Have I Said It?
Bubba Free John (Adi Da
Samraj), 1973
Note to Reader
During 1973-1975 I lived in San Francisco and Lake County as a member of Adi Da’s (then Bubba Free John’s) community. My service was to creating an index of his early books. I found these writings to be compelling, along with some of outrageous talks that have not found their way into print. Around his birthday in 1975 (to the best of my recollection), Adi Da was planning on moving with a small group to Hawaii. For that occasion, I arranged a selection of his compelling words by topic (mostly selected from his books) and hand wrote them in a blank book for his enjoyment. As far as I know, nothing ever came of that compilation. That became Book One of two parts, the second of which I completed some time thereafter. Now through the Internet, I make both parts available to interested readers. These blank books (I made a copy for myself) have been sitting on my bookshelves all this time, and after Adi Da’s passing, it occurred to me that this compilation would be very useful to many readers.
Enjoy,
Ed Hirsch
Ashland, Oregon
Bubba Free John
(1974)…..Adi
Da Samraj (2008)
Chapter 8
Realization
As Certainly as God, Truth
and Reality Is,
God, Truth and Reality Will Be Known.
As certainly
As God, Truth and Reality Is,
God, Truth and Reality
Will be known.
Just as God, Truth and Reality Is
Prior to all things,
God-Realization is
Prior to all things.
It is not the result of anything,
And neither is sacrifice or love.
It isn’t by going toward God
But standing in the Divine
Already,
Already happy.
It is God, Truth and Reality first,
Not God, Truth and Reality as the goal.
Clearly there is a paradox
In doing a spiritual discipline
In which you ultimately realize
Your own nature or condition,
Because it is your nature
Or condition
From the beginning.
The whole affair
Of this spiritual practice
And the apparent transformation
Of an individual
Is an immensely complex
And paradoxical business,
Because there is only
God, Truth and Reality
From the beginning.
Divine Communion
Is conscious realization
Of the real condition
Of the present moment.
This is the condition
You are presently given
In which to realize
God, Truth and Reality
The condition
That may be realized today,
In this moment,
Is truth, is happiness,
Entirely non-dependent
Upon changes and conditions
Of existence.
And that is very good news,
It seems to me!
The highest
And only true realization
Is Truth itself,
The very Self or Reality.
To enjoy Truth
Is simply to be awake.
What is required to wake up?
What can you do within the dream
To wake up?
Nothing.
There is only the Waking itself.
It is like a man discovering
That he has been pinching himself.
His pain was always his own event,
The theatre of his own action.
When he finally sees,
It is a simple matter.
He no longer needs to go through
Any sort of complicated affair
To get free of pain.
He doesn’t have to go through
Any kind of therapy, special diet,
Yoga, or mantra
In order to be free.
All he has to do
Is take his hand away.
No change of state
Is necessary
For the realization of Truth.
This Realization
Involves no necessary change at all,
In any dimension,
But only Realization
Of the actual, prior
And present condition
That everywhere pertains.
The dream doesn’t have to be changed
In any way for the waking man
To feel that he is awake.
Nothing has to happen to the dream.
Only Waking is necessary.
To one who is awake,
The dream is obvious.
No action in the dream
Is the equivalent of waking.
All waking comes suddenly.
There is no necessity
To the dream,
But only persistence.
See it truly and abide in the Real.
Truth can only be
Already enjoyed,
Already the case.
Truth is not a matter
Of seeking.
There are no reasons
For joy and freedom.
Truth is the most radical
Penetration
Of this whole event.
And only at that moment
Is there happiness.
There is no happiness
That can be acquired.
There is no realization
That can be attained.
Only the Happiness
That already exists is true.
Only the Freedom
That already exists
Is natural and stable.
The only point of view
From which to live any life
In any world
Is that of absolute
Self-realization and God-knowledge.
Everything else is ripped off,
It does not survive.
No creature can be happy
The way a human being
Can be happy.
The creatures have no option
But to be creatures,
But men have the obligation
To be
God, Truth and Reality.
The ecstatic life
Is not part of any order.
