Heart Conversion Talk Series – Adi Da Samraj

Instructions Given by Sri Da Avabhasa to a number of His devotees on retreat and in residence at Sri Love-Anandashram, on March 25, 1993

DEVOTEE: Sri Gurudev, as I understand Your Instruction to us, You have already Given us the details of how to practice the “conscious process” and “conductivity”, but what we must now discuss is our application of those technicalities.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Exactly. The practice of the Way of the Heart is about “consideration”. You are in the listening stages of the Way of the Heart, and the technicalities of the process, once you have studied them, are not the subject you must address. I have already Given you the technical process. What you must address are all the things that must be transcended, all the limitations that must be observed and transcended.

DEVOTEE: My tendency is to be too active, in charge, and independent. I feel this is affecting my meditation.

SRI DA AVABHASA: How could you be independent if you are surrendering and forgetting yourself?

DEVOTEE: In meditation and in practice in my life as a whole, I feel a need to be in charge.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Of what?

DEVOTEE: Of the chaos of life.

SRI DA AVABHASA: What does that have to do with God-Realization?

DEVOTEE: It has nothing to do with God-Realization. It is just what arises as a tendency. It is a great liability.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Why do you want to keep talking about it? Why don’t you really take charge of the things you are responsible for?

DEVOTEE: On this retreat, I have been very sobered to feel what I do need to be responsible for in my practice, Sri Gurudev. The primary responsibility I feel to You is my practice of the “conscious process” and “conductivity” and my use of my energy and attention. I feel that I have been Given a very strong moment to moment practice on this retreat, and this has become very interesting to me. I feel that there are levels of independence that are being progressively revealed to me.

SRI DA AVABHASA: What about it?

DEVOTEE: There is an aspect of me that feels that I do not need help. It does not describe me altogether, but I am getting more in touch with that independent side of myself that feels that I do not need help.

SRI DA AVABHASA: What side is that?

DEVOTEE: From somewhere, obviously not from You, Sri Gurudev, I have received a strong message that I must work it out myself.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Work what out?

DEVOTEE: Stave off chaos and death, basically.

SRI DA AVABHASA: What does that have to do with anything?

DEVOTEE: I felt it was the summary of all my attempts to control. Feeling into it more, however, I see it is really a matter of egoic “self-obsession” and self-protection, and the fear is almost a creation to justify that.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Did you ever hear of the self-contraction?

DEVOTEE: Yes, the self-contraction is the bottom line. That is what I meant when I said self-obsession and self-protection.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Self-obsession and self-protection are the effects of the self-contraction. The God-Realizing sadhana deals with the self-contraction directly. You are talking about reactivity and desiring objects and others, complications, all the things at the periphery. You are not dealing with the self-contraction itself, or functioning as if you understand egoity. You do not seem to get it. You are always drifting back into your reactivity and your conventional solutions and talking about them endlessly. Your thinking and your dramatization are your search.

The self-contraction is what is to be observed and transcended in the sadhana of the Way of the Heart, and your relationship to Me is about dealing with that. Instead, you are always talking about practice from the point of view of your dramatization, rather than from the point of view of the understanding of the self-contraction.

DEVOTEE: I don’t quite understand that.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Self-surrender is the surrender of the self-contraction, not the effort to stop dramatizing. Self-forgetting is the forgetting of the self-contraction. How can you practice self-surrender and self-forgetting if you are not immediately aware of the self-contraction? Instead of noticing and surrendering the self-contraction itself, you are struggling with a dramatization, with reactivity—your reactivity, your seeking toward objects and others, your self-control game, and all the other aspects of your dramatization. You are already dramatizing separation, and you are pretending to surrender to Me. There is no surrender without first observing the self-contraction, which precedes all that seeking.

You always have this look on your face as if you are being fussy about something. You are always in the midst of your dramatization. You do not seem to be noticing the self-contraction, and surrendering and forgetting that contraction in devotional Contemplation of Me. You always look as if you are tasting something sour. It is the whole-body chemistry of your reactivity. It is the anti-nectar of your own displeasure. It is the look of someone who does not understand herself. You are always being that point of view, trying to figure everything out from that point of view, instead of listening to Me, observing yourself, understanding yourself, observing the self-contraction, and surrendering and forgetting the self-contraction in devotional Contemplation of Me.

The “conscious process” and “conductivity” are just part of the means of right devotion to Me. That devotion must be based on self-understanding. You claim the right to be reactively independent. What does that have to do with self-understanding and devotion to Me?

DEVOTEE: It has nothing to do with it.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Because that is where you are at, because you do not understand yourself, you are ineffective at dealing with your own responsibilities, and you “guru” yourself. In other words, you seek to replace My Work with your own ego games.

DEVOTEE: Yes, this is the barrier that I make in my practice in relationship to You, Sri Gurudev.

SRI DA AVABHASA: This is what you do in every moment. It is a perpetual dramatization, because of a lack of self-understanding. I cannot replace your responsibilities, and neither can you replace My Work. You think I am here to handle your responsibilities and that you are here to do My Work!

DEVOTEE: I understand that you are pointing out my lack of understanding. I do not require any more dramatization, and I must demonstrate my practice of what You are speaking about over time.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Of course. You not only dramatize actively in what you do, but you dramatize in what you say. You use speech to dramatize your lack of understanding. You must understand yourself and purify your speech, your habit of communication—which is reactive.

DEVOTEE: I see that I need to do that. It feels very primary.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Very, very! Wash your mouth out with soap!

DEVOTEE: I will. Thank You, Sri Gurudev.

SRI DA AVABHASA: When this conversation began, I reminded you all that the Way of the Heart is “consideration”. Right practice depends on self-understanding. If you do not base your practice on self-understanding, then it is not “consideration”. In that case, you reduce all your practice of the Way of the Heart to mere observances—even the “conscious process” and “conductivity”, even meditation, become mere observances, rote practices. If your life-practice is a real “consideration”, then you are always observing yourself in My Company, you are always locating the self-contraction and surrendering and forgetting that contraction in devotional Contemplation of Me. This is how you authenticate all the practices and avoid turning them into mere observances.

Often, when I ask for your questions, your real “consideration”, you tell Me, in effect, “We are practicing observances!” You are not thinking about anything, there are no questions, there is no “consideration” going on—you are just settling down into sleepy observances. Real practice of the Way of the Heart is to be on the edge moment to moment, always stepping back from reactivity, desires, search towards objects and others, stepping back from all of that, in the location of the self-contraction, that unique sensation that precedes all the seeking.

