ADI DA SAMRAJS DIVINE WORK AT QUANDRAMAMA
SHIKHARA:
Klik-Klak: The Pattern Patterning
A Gathering “Consideration” with Beloved Adi Da Samraj
at Free Standing Man, Quandramama Shikhara, January 31,
1996
The gatherings that began at the Mountain Of Attention
Sanctuary continued when Adi Da Samraj arrived at
Quandramama Shikhara. He gathered with those devotees who
had travelled with Him from California, and a small group of
devotees from Hawaii. The gatherings were held at Free
Standing Man, His Residence at Quandramama. Beloved sat on a
futon couch, surrounded by the Quandra Mai.
Night blended into day, and hour after hour the Divine
Lord Granted His direct and spontaneous Word to those
gathered with Him. He sat cross-legged, His Body sometimes
rocking slightly as He Spoke, drawing all present into the
Sphere of His Samyama.
Though He had begun to develop the “consideration” of
klik-klak and the pattern patterning on previous nights, it
was on the night of January 31st that He elaborated it
fully. This gathering is printed here almost in its
entirety. In His Masterful unravelling, Adi Da conveys the
nature of conditional existence and the Truth of His Divine
Revelation, entirely beyond the realm of all appearances.
SECTION VI – Prelimary Perfect Practice
– The Paradox
ADI DA SAMRAJ: (continued from
Section V) So it is the capability to exercise
such Siddhi in the Enlightened Disposition that is the
import of this. It is not an ability to “take over the
world” kind of – [in a dramatic voice] “Suddenly I
discovered I was klik-klak! [laughter] And Im back!
Bigger than ever, folks! You’ve got a God now!” [Adi Da
makes an “evil” laugh.]
DEVOTEE: Ohh! Scary. [laughter]
ADI DA SAMRAJ: [Adi Da laughs hard and long.]
Well, that is the face on Steeplechase Park.
[Beloved Adi Da is referring to George C. Tilyous
Steeplechase Park in Coney Island when He was a boy-there
was a large, laughing clown face at the entrance.]
But you see, that is not Me. That is klik-klak.
The one you always imagine when you get religious, the
one you always think must exist – thats klik-klak! [Adi
Da laughs.] Because that is the one who is in charge of
the world, who creates the world, right? He is everything
about the world, and justifying and blessing the world as
world in and of itself for its own sake, somehow, as long as
it serves a purpose in the pattern on into the future.
Klik-klak.
Of course, this commonly created, or conceived, deity is
not just a vision of evil. Because there is the
heart-disposition associated with it, so it is also benign.
But it is ego-based. It is not utterly Illuminated. It is
bound in the body, so it doesn’t see that what it is
gesturing toward is a kind of deification of klik-klak.
If you don’t watch out, if you don’t wake up, if you
don’t find the Wise Man, you don’t find the Way. Then you’ll
be worshipping not the God Who is ultimately Beyond the
world, but the God who is the world, the God you can’t have
without having the world. That is klik-klak. That God is
just teddy-bear to console you in the world. Why does it
seem so strange, if you’ve ever seen in movies where dolls
of little children suddenly become evil – with kniving,
gnashing teeth and that sort of thing? It looks especially
evil in the form of something that has otherwise been
associated with something so innocent.
DEVOTEE: Beloved? It is
interesting to feel the difference that associates with the
God of klik-klak, and the God of the Prior Condition, of
Consciousness. And to see how it is actually attention that
does that. It seems that attention suddenly becomes the God
of klik-klak, or klik-klak itself.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: Mm-hm. You become what you meditate on,
what you’ve invested with your presence of being, and the
characteristics that are inherent only in your own position.
So you in effect worship everything to which you grant
attention. It is just that you have so many things that you
give attention to, that truly what you worship is what you
give maximum attention to. What are the outstanding uses of
your attention? You are effectively worshipping that, or
meditating on it, holding it steady, holding yourself steady
in that condition, disposition, relationship – whatever it
is.
So, whatever the attention holds, whatever configuration,
in your presence of being – the sign of feeling of That
Which is only in the Prior Place is superimposed (in your
disposition) on everything, and everything is measured in a
play about that.
But when you are not investing yourself in whatever in
particular, then you are outside it and it is sort of comic,
in some ways. Or you may be sympathetic with it, but it is
not you . You can sit and read the obituaries night and day,
and maybe you ponder death and this and that and everything
else, but after a while it doesn’t affect you profoundly to
know that whoever passed. You know: everybody does. It
doesn’t affect you.
But, if you receive the news, of course, of someone you
know, are intimate with, or whatever else, then it affects
you directly. Then you are in the picture. And there is
nothing comic about it because you are inside it. And you
are not free to make the gesture of being sympathetic with
it. You are stuck with it. It’s not cool! You are not cool
in that. And you are not supposed to be. It is your
conjunction with a pattern that is your initiation or test
or whatever it is. In other words, the means of how all
these conjunctions happen, whereby you are going to have to
deal with this thing that everybody does have to deal
with.
So there is no reason to be cool or detached from it.
