Archive for the ‘Guru's Grace’ Category

Rare find in 2nd hand bookshop

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

I came across this 1986 pristine hardback in a 2nd hand book store in Cairns North Queensland Australia. It even had an insert updating the original. Its beautiful orange cover with the 3 Heart Station icon is just wonderful, I have never seen this copy before and even though I have some basic paperback versions from the same era, nothing matches this Gem.

I walked into the shop without motive, perhaps looking for a bit of local reading, but this appearance left me stunned and ecstatic, I said to the woman owner- “How much for this little gem?” . She picked it up and half in jest ( I think) said “$110″. ” You must be joking ?” I replied (would have been happy to pay that much) “OK- 5 bucks!” she said,
“Done” I said. She pranamed in Eastern style to me and I could not reply, just walked out into the bright sunshine. I was over the moon, bought a spirulina and juice smoothie nearby to celebrate and sat to enjoy this great find. An intoxicated man staggered passed me and said “Looks like a great little book!” Its brilliant orange cover sparkled in the sun.

The Restoration & Descent of Faith

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

If you read my post here, you will see the extent of “doubt” as a specific culturally imbibed mental & emotional state in my case (and if you look closely, perhaps in your own case)

I wrote : Faith was lost or nebulous, that doubt always outweighed it. Well, lately Faith as a tangible force has again begun to become ascendant, incarnate (or bodily felt)

It appears to be the single most effective quality of real change in my life, it appears to descend down through the front of my being and into the vital center.

Its effect is transforming, and actually changes “reality”.This is clearly seen. The world takes on more of a fluid character, less solid and immovable. It becomes “psychic” or more like the psyche itself.

It has something of a strange and “freaky” nature from the conventional point of view. The universe starts to talk back to you (in effect) A lot of fear may arise, naturally, because the basis of security the solid, dependable–real world–starts to be seen as just as undependable as a dream or subjective state.

Faith changes the world view. I am just writing about what  I am actually feeling or seeing. Adi Da often wrote about what He called “Conversion”; well it’s of this nature. Faith is felt as a joyous fullness that changes everything, you can clearly see how an adherent of any particular religion would see various saints, deities and spirit forms. In Adidam there are none. The psyche is empty, unless you want to pursue various forms that appear, fleetingly. The form of The Guru is utterly sufficient, nothing needs to be added or embellished.

Faith becomes the asana or position we view all things from, rather than the common, modern and culturally informed one of doubt.

By observing it closely you can see it needs to be protected, nurtured and allowed to grow otherwise the mood of doubt returns. The discriminative facility (normally associated with doubt) can be freely used without the burden of negative emotional content. So it’s not the naive and vulnerable faith of childhood but the maturing Faith of adulthood.

“And the world is a psychic phenomenon. In other words, we never experience the world except psychically. We never experience it except as knowledge and perception. We never experience it except as a condition that includes us. We are not separate from it. What we are at the level of the psyche and at the level of consciousness is just as much an inherent part of the world as the so-called material, objective forms. When we associate with the world on the basis of the totality of all the conditions of our existence, we participate in the world of forms as a psychic process. By participating psychically in the psychic phenomena of the world, we learn the laws whereby we can influence the phenomena of the waking state. We generate a process wherein we can become sensitive to the phenomena of the waking state so that we can observe unusual coincidences of form and psychic significances that our verbal mind tends to exclude from what we are observing” ~Adi Da Samraj

Further Reading : The Bridge To God

Secret of Spiritual Practice

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

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”

One for those who enjoy the Esoteric possibility

Sunday, September 6th, 2009

There are a whole series of YouTube Videos similar to this here

Part 2

Early Books & Later Work a Schism?(2)

Sunday, September 6th, 2009

 

Quote from B.M

Adi Da is asking a huge amount of people, just looking at it from the average joe-seeker’s point of view, I would say too much is asked of him or her and outside of the cloisters of Adidam, my friend, it’s gob-smackingly-freaking-obvious, which is tragic, because this great wisdom should be available to all surely, as this was the point of this Incarnation of the Adept in my opinion – since it is what will always bring many people to the Master.

