Authority, Certainty, Growth, and Freedom – In an Age of Uncertainty and Doubt – Adi Da Samraj

Part 1 –
Part II

II

HEART-MASTER DA: The other evening I asked you
whether you had anything further to say about your doubts or
feelings about the limitations of scientific theories of the
origin of the universe. Then we went on to something else
and we never talked about that. Is there anything to
discuss? Do you all feel there are limitations? What about
the Big Bang theory?

PRACTITIONER: When we talked the other night, I
felt, as You pointed out, that the Big Bang theory does not
take into account the psychic dimension or Consciousness
Itself.

HEART-MASTER DA: The Big Bang theory was not
proposed by a Siddha Master who had Realized the Truth and
then told everyone about It. The theory was developed by
scientists people living in the culture of science and
scientism, or materialistic philosophy, people whose
development is generally within the framework of the first
three stages of life, who characteristically do not
associate themselves with the disposition of any of the
stages of life beyond the third. Scientific theories
themselves are produced by sheerly physical observations and
not by psychic or super physical participation in the
universe. That is a limitation then, is it not? (Several
people say yes.)

The Big Bang theory itself describes how it came about.
It is a representation of the means whereby the theory was
created to begin with. It is authoritative in that it is
based on observations, which we require as evidence if
something is to command our attention or be taken seriously.
But whatever we may say about the theory itself, it is
limited by virtue of how it came to be a theory, how it came
to be affirmed, by the evidence that was the basis for its
acceptance. The Big Bang theory, as it is currently proposed
at any rate, is a materialistic theory.

Now, that does not mean that the Big Bang theory
contradicts higher Realization. It does not threaten higher
Realization or esoteric views of Reality at all. The other
evening I pointed out to you that just as the Big Bang
theory declares everything from so-called material particles
to space to be conditional, that idea has been fundamental
to the esoteric point of view since ancient times.

The orientations through the fifth stage of life
correspond to a notion of rising progressively in the
hierarchy of phenomena from the lowest level, the earth
level, what we might call the gross material level, to
subtler material levels represented by water, fire, and then
air, to a subtler principle, or space itself. Each of the
lower principles is hierarchically subsumed in or
transcended in the principle just above it or somewhat
subtler than it, of which it could be said to be a
modification or an extension, until you get to space, which
is the conditional principle of which all the lesser
elements are simply a modification, in which they are
subsumed. They may be realized in it. Realize space itself,
and you have realized the conditional source of air and fire
and water and earth. All of material existence is a
modification of space.

Matter is a modification of space, not a something in
space, separate from space, floating around in space.
Materialism is a misunderstanding of what we call matter.
Matter is light. Matter is energy. Matter is a modification
of space. The fundamental conditional element is space, not
something in space. This is not merely esoteric thinking.
This also coincides with scientific thinking.

The Big Bang originated not only objects in space but
also space itself. Space-time is the fundamental structure
of everything that appears within it. Everything that occurs
in space-time appears by virtue of a modification of space
itself. Thus, everything can be transcended in space itself,
which is fundamentally intangible, even from the scientific
point of view. What is materialism, then? It is an archaic
exoteric doctrine. There is no such thing as materiality in
and of itself. There is no “thingness” in and of itself.
Materialism is a nonsense idea, a doctrine that is not based
on observation, or only on conventional observation. You
think in terms of materiality when you think in terms of the
flesh, but that is purely a conventional observation that
has nothing to do with reality truly considered.

Space is light. Space is energy. Energy or light is space
itself. What is space? You have no capacity to say what it
is in anything but nonsense terms after a point, really. You
can talk about things in space. You can talk about earth,
water, fire, and air, because you tend to function from the
point of view of conventional perception.

What is the status of perception? What is the status of
materiality? What is the status of earth and water and fire
and air, the different states of matter? Their ultimate
status in conditional terms is energy or light or space
itself, space-time, if you will. Space itself is still
materiality. Matter is space-time, which is utterly
intangible, and yet we are still talking about
conditionality, intangible conditionality.

