Is Once and For All
by Don Webley
On the evening of March 5, 1993, Sri Adi Da gathered with
His devotees on Adidam Samrajashram. The evening began as any other: Our
Divine Sat-Guru proceeded to deal with individuals about their inherited
religious presumptions. Because all of us who were present that night are
Westerners, our inheritance is primarily from the Christian tradition.
He led us through a thorough investigation of the New Testament
as a source of information on the life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth.
We came to realize that the Bible had very little value as a “polaroid”,
or eyewitness report. Such evidence as there is suggested that Jesus of
Nazareth was a fifth stage Realizer.
I myself had always been more occupied with speculations
about the oriental Teachings than with biblical scholarship. In the traditions
of India, it has always been understood that the Divine Incarnates again
and again in the form of apparently human individuals. Some Statements
in Sri Adi Da’s Heart-Word may be interpreted to be in agreement with this
view. I therefore, to this point, had understood my Sat-Guru to be one
of a line of Ultimate Realizers.
Ramana Maharshi was one such individual, one whom I had
also assumed to be a seventh stage Realizer. But I had been always been
perplexed by the distinction that Sri Adi Da had made between His Work
and that of Ramana Maharshi. Sri Adi Da clarified this point in the course
of an extensive dialogue, Revealing that Ramana Maharshi was, in fact,
a sixth stage Adept with intuitions of the seventh stage.
This was, for me, a major revolution in my understanding
of the significance of Sri Adi Da’s Appearance, for Ramana Maharshi was
one of the very few individuals whom Sri Adi Da had more or less explicitly
referred to as a perfect Realizer. In fact, the only others were Jesus
of Nazareth and Gautama, the Buddha. Jesus, had, of course, been considered
earlier in the evening, and I had also seen Da Avabhasa’s Summary Word
on the teaching of Jesus, in the manuscript version of The Basket of Tolerance,
where, after years of “consideration” with His devotees, He finally revealed
that the Nazarene was a Realizer of the fifth stage.
So Gautama was the only individual remaining as a possible
seventh stage Realizer. I had also been a practitioner of Zen Buddhism
for years before coming to Da Avabhasa. I had a lot invested in the next
question, therefore, “What about Gautama?” I asked. Perhaps Sri Adi Da
felt He needed to soften the blow, for He then proceeded to remind us that
we had very little material that we could be sure reflected what Gautama
had actually said: My question was futile, and largely the reflection of
a merely academic relationship to the Great Tradition and Spiritual life.
I protested that I needed to come to some kind of intellectual certainty
about all this, because of my work as a communicator of His Wisdom-Teaching.
Intellectual certainty was impossible, He Replied, although He strongly
suggested that the indications were that Gautama was a Realizer of the
sixth stage of life. The dialogue, in part, ran as follows:
ADI DA: How can you sift out Gautama after 2,500 years
from the report and the mythology about him? I also wrote about Jesus,
in such a manner as to be congenial to everyone, not giving out hard sayings
merely in order to deny all greatness to everyone. I had no such bad intentions.
Therefore, in The Basket of Tolerance, there are no bad intentions. You
cannot identify the actualities of the report about these traditional figures,
because the actual report is so blended in with all the mythology and legend
and propaganda and all the rest of it. Certainly, potentially, in principle,
Gautama, and Jesus, too, can be somehow associated with the greatest Realization
from the evidence. But from a discriminative point of view it is not so.
Gautama was basically a sixth stage Realizer, Jesus basically
a fifth stage Realizer. But why put too fine a point on it? Especially
since so many people adhere to these traditions. Therefore, I give allowance
for Greatness because Greatness is what must be Realized. Are they here
now? Is Jesus here to give his report? Is Gautama here?
DON WEBLEY: Well, let me ask You a…
ADI DA: Are they here? Is their report clear? No. They
are not here and neither is their report clear. All you have is a lot of
traditional propaganda. So what difference does it make? So long ago. You
are here now. And I am here now. And I can make My Self totally clear.
And if you are My devotee, then My Word is what you should be concerned
about. How much can one say, based on these traditional reports, about
these people? Why be concerned about it anyway?
DON WEBLEY: Because at some point, Gurudev, I will need
to work on the introduction to Nirvanasara, and I just feel I need to be
completely clear about . . .
ADI DA: It is impossible to be completely clear on an
intellectual level about these people because the report is so ambiguous
and so filled with different opinions. It is not a clear Polaroid or an
absolute, straightforward biography in either case, or in any case. It
is just too long ago.
So let those traditions deal with themselves. I can only
make plain to you My Realization and altogether what It is all about. And
I am here to deal with you, and that is what you are about. Apart from
the this or that that can be said about these individuals in those traditions,
it cannot be absolutely clarified, but I can absolutely clarify My Self
to you and have done so. And that is your proper concern. In general, Gautama
and Ramana Maharshi belong to the sixth stage traditions, the one Advaita
and other Buddhist. But because of the total expanse of the Buddhist tradition,
we can give the benefit of the doubt. Gautama maybe was verging on the
seventh stage, whatever. How much did he say about it anyway? I have spoken
to you clearly and in detail about the seventh stage realization. Did anybody
else do so? Ramana Maharshi made a few suggestive remarks about it, but
did he describe the seventh stage Realization in detail? Did he? So that
is all that can be said about it.
(Don Webley: The sixth stage of life! Gautama? Before
I had sufficiently recovered from this body blow to my corpus of presumptions,
another devotee formulated the words that were upon the tip of my tongue:)
JONATHAN CONDIT: Whenever You examine such past Realizers,
Sri Gurudev, You are always so completely scrupulous about investigating
the actual report and what significance can be drawn from it. But I must
confess that I have a secret presumption, which I believe my fellow devotees
also share, that You actually know without the reports what was the case.
