There’s No Escape, There’s Only Realization – Section 4

AVATARA ADI DA: So I had to come inside the church and drop the egg here, too. And that’s what this tenth year anniversary is about. You see? So that Event ten years ago was Raymond Darling in the church dropping the egg. Yet the thing itself was written twenty-five, going on twenty-six, years ago. And it was actually worked on for many years previous to that. And yet you can see the corresponding Event, as I just Indicated to you, as a spontaneous Event in My own Play, My own Work with you, My own Sign among you. And a most profound one, from inside the church, trapped inside the church, like Raymond Darling, in this ritual confinement, la-de-da repetitiveness and self-indulgence. Its mummery, its mockery of the profundity of religion, wherein I am exploited and abused. That’s My history among you.

So what you celebrate from ten years ago is the culminating Event in that situation. But even so, ten years later, you’ve still been working Me over, especially up until a couple of few weeks ago, and I’m still Instructing you in some very basic matters that have to do with the beginning process and I’m still looking for people to advance.

 So I’m still in the church. I didn’t leave, but I’m just Radiant here, waiting for you to find Me out, for real, and get on with this practice. You do your work and I Do Mine. And rightly you should keep it amusing for Me. That’s how you keep Me involved in it. [long pause]

[to Devotee] Did you finish what you wanted to say?

DEVOTEE: Well, I was just, for me it was just an extraordinary Communication of Who You Are altogether. And I was just completely grateful for that.

AVATARA ADI DA: Good old Who I Am. Yes, go on. Anything else?

DEVOTEE: No, I think that’s it.

AVATARA ADI DA: Anybody else? Are we still having a consideration?

DEVOTEE: We are.

DEVOTEE: Beloved, I was considering something relative to The Mummery in a whole new light this evening. Which is that before having fully heard You and then seen You, there’s this identification with egoic self. And I felt like the places where Meridian Smith appears in The Mummery I assume to be places where Raymond is identified with egoic self in some way.

AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm.

DEVOTEE: He’s always slapping him and waking him back up to reality.

AVATARA ADI DA: Moving him on. Mm-hm.

DEVOTEE: But then, about half way through The Mummery , there’s a point where Meridian Smith walks off into the woods, and that’s it. And then it seems that he moves more into the Witness, and just having that simple knot which is then totally exemplified with the death of his beloved Quandra, observing her in the casket.

AVATARA ADI DA: And what is that a reference to? This is something else profound to understand. That’s why I’ve added a quote at the beginning of The Mummery .

DEVOTEE: “This Maya is such . . .”

AVATARA ADI DA: Yes. That this, in so many words, this great Shakti Manifesting as the world reveals the Truth by dying, or by being sacrificed to the Divine Source-Condition – the Vedanta Temple Event. But that quote, not only is that a forward or reference to the ultimate Vedanta Temple Event, but it is also a clue to the meaning of the dead Quandra. It is the Radiance, the Shakti-Force, turning in on Itself, dying so to speak, turning back in on Its Source instead of being just oriented toward the production of modifications.

That’s the dead Quandra. But then there are visions and such that follow, staring in the door, into the egg. So this death relinquishes the body, but the mind also, and there are subtle dimensions to the purification. But ultimately the egg is dropped. The ego is relinquished. The knot is smashed, the knot is broken.

So its the secret of the Vedanta Temple, the Submission of the Divine Power into the Source-Position, Outshining all illusion, all mere objectivity.

You know?

So it is the end of the adventure, the Perfect Realization of the “Bright”, the Perfect Manifestation of the “Bright”. No more adventure, no more Meridian Smith, nothing more to Realize. No more separation from That Which was Guiding. Perfect Identification with It. That’s what The Mummery is about. That’s what the Vedanta Temple is about. But then there’s all kinds of other aspects of My Work, as I just Described to you, about ten years, that are also inside The Mummery .

So the end of The Mummery is the Vedanta Temple Event, yes, that’s true-theres all kinds of things about it that are true. But the various other aspects of what was inside before then have been unfolded also in various moments of My Sign among you. So ultimately, then, the dropping of the egg is Divine Translation.

So you’re here to Realize Me, but you’re also here to keep Me in the church. So you don’t want to be working Me over. You want to transcend the mummery, keep Me among you, and practice truly. Then its not a mummery anymore. Until then, The Mummery is a mockery of you, in some sense, you see. But, instead, it should be something you could truly laugh at and be clowns in because you’ve transcended it.

What else? [pause]

You don’t know what you’re going to think or what you’re going to say. Because where do thinking and speaking come from?

You don’t think in order to have a thought. So how do you get to think?

Why doesn’t just babble happen? [Laughter.] Because you cant think your thoughts before you think them. So what do you do to get them to happen? What do you actually do to think or to speak? Which is very often just coincident with thinking. How do you get it to happen?

What do you do to make them happen, because you don’t think them until you think them. But what do you do to get yourself to think them?

DEVOTEE: Feel.

AVATARA ADI DA: You also seem to think of yourself as mind. But actually you’re in a position that precedes your thinking, and cant really account for it. When you step back from your thoughts, you cant altogether grasp how you get to think. Because you cant think before you think. So how do you make it happen?

you’re in that position. But you identify with your mind, your thoughts, all the time, and talk yourself into identifying with the body and so forth, too. But you’re in the position before all this!

What are you exerting, then, to generate the next thought, or the next word, if you speak, or the next gesture you make bodily? What kind of an operation are you going through to make that happen?

So what would you like to consider, then?

