Adi Da Samraj, 1987.
The following talk has been edited and adapted by Beezone. The talk is between Adi Da Samraj and a longtime devotee in which he addresses the devotee’s inability to move beyond a level of complacency in his practice.
The title is Beezone’s and any error or misconception in the article rests with Beezone.
Keep it Light
ADI DA SAMRAJ: Your response to the teaching argument is not deep or profound. A response is there but somewhat superficial as compared to acute, deep, or profound.
The motive of self-fulfillment is still the principal occupation in spite of life’s circumstances.
You are still possessed of an illusion. The illusion that life, human existence, bodily existence, natural existence is purposed for its own sake. One should, based on identification with the body-mind, be proposed toward the fulfillment of it, the pleasuring of it.
But everything about the body-mind is secondary to the process in which it appears. This appearance if transitory. In it, all forms disappear and devoured and are limited. Nothing is here for its own sake.
It might be said that you haven’t been completely impressed by the inherently suffering nature of conditional existence, you haven’t been completely impressed by that. Maybe you’ve been impressed by the common belief you must ‘make the best of it’ and try to enjoy it the best you can.
The point is that you haven’t received nor accepted and made a conversion based on the teaching argument. You are still trying to do it on your own. You’re not yet able to accept the inherently suffering nature of conditional existence not are you able to accept that there is a greater condition to be realized.
That’s generally the position of ordinary people, of egoity. One that is in the mortal form, the form of psycho-physical existence.
So the best is to keep it light, ignore the whole situation and get on with it the best you can. Try and enjoy yourself, exploit what can be exploited, don’t get too heavy about the nature of existence of the state of affairs or we’ll all get too depressed. So you just keep on doing the same things over and over again.
The whole point of the teaching argument and the practice depends on a completely different point of view. It is the point of view of the Reality of Truth. The first of which is you must be able to understand that conditional existence is inherently a limit, it is always frustrating, it is inherently frustrating, this is one thing you must allow to be obvious. And also in that ‘frustration’ see your own participation in conditional existence and you’re seeking to make it work out. You must also see that there is something Greater, a Greater Condition that is to be realized. And what has to be realized is that what is there to be realized has been Realized by some and can be Realized by All.
That is the purpose of existence even in its conditional form. That which is to be realized shown by the various forms depends on a totally different orientation than the one most people are animating.
Some people say they are getting more serious, they’re growing and making use of the great gift given by true realizers. But what it turns out to be is just changes in the play of it. Those who claim a path or a movement of growth are just making arrangements with conditional reality, shuffling the deck. They are not able to completely accept the obvious nature of conditional existence and their own participation in it. They don’t fully realize they’re play in it. They haven’t fully gotten it. Seeking remains. So what happens is that they can not accept reality.
Your whole life is based on this arrangement with this compromise. Signs are there in some but they don’t represent a fundamental change, but they don’t show the signs of the great signs of hearing. For the first great signs of hearing to be confessed, the limited nature of conditional existence must be confessed and the reality of that which is to be realized must be confessed, as the Obvious. It must be accepted, wholeheartedly, embraced, allowed, and it must become the principle of your life. These two visions, the inherently limited nature of conditional and the reality of the unconditional.
So you are just making time, just continuing the compromise. You can’t allow yourself to accept the obvious reality of the limitation of conditional existence, and you cannot accept the obvious, or reality, the unconditional, or the Divine. You can’t allow what is. You will not. Because you are obsessed with, involuntarily committed to, the superficial obviousness of the fact of the body-mind. And your way of surviving is to make a compromise, and just try and make the best of it. And because this is your choice you’re making a life on this basis, and you’re just like everybody in the world, most everybody in the world, even the crabs and the rats, even all those who will die in the world today. In the last 10 minutes since you started listening to this billions have died, even within a few feet of you.
You’re committed to your compromise and this is the limit, this is the reason why there is no hearing confessed. And what can you do about that? You can consider the reality of your own life and engage in reality considerations relative to your behaviors and such. And when will this occur? Unless something very fundamental and crucial, critical occurs in your case, you will be struggling on in your limited fashion, with your compromises, your reluctance for the rest of your life. What must occur for you, or anyone for the reality of the conditional limit and the reality of the unconditional limit to be accepted?
You’re in a stalemate, you see. Do you have to get more serious? More humorous? What? Something much more profound, and dramatic would have to happen for you to grow beyond your current wheel-spinning state. You’re playing the game of ego, or egoity and you have not found yourself out. One thing you could do if you have any interest in breaking through this at all, it to address the conditional reality of your life much more directly and seriously. And on the other hand address the unconditional reality more directly, at least through the great report of mankind, the confession of your own study, the signs are there. The Great Signs have appeared for you to investigate. You can address these two dimensions, conditional and unconditional, more seriously and directly. That seems obvious, doesn’t it?
Your are presently disinclined to accept the limited nature of conditional reality, you are likewise disinclined to accept the reality of unconditional reality. You refuse both visions.
Fundamentally you haven’t been converted through hearing. You can’t go about this investigation piecemeal and expect that progressively you’re going to hear. You’re committed again that! You’re immunized against that. Even as you’re immunized against those around you those who you live with, You can’t make light of this, you can try as you do but it just shows your unavailability.
You’re immunized against it, and therefore just carrying out your routines. You’re immune from the possibility of conversion. It’s not a matter of just getting more serious as you think, it’s a matter of intimacy with both the conditional and the unconditional. This is what you will not allow.
Further Study
Excerpts on self-Contraction from Adi Da’s talks 2004-2007