Avatar Adi Da Samraj
with
The Ruchira Sannyasin Order, Adidam Samrajashram residents, and devotees worldwide via broadcast
at
ADIDAM SAMRAJASHRAM, Samraj Mahal
on
November 21, 2004
DEVOTEE: Thank You, my Beloved, for coming here tonight and granting us the vision of Your Beauty. You’re so beautiful.
Beloved, if I may ask You a question pertaining to the event at Columbia that was part of the recitation that was done the last time we came together with You. In studying that passage again with another devotee very closely, it became clear to me that I had a question about the yogic spiritual, Your description of the yogic, spiritual phenomena that coincided with Your crisis of Hearing. You describe a complete revolution of the energy in Your Body-Mind, and I would like to read the two sentences where You speak about that.
“All of the motions of Me that moved down into that depth appeared to reverse their direction at some unfathomable point. The rising impulse caused Me to stand, and I felt a surge of Force draw up out of My depths and expand, Filling My entire body and every level of My humanly born conscious awareness with wave on wave of the most Beautiful and Joyous Energy.”
And the words Force and Filling and Beautiful and Joyous and Energy are all capitalized.
As I read this, I became aware in myself of a way of conceiving of Hearing that’s different from this, but I wasn’t fully informed of the yogic, spiritual revolution that You’re describing here. And so I went to Your Dawn Horse Testament to look at the description of the Hearing crisis in the case of Your devotee and I found a reference to Your Spiritual Invasion of Your devotee’s body-mind. And this is that quote from Sutra 29.
“The event and process of Hearing Me is necessarily associated with My Divine Spiritual Invasion of the body-mind. My Divine Spiritual Invasion is the means whereby the fundamental and psycho-physically pervasive or total body-mind nature of self-contraction is shown. And this becomes the revolution of Hearing Me.”
And there’s the word revolution in this reference as well. And I wanted to ask You if this reference, are You referring to the same revolution yogically that You describe in Your own case in that crisis at Columbia or is there something different? That’s my question. Thank You.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: I guess you’ll have to wait and find out. Do you have some other theory?
DEVOTEE: When I asked some other devotees about this, they had a question.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Did you ask anybody who had Heard Me?
DEVOTEE: No.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: You did?
DEVOTEE: No.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: No. No. Well, then their opinion wouldn’t amount to much either, will it? They know no more about it than you do. In that case, they can refer to things that they have read that I have written or heard Me say. But they can’t tell you whether there was some spiritual experience associated with that process that they can say at least has some characteristics like what is indicated in The Knee of Listening, or not.
DEVOTEE: I understand.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: So, what about it? Why would there be a question?
DEVOTEE: Probably or definitely because of the way that I, I have conceived of Hearing.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: But you can’t conceive of Hearing, at least if you do, it doesn’t make any difference. I didn’t conceive of it, I describe it as a spiritual event and process, and there were certain matters of reality that were self-evidently so in that event. And so I could say what that is, what that understanding is, say something about it that is hopefully meaningful, but can’t be separated from the process, the event. It’s not an intellectual matter, so it’s not a matter of preconceiving it. It’s not a philosophical matter really. [inaudible] some things I uttered in the event have what you could describe perhaps as philosophical meaning. But what is the actual question? Why is there a question? What is the question?
You found the word revolution in both The Dawn Horse Testament and The Knee of Listening, but so what?
DEVOTEE: That happened after. No that happened after the question had already happened.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Why would that suggest to you that there was a different spiritual event somehow associated with Hearing in the case of the devotee than I describe in The Knee of Listening?
DEVOTEE: In The Knee of Listening, You refer to energy and force rising so powerfully that Your Body was lifted by it.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Well, there certainly was that in that event. Does it say only going up?
DEVOTEE: No.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: So, it talks about being filled too, and so on, right? Want to read it again?
DEVOTEE: Yes. That was another part of my question. Yes. I do want to read it again.
“All of the motions of –“
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Waves and waves.
DEVOTEE: Waves and waves filling.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Revolutionary waves.
DEVOTEE: Filling and
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Filling and what? Saying, what does it say? What do I say?
[Laughter]
DEVOTEE: “The rising impulse caused Me to stand. . .”
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: What about before that?
DEVOTEE: “All the motions of Me that moved down into the depths. . .”
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Down.
DEVOTEE: Down. You just answered My question, Beloved.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Well, it’s right there.
