Beezone Interview with Julie Anderson
(Formerly Kanya Samarpana Remembrance)
What was it Like to be a Woman in the Company of Adi Da?
Julie and Adi Da, 1986
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Ed: Would you like to further discuss some of the things we’ve been talking about?
Listen to Julie in the first portion of our talk. (editors note: Text transcription of talk is NOT verbatim. Text has been slightly edited for differences in verbal and written expression and clarifications). More audio follows as our discussion continues.
Julie: The topic that keeps rotating in my feeling, and in my mind, in terms of a question that you asked me, that’s initiated a consideration about my past with Adi Da, my intimacy with him and how that has been flowered throughout the rest of my life is; what it has been like to be a woman around him?
Ed: Exactly.
Julie: When you first asked the question, my first response was, “Whoa, that’s a really big question.” (laughter) I could go in a lot of different tangents with that particular question.
Julie being initiated into Adi Da’s Mandala
What was interesting was the first thing that came to mind and my feeling was a memory of an event that occurred, fairly early on. I was spending the afternoon with Adi Da, serving him, and also being with him intimately. Later in the afternoon after our intimate time together, he picked up his clipboard, and he wrote down, on one of his yellow pages with one of his special black archive pens, “In a moment of enlightenment, September said, ‘Oh my dear, there is Only One.'” I could see him writing this and then he set it back down.
Statue of Yab-Yum
As is often the case, I think I may have mentioned this before, when I think back in retrospect, I wonder why I didn’t ask him more about that, when he wrote it.
The most interesting part about that occasion is that I have a very vague memory of what I said being an ecstatic exclamation in the midst of our intimate time together. As I recall, it was as if I was speaking, but it was also an effulgence that was speaking, a radiance that was speaking, and an acknowledgment of non-difference. The ‘in love’ was so potent that there was Only One, and there was only that Reality.
Two-armed Hayagriva w/consort Vajravarahi
Ed: Quite something, transcendence of male/female identity – Only One.
Julie: Yes, it was an ecstatic moment of speaking the Truth (as Adi Da transmits it). What is interesting is that was the first thing that I thought of when you asked me “What was it like to be a woman in the company of Adi Da?”.
After considering it further I thought (and felt) that was significant. Considering after all the years of everything that I have been through. I came to him as a young, neurotic girl, who wasn’t anything remotely like a mature woman. And then needing to go through all the trials and tribulations of going beyond basic human neuroses, dealing with my inability to trust, and issues of betrayal. Not to mention all the dramas of my emotional, sexual, oedipal, social character, and all the details of how that was played out, in my relationship to him. Not only to him but to those whom I was with.
END OF AUDIO PORTION – PART ONE
Ed: You were there in the early period when much of the work he was involved with was with the emotional-sexual considerations.
Listen to Part two:
Julie: Yes, as a woman, becoming to know myself as an emotional, sexual character, in terms of my own openness to allow myself to be revealed, to be seen, to understand that, to be tested in very difficult situations. I saw a lot of people, not only myself struggle mightily. Some able to grow through the process and others unable to.
Ed: You’re describing the trials of human growth and maturity.
Julie: Yes, as much as there was ecstasy there were also very difficult situations. So, my summary sense of how he served me as a woman was through love and ecstasy. (In addition all the challenges I have already spoken to!)
My response was interesting. If you had asked me at any point in time throughout the more than 42 years that I have been his devotee I probably would have given you an entirely different answer. It would correspond with the point of view or the stage of life that I was involved in, in terms of understanding myself and growing, and insights being revealed and his blessing grace being active in my life. His mastery of me as a guru and my life as an intimate of his, as his lover. Also someone who was caring for him, someone who was serving him and serving his work.
I also remember that a few years later he framed that piece of writing and gave it to me. The gift of that framed yellow page was in a simple frame, and I had that for a long period of time. But, as with many of the things that he gave me when I was part of his Gurukula, and as a formal renunciate I don’t have it anymore.
I so wish I could have access to all those things. It would enable me to thread the story in more detail. To actually be able to reveal the picture, the tapestry, artwork of it, the profundity of all of what it took to actually be able to feel how I feel as a woman in relationship to life.
Ed: I remember hearing in the early days the criticism of him having so many woman around him. From the conventional social point of view it was suspect. Didn’t look quite right. Remember the stories you had to deal with?
