Perception and the Location of a Self – The Torque of Attention – Adi Da Samraj – Yajna Discoures of Santosha Adi Da

ADI DA SAMRAJ: Instead of putting (your attention on
experience) and doing that silly routine, I’m telling you to
sit down and meditate. But you give Me your attention for
the sake of that. You’re Communing with somebody in Samadhi,
so that’s where that Communion leads. You become what you
meditate on. There’s a little something virtual reality-ish
about it. [laughter]

Of course, so is your present experience. I mean, you sit
here, relaxed, gazing into the room, perceiving this and
that, and you feel because of identification with the body
that you’re in that space. You make all kinds of sense out
of it—visually, perceptually, all together.

Well, the reason you’re having this perception is it
seems to be all sort of regulated relative to your body.
Because, apart from whatever it is more subtly and so
forth—a perception, a structure made by a complex
machine here that gives you this visualization
altogether—I mean, where are you? Where are you seeing
it anyway? This is all the mechanism in there that’s making
this perception . . . to whom? You get the perception,
feeling that you’re this body located in space, all the
things you see there, but you’re viewing that.

DEVOTEE: Is that Witnessing, my Lord?

ADI DA SAMRAJ: Could be. Ultimately, certainly.

I mean, where are you viewing this? I mean, you’re not
the eyeballs, because the eyeballs don’t see anyway. Those
impressions go zinging around and so forth. So after it goes
through all that machine, gives you impressions and so
forth, then you see it. Of course the image is, as it comes
through the eyes, bodily positioned, presuming itself to be
in space, but where are you? Where are you looking at
it?

Well, whatever you can feel about it, it’s very curious,
you see? For one thing it is said that this binocular
two-eyed vision goes back and twists back and forth, and
then registers these impressions electronically, upside-down
in reference to the face.

But you see it after that point. [Devotees exclaim in
amazement.] In there, you see? The reason you feel like
you’re the body regulated in space is because that’s the
vision projected through these eyes, but that’s not where
“you” are. You see it as your eyes see it. But that’s not
where you are. [laughter and sounds of wonderment]
That’s what the picture shows.

But where are you?

And how do you figure out this upside-down picture, and
relate it to the bodily orientation?

Well it seems like you don’t. You’re not in a position in
space like that. The picture is still sitting there—its
the body looking out. It doesn’t make any difference for you
whether the picture is reflected in the brain upside-down
with reference to the face or not. It probably makes no
difference whatsoever. Because you just still see the same
picture no matter what position you’re in back there. The
picture is of the body sitting upright looking out here. So
no matter what angle you look at it from, it’s still going
to be right side up to you, because that’s the picture.

So, where do you see this? Where are you?

DEVOTEE: Seem to be in time and space . . .

ADI DA SAMRAJ: The picture.

DEVOTEE: The picture, right.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: No, you.

DEVOTEE: Me . . . [laughs]

ADI DA SAMRAJ: The one who’s receiving the picture. Or
noticing it. Where are you? Where do you see from?
Apparently it doesn’t make any difference either. Because
you’re still going to see the same picture right side up.
You’re still going to see the same picture, no matter where
you look at it from.

So the picture is just the picture. You don’t seem to
have anything to do with it, except the noticing. You’re not
in it’s position. You have nothing to do with it. You’re
seeing it’s picture. You’re not seeing “you”.
[silence]

If I was just the eyes, that would be alright. I would
have clear sight. But I have to see through the eyes in this
ordinary respect of perception, you see?

So you’re indulging in this perception from a different
position than the picture suggests.

So you have nothing to do with any of the mechanics at
all except you are the Witness of it.

Just because the eyes see doesn’t mean you’re in your
head.

I mean, why wouldn’t you be in your foot, when your foot
aches?

You can be anywhere, so to speak, associated with any
aspect of the body-mind, because it is wholly, entirely,
always already available to you.

You’re not some place within it. You’re That within Which
all of it is arising.

Merely the Witness.

So if you believe the eyes, you’re believing in a picture
made from the body point of view. But the eyes and the
vision, all of it, is objective to you. it’s not you. You
are always standing merely as the Witness. Not sitting there
as the body. That’s the picture.

[silence]

Isn’t that obvious? [Devotees murmur agreement.]
So you’ve got to be wiser than just some dingbat viewing
these pictures and believing them. Because it’s not your
position. That’s the picture associated with that mechanism
there.

[pause]

Its all the body-mind had to do, so that you could see
with it. You weren’t there doing it, were you? And yet
you’ve been here all the while it’s been happening. Your
whole body just did it. You were born, did the whole
trick.

You think that because your eyes see that you yourself
are somehow located in your head. Then why don’t you believe
when you get a sore foot or whatever, that you’re in your
foot and not in your head? And that that’s where you ought
to meditate? [laughter]

So you coincide with all the perceptions. The entire
mechanism. And yet you have the same relation, so to speak,
to all of it, every part. It’s not a relation—its the
Witness. That is the nature of your apparent association
there. You are not involved in it, combined with it. You
always stand merely as the Witness of whatever it is

Where is that?

Being rather riotously combined with the body-mind, you
can’t quite get it at the moment—because you’re
registering it at many points. You can only be noticing all
of this where you are.

So, the root of all this noticing is in the right side of
the heart, the bare association between attention and all
psycho-physical signs. It’s the root of the body-mind, the
root of attention. And that is the root that must be
transcended, then. So all of that primal business, all of
it, is associated with the right side of the heart, with
reference to the body.

But if you enter into it, you realize that it is not
located at all—in its own sphere. It’s not related,
it’s not connected. It’s not associated. So it has nothing
to do with the right side of the heart, or the body, and so
on, in itself. So in the second stage of the “Perfect
Practice”, you move into that depth beyond the body
reference. Beyond all psycho-physical reference. And you
don’t do it by moving attention, but by standing in That
Which is Prior to attention. So it’s not a willful act.

DEVOTEE: Beloved, when we first began these
“considerations”, I felt that I went right to that place of
frustration with the knot of self, and started banging on
it, you know?

ADI DA SAMRAJ: Mm-hm.

DEVOTEE: And then I started “considering” Your language
about location, and the “Where” of the Witness. And tonight
earlier in the “consideration” when You were describing, I
think in the first conversation, about the various organs in
the body, when You began to “consider” Amrita Nadi, and the
organ associated with the Witness, then I became totally
interested again. And it was very interesting. Whereas the
other things had not been interesting.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: Mm-hm. Tcha.

DEVOTEE: But then I had this sudden feeling of profound
Subjectivity. I don’t know what else to say about it except
it was a totally amazing momentary revelation of a profound
Subjectivity that was completely Happy—it was Happiness
and “Bright”.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: Yes.

DEVOTEE: It had this quality of being Subjective beyond
anything I could imagine.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: Mm-hmmmm. [quietly] That’s where
It is. Beyond imagining.

[silence]

Well, that’s Me.