What I Look For – Adi Da Samraj – Da Free John

Volume 3, Number 4

APRIL 1984

What I Look For

a talk by Da Free John

March 5, 1984

MASTER DA: The core of the process whereby you
make a transition to the mature stages of practice is the
transcendence of the emotional problem of which your whole
life is the dramatization. So individuals listen to me, and
they enter into spiritual Communion with me, even though I
am not very often physically present among them. And from
time to time I come into physical proximity to them, and
everything that is developing in them through hearing and
seeing is suddenly magnified, and free Grace appears –
although it is always present in my spiritual relationship
with them. There is a special potency in my physical
Company, and in it we suddenly see large numbers of people
seemingly without an emotional problem, being religious
ecstatics, spiritual ecstatics, loving people, tears coming
from the eyes, Happy, their bodies freely moving, their
communications all feeling and true and open, not merely
conventionally or cultically friendly.

Commentary

Core of the process is the transcendence of the
emotional problem of which your whole life is a
dramatization.

There is a ‘core’ process and there is an emotional
issue governing one’s whole life. The core process is
transcendence and the emotional problem is based on one’s
reaction to ‘fear’ as the core emotion to the
self-contraction and the search for release and
happiness.

see:

The
Primary Sensation

The
Development of Ego

The
Primal Incident

talk continues…

But next week, after I leave, these same people will
discover that they are once again suffering from emotional
and functional and social problems. They may feel as though
something has been lost, but that is not so. Nothing has
been lost. Something was gained during this week, you see.
Something was realized. What this will mean, as you will
inevitably discover shortly after I have returned to
Hermitage, is that you must practice. What comes upon you
suddenly, freely, in my physical Company will require more
of you when I leave. It will require you to really practice
the sadhana or spiritual discipline that I have given you.
That practice, of course, includes functional and social
disciplines, but those things could be performed without
awakened spiritual consciousness by someone who has the will
for it. Many people in the world are trying to be spiritual
by doing just that-being vegetarians, meditating, being
friendly and harmless, disciplining themselves functionally
and socially, and so forth. Such is the substance of their
religion or their spiritual practice. But I Teach you
otherwise.

Commentary

There are ‘effects’ (Transmission) of the Spiritual
Masters presence. But these effects do not last. What they
should do is awaken the discipline of practice into the life
of the devotee.

see:

Secondary
Effects of Transmission

Study
of Sutra 17 – The Dawn Horse Testament

Practice

talk continues…

Social and functional disciplines are naturally a part of
the spiritual Way of life, but they are not the essence of
it, and without that essence they are simply conventional
forms of behavior. The essence of spiritual life is
heart-submission, Ecstasy, self-transcendence, and the
Intoxication of intimacy with the All-Pervading Divine.
Realizing That in every moment through real, feeling
submission, you will also conform the body-mind in its upper
and lower coils to that disposition. Thus, in addition to
this heart matter you also practice dietary disciplines,
exercise, service, and so on. But all of that is simply a
natural extension of this heart-Realization, this
heart-practice. This spiritual consciousness, this spiritual
conversion, this emotional conversion, is what I have been
trying to develop in individuals all these years. It is a
very difficult matter to draw people into such a
discipline.

Commentary

Disciplines are secondary and supportive excercises
and without ‘hearing’ and ‘seeing’ they are only
conventional forms of behavior.

see:

The
Great Transition

The
Great Principle of Life-Practice

talk continues…

My physical Company can awaken them to this Ecstasy and
this Intoxication very dramatically and instantly, but then
I call people who have had such a taste to practice this
submission in every moment. When I call them to do that,
however, they contract again. And there they are, contracted
even siting before me, understanding very well that
spiritual life can involve functional disciplines and
service, but not seeming to understand this heart matter. Or
even if they understand something about it, it seems so
profoundly difficult to them that they do not know how to do
it. They would know what to do instantly about being a
vegetarian – just go upstairs and eat a handful of sprouts.
But it is not such an instant matter for them to practice
heart-submission, whole-bodily heartfelt submission to the
Divine in every moment. That seems to them to be a capacity
that is not theirs, not their own. In that case, they start
talking about needing insight into themselves, or needing
some help, and so on. They look at their lives and see that
their lives are not about such love. They look at themselves
moment to moment and see that they are living in doubt of
the Divine much of the time, automatically submitted to a
contraction at the heart and therefore whole-bodily. They
are very goodheartedly willing to take up all kinds of
functional and social disciplines but are apparently not
capable of practicing the fundamental heart-submission that
is the root of all disciplines.

