THE “BRIGHTENING” WAY TALK
SERIES THE “BRIGHTENING” WAY TALK SERIES – The Yajna Discourses
of Santosha Adi Da (1995-1996) – Gathering “Considerations”
with Beloved Adi Da Samraj, at Sugar Bowl Ski Resort and the
Manner of Flowers, December 29 and 30 1995, and January 3,
1996. The Yajna Discourses of Santosha Adi Da (1995-1996) PROLOGUE The Condition of Radiance A Gathering “Consideration” with Adi Da Samraj The Manner of Flowers January 3, 1996 ADI DA SAMRAJ: What are we to discuss, then? KANYA KAIVALYA NAVANEETA: Light and Consciousness. ADI DA SAMRAJ: You came up with this subject
yourself? KANYA NAVANEETA: No, You did, at the beginning. ADI DA SAMRAJ: Well, for one thing, you can take any
object or anything you perceive, and break it down into
gross parts, and then into various elements, even down to
atomic, subatomic elements, and so forth. You can break
anything down into different kinds of elements or parts. But
you can’t reduce Consciousness to something else. The same is true of Light. It can’t be reduced to
something else. If you take something apparently made of
Light and break it down to its parts, essentially you just
get to Light Itself. And then that’s it. That’s the
fundamental Reality. It can’t be reduced to something else.
It can’t be broken into parts. Therefore, It can’t have a
source that is apart from Itself. It can be part of a
greater Source, but It’s not causable, because It’s not
reducible and It’s not the opposite of anything. I say it’s not the opposite of anything. However, living
beings, conditionally manifested beings, human beings in
particular, do ordinarily presume that there is an opposite
to Light. Its dark, or no-Light. And if you examined your
experience from day to day, you would see how great a
distinction that is. It covers just about everything. The presumption is there in human beings that there is
such a thing as no-Light, or darkness. But even the common
presumption at the present stage of human society is that,
based on the experiments associated with modern physics,
everything is made of Light. In other words, if you reduce
anything down, break down its parts, separate out all the
elements, eventually you just get to Light. Light is the
substance of all these things. You see? So, its also commonly presumed by people who have some
little bit of knowledge of modern physics, apart from any
other metaphysical or grandiose ideas, that everything is
just Light. And yet in the daily experiencing, people
presume that there is such a thing as darkness. Or there are
such things as negatives. Or that there is not only delight
and pleasure, there is pain. People commonly presume in
their daily life and experience that there is negation or
negative opposites, and that there isn’t a fundamental
substantial quality that is Happiness Itself and not
diminished at all. Not diminishable. Not losable. So, as I was Saying earlier, Consciousness cant be
reduced to anything else. Its an absolute. Light can’t be
reduced to anything else. Its an absolute. The Nature of
Reality is Self-Existing and Self-Radiant Being, or
Consciousness. The Nature of Radiance is Happiness, or
Love-Bliss. That is the inherent Nature of existence. Yet
the presumption, in the play of opposites, the play of
conditional experiencing, is that there are negative
opposites. And then there are positives, and you want to
embrace the positives as much as you can. But you’re always
struggling with the negatives. That’s the ordinary play of
ordinary consciousness, or the ordinary presumptions of
beings. The purpose of entering into the sphere of religion or
Spiritual life is to go beyond those conventions of the play
of opposites, or the presumption of conditionality itself,
and enter into the Sphere of the inherent Reality, and be
established in It, As It, manifesting Its Characteristics.
