I
Call you to Go Beyond the
“Oedipal” Sufferings of Childhood
by
Adi Da Samraj
The first noticings of emotional-sexual polarization and
sexual suggestion are in relationship to one’s parents. Children, however,
are naive. They have no discrimination, no present-lifetime learning about
emotional-sexual matters—and, therefore, the judgments they make about
these matters are almost invariably misjudgments, associated (generally)
with incestuous ideas and complications. In most cases, parents do not
make directly incestuous gestures toward their children, but (whether or
not this is the case) children naively interpret their parents’ response
to them to be incestuous. Children presume a certain kind of relationship
to the parent of the opposite sex and a different kind of relationship
to the parent of the same sex. In addition, children feel betrayed by the
love—and even the sexual sign—that they observe between their parents.
When the individual becomes an adolescent, and (on that
basis) comes to adult age, the naive observations and presumptions of childhood
remain intact—in the form of (generally) unconscious and subconscious
(or unobserved and non-responsible) patterns of body, emotion, and mind.
And, until those patterns are transcended (or responsibly lived beyond),
they always thereafter remain as the very basis of everything that
the “adult” does in emotional-sexual terms (and even in all other terms).
Thus, every individual coming to adolescence, and then to adult
age, is (to one or another degree) complicated by what are, in fact, incestuous
(or early-life-patterned) problems. Indeed, the entire pattern and force
of every individual’s emotional-sexual life is based on incestuous (or
early-life-patterned) impulses and interpretations.
Until one goes beyond the naive misinterpretations of
emotional-sexual life that one has generated in relation to one’s parents
(and other early-life relations), one will not truly achieve adulthood.
Rather, one will simply re-enact the patterns based on the naive misjudgments
of childhood. Therefore, the entire field of one’s emotional-sexual relations
as a presumed adult will, in fact, be incestuous “theatre” (or a kind of
eternal childhood, otherwise interrupted only by the confused counter-childhood
reactivity of the adolescent character).
Everything that one learned from (or reacted to in) the
parent of the opposite sex, one brings to one’s adult relations with all
individuals of the opposite sex. And, similarly, everything that one learned
from (or reacted to in) the parent of the same sex, one brings to one’s
adult relations with all individuals of the same sex. Thus, in the typical
case, one tends to relate to any individual of the opposite sex as one
did to the parent of the opposite sex. Likewise, one tends to relate to
any individual of the same sex as one did to the parent of the same sex.
Most people suffer these “Oedipal (or incestuous) complications for their
entire lives. No one can be free to live his or her emotional-sexual relationships
fully, unless and until the childhood patterns in relationship to parents
(or parent-figures) are transcended.
Every female child tends to feel that she was rejected
by her father, merely because he did not associate with her sexually. Likewise,
every male child tends to feel that he was rejected by his mother, merely
because she did not associate with him sexually. Therefore, every one’s
first awareness of sexuality is the feeling of being rejected! Thereafter,
all one’s emotional-sexual wanderings and trials and experiments and commitments
are always complicated by this fundamental feeling of rejection that originates
in early childhood.
If you were fortunate enough to have parents who exhibited
the basic signs of being in love and happy with one another, then part
of the healing of your “Oedipal” problem is simply the acceptance of the
fact that you were not betrayed by anyone! The fact that parents love each
other does not mean that they reject their offspring. They also love their
children, but differently—simply as their children. Thus, a girl is not
rejected by her father because he loves her mother, and a boy is not rejected
by his mother because she loves his father. The feeling of rejection is
simply the child’s naive misinterpretation of observed reality.
Fundamentally, however, the life of the ego-“I” 1 is based on this illusion that one has been betrayed—and, on the basis
of this illusion, human beings presume “you do not love me”, or “I am not
loved”. Such a presumption defines the individual as the ego-“I”. To be
a defined consciousness implies separation, and this separation is naturally
projected into the scene of one’s human experience.