Having located that self-contraction in each moment, you must surrender and forget it in devotional Contemplation of Me. Apart from this, you are just going through the institutionalized religious routines of mere observances and mere talk. You are dull, then, settling into one or another mode of your own reactivity and desire. In that case, you are seeking and being comfortable again, instead of being quick and clear with yourself. The search is not at all the practice of the Way of the Heart.

I am still looking for the signs that people understand Me and have grasped the real principle of the Way of the Heart. You always want to go back to the sleep of your observances and your ordinary seeking. If you are really practicing, then you are always in “consideration”. The “consideration” never comes to an end. However, you are always looking to go to sleep. You want the orderliness of observances, the stimulation of seeking, rather than the intensity of real “consideration” and real practice.

“Consideration” is fundamental to the practice of the Way of the Heart. It is the characteristic of right practice—always dealing with yourself for real, locating the self-contraction itself and surrendering and forgetting that contraction in devotional Contemplation of Me. Instead, however, every time I talk to you, you tell Me about your consolation game and the stimulation of your seeking, all your reactivity, and the rest. That is not “consideration”. That is not practice of the Way of the Heart. Every moment of real practice is a moment of real “consideration”. Real practice of the Way of the Heart is not the sleep of observances, and it is not the stimulation of seeking. All of that is transcended by your locating the self-contraction and surrendering it in feeling-Contemplation of Me. This is worth living about! It is time you all got down to it.

DEVOTEE: Beloved Gurudev, over the years You have used one particular phrase to address me. You have Said of me, “She has her limitations.” I have been feeling the nature of these limitations, and I feel that it is unbearable to go on any longer without surrendering these limitations to You. I can feel a mechanism of fear in my body constantly. I am always trying to do things with it, but I never actually release it.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Is this basic to your seeking?

DEVOTEE: I think it is the core of my seeking. I want to surrender it to You.

SRI DA AVABHASA: I see. Why havent you?

DEVOTEE: Because I cannot seem to get in touch with it.

SRI DA AVABHASA: I thought it was the core of your seeking. How could you not be in touch with it?

DEVOTEE: I think it is because I keep laying something on top of it that prevents me from feeling it fully.

SRI DA AVABHASA: What form of practice are you involved in?

DEVOTEE: I practice self-Enquiry in the devotional Way of Insight. I enquire of this fear mechanism a lot. I think my error is that I keep looking for the mechanism to dissipate and be gone.

SRI DA AVABHASA: You are supposed to be enquiring of the self-contraction. What are you doing instead?

DEVOTEE: I am looking to release it and have it go away.

SRI DA AVABHASA: That is not the practice of the Way of the Heart, then, is it?

DEVOTEE: No, it is not.

SRI DA AVABHASA: So why are you doing that?

DEVOTEE: Because of this fear mechanism.

SRI DA AVABHASA: What does that have to do with the practice you have been Given?

DEVOTEE: It has nothing to do with it.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Then why are you doing it? Why should you not do the practice you have been Given? In other words, you are seeking. My Address to you is a Criticism of seeking, is it not? I Criticize your seeking so that you will understand it as a diversion, so that you will see the self-contraction for what it is. Then the “conscious process” and “conductivity”—the surrender of egoic self in feeling-Contemplation of Me—takes place. Attending to My Argument is called the listening process, but you are seeking instead. You are not presently listening to My Argument, then, are you? You are not listening to Me, not examining yourself according to My Word and fashioning your practice on the basis of this “consideration”. Instead, you are carrying on with your oblivious search nonsense and pretending that that is the practice. What do your search and your feeling of fear have to do with self-Enquiry?

DEVOTEE: They have nothing to do with it.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Then why do you not “consider” what I am actually saying to you? What is the object of this pursuit you are involved in? Being free of fear, is that it?

DEVOTEE: Yes.

SRI DA AVABHASA: You are seeking to be free of fear. Do you think that by practicing a few observances of the Way of the Heart your search will be satisfied?

DEVOTEE: That is my presumption.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Have I ever suggested that the search can be satisfied?

DEVOTEE: No.

SRI DA AVABHASA: But you persist in it anyway. You are not paying much attention to Me. You all would not have come to Me if your search had not been failing. You come to Me and you continue your search anyway. What are you using Me for, in that case? You are using Me to console you in the midst of your failed search. Maybe there are things you are afraid of that are worth being afraid of.

DEVOTEE: Maybe.

SRI DA AVABHASA: What about that? Are you afraid of death?

DEVOTEE: I think that I am being confronted by death.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Are you afraid of it?

DEVOTEE: I cant feel that.

SRI DA AVABHASA: What are you doing?

DEVOTEE: I am perpetuating my own fear.

SRI DA AVABHASA: What are you afraid of?

DEVOTEE: I cant get in touch with it.

SRI DA AVABHASA: You are afraid but you do not know what you are afraid of?

DEVOTEE: Yes. I don’t know specifically what I am afraid of.

SRI DA AVABHASA: You are just plain old afraid? Your fear is not associated with anything in particular?

DEVOTEE: For a long time I thought I was afraid of being criticized or afraid of chaos. I saw that I was trying to know everything. But I cant get in touch with the specific aspect of what I am afraid of. Many things trigger it off, but I am just not in touch with what it is exactly.

SRI DA AVABHASA: It does not seem to bother you very much.

DEVOTEE: I think it bothers me a lot. It creates a limitation in my relationship with You, and that bothers me.

SRI DA AVABHASA: What about it, then?

DEVOTEE: I don’t want to do it anymore.

SRI DA AVABHASA: You do not want to do what?

DEVOTEE: I don’t want to perpetuate this amorphous fear.

SRI DA AVABHASA: What do you mean when you say you do not want to do it? You cannot stop it, and you do not know what you are afraid of. What makes you think that you are doing it, anyway? What makes you so sure it is fear?

DEVOTEE: I am not even sure it is fear. That is the mechanism I might put on top of it. I am not even sure what it is. I just feel such a level of contraction in the bodily base. I cannot necessarily get in touch with it.

SRI DA AVABHASA: You cannot even get in touch with it. Do you have anything to do with it at all?

DEVOTEE: I react to it.

SRI DA AVABHASA: To what?

