In the following Essay from The
Basket of Tolerance, Beloved Bhagavan Adi
Da describes the seven premonitorily “seventh stage” texts that He
has placed on The Basket of Tolerance. In the excerpts from this
Essay included here, Beloved further clarifies the difference between
the traditional sixth stage Realization and the seventh stage
Realization of the Way of the Heart.
The Unique Sixth Stage
Foreshadowings
of the Only-By-Me Revealed Seventh Stage of
Life
The seventh stage of life is the clear and final
fulfillment of the first six stages of life. Its Revelation and
Demonstration by My own Form, Presence, State, Work, and Word are My
unique Gift to all and All. However, within the Great Tradition
itself, there are some few literatures and Realizers of the sixth
stage type that express philosophical, or insightful, but yet limited
and incomplete, intuitions that sympathetically foreshadow some of
the basic characteristics of the by Me Revealed and Demonstrated
seventh stage Realization. The
Ashtavakra Gita is a principal example of
such premonitorily “seventh stage” literature. It is among the
greatest (and most senior) communications of all the religious and
Spiritual traditions in the Great Tradition of mankind. The
Ashtavakra Gita is the Great Confession of a Sage who has thoroughly
engaged the philosophies and practices of the first six stages of
life. It is a sixth stage Realizer’s Free (and uncompromised)
communication (or Confession) of the ultimate implications of his
sixth stage Realization.
Like other premonitorily “seventh stage” texts,
the Ashtavakra Gita assumes a tradition of progressive practice in
the total context of the first six stages of life, but it does not
itself represent or communicate any ideal or technique of practice.
It simply (and rather exclusively) communicates the Ultimate “Point
of View” of the sixth stage Realizer. On the basis of the Free
assertions of such a Realizer, the ordinary reader may presume to
take on the attitude that the meditations and other practices engaged
in the first five stages of life (and even the sixth stage of life)
are at least unnecessary, if not foolish. However, such practices are
unnecessary only from the “Point of View” of (and in the actual case
of) the Realization such practices are, ultimately, intended to
serve. Therefore, even though the Ashtavakra Gita is itself the
Confession of the fullest possible Realization of the sixth stage of
life, those who want so to Realize must enter into the ordeal of the
stages of practice associated with the first six stages of life. The
premonitorily “seventh stage” Teaching (as found in the Ashtavakra
Gita, and in any other premonitorily “seventh stage” literature, or
in the ultimate Confessions of any premonitorily “seventh stage”
Realizer) simply puts the progressive stages of life and practice in
perspective, and goads the practitioner to pass through and beyond
those stages of life and practice as directly and quickly as
possible.
Relative to the total spectrum of the first six
stages of life, some few sacred traditions are basically complete, in
that they are represented by many schools which, if viewed
collectively, express all of the first six stages of life in one form
or another. (The various schools within any such tradition may even
stand in conflict with one another, because each is limited to the
point of view of one or another of the stages of life, but the Great
Realizers see them all in terms of a progressive unity, culminating
in the fullest Realization of the sixth stage of life.) Thus, for
example, the Ashtavakra Gita is a culminating expression of the
religious and philosophical schools of the early Vedic and
Upanishadic tradition. It also encompasses all that is contained in
the ancient and modern tradition associated with the God-Idea called
“Siva”. That tradition includes the fourth stage devotional tradition
of ancient Saivism, the fifth stage philosophy of the Upanishads of
the Yoga schools, the fifth stage Yoga of the more modern schools of
Kashmir Saivism and the Nath tradition, and the sixth stage attitudes
and practices of Advaita Vedanta (which is a tradition founded on
Upanishadic non-dualism, and which, like the Buddhist tradition as a
whole, is founded on the sixth stage orientation to
Truth).
Only a very few other texts are, like the
Ashtavakra Gita, the ultimate texts of such comprehensive traditions
(encompassing the total range of the first six stages of life).
The Tripura Rahasya, the Avadhoota
Gita, and the Lankavatara
Sutra clearly are such comprehensive (and
premonitorily “seventh stage”) texts. Like the Ashtavakra Gita, they
do not represent a practice, but, rather, they represent the
description or Confession of Ultimate (sixth stage) Realization. They
each represent the Ultimate Free “Point of View” of a sixth stage
Realizer (or at least a sixth stage philosophical tradition) who, by
means of the Free Confession of the fullest sixth stage (or
premonitorily “seventh stage”) “Point of View” alone, instructs
others (who are yet progressively practicing in the context of the
first six stages of life) about the Ultimate Realization that is the
traditionally presumed Goal of their practice….
