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The
Dawn Horse
Testament
The Testament Of
Secrets
Of The Divine World Teacher
and True Heart-Master,
Da Avabhasa
(The “Bright”.)
November
1991
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FOREWORD by Roy Finch
Professor-Emeritus of Philosophy and Religion City
University of New York (Hunter College) and Graduate Center;
Chairman of Columbia University Seminar on Religion
The book which you have in your hand and are about to
look into, read, study, or perhaps spend the rest of your
life coming to terms with, is the record of an extraordinary
Odyssey. It summarizes the findings of a vast Voyage of
Discovery that never had to go anywhere but to where we
already are. It is, in religious terms, a timeless adventure
still taking place in our time, which is of the greatest
significance to all those everywhere concerned with religion
and the human situation.
Da Avabhasa (iii a world which has had more than its
share of false gurus and teachings) is that most
extraordinary of occurrences, a True Teacher, because He is
(in the language of the Hindu tradition) a Full Divine
Embodiment. That makes Him (and we capitalize Iii as the
Hindus and Buddhists do, speaking of their Avatars and
Buddhas) a proper cause for celebration by everyone of
whatever religion.
Da Avabhasa’s explicit admonition is to surrender to the
contemplative worship of the Divine in human form–that is,
to acknowledge that He Himself is the Divine Being. Such
worship of Divine Love in a Human Embodiment is fully
acceptable to the Hindu tradition and the more esoteric
dimensions of Buddhism, Taoism, Sufism, and has analogies
even in Christian and Jewish sacred circles. Many from
widely different religious backgrounds, or from none at all,
have become convinced by their own experience, study, and
deep intuition that this very One before them, Da Avabhasa,
is in no way an. “ego-self” or even a “separate individual”
but is the Divine Embodiment, just as He Himself has said.
Their intelligent response to Him requires reciprocation of
His Love.
The Dawn Horse Testament is a genuine scripture,
expressing the heart and soul (and body) of the
non-separated Divine Being best known to Eastern experience.
There does not exist a stronger affirmation of the Universal
Original Condition, not as “Eden” but as the world’s unborn,
infinite Source. For this reason The Dawn Horse Testament is
free of the. historical revelations and national and
cultural
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THE DAWN HORSE TES TAM ENT
particularisms which are such an essential part of the
Western religions (and which, sorrowfully, in their
exclusivity and power-attachment have curtailed and limited
human freedom).
A Hindu story tells of the Soul that said, “Before I was
born I said: `I will not forget this,’ but one minute after
I was born I had forgotten it.” Heart-Master Da not only has
not forgotten; He has made the Infinite Original Being
wholly living and real and available to all.
Da Avabhasa is delivering ordinary life into its
Extraordinariness, which means exposing and discarding
ego-drivenness and ego-darkness. He is not working in a
domain apart from life, but at the very Source of life, the
wellspring of human culture.
For Da Avabhasa the Biblical absolute difference between
the human and the Divine (upon which the Bible rested the
same absolute difference between the monotheistic religions
and all other religions) is an illusory difference to begin
with, and the search to resolve it is already a mistake. The
Unconditioned Infinite Bliss, Light, and Love is, in Da
Avabhasa’s words, “always already” present and is
everything’s True Being.
All this would be so many words-words-words, and in no
way convincing, without the Living Demonstration in front of
our eyes in the form of the Teacher, the living proof that
it can be done, that it is so. To embark on such a
Demonstration in a secularized, hedonistic, ego-centered
world is bound to appear as a Divine Madness and the
Teaching itself (as Heart-Master Da called it) a “Crazy
Wisdom”. His Demonstration was, in fact, an experimental
Ordeal which had to be made in the West by a born Westerner.
Even though it found its closest precedent in the East, it
must not be thought that Heart-Master Da simply stepped into
a readymade Indian tradition (as it were, out of the
books!). It was not that easy. He was a twentieth-century
human being, born in New York, a graduate of Columbia, who
had to beat His way, step by step, over a period of many
years to the results shown in this Testament. (“I Found No
Tradition … I Found No One Spiritual Master … I Had To
Discover The Fullest Extent Of The Heart-Way By My Self,
Through A Hard School Of self-Observation and Spontaneous
Inspiration… .” [p. 116)) The detailed Yogic and
Spiritual Instructions found in this book are an example of
the meticulous thoroughness with which the Exploration was
carried out both in His own life and in His extraordinary
Teaching and Blessing Work.
Here we will also find details concerning the
Spiritual-physical Transmissions proceeding directly from
Heart-Master Da, which, for those contemplatively devoted to
Him, are able to bring about profound, actual
Spiritual-physical transformations. And this radical
actuality of the Guru-devotee relationship, rather than any
merely conceptual wisdom, is the critical content of this
entire book.
It has been said that the Old Testament God of Creation
is too far away, too Beyond, too Outside, too Other, while
the Hindu God, or the ever-present Immanent
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FOREWORD
Source, is too Close, too Omnipresent, too Invasive.
(India was once called the country with “too much God”.) It
is part of the Christian tradition, too, to give up the ego
and be abandoned to the Divine Spirit, but not to the point
of complete giving up of individuation and separateness. The
paradox of the ultimate Divine Self-Realization that Da
Avabhasa proclaims, exemplifies, and awakens in His devotees
is Realization of the God Who is not absolutely apart from
the world but Who pervades the world and within Whom the
world arises. This One is fully capable of Individual
Incarnation and All-Pervasive, Transcendent Divine
Consciousness and Radiant Presence simultaneously.
Heart-Master Da Avabhasa has demonstrated finally and
decisively the very ancient, but still, as it turns out,
waiting and alive world-alternative to the finitist,
individuated and intellectually and critically centered
civilization of the West, as well as the inwardly removed
and world-and-life-disconnected civilization of the East.
There exists nowhere in the world today, among Christians,
Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, native tribalists or any
other groups, anyone who has so much to teach, or speaks
with such authority, or is so important for understanding
our situation. If we are willing to learn from Him in every
way, He is a Pole around which the world can get its
bearings.
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