“What is looking for delight? The consciousness that is identified with that is not permanent, not inherently delightful. It seeks delight attached to the plastic, pursues the fruit in the plastic tree. It is pursuing delight because it has lost the sense of its own nature, and it superimposes it on the world. And then when the world configuration denies this or that which is presumed to be the golden egg, the delight, then you have to keep looking for it. But you are always looking for it anyway, because, at the root of it, you’ve become attention “moving into” the plastic, so to speak, then left the Domain of Satisfaction, superimposed its heart-remembered quality on the plastic, klik-klak domain. But having “left it behind”, so to speak, and projected it onto the world unconsciously, you are always chasing the pattern for it. Whereas it is in the Always Already Existing Position, not in klik-klak.”
The following is a portion of a talk from Klik-Klak: The Pattern Patterning A Gathering “Consideration” with Beloved Adi Da Samraj at Free Standing Man, Quandramama Shikhara, January 31, 1996
ADI DA SAMRAJ: I want to make sure that we have a sense of what I mean by ‘Klik-klak’.
“Klik-klak” is a term which I am using to somehow give you a symbol for the sound that is there in the whirring core, the replicate-shift-change cycle that is constantly happening. That cycle literally makes a sound like “klik-klak”. I remember saying something like that, observing and trying to feel the sound as I might say it to you.
The different parts and functions of the body, the physical body, are always shifting, changing, moving, and in different timings and so forth. You have some sense that it is the same body as the one you were born in, yet it is all these shifts. it’s a process. It is not a person, you see. But as a process, you feel it is developmentally the same one. You’ve got some sort of observation of it. it’s the same process.
In other words, what you see now is the result of the process that was there when you observed it at ten years of age. But it is not the same body. In fact, isn’t it true that the actual elementals of the body itself literally change, over different periods of time-different parts of it at different periods of time, but over some odd number of years, up to a decade or whatever it takes, everything is replaced in terms of the so-called material aspects of the body? So that’s not there anymore. The present body is a kind of offspring of the body you noticed when you were ten years old. It’s the product of replications with minor modifications added-a pattern that is constantly patterning itself, and yet modifying the patterning.
So you do not have the same body you had when you were ten. It is a totally different one. it’s, many times over, a different one, depending on how old the body presently is. it’s not the same body, it’s a product of the body, of a process that you acknowledge to be your body decades before. But it is definitely not the same body. It is somehow patterned in the context of the pattern in which that body appeared. But the pattern is not only patterning but shifting through various influences, including ones that are not only built into the body but are in a patterning process that is prior to the physical. And yet you say “your body” as if you know it very well it’s the one that you are always associated with and it’s been a long time. So you know very well what you mean when you say “your body”. But it is not true, you see. It’s a presumption.
Truly, from one moment to the next, you don’t have the same body-although it takes a long time for all the elementals to be replaced. But it is in a changed condition. There have been shifts, just in a matter of moments, such that it is not the same body altogether that it was just moments before.
So there is no such thing as “the body”. It is a process. it’s constantly self-replicating, and yet because it shifts on countless numbers of levels, it’s never exactly the same. And there is a pattern of cycling associated with it you observe-this aging process so-called, all the changes that it goes through over time-in which it appears that the body itself is showing evidence, a pattern in evidence, of an intent or a patterning that, at any rate, already has established death for the organism.
Although it is patterned by unfortunate circumstances, skillfully dealing with the body and so on, learning about how it works in the midst of its associations, you could perhaps extend the lifetime of the body to some degree-meaning you could extend the process that is the present apparent organism in time as you measure it. In which case you would gain a longer period in which to keep saying “I”-which is a constant with reference to something, an apparent something, that never achieves a permanent condition. Consciousness is always referring to a pattern that is patterning, and it is constantly changing, therefore. Nothing is absolutely stable.
There are very different timings of changes of one appearance to another and so on. Everything is changing. Nothing that appears in one moment is quite the same as the next. And everything that appears, sooner or later, disappears-or goes through a pattern of transformations in which, effectively, what you might have called an object at one time is no longer existing, although the elementals, the energy, all of it, still exists in some transformed version. So it is with the body, the so-called body you are associated with-although in its further transformations after the death of the body, you would no longer call it “I”. You would only refer to it as yourself.
