A Study and Exercise On
The
Practice and Function
of
Real Intelligence
***
THE IN-DEPTH EXERCISE OF REALITY-INTELLIGENCE
Vol 2, Part Eight, p. 503
Beezone note:
This essay had its origin in a discussion Adi Da had with devotees on December 12, 1993. The discussion started with:
ADI DA SAMRAJ: You’re wandering in your minds. One minute you have one attitude, one presumption next minute, another one different days, different presumptions, different attitudes. You can be asked in one moment, is there, God? What is your presumption about this? But it can’t be taken seriously. In the next moment. You could have another opinion tomorrow or a different point of view, another attitude
DEVOTEE: Isn’t the moment of absolute clarity or certainty of that in any moment. Another way, if we’re talking of hearing or most fundamental self-understanding in any moment that
ADI DA SAMRAJ: It’s not necessary to refer to an advanced stage in the process to consider this matter. We were speaking on the phone number of you were there and how many. I didn’t speak very much. You were all saying this, that and the other thing, talking about the higher matters, so to speak. All kinds of great things about how I got here, what I’m about, the process of preceded it, what’s going to be in the future, the brightness, on and on. You were even suggesting that we should gather to consider those things and I told you I don’t want to gather with you to discuss subject matter.
I’m here to address you in present time, in your condition, your moment of practice. If your experience corresponds to that of the advanced stages or the ultimate stages of life in my company, you could ask real questions on that basis. Then we could discuss higher matters, but I’m here to address you all generally. You’re all beginners in this way from here to address you in your present state of development in this moment and answer your questions that come from that.
I told you that I’ve in many of these recent gatherings, tried to develop a consideration with you about the great matter of the Divine, God. I’ve asked you about your presumptions about God, your understanding of the Divine conclusions about this matter. You must remember, I’ve done this a number of times in these gatherings recently and it went nowhere. Nobody responded and generally didn’t respond. I characterized this intention on the phone with you all.
I said what I want to get at with you all, what I want to consider with you all is your conclusions about reality, your actual conclusions, your present time presumptions about reality because your conclusions about reality are operative in your life.
If your considered conclusion about reality is that there is the Divine, this will determine one way of life, one way of life. A God-ward way of life, a God-realizing way of life. If your conclusions about reality do not include the Divine, there’s nothing divine about it, no firm conviction About the reality of the Divine and the life that would lead you to then that itself is an operating presumption that governs another way of life.
When I’ve asked such questions recently, as I said, there wasn’t much response, but a few people would say something about their experience of Me, their experience in my company and so on as you just did, and it was mentioned on the phone as well this evening.
I point out that that doesn’t necessarily make any difference your experiences in my company, you see, because if it doesn’t lead you to the inclusion that there is the Divine such that your life is transformed by it governed differently, then your experience in my company will just be included in your other body of presumptions. You just described yourself as such.
In fact, you had experience in my company that convicted you of the reality of the Divine in some sitting with me and then you went back to your residence in the city and so on and began to doubt it again. So even though you have experiences in my company, it appears to be profound that feel to you to indicate the reality of the Divine, prove it and so on. If you do not come to that conclusion about it,
That it doesn’t operate as such, what’s operative in your life is your presumption about reality, your conclusions about reality. That’s what’s determining your life moment to moment. You’re always thinking, your mind wandering, having experiences and so on. You claim to be thinking, but if you are thinking really using the mind, then you would come to some intelligent conclusion about this matter. What you call thinking is just a rush of thoughts, a train of thoughts determined by subjective and objective changes or intrusions and so on. That’s not thinking, that’s mind forms, but thinking is an activity of intelligence. You see, intelligence exercised relative to everything arising subjectively, objectively altogether exercised relative to your experience and so on to the point of coming to conclusions about it.
***
THE ESSAY
1.
What is your conclusion about Reality, your actual present-time presumption about Reality? Do you presume Reality Is Divine—or not? This question is important, because your conclusion about Reality is operative in every dimension of your life.
IF YOU HAVE EXAMINED THE MATTER
If, on the one hand, you have examined the matter, and your “considered” conclusion about Reality is that Reality Is Divine, then that conclusion will determine one manner of living—a Divinely Reality-Realizing (or Real-God-Realizing) manner of living. If, on the other hand, your conclusion about Reality is that Reality is not Divine, or if you have concluded that there is nothing Divine about existence at all, or if you have no firm conviction about Reality As Divine and about the Divinely Reality-Realizing life—then that operating presumption dictates an entirely different manner of living.