[Laughter]
DEVOTEE: You just answered my –
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: In black and white in print. Down and then rising, descending and ascending. Both of those references are there, right?
DEVOTEE: Um-hmmm.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Just as there was a rotating forward that you missed when you tried to pretend that the Thumbs had occurred in your own case.
DEVOTEE: I missed that.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: The full Samadhi of the Thumbs, but you neglected to quote it fully.
DEVOTEE: Yes. And I gave it a colour[inaudible]
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: And then here you are bringing your copy of The Knee of Listening to class and you read it out lied to Me, out loud to Me, out lied, yes, out loud and missed the whole half of it and made the question out of, out of it, as if I hadn’t said it. [inaudible]Can reality – is reality of such a nature that it can be remembered. Does the realization of reality, or does the idea of realizing reality, suggest that it’s about knowing something that you have to make sure you remember after that? What if you forgot it?
Well, you forget virtually everything every time you go to sleep. Are you somehow keeping track of everything you know while you’re sleeping there? Well how does it wind up all still being there when you wake up again?
DEVOTEE: I don’t know.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Is somebody else keeping track of it?
[Laughter]
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: You didn’t even notice half of the description you just read to Me, and you read it. You weren’t just trying to remember it. “F”.
[Laughter]
DEVOTEE: That’s very good.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: No graduation ceremony this year.
[Laughter]
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: [Laughs]
DEVOTEE: I’m done with graduations by Your Grace, Beloved.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Well, if reality is not something that can be remembered, why are you trying to think about it or seeking it by thinking and talking about it? Could you possibly achieve reality by any process of thinking or talking, which is a mode of thinking process, usually, not in your case at the moment because you read it and didn’t even remember half of the statement and then asked a question as if I hadn’t stated that half, apparently. Hmm? Well, do you or anyone at all, everyone here, anywhere, try to think this thing, think toward this thing, to get at whatever it is that is the ultimate result of thinking that you seem to be proposing, which could be called Reality or God whatever really big word you want to hang on the end of the thought process? Why is it that you’re persisting in thinking and talking and even sometimes even asking about it? Is this actually part of a process of achieving it? Could you possibly achieve it?
DEVOTEE: Not in that way.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: You can’t achieve it?
DEVOTEE: Not by thinking about it, no.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: But that is what you’re doing, isn’t it? Isn’t that what this question answer exchange is reflecting, a thinking effort?
DEVOTEE: Umm mmm [in affirmation].
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: So, what is its purpose? Is its purpose to achieve this Realization or to achieve Realization itself, Reality or whatever word, Real God, whatever you want to call it or whatever I might have called it or do call it? What do you call it when you’re silent?
Well, really, what is this thinking process to which you’re addicted? Is it really, have you inspected it to see whether it really is about a process of realizing reality?
DEVOTEE: I’m convinced that it can’t.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Then why haven’t you renounced it? Why haven’t you relinquished it? Are you really not seeking reality by thinking and talking and so on, really?
DEVOTEE: No. I am.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: So, you are trying to find it that way. So you lied.
DEVOTEE: Um mmm [in affirmation].
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: So Hearing is some kind of revolution, spiritual revolution, in which it is tacitly and directly realized that all seeking, all thinking is absolutely fruitless, absolutely, no doubt, not thought out, absolutely zero usefulness in any of it. Absolutely, self-evidently so. Not having thought to the point that it was so, presumed to be so, thought reached a dead-end by virtue of a self-evident, spiritual comprehension.
There was no purpose in it. You could say that was the night I graduated from Columbia College. My education was complete. There wasn’t anything more I was going to gain sitting in that room reading hundreds and hundreds of books every year, thousands of pages a week. There was absolutely nothing about any of that, thinking, talking, asking, answering, getting answers, writing it out, conversing about it, exchanging views with someone else at anytime anywhere any point on the campus or anywhere in the world. There was nothing about any of that that was going to realize the truth.
Now, you said when I asked you if you were trying to seek reality by this thinking and blah blah blah and so forth, and you said “no”, but you were lying. So, the mind can say no; the mind can say yes; the mind can take either view. If you join the debating society in some university or some kind of educational institution, you might be asked to argue either fundamental point of view relative to any question whatsoever. Both sides could be argued. So, you could be asked as an exercise as part of the debating society, to argue either one. From the point of view of the mind, either one has its argument. Either side of the disposition relative to any matter in question can be argued, can even be convincingly argued. Who finally decides which side won? How is it possible to win? Can the mind win? Can there be a winning mind? Has any mind solved any ultimate question whatsoever, ever?