The other thing to consider is that the spiritual market, has changed mightily since we were new, young and fresh seekers of Truth, there may have been 30 or 40 present sources of spiritual influence available to westerners at that time, hanging around spiritual bookshops and reading posters on health food notice boards for sources of wisdom, was as good as it got for us. These days the numbers of such sources and influences is massive and they pander to individual taste, even. The waters are so muddied in present time, the guy looking for Truth in all of that, has so many more options than the dude reading “The Method of The Siddha’s” in the 70’s and even 80’s The questions may be exactly the same, but the potential answers by all the Guru’s of now, has become overwhelming, I pity the poor devil moving through all of this hype and possibility. We had it easy, in fact. I sometimes think if I was was a young person trying to make sense of it all, could I have found my way, even to “The Knee of Listening” and if I did would I have been able to recognize the Adept’s appearance or gone on from there to be lost in the miasma of all current possibilities in the spiritual marketplace, or more to the point, If I came across some of Adi Da’s more recent and demanding texts would I have the capacity to persist through them ? Hard to say, perhaps, but it was certainly more clear cut, then, than now.

(Response)
Well, agree on some points, but things are not necessarily how they seem. Grace has to be there, right. No matter what the circumstance, now, in the future, after death, in another state, we depend utterly on Grace that is fundamental to the Way and has always been the case.

Anyway take heart brother, this young hero proves it is currently possible to Recognize- The spiritual Master, and will continue to be in any time and space  and his quote (below) is really pertinent to our conversation

I found The Knee Of Listening to be an amazing book and was fascinated by Adi Da’s life story. I enjoyed reading His Writing and reading about His childhood and His time in India, and everything else. I found it very humbling. And His Writing was so sophisticated, intelligent, and creative. I was fascinated with the technical precision in His use of language. I remember reading the first essay “Do Not Misunderstand Me“; it was full of capitalization, underlining, and parentheticals. I did not feel intimidated, but immediately felt that whoever Adi Da Is, He is very serious.

I never felt offended by His claims of Divinity or Avatarhood, but was more struck by the way He said it. His Written-Word was absolutely confident, firm, and unshakable. I felt that there was no trace of uncertainty in Adi Da about anything. His Writing was so strong, with the underlining, the capitalization, everything. I did not care if He was the Divine Avatar or not, I could at least respect His utter seriousness and confidence about it. He did not feel weak at all, as if He was someone who needed to make claims about himself for the sake of identity, or self-esteem, or megalomania. His strength was overpowering to me. I did not even question Him, nor did I believe Him, but I just kept reading. I was fascinated and attracted to Him and His claims, that someone would even say something like that was startling and amazing to me. I couldn’t get enough. I continued to read passages where Adi Da would say that He was the Divine, and sometimes would even seek for these passages, just marveling that someone would say such a thing! Why would a man say that? And with such Force?

The Guru Keeps You Straight & Free

Monday, June 29th, 2009

I have been feeling the paradoxical liberation and freedom at the root of the genuine and ancient Guru devotee tradition.

Adi Da said “My devotees are Free”

What this means to me, is from the beginning of that relationship True Freedom is known, It’s not the traditional search for Freedom at the end of a long journey of struggle and adventure. It’s a given-from-the-beginning Intuition or direct Knowledge, that given Knowledge just matures over time and guides the life.

A lot of  people feel that the Guru devotee model is bondage, this is not the case. It’s more like being married and in love, keeps you straight, stops you going off the rails, getting full of “self” and calling it “The Self”, getting lost in internal  delusion which is bottomless and endless, or remaining an always hungry seeker without prior and present fullness.

It’s not popular, few are recommending it, but it is truly Liberating from the beginning.

Another thing that may not be so obvious is that Satsang or the primary relationship with The Guru, protects you from exploitation, in that fidelity, we become searchless and unexploitable having found our Source our True Ground

We find our True Ground at The Masters Feet just resting there, no problem, no dilemma in sight.

Then, what appears as bondage is Liberation, and what appears to be liberating is bondage.