Commentary

Just because one is awakened in the company of the
Spiritual Master that is not ones permanent state. Nor can
one ‘instantaneously’ make that heartful submission when
called to do so.

Doubt
– A Beezone Study

Self-contraction
as Fear

Losing the Thread

talk continues…

Individuals have struggled with me relative to this
matter for at least twelve years. As a result, instead of a
community of people who have advanced into mature stages of
practice, we see a growing gathering of people locked into
the beginning stages having moved through the rudimentary
stages. And why do they stop at that stage ? Why does that
seem to be the maximum level of maturity generally in
evidence in our community? Because of this emotional matter
that we see dramatized in the emotional-sexual game of daily
life. I have been addressing this for years, and I am still
addressing it. I am still observing people who want to
practice this Way in my Company, who are practicing some
rudimentary form of it and doing that better as time goes
on, but who are still struggling with this fundamental
demand for Ecstasy, love, self-submission. Instead of this
self-submission, they are dramatizing patterns built upon a
spiritual or emotional limitation that has been present
since their childhood. People want to do all kinds of things
because they are suffering this limitation. They want to
develop themselves outwardly somehow, do something in the
world, be successful at something or other in the world, or
be successful at some inverted act, some kind of meditation,
yoga, kundalini and so on.

Commentary

People have been staying at very low levels of
practice for many years. Why? Because of this ’emotional
matter’. There isn’t (hearing and seeing) and
Heart-Conversion. Just because there is an intellectual
understanding and a ‘memory’ of experiences in the company
of the Spiritual Master it doesn’t ‘do the trick’.
Heart-conversion is what is required and that is what
‘Hearing and eeing’ are all about.

Hearing

Seeing

talk continues…

The kundalini energy goes up if it moves at all. The
God-Force comes down. And the Adept brings the God-Force
into the company of people. The kundalini if it can be
developed, leads through a series of self-based experiences
to a state of obliviousness relative to phenomena. If you
can become oblivious to all phenomena, then in some tacit
sense you are left with whatever is left over, and that is
God. But the Way is not about going through a long course
and winding up with God. The Way is about the process that
develops once you find God, once you Realize God. Thus, the
Adept has a special function. That function is not to call
people to Realize God after submitting themselves to a long
process, including perhaps the kundalini process of ascent
and dissociation from phenomena. The Adept brings God into
the company of people directly. The Adept descends. The
Adept brings the force of Realization into the body-mind,
into the vehicle of his own body-mind, which he must first
prepare through an arduous life-trial. Having done that, the
God-Force is stabilized in that apparent personality, is
Radiant in the form of that personality.

Commentary

The Way is not ‘winding’ up with God at the end of a
period of experiences. It’s about starting with God, Truth
or Reality. The Adept brings God into the company of people
directly. The Adept descends with the God-Force, Radiant
from beginning to end.

Study
of ‘Thumbs’ – Sutra 45

Once
You Find Out, Truly

talk continues…

Anyone who comes into contact with the Adept will in one
way or another or to one degree or another experience an
awakening. Of course, they may defend themselves against it.
They may have it momentarily and then contract from it, but
that awakening is the significance of the true Adept. The
function of the Adept is not to call people back to Realize
God but to grant people the Realization of God instantly.
Having established you in such Realization, the Adept calls
you to practice the Way of that Realization, the Way of
constantly abiding in that Realization. Such abiding
requires the discipline of self-transcending submission to
Divine Communion.