Well, you don’t really know do you?
DEVOTEE: No.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: But you couldn’t quote Me somebody, could you?
DEVOTEE: No, only the efforts.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: So, all efforts are utterly fruitless with respect to the matter of Truth or Reality. I am affirming this to you. I have written it and described all kinds of events in The Knee of Listening and elsewhere that relate to all of this proceeding and Realizing. But it doesn’t become true for you just because I say it. And My arguments for it, even if they seem very clear and straightforward, and even if you affirm that you agree, still not Realized by you. Apparently, you’ve read The Knee of Listening. You’ve read The Dawn Horse Testament or all or a lot of both of them and other Books of Mine and so forth, and yet, whatever is true in all that is not yet Realized in your case. And you’re still trying to do the same thing about it that you have done in the past or done all your life, and which has, thus far, succeeded, not succeeded at all. It’s only succeeded in continuing itself as a habit of doings and thinking and motivation and seeking.
Well, if you read that section in The Knee of Listening, that’s exactly what the revolution was about in that room on that occasion. The entire principle of seeking was transcended, not in an act of thinking, not in a result of thinking, not in an achievement of thinking, not in the achievement of any goal or thing at all. It was a revolution. It was a complete relief from bondage to such activity in any form, every form.
It wasn’t merely relief from all that activity. There was that, but there was coincidently, or, can be said, the other half of what was in this event, was the Realization of the self-evident condition that is Reality. The condition that is Always Already The Case.
So, there was simultaneously the Realization that all seeking is fruitless, whatever form it takes including thinking and so on, and the Realization that truth is not an object, Reality is not an object. It can’t be discovered. It’s not at the end of any process whatsoever in the seeker’s manner. It is That which is Always Already The Case. That Which Is Always Already The Case can’t be remembered, can’t be achieved. It is either Realized or it is not. It is self-evident. I can’t be achieved and then remembered. It’s not even of such a nature that it can be forgotten.
So, what about it? It turns out you didn’t have any question at all?
DEVOTEE: Um-mmm [in affirmation].
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Well this was no school boy’s trick, one night in college, you see. It wasn’t an evening of cleverness. This is not about being clever. It’s not about seeking. It’s not about thinking it through. Whatever thinking does, it’s not about the achieving of Reality or Truth.
As the man said, the President of Columbia was Grayson Kirk when I first went there, when I arrived there in My freshman year. He addressed the freshman class and said, “At Columbia, we cannot teach you how to be happy, but we will teach you how to think.” So, I found out how to think and came to the end of it. But it wasn’t thinking that brought an end to itself. And egoity cannot bring an end to itself. Seeking cannot bring an end to seeking. Seeking cannot Realize Reality. Seeking is a symptom of dis-ease, lack of ease, the absence of equanimity, bondage to a problem, a dilemma, two opposites in direct and equal confrontation with one another, pushing with equal strength, becoming immobile. [Beloved pushes His two fists together and then holds up one fist] What is this, this? Problem dilemma is self-contraction, contradiction at the core of awareness. The search is always somehow in relation to what is objective to consciousness, even what may be described as subjective is objective to awareness itself, and it is caused by something that must be understood.
Until there is that understanding, the search is perpetuated, the problem persists in all different kinds of forms so that the body-mind is a kind of question, constantly being asked in one form or another. Every breath is the two-sides of the dilemma. This is exhausted, disproved by spiritual revelation, which coincides, ultimately, with Divine Self-Realization and the Divine or Divinely Self-Abiding Self-Recognition of all arising. In that case there is no dilemma. There’s not an answer. There is no dilemma. There hasn’t been a result or an achievement. The motivator of all seeking has been perfectly transcended. The dis-ease has been transcended perfectly, at its root. This is a spiritual matter, not an intellectual one, a devotional matter not a self-manipulated change.
It’s not about the energy that is in your body-mind. It is the energy that might enter the body-mind. This is a Grace that cannot be caused, It cannot be earned, It cannot be selected. No effort of any kind can achieve It. Nothing works in this regard except the recognition-response to the Self-Revelation of Reality Itself. This is the secret of devotion and of Realization.