As Such, you transcend all the opposites, all modifications,
all conditionality, all negativity. But this is a profound
matter-to Realize the inherent Reality to the point of being
It, without the slightest difference, such that you can
simply be Its Characteristics. That’s the ultimate goal of religion and Spirituality,
but it is not a casual matter. Its not something that you
can just think about and do in the instant and have it be
fullest, true, Unqualified Realization. Because in
day-to-day experiencing you identify with the body-mind,
which is a play of opposites, positive and negative. It is
mortal. It suffers. So you’re very much controlled by
negative presumptions, or identification with Lightlessness
and un-Consciousness. But that is a product of identifying
with conditions, or opposites, or modifications of Reality,
rather than being established as Reality Itself, Prior to
all those limitations and the suffering of them. But to be just That, and free of the play of opposites,
is not just simply a matter of choosing with the mind or
with the will and it is instantly the case. Because the
mind, the body-mind, the will, is all adapted to this play
of opposites and all the presumptions that go with mortal
existence. So the religious life involves sadhana, practice,
purification, transcendence, ultimately self-transcendence,
ego-transcendence, or transcendence of the separate
self-presumption. But also the transcendence of
negativity. Rudi used to say, on occasion, there are three things to
deal with: self-imagery, negativity, and self-pity. And
they’re all really variations on the same thing, you see? I
talk to you in terms of such dispositions. But My
“Consideration” with you is most profound and deals with the
fundamental matter. All there Is is Light and Consciousness, Self-Existing.
Light is Self-Radiant. In other words, one of Its principal
Characteristics is Radiance, not contraction, you see. And
It is All-Blissful. The nature of that inherent Radiance,
Self-Existing Consciousness, is Happiness, or Well-Being, or
Love-Bliss. But that’s not how people live, you see. If you
observe any living being, any living entity, any living
process, it is turbulent. Its a play of opposites. And if
the play of opposites is associated with identifying with a
mortal body, then you get very cagey about it, clever
perhaps, strategic, fearful, anxious, full of stress, so
that you accumulate desires and then seek to release it. So human beings in their ordinariness not only
demonstrate the fact that they identify with the body-mind
rather than with the Ultimate Reality, but they show signs
of the play of opposites physically, emotionally, mentally.
The breath changes as a sign of it. All the leading
faculties are constantly modified by the egoic or separative
presumption of being identified with the body-mind. So human
beings are full of these adaptations, and this is why
Realization, Enlightenment, which is to be established in
the Condition of Light-that’s what that means-Unqualified
Consciousness, is not something that, in the usual case
anyway, is entered into readily. It requires profound
practice that overcomes these adaptations-identification
with the body-mind itself, but everything that came about as
a result of that, all this negativity, this suffering, and
pain, psychological pain, emotional disturbance, and so
forth. These are all signs of contraction, self-contraction,
the effect of it being that the inherent Nature of Reality,
Which is Radiant Love-Bliss, Self-Existing, Self-Radiant, is
apparently an experience lost . You feel Lightless,
un-Enlightened, tending toward un-Consciousness, and
identified with all kinds of limitations that you don’t
enjoy. Sometimes you enjoy them. Most of the time experience
is mixed, with a lot of negative associations one way or
another. So the process of the religious life, the God-ward life,
is moving toward En-Lightenment, or Identification with the
Divine or Native Reality. But the sign of having done so is
that you display those Characteristics, you enjoy those
Characteristics, you are the manifestation of those
Characteristics, the Characteristic of Unqualified Being, of
Unqualified Radiance, Unqualified Love-Bliss. That’s not
something you can put on with the faculties of the
body-mind, this play of opposites adapted to suffering. That
can be manifested, truly and consistently, only if there is
true Enlightenment, or inherent Identification with the
Self-Existing and Self-Radiant Reality, Which is Light. It
is Conscious Light. It is En-Lightened Consciousness,
Self-Lighted, Self-Radiant Consciousness. That is always the
Condition, no matter what the apparent experience. Because to Realize Reality you must be purified of the