The Great Tradition of Illuminated consideration of these
matters does not stop, however, with the consideration of
conditionality, or earth, water, fire, air, and space. In
fact, God up there and me down here, internal and external.
The psycho-physical point of view does not exist as the
fundamental principle of the sixth stage process.
Psycho-physical references are still associated with the
sixth stage discipline, but the Principle of it transcends
the psycho-physical orientation. The Principle is
Consciousness Itself. Whatever psycho-physical or
conditional associations may be involved in the discipline
of Realizing Consciousness Perfectly, the Principle itself
is prior to the cosmic orientation.

By entering into the sixth stage process, you will
already have gone beyond the Big Bang, which science says
you cannot do. Because you Realize the true course, the true
structure, of manifestation you will have Realized the
significance of Consciousness. When that Realization occurs
you will natively Stand prior to the Big Bang, prior to
spatial implications. You will enter into the Domain that is
not simply before the Big Bang, but that is prior to it.
That Domain, in other words, is not merely sequentially
before the Big Bang but is altogether prior to it,
transcends it, has nothing to do with it.

PRACTITIONER: I see how much of a materialist I
am. It is inconceivable to me that I could really transcend
this world altogether.

HEART-MASTER DA: Because your point of view is
embedded in the body-mind and fearfully wanting to protect
it, the idea of transcending space itself is even
horrifying. You could comfortably discuss the matter, but to
be confronted with an experience of no space is not
something you look forward to, is it? The idea is
threatening. You feel threatened just by deciding to
discipline your physical life. People are reluctant even to
enter into the discipline of setting aside cigarettes and
beer. Look at the struggle you had to go through to renounce
these as part of your ordinary life.

Earlier this afternoon I was watching a tennis match, and
the announcer remarked that one of the players had
celebrated his birthday the day before the match by having a
few beers with his coach. The announcer said in an offhand
way, “They had a few beers, not too many of course, but they
had a few beers to celebrate.” And here he was playing the
final match in a tournament the day after having had a few
beers. If you all had a few beers you could hardly even walk
around the next day. (Laughter.) This is a complete
violation of the possibility of feeling good, and certainly
of being up to a tennis tournament championship.

Commonly, people are not inclined to give up the habitual
use of substances such as alcohol and cigarettes, which they
use to make themselves feel better or to relieve stress.
That is the grossest level of discipline. But you are
actually refusing many other disciplines, such as
relinquishing your association with space. (Laughter.) You
probably never thought of that as a discipline. It sounds
ridiculous even. But isn’t that something you should do? It
is not your present orientation, but it is fundamental to
the Teaching, fundamental to the Way itself. It is an
orientation toward which you are growing progressively. And
sometime it will be as natural to you to relinquish spatial
association as it is for you now to relinquish grosser
habits of self-indulgence.

How did you come to the point of relinquishing such
indulgences as beer and cigarettes and being sexually
promiscuous and so on? It did not happen to you overnight.
You had to struggle with yourself. It occurred through a
process of real self-observation, discriminative awareness,
sensitivity to the Spiritual Process itself and what serves
it and what does not. You came to an intelligent decision, I
presume, not to continue these habits.

PRACTITIONER: This ties in with Your earlier
consideration that there must be a higher point of view, an
authority.

HEART-MASTER DA: But you do not relate to that
authority as an authority in the conventional sense, as big
daddy telling it to you, so you must believe. The higher
point of view became truly authoritative for you through
your consideration, through your responsiveness, through
your examination of your own life and of that which is being
brought to you. Through that process you came to relinquish
certain habits, and you have grown up to a degree by doing
that. You have grown beyond certain adolescent limitations.
Likewise, as you grow in this Great Process altogether, you
will progressively transcend, or release your hold on,
various phenomenal states. Eventually they may arise in an
ordinary sense, but they will not be your point of view
anymore. Your point of view will change. Your point of view
will be transferred through the hierarchy of reality, stage
by stage. At some point you will affirm, you will naturally
or natively Stand in, the position of Consciousness Itself,
which has always been the Witness of everything from space
itself through all of its modifications. The fixed point of
view associated with any stage within that psycho-cosmic or
conditional display will no longer influence you, no longer
confine you. It will no longer be your point of view,
whatever may apparently arise. Then you are prepared for the
sixth stage discipline, and not before.

