Meditation and the Life of Wisdom
a talk by Da Free John (Adi Da Samraj) – January 1, 1983
Originally published in Crazy Wisdom magazine, Vol 3, No 3 – March 1984
In The Knee of Listening, Master Da has remarked that “the usual meditation is only a consolation, an effect, and a good feeling” (p. 170). Ordinary meditation merely represents an attempt of Narcissus to immunize himself from the world of threatening relations, and that gesture of self-contraction must be understood before meditation or any of the practical disciplines of the Way can serve self observation. When students become members of The Free Communion Church, the hearing of the Adept’s Argument initiated through study and stabilized through personal disciplines is now Magnified through meditation. Such meditation is Divine Communion, and it develops into a moment to moment practice.
MASTER DA: You cannot merely meditate. You cannot merely go inside. You must apply the functional disciplines to this body-mind, and you must live that discipline in relation to others. You must be a sacrifice. You must live as service. You must, therefore, cooperate with others and thus make politics with others. You must live this Way of life. To find the Living Principle makes you a political or relational human personality, and ultimately you have no choice but to become that. There is no way out of it.
I know that you all have an impulse, however, to find a way out of it. You are looking for your salvation to be inside there somewhere. You want to get sucked out of the universe somehow. But you cannot get sucked out of the universe, you can only Outshine the universe. There is no way out of life, because life is not other than God. Life, or the universe, is not other than the Principle to which we are devoted through our awakening. So, as Jesus said, love God, love this Living One, the Life that is modified as everything and everyone, absolutely. Be devoted to It, sacrifice to It, Commune with It through the devotion of your body, emotion, mind, psyche, the totality of “I,” the totality of your existence. In so doing, allow yourself to be transformed utterly by that One to which you are devoted, and live as that Principle in all relations. In other words, love your neighbor as yourself, transcend yourself in all your relations, practice this Wisdom in relations. There is not just one rule, the bhakta’s1 rule to love God, you see. The rule of love, the Law, is all encompassing, and must be practiced in relationship. It includes all the yogas, all the cultures, all the wisdom.
DEVOTEE: Your instruction in the practice of the Prayer of Remembrance is a great gift.
MASTER DA: This is the technical understanding of this matter of love. This is esoteric Teaching. This is secret stuff. But it cannot be secret anymore. It must be made available. Its availability does not mean that you will be able or willing to do it, however. That is the test-whether you will do it. Before you can do it, before you can love absolutely, you must understand yourself sufficiently to stand straight, without contraction in body, emotion, or mind. Consider my basic Argument to the point of Standing Free of this contraction so that you can notice, locate, and be available to this Living Reality, this Self-Radiant Being or Condition of all beings, all forms, all worlds. Once this equanimity is true of you, you Commune with That, and develop more and more self-understanding through real self-observation. You use the various aspects of this Teaching that serve self-understanding in very specific, practical terms. You develop the practical disciplines of equanimity and God-Communion, of life and meditation.
When all that matures, when you really have done all that, when you are an advanced practitioner, a spiritually mature personality, then life becomes the Magnification of that Wisdom in every moment, in all relations, under all circumstances, in every stage. Likewise, meditation or the secret act of Communion with the Divine becomes utter absorption, transcendence of self absolutely. It becomes Enlightenment. That is the business of maturity, the life of Wisdom and the meditation of Enlightenment.
1. In the Hindu tradition, a bhakta is a devotee of God or of the Spiritual Master whose orientation to spiritual practice is emotional and ecstatic rather than philosophical and discriminative or vitally active