Avatar Adi Da Samraj
Addresses
Brown
September 18, 2004
DEVOTEE: Beloved Adi Da, thank You so much for gathering again with us tonight. It is an incomparable Gift to sit at Your Feet and listen to Your Words and receive Your Darshan. Thank You, Beloved.
Two Gatherings ago, You considered with us the impulse to Real God Realization, and I found it to be very much a reality consideration that put me up against my limits in relationship to this impulse. And You ended the Gathering with a series of questions in which You said You expected each of us to consider our impulse to Real God Realization. I felt You empowered a tapas of consideration that continued after the Gathering, and I wanted to confess a moment in which Your sudden Grace helped break through the apparent limits in my confession of my impulse to Real God Realization, and helped me get in touch with that again in a clarified way. The night after that Gathering, I awoke in the middle of the night – it was around three o’clock – and I got up and walked into the village square and I became instantaneously aware of the self-contraction in my body, in my chest and navel, and then I noticed that I immediately began to seek to avoid this feeling of contraction and discomfort, and by Your Grace, in that moment, I understood that my activity that I was creating, not only this pattern of seeking, but also that was re-inforcing the self-contraction itself. And it was a moment in which there was a release of that activity and I fell into a place of enjoyment of prior relatedness. As I walked around, I noticed how interesting this condition was, prior to the ceaseless and unnecessary patterns of Narcissus. And I felt You drawing me to understand that the Way that You offer to us is to understand this prior condition in more and more depth and detail, the Ultimate Condition of Existence. I felt You draw out of me a clarification of my impulse to realize what You are here to offer to us by Your Grace.
Then in the last Gathering, You spoke about the deep sleep state and how it is possible to be present in that same kind of awareness as one is in the deep sleep state but in the waking state.
My question is whether, in the intensive listening process and in order for the crisis of hearing to become a stable awakening rather than just a Grace-Given moment as I was Given the other night, it’s necessary for one’s conscious awareness to be resting in a place that is more akin to the deep sleep state than the normal waking consciousness.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Have I ever said so?
DEVOTEE: Not that I know specifically, Beloved.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Then where does the question come from?
DEVOTEE: Well, I noticed that because I’d just woken up out of sleep, that my mind wasn’t engaged at the level that it normally is in the waking state, and also the body wasn’t involved in, or absorbed in, functional activity, so it seemed that my awareness was more available to observe a more fundamental level of activity in my being than it usually is.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: So you are suggesting you need to go to sleep previous to any moment of self-understanding?
DEVOTEE: No, that’s not what I mean exactly,
[Laughter] but …
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Well that’s the implication of what you’re saying.
DEVOTEE: Perhaps a better way to phrase my question would be, is it necessary …
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Haven’t you ever had a similar sense before?
DEVOTEE: Yes, I’ve had moments like that before, Beloved.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: And did they all occur after just getting up from sleep?
DEVOTEE: No.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: So your own experience does not suggest that it’s necessary. Hmm? If it were necessary then there would have to be some sort of technique or process that would enable all devotees, first of all, to achieve a state of sleep previous to every moment of understanding and this would become remarkably impractical.
[Laughter] Every time you did have some sense of understanding, then you should immediately go to bed, have a sedative administered perhaps, if necessary,
[Laughter] then be awakened suddenly and enjoy another moment of understanding. So, it’s not a very meaningful question, truly, in practical terms. Obviously the answer is No. Is it necessary for there to be some kind of condition established, as a preliminary to True Hearing, one in which one can be observant in depth? Yes. It has nothing to do with sleep, but it certainly has to do with the capacity to make this kind of observation be effective. In fact it’s necessary for there to be such a disposition as a basic characteristic of one’s life. So there is a necessary foundation sadhana, a necessary equanimity, a necessary freedom of energy and attention, a necessary freedom in the faculties from their being turned upon self-contraction. So that is what all these dimensions of the sadhana are about preliminary to Hearing. A disposition that in some fundamental sense stands capable of being aware of the self-contraction, in the seeking response or the reaction to it. But it seems to Me I am not saying anything particularly new by telling you that. So do you really have a question?
DEVOTEE: Well, Beloved, it appeared to me that it was an unusual– not the characteristic disposition that I’m in in my everyday life, that I …
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Well what difference does it make? This is now. What are you doing now? This was a couple of nights ago?
DEVOTEE: Yes.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: So what? Right now. Something about you is different right now, that you can’t make this observation?
DEVOTEE: Well I feel that when I’m more engaged in activities such as I’m speaking to you at present or …
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: I’m speaking to you – it’s not interfering with anything to do with Me! Otherwise you all should have waited for Me to fall asleep here in My chair …
[Laughter] …before you started asking Me questions. Sleep is inherently dissociated in fact, from the faculties that operate in the waking, and dreaming states. So you have to be drowsy just to make an observation in the waking state?
DEVOTEE: No, Beloved.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: You can’t be talking? Well, if you can’t be talking, then how could you notice the self-contraction in the midst of talking? If you can’t notice while you’re active, then how can you notice the self-contraction at all? If it requires special conditions, then how can it be most fundamental and constant? Your talking to Me is something like Reuben’s computer now? You’re having the ordinary experience of talking and you’re asking Me how that changes the practice? You’re asking Me what the practice is?