But, as I have suggested to you over and over again, that
is not the end. That discipline, which transcends
conditionality and the Big Bang, moves beyond Consciousness
over against objects, whether subjective or objective. The
Realization of Consciousness Itself ultimately transcends
dissociation and separateness. It transcends the motive of
being Consciousness independent of phenomenal states. The
Divine “point of view”, so-called, Awakens. The Divine
“point of view” always already exists.

You could say the Divine in some way is coexistent or
coincident with conditions. It cannot merely be called the
creator of conditions, but it is always already existing.
The Divine is ultimately That of which all this is a
modification, That of which even space is the modification.
Everything arises in That as a modification of That and does
not in any way affect That. Conditions have no effect on
That. That within which everything arises is inherently
Free, Divine, Consciousness Itself, which is senior to all
objects or modifications that are conditional. The Divine
transcends the Realization of Consciousness apart from
objects, transcends the transcendental disposition, which is
the Witness of all modifications, by Realizing them in their
Perfect sense.

The Divine is Spiritual and Transcendental Perfectly and
therefore does not need to identify with or dissociate from
modification. It is simply so, whether or not there is
modification. This is the Supreme “point of view”, the
Supreme Realization of the very Divine, or the very Reality,
which is inherently Divine. Everything that arises is simply
arising in Consciousness Itself as an apparent, non-binding
modification of its own Love-Bliss, its own never decreased,
never-limited Radiance, Fullness, Sublimity, or Happiness.
That is the Divine Realization. Once the Divine becomes
conscious in the context of an apparent individual or loka,
It shows all the Divine Signs, naturally, natively,
spontaneously. It shows itself through a certain theatre,
recognizable to some, particularly those who are truly
associated with the Great Wisdom, the Great Authority.

Such individuals have sufficient sensitivity to
recognize, at least to some degree, That which is Divinely
Present, and to make use of that Presence, which shows
Itself in all kinds of ways, and may be experienced in the
context of each and all of the stages of life. For someone
in the first three stages of life, that Divine Presence,
shown through a Realizer or loka, is experienced as having a
certain quality, but is recognizable nonetheless through
that quality. In the advanced fourth or fifth stage context,
other signs become apparent and recognizable, and so on
through the stages.

PRACTITIONER: The intuitive certainty of You has
always occurred in my relationship to You.

HEART-MASTER DA: Just as the Divine enjoys the
native capacity to Recognize Itself, or all modifications of
Itself, likewise all beings have the native capacity, by
virtue of their inherence in the Divine, to intuitively
acknowledge the Divine, especially when the Divine is
manifested through Conscious Agency. That acknowledgment
will not necessarily occur outwardly or be fully understood,
but the capacity exists. This is why the Siddha-Master can
function, even among people who are relatively unqualified
for the Spiritual Process. The native disposition, the
acknowledgment, can be present, even though the individual
may yet have to undergo a struggle before he or she can make
the acknowledgment openly. The response may be retarded, but
nonetheless it exists. PRACTITIONER: I feel this native
certainty of the Truth You speak.

HEART-MASTER DA: You already exist prior to
space-time and Consciousness divorced from associations. You
are already That. I am under no illusion that you are
anything less than the same Realization I proclaim to you.
On the other hand you are, by tendency, by virtue of the
chronic point of view you assume, limited in your capacity
to acknowledge and truly be alive as That, without
limitation. I am simply here to serve your own
Self-acknowledgement, with a capital “S”, your Recognition
of and acknowledgment of and existence as the very Condition
in which you already exist.

It is not that you are in a lesser condition than That
and have to work toward It. That is so only conventionally,
only in relation to the conditional frame itself. But even
though the conventional frame apparently exists, the Divine
Frame always already exists. Even though the Big Bang
occurred perhaps several billions of years ago, That which
existed not only sequentially before it but prior to it is
also always already existing or coincident with what arises
in time. The Divine is prior to space-time.

