THE FIRST OF THOSE TO
CONFESS “WHO I
AM” Free Daist Journal, Vol. 1, Nbrs 2
& 3, 1989
The ceremony of initiation was
simple, powerful, and largely unnoticed. In January 1988,
four women practitioners who for the past thirteen to
fifteen years have devoted their lives to devotional
practice in Heart-Master Da Love-Ananda’s most
immediate human and Spiritual Company were initiated into
practicing stage three of His Way of the Heart. This moment
marked His acknowledgment that they had fulfilled the
initial stages of practice, passing through the ordeal of
surrendering all of one’s human life (body, emotion,
and mind) to the Living Spirit Revealed in His Divine
Company. Historically, when individuals stably awaken to a
life of unbroken devotion and commitment to the Spiritual
Process, they are heralded as saints. Even though we knew
something of the import of the initiation at the time, few
of us understood just how significant this occasion was. We
had no way to foresee the auspicious events that would now
begin to unfold. Meg Krenz Heart-Master
Da has often told us that the beginning stages of practice
are the most difficult. The Kanyas had spent many years in
His Divine Company while He Guided them through the
necessary lessons that would enable them to move beyond
their egoic commitment to the beginning stages of life and
practice. Heart-Master Da has Said that once this truly
human and Spiritual foundation has been laid, growth into
the ultimate stages of practice can occur much more rapidly.
Once it is clearly seen, in the context of the level three
practice, that no ordinary experience of body or mind yields
perfect Happiness, a fundamental disposition of
renunciation awakens. Heart-Master Da has further Instructed
us that when this necessary lesson of renunciation is
applied to the more Spiritually advanced forms of human
experience (including our mystical and visionary potential),
practice in those ascending stages can be bypassed, or
rendered unnecessary, by the encompassing understanding that
no experience, high or low, is Happiness. Thus, within a few short weeks of
their transition to level three, two of the four Kanyas
— Kanya Tripura Rahasya and Kanya Remembrance —
made another transition, this time directly to practicing
stage six of the Way of the Heart. Heart-Master Da accepted their
confession that, by His Grace, they had passed beyond all
identification with body and mind (high and low) and were
concentrated in devotional submission to His Very (and
Inherently Perfect) State, which is Consciousness Itself.
They had been Given, and had responsively accepted, one of
the most highly prized forms of illuminated practice
revealed in the entire history of human Spirituality. We
celebrated their transition, but very quietly: We still did
not understand the full import of the Spiritual Mandala that
was flowering before our eyes. But our Heart-Master, ever-Wise and
ever-Responsive to His devotees, now Blessed His four most
advanced practitioners by formally Naming their practicing
order The Kanyadana Kumari Mandala, while He began to Reveal
its Spiritual function as a source of inspiration and
guidance for others, now and after His human
lifetime. One year later, on August 1, 1989,
Heart-Master Da similarly accepted Kanya Kaivalya Navaneeta
and Kanya Suprithi as practitioners prepared for the level
six practice in His Liberating Company. Now The Kanyadana
Kumari Mandala stands complete as a sacred circle of
practitioners advanced, by Grace of their Sublime seventh
stage Heart-Master, into the final stages of the process of
Awakening. In 1979, in the original letter in
which He first Revealed His Divine Name “Da”,
Heart-Master Da Love-Ananda Admonished His devotees,
“Observe My Play and My Victory.” When the Heart-
Master is Victorious, the hearts of devotees are unburdened,
set free of the binding illusion of separation and
suffering, and made consonant with the Eternal and Real
Divine Condition. The establishment of The Kanyadana
Kumari Mandala in the sixth stage of life is a sign of a
Spiritual Victory whose likeness is difficult to find
anywhere in history. Where can we look and see such a Lord
of the Heart Standing so Strong, surrounded on all four
sides by devotees consistently engaging the “Perfect
Practice” of Identification with (and as) the
Witness-Position of Consciousness in the sixth stage of
life? Thus, the maturing of the Kanyas is a joyous sign of
the Lion-like Strength of Heart-Master Da’s
Blessing-Power. In 1899, the venerated Hindu
Spiritual Teacher Swami Vivekananda spoke of the one-pointed
