Tumbs – The Torque of Attention – Adi Da Samraj

 

“The Torque of Attention” From The Brightening Way Talk Series

Author(s): Adi Da Samraj

THE “BRIGHTENING” WAY TALK SERIES

The Yajna Discourses of Santosha Adi Da (1995-1996)

Volume 1, Number 8

The Torque of Attention

A Gathering “Consideration” with Beloved Adi Da Samraj in the Manner of Flowers on January 13, 1996


 

 

DEVOTEE: The first night, Beloved, in one of Your Guided Meditations, You very intentionally Transmitted the experience of “the Thumbs” to me.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: Mm-hm.

DEVOTEE: And I noticed that we didn’t have much “consideration” of that after that time. And one of the things I’ve noticed is that I feel “the Thumbs” as a kind of a very distinctive almost like a fluid, a kind of massive fluid, pressing down in my frontal line. I feel it as an intense concentration of Force in the bodily base.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: Mm-hm.

DEVOTEE: There have been other times in Your Company where I feel just this tremendous downward push, just pushing through my body, that doesn’t have a shape to it. Its just Yogic Force. And I was wondering if that’s just another variation of “the Thumbs”? Or is “the Thumbs” a specific, something that’s specifically . . .

ADI DA SAMRAJ: Well, I’ve talked about the partial experience of “the Thumbs”, or a variation on that full sign that I’ve Described. You could say, generally speaking, then, that any kind of sense of frontal Invasion has something of the Samadhi of “the Thumbs” about it because you’re involved in My frontal Invasion. That is what the Sign of “the Thumbs” shows, in full terms. That full Descent downward and an unbroken bodily base. The Force then continues in the full Circle and a state of equanimity is achieved, kumbhak of a kind.

Theres the rotating forward, the taking on the form of the sphere such experiences. A loss of definition. You get to feel something like at the center of a sphere. The body-mind becomes or is felt like that.

So that’s “the Thumbs” in its fullest sense. Anything other than that or less than that is not “the Thumbs” in its fullest sense. It is a Samadhi, not merely a sensation in the physical. It goes beyond the usual body-mind references.

So feeling Energy Pressing down and so forth in the abdomen or the frontal line is a common experience of devotees. Its not itself “the Thumbs” in the full sense. But its related to that same process, is a sign of that process.

DEVOTEE: I noticed, Beloved, that many times during these “considerations” in receiving Your Transmission, I do feel expanded beyond the locus of the body-mind. Theres a sense of being in a larger sphere that is associated with You.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: Yes, of course that’s related to it, but the Samadhi of “the Thumbs” is a very specific Yogic Event, a Samadhi Event. The body is felt rotating and all the rest of it, because of the sensations associated with it. And then the body becomes a Sphere of Force. Its not just some sort of generalized feeling of being surrounded or enclosed or in some sort of place of Energy. Its a very specific sign that is related to the body because its about a transformative event in the body, or the total body-mind.

[silence] 

DENNIS: Beloved, when You were talking about the Samadhi of “the Thumbs”, You were talking about a rotating forward?

ADI DA SAMRAJ: Yes. Theres a full feeling of My Invasion in the frontal line. Its not that you actually roll over and fall on the floor, whatever.

DENNIS: Right.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: But because of that Forceful Invasion in the frontal line, if the body feels like its rotating forward, its just the beginning of the assumption of this spherical shape, because it passes in the full Circle and a balance is achieved next. You see? And that balance is felt to be in this sphere form at the center of it, but its not thinking or acting in any sense at all. Its just this sense of your Condition.

And then if you direct yourself to thought again, and so on, or try to re-associate with ordinary body sensations, somehow, it passes. It inevitably passes due to something like that, at some point. So its not a grave misfortune if it happens. Of course, if it prevents the experience altogether, that’s a limitation. But the Event itself, just happening, even if experientially it doesn’t seem to last, is a very fundamental part of the re-structuring of the circuit of the being an opening of it, a purification of it, a re-connecting of everything, a balancing. Its very much internal, but in “the Thumbs” experience its felt also bodily and so on.

So its a sign of the full connection and essential establishment of the Circle as a free passage for Me. All the signs of maturity must appear, but its part of the readying to be attracted beyond the Circle to the root of Amrita Nadi. Its the preliminary to it. Its what allows that to be the case. Otherwise, My Force is trapped in the Circle one way or another.