What happened to the material, so-called, of which your body was composed at ten years of age? If you could somehow locate it again, would you call it “I”? [devotees chuckle] So you are not associated with a something at all-not in the case of your own so-called body, your “own”, or anything else or anyone else. You are observing a constantly shifting pattern, very complex, very paradoxical, in terms of how it really works altogether. If you could see it with at least some largeness of view beyond the local one of the presumed body-identification, even in that position you could still observe a lot of patterns if you are sensitive, or if you use My “considerations” to serve the observation of things.
it’s all pattern. And it appears filled with the characteristic of replication, reproduction, repetition. And yet not repetition in the sense that it’s sameness forever, but a paradoxical, complexly self-replicating process of patterning in which sameness is paradoxically never achieved. it’s about change, not sameness. But it achieves constant change through replication. But replication is always done with itself because everything is a part of a complex pattern. Re-replication, or every replica, is to some degree a modifying force, in some manner a modifying force-and not quite the same.
We’ve talked about types, human types. We’ve been looking at what appeared to be some kind of types, same likenesses, and so on in different individuals. But, nonetheless, we don’t look at identical people. When it comes to the human individuals there are all kinds of differences. There are samenesses as there are differences. This is what is observed. This is the nature of this pattern.
So there is no “something” to call itself “I”-ever because it is a pattern patterning with all kinds of changes. But the paradox in this patterning is that it generates patterns within patterns, samenesses with minor differences, or perhaps some major differences.
So it is always becoming more and more complex, and yet it is always simple. It is always two-plus and minus, positive and negative, male and female, yang and yin. All complexities develop on the basis of two, of opposition. Then, like cells dividing and so forth, it becomes more complex. And yet complexity is always being undermined by simplicity and vice versa, endlessly folding, unfolding, not comprehensible, even.
Time is not a constant. It is a constant from some point of view, in some respects, in some apparent sequence which changes relatively slowly, whatever it may be. But time, like pattern, or time as part of pattern, you see, is like space is part of pattern. These are all multi-dimensional, paradoxical, plastic, ultimately incomprehensible. It is only the assumption of “point of view”, or “local view”, that gives the sense of fixity. And yet if you observe the locale of the body, for instance, you see it is never the same. It is in constant shift-replication and yet shift.
So the “I” is supposed to be a reference to a constant, a constant of self-awareness, you see. But it is not the body talking because the body is all changes. There is no “point of view” that is the body because that which is the body is constantly changing. It is part of a plastic, part of a pattern patterning. It has no absolutely separate identity. But it is a presumption of separate identity and of continuity. You are associated with that, moment to moment, constantly-this presumption. But if you observe, examine, the body, the body-mind, all conditions, you find no such fixed identity, fixed anything, fixed person in the form of anything psycho-physical-never. It is nowhere. There is never any “object” so-called, any complex of objects, any pattern in time and space. You find no permanence, just “klik-klak”, just shift-replication and shift-and many different kinds of apparent timings and so forth. How it appears, how you judge it, and so forth, depends on point of view, or how it seems from some point of view.
So where is this presumption of continuity, of sameness, then? It is not in the context of the ever-changing, because no point of view exists. Everything is shift. So it is a notion-just that, a presumption. It is being superimposed on the body-mind. There is a presumption that is superimposing it’self on the body-mind itself-because the body-mind is not communicating this message. In other words, you are superimposing your own uninspected characteristics prior to the body-mind, on the body-mind, and the world. You are superimposing even the presumption of consciousness, or awareness, of the world on objects because you are Consciousness. You superimpose the notion of permanence or continuity on conditions such as the body, and the body-mind altogether. But there is no permanence there. There is some kind of a process that could perhaps be followed, but how do you decide what the process is? Which part do you decide? Some overallness of something like a body process, yes-but then it comes to an end. It is not “I”. It is not calling itself “I”. It is a process within process, patterns, and patterns patterning, all inter-connected and all different-paradoxes.
The organism uses memory for survival purposes that serve the pattern, that serve the participation in the pattern, that serve your part for the time. But you think they are about you in some “you-ness” sense that is perpetual. That is not the nature of the organism. The organism is all change-shift, shift, shift, replicating. it’s shift, klik-klak.
