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THE COMPLETING DISCOURSES OF THE 25-YEAR REVELATION
You Become My Devotee in Your Past as well as in the
Present
May 26, 1995
On Friday, May 26, after Granting formal Darshan to
retreatants in the inner Courtyard of Aham Da Asmi Sthan,
Beloved Adi Da came by car to Qaravi village-He had again
consented to gather with His devotees. Beloved Adi Das
initial Discourse that evening was in response to a question
regarding the nature of
Prapatti (or the disposition of complete,
unconditional surrender “to whatever is presently the case”)
in the beginners stages of practice. He then proceeded to
Give a very beautiful description of what occurs in the
personal history of individuals when they become His
devotees. A brief excerpt from this portion of the evening
follows:
ADI DA SAMRAJ: Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga is Prapatti. As I
was saying the other evening, this is because it does not
contain an element that is about measuring the results. And
yet it is the precise and fullest giving over of every
faculty, surrendered and forgotten in this Communion with
Me. And Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga is the principal
characteristic of this Way forever, even in the context of
the “Perfect Practice” and Ultimate Realization.
Likely, inevitably, there are all kinds of purifications
and so forth, but the sign of maturing and developing in
this Way is not that arising conditions change and become
more pleasant or ideal or desirable from whatever point of
view. The sign of maturing is that your exercise of
surrender, your practice of Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga
altogether, relative to whatever arises, becomes more and
more profound, more and more effective. So that is the
aspect that is the Sign of growth – not the measure of
whether things arising improve somehow or other. But you
know the circumstances in which transitions are made stage
by stage, and they certainly involve purifications and more
responsibility and so forth. So those kind of changes are
also a Sign.
The Blessing is Given to each one from the beginning. It
is Given completely also. And from then you are living a
Blessed life. But you cannot measure it yourself or
prefigure how it is going to work out, or feel you have
received My Blessing and it is supposed to show itself in
some particular way – an energy experience or vision or
change in life, or whatever. It will be whatever it is and
you simply do the practice and notice how this Blessing
works out in your own case. And this Blessing, like My Work
altogether, is not linear. It is the Knights Move [as in
chess]. So it is a Blessing forever, and it can show
itself in various ways at any point in time. And so it is
true that some may receive My Blessing and experience it in
some way, on some occasion, and then, even many years later,
find My Blessing being effective and realize that it has
something very much to do with that time you noticed
previously.
In some real sense it is also true that when you become
My devotee, even if you were not in any sense before –
having become My devotee, you become My devotee in your past
as well as in the present. It covers all time.
You all must have seen films or read stories in which
time is played upon-time machines or whatever else, or
somebody gets the ability to change the past, and it changes
for other people as well. Well, it is literally so when you
become My devotee. It may even be that, if you examine your
past (having become My devotee), you realize things about it
that are different than it was as you remembered it before.
And you remember other aspects of it, and they become
important even in the present time in a way that they were
not before.
DEVOTEE: But even more than the past, Beloved, my
relationship to You is like the ground of time.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: That is how it is. For all you know, maybe
the past that you now remember was not the way it was before
you came into My Company! [Beloved Adi Da laughs along
with devotees.] And now it has become a usable past.
Maybe that “past” past no longer exists! And anybody else
who has some memories about you has a different memory of
you now than they did before – at least a memory that is in
some profound, indefinable sense, remarkably and entirely
different.
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