It is simply
The Divine condition.
The great ecstasy
Is not release
Into the extraordinary,
But the Perfect Realization
Of the nature of your condition.
In all states,
Ordinary or extraordinary.
When the life is only open,
When this incredible force
Is flowing through,
It churns you,
It purifies the life.
Then there is nothing at last
To be unhappy about,
Nothing to think about.
The flood of enjoyment
Rushes through the body,
Dissolves the mind,
Overwhelms the life.
When that contraction
Just opens a little,
The force of delight and love
Begins to flow,
And the obstructions
Begin to break down,
Until, finally,
The person is shattered.
Relationship is
Abiding in what is always
And already Real.
To know what arises
In Truth
Is simply to be
In relationship
To what arises.
Relationship is enjoyed
Under all circumstances,
All conditions,
With all beings,
In all environments.
It is always
Simply that basic enjoyment,
That unobstructed, spontaneous,
Moment to moment existence
As relationship.
It is what is called “love.”
It is simply the force
Of the Heart, the Real,
Which is unobstructed,
Unqualified existence.
To love requires a great transformation.
Without the realization of the Heart,
There is no true humanity,
And no love.
Love is living without obstruction,
Without contraction.
Without the demand for attention,
Without creating your perimeter.
That doesn’t come about
By doing all kinds of things
To yourself.
It is a Grace.
Loving is also pleasurable.
There is no doubt about it.
Ecstasy is selflessness.
Happiness is already sacrifice.
True attention
Is enjoyed with the whole being.
But, in fact,
That enjoyment is not
Attention at all.
It is presence, radiance.
It has no object,
But it excludes nothing.
That state is the natural state
Of realization
And also the natural state
Of devotion.
Consciousness has no answers,
It has no questions.
That is the true state.
From that state,
The creation of marvels
Begins.
You persist in that realization
Because there is nothing beyond it.
You cannot leap into some consciousness
That is not it because you were there
Just a moment ago!
Now your enjoyment has no definition
Whatsoever, no destiny, no relationship
To anything.
It cannot be specified
And it cannot be isolated.
It cannot be
Separated out.
It is not an alternative
To anything.
Everything just continues to happen.
Everything becomes yourself,
Everything is happy,
Everything is marvelous.
This enjoyment is the grounds
For absolute dissolution
In which nothing else occurs.
You do not go anywhere,
Life does not become blank.
Things continue to happen,
But your realization
Becomes completely unspeakable.
And beyond that realization
Nothing may be said,
Nothing may be defined,
No destiny may be described,
No work you do many be described,
Nothing may be said
About it at all.
Everything happens perfectly
From that moment
And there is nothing
That may be said about it
That makes any sense
Whatsoever.
The self is not
Behind all this.
The self is this
Without a doubt.
There is no separation
Whatsoever.
Therefore,
Self-realization is perfectly
Compatible with human existence.
Realization of the God-nature
Is not anathema
To human existence,
Or worldly existence.
It is, in fact,
The very principle of it.
Life or manifest existence
Is realization.
Things do not cease
To arise.
They have not
Ceased to arise.
All things
Arise as before.
All forms
Have returned.
To realize
That you are
Already.
God, Truth and Reality
Doesn’t make you any more
Than anybody else.
It makes you the same
As everybody else.
When there is truly
No difference,
No one survives.
Where there is the realization
Of non-separateness in Truth,
No one survives
Beyond that moment.
This understanding,
When it occurs,
Will not be your enlightenment,
Because when it occurs,
There is no one left.
When Truth arises,
The one in whom it arises
Is unknown.
All things arise
Within the Truth,
Or within the Real.
But as soon as the Truth itself
Becomes obvious,
“you” disappear!
There is no “one”
To find that out.
It is a spontaneous event,
The most absolute
Of all events.
It is a gift!
It is itself
God, Truth, Reality!
Truth is a radical condition
In which there is no self,
No ego, no separate motivation,
No fulfillment.
It’s the absolute undermining
Of the ordinary state.
The paradoxes
Represented by everything
That appears
Begin to show themselves
In God.
