Can The Guru Awaken Individuals?

On
reading the above excerpts from The
Aletheon and
The
Way That I Teach is seems
like the answer is yes, but the full question of whether or
not a Guru can enlighten individuals/devotees is more
complicated and subtle than it appears. The question can be
answered in both the affirmative and the negative. But in
both cases the subtle aspects of the question still
remain.

It is said in the traditions that a
Guru or Teacher is necessary because “Enlightenment is
virtually impossible without the guidance and Grace of a
God-Realized Teacher”.¹
It s also said, “that which is to be Realized is in the
Divine Self Position. And It is to be Realized not by
appealing to something outside yourself”.²

The answers then can fit both common
types of misunderstandings. One group of people will say
‘yes’ and then follow any teacher or guru in a child like
manner.

The other more independent type of
individual will say ‘no’ and try to enlighten themselves, or
better yet, claim they are already enlightened!

Can we address this question without
the traps of childish beliefs or adolescent arrogance? Is
there a mature approach that is not compromised by
self-emptying nor self-assertion?

I think the best answer to this
question comes from Adi Da himself:

“The genius of the Guru makes no difference
whatsoever”

“The fundamental life of understanding does not begin
until there is insight from the point of view of the
fundamental activity and proposition of your life, which has
you seeking always, but never fundamentally being
transformed, because that sensation, that quality, is the
principle of your seeking. No magic from without works that
transformation. The Guru serves that transformation, but if
you don’t become intelligent in Satsang, the genius of the
Guru makes no difference whatsoever. Understanding must take
place in your case. No shaktis, no philosophy, no marvelous
influence is greater than that, nothing transcends that. All
those experiences and occupations are just consolations,
distractions from falling in upon that fundamental
activity….Perhaps consoled, occupied, distracted, but
basically unhappy.”

Ramana Maharshi

A disciple and devotee of the Great
20th Century Indian Sage, Ramana Maharshi, Sidney Cohen
asked this question to his Guru. He asked, “can the Guru
make his disciples realize the Self”, Sri Ramana answers it
in this way:

“…the Guru does not bring about
Self-realization, but simply removes the obstacles to it.
The Self is always realized. So long as you seek
Self-realization the Guru is necessary. Guru is the Self.
Take the Guru to be the real Self and yourself the
individual. The disappearance of this sense of duality is
removal of ignorance. So long as duality persists in you the
Guru is necessary. Because you identify yourself with the
body (and mind), you imagine the Guru to be the body. You
are not the body, nor is the Guru. You are the Self and so
is he. Th(is) knowledge is gained by what you call
Self-realization”.

In his comments on this Cohen says,
“Bhagavan does not recognize the possibility of transmitting
a power to a person to make him realize the Self. In fact no
such power is at all necessary. What is necessary for the
cognition of the Real is not an addition but a subtraction –
the removal of the sense of duality with covers the One
consciousness.”

It is clear that the Guru can awaken
an individual who puts his or her attention on the Guru. Is
this then a permanent change? is the devotee now awakened?
Of course the answer is NO, the devotee is not awakened,
permanently. As Cohen says, “All that the Guru can do is to
help (the disciple) correct (his) false identification (with
mind, body and self).”

Destiny –
Karma

The Guru activates and initiates the
student/individual/devotee. The Guru can’t ‘remove’ karma’s
of lifetimes. The
Guru can not permanently change the destiny of the
individual, and magically
change ones life into a divinely enlightened condition.

Devotee: You said
that the karmas of those who have been with You before, who
had been with Vivekananda, were more purified than the
karmas of other people. You have also said that people who
are around You in this Lifetime are purified of their
karmas.

Adi Da: Purified of
some, yes.

Devotee: If Your
devotees are born after this Lifetime, would their karmas be
more purified in their next lifetime as well?

Devotee: Not
necessarily. It depends on the individual, on what kind of
practice you do in My Company. If you do real practice, at
least to some significant degree, well, then, yes, there is
some diminution of karmic energies.

