The Incarnation of Love – Adi Da Samraj

A CONVERSATION WITH SRI DA AVABHASA

SRI DA AVABHASA: [to a devotee who is about to leave Sri Love-Anandashram in Fiji to return to his service in the United States] You had better lay it down before you leave, Brian. When you work for the Free Daist Communion, you must do all beings some good-this is no time to be trying to relieve yourself of your karmas. You cannot get rid of those karmas unless you surrender them to Me. So do you have anything at all to tell Me?

DEVOTEE: Sri Gurudev, underneath my efforts to serve You I am fundamentally a destructive, angry person.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Mmmm. The same old stuff. [Laughter.] A fundamentally angry and destructive person. You presume that you should feel guilty about being the asshole that you are.

“Consider” this, Brian, “consider” this: No matter what arises, in body or mind, you are always observing it. These faults, these sins, these impediments, these inadequacies, these obsessions, these darknesses-you simply Watch all of these things. You simply observe them, do you not? You observe them. You are not the guilty party. From the “Point of View” of Consciousness Itself, you are the “Watcher”, the Witness of these things.

Even in this moment, do you have a thought? Ah, you see? You are watching it, are you not? Are you aware of this body? Are you aware of all these beings here?

You have only observed everything that has ever occurred, is it not true? Therefore, you are not guilty of these limitations-you are merely observing them. Even this guilt, even this sense that you are angry, disturbed, not adequate, not perfect, even that mood is something you merely observe, ultimately. Is this true or not?

DEVOTEE: It is true.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Thus if, by real practice in My Company, you will Realize Identification with Consciousness Itself, with the Witness-Position of Consciousness Itself, you will know that you are not in the position of being guilty. If there is any guilt, ultimately you are only observing it. Am I right or wrong? Even now, you are always in the Position of observing what arises. If you will grow beyond the beginning and the advanced stages of life in the Way of the Heart in My Company, ultimately you Realize that you are not other than That Which merely Witnesses what arises. Everything that arises is a relation of yours, then, is it not?

DEVOTEE: Yes.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Therefore, the practice in the ultimate stages of life in the Way of the Heart is to take up that Position in which you merely Witness what arises. It is to be Identified with Consciousness Itself.

All these impressions you receive at the level of mind from popular communication, popular society, popular religion, popular psychology, all of this guilt and sense of being “me” that you inherit socially, is part of the effort people make to somehow keep from murdering one another. It has absolutely nothing to do with the Truth. There is no reason whatsoever that you should be possessed by an image of your own existence that is somehow guilty, inadequate, limited, unimportant, angry, or however else you might characterize your sense of yourself.

If you simply inspect your experience in My Company, you will ultimately discover that you are always That Which Witnesses this arising. In fact, it is only when you identify with what is arising that you identify with the persona that feels guilty or not guilty or adequate or inadequate. Through this identification with the born personality, That Which Witnesses all of this feels Itself to be the mind, feels itself to be the body. But you are never actually in that born position. You are always in the Position that is aware of these conditions. Thus, practice in the ultimate stages of life in the Way of the Heart is first of all to be able to acknowledge that this WitnessPosition is your Position.

You are the one who is observing the process of arising conditions. You have not created a fraction of it. You have not made a hair on your head. You have not made a hair in your armpit. There is not a piece of your body that you have made. Am I right? Not a piece of it! There is not one piece of your mind, therefore, that you have made. You have made none of it. You are observing it.

Your tendency to identify with parts of the process of arising conditions and to differentiate yourself from other parts is the very process by which you get into trouble. It is by that process that you develop a negative self-image, feel a problem, feel that there is something to work out, something to release, that there is some goal, some search, that is appropriate for you. This occurs only after you relinquish your presumption of your Real Position and begin to believe that you are in a position in which, in fact, you have never been and in which you do not exist in this moment. You have never been in any position other than the one that is simply observing what is arising.

And that is the cure, you see. To notice this fact via feelingContemplation of Me and to accept it, to presume that Observing Position, to be established in Me as Consciousness Itself, rather than in the position of the mind, the body, and all the complications of the relations of these, is the cure.

To understand your True Position washes you. This understanding is forgiveness, penance. To understand your Real Condition most profoundly is to be forgiven. It is to bypass the whole affair of guilt and all the other results of identifying with the body-mind.

Why should this fact be so difficult to accept? You are in that position at this very moment. Ultimately, it is completely obvious to you that no matter what arises, you are simply observing it, watching it. Am I right or wrong? Right now, as you are listening to My voice, in your intuition of the ultimate stages of practice in the Way of the Heart, you can appreciate that you are observing this event, can you not? You can appreciate My Argument that, ultimately, you are observing this body, these sensations, these thoughts that are arising.