The Teaching given in the traditional
premonitorily “seventh stage” texts is a Teaching given by a sixth
stage Realizer (or a sixth stage tradition) to clarify (usually for
the sake of a “ripe”, or fully matured, practitioner of the
disciplines of the sixth stage of life) the transition from the
practice of the sixth stage of life to the fullest Realization of the
sixth stage of life. That Teaching is not intended to argue,
“consider”, or describe the practice of any of the earlier stages of
life. Rather, the intention characteristic of the premonitorily
“seventh stage” texts is the intention to make only an “Ultimate”
statement.
There are two principal criticisms I must make
relative to the conventional or popular uses of premonitorily
“seventh stage” texts (and of esoteric literature in general). The
first must be directed to those who casually assume an attitude (or
ego-image) that mentally presumes Realization, and, thus, freedom
from the necessity of practice (and from the Teaching Help and the
Blessing Transmission of a fully qualified Realizer). Such people
merely read and think, until the mind begins to suffer the conceit of
(necessarily false) Enlightenment (or false Self-Realization, or
false attainments in general). In the world of esoteric religion,
this heresy of “mind-Realization” is one of the profound faults. Such
a conceit of the mind is supported by the open availability of
esoteric literature as well as by popular “philosophers” of the
lecture hall. And the popular justification of this fault, as given
by false authorities (who are often most critical of “authorities”),
has interfered with the religious (and potentially Spiritual, and
Ultimate) progress of many people….
Until there is Realization, there is no
Realization. The reading of esoteric literature may be a positive
discipline, but only if it leads the individual to the conviction
that he or she is ego-bound (and, therefore, committed to suffering
and limitation). On such a basis, an individual may become
sympathetic and available to the real process of religious (and
progressively Spiritual, and then Ultimate) practice. But those who
presume Ultimate Realization in the mind, without practice or Truly
Most Ultimate Divine Awakening, have only become enamored of one of
the many idols or consoling solutions that distract humanity from the
Way of (Most Ultimately) Divine Self-Realization, which is
necessarily the Way of the Sacrifice of the conditional (or
apparently separate) self, to the degree (Most Ultimately) of
Self-Existing and Self-Radiant Love-Bliss.
The second criticism I would offer relative to the
conventional uses of premonitorily “seventh stage” literature in
particular is directed to those who, while they may not presume
Realization in their own case, nonetheless (and even dogmatically)
assume (simply on the basis of the Realizer’s criticism of the
attainments promoted by practitioners in the progressive context of
the first six stages of life) that the progressive stages of practice
are unnecessary, or even false. The premonitorily “seventh stage”
texts do not represent a complete Teaching (in the sense that one
can, without practice, immediately Realize That about Which they
communicate), but they do criticize the limitations of the practices,
experiences, and ideas of Realization proposed by fourth, fifth, and
even sixth stage traditions. Thus, on the basis of fullest sixth
stage Realization (even sixth stage “Sahaj Samadhi”), the stages of
progress and the experiences on the Way—which some declare to be
Realization Itself—are seen to be merely the evidence of
immaturity, or incomplete progress, rather than finality.
The dualistic devotional idea of Realization
proposed by the fourth stage traditions (and the conventional
exotericism of popular religion) is a laudable aspiration for
beginners, but it is not the final Realization. Similarly, the fifth
stage point of view of mystical Yoga, which associates Realization
with the experience of various kinds of bodily bliss, psychisms,
visions, internal sounds, Yogic powers, and ascent to trance-states
of mind or other subtle phenomenal regions of Cosmic Nature, while
being laudable as an evolutionary development of human potential, is
only a transitional view, and it must, in due course (whether sooner
or later), be gone beyond. Likewise, the sixth stage point of view of
inversion (to the degree of avoiding even the natural arising of
phenomenal experience) is not an end in itself, but it is only the
final developmental stage previous to the traditional transition to
sixth stage “Sahaj Samadhi” (and, in the Way of the Heart, which I
have Revealed, it, and even every trace of the exclusive, or
separative, tendency, is transcended in the transition to the true
seventh stage Awakening)….
Traditions, and tradition-based individuals, that
speak from the point of view of one or another of the first six
stages of life generally conceive of life in some problematic form.
On the basis of a particular problem-conception, they tend to
interpret the experiential and conceptual phenomena that tend to
accompany (or even mechanically result from) the practice at their
stage of life to be a solution that must be regarded as Ultimate
Salvation, Liberation, Realization, or Enlightenment. For this
reason, the conception of existence as a problem to be solved is one
of the fundamental impediments associated with the Great Tradition as
a whole.
