Adi Da Causal

Adidam has a very rich and varied spiritual culture, in February each year devotees may write a “confession of narcissus” and throw it into a ceremonial fire to be burnt and forgotten, this post is along those lines.

The 3 Choices of Modern Man

If asked what I am most fundamentally (and honestly) I would answer “addict”  without hesitation. This, more than any other possibility is my true shape, my true form, no bullshit in this case, it’s simply true.

This  I know with complete certainty - I am an addict, a “fiend”. It’s a remarkable fact that more than anything else this certainty has proved itself to be the case in countless ways, daily. Nor is it that I am more an addict than anyone else, everyone with very few exceptions is by nature and action addict. I have met very few people who I would say are other than this, or beyond this state.

There are of course more gross and bodily destructive addictions and there are also and equally more refined and more positive and healthful addictions but addiction remains the fundamental pattern. It’s  just as possible to be addicted to raw food as junk food, just opposing swings of the pendulum, many will also deny this to be the case, it doesn’t matter because when we hit the pillow at night, in the humility of the ordinary life, we all know the truth of what we would want to deny–:”addict I am”

So it is a great blessing a great insight to recognize this about yourself, because it is utterly true. There are many people even claiming to be enlightened, who are right now just addicts, compulsive and driven characters. It’s a homely truth, it has the seed for change in it, but just like the man or women at the local A.A. meeting, it has to be confessed in public, to your fellow men and women. “I am an addict.”

It puts you back where you are, feel the common humanity of it, it’s all our ordinary natures. Knowing this our compassion for others is real, it’s genuine, unmistakable.

The quote, “The End of All Seeking” was on the back cover of the earlier editions of the The Knee Of Listening, these words were said to be a description of the ultimate import of the book. I used to read this and wonder what it meant.

Many years later I can say that this is in fact the case in regards to the practice of Adidam. That is exactly what I often find  when I sit in my meditation room in front of the Master’s Form in Satsang. The search ends right there, because real satisfaction is located and known. No need to look passed this point, because what we have always sought by every means is Here or given to us.

More than anything else it’s an Enjoyment and a Happiness,  I can read books listen to audios, watch videos, perform Pujas, perform service or consciously engage in any of the disciplines, in the mood of this intuitive awareness and what still remains primary is sheer enjoyment and appreciation of what Adi Da often described as  “The Great One”.

I simply sit and enjoy, or act and enjoy the Spiritual Master’s Form and Play. thus we become “unexploitable” (here meaning Free of any compulsive need beyond this understanding, or being in a position no longer disturbed by conventional spiritual, religious or ideological motivation)

Of course there is also the apparently endless capacity to abandon this simple knowledge and return to seeking, every moment also delivers this possibility.
 

I met my first “Sadhana Murti”, literal meaning-the image of spiritual practice-on retreat at Naitauba Hermitage Sanctuary in 2006,  I will call him Ralph and on first meeting, he totally offended me, I mean everything offended me about him, I could never love this man even as a fellow devotee. I just wanted to get as far away from Ralph as possible. Ralph was everything I did not want to be, yet we were like the same poles of a magnet.

As it happened Ralph was to be my constant service companion 24/7, for several weeks. I described my predicament to another devotee and he laughed out loud  ” Friend” he said ”you have met your-sadhana murti-be grateful and use the opportunity” (the first time I had heard that term used)

It bothered me that I was so mean spirited to Ralph, clearly I was no saint in this circumstance, just a rather loveless character and that above all else was clear to me, over time my relationship with Ralph softened slightly but it could never become  a friendship.

Sadhana Murti described this relationship so well I wondered where the term came from, recently it came to light that the famed  Indian Poet Bhakta Tukaram used it to describe his shrewish wife who he prized mightily for testing him so -Adi Da (then Bubba Free John) and a devotee visited Tukaram’s tomb in 1973.

Tukaram with his Beloved-Sadhana Murti

In recent years my inclination moves more toward peace, retreat, movelessness, no-seeking, no-dilemma, no-disturbance. There is an undisturbed state that rests the being beyond stress. That non-perturbation has been described by Adi Da as resting at ocean depth, rather than the ever breaking surface waters- where there is no rest. It is always available to all sentient beings (not just human)

This is a great luxury of course and from the exoteric view a diversion from the creative struggle that would be all life. From this point of view the only action is at the surface, where the waves ever break and where all reality is.