So “the Thumbs”, the full Samadhi of “the Thumbs”, is a sign of the right asana of the circuit. It may have to happen more than once, even over time. But devotees may have such an experience early on. Nonetheless, the Work must be accomplished. You cant really map it all that exactly. The accumulation of all of it becomes what is required.

Anything more about that?

DENNIS: Well, some experiences that I’ve had in Your Company I was wondering how they would relate to that, if they do relate to it. Because I’ve had that sense, in times in Communion with You, feeling absorbed where its almost as if I’ve turned upside-down. Theres a sense of going forward and I lose any sense of direction. I don’t know if my body is upright or where I am. But I don’t get involved in that. I just kind of stay surrendered. But it seems like my bodies upright. And then there’s…

ADI DA SAMRAJ: Well, that’s also a way of losing “the Thumbs”. As I Said, to become reoriented to the body sense, what it is to be upright or whatever it is, breaks the spell, so to speak, of “the Thumbs”.

So “the Thumbs” itself, the rotation, everything altogether, is a transformed condition, a form of Samadhi. And it loses the definitions of ordinary body-consciousness up, down, forward, backwards. Its just a sphere. Its not merely a circle. Its a sphere. It is the body as Energy. So its a process in which the body is thoroughly established as such in Energy, in My Presence. So it becomes, effectively, a Yoga body, a body in which the Spiritual process can work.

But the full proof that it is so is the Spiritual maturing at level three and moving on to the “Perfect Practice”. Its not just the energy moving in the body or the feeling of some disorientation, whatever thats not it. Those are features somehow that can be associated with it. It is the Samadhi. Its this body given into the condition of energy utterly, such that you feel Sublimed or simply in a Sphere of Force, with no bodily definition. But as soon as you think, or try to re-associate with the physical sensation, it disappears again. Well, its not that you have to remain in that state always, at that stage in your practice. Its a sign of the developing of the Yogic body.

This Body is always in “the Thumbs”. So I don’t have the experience of it anymore in terms of an Event. I mean, there was a certain stage when I was a boy, integrating with the physical then the re-Invasion, re-Initiation, of the “Bright”, “the Thumbs”, trying to re-Establish Itself, was felt by Me, usually at times of rest and so forth. I could feel it resuming the body again, re-entering the body, come down it felt to Me like gagging. The thought I had at the time was like a mass of thumbs, gagging and suffocating and so forth. In other words, the body had to be contracted to have to then suffer this re-Invasion. It should simply be in this Yogic state.

So over the years, the reappearance’s of this experience spontaneously in adult life and so on part of the whole Yoga was this establishment of the Body in the Condition of “the Thumbs”, such that ultimately it became permanent. The pot-shaped Mudra of Force. The body is not an obstruction.

So the Sign of “the Thumbs” is just a sign of that Yogic body transformation that provides the vehicle for the transition to the “Perfect Practice”.

The Samadhi of “the Thumbs” is not merely the pot-shaped, or the feeling of Force in the body. Its the utter Capturing of the body, utter Infusion of the body. And a loosening up of attention.

The Samadhi of “the Thumbs” is a kind of kumbhak. So when it becomes permanent, effectively kumbhak is permanent. So this breathing in This Body is sometimes very slow. Sometimes it stops. Sometimes it moves in the daily circumstance. But all the while the Samadhi of “the Thumbs” is permanent. The body is in the Yogic state of kumbhak.

So like the purring cat, it is a permanent resonance.

So I Am Present.

I’m not really in the Body, going through it, you see, Shining through it. The Body is given up, into My Presence. So it is an Energy Body.

The physical is a rather diffuse experience.

Diffuse.

Identifying with the body, you take on its form, you are very discretely aware of its shape, its various characteristics. But to Stand in the Radiant Position, really Force in the body just that that identification is not there. So the sense of the body is sufficient for functioning a little bit! [laughter]

JOAN: Beloved, I had the experience of “the Thumbs”. And it was finding myself in this Condition that You were Describing of cascading forward and into a ball shape, becoming like a sphere of blue light. And . . .

ADI DA SAMRAJ: There was a visual aspect to it?