Commentary

Those who come into the Company of the Adept are
awakened to whatever degree they can receive his Blessing
Power. God is instantaneously Realized, momentarily and then
with true understanding the self-transcending submission and
purification practice can be taken up based on the Grace of
Awakening

Conversion

What is
‘Practice’?

talk continues…

Therefore, I am not calling people to look for God, nor
am I arguing them into believing in God. I have simply come
among you all. And when I come into contact with people,
suddenly God is obvious. But that is not the end of it. That
is the beginning of it. From the conventional point of view
God-Realization is the end of everything. But it can only be
the end of everything once you have gotten rid of
everything. In our Way God-Realization is the beginning of
everything. Therefore, people who come into my Company must
be instructed about what they must do now. They must not
merely luxuriate in the free gift of Divine Intoxication.
They should luxuriate in it, certainly, but not only
luxuriate in it. They should enjoy it, they should become
completely immersed in the miracle of God-Realization in my
Company, but they must be instructed about what their
obligation, their practice, must be.

Commentary

The beginning is True Contact with the Spiritual
Master. Then the instruction and practice must begin in
Satsang.

What
is Satsang?

After I return to Hermitage you will inevitably
experience the apparent loss of God-Realization. This does
not mean that God is lost. What is being shown in you is the
mechanism, the contraction that comes into play that makes
it seem that God is absent, that there is no love, that
there is no inherent Force of Being, that Being is
threatened, you see. You must know that mechanism, and you
must see me, you must enjoy God-Realization by seeing me.
You must observe the mechanism in yourselves that withdraws
from God-Realization and be responsible for a practice that
relinquishes that mechanism, that contraction. Fundamentally
that is our practice. Functional and social disciplines are
secondary and natural parts of this practice, but the
practice is fundamentally this heartfelt submission.

Commentary

Once the personal influences of the Spiritual
Transmission Master are over, Seeing or spiritual reception
of the Spirit Force must awaken if true practice is to
maintained. Self-understanding, hearing and seeing all go
together, moment to moment in and out of the personal
company of the Spiritual Master.

Hearing

Seeing

Practice

talk continues…

That heartfelt submission is practiced in the Way of
Faith or the Way of Divine Communion in one fashion, and it
is practiced in the Way of Insight in another fashion. In
both cases, however, precisely the same process is involved:
relinquishment of the self-contraction, immersion in the
inherent Reality, which is the Spiritual Divine, which is
Self-Radiant Love-Bliss. Therefore, That Which is Realized
through this discipline is always Love, Bliss, inherent
Radiance of Being, inherent Unity, Communion with and
ultimate Identity with the Living God. This is a profound
practice. It is not just some smiling, conventional
religious affair in which you try to keep yourself together
morally and functionally. It is a matter of Ecstasy and the
accompanying Intoxication. You must practice this. You must
submit yourself in my Company every moment, and that is a
discipline.

Commentary

There are two practices (The Way of Faith and The Way
of Insight) both are the same, relinquishment of the
self-contraction and the Realization of Love Bliss. The Way
is not a conventional path it is the Way of Samadhi.

talk continues…

There are some moments in my Company in which it just
happens. You do not know how it happens. You did not do
anything. You did not especially make a gesture of
submission – at least it was no greater than on any other
day. It was given to you for free, you see. That is good,
because that is the Blessing, the instant granting of
God-Realization. But with that Gift comes the demand of the
Law. You must practice self-submission to stay one with that
Realization. Grace will always be available. That Blessing
will be given to you again and again, but you must fulfill
the Law. You cannot by-pass that obligation, and that
obligation is the sadhana.