DEVOTEE: To the mechanism of this contraction.

SRI DA AVABHASA: You just said you could not get in touch with it.

DEVOTEE: I cant get in touch with specifically what it is.

SRI DA AVABHASA: That is what I mean. You are not in touch with it. What sensation do you have?

DEVOTEE: I have the sensation of fear. That is what I am struggling to describe. I just have the sense of being locked up and I cannot grow as a result.

SRI DA AVABHASA: An actual physical knotting?

DEVOTEE: A physical knotting.

SRI DA AVABHASA: In your lower body?

DEVOTEE: In my lower body.

SRI DA AVABHASA: This is chronic?

DEVOTEE: Yes. And it is not just some physical ailment or other?

DEVOTEE: No. I have had moments when I have observed that all of my activities are based on this particular knot.

SRI DA AVABHASA: This physical knot?

DEVOTEE: This physical knot, this assumption. I have been Enquiring of this knot.

SRI DA AVABHASA: How can you Enquire of a sensation? The practice I have Given you is called “self-enquiry”. How can you Enquire of a sensation of a merely physical kind?

DEVOTEE: Because I identify with the physical knot.

SRI DA AVABHASA: But how can you Enquire of this knot in your body?

DEVOTEE: I guess my Enquiry is part of my effort to release this sensation.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Yes. But you cannot properly Enquire of such a thing, can you? Do you understand what self-Enquiry is? How can it be self-Enquiry if you are asking a question of some physical state? Self-Enquiry is an Enquiry of the individual self. You Enquire of your separate and separative self. You, however, are Enquiring of your physical experience, of what you interpret to be your emotional state, but, at the same time, you cannot get in touch it. You are aware of a physical distress and you interpret it emotionally to be fear, but you cannot get in touch with the fear or any object for your fear. Basically, you are Enquiring of this physical sensation. How does the Enquiry I have Given you get to be brought to such a thing? How does this process of self-Enquiry become, in your mind, something to use to address a physical problem?

DEVOTEE: I havent been viewing it as a physical problem. I have been viewing it as a limitation.

SRI DA AVABHASA: But you have not been locating your own activity. You are addressing what could, perhaps, be called the “result” of your activity. But you are not Enquiring of your separate and separative self. You are not getting any further than being aware of a physical sensation. Your observation is not complete. It is not profound. It is not self-observation. It is simply an awareness of a peripheral result of your own activity. You must locate, you must truly observe, your own action, that of which this physical distress is a symptom. You have to find the cause, the act that proceeds your physical distress, if self-Enquiry is going to be of appropriate use.

You, however, are not only not examining yourself to find your own action but you are looking to discover the further results of your own action in this physical sensation. You are looking to find some emotional extension of your own action perhaps. You are even looking to find some object of your own emotion, of your fear. You are looking to go on and on and on with something that is already a result of the self-contraction. You are looking for further results, analyzing yourself along those lines. But you are not very successful, apparently. You are not getting much beyond this physical sensation and some vague emotional awareness. But regardless of your apparent success or not, you are not addressing yourself or your own action. You are addressing only a result, a symptom.

Self-Enquiry is the ability to deal with your own action, with the self-contraction itself. Self-Enquiry is not an address to its symptoms, its extensions. It is not an address to your reactivity, your desires, or your search toward others, objects, thoughts, and this, that, or the other thing. Self-Enquiry is not addressed to the search, but to the self-contraction.

The root of all seeking is the self-contraction. This is My “Consideration” with you. The self-contraction is what you must observe. The practice of self-Enquiry becomes of use immediately when you discover your own action—which precedes your seeking, which is the root of your seeking, which is the cause of your seeking and all the symptoms associated with it. You cannot Enquire of the results. You can only Enquire of your separate and separative self in this principle activity of self-contraction. You cannot Enquire of your reactivity. You cannot do any of that fruitfully, anyway, although you can try to do so. You cannot fruitfully Enquire of your own reactivity, your desires, your seeking, your game, objects, others, or your life-play. You cannot Enquire of those things. You can investigate them. You can observe them to the point of discovering your own action, which is the self-contraction that proceeds all these results.

You are Enquiring of something that is not the point. You are looking for more and more results. But you cannot deal with results through self-Enquiry. Self-Enquiry can only deal with the cause. The results are already happening. If you address the results only, you are not in the cause-position. Therefore, you cannot undo this dilemma. In that case, you can be aware of your own dilemma and its sensations and so forth. That is fine. That is a level of observation. But is there a cause of all that for which you are responsible? That is what I am “Considering” with you. Your own self-contraction must be located. Then the practice of self-surrendering, self-forgetting, and self-transcending feeling-Contemplation of Me works. Then the “conscious process” and “conductivity” are fruitful. But not before.

The practice of the Way of the Heart in My Company requires self-understanding. Self-understanding develops more and more, becoming most fundamental, and ultimately, Most Perfect. All the processes of the Way of the Heart, all the developmental stages of the Way of the Heart, develop on the basis of self-understanding. To practice fruitfully, therefore, there must be self-understanding. Self-understanding is fundamental to the practice of the Way of the Heart from the beginning. That is why the practice is called “listening” from the beginning. It is real “consideration”, from the beginning. To activate the fruitful course of the Way of the Heart, you must function on the basis of your best understanding, your real understanding. The Way of the Heart is a reality “consideration”, then, from the very beginning. It is examining yourself in every moment to the point of discovering the actual activity that is the self-contraction. Discover that activity so that you can surrender it, so that you can forget your separate and separative self by feeling-Contemplation of Me, using all the means of the “conscious process” and “conductivity” I have Given you, using all the features of the practice of the Way of the Heart. Without such self-understanding, you are still the seeker.

If there is no self-understanding, there is not much to base the gestures of your practice on. In that case, you are seeking in My Company and you are not practicing the Way of the Heart fruitfully. You are listening, perhaps. However profoundly, you are adapting, you are “considering” the Way of the Heart, you are examining yourself. But fruitful practice of the Way of the Heart begins when there is self-understanding. Self-understanding is not merely something that comes in the advancement of the Way of the Heart or in the ultimate stages of life. It is not something that is fundamental only in true hearing. In hearing, self-understanding has become most fundamental. But fruitful practice of the Way of the Heart requires self-understanding, even at the beginning. You must observe yourself to the point of discovering the self-contraction that is the root of your seeking, the root of your perceived dilemma. Then that understanding becomes the focus of your moment to moment practice, rather than the search becoming the focus of your so-called practice.