IF YOU ARE MY DEVOTEE
If you are My devotee, you, presumably, feel that what you have “experienced” in My Company proves Reality to Be Divine. However, such “experience” makes a true and right (and Real) difference only if it leads your life to be transformed by that conclusion and (thereafter) governed rightly, and Transcendentally Spiritually, and in The Reality-Truth of “Perfect Knowledge”. Otherwise, any such “experience” is merely another presumption in your mind of mere presumptions. Although your “experience” in My Company may seem to be profound, may seem to indicate Reality to Be Divine—and even prove It—nevertheless, if you do not come to the firm conclusion that Reality Is Divine, then your casual “experiencing” and presuming does not operate in your life as proof.
YOU DO HAVE A CONCLUSION
What is operative in your life is your conclusion about Reality. That conclusion—whatever it is—is what is determining your life, moment to moment, and even now.
TO BE AWARE OF IT
To come to a firm and intelligent (and not merely intellectual) conclusion about Reality requires right use of the faculty of mind. Human beings characteristically allow the mind to wander con-stantly. What is typically called “thinking” is, in fact, simply a train of thoughts determined by “subjective” and “objective” changes or intrusions. Such so-called “thinking” is merely a succession of mind-forms—which cannot result in an intelligent conclusion about Reality.
RIGHT THINKING
Right thinking is an activity of intelligence, exercised relative to everything arising in your “experience”—“subjectively”, “objectively”, and altogether—to the point of coming to firm conclusions. If you are merely “experiencing” mind-forms that change from moment to moment and day to day, no real conclusion is registered—or, stated differently, only one conclusion is suggested: that you are bound to body, to mind-forms, and to perceptions of the physical “world”. Such is the inevitable tacit conclusion about Reality—if you are merely wandering in mind.
HEART-CONVERSION
In Truth, the firm conclusion that Reality Is Divine is the result of heart-conversion—not the result of an intellectual process. Nevertheless, if such conversion is to be effective in your life, the conclusion that Reality Is Divine must also be a firm conviction in your disposition altogether. To be governed by the presumption that Reality Is Divine means that one has come to the conclusion that conditionally manifested reality is arising in The Real Divine and is, therefore, to be surrendered in The Real Divine (or Reality Itself). On the basis of this conclusion, life is understood to be about Real-God-Realization—and not about conditions in and of themselves.
THE FORCE OF INTELLIGENCE
The force of intelligence is at the “root” of mere thinking, random thoughts, and mind-forms. If the mind is used with clarity—or, in other words, with deeply aware intelligence—then there is a conviction about Reality that intensely (and intensively) relates to mere mind-forms and constantly disciplines them.
ORDINARY INTELLIGENCE
The apparent (or daily-ordinary) egoic individual has no depth, no firmness, no stand, no conclusion, no Realization. The apparent (or daily-ordinary) egoic individual is a variable appearance—like a bush in the garden, changing with the seasons, a natural form going through changes. Thus, “you” are not always the intelligent “you”—but “you” take on many and always changing forms. You are variously different kinds of “you’s”, different forms of the “I”. Sometimes the “I” is intelligent and has a firm conclusion about Reality—that Reality Is Divine, and that life is for (or must be lived as) The Purpose of Real-God-Realization. Then there are other times when the “I” relinquishes the function of true discriminative intelligence, and, as a result, identifies with the wandering changes of the “lower” (or merely superficial) aspects of the personality—the physical (or gross vital) dimension, the dimension of gross natural energy (or the reactive and, otherwise, passive emotional dimension), and the lower psychic (or mental) dimension (which is a casual flow of changing mind-forms, depending on what is superficially going on “inside” and “outside”).1
Can that apparent one, who is identified with only the “lower” (or merely superficial) states of the body-mind-complex, rightly and truly function as My devotee? No. To be identified exclusively with the “lower” (or, altogether, merely superficial) states of the body-mind-complex is to be “Godless”—and, therefore, Guru-less. The “lower” (or merely superficial) body-mind-“self” cannot, in and of itself, rightly and truly function as My devotee. Only the deeply hearted being, the Reality-intelligent being, can rightly and truly function as My devotee. That (necessarily) discriminative Reality-intelligence is, potentially, often brought to the front through the many dimensions of your life in My Divine Avataric Company—but you must also intentionally exercise that Reality-intelligence in-depth, or else there will be much time and opportunity wasted in My Divine Avataric Company.
