From the point of view

Of the devotee,

There is no discipline to it

At all.

He is just happy.

He is just functioning.

He enjoys this functioning.

He is not functioning because

It will make him realize the
truth,

He is functioning because

He is already alive in the
truth,

And these functions are

Natural to him.

They are the forms

Of his blissfulness.

There is simply direct
realization,

Happiness under conditions

Of all possible functional
states,

High or low.

That is the perfection

Of the devotee.

 

When God becomes your
condition,

Nothing you’re doing

Makes any sense whatsoever.

You become a happy person.

You don’t have any more

Seeking to do.

You don’t have anything

More to accomplish.

You just become already happy.

You know that nothing

Is going to make you happy,

And you know very well then

That nothing is going to make

Anybody else happy either.

Either they are fundamentally

And unreasonably happy,

Or they are simply unhappy.

Perhaps consoled, occupied,

Distracted,

But basically unhappy.

 

In the devotee it is perfect.

It is obvious in the devotee

That there is happiness.

That is his nature,

His condition, his destiny.

Then everything that appears

Is Samadhi.

Whatever he sees is that.

So he is only happy.

He can’t help but be happy.

He can’t sidestep it.

He can’t have an experience

That is unhappy,
fundamentally.

It is all the same condition.

All of his parts open.

His Heart opens.

All sorrow leaves his being.

His mind stops endlessly

Manufacturing his false
vision,

And it becomes radiance only.

 

Those who live in God

Consent to be fools,

Ineffective in the effort

To transform man,

Unreasonable and already
happy,

Without arguments or defenses.

Their happiness

Is their only argument.

 

There are some for whom

Freedom is that which

They already are.

Therefore, they are

Always already here,

Whose presence is love.

 

Ecstasy is the way of life,

And those who are ecstatic

Are free of concerns.

They only live and love

And are no longer

Profoundly useful.

They create and continue

And disappear

In the ecstatic

Life fire of God.

 

When that intuition

Has become intense,

When your life as a devotee

Is real,

Then you will become

Responsible for living God

In the world.

 

Such a one

Lives freely, happily,

With ease,

And also with

Intensity of being.

He is free of all destiny,

Even while apparent

Destiny or life continues

To arise in his own case.

The conscious force of reality

Becomes the present mover

Of his appearance.

 

One whose enjoyment is such

Knows himself and the entire

World-process as
consciousness,

Prior happiness, or joy,

And his enjoyment

Consumes self, mind, and
world.

The destiny of such a one

Is that light that is

Consciousness.

It is a destiny that

May not be described.

It is the timeless destiny

Of the prior light,

Inqualified heaven,

The God-world of Brightness,

Not of motion,

Not of sight,

Not of hearing,

Not of cognition,

But of fullness,

In which no form

Stands out.

 

Those who become

The true devotees of the
Divine

In the presence of the

True Guru-Siddhi

Are free of the world,

And they may live in the world

As the presence of the Divine,

As the presence of love,

Of freedom, of prior
happiness,

Of conditionless Bliss.

 

That happiness

Does not appear

Only as a kind of ecstatic
madness,

But as an ordinary, human,

And enjoyable life

Free of the Divine Vision.

 

Life from that point

Is fundamentally a
celebration.

And the devotee

Loses his concerns for the
world.

He never loses them,

He throws them,

He kicks the shit out of them,

To enjoy his ecstatic

Life in God.

 

Everything becomes
Consciousness,

Everything becomes his own

Consciousness.

He has nothing left but humor

While alive.

 

In the perfect devotee,

All limitations are undone

In the inclusive humor

Of is radical intuition.

He does not seek.

He only enjoys himself

At play.

 

In one who is

Truly conscious,

Life is no longer

A mystery.

He breathes

The very light of God.

He sees the alchemical

Transformation of the divine

Into life in every moment

And sacrifices himself

In return.

He only lives God

And everything

Is obvious to him.

 

Death is no longer

His concern, nor life.

All states are

The condition of truth

For him.

He knows no dilemma.

 

And life

Is no longer a question.

For such a one

There is not the least

Trace of “mystery”

Left in the universe.

He has no question,

And he has no answer.

He is only humorous.

 

The truly free man

Is alive in the world

With love and energy.

He is not contained.

He cannot be undone

By the world itself.

He has a certain madness,

A certain foolishness,

A certain wildness.

The highest form

Of his foolishness

Is his love.

 

In the case of a true devotee,

The world of experience

Are realized as the present

Play of God,

And everything works together

To instruct, enlighten, heal,

And positively transform

Such a devotee.

 

All these things

Are given as Grace.

And nothing that is not
useful,

Nothing that is not
appropriate,

Is ever given to such a one.

Everything else is given

In the right moment.

 

One who is simply

The devotee of the Lord

In Satsang

Is given everything.

 

For the sake of devotees,

The human Guru appears.

 

The essential responsibility

Of the Guru is Satsang,

To live the Heart

To his friends.

 

Everything that I’ve told you

Before

Is to prepare you

To be a devotee.

 

The Guru’s function

Is to create devotees.

 

The entire function

Of the human Guru’s appearance

In the world

Is to create devotees.

Once devotees are created,

It isn’t necessary

For there to be

A human guru.

The Eternal Guru,

Who is also that human guru,

Is always present,

And devotees are

Always in touch

With that one.

The creation of devotees

Is what is necessary,

Not the creation

Of more Gurus.

 

The function of the Guru

Is to enter his devotee.

 

There is only one

Divine Process in the world,

And that’s when

The Guru manifests

And enters his devotee.

 

Literally,

The guru enters his devotee.

The guru is not a human being.

The Lord is the Guru.

And when the Guru appears

In human form

It is the Lord,

And he enters his devotee.

When the Lord

Enters his devotee,

There is no doubt

About it.

 

For the natural devotee,

The physical form of the Guru

Is sufficient.

He simply lives with his Guru.

 

To become capable

Of contemplating or meditating

On the Guru’s form

Is the ultimate capacity

Of a devotee.

 

Only if the devotee

Can be awakened

In the Guru’s Presence,

And made identical to him

In Consciousness,

Can the teaching be realized.

 

The Realization of the Guru

Becomes that of the devotee.

 

The Truth is being lived to
him.

It is being lived as him,

By the Grace of the Guru.

 

One who becomes foolish

In relation to the guru

Is already happy.

 

One who accepts

The Guru’s invitation

Is already eternally
fulfilled.

Satsang is his condition.

Satsang is his need.

Satsang is his sadhana

Or eternal spiritual practice.

For the true devotee,

Guru is the meditation,

Guru is the realization.

Guru is the continuous

Contemplation and enjoyment

Of the devotee.

The true devotee

Is constantly involved

In perfect psycho-physical
love

Of the Divine Person.

All his thoughts are the

Attention of mind

To the Divine Person.

He need not consider only

Holy or cultic thoughts

To be love of him.

All his speech is eloquent

About the Divine Person.

He need not consider

Only holy or cultic speech

To be love of him.

All his actions

Are devotion to him.

He need not consider only

Holy or cultic actions

To be love of him.

Then all that is received

Is received from him, and by
him,

In love.

All that is yielded

Is yielded to him, and by him,

In love.

Such a devotee is my own.

 


Have I Said It?

Franklin Jones, 1974 (Adi Da Samraj)

More:

The Teaching

Reality

God

No Dilemma

Seeking

Suffering

Spiritual Life

Realization

Understanding

Ignorance

“I” Am the Body

Bubba Free John

The Guru

Satsang

The Devotee

The Community