opposites, you necessarily have to go through the trial of
experiencing these negatives. One way or another you have to
go through it. It doesn’t mean that you have to have the
grossest, most terrible experiences. But you have to pass
through the inspection, real inspection, of your
limitations. This is why so much of the religious life
involves enduring self-frustrating, self-controlling
disciplines. This is also why religious people go through
difficulties. Its not just a sort of smiling ride, unless
you’re nutty and not really being religious, you see. If you
understand the real religious life, you understand what it
is as a process. So you must, in doing the sadhana I’ve Given you, be able
to inspect and understand and transcend bondage of every
kind, suffering of every kind. You’ve got to be able to
inspect it thoroughly, but in the manner of sadhana, not
just experiencing it in and of itself. You must do sadhana
with every kind of adaptation that you’ve accumulated
egoically, and be released of these patternings. Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga is exactly that process, then. It
makes the patternings obsolete by not using them, by moving
the faculties into Communion with Me in the
self-surrendering, self-forgetting, manner. And that becomes
a process of Contemplative absorption in Me, but also
purification of binding limitations and so on. At first
grosser ones, or certainly grosser ones are there from the
very beginning. Subtler purifications can also begin
immediately. The process tends to become more subtle over
time as grosser things are relinquished as binding
patterns. Ultimately there is the “Perfect Practice”. The “Perfect
Practice” is Identification with Me, with Conscious Light,
without a medium, without separation. But if the “Perfect
Practice” is true sadhana, then, whereas before the process
was more a purifying one, a rebalancing one, a kind of a
fast, you could say, when the “Perfect Practice” is taken
up, it is about not so much that matter of purification and
so forth, but it is about being directly Identified with the
Native Reality, such that in the same circumstance as
before-in other words, in the body-mind circumstances-you
begin to demonstrate those Characteristics. So instead of
demonstrating the double-minded character of the human being
bound to the opposites, you demonstrate the single
Simplicity of the Self-Radiant Being. This is why people who are at least to some significant
degree Spiritually awakened show unusual characteristics,
including just rather radiant, benign human qualities. Some
of that obviously is there in Spiritual life even in the
earlier stages, or even in the beginning of the religious
life in this Way. Signs like this should be seen in people,
more benign qualities and such. Its from this Communion with
Me, and the progressive purification of the binding
adaptations. Well, when the “Perfect Practice” begins, that’s when the
process is most direct. But truly, its only in the seventh
stage of life that that process is fulfilled. Because in the
sixth stage level of the practice, there is Identification
with Me Prior to the body-mind, and you enter into Samadhis,
Jnana Samadhi when that is most profound, but then you
return to the body-mind, apparently relinquishing that
“Perfect Practice”, you see. In some sense, it appears, you
relinquish it, you get up and do things ordinarily. And the
body-mind has its own adaptations, so they may still show
themselves. Its only in the seventh stage of life, when
there is no longer reaching into Identification with Me,
with the Divine Self-Condition, but simple Establishment in
It, and then relinquishment of the last knot, the
dissociative knot that contracts away from conditions,
dissociates from conditions-its only then, with that
relinquished, you see, that Amrita Nadi becomes Radiant and
the entire body-mind, because there is native Recognition,
becomes the Divine Sign. The body-mind is “Brightened” consistently in the course
of the seventh stage Demonstration to the point of Divine
Translation. There needn’t be the Demonstration of the body
dissolving in Light, because people don’t perceive Reality
in that sense, you see. Normally the body will just die at
some point. But the life would have been, in the seventh
stage Demonstration, a Radiant life. In other words, rather
than being merely a play on the opposites, its the Play on
the single Reality. And so that is unique to the seventh
stage of life. There are some things that, as I’ve already
mentioned, could be seen similarly in Spiritually awakening
people. But the Demonstration in its fullest sense, you see,
is what takes place in the seventh stage of life. This is
what devotees should understand in My Descriptions, then. It