In the long history of the Great Tradition, both
ordinary and extraordinary attainments that are less than the
Realization of the seventh stage of life have, in every time and
place, been conceived to be Ultimate Salvation, Liberation,
Realization, or Enlightenment, the Ultimate Goal or Fulfillment of
life. And, in the case of most human beings, Happiness tends always
to be associated with some (conditional or merely psycho-physical)
state that is an experiential alternative to the present one. Truly,
extraordinary states of body and mind may be attained via the
psycho-physical exercise of the ego-self in the various developmental
stages of life, but Happiness Itself, or Most Perfect
God-Realization, or Truly Most Ultimate Enlightenment is not
identical to such attainments. Indeed, Happiness (Itself) is superior
to all conditional attainments and always already most prior to all
problems. Happiness (Itself) is the fundamental Realization of the
seventh stage of life, in Which the conventions of conditional
experience and conditional knowledge have been Most Perfectly
understood and Most Perfectly transcended. Happiness (Itself) is a
matter of native transcendence of the limits imposed on Very
Existence. It is not a matter of conventional Salvation or lesser
Realization. It is not to be attained apart from the present. It is
simply a matter of transcending the problem, the search, and all the
limitations of conditional knowledge and conditional experience that
one superimposes on the present. Thus, Happiness (Itself) is a Free
exercise, or a matter of Freedom Itself. That is to say, Happiness
(Itself) is not merely the Goal of life. It is the Very (or Truly
Ultimate, and Inherently Perfect) Essence, Substance, Context,
Condition, and Identity of life….
The traditional premonitorily “seventh stage”
texts are advanced sixth stage literatures that express a few
philosophical conceptions, or yet limited and incomplete intuitions,
that sympathetically resemble the characteristic seventh stage
Disposition (in and of Itself), and thus somehow foreshadow (rather
than directly reflect, or directly express) the Truly Most Ultimate
(or Transcendental, inherently Spiritual, and necessarily Divine)
“Point of View”. Such texts communicate a “Point of View” in which
discriminative intelligence and the effects of discriminative mind
are completely discounted, and even made fun of, along with the
practices that belong to the developmental stages of life and
practice. However, none of the traditional texts otherwise
communicate the truly and wholly seventh stage “Point of View” and
Sign, not mixed with or otherwise limited by sixth stage limitations.
And they never communicate the full developmental and Yogic details
of the progressive seventh stage Demonstration. Nor do they ever
indicate (or otherwise Demonstrate) the potential Most Ultimate (or
Final) Sign of Demonstration that characterizes the seventh stage of
life (Which End-Sign Is Divine Translation). Therefore, it is only by
My own Work and Word that the truly seventh stage Revelation and
Demonstration has Appeared, to Complete the Great Tradition of
mankind.
This special class of premonitorily “seventh
stage” traditional literature must be rightly understood, and the by
Me Revealed seventh stage “Point of View” Itself must serve that
understanding. Otherwise, the fullest sixth stage (and premonitorily
“seventh stage”) “Point of View” expressed in various traditional
literatures can possibly mislead the ordinary reader to presume that
there is no value in meditative practices and Spiritual discipline,
but that one should merely act indiscriminately (as, at least
sometimes, it seems some Realizers do).
Of course, neither undisciplined nor
un-Enlightened “Freedom” is the import of the premonitorily “seventh
stage” texts. It is simply that, from the fully Realized sixth stage
(and premonitorily “seventh stage”) “Point of View”, everything
previously practiced now seems useless and unnecessary (and,
therefore, from the “Point of View” of the Realizer, even, in some
sense, ridiculous).
When that fullest sixth stage (and premonitorily
“seventh stage”) Disposition is communicated by Itself, without
“Consideration” of the preparatory and progressive preliminaries that
preceded it, everything that is usually presumed to belong to the
religious (or would-be Enlightened or God-Realized) life is made to
seem as if it is useless, worthless. Such is not factually true, but
to say it is true is a characteristic expression of the attitude of
Humor and Freedom that is, in one manner or another, generally
typical of the sixth stage Realizers (or traditions of Realization)
that show premonitory sympathies with the seventh stage of
life.