Therefore, what you refer to as your “self’ is ultimately just that which is observing this, is it not? Has it ever been any different? Throughout your life you have been indulging in beliefs that you are the body, that you are the mind, that you are this limit, that you are that limit, that you are in this circumstance, that you are in that circumstance. But look at the power of that which is observed and see if it can determine the attitude, the mood, the presumption of that which observes it.

There is a great Liberation in simply and directly noticing your actual Condition. There is more to Most Perfect God-Realization than that noticing, but that noticing is the beginning of practice in the ultimate stages of life in the Way of the Heart. When you mature to that degree in My Company, you begin to really accept your actual Condition, Which is That of the Observer of all of this arising. But, in order to truly Stand in that Position, you must go through a profound ordeal of preparation and purification. You must observe your tendencies, understand all of your complications, and relieve yourself of the motions of attention, relieve yourself of the various forms of identification with the process of arising conditions, relieve yourself of all the efforts of conditional energy through your feeling-Contemplation of My bodily (human) Form and, in due course, My Spiritual (and Always Blessing) Presence.

To participate in that process via feeling-Contemplation of My bodily (human) Form is the beginner’s practice. As you mature into the more advanced stages of life in My Company, you participate in that process through feeling-Contemplation of My bodily (human) Form and My Spiritual (and Always Blessing) Presence. From the initial moment of listening to Me, through the first stage of the “Perfect Practice”, which is the stage at which feelingContemplation of My Very (and Inherently Perfect) State becomes your capability and your responsibility, your practice is simply a matter of relieving this Witness of the motions of attention.

The forms of identification, differentiation, and desire, the things that one does in reaction to what is Witnessed, are all motions of attention. The beginning of Wisdom, then, is to observe yourself as you are. Forget philosophy, religion, and all the garbage of life. What precisely is your situation in this moment? Even now, you are That Which is Witnessing these arising conditions, whatever That Which is Witnessing this is altogether. Ultimately, you Realize that you are just That, and there is no doubt about it.

There is no way to deny this Truth, is there? It cannot be denied, except by the ego. Only the ego denies That Which is totally, absolutely obvious. Practice in the ultimate stages of life in the Way of the Heart is the practice of immersing yourself in That Which is the Witness and then discovering Its Status, Its Condition.

Before you can submit yourself to that Witness Perfectly, you must relieve yourself of all of the habits that you have developed in relation to what you observe all your tendencies to identify with the body, with the mind, with reactive emotions, with a history, with a past, with a present, with relations. The beginner’s practice that I have Given to you in the Way of the Heart is a way of relieving you of this burden, of releasing energy and attention from the habit of identifying with certain aspects of what arises and differentiating yourself from other aspects of what arises. You want to be, or think you are, some things, you desire some other things, and you absolutely do not want to be or to associate with some other things. That complex of identification, differentiation, and desire creates the complicated existence of egoity that I call karma. Such karma is simply what results when this Witness becomes implicated in what It observes and thus forgets Its own Position.

Great Wisdom in the ultimate stages of life in the Way of the Heart begins when you simply and very directly notice and Realize that you are always in this Position of simply Witnessing what arises. On that basis you take up the profound discipline of the first stage of the “Perfect Practice”. What you call “I” is just the bodymind. “I is not the Witness. “I” is not even independent. “I” should be submitted to the Divine, to the Condition of non-separateness, and stop differentiating itself, sizing itself up, being just “this” and not “that” and playing off all its objects and relations.

The first task of practice of the Way of the Heart in My Company is to uncomplicate the “I”, to understand the “I”, to release the “I”, to submit the “I” to Me, the Very Divine Being in which it arises. But this is just the beginning of your practice of the Way of the Heart. It only prepares you to receive My Spirit-Baptism and to practice in the Spiritually activated stages of life in the Way of the Heart. And that reception of My Spiritual Heart-Transmission purifies you further, so that energy and attention are freed and you can begin to practice in the ultimate stages of life in the Way of the Heart.

When you are thus prepared, you take up the “Perfect Practice” wherein you immerse yourself in Me and submit yourself to the Condition in Which you always Stand, Which is the Condition of simply Witnessing what arises.

Thus, you say, for example, that underneath your interest in service there is this angry character. But that angry character is just something that is observed. It is not even unique. There is no reason to feel guilty about it. It is simply something to understand and, ultimately, to merely Witness. Why should you identify with it? All it is, is a system of tendencies. You did not make it to begin with anyway, so why should you feel guilty about it? You did not make the universe, you did not make your body, you did not make your intimate partner, you did not make anybody, you did not make anything whatsoever.

