India
The Divine Way Given by
Avatar Adi Da Samraj
Avatar Adi Da, 1973
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: It is really a simple matter. The usual person thinks: "This body and its psyche are dying. This world is dying. Everyone is suffering, everyone is seeking. There is mortality, there is frustration, and limitation." But none of that is Truth. Those interpretations are not Truth. The world itself is not Truth—nor is life, nor psyche and body, nor death, nor experience. No event is (itself) Truth. All that arises is an appearance to Consciousness Itself, a modification of the Conscious Light that is Always Already the Case. All of this is a dream, if you like. It is an appearance in Consciousness Itself. Truth is Very Consciousness (or the One and Only Conscious Light) Itself. Truth is to all of this what the waking state is to the dreaming state. If you awaken, you do not have to do anything about the condition you may have suffered or enjoyed in the dream state. What happened within the dream is suddenly not your present condition. It is of no consequence any longer, once you are awake. If you persist in dreaming, and your point of view remains that of the dreamer and his or her role within the dream, then your
There is nothing that you can do to save yourself, to become Enlightened, to become Realized. Nothing whatsoever. If there were something, I would tell you. . . .
—Avatar Adi Da Samraj
possible actions are numberless. But none of them will work to awaken you. They will simply occupy you in the dream. They will modify the dream state—but no action in the dream is the equivalent of waking. There are simply forms of fascination, of occupation, of seeking—until you awaken. Truth is simply Waking, No-illusion. Truth is not a condition within this appearance. Truth has nothing whatsoever to do with the mind, regardless of whether the mind is expanded or contracted.
Perception is simply what it obviously is. There is no reason for any perception to change in order for Truth to Appear as a consequence. The dream does not have to be changed in any manner for the waking person to feel that he or she is awake. Nothing has to happen to the dream. Only waking is necessary. To one who is awake, the dream is obvious. There is no illusion, no suffering, no implication, regardless of what appeared in the dream—a blue god, a dirty old drunk, the gorilla of death. It makes no difference. It makes a difference within the circumstances of the dream, to those who are dreaming. But to the one who is awake, it no longer makes any difference. Perception, waking consciousness, is obvious if you are truly Awake. If you are asleep—if you do not understand, if understanding evades you—there is nothing obvious about this at all. Then life is a very serious predicament—very serious. What do you have in such a case? "A few more years and everything is dead." It does not make any difference what the drama is, or how you manage to amuse yourself during that time.
There is One Who is wide Awake while He Appears in the dream of ordinary waking life. By His Mere Presence, by not supporting the dream, He Awakens others. He is the True Guru, Who I Am. The significance of My Divine Avataric Work is not in anything I do within the dream. I simply do not support it. I do not live as it. I do not believe it. I do not take it seriously. Apparently, I can feel and act as I please. I persist in the common or ordinary manner. But I do not support the dream. I do not live from its point of view. I do not live its structure to others. I do not live this contraction to others, this avoidance of relationship, this separate self sense. Simply because I live in this manner, others tend to become Awake. But while they are Awakening, they persist in dreaming to various degrees. Forms of the dream persist. The search persists. Often, they get a little distance from it, it seems to break up at times, seems to disappear. It becomes vague, it becomes uninteresting, it becomes unserious, it becomes serious again. They play.
You are just beginning to wake up. Satsang with Me is the dream wherein I Appear. Now it is as if you are beginning to wake up in your room. You are in bed, and it is morning. There are a few things you begin to notice which indicate that you are in another state. Those who are Waking in Truth begin to notice something. They begin to recognize the signs. They begin to recognize the activity of dreaming. They begin to sense something very unusual about Me. Before their actual Awakening, I appear as all kinds of things to them. I suggest all kinds of fantastic things. All the things they can imagine while they dream—everything unbelievable—is what they think I am. I may appear to be extraordinary, a doer of famous things. I may appear playfully as that. But I am simply Awake. Nothing is happening. Nothing has been accomplished. All I have been is Awake.