When it occurs, then you have to exercise everything you’ve
got.
DEVOTEE: It feels when
someone is dying, that its in effect a part of you
dying.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: You are in the pattern with them.
DEVOTEE: We were
“considering” earlier tonight what you associate with
yourself. We were talking about, you know, its your body,
then begins to become relations, and then daily events. All
this immediate association is associated with “you”.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: Yes. With that presumption, that
persistence, and all the rest of it that you call “you”, but
in doing so are referring to your body-mind, and don’t
notice that that is an error.
Having made that first error, what else is the Truth
about you? It is already false. What could be true from
there? It can be actual, factual, but it can’t be True in
the sense of about Truth anymore. So you are not going to be
finding any Truth in all your seeking, whatever else you may
get temporarily, or be seeing temporarily. The matter of
getting at Truth, or What Is , means the first thing you
have to do is get beyond the limit you have established by
presuming an illusion, or presuming something in error as
the basis for everything else.
So, in some sense, what I am suggesting is that you
shouldn’t do any sadhana but the “Perfect Practice”. How can
I argue for doing anything less than that? Because if you
“consider” anything thus, thus, and thus, there is no
justification for doing anything else!
[laughter]
Right? That is what I am arguing. That is so. But you are
not in the position to not do what precedes the “Perfect
Practice”. That’s the paradox.
DEVOTEE: It’s a paradox,
Beloved, because when You say to us “I’snt it true that no
matter what arises you are merely the Witness?”, suddenly,
by activating attention in that “consideration”, we can
Stand as that.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: Yes, but you’d have to persist in that
Stand to do the second stage of the “Perfect Practice”. It
has to be always already the case. The second stage of the
“Perfect Practice” isn’t constantly reminding yourself,
“Isn’t it true that I am always already the Witness?” and
then you get that far and then you ask again, “Isnt it true
. . .” [laughter]
No. The second stage of the “Perfect Practice” is the one
you do when you plain old are in the Prior Position of
Consciousness Itself, the Witness. That Which is otherwise
the Witness is Consciousness Itself. You can’t do the second
stage of the “Perfect Practice” unless you are Consciousness
Itself. It is done as such. It is entirely about devotion to
Me and Shakti Yoga and all the rest, as well. All in one
simultaneity.
So there is no argument to do anything but that, but you
can’t do that! [Devotees moan.] That is what you
keep telling Me, you fools! You are so wound up in Coney
Island, that you say “Yes, the Witness”, but the next minute
I say, “Lets go on and Contemplate from here”, and you tell
Me, “I can’t get there from here!” Because you are already
on that limb out there nipping on those fruits before I get
enough time to explain the second stage of the “Perfect
Practice”. You’ve already gone back to the fruits. In other
words, just to have enough thought-mind to “consider” what
the next step is, you have to stop being the Witness
already.
So, it is not enough to be able to locate, somehow or
other, the sense of the Witness-Position. I have given you
all kinds of ways you can do that, as a matter of this
locating it in this moment. And you are capable of doing
that, because that bird is always in the tree. But that is
not the “Perfect Practice”. And you can’t do anything more
than that if that is all you can do.
So, you are not equipped to do the “Perfect Practice”
until you are in a position where you are not in the
fruit-eating-bird position, but in the Witness-bird
position. So, when you actually are plain old That, then you
can do the “Perfect Practice”. In the fruit-eating-bird
position, you can turn attention any way you like so you can
“consider” this question of Mine, “Isn’t it true, no matter
what is arising now, you are in the Witness-Position?”
Fruit-eating bird says, “Absolutely, that other bird is
right over here, where I am.” All of a sudden he is
Witness-bird, before he finishes his sentence. The sentence,
in fact, leads him to it, or is the means of him being
established in it. It is like a previous sentence he said,
but he is telling it in reverse, and winds up in the
Position Where he said it. [laughter]
DEVOTEE: But then you ask
another question.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: Do you understand what I just said?
THANKFULL: Yes, Beloved.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: Well, that’s what it is. As Ramana
Maharshi said, focus on the “I” thought and locate its
source, since “I” is the basis of any other sentence you
say. “I want to walk to the grocery store.” Well, say it
backwards. “Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah I.” You see? You
just keep staying on that – instead of going on to the rest
of the sentence. It actually is Mind-Dharma in some sense
then, and not directness, or something done from the
responsibility-position. But it is a curious way of going
about this locating the Witness. But you’ve got to do it
over and over and over again.
The sadhana is the sadhana you do as the Witness, or once
there is the establishment as just that. It is not the
Witness “witnessing” – it is not the observer-position. The
Witness is just Consciousness. It is not even attention. It
has no content. It is just Consciousness Itself. So the
Domain of Consciousness Itself is the Asana. That is the
Asana in which I am found, My Spiritual Blessing is found,
in this Domain of No-“Difference”, Consciousness Itself.
So it is only when you are just that, plain old-now, now,
now, now, now, now, now, non-stop – that you can do the
second stage of the “Perfect Practice”. So it is not about
any exercise, any trick to get you to locate yourself as
Consciousness Prior to any object or even attention. That is
just a useful exercise to locate it now and yet at another
time. Like right now: Isnt it true, no matter what is
arising, you are the Witness, even Prior to attention?
