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Chapter Five:
Body of Light
We slept in unbroken blissfulness and awoke the
next day swooning. The depth of blessing had
reached a simple transparency to the living god and
heart-confirmation. The Master of Life had washed
us into God-consciousness. Everywhere I looked or
felt, only the transcendental living god was
revealed heart-deep.
We were eternally grateful and humbled at the
awesomeness of His Gift. We presumed that we got
this incredible life long gift and were blessed
beyond our imagination. Slowly however, we fell
back from this divine intimacy and the depth of the
awe faded. We all expressed surprise, when two days
later, we all were invited to another evening with
the God-Man.
Again, He revealed us all to ourselves, then
revealed Himself to us. The brilliance and
drop-dead eternal magnificence of the first evening
was spectacularly duplicated again. Soon, this
miracle of love’s brilliance was going on three,
four, then five nights a week. Before long,
gatherings began earlier, just after lunch, and
went later, one, two, even three o’clock am. It was
as if I had tumbled into the sun.
I was amazed by many things about Master Da. He
was so free, so free; it stuck out like a nude on
the subway; His freedom was perfect and humorous
and gracious and ruthless. Free as the wind, free
as a child, free as delight, free as lightning. He
would say, “‘Free’ is my middle name.” (Da Free
John) Internally, I refered to Master Da as
“Bulls-Eye-Ananda”, because His Blissful Freedom
gave Him perfect aim. Well, except when he was
talking about me.
In His blissful company, everything was
uncovered. All withholding was revealed, all ground
less than bliss was turned. I began to compare
walking across the threshold of His residence with
hari-kiri (Japanese suicide), for merely entering
the Master’s private domain spilled my guts, so
vulnerable and brilliant was He. I was amazed
nightly how vulnerable He was.
And He would play and talk with each person,
tease and parody, penetrate their unenlightenment.
We would all laugh lovingly; I was amazed at His
insightfulness, His brilliant understanding, His
gracious and humorous service to each devotee.
Except when He talked about me; to my perception it
seemed unfair, exaggerated, hard. At the same time,
I could also tell He had not changed His style when
He got to me-it was the same loving service He had
been giving everyone. This disparity of logic,
perception, and feelings was obviously the lens of
my egoity, the myopia of my position.
Master Da served me so dearly. One afternoon,
the Person of Love called me to come sit directly
beside Him, criticizing my posture and breathing
style. As I sat beside Him, He placed His
fingertips on me, instructing me and assisting me
in proper asana or posture. The Lord of the Heart
placed His hands on my stomach and instructed me in
proper diaphramic breathing. He watched my stomach
intently, whispering clarifying instructions.
Once I was sitting and breathing in proper form
and mood, the Blissful One asked me to take a deep
breath and then hold it. His Eyes glared at my
navel and muladar (bodily base) with pointed
intensity. Then Beloved Da signalled for me to
release the breath. As I let go, a profound energy
zoomed up my spine and widened the clear air of
heightened understanding-rarifying my awareness
with subtle enjoyments. My open eyes seemed so far
away and I was drunk with delicious heights. All
from breathing in His gaze.
Denise and I often joined the renunciates after
lunch to listen to the God-Man read an essay or
discuss a topic. We would smoke cigarettes and sip
tea for several hours until the other devotees
would arrive after work. The Master would
recapitulate the essay and afternoon consideration
for the evening crowd as the tea was replaced with
cold beer.
It may seem strange to consume such poisons in
the midst of an otherwise purer environment. It is.
Occasionally, the God-Man would turn up the heat
and we would all consume alcohol and cigarettes as
part of His Instruction. It was part of the Crazy
Wisdom, for the kind of yoga or engagement He was
taking us through, the intoxicants were temporarily
useful. However, we did not enjoy them merely in
the style of partying, but of venting the heat of
His Company so that we may stay longer-and ‘to keep
us from being boring.” Consuming intoxicants
regularly was difficult. Indeed, we referred to
smoking and drinking as “the discipline”.
My distaste for beer did not abate and it was
indeed a discipline to drink. I would try and take
a sip whenever the Master would take a swig, but
still couldn’t keep up. Thirty of us would consume
10 cases a night.
After a time of furthering the consideration of
the day, Master Da would, by comment, discussion,
or glance, address and engage each devotee. One by
one, He would reveal each person to themselves. It
was the time of slaying; He as Shiva would
penetrate the individual’s unenlightenment with the
consciousness that stands beyond death. He was as
gracious as He was ruthless. It did not matter if
the devotee followed along or ‘got it’, but volumes
would be communicated. He perfectly persisted in
muscular service, struggling with devotees, working
with them to transform their understanding.
