The Fulfillment of the Avatar Tradition

 

The All-Completing Avatar – The Fulfillment of the Avatar
Tradition

Chapter Nineteen

Introduction

During the same years that Avatar Adi Da’s Saving Work
with the world began to become dramatically evident, He was
also Revealing His Divine Nature more and more profoundly to
His devotees. He was Showing Himself to them very directly
as the Ruchira Avatar—the Manifestation of the Divine
“Brightness” on Earth.

In the Vaishnavite tradition of Hinduism, it is said that
there are ten Divine Avatars. According to this tradition,
cosmic history has already witnessed the appearance of the
first nine Avatars, but the tenth and completing Avatar
remains to come. He is named “Kalki” and will appear in the
terrible era of the Kali Yuga (when the Divine is virtually
forgotten), heroically conquering the forces of darkness and
restoring all to a life of devotion to the Divine and
obedience to Divine Law. Traditional images of the Kalki
Avatar in Hindu art show Him seated on a white horse, sword
in hand, ready to slay His enemies.

Such an image of the final Divine Deliverer riding a
white horse is not exclusively Hindu. It is deep in the
human psyche, surfacing also in the last book of the Bible,
which prophesies, in vision, the “second coming” of Jesus of
Nazareth:

And now I saw heaven open, and a white horse appear;
its rider was called Trustworthy and True. . . . His eyes
were flames of fire and he was crowned with many coronets. .
. . On his cloak and on his thigh a name was written, King
of kings and Lord of lords.

Feeling such archetypes to be prophecies of Avatar Adi
Da’s Appearance, two devotees brought the Kalki tradition to
Avatar Adi Da’s attention. Hal Okun sent Avatar Adi Da a
gift of a Kalki medallion, which he had recently acquired in
India while in service to Avatar Adi Da, and Bill Stranger
offered Him an explanation of the Kalki tradition.

In his report, Bill Stranger praised Avatar Adi Da as the
true and final Avatar, the Divine Liberator Who fulfills the
Kalki prophecy in this present dark and godless age, and he
quoted a description of the Kalki Avatar coined by Judith
Tyberg in her book The Language of the Gods:

[Kalki] is the Divine Man, called “white
horse” to symbolize the strength and power of all colors,
hence “power of full plenitude”. Also Conqueror of Yama,
Death, of all duality, all opposition and all darkness, the
Divine man on earth, One with the Infinite Divine.

Avatar Adi Da fully received this gesture of recognition
from His devotees and even accepted the Name “Da Kalki” for
a period of time. When He took this Name, His Blessing Power
flowed in a torrent. Those on retreat at Adidam Samrajashram
became wildly ecstatic with the Force of Adi Da’s Spiritual
Transmission. They began to experience kriyas, blisses, and
heart-openings such as had not been seen since the “Garbage
and the Goddess” period in 1974. James Alwood, who was on
retreat at the time, describes the first occasion of
overwhelming Spiritual “Intoxication” during this period, on
April 19, 1990.

JAMES: I was waiting in Temple Adi Da, with a
group of about thirty other retreatants. We were chanting,
expecting the arrival of Beloved Adi Da at any moment. For
many of us, this would be the last Darshan occasion of our
retreat.

As we waited, the appointed hour came and passed with no
word. A few priests came in and removed the items that had
been brought out in expectation of Beloved Adi Da’s arrival.
A quiet despair started to spread through the room, but then
one of the priests ran in and shouted, “Hurry! Beloved Adi
Da is already sitting on the steps of Indefinable! Run!
Forget your meditation cushions!”

Mindlessly, we all leapt to our feet, ran out the door of
the Temple and across the lawn to where our Beloved Guru was
sitting, waiting for us. As I moved forward to offer a
flower at His Feet, I could hear many of the other devotees
breaking out into open sobs and weeping for joy. Beloved Adi
Da was an open torrent of Divine Force and Presence.

I moved to a spot on the lawn a few yards back from the
steps where Beloved Adi Da was Sitting. As I sat down, my
mind and body quickly unwound in the face of His
Transmission, and my last thought was “Oh, this is going to
be a quiet, meditative occasion”. I noticed Beloved Adi Da’s
toes wiggling, in a gesture of Transmission. Suddenly, I was
thrown up to a visionary realm where Beloved was before me
in the Form of Fire. A spontaneous prayer rose in my heart,
“May I give You everything.” As soon as this prayer formed,
I felt myself leaping into and merging with Avatar Adi Da in
His Fire Form.

