THE “BRIGHTENING” WAY TALK
SERIES THE “BRIGHTENING” WAY TALK SERIES – The Yajna Discourses
of Santosha Adi Da (1995-1996) – Gathering “Considerations”
with Beloved Adi Da Samraj, at Sugar Bowl Ski Resort and the
Manner of Flowers, December 29 and 30 1995, and January 3,
1996. The Yajna Discourses of Santosha Adi Da (1995-1996) There’s No Escape,
There’s Only Realization A Gathering “Consideration” with Beloved Bhagavan Adi Da
In The Manner of Flowers On January 5, 1995 SECTION V DEVOTEE: Beloved, I was thinking about the thing where
You were talking about does a bee and flower know what
color-that whole phenomenon. And I was reading a book called
Before Civilization . I picked
it up in Ireland when I was over there. AVATARA ADI DA: Who wrote that one? It sounds
familiar. DEVOTEE: It was . . . AVATARA ADI DA: Frankfurt? No, that’s
Before Philosophy . DEVOTEE: It was written in 1972 originally, but it was
about the Syrian civilization and how classically the
original architectural, archeological, and anthropological
thing was that civilization all began from one spot in the
Middle East. And they, by more sophisticated dating methods
now, have established that civilizations occur spontaneously
at the same level of development in different areas of the
world, which was to me like a wonderful statement, because
it proved what You always Said, which is that Consciousness
and Being are Prior to any kind of evolutionary process. AVATARA ADI DA: And there’s an eternal structure,
structuring – not just outer events making modifications. So
its not just the interaction between the bee and the flower
that gets to take on the shape they want for one another.
Its something behind and internal, a structure enforcing
itself with both simultaneously. If it all depended on
survival of the species kind of techniques to make changes .
. . DEVOTEE: It would never happen. AVATARA ADI DA: . . . survival of the fittest and all
that, it would take too long for any fundamental changes to
take place. And how could anything appear anyway? Its moved
from within, or from the structural level, and not merely
from without. Even Prior to that is the Source. The more
directed you become away from the Source, the more
dissociated from it you become inevitably. So even in the midst of this sphere of appearance and
action, you must be focused in the Source, focused in the
Realization of the Source-Condition, because any gesture
otherwise returns you to the mode of self-contraction, fear,
and seeking. DEVOTEE: We’re never really separated from the Source,
Beloved. It may appear to be so at times, but that’s
not really true. AVATARA ADI DA: No. But that’s
no consolation in the moments when you’re
not in touch with It as It. And you can be really out of
touch with It, and for a really long time. So its no
consolation, no great one anyway, or not enough, to simply
have some feeling that everything’s
really okay somehow, you know, or you can never be finally
dissociated from the Divine. But nonetheless, presently in your experience,
that’s what you’re
demonstrating, the feeling of separation from the Divine,
from the Free Condition, from Happiness Itself. You show it
all over your life, all over your body-mind, inside and out.
Its written all over you, the scar of mortality, of
conditional existence even altogether. That’s
your experience, even though you say to yourself, “Its not
really true. And ultimately Ill Realize it again.” In the
meantime there’s all this
suffering, disturbance, seeking, particularly if
you’re sensitive and are not
trying to constantly desensitize yourself or vacation from
sensitivity. Your experience is that of being separated from the
Source-Condition, the Free Condition, the Condition of
Happiness Itself, Unalloyed, not changing, not having to be
sought. Reality is Always Already the case, but you can
believe otherwise, you can presume otherwise, you can
experience otherwise. And that is in fact what’s
happening. The Way I’ve Given
you is the Way out of that, the Way beyond it, not by
dissociating from it but by Outshining it-Outshining it. So then you must be directed to Me, directed to the whole
process of Realization, and not always falling back into the
gross self-position and exclusively ordinary pursuits. DEVOTEE: Beloved, isn’t that
the establishment of true faith? You talked of the knowledge
that even though there is an appearance of separation, there
really is no separation. That is whole-heartedly believed
and felt. AVATARA ADI DA: Yes, that’s
good. That’s a factor in your
disposition. But its not itself sufficient to be relieved of
the disturbance. So its fine to, with full-heartedness, feel
that that is so. But you must also do the sadhana
altogether, such that it is so altogether in your
experience, so you don’t have to
keep telling yourself, “No matter how I’m
suffering, there still is blah-blah-blah, and I’m
going to get there some day by golly. [DEVOTEE
laughs.] I’m coming, Lord.”