Julie: Yes, one thing I could say about Adi Da in relationship to women is that he had great love and passion and respect for women. He trusted their abilities much more than is witnessed generally or in more “normal society”. Of course, as you mention, there’s also the part of it where people thought he made us subservient or took advantage of us as women. All the different stories around the sexual aspect of the relationship (that only a very few of us participated in). But, I personally of course have had to process a lot of emotions around that type of mind and reaction in the relationship, the “theater or the play”, that occurred in relationships in my own case, not to mention the effect it had on him.
In order to understand anything about it, you can’t take anything out of context to actually really understand what was occurring. Because, it was a process. It was a process of self understanding, self revelation, in a profound situation of not only self discovery but awakening. Spiritual awakening. Every bit of it, even the unconscious dark side, the so-called shadow side, all of that had to be seen as a woman in addition to the ecstasy and the virtues and the in love yoga. All of that had to be understood.
Ed: It’s quite poignant to me that here you are now telling how it actually was, not as it was portrayed.
Julie: Yes, one of the things that I have appreciated most about the way that he related to me is that he helped me to feel strong. To have confidence in my abilities beyond my separate self image was how he was able to help me feel at ease with embracing, and feeling that I could function not only in human terms but also spiritually. Totally, completely supporting that.
There was no distinction or difference to be made between the men and the women in terms of the levels of responsibility that they would hold in relationship to him. But, also, a few of us as women, had a unique intimacy with him because of our sexual intimacy with him.
That has everything to do with the exclamation that I told you about, that was my first response to your question, was the revelation of non-difference. He helped me to appreciate the uniqueness of being a woman, being feminine. Not being afraid to actually exhibit that femininity. To appreciate it. How to be able to draw boundaries, to actually know exactly what is true of me as a woman. What I desire, what I don’t desire, becoming very clear about that. Going beyond feeling victimized or betrayed. Being able to discover a profound sense of responsibility in the midst of what can be a really complex issue around being a woman in this world, in this day and age, and even throughout history and throughout time.
He required a lot of us, as women. In every aspect of life. From what would be considered traditionally womanly responsibilities such as raising the children, cooking, serving the environment, being creative, beautifying things, being beautiful ourselves. Then, all the way to having to manage things, deal with very difficult issues around management and principles and growth and communication. It was a huge broad spectrum of embracing every aspect of life, and realizing that as a woman I could do that. Not only could I do it, it was a responsibility that I had to maintain.
The reason why was because life wasn’t just about me and what my experience was, but I had an obligation, in relationship to all others, to be able to live that responsibly, to manifest as love. Not just ordinary human love, but to be able to manifest the divine love. To manifest divine light, and radiance, in relationship to all beings.
Of course, you know, the trials and tribulations of being able to do that have been endless, and it continues to be tested all the time because life throws things at me that are just … it seems not fair, you know! Or, it seems like it’s just one difficulty after another! But fortunately, I’m able to resort to the gifts that I’ve been given, and also to keep things in perspective and to feel the strength of resort. To stand prior to all of that dichotomy of arising possibilities that can be positive or negative, and that I stand in the place of being one. In reality itself, as conscious light, as his, in his darshan as that one. That’s the essence of what I feel that he’s given me as a woman, is realization of my real condition. Resting conscious as that, and feeling the radiance that is the light of the divine heart. Being in that place and being able to live that in relationship to others. So, it goes really beyond just being a woman as a sexual identity, because it’s not founded in merely that quality, although it does embrace that without taboos. But, then it also allows me to exercise great discrimination.
Then, this also gives me the sensitivity of how to relate to what appears to be the opposite, which is a male other, that manifests different qualities than the woman does. But, they’re also one and the same in that realization. I feel particularly grateful for that as a woman, especially with him when he is so colorful and you see the broad spectrum of how he manifested as a human individual and as a guru, and as the divine avataric descent of transcendental spiritual awakening. His state of being, how every kind of quality has manifested in his being as he manifested here in relationship to us, and those of us who were intimate with him, to feel that on a daily basis. To be able to be open enough, to embrace that beyond making what could be a point of view or egoic judgment in reaction to it, because it could trigger all sorts of ways of responding.
Then, to finally be at a place where I can rest prior to all of that and feel incredible gratitude, and perpetual verification of his confession. Of not only who he is and what his blessing is, but the reality of our condition. So, it goes beyond the dichotomy of the male and the female, the light and the dark, the spirit, and bodhi… it’s all beyond that and all inclusive then.