In every moment when you are not practicing on the basis of this self-understanding, this relinquishment of the self-contraction itself, you are simply seeking. You are functioning in the egoic fashion. You are addressing, or otherwise involved in, forms of seeking, reactivity, desire, searching toward objects, others, thoughts, whatever. You are dramatizing the self-contraction, in other words. You may perhaps be applying yourself to some aspect of the Way of the Heart, or what you think is an aspect of the Way of the Heart, in order to deal with your dilemma. But, in that case, you are just using the means of the Way of the Heart as tools for your own search. In that case, you are not truly practicing the Way of the Heart.

You are describing yourself as a seeker in My Company, not as someone actually practicing the Way of the Heart fruitfully, based on self-understanding. How could your practice be fruitful in that case? The search is a dramatization of the self-knot. The self-contraction or the separate and separative self, egoic “self-possession” (or self-absorption) itself, precedes all the aspects of seeking. It precedes this discomfort you feel in your body. It precedes this situation that you are describing as fear. It precedes your search to do something about that fear. It precedes all of your stressful activities and all of your dramatized reactions in life. It precedes the pursuit of consolation and the pursuit of stimulation by means of seeking. The self-contraction precedes all of that. The self-contraction, the act of separation, causes the life drama. This is what there is to discover. This is My “Consideration” with you. It has always been so.

I remember the time I first began My Work. The record of My first “Consideration” is about this very matter. And this remains the “consideration” that is fundamental to the Way of the Heart. It is your necessary “consideration” as My devotee, moment-by-moment. It is examination of yourself, observation of yourself, to the point of discovering the root-act, the unique sensation associated with the root-act of self-contraction, so that the self-contraction itself becomes the focus of your self-surrendering, self-forgetting, and self-transcending practice. Instead, you are already seeking and you try to surrender, try to forget yourself, try to get rid of your symptoms. That is not the Way of the Heart. Nor is the Way of the Heart the dramatization of all that, dramatizing your reactivity, your desiring, and your seeking. Merely wishing your dilemma would go away is not the Way of the Heart, either. Merely consoling yourself so that you will not experience your self-created suffering, the stress of it and so forth—that is not the Way of the Heart. Enjoying the stimulation of the stress or the search is not the Way of the Heart. Consoling yourself with all kinds of life activities is not the Way of the Heart. Consoling yourself through religious observances is not the Way of the Heart. The Way of the Heart is as I have just described it to you.

You have to “consider” what I am Saying to you. You are to listen to Me about it, examine yourself, and see if it is so. Having discovered the self-knot, that is your business in every moment—to re-discover that knot and surrender it, forget it in direct feeling-Contemplation of Me, by all the means of the “conscious process” and “conductivity” that I have Given you.

Instead of this, whenever you speak to Me, you are always telling Me about your search. And what does our interaction become then? It becomes My Calling you to address what precedes your search. I Call you to understand and to practice on the basis of that understanding, that awareness of the self-contraction, that awareness of your own activity.

Having found your act, you can relinquish it—since it is your own act. You are in the position of responsibility when you understand. You are not in a position of responsibility when you are dramatizing or seeking, because all that seeking and dramatizing is under the control of the self-contraction. Your seeking and your dramatization will persist until the self-contraction is transcended. Apart from understanding, the most you can do is alternate forms of seeking, forms of consolation, and so forth. But you cannot eliminate the stressful search itself, the dilemma itself, until you are in a position of responsibility for the action that generates all of that. You are all busy enumerating your symptoms and dramatizing your search, including your consolations and your interest in being stimulated, but you are not talking to Me about real practice of the Way of the Heart, based on real self-understanding.

You still have not gotten the point. You do not get that point once and for all—it must be gotten moment by moment. It is a continuous “consideration”. It does not end. It is not a merely intellectual matter, wherein you grasp something in a moment and after that you are okay because you grasped it. The practice of the Way of the Heart is constant “consideration” until there is Most Perfect transcendence of the self-contraction. If you are not even doing that basic practice yet, you cannot expect to progress.

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DEVOTEE: Beloved Sri Gurudev, I have always practiced with the results of the self-contraction and have not allowed myself to feel what was prior to the results. I have felt a physical contraction in the heart area, and when I talked with You about it, You reflected to me that this is just the result of the self-contraction.

SRI DA AVABHASA: To talk to Me about some sensation in the heart area is like talking to me about some sensation in the lower body. You must be in the position of the self-contraction. That is where the sensation is realized. You are talking about another symptom, apparently.

DEVOTEE: After I spoke with You about this earlier, my perception of this sensation in the heart region changed and became a sense of separateness, a sense of being alone, isolated, cut off.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Do you see all the gestures you are making? Alone, isolated, cut off—these are all “out here” descriptions. The self-contraction is your activity. It is the “I” itself. It is not some sensation that is a result of that action. All the results can be observed, but the unique sensation that is the self-contraction itself is the “I”. It is the very gesture of separation, not the feeling of being separate afterwards. It is the act, not the result. It has its own unique sensation. But it is coincident with the “I”-ness itself. Therefore, it is not merely something in the periphery of the body.

DEVOTEE: So, based on what I am describing it to You, my understanding is still in the periphery.

SRI DA AVABHASA: According to your description, clearly. If you were to Enquire of some sort of sensation located in the heart area, what would become of it is not self-Enquiry. You are asking an organ.

DEVOTEE: A symptom.

SRI DA AVABHASA: It is not self-Enquiry. It is not Enquiry of the separate and separative self, not Enquiry of the ego, of the act that is the ego.

DEVOTEE: The action is the ego.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Yes, the ego is the activity, not a thing. It is this activity that I Call you to observe and become responsible for. And there are many sensations that could be said to be the symptoms of that activity that are worthy of being observed in the process of locating the self-contraction itself. You are talking about some thing, some relation, some other. In that case, you are dramatizing there, you are seeking there. What are you doing? You can talk about some desire, some reactive emotion. Fine. But what are you doing?

You have to keep examining yourself until you locate your own activity, of which all of that is a result. That is the process of listening that becomes true hearing. You must go on from the periphery, the outer results of your seeking, to locate your own action. You may progress by degrees, if you like, by steps, but you must get to the very core that is your separate and separative self, in action as the self-contraction. That is the process of listening and hearing. You must keep going one step behind whatever you are describing. You must get closer to the core action, the root-action.