You will find no self,
No world,
No other God,
But only
God, Truth and Reality
Unreasonable happiness
Is the eternally appropriate
Mood of man.
Celebration is the yoga of man.
The fundamental taboo is ecstasy,
And the fundamental ecstasy
Is God-consciousness,
Openly lived and assumed
In every function of life.
There is no God-realization
Until every dimension of your born life
Has become the Seat of Realization.
There is no yoga
If the very cells
Do not begin to intuit the Divine.
All things will be given to you
That are necessary and appropriate,
But you will stand happy
And full of humor
In the midst of life.
The prior condition
Is consciousness.
It is not something
Consciousness does or knows.
It is consciousness.
So when it is truly realized
There is no danger,
No falling from it,
Because it is not held in place
By anything.
It is not dependent on anything.
When there is no longer
Any such danger,
Then you are humorous,
Then you see humor in everything.
You can afford
To have such humor then.
But if you have to hold it in place,
You can’t afford
To be humorous.
I don’t see humor
In anything whatsoever.
Humor has to do with God.
There is no humor in life.
When you perceive the Divine
In the midst of any world
Whatsoever,
Then humor becomes the quality
You present to life.
If truth begins to manifest
In life, as life,
It glorifies life to some degree.
But the glory that enters life
Is not that of life itself.
It is the glory
Of the fullness of truth.
Those who live truth
While alive
Are not glorifying
Life in itself.
They are glorifying Truth.
The process
I am describing
Is instant, direct, present.
The reason you are not
Getting any closer
Is because you cannot
Get any closer.
That realization
Has to occur
In this moment.
The Truth
Is radical non-avoidance
Moment to moment.
It is to live
This moment,
This event,
Without conflict,
Directly.
It is a single Realization
While alive.
It is the condition
Of life, in life.
This realization
Must be lived.
It must be
Consciously lived
At every level
Of manifestation.
Your life-force
Must be free.
It must be restored
To the universe.
It is infinite.
There is a conscious instant
In which it becomes obvious
That this is so.
All you will have realized,
After all,
Is the obvious.
Life is simply
The realization
Of “ordinariness.”
To so-called ordinary
Is realized as the perfect,
The Divine.
The ordinary
Is the extraordinary.
When your eyes have opened
In the morning light,
Everything will be obvious to you.
And you will know
That you have never slept,
That you have never dreamed,
That you have never been limited
To any thing that has appeared.
You have never been
In any condition
That you have assumed.
There was always only Reality,
Your true nature,
Which is bliss,
Consciousness,
The unqualified Reality.
The process
In Divine communion
Is very gentle.
It is even enjoyable.
The “event” is unnoticed.
The realization of Truth
Is as natural
As a simple response
To sunlight.
It is no big deal.
All big deals
Are shy of it.
The absolute thing
Is unmentionable.
There is no thing.
There is the holding on
To everything,
And the falling away
Of everything.
No mediocre man
Or woman
Has ever realized
Such a meditation.
No fool
Will ever enjoy it.
No childish person
Will ever begin it.
Bubba Free John
(1974)…..Adi
Da Samraj (2008)
More:
Note to reader:
As a member of Adi Da’s (then Bubba Free John’s) community from about 1973-1975, during which time I lived for nine months in Persimmon, the sanctuary where he lived. My service was to creating an index of his early books. I found these writings to be compelling, along with some of outrageous talks that have not found their way into print. Around his birthday in 1975 (to the best of my recollection), Adi Da was planning on moving with a small group to Hawaii. For that occasion, I arranged a selection of his compelling words by topic (mostly selected from his books) and hand wrote them in a blank book for his enjoyment. As far as I know, nothing ever came of that compilation. That became Book One of two parts, the second of which I completed some time thereafter. Now through the Internet, I make both parts available to interested readers. These blank books (I made a copy for myself) have been sitting on my bookshelves all this time, and after Adi Da’s passing, it occurred to me that this compilation would be very useful to many readers.
Enjoy,
Ed Hirsch
presenceofone@yahoo.com
Ashland, Oregon