devotion, selfless service, and unsparing obedience that a
true disciple gives to his or her master. Speaking to one of
his principal Western devotees, he said, “And mind
this—it is when half a dozen people learn to love like
this that a new religion begins. Not till then. . . . Give
me half-a-dozen disciples like that, and I will conquer the
world.”1 As Swami Vivekananda knew well, the
life-demonstration and the clear voice of a true devotee
convey a force of inspiration that cannot be denied. Such
devotees spontaneously (and also very intentionally) magnify
the Blessing Work of their Divine Master. 1, Marie Louise Burke,
Swami Vivekananda: His Second Visit to the West, p
26 And so it is with the four members
of The Kanyadana Kumari Mandala in the Way of the Heart. The
simplicity of their bodily demonstration of exemplary
practice provides a daily source of strength and
inspirational guidance for all practitioners in the Way of
the Heart. Their voice of devotion and their Call to serious
practice will also grow in effect among those who have yet
to learn of Heart- Master Da and His Great Work. In recent months, Heart-Master Da
Love-Ananda has Revealed that the Kanyas are the most likely
candidates to be appointed to act as human
“Agents” of His Blessing, should they at some time
in the future Awaken to the seventh stage of life. Such
Agents will serve as Perfectly Enlightened
“conduits”, who spontaneously convey and magnify
Heart-Master Da’s Eternal Heart-Blessing even after His
physical lifetime. But the Kanyas, if the time comes for
them to accept such a formal and profound responsibility,
would do so only as Heart-Master Da’s God-Realized
Servants. They would, by their Service as His Agents,
magnify’ all devotees’ submission to Heart-Master Da
rather than becoming teachers in their own right. For, as
Heart-Master Da has indicated in His sacred Text The Hymn Of
The True Heart-Master: Even those who are Awake as the
Heart continue to surrender at the Feet of the True
Heart-Master. . . Indeed, t heir devotion never ceases. This
is the Secret of Liberation in Truth. It is Da Love-Ananda, the Master of
the Heart, Who has Awakened the Kanyas to practice in the
sixth stage of life. It is only in the Perfection of their
devotion to Sri Love-Ananda that they became capable of
receiving His Gift of great Realization. For the Kanyas,
practice in the Way of the Heart is not about attainment by
advancing through the stages. They have attained Spiritual
maturity not through Yogic self-effort, but by love, by
their one-pointed heart-response to Heart-Master Da Love-
Ananda. Because He has (by the Commanding Beauty of His
Divine Nature) distracted them from themselves, they first
became capable of feeling His Spiritual and always Blessing
Presence. Now, by His Grace, they have grown, by profound
feeling-Contemplation of Him, to Identify with His Very (and
Inherently Perfect) State as Consciousness
Itself. Because of this, the Kanyas are
unique vessels of Sat-Guru Da Love-Ananda’s
Heart-Transmission and Awakening Grace. They are thus a
great help to all of us. By virtue of their resonance with
Him and their exemplary practice of increasing
Identification with His Free State, the Kanyas show us how
supremely Happy it is to practice effectively
self-transcending devotion to Sri Love-Ananda. He has Said
of them, The Kanyas are the first of those in
My Company to confess Who I Am and to enter into the
practice of fullest resort to Me. So it is by the
Kanyas’ confession and example chat others can be moved
to the simplicity of resort to Me. (The Love-Ananda Gita,
p.l38) With the permission of Kanya
Suprithi and Kanya Navaneeta, we offer, in the following
pages, their story, including their actual letters to
Heart-Master Da, and the Instruction they received from Him
during their recent preparation, testing, and acceptance
into the Perfect Practice of the Way of the Heart. As such,
these confessions are a priceless record of the dialogue
between a fully Realized Adept-Master and His mature and
awakening Devotees. Additionally, their confessions (as well
as the introductory note by Kanya Tripura Rahasya) are prime
examples of the inspirational service that the Kanyas now
perform. Let us celebrate their transition
and honor this great Mandala of devotion. And, by hearing
their testimony, let us be moved to a greater depth of
sensitivity and response to the Divine Master Who Stands
before us, Showering all with the Gifts of Awakening
Grace. —Meg Krenz
Grace-Given Awakening
to the “Witness-Position” of Consciousness by Kanya Tripura Rahasya On February 2, 1988, Kanya