I’m grateful to be able to feel compassion for the male other, which I didn’t feel before. When I grew up, I had endured enough history to know suffering in duality; like he said to me when I first came into his company, “Boy, so jaded at such a young age.” It isn’t merely because of being clear in my understanding now, it wasn’t merely because of what I may have experienced in this life, but it’s cumulative knowledge of the entirety, that is, as he describes; as dual sensitivity relative to the condition that we find ourselves in, in here, in life.
And, that the male other experiences that equally as the female. Most of my childhood and as I grew up, I felt I was the victim of the male other. Never able to meet the mark of the male other. To the point where I actually wished that I was male! I actually wanted to consciously be a man, be the opposite sex, because I felt that I was the underdog, or somehow I could be taken advantage of. Could never meet the mark….. I don’t feel that way at all anymore, and as a result of how I did feel when I was young though, I wasn’t able to be seemingly sympathetic with what was apparently the opposite of me. That manifested in all areas of life, not just sexually. In terms of how you respond to life, if you don’t trust, if you don’t have compassion then you don’t embrace the other, the apparently opposite qualities.
Yes, so those are all the kind of things that I started feeling into after you asked me your question. I could go through all sorts of different phases of our time with him where we would explore the traditional approaches to the Shakti as woman; how the woman would dress, or would communicate, or would act in life in relationship to the children, to the culture, to the food, to clothing, to sexual activity, to spiritual practices. Even realizing and studying about certain traditions where it was taboo for women to assume that they had any right to spiritual growth. That we were too lowly to even be able to engage in it!
Becoming aware of all of those nuances over all the years in relationship to him is quite profound. While I was living in a situation of being somewhat remote from the world, so-to-speak, because our experience of that occurred in a school of study, consideration with one another, his instruction, his verbal instruction or his active instruction, or his speaking instruction. Then, our interactions with one another. It was all very active. It wasn’t abstract, it was very engaged.
When I left though, being in the “world” so-to-speak, different than that particular schooling context of being directly with him, that’s when I feel that all of what I was given was actually validated. In terms of being in a circumstance in which, as a woman, there wasn’t a conducive context anymore in which I could feel safe, sheltered, somewhat routine and familiar.
That’s when it really began to flower. I’ve been thinking recently about it in the midst of considering this and I went back to another dialog I had with him one time where I suggested to him that I wanted to be a tantric practitioner, or what we called a “yogic sexual sadhana”. To practice the emotional-sexual yoga in a way that that could be realized. It was one of those circumstances again where he burst out laughing really loud. He said, “You have no idea what you’re talking about.” You know? That’s really serious. “That’s a really big deal if you want to do that.” That actually occurred shortly before the dialog that I had with him when he told me that he would take me seriously as someone who wanted to realize the truth. (If I am remembering the sequence of time and content clearly! It could have been later!…Actually it was early 1986!…..oh dear)
END OF AUDIO PORTION – PART TWO
Listen to Part Three
Julie: I’m thinking now, just looking at the circumstance I find myself in, in the world, very much in the world. No situation that was like living in a sanctuary! But as you said, yes, it would have been difficult for me to live the life of discipline that I did, in the ways that we lived around him, but it was a context that was conducive to that. While, yes, that discipline can be difficult, it’s definitely difficult in it’s own unique way. But try doing it in a situation where there’s nothing conducive to it!
Ed: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Julie: You know, where there are no supports. I found myself growing even more as a woman because all the seeds were planted, at so many different levels of my being. Most importantly, what became obvious, is the reality of the oneness, and the perpetual invasion of his blessing into my being at every level. His having awakened me prior to that, that conscious awareness had been awakened, and so I understand now why he said to me, “Little Buddha, you go out into the world and this is your time.” (of real testing) That’s how I have felt, and feel it even more clearly, and continuing to feel that even more profoundly as time goes by, what an incredible gift this has been!
With my youngest niece and parents
Every time, everyday, I have to confront something as a woman. Being my father’s daughter, being the sister to my brothers and sisters, and the female other to all the people that I associated with as devotees. As a woman in the situation that I’m in with Nick intimately. Then, also with his family, or when I go out into the world and I’m working, shopping, I’m going to the beaches, or to the walks in the forest, or I’m going to an art gallery or to a theatrical or a musical event………
Whatever I’m doing I’m a woman in the world and I feel so blessed to have been given the gifts that I’ve been given by him. Because, in any circumstance I feel like I have the means of being able to stand free, and to be love without dissociating from it. Even no matter how difficult it gets, and I don’t know, how fortunate am I?
