Discrimintive Intelligence – The Torque of Attention

Adi Da Samraj: The exercises that we’ve done here in this
“consideration” are so fundamental, so obvious—and yet
you have to be instructed in it, you see? And seem to have
this and that limitation associated with all of it.

You must be able to exercise the deeper faculties. The
mere physical energy, the etheric force, the emotional
being, the mind and so on—these are all relatively
mechanical. Their doings are subject to your intention. But
they themselves are rather mechanical, will do anything. So
the higher, deeper aspect of human personalities, the
senior, is about discrimination, discriminative
intelligence—measuring, understanding, observing, and
directing the faculties below it according to that
disposition, according to that understanding. But see how
difficult it is for you all to get to the point where you’re
willing to live based on understanding, rather than based on
what the body-mind wants to do at the moment?

Its such a simple matter, so obvious. You’re not
exercising the faculties at your central position, the
faculties that are closest to you as the conscious person
here. Those are closest to you, so to speak, so it would
seem that these would be the faculties you would most
readily use.

 

“It’s a straightforward
matter. You’ve discriminated, “considered” this
discriminatively, and come to a conclusion about it, and now
you intend to do such and such and such.”

 

But your signals from birth are so primitive, basically
from the physical on in, that by the time you get to the
point of development where you could exercise will and
discriminative intelligence, you’re so bound up in what is
lesser than it, the places of your experience—such
complex entanglements and patterns directed from
without—that the discriminative intelligence and the
will is weak. You can’t just observe, understand, change
your act. That’s the way it ought to be. Why go to a
weight-loss program, you see? You can be served in your
understanding, and observation, and so forth, but when it
comes down to it, it’s a straightforward matter. You’ve
discriminated, “considered” this discriminatively, and come
to a conclusion about it, and now you intend to do such and
such and such.

 

“The higher faculties exercised
determine right action”

 

See the higher faculty then, the higher faculties
exercised determine right action. But you all keep looking
for the active part, the body, the energies in it, the
emotions, the thought patterns—you keep looking for
these things to tell you what to do. Or you’ve consented to
allow them to be in charge. Like someone going to a
weight-loss program—basically finding a
pseudo-parent.

So it seems somehow the core faculty’s the last to
develop somehow. You know the infant who is born gets lots
of physical sensation but no discriminative intelligence
yet, you see? All the signals come from the flesh in. So its
not that you perfected your faculties of will and
discriminative intelligence first, and then got involved
with everything. No. You got involved with everything first,
and now you want to exercise discriminative intelligence and
will, and the machine is just not set up that way. Its set
up to make all kinds of demands, its confused, full of
desires and constrained rituals. It didn’t get that way from
the exercise of discriminative intelligence with the will.
It developed without that exercise, or at least without it
being profound. And so its an accumulation of rather robotic
events.

 

“Finishing the business of the
first three stages of life”

 

In this Way, then, I Call you to examine this matter of
discriminative intelligence and will and develop it. That’s
finishing the business of the first three stages of life.
“Consider” your “Oedipal”, this and that, all the ins and
outs, and do what you have to do to grow up. And I’ve told
you exactly how to do that. So your vow to Me must be
exercised based on discriminative intelligence and done with
a will, embraced absolutely, never put up for a vote to the
body-mind again. “Consider” it, realize what’s right, take
the vow, and then never argue with yourself again. Persist
in the upholding of the vow.

So that’s an example of how to live by exercising
discriminative intelligence and will. And the Way is going
to require that adulthood of you—or you will be weak in
devotion, weak in Contemplation, weak in discipline and on
and on.

I’m not here to parent you so that eventually somehow
you’ll do what’s right with Me. I’m there where the doing
right happens. So that means you must “consider” this Way,
receive My Instruction, and do it. It’s plainly obvious why
its right and what its all about. You’ve “considered” that,
and that’s that. And don’t be childish anymore, give Me all
your apologies and excuses and all of that business. That’s
being childish, childlike. Needing a parental slap on the
wrist or a raised voice or something—just straighten
out a little bit, but always curiously unavailable.