Commentary

There are moments of true awakening that is by Grace.
But Grace comes within the Law, the law is submission,
surrender and sadhana.

talk continues…

You must hear and see me and develop that specifically
spiritual process. If you will do that, you will also do all
the other social and intimate disciplines. You will practice
an intelligent, functional habit of life. You will serve and
make this Way available through the communications of the
institution and the community, and you will have productive
work and so on. Spiritual consciousness does not in any way
prohibit those things. In fact spiritual consciousness is
the creative principle that makes such things grow and
advance beyond conventional limits. But in addition you will
live the Ecstatic and Intoxicated life of a true devotee who
is constantly distracted by the Living One, Intoxicated by
that Presence, Intoxicated by immersion in the All-Pervading
Power of Love-Bliss, which does not appear to have a point
of origin within or without or anywhere in the universe, at
its periphery or its center. It is a Radiance without
center, without bounds. It is a Mystery. We are one with It
in our Ignorance, in our transcendence of the
self-contraction and the forms of knowledge and experience
associated with our individuated body-minds.

Commentary

In your practice, through hearing and seeing, you will
develop and transcend the third stage of life in a
relatively short period of time. There is no place where you
can not contact the Divine. There is no place and no time
you can not practice self-transending God Communion, it goes
24/7 without centers and bounds.

talk continues…

This Blessed Realization is given to you for free, and
you are in a state of total Ignorance, immersed in Mystery,
and at the same time absolute certainty. Wisdom without
limits can grow in you if you remain established in the
Living Divine. You will tend not to do that. Everyone who
has gathered for this celebration will tend not to do this
next week. It is not that they will not do it at all but
that they will be tending not to do it. They may become
depressed or despair or think that they must go on and look
for something else now, whereas what they must do is simply
practice. They must know what that practice is, however, and
they must become sensitive to the symptoms of egoity and how
it turns them from Ecstasy and Intoxication to
self-contraction, self-bondage, and all the complications of
ordinary life.

Commentary

Realization is realization of Mystery, Certainty and
Wisdom. It is a process of growth of understanding the
complexities and subtlies of egoity.

talk continues…

Ours is not a utopian community or self-help organization
or other-help organization in which we are simply trying to
make human beings calm, more balanced, and more socially
functional. Such equanimity is part of our culture of life,
but it is not the principle. The principle of our Way of
life is God-Communion, God-Realization, given for free by
Grace. But it is a Way of practice, a Way of submission to
That Which is Realized by Grace. If you do not make that
submission, then you will always tend to feel that you have
lost it or that it is not true anymore, that it does not
even exist. No matter how profound your experience may be
this week or one day, in another moment you can wonder if
that ever even happened, or you will try to account for it
psychologically or circumstantially or whatever, and you
will read little bits in magazines and books and newspapers
that will confirm your doubts. But the next time you are in
touch with that Blessing you will realize that it has
nothing to do with such limitations. It cannot be accounted
for by worldly philosophy. It is simply Divine
Realization.

Commentary

The Way is not a utopian and purifying path.
Equanimity and purification occur but that is not the
principle. Realization by Grace is the Principle. You will
forget it and you will try to remember it. You will find way
to ‘reestablish’ yourself in it but that is the search.
Realization has nothing to do with limitations it has to do
with Transcendence.

talk continues…

Well, you must come to the point at which it is no longer
acceptable to you to fall from such Grace, at which you are
no longer interested in merely surviving and functioning,
however cleanly. You must come to the point of commitment to
the Ecstasy and Intoxication of Divine Life, the Way of life
in which you are no longer separated from the Divine, but
are constantly one with the Divine, in constant Communion.
Only that must be acceptable to you. That is the capacity
for real practice. That is the impulse to Realization. That
is the core of every mature practitioners life.

Commentary

You must get to the point where phases and vacations
are understood and the Lesson of Life becomes your
conviction and understanding. You are between a rock and a
hard place and you should understand your ‘double bind’.
Unless your merely surviving and functioning.

talk continues…

Therefore, if there are going to be people moving out of
these beginning stages into mature stages of practice, then
this event, this transformation, this commitment must occur.
It must become profoundly important to you to remain in a
state of God-Realization and not to fall from it by becoming
preoccupied with ordinary life, which is really a
dramatization of Godlessness, a dramatization of an
emotional problem, shown through sexual signs, intimate
signs, social signs, in the form of all your preoccupations,
physical, mental, emotional, social. People in general are
dramatizing this Godless life or this emotionally contracted
life, separated from the Divine by virtue of that
contraction. I am calling you to live free of that and to
develop a different kind of life altogether, not based on
idealism but based on actual God-Realization from the
beginning.