Ed: I would say most fortunate myself.
END OF AUDIO PORTION – PART THREE
Julie: That’s part of what he taught me as a woman. I don’t have to be afraid to feel experience, not to be closed off, to be able to allow myself to be invaded and pervaded by experience itself and let it be what it is.
Ed: I want to ask you about ‘Shakti’ and what that means to you.
Julie: You can talk about attributes of the male and female and the Shiva-Shakti, the yang and the yin, the duality of consciousness and energy.. But Adi Da’s darshan and his blessing grace awakens us prior to that.
Ed: I want to ask you specifically about Shakti.
Julie: So many stories to tell. The Lakshmi coin is one of those again, that’s all about the Shakti. In Adi Da’s company we would study the nuances of the goddess. Areas such as the rainbow colors, different vibrations of how light manifests in the feminine aspects, the male aspects and much more. . All the way from the mystical, shamanic to the spiritual. Which included various forms of puja, worship, feminine art, and creativity.
Ed: In his writings Adi Da expresses his many different modes of connection with the feminine aspects of Shakti. I believe he kept a statue of Durga in his meditation hall?
Julie: Yes, yes. I also have a sacred image of her form from Ganeshpuri. When you read The Knee of Listening, there’s his relationship to the Durga and of course if you’ve read The Knee of Listening then you know the story of how the Shakti manifested as a guide for him in various forms throughout time.
“Franklin was now intuitively convinced that the Virgin was a manifestation of the universal Shakti. After all the years of guiding Him hidden through the labyrinth of Her lesser forms, the Goddess was now revealing Herself as a Divine Personality. Franklin felt His intuition confirmed by Swami Nityananda, who instructed Him on a subtle level to submit to the Goddess as His only Guru. And so Franklin made a sacramental act of submission to Her, in the form of the goddess Durga at a shrine near the Ashram, and set off on His Christian pilgrimage under Her guidance.” – Free Daist, Vol 1, NBR 6, September 1990
Of course in the Vedanta temple then he speaks about how that non-difference was mastered in the context of his particular unique incarnation and function and realizing there was no difference. That, that had been mastered in the context of the yoga, his manifestation as the bright conscious light. The Bright: that’s all speaking to the same realization.
“In The Knee of Listening I describe it as an Event of extraordinary size, as an experience. It is not a physical sexual experience, nor can it be reduced to a visionary experience of a subtle kind.
The event of My so-called sexual union in the Vedanta Temple was not an instance of My submitting to a visionary female. It was the Ultimate, Divine Union of Awareness and Energy. And it was not the final Vedanta Temple Event. It occurred on the day before the final day. But it was a necessary preliminary to the – Ultimate Event. In the so-called sexual event, the Supreme Ultimacy of Consciousness was, Revealed, Transcending all duality’s, including the dualism of Awareness and Energy.
I have used the term “sexual Union” in that context, because there was something of the dynamic of sexuality at the beginning of the experience. But the Energy itself was Revelatory, formless, and Transparent. It was not about visions and other phenomena of the subtle dimension of existence. It was a tacit feeling-energy, like the movement into fifth stage conditional Nirvikalpa Samadhi. There was a physical component of a Yogic kind, which could be called sexual in the sense that, at the beginning of the event, I became aware of the body in relationship to the Yogic Force, or Shakti, or Goddess-Power, and I felt bodily pressed to the Yogic Force, or Goddess-Power. The Shakti-Power was felt pressed to the frontal line, and, in some sense, was the frontal line. The frontal line was also Its vehicle, In that Union, there was also profound Yogic “conductivity” upward in the spinal line.
Now, this experience could be called sexual in the most profound Yogic sense, but there was only the most rudimentary physical awareness, which lasted only momentarily and which was quickly replaced by the Bliss of Inherent Union, Transcending body and mind.
The sexual reference metaphorically indicates that a Yogic process occurred of the fullest kind, and it was a motionless event. In the terms of the sexual metaphor, which may be continued, it was like the static “Mithuna”. It was essentially a transparent event. My own body became transparent and immediately unaware of the event itself. I was not having visions of a Dakini in a subtle environment, but I was fully aware of the Divine Person as Shakti, Transparent and Complete.