The amount of energy the Master of Life put out
nightly was unfathomable. Thirty of us could not
keep up and He was magnificent. The depth of His
service, the tonage of work was awesome. We were
always impressed with the depth and extent of His
sheer giving.
Perhaps the God-drunken One would read us poetry
or dharma or make up far-fetched tales, creating
entire spectral mythologies and transcendental
teachings. He would tell us stories of His
childhood and adolescence. He read us His The
Mummery in its entirety twice. He read us The
Divine Madman, the story of the enlightened Tibetan
wildman Drungpa Kunley (with his free sexuality and
free chung (beer) consumption) twice! The gathering
room became ‘the chung room’ and the Divine Madman
had certainly incarnated.
Humor often anointed the hours as the funniest
man to ever walk the earth would riddle us into
ecstasy. Or perhaps He would take and defend a
point of view for hours until it seemed like the
absolute truth. Then the Free One would shift the
consideration until you were convinced that the
previous point of view was foolishness. Then back
again. The Heart played with the mind and egoic
perspective with absolute freedom and perfect
plasticity.
After the evening massacre and rhapsody, the
Living God would scream, “Put on the music!” and we
would erupt into dance. A devotee sent a tape his
rock band, Yeshe, had made using the Dharma as
lyrics. It was excellent and we rocked nightly. We
listened to Yeshe, reggae, Simon and Garfunkel, Bo
Jangles, Elton John. We danced and drank with
everything we had.
One such evening, Master Da suddenly inquired as
to which devotees liked opera. When our ignorance
became apparent, Master Da launched into a round
the clock education on opera. Not only was he
perfectly familiar with a wide range of operas, He
would have two and three copies of His favorites
performed by different tenors: Roberto Caruso,
Luciano Pavaroti, and Placido Domingo. We listened
to Pucinni, Recondita, La Belle Fortuna, Nesan
Dorma, Bizet’s Pearl Fishers. The Master of Life
would play identical sections from each tenor,
pointing out differences in style, depth and
intoxication levels.
Except that first opera occasion, I was tired as
shit. I had been on all night sentry duty the night
before and had not slept in two days, now going on
three. I started literally falling over when He
liberated me, “We don’t want to bore you, Frank,
get out!”
At first I was shocked at His gruff mummery, but
yanked myself to the door immediately. As I passed
by the Master, I glanced at Him. I learned so much
in that glance. His eyes were only love. The
apparent gruffness was magnificient humor; immortal
belovedness was behind it and all His Play, weaning
devotees into the Heart. His eyes were only
love.
“Now get out!” were His usual last words in a
gathering, and usually screamed. It was so dear, it
broke our hearts. No space given for
sentimentality, His theatrical mummery was obvious;
immortal simple loving was His clear message.
Sometimes after we left His house, He too would
drop the farewell fascade and follow us and yell
the Truth across the lawn, “I love you, my babies;
good night, I love you.” Or He would follow us into
Frog Mound and babble with us until dawn. We would
weep from His tenderness.
But opera added a new dimension to our
gatherings. The Master of Life is also a master of
breath and has a very good voice. He would often
join the tenors in loud passion, matching giving
with giving, breath by breath; His capacity matched
the masters of the art.
Imagine Pavaroti singing at his loudest in your
breakfast room. Now imagine it being the loving
Voice of the Divine Person. Such Voice washed and
penetrated us with the sublime Sound Current,
permeated us with Divine Sound, baptised us to
perfect intensities with an all consuming
Vibration.
Opera became a primary vehicle of His baptism
and usually ended the evening gathering. No matter
how bad I had felt, no matter how fragile I felt in
the midst of His Fire, He would wash us, cleanse
all lesser feelings, baptize us with His Voice. I
wish I could tell you, I wish I could say it, I
wish you were there for even a moment. I would cry
tears of joy if I could tell you what it was like;
His Voice magnificiently radiating through you and
everyone and everything and the very core of you
penetrated and undone by All One Loving
Vibrance.
Being subsumed in God, the Reality that is
always already the case, is the unique gift the
true Guru bestows to the devotee. God was already
radiantly present, but unseen, un-felt. The Guru
reveals the already Present God. Thus it is said:
the Guru is greater than God, and intimate contact
with Brahma is greater than Brahma everywhere.
Praise to the Divine Person, Body of Light, Voice
and Mouth of God!
It was the responsibility of the devotees to
provide the parties with intoxicants, since it was
their party after all. It was my job to purchase
the beer and cigarettes. After several weeks of
celebration, finances were tight. When I went to
get the beer and cigarettes, the bill was very low.