Consciousness?
DEVOTEE: Beloved, why
wouldn’t it be useful for us to practice the first stage of
the “Perfect Practice”?
ADI DA SAMRAJ: It is useful, as exactly what you do by
using My Word in the context of the “consideration” of My
Teaching about this matter. We’ve talked about this – I
guess it was mainly at the Mountain Of Attention we
discussed it at length-about how My “Perfect Practice”
Teaching is to be used by all devotees from the beginning.
You already use it regularly in the form of recitations
around Pujas even and such. It is supposed to be studied by
devotees from the beginning, not kept in a vault and shown
only to those who get to a certain stage.
DEVOTEE: Right, but not as a
formal practice.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: A formal practice in the sense that you
“consider” My Word, and My Word includes all of this that
can bring you into the sense of the Witness. Including
conversations like this one, which will be used as part of
the “Perfect Practice” “consideration” by all devotees in
the future wherein, as we’ve done even here this evening,
and in a concentrated way again and again and again during
the first couple of weeks, all those in the “consideration”,
and then anybody who studies it in transcript, or whatever,
actually did this locating. Because that second bird is
always in the tree, you see? And then persisted in it, from
there to further “consideration”, from there and around that
and back and forth about everything.
But the fact that you can notice that there is the other
bird, the Witness-bird, in the tree, doesn’t mean that you
are prepared to live as the other bird in the tree. Your
fruit-eating-bird position can be abandoned. You can be
established in the Witness by a certain “consideration” in
the moment, but you do not remain there. It is some sort of
special gesturing that the mechanism of that fruit-eating
bird allows you to somehow be Prior to it. It is just a
moment – it is kind of magical, even. But it has to be done
again and again because you are always in this
fruit-eating-bird position otherwise.
Yes, you are supposed to enter into My “considerations”
even from the beginning – not as your formal moment to
moment practice, but as regular “consideration” as a
practitioner, even from the beginning. And more fully doing
what your present stage of practice is. Nonetheless, this is
among the things that are supposed to be intensively
studied, or studied with regularity as part of the regular
cultural process. And then it gets intensified in practicing
stage three.
Like in the final 1.2 phase and the 1.2 phase itself,
listening is concentrating on My Word about hearing. So it
is a direct “consideration” of that that leads, ultimately,
to the confession of hearing – the reality, the capability
that is hearing. Same thing with the transition to the
“Perfect Practice”. It wouldnt just happen, as I have Given
it, out of the blue. The practice itself is all oriented in
that “consideration” of the “Perfect Practice”. Even all the
stages of practice are, because they all must be felt to be
really, truly preliminary to this “Perfect Practice”.
So what was I talking about in particular with you?
DEVOTEE: Well, just about how
all devotees should “consider” the “Perfect Practice” as
part of their regular study.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: Yes. And so exercise this “consideration”.
The pondering, for instance, that might be engaged from the
beginning, “making use of the Ten Questions” kind of
practice, contains this. So it is there as a pondering
matter, if practiced as I have Given it with everything else
that is there, as a dimension of the “conscious process”
associated with Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga. Any one of those Ten
Questions could, if fully just engaged, felt, function as
one of these pointers to the Witness-Position. Some seem to
suggest something or other more specifically than
others.
So, of course, this is a part of the practice. The
“Perfect Practice” is what you are preparing for, because
you have heard My Word about the “Perfect Practice”, so your
preparations are all associated with it, and that
“consideration” must be there, including this “locating the
Witness” kind of “consideration”-exercise. But you wouldnt
do it in meditation. It is generally done in conjunction
with going to My Word and studying it, and that is the
“consideration” there and this is how you locate it.
We talked also about regular cultural incidents being
built into the structure throughout the year, which are-some
day, or whatever it may be, a period or whatever-devoted
precisely to this “consideration” by the entire community.
So, in other words, extending this very fundamental aspect
of everything into some kind of expected cultural form. That
is what we discussed, and that should be happening.
So, certainly, yes, you should “consider” the “Perfect
Practice”. Obviously -j ust as I am doing it with you now.
If it weren’t appropriate to be discussing this matter with
any but those who had Realized it, then none of you would
have been invited. [laughter] No. This is something
that I am “considering”, and must “consider” with those who
haven’t realized it yet, but who are devotees of Mine. This
is what it is about. And even those who have come to these
gatherings are relative beginners, at any rate, in this Way.
There is still the second bird in your tree and it is so
right now. And I am pointing it out to you. And yes, that
was worth doing, then. So it should be a regular part of the
culture for you to be reminded and reminding yourselves of
this, with some appropriate frequency.
The study of My existing Word on everything relating to
the matter of the “Perfect Practice”, and now everything
that has been being summarized in this several-week period
here so far, will become a body of study and made use of in
various ways culturally and so on-a body of My Teaching-Word
that will be used by everyone much more profoundly than ever
before.
Discourse – Klik-Klak: The Pattern Patterning
***