What Does Adi Da Mean by ‘Late-Time’

he present ” Human societies are always tending to be modeled after the un-Enlightened pattern of the individual ego. The political and social systems of the present-day world are not generated by literally En-Light-ened (or even highly “evolved”) leaders, ideals, or institutions. Human beings in this “late-time” (or “dark” epoch) live in the “samsaric”1 (or un-Enlightened) world of egoic society-and this is why the signs of the times are so profoundly negative.

late-time (or dark epoch) – Avatar Adi Da Samraj uses the term late-time or dark epoch to describe the present era in which doubt of anything at all beyond mortal existence is more and more pervading the entire world, and the interest of the separate individual self is more and more regarded to be the ultimate principle of life.

In this “late-time” (or “dark” epoch), people are generally insulted by the notion that they require-and must surrender to-What is Beyond themselves. The common presumption in this benighted time is that one should be entirely self-sufficient. This is the epitome of the self-“guruing” ego-“culture”. While notions of self-sufficiency, rightly understood, may have some virtue in the political realm, they do not rightly apply in the domain of Spiritual life.

late-time” (or “dark” epoch) is just such a time of technological sophistication, in which the egoic model of humanity and human society is the universal basis of mind. Gross materialism (in science and politics) gives human beings no option in the mind except that of the trapped and threatened animal. Therefore, a fiery mood is abroad-full of gross desire, frustration, fear, despair, and aggressive reactivity. The egoic motive of self-preservation is approaching its most destructive mood-the mood that appears in the moment of ultimate entrapment. In that mood, there is no longer any will to preserve “self” or world or any others. There is simply explosive fire-based on the deep motives of egoic self-preservation, but reduced to action that is most primitive and entirely destructive of both “self” and “not-self”. In the collective mind of humanity in the present and growing extremes of entrapment, the explosion of great nuclear bombs merely represents the archetype of anger itself. And it is for this reason that the possibility of a nuclear holocaust, in the extreme moment of the now rising political confrontations, is an irrational-and, therefore, entirely possible, if not inevitable-event.

 

also see:

Late-Time Epoch

Radical Politics for Ordinary Men and Women

Cooperation and Doubt

 

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DEVOTEE: Is there something different about Spiritual practice in this time? Traditionally, it is has been said that it is more difficult to practice in the Kali Yuga.

AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: It makes absolutely no difference what yuga it is.

DEVOTEE: So this time is not different than any other time?

AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Absolutely not. This “late-time” (or “dark” epoch) has its particular signs and characteristics, but you should not call it any kind of “bad yuga” in order to justify your weakness in practice of the Way I Reveal and Give. Relative to what is required in order to practice, all yugas are, fundamentally, the same. The fundamental process of ego-transcendence is always required, no matter what the characteristics of the times, or the characteristics of the experience of the individual at any time. And, even though the present epoch is relatively “dark” and the time is “late”, I Am here!

I have Destroyed the impediment in this “late-time”-by My Avataric Divine Descent and Avataric Divine Self-“Emergence”, here and every where in the entire Cosmic domain. Therefore-now, and forever hereafter-it does not make the slightest bit of difference what yuga it is, because I Am here-now, and forever hereafter. Because I Am here, the “circumstance” of necessary ego-transcending practice is the relationship to Me. That is certainly the case for all who heart-recognize Me, and who heart-respond to Me by embracing the only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way of Adidam.

Because of your relationship to Me, the so-called “Kali Yuga” has no negative power over you-none whatsoever. You are not bound by some sort of mysterious vibration of yuga-made ignorance, such that you cannot heart-respond to Me. For My true devotee, all time is-now, and forever hereafter-My time.

I Am here. I have Given you My Avataric Divine Word, My Complete Avataric Divine Self-Revelation. I have Told you and Shown you Who I Am. The only question is whether you will rightly, truly, fully, and fully devotionally recognize Me and rightly, truly, fully, and fully devotionally respond to Me. To heart-recognize Me and heart-respond to Me, you have to prove it, you have to change your life-action. You have to do what the Way of Adidam requires-and not ignore Me, not deceive yourself and one another, not be “gurus” of yourselves.

