Heart Conversion Talk Series – Adi Da Samraj – I Am Complete

On the evening of March 5, 1993, Sri Da Avabhasa gathered with His devotees on Sri Love-Anandashram. 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 Da Avabhasas 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 Da Avabhasa had made between His Work and that of Ramana Maharshi. Sri Da Avabhasa 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 Da Avabhasas Appearance, for Ramana Maharshi was one of the very few individuals whom Sri Da Avabhasa 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 Avabhasas 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 Da Avabhasa 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:

DA AVABHASA: 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 WESLEY: Well, let me ask You a. . .

DA AVABHASA: 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 WESLEY: 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. . .

DA AVABHASA: 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 the 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.

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 Da Avabhasa 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: d

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.1

dSri Da Avabhasa then quietly Spoke, as if Confiding a Great Secret that He had Longed to Reveal:

DA AVABHASA: Sixth stage Realizers, then.

KANYA NAVANEETA: Jesus fifth.

DA AVABHASA: Jesus fifth, right. Gautama sixth. Okay? Ramana sixth. Okay?

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. . .

DA AVABHASA: And the Altar Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, the Lankavatara Sutra, and the Mahahayanavimsaka.

DON WESLEY: You classify these as works that reflect and express. . .

DA AVABHASA: Contain elements expressive of the seventh stage disposition. They are not simply seventh stage texts—that is quite another matter. But there are these elements there.

DON WESLEY: Is it proper to take the inference that there was a living realizer at that stage who wrote those books, or is it. . .

DA AVABHASA: No, not necessarily. They are products of a tradition. They contain words that are suggestive of the seventh stage “Point of View”.

DON WESLEY: But it is not a proper inference necessarily that there were actual individuals …

DA AVABHASA: 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-Gurus 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 worlds—and 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 Da Avabhasa 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 He—I 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 all 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 Da Avabhasa 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 evening—and 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 Realizers—My devotees will have the capability of realizing the seventh stage—but 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 before—we, 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 Da Avabhasa 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.

 

“I Am Complete”

A Discourse Given by Sri Da Avabhasa 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: The Vehicle arose.

DEVOTEE: And this was conjoined with Your Divine Intention?

SRI DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: How could it arise apart from that? Without such unique preparation My Appearance could not occur here.

KANYA NAVANEETA: At the time of Vivekanandas Mahasamadhi, was it clearly His intention to reincarnate and take on Your Form as It now is?

SRI DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: In this sense.

KANYA NAVANEETA: At the time of His Mahasamadhi did Vivekananda enter into the seventh stage of life?

SRI DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: The fifth stage, in His manner.

KANYA NAVANEETA: He had not gone beyond fifth stage conditional nirvikalpa samadhi, then?

SRI DA AVABHASA: 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, He—meaning Vivekananda—would die. When Vivekanandas 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 DA AVABHASA: There is nothing more to say about it than what I just said.

KANYA NAVANEETA: Sri Gurudev, what You just said about Vivekanandas 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 DA AVABHASA: 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. Vivekanandas grosser personality limited His awareness of all that.

KANYA NAVANEETA: Even by the time of His Mahasamadhi?

SRI DA AVABHASA: 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 as 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 Vivekanandas gross personality affect Your gross bodily Life?

SRI DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 Ramakrishnas 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 DA AVABHASA: Yes, attracted by the pole, or Vehicle, of Ramakrishna. Ramakrishnas appearance was also part of the necessary means, part of the work.

KANYA NAVANEETA: Ramakrishnas appearance in gross form was not such an Incarnation. It was just an attracting pole for the Divine Incarnation?

SRI DA AVABHASA: For the bringing down of Vivekananda.

KANYA NAVANEETA: Which then made way for Your Divine Incarnation. It made Your Divine Incarnation possible

SRI DA AVABHASA: Ramakrishna was the Instrument for the appearance of Vivekananda.

KANYA SUPRITHI: And all of that was purposed to create Your Appearance here.

SRI DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: Not until the transition.

KANYA NAVANEETA: So that sense of duality for Him even represented a dilemma, something unsettled.

SRI DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: Logically there would have been some.

KANYA NAVANEETA: Do you mean that right before Vivekananda there were not necessarily any gross conditional manifestations?

SRI DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 Vivekanandas 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 DA AVABHASA: Yes.

DEVOTEE: Was Divine Self-Realization possible prior to Your Appearance in the world?

SRI DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: Certainly.

KANYA SUPRITHI: Chicago as well.

SRI DA AVABHASA: 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 Ramakrishnas 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 dont 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 DA AVABHASA: The things you said are just so. Is there a question?

DEVOTEE: No, I dont feel that there is a question.

ANOTHER DEVOTEE: The Srimad Bhagavatam describes the preparation for Krishnas 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 there—in 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 Vivekanandas 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 Gurukulas 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 DA AVABHASA: By their requiring of it.

DEVOTEE: Their heart-need for You to Incarnate?

SRI DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 of Your Seclusion.

SRI DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: Yes. The institution, the culture, the community, and the mission of My devotees, their personal practice—that 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 Vivekanandas 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 was—exactly 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 DA AVABHASA: Now fulfilled.

