|
My Bright Word
Chapter 12
Adi Da Samraj
No “One” Survives Beyond That Moment
DEVOTEE: Beloved Heart-Master, are we evolving?
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: What do you think?
DEVOTEE: I think we are evolving toward the astral.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: What is so good about “astral”?
DEVOTEE: Well, nothing. But, as far as evolution goes,
there is a constant change. Is it constant change? Where are
we going? What is it doing for us? What is it?
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Is it?
DEVOTEE: Well, it seems to be, but I am in a dilemma. Is
evolution part of the dilemma?
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: There is this dilemma.
DEVOTEE: There is dilemma. Yes. Then it is part of the
dilemma.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: What is the question?
DEVOTEE: Now I am really confused.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: In this concern for “evolution”,
are you really talking about something?
DEVOTEE: I do not really understand what evolution is, or
even if there is evolution.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: That is true.
DEVOTEE: That there is no evolution?
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: That you do not know.
DEVOTEE: Yes.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: What you know is this dilemma, this
confusion, this ignorance about your own propositions. That
is the truth of it. That is your experience. “Evolution”
does not really exist as your experience. You are not
certain of it-of its existence, of its quality, of its
nature, of its direction, of its relationship to you. You
know nothing whatsoever about it. Why are you bringing it
up?
The truth is that you are confused. There is this
dilemma. There is suffering. Questions about evolution are
completely beside the point. Such questions, for the time
being, are nothing but a means of drawing attention away
from your actual state, of temporarily distracting yourself
from that confusion.
You could take the abstract category of “evolution” and
talk about it from many different points of view. You could
generate all kinds of mind-forms relative to “evolution”.
But, after you have said it all, no real experience will
have been added, and you will remain in the same state as
when you first asked the question.
Therefore, your question about evolution is not your real
question. Your real question is your own actual state. That
is the question you are truly asking, the question you are
always asking. You present your very life to the world in
the form of a question.
You are this real question. But you conceal the question
from your ordinary conscious awareness. Therefore, the
question exists only as your chronic state-your suffering,
your search, your dilemma.
Ordinarily, you do not verbally ask your real question.
You only live it and enact it – as seeking, suffering, and
death. Sadhana is the means whereby human beings become
conscious of their real question.
Just so, the “answer”, so called, to your real question
has nothing whatsoever to do with evolution, or any other
arbitrary topic the mind can select for discussion. The true
answer is not in the form of a verbal response to an
abstract question. The true answer must be a “radical” (or
“gone-to-the-root”) transformation of your state. That
root-transformation is the true answer to your question.
And, if this state that you are always in – this confusion,
this dilemma-is utterly overcome, then the nature of life
and world becomes obvious. My Answer to My devotee comes in
the context of the discipline of real conditions, demands
for functional action – the sadhana which is always
generated in My Avataric Divine Company.
There is absolutely no point whatsoever in talking about
evolution. Your concern over evolution is an arbitrary
distraction you have selected from the pattern of your own
tendencies. You have chosen this particular concern from
among the general confusion of your ordinary state – whereas
it is your confusion itself that should be your genuine
concern. All your questions are forms of this dilemma, this
state of confusion. Every question is in the form of a
dilemma, and every verbal or mental dilemma is an expression
of the underlying state that shapes every moment of the
usual life.
The arbitrary formulation of “questions”, of artifices to
occupy the mind, is a means of distracting yourself from
your own state of dilemma. To do so is a form of
self-indulgence. To answer such questions (in and of
themselves) is only to serve bewilderment, unconsciousness,
fear, ignorance, and all the qualities of seeking and
suffering.
You are bewildered and confused by the total complex of
your tendencies – and now you want to talk about evolution.
What has that got to do with anything? Your own suffering is
presently manifesting itself. Understanding and transcending
that suffering-and, thereby allowing the process of true
“egodeath” – is the matter of importance.
DEVOTEE: The suffering just goes on and on and on. It
never seems to stop.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Death. That is what you want to get
away from. You want to “evolve” into the astral world in
order to escape natural death-and to escape the necessary
ultimate “death” of the ego, the “death” of the chronic
activity of separation and separativeness. There is no
elimination of death, no ultimately successful avoidance of
death. You are trying to prevent your own ego-death-this
very and ultimate crisis-by occupying yourself with abstract
questions.
DEVOTEE: But that is the only answer-ego-death. Why do we
keep fighting and fighting?
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Keep fighting what?
DEVOTEE: This thing. We know we are fighting it – and,
yet, we cannot seem to avoid it. Why are we avoiding it? How
do we get out of this?
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: The desire to “get out of this” is
another form of the same avoidance. A real transformation –
in the form of the conflict, the crisis, you are now
experiencing – has already begun in you. That conflict, that
crisis, has become intensified. You are beginning to find
your real question. It is your own death. That is the
significant event. There is no distraction from it. There is
no consolation for it. It is an undeniable reality.
Evolution makes no difference. Migration to the astral
planes makes no difference. None of that changes your
chronic state. The crisis would still be necessary, no
matter where in all the worlds you happened to appear. This
crisis is the necessary event of all life. Going to the
astral planes does not change that necessity. “Radical”
self-understanding is still required.
The question about evolution represents a form of
concern, a search. That is what is communicated to Me by
your question. Your question has no real content other than
your seeking. It is only because this crisis is occurring
that you have the least interest in evolution. If you are
dying, there is no evolution. In that case, what do you care
whether the billions that remain behind you are transformed
into ducks or luminous red astral bodies? Your death is the
only remaining content of your life. From the point of view
of your experience, there is no evolution. There is only
sudden death. But ego-death is the Real process. The death
of the ego is the very crisis in consciousness that serves
both Truth and life.