In an early talk⁴
Adi Da (then Bubba Free John) says:

“If your approach to me is
wonderful and full of love and sacrifice, as it should be,
then all the karma that must be seen, that must become your
responsibility, can be shown to you easily. I am willing to
it to be shown to you in a dream or in just a brief moment,
some little circumstance that come and goes. I am perfectly
willing for you to understand that dimension that you must
understand in yourself on just such an occasion. I am
willing for these karmas to pass in easy ways, in dreams and
simple circumstances. But if you approach is not whole, not
direct, not one of service, consciously lived all the time,
to the degree that you do not live such sadhana in my
Company, you must suffer your karmas as they stand. They
will still be awakened in you by the force of this Company
that you keep with me, but they will be awakened in gross
ways, as they tend to appear outwardly in your life,
outwardly in the waking state. Then the process has to be
very dramatic and heavy.”⁴

Also see
at the bottom
of this page
a story of how Realizers (Gurus) do ‘release’ or absorb
karmas.

In
a little phamplet put out by Kanya Samatva Suprithi called
“Your Suffering Is Your Own Activity”, Kanya Samatva
describes her one aspect of the process of understanding and
resource to the Divine One, in the form of Adi Da
Samraj:

“In this moment I heard the
Teaching for the first time. I understood the difference
between one who really practices the Way of the Heart and
one who entertains the concepts and ideas of Spiritual
practice. I also saw that the only real alternative to my
suffering stood before me – in the Form of Sri Da Kalki. In
the Way of the Heart, I only had to turn to Him and call
upon His Grace, apply His Teaching, and relinquish my
self-made efforts.”

Here we have a testimony to the
‘process’ of Spiritual Awakening in the context of the Guru
and Disciple relationship. This process is a progressive
one, over time (could be years or lifetimes) but still a
process.

Kanya Samatva Suprithi goes on to
describe the second aspect of this process, which is Grace,
or Divine Help. This Divine Help is necessary since
“Understanding” or True Understanding can not occur on our
own ‘creature power’. Divine Help is absolutely
necessary.

Chogyam Trungpa – The Role of a
Teacher

“In the Vajrayana, it is absolutely
necessary to have a teacher and to trust in the teacher. The
teacher or vajra master is the only embodiment of the
transmission of energy”.

In the Collected Works of Chogyam
Trungpa, Vol 4 (Shambhala Press 2004) is the first of three
volumes that presents Tantric Buddhism, a subject Trungpa
was reluctant to talk about in his early teaching years. He
was reluctant because of the immaturity and materially based
mind of the young American mind set.

In Buddhism the role of the Guru is
paramount, absolutely essential for one on the path of the
Buddha. In fact the Guru is the principle by which the
tradition is kept alive, the lineage. Without the Guru there
is no living tradition.

In the beginning stages the Guru is
not called a Guru but a Spiritual Friend. Someone who works
with the student in a manner of ‘meeting of minds’. He
describes it as the mind of the teacher expanded to include
the mind of the student and vise-versa. And as the student
advances the role and function of the Guru become more and
more important in the development of the student and here is
where the Spiritual Friend becomes Vajra Master.

“…. the vajra master is a human
being, someone who has a karmic debt to pay as a result of
the intensity of his compassion. The dharma cannot be
transmitted from the sun or the moon or the stars. The
dharma can only be transmitted properly from human to human.
So there is a need for a (Guru) vajra master who has
tremendous power – power over us, power over the cosmos, and
power over himself – and who has been warned that if he
misdirects his energy he will be cut down and reduced into a
little piece of charcoal (burned up).

It is extremely important to have
a living vajra master, someone who personally experiences
our pain and our pleasure. We have to have a sense of fear
and respect that we are connecting and communicating
directly with tantra”.

Practice

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche:
“(Without a teacher or a practice)…without having some
sense of understanding the meaning of practice, there is no
real communication that takes place in your understanding of
buddhadharma. And it is equally important to have a great
deal of devotion to your teacher, who actually embodies the
symbolism or the concept of practice at the same time.
Through practice, the guru has already achieved a higher
degree of enlightenment. Moreover, the guru is the only
person who can actually push you and who could become a
heavy-handed friend, who can actually make you, sit a lot
and go beyond your slothfulness and laziness.

If you want to boycott and all
kinds of things like that, only the guru can push you to
make you sit a lot and practice a lot. A cosmic guru might
send theoretical blessings and encouragement’s through your
particular antenna, and tell you all kinds of stories and
messages; but, according to the practicing lineage, such
things are regarded as very fishy.