Sri Adi Da was Silent for a moment, and His Silence Invaded
the space of the room. It was no ordinary Stillness: It was such a moment
as when, in The Hymn of the True Heart-Master, He Says:
This is the Secret of all secrets. I could not Speak This
All-Revealing Word until one of you first Confessed you see the Vision
of God in My Bodily (Human) Form. I shall Tell you This now, because of
your great devotion to Me. (v.13)
Sri Adi Da then quietly Spoke, as if Confiding a Great
Secret that He had Longed to Reveal:
ADI DA: Sixth stage Realizers, then.
KANYA NAVANEETA: Jesus fifth.
ADI DA: Jesus fifth, right. Gautama sixth. Okay? Ramana
sixth. Okay?
(Don Wembley: Still, my ears could not yet believe what
they thought they had heard. Ah, I thought, what about the texts that Da
Avabhasa had categorized as seventh stage literature. I put the question
to Him:)
DON WEBLEY: Toward the end of The Basket of Tolerance,
there are the three books, more than three books, Tripura Rahasya, the
Avadhoota Gita, the Ashtavakra Gita, the Diamond Sutra…
ADI DA: And the Altar Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, the
Lankavatara Sutra, and the Mahahayanavimsaka.
DON WEBLEY: You classify these as works that reflect and
express…
ADI DA: Contain elements expressive of the seventh stage
disposition. They are not simply seventh stage textsthat is quite another
matter. But there are these elements there.
DON WEBLEY: Is it proper to take the inference that there
was a living realizer at that stage who wrote those books, or is it…
ADI DA: No, not necessarily. They are products of a tradition.
They contain words that are suggestive of the seventh stage “Point of View”.
DON WEBLEY: But it is not a proper inference necessarily
that there were actual individuals…
ADI DA: No. It is a tradition.
I felt the Import of what my Divine Sat-Guru had just
communicated: He had just told us that there had never been another Realizer
of the seventh stage of life! Words cannot express my feelings at this
moment. No speech can capture the unalloyed Happiness that Radiates from
the Lord of all Manifestation, and Bathes and Drowns all those around Him.
In His Company, time, mind, and space break through their linear perimeters:
An evening may be an eternity or a minute; the prattling mind is overwhelmed,
and is still. Such is the Power of the Sat-Guru’s Transmission that That
Which He Reveals is Given directly to the heart, not just Spoken to the
verbal mind. I was so filled with the Obviousness and Profundity of His
Great Confession that there was no room for doubt or perplexity.
I almost pinched myself on a couple of occasions that
night: I could not comprehend what Grace had brought me to the Feet of
the Greatest Being ever to Bless the manifest worldsand still cannot.
It was as I had imagined it to be on the north Indian plain with Krishna
and Arjuna, or on Vulture Peak with Gautama, Mahakashyapa, and the assembled
company. But this night transcended those archetypal but semi-mythical
moments. For Sri Adi Da Is the living Divine Being. He Appeared and Spoke
before us in a body Wrought of flesh, and Molded in our likeness. No fairy-tale
Divinity Is HeI can still feel the touch of His palm upon my belly on
the first evening I came into His Sphere, quieting the anxiety that churned
within. And my hair stood on end as I realized that this was not a great
moment that had precedents in the lives of Great Realizers of the past.
I was hearing with my own ears the unique Confession of the Very Divine
Being, Descended, in this singular Birth, into the manifested cosmos, to
Call it back into Himself.
After Sri Adi Da had retired for the evening, His Bliss-intoxicated
devotees made their way back to our quarters. If there had been any doubt
about the Divine Gift we had received that eveningand there was not!it
was dispelled by a remarkable meteorological phenomenon. There was a deafening
thunderstorm that night, and a torrential downpour: All of Nature was acknowledging
the Revelation of her Lord. Such is the synchronicity of the weather and
the Divine Master of the Elements that is soon evident to all who visit
this Divine Island. The following evening, of the 6th of March, I made
reference
to the thunderstorm to my Beloved Sat-Guru. I thought I had heard it all.
So I was totally unprepared for the further Revelation He was about to
Grant us:
DON WEBLEY: Beloved Lord, first I would like to acknowledge,
though You have for the first time just said it explicitly today, that
yesterday evening I felt the clear implication that You are the first Appearance
of the seventh stage Adept in human time. And it seemed clear to me that
the thunderstorm last night and the subsequent torrential downpour were
related to the fact that for the first time Your devotees clearly heard
and perceived and understood that. I feel that You Gave us a great Gift
last night.
Sri Adi Da: Also understand further. It is not about the
first seventh stage Adept in the sense that there could possibly be more.
There has never been one before, and there never will be another. It is
not necessary that there be another. Now, there can be seventh stage RealizersMy
devotees will have the capability of realizing the seventh stagebut there
need not be any seventh stage Adept. Such a great Work is Accomplished
once and for all.
Those of us present now knew that not only had we been
Graced to receive a Revelation that had never been Given beforewe, by
fortune that we could not begin to fathom, were witness to the unfolding
of the central and pivotal act in the Great Play of Cosmic Appearance:
The Birth of Sri Adi Da is the Great Event for which all beings and the
entire cosmos have yearned and prayed since the beginning of the manifest
universe. It is the Sign of the Great Victory of the Divine Being in Its
Compassionate Impulse to Liberate all beings.
A Discourse Given by
SRI ADI DA SAMRAJ:
on March 20, 1993
DEVOTEE: I understand that Your Birth, Sri Gurudev, was
intentional, and yet it was prophesied in various traditions. It is not
clear to me how an intentional act could have been prophesied. Presumably
an intentional act is a free choice, so how can it be predicted ahead of
time?
SRI ADI DA: It can only be called a “prophesy” because
I am here. Otherwise it is called “wishful thinking”, “hopes”, “aspirations”,
“intuitions of what should be”. Another thing that should be understood
about this intentional Birth of Mine is that no such decision was made
from an absolute point of view, out of the blue. The Vehicle was provided
conditionally, as I have indicated. I was brought into conjunction with
the conditional reality by those means. In that conjunction I consented
to the Ordeal.