When people write or talk about My Report of this incident that preceded the final day of the Event in the Vedanta Temple, they should include this kind of “consideration” that I am bringing to you now so that everyone may understand what I am talking about and have no misunderstanding about it.” – Adi Da Samraj, September 11, 1988 (The Free Daist, Vol 1, NBR 6, September 1990).
The Durga is the one that he still “pays respect to” (much much more than this really…..) but also as non-difference, as part of his own being. That Durga sits in all of his Sukrakendra Meditation Temples, which are his temples, his own personal meditation places where he does his work and has been done throughout all the years of his embodiment in all of his sanctuaries. (There would be so much more detail to speak about around this sacred “relationship”)
Listen to Part Four
Ed: I would like ask you, in your meditations, in your practices have you ever had a vision of what you would describe as the Shakti.
Julie:: I have but it hasn’t been just one of the traditional Hindu forms. It was actually at one time, Quan Yin and more associated with the Chinese tradition.
I felt that embodiment in my own form, yogically. Also obviously with Lakshmi too because of the gift that he had given me through that coin. (See Julie’s story of ‘The Lakshmi Coin’)
In the traditions there’s the worship of and to these deities but also in the contemplations of them you can take on the form. The gift becomes so full that you feel the form. I have had that come to me in female forms and in various ways; of auspicious women, female deities that come, through, across me in visions – taking on the goddess form – that is what life was, and is in relationship to Adi Da in the form of the goddess.
All of us are that form (the She or Shakti, regardless of being male of female) in our manifest form. That’s how he, in our relationship to him, recognizes us. He recognizes us as none other than the divine person in reality. So, that’s how he blesses us; through his divine self recognition of non-difference.
(Notice this in his darshan…. see an other, all are his own form, in and as the Bright Divine Conscious Light).
“The Circle of ‘conductivity’ that I Deal with is the Circle of the cosmic domain, entire. As a secondary, rather peripheral matter, there is an association with This (apparent) Body here, similarly. So, when I Do ‘conductivity’ Demonstration, I Do it in your body, too. All bodies.
“Of course, this Works most profoundly in the case of those who turn to Me, who make the devotional surrender to Me, who are My devotees. But I Work overall as well, and with all, even before they become My devotees. This is how people get to become My devotees.
“I Told you this Process began immediately with (and after) the Vedanta Temple Event. I Described it as ‘Meditating others’. This is what I Mean, altogether. All bodies are My Body. All beings are My Very Self. So I Do the Universal ‘Practice’ (if you will), ‘Practice’ of the Whole, and every part within It, every being within It. This is the foundation of the Reality-Way of Adidam, this Accomplishing-Power of ‘Meditating’ all, of Enlightening all. By Being all. Not merely by giving speeches! Talking, that is part of it. It is all part of it. But the foundation is this unique Divine Avataric Accomplishing-Power of Being all. Actually, Really.
“And Atma Nadi is just how I get ‘here’. And the ‘here’ that I ‘get to’, the cosmic domain, is through the Star-Form, into the Circle of the total cosmic domain. My Work is in That Totality. And, therefore, it is in every place and every being, until the Divine Translation of all, and of the entire cosmic domain. Because of the nature of beings and the complexity of this cosmic domain, this Work will not be completed–that particular Work, that Result, will not be effective in the Lifetime of this Body. But it does not have to be.
“This Body is My Agent for Divine Avataric Revelation, the original Work to make Myself known to you, so that you will get to know Me better, know Me altogether. And having got to know Me, then, you understand how I will continue to Work after the Lifetime of this Body. And I Will. This is My Promise to you. You need not directly understand or observe how I Do That. But the more you grow in My Divine Avataric Company, the more you Awaken to Me, the more you will understand something about It.”
Avatar Adi Da Love-Ananda Hridayam, July 12, 1995, Adi Da Samrajashram
Like I said before, I know there are many other devotees and non-devotees who can speak to their own unique experiences in his company and even beyond his mahasamadhi, I’m sure there are many experiences that people have had that associate with different deities and different traditions as such.