You know what I mean? No. In the meantime with all that
blah-blah-blah, you’re
suffering, that’s it. The
self-contraction, your own act of dissociation from the
Divine. So you have to find yourself out, and find Me out, and
transcend the act of dissociation from the Divine Condition,
Radiate beyond it. That’s
fruitful religion. Other things are consolations under
unchanging conditions of bondage. So you get a lot of political and social propaganda about
being good citizens, but the Law has a senior part. You’re
here to Realize Me. So you can’t just get a political and
social message. You have to get the true religious message,
in order to be complete and rightly directed. In all My Work
with you for these twenty-three years I’ve
been struggling with you in your misdirectedness, Working to
turn you about, redirect the tide here, by reorienting you
to Divine Realization. Its been a struggle with, as you know yourselves, very
ordinary people, obsessed, driven to conditional existence,
identification with the mortal body-mind, even though its
what they fear. So you come up with all kinds of resistance
and arguments to the contrary and dullness and so on. And
I’ve been addressing you in the
midst of everything to bring you to the point of true
practice, true listening, true devotion, and very quickly
potential hearing, and then on. [pause] Faith is fundamental to why you keep on doing that
sadhana, then. But it should be made the basis for a sadhana
, not merely for consolation. DEVOTEE: I was just remembering a time when earlier in
the evening, Beloved, You just took the moment and
transported every one of us into the Samadhi of “the
Thumbs”. AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. DEVOTEE: And it happened-its full bodily-and then You
Said, something with a wave of Your hand or something, You
Said, “And now its gone.” All of a sudden [snaps
fingers] You just stopped every one of us. And it was
such an incredibly strong Yogic Force in my body, which this
body isn’t used to. And I could
just feel like afterwards the body was doing a great deal to
recover from it even, it was so strong, and that there was
so much to be purified yet. AVATARA ADI DA: You reminded Me of the story that Baba
Muktananda told. It was written in Chitshakti Vilas about a
Kundalini Master at an Ashram, some number of people
residing there on retreat and so forth. And he knew that by
an act of will he could instill the Kundalini process in
anybody, and He could turn it off, too. So in order to test
the people who were there, to see who was faking it,
who’s looking for status, not
really going through the process, he would sometimes magnify
the Kundalini Energy, and the people would make various
signs of that. And at other times he would even look like
he’s doing it, but he
wouldn’t. And the ones that
would just sit there composed he knew were his true
devotees, whereas the ones crowing and all the rest of it
and hooting, he knew they were self-generating it. They were
faking it in some respects, then, you see. DEVOTEE: I know that You do that, Beloved. Sometimes, to
test people. I know You do. AVATARA ADI DA: In order to Instruct them or whatever, I
Work in all kinds of ways, and most of it is not visible. So
there’s different signs that
appear in the case of each one in their moments. You cant blame Me for the conditions of your existence,
however, all those happenings. They are structured
inevitabilities, like the form of the flower. My
Intervention is a Spiritual one that enables you to be
purified in the midst of all that and rightly directed in
the midst of all that, and to live this process of Realizing
Me. Therefore, the profound Influence would be in the case of
people who are doing the sadhana most profoundly. Others may
have a hectic or busy life or whatever and want to thank Me
for it, or some things they like about it and want to thank
Me for it, but still basically, rather than indulging in
profound sadhana, they are indulging mostly in conditions,
especially conditions of the ordinary bodily life. DEVOTEE: Beloved, I remember when I first came here in
1972 . . . AVATARA ADI DA: Don’t remind
Me. [Laughter] DEVOTEE: Oh. AVATARA ADI DA: Its going on twenty-four years, then,
now, right? In a few months. Twenty-four years, nearly a
quarter of a century of this direct consideration with Me.