When you awaken from a dream, you are not thereafter
concerned for the destiny of those who appeared along with
you in the dream. There is no such destiny. There is no one
left behind. All that appears in the great cosmic process is
a spontaneous display, like the conditions that appear in
dreams. All of that goes on in any case.
Now, however, you are beginning to see the more
fundamental condition underlying your adventure of
distraction in the cosmic event. In the past, you did not
see it, or know it for what it was. To the degree you felt
it at all, it was an undefined sensation, a discomfort, a
sort of formless craziness, a wildness. But now you are
beginning to know what it really is. Now you are beginning
to know it as your chronic state. You will come to observe
and understand it as your own activity. You are beginning to
be aware of it more or less continually. That continuous
awareness is essential to the self-purifying sadhana of Real
religious and Spiritual life.
DEVOTEE: Even a Realized being must follow certain
patterns and rules. Otherwise, the chakras will not open.
There are laws which cannot be disregarded. So there is, in
fact, a pattern, isn’t there?
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: A pattern of what?
DEVOTEE: A pattern by which the universe is ordered. Even
someone who has Realized the Heart must go by certain signs
along the way. It is different for each person, but still
there are rules.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: If it is different in each case,
what is the common pattern?
DEVOTEE: There is no pattern that fits everyone, but
still there are patterns existing.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Of course, there are apparent
patterns in life. But the True Divine Heart is not somewhere
else. The True Divine Heart is not a point separate from
every other point. The True Divine Heart is not to be found
by going in a certain direction. The True Divine Heart is
not the end of any particular road. The True Divine Heart is
not the goal.
If you are speaking of the causal center, the
heart-center on the right side of the chest, it is (indeed)
a point, a place, a psycho-physical sensation. But “the
Heart” is another term for the One Unqualified Reality.
DEVOTEE: That becomes true once someone Realizes the
Heart. But, between the time the person is only approaching
the Heart and the time that one actually Realizes the Heart,
there are still patterns.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: They are your own patterns. They
are your apparent condition. They are the ego-patterning
that give rise to dilemma and seeking. When My devotee lives
in perfect Satsang with Me, I Establish a living
relationship with the individual, and then it no longer
makes any difference to My devotee what his or her apparent
patterns are. From that moment, the patterns are merely
observed. A unique Condition is lived – and, because My
devotee constantly turns to Me, these patterns become
obsolete. They fall away, until only the True Divine Heart
Stands Out.
From the point of view of My true devotee, there is no
significance to the patterns. There is no significance.
“Significance” is your dilemma. It is the pattern of your
own mind-forms always based on limited point of view. That
limited point of view is the only thing that obstructs Most
Perfect Realization of Consciousness Itself. Consciousness
Itself is neither external nor internal. All that arises is
only a modification of Consciousness Itself, Which Is the
Divine Self-Condition and Source-Condition of
all-and-All.
When (by Means of My Avataric Divine Spiritual Grace)
this is most perfectly understood, the True Divine Heart is
Most Perfectly Realized. From the “Point of View” of the
True Divine Heart, there is no subject, no object, no
inside, no outside, no physical universe, no astral world.
All such phenomena are simply apparent modifications of the
Divine Heart Itself.
Until you truly enter into Satsang with Me, you are very
much concerned about your remedial path, about the pattern
of your own growth and experience, your own transformation,
your own liberation. But, when you enter into the Condition
of Satsang with Me, your concerns, your path, your patterns
become obsolete. All of that is simply not supported. You
simply live the Condition of Satsang with Me and the
conditions of relationship generated in My Avataric Divine
Company, and the patterns subside. They become obsolete,
without function.
Therefore, concern for those patterns is more evidence of
the search, of the fundamental dilemma. All developments
within the cosmic domain are limited to the cosmic domain.
No such development implies or leads to Reality Itself. All
such developments lead to limits within the cosmic domain
itself-to more states, more change, more phenomena. In and
of itself, no such development obviates the dilemma that is
the result of self-contraction. There is no action that
leads to My “Bright” Divine Self-Domain. Truth requires the
observation, understanding, and transcending of motivation
and action.
You are always already “There”. This Is It. There is no
dilemma. There is only One Reality, presently. It is not
somewhere else. It is not hidden within you, nor behind the
world. It is only Obvious. Satsang with Me is the Condition
of Reality, consciously lived. It is lived to you, within
you, as you. It is that Real Condition lived as life, as a
pressure upon My devotee. I Live the Real Condition to My
devotee, such that It begins to become Obvious and
Intelligent in My devotee. The Real Nature of the arising
event, the apparent condition, becomes clear.
When you are My devotee, it becomes obvious to you that
your dilemma is your own activity. You see that, in fact,
there is no dilemma. There is nothing about your
present-time experience that is not Truth. Satsang with Me
is the Real Condition. It is the Condition of Truth itself.
It is the Condition of heart -relationship to Me. When you
enter into it consciously, with any degree of clarity, you
have begun to live under the conditions of Truth Itself. And
that is the entire process. That is Real religious life,
Real Spiritual life-Real life altogether. Everything else is
an extension (or another reflection) of your search, your
dilemma, your dis-ease. When this Real Condition is truly
lived, whatever arises tends to be consumed.
II.
