Have I Said It?
Note to reader:
As a member of Adi Da’s (then Bubba Free John’s) community from about 1973-1975, during which time I lived for nine months in Persimmon, the sanctuary where he lived. My service was to create an index of his early books. I found these writings to be compelling, along with some of the outrageous talks that have not found their way into print. Around his birthday in 1975 (to the best of my recollection), Adi Da was planning on moving with a small group to Hawaii. For that occasion, I arranged a selection of his compelling words by topic (mostly selected from his books) and hand-wrote them in a blank book for his enjoyment. As far as I know, nothing ever came of that compilation. That became Book One of two parts, the second of which I completed some time thereafter. Now through the Internet, I make both parts available to interested readers. These blank books (I made a copy for myself) have been sitting on my bookshelves all this time, and after Adi Da’s passing, it occurred to me that this compilation would be very useful to many readers.
Enjoy,
Ed Hirsch
presenceofone@yahoo.com
Ashland, Oregon
Chapter 5
Seeking
There is Nothing to be
Attained.
There is no growth into God, Truth and
Reality,
There is only God, Truth and
Reality.
You cannot be more and more
absorbed
Into God, Truth and Reality
It is the Principle
Of one’s life,
The God, Truth and Reality,
Not merely the goal.
It is not that
Consciousness must evolve.
Consciousness must be lived.
There is nothing to be
attained.
I mean nothing.
Have I said it?
Nothing, damn it!
There is nothing to be
attained.
Not one thing is to be
attained.
Nothing.
There is not a single thing
To be attained.
Have I said it?
There is no experience,
No transformation of state.
The attitude which is the great
search
Is created by a most prior
error,
The failure to be already
real.
The search is not the point of
view
Of God, Truth or Reality
Every motive is seeking.
Every turning away is
avoidance.
Every turning upwards is
avoidance.
Every turning downwards is
avoidance.
Every turning towards is
avoidance.
All these things are seeking,
For they are not abiding now
In the form of God, Truth and
Reality.
The search
Makes no sense at all.
It is an illusory
And false principle.
Only the living God, Truth and Reality
avails.
There is no dilemma,
No search,
And no fulfillment
Of the search.
Life need not be tied
To seeking
And the pursuit
Of its own nature
As a goal.
Real life
Is not another form
Of seeking.
Real life
Is not a matter
Of experience and evolution.
It is to be founded
In radical present
Consciousness.
Life is the wisdom of seeking,
Which is no wisdom at all.
Truth is the wisdom of no
seeking,
Which is only wiser than life.
Reality is the wisdom of
no-dilemma,
Which is wisdom itself.
There is nothing ultimate about
life.
Its best wisdom is the
knowledge
Of how to play games.
There is nothing radically
useful
About Consciousness of God, Truth and
Reality.
Its best wisdom is the
knowledge
That all life is seeking.
Only God, Truth and Reality is a radical
value
Beyond all truth and all life.
Its highest wisdom is the
knowledge
That seeking and no-seeking
Are attitudes in the same
dilemma.
The thing men affirm
Themselves to be
Is different from
That which they are
Actively being.
Therefore, the business
And creative activity of life
Is the activity of knowing
About what we are being;
This, rather than any search
toward
Or affirmation of
What we otherwise and
ultimately
May or must be.
Thus, it is to live already
free,
Radically related,
Unqualifiedly alive,
Without boundaries or center,
But only situations or forms,
Only manifesting,
Which is unqualified energy
In relationship,
Which is love.
The scheme of all the
universes,
Material or immaterial, high or
low,
With its endless times of birth and
death,
And its numberless kinds of
learning,
Is itself the way and the
destiny
Of all ordinary and extraordinary
men.
Only those who weary of the
way,
As well as every kind of
escape
From the way,
Become willing to engage the divine
process
In which their very
life-Consciousness
Is sacrificed in its own
Condition and nature.
All others, high and low,
Are devoted to their own unending
path,
From which there is no perfect
relief,
Except on the day
All worlds, ages, and heavens
Dissolve in the sleep of god.
The world is seeking,
Nothing more.
Seekers are the world.
The seeker is only a reaction
To his own suffering.
The prior action,
The thing that is really
Occupying and motivating
Every man,
Is suffering itself.
The seeker
Is not a functional being.
He is eccentric.
He is elsewhere.
He doesn’t “work.”
He has no capacity for
relationship,
For simplicity.
There is no love, no functional
light.
The force of conscious life, of
bliss,
Does not move as him.
He is always a little screwed
up,
Always somehow unhappy.