So to grow up means you accept as your responsibility the
faculties your parents exercised for you previously. See,
you didn’t need the will and discriminative intelligence
when you were an infant, or youngish. So you depended on
them for that. And they did so, and you didn’t have to
exercise it. All kinds of effects developed, life developed,
and along the line it becomes necessary to exercise the will
and discriminative intelligence. Your parents aren’t going
to treat you like infants forever. So then at some point
you’re in a situation where you have to do all of
that—unparented. And to really grow up means you have
to be equipped to do that.

So it would seem then that part of right education
involves the exercise of will and discriminative
intelligence—the actual exercising of that and
examining things clearly, and “considering” this Teaching,
as the way of embracing it. Then when they get of the age
where the parents aren’t going to replace their
discriminative intelligence and will, they’ll know what to
do. They’ll be equipped to do so. They won’t be in the
self-indulgent, childish habit—just waiting for the
parent to leave so you can indulge yourself, or whenever you
have any difficulty at all, especially will required of you,
you want to be parented, dependent and independent at the
same time. Sort of adolescent, then, until you embrace
responsibility for discriminative intelligence and will.

This is what keeps you focused seriously, this capacity.
Its not a matter of just riding on the body-mind and its
adaptations. Discriminative intelligence and the will are in
charge. So don’t play the child with Me. I’m not your
parent. This is what it takes.

There are all the forms—physical, subtle, mental,
emotional—but, to locate this discriminative
intelligence, all of those forms are before it. But its not
the Witness. Discriminative intelligence is that
observation, examination of all those contents. You’re
making judgments and decisions using the force of will, the
fundamental energy of the central personality to function on
that basis. It should be perfectly natural for the human
being to function based on that leading faculty. But the
adaptations are in the reverse, as I’ve said, then you wind
up weak-willed, and all of a sudden you’re out of your
parents house and you’re supposed to be a man or a woman.
Whereas you didn’t get enough education at replacing what
they did all of that time. And, therefore, you remain rather
childish all of your life, in need of the ritual of being
parented somehow. And you also tend to use Me that way,
therefore. Its a ritual you use to feel parented, and yet
still be rather adolescent. It’s a false relationship to
Me.

 

“The ground testing of devotees
or practitioners in the traditional setting largely has to
do with this business: Does the individual show the sign of
really being able to live on the basis of discriminative
intelligence and will, with clarity, so he or she can
receive the instruction and apply it?”

 

In the Great Tradition, the Master replaces your parents.
He’s not someone on whom you project your parent-child
inclinations. He’s a different figure altogether. You don’t
relate to this One as your parent. He’s not one of the
scheme of conventional relations.

So your parent-child ritual doesn’t belong in My
face—and your claims of irresponsibility, signs of
weak-willedness, lack of discrimination. You did all of that
when you were a child with your parents. You don’t do that
with your Master.

The ground testing of devotees or practitioners in the
traditional setting largely has to do with this business:
Does the individual show the sign of really being able to
live on the basis of discriminative intelligence and will,
with clarity, so he or she can receive the instruction and
apply it?

You’ve heard the traditional stories where somebody
begins in a Masters sphere by being a menial servant, gets
no instructions and all that. They think they’re just being
good while they’re waiting for the instructions, you see.
There’s many things happening there, but one of them is the
Master testing them. Not merely relative to conventional
behaviors, but relative to this exercise of discriminative
intelligence and will. And of course, the greater
heart-disposition, certainly. But you must be able to
function that way no matter what the circumstance is, most
menial or whatever, in order to be seriously involved in
this Communion with Me and address the limitations on it,
discriminatively and directly, with a will.

So this whole student-novice, student-beginner process is
supposed to be the growing up stage. You shouldn’t come out
of there without all kinds of signs, including this sign,
this central faculty. It is the “Adam and Eve” that’s
empowered to be in charge of all the non-humans, in the
Biblical story. Its discriminative intelligence and will,
the central faculty. It’s supposed to be in charge of all of
the rest. The observer is the female, the “considerer” is
the male.