Here, I am not talking about going “on retreat” as a distinct action where we set ourselves apart from conventional living for periods of time, which is of course very useful and necessary.

I mean a daily practice within either a moderated conventional environment or ideally within a community living structure that actively supports such motives.

The first move was to the cities, that was revolutionary, away from the unceasing stress of survival with barely a moments peace from it. The cities in spite of their terrible negative aspects still represent an attempt by man to create a life apart from mere gut level survival, now the evolutionary move would be to the life of spiritual retreat. This is the sane and joyous movement that many, may now make.

The argument for it is the same one that built the cities and then evolved further, having gotten food shelter and much more handled, we are free to “drop out”, not as means to escape responsibility, but after having taken responsibility (and continuing to do so) it  now becomes the great possibility of many (not just a handful of ascetics as in the past) to take rest in the core of being where we can then grow beyond the failure of the 3rd stage of life.

Even to state that the self is unimportant is heresy to modern man and a dreadful insult to many, it’s a slap in the face and nothing will empty a room faster than even hinting in that direction.

Adi Da has a term for this modern overwhelming self-aggrandising world orientation  he calls it bluntly, ego-culture. Plus He always puts the word self, in inverted commas as “self”, reflecting its fictional nature.This is not a popular message. The real reason it is not a popular message is that fundamentally we all cling to self for “dear life” . Self is all we have, after all. To criticise our most precious part is down right depressing for most people. We already have to jump through many hoops to get our meagre selves noticed, the last thing we want is any threat to the little we have, it’s a terrible offense.

There is very much a feeling that the self should be praised, lauded and treated gently as a “poor thing” badly treated by the universe and thus in need of comfort, consolation and only “good reports” abouit itself, a patient in a clinic in some respects.

What is not noticed or taught by convention is the inherent suffering and delusion which is fully integral to the action that creates “self’. That is the reason we would value such a message as Adi Da’s.

The truth is the the self is not great, in most cases it is extremely small and hardly touches anyone or anything. There are greater lives which do touch a lot of people and make immense changes that effect others and there are always smaller lives than our own, which we can call to mind when the self image might be fraying at the edges.

In The Aletheon, there is a chapter - I Am The Not “Other”- which really struck a chord for me, in it Adi Da as the World Friend of all humanity describes His function  as compassionate Critic of the egoity of humanity and why that function should be cherished, protected, championed and absolutely appreciated.

“My intolerance for the egoic “status quo” must never be hidden or forgotten “  Adi Da - from : I Am The Not “Other”

 

Walking on the beach, inspired by the prospect of no “me”, this is not any silly self aggrandising presumptuousness, but rather Adi Da’s calling to ordinary men and women, read “Not Two Is Peace” it’s clear, live as no self, “just  part of the landscape”, only. The body mind is just a pattern, no need to inflate it (or deflate it) It’s just a strange coinciding with this rather ordinary form. He said you could have just as easily woken up as a pair of shoes on the lawn, what mirth in that.

Look closely at the beach image, can you see a self in it? where is the ego there? it’s just egoless pattern, landscape, same as the rest of us.

“The fiction of separateness- and the denial of the universal characteristic  of prior unity- is a mind based illusion.”  Adi Da Samraj 

“Such religion is free. It is native religion, it is God-made religion. Those who enter in such a religious process may live with one another, create a structure or an institution for association with one another and the communication of the Teaching but their religion itself is free and immediate.

It is a process that is always intimate, that one can practice in every moment of existence, that one must practice in every moment of existence. It is not a practice to be engaged only sometimes in meditation or weekly church gatherings….. It is a kind of renegade Teaching. It is not smiled upon by religionists and worldly people.”

This remarkable text was taken from a book written by Adi Da called - The Fire Gospel- published in 1982. The particular talk is- “A Birthday Message from Jesus and Me”.

The concept of Free Religion has often been used by Adi Da, examples are “The Free Communion Church” and later “Free Daism”. I often wondered why He used this term “Free” so often, in particular related to Adidam (whatever form it was conceived of in the past). Now I get it, it’s the complete reversal of how religion is perceived - by me at least, perhaps everyone already has this astonishingly liberal view !

Religion is generally seen as an imposition from without, it requires something of you by an institution or organisation outside of self.