is the Demonstration of inherent Identification with the
Divine Self-Condition, but Recognizing, inherently
Recognizing, everything as a merely apparent, non-binding
modification of That. So its not a matter of the disposition, in the egoic
sense at any rate, moving into a Lightless moment at any
time. It is always Enlightened. In other words, it is always
based on inherent Identification with the Self-Radiant
Divine Self-Condition. No matter how it appears, however the
play of the individual appears, it is still Such. That is
the Nature of Consciousness, and It never changes. And
Recognition is constant. And if you understood the person
rightly, you would see that it is a constantly “Bright”
Love-Bliss Demonstration. You cant fake the seventh stage Realization, you see. You
cant fake Realization at all. Or people may try to, but if
one is perceptive, it is obvious what they’re doing. But the
seventh stage Demonstration, then, is the Demonstration of
inherent Identification with Light, with this Characteristic
of Self-Radiance. And therefore the sadhana of devotees is
based on their absorption in Me, their devotion to Me. And
all devotees should see, then, that their sadhana requires
them to en-Lighten their faults, or to pass beyond, in other
words, the self-contracted, dark states into the Radiant
State of Contemplative absorption in Me, ultimately
Identification with Me. This is why devotees should maintain the purity of
practice I’ve Given them-not pure in the moralistic sense,
but they should maintain consistently the actual practice
I’ve Given and not vacation from it or avoid the demands
associated with it, because to do so is to identify with the
organism position or the play of opposites, and all kinds of
negativity or dark-sidedness or Lightlessness. So you must consistently maintain all the disciplines
I’ve Given you, focused in the fundamental one of
Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga, and everything about the “conscious
process” and “conductivity” and so on, all the
life-disciplines. Because only in doing it that way do you
stay one-pointed in it without slipping off into the
sideshow of the opposites. And require of yourself that you
go beyond the limiting force of your adapted
personality-fear, sorrow, anger, and all the rest. Devotees often don’t seem to understand this is what its
about. They’re just looking to feel pleasure. They’re not
listening to Me yet, not to mention hearing. They’re not
focused in the seriousness of practice that really deals
with the realities of the religious life. They want a
consolation perhaps. They don’t want the ordeal of going
beyond themselves for real. Of course, the Way of the Heart
is about going beyond yourself for real. That’s what its
about every moment. And you will, then, since this
Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga covers all moments, you will be doing
sadhana in the moments that are relatively negative, in your
disposition or dealing with circumstances, whatever it may
be. But you’ll do sadhana as these things appear. And by
going beyond that in self-surrendering Communion with Me,
you’ll notice something about all of these knots.
Ultimately, you discover the principal knot, the one you’re
doing all the time, the self-contraction itself, which is
the basis for all the other knots or forms of contraction in
your life, your body, your emotions, or your mind. So you must go through that purifying process in the
midst of self-frustration, difficulty, binding psychological
tendencies, and go beyond them. So the process is purifying
all along till the “Perfect Practice” becomes your
capability. It relieves knots, you see. And the sign, then,
in somebody who’s My devotee, who’s advancing in the
practice, is that you are feeling beyond the knots
consistently. Its noticeable by those who know you over time
that previously you showed certain kinds of signs in certain
situations, had a certain disposition, or whatever-your
egoic personality showed itself in some way-and now ten
years later, somebody who’s known you all along can notice
for you how those things have changed, they’ve disappeared,
even, you see. You may feel you’re still dealing with a lot
of it on some subtler level, but others notice all kinds of
signs in your physical, emotional, and mental qualities,
your relational qualities and so on as well, and all your
behavior, that its become-one good word for it is benign,
relatively En-Lightened, so to speak. In other words, Light
has been brought there. You released it in Communion with Me
and found the State of Light. It is Radiant, Love-Bliss, not
contracted, not negative. And so It shows Itself in
everything about you. And then when the “Perfect Practice” becomes your