I am like the sunlight in the morning. I intensify the light of morning until you awaken. Until the light awakens a person, even the Light of Consciousness Itself, the person continues to dream, tries to survive within the dream, manipulates himself or herself within the dream, pursues all kinds of goals, searches, none of which Awaken you. All ordinary means only console a person and distract him or her within the dream.
I Myself, the One Who would Awaken you, am not an individual within the dream. I Am your Very Consciousness, Your Very Self-Condition. I Am the Real, the Conscious Light, the True Waking State, the True Divine Heart—Breaking Through the force of dreaming. It is not that you are some poor person who needs some other poor person to help you out. It may appear to be so within the dream, but, essentially, I am your own Most Prior Self-Nature Appearing within the dream to Awaken you. I Am your Awakening, and your Always Already Conscious State.
Even while dreaming, you may experience suggestions of waking. You may become momentarily aware of the body, momentarily aware of lying in bed. For a moment, the images of the dream may stop. Just so, I Myself (within the world) Am truly your Real Consciousness. My Avatarically-Born Person in the world is like an image in a dream. But, in fact, I am more like your own moments of wakening awareness that move you into the waking state. I am not some separateness, some individual. I Am Consciousness Itself, Reality Itself.
No images. Images, blackness, brilliance—all these things are appearances to Consciousness. They are objects. Nothing needs to happen to them for Consciousness Itself to exist. Nothing needs to happen within the dream to verify Waking. Waking is its own Fullness. Once one is Awake, anything can appear. True Awakeness is the foundation of this world-appearance. It is its support, It is its Very Nature. Consciousness Itself is not antagonistic to this world or to any form within it. Consciousness Itself is the Truth of all appearance, disappearance, or non-appearance. Even when Consciousness Itself is Realized, human life continues. Perhaps human life is enjoyed even more. It is used. It becomes functional to an extraordinary degree.
The usual man or woman barely functions at all—a couple of good days a month. The rest of the time the person is either trying to be healed or exploiting himself or herself, trying to get straight, trying to work, trying to cope. Every now and then there is a little clarity, when the person just stands up, walks across the room, opens the door, and goes outside. The rest of the month is spent dreaming and thinking, when just to walk across the room is part of an enormous search, an unkind adventure, an approach to victory against odds. But all the person is doing is simple things, simple functions.
One who understands, who is Awake, functions very well under the conditions that appear. Those conditions may be forms of this waking world, or they may be subtle forms, subtle worlds, any of the possible forms. Under all conditions, understanding is appropriate. There is no experience, no state, that is itself identical to Truth. Just so, the Truth is not different from any experience or state. Truth is the Truth of all of that.
I am a kind of irritation to My devotees. You cannot sleep with a dog barking in your ear—at least most people cannot! There is some sort of noise to which everyone is sensitive, and it will keep them awake. I am a constant Wakening Sound. I am always annoying people with this demand to stay Awake, to Wake Up. I do not seduce them within the dream. I do not exploit their seeking. I am always offending their search and their preference for unconsciousness. I show no interest in all of that. I Criticize it mightily. I am always doing something prior to the mind. I always act to return you from the mind, from fascination.
I am not what the dreamer thinks I am. The dreamer thinks I must have a certain appearance, say and do certain things, have certain magical powers, produce certain magical effects. The dreamer associates all kinds of glorious and magical things with Me. But I am always performing the Awakening act, putting an end to the dream. Therefore, I do not satisfy the seeker. Those that come to be satisfied are offended. They are not satisfied. They feel empty, they do not feel their questions have been answered, they do not feel they have been shown the Way. They came for some "thing".