DISCRIMINATIVE INTELLIGENCE
The Only-By-Me Revealed and Given Reality-Way of Adidam (or Adidam Ruchiradam) can be rightly and truly practiced only if you exercise the depth-function of discriminative Reality-intelligence—the in-depth dimension of the (otherwise, daily-ordinary) person that examines all conditional arising, rightly and truly discriminatively understands it, comes to firm conclusions about it, and governs the life on that basis and in-depth. In that case, rather than being governed by the “lower” (or merely superficial) functional manifestation with which the “I” may otherwise tend to identify—and which manifestation is nothing but “point-of-view”-conditioning and suffering—you are governed by deeply responsive, heart-based Reality-intelligence.
SUPERFICIAL REALITY
The mechanisms of egoity tend to be used as means for divorcing the being from Reality-intelligence. In that case, you do not “experience” and “know” and come to a Divine-Reality-conclusion about conditional reality—and neither do you “experience” and “know” and come to a Divine-Reality-conclusion about Reality Itself. In that case, you merely wander in superficial reactions and casually arising forms of “point-of-view”-conditioning—in a “bland soup” of egoity, which you constantly seek (and fail) to maintain as a superficial sensory state of passive “self”-pleasure.
The “bland soup” of egoity is the state in which people tend to live—from moment to moment. That state is what human beings, in general, call “life”. That state is not Reality-intelligent. That state does not “know” conditional existence for What it Is. That state does not “Know” Reality Itself As Divine, and it does not turn to The Divine As Reality Itself.
THE SHOCK
The egoic “self” merely sits by the “pond”, in a constant state of oblivious ego-possession—as if it were a sensory immortal, living forever as a superficial current of bodily, emotional, and mental “self”-pleasure. As soon as either The Non-conditional Reality or the conditional reality intervenes, there is shock, and bewilderment, and not knowing what to do. Such is the superficial state in which people generally exist—and this is the state that must be transcended.
ONLY AT THE ROOT
However, the psycho-physically perpetuated ego-state can be transcended only if the habit of dramatizing (or habitually enacting) egoity is broken—and at the “root” of what is required to break the habit of egoity is the in-depth exercise of Reality-intelligence. By means of the in-depth exercise of Reality-intelligence, one becomes Divinely Reality-oriented in disposition, in action, and, altogether, in-depth (or profoundly). By exercising the in-depth capability of Reality-intelligence, one does come to a firm conclusion about Reality—a conclusion that accepts the nature of conditional reality, but a conclusion that also accepts and embraces Reality As Divine, and The Divine As The Intrinsically egoless, Perfectly Indivisible, Perfectly Acausal, and Self-Evidently Divine Self-Nature, Self-Condition, and Self-State That Is Reality Itself.
2.
THE PRESUMPTION
The in-depth exercise of heart-based Reality-intelligence is what authenticates Real Transcendental Spiritual life. As long as you are still identifying with the “lower” (or merely superficial) states of the body-mind-“self”, you are bereft of the in-depth center, or heart-based Reality-intelligence. In that case, you are nothing but the daily-ordinary “self”-contracted “self”-identity—presuming to be the body and reactive emotions and random thoughts, with your attention wandering and your breath out of balance.
THE PRACTICE – EXERCISE
If you are My devotee, the fundamental (and, necessarily, moment to moment) practice I have Given you is to turn body, emotion, mind (or attention), and breath (or natural life-energy) to Me—and to constantly do this from a “root” (or in-depth) disposition of devotional recognition-response to Me. Such is the “radical” (or always “at-the root”, or in-depth) practice of devotion to Me.
How can you truly devotionally (and rightly whole bodily) turn to Me if you are not exercising heart-based Reality-intelligence in-depth? It is heart-based Reality-intelligence in-depth that must govern the fundamental practice of The Reality-Way of Adidam. Heart-based Reality-intelligence in-depth must constantly bring the “lower” (or merely superficial) states of the faculties of the body-mind-“self” under control, directing all the faculties into deep devotional Communion with Me.