Consciousness itself, Feeling-Awareness, has no relation to time. It neither begins nor ends. It is Prior, Constant. It has no content. It has no “itself”, no object, no center, no bounds. It is not in the context of the body-mind, or of objects, because everything else is constant replicate and shift, klik-klak. Consciousness is none of that. So you have a sense that you have been the same all the while. But that’s, not the body talking. The “you” that has been the same all the while is just self-aware. It is not modified by events. It wasn’t any different at the time of birth or at ten years old then it is now, at however many years “later”, so-called.
it’s not because it is ageless, like some golden embryo. There is nothing to observe about it. It has no parts to observe. It is just what it is, and it is of a different nature than anything observed. And that’s not merely anything observed external to the body. It is the body, too, and all the contexts, psycho-physical altogether-mind forms, whatever it is.
So there is this mechanism of attention which lies as if it were in a grid. But it never moves. It can appear at any point in that grid, but it cannot go from place to place. But it is the point of association with the domain of klik-klak, with replicate and shift, pattern patterning. All processes and everything changing, nothing permanent, modifications ad infinitum, complexity, but without comprehension.
You don’t know what even a single thing is . Therefore, you don’t know what is. It is a stream of apparent necessities, and yet your presumptions about it do not correspond to its characteristics, because you superimpose your own generalized sense of your condition onto what you observe. You become what you meditate on, you see. By granting attention, you grant your own characteristics, so to speak, onto whatever is observed, whatever object appears. You become associated with the physical process or the process of being identified with the body, and therefore the body-mind. Over time you grant it the characteristic of the feeling of perpetuity, of Consciousness, of Being. But it does not have that, itself, if you inspect it.
Where is it, then? It is in the domain of the knower. But it is not any kind of knowing, because that’s object, too constantly changing, klik-klak. So it’s the one who knows the knowing, it seems. But it is not the act of knowing. It is just that awareness itself, in which there is perhaps the apparent process of knowledge and knowing. So in the awareness that is aware of the button of attention itself, to grant or superimpose presumptions that are about your own Nature-yet unexplored-onto objects, is to generate an illusion immediately, inherently.
Your own characteristic is superimposed on the body through attention-identification, and then you say “I”-meaning Conscious Being. That’s the essence, so to speak, or that’s the position or the characteristic or the quality or the nature that is feeling “I”, meaning the body-mind in that conjunction. And you seem to be doing this every moment. Yet if you examine the body or the body-mind, there is no “I” about it. It is all replicate and shift, klik-klak, no “point of view” in which to affirm “I”.
So “I” means the body-mind, but the body-mind has no “the” about it, ultimately. It is process. It is shift-not an “I”. But that’s what it means in the ego-consciousness or body-identified consciousness. It is a meaning that is, at the same time, an illusion, because there is no such “I”, no singleness, no changeless anything there. it’s “Narcissus”. Through the gaze of attention, you superimpose your own characteristic on klik-klak, and it becomes interesting to you, desirable to you-like the image of Narcissus in the pond. But you don’t know that it is you. You don’t know or notice that that pattern there-which you are regarding to be full of desirability, being, and so forth-is just klik-klak. And you are superimposing the feeling of your own Nature, uninspected, on it.
That which you are seeing to be attractive is actually your own characteristic presumed to be there. But what is truly attractive is only in the Being-Position, the “you” looking at everything. The ” it “, the everything, is klik-klak. You find it desirable because it is your own reflection. In other words, your characteristic, your presumption is being superimposed on it. You say that Narcissus as an image is desirable, that one there is desirable like you say your body is “I”, you. it’s the same illusion that I use this story of Narcissus to characterize.
But it’s not just some kind of “out here in the world” illusion. It is a fundamental illusion. It covers everything, every moment of existence is this illusion of the desirability, continuity, fullness, all the rest of it, of klik-klak. Whereas you are just reflected in it, by virtue of your own viewing of it. Consciousness becoming attention superimposes the sense of its own characteristic on klik-klak. And then you become bound in it because it is desirable-bound in it like Brer Rabbit gets stuck in the Tar Baby or Narcissus at the pond. That’s you. That’s the attitude of conditional experiencing, the attitude of illusion, the attitude of egoity, the attitude of attention.