After some time, awareness of my body arose, and I felt
like I was shouting at the top of my lungs but no sound was
emerging. I noticed Beloved Adi Da’s Feet again, and once
more, I suddenly found myself back in the visionary realm
before His Fire, leaping ecstatically into the Flames.

This cycle repeated a number of times.

As awareness of where I was sitting returned, I noticed
that almost everyone was shouting, or weeping, or having
extremely exaggerated kriyas of one form or another. One man
behind me was exclaiming his awakened recognition of Who was
sitting before us, shouting over and over again, “You Are Da
Kalki! You Are Da Kalki!” In the midst of all this mayhem,
Beloved Adi Da sat quietly, like the eye of a tropical
storm.

He seemed to be focused on the horizon, not particularly
aware of or concerned with the drama unfolding at His Feet.
He seemed to be doing His world-Work, whatever that was. And
we, His devotee retreatants, were fortunate enough to be in
the path of His Bliss-Regard, as It Poured through us and
beyond.

Susan Isaacson, another devotee just completing her
retreat, was also at this occasion. She had been struggling
through the entire retreat to go beyond her emotionless
quality and limit on devotional feeling:

SUSAN: I was one of the last ones to leave Temple Adi Da.
While hurrying to Indefinable, I was filled with both
apprehension and joy. I was overwhelmed by my own cold
heart, and I felt a deep desire to be free of its
clutches.

When I arrived at Indefinable, I was stopped short by the
most beautiful sight of my entire life. Beloved Adi Da was
simply sitting on the steps of the porch—He did not
even have a chair. He was looking down, and He was very,
very Beautiful. We were only a few feet away from Him. By
the time I got there, several of the women retreatants were
already seated and weeping. I felt so extremely frustrated
at being unable to be vulnerable enough to weep with
devotion myself that I—as bizarre and humorous as it
may seem—started acting as if I were weeping. Then
somehow—and I really cannot say how—I was
genuinely and intensely weeping. It definitely was not my
doing. I had never felt such profound emotion. I found
myself on my back gazing into the blue sky, and having deep
breathing kriyas, a phenomenon I had always envied others
for experiencing. My friends told me later that, as I let go
of my control of everything, Beloved Adi Da looked over at
me with a smile on His Face. Truly, He had swept me beyond
self-doubt.

I sat back up as soon as I could, because I wanted to see
Beloved Adi Da. By this time, almost everyone had come
unhinged. Devotees were praising Beloved Adi Da as the
Divine World-Teacher and as Da Kalki. We were being Drawn
into a profound recognition of His Divinity, more than in
previous Darshans. I started saying and feeling His Name
“Da”, and this Mantra took me over. His Spiritual Force was
coursing through my body and I became riveted to the
spot.

I looked up at Him. The space where we sat with Him had
become motionless and timeless. I felt Him as Fire and I was
floating above and all around Him. He was Doing and Giving
everything.

He Gave me these experiences, it seems to me, not for
their own sake but to draw me out and help me feel past the
incredible barricade of fear I had been so heavily
identified with. Now I was finally able to feel my love for
Him, and I was unbelievably happy.

At the end, Beloved Adi Da motioned for us to come up to
the porch to receive Prasad. I had no idea how I was going
to get myself from where I was on the ground to the porch
steps, since I was still completely charged with His
Spirit-Force—my body and particularly my hands were
literally twisted with this Blissful Force. But somehow I
managed to crawl forward and bow before Beloved Adi Da. My
hands, however, were still rigid claws, stiff with Force,
and I was unable to open them to receive the Prasad. This
was not a problem for Beloved Adi Da. He Compassionately
opened my hands with His own, and Placed the Prasad in them.
I backed off the porch and fell in a heap of gratitude on
the lawn. I sat up finally to gaze again on the most
beautiful sight in the universe, and then Beloved Adi Da
stood up and moved back into Indefinable.

While on retreat in June 1990, Charles Seage, Avatar Adi
Da’s personal physician, who had served Him since 1978, was
overwhelmed by the depth at which He now recognized the
Divinity of His beloved Guru.

CHARLES: A few days into my retreat, all the retreatants
were invited to attend a formal Darshan occasion with
Beloved Adi Da in the Darshan Hall known as Divine
World-Teacher Mandir at the Matrix. This Hall is very
intimate, and there were only about thirty-five of us in the
room with Him.