We can always reinterpret our own
interpretations. To begin with, our own interpretation
received from the antenna is not so substantial, but on top
of that we can actually reinterpret it according to our
liking. So it is necessary to have an earthly person, born
and raised on this planet earth to begin with, who regards
himself or herself as a human being who we like to share,
the love and hate sweet and sour, hot and cold whatever you
have of this particular world.

This person can communicate to
you man to man, so to speak, and as a mirror reflection in
some sense. He also provides some sense of real, genuine
communication, independent of politicking or overindulging
in charitable kindness, and free from obsession with
masochistic trips – somebody who is somewhat sensible and
reasonable, but at same time unyielding, who we “wise” in
the traditional sense; somebody who cannot be persuaded by
your side of your trip, and somebody who can actually be
clear about whole thing; somebody who buys your story with a
pinch of salt; but at the same time is kind and friendly to
a certain extent. Such a person is the teacher, who then
teaches you practice a lot, sit a lot.”
The
Message of the Practice Lineage – Chogyam Trungpa
Rinpoche

Function of the Spiritual
Master

In The
Whole Body of Enlightenment,
Adi Da (Da Free John) writes “The human Spiritual Master is
an agent to the advantage of those in like form”. If a
disciple enters into the company (not just the physical
presence, but the spiritual presence of the Spiritual
Master), then the ‘literal physics’ of ones existence begins
to change.

Here is the key to understanding
this complicated and paradoxical question. We begin to see
and hear, that this is not a ‘one time’, ‘do it and get it
over with deal’. It is a process that has transformative
powers far beyond any possible logical or scientific
explanation, yet absolutely true.

This fundamental understanding must
ultimately rest in Ignorance. Because the summation of our
existence is Mystery, absolute, unqualified confrontation
with what we cannot know. Any movement to ‘know’ is a
contraction of mind on feeling, a feeling of fear and the
action of ‘grasping’. Enlightenment is, in the end, an
private and isolated matter.

“He makes no assumptions on a
lower level. So when he enters into relationship with you,
(the) perfection tends also to be generated in your case,
because his assumption of your true nature manifests as
power to transform.”

“One who lives as the function of
Guru transcends, reduces, transforms, assumes, consumes and
otherwise masters the various karmas or states, subtle and
gross, of his disciples in his own body. And that
“body” is the whole mechanism or range of functions, usually
called “bodies” in the esoteric literature. Wherever a form
arises in or as the disciple, it is communicated and
transformed in or as the Guru in the corresponding and
appropriate function. Therefore, the relationship between
Guru and disciple is the spiritual
process”.

“The Divine is just as fitted to
this world as the human Guru….Present and functional. The
Guru is a bit of business, a movement, serviceable. He can’t
be denied. He presses the Divine Siddhi in upon the world.
The Divine itself from the point of view of humanity is
relatively passive, except thru agency, in the case of the
human Guru. He is just like another guy except he has been
wiped out …he’s not some great human being….He pressed
himself upon the world, upon individuals…He upsets people,
not on purpose but because is is ‘exposing’ the game of
Narcissus. He is Light. He/She is light water falling in,
falling down upon this human drama called
life.”

It is only by ‘hearing’, ‘seeing’
and practicing can the Spiritual Master be of help (enter
into the sphere of his transmission) to the devotee. Only by
continuing to practice that the transmission can be
effective. Only by submission to the process can the
Spiritual Master be of True Help to the devotee.

“You don’t need a Spiritual
Master beyond a certain point. If you only want to read
books or aquire a philosophy. But to practice and enter into
a spiritual practice there is no other source of help. In
the case of rare individuals that Living Agency may be
brought concretely, but not through the apparent agency of
another human being. But such individuals are rare, but they
still enter into the sphere of Help. The Help is simply
given outside the agency of a grossly manifest human being.
it may be given through the help of a deceased Adept, or
some disincarnate source or it may be given directly from
the Eternal Source Itself. But these cases are very
rare.”⁵

The point is the ego or self
contraction cannot by its own efforts release itself from
its own bond.

So the answer the the question is,
Yes, No and Yes and No!