This is crucial point and a most liberating one. Quite astounding in its direct emancipation from what I call “catechism” (1) something I endured with at best fortitude, as a child attending catholic school- in short, rote, unbelievably boring ritual, and feelingless liturgy. Adi Da calls it “mummery”.

“Such religion is free. It is native religion, it is God-made religion.”

It must come from your own free response, not imposed on you from without !

“Those who enter in such a religious process may live with one another, create a structure or an institution for association with one another and the communication of the Teaching “

So the structure and institution is based on the practice of a religious process, it comes from that process-freely.

“but their religion itself is free and immediate.”

How cool is that, the almost universal complaint about “organized religion” ends here, because you the practitioner create and maintain this religion, freely. This inherent religious process (understood in this most expansive manner) precedes the structure of religion itself, in any form, nor can it be ever subservient to the institution itself. It must stand prior to any external form, though the form  and institution is its free expression and natural form (again understood from this most radical point of view)

It’s a revolutionary point of view and one all the Great Adept Masters of the past have gestured at (in this talk Adi Da equates Jesus to this primary attempt to establish Free Religion), previous to the formation of “religion” in its far lesser or exoteric (2) mode, after the death of The Master.

There is no need for naive idealism though, it is far more gritty than that, in how it actually works out. Adidam is thus described in the best case scenario, there is already something of this quality there, at particular times it is very clear. As time goes on this will become more the case. It’s a wonderful vision. Should inspire the Free Heart in all, just in its mere contemplation.

Listen to the talk (or MP3 download) “A Birthday Message from Jesus and Me”

(1) catechism (; κατηχισμός from kata = “down” + echein = “to sound”, literally “to sound down” (into the ears), i.e. to indoctrinate) is a summary or exposition of doctrine, traditionally used in Christian religious teaching from New Testament times to the present

(2) exoteric & esoteric religion

Introduction

“Science has thus found how to make doubt into a tool of conventional knowledge. And, rightly used, that tool has its place. But as a psychological state that defines our existence and that is developed into a view of the universe, doubt is a form of affliction, something to be understood and transcended. In the course of real spiritual practice, doubt is encountered in its purity. It is not regarded to have philosophical content. It is regarded to be simply a sign of the contraction of being” (1) Adi Da Samraj

As a modern man born in the 20Th century, my primary mood is doubt, not faith, my first response to anything of an even slightly spiritual nature is disbelief, more as an underlying and characteristic feeling response than a conscious, thinking one.

Along with my peers I have inherited an ingrained world view that is generally uninspected and unnoticed, accepted as natural, rather than one acquired culturally. That view is non-faith or the tacit denial of God, Truth, Love and Happiness as our primary state and primary knowledge.

This apparently inherited mood of doubt was not the case in my early childhood, thus I say my faith was lost and was previous to doubt, the mood of faith seems unreal and ephemeral compared to this deeply conditioned doubt response that clearly came from cultural and educational sources.

Part 1: Doubt and Faith

Doubt used in this context is mostly seen as the opposite of faith, faith is generally defined as belief in religious or spiritual doctrine or deity, doubt is a sense of denial in relation to doctrine or belief in a doctrine, Adi Da treats doubt as primarily an emotional state or mood (2) (a form of self-contraction) at the root of all doubt.

 Anyone who takes the trouble to “feel” doubt, may notice it is has a characteristic emotional component, no matter what the particular subject of the doubt. To doubt is felt as a negative state of self . In contrast to this, one can use objective analysis or discriminative reflection without the addition of doubt (as a negative psycho-physical state), that is, the analytical discriminative faculty  need not carry the emotive component that is the mood of doubt.

To me the constant arising of doubt is not something to be concerned about, it does not mean what it appears to, because I see it (when this insight is active) as a condition of myself, rather than a reflection of what is true or external to me.

It is also notable that the conflict between doubt and faith is overwhelming in Western theology, not an overriding consideration in Hindu thought, but perhaps more considered in some schools of Buddhism.

Since doubt is easily known, the use of the term faith needs clarification :

Faith used here, is a natural heart felt openness, that seems to be strong in childhood and quickly recedes as our education in conventional doctrines and world concepts overwhelms it. It is a state of mind and emotion, it naturally presumes a happy, joyous source to all things. Not  merely the belief in doctrine but a disposition that assumes eternal life via feeling rather than thought. It stands in opposition to the mood of doubt  but shares the demonstrable quality of being also a state of self, but felt as a positivity, joy and connection to all life and its inherent mystery.