What business do you have being guilty? All that you are, or all with which you seem to identify, is just a pattern in conditional Nature. It is My business. Let it be My business. Resort to Me and, by that devotional resort, ultimately your responsibility becomes a matter of Being As you Are, As you always have Been, As you Are from the beginning, As you Are in Truth.

Ultimately, you are just That Which Witnesses this arising. Even now, you do not have to be concerned about the existence of it, the fact of its arising. Your responsibility is simply to understand yourself and submit to the discipline of being My devotee. I Am the Inherent Being in Whom these complications are released. To live that discipline of devotion to Me is your business, not to be guilty about what arises, not to be self-conscious about it, not to say, “I am this terrible person, look at poor me, forgive me, change me,” and so forth. You do not have to do anything of the kind.

Your position is like that of a snail at the bottom of the ocean, which sticks its slimy body out onto the sandy bottom and looks back and sees this fantastic, spotted cowry shape. That shape is the body-mind, the egoic personality. It is angry, it is sexy, it is fat, it is skinny, it has innumerable qualities. You are only looking at and describing what you see. You do not have to identify with it. Just like the snail, you never made that body-mind to begin with. It happened spontaneously, innocently, by virtue of laws that appear in cosmic Nature. There is no reason to feel guilty about it whatsoever, and, therefore, there is no need for a savior to relieve you of this guilt.

You have never been in a position that requires a savior, a God who will relieve you of guilt. You already Stand in the Transcendental Place, the Free Place, the Divine Place. What you need to do is be submitted to Me.

The first stage of that submission is to understand this bodymind most fundamentally, submit it to a real discipline in My Company. That most fundamental self _understanding allows you, to a much greater degree than you now enjoy, to be free in relationship to experience, to realize that you are already Happy, to accept My Grace, to feel My Spiritual Heart-Transmission and be Happy in Me, not striving to become Happy. Give up your need for forgiveness. Give up your guilt. Give up your self-identity, your ideas of yourself acquired from your past, your experience. Give it all up. Bring it to Me in one flower, one leaf, one cup of water. Do it in one act and give it up to Me completely, and be most fundamentally free of it, forever. That is what it means to hear My Argument.

Such hearing, or most fundamental self-understanding, is forgiveness, because it totally relieves you of your need for forgiveness. Understanding does not smack you on the head as if you were a poor, independent being and say, “You are forgiven.” Understanding undercuts the whole affair of guilt, that search. Ultimately, you are Awakened to the Realization that you have never been in a position in which you needed to be forgiven.

Now, occasionally you do need to be forgiven in some ordinary, conventional social sense. If you do some rotten thing to somebody, then you must set things right with them and say, “I am sorry I did that.” And they say, “Okay, good.” That is ordinary, human forgiveness. But you do not need Ultimate forgiveness. What you need from the Ultimate Being is that understanding that relieves you of this obnoxious burden of identification with cosmic limitation. What you need is My Divinely Enlightened Argument, which draws you into the “consideration” wherein you ultimately Realize that you are already Free and that everything with which you have ever been associated is a pattern with which you have been involved naively, a pattern that you have not even created and that is not a real burden. It is just stuff. All you need to do is submit yourself to Me and this whole matter of your situation will begin to clarity itself.

The first thing you must do is not to find forgiveness, but to understand yourself most fundamentally and stand free of the selfcontraction to that degree. In order to continue to grow beyond that stage of your practice, you must, based on most fundamental selfunderstanding, see Me and live in continuous Communion with Me, with That Which is inherently Perfect, with That Which is Absolute, with That Which is Grace.

That Inherently Perfect State, that Absolute Grace, is the Force that I bring to you. I do not bring conventional forgiveness, because I do not regard you as a being who needs to be forgiven in any ultimate sense. What you imagine you need to be forgiven for has no ultimate significance. What you need to become involved with is not petty fear and wondering and un-Happiness relative to your apparent patterns. What you need to become involved with is My Very (and Inherently Perfect) State. That is what I bring to you. That is the significance of your relationship to Me, and it comes to you gratis, directly. You do not have to be forgiven to live in My Divine Company, to Commune with Me.

I do not put any obstacles between us, I do not make you be a lesser being, a karmic personality, or a demonic, sinful character who must be forgiven in order to enjoy Communion with Me. I call you to understand yourself and, on the basis of that understanding, to live in your natural Continuousness with Me. Do you understand what I am talking about?