Commentary

The Lesson must become clear to you if you’re going
truly practice. You must understand yourself, you must
become clear with your situation, handle business and move
on.

Unfinished
Business

talk continues…

I must struggle with people constantly. Why am I
struggling with them? If I were simply proposing a belief in
God and an idealistic program of practice, I would not have
to struggle at all. I would just give calm little lectures,
and everybody would practice rote disciplines. It is being
done all over the world by religious people. I am struggling
with people because what I am calling them to and what they
are experiencing in my Company, at least from time to time,
is a great matter that cannot be practiced on the basis of
belief and idealism. It involves this heart-submission,
whole-bodily. It must be Ecstasy. It must show the signs of
Intoxication or Love-Bliss. These signs must be in clear
evidence, in every aspect of functional life, in every
aspect of social life. This force of inherent Happiness, or
Love-Bliss under all circumstances, must be evident. If it
is not evident then you are not realizing it, you are not
practicing it. Thus, if your life is full of complications,
problems, and complaints, you are not enjoying the
God-Intoxicated state and you are not practicing the
discipline to which I have called you.

Commentary

This Great Way can not be practiced by belief and
idealism. It must become Samadhi. Samadhi must be evidenced
in your life. Signs of such should show themselves to
others. If the signs of Samadhi do not show themselves then
you are full of complications and complaints, not Samadhi.

talk continues…

If you truly see me and truly practice, then everything
becomes clarified. Your relationship with me is the key.
Because I am here, you no longer have to seek God.
Therefore, you can practice the unique Way that is founded
on God-Realization. You need not seek, or be a sinner. You
can be inherently sinless, which does not mean merely to
live in conventional moral purity and so forth, but to live
in a state of non-separation from the Spiritual Divine such
that that Reality transforms your life and makes the event
of life the practice of life. Thus, the unique advantage
given to human beings is the relationship to the Adept, and
this is so not merely because the Adept is someone who has
Realized the Truth and can tell you how to do it. It is a
unique advantage because the Adept Is what he has Realized
and Awakens that Realization in you instantly, merely by
entering into relationship with you. This is the root of the
Great Way. There is no practice, discipline, or wisdom that
we might call religious or spiritual that is as great as
that. It is the one Great Principle. Everything that we can
call religious or spiritual develops from that Principle,
that relationship. It is greater than anything we might call
our philosophy or our practice or our community.

Commentary

The Adept is your unique advantage, this is the Root
of the Great Way. Always has been and always will. Because
the Adept is Awakened, in his company the capability for
your awakening is Present. It depends on you and your
response.

talk continues…

This consideration must be developed with everyone. For
the first several days of my visit, what was emphasized was
the fact of my availability, the fact of people coming into
my Company and the experience they were having as a result.
That is good, and that should continue to be emphasized or
made the core of this celebration, because that is the Great
Principle to which I have been pointing. On the other hand,
people must be instructed about the practice that is their
obligation when they have been Blessed with seeing, Blessed
with God-Realization, Blessed with heart-release. The
experience will tend to fade, and then they will be stuck
with the egoic game of Narcissus. By tendency that is
inevitable. Thus, they must recognize this Blessing,
acknowledge it, be able to observe the signs of withdrawal
from it, and know what their discipline is and that it is a
hard school. They must be committed to it because they value
a state of God-Realization above all and are not inclined to
make any ordinary experience the focus of their
existence.