If I Am your Guru, be Mastered by Me. That is It. Perform every detail of your life according to My Avataric Divine Word.

DEVOTEE: In that case, Beloved Bhagavan, do all Your devotees need to ask You what they should do?

AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Absolutely! Each of you must give up your self-“guruing”, your ego-position, and always ask Me about every thing-but that does not require you to come into the room with Me bodily, and speak to Me bodily, face to face.

DEVOTEE: That is what I wanted to know, because sometimes devotees wonder about this.

AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Fundamentally, to live your life by “asking” Me what to do means that you live according to My Word as Law-as Divine Law. That Avataric Divine Word is My (now, and forever hereafter) Revealed and Given (and Fully Written) Wisdom-Instruction in My Twenty-Three Divine “Source-Texts”-Which Instruction must be supported by the force of the culture of My devotees, serving you in your life-process of responsively conforming to My Avataric Divine Word. In My now (and forever hereafter) Revealed and Given Divine “Source-Texts”, I have, in every detail, already answered your questions-and, in the Form of Those Twenty-Three Divine “Source-Texts”, I Am (now, and forever hereafter) here and ready to Instruct you.

If I Am the Divine Law of your life, then (for Me to Do what I Must Do to Bring you to Realization of Me) you must do as I Say. The practice of Ruchira Avatara Bhakti Yoga requires adaptation to doing what I Say. That adaptation is what you must be involved in as a student-novice or a student-beginner-or as a practitioner at any stage (and in any form, and in any formal congregation) of the Way of Adidam. Instead of consulting yourself, and trying to become a genius through self-indulgence, self-“meditation”, and self-mindedness, you must ask Me.

I Am the Genius. If you want to know what to do-you ask Me, and I Tell you, through My (now, and forever hereafter) Revealed and Given (and Fully Written) Avataric Divine Word. You must constantly (and with constant formal cultural guidance) study My Word. And there may be relatively rare occasions when you (or any one of My devotees) needs to personally ask Me (or, after the physical Lifetime of My Avatarically-Born bodily human Divine Form, ask My “Living Murti”,13 or, at any time, ask the Ruchira Sannyasin Order14) about some detail of My Instruction. In any case, the point I am making is that you must always ask, you must always submit to be Divinely Mastered by Me, and you must always really and truly live your life based on the Divine Law of My Instructions and My Person.

It is not a matter of indulging yourselves in endless talk-as if to become geniuses of “consideration”, in order to tell yourselves what to do. That is to be Guruless! To have a Guru means you know that you are suffering and self-bound, and that you cannot find your own way out of the self-trapping web of your self-made complexity of ego-bondage-but you also know that you have Found Me, the Divine Heart-Master. You know that I Am the Genius of what is required-and, therefore, you submit to ask. You do not have to be involved in more “mind” about anything in order to figure it all out. The Divine Heart-Master says, “Do this,” and you do it.

“Teacher say, student do.” That is the Guru-devotee tradition. You do not have to become a genius, because you have a Spiritual Master Who Is a Genius. You cannot figure it out. Do you think you are going to figure out the total scheme of this complicated illusion of modifications?

DEVOTEES: No, Beloved.

AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Understand that, and ask Me. You do not have to figure it out down to the last jot. You have a fundamental understanding in heart-response to Me-but, relative to the details, what should you do? You do not have to struggle for endless years to figure it out. You should ask Me, through your formal study of My Twenty-Three “Source-Texts” of Avataric Divine Revelation-Word. Every detail of your sadhana should be established and developed thus, and (therefore) according to My Explicit Word-and that is the end of the “consideration”.

I save you time. You consult Me. That is how you are relieved from wasting your lifetime in trying to figure it out. If you spend your lifetime trying to figure it out, then you are inevitably going to waste your lifetime-because you cannot figure it out, and never will figure it out. You are not in a position to figure it out. You are in the position of egoity-self-contraction and naive “realism” and the modifications of Reality Itself-and you do not “Know” What is modified. You do not “Know” the Truth, you are not in the Position of Truth. Therefore, by self-“guruing” yourself, all you do is pull yourself along by the nose-thereby always complicating yourself further, and wasting your life in seeking.