DEVOTEE: Well, there’s just something about the Ignorance consideration that is Shining real “Bright” right now. [Laughter.]

AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. Not what it is . You’ll blithely presume that you know the room. What is it?

DEVOTEE: It looks pretty Radiant right now, Beloved.

AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha. So to be in the state of Ignorance doesn’t simply mean you don’t know. It means that knowing is not how you’re Realizing it.

Well, you all entered into the state of Ignorance. Which means you don’t know what anything is, but knowing is not how you’re Realizing it. [Laughter.]

You see, your mind disappeared . Where is it anyway? You seem to be able to call upon it in any moment and seem to have a kind of a reflex that makes it happen anyway. you’re in the position of making that happen. At least you think that’s the position you’re in.

The mind appears because the mind is something you’re identified with. Its signs then appear rather automatically. So to Realize the Witness is not to simply stand around watching the thoughts and so on. Its Prior to them. Its about the process, then, of turning back on the other side, entering into the Sphere that is otherwise appearing as the Witness, the in-depth Domain of Consciousness Itself, without a thought, without a sensation. Yet Communing with Me in this “Bright” Fullness, without “difference”, utter Immersion in Me, “Atma-Murti”, without “difference”.

So you can struggle all you like with the peripheral knots and so forth, but then you’re always on the other side of It, on the other side of the Source. So the time comes when you’re not inclined toward that further. You want to enter into the Source-Domain. [pause]

So its not itself a process of opening some knot. Its deeper than that, more profound than that, Prior to that-simply Standing in the Position rather than working toward it. That’s this unique turnabout of Realizing the Witness-Position. You cant strain yourself to Realize It. It’ll just occur in the midst of the right practice.

DEVOTEE: And is that a permanent Realization, Beloved?

AVATARA ADI DA: Yes, because you’re It and you’re not on the other side of It. You don’t do anything to keep It in place. It is inherently the case. But to Realize It you must have gone through that process of purification and turnabout that makes It Obvious. Really Obvious, As It really Is. And when that’s the case, it cant be lost now, it cant, doesn’t disappear. Unless you do.

But you do not. Consciousness cannot disappear. The things that Consciousness appears to attach Itself to can disappear. So there are all kinds of changes that can be Witnessed. But Consciousness Itself never changes, never disappears. It is not merely awareness. Its just the Infinite Well of Being, Self-Existent but also Self-Radiant, without limit, “Bright”. [pause]

But you are the Witness now, are you not? [Devotees agree.] If you make an utterance now, you will observe Where you Are. Say something, anything. I mean actual language that you’re otherwise familiar with. Go ahead! Say it, vocally-out with it. [Devotees speak quietly to themselves.] See, you’re not in the position of thinking those thoughts. you’re noticing these thoughts, but there doesn’t seem to be that direct connection. You’re not in the position of the thinker. And yet the Position you’re in doesn’t exactly have anything to do with the thoughts, either. There’s nothing like thought in It. Your just simply a Presence, Consciousness. That’s your actual Position. The thoughts or perceptions, whatever, are somehow apparent in That.

But you’re not the body, you’re not the emotions, you’re not the thoughts, not the perceptions. You don’t do any of those things. They’re somehow happening, mysteriously, but you don’t do any of them. What are you ? What is your actual Condition?

To Realize It truly, you must go beyond knots and so on, presumptions. But at the very least, even before great Realization, or great sadhana, you can experience, feel, and know, right as you are now, that you are Standing in a Position Prior to thought, Prior to the body-mind. To fully enter into It is disorienting. In other words, you have to be re-oriented to get into It. Otherwise, you’ll always be just moving out of that Position, presuming yourself to be just the separate self, intending this and that, and combining with thoughts and all the rest of it, such that you forget the Position you’re in.

Are you all having some feeling for this? [Devotees say yes.]

If you allow It to be the case, even the entire body-mind relaxes. Because the body-mind is ordinarily under stress, the stress of self-contraction. When you feel into your Condition Prior to it, the Condition Prior to it, then the body-mind follows, relaxes. Whereas if you try to make the body-mind relax, you cause stress of one kind or another. But it happens automatically if you allow the Witness-Position to be the case. And not try to struggle back into so-called ordinary awareness, identified with the body-mind.

There is simply fundamental feeling awareness. But not a blank awareness. It is full of energy.

You see?

That’s your actual Condition. Everything else passes. Everything else is just a moment. [Beloved Adi Da snaps His fingers several times, to indicate the passing moments.] Hung up for a moment on this or that perception or thought or idea or action or whatever. But if you allow the Witness-Position to be your Position, then all that groveling for effects relaxes. And you begin to become Transfigured by It. [Devotees make ecstatic sounds of swooning.]

So you feel that It is inherently a Radiant Force, Expansive, Flowering, not contracted. And it would move the entire body-mind in that manner. This is how the Samadhi of “the Thumbs” appears. Essentially by allowing the body-mind to be Transfigured by My Crashing-Down Presence.

At some point, in the midst of “the Thumbs” or something like it, that Communion with Me, instead of just going back into body consciousness, falling out of “the Thumbs”, there’s the discovery of this root on the right. And the Awakening to the surety of the Witness-Position. It goes on quite spontaneously from that point. There’s movement in to the Depth of That Which is appearing to be Witnessing. And even if there is peripheral body consciousness, the Current can be felt in the right side. You may feel it also moving down from inside the head, into the chest, into the right side of the heart.

So it becomes My Crashing Down into the right side of the heart.