To clarify further then, faith in Adi Da’s specific idiom (as I understand it), means not a particular set of beliefs or a response to specific dogma or concepts but an opening of the being, that would then allow conceptualization to follow. It is not belief in a particular God concept, or a particular religion, but is previous to any particular concept, God or religious idea, rather it is  rooted in the visceral source of faith as response prior to conceptualizations

I am not suggesting that a return to the mere naivety of childhood is the desired outcome but rather the manifesting of faith in a fully adult manner, with the full capacity to use discriminative insight. Adi Da postulates that God, Truth or Divine Reality is obvious(3), not the usual modern point of view that starts with the apparent (at least as a feeling sense) absence of anything remotely Divine in nature. 

Doubt and faith in religious traditions

Consider the Christian (Catholic) concept of doubt :

“The faith demanded by the Christian Revelation stands on a different footing from the belief claimed by any other religion. Since it rests on divine authority, it implies an obligation to believe on the part of all to whom it is proposed; and faith being an act of the will as well as of the intellect, its refusal involves not merely intellectual error, but also some degree of moral perversity. It follows that doubt in regard to the Christian religion is equivalent to its total rejection, the ground of its acceptance being necessarily in every case the authority on which it is proposed, and not, as with philosophical or scientific doctrines, its intrinsic demonstrability in detail. Thus, whereas a philosophical or scientific opinion may be held provisionally and subject to an unresolved doubt, no such position can be held towards the doctrines of Christianity; their authority must be either accepted or rejected. The unconditional, interior assent which the Church demands to the Divine authority of revelation is incompatible with any doubt as to its validity. Gregory XVI. ” (4)

The Demon of Doubt

Clearly then to doubt Christian doctrine, is a conscious choice and always a sinful one, whether practicing Christians actually hold this view consciously is unlikely, but something of it may be be present.

From the Christian viewpoint (at least as expressed above very dogmatically), someone like myself who confesses doubt as a primary sensation, must be forced to suppress this and instead apply a mental discipline to believe prescribed concepts, this is often the common view of what faith is, or what a man or woman “of faith” would demonstrate. By applying a counter effort to suppress all that is doubt, or doubting of religious doctrine, I show or express my faith. Which makes faith thus defined always at war with doubt.

Another example of the faith/doubt dynamic is expressed here, in a more expansive manner by Sri Aurobindo (5)

“There is one kind of faith demanded as indispensable by the integral Yoga and that may be described as faith in God and the Shakti, faith in the presence and power of the Divine in us and the world, a faith that all in the world is the working of one divine Shakti, that all the steps of the Yoga, its strivings and sufferings and failures as well as its successes and satisfactions and victories are utilities and necessities of her workings and that by a firm and strong dependence on and a total self-surrender to the Divine and to his Shakti in us we can attain to oneness and freedom and victory and perfection”

“The enemy of faith is doubt, and yet doubt too is an utility and necessity, because man in his ignorance and in his progressive labour towards knowledge needs to be visited by doubt, otherwise he would remain obstinate in an ignorant belief and limited knowledge and unable to escape from his errors. This utility and necessity of doubt does not altogether disappear when we enter on the path of Yoga. The integral Yoga aims at a knowledge not merely of some fundamental principle, but a knowing, a gnosis which will apply itself to and cover all life and the world action, and in this search for knowledge we enter on the way and are accompanied for many miles upon it by the mind’s unregenerated activities before these are purified and transformed by a greater light: we carry with us a number of intellectual beliefs and ideas which are by no means all of them correct and perfect and a host of new ideas and suggestions meet us afterwards demanding our credence which it would be fatal to seize on and always cling to in the shape in which they come without regard to their possible error, limitation or imperfection.”

Sogyal Rinpoche a Tibetan Lama of the Nyingma tradition writing  on doubt (6) :

“Our minds, however, are riddled with confusion and doubt. I sometimes think that doubt is an even greater block to human evolution than is desire or attachment. Our society promotes cleverness instead of wisdom, and celebrates the most superficial, harsh, and least useful aspects of our intelligence. We have become so falsely “sophisticated” and neurotic that we take doubt itself for truth, and the doubt that is nothing more than ego’s desperate attempt to defend itself from wisdom is deified as the goal and fruit of true knowledge. This form of mean-spirited doubt is the shabby emperor of samsara, served by a flock of “experts” who teach us not the open-souled and generous doubt that Buddha assured us was necessary for testing and proving the worth of the teachings, but a destructive form of doubt that leaves us nothing to believe in, nothing to hope for, and nothing to live by.”