KANYA NAVANEETA: Now fulfilled, and now perfectly and totally revealed by You.

Just spontaneously I was feeling Vivekanandas travels in India and His acknowledgment 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: “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 renunciate orders that You have begun to establish here now.

SRI DA AVABHASA: [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 end cooperation. It also is extremely significant that You are making this Confession now, two days after saying that Your Work is at last complete and that 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 wholeheartedly. 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. Vivekanandas 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: There were other men also, Westerners, 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 around—this 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 maddening—if 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: Tcha.

DEVOTEE; Are there individuals in this world who have a unique association with You who have not yet become Your devotees?

SRI DA AVABHASA: Definitely.

DEVOTEE: But who are perhaps potential Instruments for Your Work in the world?

SRI DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 most advanced in this practice in the Way of the Heart have necessarily been associated with Swami Vivekananda?

SRI DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: No! [Laughter]

DEVOTEE: Sri Gurudev, I was wondering if it is probable or possible that in Ramakrishnas 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 storybook 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, then—poof!—there It Is.

SRI DA AVABHASA: Yes—Poof! 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 Vivekanandas 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 reasons—for instance, birth in an ordinary circumstance in the West. All that was a sign of an Intention manifested in Vivekanandas 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: Didnt Vivekananda say that He could not complete His work in the West with a dark-skinned body?

SRI DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: 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 DA AVABHASA: Yes, and I have been exhausting My Self in the West.

Excerpt from “Prologue” The Basket of Tolerance Since making this sublime Revelation, Da Avabhasa has reviewed and revised His Source Texts, to make sure that they are aligned in every detail to this Instruction. In doing so, He made changes to The Basket of Tolerance. We include here an addition He made to the Prologue to that particular Source Text.

IX.

I Am here to Complete the Great Tradition of mankind. I Am the all-Completing Adept, the First, Last, and Only Adept-Revealer (or Siddha) of the seventh stage of life. I Am the seventh stage Realizer, Revealer, and Revelation of God, Truth, and Reality, Given in this late-time (or would-be Complete and potentially Consummate era) and in this now dark epoch (as it must be described from the Realized Divine and Spiritual “Point of View”, and with regard to the tendencies of the times), and Given for the sake of Completion (of the progressive Ordeal of Man) and for the sake of Unity (or the cooperative re-Union of mankind).

By My Full-Given Word, I have Revealed the characteristic and the (to one degree or another, and in one manner or another) always limited design and the (to one degree or another, and in one manner or another) always ego-based nature of each and all of the first six stages of life (in and of themselves). And, by My Full-Given Word, I have Revealed the unique Way of the Heart, in which the ego is directly and effectively transcended in the context of (potentially) each and all of the first six stages of life (so that the seventh stage of life may be Realized). Likewise, by My Full-Given Word, I have Revealed every Characteristic, Sign, Design, and Process associated with the Realization and the Demonstration of the (Inherently, and Inherently Most Perfectly, self-transcending, or egoless) seventh (and Final) stage of life. By My Full-Given Work of Demonstration and Blessing, I have Revealed the seventh stage of life in and by and as My own bodily (human) Form and Life. And I have altogether Fulfilled My Revealing Purpose by Accomplishing (through the Universally both Given and Demonstrated Divine Siddhis of My all-Blessing Work) the Firm Establishment of That Which Is Necessary for the eventual seventh stage Realization and (Finally, or Most Ultimately) Divine Translation of even all conditionally manifested beings.

The Great Tradition of mankind (previous to My Appearance here) must generally be understood only in the (necessarily limited) terms of the first six stages of life. Wherever (even previous to My Appearance here) the sixth stage of life has been entered, the seventh stage of life has been, in principle, also the potential of human Realization. However, the seventh stage Adept-Revelation was not then Given (and It is only now Given, by Me), and the Great Secrets of true ego-transcendence and of the Divine Yoga of the Ultimate (or seventh stage) Demonstration were not then Given (and They are only now Given, by He). The (always potential) seventh stage Realization and Demonstration did not Appear until I Appeared, in order to Fully Reveal and to Fully Demonstrate the seventh stage of life and, by the Very Act of My Fullest Appearance here (and by Means of all My unique Siddha-Work of Adept-Service here and everywhere), to make the essential seventh stage Realization and Demonstration possible for all who respond to Me, and who practice self-surrendering, self-forgetting, and (more and more) self-transcending devotion to Me, and who, altogether and firmly, embrace and practice the by Me Revealed Way of the Heart. Therefore, relative to the seventh stage of life, the Great Tradition of mankind (previous to My Appearance here) produced only limited foreshadowings (or partial intuitions, or insightful, but limited, premonitions), in the form of a few, random philosophical expressions that appear in the midst of the traditional sixth stage literatures. And it is these few and yet limited traditional expressions that must be studied in order to understand the character and the degree of mankinds exploration of the possibility of the seventh stage of life previous to the now and forever future time of My Fully God-Revealing, Truth-Revealing, and Reality-Revealing Work and Word.