capability, you enter directly into the Domain of the
Self-Radiant Self-Condition. But in doing so in the first
two stages of the “Perfect Practice”, certainly in the
second, you step aside from the usual absorption in the
conditions and so forth and Identify with the Native
Position. As I Said, the conditional and the Unconditional
don’t come together in the fullest sense even in the sixth
stage of life or the first two stages of the “Perfect
Practice” in this Way. They come together in the seventh
stage. KANYA TRIPURA RAHASYA: Do they come together to some
degree in Jnana Samadhi? ADI DA SAMRAJ: Yes, well, in the sixth stage of life,
like in the previous stages of real sadhana, there are
effects of purification. Or in the case of the sixth stage
practice, signs do appear that your consciousness is
Radiant, Blissful, is in the Position of Happiness, and
shows itself, then, in various ways, particularly as the
“Perfect Practice” matures in its second stage and you enter
more and more profoundly into My State, into the Very State,
the Native State. Its only when the last barrier, the root of egoity, is
finally gone beyond-the dissociative act of moving from
conditions to the Source-its only when even that is
relinquished in Most Perfect Identification with the Divine
Self-Condition that the Ultimate Demonstration occurs, the
seventh stage Demonstration, which is the Power of
Recognition of the Native Divine Self, operating such that
the Qualities, the Native Qualities of the Divine Self,
Manifest even in the apparent body-mind. There are some signs of this, as I say, in the earlier
stages, but only in this most profound sense is it
characteristic of the seventh stage. And so I’ve Described
to you “epochs” of the seventh stage of life. What they
indicate is that this Native Power of Recognition has made
the Demonstration of the apparent Radiance of the Self so
profound, you see, that there are four discrete levels of
the Sign, based on that growing profundity, or that
“Brightening” in the kiln, you see. Most “Bright” in the
“Indifference” phase, and then it goes to the point of
Divine Translation, complete Outshining of conditions. Its not that the conditions were not transcended simply
in the seventh stage Awakening itself. They are. I’m talking
about the Demonstration as it appears in the apparent play
of life. KANYA TRIPURA: You talked about it at first as being a
conscious reliving. ADI DA SAMRAJ: The seventh stage process is the
Demonstration of Divine Recognition, and it covers
everything. So its a recapitulation in that sense. All of
the structures of the body-mind and the world are, as if in
repetition of all of the previous stages of life, apparently
arising and Recognized. In other words, “Brightened”. KANYA TRIPURA: It feels like a Yoga of “Brightening”,
[ADI DA SAMRAJ: Mm-hm.] all of that, which creates
the transformation. ADI DA SAMRAJ: So that’s the ultimate Demonstration of
Enlightenment, or the religious life. And because it is so,
those in the earlier stages of practice must be informed by
that Revelation of what life is for, what its about, what
the process is, and so forth, as I’ve Revealed it to you.
But if you understand what I’m Saying, then you understand
that the Way of the Heart, even from the beginning, involves
this en-Lightening process, this Contemplative Communion
with Me, in every moment, by submission of all the
faculties. Its that, fundamentally, but you visit all of the
adaptations in that process. And because that is the
process-you aren’t just experiencing things, you’re doing
this sadhana, you see-you more and more profoundly show the
characteristic of Communion with Me, and even demonstrate it
in the body-mind the more purified it becomes of its
adaptations. Ordinarily, your consciousness is adapted to
identification with the body-mind, the play of opposites,
and because its a mortal body there is the exaggeration of
the negative side, the fear side, and so on. So all that
involves this identification with the lie, the presumption
that there is something other than Light, that there is
darkness or Lightlessness or Godlessness, that there is
actual separation from the Divine Condition, and so on.
Because this is what people are actually experiencing-the
literal separation from the Divine Condition-and because
they are identifying even very grossly with the body-mind in
its fear, consciousness is dark, lightless, in its
presumption. It is not presumed that there is the Divine
Condition. What is more absurd than asking the traditional question,
“Does God exist?” To ask such a question seriously is to be
in the condition of Lightlessness, or un-Enlightenment, or
Godlessness, presumed separation from the Divine Condition.