What you are finding desirable in all of this is actually you, because it is your quality you are superimposing. That quality is not “out there”. It is in the Consciousness Domain, the Domain of Being, Which you are forgetting by becoming this fruit-eating bird. [Here Beloved Bhagavan is referring to a metaphor from the Upanishads He used often during the ten-day gatherings at the Mountain Of Attention. The fruit-eating bird is the ordinary point of view of identification with the body-mind, in contrast to the Witness bird, standing as the Witness-Consciousness.] You think the deliciousness is in the fruit. What is becoming filled by that deliciousness? What is being served by it? What is looking for delight? The consciousness that is identified with that is not permanent, not inherently delightful. It seeks delight attached to the plastic, pursues the fruit in the plastic tree. It is pursuing delight because it has lost the sense of its own nature, and it superimposes it on the world. And then when the world configuration denies this or that which is presumed to be the golden egg, the delight, then you have to keep looking for it. But you are always looking for it anyway, because, at the root of it, you’ve become attention “moving into” the plastic, so to speak, then left the Domain of Satisfaction, superimposed its heart-remembered quality on the plastic, klik-klak domain. But having “left it behind”, so to speak, and projected it onto the world unconsciously, you are always chasing the pattern for it. Whereas it is in the Always Already Existing Position, not in klik-klak.
You can observe and understand, then, this whole matter. And this is an understanding which is more and more comprehensible with more and more maturity. But just examining it now, it seems straightforward, doesn’t it? [Devotees agree.] You are looking in the world for That Which Is Where you Stand. Narcissus is looking in the pond desiring that which he already is. Not in his body the viewer, but that which is not even viewing, the Witness, the Consciousness itself. It already has all the qualities in infinite form, which you superimpose on the world and seek there-because they are not in the world. The world is shift, shift, shift. It has no inherent anything. There is nothing but the shift. There is nothing behind it.
So all that is Attractive, all that is Beautiful, all that is Full, all that is Satisfactory, all that is Constant, not threatened, all that is Love-Bliss, all that is Radiant, is Always Already the Case. It is presumed to be in klik-klak. But it is a false superimposition of the Feeling of your own Nature, an illusion generated by the heart-not noticing its own Nature, but projecting itself into the domain of changes. Understand this, notice this-then the illusion of Narcissus, and all the search built on it, disappears. It is not struggled with. The illusion is gone. And there is no longer the pursuit of attention and result, but the Native Stand Prior to attention. There is no longer this game of unconsciously superimposing the dualities of the Consciousness Domain onto klik-klak, via attention.
So one day, Raymond Darling, in The Mummery , is sitting in his room. He gazes about. He looks at it all. What does he notice? There is no Consciousness in the room. He saw klik-klak. Consciousness is on the Raymond side, not on the object side. It requires Quandra-Energy is on the Consciousness side, not on the object side. Energy is not known on the object side. It is known on the Consciousness side. In other words, Union, Oneness with Energy, is there. Whereas the pursuit of Energy, the experiencing of It as object in the form of changes, is on the conditional, or psycho-physical, side. But Energy, as is not different from Consciousness, is on the Consciousness side. Truth is the Consciousness side. Klik-klak is the object side.
This becomes the “Perfect Practice”. When the “Perfect Practice” itself becomes Most Perfect or Realizes Most Perfect Realization, klik-klak is Recognized, Divinely Recognized, Recognized in the Divine-founded in hearing in the Divine, in that sense. Because of that, it loses all power of bondage, bondage-making. It is only “Bright”, therefore, rather than dark, as it is on the attention side. So in that seventh stage Open-Eyed Awakening, the domain of attention is allowed. It is not refused. It is Radiated into. It is not entered. It is not sought. It is not clung to. It is not refused. It is not run away from. It is simply Recognized in every apparent moment of arising. It has no power to bind. It is simply Self-Radiant Consciousness itself. And in any moment of apparent associations, then, it is clear what anything is and what everything is -and What Is, therefore.