As I have indicated, there are only a few
traditional texts that are uniquely (or more or less exclusively)
devoted to the expression (or Confession) of the fullest sixth stage
(and premonitorily “seventh stage) “Point of View”. One of them is
the Ashtavakra
Gita, which arose from the ancient Vedic
and Upanishadic tradition, as well as from the Saivite tradition in
its nondualistic (or Advaitic) stage. The other such texts I have
indicated include the Avadhoota Gita, which is from the
Dattatreya tradition, the Tripura Rahasya, from the
Devi tradition, and the Lankavatara
Sutra, from the Mahayana tradition of
Buddhism. And, along with the Lankavatara
Sutra, I have included the
Diamond
Sutra, the Mahayanavimsaka
of Nagarjuna, and the Sutra
of Hui Neng, because they represent the
same general (Mahayana Buddhist) tradition and the same (fullest
sixth stage, and premonitorily “seventh stage”) “Point of View” as
the Lankavatara
Sutra.
There may be other such traditional texts.
However, I have “considered” numerous other traditional texts that
might be added to the list of fullest sixth stage, and premonitorily
“seventh stage”, literatures, and I have as yet found no other texts
that completely fulfill the requirements of a uniquely (or more or
less exclusively) expressed fullest sixth stage, and premonitorily
“seventh stage”, text….
In the sixth stage of life, the primal Root of
attention is “Located”, and the Transcendental Self-Condition is, in
the Process, discriminated from Its objects, but, in the seventh
stage of life, that gesture of discrimination is, not merely as a
matter of principle, but inherently (and Inherently Most Perfectly),
not made. As I have pointed out, in the actual transition from the
sixth stage of life to the seventh stage of life, the discriminative
root-tension, in which the Ultimate Self-Condition is embraced
independent of objects (or by strategically separating out from
objects), is Utterly and Inherently (and Inherently Most Perfectly)
transcended.
Some people may expect that, based on My
description (and the descriptions otherwise contained in the
traditional fullest sixth stage, and premonitorily “seventh stage”,
literatures), the seventh stage of life must involve some sort of
fallback to the conditionally manifested world. In fact, a great deal
of ill-“considered” scholarly literature strives to interpret
Ultimate Wisdom as some sort of return to the conventional
involvement with samsara (or the conventionally perceived and
conceived world). It is true that, in the seventh stage Awakening,
the Very (and Most Prior) Self, or the Unconditional (and necessarily
Divine) Reality, or (to use a traditional technical term) the
“Nirvanic” Self-Condition, is not discriminated from objects, or from
conditionally manifested existence, or from the world of the
body-mind, or from the body-mind itself, or (to use a traditional
term) from “samsara”. Rather, “samsara” (or the conditionally
manifested world, the conditionally manifested body-mind, and all
conditionally manifested relations) is tacitly and inherently (and
Inherently Most Perfectly, and Divinely) Recognized to be nothing but
a transparent, or merely apparent, and un-necessary, and inherently
non-binding, modification of the Self-Existing and Self-Radiant
Divine (and “Nirvanic”) Self-Condition. Therefore, what is
characteristic of the seventh stage of life is the (Divine)
Recognizability of “samsara”, not the return (or reversion, or
fallback) to “samsara”. The discriminative faculty of mind, but not
Enlightenment Itself, is transcended in the transition to the seventh
stage of life. Realization is Perfected (or Realized to be Inherently
Most Perfect) in the Awakening to the seventh stage of
life.
Some fullest sixth stage (and premonitorily
“seventh stage”) Realizers have a kind of “Crazy” aspect. They behave
in an unconventional manner, as a Sign of their transcendence of the
discriminative mind (which is otherwise always differentiating
between what is Spiritual and what is not, what is “Nirvana” and what
is “samsara”, what is interior and what is exterior, what is mind and
what is body, what is subtle and what is gross, and so on). Just as
the unique fullest sixth stage (and premonitorily “seventh stage”)
literature is, in its most typical attitude, Playfully and Humorously
Free of all the conditional approaches of the earlier stages of life
and practice, the biographies of such Realizers (of sixth stage
“Sahaj Samadhi”) very often describe “Crazy Wisdom”. Thus, by their
behavior, such individuals may refuse to take seriously the
conventions, the rules, the disciplines, the point(s) of view, or any
of the practices and philosophies of the earlier stages of life. Of
course—the transcendence of all of that is what God-Realization
(or Truth-Realization, or Reality-Realization) is, ultimately, all
about! But the fullest sixth stage, and premonitorily “seventh
stage”, and even “Crazy”, Realizers have not thereby ceased to be,
according to their stage of life, either Enlightened or Spiritually
True.