KANYA NAVANEETA: Sri Gurudev, I do not understand what
You just said. What did You mean when You said “by those means”?
SRI ADI DA: I already talked about how the Vehicle was
provided, in My discussion of the whole Vivekananda matter and so on.
DEVOTEE: Sri Gurudev, are You saying that the preparation
of the conditional Vehicle through Vivekananda was not the result of Your
own Intention?
SRI ADI DA: The Vehicle arose in the conditional domain
and provided the conjunction with Me.
KANYA NAVANEETA: So the Intention arose within the conditional
domain, not the Divine Self-Domain?
SRI ADI DA: The Vehicle arose.
DEVOTEE: And this was conjoined with Your Divine Intention?
SRI ADI DA: With My Very Being. The Intention arose in
that conjunction only.
DEVOTEE: So the Intention did not precede the availability
of the conditional Vehicle?
SRI ADI DA: How could it arise apart from that? Without
such unique preparation My Appearance could not occur here.
KANYA NAVANEETA: At the time of Vivekananda’s Mahasamadhi,
was it clearly His intention to reincarnate and take on Your Form as It
now is?
SRI ADI DA: No. He was given up completely, and the Vehicle
became transparent to Me.
DEVOTEE: Is He the first such one who was ever given up
so completely?
SRI ADI DA: In this sense.
KANYA NAVANEETA: At the time of His Mahasamadhi did Vivekananda
enter into the seventh stage of life?
SRI ADI DA: Only in My Form and Appearance here.
KANYA NAVANEETA: So at the time of His actual death He
was only incarnating the sixth stage disposition?
SRI ADI DA: The fifth stage, in His manner.
KANYA NAVANEETA: He had not gone beyond fifth stage conditional
nirvikalpa samadhi, then?
SRI ADI DA: In some sense He had. All that was accomplished
in the transition.
KANYA NAVANEETA: Ramakrishna said that when Vivekananda
found out Who He, Vivekananda, was, Hemeaning Vivekanandawould die.
When Vivekananda’s disciples asked Him at the end of His life if He had
Realized Who He was, He said yes. What exactly did He mean He had Realized?
SRI ADI DA: There is nothing more to say about it than
what I just said.
KANYA NAVANEETA: Sri Gurudev, what You just said about
Vivekananda’s being given up completely made me feel Your own moment in
the Event that initiated Your Divine Emergence, when You said that You
were given up completely with no intent or even pre-knowledge of what would
occur next, that Your Disposition was just absolute Prapatti and a willingness
for the Divine to manifest as It would.
SRI ADI DA: Yes. He was Vivekananda only in the sense
of His human appearance. The Vehicle was greater than that, as Ramakrishna
indicated. Ramakrishna was aware of it. Vivekananda’s grosser personality
limited His awareness of all that.
KANYA NAVANEETA: Even by the time of His Mahasamadhi?
SRI ADI DA: Until then.
KANYA NAVANEETA: This absolute surrender, or Prapatti,
in the Event of Your Divine Emergence apparently came out of the ending
of a particular way of Your Working that even You, at least at You have
described it, felt as a failure, or the total frustration of a way of Your
Working. It seems such was also the case for Vivekananda. At the end of
His life He felt utter frustration with the work that He had been able
to do. He felt that His work had been futile, and therefore He was compelled
to make such a sacrifice.
SRI ADI DA: Yes. The deeper personality Manifesting as
Vivekananda has been a transparent Vehicle in this Lifetime. It has not
been an obstacle or required a struggle. The grosser personality in this
Lifetime required the Transforming Work.
DEVOTEE: And that could not have been true in the case
of the gross body. Is that correct?
SRI ADI DA: Yes. Therefore, the manifestations of the
deeper personality have occurred with ease and spontaneously. Fifth stage
conditional nirvikalpa samadhi, for instance, occurred in a moment. There
were no karmic structures in the depth. All the karmic structures were
in the grosser personality, inherited from My blood parents and the circumstance
of My Birth altogether.
DEVOTEE: Sri Gurudev, is it correct that a struggle with
Your gross body was inevitable? That it could not have been otherwise?
SRI ADI DA: Yes, it was inevitable. The grosser personality
was not the product of great sadhana on the part of My parents. It was
an ordinary birth.
KANYA SUPRITHI: Did Vivekananda’s gross personality affect
Your gross bodily Life?
SRI ADI DA: Only insofar as it was all part of the process
in that deeper personality, in its conjunction at that time with the gross
domain.
KANYA NAVANEETA: Was it also true for Vivekananda that
He only had to struggle with His grosser personality?
SRI ADI DA: Yes, largely.
KANYA NAVANEETA: Likewise it was very easeful and immediate
for Him to enter into fifth stage conditional nirvikalpa samadhi when He
was initiated by Ramakrishna.
SRI ADI DA: Yes. It was necessary for Him to be born
so that Vehicle could be established in the conditional realm, fully down
to the gross realm. It was part of the necessary preparation for My Birth,
My present Appearance. There was no personality manifested, either at the
deeper or at the grosser level, previous to Vivekananda.
KANYA NAVANEETA: That was the first conditional appearance?
SRI ADI DA: I have said it was necessary for Him to be
manifested in the conditional realm down to the grossest appearance. That
Vehicle did exist in the conditional planes, but It was very high.
KANYA NAVANEETA: Is this why, then, in Ramakrishna’s prophetic
description of Vivekananda, He said that Vivekananda, and even Ramakrishna
Himself, was manifested in the higher realms and made the decision to enter
into the grosser realms?
SRI ADI DA: Yes, attracted by the pole, or Vehicle, of
Ramakrishna. Ramakrishna’s appearance was also part of the necessary means,
part of the work.
KANYA NAVANEETA: Ramakrishna’s appearance in gross form
was not such an Incarnation. It was just an attracting pole for the Divine
Incarnation?