To me personally, it’s all inclusive, it’s not different than Adi Da as all inclusive, like one thread. The whole thread in terms of how the ‘She’ has manifested. She, including me, including every aspect of life, including all of the iconography, is non-different than the conscious divine self. It’s the effulgence, it’s the radiance as the She of that, the ‘He-and-She Is Me’ as he has described. He has conquered her, or embraced her as one, as “I Am Bright As The One Divine Self”. So, when he speaks that and when he writes that, it’s his literary form of the expression of the Reality of the Divine Person. It’s the same thread, it’s all the same thread, it’s all the same “vibration” in various ways but as fully, priorly realized “Bright” of the “Divine Heart”. As who “He” Is and as “we” all Are.
In my meditation hall I have different Shakti images, I do not worship them. They are just part of him and it’s not something I meditate on. I have lots of Buddhas around. I have lots of different sacred images around. I have Krishna and the gopis. This is a whole other way in which he taught us about the feminine in relationship to Krishna. We were the gopis, that was the feminine aspect; of the women who show devotion. They are the ones who manifest what devotion is to a lover. There’s lots of women (and men!) who can tell you lots of stories about that but the profundity and the result of it even given from the very beginning is about the initiation of non-difference.
Ed: In the yogic sense, I’ve read Adi Da mention different places in the body where the “Shakti” quote, unquote, enters. I know he doesn’t like to emphasis such things as it tends to have devotees focus on the body but he has mentioned different places in the body at different times. One such place is the throat. Another place is the belly. He at other times describes his ‘invasion’ or ‘descent of the thumbs’ in terms of Heart or Hridya Shakti. Could you or have you been instructed in a place where the Shakti enters the body?
Julie: Well, it could be from anywhere. That’s how I’ve experienced it. Adi Da is obviously a descent. It depends on what form of the Shakti you’re talking about, vibrational level of the Shakti you’re speaking of. The Shakti manifests as vibration, as energy, as light, in manifest form. But in relationship to him it is the unmanifest, “Bright” (as he has named it). It’s non-conditional but it’s not empty. It’s fullness, it is the “Brightness” and that is a descent that comes down upon you, envelopes and and enters in and presses down, as he describes it in the “Samadhi of the Thumbs”. That’s the uniqueness of His Divine Shakti.
Ed: And with that decent comes the yogic process or the conductivity process and the responsibility to use the breath to bring it down in the abdomen, right?. To allow it to go up the back, or what he might call the “circle” or in some ways he calls it the “arrow”.
Julie: Correct. Yes. So in relationship to the body-mind, the way that you conduct the spirit current depends on your level of initiation and practice. It depends on where the yogic processes of purification and insight and awakening are occurring.
For example if you’re a beginner and there isn’t enough free energy and attention to be able to stay fastened at the heart, in the purity and there isn’t a real sensitivity to the spirit current itself then there tends to be more preoccupation in dealing with self discipline and the different aspects of human growth. There’s more of a breathing down, working in the frontal line, and it’s a receptive heart breathing though. Then as you mature, you’re receiving the spirit current at heart and from above. (there are many details to this and also progressive yogic initiatory passages unique to his transmission, some of which are not publicly written of but are spoken in initiation, I understand).
Ed: Let me ask you this. Let’s say in a meditation you may have had where you feel the descent of the current and you’re actually in the process of conductivity, bringing work, the sublimity of that energy which is just circulating and radiating from the heart but also descending. But now you’re actually working with that energy, there is a yogic process that you are just … it’s not just sublimity that you’re just consciousness but there is an act of participation where you have to keep your tongue on the roof of your mouth and consciously breathe deeply and subliminally in that kind of ecstatic equanimity that is just, you’re now being, as he said invaded with his Shakti force. I mean it has its own movement, it has its own energy patterns, it’s gotta natural bodily downward and upward … but you’ve got to participate in that, right? You’ve got to work with that. You can’t just stay sublimed and in a completely distant witness place.
Julie: Yes, well there are a number of different factors in that particular instance in the practice of conductivity. Because Adi Da’s Shaktipat is … the Shakti is One, as the Conscious Self, so it’s the unique “Hridaya Shakti” that he gives. The degree to which you engage in that energy of his blessing and how it combines with the circuitry of the body mind, your engagement in that, is only to serve the process (of ego transcendence and divine self awakening via the transmission of recognition).
Ed: Yes, the engagement, the responsibility to work with it.