Yes
“My
Blessing Is The Giving Of Hridaya-Shakti, The Inherent
“Brightness” Of The Heart Itself. And those who Truly and
Fully Receive My Blessing Are Thereby Directly Awakened To
Stable Identification With The Native Witness-Position Of
Consciousness and To The Inherently Perfect Practice Of The
Way Of The Heart”.
Chapter
12 – The Dawn Horse Testament

Shakti
“Power of
Grace that enables his Realization to be of use to
devotees.”

No
“It is not possible for
Me (or for anyone at all) to actively—by the
application of any conditional means at
all—“cause” people to Realize The Truth of
Reality Itself.”
Perfect
Dis-Illusionment – The Aletheon – Part Eight

“I can give people energy and
insight into their struggle, but the struggle is theirs. It
has never been given to me to replace anyone’s
responsibility for that struggle”
Vision
Mound Magazine,
1980

“I am not trying
to communicate to you….should just tie yourself to me or
put some stickum on my big toe and hang on while I go to the
Ultimate Domain, dragging you behind me! I do not
communicate to you any sense that the Great Reality is in
any way separate from you at this present moment. I call you
to a consideration wherein you may Realize God in this
moment, and on that basis I voluntarily make myself
available to you.”
The
Dreaded Gom Boo

“The Divine
Reality, or God, is not ultimately the Savior of our lives.
The Divine is That to which our lives must be a sacrifice.
Indeed, it is the intuition of the Divine that permits us to
live as a sacrifice rather than a Narcissistic, reactive,
and self-possessed struggle for ultimate survival.

The Truth is not
that we survive forever as we now are or conceive ourselves
to be. Nor is God, or the Divine Reality, the Instrument of
such permanent survival, immortality, or salvation. We are
necessarily changing and mortal in our present structural
form. But we tend to react to this sense of our destiny by
seeking to protect, glorify, permanently fulfill, and
immortalize ourselves as we are. The discovery of the Divine
through true hearing, intuition, self-observation,
functionally appropriate discipline, and responsible higher
growth permits us to be at peace with the mortal or finite
destiny of our present independent form and circumstance. We
become capable of self-release or sacrifice in the case of
the Intuition of the Real.”

Vol 1. No.
10 – Vision Mound Magazine – The Creative Function of
Life-Frustration in the Process of Self-Sacrifice

Yes
and No

“The Inner Guru, which is the
very Heart and the Form of Reality, Amrita Nadi, is the same
as the human Guru. The human Guru is that alive and
functioning relative to you. That’s why the life of sadhana
relative to the Siddha Guru is the highest form of spiritual
activity, because all of the virtues of the Truth are
already present. They are already present in the activity
that is understanding because it is the understanding of the
heart, and of real consciousness, but they are also present
in the condition of sadhana itself, in the condition of
Satsang, in the very condition with which you begin your
sadhana, you exist in relationship to this fullness in the
Form of the Guru. So the perfect devotee of the Guru
experiences the perfect communication of the quality of the
Guru.”

The
Life of Understanding – Week
9

More:

‘However, in their turning to Me,
My devotees are not merely turning to an “object”, or to an
“objective other”. Rather, My devotees’ turning to Me is the
means whereby the contents of the reflected (or “knowing”)
“self” are forgotten. In that turning to Me, there is the
intrinsic entering into My “Bright” Divine Self-Condition
– and that entering into My Condition is
profoundly Established by My Transcendental Spiritual
Self-Transmission of My “Bright” Divine
State.”

Aletheon
– P. 705 – THE INTRINSIC SELF-EXERCISE OF PERFECT KNOWLEDGE

“The
Realization of The Truth of Reality Itself cannot be
“caused”—but “It” can (and, indeed,
must) Be Given.“

Perfect
Dis-Illusionment – The Aletheon – Part Eight

“The Guru assumes
responsibilities and initiates changes only to the degree
that the individual assumes a responsible relationship to
him in that play. Then it is a transforming, liberating
process. But independent of that process, it is not
liberating, in such a case, it ultimately leads to more and
more levels of irresponsibility …”
Nov 2, 1975 (unpublished) Shifting