The Mysterious Nature of Guru’s Grace

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

Adi Da
Stories of devotee’s bringing the Master into life, communicating Him directly to others seem more prevalent in the 1970’s to early 1980’s, I can’t account for this, it is fundamentally mysterious, as are many things connected with the Adept’s Work, I don’t think it is either possible or necessary to try an explain this If you do want to speculate about it, here is my own addition, the 60-70’s were a completely energetically and psychically different time–weird stuff happened a lot more often

Some examples:

A man was standing in the Darshan line waiting to see UG Krishnamurti, a man in front of him turned and either spoke to him or others and said (paraphrasing) “If you want to see God, go to the Ashram Bookstore in L.A (at the time Adi Da was using this facility) He is there”. The man listening later became a devotee.

I met a devotee on Naitauba in November 2008, he had been so since 1974, both formal and informal, in that year he met a man named Bill C., who told him that Franklin Jones, a man in California was the “Living Siddha Master, without a shadow of doubt, the Real Thing”. Merely on the say so, of Bill, he went to California and became a devotee.

In the mid-late 70’s I went into a bookstore and found this incredible stack of books right down the back of the store in Melbourne, Australia (which was a conventional bookstore) It was truly mind blowing, they seemed to have tangible almost glowing, energetic quality, as if I had suddenly been thrust into another realm, the titles included : “Garbage And The Goddess” and “No Remedy” by someone called Bubba Free John, and some other books about Ramana Maharshi The humorous thing was I had previously read “The Knee of Listening” and did not know the author was the same, I bought a copy of “Garbage and Goddess” Talking to the sales assistant he seemed to be perplexed by the mysterious books as well, almost whispering about them. Later I learned that a very close devotee of Bubba Free John, had come to Town and distributed the books directly to that store.

adi da Garbage And The Goddess I recently spoke to a lady H. who told me of seeing a friend called Terry (circa 1981-2) who had been practicing as a Tibetan Buddhist Monk, on his return to the West, he spoke of an amazing being called Da Free John and a book called “Garbage And The Goddess”, these 2 impresssions stayed in her mind.

Some time later in a 2nd hand bookshop, she saw GG and bought it, H. was a very poor english reader, being a native of Poland and expected to struggle with reading it, on the contrary the book came alive to her, she understood it completely, she told me of her profound experience merely by reading this book and feeling her connection to Adi Da via the photos’s inside, which stays with her to the present (2009)

There are dozens of true accounts recorded and unrecorded, just like these, another good example has recently been added to adidaupclose.org here, apart from being very well written it also clearly demonstrates the necessary influence of Adi Da’s devotees in making the Way available to others.

Like a magic object given to you in a devotional afternoon

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009

There is almost enough space now to look back at the Event of the Life of Adi Da Samraj, His life certainly was a magic object given to devotees, lovers and friends and any one in fact who could or will appreciate it, intuit something about it or let it Brighten their own lifetime even for a short time or an intuitive moment by the mere contemplation or recollection of the Leela (Divine sport or play) in some form or other.

Intuitively taking His whole lifetime into account, rather than only the end time, because it seems to me the God-man in death reacquires, purifies and aligns all his forms in His Mahasamadhi (this could be utter nonsense, so use your own intuition about this) I feel that the true legacy that is given for all who may respond to this lifetime could be called in a feeling sense “A Universally Available All Liberating Brightness” again that’s just my interpretation, others should see for themselves

But when that preparation is sufficient — and this is not knowable to devotees — it is then that this appearance is vanished, like a magic object given to you in a devotional afternoon. The disappearance of the God-man is therefore sudden — whenever it occurs it is sudden. Its significance is that the aura of his or her communication moves through his or her lovers, only through them. And the entire process depends entirely, then, without a center, on the process of the community, on the process of the gathering of devotees, who no longer have a center in the case of the death of the God-man, but who have a burden of Light, who suffer or enjoy a speed in them that they could not recollect or engage while that one lived.

From The Death and the Birth of The God-man 1976- Adi Da Samraj