DEVOTEE: I see it as the same action behind fear, sorrow, anger, attention to objects, attention to things, behind all that I have observed about myself.

SRI DA AVABHASA: You can be afraid in one moment, you can be sorrowful the next, you can feel lust the next. There is just one action, however, that is the cause of that. It cannot be any one of those emotions, because you can just as well exchange those emotions, go from one to the other. So what are you doing? What you are doing, what your activity is, what you are responsible for—that is what you must locate.

DEVOTEE: I think maybe I am somewhere between the periphery and the core because I know that this sensation is more basic, deeper.

SRI DA AVABHASA: As soon as you are talking about yourself in any way at all that is not merely a relation, you are closer to the core. But the psycho-physical persona is very complex, and it is constantly changing. It also has, in each persons case, a characteristic dramatization, a rather chronic one that could be said to characterize that person overall, even though he or she does many things.

True hearing, summary and most fundamental self-understanding, involves the core. It involves being responsible for that key dramatization. But it is a matter of being most fundamentally responsible for the act that precedes even that key dramatization. Therefore, it is also a matter of being responsible for all the other kinds of dramatization that are general tendencies of yours. True hearing covers it all, because it deals with the root. Hearing is not just a matter of dealing with fear or any other particular emotion. It is not a matter of dealing with any particular dramatization merely, nor of addressing any particular sensation in the general complex of the body-mind. It is a matter of dealing with the primary action that is the ego, the self-contraction itself. The ego is an action. Therefore, it has a sensation associated with it. But it is a sensation made into egoity itself, and it is not merely at the periphery. The self-contraction is not merely the dramatization appearing at the moment. It is the core of that dramatization, and of every dramatization.

DEVOTEE: Let me ask You another question. Recently, as I was meditating, I was dropping deeper into the sense that I am doing the self-contraction and that “I” am the separate one. I understood that I am always trying to improve myself.

SRI DA AVABHASA: This is just a generalized self-examination, not locating what you were doing—looking at the program in other words, but not locating your action at that moment.

DEVOTEE: But I felt that, prior to all of that, was this action of the self-contraction.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Of course it is, but locating it is quite another matter. Presuming it is so is not to locate it. Actually locating the self-contraction and surrendering it is the practice. Locating it—not wandering in the program, not spinning the software, but locating the mover, the action itself that is the root of your search, actually doing so—not thinking about doing so, not seeking for it in some generalized, vague sense. You must really listen to Me and understand by actually locating your own action in that moment. Then you are in a position to surrender your separate and separative self. It is not really self-Enquiry as I have “Considered” it with you, until there is the ability to locate the self-contraction. Locate the self-contraction by means of self-Enquiry and feel beyond it in that devotional practice with which self-Enquiry is associated.

DEVOTEE: I practice in the Devotional Way of Faith.

SRI DA AVABHASA: It is the same practice. In the Devotional Way of Faith, there is true surrender. Such surrender locates the self-contraction inevitably, in one who understands. And then the self-contraction itself is surrendered, felt beyond, because you are moved by My Attractiveness.

DEVOTEE: This is what I feel occurred in that meditation.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Maybe it did, maybe it did not. But I am Addressing you right now.

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DEVOTEE: Beloved Gurudev, is locating the root self-contraction the same as true self-observation?

SRI DA AVABHASA: It is possible to say that true self-observation has occurred only in that case, yes. Of course, true self-observation is also a more general term. It also means examining yourself for real. But that observation is most consequential truly, in the most profound sense, only if it locates the action that is egoity. But that is just a clarification of terms. What about it?

DEVOTEE: During my last retreat, I felt up against my “self” so profoundly that I had an insight into my egoity. I noticed that my dramatizations were my own activity, and I took responsibility for them. I felt that that insight was profound, although I do not know what it was exactly. I don’t know if that moment was an actual moment of really sensing the self-contraction at its root, but I did know that everything I was about was about simply throwing the garbage on the purity.

SRI DA AVABHASA: What about this? What have you been doing since? What is your practice about now?

DEVOTEE: My Lord, on this present retreat I have felt Your Divine Criticism of my egoity. My egoity has been “nailed” in a way that I have never felt before. And I have been in touch with a feeling of great separation, a sense of separation.

SRI DA AVABHASA: That is hardly self-understanding, is it?

DEVOTEE: No, it is not self-understanding.

SRI DA AVABHASA: It is dramatization. You are spinning your wheels here instead of really practicing. You are being the seeker. You are being the result of your own contraction, being all the reactivity that is the result of your own contraction. You are wandering in the mess of all those emotions and thoughts. There is no effective practice going on in that case, is there?

DEVOTEE: No, there is not.

SRI DA AVABHASA: So you are wasting your time. You are not making significant use of the opportunity being Given to you, if that is what you are doing. Instead, you are doing the same old thing in life. You are wasting that opportunity. That is what people do with their dramatizations—they waste the opportunity of sadhana, they waste the body-mind in destiny, in karma. The body-mind declines more and more every day, and then it comes to an end. When it does, you are full of regret. Then what? Sadhana in My Company is to really do it, not just think about it and talk about it and dramatize in the meantime. So when you come on retreat, I expect you to be equipped to really do it. This is why it is expected that you have a history of real practice before you come here. This means a history of really doing this practice, not merely a history of belonging to the Free Daist Communion. I Call for real preparation before you come here so that when you are here you can effectively practice in My Company and grow thereby. You must be prepared in order to benefit from this Opportunity, so that you will be able to continue to use it to intensify your real practice when you go back to the community of practice that you live in from day-to-day. What is the point of coming here unprepared? What is the point of wasting your weeks here dramatizing? You look congenial outwardly, and you are practicing the form of retreat and so on. Nonetheless, in terms of true and effective practice, you are basically wasting this Opportunity. What is the point of that? When you come here, you should be really prepared. You should have a real history of right practice. That is how it is established that you can make use of this opportunity. You are not supposed to come here otherwise. And the measure of real practice is not that, when you were in your Region before coming here, you practiced all of the observances and were not a pain in the ass. You tend to make that the measure of your practice, however. You do the observances, you are not a pain in the ass, and you think that means you can come on retreat. That is not it.

