Even Under the Best of Circumstances
Adi Da Samraj, July 28, 2004
The universe does not support your illusions. You think that life is about you. You’re supposed to have a good time and live a long time and everything should be OK as long as we can get our politics straight and handle a few practical details and find, you know, Mr. or Mrs. Right, or whatever it is. All that sort of stuff, you see. Then everything should be really OK. Sometimes, and for a while, some things are sort of OK, but all the time isn’t it in the back of your mind there that this all could come to an end any moment now?
Everybody’s afraid of terrorists these days, and such, for good reason, but where were you a few years ago, before you heard of terrorists? It was the same universe. And I warned you about all this stuff that’s happening now anyway, and you didn’t listen to Me.
The universe abides in the Divine Self-Condition but it does not support your illusions and, therefore, you feel uneasy–and for good reason, because this is a very threatening place for individuated existence. Individuated existence is absolutely threatened and it is guaranteed: you will die. You will be destroyed. Guaranteed. There’s no two ways about it. And there’s no utopia. Just to play your part in the social games and be part of the chain of the historical march of humanity toward what? Running out of resources and flying to Mars? And keep building more spaceships to fly to other places, out into all of that pile of rocks and gas, that’s floating around out there in the billions upon billions of these insane flashes of light that couldn’t give a shit less about your existence?
Compassionate service to living others is very important, obviously, for that reason‑‑because of the dangerous nature of existence. And we are all in the same boat here. All these bodies are in the same boat and all threatened. So what’s so damn funny. What’s so interesting?
Not so funny is it? There’s a song like that. It’s not. It really isn’t. And all this utopian participation in the social game and all the salesmanship of bullshitters on TV and all the rest of it, you see–it’s just a load of crap that’s been going on for thousands of years and if it were any good, how come everybody’s dead that bought all that bullshit years ago? Why are they all dead?
I’m already old enough that virtually everybody who was alive when I was a boy is now dead. There’s hardly anybody other than those who were My contemporaries‑‑young‑‑people My own age and so on. But virtually everybody else is dead. I remember them all laughing and being enthusiastic about this, that, and the other thing. And I remember them all suffering all kinds of hellish shit like Hitler and World War II and all the wars to follow it. There’s just as much of that insanity, the same kind of motherfuckers coming out of the woodwork. But it’s not any different than it would be anyway because you’re still in the same situation. That’s the way it is and that ought to really get to you, you see. You’re trying all the ways to immunize yourselves against the feeling that should come over you by noticing the situation you are really in here. You see? Not merely because of what’s going on in the news, but that you are in because you are identified with a fleshy body here that is completely without the ability to control its existence. And that’s everybody.
Even under the best of circumstances–and this is quite a good one, there are many other good circumstances. As members of this gathering, you’re all in relatively good circumstances by virtue of being able to be mutually supportive and enter into cooperative relations that make life easier, and enjoy a culture together that’s the culture of Truth. But you still have to deal with the Real God realities, not the mythological God realities. Mythological God realities are all myths‑‑cultural myths that are passed on to get people to serve the purposes of the social order, or the state, or whatever. And compassionate participation and playing your part‑‑yes, that is necessary.
But the reality of the situation you’re in requires the address of your entire life. That’s what your life should be about‑‑Realizing that, serving That One, profoundly, with your entire life. That’s what your life should be about. There is no other choice that’s reasonable. I don’t see how anyone could make any other choice. You all of course have, all your lives, made other choices–but to Me it’s nonsense. I never spent a moment in such a disposition. This is the place of death and fear and it’s been perfectly obvious to Me and I stepped in here damn well knowing where I was going. And I know why I’m here and what I’m doing. But I am certainly not here to fulfill the purposes of utopia, and the mere conventions of social living or money, food, and sex arrangements that simply perpetuate social purposes and social illusions‑‑the illusion that life is somehow to be lived for its own sake. “You only go around once in life, so the best revenge is to live well”—you know, and all that kind of horsecrap. “Horsecrap” is California for “bullshit”–which is New York, you know. So it’s not about having a God-idea, because all the God-ideas are ideas—and, therefore, inherently false. It’s not about any ideas. It’s about Reality. It’s about the Revelation of Real God. It’s about living the Way thus Revealed. I have brought this Gift to you and it’s up to you what you’re going to do about it. And if you’re just going to be a club member about it, that’s your choice.