“It is necessary
for the individual who enters into such Communion to
understand how that great relationship works. As the
individual develops this practice in my Company and contacts
me through all of the opportunities of this Satsang, the
contents of this Narcissistic ego or karmic personality come
into consciousness. As these contents arise, the individual
is to practice the exercises of conductivity and the
Conscious Process in daily life and meditation. That is done
in direct Communion with the Divine Power, transmitted in
and through and as the Adept. As these contents arise in the
moment of this Company, they are purified. They are brought
up by that Influence, they are lifted off, they are changed,
either instantly, or through a process of trial. They are
reduced, broken up, absorbed, or in one or another way
eliminated by the Work of the Adept. This is literally so;
it is not merely figuratively so.”
The
Conscious Process

“As you develop your practice in
My Company and contact Me …your karmic personality, come
into awareness…as these contents arise, practice the
exercises of “conductivity” and the “conscious process” in
daily life and meditation, but always in direct Communion
with the Divine Power and Being Transmitted in and through
and As Me, your True Heart-Master. As these contents arise
in My Company, they are purified by My Spiritual
Heart-Transmission. They are stimulated by My Transmission
and they are lifted off, or changed either instantly, or
through a process of trial or a sequence of changes. The
contents of the ego, or the body-mind, or self-contraction,
are reduced, broken up, and in one or another way eliminated
by My Divine Work. This is literally, and not merely
figuratively, so. When I spend time with you, or sit with
you to Grant you My Darshan, I Magnify My Spiritual
Heart-Transmission to you, and It Combines with the various
contents of your conditional being. My Transmission is
Self-Radiant Energy and Self-Existing Consciousness. In
Satsang with Me, this is what you confront in your life and
meditation. This is the character of My Divine Siddhi. And
It spontaneously Works to stimulate the contents of your
conditional self, in life, in meditation, and in moments of
repose. That Siddhi also breaks them up and eliminates them
in a process that is not possible by any other means.
Ultimately these contents are eliminated by My Transmission
Work, and they are returned to the Primal Energy Condition,
or the Ultimate Condition of Divine Being.”
Incarnation
of Love – Chapter 12

“The only-by-Me Revealed and
Given Reality-Way of Adidam Is the seventh stage Way-from
the beginning-but you are not, at the beginning, able to
practice in the context of the seventh stage of life.
However, you can engage a preliminary mode of practice that
leads most directly to the “Perfect Practice”, if you
rightly and consistently exercise the preliminary form of
“Perfect Knowledge” Listening-practice from the time of your
formal sacramental Initiation into that
practice.”

Aletheon
– THE INTRINSIC SELF-EXERCISE OF PERFECT KNOWLEDGE

1. Enlightenment and the Transformation of
Man. Selections from talks and essays on the spiritual
process and God Realization. Editors notes p.
152.

2. Adi Da Samraj, The
Parental Deity and the One to be Realized, Feb 7, 1983

3. Sidney Cohen’s
book, Reflections on Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi (1959,
p.96)

4. The Dawn Horse (Vol
1 Number 2, Dec 1975), entitled “Lay
It At My Feet”

5. What Is the
Conscious Process, Da Free John, unpublished talk, Oct 28,
1982.

top of
page

also
see:

The
Conscious Process is the Epitome of This
Way – Adi Da –
1982

More:

“Any one and every one who doubts
and quibbles about the necessity of a true Adept-Guru is,
simply, not yet ready, willing, and able to enter the
esoteric Ordeal of the advanced and the ultimate stages of
life. And no mere verbal argument is sufficient to convince
such doubters of the necessity of a true Adept-Guru.” –
The
Great Esoteric Tradition of Devotion to the
Adept-Realizer

“The process of Satsang is the
original form of the Guru-Disciple relationship. As the
intuitive stages develop in meditation Satsang becomes
unnecessary. The Understanding which is then activated and
alive as the Heart becomes the principle of Satsang. The
religious and social order of the Guru and Disciple change
form an intimate bodily association to a spiritual one. The
association with the Guru or Man of Understanding is
transcendentally available to all. He is the Real. He is
already with them.”
adapted and edited
from unpublished notes 1971 – Adi Da Samraj (Franklin Jones)