I wondered why, but took the windfall and once in
the van, reexamined the bill. They accidently
charged me for 10 six packs, not ten cases. I was
relieved, we were so poor. Act of God.
When I announced my good fortune at the
gathering, Master Da instructed me to immediately
return to the store and explain the error and pay
the rest. The people at the store were blown away
when I showed them their error and gave them their
money. They went into a long talk about how great
it was that some people have true character, how it
was missing today, and how I had restored their
faith. It was excruciating, since I had not chosen
such integrity, but I knew where the praise was
truly directed. I learned so much in that little
store about giving it to Him.
Not everybody got to be in the gathering,
responsibilities to the children and security
dictated that two people be out of the gatherings,
one to tend to the children and one to answer
phones, receive visitors. A rotation allowed each
person to only miss one hour of the day’s events
and never a couple, so that later the spouse could
fill one in, if needed.
One evening however, Denise and I both were out
of the gathering at the same time, the only time
that occurred in five months. As we reentered His
house through one door, the gathering was dismissed
through the other.
Denise and I quickly encountered the God-Man
face to face alone in His living room. He smiled
from ear to ear, embracing us with love, and asked
if we would like to watch a video with Him.
Overwhelmed, we quickly assented.
Master Da’s bedroom is tiny. The tv is viewed
through large open doors into the hallway. His
moderate bed takes up most of the room. There is no
place to sit, so we climbed in bed with the Sublime
One; Denise on His right, me on His left.
My entire right side touched Him from toe to
shoulder. An attendant put on Slapshot with Paul
Newman, I don’t think I saw four minutes of it.
Instead, I swooned in enjoyment, I massaged His
hands and fingers, stroked His chest, cheeks,
eyebrows, head. We talked in soft tones, we
communed in Love.
Silently, a divine Love overwhelmed all
thoughts, all separate identity, all limitations,
all experience. Oceans; unending vast seas of
heart-joy engulfed my every breath with tidal
intoxication. I was lost in His Fullness, Joy,
Consciousness and subsumed in His Love. Even every
thought was vanquished by the Unborn, Uncaused
Divine. Only God. Only divinity forever, the Heart,
the Absolute Truth, baptismally, unendingly.
Three hours later they came and got me, I was
gone. Except for three flashes of semi-ordinary
awareness, I was suspended in nirvakalpa-samadhi,
thoughtless, formless ecstasy and love-bliss for
several more hours. But those three moments anchor
my formless rememberance forever.
The first moment was a flash. Iwas suddenly
aware someone was walking me, I was outside of His
house, and being led by Udi to the renunciates’
quarters, Frog Mound. To have those thoughts was
almost an insult, as if to squeeze the ocean to a
body jug. In the glow of His gift, I recognized
this squeezing and remembered my last thought; “My
life is about as interesting to me as a grain of
sand on the beach far away, so awesome is His
Heart.” Recognizing the moment and my own
contracting activity, I was washed again into the
timeless ocean of His Heart.
The second moment of semi-conventional awareness
came when Udi lay me down upon a straw mat and
covered me with a sheet. Now one of my indulgences
is an insistence of how my bed must be. Firm yet
soft, plenty of covers, squishy pillow. This egoic
insistence came to my mind and was terrifically
humorous. Iremember thinking, “They could lay me on
nails and broken glass in dog shit, it doesn’t
matter compared to the baptism of His
Heart-transmission.” Recognizing thus, again I was
undone in a formless joy endlessly.
28.
Do not practice the childish cult of
devotion.
Cultivate the Way Itself.
29.
Neither God Nor the Master is your Parent.
Therefore, do not seek to be protected and
preserved.
30.
You are called to sacrifice yourself in God.
Therefore, cultivate devotion to the Master
in order to transcend the ego-‘I’ in the
Transcendental I AM.
31.
To worship the Master childishly is to worship
and serve your own separate self. Therefore, be
devoted to the Master
for the sake of ego-sacrifice in the
Transcendental Self, not ego-salvation and
forgetting of the Transcendental Heart.
21.
The sects proclaim that the Way is to surrender
to the Master as God! But I Confess Only God to
you.
Beloved Adi Da’s The Hymn of the Master
44.
The Master Principle is the Supreme Help
Offered by the Living God.
There is no Friend greater than the Master.
Therefore, body and mind should be entirely
devoted to the Master, so that attention is set
free in the Heart.
87.
The Master is Unique in the world.
The devotional relationship to the Master is the
Unique Method of Awakening, Provided by the Grace
of God to living beings.
The practice is to transform the activities and
functions
of body, mind, and speech into
love-surrender
to the One Who is Present
in and as and beyond the Incarnate Person of the
Master.
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