DEVOTEE: Master, is it possible to remain in the
Condition of Satsang with You by exercising the will?
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Apparently not. You can maintain
yourself responsibly as My devotee, and fulfill the specific
conditions I Require, but to consciously live the Condition
of relationship to Me depends on My Avataric Divine
Grace.
Everyone constantly tends to live as if separate. Even
when you begin to sense My Unique Blessing-Presence, Which
is the Transmitted Power of the True Divine Heart, you
resist and defend yourself and hide your disability,
discomfort, dilemma. You approach Me with argumentation,
self-defense, the endless formulations of your own mind, and
with suggestions that maybe “It’s all right anyway.” You
continue to play your game, presuming that I am a captured
audience for your act.
When you enter into Satsang with Me, you no longer have
the separate-self-sense as your primary instrument. The
activity that is the ego has become obsolete. It may
continue to arise and obsess you, but Satsang with Me has
become your Condition. The Process of the True Divine Heart
Performs your sadhana and Holds On to you. My Divine Grace
Manifests within the life-drama of My devotee. My Divine
Grace makes it possible for you to maintain your sadhana,
the living practice of your connection to Me – until you
become responsible enough to assume the devotional
relationship to Me Spiritually, as your responsibility, as
your Real Condition. Then you are given responsibilities
that will test, prove, and awaken in you all the qualities
of My true devotee.
DEVOTEE: What are the responsibilities of someone who is
seriously doing sadhana? For years, I have fluctuated
between everything from total self-indulgence to forty-day
fasts-and I still find myself unable to eat moderately. I do
not think that this is a responsible way to live. And, yet,
it is inappropriate to be always compulsively “responsible”.
If I do not eat properly, I become less conscious, I sleep
more, and I get lightheaded.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: The point of view that you are
expressing is the point of view of dilemma, of
suffering-which has nothing to do with Truth. Right
alignment to Truth itself is what people are constantly
(though largely unconsciously) trying to destroy, by all
kinds of means. Excessive fasting, excessive eating,
self-indulgence of all kinds, deprivation of all kinds,
turning inward, turning outward, ascetic practices,
“ordinary” practices all of these are only strategic
attempts to overcome the fundamental sense of dilemma and
suffering. None of that has anything to do with Illumination
(or Truth). All of that is suffering.
The real question is not how to become responsible. The
real question is the state you are in. And the real answer
is not in the form of a verbal response to verbally
expressed dilemmas, or even apparently actual life-dilemmas.
The real answer is the transcending of your self-contracted
state.
You will continue to seek (by all possible means) to be
free of the dilemma as you perceive it, until the forms of
your seeking all of which are reactions to the
root-condition (or dilemma) that is your suffering-cease to
occupy you. When you come to the point where the force of
your life is no longer fully captured by your search, when
you know that your search is failing, that your search does
not produce salvation, when you fall from ordinary
fascination into a crisis, a form of despair, of doubt –
then, at that point, you have become deeply available for
Satsang with Me, for the heart-relationship to Me which is
True religious and Spiritual life.
Satsang with Me is the answer. Satsang with Me is the
process and Condition wherein the dilemma is undone. No
spoken or written word, but (rather) the very relationship
to Me, the Living True Divine Heart, is the Real answer. The
answer is not in the form of an ego-serving method, a
strategic technique, or a conceptual system that addresses
your particular notions of human existence. The answer is
the Self-Evident Manifestation of Truth, and that answer
undermines that very structure in your conscious awareness
that supports your entire search.
This becomes a Real possibility only when you have begun
to suffer from your search, when you have begun to sense its
failure, when you are no longer totally occupied by it. Then
you become available to Satsang with Me. And Satsang with Me
is non-support of your dilemma, non-support of your
search.
In Satsang with Me, all your techniques fall away, all
fascination with your search subsides, all your remedial
methods become ridiculous. Your entire life ceases to obsess
you. Your egoic need for “liberation” no longer interests
you. Your life becomes the progressive Realization of Truth,
the Enjoyment of My Avataric Divine Company, until the form
of self-contracted awareness in which you ordinarily rest is
utterly dissolved. In Satsang with Me, an entirely new and
living form of intelligence replaces your ordinary strategic
mentality.
Some individuals become involved in an incredible
adventure of remedial Spiritual techniques. They apply
themselves to techniques of living, techniques of subjective
and psychological states, seeker’s meditation, seeker’s
diet, and all the rest. Such individuals come to Me imbued
with the moods of conventional Spirituality and philosophy.
Others are more ordinary, coming to Me after a life-equally
traditional-of self-indulgence.
Everyone comes to Satsang with Me in the midst of an
egoic adventure of some kind. All come with the same
fundamental dilemma-but each one communicates it through
particular artifices, through a unique adventure. In
essence, all adventures are a description of the same state:
the self-contraction, the fundamental dis-ease, the
avoidance of relationship. That is everyone’s condition.
From the point of view of the real question – the actual
dilemma – the most auspicious thing that can possibly happen
is to enter into Satsang with Me. True religious and
Spiritual life is not a strategic (or ego-based and
ego-bound) technique, method, remedy, or path. True
religious and Spiritual life is the Real relationship to the
Adept Spiritual Master. It has always been so. Therefore –
rightly, and most fundamentally – nothing is offered in My
Avataric Divine Company apart from the devotional (and, in
due course, Spiritual) relationship to Me, the True Divine
Guru.