DEVOTEE: Sri Gurudev, this is very clarifying for me. As I am listening to You speak, I am understanding how my vital enthusiasm is one of the primary ways that I dramatize the self-contraction. I can see now that I have not really understood this before, even though You have pointed it out to me, because that vital energy has been full of utility in my life. It is what has made me successful, in conventional terms.

SRI DA AVABHASA: So you think that if it has some utility in life, then it is not the self-contraction.

DEVOTEE: Right. Because that particular strategy has its utility in life, because it allowed me to accomplish what I was looking to accomplish, because it consoled me, really, I basically did not inspect it. And part of me was afraid that if I really inspected my vital enthusiasm, I might not have that capability any more. Since You pointed out to me some time ago that my vital enthusiasm is a primary way that I dramatize the self-contraction, however, I have been Enquiring of it. I have seen that it is all-pervasive in my character. When I would notice it, I would Enquire relative to that strategy and bring my attention to the feeling of what I perceive to be contraction, which is the feeling of desperation. I observed that my vital enthusiasm springs from that feeling of desperation. Listening to You tonight, however, I understand that this was not the right approach. Now I understand that self-Enquiry is used . . .

SRI DA AVABHASA: If you are dramatizing the self-contraction, whatever you are doing is a dramatization of the self-contraction. But there are two forms of self-Enquiry being practiced in My Company. One is self-Enquiry based on real self-understanding and, especially, on true hearing. In that case, self-Enquiry is most fruitful, obviously, and it takes the form I have just described. The other form of self-Enquiry is that which may be used by any of My devotees, even from the beginning of practice in the Way of the Heart, with little or no self-understanding. In that case, you exercise self-Enquiry relative to all kinds of things. You just described an instance of how self-Enquiry is done in that case, in the sheer beginners sense, with little or no self-understanding. But, as you described, in the doing of it, you observed something a little deeper behind this vital enthusiasm, a sense of despair. So your practice of self-Enquiry had some usefulness in the sense that it enabled you to observe something more. Using self-Enquiry in this ordinary fashion may serve self-observation, but, in that case, it is not the exercise of self understanding itself. It is not true self-Enquiry.

What I am “Considering” with you is true self-Enquiry, true practice altogether, whatever your chosen form and manner of practice may be, whichever way you make use of My Company. Your practice of the Way of the Heart, when it is fruitful, is based on present self-understanding, present awareness of the activity of self-contraction and the relinquishment of it in Communion with Me. That true practice is what I am moving you toward and what all of your practice altogether should be moving you toward. There is no reason why the day that you are practicing authentically should be delayed. There is no reason why the listening process must take a long period of time. The only reason it would take an overly long period of time is if you do not practice truly, if you dramatize or seek instead, if you do not grasp the principle of right practice. It is preferable for the day that you practice rightly and understand truly to come quickly.

The listening process is supposed to be a “quickened” process, quickened by self-understanding, quickened by true listening, quickened by true resort to Me in that context. It should not be made over-long because you, individually and collectively, agree to dramatize instead.

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DEVOTEE: Sri Gurudev, I need Your Help in understanding this Enquiry of the root-contraction. You Said that true self-Enquiry is not registered in sensation in the body, that it is prior to such sensation.

SRI DA AVABHASA: The self-contraction is registered in the general domain of the body, certainly. But it is registered at the seat, the position of the separate and separative self, of the ego, of self-contraction itself, the primary action.

DEVOTEE: When my Enquiry feels most true, I feel the self-contraction as a general sense of coming in instead of going out. I feel it as shutting down feeling altogether. There is a general sensation of being closed in. Even contraction, I am noticing, falls outward. To be surrendered to specific things and thoughts and emotions, I notice that. . .

SRI DA AVABHASA: All results flow out from the position of the self-contraction.

DEVOTEE: When self-Enquiry is most true, I even forget to do this activity.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Which activity?

DEVOTEE: That activity of contraction.

SRI DA AVABHASA: You think you forget to do it?

DEVOTEE: I do.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Or you forget you are doing it?

DEVOTEE: No, I notice that there is relationship that is more attractive than the self-contraction, and the contraction loses its force and I. . .

SRI DA AVABHASA: What do you mean it does not exist? Self-contraction exists even in the pleasurable moments.

DEVOTEE: At some point, the observation of the self-contraction becomes easier and simpler and more clear, and the gesture to surrender it via my attraction to You becomes more spontaneous. That is the difference I feel. Is this a misuse of Your Instruction, by still only Enquiring at the periphery?

SRI DA AVABHASA: Your game is wanting to be at your ease. You are talking about an event in which your practice seems easier, or in which you feel more at ease about it. You are talking about self-consolation again rather than the real work that is without consolation. Something about what you are describing may be so, but obviously it is not true self-Enquiry.

DEVOTEE: I do seek for that ease.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Yes, you are seeking for a consoled state, an undoubted state, that state where you are not intruded upon. are doing this. This separate one has this motive. The separate one is not a “thing”, a “being”. It is an action. To pursue such consolation, then, means that you are activating the self-contraction.

DEVOTEE: When I feel most surrendered to You, I still notice that there is self-contraction. It is not a consoled state, it is just that the self-contraction is more clear and simply surrendered.

SRI DA AVABHASA: How can you have surrendered it to Me if it is still existing? You are remembering yourself instead of forgetting yourself.

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DEVOTEE: I understand that the sense of that contraction that is fundamental to my being, and that I move from, is everything. The way I feel that is, of course, unique to me. But, fundamentally, it is the sense of “I”. Is that the same feeling that everybody would have?

SRI DA AVABHASA: In that sense, yes, it is the same.

DEVOTEE: Also, Sri Gurudev, in the use of self-Enquiry, in the use of the “conscious process” in Your Company, when I feel deep to my being, the core, then there is one observation. . . .

SRI DA AVABHASA: The self-contraction can look deep into you, too. That is why even the advanced and the ultimate stages of life can be ego-bound. There is a lot of deep inwardness in egoity. The focus of the self-contraction can be brought to any kind of object or state. Even death is not a guarantee that you are dealing with the self-contraction.