This must be exercised every moment relative to
everything lower than that. You exercise it by your
Communion with Me, beyond and Prior to that. Communing with
Me thus, My “Brightness” passes into your principal
faculties as you enter into the domain of the body-mind.

[silence]

So are we “considering” anything, or was that the end of
that one?

DEVOTEE: Beloved, we were “considering” discriminative
intelligence, and I just never had heard quite so clearly
Your description of the effect of Your Transmission, and the
essential component of discriminative intelligence.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: Mm-hm. If I Crash down through the top of
your head, I’m going to get there first, you see?
[laughter] So how can you receive Me in this frontal
Yoga without the awakening of discriminative intelligence
and a will that can function on the basis of it?

DEVOTEE: I was reading one of Your Essays, Beloved, and
You were saying that one of the signs of true hearing is the
capacity for free functional attention.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: Yes. Because its not bound in the rituals
of self-contraction, you see? Attention is freed by this
conscious process. Instead of being caught up in the
mechanics of the body-mind.

The development of discriminative intelligence, and the
will that functions on the basis of it, is the business of
the third stage of life. In other words, the third stage of
life is the stage of moving out of the parented state. To do
so, you have to replace the faculties previously assumed by
the parents and everything, then. And those specific
faculties are the ones of discriminative intelligence and
will. All the others up to that point have been adapted to
provide the basis for human functioning. And then the mother
and father step aside—and your head is vacant.
[laughter] No discriminative intelligence followed
with the will, you see? Just a sort of soupy, self-indulgent
adolescent who’s noticing that he or she’s not being looked
at so much by the mother and father, so then they get into
an indiscriminate life of self-indulgence, sometimes.

So its just a sign that the faculties of discriminative
intelligence and will have not yet been sufficiently
established, functioning, in the life.

So that’s the time when children leave home, so to speak,
go out of the parented state into the adult state. Still
related to the blood parents, but not being parented any
longer, in that childish sense. And therefore you will not
view anyone as a parent, or take anything as a parent-force
merely—influencing you without the exercise of
discriminative intelligence and will on your own part.

This is how you find out you’re not the victim. It’s the
one whose discriminative intelligence and will is weak who
feels he or she is victimized by whatever. There may be an
unfortunate circumstance, but nonetheless the victimization
is your own doing. You can exercise discriminative
intelligence and will, all kinds of right life, right
practice, and deal with that. Even grow on the basis of it,
like Yeshe
Tsogyal who, in a situation of being apparently
victimized, used it as sadhana. It doesn’t mean the
circumstance wasn’t unfortunate, but her involvement was
such that she passed beyond its limitations and used it for
more profound development.

So that’s an individual who has the capability to
exercise discriminative intelligence, choose, and then
engage it with a will in spite of what arises. Until then,
you are the victim of conditions. All conditions. That’s how
you feel it. That’s what you say. But it’s just a childish
habit. It’s a childish sulk.

So you must bring this capability of discriminative
intelligence—able to use it, use it with a will,
function through it with a will—to the front in your
practice. That’s not to say the practice itself, the sadhana
of Communion with Me, is about standing in that position.
No, it’s to give up all positions in Communion with Me. But
in terms of the regulation of your life, in response to Me,
the fulfillment of My Instruction and so on, you must
exercise discriminative intelligence and will. And simply,
straightforwardly do it. If you don’t, you’re being
childish. You’re looking to be parented. You’re looking to
be not noticed by your parents so you can indulge yourself.
All that kind of stuff. Its what you all do.

Anything more about that?

My “considerations” with you are very straightforward,
very intelligent, I presume.

DEVOTEES: Yes. Yes, Beloved.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: And really, if you are humanly basically
mature, you would listen to My “consideration”, examine what
is being brought to you, and come to a fully intelligent
conclusion, and then do it! It should be just as
straightforward as that, you see? If you’re not parented,
but a free individual, here, to Realize Me, then it is that
straightforward. If you’re not playing the child
game—with Me or anyone else.