When I make the way of the heart
clear, my listening devotees begin to understand. When they
hear me, they truly understand themselves. Therefore, the
inclination toward egoic “self-possession” becomes weak in
my hearing devotees, and they, by self-transcendence, grow
to feel me at the heart and to acknowledge me from the
heart. Then I become as if transparent to them, and they
begin to see the divine person in and as my company. In that
seeing, they are moved beyond themselves, distracted by a
“bright” heart-vision. In their forms, mankind turns about
and begins to submit to me as the inherent condition or
transcendental, and inherently spiritual, and necessarily
divine self of all. And their submission calls upon the
infinite eternal resource of who I am. In my openly ecstatic
and happy response to these, my seeing devotees, the power
and work and domain of who I am comes to meet them, and
their realization of my agency becomes full. In this manner,
I demonstrate to all my listening devotees, and to all my
hearing devotees, and to all my seeing devotees that I am
the heart, who is the way, the root, the doer, the source,
the truth, and the self-domain of the process of spiritual,
transcendental, and divine awakening.
Adi
Da Samraj – Chapter 2 – The Dawn Horse
Testament

Anyone who comes
into contact with the Adept will in one way or another or to
one degree or another experience an awakening. Of course,
they may defend themselves against it. They may have it
momentarily and then contract from it, but that awakening is
the significance of the true Adept. The function of the
Adept is not to call people back to Realize God but to grant
people the Realization of God instantly. Having established
you in such Realization, the Adept calls you to practice the
Way of that Realization, the Way of constantly abiding in
that Realization. Such abiding requires the discipline of
self-transcending submission to Divine
Communion.
What
I Look For

In the popular
egalitarian “culture” of the first three stages of life, the
Guru and the developmental culture of the Spiritual Way are
taboo, because every individual limited by the motives of
the first three stages of life is at war with personal
vulnerability and need. However, the real Spiritual process
does not even begin until the egoic point of view of the
first three stages of life is understood and the
ego-surrendering and ego-transcending Motive of the fourth
stage of life begins to move and change the
body-mind.

Spiritually
Realized Adepts are the principal Sources, Resources, and
Means of the esoteric
Way

QUESTION: Is Self-Realization
possible without the help of a Guru?

ANSWER: He alone can realize the
Self without a Guru’s help in whose mind queries like, “Who
am I?, What is the world?, Where was I before, and where
shall I go? and Where is Peace?” arise from his very birth
and the thought of the futility and transitoriness of the
world clearly manifests and awakens keen dispassion and
leads him to self-enquiry. Such men are very rare.
The Life and
Teaching of Sri Brahmajna Ma – see
Laughing Man Magazine Article

The first obstacle, and the
primary obstacle, to spiritual life is the relationship to
the Guru. It is also the fundamental condition, content and
source of spiritual or real life………spiritual life is a
relationship, a living demand. It creates an obstacle from
the very beginning. And that obstacle provokes the crisis
and fundamental sacrifice that real life requires.
Method
of The Siddhas – Chapter
8

“I cannot replace
your responsibilities, and neither can you replace My Work.
You think I am here to handle your responsibilities and that
you are here to do My Work!”
Religious
Realism

“The devotee is constantly given
the intuition of the Absolute. But because he, or she,
adheres to the ego and to apparent divisions of the
body-being, he/she does not recognize fully the significance
of his intuition of God. It is too ordinary an experience.
He may feel a little relieved, a little blissful, but still
he is unable to be completely given over to the translating
Force of the revelation of the Spiritual Master. Therefore,
his practice is a matter of growth in the Divine Company of
the Spiritual Master. The initiation into Communion with God
is given constantly, but it is not fully realized by the
devotee. He is initiated piece by piece.”
THE
WAY THAT I TEACH –
Talks on the Intuition of Eternal Life – Chapter 14 – The
Secret: of Divine Translation

“ultimately the character of my
work with people is such that these contents are eliminated.
They are absorbed, broken up, eliminated, returned to the
primary energy condition, and to the Ultimate Condition of
Transcendental Being. And so the spiritual life of devotees
in this Way is of this kind. It is lived out in this
Company, in the context of this Siddhi, and in this
relationship. It is necessary for devotees to hear, to
understand, to practice the disciplines of conductivity and
the conscious process. That is their part of this play. And
my part is to be present with them, to magnify this
influence in their company. And that influence inevitably
does the work as I’ve described it.”

The guru assumes
your enlightenment. He doesn’t mechanically enlighten you,
Or give you something to do to enlighten yourself. He
absorbs you.
Have
I Said It?

