Archive for January, 2010

Terms in Adidam: “Sadhana Murti”

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

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

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The ultimate “luxury” of spiritual retreat

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

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.

Related Post : Handle Business & Drop Out

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The unimportance of “self”

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

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” about 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”

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Experiment in egolessness

Monday, January 4th, 2010

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

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