Well, its important, then, to go through the process for
real of going beyond being parented. Its not enough just to
leave your immediate family situation or whatever at times.
You can still carry the child mode, the weak intelligence
and will, with you. So to be free of it in yourself, you’ve
got to relinquish the being-parented disposition. Not to
become merely an independent ego, but to become one who can
exercise all the faculties for the purpose of the
sadhana.

So notice how you permit yourself to be parented, then,
even by your blood parents or whatever you use. And root it
out. Abandon the disposition. Accept responsibility for what
that was replacing in you.

As I’ve Said, if you want Me to do what I do, you have to
do what I say. But I don’t mean just I say blah-blah, you do
it mechanically. All of My Instruction to you, Transmission
to you, is “consideration”. As I was Saying earlier, its a
process of Initiation, of integrating you with it, because
you’re the one who has to be responsible for that
sadhana—not Me.

So you can’t practice this Way of the Heart on the basis
of belief or faithfulness or good-heartedness merely. You’ve
got to grow up. You’ve got to become a man or woman, which
means you have to take for yourself the responsibility you
previously relinquished or never exercised when a child.

The control-from-without game is no good after a certain
age, because it doesn’t allow you to develop these faculties
necessary for your own responsibility as My devotee. You are
Mastered by Me, not parented by Me. You shouldn’t require Me
to parent you. That means you have to give up being a child,
one whose discriminative intelligence and will are elsewhere
replaced by someone else. You must exercise these
capabilities, and when we enter into “considerations” such
as this, I’m Calling you to do so.

And you even appear to like doing so when its a matter of
“considering” hearing, or the Witness and so forth. But then
when I talk about right dietary practice as your obligation
and various other practical things, you know the sounds you
make and so forth. Like all of a sudden, that’s too much!
[soft laughter]

All of a sudden you’re children again, childishly related
to Me. You’re willing to exercise these faculties to have
this Contemplative experience, but you’re not willing to
exercise the body so that your whole life can be about
Contemplative experience. So all of a sudden you want to
play the child when I’m talking to you, Instructing you
about responsibility for the body, the functional,
practical, relational, and cultural details of this Way
altogether. When I “consider” such matters with you, you are
all of a sudden “Johnny Carson” now, children now. People
show through all kinds of mannerisms and whatnot that you’re
rather childish, want to be parented—a little bit like
Huey, Dewey, and Louie Duck. They’re unpredictable also.

No. I expect the same straightforwardness and clarity
relative to your fulfillment of that Instruction just as I
do if we “consider” the Witness together. It exercises the
same faculties. So then if we talk about something somewhat
more mundane and so on, what’s the difference? You examine
it, “consider” it, come to conclusions, make decisions,
agreements, then you do it! And you don’t need to have a lot
of pseudo-parents around to keep pattin you on the back and
tell you what a really swell sadhak you are, you know?
[laughter]

The Inner Guru

So you stop making a childish or rather adolescent
culture out of the community—always conforming to the
weak-willedness, lack of discrimination, tendency games of
the gathering. Its a “culture of inspiration and
expectation”. You’re obliged to fulfill the rule of the
community. It’s not a bargaining matter.

You’re obliged because you volunteered to be obliged, by
the way—remember? Took the vow. So that’s what it
takes, then. And you’ve no right to run to another Guru, you
see. The little-ji? The body-mind there, you know?
“Little-ji, what do you think about this dietary stuff?”
“Aw, forget it! It sucks! All right, be a little moderate
sometimes. That’s it. Leave me alone. By the way, lets have
a pizza!” [laughter]

So that’s the kind of games you get into when you resort
to little-ji—you know, the old “inner guru”? Whenever
somebody talks about resorting to the “inner guru”, I know
damn well they’re talking about not having so much to do
with their outer Guru. [laughter] They want to be
parented, but they don’t want to be Guru-ed.

[silence]

So that’s straight, though, right?

DEVOTEES: Yes, Lord. Yes. Mm-hm.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: Good!

So what else do you want to “consider”?

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