JOAN: Yes. And then I was aware that I wasn’t finding You in that place. And I Enquired of that, “Avoiding relationship?” And I was taken to a position behind this ball of rotating energy, I suppose. But what my question is, You mention in The Dawn Horse Testament that Your devotees can have any variety of experience because Your Siddhi arises Prior to the Cosmic Mandala and You Shine through that. And so the having of these experiences is a sign of Your Shining on us. And I wondered if I was wrong in my assumption of that sphere of blue light. Is that the energy of the body-mind? Or is that Your Light? Was I wrong to

ADI DA SAMRAJ: You see, as soon as you start trying to make the judgments, even exercise discrimination, prior to thinking, you lose the condition. So its simply an event in which to be disarmed. Whatever it looks like. Whatever the appearances associated with it. Its just the body given up to the Condition of Energy.

Now, is it Me? Well, yes, however profoundly or not you may be experiencing Me. So also there’s the element of natural energy and own-body-mind characteristics. But you can locate Me there. It is Me. You are entered into My Sphere. But you must enter into it most profoundly.

One of the things that makes “the Thumbs” phenomenon brief is that you don’t do that. You don’t enter into the depth of it. You become immediately superficial, after a brief noticing, enjoyment, whatever, then you start exercising the body-mind again and it passes. This whole process of entering into it in the fullest sense is to enter into Samadhi in Communion with Me.

Well, if that is the case, then not limitations in that Event in your case but My Very Presence will be what absorbs you, you see? If that is the case, then the Samadhi of “the Thumbs” would last a while longer than it might otherwise.

The other thing I could Say is that if you have to ask, its not Me! [laughter]

JOAN: What happened next in that meditation was that I Enquired again of that Position of Standing and observing the sphere of Energy, and I was taken to another place. You were there. And I was absorbed in a great Happiness that was all about You.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: In each of your descriptions you just gave, you described certain visual or visionary phenomena that you became involved in.

JOAN: Yes.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: They are not themselves part of “the Thumbs”. But when something of the Samadhi of “the Thumbs” has been your experience, you’ve moved from it as a base into subtle states of Contemplation, with objects. You see?

Rather than just immediately waking up into the gross bodily associations, you appear to enter into some level of subtle perception visionary, or dreaming, or whatever the content at the moment. So that can very well be the case. Those phenomena are not themselves part of the Samadhi of “the Thumbs”. But something of the Samadhi of “the Thumbs” can occur, and subtle phenomena arise because of the relaxed disposition, availability for it, and so forth.

[silence]

And of course, this resonating of the Circle by Me can, if you’re so disposed, expose subtle objects for your interest, or gross as well rather than remaining in the Samadhi beyond psycho-physical references, you see. This is the kind of tendency that certainly can be dealt with during the period of the frontal Yoga but might, in some cases, require going on to the fourth or fifth stage of practice. Not necessarily. But it suggests the possibility of it.

It also suggests that the Samadhi of “the Thumbs” is not complete that there was opening of the frontal line and some release of the Force into the spinal line, but it only went so far. You began having visions. If it passes fully in that sphere, fully to the fullest in every part, then it doesn’t stop with such subtle phenomena.

Its sort of the spinal version of when, in the frontal Yoga, you feel the Energy stop at a certain point, your throat, whatever it doesn’t come down. Well, its the same thing it doesn’t go all the way up, doesn’t freely go up. So it strikes on the subtle level of the faculties and animates them, instead of just simply passing through.

So the full Samadhi of “the Thumbs” is full passage through, frontal and spinal. Its a kind of Nirvikalpa Samadhi. And one especially important in this Way. Sufficiently, to be effective, it must occur in the case of all those who are going to go on to the “Perfect Practice”. Perhaps have different ways of showing itself in different people, but effectively the Work must be done. But if you drift into internal conditions, and so forth, then its not complete yet.

Its not that there’s something to object to about it. Its just an indicator of how the process is working, you see?

So the full Samadhi of “the Thumbs” requires you to be given up utterly. But it can also occur partially, and show signs of that partialness.

JOAN: I think I see. What I was doing is, at that time, perhaps feeling uncomfortable with that feeling and then moved out of it, into these incomplete places You’re describing.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: Mm-hm. But you like these ascending kind of experiences, these subtle experiences.

JOAN: Mm-hm.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: Perhaps more consoling to you, less harmful, in your view than possible gross happenings.

JOAN: [laughing] Mm-hm. Mm-hm.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: You get to twinkle with all those blue lighty-lighties, you know? Visionary throne rooms? [laughter]

So it may have gone up at that moment, but only partially. And it stopped going down. You see, “the Thumbs” wasn’t what was happening then, but just another form of internal concentration.