Julie: “Searchless beholding”. In other words, “perfect” devotion. The conscious process is senior to conductivity. (Again this is a progressive revelation with much detail)
END OF AUDIO PORTION – PART THREE
“The core of (the Spiritual Process) is the “conscious process” of ego-transcendence, not merely receiving or experiencing energies in the body-mind.”
‘The Yoga of Death in God’, Adi Da Samraj, February 13, 1993
Ed: This is where I want to bring the esoteric aspects of this. And I understand the one-ness of it all. But the manifested form is what i wanted to explore, whether it be … In the feminine form, not the masculine form, the feminine form, the attractive and also fiery, as they say in the traditions she devours you with her mouth and enlightens you with her eyes, or something like that. But she’s also re-birthing, she’s destroyer in her Kali form, right? And she’s also the mother, the creator, in a lot of ways, the nurturing, sustaining force, which is a quality of feminine force.
Julie: Yes. Well here’s another story that’s talking to what you’re asking here, (perhaps at root, yet I am not speaking about the specific various forms and qualities of Shakti manifestation experienced in time/space and thus via our collective history of different perceptions and cultures).
I think I may have told you this story, actually. Might’ve already recorded it, but when we left the Mountain Of Attention in the early days, I have to say the early days because my dates are like, I don’t even know if I would give you the right date! We left the Mountain Of Attention and we were on a pilgrimage to find true Hermitage. And before we found Da Love Ananda Mahal, it was first called “Tumomama”, speaking of the goddess, we landed on another Hawaiian Island. Here I served Adi Da’s rooms, as one form of seva. While cleaning one day I came upon a glass vase that was sitting on a table next to his seat in the main gathering room.
Listen to Part Five
It was one of those beautiful blown glass vases, and I was cleaning around and it was sitting on a 50’s style table that had a laminate top, that was pretty slippery. I was dusting it and lo and behold, “wack!”; it’s as though the table had been waxed, and it went flying right off the table and broke on the ground. Adi Da, when he came out, found out what had happened (I had quietly swept it up into a dust pan. No one else was aware of what I had done. This had occurred in the room right next to his bedroom, where he had been resting at the time). At that time I actually did not have a full concept of what objects were in his company, and how significant this vase might’ve been for him. But he was pretty upset about it. I didn’t get a big booming voice back at me or anything, but he came up to me and he whispered in my ear, “If you ever get to know too much or own too much, you will get yourself in a great deal of trouble.”
Ed: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Julie: That was his response to my breaking of that vase.
Now, I’m gonna bring you forward, years later after that. I came back to the sanctuary in Hawaii one time to re-enter his intimate sphere, after I had left in 1992. So this is in the late 90’s sometime, and it was a period of time in which devotees were giving him gifts of these particular type of blown glass vases again.
And so when I arrived that day, he reminded me… as I sat down in front of him, he reminded everyone that I had broken his favorite vase. He had to make sure to emphasize, it was his favorite of all time blown glass vase. And you see this vase reference is very yogically significant. And not to mention that another dialogue that he had with me was that I was to be a temple for his use. A vase for his use. That’s what a yogi is, a vessel.
And I was sitting down in front of him. I started having incredible yogic experiences. Shaktipat experiences of incredible ascent. Just to the point where I was out of the body and flailing all over the place, speaking gibberish, ecstatically and such. At a certain point he said to take me into the other room, cause I was pretty much …you could call me a disturbance I guess. He said “take her into the other room and calm her down”. So I was brought into the other room by a couple of ladies, I think. I said to him, at a certain point, after the breathing and the conductivity of coming back into the body (the force was so intense it just created kriya’s, really intense kriya’s in the body) and I had calmed down a bit, from the other room, yelling out “I’m alright now, I’m okay now!”. I could hear him booming back from the other room, “I will be the judge of that!” At a certain point I asked “Can I come back back now?” I was wanting to go back into the room he was in, (just a passageway away). Finally he said that I could come back into the room (where he was sitting and speaking with many other devotees). I came back into the room and he asked me to come up and sit on the bed next to him. It wasn’t really a bed like in his bedroom. It was one of those kind of big day beds, traditional Indian type day beds. They would be rather large and they’d have a canopy over the top, and beautiful wood carvings on the side and such. I was sitting up there with him, and I was on his right side. I was sitting there next to him. This incredible yogic phenomenon is still going on, but there was the conducting of it. It was pulsating through me, really strongly, but it’s not creating really intensive kriya’s. I was sitting on his right side and facing him. My hands were on his body, on his thighs as he was sitting in a full lotus. The left side of my face, began to rest on his heart on the right side. When I would have the left side of my face on the right side of his heart, every part of me that was engulfed in the revolutions or the madness in the fluidity and the movement of energy would completely converge there and come to rest. And there would be this mindless light bliss. As I would begin to lift up my head and turn out (to my right), all configurations started manifesting again, in pattern form, visually, and physically, and then I’d immediately begin to start talking in tongues. That wild madness would start coming out again, and then I turned back again (to him and rest my face on his heart) and it would all go to rest.