It may be that something in one’s childhood experience
did, in fact, communicate betrayal. However, even if no such event actually occurred in ones childhood, one (nevertheless) presumes such an
event, in order to differentiate (or individuate) oneself. Children naively
invent even monstrous interpretations of (otherwise) ordinary events, because
they are at an age at which they do not have much insight into experience.
Their awareness of things is inherently incomplete. Some of the conceived
events of betrayal may be relatively true. Others do not have any of the
significance the child presumes. Nevertheless, presumptions of betrayal
are the inevitable basis of emotional-sexual learning, even from the earliest
moments of life.
The sense of betrayal—or “you do not love me”—is the
same as the sense of “me”. The feeling of betrayal is the ego-“I” ! The
ego-“I” is not an entity—the ego-I” is an activity.
The ego-“I”—is the avoidance of relationship (or the
contraction of feeling-attention). The life of the ego-“I” is separation
and separativeness—or the reactive pattern of “you do not love me”. Nevertheless,
it is possible to be converted, transformed, and rightly adapted—and,
thus, to no longer live as the ego-“I” (or the separate and separative
self-sense). Through devotionally Me-recognizing and devotionally to-Me-responsive
heart-Communion with Me, the self-contraction is released (or felt beyond),
and real love awakens (in ego-transcending Immersion in My Infinite Field
of Love-Bliss). Thus, My devotee is relieved of the separate and separative
self-sense through feeling-Contemplation 2 of Me—and, by Means of devotional Communion with Me, My devotee is relieved
of the emotional contraction in the midst of all relationships.
One’s parents may not have loved one another very well.
Their relationship may have been full of difficulties and infidelities.
In any case, in order to go beyond one’s “Oedipal” limits, it is necessary
to exercise compassion for one’s parents (and for even all human beings),
and to understand and accept their human ordinariness (and to understand
and accept the ordinary, difficult, and conditional nature of even all
beings, and of even all of life), and, in that manner (even if one was
orphaned, or, somehow, never knew one’s parents, and, otherwise, no matter
what they, or even any one, ever did or said), one must grow to activelynot presume (or, in any manner, reactively affirm) that one was betrayed
or rejected by them (or by any one at all, or by life itself, or by Nature
Itself, or by Reality, or Real God, Itself).
Without this conversion from self-contraction to ego-transcending
compassion and heart-radiant love, there can be no Divine Enlightenment.
Unqualified Love-Bliss-Realization and Divine Enlightenment are the same.
Divine Enlightenment is Most Perfect 3 Relief from the contraction that is the ego-“I” (or the complex psycho-physical
avoidance of relationship). Therefore, if one desires to Awaken Spiritually,
the childish presumption of betrayal (or of being unloved) must be transcended.
In the years beyond childhood, it is totally inappropriate
to be obsessively watching to see whether or not one is loved! In order
to be free to love and to be responsible in one’s intimacies, one must
be free of infantilism, free of childish and adolescent patterns of conflict
(of dependence versus independence, and of constant looking for love, and
despairing of love, and desperate coping, waiting for love to disappear).
The point to be “considered” in any moment is not whether or not you are
being loved. What must be observed (and felt beyond) is that you yourself are not loving. The feeling of betrayal, of not being loved, is
a “cover” for one’s own failure to love (and, thus, a “cover” for the contraction
that i the ego-“I”). The chronic feeling that one has been betrayed in
love is a chronic failure to realize and confess that you are “Narcissus”, 4 and that it was you who abandoned parents, friends, and lovers.
It was not their abandonment of you that caused you to cease to love, and
to become a betrayer of all love. The reaction of un-love is entirely
the responsibility of each individual. Until this is most fundamentally
understood, every emotional-sexual relationship carries with it
(and repeatedly dramatizes) the feeling of being rejected. In that case,
to be emotionally and sexually associated with another individual always means—immediately, and most deeply—that one feels personally rejected.
Because of the “Oedipal” conflict, one’s heart-feeling
for any individual with whom one is intimate does not become full. Therefore,
emotional-sexual relationships are never satisfactory, and cannot become
satisfactory—except in individuals who persist in observing this “Oedipal”
complication to the point of most fundamental self-understanding (and,
thus, the moment to moment really exercised capability of transcending
themselves).
