Taken from from:
The Realizer Beyond the Door
December 25, 1987
“Raymond accepts birth at the very beginning, accepts life, he does work, hits his knee, falls out, participates in conditional existence through an act of complete submission”
DEVOTEE: You said something I felt that was very critical in the description of The Mummery, was that in reference to these reports, we haven’t yet even accepted the reality, the reality of whether it’s a mummery. And then when you were describing The Mummery it was the description of the moment of tragedy. It’s like that right now, we are in a literal moment of tragedy…
ADI DA SAMRAJ: The tragedy of non-response.
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DEVOTEE: Love-Ananda, what I was feeling about it is that first the tragedy must be accepted. And first you must accept the capacity to feel apart, when you feel this moment, when you feel the affirmation, what you feel just sitting in the pews, literally just feel that, and then…
ADI DA SAMRAJ: Or feel yourself standing in the pulpit, like Evelyn Disk. It depends on your position in this organization, you see.
DEVOTEE: Whatever it might be.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: Or moving the candles around like Moode Thom and Pascoe Moon, you see. Everybody’s got a different role in this Tabernacle, but everybody’s related to the Realizer in the same fashion.
DEVOTEE: Right. But then, based on …
ADI DA SAMRAJ: The same limited fashion.
DEVOTEE: …persistant feeling, Love-Ananda, beyond the tragedy of conditional existence, beyond the tragedy of what this world represents, and then, then, in accepting that reality, you can make the gesture of renunciation. Only then can you, because it feels to me…
ADI DA SAMRAJ: That’s My message to you!
But who will do it? I’ve got a handful of people in Hermitage who’ve been affirmed as 1.3 devotee’s. They have to demonstrate even that level of practice yet. We’ve got a handful in the world-wide gathering who otherwise have been suggested as 1.3 devotee’s, 1.3 applicants I guess it is at present. What else, you see? That’s not enough, that’s not it. That’s just preparation for the Ordeal, you see.
DEVOTEE: Love-Ananda, I have absolute certainty that the whole Way is first, in 1.2, you come not to the capacity to go beyond your emotional-sexual drama. That’s, that’s secondary…
ADI DA SAMRAJ: It’s certainly part of it.
DEVOTEE: But…
ADI DA SAMRAJ: It’s not the point though, (Devotee: No.) but it’s definitely part of it, definitely.
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You must take on this Way, both hands full, as much as you can receive, and devote yourself to it, throw yourself into it, and be fruitful with what you are given. That is what you ought to be doing.
How long does it take to hear what there is to hear and see what there is to see? You must put yourself on the line, give up your mediocre, karmic career of self-possession, accept the Revelation you have been given, and be Happy with it. Motivate others to be Happy with it as well and give up your devotion to being a beginner.
Human existence lived from the born point of view is ultimately a tragedy. When you are old, your are possessed by the same desires as when you were young. You simply do not have the machinery to fulfill those desires. Thus, human life lived for its own sake, for the sake of its mechanics, is a tragedy. Inclination without the capacity to fulfill itself is the essence of this tragedy, and the final moment is a heaving, strangling fear, without the slightest sensation of what might come next. You experience that horror but have no responsible mind, and therefore the mechanical mind repeats its destiny again. That is the essence of the future. We call it reincarnation. It does not necessarily involve returning to this earth plane, but it does involve mechanical repetition of disposition and destiny.
You must become involved with the Source, the Truth, the Current that pervades the world and is modified as all of this appearance, and you must be Happy, be full, and realize the unique, transforming destiny of those who submit themselves to the literal Reality. You are given that opportunity in my Living Company, which will continue even beyond my physical, human lifetime.
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DEVOTEE: Love-Ananda I was considering The Mummery in terms of the classic description of tragedy and also comedy in the Greek form…
ADI DA SAMRAJ: In the Greek form, yes.