Therefore, the fact that human life has evolved to a
certain degree at this time in space does not mean that the
Divine is present here only to that degree, or is even
excluded. Not at all. The Divine is such that it cannot be
excluded, and it is not limited by space-time. And you are
such, therefore, because you inhere in the Divine, are not
other than That. But you are making other judgments because
of your point of view, because you are taking very seriously
the conditional state that is apparently arising. You must
be restored to your integrity, your capacity for growth,
your capacity for understanding, for transcendence, for
ultimate identification with what Is. That is the limit in
you, and it is real only in the conditional or conventional
sense. It is apparently so that you are limited, but it is
not ultimately so. Thus, something about the progress of
Realization of the Divine is a game, a play. This is why it
is referred to traditionally as Divine Play. From the point
of view of your conditional suffering there is nothing funny
about it, and it is not play in that sense, certainly.

PRACTITIONER: Heart-Master Da, in The Dawn Horse
Testament You say that an inherent certainty is realized in
the sixth stage of life. I was motivated by an uncertainty
about the authority of the Great Tradition. I struggled with
uncertainty until I found Your Wisdom Teaching. Of course,
there is still a struggle of uncertainty.

HEART-MASTER DA: Your mind is your limit. You
transcend uncertainty not by believing certain ideas, but by
transcending the self-contraction, transcending the mind or
the self-limit, the self-limited or contracted point of
view. When you transcend the contracted point of view, then
another of the words whereby you could describe yourself is
“certainty”. But it is not certainty about something. It is
not mental certainty, because the mind is transcended in
that certainty. Nor is it about believing anything. It is
about being established in the fundamental integrity of
being itself, because there is no contraction. You are
simply established as you are. The self-contraction, totally
released, looked beyond, understood as it arises, has no
capacity to confine you to a lesser point of view. Your
characteristic quality is therefore certainty.

Of course, one who is established in such certainty
could, by being affirmative through language, seem to
believe this or that. You could say that this kind of
certainty is expressed through one or another affirmation,
and that this being who is certain also seems to be able to
affirm this or that, perhaps even the Big Bang. For example,
in some sense I feel the Big Bang theory expresses something
that I can affirm, although not as it is stated or
altogether or forever, but it does not contradict my
certainty. That fact is really the basis for my affirmation
of it. And that is really what certainty is. You are not
contradicted. Certainty is the transcendence of the inherent
or internal contradiction. Remember what I said in The Knee
of Listening? The Way is the transcendence of contradiction,
not the discovery of something about which to be certain,
not the discovery of some object, proposition, truth to
believe in. That is not the Way of the Heart. That is not
Realization.

Realization is inherent certainty, freedom from
contradictions, freedom from contraction. Self-contraction
is the source of doubt, not merely the fact that you have
not learned such and such a thing. Self-contraction is doubt
itself, inherently. Its mental form is doubt. Its vital and
emotional form is fear, at the rock-bottom of it. The
self-contraction also has other emotional signs: sorrow,
unlove, even anger of a kind, although in the Great
Tradition, anger, like love, is viewed as a kind of Divine
force-not neurotic anger, not mere aggression, but the
doubtless self-force that overcomes conditions, overcomes
limits, overcomes falsehood. That is anger, you see. It may
also be expressed even in relational terms in a kind of pure
form, just as love can be. On the other hand, anger as
self-contraction, as doubt, as an expression of fear, of
limitation, of non-understanding, is transcended in the
Spiritual Process and is there to be relinquished, with all
other forms of self-contraction.

Even if you relinquished all the forms of the
self-contraction, something that could perhaps still be
called anger remains. Just as certainty is there, there is
this doubtless force, this force that will not be overcome,
that insists on being free. It is the anger that insists on
being free and will not let itself be unfree, will not allow
itself to be abused and just grin. At some point it stands
firm. Such anger is, at least in the context of conditional
expression, worthy enough.