The “consideration” of sexuality in the only-by-Me Revealed
and Given Way of Adidam (which is the One and Only by-Me-Revealed and by-Me-Given
Way of the Heart) is not about sexuality in and of itself. Fully right
sexual practice cannot rightly and fully be “considered” until the entire
history of one’s emotional-sexual life is rightly and fully inspected (and
become a matter of conscious responsibility). The key to the “consideration”
of sexuality is emotional adaptation, because sex is not an isolated function.
No one is controlled by the function of sex exclusive of emotion. Every
individual’s relationship to sex is determined—absolutely and entirely—by emotional adaptation. If one is emotionally responsible—and lives as love, no longer
emotionally crippled (or constantly watching to see whether one is loved
or not)—then it follows quite naturally that one is also sexually responsible
(or free to become fully sexually responsible, even in the fully regenerative
Yogic sense). It is impossible to become responsible for sexuality exclusive
of prior responsibility for emotions. Every individual must first confront
the emotional adaptation that underlies his or her sexual pattern.
Human beings live as if betrayed, in order
to justify the egoic gesture of the avoidance of relationship. Having inspected
the history of his or her life, My devotee must confess that he or she
is “Narcissus”, and has (chronically) failed (or, truly, refused)
to love.
The gesture of un-love is unnecessary, even in childhood.
Human beings can always actively love, even in the face of apparent
betrayal—but, instead, they tend to choose the act of separation, and
all the acts of separativeness. Certainly, every individual needs to differentiate
himself or herself functionally from his or her parents (and from
even every one, and all)—but it is not necessary that functional differentiation
be associated with a bizarre emotional episode that can go on for many
years, or even for the entire lifetime (and, thus, potentially, even for
many lifetimes).
I (Myself) find that My devotees tend to dramatize an
“Oedipal” relationship even to Me. Individuals tend to fall into a disposition
toward Me in which they regard Me, psychologically, to be their father.
Male devotees, therefore, tend to be in fearful (and rejection-sensitive)
competition with Me, and female devotees tend to try to develop some kind
of a (rather incestuous, but also fearful, and rejection-sensitive) “girlfriend”
relationship with Me. But I am neither the father (or any kind of parent)
nor the “boyfriend” of My devotees. Therefore, even in order to rightly
and truly practice as My devotee—and, as My devotee, to establish right
and true emotional-sexual relatedness with any one at all—one must come
to a point of real clarity about this “Oedipal” matter.
Acquired emotional patterns tend to remain in place, instigating
the repetition of old patterns—because the force of reactively self-patterned
tendency (or karma) is tremendous, and (potentially) goes beyond the present
lifetime. The force of reactively self-patterned tendency is nothing less
than the force of the movement toward incarnation itself
No human being is new. All human beings are patterns
of mostly unconscious memory (or pattern itself). The body itself is memory,
for memory is not merely in the mind. All the forms that exist are conditioned
by previous influences. It is a law of natural physics that what is set
in motion continues in motion, until it is deflected or replaced by another
motion. Therefore, I Call all My fully (and, necessarily, formally) practicing
devotees to change their action on the basis of their devotional recognition-response
to Me and their self-understanding (and even “radical” 5 understanding, or most fundamental root-understanding, and always active
transcending, of the “remembered” self, or the observed pattern
that is the evident ego-“I).