Relationship itself is the principle and condition of
life. Therefore, rightly, the heart-relationship to Me is
the single and great Principle of sadhana in My Avataric
Divine Company, the single and great Medium of Truth, the
one “Method” of Realization. Truly, the heart-relationship
to Me is the Condition and the Medium through Which all the
necessary and appropriate developments occur in My devotee’s
progressive practice of the Way of Adidam. And those
developments occur spontaneously, by Means of My Avataric
Divine Grace.
In Satsang with Me, My devotee has become available to
Truth Itself, Reality Itself – such that Truth Itself,
Reality Itself, has become the Divinely Effective Means for
My devotee’s Illumination. Up to that point, the individual
has been too much focused in egoic preoccupations to be
Illumined. First, My devotee must fall from search and
fascination, into the crisis of his or her ordinary
state.
It is very difficult for human beings to achieve
ordinariness. In order to be able to live in Satsang with
Me, however, My devotee must become capable of being
ordinary. Human beings are extremely inventive – eminently
capable of the extraordinary, the adventure, the search. But
the ordinary is extremely difficult, because of the
principle of seeking on which human beings base their
lives.
When you truly enter into Satsang with Me, when it
becomes your real circumstance of life, then you suddenly
become capable of ordinariness, of simplicity. Ordinariness
simply becomes appropriate. It is not in the least connected
with anything compulsive, anything like the discipline a
seeker might embrace.
As My devotee, your functional simplicity is obvious and
natural, because action has been released from its
connection with the search for Truth, the search for
Liberation. Any egobound effort that is touted as a
means to Truth belongs to the adventure of seeking and its
dilemma. All such ego-efforts are part of the adventure of
extra-ordinariness. Only Truth Itself, Satsang Itself, Free
of seeking, is the Means whereby Truth is Realized.
When you are released from the pursuit of Truth, you
simply live It. When you live Satsang with Me as the
Condition of life, Communion with Truth replaces the search
for Truth. All your ordinary functions become truly ordinary
when you are released from the search to Realize Truth.
Therefore, in Satsang with Me, your life becomes ordinary,
functional.
There is no reason why diet, for example, should be
manipulated as if it were, in and of itself, a means to
Realize Truth. Nor should diet be considered an obstruction
to Truth. In and of itself, the ingestion of food has
nothing whatsoever to do with Truth. Neither food-indulgence
nor food-righteousness is the Way of Truth.
DEVOTEE: What seems to matter is whether I am willing to
put my attention on the Truth. If, for example, I am
overeating, I will not be in a condition to put my attention
on Truth.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: You cannot “put your attention on”
Truth in any case. Truth is not an “object”. Truth only
appears to be an object from the point of view of the same
search that alternately motivates you to indulge yourself
and to restrain your self-indulgent tendencies. Truth cannot
be concentrated upon even by a mind that is clear and free.
Truth cannot be “noticed”. It is not an object. It does not
appear within your view. Truth is the Context within which
you and all your points of view are appearing.
DEVOTEE: Instead of “putting attention on Truth”, would
it be correct to say “to experience more consciously”?
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Experiencing has nothing to do with
Truth. Truth cannot be experienced, nor is Truth an
experience. Neither is Truth experience itself.
All these expressions you have used have the same form.
As far as Truth goes, there is nothing to be said. There is
no verbal communication that is the exact equivalent of
Truth Itself. All of the descriptions you might give of the
unique form of your adventure have the same form, the same
structure. Indeed, your questions are a strategy whereby you
prevent the Realization of Truth. Your concerns are a means
to avoid self-understanding.
Truth always appears to the seeker as a kind of
alternative. But Truth is not an alternative. Truth is the
Very Consciousness, the Very Nature, the Very Condition of
all-and-All. Truth cannot be concentrated upon. Truth is not
an object. Truth is not something you can become interested
in. Truth is not something you can be distracted from. Your
interests, your distractions, your noticings, your
experiencings-all are expressions (or modifications) of
Reality Itself. But you are not living them as such.
Therefore, you are constantly obsessed with alternatives,
with particular distractions, noticings, and experiencings.
Alternatives are all that you have.
When you no longer have any alternatives, when the search
has died, then Truth becomes your Real possibility. But
Truth is not an alternative. It is not in the form of a
specific answer to a specific question. It is not something
perceived. It is not something that serves you, as the
(actively presumed) limited and separate subject. It is not
something that Liberates you, as an apparently separate
person. It has nothing to do with you, as a presumed
separate “one”. It cannot be Realized by you as a presumed
separate “one”. Truth is Known only in the Realization of
Non separateness, in Most Perfect Self-Identification with
Truth Itself.
There is no conditional state equivalent to Truth. Every
conditional state is a limitation. In the descriptions
associated with the traditional religious and Spiritual
paths, there are conditional experiences and conditional
states that are (erroneously) identified with Truth Itself
(or Reality Itself). Some traditions say that Truth is equal
to (or necessarily coincident with) a vision of Krishna. For
others, Truth must be samadhi in the form of an ascended
Yogic trance – either with associated visionary phenomena or
(otherwise) without the least trace of form (whether
objective or subjective). Still others equate Truth with a
concentrated return of the natural life-energy to the
sahasrar, a vision of Light, or some other esoteric (but,
nonetheless, conditional) signal of the Divine.
But all of these are forms of experience, of
conditionality. They may be sublime, but they appear only as
alternatives to other, more “ordinary” experiences. No
experience, in and of itself, is Truth. And no experience,
in and of itself, is the sign of Truth, the “symptom” (or
the necessary accompaniment) of Truth.