Otherwise the Divine Condition would be inherently obvious
and you wouldn’t ask the question. So you are presuming darkness or negativity. And you
notice everybody you meet, then, in the general attractions
of people, is constantly showing signs of going through
changes-different every hour, or day, or week, or year, or
whatever-they’re going through all kinds of changes that
have to do with being less than Happy, less than
Enlightened, or “Bright”. They go through signs, in other
words, of being, to one or another significant degree, not
Radiant. They show the sign of being contracted rather than
Radiant. My first Teaching Sign to everyone was this Gesture of My
hand, clenching the fist versus opening the hand. Well, its
presuming darkness versus being Radiant. And the fundamental
process, then, in sadhana-I just outlined it to you in terms
of all kinds of matters, and there are many ways I could
Describe the fundamental process as well-but one way to
describe it is that, in every moment where there is the dark
tendency to identify with self-contraction and all the
things that come with it, or to identify with the body-mind,
just in and of itself, and all that comes with that, in
every moment as that comes Up, the process is about being
Radiant instead. But you cant do that just by willing to be Radiant, or
merely doing that. You have to visit the root of every kind
of contraction, and the self-contraction itself, ultimately,
and feel beyond that. So this is what Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga
involves, not some gleeful devotionalism but this profound
process of self-surrendering Communion with Me, which
submits the faculties in other words, roots them out from
their involvement in conditional states and relaxes the
entire being in Communion with Me so that the Quality of My
Very Nature and Person is experienced, as Love-Bliss,
freedom from stress, freedom from contraction. But fundamentally in every moment you’re identifying with
contraction and not being Radiant. If you could root out
that knot, then the Native Condition of Radiance would
appear. Every kind of suffering is about this same thing.
Every kind of disturbance-relational, physical, emotional,
mental, whatever-everything that you acknowledge as pain, or
suffering, or negative somehow or other, is simply
self-contraction, or contracted from the Condition of Light
or Radiance, contracting from a Radiant condition into a
knotted-up condition. Absolutely every inauspicious or
non-pleasing condition is something less than Radiant. And
the process, then, fundamentally, is one of being Radiant in
those very faculties instead of contracted. To do sadhana in the Way of the Heart is to do that . It
is not merely to seek consolations or pleasing social
conditions or whatever it is that people may seek, you see.
Its a matter of going beyond the knot of separate self.
Really. Literally. And not only in its root but in all of
the things that came from that root. All the psycho-physical
states are purified by this sadhana. And devotees need to
understand, then, what this sadhana is about and be moved to
do it as I’ve Given it to them, rather than trying to
manufacture it into some conventional religious amusement or
consolation and so on. Devotees are Called by Me to do the
actual sadhana, and do it moment to moment. And this is why
what I just summarized to you is what its about as a
process. And its the why of it. The Native Condition of
Reality is Self-Radiant. The ordinary conditions of human
experience are contracted. If you replace contraction with
openness into the Native State, you see-if you replace it
with openness, you are in the Native State-then that whole
drama of suffering is purified and ultimately released. And
in the final Demonstration, the Divine Sign of inherent
Radiance becomes your Characteristic for all others to note
and benefit from. If there is true hearing in this Way, then the
individual, always, in every moment, has the
capability-because he or she is dealing with the root
contraction, the basis of all other contractions or signs of
contraction-has the ability to demonstrate the capability of
moving beyond the self-knot and the contracted state, in any
moment. And must demonstrate that, you see. Whereas previous
to hearing there can be authentic practice, but you’re
dealing with all of the different forms of contraction. So
in some moments you may go beyond something, but then when
something else comes up it is a further test, and so forth.
And then it is all piecemeal. There can be improvements and
all that, but the fundamental capability is not there yet.
Its only when all contraction is understood, most
fundamentally, as your own activity, and as just that,
self-contraction, that there is a unique capability that can
be exercised in every moment. Now, some people may think they have heard Me because
they have some feeling about this whole matter of
contraction and are practicing Communion with Me. And they
may feel they have heard Me because they are able to
demonstrate some quality of self-transcendence under some
circumstance, or even perhaps many circumstances, of life.
And they may feel that’s a sufficient indicator that they’ve
actually heard Me, because they are understanding something
about the fact that they’re contracting. And then they
don’t, and they think, “Well, maybe that’s what hearings
about.” And it is not so. Hearing is not the case until
there is this most fundamental capability, universal to the
character, such that movement beyond the self-knot can be
demonstrated every moment. And if that is done, of course,
then it deals with whatever associations there may be in any
moment, you see. Whatever the circumstances, whatever the
qualities otherwise of the body-mind, in any moment there
still is this fundamental root-capability. That’s the
profound nature of hearing. Its not enough to be purified
some, based on My Teaching and devotional Yoga and such, not
enough to be purified of some things and have it be hearing.