Ed: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Julie: So there was me physically touching his body, my head, the left of my face on his right, heart on the right, and then at some point I lifted my head up to his right ear and started whispering to him what was happening. And he said;”Shh….This is our secret”.
Ed: Mm.
Julie: So I rested back into it, and felt exactly what you’re asking about, which is the place of origin of Shakti, so called, and the place of rest, in the origin, in and at and prior to the right side of the heart, in the heart, as the heart. And as attention turns away or out, there’s manifest forms. (There is a pivotal key initiatory process in this depth in “Samrajasana” and “Atma Nadi Shakti Yoga” that even goes deeper and initiates “Sahaj Samadhi”, “Divine Self Recognition”). There is a divine yogic awakening and recognition here that reveals the reality relationship between the apparently ascended source of the Shakti; as realized in 5th stage conditional nirvakalpa samadhi and the causal knot in the right side of the heart as realized in the 6th stage of life as jnana nirvakalpa samadhi).
Ed: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Julie: Now that’s all occurring psycho-physically in relationship, two physical bodies sitting in a room. In which he’s speaking about and receiving these vases, it is a wild yogic event of instruction.
Ed: Right.
Julie: This event goes way, way, way back relative to the vessel, the yogic vessel of the body mind. Movement and manifestation of the Shakti. The point of origin. The total desecration of the vase entirely. And then him saying to me “if you ever get to be an owner or a knower, you’d get yourself into deep trouble”. And then he tells this secret to me, demonstrated … And this is how it happened! I mean, 100s and 100s of times, this kind of yogic event.
Ed: Right, right, right, right.
Julie: Where you get the psycho-physical instruction, in the apparent context of manifest form, but it’s an incredibly profound esoteric secret.
Ed: All synchronistic.
Julie: Mm.
Ed: Wow. Wow. … Wow.
Julie: Mm. And I’m sure there were devotees that would remember that. I might even have a picture of that, possibly, sitting on his bed. Or at least the room where it was so I could visualize some picture. But this was what it was to be intimate with him. And that wasn’t even an intimate sexual occasion.
Ed: Right, right, right.
Julie: So if you could imagine the profundities of the intimate, emotional-sexual yoga involved in that, too. At such a visceral level, well that’s the kind of instruction that he gave. And it was all about the nature of the universe and how it’s arising!
Ed: Amazing, there, Julie. Amazing. Absolutely amazing.
A Note from Julie
Blessings! I am making this communication via Beezone as a means to explore, remember, understand more deeply and make available the story of my life with Bhagavan Adi Da. Its a deep samyama for me and I am grateful to Ed Reither for this auspicious opportunity and how this gift has come into being.
Coincidentally, my communication may be useful to you the reader in providing a means to reflect on your own life experiences with Adi Da or in relationship to your own spiritual practice and life adventure.
Given I am not currently a formal practitioner of Adidam, my communication is a personal one and it is not intended specifically to be a guide to anyone’s spiritual and life practice. Adi Da has made it abundantly clear that if anyone is serious about His Teaching, they should embrace the full details of practice which He has clearly communicated. Any response made or opinion formed in regards to his offering is a personal matter of responsible free choice.
Whilst I am very serious about my transcendentally spiritual relationship with Adi Da, for some time and for now, I have not chosen to embrace the full details of His Instruction in regards to participation within the formal Institution and Culture of Adidam. This is a personal matter and not a reflection about anything otherwise. There are no “sides” of any camp that I sit within. My heart is filled with great respect, gratitude and profound loving compassion for all devotees that I share a history with.
Om Sri Da Love Ananda
***
Interview Table of Contents
The Real Practice of Guru-Devotion
Julie Anderson, 1980