At the end of the occasion, Beloved Adi Da reached over
to dip His hands in the water bowl beside His Chair and
sprinkled the water on the Prasad. Then He stood up and
passed out the Prasad personally to each of us from His own
Hands. I returned to my seat full of gratitude, but there
was no sign of what was to occur next.

Beloved Adi Da finished distributing the Prasad and
passed the bowl to Adidama Sukha Dham. Then He simply stood
before us, His hands open and down at His sides a few inches
from His body. Suddenly as I watched Him, it became
unbelievably obvious that He is the Divine Person. The
Vision He Granted me was astounding. He filled up the entire
universe. For a moment, I closed my eyes and visualized His
Form, as I usually do. Then that visualization disappeared
and I felt Him become so immense and All-Pervading that it
was as though I was seeing and feeling His Cosmic Form. I
saw that the entire universe is His Form. It was clearly,
tacitly the case. He is not limited to His bodily human
Form.

The Power of that Vision was overwhelming, and I could
not contain the Force of the Realization. Then I felt an
incredible Force entering into me, and I let out a
low-pitched scream such as I had never made before. I
screamed several times—an animal sound, very
loud—that seemed to come from deep in my lower body.
Later, people told me it was like the sound someone might
have made if they were falling off a cliff. The room had
been quiet, but I could not contain myself. There was no
intention involved—my shout was just my spontaneous
response to that totally overwhelming recognition of Beloved
Adi Da in His Divinity.

After that, my hands filled up with energy of an
extraordinary magnitude. Energy was pouring out of me. I
became completely absorbed in Beloved Adi Da. After He left,
I crawled to His Chair and bowed down in gratitude.

In the midst of this flood of ecstatic devotion, Avatar
Adi Da continued to Reveal Himself. He Wrote in The Basket
Of Tolerance:

I Am . . . the First and the Last, the every where,
anciently and always, Promised (and Universally Expected)
True God-Man of the “late-time” (or “dark” epoch). I Am, now
and in all future time. . . . the Divine World-Teacher, the
Divine Heart-Master of all My devotees (East and West).
Therefore, My Life and Work and Person must be understood
and appreciated in the context of the total (One and Great)
Tradition of mankind, East and West. And even those who do
not, in any then present time, become My devotees
are—now, and forever hereafter, during and after (and
forever after) the Avataric (physical) Lifetime of My bodily
(human) Divine Form (here)—always Divinely Blessed by
Me to better understand and appreciate their own (possibly
confessed) traditions, and even all “other” traditions, by
rightly understanding and appreciating Me and the One and
Great Tradition I Have Come here to Represent and to
Complete and to Completely Fulfill.

Eventually, Avatar Adi Da came to feel that the
associations of the name “Kalki” were too restricted, too
specific to one particular religious tradition. He also
commented that the typical portrayal of Kalki in political
(and even aggressive) terms was not an accurate or
appropriate description of His Incarnation. And so He
indicated that “Da Kalki” should henceforth be regarded
simply as one of His historical Names and not remain in
general use.

Nevertheless, the period when Avatar Adi Da assumed this
Name was a landmark in His devotees’ recognition of Him.
What He was Revealing through His Darshan was beyond
anything they could ever have imagined. They were
recognizing that Avatar Adi Da Samraj is the Complete
Revelation of the Divine Person.

The Divine Intervention

In February 1993, the next phase of Avatar Adi Da’s
Self-Revelation unfolded. At this time, He was meeting
frequently with devotees. In gathering after gathering, He
found new ways to communicate to them the import of His
Avataric Incarnation. On February 12, He spoke plainly of
Himself as the Intervention of Very God into the human
dimension, here to do His own unique, unprecedented
Work.

The Great Process comes about when the Divine
Intervenes, Appears, Incarnates, Blesses, Teaches the
understanding and the transcending of ego, such that the
direct Divine Blessing may be received and the Great Divine
Yoga may be entered into. This is What I Do.

I am not merely advanced. I am not merely evolved. I
Am the Very One. I Am the One you must Realize.

The seventh stage Awakening will be Accomplished by My
Avatarically Self-Transmitted Divine Grace. It cannot be
Accomplished otherwise. There is no “method” for
Accomplishing It. It is entirely Given by Me. It cannot be
Realized without My Avatarically Self-Transmitted Divine
Blessing.