And relaxing into the Immensity of Self-Radiant Consciousness.

And with your eyes open, you can see that It is So.

There is perception, but it is a field of Energy, the Energy of Transcendental Self, of Consciousness Itself. If you focus on It without moving your eyes, you can see and feel that It is all in motion, energetic.

Everything that appears is just a vibratory modification of That Which you are Always Already Realizing.

You need not depart from It.

There is simply the Self-Existing Force of Being.

And all the perceptions with your eyes open are transparently That.

Don’t look to the right or left.

Allow the eyes to relax open.

Regard that simple perception rather than moving the eyes about and trying to perceive something else.

Allow It to be What It Is.

Your only experience ever is This. This is your only experience. Ever. It is utterly without familiarity, don’t you see? It is absolutely Transparent, Transfigured, not an interruption in the Force of Being. Its not merely your own interior being. Its One, All-Inclusive.

All are That Same One. In this Disposition, the apparent perceptions could come and go. They could change, they could disappear. This Disposition is not at all threatened by any such changes. And therefore in Itself has no motive to create them, to seek them.

When this Realization becomes perpetual, most profound, then there is no life-business. There is no business in any realm. The body-mind is simply a left-over. Its only an appearance.

But to Awaken in the seventh stage is to Realize This Most Profoundly, to experience This, as now, most profoundly and perpetually.

There’s no need to do anything within or without in order to Realize.

So all the doing, the apparent doings, of the body-mind simply become expressions of That.

Do you have a sense of a sphere?

DEVOTEE: Yes.

AVATARA ADI DA: Do many of you have that sense? [DEVOTEES: Yes.] If you sit in a natural asana, stable, like I suggested to you a moment before, and focus your eyes rather than move them about, the purpose of right asana, then, is to focus the body likewise. And then spontaneous right “conductivity” will be felt by you in this moment.

And as you’relax into It, feel this Force, do you feel something of a sphere about It? [DEVOTEES: Yes.]

You must thoroughly relax your body into It.

Its “the Thumbs”, if you allow Me to Crash Down in there, and relax.

Put all attention in Communion with Me, forgetting everything.

Now keep your eyes open.

Keep your eyes open and focused, relaxed into a simple focus without moving about.

Feel the room and everyone and everything in it.

Allow yourself to see it without moving your eyes about.

Do you see it, the shape of it? Actually feel the shape of it.

Now Realize you are simply Witnessing it.

Feel the Forceful downward Energy in the frontal line all over it, Pressing you to the base.

Do you feel and perceive the Radiance in the room?

And something of the shape of it?

Its all arising in Consciousness Itself. It is Consciousness Itself.

The more profoundly you’recognize it, the greater its Shine, and ultimately its Outshined.

Feel the space through and beyond the walls.

Don’t be confined to the room.

Don’t be confined!

Sense the Reality of space. Space and Light and Consciousness are identical.

So in this Contemplation you’re not meditating on the pain of self-contraction.

But maybe you’ll remember it now.

DEVOTEES: [exclamations of all kinds]

AVATARA ADI DA: So you see this Yoga covers everything. It Realizes everything. Ultimately Realizing the Primal Room of Infinite Space, All Love-Bliss, Absolute, Uncaused and Unchanging. There’s nothing interior about Divine Translation, somehow by going within and dissociating. Its a matter of Standing in the Divine Self-Condition, As That. So the seventh stage Yoga is perpetual Radiation, Unbounded, such that everything It contacts It Recognizes and Expands Infinitely, in Its Demonstration. And that ultimately, then, is Divine Translation.

Now, its interesting to make this extraordinary and incomparable Demonstration in the company of people who seem to know nothing about it. [quiet comments] Have you got twenty-three years?

But that’s how the Way got fully Communicated, this interaction with you all in your limitations, good qualities, everything. I had the opportunity to address all kinds of things, ultimately everything. So if it weren’t for that interaction, under all the circumstances in which it occurred, the fullest Revelation wouldn’t have been possible.

Even the unfortunate sufferings of lack of response that, as you know, I’ve had to endure, remarkably its all part of a Revelation-Which is now Complete, by the way-so I needn’t do that anymore. So now, as I Said, the time has come when there’s nothing more for Me to Say or Do to Instruct you. You have to do the sadhana. And you have to choose it profoundly in the manner we’ve been considering.

I don’t regard interaction with devotees to be a necessity any longer. Maybe every now and then spontaneously, as tonight, for instance, but not generally. You have to do the sadhana. Its your answer time. And a great number of you here, in fact, have had a lot of those twenty-three years of consideration with Me. Even face to face on many occasions.

[paraphrasing a line from the movie The Godfather ] Are you’ready to pay Me the favor you owe Me? [Chuckles.]

DEVOTEE: Yes, Lord.

AVATARA ADI DA: Well, that’s the sadhana. I Do what I Do to Reveal it to you, and now you have to choose it and not play games with Me anymore.

Anybody want to talk about anything else?

DEVOTEE: Master, I think of that great story in the Ribhu Gita , where Ribhu, I guess, there are two sets of footprints in the sand and all of a sudden there was one set of footprints. And Nidhaga said, “Master, why have you deserted me? You know how difficult it is. Why have you deserted me?” And Ribhu says, “That one set of footprints you saw in the sand. It wasn’t me deserting you. It was me carrying you on my shoulders.”

AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha. [Chuckles.] Yes, that’s what its about. There are many ways to put it.