“Doubts demand from us a real skillfulness in dealing with them, and I notice how few people have any idea how to pursue doubts or to use them. It seems ironic that in a civilization that so worships the power of deflation and doubt, hardly anyone has the courage to deflate the claims of doubt itself-to do as one Hindu master said: ‘turn the dogs of doubt on doubt itself, to unmask cynicism, and to uncover what fear, despair, hopelessness, and tired conditioning it springs from’. Then doubt would no longer be an obstacle, but a door to realization, and whenever doubt appeared in the mind, a seeker would welcome it as a means of going deeper into the truth.”

notes
(1) The Transmission of Doubt pp 149- (Da Free John) Adi Da Samraj
(2) ” You are always “capable” of doubt, because doubt is a condition of yourself. It is a form of contraction” Adi Da Samraj - God and Doubt.
(3)Adi Da Samraj - God and Doubt
(4) http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05141a.htm
(5)Yoga of Self-Perfection by Sri Aurobindo Chapter XVIII Faith and Shakti
(6) Quoted from viewonbuddhism.org

“I am desirous to climb the heights of *Laucala That I may see thence the island of Naitaumba, Floating apparently like a canoe on the Bright water…” Author unknown, from Transactions of the ninth International congress of Orientalists, 1893

Not much information is available about Naitauba pre-European settlement of the Lau Archipelago, some commentators are of the opinion that fresh water would have been an issue on such islands (no above ground water) and would have prevented a permanent settlement.

When Captain William Bligh sailed passed Naitauba in 1789, it is recorded “.. steered West to pass close to Naitauba, where they saw natives on the beach with spears in their hands..”
The Fiji Islands: a geographical handbook By Ronald Albert Derrick

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Naitauba pronounced “Ny-tum-ba” is a volcanic and raised limestone island, with a high point of 186 metres(1), part of the Northern Lau Group, recently estimated to be 2000 acres or just over 3 square miles(2) in size.

It has cultivated areas and virgin forest. There are sections of ocean within the reef kept as a marine park, restricting fishing and hunting. The Island is almost completely enclosed by reef -named “The Garland of Whales” by Adi Da Samraj- as this high altitude photograph clearly shows. Naitauba has also been spelled ; Naitaba - Naitaumba- Naitamba - Neita-oumba (3) in the past

Walter and Herbert Chamberlain (1877-1899) The brothers Walter and Herbert Chamberlain, uncles of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, a pair of British adventures and entrepreneurs, bought the Island of Naitauba from William Hennings in 1877, for £ 7,250. They sold it back to Hennings after deeming it an unprofitable enterprise for £ 4,000, in 1899.

From Diary Notes recorded from a return visit by the brothers in 1881:

“Cleared much Jungle, planted many thousands of cocoanuts and 300 ac. of South Sea cotton, the proceeds about paying the costs.Then, as the government regulations enormously increased the expenses of labour and we deemed it hopeless as a paying proposition under vicarious management, we sold it in July 1899.. ” (4)

The Hennings Family (1899-1965)
The first reliable record of a European owner of Naituaba was William Hennings a German national (married to a Fijian women of title) and at times a successful Copra Trader(5) his son Ratu Gustavus Mara Hennings (the “Ratu” title goes back to his link to Fijian Royalty on his mothers side), took over and continued to develop the plantation, later marrying Elizabeth Vogel, German by birth. The island then remained in the Hennings family until 1965.

Under the stewardship of the Hennings, Naitauba became mainly copra producing, known for good labour relations and described as “a model plantation”(6)

Raymond Burr 1965-1983
Raymond Burr and his long time partner Robert Benevides(7), bought Naitauba from Elizabeth Hennings (Gus Hennings died in 1955) The pair further developed the plantation, including building many wooden structures and introducing cattle, Burr had a great passion for orchids and grew many varieties on the island.