Truth Is That Which Stands Out As Reality when there is
“radical” understanding of the entire process of experience,
when there is the absolute vanishing of identification with
alternatives (or the entire self-contracted scheme of
seeking). Therefore, Truth involves the “radical”
understanding even of that which is extraordinary. Until
such understanding is the case, all events in life
whether ordinary or extraordinary – are merely the objects
of egoic fascination.
It is the memory of experiences – the persistent bondage
to your own patterns that result from experience-that
generates the goals of seeking. Experiential impressions (in
the form of tendencies) continue to fascinate people and
reinforce their obsession with the notion that life is made
of alternatives, such that the usual individual is doing
nothing but continually playing this drama of alternatives.
One day, a person is going toward the “experience” of Truth
– another day, toward experience itself (usually of a very
“human” variety). One day, a person is pursuing samadhi the
next day, the very same person is a devotee of sexual
fascination. But it is always the same egoic adventure.
What appeared (in the past) to be the great moments of
your life did not become wisdom. All you are left with are
the modifications that reflect those moments. Truth does not
appear in the form of a drama of experiences and
alternatives. Truth can only appear when that entire array
of experiences and alternatives the entire adventure, the
entire force of ordinary and extraordinary experience, the
entire drama of seeking-begins to wind down, when it ceases
to occupy you mightily, and you are stuck with your actual
condition, your suffering.
The Real Spiritual process in My Avataric Divine Company
takes place only when there is this crisis in consciousness.
It does not take place in the context of your adventure of
seeking. The Real Spiritual process in My Avataric Divine
Company takes place only when you understand and transcend
the root-activity of self contraction that motivates your
entire adventure. Such “radical” self-understanding becomes
possible for you only in Satsang with Me, when you truly
heart-recognize Me and heart-respond to Me-and only when the
force of your ordinary and extraordinary adventure has begun
to die.
DEVOTEE: I feel a hesitancy to give up that aspect of the
search.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Good, very good. That is it
exactly. Two types of people come to Me. Those who have died
to their search, and those who still have a couple of games
left to play. Relative to those who still have the search in
mind, there is no condemnation – no praise, no blame. That
is the reality of their condition. The search is still their
occupation. They have not come for Truth. The Truth has
nothing whatsoever to do with them. The search, the
adventure among alternatives, is what possesses them. The
search is what possesses all human beings, until it begins
to die. Then the Truth becomes possible.
When you no longer have genuine alternatives, when you no
longer have the option of your own preferences, when you no
longer have the capability to persist, to survive, in the
form of your search, then Satsang with Me becomes something
more than academic. Until that time, all human beings are
talking about the same thing: their adventure! That is what
they are talking about. They are not the least concerned for
the Truth. It has not entered into the picture yet. It is
only an amusement, an alternative notion entertained in the
midst of ordinary and extraordinary suffering. They are
still occupied. Fine. That is why Real religious and
Spiritual life becomes a possibility only when the
alternatives themselves no longer constitute a real
option.
DEVOTEE: How do I bring myself to the point of not
wanting?
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Wanting and not wanting are both
forms of the same activity. It is all the same occupation,
preoccupation, distraction, fascination-moment to
moment.
DEVOTEE: How do I get over that?
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: The desire to get over it is simply
more of the adventure. It is the adventure of getting over
it. It is all the same. The fact of the matter is that you
are self-contracted and all your actions, your desires, and
even your questions are only descriptions of that state of
self-contraction. The Truth is of another variety. But this
lesson about your present and usual state can be useful. It
is the first lesson of Wisdom.
If life begins only to hurt, if all the alternatives fall
into you, if they cease to be a real option, if you find
yourself continually stuck in the crisis in consciousness
(the root-form of suffering, on the basis of which your
search springs into action)-when that becomes the nature of
your daily life, then Truth becomes attractive to you. Then
Satsang with Me, Real life, becomes a living possibility. It
will be your obvious need when you have no options.
DEVOTEE: I am already aware that none of these things
work.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: That is evidence of some small
wisdom, because you are becoming exhausted with experience.
But the seeker in you still possesses some potency. The
seeker is still springing into action, still reacting to the
root-dilemma. When the “springing” stops – or when it begins
to seem impossible, when the alternatives do not quite
“have” you, when the potency of the search begins to
decline-then you can truly embrace Real religious and
Spiritual life.
When you are no longer attempting to immunize yourself
against your suffering, then the Force of Truth, the Force
of Reality (Which Is Truth) can begin to move in you. Then
truly effective Satsang with Me becomes possible-because, at
that point, It has a function. But, while the search is
still your “task”, still your fascination, Truth (or
Reality) is not really your concern. Until the search is
understood, you relate to Truth Itself (or Reality Itself)
only as an alternative, a symbol, another form of
distraction.
Therefore, as has always been understood in the esoteric
traditions, Truth (or Real life) requires passing through a
crisis of dilemma (or doubt). That crisis is the “fuel” of
Liberation. When the search, the reaction to your dilemma,
begins to wind down, to the point that only the dilemma
remains only your root-suffering, only your fundamental
dis-ease then the Force of Reality begins to move into your
life. Then your real question can be answered.
Until then, your questions are your entertainment, your
amusement. They have no ultimate importance. They are the
forms of preoccupation and unconscious self-description. In
that case, “religious life” or “Spiritual life” is only an
amusement, only an entertainment. In that case, meditation,
reading religious and Spiritual books-all of that-is only
another form of erotica, of mere “significance”.
