Hearing and self-Observation – Beezone

The following is an ‘essay’ composed from a collection
of notes and excerpts taken from the writings and teachings
of Adi Da Samraj on the nature of ‘hearing’. ‘Hearing’ is a
technical term used by Avatar Adi Da to indicate most
fundamental understanding of the act of egoity (or
self-contraction) and in so doing (by Grace) transcend the
self-contraction. In ‘hearing’ or Understanding and
transcendence simultaneous there is the permanent intuitive
to one’s own true nature, Divine Condition (Reality or
Truth).

The collection is not made to read as if it’s one
seemly conversation or essay. It it a ‘choppy’ patchwork of
writings and teaching put together to give the reader of
what one would ‘look like’ or what the ‘signs’ would be if
one actually were to demonstrate a ‘hearing’ disposition.

In some of the writing below I have taken a paragraph
and broken it up into sentences. I’ve done this because I
believe one way to read (study) Adi Da’s Wisdom Teaching
should be read as if you were ‘biting’ into a meal and
needed to chew it. And so I’ve broken up paragraphs,
included sentences and paragraphs from other essays and
talks which do not read as a seemless essay. I beleive this
a good way to read, study and digest the Wisdom Word of the
Great Sage Adi Da Samraj.

One more item that may need some clarification. The
term hearing, as Adi Da uses it, is also used in conjunction
with other terms such as ‘self-understanding’
‘self-observation’ ‘hearing the teaching argument’, Satsang
and a variety of other terms which all have to do with
transcending the act of ego or self-contraction.

All the words below are primarily those of Adi Da
except those italicized. I’ve done my best to remain true to
Adi Da’s teaching word as best I am able and any errors are
only my responsibility and if alerted will address them
immediately.

The Way begins only when
you have thoroughly understood the disease of egoity, not as
a symptom external to you, but as a process with which you
are thoroughly involved in this moment and which you are
capable of observing, understanding, and transcending. You
have the capability in my company, by entering most fully
into the prior presumption of Being. It is only then will
you have the capacity to practice this Way, and not until
then.

The first thing you must do is to hear
me, combine yourself with the
Argument relative to Narcissus
to the point of relieving yourself of the arbitrary notion
that things are just happening to you and that you are
succumbing to limitation. You must realize that these
limitations have no force at all. Rather than just respond
or react to them, you must see the mechanism of contraction
or reactivity and know it utterly. The sense of self-contraction
is just like clenching your hand or getting a knot in your
stomach or tightening your eyebrows. You must see it as
something that you do in reaction to conditions of
existence.

You cannot receive me until you understand your
resistance to me. Understanding is the first gesture of
spiritual life.

You must know the self-contraction and you must see it.
You must observe it to the point of realizing that it is not
happening to you. You are doing it, just as you are moving
your mouth and blinking your eyeballs. Like the movements of
your intestines, it is a rhythm to which you have become
habituated. It is really very simple, but you must observe
it, and you must understand it. This is the first office of
spiritual life.

When you awaken to this understanding through ‘hearing‘
and are awakened to the Condition of this moment without
concepts and contractions of energy and feeling you will
quickly achieve humor and responsibility relative to the
conventions of self. You will see through the strategy of
Narcissus and awaken beyond all appearances and delight in
the Awakened Company of the Adept. You will then have the
ability to quickly transcend all false evidence and all
conditional distractions relative to conditional
arising.

A sign of those whose “hearing” is most profound is one
who is stably founded in psycho-physical
equanimity, and their energy and attention are
completely free for the direct or unmediated Intuition of
Transcendental Being. One Awaken to the ultimate Condition
of things and their participation is one of constant
Brightness.

Another sign of one who awakens through hearing is they
are full of humor and delight. There is no aggressively
opposition to the world, nor clinging to it. All the tension
in the heart has been re-leased. To speak of Enlightenment
without that sign is nonsense. There is no Enlightenment
without the release of the heart from all of its
seriousness, all of its clinging to phenomena, high and
low.