I am Telling you the Great Secret. It is not Revealed
in any traditional books. It is unknown, apart from My
Avatarically Given Divine Revelation of It. [Ruchira
Avatara Hridaya-Siddha Yoga]

While Avatar Adi Da Samraj was speaking these Words, the
Spiritual Transmission in the room was profound. As on
countless previous occasions, He was doing what He was
describing. In contrast to the night of “Guru Enters
Devotee” in 1974, He was now speaking of the “Crashing Down”
of His Divine Grace not only into the individual body-minds
of His devotees but upon all beings and things.

When a person feels the Transmission of Avatar Adi Da
Samraj, he or she knows it is unique and knows it is Divine.
There is nothing “personal” or “local” about it. He or she
realizes that it is a universal Spiritual and All-Pervading
“Fact”. It is Him, in His Spiritual Form. This experience of
His Spiritual Presence is how a person comes to know with
intuitive certainty that Avatar Adi Da Samraj cannot be
compared to anyone. He is not an ordinary man or even an
extraordinary man. He is the Very Divine Intensity,
Love-Blissful Pressure, Pervading and Surrounding and
Touching all, Who happens to have taken a human Form as an
Agent of necessary Communication with all beings. But His
human Form is just a “satellite” of the One He Is.

Avatar Adi Da’s Great Self-Revelations continued into
March. On March 6, 1993, He spoke of His unique Siddhis, or
Powers, as the Divine Person. Now that He has brought these
Siddhis into the human plane, He explained, it is possible,
for the first time, for human beings to Realize the seventh
and ultimate stage of life.

AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: I have brought Siddhis into all
planes, into the entire Cosmic Mandala, that permit Most
Perfect Divine Self-Realization, and I have thoroughly
Communicated to you, in every detail, the Way of the seventh
stage Realization. Now that that Great Way has been Given to
all, it is possible for all, and your Divine
Self-Realization is a matter of whether or not you will
choose the Way of Truth and how profoundly you will practice
It.

It is not only that My Revelation of the Wisdom-Teaching
of the Way of Adidam, the seventh stage Teaching, is
complete and for the first time Given. It is that the
Siddhis of My Manifestation and My Work have made Divine
Self-Realization possible. Those Siddhis will be eternally
Effective. I may be resorted to eternally, and My Siddhis
are eternally operative.

I have made the Way of Most Perfect Divine
Self-Realization possible. That Work having been Done, the
Siddhis of that Accomplishment having been established,
there need not be any other seventh stage Adept. There
cannot be another. The Work has been Done. Now there can be
seventh stage Realizers, but there cannot be another seventh
stage Adept. There need only be one such Revealer, full of
the Siddhis to Accomplish the Work that makes such
Realization possible.

And That One is the Divine Person, because the seventh
stage Realization is the Realization of the Divine Person.
Only That One can Make such Revelation and Accomplish such
Work.

DINA LAUTMAN: Beloved, before Your Incarnation, these
Siddhis were not possible?

AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: They did not exist. To Manifest the
Siddhis and to Do the Work, to Accomplish the Work that is
universally effective, I needed to be entered into the
conditional planes by actual entrance into the Cosmic
Mandala—altogether, completely.

GERALD SHEINFELD: Beloved, Your Perfect
Manifestation—Wholly Incarnated, with all the Siddhis
that are present because of Your Incarnation—is the
greatest Advantage that beings could ever have, because
everything is complete. We have been Given everything.

AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Most of what I have Done will not
be noticed or seriously addressed in My physical Lifetime.
But it is not necessary that it all be noticed, either. What
has been necessary all along is that I Do the Work.
Therefore, I have conducted Myself so as to Accomplish My
Work. And, in all its fundamental details, it has been
Done.

JONATHAN CONDIT: You have already Told us tonight that
Your human Manifestation was required for Your Siddhis to
come into action in this realm. Nevertheless, it seems
obvious that Your Divine Influence was felt in the world
even before Your Birth.

AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: People have been seeking Me.
Therefore, I Came. I Answered the prayers, and here I
Am.

You all must get it. All My devotees must get it. You
cannot comprehend most of what I Do. My Concentration, as I
told you tonight—and before, also—has been to
simply Accomplish My Work, because That had to be
Accomplished, regardless of your disinclination, your
immaturity and mediocrity. Now it is Accomplished. Now that
Work is Done.

You, My devotees, must embrace My Revelation and get down
to your business. Tell the truth. Be compassionate. Be
truthful but straightforward and loving. I am not here to
struggle with anyone—now especially, in the extremes of
My Lifetime and Work.