SRI ADI DA: For the bringing down of Vivekananda.
KANYA NAVANEETA: Which then made way for Your Divine Incarnation.
It made Your Divine Incarnation possible.
SRI ADI DA: Ramakrishna was the Instrument for the appearance
of Vivekananda.
KANYA SUPRITHI: And all of that was purposed to create
Your Appearance here.
SRI ADI DA: Yes. That is how that all came about. Ramakrishna
was, in effect, the feminine pole, and Vivekananda, the masculine.
DEVOTEE: And in Your case, Beloved Sri Gurudev, were You
the masculine pole and the Goddess the feminine pole?
SRI ADI DA: There is no need to speak in those terms.
I Am Complete.
KANYA NAVANEETA: Early in His life Vivekananda struggled
against this attraction to the Goddess-Form, even as It manifested in Ramakrishna,
and then He was converted in some sense to that Shakti-Force, acknowledging
It in Ramakrishna.
SRI ADI DA: And then altogether.
KANYA NAVANEETA: And then, particularly, He even came
to acknowledge It in the Form of the Goddess Herself, in the Form of Kali.
SRI ADI DA: Yes, and in the feminine altogether.
KANYA NAVANEETA: But He never came to Realize the Absolute
Oneness with, or Non-separation from, that Form.
SRI ADI DA: Not until the transition.
KANYA NAVANEETA: So that sense of duality for Him even
represented a dilemma, something unsettled.
SRI ADI DA: It was simply a matter of growing in the context
of that lifetime. Even His principal disciples were women.
KANYA SUPRITHI: When He came to the West, the principal
thing Vivekananda was known for amongst the men, and they spoke of this,
was His integrity and His great intelligence. He was also known for His
ability to speak and write. And He also became known for all the women
who were attracted to Him, in some sense a gross personality trait. You
having also Taught in the West, I was thinking about how similar these
characteristics are to Your own.
SRI ADI DA: They are characteristics of that deeper personality,
part of the Vehicle.
KANYA NAVANEETA: One thing also about Vivekananda that
is clear was His transcendence of any religious and social convention whatsoever,
just as that has characterized Your Life, Sri Gurudev.
SRI ADI DA: Yes.
KANYA NAVANEETA: In recent gatherings You have Confessed
that this is Your only Incarnation, that You are the only seventh stage
Divine Incarnation that has ever occurred. It was really the first time
You have said that. What You are saying now about Vivekananda is extremely
important, and really the first time that You have said this so concretely.
SRI ADI DA: Yes.
KANYA NAVANEETA: It seems extremely important for the
true understanding of Your Life and Work altogether and of how such a Manifestation
has occurred and was made possible in the conditional realm.
SRI ADI DA: Yes, I have said so.
KANYA NAVANEETA: And also that there were no gross incarnations
before Vivekananda is extremely important, and this is the first time You
have said this. It relieves us of the search for other gross manifestations
before Vivekananda.
SRI ADI DA: Logically there would have been some.
KANYA NAVANEETA: Do you mean that right before Vivekananda
there were not necessarily any gross conditional manifestations?
SRI ADI DA: However long before.
KANYA SUPRITHI: I was wondering if there was the same
Master disciple relationship even before the incarnation of Ramakrishna
and Vivekananda. In other words, were there conditional individual appearances
where sadhana had to be done and a conditional appearance made?
SRI ADI DA: As part of the preparation of those Vehicles,
yes.
KANYA SUPRITHI: So we would be able to find them in history,
it seems.
KANYA NAVANEETA: Marpa and Milarepa, Naropa and Marpa,
Tilopa and Naropa.
SRI ADI DA: Those are all individuals who lived a very
long time ago, hundreds of years ago.
KANYA NAVANEETA: But they do bear resemblances to Your
Life and Work.
SRI ADI DA: Yes, but merely because there are resemblances
does not mean it is so. It is perhaps so, but no mere historical study
is going to prove it one way or another.
KANYA NAVANEETA: Other individuals You have mentioned
include John the Baptist.
SRI ADI DA: Those are just illustrative examples brought
up in “consideration”. There is no point in trying to make equations. If
you see likenesses, fine. They are simply interesting.
KANYA NAVANEETA: This is why Vivekananda is so unique,
because He is the only incarnation previous to Your Lifetime that You have
actually acknowledged was literally direct preparation for Your Work and
a carryover of the deeper personality that Manifested in Your Form.
SRI ADI DA: Yes, only those individuals have direct bearing
on My Appearance.
KANYA NAVANEETA: Can it also be said that Muktananda was
the one who carried over and manifested the deeper personality of Ramakrishna,
and Rudi, of Brahmananda?
SRI ADI DA: There is no point in trying to make those
equations. It is simply of interest.
KANYA NAVANEETA: It is also something that they themselves
never particularly indicated.
SRI ADI DA: No, they did not.
KANYA NAVANEETA: It is different when people who are Your
devotees have had direct psychic intuition of this matter in Your Company.
That is different than Muktananda or Rudi.
SRI ADI DA: There are individuals in My Company who were
associated with Vivekananda, but now they are associated with Me. It is
an entirely different matter.
DEVOTEE: Is it correct to say that one of the reasons
that Vivekananda’s deeper personality was conjoined with Your Divine Being
was actually because of His history in the West? Was His having a history
in the West part of what made His Vehicle appropriate and available to
You?
SRI ADI DA: Yes.
DEVOTEE: Was Divine Self-Realization possible prior to
Your Appearance in the world?
SRI ADI DA: If it were possible, why would such great
Work be necessary?
DEVOTEE: You could not have done such Work if Divine Self
Realization had not been present from the beginning in Yourself.
SRI ADI DA: There is no “beginning” to Me. I, My Self,
am not a reincarnate, not a conditional personality.