Anyway, its not so much that “the Thumbs” has to repeated over and over again. It has to happen as often as it must, but it doesn’t have to accomplish the full evolutionary Yoga. Its there to accomplish simply the “conductivity” of the Circle.

When you fall into the Fullness of “the Thumbs”, you’re simply attention. Mind is relaxed. Body obviously relaxed. You become simply this sphere, this Circle which is a sphere. But you’re just attention. And as soon as you activate attention to what’s between attention and the body any faculty of mind or energy or familiarity and so forth then the phenomenon of “the Thumbs” stops. Its changed into something else.

So “the Thumbs” precedes the transition to the “Perfect Practice”, or any deeper meditation which amounts to the same thing. No activation of body-mind, but just attention, the feeling of relatedness. Its when there is that kind of concentration and equanimity that the transition is made to the Witness, because its there that attention, the feeling of relatedness, is found in the Self. The Position of Consciousness is suddenly assumed. Because the view is so simple.

But its not about identifying with or viewing or penetrating a spot a bindu, a point of any kind. Its a matter of Standing Prior to it.

[silence]

[to Brian] Did you ever figure out that question you had a few hours ago?

DEVOTEE: The question, Beloved?

ADI DA SAMRAJ: Yes. I think you said you had three questions. You remembered two, and there was a third, and you couldn’t remember it?

DEVOTEE: Yes, I did. That was the question I was asking about, the Samadhi of “the Thumbs”.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: Mm.

DEVOTEE: It seemed like my question was if “the Thumbs”, the Samadhi of “the Thumbs”, is primarily the Samadhi of Your Assumption of the body-mind, the body-mind of Your devotee, and only secondarily Yogic in nature.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: Right. Its My Invasion of you, not merely you lining up the body somehow with a technique. I’ve Described it as a kind of Crashing Down. In other words, not about coddling egoity, but Shining Me through it. Undoing it. But there are also any number of physical sensations that may be associated with it. Action in the throat, maybe the gagging theres any number of signs the tongue pressing to the palate.

But if its Me, you’ll know it. [soft laughter] Its not just you feeling like you usually do, feeling your energy, and you saying its Me, you know? Everything’s Me. Good old Me. [laughter] Kind of an honorific believers kind of affirmation thats not based on initiation, into the Truth of it.

So its by actually receiving Me, recognizing Me As I Am, Spiritually, and seeing Me Work, noticing My Work Spiritually in the body, and so on. You have no doubt its Me! Its not like anything else, and its not something that was your usual experience and you renamed it Me. Its as obviously Me as My Body must be familiar to you by now, or My face.

So its an Invasion. It comes from without. Its not something inside you. But then, having Entered, the total body-mind becoming conformed to the Divine Infusion, then its not something outside anymore. The only reason it appeared to be outside anyway is because of self-contraction, locking it out.

JOAN: Yes, that’s what I realize now.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: Mmm. Otherwise it would just flow through the circuit of the body-mind freely, like running water into a tub.

DEVOTEE: But You get in there and blow us up, Beloved.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: [Beloved chuckles.] So its clearly Me in every sense, and not just Me because you notice there’s an effect in the body and therefore you know its Me. Its Me directly in Spiritual Communion with Me. So that when you are Contemplating Me Non-Separately in the “Perfect Practice”, its still Me, even though there’s no motions, no other signs in the body-mind. But its Me not because you declare it Me. You know, its not really just your Self, and I’m Saying “Its Me” sort of a poetic exchange, you see? [Devotees chuckle.]

No. If you’re truly located in the Witness, with all the Yoga I’ve Described, it is to be in My Spiritual Company. You identify Me directly. You are attracted by Me, in that Form. “Atma Murti”.

So its not merely what you Always Already have been.

You’ve Always Already been in that Position.

But you haven’t Always Already been Being It.

I Am That.

It is only by your Non-“different” absorption in Me that you can then grow to Realize Me.

The “Perfect Practice” is a process. So to be Established as the Witness is still to be you essentially. In other words, it has not yet Realized the Nature of its Situation, because it hasn’t given any allowance for it. It has been devoted utterly to attention and its business. So the “Perfect Practice” is the process of Realizing Me, not merely affirming your self. It is a devotional practice, the Most Perfect devotional practice, done without “difference”, Non-Separately. But it is devotion. Not merely self-referential meditativeness. It is to be given up. Not merely to Stand in place, but to be given up in place.