True devotees (one who has ‘heard’) realizes Humor,
Freedom, or Distance from all the seriousness of his or her
interests and occupations from day to day. They see the
ordinariness of it, even the absurdity of it, without
becoming ironic. They are free of the world in itself and
rest naturally in the mood of the heart, the Intuition of
the Radiant Transcendental Consciousness.

If you rest in God, then you have received Grace. Then
Grace has entered into your daily life and only serves its
ultimate transcendence. If you do not come to rest in God,
the heart is like a stone or a clenched fist. It has not
entered into the Infinite Radiance of Consciousness. It is
fixed upon itself. It is Narcissus, self-meditative,
self-protective, threatened by everything to Infinity,
obsessed with possibilities and the repetition of experience
in order to acquire a sense of survival, consolation, and
pleasure.

One who has heard must emerge into the True Condition of
existence, which is relationship. To live in constant,
heart-felt relationship to the Spiritual Master. It obliges
the being to a Way of sacrifice, which is at once Truth and
Love.

One who understands and becomes free of the necessity of
his own life of Narcissus begins to live among men in an
entirely new way. What he requires is the communication of
love, of presence, because he knows that we are the food
source, the life source, for one another. The force of his
presence begins to become a demand for that life, that love,
that Truth, the lightness, that happiness. This alone is the
proper condition of a human society. The more he experiences
of himself, the more he also sees in the world. The more he
becomes responsible for all of his own activities, the more
that responsibility begins to extend to the activities of
others-his intimates, his household, devotees in the Ashram,
and in varying degrees all those whom he contacts.

In the ‘Hearing Condition’ one suddenly Shines
forth, free of the limitations of the left and right sides
and the mechanics of experience. It is pure Feeling or
Blissfulness, pure Consciousness or Happiness, without
knowledge, without any definition.

It is free of all of the limitations of experiential
knowledge and conception. It no longer has any such
problems. Its fundamental Condition is obvious, but not
really speakable.

All the aspects of one’s life becomes observable,
and you can presume responsibility for them and act
whole bodily in our relations in every moment, as
God-Communion. In such practice of Real Life, th(e)
body-mind becomes purified, balanced, and clarified. It
becomes healthy in the truest sense.

When the ego (or self-contraction) is understood and
transcended, then Nature is seen from the point of view of
Wisdom. And, in that case, the egoic struggle in Nature or
against Nature is also understood and transcended. Then the
Way of life ceases to be founded on the need to destroy the
dynamic of Nature via conventional knowledge, power,
immortality, or mystical escape. The world is no longer
conceived as a drama of warfare between Good and Evil. The
righteousness of the search for the Good as a means of
self-preservation disappears along with the self-indulgent
and self-destructive negativity of possession by Evil. In
place of this dilemma of opposites, a self-transcending and
world-transcending (or Nature-transcending) equanimity
appears. And in that equanimity there is an inherent
Radiance that transcends the egoic dualities of Good and
Evil (or the conventional polarities of the self in Nature).
It is the Radiance of Love. And in that Free Radiance,
energy and attention are inherently free from the ego-bond,
self-contraction, or the “gravitational effect” of
phenomenal self-awareness. Therefore, dynamic equanimity, or
the free disposition of Love (rather than the egoic
disposition in the modes of Good or Evil), is the “window”
through which God may be “seen” (or intuited)-not in the
conventional mode of Creator, Good, Other, or Heavenly
Place, but as the Real, or the tacitly obvious Condition of
all existence.

The Argument and the
self-Contraction

Once the
argument has been considered, felt, and lived, the
devotee is convicted. He is convicted of his love for the
Teacher and he is convicted of the necessity of the Teaching
and of right action for the rest of his life. Then he has
heard the Teaching, he is prepared, and he approaches the
Divine Master in Divine Communion.