Ramakrishna once compared the true Guru to a true healer. He described various kinds of healers. There are the healers who will sit and listen to your arguments and give you some consoling message. Then there are others who will listen to your arguments and write you a prescription so that you can get some medicine, which you may or may not take. But the true Guru, Ramakrishna said, is like the true healer. If necessary, the true healer throws you to the floor, jumps on your body, holds you down, and stuffs the medicine down your throat!

Until you are truly My devotee, you do not want My real Mastery. You want to exercise the option of being ego-possessed. This is the “egalitarian” time, in which each and every ego-“I” is (as such, or in itself) universally presumed and proclaimed (and advertised) to be an independent, self-contained, and self-sufficient specimen of the Absolute! In these days, everyone-and-everything is supposed to congratulate and serve egoity (and, in the religious and Spiritual domain, to support and propagandize the “doctrine” that the “inwardness” of the separate and separative ego-“I” is the “True Guru”). This is the great “dark” (and even comical) epoch of “Narcissus”! Thus, the ego of every “I” expects to be stimulated and confirmed in its self-illusion and obstinacy by messages that deride and renounce every kind of “authority” (other than the separate individual ego itself). Therefore, if you are disinclined to accept My Authority, you are (likewise) disinclined to accept My Mastery! Indeed, if that is the case, you will (generally) be struggling to force Me to accept your “authority” and your “mastery”! (And it is on this basis that the egocentric disposition indulges in self-“guruing”, and even would delude itself into imagining it is a genuine “Realizer-Guru” of others.)

There has never been even a particle of Realization-not even a little bit of the Divine Law-apart from True Realizers, and the practice of surrendering the ego-“I” to a True Realizer (in the manner of right and true Guru-devotion). That is the way it is, and that is the way it always will be. Indeed, mankind should rejoice that such Help has been-and always will be-the case.

The ego-“I”, in its characteristic ignorance and separativeness, is (both “inside” and “outside”) bereft of Truth. The Truth has come to mankind only from ego-renouncing True Realizers (in their various degrees, or stages, of profoundly ego-transcending Realization). Yet, when it comes to the matter of Great Realization, the ego-“I”, in its self-preoccupation, imagines it is an independent unit of Absoluteness, a self-authority, inherently fit to rightly govern itself. Indeed, the collective of human egos presumes it is fit to govern even the entire world of beings and things! How can it be so?

The human ego-“I” is a mere “organism”-self-contracted, self-preoccupied, and self-bound. The ego-“I” does not know Where it is. The ego-“I” does not know What even a single thing Is! Because of its presumption of separateness and separativeness, the ego-“I” (or “Narcissus”, the self-contraction) presumes-and prefers-its independence and self-sufficiency. And that presumption of separateness, separativeness, independence, and self-sufficiency is the very means whereby the ego-“I” dissociates itself (inherently) from Truth, Reality Itself, Real God, or the Divine Condition Itself. Naive egoic “realism” (or conceptual and perceptual bondage of every kind) and ego-possession (willful and obstinate in its separativeness and un-love)-this is the sphere of the ego-“I”. And Truth, and the Process of Realizing the Truth, has broken through the ego-sphere of mankind only through the Grace of True Realizers (in their various degrees of self-surrendering).

Because you, My devotee, have suffered (and, ultimately, despaired of) your life of ego-“I”, you have looked for the True Realizer of Truth-and, so, you have found Me. Nevertheless, having found Me, you must do what I Say. That means, no more “you are the Law”, no more “you guruing yourself”, no more “you doing your own thing”. You have had enough of that. You know (behind your self-“guruing” mask of so-called “healthy independence”) that all of that is garbage!