Burr was a noted philanthropist and helped the Fijian residents, providing employment and among other things sponsored several Island children to be educated in the US. Burr always referred to the island as “Naitamba”

His biographer noted “”All religions are respected with dignity on Naitamba”(8)

Adi Da Samraj & Adidam (1983 - present)

In 1983 Naitauba was acquired for Adidam (Adi Da was a legal renunciate) primarily financed by one patron-devotee. Adi Da first set foot on Naitauba on October 27Th 1983, the next day he said (9) :

AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Naitauba is not just a piece of land. It is a Divine Place. That is how it will be for as long as the sun shines and rises and sets and the grass grows and the wind blows. Forever – as ever as there can be in this world. Maybe it will become a paradise through Spiritual sacrifice. And, all during that epoch, this Place should be a Sanctuary of Blessing. Over time, then, millions of people – literally, millions of people – should come to this Place and be Blessed. They should come and acknowledge, affirm, and see My Revelation magnified.

This place is so great, so great. Civilization has never interfered with it. It is untouched. The water is blue. The fish are happy. Untouched, really untouched. Pristine from the beginning of the world – this place. It has been waiting here since the beginning of time.
–October 28, 1983

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Under the custodianship of Adi Da Samraj the Island was slowly developed into a Hermitage Ashram (formally named, Adi Da Samrajashram) with some similarities to the Indian model yet unique to the emerging Spiritual Way of Adidam . Its emphasis is a disciplined life of devotion, service and meditative practice. The conservation of the Island flora, fauna and reef was actioned from the beginning of acquisition of the island. A report into the health of the reef (named by Adi Da, “The Garland of Wales”) was undertaken in 1986(10). The necessity of supplying food to the residents of the island in a self sufficient manner moved the plantation model into that of an organic farm, in the later 1980’s one of the founders of permaculture Bill Mollison(11) was invited to Naituaba to research and advise Adidam on the development of this practice. A constant weed eradication program continues, many thousand of the coconuts have been removed as they become unclimbable (and therefore unusable) and a hazard to humans and all cattle were removed and gifted to local island communities.

Co-operative association with Indigenous Fijian village of Ciqomi (thing-GO-mee) was an imperative from the beginning. Many residents started to work for Adidam on projects from new building infrastructure to developing the extensive gardens. Adidam supports the village in many ways including employment- school scholarships, health clinic service, transport, water supply and sanitation. The village is completely independent of Adidam.

Naitauba remains a place of pilgrimage and spiritual retreat for devotees of Adi Da Samraj, it exists solely on the sponsorship of members and friends of Adidam, as a place of personal and spiritual sacrifice. The intention is to protect and preserve this Sanctuary as an esoteric and conservation treasure of humanity, into perpetuity.

A more extensive version of this article is available here

notes and references

*Laucala is a nearby island
(1) Review of the protected areas system in Oceania By Arthur L. Dahl
(2) http://naitaubafarm.org/
(3) http://www.geody.com/geospot.php?world=terra&ufi=-1189947&alc=ntm
(4) The years of hope: Cambridge, colonial administration in the South Seas and Cricket By Philip Snow
(5)The Cambridge History of the Pacific Islanders By Donald Denoon, Malama Meleisea, Stewart Firth, Jocelyn Linnekin, Karen Nero
(6) The years of hope: Cambridge, colonial administration in the South Seas and Cricket By Philip Snow
(7) http://www.glbtq.com/arts/burr1_r,2.html
(8) Raymond Burr: A Film, Radio and Television Biography By Ona L. Hill
(9) http://global.adidam.org/books/adi-da.html
(10) http://www.reefbase.org/pacific/pub_C0000000130.aspx
(11) http://www.tagari.com/?p=58

This is taken from a book written in 1983 called “What Is the Conscious Process?” it includes some of Adi Da’s most direct and simple word on the Esoteric nature of The Spiritual Master’s influence in the daily life of a practitioner, it is my habit to read later texts (currently The Aletheon) combined with older texts(such as this one) which remain a remarkable and seemingly endless source of Wisdom Instruction, this combination has a wonderful expansive and enrichening quality

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“As I have told you, when the Adept Awakens into his Function for others, the “Siddhi” or Divine Awakening Power achieves universal Agency. Thereafter, when the Influence of the Adept is contacted via the practice of devotees (or when the Adept makes his Influence effective, spontaneously or at will, in the case of any person or condition), changes begin to occur. The essence of those changes is a Work that purifies, balances, and ultimately Awakens the individual being.