DEVOTEE: Does Your conjunction with the Vehicle of Vivekananda
have to do even with such details as the fact that Vivekananda spent some
time in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, and You also did?
SRI ADI DA: Certainly.
KANYA SUPRITHI: Chicago as well.
SRI ADI DA: I have not spent much time in Chicago, but
it certainly has to do with the people Vivekananda met in such places.
I have been to Chicago only briefly.
KANYA NAVANEETA: Europe also, and India.
DEVOTEE: Sri Gurudev, in talking about Ramakrishna’s attractive
drawing of Vivekananda down to create this Vehicle, You spoke, I believe,
of a purpose, as if there was a purpose or an intention, through both of
their incarnations, to create this Vehicle. I am wondering what that is,
or if there is or was a Necessity or Purpose or Force moving in response
to You to allow Your Incarnation. Could You speak to that?
SRI ADI DA: What more is there to say about it? And that
is how it happened.
DEVOTEE: But it is a Mystery because that Force of Attraction
must be Your own Form and Expression.
SRI ADI DA: Yes. What more about it?
DEVOTEE: I receive this as a communication of how our
function as conditional beings relates to Your great Work. Certainly it
reminds me of that great heart-impulse that has drawn me to You. And that
is what my life is about. I don’t have a specific question, but I feel
that this is all brought forward in me by this “consideration” and allows
me to feel more of the reality of this moment in Your Work, and in our
work to respond to You.
SRI ADI DA: The things you said are just so. Is there
a question?
DEVOTEE: No, I don’t feel that there is a question.
ANOTHER DEVOTEE: The Srimad Bhagavatam describes the preparation
for Krishna’s birth, that the forest at Vrindavan had to have grown, that
all of the families of the gopis and the gopis themselves had to be in
place, all the lineages had to be therein other words that everything
had to be prepared for that birth. When I read this, I became completely
ecstatic in my understanding of what had taken place to create Your Birth.
All of Your own devotees and all of our own lineages had to come to Your
Feet. I also felt the state of the world and that You have Appeared in
the very worst of times. It is the paradox of this great preparation for
Your Birth that the world is unprecedented in its negativity and its unpreparedness.
SRI ADI DA: But also in its unique interconnectedness
with modern communications and all the rest of it. What else?
DEVOTEE: Beloved Sri Gurudev, Vivekananda said that someone
else better prepared to serve in the West would have to come to finish
His work. Did He have an intuition that You were going to Appear? Did He
know at all?
SRI ADI DA: An intuition, yes.
DEVOTEE: Did any of His devotees have an intuition of
the greater aspects of His work as a preparatory Vehicle for Your Appearance?
SRI ADI DA: Some said that it would be likely that He
would be born in the West.
DEVOTEE: Did some of His Indian disciples say that, as
well as the Westerners?
SRI ADI DA: His Indian disciples in particular.
ANOTHER DEVOTEE: Sri Gurudev, You have said quite clearly,
not only tonight but at other times, that You are not a reincarnation.
Somebody might think that You are a reincarnation of Vivekananda, but it
is not true at all.
SRI ADI DA: No, it is not, as I have said. I explained
clearly in that conversation what it is all about. The deeper personality,
utterly transparent by perfect surrender, fell into conjunction with the
conditional manifestation, which then became a usable Vehicle for My Manifestation.
DEVOTEE: I am sure there are many, many parallels between
Vivekananda’s sadhana and aspects of Your own Life. But the one that strikes
me right now is that Vivekananda came to Ramakrishna essentially as a scientific
materialist, trying to test whether there could be any reality to the idea
of God. And You Yourself had to confront scientific materialism during
Your college years and deal with it in some sense in a similar way.
SRI ADI DA: After complete identification with this gross
body-mind, everything had been given up. Therefore, only complete surrender
was possible. The Vehicle that was Manifested as Vivekananda has reappeared
in this case, simply as a Vehicle of My Manifestation. I am not that. It
is in conjunction with Me, just as this grosser personality inherited from
My blood parents is in conjunction with Me. Therefore, I am not that, except
by virtue of this conjunction, this appearance. The early years of My Life,
until the college years, were a progressive process of complete identification
with this gross personality. For Realization to occur, the gross personality
simply had to be surrendered, and all things were embraced. The same has
occurred again since the Re-Awakening in the Vedanta Temple, the similar
mad Work of complete submission, of throwing My Self totally into the Work.
Many great moments of Relinquishment, as in the initiation of My Divine
Emergence, have occurred in all these years. Working with My devotees has
had the same characteristic, to find and test you all and also by that
same process to locate those who have a special connection to Me, a special
Work in My Company.
DEVOTEE: Sri Gurudev, I have a question relative to the
Gurukula’s function in the preparation of Your Vehicle. On February 18
You mentioned in a conversation about the Gurukula that they had made Your
Manifestation possible.
SRI ADI DA: By their requiring of it.
DEVOTEE: Their heart-need for You to Incarnate?
SRI ADI DA: Yes. The Gurukula is made up of individuals
previously associated with Vivekananda. This is part of that submitting
to Me and their association with Me.
KANYA NAVANEETA: Something was revealed to me in the last
few weeks, rather spontaneously, as the result of deepening identification
with Your State, Your True Nature and Being. Coincident with that was also
a revelation and clarification of Your deeper personality and its coincidence
with Vivekananda, and even a sensitivity to how your grosser personality
in this Body has a resemblance to that of Vivekananda.
SRI ADI DA: This Body has been Transformed by its deeper
personality. It has been Divinely Transformed by Me as well. Therefore,
it bears many signs. It bears the signs of its natural origin, its parentage.
It bears the signs of the deeper personality also, and of My Self altogether.
It could be said, then, that these are the three principal sources that
are found in This Body.
KANYA NAVANEETA: In the Event of Your Divine Emergence,
You said that Your Love, You called it “a very human matter”, brought You
back to Incarnation. You said that Your Love is a very human matter.