But, when your hunger becomes intelligent, when you
become consciously aware of your dis-ease, then the Avataric
Divine Truth-Revealed through My Spoken and Written Avataric
Divine Siddha-Word, and Revealed by Means of My Avataric
Divine Siddha-Form-truly becomes what you require. You
become intelligent with that Truth-Revealing Word and Form,
and you respond. You recognize Me at heart. Only on that
basis does the True Spiritual process, the
Real-God-Realizing process, begin. Until you heart-recognize
Me and heart-respond to Me, the Real God-Realizing process
has not yet begun, has not yet entered the picture in any
real sense.
To begin with, everyone is a seeker. But, if you have
been brought to examine the futility and the causes of your
own adventure, then (at some point) the process will very
likely become something more than academic for you.
DEVOTEE: If Truth is the natural State, how did we come
to deviate so much from It?
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: You did not come to do it. You are
doing it! It is not a caused activity. The sense of
separateness, the dilemma, is not something that “happened”,
for various reasons, at some point in the past. The
self-contraction does not occur for “reasons”. It is always
a spontaneous present time activity registered as the sense
of separateness, of dilemma. But the selfcontraction
is not (itself) the result of anything in the past.
Therefore, the attempt to trace experience back in
time-in order to recover the events you are suffering from –
is fruitless. That attempt cannot produce Truth as a result
because, truly, you are not suffering the results of
anything that is past. Suffering is the quality (or mood) of
your present activity. Your present activity is your
suffering.
At some point, you lose your ability to remain immunized
to your own suffering. Then you are in the position to truly
observe and understand the self-contraction as your
present-time activity. When you observe the self-contraction
as your present-time activity, and understand its nature,
then it simply stops. It spontaneously comes to an end
whenever such self-understanding occurs-for
self-understanding makes the self-contraction obsolete,
without a present-time function. But the precise nature of
your suffering is extremely difficult to grasp. It is fully
comprehended only by means of “radical” (or
“gone-to-the-root”) self-understanding.
The religious and Spiritual traditions have often spoken
of suffering as the result of something that happened in the
past and the purpose of such statements is to make some sort
of sense out of suffering. But suffering makes no “sense”.
Suffering is irrational, mindless. It is comprehensible only
from the point of view of “radical” self-understanding. When
there is “radical” self-understanding, the structure, the
nature, of suffering-as a present-time event-is entirely
obvious.
The traditional myth of suffering is that it happened to
human beings some time ago, or that you are presently in a
state that is the result of some beginning of suffering in
your individual past. But your suffering is always a
present-time activity. That is what is remarkable about it.
People tend to think of suffering as being caused by
something external to themselves-external in terms of both
time and space. By such means, they attempt to explain
suffering to themselves, to make sense of it-with the
intention of overcoming suffering through egoic efforts of
various kinds. But, in Truth, suffering is not your symptom.
Suffering is your activity. That is the paradox.
All your seeking is based on the illusion that your
suffering is somehow a symptom that can be eliminated. But,
when the search starts to wind down, it begins to dawn on
you that your symptoms are simply the mental, emotional, and
physical expressions of your own self-contracting activity.
Your suffering is absolutely present-time, experienced as
the sense of dilemma.
Therefore, the Real process of religious and Spiritual
life is a wholly positive possibility. Real religious and
Spiritual life requires only the Realization of Truth, Which
Is Reality Itself. Real religious and Spiritual life
requires no other process-such as the manipulation of your
memory, or the generating of “good karma” so that your “bad
karma” can be eliminated. All of that is, ultimately, a
fruitless effort.
Behavioral improvement can never be done to the point of
Perfect Freedom. The karmas (or tendencies) that generate
the qualities of your life can never be fully “paid off”,
never be absolutely dissolved by “good works”. Any form of
action, whether “good” or “bad”, and even any form of
inaction, only (at last) reinforces limitation and the
dilemma itself. It is not the absolute elimination of
karmas, not super-purification by egoic effort, not any kind
of righteousness, that frees you. If that were the case, the
solution could never occur.
Freedom is Always Already the Case. Thus, Freedom is
Realized whenever Truth suddenly comes Alive. When Truth is
lived, when Satsang with Me is truly lived, then Truth
Itself Consumes all karma. When Truth comes Alive, It
Obviates the force of all karma.
The search makes no sense at all. It is an illusory and
false principle. Only the Living Truth avails. And the
Living Truth must be lived. Such is Satsang with Me, the
heart-relationship of My devotee to Me. Such is True
sadhana, wherein Satsang with Me is constantly lived. And
there must be a lifetime of Truth-not merely a two-week
smack of blessing, fasting, and meditation, not a vicarious
weekend of “enlightenment”.
There must be a lifetime of Satsang with Me. In other
words, there must be an absolute commitment. Satsang with Me
does not truly exist until It affects your entire life
(through and through), until It is lived without
qualifications of time, space, or life. There must be
continuous and whole bodily living in Satsang with Me. In
other words, Satsang with Me must become the Principle, the
Very Condition, of life-whereas, in the usual person, the
dilemma and its search are the principle and the binding
condition of life. When Satsang with Me becomes the Very
Condition of life, the entire effort of the search is made
obsolete-through non-support.
DEVOTEE: What is the role of others in the pursuit of
Truth? You mentioned Your Function as the Divine
Siddha-Guru.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: I am not separate from you. I Am
the Very Divine Self-Condition and Source-Condition of
all-and-All.
DEVOTEE: What about the rest of humanity?