DEVOTEE: It seems that if I become shallow, or when I fail to “consider” all of the dilemma, then I don’t go below my superficial dramatization to the fundamental contraction. But when I do, when I feel this fundamental contraction and call upon You there, there is one gesture that happens. I have noticed that if I am looking at a lot of things, a lot of content, then I am not there in the place of the self-contraction. But if I come to the place where I feel that one fundamental activity, and when I understand that activity, it does release. And I feel that that is the place that You are talking about. I also see that sadhana works.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Yes. Moment by moment. It is not an occasional thing when it is done for real. It is a perpetual “reality consideration”. The Way of the Heart is religious realism, not mere observances, not mere beliefs, not consolations, not indulging in the stress of seeking or the stimulation of life associated with your search and your reactivity. Practice of the Way of the Heart is not any of that. All of that is permitted in the general domain of exoteric religion, even in much of esoteric religion. But it is not the practice of the Way of the Heart.

Real practice of the Way of the Heart deals directly with the activity of the ego and transcends it with equal directness. That must become your moment to moment practice. You can use religious observances to avoid this very thing—in a very consoling fashion, practicing another model of life, a routine, in a circumstance that feels like discipline to you, feels like order to you, even feels pleasurable to you to one degree or another, consoling, perhaps stimulating in some sense. At the same time there is all the internal blah, blah, blah of reactivity and desiring and seeking, dramatizations of one kind or another.

DEVOTEE: Beloved Gurudev, I read a section of chapter four of The Dawn Horse Testament where You say that Your Wisdom-Teaching is simple. There, You say that first, we would observe the different ways of contracting, being at our best and at our worst, in all kinds of moments, and then You go on to say that, eventually, we will be able to see the activity of contraction underlying all of that. And it is clear that, from the very beginning of that process, we still Enquire. We could still Enquire of some of those peripheral activities that You mentioned before we actually get to the . . .

SRI DA AVABHASA: But you should use that specific form of pondering until it becomes true self-Enquiry. Before the Enquiry “avoiding relationship?” is true self-Enquiry, it is just one of the forms of pondering usable by my listening devotees. It becomes true self-Enquiry only when the ability to locate the self-contraction itself exists, by virtue of true and most fundamental self-understanding. It becomes true only when, along with that ability, the coincident capability to transcend the self-contraction in devotion to Me exists. That is what pondering develops into, that is when it becomes self-enquiry. In the meantime, use of the question, “Avoiding relationship?” is simply pondering. And there are many other forms of pondering, other great questions, that I have Given to you, as well as the various activities associated with the Devotional Way of Faith. You are to experiment with all of these.

Use of the question “Avoiding relationship?” should not rightly be called “self-Enquiry” until it is founded on true and most fundamental self-understanding. For the sake of convenient reference, I have called it “self-Enquiry”, but at the beginning, in the listening stages of the Way of the Heart, it is a form of pondering that serves self-observation.

DEVOTEE: I also studied Your Talk “The Meditation of Understanding” in The Method of the Siddhas. In it, You speak about the three activities—identification, differentiation, and desire. It seems to me that those are also addressed initially in the pondering process.

SRI DA AVABHASA: True self-Enquiry does not require an answer. It is a process based on most fundamental self-understanding, one which locates the self-contraction and feels beyond it. Pondering Gives you the same question but you can have an answer of a kind. In other words, in pondering, you observe something about yourself. You observe some form, some result, of self-contraction. This is useful in the listening process, in which you are Called to “consider” My Word, to examine yourself, to progressively enter into this “consideration” to the point of locating the self-contraction itself, the very act. No mere observation, no mere experience, is of ultimate consequence. It is all part of a process of listening to Me, that process in which you must locate the self-contraction itself. The practice in My Company is not a matter of mere observances, carried on forever to help you relax a little bit and feel consoled. The practice in My company is a reality “consideration”. It is about locating the action for which you must become responsible. This is absolutely essential if Ultimate Divine Self-Realization is to be the case.

The reason why Ultimate Divine Self-Realization has not become the case within the context of the Great Tradition is that the Great Tradition always operates on the basis of the self-contraction. The ego-knot is fundamental to all the stages of life previous to the seventh. The key to the transcendence of the psycho-biography of the ego has not been grasped before now, and that is why there has never been Ultimate Divine Self-Realization, or seventh stage Realization, before. Because that is so, other states, which are conditional in nature, or dependent on conditions, have been proposed as God-Realization or Truth-Realization or Reality-Realization. But they are not Ultimate Divine Self-Realization, precisely because they are either conditional in themselves or because they are dependent on that which is conditional. They are founded on the self-contraction, ego-bound, however great they may appear. By comparison to lesser states, the advanced and the ultimate stages of life in the Great Tradition are great—but they are not Ultimate Realization. There is no Ultimate Realization without Most Perfect transcendence of egoity.

DEVOTEE: Beloved Gurudev, You use the word “discrimination” constantly in Your Wisdom-Teaching. I understand how valuable that word is, because I see that I tend to look for something comfortable and acceptable, rather than use discrimination. I have seen when I have gone beyond all the different levels of that dilemma, that there is something much more profound. It is Satsang with You.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Before you enter into this Satsang with Me, you must transcend the self-contraction in Communion with Me. You can be in My Company and still not truly be in Communion with Me, even though you are feeling positive about your practice and benefiting from My Company in various ways. You can do all of that and still lack most effective practice.

DEVOTEE: I am so impressed by how the ego does everything to avoid its own release.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Just like you, body-bound, do anything to avoid dying. Whatever is set in motion wants to remain in motion, does not want to stop. Much of the disturbance you feel in life is because of the conflict between some programmed motion that is motivating you and something else in life does not allow that motivation to fulfill itself. You have a sexual desire or a desire for one thing or the other, the desire to feel good or the desire not to be bothered, any desire at all, but the conditions of life, the whole sphere of the world, including your immediate relations and the body itself, interfere with those desires. When your desires are interfered with, you feel a reaction. But observing that reaction is not the discovery of the most fundamental self-contraction. The observation of that reactivity is just awareness of the ordinary dis-ease, awareness of your intention to persist and to be fulfilled in that desiring even though your desires are frustrated by conditions.

The self-contraction itself is that intention. You cannot talk the self-contraction out of its desires. Look at all the trouble you have had giving up any kind of a desire whatsoever. You are not interested in volunteering for death. Anything set in motion wants to persist. That is how conditions work, that is how conditional existence itself works. Only you who are the one making that act that is the self-contraction can be responsible for it. You cannot appeal to the self-contraction, when it is still only an object to you, when you are still addressing its mere results, which are all objective to you. You only transcend egoity in the action place, the original place, which is not merely in the past. It is in this moment, it is always in the present.

