The Effort Toward Union Has Nothing to do with Realization
A talk by Adi Da Samraj, May 25th, 1992.
This talk has been adapted by Beezone.
ealization is not about someone realizing union with someone or with anything. If there is any effort along those lines, it has nothing to do with realization. Any effort is precisely what must be understood and transcended. When there is no such effort, no pursuit of union, then there is realization.
I do not call you to realize union with me. I call you to transcend your separate and separative self through devotion. To me, this is quite a different matter. Nevertheless, you tend to superimpose the model of seeking on your relationship to me as you tend to superimpose it on all relations and all functions, all aspects of life. I have called you to understand all seeking and to be free of the effort toward union. A characteristic effort toward union is associated with each stage of life. There are even many such efforts associated with each stage of life, and there is also a fundamental effort associated with each one. I have called you to observe and understand this effort in the context of each stage of life.
You cannot merely choose to bypass any stage. You must understand it. You must understand it very directly in a participatory manner. You cannot, by considering my instruction, assume the asana of the realization of the seventh stage of life you must do. Sadana human beings are originally adapted to and bound to the efforts associated with the first three stages of life. You accumulate these stages one by one from the foundational years of development and characteristically human beings do not exceed the efforts associated with the first three stages of life. I call you to realize the seventh stage, but you must do so by enduring the sadhana the tapas, the ordeal, the self-transcendence stage by stage. The first three stages of life are the root of your adaptation, the root of your bondage. They describe your egoity until you truly grow beyond them and enter for real into the stages of life, beyond the third. In general, you are all only beginning the religious life adapting to the fourth stage of life in a rudimentary fashion. You cannot fully enter even into the fourth stage of life or duad in the context of the fourth stage of life. Until this adaptation and bondage in the context of the first three stages of life is thoroughly understood, such understanding is a very profound matter. It is a profound ordeal. You may observe in yourself and in the entire gathering of my devotees, that there is no grand march to the advanced end, the ultimate stages of life in the Way of the Heart.
Many seem to presume advancement in themselves, but that is also part of the diluting capability associated with the first three stages of life. At the root of this bondage in the first three stages of life is the emotional sexual character. This is why then my consideration with you over these many years has varied directly and very frequently involved the emotional sexual matter, not because of some prudent interest of yours, but because it is absolutely essential that you deal with this dimension of your existence. You want to propose some illusions, however, some professional religiosity, some exotic nominal practice of the Way of the Heart in which you presume to be a practitioner in the fourth stage of life or beyond, but without demonstrating real self-understanding and the capability for self-transcendence relative to your fundamental bondage in the first three stages of life, you are only magnifying the force of the first three stages of life and super-imposing it on the Way of the Heart.
Why do you think I spend so much time and effort considering this matter with you in the years of my teaching work to instruct you, I have no choice but to deal with this matter, yet you have basically asked me to stop and step aside from that work and let you become an idealized gathering. That bases itself on idealistic presumptions. You put on the attitude, the cloak, the appearance of religion. You turn the way of the heart into another form of conventional religiosity in which you dare not speak up or certainly do anything very dramatic about your bondage.
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