“In the case of
rare individuals …Agency may be given outside the agency
of a grossly manifested human being, but such individuals
are rare.”
The
Conscious Process – The Epitome of This
Way

DEVOTEE: Does proximity to you,
closeness to your body, have any relation to the intensity
or the effects of Satsang?

FRANKLIN: What is your
experience?

DEVOTEE: It doesn’t seem to have
that much to do with the body. It seems more to be how much
I am in felt contact with you and how open I am to
you.

FRANKLIN: It all depends on the
quality of your relationship. Everything is its medium,
because everything is it. The body seems to be a very potent
source for some, whereas for others the process seems to
take place mainly or only in very subtle ways. Neither one
is superior to the other. A person must discover the quality
of Satsang for himself.

The
Method of the Siddhas,
CHAPTER 10, The Path of the Great Form

The following is from a devotee
which gives an example of the principle of how attention and
the ‘release of karma works’ in the company of a
Realizer.

I had never had a Spiritual
experience in my life, never seen anything except the
ordinary material reality. But the minute He sat down, His
eyes held me and His face began to “melt”. Another Reality
was unveiled. Apparitions of Spiritual Masters of different
times and places flowed over His features. I had no idea who
these beings were, but I could see their distinct qualities
— Chinese, Tibetan, Indian.

Eventually, the faces passed, and
there was just His face. No more apparitions. But then I
became aware that His whole body was a locus of Light. There
was a Radiance around Him — but it wasn’t just an aura.
His body was dissolving in the Light. The Light seemed to be
the source of His body, not an emanation of the
body.

I blinked numerous times, but the
process continued. It wasn’t something happening inside me,
a kind of mystical experience within, or a meditative
vision. This event was happening right there in the room.
The Light filled the room, and the shape of Avatar Adi Da’s
body disappeared and reappeared in the brilliant golden and
white Light. The Light was not like ordinary light —
electric light or daylight. It was infinitely more refined,
and it seemed alive. It was Bliss, Radiant Feeling —
heart-Feeling to infinity. The room was full and deep and
bright, an unbounded space of Joy. And everything in the
room had a fluid quality, not solid at all. I lost my sense
of being located at a particular point in space, and I
seemed to be viewing Him and everything else from different
places in the room.

I was “gone” in amazement, and my
heart was on fire. I was undone with a force of recognition.
My heart said, “You are God” — the Divine Light in
human form. And I loved Him — I felt that I had always
loved Him, had always known Him, and yet not until now. I
wept with an aching ecstasy in every cell of my being. And
that was the real beginning of my relationship to Him as His
devotee.

The next day, Avatar Adi Da sat
in Darshan again. This time, there was no noticeable
magnification of Light but just the vision of His Form, as
tender and exposed as that of a baby lying in its crib. I
was shocked at His vulnerability. I could not comprehend the
paradox. The previous day, I had seen His body as an
appearance coalescing into Form out of pure Light. And now
He was almost painfully present as a totally vulnerable
human body, simply Radiating Love.

I felt unable, in that moment, to
receive that intensity of Love — and immediately my
life flashed before me, as people say happens at the moment
of death. I saw everything unloving about my life from my
earliest memories to that moment. I saw what I had done in
all my relationships — with friends, family, lovers
— that was all about my own satisfaction, my own
agendas, the competitiveness, the anger, the heartlessness,
the failure to be sensitive to anyone except myself. The
intensity of this reflection grew and grew, until I felt I
would explode. I wanted to run from the room.

Then I looked at Avatar Adi Da.
His eyes were half-closed in Bliss, and it was obvious to me
that He “knew” everything about me. And He did not care how
it looked. He was there to Draw me beyond all of it. I knew
that some profound, pre-verbal longing in my being had been
boundlessly answered and satisfied — and that the rest
of my life would be devoted to the Revelation that had just
been given to me. It was the undoubted Revelation of God,
yes — but not the “Creator-God” of my childhood
religion. The “God” that had been shown to me on these
occasions was not apart, not separate, not a great “Parent”.
That One was simply Light, the inseparable Source and
Substance of everything. He was Bliss, Love, and Joy —
humanly Present and yet Radiating from
Infinity.

Carolyn Lee – a devotee of Avatar
Adi Da Samraj since 1985.