Commentary

It is fine people can have momentary experiences in
the Company of the Guru but experiences fade and the ego
comes to the forefront once again and again. Hearing should
awaken in this practice. It is a hard school because ego
patterning is strong and self-understanding is weak.

talk continues…

Thus, everyone should emerge from this celebration
committed to that practice, not just temporarily intoxicated
by my Company. In other words, they must realize what a
Great Principle this Ecstasy and Intoxication is, value It,
and know Its supreme nature. They must make this Principle a
future practice and not be naive, not be winging it for a
few days in my physical Company and ready for a crash next
week, you see. In years past people would exhaust me by
requiring my Company for this Ecstasy and then not
practicing, so that I was being wrung dry like a goose
laying golden eggs or a cow full of elixir. That is an
abuse. Everyone should definitely use my Company for the
sake of this Realization, this Ecstasy and Intoxication, but
they must accept the obligation that comes with it, and be
prepared to endure the necessary discipline of this daily
life-practice when I return to the Hermitage. I am not going
to be absent from them. I will simply not be in their
physical company for the time being.

Commentary

People should not ‘suck the Guru dry’ by not taking
responsibility for the Gift and failure to understand the
Law. There is an obligation and there is the law.

You
Make the Choices

talk continues…

In most cases devotees will have only very rare
experiences of being in my physical Company, and that is
fine. It should be sufficient to come into my Company a few
times and be awakened to God-Realization – even once will be
enough if you are willing to endure the practice of
spiritual discipline. I do not mean “enough” in the sense
that you have experienced my physical Company today and so
do not care if you ever see me again. Rather, my physical
Company should be used effectively, and then you must know
how to locate my Transcendental Company thereafter.

Commentary

The company of the Spiritual Master has both physical
and transcendental aspects. You must learn how to make
contact with the transcendental aspect of the Spiritual
Master if your practice is to grow.

“For those who practice, there is no question but that
the Company of the True Adept, the Siddha is essential for
the fulfillment of the Way, and is not possible to enter
into the Enlightened condition without the Help of
Transcendental Agency. In most cases, that Agency magnified
through an incarnate Siddha. So individuals, devotees must
not only hear my arguments, and develop the practice of
conductivity and the conscious process, they must cultivate
their relationship with me. They just locate me. They must
learn how to find my influence. They must learn how to
associate with it, how to relate to it, how to stay with it
and so on. It is not an it, it is an I, it is the
Transcendental Being. It is the Transcendental Person of the
Adept. It is necessary for devotees to learn how to
cultivate this relationship altogether in spiritual
terms.”

What
is the Conscious Process?

talk continues…

When I return to Hermitage all devotees should still
Commune with me. I should still have their attention. Their
relationship to me should be the core of their daily
practice. Devotees should develop a culture with one another
that is about such practice, and they should accept the
charge I have given them relative to their own practice and
the offering of this Way to others. All of that is the
business of devotees. It is none of my business at all.
Therefore, I will look for those signs as the evidence of
devotees response to me. There are certain signs I look for
during this celebration, the tangible signs that are
immediate to our meeting-all the Ecstatic signs in people in
my Company. Those signs are good, and this is especially a
time for all that to be let loose. When I return to
Hermitage I will be looking for other signs as well. I will
be looking for the effective performance of this practice,
in its essential discipline as well as its secondary ones,
and for the fulfillment of the charge I have given to this
institution and to the community. All that is a very serious
matter. It is a great discipline. It is a very creative
obligation and a very Happy Way of life. If you will do it
and attract others who will do it, there really will be no
limit on the importance of my birth. This birth can, in
other words, be the incident that changes the course of this
human dilemma. That is the intention of this birth, but its
fulfillment requires the response of devotees and their
fulfillment of the Law of their own obligation.