When that contraction
is seen in the moment of self-observation
– not in the moment of self-watching, because then there is
a self and all you do feel is the contraction – but when the
contraction is seen, when it is really observed, then you
not only see the whole life contracting through all of its
mechanisms, but you see what precedes it. You see
contraction relative to the whole pattern of existence. You
do not just feel contracted. You see this contraction, you
see the great space in which it is occurring, you see it as
an event, and thus you realize what is prior to that event.
You become responsible for it when you know it as an event,
and you cannot do it anymore. In consciousness you live as
what precedes that contraction, and thus through the Siddhi
that is Consciousness you may in every moment undo the
limitation of your tendency.

The sign of true hearing in the devotee is an ease in
life – the disciplines become natural and clear, his life
becomes unclouded and responsive, he is capable of
functioning, speaking, thinking, acting, and loving, he is a
disciplined and religious person. He is not merely
disciplined in the traditional way of living according to a
conventional law – don’t do this, don’t do that, like the
traditional yamas and niyamas that we talked about earlier –
but he is disciplined as a natural response to ordinary
life. He enjoys a natural asceticism or easeful economy in
the midst of ordinary activities. He neither exploits life
nor limits it. The signs of preparation or hearing are a
natural approach to the Teaching and clarity.

Everyone who hears the Teaching enters into this
Enlightened disposition in some fundamental sense.

Those who hear me are not self-concerned anymore. They
already possess the arms of wisdom. They already enjoy the
Siddhi of the Divine and deal with whatever may arise in the
apparent individual experience. They do that creatively and
responsibly, but they do not stand as fear. So, where is
their attention? Their attention is free. It deals freely
with personal circumstance and is not troubled. It is to be
thrown out of the sphere of the body into the environment of
all relations and all possibilities, the environment of
total existence, not merely of self-existence.

Until there is hearing, until the Argument “makes its
point in you,” practice cannot begin. In hearing you
transcend the self-contraction and are restored to Satsang.

Hearing liberates energy and attention from the egoic
body-mind and to the Process that is the Way. Thus, those
who hear also begin to hear more and more. Understanding
arises when there is true hearing and self-observation in
relationship.

Hearing is continuous insight into the self-contraction,
allowing us to abide in the disposition which is radically
free of the self-knot.

Understanding is insight into the very mechanism of your
existence that is duplicated in all your actions and
experiences. Through such insight you inherently transcend
the lie or the binding power of that mechanism (The lie is
that its psychic aspect represents an independent being-that
is, an elusive…specific soul that is separate and
independent). This insight into the mechanism of
Narcissus, or awakening into the attitude of Ignorance, is
the fundamental Teaching, and the fundamental practice is
the “conscious
process,” whereby insight is expressed moment to moment.
You must enjoy insight into the mechanism, the action, the
presumption that makes existence into a torment. You must
remember That which you are always denying.

To hear the Teaching means that you hear Me, because the
Teaching did not fall out of the sky. Then you can live with
Me in Spiritual terms. To hear the Teaching means to be
established in a relationship with Me.

Having heard, you must see Me, you must live with Me, you
must practice in my Company. That is the secret of this Way
of Life – not to be self-involved, not just to have a mental
understanding, but to live with Me directly.

True “hearing” occurs when the soul flashes forward, when
it is Awakened. When devotee is not at odds with Teaching,
his intimates, and Teacher. When the devotee is no longer at
odds with the Teaching, when he is no longer at odds with
his intimates, when he is no longer at odds with the
Teacher, then hearing is beginning.

Understanding prepares us for Spirit-Baptism (Seeing).
Without Spirit-Baptism there is no spiritual life.
Therefore, you who deny me and are so self-possessed must
understand that the essence of my Teaching is the Transmission
of Spirit. This Transmission Intoxicates you, but if you
have not understood yourself, you cannot use my
Spirit-Blessing. You will shut It down. Therefore, you are
only prepared to practice in Truth when you have used my
Teaching to the point of understanding.