DEVOTEE: No, Beloved, but I notice that in that moment it was simple to maintain awareness in a depthful place, and so I was aware of a more fundamental level of activity rather than …
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Well apparently your problem didn’t exist in that moment but it certainly exists right now.
DEVOTEE: But I understand what the practice is in this moment. That’s not something …
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: So, what’s the problem? [Pause] Hmm?
DEVOTEE: I can see there isn’t a problem, Beloved. Thank You for addressing my tendency to make one. There isn’t one, and I feel Your Instruction is to just persist in the practice of turning to You and surrendering the faculties and allow the process of self-observation and self-understanding to deepen in due course, without feeling I have to be in some particular state for that to occur.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Well you have to remember, Hearing is associated with Spiritual Communion with Me. It’s not a characteristic of student-beginner practice only. Don’t you think if you were devotionally and Spiritually aware of Me, there would be some kind of condition that would enable this Hearing process?
DEVOTEE: Yes, Beloved, it’s clear that it’s a Gift of Your Grace.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Not just that it’s a Gift. It’s a Spiritualized state. Are you in that state now?
DEVOTEE: No Beloved, I don’t feel that I am.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Well why would that be?
DEVOTEE: Perhaps through self-consciousness I’m not turned to You profoundly enough to be sensitive to Your …
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Well why aren’t you? Who are you talking to now?
DEVOTEE: Da.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: A professor in school?
DEVOTEE: Da.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: A casual aquaintance on the street?
DEVOTEE: Da.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: What pattern are you making use of to address Me now, that you cannot Spiritually, devotionally, turned to Me and be aware of Me, instead of lapsed into your self-contraction, self-conscious and talkative? Are you ignoring the fact that I am right in front of your face, right now?
DEVOTEE: No Beloved.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: ‘YES Beloved’, is the answer. Why can’t you say ‘yes’ when that is clearly what is the problem. Hmm?
DEVOTEE: Well, yes, I understand that the problem is that I was fixated in a gross mental …
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Fixated in self-contraction, not Communion with Me.
Hmm?
DEVOTEE: Yes.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Yes! Why is it that you can come even within a few feet of Me, you’re looking right at Me, and you don’t know this? Why do you persist in this dissociation from Me. Where do absurd questions like this one come from, as if you had to go to SLEEP to understand Me. No, you must TURN to Me, receive Me, be surrendered to Me, Commune with Me, not semi-conscious. True understanding, most fundamental self-understanding, is not an occasional accident that lasts for a few seconds. It’s a capability. So when you are in My Company you presume to animate yourself egoically. That’s not the practice. Hmm?
DEVOTEE: Certainly, when I activate the mind and …
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: No, not just when you activate the mind. When you are not surrendered to Me. When you relate to Me in a conventional and self-conscious manner. When you are self-directed, self-guruing, self-possessed, as if I’m not even present. The fact that a thought is happening is no more impediment than Reuben’s computer. It’s your computer.
DEVOTEE: I understand Beloved, that You are addressing my fundamental activity of being abstract and …
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Dramatizing the self-contraction in My Face, and then speaking to Me in what sounds like reasonable, logical linguistic terms as if we are having an intelligent exchange here, when all you are doing is refusing this surrender, refusing to turn to Me, showing Me how grossly indifferent you are to the fact that I’m even right in front of you at this moment, and how you can pretend to be completely ignorant of what you are actually doing right in front of Me at this very moment. It’s a game. It’s a pretense. It’s not true. It’s a kind of a dare. And you think I’m supposed to play the game of being nice and give you a reasonable answer. This is a dialogue between you and your professor in the hallway between classes, you see. Or whoever it is – Daddy and so forth, you see, the male other conversation that’s supposed to be very dry and intelligent, and I’m supposed to explain it to you, you see, instead of being a little hard-edged and unpleasant with you right now. It’s not an enjoyable response is it, from Me?
DEVOTEE: No Beloved, but I know .it’s what..
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Is it? Is It? Hmm?
DEVOTEE: I deeply appreciate Your response and …
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Is it enjoyable?
DEVOTEE: Well it’s the truth and in that sense …
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Is it ENJOYABLE?
DEVOTEE: It’s not a bliss-ride, but it’s not …
[Burst of laughter from devotees]
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: You can’t even answer it straight, can you?
DEVOTEE: Well it’s not completely unenjoyable.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: [Shouting] Well then I’ll have to speak a little harder to you, so that you will not feel free to approach Me in this manner. You don’t have a problem. You don’t have a question. You are behaving inappropriately in the face of your Master, and that’s all there is to it. And you know damn well what you’re up to, and it should not be responded to pleasantly. It’s an attempt to deceive. And this is how you keep yourself in this student-beginner phony bag that you’ve been sitting in for decades already. You’re intelligent enough to be a medical doctor and you can’t figure this one out? You think I’m a fool?
DEVOTEE: No, Beloved.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: It is an unsurrendered life, that’s all. You’ve been explained to enough. You do nothing about it. The superimposition of that microphone with its rubber head on it, with your face, makes you look like a man with a goatee and a moustache.
[Laughter] You see, now you’re lifting your head up above it. I see no reason to be patient with you, in the face of such a stupid question, or such a stupid sequence of remarks. If you want to persist in self-possession without devotional surrender, that’s your choice, but it doesn’t belong in MY Face. So you can go back to sleep now. To be in this condition after so long is inexcusable, totally unjustified, and it’s not the result of lacking the answer to some question.