I told you about going to Upasani Babas Ashram. Some of his devotees were there, and one of them’s been trying to capsulize Upasani Babas Teaching. He said, he was quoting Upasani Baba about it, Upasani Baba was saying, “I’m a letter, and you’re the stamp.”

You’ve got to attach yourself to Me, get into the mail. That’s just another way of putting it, or “catch the Horses Tail”. And so on.

So you must use the Advantage I’ve Given you. You must use My Company, let Me Do what I Do. And as I Said, I cant Do what I Do if you wont do what I Say .

What else?

Want to have some fruit? For a little blood sugar?

DEVOTEES: Sounds good. [A few ladies leave the room to serve a fruit meal to Beloved Adi Da and a fruit snack to devotees.]

AVATARA ADI DA: As the guy said in A Christmas Carol , “But touch my arm and you will be upheld in more than this.”

DEVOTEE: Its one of our favorite movies.

AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. Its going to be on The Basket of Tolerance . I guess that means you can indulge yourselves in watching it as much as you like.

DEVOTEE: The Basket of Tolerance is so wonderful, Master. Its perfect discrimination relative to everything.

AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha.

DEVOTEE: Beloved, do you’remember the most disgusting movie You Said You ever watched?

AVATARA ADI DA: You mean Pink Flamingos ? That’s soon to be on The Basket of Tolerance also. A kind of example of tricksterism in the modern world. Tricksters are identified in various traditional cultures. They’re called various names and so forth, but in traditional cultures they looked for people to play this role of the trickster. They’d virtually be appointed, chosen, or certain signs would be noticed and the person encouraged. Or sometimes an individual would just do it spontaneously, and people would just use it somehow.

DEVOTEE: That’s very evident in Fiji, Beloved, in that culture, also.

AVATARA ADI DA: People being tricksterish with one another all the time is a Fijian characteristic. There may be individuals in certain villages or groups or whatever who very overtly do it in a special way. Part of what its about is that certain people are given permission or license by the community or whatever to offend or even violate conventional behavior and conventional attitudes and so forth.

Look at things like this movie-comedians commonly play this role. They’re supposed to be as exaggeratedly offensive and creative about it as they can possibly get, you see. Some people think at some point it starts getting tasteless and then its not liked. Well, very often that’s when its doing its work. It shocks you out of the rigidity of a life that should be a play, a sacred play. When the clown or the trickster makes you notice that you’re sort of grim and uptight about being this good person, he’s not saying not to be a good person. He’s saying don’t be uptight. Its supposed to be a play, you know. Be really good, not puritanical and nasty.

So you’ve got to be shown all this and so forth by comedians and tricksters of all kinds, so you can get playful about it again. Don’t get lunch-righteous. Practice the diet, but don’t get lunch righteous. You should be playful. Its just right life, right discipline, totally coincides with your point of view of what you’re supposed to be doing altogether. So its nothing to be righteous about.

But in living the conventional life day to day, with all the expectations presumably, people do get rather grim and dried up about it. So this is understood in traditional societies, and therefore they always had tricksters. But, come to think of it, so do people in the modern day. They hire comedians, pay for them in night clubs. You pay people to mock you. You select certain people to do this. You’ve employed Me to Do it.

DEVOTEE: They have traditional roasts for individuals. Its a very common thing that they do.

AVATARA ADI DA: [Chuckles.] Yes, people have always valued, under the right conditions, people mocking everyone. It has a real and right function, as I just Described it to you.

So in My Play with you all, I’ve had to be all kinds of exaggerated, a shape-shifter, and everything altogether, Crazy-Wise, in order to break you out of your self-conscious rigidity and wake you up to the profundity of this Way.

[Devotees talk quietly as Beloveds meal is served. Beloved Adi Da continues to Speak as He eats.]

Hasn’t it ever occurred to you all to be rather strange, all these things appearing that go together and yet they have no perception or capability that would have made it to begin with? Ordinary evolution theories suggest all the happenings go on at the exterior, you know, in the material exchanges and reactions. But that doesn’t explain it. It explains some adaptations of form here and there, rather peripheral adaptations. Why all this simultaneity, unity? If plants had to somehow insist, or will themselves, or from some sort of natural exchange develop themselves, into flowers that produced nectar and so forth so that the bee over there could get satisfied, by then, the bee and the plant would all be dead, because they wouldn’t have had any interaction in the meantime!

DEVOTEE: Now, who’s in charge of that beautiful process?

AVATARA ADI DA: In charge? What makes you think there is such a thing?

DEVOTEE: Well, the fact that its, uh-I can see my conventional mind kicks in because the fact that its, it suggests beauty, you know, love, that relationship between the flower and the bee.

AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. [Laughter.] But also what I was suggesting – yes, that’s true. But what I was just talking about is how they get to develop into that form where they can interact in the way that they now depend. In other words, its not just exterior adaptations and reactions that is what all this great process of appearance here is about. There is something at the level of Unity, prior to the outward appearances, that is the primary Source even of the changes. And it governs the changes in a mass of appearances simultaneously, and its not just about cause and effect, long time, over time, this and that. It enforces or manifests certain signs spontaneously, because it is an immense structure, itself so complex and all-containing that it doesn’t need an operator.

It is simply focused in that which is its Source, but it doesn’t need an operator.

DEVOTEE: Then wouldn’t the operator and the Source be one and the same?

AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. There’s no operator outside. The process itself is the process itself. Do you know what I mean?