You come to Me because you heart-recognize Me, you feel Me, you are Attracted to Me, you know Who I Am, you heart-respond to Me, and you consult Me relative to absolutely everything. I Say something, and you do it. That is how quick the Process can be. It is not enough to simply Contemplate My Murti.16 My Word must be Divine Law. That is what it means to have a Guru. To have a Guru means you are Mastered-you are not an independent, free-wheeling, do-your-own-thing ego.

DEVOTEE: Beloved, that is an ecstatic condition.

AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Yes. But you can fool yourself into thinking you are My devotee without really surrendering to Me. You can be content merely to have your life in My Company be amusing, superficial, casual, stimulating, consoling-without doing any real counter-egoic and Me-Realizing sadhana.

Rudi had His various limitations, but He really cut through that kind of nonsense. Sadhana is work! You discipline yourself in devotional response to the Spiritual Master. You do not merely indulge yourself, or look for utopia. All of your limitations must be surrendered to Me and disciplined according to My Avataric Divine Word of Instruction. Rudi did not quite understand the total Law about it-as He always said, He was not a “finished product”, just “somebody on the Way”-but He knew something fundamental about the difference between living on the basis of illusions and truly living the religious and Spiritual life. That aspect of True Wisdom-which is profoundly important-is something He really understood.

And that was His importance in His service to Me-to move Me out of the life-circumstances I had up to then been involved in, so that I could move on. What was missing in My “Sadhana” up to that moment? Work, real application to self-discipline, the real counter-egoic effort of ego-transcendence. You either do it or you do not. If you are not doing it, you are deceiving yourself and others. The only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way of Adidam involves much more than functional, practical, and relational life-discipline, but the requirement for such self-discipline is essential and necessary in the Way of Adidam. At the time of My Meeting with Rudi, I had already understood much, but I was not yet disciplined. Therefore, the time had come when the discipline was profoundly necessary. So it is for you all-now, and forever hereafter.

Listen to Me. Study My Word. All these years, it has always been the same Communication, the same Way-from the beginning.

You must have a reason to listen to Me. If you do not have a reason to listen to Me, you are not going to hear Me. Listening to Me is the first position.

When you are sick of your results, when you are sick of your suffering, your seeking, and your bewilderment, when you know the dead-end of your doings – you Find Me. When you Find Me, you must do what I Say. It is not enough to casually find Me, and then smile at Me, and wait for Me to Love your precious ego-self. No – you must do what I Say, you must do the counter-egoic devotional sadhana. Otherwise, My Blessing of you cannot Work fruitfully. Perhaps there may be a little bit of consolation in My Blessing of you – but My Blessing is for your Divine Realization, and It does not Work if you do not combine with Me, by living by My Word, and doing the right, true, full, and fully devotional sadhana of the Way of Adidam, and being interested in that sadhana, always delighting in it, and (altogether) delighting in Me.

This Way is interesting. If you do it profoundly, it will uncover everything, it will really “empty the barn”. Yes, the sadhana of the Way of Adidam can-and must-be done, by you. It is interesting, if and when you really do it. Then, you are entered into a Great Process-in which you are really, literally, purified by your devotional Communion with Me.

If I Am your Guru, then I Am the Governor of your life. You must listen to My Word and apply It, in real detail-and not reduce It to one-liners, not comb through It superficially, a few minutes a day, picking out a couple of lines that justify your mere social religiosity, and egoic seeking. No, you must surrender to Me through study of My Avataric Divine Word, you must be directly Addressed by Me via My Avataric Divine Word, and you must do what I Say. And you must not consult your ego-“I” anymore.

That does not mean that you become a robot. If you really understand yourself and are sick of your own “act”, then you are moved to prove the Way of Adidam by doing It. You do not know that the Way is Divinely Realizing if you do not do It. Prove the Way of Adidam. Prove your devotion to Me. Do what I Say. Just do exactly as I Say. Dont be looking for some excuse to do otherwise. Do the disciplines, just as I have Given them to one and all. Really! Every day of your life. Dont miss a step. Dont be indulging yourself in food and sex, money games, social games. Really live the practice of Ruchira Avatara Bhakti Yoga every day of your life. Anybody can do it.

