Meditation and Satsang
by Avatar Adi Da Samraj
If you are My rightly practicing devotee, whatever such phenomena need to happen in your case are guaranteed to happen. But such phenomena are a relatively minor aspect of Spiritual life. They should be allowed to arise—but observe that they are not themselves Spiritual life. They will not lead to Divine Liberation. They are not, in and of themselves, Truth. They do not affect the motivating character (or root-difficulty) of your particular individual life one iota. Thirty years of Shakti experiences will occupy a fool, but they will not Awaken such a one.
Increase of Energy or Spiritual experience does nothing whatsoever to the fundamental quality of conscious awareness. At most, Spiritual experiences simply intensify conscious awareness, providing functional strength—so that Spiritual life can begin as a Real process.
Only “radical” (or “root”) self-understanding avails. In other words, no motivated process, no simple influence of Energy avails. “Radical” (or “root”) self-understanding is not attachment to some functional body (or functional sheath), or some conditional realm, or some conditional experience that is seen as the alternative, remedy, cure, and source of “victory”. “Radical” (or “root”) self-understanding recognizes (by Means of My Divine Avataric Grace) that every motive and action is “made” of avoidance. Thus, “radical” (or “root”) self-understanding has no recourse except to understand. And “radical” (or “root”) self-understanding and the one who truly (“radically”, or “at the root”) understands the ego-“I” are not “different” from Reality Itself, the One and Only Self of all-and-All, the “Bright”.
The Yogic search enjoys only the conditionally manifested forms of “Shakti” (or the conditionally achieved Bliss of Energy). Only “Radical” Knowledge is Real Love-Bliss-Happiness, not dependent on anything.
The influence of Satsang with Me, the Condition of Satsang with Me, must begin. You must begin to adapt to Satsang with Me, make It your sadhana, meet the conditions of life in My Divine Avataric Company in a very simple manner, rightly adapt to a disciplined life, assume responsibility for the heart-relationship that is Satsang with Me—and begin to listen to Me.
You will simply begin to listen—and, when this process in conscious awareness has begun, you will begin to observe yourself, see yourself under the conditions of life.
“Radical” (or “root”) self-understanding awakens (by Means of My Divine Avataric Grace) when you truly listen to My Divine Avataric Word and truly observe yourself in relationship.
Therefore, observe yourself in life.
Observe yourself when you seek.
Observe yourself when you suffer to any degree.
Observe your motives.
Observe the activity of identification.
Observe the activity of differentiation.
Observe the activity of desire.
Observe the patterns of your existence.
The process of self-observation—magnified by listening to My Spoken Instruction about the self-contraction (or the avoidance of relationship), and by all your study and living of the Way of Adidam—becomes, at some point, Communication received: real observation that—yes!—this contraction, this avoidance, is the quality of your life.
When you realize that you are always seeking, “radical” (or “root”) self-understanding is emerging.
When you realize that all your motives, all your acts, all your seeking, are the pattern of “Narcissus”, “radical” (or “root”) self-understanding is emerging.
When you realize that you are always suffering, “radical” (or “root”) self-understanding is emerging….
Therefore, commit yourself to “radical” (or “root”) self-understanding in the midst of all experience—instead of merely committing yourself to the various kinds of remedial action that may be engaged as a means to handle the “problem” of life in any moment.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: The usual meditation—traditional meditation, the motivated remedy—is only a consolation, an effect, and a good feeling. The usual meditation effects no fundamental turnabout in ordinary (egoic) consciousness—and, thus, when situations arise outside of the meditative circumstance, there is no control over the already patterned process of identification, differentiation, and desire.
I spent years with all kinds of people who were experiencing the phenomena of Kundalini Yoga—dealing with the effects of Spiritual Force, miraculous Spiritual experiences. I have never seen anyone fundamentally changed by such experiences. They are not “designed” to change you. They are change. They are phenomena only. The phenomena themselves are not the point. They are simply a means of purification. You are not intended to sit in them forever, to bathe in them and watch them perform.
For my rightly practicing devotee, meditation is an intense Fire. It is a marvelous Intelligence, a Brilliance, a Genius, a Living Force.