Commentary

Devotees should not lose the thread of their of their
attention or lose sight of the Guru. The business of
devotees and the culture they create is to keep that the
focus of their lives. The Guru is always looking for the
Ecstatic signs of their devotion. The creation of community
and the creative obligations that go along with the Gift are
the vehicle the Guru has created. The creative obligation of
devotees is to bring their Way of Life out into the world
and understand the importance of the birth of such a One.

talk continues…

What it comes down to is that this matter must become
important to you. You would say, I presume, that it is
important to you, but obviously it has to become a lot more
important to you than it is. Ask any devotee who has come
here for this celebration whether God-Realization, this Way
of life, is important, and he or she would say yes. But it
is not important enough yet. Otherwise we would see a
profound transformation in the quality of everyone’s living
from day to day. The Way of God-Realization is a great
struggle. You have to struggle with yourself and I must
struggle with everybody. There is no luxury in it for me,
you see. Struggle is inherent in this outpost. When
everything vibrates down to this vulgar level, it takes a
lot of work to stay Happy.

Commentary

‘What is of importance to you? After having seen such
a One, understanding the obligation and the law, what does
one do? There is a lot of work to do and people must stay
‘tuned’ and stay open to the obligations that are inherent
in such a relationship.

“There are many reasons why this Way is quick. But its
because its focused on this one matter and not a lot of
distractions. But somehow or other you reverse it. You make
the establishment of all the foundation practices into some
sort of a thing in itself and don’t stay one pointed in what
this listening to Me is really all about.”

No
Escape, Only Realization

talk continues…

Most people are just struggling to survive. You all are
struggling to stay Happy. It is another matter altogether.
If you have enjoyed even a moment of Divine Intoxication in
my Company you can see how trivial all the preoccupations of
mankind are and how they are all based on the absence of
such Happiness. Some of those un-Happy people even claim
that they are looking for it or that what they are doing is
a means for realizing that Happiness, but it is not really
true. All those preoccupations are not leading toward
Happiness, they are what people are doing because they have
despaired of Happiness already and have settled for
something less. Most of them would settle for a good word, a
little bit of hope, a little miracle, a promise of survival
after death. A little consolation is all they would like to
have added to this difficult and un-Happy struggle. Because
of that many people only want or only accept that much from
me. But I am showing them something more and calling them to
something more, calling them to a Great Life and not merely
to the continuation of their mediocrity or a little bit of
consolation based on the fact that I exist.

Commentary

“What I’m talking about is a process and a discipline.
It is about a practice. It is a practice because energy and
attention will become conditioned again, it is conditioned,
and you will forget and return to your ordinary occupations.
You will forget about, think it’s too much or settle for a
certain level of adaptation and take a vacation,
settle.

I can have these talks with you over and over again.
You can respond initially with all the gusto you’ve got,
respond to Me and the Argument, take up the Perfect
Practice. But you cannot truly practice the Way until you
have entered into the domain of the Spirit-Force through
self-understanding.”

The
Yoga of Spiritual Practice

Keep
Focused and Less Interested in the Baggage

talk continues…

Thus, it is not sufficient, from my point of view, for
everybody to feel good this week only to crash next week. I
will consider this visit to be auspicious only if people
continue to practice next week and all the weeks following
and will show me the evidence of spiritual practice and its
signs in all of the practical affairs of the institution and
the community. In the past the report I received from
devotees was typically that of the failed case, the failure
of practice, the “oh, shucks, I did it again” stuff, the
“please examine me and give me insight into my problem”
stuff. I have given people everything to free them of their
problems. They are inherently free of such problems in my
Company. Therefore, instead of begging for insight into all
of that, or begging for me to analyze their case or give
them one more taste, they should be bringing me their gifts,
the gift of submission, of entering into this Communion and
developing the signs of spiritual life. If they will do that
then not only will the institution and the community develop
and grow, but people will move readily into advanced stages
of practice and the profundity of the central culture of our
institution will be magnified. That is what I am looking for
as a follow-up to this occasion. Make sure everybody knows
that.

Commentary

“I guess the highest percentage of devotees, are
disciplining but maintaining ordinary life-circumstances. Of
course, when they don’t quite properly or effectively
discipline it, then their practice becomes
mediocre.”

What
is Listening?

You
Must Hear the Teaching Argument

end of talk

Summary of Comments

Core of the process is the transcendence of the
emotional problem of which your whole life is a
dramatization.