[long silence]

The Witness does nothing.

Think, while were “considering” here, how you relate to a thought.

Feel that you’re just the Witness.

And that is always so. You’re only the Witness.

The Witness is not active.

Then where is all this activity coming from?

You declare yourself to be that actor, because you get the pictures from the eyeballs. You make these presumptions.

You presume you are the actor.

But the Witness is no such actor.

And yet, Realizing the Witness, you notice somehow that the body-mind activity goes on.

But you are the Witness.

So you don’t have the connection to the things arising that a cause has to an effect, or a motor has to a machine, you see?

You’re not active in the body-mind, as the body-mind.

No matter what is going on, you’re the Witness of it.

But you have the feeling that you’re doing it, because you’re identified with the body-mind, which is a pattern that is active, in a universal field.

Its not personal. There is no person, individual, in it. That is a presumption. The body-mind does what it does because it is part of a pattern. It is a Shakti pattern, you see, so it moves. By identification with the body-mind, you think you are the doer, because you think you are the body-mind. But you’re not. You are Standing in the Witness-Position.

In the Bhagavad Gita, this is described as the gunas, called the gunas. You’re not the actor, the doer. The gunas are. You all have heard this term, haven’t you?

DEVOTEES: Yes.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: The fundamental patterns in the field of energy are the doers. The patterns are patterning. The patterns are acting. You, presuming to be identical to the body-mind in this pattern, think you are doing it. Because you are identifying with what is doing it.

But you are simply Standing as the Witness. It [the pattern] is doing it! It is that kind of a thing. The mind is as much part of it as the flesh. It is the doer, but it is not a separate individual. Its part of the vast web of the gunas, of the fundamental patterning, structures active, inactive, or densely inactive, stopped, and then more the quality which is rather balanced. Or yang and yin and kumbhak. Perfect equanimity. This fundamental torque that’s in attention.

So its that structure structuring and doing. You only think its you because you think you’re the mind associated with the body. But you’re merely the Witness. The mind and body are part of the universal web of the gunas, of the Energy Event.

You Stand Prior to the doer. And the doer is not personal. The doer is a universal structure. Then, of course, that accounts for anything that looks like its an individual within it. If you identify with that, then you feel you are the doer. But you’re the Witness.

Any identification with conditions makes you forget your Position. So the sadhana has to deal with that fault, or you will not Stand as the Witness. So that’s all the preliminary practice, just as I’ve Given it to you. Its not a matter of you trying to re-manufacture it and “guru” yourself, play games with it, you see? “Consider” the matter and do exactly as I’ve Described it to you. Exactly those stages. And none are to be bypassed, except perhaps the fourth and the fifth practicing stage. But not bypassed in the sense of being strategically avoided. Bypassed because it is unnecessary.

Effectively My devotee who truly enters into the full Samadhi of “the Thumbs” has, in that, accomplished, or enjoyed the accomplishment, of the ascending Yoga. It has been, as it was in My Case, an event in which Nirvikalpa Samadhi was instant, rather than progressively ascending, with all the phenomena that can be part of that.

So this is another way to understand “the Thumbs”, and why, in its fullest sense, its not merely a feeling of some sensation descending in the body. It is full Samadhi, Nirvikalpa Samadhi, and it is associated with the various signs I’ve Described to you.

DEVOTEE: Beloved, its so clear in how You Describe it now why the Samadhi of “the Thumbs” would be a prerequisite for the transition to the “Perfect Practice”.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: Mm-hm.

DEVOTEE: Because it seems like You replace the body-mind of Your devotee. That’s the way you Stand Prior to the body-mind. Not by some sort of mechanical device.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: Mm-hm. Right.

So the Flow in that sphere must be Full, Complete, Unobstructed, so that you can locate Me at the Source-Point.

The gunas, the structures of appearance that apparently modify the Divine Force, are the doers. Its a pattern patterning. Its that wheel I Described to you. Seen all at once, its an immense chaos. But seen in time and space, conditions, it is everything. So everything exists. How could only some things exist?

So you have the option to torturously pursue everything if you don’t understand Me. But if you “consider” it intelligently, you’ll see the virtue of this most direct approach. And then, having understood that, and observed everything you must observe about it, you do it. That’s what it takes to be an adult man or woman, not parented, but having all the faculties available.