People who try to overcome certain of their emotional or
psychological limitations tend to throw out the baby and the
bath water together. They have no discrimination. They are
mechanical or idealistic. They therefore just suppress
themselves, whereas the real Spiritual Process releases
energy. If you just want to get rid of anger, you make
yourself smaller and weaker and emptier and more and more
nonsensical. Eventually you reach the point where you cannot
defend anything or do anything honorable anymore or do
anything with precision and strength. You do not want to
emasculate yourself in the transcendence of anger-there is
no virtue in it just as you do not want to eliminate love
while you eliminate or grow beyond mere attachment and
sorrowful need. Love is not attachment. Love is great
freedom, and it grants great freedom. Love is not eliminated
in the process of Realization. Even in the ultimate form of
Realization, love is fundamental. Reality is Love-Bliss, and
Love-Bliss is anger, if you understand it rightly. It is
supreme clarity, a diamond-force, a thunderbolt that cuts
through bullshit, limitation, egoity, suffering. Without
anger you cannot overcome suffering. Of course, you must
understand what I mean by anger!

I naturally maintain anger as one of my instruments. I
absolutely must. How could I possibly have Taught you, how
could I possibly serve you otherwise? There is a lesson for
you every time I do not accept abuse, do not eat it. It is
not that I am suffering some egoic problem. My anger is
simply an instrument of my Work with you. It is one of my
Signs in my Play with you, just like every other type of
emotional expression.

PRACTITIONER: Heart-Master Da, one moment You can
be angry and the next moment You can be laughing, in a
totally different mood. It is such a paradox to somebody who
doesn’t understand it. Even in Your anger we can feel Your
Love. You are the demonstration of Love.

HEART-MASTER DA: Persist in that understanding and
make sure everyone else understands it. Use the traditions
to help others understand it. Read the traditions of Adepts,
both ancient and modern. It is a characteristic of such
people to be fiercely angry under certain circumstances with
devotees for the sake of their Awakening. Their anger is not
a carryover of egoity. It is purified by Realization. It is
a pure force. It is a fire. It is not that it justifies your
indulgence in anything-it must be used for the sake of
self-transcendence. You are not supposed to imitate that
state and suddenly feel that you can be angry as hell all
the time, or that because the Master shows anger, anger does
not have to be transcended. If you are really involved in
the process, egoic anger is transcended-but not the force of
life.

Conventional sainthood is not the instrument for perfect
expression, or perfect Realization, or perfect service.
Gandhi, for instance, idealistically thought he should
smother sexual motivation and anger and other qualities in
himself. He did not discriminate between the pure force of
his own personality and its ego-based disposition. He is a
saintly character. no doubt. and an important political
figure. In the scale of the seven stages he is among those
people who work in the context of the first three stages of
life, like the prophets. He is also among those people who
goaded or attracted people to the fourth stage disposition.
That is where he belongs. If you have a right understanding,
then you can both appreciate and understand such an
individual, and not just throw all such people into one bag,
feeling that all saints are the same, that they are all
supposed to be mild characters, you see. Realized
individuals show a wide variety of signs depending upon
their stage of life, the Realization determined by their
stage of life, their function, and so on.

III

HEART-MASTER DA: Another idea I had that corresponds to
aspects of our discussion is that you all are involved in a
psycho-physical process of Spirit-breathing. If you are a
devotee, then you are involved in the process of
conductivity. And in your practice of conductivity what are
you breathing? Like everybody else, you breathe the air. You
breathe the chemical energies in the air. But that is not
what differentiates you from other breathers. Anybody can
breathe the chemical energies in the air, and people who are
more responsible than others know they must breathe deeply,
below the navel, but still they are merely breathing air.
Some even understand that through the breathing of air, they
are also governing the energy in the nervous system. But
what is the Spirit-breath truly?