Those who truly practice, and thus cooperate with (rather than resist, or even merely luxuriate in the superficial effects of) the Adept’s Transmission, are progressively relieved or purified of the “karmic” (or self-based and habitual) limitations they have accumulated in the functional domain of the body-mind and its relations.

It should be understood that the karmas or habit patterns of every individual are effective at every level: physical, emotional, mental, unconscious, subconscious, conscious, waking, dreaming, and sleeping. And those karmas extend beyond the individual body-mind to include others, objects, and environments on every level, visible (or gross) and invisible (or subtle), known and unknown–past, present, and future. Also, because of the universal effectiveness of the karmic or conditional associations of individual being, it is not at all possible merely to invert upon and identify with the self-essence (the “Atman” or most inner consciousness) and have that be true Transcendental Self-Realization or Enlightenment. The inner self or “Atman” is not identical to the Transcendental Self (”Paramatman” or “Brahman”) unless it is Realized to be Such. (Just as “Nirvana” and “samsara” are not identical until they are Realized to be So.) And such Realization is not at all possible until the individual or self-bound consciousness has first been transcended through the real discipline of practice.

Transcendental Realization requires, as a prerequisite, the purificatory release of karmic accumulations, or the tendencies of attention that limit and suppress the ability of attention to Locate its Ultimate Source-Condition. Therefore, the ultimate fulfillment of the Way (which is to “Be Conscious as the Feeling of Being and Realize that It Is Radiant Happiness”) requires, as a matter of preparation, the purification or release of attention from the self-bond, the stable development of true psycho-physical equanimity (or full responsibility for self-transcendence), and the magnification of free energy and attention.

The Adept Spiritual Master Works spontaneously for devotees as a Free Agent that Serves both the initial or preparatory process (of purification, self-transcendence, equanimity, and free energy and attention) and the ultimate process of Transcendental Awakening that follows naturally upon and even always coincides with every stage of such preparation. Therefore, when I regard my devotees, or when I sit with them in Transcendental Communion (whether I am physically near or far from them), I Magnify the Purifying, Liberating, and Awakening Power to them, each and all.

As devotees progressively develop and mature in their practice, the Power in my Company acts directly and effectively to prepare them and to Awaken them. This is shown by many kinds of evidence in life and meditation, and there are at least many hundreds of individuals thus far who can attest to this. The Awakening Effect is affirmed even by those who first study the literature of my Teaching. Likewise, all the Effects that serve to purify, to release the self-contraction, to create equanimity, and to release energy and attention can be testified to by many who have practiced this Way in my Company for years or even months.

The process whereby these Effects are Demonstrated is directly associated with the unique daily life and meditation of each devotee. Each day, unique tendencies, associations, and conditions of life and meditation appear in the case of each devotee. When those tendencies, associations, and conditions are combined with real practice (in the forms of conductivity and the Conscious Process) and brought into the sphere of Communion with the Adept in God (or Reality), a purifying, harmonizing, liberating, and Awakening Force is brought into the context of the moment–and this Event produces all kinds of transformative changes, both ordinary and extraordinary or profound. In this manner, the various karmic accumulations or habitual limitations of each true devotee are gradually lifted off and absorbed or eliminated by my Agency.

My own Work in this regard is a spontaneous Siddhi that has always been Alive in me, but I accepted full responsibility for It in relation to others only after the Event in the Vedanta Temple. Then the Signs of Its Operation began to Move and Oblige me toward others for the sake of their Awakening, and I began to Teach. Over the years since then, I have entered spontaneously and freely into all kinds of relations with people in order to allow this Siddhi to do Its Work without limitation. As a result, the Great Way has now been fully Communicated anew, and devotees and I practice the Siddhi of our Great Relationship even at great distances. It is a Marvel of Divine Grace which few are able to value and understand.

And so I call you to practice this Way in my Company. I call you to understand, surrender, and transcend yourself in Divine Company, free of the conceits of egoity. If you do this, then all of the obvious and also hidden content of manifest consciousness will gradually rise up to your attention–and each portion of it will be inspected and released in your own case. When all of that content has been drawn up and released, then attention will stand bare in you, and all of the energies of your manifest being will be free to collect in the locus of the right side of the heart. Then, and only then, your own consciousness will be free to Identify with the Transcendental Consciousness, which is prior to the body-mind and all of Nature.