DEVOTEE: Yes. And it is a perfect representation of both, in terms of what You just said about tragedy, classically in the theatre, the tragic figure overcomes himself through confrontation with difficulties. And through that confrontation, finds strength in himself and grows. But in The Mummery…
ADI DA SAMRAJ: Also, you see, in the Greek Tragedy only superior individuals can suffer tragedy. Tragedy has always occurred to kings, people of social prominance and so forth, you see, a unique individual. Well, Raymond is not that, he’s an ordinary guy in a middle-class family and so forth. What’s his uniqueness? His heart-force. That’s his heroism, that’s his uniqueness, altogether.
DEVOTEE: And it’s not just an overcoming of the personality, it’s total overcoming, it’s complete self-transcendence, it’s Realization. So it goes beyond the conventional description of a tragedy. It’s high, it’s the highest form of theatre.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: Birth is tragedy. That’s part of the point of The Mummery, you see. Raymond accepts birth at the very beginning, accepts life, he does work, hits his knee, falls out, participates in conditional existence through an act of complete submission. So he finds submission, through feeling-submission, is led into the universe, led into the world, finds even justification for complete attachment to the world, through a love for a woman. The epitome of attachment to the world is represented in his romance, if you will, with Quandra. But then that’s taken away. It seems arbitrarily, mysteriously, even. Why she’s dead is a mystery in The Mummery; how she got to be dead. It’s not explained, intentionally not explained, you see. It’s not a matter of explanation. It’s just so. It’s inevitable. It’s not a product of causes and effects, it’s an extraordinary gesture. It’s the death of the universe itself. It’s death itself. It’s the death of any individual’s discovery of the supreme reason to be attached to conditional existence. And the attachment between a man and a woman is the archetype for that.
A man falls in love with a woman, a man in love with a woman wants to live. Completely embraces life. There’s no disinclination towards life, is fully alive in that passionate attachment, you see. So, Raymond by his original submission finds complete reason, finds the absolute reason to just be alive, and it’s taken away, absolutely removed. Then the possibility of it’s still hung in front of him like a carrot in front of a horse, you see, dragged down through the Saint and Ear business, as if he’ll be reunited with her, you see. He finds a corpse in an insane ritual, a mummery in a church, promises, cycled back, unkept.
DEVOTEE: Love-Ananda, that scene where he’s walking down the steps, and You described the steps, You described the paint on the steps. You described the detail of what he’s experiencing, even leading him to what he loves, the observation of the details of the world itself.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: Yeah. Raymond throughout the book is constantly aware of the physical details, the space of existence, the space in which he lives, which is unrelieved basically, except for his love for Quandra. Now that’s a moment. It’s just one lay, one moment of passionate embrace, one moment of union. That’s all he’s got! Led to it and immediately withdrawn.
People have romantic attachments, fall in love and so forth. They’ve picked up a lot of sex, a lot of time together, a lot of household stuff. Raymond can’t even get into it from the beginning of his apparent marriage that’s suggested there. It’s not something he can embrace. He can’t own it. His feeling is too full. It is absolute. It is his commitment.
DEVOTEE: He also said, Love-Ananda, from the beginning of his apparent boyhood, that he was dead. He said that in the very beginning.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: He said, I already died. He said that to the old boy didn’t he? The shoe shine boy.
DEVOTEE: Right, and then he (inaudible). And then he goes through the entire rest of his adventure already in this disposition.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: So he knows from the beginning he’s submitting to conditional existence, mortality, as if he’s already died. In other words, he understands what that’s all about. His commitment is to feel without limit, to participate, without making conventional gestures. He cannot own Quandra, he cannot own what suggests to him that he be totally committed to conditional life, to human life and so forth. He can’t grasp it, he can’t own it. He can’t make it immortal. He can’t suffer any of the illusions of a man in love, even before he discovers Quandra dead. And then, ultimately, he discovers that of course. And suffers it, no doubt. But that suffering is a profound purifying force in Raymond’s case. It’s a kind of asceticism even.
My description of what takes place in the door at the end, the dropping of the egg, is a kind of asceticism, a renunciate life, freedom. It’s renunciation, absolute. No way back. No way to submit to an illusion. Even an illusion presented. Ultimately, he allows it to be so. He participates in conditional existence through feeling to the point where he absolutely agrees to what it is about in it’s limitation, without any withdrawal, without any illusions, without consolations and so forth. Then he’s completely free. It was in complete exhaustion of that process that he drops the egg. It’s not a casual gesture. It’s not a mental gesture, you see. It’s a sign of his renunciation, but it’s a sign of his Realization Absolute.