Remembrance and I, Kanya Tripura Rahasya, were initiated
into the sixth practicing stage of the Way of the
Heart. Among the signs associated with this
transition in the Way of the Heart is the Grace-Given,
stable awakening of native Identification with the
Witness-Position of Consciousness, which permits and even
requires this transition. In this transition there is also
the Grace- Given feeling-awareness that the Spirit-Current
is undermining the act of attention and thus relaxing the
tendency to identify with the body-mind by Radiating Priorly
and profoundly in the right side of the heart, rather than
being moved and attracted to the gross and subtle phenomena
of body and mind. This awakening is sudden and
dramatic, and it changes one’s relationship to all that
exists. And primarily it allows one to “Locate” and Identify
with Sri Da Love-Ananda and thus, through meditation on His
bodily (human) Form, His Spiritual and always Blessing
Presence, and His Very (and Inherently Perfect) State, to
enter the esoteric space of direct Identification with His
State, or Reality Itself. Prior to this transition, I was
Given frequent glimpses of intuitive Identification with the
Witness- Position, even a felt certainty that I was Standing
in the Witness-Position. During this time, I frequently made
the confession of the Witness-Position of Consciousness to
Sri Da Love-Ananda and other practitioners. But again and
again it was revealed that this Realization was not stable,
or else it was revealed to be strategic. Therefore, a
“testing” dialogue took place between Sri Da Love-Ananda and
myself and Kanya Remembrance about our confessions. And a
process of unwinding the motions of attention to the body
and the mind occurred quite remarkably and spontaneously.
Each conversation with Sri Da Love-Ananda was not mere words
but it was powerfully Liberating and transforming, and every
error, strategy, and illusion of the first five stages of
life was undone by the Liberating Grace and Power of my
Sat-Guru. Steadiness in the Yoga of Ishta-Guru-Bhakti
allowed my Beloved Master to transform me and truly Awaken
me beyond my profound attachment to body, emotion, and
mind. This “testing” dialogue culminated
in February of 1988 in a three-day period of conversation in
which Sri Da Love-Ananda asked a series of Radical
Questions-so many that unless I was firmly established in
the Witness-Position of Consciousness, I would have failed
to make that confession stably. His dialogue forced the
transcendence of mind and body. Sri Gurudev continued this
conversation until all philosophizing, mere duplication of
His Own Teaching Words, and bodily and mental reference when
speaking of the Radical Process ceased to be the form in
which the confession was made. At this point our confessions
went beyond mind and speech and became direct and exact
communications of what was occurring in the midst of the
most profound submission to Sri Gurudev. On January 31, 1988, Sri Gurudev
Spoke to me very directly and began the final dialogue in
relation to this transition with over fifty questions, some
of which I have included here to give a feeling of my
conversation with my Beloved Sat-Guru. He kept Saying to me
that evening: “Do not talk to Me in generalized
terms.” “What is your experience of the
Yoga? What is your experience of the conscious process and
of Spirit-Conductivity? How does the Spirit-Current work in
you, and what are Its signs? Are there any signs in the
frontal or spinal line of the movements of the
Spirit-Current? Are there any motions in particular in the
Circle? How do you relate to Me? Is there any visualization
associated with that Communion? Is there a specific feeling
in relationship to Me? How do you establish yourself in
Satsang? “What form does the practice of
Spirit-Conductivity take? What form does the conscious
process take? Are there instances in which you practice
self-Enquiry? What about Re-cognition? Is there a nonverbal
process-tacit, in other words, and direct-which is a matter
of immediately feeling beyond any form of contraction that
arises, noticing thought-form, body sensation, any
conception as simply contraction? Are you immediately aware
of it as a form of contraction, and then do you feel beyond
or Prior to it? Are there a lot of thoughts arising? Do you
feel or Stand Prior to them, and then are they
quieted? 1. “Strategic” in this
context means “goal-oriented” or “motivated”, and refers to
an egoic effort to attain and hold on to a Realization- that
can only be Given by Grace to a rightly prepared
practitioner. “Is there an event in the