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A fundamental aspect of the Way is the progressive recognition of the Spiritual Master. In other words entering into that Company, the sphere of the Spiritual Master’s Influence more and more profoundly. By entering into more and more profound levels of recognition of the Spiritual Master, beginning with obvious acknowledgment of the Spiritual Master, as a Living Master, but then going on to recognize and locate the Spiritual Master as Siddha, as Siddhi, as that Influence, which is directly present to every practicing devotee, in every moment, not merely in occasions of being in the Spiritual master’s human company, or being in meditation, of being in an empowered place, or being in the community and so on, but always. Those who truly practice begin to locate and recognize and acknowledge this Influence in every moment of life and meditation. it is always available. It is a matter of turning to it, of acknowledging it, recognizing it, locating it, making your practice into communion with that Influence. Therefore allowing that Influence to transform the conditions of existence that are arising from hour to hour, moment to moment, not only in meditation, but in daily life. In daily life all kinds of changes occur, all kinds of moods, all kinds of circumstances, physical, emotional and mental states, relations, changes in relations and so forth. Those are just as much within the sphere of Transcendental Influence, as any of the activities that occur in the subjective realm of meditation. Therefore these also, you will discover, remarkably, are constantly being changed, in various ways by this influence.

The Influence, or Siddhi that you have entered into is the Power and Being in which all of nature is arising. And therefore it has its effect on all of the apparently objective conditions of your existence, just as it has an effect upon the subjective conditions. So in daily life, you notice this influence making changes, if your sensitive and really practicing in this company, in both the subjective and objective levels of your existence. In meditation, you notice this influence more in terms of the subjective changes and the effects this Influence has on you immediate personal experience, you physical, emotional, mental states, and those kinds of states that may arise in meditation.

You should also begin to notice how this Influence is operative beyond the waking state, in dreams, in sleeping, in every moment of existence. There is a tradition in which Adepts have asked devotees, usually advanced devotees, to sleep at night, with the intention of entering into the Spiritual Master’s company. Sometimes this instruction is given in very specific detail, to go to sleep with the intention in the astral or dream form, to go to a specific location, usually the Communion Hall, or the place of residence of the Spiritual Master, with full visual expression and so on, during the dreaming time. Also with the intention in the sleep state, to be entered into communion with the Transcendental Condition and presence of the Spiritual Master, or the Consciousness, or Being that is the Adept and the Divine.

Well, devotees over the years, frequently report random, unintentional experiences of this kind. Similar experiences in fact occur even during waking hours, various kinds of visionary experiences, of seeing me in the meditation hall, or having some vision of me and so forth, in a moment of activity. These are reported by people. they also report all kinds of extraordinary dreams. Now these dreams in general do not have anything to do with me in the sense that I am personally, at the level of my human mind and so on, aware that you are having these dreams, although I very often am aware of them. But the fact that somebody has a dream in which I appear to them, does not necessarily mean that I would be able to tell them the next day that I was aware of it. I may or may not be aware of it. Or I may be aware of it in a difference form. Or I may be aware of it in the same form. But most of the time I wouldn’t be aware of it, there would be no reflection in my waking mind of it. But this does not mean that the experience if false. It can be falsified by the individual who just uses it for his own self-glamouriation, to console him or herself so they can feel they’re had some profound experience. But generally the essential content of such dreams is a feeling of entering into this communion, and something about the meaning of the dream, will generally have some pertinence, some significance that is real and appropriate enough, worth remembering, worth allowing to have some effect on you whenever it will.

Therefore since this possibility exists, some people might try this. You should feel free to try this. These gatherings we have on celebration occasions are something like this. People gather in Centers and various parts of the world, at the same time I’m sitting here with you all. And they prepare themselves through the devotional occasion, and use my photograph as a way of associating with me. They are literally tuning into me, allowing themselves to enter into the sphere of my Influence, personally. During meditation, or perhaps in dreams, or some other visions afterwards, they may have some sense of coming to some place where I’m sitting with them and so forth. During that time of meditation, they may have visions of it, of my being in the room with them, or them being in a room some place or other with me.

In other words the psyche may function automatically to create some sort of association with me that’s tangible. Whether or not that tangible association has anything directly to do with my actual physical location or not. It is simply something that adds a dimension to the whole force of their alignment to me”