DEVOTEE: What a moment to be in where You are offering up our life with You. I feel like, I feel right now is a moment of tragedy in what’s been described, in terms of everything that’s occurring.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: Yes, My circumstance in this Communion and so forth, it’s Raymond in Saint and Ear.
DEVOTEE: But Love-Ananda, I know…
ADI DA SAMRAJ: You’re all in The Mummery, you’re all reciting the mummery of Saint and Ear. That’s the ritual that’s going on around Me now. And there’s no way to say that it’s any different, you see. It’s absolutely so! There’s not a one-liner even to present that suggests that it’s any different than that, not even Daniel can propose some promise or other that can distract anyone from the Truth of this present moment in My Work, in My life among you. It is Saint and Ear.
DEVOTEE: Love-Ananda, it’s been so clear to me for this entire time that literally it’s what this speech is in Your Company, because every motion of trying to come up in some egoic way to respond is flat – just flat – impossible. It’s just been so obvious through my participation in this study…
ADI DA SAMRAJ: I have already dropped the egg. But in some sense in your view, I am standing in the door, with the egg between My fingers, and you’re all praising Me and filing out to your ordinary lives. You’re all indulging in the ritual, in the mummery, the mock ritual, the mockery even. It’s just plain old mockery.
Even the other evening, in our cookie making evening and so forth, there was some obvious happiness in that and so on, as part of this celebration of God In Everybody, but on the other-hand, there’s these carols and so on, and not to say that shouldn’t have been done, you did it, and it was a natural gesture for you to make, to write those songs. But you took some Christian carols, and rewrote them with words somehow associated with me, with My own Work and Teaching and so forth, but you made a kind of comedy out of it, so it became a kind of mockery, you see, a mummery. What was that cookie baking evening? That’s Saint and Ear.
This whole Institution has been reduced to it. That really is the way it is at this moment. Hopefully not forever, but that really it is the way it is right now.
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DEVOTEE: You said something I felt that was very critical in the description of The Mummery, was that in reference to these reports, we haven’t yet even accepted the reality, the reality of whether it’s a mummery. And then when you were describing The Mummery it was the description of the moment of tragedy. It’s like that right now, we are in a literal moment of tragedy…
ADI DA SAMRAJ: The tragedy of non-response.
DEVOTEE: A tragedy of non-response to the Guru.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: You have become Saint and Ear. The Free Daist Communion is Saint and Ear.
DEVOTEE: That’s literally true.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: That wants to have Me standing in the church with My fingers in the door. Yes, there’s suffering, and you engage in some sort of gestures, ritualized gestures and so forth, and go about your ordinary lives.
DEVOTEE: And still what the reports that come are is a matter of affirmation of Your retirement, an affirmation of Your renunciation, which is not true. It’s a tragedy, because they aren’t accepting the reality of what’s occurred such that they could then – based on the understanding that and standing in heart-feeling, accepting the feeling You Are – renounce. There’s no position that is renounced. There’s only the affirmation that they want to give You something. There’s no position of just literal renouncing.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: You don’t associate Me with the One who has dropped the egg. You’re associating with Me as the one who’s standing in the door. Who’s supposed to just do that, be visible to you, be a point of reference for you in your ordinary disposition. So you’ve in some sense become ordinary church goers, you see, sitting in the pews, and listening to the lecturers or the preachers or whatever. And I’m standing there. You have My whole life, all My Teaching Work before you and so on. You discuss it, and that’s appropriate for beginners. But no one has come forward to the front of the church and noticed that Raymond dropped the egg, and has gone with him.
DEVOTEE: And then we all left before he even did it.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: Right, they all filed out. He was alone there. So neither the leadership, in other words Evelyn Disk, nor the general membership, all those in the pews, have even noticed Raymond’s Victory, or what it implies, what it requires of others. They’re still in the ritual of waiting, the ritual of conventional association and so on.