So at the level of the Source, there is no action. At the level of the appearances, its all action. So you must be free of involvement in the sphere of actions, to find the Source. Because the more you involve yourself in the conditional domain itself, the longer you’re going to be there. You just become further and further embedded in it. So the Way of the Heart is the direct process of going beyond the entire affair.

Do you all have a snack there yet? What kind of restaurant is this?

What time is it?

DEVOTEE: Three twenty.

AVATARA ADI DA: Does that sound late?

DEVOTEE: Its just amazing where the time went.

AVATARA ADI DA: Hm.

DEVOTEE: There is no time in Your Company, Beloved.

AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha. So now that they’ve served you all, you’re all quiet again. [Beloved Adi Da gives the dish of watermelon from His tray to a devotee.]

DEVOTEE: You’re getting on your nocturnal schedule again, Beloved.

AVATARA ADI DA: Yeah, I know.

DEVOTEE: Something about the quiet of this time you’really enjoy.

AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha. All night meditations are the best.

DEVOTEE: Yes, You’ve always Said this. There’s a beautiful corona around the moon tonight.

AVATARA ADI DA: You could see it outside?

DEVOTEE: Well, when we came, which was hours ago.

DEVOTEE: There’s a full moon.

AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha.

DEVOTEE: A very large corona, very pretty.

DEVOTEE: Another thing You did today, Beloved, was You talked a lot about the difference between the householder and renunciate sadhana. I found that really clarifying.

AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha. Well, we talked about that thoroughly at the time, so you already have the notes. Unless you want to talk about something in particular about it.

DEVOTEE: Just the fact of the renunciate choice being one of no compromise with the body-mind.

AVATARA ADI DA: Its a one-pointed vow. [pause] What else?

DEVOTEE: Beloved, I was feeling the difference in energy now that everyone’s eaten.

AVATARA ADI DA: Mm. Takes a while to circulate. [Chuckles.] That’s why in Europe there’s the tradition of a sleep-time, a rest-time, after the main meal of the day. Hm? Because it tends to put everybody down and sort of sleepy.

I was watching an antiques program last night, learned a couple of things about dining. One is that the older European, certainly British, tradition is that you don’t put the silverware on the table. Like you all do, you put it all out there. But they bring in the utensils with each dish or whatever. And then another thing they pointed out is that traditionally, and it seemed to the interviewer more practically, when people had fish they would use two forks. Instead of a knife and fork and so on. So when they served the fish course, they would serve two forks and not a knife and fork.

DEVOTEE: It makes more sense.

AVATARA ADI DA: But I do like the idea of when meals are served fully, like we do at table and so on, that since the meals are being served to the table anyway, that the silverware be brought out with each dish instead of having it all lined up around your elbows.

If we ever do have fish, I’m going to try two forks.

DEVOTEE: Did they place one on either side of the plate?

AVATARA ADI DA: They didn’t actually demonstrate it. Oh, in terms of the placement, I believe so, yes.

DEVOTEE:: Is it to do deboning?

AVATARA ADI DA: Yes, you may still have to clear the bones and such, and you can get it onto one fork from another fork more readily, I guess, in some cases.

DEVOTEE: You’ll have to have a fish meal just to try it out.

AVATARA ADI DA: [Chuckles.] Supposed to be having a smorgasbord on Sunday.

DEVOTEES: Smorgasbord. Swedish smorgasbord?

AVATARA ADI DA: Smorgasbord, right?

DEVOTEE: What’s on a smorgasbord?

AVATARA ADI DA: Its a meal of many dishes. Its usually, the times I’ve had it, many years ago, kind of in a buffet area but, you know, fifty or a hundred dishes, whatever, all around on it and decorated and so forth. So people would keep going up and having some other tastes. So there were many, many dishes, like Swedish meatballs, well, that’s a kind of smorgasbord thing, for one thing.

DEVOTEE: So the poor mans version is pot luck?

AVATARA ADI DA: If you’re lucky! Its many, many courses, in other words.

DEVOTEE: Is it served at a particular celebration?

AVATARA ADI DA: No, its a common food tradition, I gather, although I haven’t had it in Sweden. Just another cuisine.

DEVOTEE: There was a funny incident when I was growing up. I just remembered it. I worked at this place called Fjord Smorgette, or something like that. I was probably about eighteen . .

AVATARA ADI DA: Smorgette?

DEVOTEE: I cant remember exactly, but something around eighteen, and the funniest incident happened to me. One day somebody had dropped something on the floor, and my job was to always put the hot dishes into the hot thing, you know the whole long table with all the stuff on it. So anyway, somebody had dropped something slippery on the floor, and I had this basket of fried chicken with crumbs all over it. I hit this thing, and I flew up and I landed flat on my back with the pan on my stomach, and thousands of crumbs all over the floor.

AVATARA ADI DA: [Laughter] That reminds me of a story I’ve told, I don’t know if you’ve all heard it, so Ill tell it again. There used to be this program on very early television, around 1950, called the Stork Club. It actually took place live in the club called the Stork Club in New York. Sherman Billingsley, I guess, was the owner, and he was the host of this program. The Stork Club was considered the posh super club, dinner club, for the early evening and so on, and so to have a television program there and see the stars and so forth, this was a big new thing on television. This guy would, Sherman Billingsley, would interview movie stars, whatever, people of one or another kind of prominence.