Now that My Work is Done, I must simply Confess My Self
to you As I Am. So I am Doing it. [March 6,
1993]

In the midst of these profound Revelations about His
Divine Nature, Avatar Adi Da was also addressing the matter
of His devotees’ practice of the foundations of the Way of
Adidam—the listening-hearing sadhana. Starting at the
end of March and continuing through the first week of April,
Avatar Adi Da Samraj confronted the pattern of “Narcissus”
in His devotees with overwhelming force:

AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: You want Me to talk about your
trying to work your life out. Life does not work out! It
cannot work out! That is not the Way of Adidam! The Way of
Adidam is about ego-transcendence, transcending the very
thing that seeks to make it all work out! You are wanting Me
to address you in this act that you are making to have
everything be hunky-dory. And the whole damn thing doesn’t
even exist! And that’s what there is to Realize! Absolute
Freedom from this illusion—that you call “reality” and
are trying to make work out perfectly. You are only looking
at yourself! That’s all you are ever looking at! And you
want it to work out, “Narcissus”. You are looking at all
this and you are calling it “the world”—but it is
you!

All you ever talk about, think about, or perceive is you.
It is a private, egoically “self-possessed” illusion. It is
a result of your own knot of separateness, and it registers
in this poor little slug of a body-mind you identify with as
all kinds of illusions, hallucinations, thoughts,
presumptions, ideas, perceptions. The whole lot, the whole
ball of wax, is all the result of your own separate
position, your own point of view, self-contraction,
manufacturing illusions on the base of That Which Is Reality
Itself. But you have no idea what that Reality is. No
notion. You are not associated with Reality Itself, you are
dissociated from Reality. That is the whole point!

Well, that being the case, that is what you have to deal
with! But you want to persist in your adoration of the
“pond”—your experience, your search, and so
forth—and you are asking Me how to make it work out. I
do not have anything to do with the “making-it-work-out”
business. I am here to Wake you up! [April 2,
1993]

Avatar Adi Da Samraj cut through every attempt on the
part of His devotees to defend themselves from His
Criticism. He was tremendously intensifying His devotees’
sensitivity to the knot of self-contraction, to the point
where that cramp would become so present, so obvious, so
unbearable, so unnecessary, so absurd that they would
spontaneously let it go. Late in the night during what
turned out to be the culminating gathering of this period,
on April 8, 1993, Adi Da brought devotees to that
intolerable point. There was a pause while His Radiant Force
magnified in the room, melting the clench of “Narcissus”.
Then He began to speak differently, quietly:

AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Feel into that knot of stress. Feel
into it and account for it. See it as your own action.
Regard Me in that moment, in every moment. And then you
begin to feel Me. Then the surrender comes, the
self-forgetting comes, the native sense of Non-Separateness
is felt. This is actually what I am Calling you to do!
Actually to do that. Just to be doing it grants equanimity
to you, even bodily, grants equanimity to your speech, your
actions, your feelings, because you are registering this
depth-point and going beyond it and feeling Me. This is the
context of practice of the Way of Adidam, not merely outer
observances. This is what it means to listen to Me: to be
examining this point of contraction in depth, to feel it,
and by its unfolding to feel Me. This is not the end of the
Way of Adidam. It is the foundation of it.
Self-understanding and devotion at depth—this is what
you must do in every moment. This is what it is to practice
the Way of Adidam.

You are basically trying to feel good. Why would you be
trying to feel good if you were not already feeling bad? You
must understand that, Natively, you always already feel
good. But not the way you are doing it. You are not in the
Native Position. You are in the position of the
self-contraction. If you would Stand Prior to the
self-contraction and feel beyond it, you would always
already feel good in the most profound heart-sense. It would
not make any great difference how the rest of the body-mind
felt, because the body-mind is part of the conditional world
and is always subject to negative changes and disintegration
and death. But when you are in the heart-place, you are
Awake. You always already feel good. Always! Already!
[April 8, 1993]

By this gathering, many devotees found that they could
not snap back as easily as before into a state of immunity
to their own act of self-contraction. The heartless machine
of the ego was too starkly revealed. There was no lasting
relief to be found through any kind of seeking for
satisfaction. In His Masterful Revelation, throughout that
previous year, of the desperate state of bondage to the
self-contraction, Adi Da Samraj had begun to Magnify in His
devotees the need for devotion to Him, the conviction that
He is, truly, the only Help. Everything He had said about
the necessity for Ruchira Avatara Bhakti Yoga was starting
to prove itself. And the Gift was before their eyes,
whenever they looked up from the “pond” and beheld Him in
the Radiant Truth of His Being.