DEVOTEE: Love-Ananda, I just got a feeling for what You look for in the community, and what you look for it to communicate to You, because to say You’re just retired, to just affirm Your Renunciation, is not doing anything. It’s literally walking out of the church, literally, and not participating with You, and not staying with that feeling place, and such a place that you would renounce, literally renounce, everything to You. That’s very stark to me in this moment. It’s as if …
ADI DA SAMRAJ: All the characters in The Mummery are called to observe this individual, participate in his Disposition ultimately, discover what it amounts to ultimately, and do likewise. But instead of that, those at Saint and Ear, they don’t do that sort of thing. They repeat the rituals over and over again, and they talk on and on. They write down with their pencils responses to the preacher’s questions and so forth.
They go on and on and on with the ritual of waiting, the ritual of conventional association and so forth. They don’t realize that the effort, the Ordeal of their hero in The Mummery, is the effort or Ordeal that they themselves must participate in. That’s the significance of Raymond coming to Saint and Ear. They’ve been waiting for him and so forth, you see. What are they waiting for? This great sign, this great message, this great opportunity, the great Truth to be said, to be demonstrated, so that they can go on. That’s what it’s really about. But that’s not what they do.
DEVOTEE: Love-Ananda, they walked out even before…
ADI DA SAMRAJ: Ready to come back on the next ritual occasion and do the same thing, have Raymond walk out from his breakfast, walk down the central aisle and go through his suffering and so forth, and stand in the door. They want to do this every week.
DEVOTEE: Right.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: They want to do this every day. So they don’t want the message of Raymond’s own life. They want their own lives and limitations to be justified, to be consoled.
DEVOTEE: They don’t want to feel conditional existence. They don’t want to feel what the reality of all of that is and what is beyond. They don’t want to feel that. And that’s everything.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: Hm hm. In other words, feeling is not their commitment.
DEVOTEE: No. That’s right.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: Doing, reacting, thinking, all the natural ordinariness of human life, this is what they want. But that’s also very difficult, and tends to possess your mind with tragic vision, negative or mortal vision. So they want to add to that religious mythology, religious gestures, religious consolation and so forth, you see, to make them feel better. But they don’t want that message to oblige them to do likewise. That’s the point at which people are balking. That’s the state of this Communion. And you can do The Mummery every year, you see, you’re doing it this year, and you may not have realized yet that The Mummery is your fact of life. The mummery, mock ritual, mock participation.
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ADI DA SAMRAJ: Look at Raymond Darling himself. His Ordeal can be seen in the context of the emotional-sexual life, you see. It’s a great archetype, it’s a great passion for human beings.
DEVOTEE: It is, and it was for me. But it’s a capacity to feel conditional existence as it is and move beyond it, and then…
ADI DA SAMRAJ: You are Given a greater Sign. All the individuals in The Mummery are suffering from conditional existence, but they all also have a relationship to Raymond Darling in all of his moments of existence, right on to the dropping of the egg. That relationship is a unique factor in the lives of all those people, including all the countless numbers at the Tabernacle at Saint and Ear, you see. So all of those individuals not only are encountering the limits of conditional existence, they’re also encountering Raymond Darling in his great demonstration and his Ultimate Realization. That’s the Extra. That’s the Grace of devotee’s in this Way.
There’s conditional existence itself, and how sensitive can you be to that, you see. But certainly you can be sensitive to it, and you can learn many lessons from it. But in addition, you have the relationship to the Realizer in your company. That’s the unique Extra, the unique force of Grace, you see, that grants you the capacity for sadhana, and therefore for Realization. In other words, the response to the Realizer is the unique Grace in your lives. You are not apparently so sensitive to conditional existence itself, such that you on your own would participate in that Great Ordeal that is Realization without any Grace intervening. The Grace has intervened in your lives.
DEVOTEE: That’s right.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: You, like all the characters in The Mummery, have this unique relationship to the Realizer who you call Beloved, or Heart-Master, or Da Love-Ananda, you see, who also has dropped the egg. So your relationship to that One is that unique inspiration, that if you will respond to it, will make you into a renunciate, will allow you to do likewise, will instigate sadhana in your life, allow you to move on in the process and to Realize likewise, you see.