The only thing that prevents the sublimity of
Spirit-Communion in every moment of existence is the simple
mechanism of self-contraction. You must hear me, therefore.
You must observe the self-contraction and understand it so
thoroughly that it is not happening to you anymore, so that
you recognize it as your own action, so that you can enquire
of it or meditate beyond it or feel into the Life-Current,
the Divine that is beyond it, in your daily life. That is
the capability you must regenerate in yourself. It does not
exist in you now because you have habituated yourself to
shutting out the Force of God.

You discover that you are already free, and Happy. Life
is enjoyed from the point of view of understanding. There
are difficulties – as always – and practice remains your
test as well as your obligation. But in your hearing, the
“problem” orientation is undone and instead, understanding
is brought to the events of life.

When you are living the disciplines of practice that the
Spiritual Master has given you, when you are living them in
the spirit of Satsang, in the spirit of the Teaching, simply
practicing in ordinary terms. Thus, when you are seated in
the dimension of consciousness itself, not in the seat of
the brain as a strategic position, you suddenly grasp the
entire play that is your humanity. When you are free of all
manipulative exercise, you are like a mirror to your own
event, and the process of your life shows itself to you in
instant comprehension.

From the point of view of the true disciple, there is
no significance to the patterns. There is no significance.
“Significance” is your dilemma. It is the pattern of your
own mind-forms.

Hearing is knowing, we are always already “there.” This
is it. There is no dilemma. There is only one Reality,
presently. It is not somewhere else. It is not hidden within
us, nor behind the world. It is obvious. Satsang is the
condition of Reality, consciously lived. It is lived to you,
within you, as you, along with you. It is that real
condition lived as life, as a pressure upon the disciple.
The Guru lives it to him, until it begins to become obvious,
until it begins to become intelligent in him. But all he
will have realized, after all, is the obvious. The nature of
the rising event, the apparent condition, becomes clear. It
becomes obvious to him that his dilemma is his own activity.
He sees that in fact there is no dilemma. There is nothing
about the present that is not Truth.

Observation, or insight, which is fundamentally the same
thing, lasts only when it is perfect, because only when is
is perfect does it include all other possibilities that
maybe observed, and therefore it goes on and on and on.

Any moment of self-observation cannot last, because
something else arises, and you must be present in the next
moment. It is only when the whole affair of self-observation
and insight becomes summary, conclusive, total comprehension
of fundamentally what you are as an activity, only then can
it appear as a real responsibility in consciousness. The
whole affair of self-observation ultimately becomes summary
and conclusive. It becomes comprehension.

Find the Company of Truth. Hear the Teaching of Truth.
Become intimate altogether with the One that is
Truth.

When the mechanics of egoity are transcended in our
understanding, then it becomes obvious that life (or
manifest phenomenal existence) is simply a play of
opposites. Neither “Good” (or creation and preservation) nor
“Evil” (or destruction) finally wins. Nature, in all its
planes, is inherently a dynamic. The play of Nature, in all
its forms and beings and processes, is not merely (or
exclusively and finally) seeking the apparent “Good” of
self-preservation (or the preservation and fulfillment of
any particular form, world, or being), nor is it merely (or
exclusively and finally) seeking the apparent “Evil” of
self-destruction (or the dissolution of any particular form,
world, or being). Rather, the play in Nature is always in
the direction of perpetuating the dynamics of the play
itself-and, therefore, polarity, opposition, struggle,
alternation, death, and cyclic repetition tend to be
perpetuated in the characteristics of phenomenal existence.
Therefore, the play of Nature is always alternating between
the appearance of dominance by one or the other of its two
basic extremes. And the sign of this is the inherent
struggle that involves every form, being, and process. The
struggle is this dynamic play of opposites, but the import
of it is not the absolute triumph of either half. Things and
beings and processes arise, they move, they are transformed,
and they disappear. No thing or being or process is
ultimately preserved. But neither is there any absolute
destruction. Nature is a transformer, not merely a creator
or a destroyer.