And on one occasion he had a special friend on, George McManus, who did the Maggie and Jiggs cartoons and such. He was a special friend of his. And he knew the cuisine usually served in this club wasn’t exactly his favorite kind of thing, so he wanted to do a special thing for him. So he had a corned beef and cabbage meal made for him. And so in the middle of their conversation, where they usually would be served some sort of Stork Club French whatever it was, Sherman Billingsley dramatically waves his hand toward a waiter offstage, and says something like, “George, I have a surprise for you.” You know, “Your favorite cuisine and blah-blah-blah-blah-blah.”

And then the camera pans on the waiter, very ostentatiously carrying this huge tray with all these things on it. Then he had to rotate around, the camera followed him, and he must have tripped on the cord for the TV camera. So the last shot you see is Sherman Billingsley and George McManus looking up into the camera with this astonished look on their faces as the corned beef and cabbage landed all over them. [Laughter.]

That was the kind of thing you got on early television when it was live. I remember watching the Johnny Carson Show one time, and usually that was taped years later, I guess, but this was a live broadcast, because they wouldn’t have done it again unedited. He was sitting at his desk kind of place, and there was a man and woman sitting next to him talking about fashion or something, they were fashion designers or something or other, and the woman a model as well as a designer. She was wearing this very slim gown with little tiny straps over her shoulders to hold it up. And at one moment Johnny Carson happened to look over at her, and accidentally the shoulder strap fell over and her breast was completely exposed! [Laughter.]

And she, you know, within a second or so, reached down and flipped it back up. It was almost as if the whole thing occurred with the blink of an eye. But Johnny Carson happened to turn to her just as this thing happened, and he saw her breast exposed and he saw her pull the strap up, all of this happened just like that [snaps His fingers]. Its impossible to imitate the expression on his face. One of those [makes a face to imitate Johnny Carsons amazement] takes afterwards. [Laughs.]

DEVOTEE: Beloved, I saw a funny one the other day. These old commercials from the 50s. Remember the Amana, the Amana refrigerator, and-I cant remember her name. But she walks out, and she’s talking about the Amana . . .

AVATARA ADI DA: Well, it was supposed to be Betty Furness.

DEVOTEE: That was it, Betty Furness.

AVATARA ADI DA: But it turns out it was a stand-in for her.

DEVOTEE:: It was? I never heard that.

DEVOTEE: Oh, you’re kidding!

AVATARA ADI DA: Yes, I saw it on some resume of TV commercial history or something recently. And everybody thinks that this is Betty Furness, and so they stopped it, I guess, or panned in on it, whatever, and showed that it was another woman. And it turned out that, I don’t know, far some reason or other she was a replacement on the live commercial that night. And it clearly wasn’t Betty Furness. You could see when they drew your attention to it.

DEVOTEE: That’s an historic commercial.

AVATARA ADI DA: Yes, when she couldn’t get the refrigerator open.

DEVOTEE: Couldn’t get her refrigerator door open.

DEVOTEE: So it doesn’t mean that for all of her life somebody else played her part on TV. It just happened to be that one night, Beloved?

AVATARA ADI DA: Yeah. But she was otherwise known as the woman on the program, so it was attributed to her.

I love a bit I saw on the Ernie Kovacs Show. He used to do a thing called Percy Dovetonsils. And, hed have this little cup of tea, you know, sip it, and it was sort of a grotesque Liberace kind of thing. And he had this long bit, it was a routine he would do regularly. Hed say, “Blah-blah-blah,” and hed take a sip, “Blah-blah-blah,” and take a sip. It was an expected routine. Where he had to be constantly sipping some tea and pouring some more for himself and so on.

And this was live, but it happened to be kinescoped so that’s how it happened to get preserved. So it comes time in the midst of his little skit where he’s supposed to take his first full cup of tea, and he realizes in the middle of the sip that the people on the set have played a joke on him and filled his cup and his teapot with whiskey. And so you could see he knew he had a long skit he was going to have to do, and he had to drink all of this stuff in the meantime, and he was thinking of the condition he was going to be in by the time he got through. The look on his face. [Laughs.]

DEVOTEE: Beloved, do you’remember that video I sent You of the guy falling down this huge hill, he was a skier?

AVATARA ADI DA: Yeah I guess I remember something like that.

DEVOTEE: Oh it was the most unbelievable fall ever filmed. And he just suffered a few minor-a cut on the head and a broken leg. But he could have been really seriously injured and he wasn’t.

DEVOTEE: Did he keep bouncing or was it a free fall?

DEVOTEE: He just, he started from the top of this hill, he was a racer. And I guess the idea was the time to get down and he started down and he hit a, like a bump, I guess it was a bump…

AVATARA ADI DA: Something.

DEVOTEE: Rocks. And he just kept tumbling and tumbling and tumbling. And you could see his body flailing all over. But at the end he just lay there and everyone was just mortified. And when the guy walked over to him he could see that he was conscious. And the thing that had saved his life was he hit some rocks or something, and in fact the way it tumbled him saved his life. That was amazing.

AVATARA ADI DA: But what about the Condition you were in when we were having our discussion about an hour ago? And how is It different from the condition you are in presently?

DEVOTEE: Well Beloved you drew us into the depths of that Condition through Your Words.

AVATARA ADI DA: But you see how you get out of It too.

DEVOTEES: Right. Yes.

AVATARA ADI DA: Even though in the meantime you are also being amused and so forth so, you weren’t in an unpleasant condition. But even that throws you out of the fundamental sadhana. So you have to practice the sadhana moment to moment. Then there is more and more of this profound absorptive Samadhi, and ultimately the “Perfect Practice”. But Samadhi it is, moved beyond the self-contraction in Communion with Me.