[silence]

Its fine to have a physically living mother, but not a “mommy” in other words, somebody mothering you. Or that role transferred to your intimate, perhaps. Or to Me, as we were discussing earlier. I’m not here to replace your faculties. I’m here to conform them to Me, to the whole process of Realization. So you have to responsively offer them as the gift. That’s the Sacrament of Universal Sacrifice. That’s Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga.

So you cant ask Me to go to your mommy and daddy and ask them to give Me the discriminative intelligence and will part. They cant do that.

So much of conventional religion is a stupefaction that doesn’t require the exercise of the faculties of the being. It doesn’t require some of them, especially. So discriminative intelligence is not very much exercised. Some acts of will are sometimes required, not too immense. But not based on the exercise of discriminative intelligence rather, based on commands, parental signals, and beliefs. Just dished out as such. “This is it believe it!” Hm? No call for the exercise of discriminative intelligence. Maybe the will, but without the discriminative intelligence part. Its just a parentally controlled kind of behavior game, then.

You must be able to use these faculties for the great purpose. And you have to have them all intact, therefore, and not merely devoted to conditional ends.

This Way is a Way of “consideration”, where you become integrated with the whole matter. You exercise all the faculties, including discriminative intelligence and will. The origin of this Way is that process, not beliefs.

JANIS: You always call that participatory knowledge.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: Yes.

So you become integrated with the thing itself, you become integrated with Me. You find out. You don’t just believe something and try to energize your will by believing as hard as you can. You find out! When its true, clear, straightforward, then the will should readily follow, because there’s nothing ambiguous. Its not a belief and you’re pressing as hard against your unbelief to maintain it, you see? Its knowledge! Direct experience. Clearly examined.

When you were brought up in a religious circumstance when you were a child, this is how you got religion. It was given to you in the form of beliefs to affirm. And by affirming them, with a will, you were called to change your behavior. But just that your behavior. And only within certain norms in any case. You weren’t called to Divine Realization!

NINA: No.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: Basically, you were told, “not to bother with that, you’re separate from God”. You see? So you got religious through this parent-child command system through beliefs. Which is only rather superficial method for controlling behavior socially.

But instead of mere beliefs, there is the exercise of discriminative intelligence and real examination, real “consideration”, and entering into the domain of what’s there, what must be changed, what it is when its gone beyond, you see? Truly examining all the features of whatever the discipline or “consideration”.

Then you are not obstructed by belief. You’re not obstructed by the opposite of belief, which is doubt, or disbelief, or whatever. Doubt and disbelief are for people who don’t know anything. If you know something, doubt and disbelief have no function. And they don’t affect you. Nobody elses doubts or disbelief’s affect you in the slightest, if you know something. [laughter] But if you don’t know anything, especially if you don’t know fundamental things, you’re full of doubt and disbelief and attempts at belief. And you don’t know what to believe! [laughter]

You don’t know what to believe!

DEVOTEE [laughing]: That’s right.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: If its a matter of you choosing what to believe, you don’t know what to do. Unless you’re in some situation relatively parented about what you’re going to believe, you have no way of deciding what beliefs to believe in and what ones not to, because just thrown into the realm of possible beliefs, you cant figure it out. So the only time you get believing in the slightest is when its rather commanded in a parent-child kind of situation.

But even then, its working against what must always be there where belief is and that’s doubt and disbelief. And to some degree people are rather independent-minded these days not so much parented, rather adolescent. They “don’t want to believe what they’re told” kind of disposition. But they don’t know what to believe, then. Theres all kinds of suggestions everywhere. You cannot comprehend this Maya. Theres all kinds of propositions.

So if your will and your right life depend on belief, you’re always being undermined in your intention to be religious. The firm foundation of the religious life is knowledge in other words, certainty, actuality, direct investigation, with real attention, discrimination. Receive the help, be shown, fine, but look at it dont just believe something about it.

So, as I said, when you know, its got nothing to do with doubt. It was your direct experience, you examined it directly doubt has no function. As I said, doubt has a function only for those who do not know.

Then you find out. Instead of being in the “you don’t know” position and trying to figure out what to believe or striving to believe what you’re told because doubt is there inherently, because you don’t know. Beliefs don’t have real support. You could be somehow stimulated a little bit into affirming them, but they only go so far, they only go so deep. You cant hold on to them.

So as I said, you must establish this firm foundation for the Way, by exercising what as a child you did not exercise discriminative intelligence with a will. Truly enter into the “consideration” I Grant you by My Word and see that this is so. Then you’re out of the realm of belief and doubt. You’re established in discriminative certainty. And you practice directly.

