The Relinquishment of Teaching Function
ADI DA SAMRAJ: If there is no practicing community, my
retirement is impossible. I can retire in the sense of
literally ceasing to Teach-go off to my house and not be
seen again-but if I did that I would have to relinquish my
role as Heart-Master of devotees. I did not abandon my
Teaching Work in order to retire from existence. My Teaching
Work simply fulfilled itself, and now I should be able to
live as the Heart-Master of devotees.
If this gathering were fundamentally one of devotees
related to me as true Heart-Master, I would likely talk from
time to time and would still be making expressions that you
call the Teaching. In fact, this is what I have been doing,
even though the Testament is already in the hands of
devotees. This kind of activity is not a continuation of
being Teacher. I am expressing myself in a circumstance in
which I presume to be the Heart-Master of devotees. You are
such devotees, and I am secondarily carrying on
conversations with you that relate to practice-conversations
about how to make this transition from relating to me as
your Teacher to relating to me as your Heart-Master.
You presume that you have already been relating to me as
Heart-Master. Although you have assumed that I am your
Heart-Master, primarily you have related to me as your
Teacher and you yourself have not been primarily a
practicing devotee. Primarily you have been the kind of
person who looks to the Teacher, a person who still has
doubts, confusions, limitations, crankiness, and
frustrations to dramatize, feet, and think about. You have
been dramatizing all the reasons not to practice, especially
in relation to me.
There is a way of relating to me that is characteristic
of the non-devotee and that has become your style. You
imagine that this style is a way of being my devotee, but it
is not. It is a way of being a student, with some devotional
intention perhaps, but a listener, someone considering the
Way and needing me to enter into consideration of the Way
with you, as i f you had not yet received it, or are not yet
equipped to practice it.
This is no longer appropriate. Perhaps it used to be
appropriate, because this is not a traditional spiritual
culture. You all are Westerners with no background of
spiritual practice, and thus you required the consideration
as it was all those years. Therefore, we could say your
habits of relating to me were justified because of the
circumstance of our meeting. But they are no longer
appropriate, because you have received these Gifts. As a
consequence, you are obliged to change your act, to
recognize Me differently, to relate to Me differently and
abandon much of the style of your previous manner of
relating to Me, to one another, and to the responsibilities
you all share for your common life together. You must accept
your manhood, your womanhood, as devotees and fulfill the
Dharma of practicing the Way that I Teach. The Way that I
Teach is doing certain things – not give so many talks, not discuss
“case”, that sort of thing. There is far more to it than
that, however. Some of those things may very well be true,
but this transition in my role is not merely about my
ceasing to do something. It is about your having to do
something, and without fail. To make that change you must
inspect your habits of associating with me, directly in
personal contact, or through the medium of your service, or
through your thoughts about me. You must inspect all the
details o f your manner o f relating to me, just as you must
inspect all o f the details of your manner o f relating to
everyone and everything else and all the responsibilities
that you have, individually and in common, for this
Work.
For years I have asked you all to study traditional
ashrams, study traditional figures who in one or another way
bear a likeness to me. I have asked that you study the
Avadhoots and so on. I have been asking you for years to
prepare yourselves for just this transition. Of course,
there were things you did even then, because I did not
become your Heart-Master this week. Rather, I have been
preparing you more and more for the complete fulfillment of
that calling, preparing you to practice the culture of the
relationship between the devotee and the Heart Master. In
the process I have relinquished the culture or chaotic
social circumstance of non-practitioners, of students of the
Teacher.
All devotees, wherever they live, live in My Company
constantly. Therefore, they must know that the Guru Puja is
their life practice, not just what they do when they
meditate. They must understand how the life practice is the
Guru Yoga. The life practice is response to the Transmitter.
It is the practice that you develop when you are in the line
of the Divine Transmission. You must keep yourself in that
line, remain attentive to it, be prepared to receive it, and
you must rightly acknowledge and serve the one who is your
Agent of Transmission.
I have not transferred this Agency to the institutional
community. The Spiritual Agency is mine. The entire
community of devotees acts in some sense as an extension of
that Agency, but without any self-conscious obligation. In
other words, I have not appointed people to be transmitters.
The community, in place, simply practicing, fulfilling the
responsibilities given to it, is an Agent of Transmission.
But it is not the Transmitter. It is not responsible for
that matter as the Transmitter is, as the Heart-Master
is.
I did not announce an end to My Spiritual Work in The
Dawn Horse Testament. That Work continues as long as this
body lives and beyond. There will be no end to the Divine
Transmission. The Work of this body-mind as an Agent of
Transmission will continue as long as it lives.
My devotees must be responsive to Me and remain in line
with Me. If you assume your responsibilities, you will
preserve this vehicle, this Agency-you will keep it intact
so that this Work can continue unimpeded. It is your
responsibility to serve and protect and maintain my life as
your human Spiritual Master. You must understand the
profundity o f that obligation. It goes beyond doing such
things as providing meals and a place for me to live. It
involves all the gestures that you, my devotees, make toward
Me. The total environment in which I live, the total
experience I have from moment to moment in your company must
become a matter of your responsibility. That environment
must sustain, serve, make well, and support this vehicle,
this personal embodiment.
Therefore, you will fulfill the traditional admonition:
Do what pleases the Master and do not do what does not
please the Master. It is not a matter of being pleasant
around me. It is a matter of the totality of your practice,
the totality of your life, all the details of how you live
and how you relate to me personally. Therefore, it is a
total culture of life. Our Way of life is characterized
fundamentally by this Guru Yoga, this Guru Puja. – (November
16, 1985)