Now the Free Renunciate Order is supposed to be, must be, a permanent retreat order. Up until very recently it has been appended to management. So among the other things that must change in My Circumstance ix that the Free Renunciate Order gets to do the practice I’ve Given it to do, and the Lay Renunciate Order, and so on. I My Self, and also Tripura and Navaneeta, all this time have had to function in that sarvadhikari role. So they couldn’t live the form I’ve Given them. They practice under the circumstances, but they didn’t live the form I Gave them to live, which is supposed to be the circumstance of their practice. For reasons that have everything to do with the expansion of My Work beyond that Circle.

So everyone in the Free Renunciate Order must be able to live a retreat life, not necessarily absolutely secluded in solitude, all the time anyway, but in a circumstance in which they could totally live the form of retreat twenty-four hours a day, and principally associate with others who do likewise. Its a different kind of service such people must do. They have a role of communication and so on, and guidance within the culture. But fundamentally they live the one-pointed life of most direct and “radical” practice. They have to be free to put real time into that, and not be obliged to put on the social personality suit.

You shouldn’t oblige Me to do it. You shouldn’t oblige the Free Renunciate Order to do that, either. It is a sannyasin order, so it is set apart from the world, free of those kinds of obligations. So you must relate to those in the Free Renunciate Order as sannyasins and not oblige them to become social personalities but allow them to demonstrate their practice completely outside that kind of circumstance, show you their sign in that mode, that disposition, in relation to Me, as a sign to all devotees. The Free Renunciate Order has this unique function of principal Instrumentality.

Of course it is especially the case with those in the seventh stage of life.

Of all the places I’ve ever been to, in traditional settings, this gathering treats its sannyasins the most miserably of all. [Chuckles.] you’require the Free Renunciates to become organization people so that you can dream of religion. At least that’s the way its been up to now. Devotees must take on all these responsibilities and truly fulfill them and let the Free Renunciate Order do what its supposed to do. And by the way, I could use some more members of the Free Renunciate Order, and I’m not going to get any till I get a Lay Renunciate Order first, obviously.

I’ve talked about the hive principle. Looking at it from various points of view. Traditional sacred society, large or small, has had a kind of hierarchical way of organizing itself. And something of that can be considered in the context of this Way. The general congregation in the hive is the kind of worker bee zone, keeps going in and out of the hive and serving the hive in various ways through all of that. And then there’s a core of others who are interior to the hive but busy interfacing with those who go in and out and yet directed toward serving something at the center. And then-we could say that’s the Lay Renunciate Order.

And then at the center of it is the Free Renunciate Order and My Self, of course, which has no function whatsoever, except to be there, basically, to Shine from the center. The Lay Renunciate Order should, by virtue of its function, its general function, be rather interior to the hive. Its supposed to serve a cultural role. And the general congregation is supposed to fully participate in this Way, but it should basically be that dimension of the entire gathering that is involved in the work in the communities and doing a lot of the work for the institution and so on, in order to allow there to be these other functions as well, not everybody doing the same thing.

I mean, what there is of the potential for a Lay Renunciate Order now had to be composed largely of people who are not fulltime serving a cultural role but always have this or that other thing they have to do, or jobs to keep, or whatever. So they’re being required, in other words, to function in the general congregation manner. Whereas the Lay Renunciate Order should essentially be people who do fulltime cultural service, and they should be supported by the gathering to do so. And the Free Renunciate Order is supposed to be in Hermitage.

So in Hermitage it must be, now, that the Free Renunciate Order is free to live in perpetual retreat, rightly understood what that means. But there must be a Lay Renunciate Order there, a true one, also. And it shouldn’t have to be made up of people who have to do the management work and the what could be called-outer temple kind of occupations. They should be doing cultural work fulltime and not have to do those other kinds of things. Of course, there are just so many-perhaps at some point you get such a huge group you cant have them all just doing cultural work. Unless it was a very much larger community that exists there presently. If it continued to grow, then, fine. But at a certain point it wont grow, and then there’ll be maybe eventually only members of the Free Renunciate Order there.

And then who’s going to do anything? [Laughter.] You see, there wont be any room for any more residents, because we will have had as many people as can fit on the island. And if they all became members of the Free Renunciate Order, we couldn’t bring in anybody else to run the facility and do all the thises and that’s. The Free Renunciate Order would just be sitting around in Bliss. So that’d be the end. Everybodyd just sit there until they’d Translate. Right? [Laughter.] No, you didn’t understand Me.

The point I want to make is its ridiculous to propose that would be the situation. The members of the Free Renunciate Order, if the gatheringd be fortunate enough to have that Island inhabited just by such people, can do the necessities of maintaining the place. And there would always be retreatants coming there as well, so they would be working culturally with people. But nonetheless you can understand that kind of hive structure I was just telling you about and how the gathering has to allow for an LRO that just does cultural work and has to allow a true Free Renunciate Order that lives the retreat life. All these are necessary.

If it ever got to the point where everybody in the entire Communion was in the Free Renunciate Order, fine-youd still do all the things necessary. But there’ll always be more new devotees. So you can never get too many members of the Free Renunciate Order or, in fact, that’s everybody. You cant get into the seventh stage of life without being a member of the Free Renunciate Order, more or less, anyway.

So it seemed remarkable to Me that human beings can be feeling so uncomfortable fundamentally in their depth, so uncomfortable about being physically alive that they are so willing to devote themselves entirely to just being an organism, knowing its mortality, its limitations, and all the rest. Its remarkable. It must be being heavily propagandized by something or other that you would make that choice given an option, given the eternal option. But if you’re deprived of the knowledge of it, the knowledge of this Revelation and this practice, you wont know any better.