Yours is a remarkable history in My Company in itself. But
still twenty-four years later, and you’re
still bargaining about student-beginner business. You know
what I mean? DEVOTEE: Yes, I do, Beloved. AVATARA ADI DA: And you do like to take the consoling
ride a lot. No matter what you do, even if you don’t
really do any great sadhana, you’ll
never be separated from Me, right? DEVOTEE: No, I never will, Lord. AVATARA ADI DA: Right. Well this is-in fact, you’ve
told Me this, that this is your point of view. I remember
you even wrote this to Me this last year some time in some
letter you wrote. Like the remark you made before, that no
matter how things appear, you still never can be separated
from the Divine Condition and so on. These things are certainly true, but you so often find it
sufficient just to affirm those things and not do any
sadhana or not do anything about the condition that
you’re actually experiencing or
as you’re experiencing it. DEVOTEE: And You re always
showing me that I cant truly Realize You unless I fulfill
the Law. AVATARA ADI DA: Right. So this has been the substance of
our relationship. [Chuckles.] DEVOTEE:: Beloved, when You were talking about the hive,
I was reminded that the queen bee in a hive, in a beehive,
is the source of every individual in the hive. She’s
the only one that lays eggs. So there’s
nothing that exists in that that isn’t
directly related to her. AVATARA ADI DA: And its all structured from the
beginning. These aren’t a lot of
little guys, you know, making it up as they go along, nor
are they thinking it in the conceptual way you know about
thinking. They are structured inherently. They are
participating in a structuring energy. So they do all of
this spontaneously, very orderly but entirely spontaneous,
because its controlled at the structural level. It
doesn’t involve individuation or
figuring-it-out kind of business. And so the entire group
goes through a cycle, and then that’s
the end of that one-like a plant or a flower. Its just as
structured as that. Even though they look like individuated
beings, they’re not. DEVOTEE: Its really a plant or-the hive is really a
plant-a flower. AVATARA ADI DA: Yes. Its just like that. They thrive on
flowers. You become what you meditate on, you see. There is
a kind of identity there. They are identical, structured the
same, and this is how they relate to one another. This is
how they get in touch with one another, because they are
structured to do so, from the structural side, not from the
outer interaction side merely. So the bees aren’t making it
up as they go along, and they’re
not individually creative. They’re
doing something they are structured to do, just like a plant
grows flowers, petals, gets bushy and all the rest, and then
fades or whatever, goes through all these cycles. Its
structured exactly the same way. There’s
force there and pattern enforcing itself. You all like to think that you’re
not quite like that, that all of your movements, behaviors,
thoughts, internal activities, and so forth are some kind of
creative thing you’re
generating, and you’re very
individuated, very independent, very individual altogether,
and not part of a structure immense, universal, just
patterned. You don’t even like
to think of yourselves being patterned. Its a particular
part of the modern consciousness. It was more acceptable to
past generations, many generations ago, to think of being
part of a pattern and controlled by it, the Divine Will
being behind it, but nonetheless a pattern that fixed all
events and determined your destiny, the
everything-is-at-the-mercy-of-God point of view. But, in reality, you are as structured as the hive, as
structured as the rest of the cosmic domain. You are
imagining individuation in a unique modern way, and
separation in a more excruciating way, but you are
manifesting a pattern. The pattern can go haywire. Not
everything that grows survives and becomes great. There are
all different kinds of fates. And you are the examples of
that, you see. That’s what
egoity is about. That’s being
haywire. So I’m here to show you how
to wire it up straight, and make it fulfill its real
purpose. Otherwise you have a bad destiny as a plant or a
bee or a beehive really-there is no such thing as a bee.