—Avatar Adi Da Samraj
Listen! There is this contraction, this avoidance. All human beings are living this avoidance of relationship. Apart from self-understanding, that is all anyone is doing. Nothing else is happening—only this contraction of gross, subtle, and causal forms. It is suffering. It stimulates, by implication, the ego-based notions people have about the nature of life. The self-contraction implies a separate self—separate from the world and from all other beings.
The appearance of “many” and “separate me” is an expression of your suffering—but the Presence, the Force, the Bliss, of Divine Reality persists and is felt even under the conditions of egoic ignorance. Therefore, the self-contraction appears as the drama of desire, the search for union between the “separate me” and the “manyness”. Everyone’s life is the drama made inevitable by this fundamental contraction. Everyone’s life is the adventure that the individual is playing on this contraction. The drama of an ordinary life is without significance, without Real intensity. The ordinary life-drama is deadly ignorance—no Truth, no Satsang with Me.
Satsang with Me must begin. Satsang with Me must be enjoyed as the Condition of life. Then the entire ego-drama—of which even traditional Spirituality is a manifestation—comes to an end, dies. The self-contraction becomes flabby and releases. The Real Power of Consciousness Manifests Itself, Drawing you more deeply into the sadhana in My Divine Avataric Company.
In the Way of Adidam, meditation is not something that takes place in the midst of dilemma. In the Way of Adidam, meditation is not a strategic method to get rid of your suffering. It is not perpetual preoccupation with your own thoughts, with the content of your own life, in order to free yourself of your thoughts, step aside from them, make them quiet. The “you” who does all of that is itself the dilemma. It does not know anything. It is (itself) the suffering. It is (itself) obsession with the endless stream of its own thought.
Therefore, your attempts to do something about the “mind”—to make it quiet, to make it see visions, and so on—are nothing but further expressions of the original motivating dilemma. Such strategies are expressions of your separative impulse, attempts to fortify and “save” your separate life (which is already an illusion).
In the Way of Adidam, meditation arises only in the heart-relationship with Me—only under the conditions of Truth, already lived. There is Force in such meditation. For my rightly practicing devotee, meditation is an intense Fire. It is a marvelous Intelligence, a Brilliance, a Genius, a Living Force. It is not a pious attempt to quiet your little thoughts. It blasts the hell out of those thoughts! From the “Point of View” of the Living Divine Heart (or Truth Itself, or Reality Itself), there is no concern for all of these thoughts, all of these dilemmas, all of this mediocrity of suffering. All of that amounts to nothing.
When Satsang with Me becomes the Principle of your life, and Truth becomes the form of your meditation, thought is consumed. Such True Meditation is a Pressure under Which thoughts cannot survive. Such True meditation is an Intelligence that needs only to observe an obstruction in order for that obstruction to dissolve. This is the process that comes awake in Satsang with Me—not some strategic method, some ego-based remedy. The entire point of view of dis-ease is false. Spiritual life is not a “cure”. Spiritual life is the life of Truth. If you are looking for a cure, then you are still obsessed with your dis-ease.
Therefore, the first true thing you do when you come into contact with Me is to relax the obsession with your dis-ease, your trouble. Thus, the original activity you enjoy in relation to Me is not some remarkably sophisticated form of meditation. As my beginning devotee, what you do is nothing very sophisticated at all. You turn to Me and relax your search. You begin to find yourself in the Condition of Truth, the Condition of Satsang with Me. You begin to enjoy that Condition very directly and concretely—enjoying the Force of It, the Intensity of It, the Beauty of It, the Blissfulness and Happiness of It. Only after you have firmly established yourself in Satsang with Me do you begin to observe yourself consistently and effectively, to become truly intelligent and sophisticated in your application to the practice I have Given. Depending on how seriously you apply yourself, the beginnings of Satsang with Me may last for a very long time.
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[Excerpt from “Meditation and Satsang” in My “Bright” Word]
Avatar Adi Da, 2000
The Divine Way Given by
Avatar Adi Da Samraj
India
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