That Which was called “I”-which turned out not to be the body-mind, but Consciousness itself-has Realized its Nature, and thereby, Realized the Nature of objects, conditions, processes, patterns-all patterns-at last. Just that. You don’t have to be at any point in the pattern to be in a position to Recognize it. You need to be in ” the ” Position in order to Recognize any point in the pattern-the Position in Which it is arising, as it appears. If you do not Recognize it, you become attention and project the illusions that klik-klak has the characteristics of What is Prior to it-Consciousness, Self-Existing, and Self-Radiant. But Stand as Consciousness, Self-Existing and Self-Radiant, and Realize attention fully-you are What Is . Conditions allowed you know what any thing is, then. You know what every thing is . It is “you”-not by you superimposing your characteristics on it, from the position of contraction, not knowing it’s Ultimate Nature, your own Ultimate Nature, but (rather) Prior to any such conditional identifications. Everything is simply Recognized, even attention in its first moment, then everything that follows – all the same. No klik-klak power.
So, in some sense, the entire process of sadhana leading to the “Perfect Practice”, the entire sadhana in the Way of the Heart until the “Perfect Practice”, is something like “considering” the Argument I just put to you, until you lose all sympathy with the illusion-position of attention, and accept the Nature in Which you Stand Always Already, and do the sadhana of allowing the Revelation of What That Is altogether-What is Consciousness itself. This was My “Consideration”, even as I ended college. It is to have that be Revealed by Grace in the Well of the “Perfect Practice”.
You are always that Standing bird. You are merely the Witness in the tree at all times. It is always the case. So, in principle, then, at any moment, you could Stand As That. You have contrary sympathies, you have illusions that suggest, “This is desirable. This is interesting.”-this is “you”. There are all these thises-none of which exist except as a presumption, as a reflection of your nature, not a reflection of the world.
Examine the world-it is patterns, klik-klak. Replicate, and change, shift. Just that. Ultimately, no more purpose in it than a wad of silly putty. [laughter] Yet within it, any purpose can be conceived. A drama is always purposed, the persona is played. Whereas if you Realize Happiness, it just plays the pattern of klik-klak until the local theatre closes. And what you like about it, what you like about life, and are concerned about, is this constant Self that you presume. Then it’s “Wake up, Narcissus!”
What you presume to be desiring is really klik-klak. That Which is Constant, That Which is Self, is Consciousness-not klik-klak, not the objects. Up until the “Perfect Practice”, this is basically the “consideration”. It is a process, though also a sadhana, enacted in the pattern, always finding the Pleasure Dome in each moment of Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga. But that itself is just a process of being relieved of the burden of the effects of the illusion you are constantly generating-the self-contraction, you see. It is generating a constant illusion.
You are not directly aware of your own Condition, Always Already. But you, so to speak, “un-Consciously” superimpose its characteristic on anything observed. Therefore, by “meditating on” anything, so to speak, fixing on anything, you become it. ” You ” become it. Your characteristics become identified with it. And this is the fruit-eating bird, in any moment.
In the process of sadhana up to the “Perfect Practice”, you become more and more sensitized to this. In effect, it is simply a “consideration”, a serious “consideration”, until the moment of clarity. But that “consideration” takes place in the form of yielding all the faculties, maintaining the disciplines, constantly entering into this devotional Communion with Me, and so on. That is how you conform your life to this disposition, this Contemplation, this “consideration”.
Ultimately, it is simply the spontaneous renunciation of klik-klak. You renounce it spontaneously. You are not that. You have superimposed your characteristic on it and then sought yourself within it on top of that. And this quality that is constant is you. Hm? This Delight you seek, by superimposing it on klik-klak, is Inherent. But it is found only in the Yoga and Domain of Inherence, rather than movement of attention, a kind of movement of attention, and submission to change. It is by Inhering, not by moving and changing, that That Which is Constant, or Always Already the Case, is Realized.
When this is understood most profoundly, such that there is a relinquishment, a spontaneous relinquishment, of the search and “bond” to attention and its process, then the “Perfect Practice” becomes spontaneously possible. It is a spontaneous renunciation-not effort-of the orientation toward conditional existence or attention and its results, or the adventure of the first five stages of life, or the assumption of point of view, the assumption of body, the assumption of particularity by association with any kind of object at all. That inclination is relaxed, and there is simply the Standing As Is, As What Always Already Is.
So you don’t have to make any effort to be What Is already. But you are already making efforts, and you must be purified of that, such that you will relax it. But when that occurs, then the “Perfect Practice” can begin, because you are already then in the Native Position of What Is-Whatever That Is. Well, That is What is Realized in the “Perfect Practice” when its Position is Realized. When the first five stages of life are transcended, you Stand in the pre-klik-klak Position.
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