Have I Said It?
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 create an index of his early books. I found these writings to be compelling, along with some of the 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
Understanding:
There is Only
Understanding
At the beginning and forever,
Only radical understanding
Is necessary and real.
Only radical understanding
Avails.
It is the viewpoint
Of Reality itself.
Where there is
Understanding in life,
What is actually being known
Is Consciousness,
Unqualified Reality.
Understanding
Is very Reality,
What is always
Already the case,
Clarifying itself,
Enforcing itself.
Unqualified understanding
Is the enjoyment
Which is Reality itself.
Understanding is Reality
In its fullness.
It is the perfection
That is Reality
Prior to intuition, symbol and
search.
It is radical truth.
Where there is understanding,
There is Reality.
Where there is ignorance,
Reality is sought.
Where there is conscious
sacrifice,
There is Reality.
Where is no understanding,
There is the persistence of
suffering.
Understanding
Is present bliss,
Unqualified freedom and
Reality,
Consciousness itself
Without motion or necessity.
Understanding
Is the enjoyment
Of Consciousness.
Understanding
Is the principle and form
Of real Consciousness.
Understanding
Is real Consciousness.
Understanding
Is Consciousness itself,
Which Reality
Is your actual nature
Now, and now, and now.
Understanding
Is the unbroken act
Of Conscious Being.
It is simply
The unqualified state.
Understanding
Is at once
A state and an act.
It is effective
And always already free.
It is intensive
And also instant.
The Way
Is only radical understanding,
Which is free Consciousness.
Where there is understanding,
There is no turning,
And every action
Turns no way at all,
For there is only
Radical consciousness behind
it,
Turning no way,
Knowing only great bliss.
Understanding
Is the simplest activity.
Understanding
Is simple waking up.
Understanding
Is only knowledge
Of the exact nature
Of experience
In this instant.
Understanding
Is the direct awareness
Of life
Moment to moment.
Understanding
Is the ground
Of this moment,
This event.
Understanding
Is always instant.
It is realized in this moment,
And now in this moment,
And now in this moment.
It is initiated at the very
beginning.
It is not something towards
which
One’s spiritual life is
moving.
It is the foundation principle
Of one’s spiritual life.
And it is continually
reinitiated,
Reawakened.
Understanding
Is a simplicity
In Consciousness.
A presence you bring
To all things.
Understanding
Is simply
To be present,
Whatever arises.
It is not the ground
Of the abandonment
Of what arises,
But it is the ground
Of the creative use
Of what arises.
Understanding
Is simply to be
In relationship
To what arises.
It is to be
In relationship,
Actively,
Consciously,
Without implication.
Understanding
Is to live as the Heart
Or real action
In the midst of forms,
Directly, consciously,
In truth,
As enjoyment,
In the humor of Reality.
One who is thus present
Is the heart,
And (s)he knows it.
Understanding
Is the action of the present
Heart,
The living self,
Not any search for him.
It is not a pursuit of the
Heart,
But the very action of the
Heart.
It is the natural exercise
Of the heart itself,
Our real state.
It is the heart itself,
Simply present.
In the instant
Of radical understanding
There is only the intuitive
Bliss
Of the true self or Real-God,
Where before
There was the ego,
The separate self sense,
And the urgency of Narcissus.
When attention
Is drawn to understanding,
The whole movement of seeking
Comes to an end.
The man only understands
Where he would otherwise seek.
Understanding
Is entirely free
Of the consequences
Of every path.
Understanding
Is the path of Reality,
Prior to all the searches
For the Heart
That are the actions
Of the great traditions.
There is no need
For ascent or descent
In the name of Truth.
There is only present
understanding.
It is the mystery of joy
That confounds all seekers
And even the saints.
When you see that you are
Always seeking,
Understanding is emerging.
When you see the pattern of
Narcissus
As all your motives,
All your acts, all your
seeking,
Understanding is emerging.
When you see you are always
suffering,
Understanding is emerging.
When you see that every moment
Is a process in dilemma,
Understanding is emerging.
When you see that every moment is a
process
Of identification, differentiation and
desire,
Understanding is emerging.
When you see that every
moment,
When you are at your best
As well as when you are at your
worst,
You are only avoiding
relationship,
Then you understand.
When you see that which already
is,
Apart from the avoidance of
relationship,
Which already absorbs
consciousness
Prior to the whole dilemma,
Motivation and activity of
avoidance,
Then you have
Finally understood.
When you have understood,
When you have uncovered
The sham of your
reasonableness,
Then you stand already
Unreasonably happy.
Only when you lose the support
Of your reasonableness
Can you be really happy.
One who has understood
In this fundamental way
Is happy while alive.
Such is the power, the
consciousness,
The unreasonable happiness
That is enjoyed in the case
Of one who understands.
The power of the Divine
Intensifies that understanding
To the point of
Perfect dissolution in God.
And there is no
Sudden terrifying event.
It must take place
While alive.
The absolute, infinite
Unqualified Divine
Is the Consciousness
Of one who understands.
And he doesn’t have to die
In order to realize that.
All of these worlds,
All of these possible
Apparently limited dimensions
Are forms of enjoyment for
him,
In which the Divine
Is still the condition.
Those who know the Divine
In whatever world they appear
Are free,
And that world becomes Divine
Theatre for them.
They don’t always look to
go
To some other world.
They live in God
And play out the present
event.
Such is the habit of wise men.
Wise men are fools,
Useless people, madmen,
Because they don’t
Look for another place.
They can throw this one away.
And they are always
Throwing it away
By living it with humor,
The humor
Of the prior Divine Condition.
Understand,
And enquire of the instant
Of your being.
Simply understand
With intensity.
Devote yourself
To understanding
In the midst of
All experiences.
Make understanding
Your radical approach
To life.
One must be willing
To abandon everything
For understanding.
For one who has understood,
There is no drama.
Nothing is happening anymore.
He has become
An ordinary man.
Understanding
Is not a different
communication
Than the ordinary.
There is only the ordinary.
There is no special
And exclusive communication
That is truth.
There is no exclusive
State of truth.
But there is
The communication
Of the ordinary.
All I have asked
Is that you understand.
It is a simplicity,
Signaled in many ways.
Do not imagine
It is more or less
Than my plain word,
The time you heard me
And understood.
Heartless one, Narcissus,
Friend, loved one,
After all of this,
Why haven’t you understood?
The only thing
You have not done
Is understand.
You have seen everything,
But you do not understand.
Only those who understand
Experience the communication
Of Reality.
Those who understand
Are only present.
They will abide
Now, and now, and now.
Those who understand
Know only humor
In the form of life.
Those who understand
Are love.
The man who understands,
Who is already free,
Is never touched
By the divisions of the mind.
And he alone is standing
When all other beings and
things
Have gone to rise or fall.
Then a man
Finds only silence
In his inner forms,
But everywhere in all
The worlds
He sees the Heart
Stand out
Aloud and bright.
All of this is obvious
To one who understands.
There is only
Understanding.
Have I Said It?
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