There are only bees. There is no such thing as a person in
the absolute sense, in the separate sense. So you’re all kinds of
patterned to move in the total direction of the seven stages
of life, to Perfect Realization, but you’re
aberrated in the midst of that pattern. The hive
doesn’t work. All the apparent
individuals in it are messed up from going all kinds of
directions and feeling unpleasant feelings. They are out of
the pattern. They’re
misdirected-you are, in your ordinariness. The force of the hive must redirect you. The Person of
the hive must reconform you to Himself. You see what I Do. Then the structure of the human being can show its
greatness, living the law of its purpose, sacrificed to it,
in the Realization sense. And all the human faculties and
designs demonstrate their real purpose, fulfill their real
purpose. Paradoxically that real purpose is not about
preserving the body-mind forever, but about transcending it
in the Divine Condition. So its got to be hip and cool again to be conformed to
the hive, to the Law, to unity and cooperation and
Godwardness in the fullest sense, the most profound
sense. The body-mind of Man is structured for Enlightenment. Its
structured to self-destruct in God. But you are diverting
yourself from that purpose, by identifying with the
body-mind independently, separatively, egoically, in the
self-contracted manner. You’re
becoming eccentric, falling out of the pattern. The
structure, if allowed to fulfill itself, leads to perfect
Divine Realization, but you want to stop along the way. You
want to be possessed of separate self and carry on an
adventure from that frightened point of view. That’s“no watermelons this
season”, you see. [Beloved is making reference to
devotees inability to consistently grow watermelons on
Naitauba] Its not fruitful. Its just a complaint, a form
of suffering. Do sadhana, and the body-mind is conformed to
its law, and you to your great purpose, and it all falls in
line. The force of structure is there, if you allow it to be
so. And you’ll see that the
body-mind has to be a sacrifice in the Divine Person. There
is suffering in the mortal condition itself, and you must
feel beyond it. You must submit it to the Divine Condition.
Play your role in life, but as sadhana. Don’t
be bound to the form itself, but be given up. It started a few hundred years ago, this modern
consciousness of individuation as it is politically made.
Its an extraordinary exaggeration of egoity made into
politics. Of course, it has some attractive and positive
elements, but it has great faults, and supports the culture
of body-identification and so-called materialism and so
forth, and dissonance from the structure, the purposes of
right life, but also Ultimate Realization. That great pattern is structuring you like it structured
the flowers and bees to go with them simultaneously, and
every other form. You are structured in that particular
fashion to experience in certain ways common to others, and
then some may be unique, but to struggle in that limitation,
to go beyond it. Your brains and other structures are
purposed to allow the operation of the body-mind, even from
a subtle level. But they’re also
purposed to keep out all kinds of things, all kinds of
experiences, perceptions, that if you had them fully and
directly, you couldn’t function
bodily, you couldn’t function in
the human form. So all kinds of experiences and perceptions,
etc., shut off. It is possible to go beyond those structural
knots and be purposed to do that for its own sake in order
to have the experiences that result from it, but its not
Liberation yet. So right purpose is to transcend the knots in
directedness to the Divine Person, and to allow the
body-mind, all experience, simply to be a structure of
inevitability. Align it rightly, lawfully, and then let it
be. Then you have the sufficient purity to advance further,
to grow beyond it. So the politics of individuation is, apart from some of
its merits one might presume, basically the politics of
egoity. And it glorifies egoity. And the messages commonly
given in such a disorderly hive, hiveless gathering, tend to
support a point of view that keeps you from considering a
greater resolution, a greater principle. Its all this “me,
me, me independently doing my own thing” kind of business,
failure to be aligned to the lawful structure of existence
and oriented toward Ultimate Realization. So its certainly appropriate and necessary to be
individually responsible. That’s
a good democratic idea. But its also necessary to be
combined by right life with the structure of existence and
the ultimate purpose of existence. So you cant just have the
politics of individuation. You must have the politics of
cooperation and tolerance, but demonstrated by free
individuals, rightly aligned individuals. So the culture and politics of individuation is
abandonment of the structure that is universal and making
the apparent individual separated being into the principle
of existence. There must be some kind of a balance between
participation in the universal and functioning clearly and
freely as an individual individually responsible. But you
must participate in the structure of reality, and be
disposed in it such that you transcend all limitations
ultimately. A true democratic order, then, is responsible individuals
in tolerant cooperation with one another, handling the
business of life but keeping it straight and simple,
supporting one another in the sadhana of going beyond. But
if you reverse it, turn it away from that directedness, just
focus on the individual, the single conditional
manifestation, that is what egoity does. That’s
the fault from which you’re
suffering. You must reverse that orientation. Don’t you all profoundly
prefer never to have to be afraid again? DEVOTEE: Yes. DEVOTEE: Profoundly. DEVOTEE: Absolutely. AVATARA ADI DA: Don’t you
most profoundly wish never to experience anxiety? DEVOTEES: Yes. AVATARA ADI DA: And the collapse on separateness
altogether? I mean, if you really examine yourself, do you
have any greater impulse than that impulse to be free of all
this? In your ordinary distractedness and preoccupations and
so forth you may seem to be choosing something else. But if
you really examine yourself, is there anything at all more
important to you than to be utterly free of fear, utterly
free altogether, in a state of unalloyed Happiness? So if you know this, whenever you get serious with
yourself and examine yourself, then you show your maturity,
your real humanity, by being willing to commit yourself to
it, to do that in fact, rather than continue the
preoccupations, the superficialities, of your current grind.