Those who do not understand
Seek reality as a mystery,
And endure life as a given
dilemma.
Those who do not sacrifice all
things
While abiding in God, Truth and
Reality
Are in turn sacrificed
Unwillingly upon it
While grasping for the answer.
For one who doesn’t
understand,
Who is already unconscious,
Already bound to the principle
Of ordinary life,
Everything appears as a
dilemma,
Everything implies a dilemma.
Everything!
He looks at the
sky—dilemma!
Life is a dilemma.
It begins to seem
That even this simple
experience,
Just sitting here,
Has become a question!
It is as if the sky were a
question!
But in itself it is not a
question.
There is no question.
“you” are the question!
Your state is the quality of
dilemma,
Of dis-ease.
Your state is your question.
All questions are from this “point” of
view,
Because this is the archetype of
questions.
This is the only question,
This is the dilemma!
This is our fundamental
experience
From moment to moment.
The question is
The questioner.
The problem is
The seeking itself.
The dilemma is dissolved,
Not by action,
But by prior truth.
The true answer
Must be
A radical transformation
Of your state.
God, Truth and Reality is the
answer.
There is nothing
That a man can do
To save himself,
To become enlightened,
To become realized.
Nothing whatsoever.
If there were something, I would tell
you,
But there is nothing.
There is nothing
Anybody can do to get free.
Nothing any human being has ever
done
Has ever liberated himself
Or anybody else.
Liberation is god’s business.
Everything you do
Is that search
Until God, the Self, the Heart
Enters the picture,
As a God, Truth and Reality,
In relationship.
It is not you that becomes
perfect.
God, Truth and Reality is already
perfect, and Divine absorbs you.
You become perfect by becoming
nothing,
By absorption in the Divine.
Nobody does that.
How could you possibly do
that?
How offensive to think
That you could possibly do
that!
In the presence of the Heart,
Seeking is inappropriate.
What is always appropriate
Is understanding
And the spontaneous
Surrender of seeking.
What is always inappropriate
Is the search and its defense.
What is appropriate
Is simply obvious.
What in fact is appropriate
Is always appropriate.
There is no search
That is appropriate.
It is time
For an end
To all seeking.
The life of seeking
Is founded in prior dilemma,
And it does not work.
The search is futile.
Ultimately
The search is failing.
The principle of the search
Is suffering.
To be
In the state of seeking,
Whatever the form,
Is to be
In the same state
Of suffering.
Fear is the most basic form
Of seeking.
Your trouble is an illusion.
Your search is a reaction
To your suffering.
Your actual dilemma
Has barely been conceived by
you,
Barely experienced.
At the very best,
The search itself begins
To break down.
Eventually everything will break
down.
Those who dream long enough,
Who try all the alternatives within the
dream,
Who have suffered all the
attainments
And failures within the dream,
Who no longer have anywhere to
go,
Who are only dreaming,
Who are suffering,
Who no longer take their search
“seriously,”
For whom the search is no
longer
The thing to which they
resort,
Who have despaired of their
adventures,
Their ecstasies, their
attainments,
Their ways, their methods,
Who are only suffering,
Who are only in dilemma,
Who in fact are only experiencing this
contraction,
The compulsive avoidance of
relationship,
But are doing nothing about it any
longer,
Who know they cannot do
anything
About it any longer
They become sensitive
To the sunlight.
When you no longer have any
alternatives,
When the search has died,
Then God, Truth and Reality becomes your
real possibility.
Then truth, real life,
Enters as a living
possibility.
It will be your obvious need
When you have no options.
When you no longer
Have any more options,
When you have worn yourself
out
Doing your number,
And you have tried
All the trips and methods,
Paths and lifestyles,
Strategies and places to go,
Then all of that
Begins to break down.
That is really the most hopeful
sign.
You are only upset,
So what difference
Does the search make?
When all that has failed,
Then suffering itself becomes the
point,
Becomes the experience,
Rather than all of the seeking
That is only a reaction to it.
Then a man falls into his
suffering,
Becomes conscious of his
suffering,
Understands his suffering,
And sees what is already the
case.
When there is no defense left,
When the bottom falls out,
When there is nothing to stand
on,
That is “liberation.”
When you see it absolutely,
When you see the thing itself,
The simple thing,
That is the end of it.
You fall apart.
You scream,
Or you can’t say anything,
But it just ends.
All of a sudden
The whole process
Is not going on anymore.
It becomes unnecessary and,
At last,
Impossible.
There is only
Divine Consciousness,
And you are that.
There is only bliss.
Have I Said It?
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