SRI ADI DA: But altogether. In that Confession I was describing
how this grosser personality and gross Vehicle had become utterly conformed
to Me, by Submission, by My own Work with it. If the ordinary, grosser
personality of This Body has become so utterly conformed to Me, transparent,
then all ordinary births, all conditionally manifested beings or personalities,
can be likewise so conformed. This is the Kiss I was talking about. My
own Submission first manifested in the perfect conversion of this gross
personality. All are embraced. All are kissed. The Divine Transformation,
and ultimately the Divine Translation, of all is made by that first Accomplishment,
and grows from there, then.
KANYA NAVANEETA: Recently there has been discussion about
Your Spiritual Seclusion. This Confession and Revelation from You proves
and demonstrates the absolute, perfected Heart-Intimacy Your Seclusion.
SRI ADI DA: My Seclusion is not at all separation from
My devotees or any beings. It is simply a sign of My relinquishment of
occupation with the responsibilities that properly belong to My devotees.
It does not change anything about My availability to My devotees. That
is not being limited in any sense whatsoever. It is Seclusion from ordinary
life-business.
KANYA NAVANEETA: And truly it actually allows a much deeper
and greater Heart-Communion with Your devotees. It makes it absolutely
pure, without any other association that people tend to superimpose on
Your Purity.
SRI ADI DA: Yes. The institution, the culture, the community,
and the mission of My devotees, their personal practicethat is all the
business of My devotees. That is your gift to Me as My devotee. Your relationship
to Me is direct and personal, and a religious and Spiritual and Divine
matter. I am not secluded from that. I am totally involved in it.
KANYA NAVANEETA: I was also feeling Vivekananda’s Mahasamadhi
and the profound sorrow that Nivedita at that point felt, and the sign
that Vivekananda made to her of love, Your Love, and I felt the heart-need
of those who had been with Vivekananda. I was strongly feeling how those
coincided in bringing You down in this Form. I cannot even express my gratitude,
Love-Ananda. I felt a deep, deep resting in this feeling-intimacy with
You, because of the proven transcendence of conditionality through Love,
human love included, but Love that proves Your Identification with the
Divine Condition Itself.
I was also feeling the purity and the greater purpose
of the hidden personality that was Vivekananda, as He manifested it, how
pure and Divine in its purpose it wasexactly Your own Work. I felt so
strongly, in being with You here now, that I am witnessing and participating
truly in that same Work, the continuation of what had begun then. And that
truly it was, as You actually told me once in 1987, just a continuation.
There was never any separation. That was just a glimpse. And that true
Divine Condition and Purpose and Work and Love was just exactly now as
it had been begun then.
SRI ADI DA: Now fulfilled.
KANYA NAVANEETA: Now fulfilled, and now perfectly and
totally revealed by You. Just spontaneously I was feeling Vivekananda’s
travels in India and His acknowledgement there of the Goddess, and His
passion, which was maddening to Him. It even destroyed His heart physically,
in some sense, because it was such an overwhelming intuition.
SRI ADI DA: Of the Goddess and the Divine Self as One.
KANYA NAVANEETA: I was feeling how in that moment He could
not completely incarnate, but that was the moment that was totally incarnated
in Your Mastery of the Goddess in the Vedanta Temple. Vivekananda was involved
in attachment and devotion to Her and truly embracing Her, but not to the
point of perfect Divine Revelation and therefore mastery of Her.
SRI ADI DA: The sacrifice was required from that moment.
That was the beginning of the end of His lifetime.
KANYA NAVANEETA: And His work at that point changed utterly.
He was no longer so much involved in His tremendously outward directed
life.
SRI ADI DA: “Religion business”!
KANYA NAVANEETA: Yes. He despaired of it in fact, and
became much more involved, it seems, in an internal Spiritual process.
I was also feeling the moment of His work in the West, when He gave sannyas
to Sarah Bull and others. It was a heresy to initiate non-Indian women
into brahmacharaya and renunciation. In His tradition it was a heresy to
acknowledge any women as sannyasins in a brahmacharaya and renunciate order.
He was truly beginning the establishment of His own form of renunciation
and sannyas. That was really the seed and the beginning of the renunicate
orders that You have begun to establish here now.
SRI ADI DA: [Pointing to each of the Kanyas] There was
then Nivedita [Kanya Navaneeta], and Sister Christine [Kanya Tripura],
and Mrs. Ole Bull [Kanya Suprithi], and then there were the four Chicago
girls [pointing to the Brahmacharinis]. And they are all here now, in My
Gurukula.
KANYA NAVANEETA: Your Work in the West is such a profound
Grace. In the tradition that Vivekananda was associated with it was so
daring and bold of Him. One of the things that Vivekananda did constantly,
which was unheard of in India, was to try to create a religious organization,
a fellowship of people. I was feeling that this was the precursor of Your
creation of the Free Daist Communion, founded on tolerance and cooperation.
It also is extremely significant that You are making this
Confession now, complete and that two days after saying that Your Work
is at last You have now kicked everyone out of the nest. Also, the Work
You did with these women in that other lifetime was extraordinary and unheard
of. You took them with You to the holy places in India where women were
not allowed, really, and gave them religious training and Spiritual training,
and required them to serve Indian women and to break through the whole
tradition.
You have used us to serve You in Your present Lifetime
and to be a means to serve others. Again, it felt so significant to me
that You make this Confession now, when the renunciate orders are being
created, and we women were the first in these renunciate orders.
SRI ADI DA: Yes. It is only now that that renunciate order
is actually established. Then it was gathered but not fully established.
The order with which Vivekananda was otherwise associated was the order
associated with Ramakrishna and those in His circle. Vivekananda was associated
with it but not whole heartedly. He was doing more and more His own work.
He eventually just gave over the Ramakrishna Order to the male disciples
who had been around Ramakrishna. Vivekananda’s work was of another kind.
His true work was full work, great work.