If you do not exercise heart-based Reality-intelligence in-depth, you cannot practice right and true whole bodily devotional turning to Me—and, therefore, all your apparent devotional turning to Me will be a merely superficial (and fruitless) gesture of the “lower”, or daily-ordinary, functions and states of body, emotion, mind, and breath.
MISSING THE MARK
If you attempt to turn to Me superficially, with only the “lower” (or depthless) condition of the functional faculties, you will inevitably wander in your attention, always remaining (as you already were) in an ego-possessed state.
If your conclusion about Reality is that existence amounts to nothing beyond unillumined separateness, if you remain unaware of The Always Prior Unity of existence, unaware of (and, therefore, not surrendered to) The Intrinsically egoless, Perfectly Indivisible, Perfectly Acausal, and Self-Evidently Divine Self-Nature, Self-Condition, and Self-State of all conditional appearances, then you are not rightly and truly engaging the “radical” (or always “at-the-root”, or in-depth) practice of whole bodily devotional turning to Me.
BEING AWARE BUT NOT EXERCISING
Human beings are, in general, unaware of the total structure of the body-mind-complex, in its various parts. Therefore, human beings typically exercise only the more superficial characteristics and states of the faculties (or functional aspects) of the body-mind-complex—while the underlying depth of the functional faculties of the body-mind-complex remains essentially dormant. Thus, the depth-dimension of the functional faculties tends not to be animated. In that case, one may be passively aware of the feeling-depth of the functional faculties, but one does not exercise the functional faculties from or at that depth.
BEING GOVERNED BY DARKNESS
In this “late-time” (or “dark” epoch), human beings generally presume that it is not only sufficient but even necessary to identify with the “lower” (or merely superficial) states of the functional faculties—merely gross physical awareness, generalized gross natural energy in the body, the casually reactive wanderings of emotion, the chaos of habitual mind-forms, and the insipid daily-ordinary movements of desire and breath. Thus, the social ego “consults” the “lower” (or merely superficial) faculties moment to moment—always “self”-identifying with the “lower” (or merely superficial) states of the functional faculties, and being governed by all of that. In that case, the “conclusion about Reality” is based on passive egoic “self”-identification with the “lower” (or merely superficial) states and life-destiny of the daily-ordinary faculties.
RECOGNISE YOUR FEAR
I Call My every devotee to notice that he or she is chronically allowing the faculties of the body-mind-“self” to be superficial and passive. Occasionally, there may be the in-depth devotional response, even prior to the mechanisms of body and mind. Occasionally, the body-mind-“self” may consent to be deeply intelligent for a moment—and, thus, to profoundly observe, examine, and weigh things against one another, in order to measure their relative significance. Apart from such moments—which, in the daily-ordinary ego-life, are relatively rare—the ego-bound individual, characteristically, only exercises the superficial and grosser states of the functional faculties, and always in a merely automatic (or mechanical) manner.
CONDITIONAL IN-DEPTH INTELLIGENCE
I Call My every devotee to intentionally and constantly and always devotionally exercise the “root”-depth of the psycho-physical faculties, such that the “root”-depth responsibly governs the body-mind-“self” in the manner of constant right life. If you do not exercise the “root”-depth of the functional faculties of the whole body, and if you do not responsibly stand as that “root”-depth itself (in right-life relation to the whole body, and to all of conditionally manifested reality), then you merely and passively identify with (and, inevitably, suffer) the chaos of the “lower” (or merely superficial) body-mind-complex. Therefore, I Call My every devotee to be in-depth intelligent in the observation of conditional existence—and to be in-depth intelligent in devotional response to Me and to My Word of Instruction.
You are functionally present here as the psycho-physical structure of being, the central position of which is awareness, and the most peripheral position of which is the body.
IF YOU ARE NOT AWARE
If you are not truly and consistently established in the understanding that you are here as awareness, and, on that basis, function as the true feeling-depth of Reality-intelligence, you are merely egoically “self”-identified with the flesh body—and its casual flow of superficial emotions, energies, and thoughts.
The body-mind-complex goes through all kinds of superficial changes—and, inevitably (and even at any moment), it dies.
In and of itself, the body-mind-“self” is an unsatisfactory condition, and a constant source of suffering.
Therefore, you become a seeker.