Anybody can do it, but whether you will do it is your business. Choosing it is your business. Choosing Me as Your Guru means choosing My Avataric Divine Word and making Me the Divine Law of your life. No more nonsense. No more double-mindedness masquerading as “consideration”.

I have Done the “consideration”. You do not have to. In that sense, there is no more “consideration” for My devotees. Absolutely none! I have summarized it all. Everything has been “considered”. I have Done it all with you. I have Given you My final Summary as direct Instruction relative to absolutely everything.

The practice of the only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way of Adidam is the ego-surrendering practice of obedient adaptation to My unambiguous Word of Avataric Divine Instruction. And the basic, foundation adaptation should not take a long time. You cannot measure it by the day-but it is, in principle, brief. And hearing Me is not some “immensity” that depends on you. It is a straightforward matter that depends on Me. Nevertheless, as a necessary foundation for hearing Me, you must (as My formally acknowledged listening devotee) have rightly, truly, fully, and fully devotionally embraced the totality of the basic functional, practical, relational, and cultural practice of the Way of Adidam, according to My Avataric Divine Word. You must exhibit all the details of that discipline. Do so! Then the process of maturing to the point of hearing Me can be relatively brief. The Way of Adidam is, altogether, a very straightforward “consideration”, Revealed and Given entirely and only by Me.

Close fist. Open fist. [Avatar Adi Da Samraj closes and opens His fist.]18 How long does it take to understand that? My “radical” Teaching-Argument that is the basis for hearing Me is not a complicated concept. It is very straightforward, if you are truly studying-and practicing according to-My Avataric Divine Word. But, just as there are prerequisites for truly being Established in the Witness-Position, there are prerequisites for hearing Me. It is not that maturing to the point of hearing Me takes endless time, but you must first establish the conditions of formal right, true, full, and fully devotional practice of the Way of Adidam. Then the hearing of Me should, in principle, take only a few months more-not endless group discussions that go on for years and years, in which everybody takes their turn at dramatizing their egoity on everyone else. This constant application to My Avataric Divine Word-steadily refining the functional, practical, relational, and cultural disciplines of your practice, “considering” My fundamental Teaching-Arguments relative to seeking and self-contraction (and true hearing of Me, and real seeing of Me, and Most Perfect Divine Self-Realization), with all the by-Me-Given disciplines always (and formally) intact-is an entirely straightforward matter.

My Avataric Divine Teaching-Arguments are always very simple, very straightforward-and, therefore, you need not be a genius for My Word to be effective in your particular case. The Process takes a long time to be effective only if you do not heart-recognize Me As the Divine Heart-Master, and if you do not (on that basis) rightly, truly, fully, and fully devotionally accept Me as your Guru, and if My Word is not Divine Law for you, and if you are “picking and choosing” from among My Instructions, and if you are self-“guruing” (and, like Narcissus, “meditating” on yourself), and if you (as a result of any or all of these failures to heart-recognize Me and heart-respond to Me) neglect and fail to responsibly manage your life-functions, and to put your life-obligations in right order (by aligning, and conforming, and surrendering your life-functions, and your life-conditions, to Me).

If you do not align, and conform, and surrender all your life-functions and life-conditions to Me (and, in that manner, responsibly manage them), you never finally and stably establish yourself in the position necessary to listen to Me to the point of hearing Me, and to hear Me to the point of seeing Me, and to see Me to the point of Most Perfectly Realizing Me.

Therefore, live by My Word-so that My Blessing Works, and My Grace Works.

Adapt to My straightforward Word of Avataric Divine Instruction, with no ambiguity.

Ultimately, I Am here to Draw you into the “Perfect Practice” of non-“different” devotion to Me. Everything else is preparation. It requires no genius other than Me for you to do the “Perfect Practice” of the Way of Adidam.

It is up to you, then, to (rightly, truly, fully, and fully devotionally) embrace the practice of the Way of Adidam, based on your devotional recognition of Me and your devotional recognition-response to Me, and to bring Me the necessary gifts of your practice.