KANYA NAVANEETA: And it seems that there was only mutual
respect from the order of the men for the renunciate women. From everything
I have heard, they worked together to serve His work.
SRI ADI DA: Basically, yes.
KANYA NAVANEETA: But the men came out of the Ramakrishna
tradition, whereas the women were completely created by Vivekananda, completely,
against all traditions.
SRI ADI DA: There were other men also, Westerners, who
were there, but His principal disciples were women.
KANYA NAVANEETA: To me, the fact that His disciples were
women is the most liberating thing that could be done for half of the human
race! By doing this, He allowed half of the whole to be given the opportunity
for Liberation. But also it was a sign of this joining. As You said, Ramakrishna
and Vivekananda became joined and rightly polarized. It was just a sign
of Your Divine Work altogether of joining Consciousness and Prakriti into
a single pole, and then even identified in Your bodily (human) Form instead
of endlessly separated.
SRI ADI DA: Yes.
KANYA SUPRITHI: Sri Gurudev, there is a growing intuition
in me of Who You Are and the Work that You have done and the Work that
You are doing. Through this “consideration” of Vivekananda and Your Incarnation
here, it is becoming obvious to me that Your Work is not so much a matter
of the many people that You might contact, just as it was not for Vivekananda.
He did not meet everybody and He did not go to every country, and You do
not need to go about meeting people.
Rather, it is a matter of this Kiss, this ultimate Kiss
that is Given. The Work that You have Done by being here is the most significant
Work that can be spoken of. The fact that You have established the Way
of the Heart for everyone for all time, and the fact that You are here,
those are the greatest Accomplishments that could be.
It seems more and more clear to me, in this statement
that You have made at times, “Pay Me now or pay Me later,” that it is inevitable
that everyone who incarnates at any time will eventually come to this point
where they must do this practice. It is going to come aroundthis lifetime,
or next lifetime. The Argument, the Wisdom, and the Incarnation that You
Are eventually will get everyone. It has become more of a marvel to me
that the greatest Work that You have Done is this Work of the Incarnation
of Who You Are.
Also You spoke about the Gurukula and those others who
have been with You in a previous lifetime. It is very, very, very important
that we Realize You in Your Company while You are alive, not only for the
sake of Your Work for the world but for the purposes of this reincarnation,
the purposes for which we came to be with You and called You to be with
us. It is maddening, more than maddeningif there were a stronger word,
I would say it! It is entirely essential that we Realize You. There are
just no two ways about it, our having called You here to be with us. It
is more than just important for Your Work, and more than just important
for the world. It is an essential matter for every individual.
SRI ADI DA: Tcha.
DEVOTEE: Beloved Master, that is what I was feeling also.
It seems that all time is in Your Divine Emergence, and that all Vehicles,
human and other, through their efforts of self transcendence and through
the attraction of Love-Bliss Consciousness, have been drawn to You until
a Vehicle conformed enough to You that You could use it, or Incarnate in
it, in Your Divinely Perfect Form.
SRI ADI DA: Tcha.
DEVOTEE: Are there individuals in this world who have
a unique association with You who have not yet become Your devotees?
SRI ADI DA: Definitely.
DEVOTEE: But who are perhaps potential Instruments for
Your Work in the world?
SRI ADI DA: Yes, that is it. Some of you are here simply
because you attended one memorable lecture! [Laughter.]
DEVOTEE: You mentioned the other night that it should
be the focus of our missionary work to find unique individuals, and I was
wondering if this should represent a new aspect of the missionary work,
to in fact identify such individuals.
SRI ADI DA: As they appear, or if they show signs of great
seriousness, great responsiveness, they must be cultivated, of course.
The mission is for all. But you must not limit that mission by the limitations
of the individuals in the present gathering of My devotees. You must make
it a pure mission in service to Me, a mission that truly embraces all and
that brings the real message of My Wisdom-Teaching, not some revision of
it chosen out of your limitations, your fears, your reluctance, and all
the rest of it. The full communication must be made, the communication
of the Ultimate Truth, and represented by people who are qualified to do
it, people who are not just religious fanciers and who are practicing minimally.
KANYA NAVANEETA: Individuals who have been with You before
who have this potential will also respond intuitively.
SRI ADI DA: Hopefully, but, like everyone else, they have
their present-lifetime limitations, their karmic tendencies. Therefore,
all must become serious in My Company and develop real practice of the
Way of the Heart in My Company, in terms of their very personal responsibilities
and the collective responsibilities they share with all My devotees for
the mission, the culture, the community, and so on. It is time you all
stopped being frivolous and became serious devotees of Mine, only practicing
and only serving.
DEVOTEE: Beloved Sri Gurudev, would those in the future
who are most advanced in this practice in the Way of the Heart have necessarily
been associated with Swami Vivekananda?
SRI ADI DA: Not necessarily.
DEVOTEE: Sri Gurudev, a question I had is, would the karmic
limitations in the grosser personality of those who were associated with
You in the past or who are uniquely associated with You in the present
be any less profound than those in other individuals?
SRI ADI DA: No! [Laughter.]
DEVOTEE: Sri Gurudev, I was wondering if it is probable
or possible that in Ramakrishna’s very sudden and, it seems, spontaneous
taking on of the semblance of Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism He was
in some way intuiting the preparation for a world work through Vivekananda.
SRI ADI DA: He knew a world work had to be done, and He
expected Vivekananda to be the one to do it. Not merely Vivekananda as
He appeared in conjunction with His gross bodily form then, but the One
Whom He, Ramakrishna, knew Vivekananda to be.
DEVOTEE: Sri Gurudev, this “consideration” has helped
me feel the profundity of Your Birth in terms of confronting my naive story
book notion that the Divine, by virtue of what It Is, All Encompassing,
can simply Manifest at Will. If It wants to Manifest in a human body, thenpoof!there
It Is.