What else?

KANYA TRIPURA: Beloved? [she shows Beloved a piece of art] A little baby Krishna on a leaf.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: Oh, yes. A little like that frog sucking his toe.

KANYA TRIPURA: Yes.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: Trying to gag himself with “the Thumbs”, no doubt.

KANYA TRIPURA: [laughing] Yes.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: I had something else I observed. This matter of “the Thumbs” began very early on. I was just recalling in infancy, or very small child, not exactly infant, in effect inducing and supporting “the Thumbs” by sucking My thumb. [quiet laughter]

This is usually regarded to be an infantile behavior based on wanting the mothers tit. And there’s no doubt something of that associated with it as well, bodily. But I’ve seen views of children in the womb in which they are sucking their thumbs. They haven’t had any tit yet. But there is a mechanism there a pattern, a sucking mechanism, and so forth and it is available to be fed. So perhaps the thumb is stimulating that mechanism. When the breast comes, the pattern knows what to do, but in the meantime its not about breast, its about the mechanism.

So the mechanism is a feeder, that’s true, for the infant. The mouth is used to eat. But its also used for other purposes. A number of things, including speech and so forth, are associated with that same mouth and throat. So deeper than even any of those exercises is the “conductivity” in that part of the body. In other words, its an energy process in its depth, behind eating, speaking, whatever.

So I used to stimulate this mechanism for this purpose used to stimulate the back of the throat, the top of the palate, deep down behind the tongue, do this rather spontaneously. And I was just recalling how this was so, very young, for maintaining the “conductivity” in the body. And then sometimes in the midst of that very event, or sometimes without it, when sleeping or resting, the grosser signs of “the Thumbs” would occur that I’ve described, this gagging sensation, forcing pressure down and so on.

So it wasn’t just an infantile expression. It was an infantile way of supporting a Yogic process, or an infants way of doing it, a young child’s way of doing it. So for Me it wasn’t about longing for the tit or anything. It was using the mechanism as a “conductivity” practice to keep the energy flowing, doing this spontaneously.

Its like Milarepa is famous for being shown holding his ear. And I’ve explained to you, he’s stroking it his way, then, of supporting the “conductivity” of energy in the body, rather than dissociating from the body into an empty interior only.

So I was doing a physical gesture, sucking the thumb, like he rubbed his ear. It wasn’t just about tickling myself or reminiscing about My mothers tits. It actually functioned as a spontaneous way of serving “the Thumbs” or the “conductivity” altogether because I was already in Samadhi.

Then later on I would notice, as I got a little bit older, that this would happen spontaneously. The flow of Current, the “Bright”, was there, but this periodic re-Invasion, or re-assertion, would come about spontaneously, not sucking the thumb anymore. Well, I think I carried that on for a while, but didn’t require it. You know, it would just happen spontaneously. I can recall sometimes it happening at night, supposedly asleep, and then suddenly “the Thumbs” asserting itself. Its the “Bright” Invasion, the “Brightening”.

So its not just a matter of feeling at Me. You must receive Me, feel Me, “Locate” Me, know Me Spiritually. And that’s not merely a philosophical matter. I guess I must have been having some discussion like this years ago back on Melrose “Guru Enters Devotee” you call it.

CRAIG: Right.

ADI DA SAMRAJ: Its tangible. Its Me. Like when a woman embraces her lover, there’s no doubt about it. Its not a fancy or a theoretical matter or a hope or a belief. Its literal Invasion, obviously Me.

So you see what happens. You are among them. When you come and sit with Me, like in the evenings here with the retreatants, or any other time. You know your own experience and you must have some sense that others are doing it, too. People come there, they are supposed to be beginners Im telling you, well, the Spiritual process, Spiritual responsibility is later, and all this in between but people come and sit with Me and are experiencing all kinds of signs of My Spiritual Presence. Its so commonplace that I think sometimes people aren’t even noticing that its the case. [laughter] Its more or less taken for granted.

So you’ve already proven, by that, something remarkable about the nature of Reality. If you can feel Me and with that kind of profundity ten feet away from Me, then what am I about? What is Reality about? What are you about? Its a knowledge, you see. Then you have to let it change you. Why would you play the conventional persona when you have such knowledge? Its an old adaptation, but now you must oblige the body-mind to adapt to it.