You choose the profound life instead-if you’re
really serious about not wanting to be afraid anymore. How
can one not be serious about it? But it seems like
you’re not all that serious. You want never to be snuffed out, never thrown into
unconsciousness, darkness, and yet somehow aware of your
isolation and disturbance. You don’t
want that. So why should you play life unconsciously, such
that it produces that very thing? You have to use your
discrimination, your listening to Me, to profoundly consider
these matters and really choose a reorientation of life. You
have to become thoroughly intelligent about it and
intelligent with it. That’s why I have down here,
in the back of the Ashram here, Fear No More Zoo. Come in
and get involved. Living things are there being without
fear, human beings without fear, all beings without fear.
There’s a kind of congeniality
in the Zoo-almost any zoo really, at least some level of it,
especially as we do it here-that is immediately capturing,
like going to Disneyland or something like that. So Fear No More Zoo is one of the sacred places in this
Ashram. Just as you go to Earth Fire and Skyway and so on,
you should go to the Zoo as a sacred place. Feel what its
particular components are. The more I get to do what I
Intend there, the more you will observe it. But even as it
is, as simple as it is, it immediately awakens a certain
congenial disposition in you, if you go down there
sensitively of course and free to do so. Its another place of puja, a kind of walking, petting
puja. [Laughter.] DEVOTEE: It awakens compassion for all living beings just
to be down there. AVATARA ADI DA: And a feeling of non-difference, of
Unity, and non-difference too. I spend a lot of time around non-human guys, you know,
keep pets and so forth. To Me they’re
the same as human beings, in the ultimate sense the
same. DEVOTEE: I was just going to say, its wonderful to
observe Your relationship with animals, Beloved, and the way
they respond to You. AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. Tcha. DEVOTEE: Its such a unique relationship. AVATARA ADI DA: But I don’t
imagine them being lowly or separate, or different in any
sense whatsoever. And that’s
what you should realize when you go there. That’s
how you should use it, to support your sadhana. The entire
Ashram here is a kind of Yajna. All the places are sacred,
have a special meaning, purpose, and significance, and all
the rest, a special purpose. And the Zoo is one of them. Its
about fearing no more, about going beyond the knot of
separate self, being in the condition of the Samadhi of
God-Communion, and, at the level of form, feeling structured
and a great Unity. DEVOTEE: And all in You, Beloved. Its all-its all in You
. . . AVATARA ADI DA: Mm-hm. DEVOTEE: . . . all of that structure. DEVOTEE: That’s what’s
so wonderful about watching Your Demonstration, Beloved. Its
not just the animals and humans that You treat that way.
Everything You touch is a puja article. AVATARA ADI DA: Tcha. DEVOTEE: Everything we have You treat that way.
[pause] AVATARA ADI DA: If you understand all these that
we’ve been talking about so far,
then you should be able to understand better what I mean by
true Hermitage. This is how we get the “religion business”
out of Hermitage, by people seriously practicing in the
manner we’ve been discussing,
handling business there but involved in this profundity with
Me. Index –
Introduction –
Prologue Section
I, Section
II, Section
III, Section
IV, Section
V, Section
VI