The Incarnation of Love – Adi Da Samraj

SRI DA AVABHASA: One’s psychological disposition toward the mother and father in the first three stages of life tends to be reflected in one’s response to the Spiritual process. Although most people who are practicing the Way of the Heart are adults and no longer living with their parents, something about the psychology of the child-parent/male-female dynamic is still in place in their character, in emotional-sexual and other intimate relationships, and in every aspect of life, including (therefore) how they relate to the Spiritual process.

In My Description of the practice of the Way of the Heart, I have used the metaphors of the “Mother-Force” and the “Father-Force”. The Father-Force (or male influence) is the controlling force, and the Mother-Force (or female influence) is the nurturing force. The Father-Force is associated with Divine Consciousness, and with the “conscious process” and concentration. The Mother-Force is associated with the Divine Spirit-Current, and with “conductivity” and the Yogic infusion of the body-mind by Divine Love-Bliss. In right practice of the Way of the Heart, both of these “Forces” (and dimensions of practice) are fully, rightly, cooperatively, and effectively embraced and managed.

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After the individual’s early stages of childhood, or at least after the second stage of life, the mother and father should not have to act in a parent-like fashion anymore. Even so, these two forces continue as the dynamic of the human situation that exists throughout your life, moving from mommy and daddy to the great forces of existence. You must grow, through your participation in that dynamic.

Eventually, you must mature sufficiently to be able to respond to My “Fatherly” side, My Demand, as well as to My Love. You must respond to both of these apparent Qualities. Your life must be participation in the dynamic of the One Reality, or That Which Is Great. You must respond not only to My Love but also to My Demand for your self-transcendence.

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Some of you had stronger parents than others – you felt nurtured by the mother and not merely aggressively challenged by the father but drawn out by the father into creative participation in life. Some people have had better experience than others in the universe of meanings in childhood, and they tend to be more effective adults – not Enlightened, but more effective and happy in the ordinary sense.

The mother-force is nurturing, supportive, and it connects you to everything, makes you feel loved, makes you feel familiar, and evokes the loving, radiant response in you.

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The mother means nurturing. She is a supportive force. At any rate, such is the role that the mother is expected to perform, even by the infant and the child. The father is a different force, however. The father means challenge–something quite the opposite of the mother.

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The mother is primary. One who is not nurtured inevitably feels too much challenged. Such a person’s unhappiness is primary evidence of the lack of sustenance, the disconnection from the Divine Source. And it is also an expression of confrontation with challenge. Thus, the description of someone’s failure to be nurtured also applies to the person’s being too much challenged. Both circumstances produce the tendency to depression and to feeling overwhelmed.

The mother is primary, and the father is secondary. If you are well sustained, then you can deal with challenge, with the forces of life that demand self-transcendence and sacrifice. In other words, you are only oversensitive to the father-force if you are already feeling the absence of the mother-force.

Whether you are male or female, you are sustained by the mother and challenged by the father. If sustenance is lacking, you tend not to feel connected to That Which Sustains, and you tend not to feel positive about existence. Then the father-force, the challenge of life, is simply overwhelming, and you become a self-protective, anxious personality.

If only the mother-force existed, you would die. The challenge must also exist. You must break away from the mother-but only from the stifling, protective force, not from the sustaining power. Then you must also find the father.

Examine the tradition of the American Indians. What is the basis of the culture whereby they train one another? It is a culture of testing. It is also a culture of compassion and love, but it is not a culture that affirms the principle of weakness. It demands that people grow. It equips people to grow, to be strong, to endure the limitations of existence, and to transcend those limitations.

Such a traditional culture stands in profound contrast to much of the traditional upbringing of the rest of humanity, who tend to resent demands and want to live like children, just being given the things of life that are satisfying. What has tended to disappear from the world is the attitude of manliness (male or female), or the willingness and the capability to live life as an ordeal that requires you to understand and transcend yourself.

That requirement is basic to everything that I have “Considered” with you.