Within the dream, the dreamer is always being satisfied by the Guru. The dreamer climbs up on the top of the mountain, and the Guru is sitting in a cave. The Guru hands the dreamer a little silver box. When the dreamer opens the box, there is a blue diamond in it. The dreamer takes it out and swallows it. Then the dreamer's body explodes into a million suns, and the dreamer shoots off into the universe! But in Reality, the True Guru does not function in that manner. The True Guru is not noticed by someone who is seeking for such satisfaction, who is looking for the "signs" of the Guru, who is "hunting" the Guru. The True Guru does not assume any particular visibility that can be counted on. The True Guru is likely to remain unnoticed. People are likely to be offended if they do not feel any Force, any Energy, in the Presence of one who is supposed to be Guru. They tend not to notice or value someone who is simply Awake. They are looking for the one who has the blue and yellow light over his or her head. All of this—until they become dissatisfied with the search. When they start being sensitive to their own search, they begin to feel simply desperate. Then all that is left is this contraction I have so often described. When the search begins to wind down, and you begin to realize you are suffering, then you become sensitive to Me. You become attentive to the Very Nature of the One Who is Awake.
It is stated in the traditional writings that of all the things one can do to Realize one's Freedom, the best thing one can do—the greatest thing one can do—is spend one's time in the Company of one who is Awake. For one who is My devotee, that is Satsang with Me—living in relationship to Me and in the company of My devotees. All other activities are secondary. And Satsang with Me is not a strategic method, not an exercise or meditative technique one applies to oneself. It is simply the natural and appropriate Condition. It is Reality Itself. Satsang with Me is (Itself) Truth, or Enlightenment. There are no other means given to My devotees.
There is nothing that you can do to save yourself, to become Enlightened, to become Realized. Nothing whatsoever. If there were something, I would tell you, but there is nothing. This is because one always approaches the Truth from the point of view of the search. Human beings seek the Truth. But the search is (itself) a reaction to the dilemma, an expression of this separation, this avoidance of relationship. So none of this seeking—nothing you can do—becomes or attains the Truth.
All the means of transformation belong to the Truth Itself, to the Divine Person, to the True Divine Heart.
Therefore, Satsang with Me is (Itself) the only sadhana, the only true Spiritual practice. Living, working, sitting with Me is sadhana. It is meditation. It is Realization.
To Enjoy Truth is simply to be Awake. I have often used the contrast between the waking state and the dreaming state to symbolize the difference between "radical" understanding and all the forms of seeking. All attainments, all forms of cognition, all forms of mind, however sublime, belong within the "dream". When extraordinary and even miraculous conditions are actually enjoyed or experienced, they reveal themselves to be essentially of the same nature as the ordinary experience of suffering that provoked the search to begin with. In My own Case, there is no consolation in samadhis, or trance states, no consolation in visions, no consolation in going to other worlds, no consolation in any Realization that can be attained. At last, when understanding is most perfect, it becomes obvious that all that has ever occurred has been a modification of Consciousness Itself (or the One and Only Divine Conscious Light). This entire thing that has been upsetting you—all this movement, all this seeking, all this attainment—has been a modification of Conscious Light. There is a Conscious Instant in which it becomes Obvious that This Is So. And that is—if one can still apply any name or significance to it whatsoever—most "radical" (or most perfectly "at-the-root") understanding.
But the ordinary Yogi, whose Spiritual principle is the search, is involved in fantastic dramas of experience. Such a one has all kinds of things to do—to, with, and around himself or herself—with the body and mind, with all the egoic ornaments, the suffering, the extremes, the endless number of searches, strategies, or egoic works. The ordinary Yogi-ascetic has a fantastic—a fantastically distracting, a fascinating—life! It is a great, great adventure. Even the ordinary Jnani—the philosophical ascetic, one who enjoys conditionally achieved Self-Knowledge—is absorbed in a fascinating life of Silence, of acquired Peace, of strategic Formlessness, separated by a waking sleep. Such a person is absorbed in his or her own inner subjectivity. But for one who has understood, there is no drama. Therefore, I do not have anything with which to fascinate people. No sign, no act, no word, no costume can represent it. No closing of the eyes, no blissful smiles, no shuddering, no reports of visions—none of this is necessary to keep My devotees "interested" from day to day. Nothing is happening anymore. The only Forceful Communication is That Which cannot be Communicated by any conditional means—neither by purposive silence nor by speech. . . .
_
[Excerpt from My “Bright” Word]
The Gorilla Sermon
by Avatar Adi Da Samraj
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