meditative cycle wherein there is absolutely no awareness
whatsoever of the body-mind, no peripheral sense, no sense
of being in a room, or any thoughts arising? Does the
experience of the Current on the right side of the heart,
feeling beyond the feeling of relatedness, occur preliminary
to the event in which there is no psycho-physical
awareness? “And what about outside the
meditative circumstance, when you are normally related to
the body- mind and the environment and relations? What is
your point of view in that context? Is it the point of view
of the body and the world, of the mind related to the body
and the world, or that of the Witness- Position? In the
context of daily-life events, do you Stand simply in the
Position of Consciousness, as the Witness that Stands Prior
to the body-mind? In the context of daily functioning, do
you practice in such a way that the Circle is kept intact
and obstructions are relinquished? In other words, do you
keep the Circle always available to the Ultimate Disposition
rather than indulge in the Circle in various ways, creating
knots, exaggerations of attention, and so forth, that break
the Circle through wandering? “Is there a sign of simplicity
and true and free renunciation? What is your experience in
deep meditation? What are you aware of? What is the state
you are experiencing at those times? “Who or what do you meditate
on? How do you practice Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga and
Contemplation of My bodily (human) Form, My Spiritual
Presence, and My Very (and Inherently Perfect) State? How do
you practice My Admonition to become My Form in Truth, to
Realize the Ultimate Condition through the Agency of the
Realizer? “In Satsang, the total
Realization is Given. You are in Communion with That Which
is Perfect, the Very Divine Condition. But how does it
register in experience? What is the mode of your attention?
What are the signs of this Communion in your own
case? “This is what you must observe,
because this is the indication of what level of practice you
should assume. You must investigate the matter and come to a
full, clear acknowledgment of what exactly is the position
of your practice.” On this evening, Sri Gurudev asked
me all of these questions, and I responded. My responses
were immediately present. I did not resort to body or mind
to answer them, but instead, in Standing in the
Witness-Position I was able to freely speak fully and truly
of this Radical Process. These questions evoked in me a
certainty of the Realization of the Witness-Position, and
they allowed me, through my Beloved Sat-Guru’s Grace,
to speak of the process without mind and without reference
to the body and without strategy or effort. One year ago I noticed that Sri
Gurudev began a similar process with Kanya Suprithi and
Kanya Kaivalya Navaneeta, which culminated in July of 1989
in a formal dialogue in which Kanya Suprithi and Kanya
Kaivalya Navaneeta communicated principally through letters
that I presented to Sri Gurudev. I noticed and commented to
Sri Gurudev that the same testing dialogue was occurring.
And, as the dialogue quickened and the confessions were
readily and spontaneously made, through Grace and not effort
and mind, I felt the conversation come to an end, and Sri
Gurudev transitioned Kanya Suprithi and Kanya Navaneeta to
the level six practice. The reason this background must be
told is to reveal how it is utterly the Sat-Guru Who Awakens
one, and it is not any effort on one’s own part. It is
through surrender and obedience to and Contemplation of His
bodily (human) Form, His Spiritual Presence, and His Very
(and Inherently Perfect) State that one is
Liberated. All Sri Gurudev’s questions
evoked the real process or Revealed the process that He was
Working for the sake of our Liberation. On August 24, 1989, Kanya Suprithi
and Kanya Navaneeta were initiated into the level six
practice. This event marks the establishment of the entire
Kanyadana Kumari Mandala in the Radical Practice of
Renunciation and Realization in the Perfect Practice of the
Way of the Heart. For this Gift of most Radical Practice we
are eternally grateful. We, The Kanyadana Kumari Mandala,
have consecrated ourselves in service to Sat-Guru Da for the
sake of Divine Self-Realization. NOTE: The circular motif above is
the Logo of The Kanyadana Kumari Mandala. Interview Series – Julie Anderson Introduction – Part
1 – Part
2 – Part 3 – Part
4 – Part
5 – Part
6 – Part
7 – Part
8 – Part 9 – Part 10 Stay connected as there are more sessions to come
OF THE KANYADANA KUMARI MANDALA
Adi Da Samraj
(Heart-Master Da)