Without exercising the functional faculties in-depth, and always standing in and As The “Perfect Knowledge” of their Reality-Source, you constantly want and seek for the always-suffered superficial “I” to feel better.
No matter what happens to the body-mind-“self” while you live, you are always merely aware.
THERE IS ONLY AWARENESS
The awareness itself never changes.
Even while you are aware of changes, the awareness itself never changes.
There are not different kinds of awareness—different colors of it or different shapes of it.
Awareness is, simply and only, awareness itself.
What awareness itself Is must Be Self-Realized—but the fact of it, and The Reality-Nature of it, is constant and Self-Evident.
No matter what happens in the body-mind-complex, awareness is merely and simply aware of the process of the body-mind-complex—and awareness itself is never affected by change.
Awareness itself does not go through changes.
Awareness merely and simply observes changes.
Awareness itself Is The In-Depth Mere Witness.
If you are not Reality-intelligent in the moments of change, then, every time there is a change, you identify with the change.
“I am that change, then,” you think and say.
When the body is suffering, you think and say, “I am suffering.”
When reactive emotion arises, you think and say, “I am angry, I am sorrowful, I am afraid.”
That which—in and As Reality Itself—never changes is, in its superficial daily-ordinary state, constantly presuming itself to be changed, and to be a change.
In this moment, it is painful—in the next moment, it feels good.
The daily-ordinary ego-mind is constantly “self”-identifying pure awareness (or The In-Depth Mere Witness) with the changes that are peripheral to it.
AWARENESS DOES NOT CHANGE
If you inspect awareness itself, if you enter into it most profoundly, you will clearly see that awareness itself does not change, but it Is (simply and only) The In-Depth Mere Witness of changes.
Until awareness Self-Abides As The Mere Witness, even in the context of apparent changes, it presumes itself to be the changes themselves.
All of the arising of conditionally apparent “experience” is nothing but an apparent modification of The Intrinsic Self-Radiance of Consciousness Itself—The In-Depth Mere Witness of all-and-All.
The In-Depth Mere Witness—or The egoless Indivisible Self-State of The Intrinsic Conscious Light of Reality Itself—Is What must Be “Perfectly Known”, or Perfectly Self-Realized, even to The Most Perfect Degree of Divinely Self-Outshining all-and-All.
Before Such Perfect Realization, the “experiential” context of apparent non-Realization must be always and constantly transcended right now, in the every present situation.
Reality-intelligent awareness is the moment to moment responsibility for transcending moment to moment change.
MOMENT TO MOMENT RESPONSIBILITY
If you do not want to suffer, you must stop doing suffering.
Do not merely egoically “self”-identify with the flow of suffering.
Do not casually “go with the flow”—and then expect some “magical” help to get you out of your “self”-made ego-destiny.
Your suffering is always something you are doing.
Yes, there are mere “world”-conditions and natural conditions that are limited, changing, and passing—but your egoic “self”-identification with all of that is what you identify as your suffering.
Always do otherwise than what merely seems.
THE EXERCISE, PRACTICE, AND FUNCTION
Always function in-depth, from the heart, Reality-intelligently.
Always practice whole bodily in-depth (and never superficial) devotional turning to Me.
In right and true in-depth (or “radical”, or always “at-the-root”) devotional turning to Me, your own action that is your suffering, and your egoic “self”-identification with what is passing, is Always Priorly transcended.
“Radical” devotion to Me is Reality-intelligent devotional “self”-surrender to Me, in-depth devotional Communion with Me, devotional turning of the functional faculties—at and from their “root”-depth—to Me As I Am.
You can (intrinsically and always) be deeply Reality-intelligently aware of whatever is arising in any moment.
You can (intrinsically and always) practice whole bodily devotional turning to Me—in-depth.
Intrinsically Reality-intelligent awareness itself is always already entirely and deeply free to do this.
There is never any impediment to the free in-depth exercise of Reality-intelligence.
There is never any intrinsic impediment to free in-depth (or Perfectly Prior) access to Reality Itself.
This essay was taken from a dialogue Adi Da had with devotees in December 1993. You can listen to the ‘raw material’ of this essay here:
An Excercise of Learning
***
THE IN-DEPTH EXERCISE OF REALITY-INTELLIGENCE
Vol 2, Part Eight, p. 503