The subjective signs of old adaptations will (until they
are utterly dissolved in heart-Communion with Me) continue to arise—in
the form of casual moments of desiring, and in the form of reactions in
the midst of the always changing circumstances of life. Nevertheless, My
devotees need not be concerned about these old patterns, nor dramatize
them in any form—whether emotional, or mental, or physical. These tendencies
are mechanical (or patterned into the psycho-physical apparatus of the
body-mind)—and, thus, they will inevitably continue to appear, until they
become obsolete through non-use, or the responsible practice of always
present-time non-reaction. Whatever is not used becomes obsolete. Thus, through My devotees’ devotional relationship
to Me . . ., all their patterns of emotional-sexual reactivity eventually
pass (or, altogether, lose their negative force, by becoming subsumed in
a greater pattern, and, Most Ultimately, into the Great Reality). My true
devotees become both sensitive and adapted to the Principle of unqualified
relationship, rather than to the principle of the ego-“I” (or the avoidance
of relationship)—and, thus, both the subjective and the outwardly active
signs of loveless adaptation are progressively weakened in them. Eventually,
their subjective urges to loveless action disappear, and the motion they
demonstrate in life becomes only love and devotional Communion with Me.
Therefore, My devotees must be committed to the moment to moment devotionally
Me-recognizing and devotionally to-Me-responding practice of ego-surrendering,
ego-forgetting, and (more and more) ego-transcending feeling-Contemplation
of Me. This is the counter-egoic Principle that relieves My devotees of
the struggle with “Narcissus”.
Love of Me is truly “in-Love”—expressed as Ruchira Avatara
Bhakti yoga, 6 or true devotion to Me through surrender of all of the faculties of the
body-mind to Me, moment by moment. In this manner, the “Oedipal” response
to Me and the “Oedipal” response to all others is made obsolete.
I Call all My formally acknowledged devotees to this converted
life of devotional Communion with Me. I Call them all to go beyond the
“Oedipal” sufferings of childhood—including all of childhood’s even “adult”
(or always present-time) signs, in the form of sexual obsessions and the
inability to love. I Call them all to become responsible as love in all
relationships, under all conditions, and (thus) to transcend the repetitive
and loveless destiny of the ego”I”. And I Call them all to do this by Means
of the formal and self-responsible and ego-surrendering embrace of the
right, true, full, and fully devotional practice of the only-by-Me Revealed
and Given Way of Adidam.
Notes
1. The ego-“I” is the fundamental activity
of self-contraction, or the presumption of separate and separative existence.
2. Feeling-Contemplation is Avatar Adi
Da’s term for the essential devotional and meditative practice that all
practitioners of the Way of Adidam engage at all times in relationship
to His Avataric Divine Form, Presence, and State. Feeling-Contemplation
of Adi Da Samraj is Awakened by Grace through Darshan, or feeling-sighting,
of Him. It is then to be practiced under all conditions, and as the basis
and epitome of all other practices in the Way of Adidam.
3. Avatar Adi Da uses the phrase “Most
Perfect(ly)” in the sense of “Absolutely Perfect(ly)”, indicating a reference
to the Divinely Enlightened stage of life.
4. In Avatar Adi Da’s Teaching-Revelation,
“Narcissus” is a key symbol of the un-Enlightened individual as a self-obsessed
seeker, enamored of his or her own self-image and egoic self-consciousness.
5. The term “radical” derives from the
Latin “radix”, meaning root, and thus it principally means “irreducible”,
“fundamental”, or “relating to the origin”. In His Wisdom-Teaching, Avatar
Adi Da defines “Radical” as “Gone To The Root, Core, Source, or Origin”
Because Adi Da Samraj uses “radical” in this literal sense, it appears
in quotation marks in His Wisdom-Teaching, in order to distinguish His
usage from the common reference to an extreme (often political) view.
6. Ruchira Avatara Bhakti Yoga is the
principal Gift, Calling, and Discipline Offered by Adi Da Samraj to all
who practice the Way of Adidam.
The phrase “Ruchira Avatara Bhakti Yoga” is itself a summary
of the Way of Adidam. “Bhakti”, in Sanskrit, is love, adoration, or devotion,
while “Yoga” is a Real-God-Realizing discipline or practice. “Ruchira Avatara
Bhakti Yoga” is, thus, “the Divinely Revealed practice of devotional love
for (and devotional response to) the Ruchira Avatar, Adi Da Samraj”.
The technical practice of Ruchira Avatara Bhakti Yoga
is a four-part process of Invoking, feeling, breathing, and serving Avatar
Adi Da in every moment.