Submit yourself to Communion with Me and give up all this petty nonsense of your inner character and your hidden faults. Everybody in conditional Nature is full of faults. What is perfect, anyway? Have you seen something perfect in conditional Nature today? Where does it sit, where it is floating, where is it swimming? There is nothing perfect in conditional Nature. When some being, some appearance in conditional Nature, achieves Identification with the Inherently Spiritual and Transcendental Divine Being, then a kind of Perfection is displayed, but it is the Inherent Perfection of That Which Transcends Nature. You find that Inherent Perfection in My Company. That is good. That is why I am here.

I am not fooling you. My Inherent Perfection is a unique and monumental occasion, and It relieves you of your sorrow, your foolishness, your un-Happiness-relieves you of it instantly, generates an understanding in you that relieves you entirely of your life of seeking and ultimately installs you in the Position of the Witness of all that arises.

All the disciplines of the Way of the Heart, which are part of your daily practice, are simply part of this whole affair of releasing energy and attention from what you are ultimately only observing and restoring you to balance, to equanimity, releasing self-imagery and inner life, so that you may mature to the point of Realizing That Which you already Are. Then the ultimate discipline to which I Call you can be fruitful.

That discipline is so direct, so simple, that it could be Realized in this very moment, if your energy and attention were free. In fact, you already Stand There. You are already simply observing what is arising. It is already true that that which observes what is arising now is not identical to what is arising. It is just observing what arises. It is just Consciousness Itself, Being Itself, Eternally Full. Through hearing My Argument and receiving My Spiritual Baptism, you can Realize that you are in that Position.

Accept the reasonable discipline that will release your energy and attention from the complications of all that is arising. That practice includes everything that prepares you to practice the “Perfect Practice”.

You must embrace the discipline of your current stage of practice in the Way of the Heart and have it fulfill its purpose in a finite period of time. When you have fulfilled this preparatory course of practice, when you have heard Me and seen Me, you will, by Grace, Stand as the Witness of all that arises, in the first stage of the “Perfect Practice”. Then, by your continued real and right resort to Me, you will be immersed in That Which is the Source of the Witness, in Consciousness Itself, or the Feeling of Being, in the second stage of the “Perfect Practice”.

Therefore, you must allow your practice to be fruitful, real, and direct.

Do you have the slightest idea of what I am talking about, Brian?

DEVOTEE: Absolutely.

SRI DA AVABHASA: When you take up the “Perfect Practice” in My Company, you begin to acknowledge Me as That Which Is, Where you Stand, That Which is in the Existence Place, That Which is the Force, the Power, the Depth, of the Position in Which you Witness everything. You begin to acknowledge My Grace in a totally different sense, no longer as something outside you. My Grace is not you in this independent sense, but It is you as this Witness, as Consciousness Itself. When and if, by Grace and in due course, you take up the “Perfect Practice” in My Company, you will submit to Me in the Place Where you Stand. I Am That Well, the Depth of It, the Fullness of It, the Absoluteness of It. Thus, you Find Me as the Divine Self and you begin to practice entering into the Feeling of Being in the second stage of the “Perfect Practice”.

In the second stage of the “Perfect Practice”, when you can enter Perfectly into the Feeling of Being, there is Great Wisdom, Absolute Sublimity-and My Absolute Gift is Given. When conditions reappear to that Sublimity, this is the State that I call “Open Eyes”. Conditions reappear, but they have no power to qualify that Happiness, that Divine Sublimity. All conditions are utterly and instantly, tacitly, Divinely Recognizable as just a play upon That.

This is the “Natural” State of Divine Self-Realization, seventh stage Sahaj Samadhi. It is the Realization that one is that Divine SelfCondition, Being Itself, without qualification, Consciousness without limit, Love-Bliss, Original, Uncaused, Simple Being Itself. All of this arising is obviously That and has no power over It.

It is to this Realization of the by Me Revealed and Given seventh stage of life in the Way of the Heart that I Call you, not to the life of sinners, forgiven or unforgiven. All of this complex, psychiatric garbage that you have inside and outside yourself, all of your seeking, all of your failure to understand, all of your complicated thinking have nothing to do with the Way of the Heart. I Call you presently, always, to receive My Gift of this Freedom.

Accept My Revelation through understanding, through Communion with Me. Accept the discipline that I Offer to you. Simply do that discipline until you are prepared. Go through this process of learning, of self-observation. Be submitted to Me. Do not be a fool. Do not be a worldly person. Be a renunciate. Hear Me and see Me. Be completely submitted to Me. Free energy and attention to fulfill My Admonition to enter into the Feeling of Being, to be submitted to Me as the Condition in Which you Stand. You will submit to Me more and more fully, more and more Perfectly, without agitation, without distraction, and then My Great Mystery will suddenly be Obvious, by Grace.

DEVOTEES: We are so grateful for this Truth. We are so grateful for the Way of the Heart in Your Company. We are so grateful to You, Lord.