Ultimately, the Spirit-breath is the breath of the
Divine, the very Presence that transcends conditional
existence. Thus, Spirit-breath obviously transcends the mere
breathing of air. But is it merely the breathing of energy?
Depending on how you understand it, energy is elemental.
There is energy in chemicals, in the air, in the body. There
is energy in the nervous system, which is a chemical
structure. Through conductivity breathing you are not merely
indulging in a superior form of the transference of chemical
energy. The transference of chemical energy is a peripheral
aspect, the grossest aspect, of breathing. What makes
breathing Spirit-breathing is the breathing of the Divine,
Communion with the Divine.

Viewing breathing in terms of the conditional universe,
it is the breathing of space, the breathing of that within
which air or gaseous substances are floating.
Spirit-breathing is based on the principle that space is
psychoactive. You breathe not merely air, not merely
chemical forces, but also psychoactive space. In the
practice of conductivity, you breathe space itself. You
imbibe space or participate in space as a fundamental
quality of conditional existence.

Ultimately, you breathe the Divine, but as a conditional
process, conductivity is a process in space, a process of
space, and not merely a process in the context of the
elementals in space. Elementals are part of the process. You
eat food and you breathe air, and, in terms of health, there
is a good way to breathe and a not-so-good way to breathe.
But you do not practice conductivity merely for the sake of
your physical health. At the most, health is a secondary
aspect. You practice conductivity or Spirit-breathing
because it enhances your Spiritual life, and it cannot do
that if it is not psychoactive, if it does not involve
psychic participation. To engage in conductivity is to
awaken and activate the process of psychic participation in
what is arising. It is to transcend what is less than
psyche, less than mind.

Spirit is ultimately Divine, but in the context of
conditional existence it can be understood as space. Spirit
is the subtlest of all the elements, space itself. It is
that of which all the elements are a modification. How can
you breathe space? Space does not go anywhere. Space has no
outside. Space is curved. But breathing is also curved.
Breath occurs in a circle, or, if you like, an ellipse, as
with the planets. What is psychoactive is space, not merely
the chemistry of the nervous system, not merely the oxygen
and other chemical contents of the air.

To truly breathe in the Spiritual sense is to breathe
space, to combine yourself with space or to be released into
the condition of space, to be in space as space itself. It
is to be without obstructions, even without location. This
is why conductivity at some point leads to “the Thumbs.” The
realization or the Samadhi of the Thumbs is a spacious
realization, is it not? Many of you have had this
experience. The realization of the Thumbs is a realization
of space itself, energy itself. It transcends the body. It
simply relates to the body, and the ordinary sensations of
the body are lost or become profoundly different because you
are imbibing space. I am saying to you that it is possible
for the human being to inhale and exhale space.

You are claiming to inhale and exhale space by practicing
conductivity. Maybe you never thought about it this way
before, but obviously Spirit-breathing is to combine
yourself with the most fundamental of all elementals. You do
that by using the body itself, using an elemental structure.
You are using earth, its wateriness and its fieriness, and
you are using the air, but you are devoting all of that to
the condition of space, and by doing so you are devoting it
to that Condition which is prior to space itself.

Conductivity has a unique form in the context of the
sixth stage, wherein the space elemental, which we might
call “Cosmic Shakti”, is resolved in the heart. In other
words, it leads to, or submits itself to, the condition of
Consciousness Itself, prior to space, prior to space-time,
prior to things, prior to thinking or forms of psyche. The
conductivity in the heart is the ultimate form of
conductivity, but even that limit is broken, not only in
Jnana Samadhi, or the Realization of Consciousness Itself,
but in the Recognition of phenomena, which are all
modifications of space, through total Awakening in the
seventh stage.

Thus, ultimate Realization is, in some sense, the
Realization of Space itself, but Space in its most prior or
Divine sense, which is Consciousness Itself. Consciousness
itself is a great sphere without an interior or an exterior,
without a midpoint or a self-point, without an outside. What
is the universe scientists are describing, using their
material model? They are describing the universe of
Consciousness Itself, the Divine universe. The Divine
universe is without an outer limit and without a center.