DEVOTEE: Sri Gurudev, I am confused about the root of the self-contraction that You are pointing to.

SRI DA AVABHASA: The root is the self-contraction.

DEVOTEE: Are You talking about the fundamental root of the conditional self as it is located in the right side of the heart in the sixth stage of life or are You talking about the characteristic way that we dramatize the ego in the first three stages of life?

SRI DA AVABHASA: I am describing the self-contraction as it may appear in any context or stage of life. It is still the same contraction.

DEVOTEE: Is it the same for each person or is it unique for that particular individual?

SRI DA AVABHASA: The manifestation of the self-contraction and its results are unique to each individual, but the fundamental action is the same. The ego-“I” is the same gesture in all cases. The center associated with the heart on the right is just the ultimate domain of this activity, which is uncovered in the ultimate stages of the Way of the Heart. The act is the same. The act is there in any moment or stage of life. And you are the one responsible for it. It is you. It is your very conditional existence.

DEVOTEE: Beloved Lord, self-contraction, if I understand it correctly, is the activity that we are presently doing at all times. It is a constant activity until it is Most Perfectly transcended in the seventh stage of life. Am I correct in saying that the practice, at our level of practice, which is in the first three stages of life, is about . . .

SRI DA AVABHASA: And the beginnings of the fourth.

DEVOTEE: . . . is about everything we have accumulated as egos in these first three stages and the beginning of the fourth?

SRI DA AVABHASA: Those are the results.

DEVOTEE: Those are the results, yes. So this is the work that must be done. Transcending the self-contraction . . .

SRI DA AVABHASA: You understand and transcend the self-contraction by entering into a “consideration” of your sphere of experience. In your case, at the moment, that is experience in the context of the first three stages of life and the beginnings of the fourth. When you are examining yourself, observing yourself in the context of practice, this is the sphere of experience that you are observing. At your present level of practice, you are not inspecting the kinds of experiences that are associated with the further advancement of the fourth stage of life or the fifth or the sixth or the seventh stage of life. That is not your sphere of experience, although here and there there can be some unusual experience. Fundamentally, you are dealing with the beginnings of the fourth stage of life and all of the first three stages of life. That is the sphere of your observation. The contraction is the same, in any case. It is the same self-contraction that is present in the fifth stage of life, or the sixth. It is the same act.

The ego has no features other than that very act. It has an apparent personality, it has all of its experiences, it has all of its associations. All of this characterizes the stage of life of the individual or the complex of stages of life in that apparent individual. But the ego itself is the primary act at the root of all the stages of life, the self-contraction itself. It is not a person. It is an action that suggests a person, an independent or conditionally manifested person, as a result.

DEVOTEE: Our experience at each stage of life integrates with the self-contraction to confirm the sense of separative self. So as we grow, we have additional experiences that the ego accumulates . . .

SRI DA AVABHASA: You can be a bigger ego as you advance in the ordinary evolutionary course—bigger in the sense that there is an enlarged sphere of the experiencing of the self-contraction as a conditionally manifested being.

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DEVOTEE: Sri Gurudev, this programmed motion that You were speaking of is something that I am becoming more and more sensitive to. I see that it is a constant activity and that whatever my dramatization happens to be in the moment, at the root of the dramatization is that programmed motion that feels unstoppable.

SRI DA AVABHASA: It is the software, not the jolt that spins it.

DEVOTEE: I become more sensitive to that automaticity when I feel Your Attractiveness. In feeling Your Attractiveness, there is more of a sense of restedness. But, at the same time, there is that activity, that sense of separate self, of feeling that it is my activity and I am doing it but, yet, at the same time, I cannot stop it.

SRI DA AVABHASA: You have not truly understood unless you are in the position of the self-contraction, responsible for feeling beyond it. You are talking like others here tonight, suggesting some kind of awareness of the self-contraction, some understanding of it or presumption about it, but you are still at the periphery, full of mind-business.

DEVOTEE: It occurred to me that I am not locating the self-contraction itself.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Right. You all even think of the Cosmic Mandala as a kind of flat plane, as a mere tier of visionary states that appears before the field of vision. It seems to you to be a flat image, much as it appears to be in the picture in The Dawn Horse Testament. You are, from a separate point of view, located in the body-mind, envisioning the Cosmic Mandala in cross sections, so to speak. It is not a flat plane. It is a sphere. It is concentric spheres, in fact, not a flat plane of circles. If you envision it from a separate position however, it appears to be a flat plane. It is “out there”. You get the notion of going “out there” to get to it or going “up there” to get to it. In some sense, that is so, “considering” the experiential point of view of the perceiver. Rightly understood, however, rightly entered into, it is not “out there”, it is not a flat thing. It is a sphere.

When the observer is transcended, where is the core? It is not “out there” or “above”—it is at the very center, at the point of the conditional self, the position of the self-contraction itself. To penetrate the spheres of the Cosmic Mandala is to enter into the depth of the conditional self so that there is Realization of the Very Self. It is not to go out from the ego-position, but to penetrate it at its core.

The dissolution of the Cosmic Mandala is the magnification of the Inherent “Brightness” of Being Itself, Which, of course, shows Itself at the Core of the Cosmic Mandala perceptually. To be in that Position, Shining “Bright” as the Divine Self, is the mechanism of Divine Translation. In that Process, the Cosmic Mandala is Outshined from a Position at its very Core. Divine Translation is the Process of Expanding that Divine “Brightness” to the point of no-noticing—not by dissociation, but by Outshining. The Great Heart-Light Itself, magnified Perfectly, Outshines this sphere of apparent conditionality, which is merely Its apparent modification. So it is with all that you are dealing with, then. True practice of the Way of the Heart is always a matter of standing in the cause-position, the self-position—at first, in the conditional sense, the egoic sense. You must locate the position of your own causing, your own search. You are in that position when you notice the very sensation of your own act, the gesture of your own act. That is what real practice of the Way of the Heart is about. This is the practice that all My listening devotees are adapting to and growing in. You do not grow by mere observances, but by this “reality consideration”. The process of real self-observation becomes the locating of the self-contraction so that, from that position of the cause itself, you can truly surrender and forget your separate and separative self.

When you engage one another in the context of your daily practice, when you enter into practice “consideration” with one another, this is what you are supposed to be addressing.