So the Revelation had to be made. But that’s been done, and now you have to do the practice. And the practice is not at all about being content or driven to be merely fulfill the body. Its about ego-transcendence, and therefore its about transcendence of everything. Being aware of the real nature of the body is like being aware of the self-contraction, which we discussed earlier. Its itself a terrible knot, in itself an horrific condition. That’s why people find all kinds of ways to desensitize themselves to it, forget about it, or be relieved of some kind of stress all the time-because you do know the nature of the body, and you’re afraid of it. You feel trapped in it. You don’t know that there is a way to be free.

But having found out about that from Me, you have to practice and actually Realize what there is to be Realized. Otherwise, you’re always consenting to be the organism, consenting to be its fate, its possibilities in every moment, not a lot different from poor little beings in the forest, whatever, who are prey to a lot of others. The machine is so vulnerable, and ultimately mortal, how can one be content with it? How can one be willing to live an ordinary life?

Well, of course you all made those choices, but it was not even a remote possibility for Me. I’ve always been, My Self, in this conjunction. I had to endure the conjunction in order to conform it to My Self. So My Disposition has never been one to come and fulfill karma, to fulfill the motivation to be the body. To Me that is in itself horrific. So confined that way, I couldn’t live an ordinary life. I had to persist in that most profound consideration of the “Bright” in this conjunction.

Now you all chose, generally speaking, the ordinary course, instead of living impulsed to Realize Me, go beyond this knot, this mortality. But you needn’t make that choice anymore. You can reverse the course entirely. And then your life becomes all about transcending this condition you’re attached to but which you’re afraid of, for good reason. You don’t have to live on that basis. You have My Revelation, even in your experience, not merely in concepts. Knowing that and knowing that Way, how could you be content with the pursuit of mere organism? Your disposition should be in the direction of Samadhi, not indulging in the body.

Why would you want to persist in being identified with something that dies? Especially knowing the option and knowing that its not necessary, and that it can be transcended. So even though you functioned in the body from that point, you would transform your life altogether, unwilling to be merely mortal and afraid, unwilling to be committed to un-Happiness, non-Happiness.

Its not a matter of leaving the body. Its a matter of transcending the body, reorienting the body altogether, the body-mind altogether. [pause]

The Native State is to be Perfectly Radiant and not afraid. You know? Even getting a taste of it, why would you choose otherwise? But there is a lot of propaganda in the world that would tell you to do otherwise, so you have to exercise your discrimination and really consider these matters. Then when you get be-merely-the-productive-social-personality signals and nothing else, you’ll have the strength to transcend it and the humor also to relate to it. And you’ll change your own life, so you’re not merely a social personality, by living profoundly.

However, much is made in the universal pop religion about the “love thy neighbor” messages in the traditions. And in the Christian tradition, which you may know of, the declaration is made to “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul and all thy mind and all thy strength, and thy neighbor as thyself”. In other words, the principal communication there, and the same communication is found in other traditions, is to “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and mind and strength”-in other words, to be focused in the Divine, and in the whole process of God-Realization. And if you do this in your relations, you will be benign, you will not do to another what is hateful to you.

But to make the second principle the dominant one is to forget the Divine life and be reduced to a drone in a hive without a core-no honey, no queen, no Lord, just you reduced to the social personality game, living the organism life, you know, downtown, suburbs, up in the country, wherever you are, just cranking out the social interactions and the meals and the amusements, and the blah-blah-blah-blah-blah. That’s what I mean. Its to be reduced to that and to forget the sadhana. So then you’re being the organism again, magnifying identification with the very thing you fear. So you throw in a few consolation messages so you desensitize yourselves to it. That’s not the Way I’ve Given you.

The Way I’ve Given you is this profound listening, hearing, and seeing concentration, ultimately to the degree of Most Perfect Realization.

But you see how busy, generally speaking, you’ve all been with human ordinariness. And there’s a kind of universal pop religion message everywhere. So it suggests that’s what you’re supposed to do. You’re not supposed to be too profound about it all. You’re basically just supposed to be an as-much-as-you-can benign human personality and be very functional about it. And that’s that.

So use your discrimination and experience in My Company. Decide whether that’s the way to do it. Is that really the direction with which you want to be identified and the results that you want to be identified with, living out an organism life and trying to smile your way out of it? Or do you’really want to transcend the bondage and the suffering and the separation from the Divine Condition? [pause]

You must consent to be identified with the Condition of Radiance. And you must consent with every particle of the body-mind and your being altogether. And then all contraction ceases, is overcome, replaced with Non-Dual Radiance, or Love-Bliss Itself, Being Itself, Consciousness Itself, Light Itself, Energy Itself, Reality Itself. Reality Itself is the only God there is. There is no escape.

There’s only Realization. You know what I mean? So to be turned into Light again, you’re going to have to be cooked real good. You have to go up in Light. What else is there to talk about? You all going to get serious?

DEVOTEE: Yes, Lord.

AVATARA ADI DA: Anybody not planning to get serious?

DEVOTEE: Nobody.

AVATARA ADI DA: So what else do you want to talk about, then? Lets talk about something else.

DEVOTEE: There is nothing else to talk about.

AVATARA ADI DA: I mean something else than “Are you all going to get serious?” Well just presume that and talk about something else.  

 

THE “BRIGHTENING” WAY TALK SERIES –