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Neither are they separate from you
or “other” than you. They, along with you, may temporarily
be living as if separate and “other” – but I am not.
“Others” function as “others”. Being “others”, they bring
about circumstances (or apparent conditions) for you to
enjoy, or for you to suffer.
I am not, in Truth, an “other” – nor do I, in any sense,
live as an “other”. My devotee may wrongly presume Me to be
an “other”, like himself or herself – but that presumption
is simply the failure to heart-recognize Me.
I Am your Very Consciousness, Consciousness Itself, Prior
to all egoity-and Absolutely So, not merely symbolically so.
I Am the “Bright” Divine Reality Itself, Appearing in human
Form here. I am not an “other”. “Others” have no role
whatsoever in the Transmission (and the Process) That Is
Truth. Only I-the One Who Is the Divine Self-Condition (and
Source-Condition) of all and All – Perfectly Transmit the
Perfect Truth.
I Am the Divine Self-Condition (and Source-Condition) of
all and-All, Appearing in human Form here. In Satsang with
Me, the Divine Reality Itself Functions via My bodily
(human) Form-in apparently ordinary human terms, in
relationship to My devotee until (by My Avataric Divine
Spiritual Grace) Most Perfect Realization of Me (and most
perfect understanding of ego-“I”) Awakens in the case of My
true devotee. Then no “difference”, no “other”, is to be
found-even in the world of apparent differences.
The teacher who is “other” than you – who only
fascinates, who offers you various ego-based practices and
strategies for seeking-acts only to modify your state. Such
a teacher is not functioning truly as Guru but as an
“other”- as a source of experience, of modification. I am
not “other”. My Activity is a Paradox.
Your heart-relationship to Me-which is Satsang with Me
depends on your heart-recognition of Me As Truth Itself, As
Reality, Real God, the Divine Self-Condition (and Source
Condition) of all-and-All. That heart-recognition does not
necessarily appear at the level of the mind, as a mentally
achieved certainty, or in the form of some sort of visionary
or psychic perception. But there must be profound
heart-recognition. In many cases, that genuine
heart-recognition has no explanation, no mental content. But
that heart-recognition is what allows the heart-relationship
between Me and My devotee to be lived as it truly is – as
Satsang, rather than as the usual communication between
“others”.
DEVOTEE: I experience You as not at all different from
me. Nonetheless, I experience that You are You, and I am I.
How can You and Your devotee become identical?
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: I have not been talking about the
notion that I and My devotee are (or can become) identical
in the conditional sense, as if you are (or can be) the same
conditional entity as My Avatarically – Born bodily (human)
Divine Form. Nor have I been speaking in the conventionally
“Spiritual” sense, of presuming that Guru and devotee are
identical as some sort of Spiritual “substance”, which
“substance” is found when you manage to “get out” of the
physical body (or even the subtle body). Such notions are
only another form of the same conceptual separation, the
same dilemma, the same puzzlement, the same separateness
that is suffering.
I have been speaking of the Divine Self-Condition (and
Source-Condition) That Is Truth, That Is Reality Itself –
Wherein no dilemma, no separateness arises as the
implication of any condition (even the ordinary condition of
apparently discrete human entities).
The notions of sameness or “difference” have no
significance or, should I say, they have nothing but
significance. They are very “significant”, but they are
utterly beside the point. They do not pertain to the matter
of Truth. The discussion of significance’s can go on
forever, because it only deals with mental
modifications.
The notion that, in some subtle sense, there is no
difference between human beings is merely an idea, merely a
thought. No such idea (or thought) is the equivalent of
“radical” self-understanding and Truth. No such idea (or
thought) is a sign of Truth Itself. Any such idea (or
thought) is merely a mental (or otherwise conditional)
state. Psychotics can be in such a state. Daydreamers,
drug-users, and philosophers can be in that state. People
whose minds are relatively at rest for a moment can be in
that state.
Truth is not a conditional state. Truth is not a
perception or a thought. When there is truly no
“difference”, no “one” survives. If there truly is the Most
Perfect Realization of Non-separateness, no “one” survives
beyond that moment. No (apparently separate) individual
survives the Unconditional (and Inherently egoless)
Realization of Truth Itself (or Reality Itself, or Real
God). Such Most Perfect Realization is utter and permanent
ego-death. No one remains behind to speak glibly of Divine
Enlightenment, because It is the Real death of ego-“I” (or
the presumption of separateness)not the merely natural death
of the psycho-physical entity. From the point of view of
ordinary awareness, Divine Enlightenment is the most
dramatic, fearsome event. It cannot be conceived. It can
only be symbolically entertained – from the usual point of
view. But this death of the ego-“I” is the fundamental
process of Real life.
DEVOTEE: What happens after the ego dies?
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: You will see.
DEVOTEE: Well, I think that moment has happened to
me.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Some experience you have had is
suggesting itself to you now. You think that experience is
the “death” I just described because you are trying to make
sense of your experience. Such experiences are not
(themselves) Truth. In he Knee Of Listening, I devoted many
pages to the description of various Events of ego-death. In
My Own Case, I passed through all kinds of Spiritual states,
all kinds of great, dramatic Realizations, all kinds of
Yogic processes. At the time, they may have seemed to be
Most Perfect Realization-and, yet, they disappeared. They
came to an end.