Space is Consciousness. Space is Light. Space is Energy.
Space is Shakti. Space is God but only in this ultimate
sense. Apart from the ultimate sense, space is one of the
elementals. Space, therefore, is the most subtle substance,
the primal means, in the context of the bodymind. Thus, it
is the secondary or supportive principle of the conscious
process. The conscious process is senior, because it is
Consciousness itself, identification with Being itself. But
in the course of the stages, the conscious process makes use
of the principle of space, of conductivity, of the ability
to submit all elementals to the primal element, which is
Space itself, and to realize Space itself, or Primal Shakti,
as the very Divine, the inherent Radiance of Consciousness
Itself.

Only in perfect or ultimate Realization, Divine
Realization, do you fulfill the vision of science, by
Realizing the true, ultimate, perfect, inherent, and Divine
Nature of this paradoxical appearance that you call the
universe, Big-Banged before you. And only in that
Realization do you transcend the terror, the awesome,
wonderful horribleness of being a point of view defined by
elementals, defined by space-time. That limit is
fundamentally what you do not like, but it is a limit that
you yourself are choosing by contracting, by identifying
with the limit. Therefore, you can grow beyond it by
progressively identifying with That which transcends it
perfectly. And even if you do that, you do not dissociate
yourself ultimately from this appearance. You achieve the
perfect Disposition even in the context of this appearance.
That perfect Disposition Outshines all of this, but it may
also function in this context compassionately, as Love-Bliss
itself. And that is the fulfillment of the Way of the
Heart.

PRACTITIONER: Heart-Master Da, I was just feeling
as You were speaking, what a perfect scientist You are.

HEART-MASTER DA: Tcha. I am a perfect scientist?
(Laughter.)

PRACTITIONER: You are. When you speak – I don’t
know how to say it – what you say is like a science in a
certain sense. I can feel it as that.

HEART-MASTER DA: Even in religion, science is used
as a metaphor these days. Unless you say that your religion
or Spiritual Process is scientific, you fail to get very
much popular interest. You are supposed to say it is somehow
scientific, or it is considered archaic and nobody is
interested. It is a popular device. Everything is a
scientific technique whether or not it really has anything
to do with science. That metaphor is the common requirement,
the norm these days.

In some sense, religion is totally nonscientific, not
because it is antiscientific or foolish, but because it is a
completely other discipline that should be respected in its
own right. Even so, when it is considered over against what
is called science, it can be seen not to be contradictory.
It is not threatened by science, so in that sense it can be
said to be scientific.

PRACTITIONER: Heart-Master Da, I remember once in
1984 You were trying to help us understand our doubt and the
scientific mood. You played with the phrase, “Seeing is
believing,” and You said that the conventional point of view
is a gross limitation on our perception. You said that You
regard what You call “seeing”, which is participation in
That which transcends the body-mind, to be true belief, or
belief in the higher sense, because it goes way beyond what
we can normally perceive and what we have been conditioned
to perceive.

HEART-MASTER DA: In the Way of the Heart, you are
not called to give up the body-mind. Rather, you are called
to transcend the body-mind, and there is a great difference
between these two. The great Adepts have not given up the
body-mind. They are completely free in the context of the
body-mind. They have transcended the body-mind. They exist
in Divine Association with the body-mind. They are very
paradoxical beings, non-ordinary, yet also, in some sense,
ordinary.

I carry with me all kinds of ordinary signs. How could I
not? This is a human body here. It has its own history, but
that history is not an impediment. It has become a means, an
instrument, but it also has everything you yourself call
human life. This is part of what is wrong, part of what is
at fault in your abstracting of me. You do not understand
this. You think I am some sort of universalized robot.

I am here through the agency of a real human person, and
all of the human signs are shown. This body-mind suffers
like any other body-mind. It functions through the same
instruments. There are also all kinds of capacities in it
that may not be so ordinary, but nonetheless, the instrument
is the same. It bleeds and suffers and dies. It does
everything like every other body.

I have Taught you as a human Adept, not as a universal
robot. You must enter into human association with me, as I
must with you. On the other hand, in your understanding of
me you must not treat me as an ordinary man. You must see
the whole of it, the reality of it, just as the Adept sees
the whole or the reality of existence itself.