The Realizer is the unique equipment that people have, once a Realizer appears. Otherwise, all you have is conditional existence itself. But, in the context of conditional existence, you have yourself as that unique limit that retards your participation, your understanding, your capacity for self-transcendence, and so on. Then the Realizer appears and gives you a unique advantage. But even then you don’t respond, you see. But if you will, then you can move on. Until you do, you will not, or you’ll indulge in My Company, simply in the peripheral sense, in the form of a mummery.
You see, the book The Mummery is a criticism of you! It’s a criticism written, what eighteen years or more ago? A criticism of those who would eventually practice in My Company. It’s a prophecy that those who would practice in My Company would eventually come to the same moment as all those at Saint and Ear. And this is the moment. In fact, we’ve been in that moment for some years already, if not all the time since I began to Teach. So, who will come forward out of all those associates who have, not only the ordinary life, the usual world in their encounter, but have this relationship with this Raymond Darling, you see? Who will come forward? Who will respond to My dropping of the egg? Who will do the sadhana? That’s one by one, and it’s yet to be seen. Up-to-date, we have made Saint and Ear – again.
And The Mummery is a prophecy of that, just that, that you would do that. And you have done.
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DEVOTEE: Love-Ananda, if hearing is true, if hearing is true (inaudible), I feel like there is no capacity to stand from the heart-feeling. In other words, there would be no capacity to…
ADI DA SAMRAJ: That’s there to be discovered, but in principle, right.
DEVOTEE: If hearing is true, absolutely true, according to the scripture…
ADI DA SAMRAJ: But there’s yet a discovery to be made at heart.
DEVOTEE: Yes, a great discovery.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: In principle, there’s no refusal of the heart-principle in those who have heard. But they must discover the heart-principle, through the application of hearing, by doing the sadhana of hearing.
DEVOTEE: Right. But, Love-Ananda, if you stand as the heart, willing to endure everything that conditional existence is, everything, in every moment, as transcendence, and go beyond it, you must move to that moment of seeing.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: Yes, as I said, in principle. But this is to be discovered. And it’s not discovered by anyone except those who truly practice at the 1.3 level, those who have truly heard and do the sadhana of hearing.
DEVOTEE: That’s all I’m saying. If hearing is true…
ADI DA SAMRAJ: Well, if those who are up to 1.3, are proposed to be up to it, it’s from among those who I will look to see devotees, you see. I’ll look to see devotees come out of that group. But none have come forward yet.
DEVOTEE: It’s inevitable at that point, that’s why we call it a fourth stage process.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: It’s inevitable in principle, not in fact.
DEVOTEE: Not in fact yet.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: I mean, you’re 1.3 devotee’s based on your own presumption and the affirmation of your friends.
DEVOTEE: Hearing based on Your Principles.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: The sign is yet to be seen, observed.
DEVOTEE: Love-Ananda, another aspect of the way I felt the communication in The Mummery is just that there is literally no, no consoling message at all. Everyone left, You dropped the egg, and there’s no…
ADI DA SAMRAJ: And not just then, read the entire Mummery. There’s not a consoling word said from the beginning to end.
DEVOTEE: Right. Not at all. And there’s no like, “and we all lived happily ever after,” there’s nothing about that. There’s only…
ADI DA SAMRAJ: Nobody even lived happily inbetween.
DEVOTEE: There’s only the sign of what we would do. That’s it.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: Conditional existence is conditional existence. What conditional existence is, is described constantly from the first word of The Mummery to the end. And the ultimate message of The Mummery is the transcendence of that.
Conditional existence is not glorified, congratulated, or made the substance of consolation at any point in The Mummery. Nor in anyone’s life, except when they get deluded. And that’s the difference between art and reality. In reality people do get deluded, in fact many people are deluded in The Mummery. But in The Mummery, the transcendence of that deludedness is consistantly expressed, principally through the character of Raymond Darling.
DEVOTEE: Another interesting thing, Love-Ananda…
ADI DA SAMRAJ: Even in real life that happens. The Realizer dropped by in your case…