The fullest sixth stage (and premonitorily
“seventh stage”) Realizers must be understood, but they cannot truly
be understood from any ordinary point of view. They can be valued
within a context or a tradition that values Ultimate Wisdom, but no
one can truly and fully come to understand a fullest sixth stage (and
premonitorily “seventh stage”) Realizer without, at least to the same
degree, transcending the egoic self in the process. In the Play of
the “Crazy” Realizer with devotees, devotees are confounded, but,
truly, they are not dissuaded from their discipline—rather, they
are Attracted toward its Ultimate Fulfillment. (And this is most
especially, and most profoundly, the case in My own “Crazy” Work with
devotees.)
The seventh, or Truly Most Ultimate (and
Inherently Most Perfect), stage of life is characterized by a unique
Disposition, but one not heretofore (even based on the premonitorily
“seventh stage” evidence in the Great Tradition) understood as such
in studies of traditional literature. No systematic approach to the
traditions has heretofore ever been communicated based on the stages
of life as I have revealed and Demonstrated them to be. Of course,
there has been much scholarly examination of the philosophical,
religious, and Spiritual traditions, but the seven-stage structure I
have Revealed and Demonstrated has not been understood to be the
connecting basis of all of it, and the seventh stage Disposition has
not been understood to be the Truly Most Ultimate (and Inherently
Most Perfect) stage of life, nor even a unique, distinct phase of
Spiritual life, nor the distinct subject of a unique premonitory
literature. Therefore, I have Revealed and Demonstrated the detailed
and complete pattern of all seven of the stages of life, including,
above all, the unique seventh stage of life.
My Word of Revelation and Instruction is the
Fulfillment and the Completion of the Wisdom of the Great Tradition
of mankind, even projected upon (or informing, and properly aligning)
each and all of the first six stages of life, and all the conditions
of ordinary people, even people who have no esoteric (or even in any
sense truly religious) tradition. Even all My Teaching and Blessing
Work is a Play with ordinary people, and even with all beings, for I
am Moved to all by Heart, Awake. And, in that Play, I have Revealed
the complete Process of even the seventh stage of life, even in all
its esoteric Yogic and Spiritual details, whereas the traditional
fullest sixth stage (and only premonitorily “seventh stage”) texts
have only suggested (without yet and Most Perfectly Realizing and
Demonstrating) only some of the most general or rudimentary
characteristics of the seventh stage of life.
Truly Most Ultimate (and Inherently Most Perfect)
Realization requires the Truly Most Ultimate Fulfillment and the
Inherently Most Perfect Completion of life lived as a true and most
profound Ordeal of self-transcendence. And That Truly Most Ultimate
(and Inherently Most Perfect) Realization is seventh stage
(Transcendental, inherently Spiritual, and necessarily Divine)
Enlightenment. Such Enlightenment (or seventh stage Realization)
transcends all the limitations and conventions of the discriminating
(or self-contracting) mind (which conceives of independent
categories, such as separate self, separate other, separate world,
separate God, separate Truth, separate Reality, separate Nirvana,
separate samsara, separate body, separate suffering, separate
practice, separate meditation, separate thoughts, and separate
Liberation or Realization). However, Inherently Most Perfect
Enlightenment is not Itself merely freedom from the discriminating
mind. Rather, it is Realization of the inherently unspeakable Real
Condition of conditional self and conditional world.
The Way of the Heart, which is the Way of practice
and of Realization Given by Me for the sake of all who will be My
devotees, is the Way that is, from the beginning, based on the
seventh stage Wisdom Revealed and Demonstrated by Me (in Person, at
Work, and via My Word of Revelation and Instruction). My Revelatory
and Instructive Word also includes critical commentaries on the Great
Tradition of mankind—because the Way of the Heart presumes the
entire Great Tradition of mankind as its background (or traditional
foundation and inheritance). However, My devotees are not followers
(or practitioners) of the Great Tradition (or any part, or parts, of
the Great Tradition) itself. They simply have an affinity for the
Great Tradition, based on their comprehensive study and real practice
of the by Me Revealed Way of the Heart, and served by their right
(critical and appreciative) understanding of the One and Entire Great
Tradition (on which foundation the Way of the Heart has now
appeared). Therefore, the affinity My devotees have for the Great
Tradition of mankind is an exemplary affinity, which, because of
their sympathetic response to My own Sign and Disposition, is also
characterized by universal tolerance and universal goodwill. May even
all who study My Revelatory and Instructive Word relative to the One
and Entire Great Tradition of mankind be Served by My every Word (and
by a truly sympathetic response to My Sign and Disposition) to
manifest such right (critical and appreciative) understanding, and
such true (universal) tolerance, and such true (universal)
goodwill.