Ignorance.

Understanding cannot be understood. There either is
understanding or there is not.

Mere observation is not a condition in itself. It does
not turn toward or in on itself. It is tacitly disposed to
whatever arises, if anything arises, subjective or
objective. It is not a method that can be taken up in order
to control or watch arising events. It is not a strategy. It
is not itself identified with any problem. It is simply our
natural, present disposition when we are “hearing,” that is,
when we are simply at rest in the intuitive presumption of
Ignorance,
rather than any subjective form, any experience, any
condition, any kind of knowledge.

True observation is present in random (not strategic)
self-observation. Observation is true only in the
effortless, native moment, in which Divine Ignorance is the
obvious Condition of self and all conditions. True
observation does not merely confront or perceive a
condition-rather, it is priorly free of that condition, and,
therefore, intuitively recognizes it, feels it without
obstruction, and dissolves (through non-reinforcement) its
limiting and binding force. True observation is identical to
Divine Ignorance, and, therefore, it acquires no knowledge
by association with conditions, but abides as no mind, no
experience, formless, pristine, and void. Thus, from
observation, or free attention, which is identical to Divine
Ignorance, springs the force of love, or unobstructed
feeling, which is identical to Divine Radiance.

True or intuitive observation cannot itself be intended.
It is itself native to us at every moment. It is mere or
free attention, or natural awareness of all events, within
and without. It is always already true of us and as us, but
we are free to be present as such mere awareness or mere
presence only when we are intuitively free of identification
with all forms of subjective motion, distraction or
knowledge.

In every moment of active understanding, the independent
“I” dissolves – by becoming identical to the body. When the
self-contraction is transcended on the bases of
understanding, the knowing “I” is replaced by Ignorance, or
the consciousness. Consciousness is Ignorance, or That which
is intuited prior to all knowing.

The fundamental life of understanding does not begin
until there is insight from the point of view of the
fundamental activity and proposition of your life, which has
you seeking always, but never fundamentally being
transformed, because that sensation, that quality, is the
principle of your seeking. No magic from without works that
transformation. The Guru serves that transformation, but if
you don’t become intelligent in Satsang, the genius of the
Guru makes no difference whatsoever. Understanding must take
place in your case. No shaktis, no philosophy, no marvelous
influence is greater than that, nothing transcends that. All
those experiences and occupations are just consolations,
distractions from falling in upon that fundamental activity.
When God becomes your condition, nothing you’re doing makes
any sense whatsoever. You become a happy person. You don’t
have any more seeking to do. You don’t have anything more to
accomplish. You just become already happy. You know that
nothing is going to make you happy, and you know very well
then that nothing is going to make anybody else happy
either. Either they are fundamentally and unreasonably
happy, or they are simply unhappy. Perhaps consoled,
occupied, distracted, but basically unhappy.

Until the devotee begins to grasp some basic
understanding of his ultimate Condition, he is exploitable
by individuals who arbitrarily assume a creative power and
authority beyond his own. So most men and women, who work in
an organization or ashram who don’t understand are
constantly exploited by all kinds of shrewd, honest and also
deluded people who are really in charge of his or her
political, social, and intimate life.

Adi Da – edited and
adapted by Beezone

We are at the dead end of the ancient ways, and we are
suffering from the inability to move fully into our right
human, and immortal destiny. Only an enlightened and
liberated understanding of our old cultural and subhuman
presumptions will permit us to yield to Life bodily, in
love, and so move on in the Way of God.

If you had half a wit, reading The Knee of Listening
would have changed your life! But you do not like the
implications of The Knee of Listening because it indicates
that you must change.

I attest to this with every cell of my body. I affirm it
with all my heart. I plead with you to consider it fully and
resort to a new Way of Life.