SRI ADI DA: YesPoof! Boom! The “Poof! Boom! Talking
School”. [Laughter.] Therefore, you can just as well be the Divine Incarnation
as the next one! That is egoism, you see, without awareness of what it
really takes for anything Great to be accomplished.
DEVOTEE: Also, You answered my other question earlier
when You said that before Your Birth it was not possible to Realize.
SRI ADI DA: In the ultimate sense.
DEVOTEE: In the ultimate sense, yes. I was wondering about
that. Why, if in the Inherent Grace of the Divine, all of those billions
of beings who have lived before this moment have not been able to…
SRI ADI DA: They all are still living, in one fashion
or place or another.
DEVOTEE: That is what I was feeling, because time is just
our own linear construct. By virtue of Your Birth, Your Work is with all
beings in all time, so there is no limitation to their previous birth.
SRI ADI DA: No limitation to their previous birth?
DEVOTEE: I mean in terms of their possibility to Realize
the Divine in the ultimate sense, because, as You say now, they are not
dead in any ultimate way. They are still living.
SRI ADI DA: Not dead and gone but all present, each in
their own manner, most still associated with the grossest of limitations.
ANOTHER DEVOTEE: Earlier this evening I spoke briefly
to another man here about this “consideration”, and every hair on my body
stood on end, and not from any kind of mental connection, as if “Here is
something I can get a hold on”. I have never felt such openness in this
body-mind to reception of You. I do not know what is going on overall.
I have always wondered what it was that brought me into
Your Company, what Grace it was, because it was nothing in my lifetime
that I can see that would have brought me into the Company of such a Great
One. I still cannot grasp that You are here.
When I spoke earlier, it was in response to Your saying
that You are available to us and that You are not withdrawing from us,
because I felt this growing feeling of reception of You over these past
gatherings more and more and more. Thank You, Sri Gurudev, for whatever
You have Done. There is nothing more that I want to do than to be in Your
Company.
SRI ADI DA: Tcha.
DEVOTEE: Sri Gurudev, I want to tell You that I feel incredibly
Graced to be here tonight, and I want to thank You for this.
SRI ADI DA: Tcha.
DEVOTEE: My question is, You were talking about the women
who were associated with Vivekananda, now also reassociated with You, and
there was an attraction that drew them to be closer to both You and Vivekananda.
Is that attraction more likely to happen with someone in the most recent
lifetime, as with Your own association with Vivekananda? Say if a person
were attracted to someone from about a hundred years ago or more, someone
like Milarepa, would the principle of attraction stay active?
SRI ADI DA: It stays active, yes.
DEVOTEE: The time of Vivekananda is relatively close to
the present. In terms of the women and their attraction to Him, would it
necessarily always follow in the same amount of time?
SRI ADI DA: Well, it has. As I said, it is not required
that a devotee of Mine, even one much advanced, be someone who is associated
with Vivekananda. I Am the One Who is Attractive during the present time,
for all. Therefore, it really does not depend on any past history of any
kind, with Vivekananda or anyone else. It depends on your being attracted
by Me. I must make My Confession about the origins of My Appearance here
and what it is all about. You deal with it as you will. Apart from that,
You are attracted by virtue of My Presence here, and that is for all. It
does not depend on Vivekananda or any other past personality. It depends
on Me. Is there anything else about it?
DEVOTEE: No, Sri Gurudev. Thank You.
ANOTHER DEVOTEE: Sri Gurudev, You have told us why it
was Vivekananda’s deeper personality in particular that You became conjoined
with. Was there any connection to the grosser Vehicle of Vivekananda that
caused the particular conjunction with Franklin Jones?
SRI ADI DA: Fundamentally, no. The individual manifested
as this gross body is an expression of My joining with all. The Birth of
this gross body is altogether like all, like everyone, equally disqualified,
equally qualified. The sign of My embrace of This Body is an expression
of My Embrace of all. This particular Form was not embraced because of
some unique qualifications it possessed.
As I said earlier, it was an ordinary birth. The conjunction
has made it extraordinary. There were certain other particular reasonsfor
instance birth in an ordinary circumstance in the West. All that was a
sign of an Intention manifested in Vivekananda’s lifetime to embrace all
and to Work in the context of even the most ordinary, even those outside
the classes of those who are presumed to be the qualified. Even outside
of India, then, among the mleccas.
DEVOTEE: Didn’t Vivekananda say that He could not complete
His work in the West with a dark-skinned body?
SRI ADI DA: Yes. It was not altogether acceptable there.
But that Re-Appearance, if you will, here is because of all of that.
DEVOTEE: Sri Gurudev, as You were pausing before You answered
my question, I could not help feeling that there was some form of Divine
Humor in the particular choice You made of Franklin Jones.
SRI ADI DA: And of you all, for that matter! [Laughter.]
ANOTHER DEVOTEE: Sri Gurudev, relative to what You were
just saying, does that mean that perhaps it would be required that an Agent
of Yours be born in the body of a dark Indian?
SRI ADI DA: It does not make any difference. Vivekananda
did not get on an airplane to come to the West. The great Sacrifice had
to be made. It was real Work, not just the superimposing of a culture onto
Westerners. It was sadhana. It was not an airplane matter or a boat matter.
For the work really to be accomplished a great sacrifice must be made.
KANYA NAVANEETA: He exhausted Himself.
SRI ADI DA: Yes, and I have been exhausting My Self in
the West.
————————————————————————————————-—————————
The Da Love-Ananda Samrajya Pty Ltd.,
as trustee for The Da Love-Ananda Samrajya,
claims perpetual copyright to all photographs
and
the entire Written (and otherwise recorded)
Wisdom-Teaching of Avatar Adi Da Samraj and the Way of the Heart.
© 2000 The Da Love-Ananda Samrajya Pty Ltd.,
as trustee for The Da Love-Ananda Samrajya.
All rights reserved.
Used in DAbase by permission.
note to the reader
—————————————————————————————————————————-