So, this matter of people making this transition to level
1.3, and otherwise, perhaps, into the Lay Renunciate Order,
which we’ve been discussing, requires this capability. The other evening we were talking at Sugar Bowl, you
know, where Dennis and Brian in particular, at the beginning
of our conversation, were talking about how, after so many
years of practice, they’ve really gotten sick of their game
and of being controlled by tendencies and so on. Well,
that’s good, but hearing is not just noticing the
self-contraction and not liking it, you see. Or noticing a
lot over time and not wanting to have to be obliged to be
that way anymore. Hearing is not merely meditating on the
self-contraction. Hearing is the capability to transcend the
self-contraction, because you’re in the root position, which
is the equivalent of the closed fist, in your own nature.
You are right in that position, you’re noticing that you are
clenching your fist and that’s why your hand hurts, and you
open your hand up. You see? Or another simile I’ve Given is
that you’re pinching yourself, and you’re suffering the
pain, and you’re thinking and emoting, trying to do all
kinds of things to be relieved of this, and you never figure
it out, and the pain is constant. Then, maybe somebody
points it out to you, or you somehow notice that you’re
pinching yourself, and you take your hand away and all of a
sudden the pain is gone. Well, hearing is this discovery of
your own fundamental action that is the root and cause and
nature of your own disturbance and your search. So its not
meditating on the self-contraction and regretting it. Its
enjoying the capability of going beyond it. Whatever Dennis and Brian may say about their own
practice apart from those statements they made the other
night, the quality of the statements, you see, was not that
of hearing. They were among the individuals on the Lay
Renunciate Order list given to Me the day before yesterday,
and they hadn’t “considered” together this conversation we
had in Sugar Bowl. I wanted them and everyone else to fully
“consider” this matter of hearing because, as I was just
Saying, there are changes that any devotee goes through in
the listening process, you see, that do give you a feeling
that you’re responsible for something about what you feel is
self-contraction, you see, reactivity, all the rest. But
they don’t indicate hearing. So, anybody who’s going to
apply for the Lay Renunciate Order, since level 2 is the
obligation to be fully accepted-you could even say level 3,
for that matter, when you pass through the level 2 process
fully-since that’s what’s required in the Lay Renunciate
Order, the first question is, is there hearing? Its not
enough for individuals to describe the piecemeal benefits or
the changes in this or that aspect of their life where they
feel that now they go beyond contractedness and so
forth. This is one of the basic things I wanted everybody to
“consider” there, in re-examining the Lay Renunciate Order
list. Are people really indicating hearing? Or are they just
describing some positive benefits in their practice that
give them a sense of having some control over their
difficult personality game, you see? Hearing is a profound
matter. I’ve Written about it extensively, discussed it
extensively, over twenty-three-twenty-five years actually.
So devotees certainly have My full Communication about it.
But I think its not fully enough used culturally, as a
general rule. I don’t want to play any games with this Lay Renunciate
Order matter. I don’t want to play any games about anything,
for that matter. But relative to this, I don’t want to go
through another cycle as I’ve done before about it, where I
just get the list, you know, and its basically those who do
cultural service and they can say positive things about
their practice, you see. I don’t want to have to go through
that whole thing again. I want them to use My Communications
fully, My already Given Communications, and test themselves
against all of that, and measure themselves relative to what
I Describe as the true sadhana. Then the culture can put
forward people who have heard Me for real and not just be
scratching their heads and wondering, “Have these people
heard? Wed like to put them forward.” There hasn’t been any
real culture, real test, real review of these individuals
relative to the matter of real hearing. So I wanted to have
this further conversation this evening to pass on even more
to the culture about what the sadhana is about and, in
particular, then, what hearing is about. So that not only
will evaluations become authentic, but the entire culture
will authenticate itself in this Way.