At last, the entire adventure of associating Truth with
experiences began to wind down. I began to become sensitive
to My ordinary state. There were many states that, at the
time, seemed complete. But they did not alter the
fundamental dilemma. Truth was only in the “radical”
understanding of the entire process of conditional
experiences and conditional states. Only when most perfect
“radical” self-understanding was the case did it become
Inherently Obvious that all the previous states of
Illumination, which had seemed to represent Truth, were only
more manifestations, more distractions from Truth Itself.
That inherent Obviousness and not any experience in and of
itself is characteristic of Divine Enlightenment.
DEVOTEE: Is Enlightenment (or Realization) a process of
growth?
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: From the point of view of My
devotee, it may seem that there is some sort of growth, some
sort of movement (or transformation). But, from the Realized
“Point of View”, you see that there was no growth, no
transformation, and no path.
In Reality, you cannot be gradually (or “more and more”)
absorbed into the Truth. Truth is the Principle of life-the
Reality, not merely the goal. There are modifications of
your life and strategy that occur in the process of sadhana.
They seem to give you a sense of progress. And this sense of
apparent progress may have a certain value, from the point
of view of sadhana. The sense of growth, and the memory of
Spiritual change, may inspire you to counter the tendency to
lapse from sadhana and Satsang with Me into your former
condition of self-indulgence, seeking, and
egopossessed concerns.
There is no ultimately fruitful resort but to Truth
Itself. If someone tells others to resort to themselves, to
strive onward until the Truth is glimpsed, then that one has
functioned only as an “other” to motivate people in the
midst of their suffering. Truth Itself is not served by the
command that people do something in order to Realize the
Truth. No action of any person produces Truth as a
result.
Satsang with Me-the devotional (and, in due course,
Spiritual) relationship to Me-is the entire Means, the only
Means, the “radical” (or “gone-to-the-root”) Means. Truth is
the Very Means of Real religious and Spiritual life-not its
goal. One who truly resorts to Me is never again returned to
the search.
But people are always trying to return to the search,
because of the difficult crisis demanded in Real religious
and Spiritual life. They always want to console themselves
by some means or other. The apparent emptiness, or
paradoxical starkness, of My Offering becomes a kind of
aggravation to the seeker, who constantly refuses the
Condition of Satsang with Me and its demands.
People want to be filled with all kinds of things,
distracted with all kinds of things. “What can I do to be
saved? How can I meditate? How can I get free? How can I get
straight? How can I get pure? How can I get happy?” They
want all kinds of occupations and strategic methods. But, in
Satsang with Me, no “thing” is given. No egoic occupation,
no ego-based means, no strategic method, no consolation, no
philosophy that can replace Real practice. Only the
heart-relationship to Me is Offered. Only that.
But that is not what the seeker came for. The seeker came
to get “turned on”, to get something going, to be occupied
again. The seeker is never able to persist in My Company.
Only when the seeker’s search has begun to die (as the
principle of his or her life) does the devotional
relationship to Me cease to be an “offense”. Then My
Offering ceases to seem empty. It becomes an entirely
ecstatic possibility. My devotee embraces It with great
gratitude, even though It satisfies and requires nothing
about the search.
Satsang with Me does not support the search. It does not
begin from the point of view of the search. It has nothing
whatsoever to do with the search. Therefore, one for whom
the search is no longer a genuine distraction finds Great
and True Happiness in My Mere Presence. Such a one has truly
discovered Me, for My Mere Presence is the Communication of
Truth.
My true devotee simply enjoys and lives the Condition of
Satsang with Me. Therefore, My true devotee becomes Full
with Me, Intelligent with Me, Happy with Me, at Peace in Me,
Blissful in Me. Satsang with Me restores My devotee. The
ordinariness of life becomes My devotee’s possibility. My
devotee begins to function again, to come alive again,
because the sense of dilemma has ceased to be the principle
of his or her existence. Satsang with Me is the obviation of
dilemma. Satsang with Me is the Enjoyment of the
Communication of Truth.
In traditional literature, it is said that one who
regards the Guru to be a mere and separate individual has
committed the greatest sin. The highest form of foolishness
is to regard the Guru to be like you.
As long as there is no devotional recognition-response to
Me, there is no Satsang with Me. When this devotional
recognition response to Me occurs, then Satsang with Me can
begin. Indeed, It will have already begun.
Guru is a Function. It is not a form of status. It is not
something to be achieved, or something to seek to achieve. I
am not a big guy who appears among a lot of little guys. The
GuruFunction is not a form of superiority or
“Narcissism”. Guru is a Function of Consciousness itself (or
Reality Itself), appearing in human terms. The relationship
between Me and My devotee is not encumbered with any of the
things that are involved in the relationship between
superior people and weak people. The True relationship
between Me and My devotee has nothing to do with the
ordinary drama of conflict.
To the seeker, the usual person, the humanly Born Guru
may seem to be like other people-but, when you truly live
with Me, heart-recognizing Me (and heart-responding to Me)
as the True Divine Guru, then Satsang with Me has begun.
DEVOTEE: Does a person have a choice as to when this
relationship begins? It seems there is no choice – that it
either happens or does not happen.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: All that occurs for any individual
is this process I have been describing: The search winds
down. You fall somehow into your ordinariness, your simple
suffering. Then you become available to Satsang with Me.
When you begin to live this Satsang with Me (as your Real
Condition), associated with It may be feelings that you have
chosen Me from among others. But the apparent “choice” is
purely secondary. In fact, there is no choice. There is only
My Sudden Availability in the midst of your
otherwise-seeking life.
In the life of My every true devotee, there has only been
the Sudden Communication of the Heart.
|