There are ‘effects’ (Transmission) of the Spiritual
Masters presence. But these effects do not last. What they
should do is awaken the discipline of practice into the life
of the devotee.

Disciplines are secondary and supportive excercises
and without ‘hearing’ and ‘seeing’ they are only
conventional forms of behavior.

Just because one is ‘awakened’ in the company of the
Spiritual Master it is not ones permanent state. Nor can one
‘instantaneously’ make that heartful submission when called
to do so.

People have been staying at very low levels of
practice for many years. Why? Because of this ’emotional
matter’. There isn’t Hearing, Seeing and Heart-Conversion.
Just because there is an intellectual understanding and a
‘memory’ of experiences in the company of the Spiritual
Master it doesn’t ‘do the trick’. Heart-conversion is what
is required and that is what ‘Hearing and Seeing’ are all
about.

The beginning is True Contact with the Spiritual
Master. Then the instruction and practice must begin in
Satsang.

There are two practices, The Way of Faith and The Way
of Insight and both are the same, relinquishment of the
self-contraction and the Realization of Love Bliss. The Way
is not a conventional path it is the Way of Samadhi.

There are moments of true awakening that is by Grace.
But Grace comes within the Law, the law is submission,
surrender and sadhana.

Realization is realization of Mystery, Certainty and
Wisdom. It is a process of growth of understanding the
complexities and subtlies of egoity.

The Lesson must become clear to you if you’re going
truly practice. You must understand yourself, you must
become clear with your situation, handle business and move
on.

People should not ‘suck the Guru dry’ by not taking
responsibility for the Gift and failure to understand the
Law. There is an obligation and there is the law.

Notes

Losing the
Thread

AVATARA ADI DA: But you still have to do the sadhana. The
sadhana is staying in touch with your own very action in
this moment and going beyond it, forgetting it in Communion
with Me. If you just look for experiences, so called
Spiritual experiences, psychic experiences, or blisses in
the body, whatever – youre becoming superficial again.
Those experiences may come or go, but to look for them, to
avoid the sadhana of staying in place where that knot is and
feeling beyond it is to waste the opportunity of this
Way.

Pleasure as a Release

Pain is the motive behind pleasure. That is how the
self-contraction can be observed in moments of pleasure,
then. In the circumstance of pleasure, observe the pain
behind it and the effort to be relieved from that pain.
address this, observe this. Notice this and you discover
that it is your own activity. That activity is perpetual. It
is not only present in the form of sex desire, it is
constantly enacted. That activity is universally enacted in
the body-mind through every function, every circumstance,
every relation, every moment. You are manufacturing the same
stressful pain all the time. That pain is the knot of your
own activity, of the self-contraction.

When you become sensitive to this fact, which
underlies all your other activities, then you can address it
directly in every moment, in the context of every function,
every circumstance, every relation. This becomes your
saddhana, then addressing this contraction, feeling
beyond it rather than engaging in the repetitive rituals of
the search to escape this knot without addressing it. Merely
to indulge in some desire is not to eliminate the
self-contraction. Merely indulging in desire is to relieve
the sensations associated with that desire for a moment. But
then the desire reappears. It constantly reappearsas
sexual desire or in some other form. In every moment, you
are dealing with the same stress, the same knot, the same
sensation, the same difficulty, the same
motivatorwhich you will discover is your activity of
contraction, separation, dissociation, avoidance of
relationship. That is the motivator behind all activity in
the usual man or woman. This is what you must
discover.

You must develop that understanding to the point of
most fundamental responsibility for your own activity, which
is what I call “hearing”. In the listening phase of your
saddhana in the Way of the Heart, you are “considering” My
Instruction, “considering” My Communication to you in all
the forms that relate to your observation of this activity
of self-contraction, this activity that is behind all of
your motives, all of your desires, all of your activities.
That contraction is always present. It is the motivator
behind all your activities.

Duty,
Tolerance, and self-Transcendence