“The Dual Sensitivity at the Origin of the Divine Way of Adidam”
by Avatar Adi Da Samraj
Avatar Adi Da, 2008
“...it is fundamentally and profoundly true that all beings are urged to happiness—not merely to ordinary, temporary, and (necessarily) limited happiness, but to Ultimate, Perfect, Complete, and Permanent Happiness!”
—Avatar Adi Da Samraj
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Merely by virtue of being born, you are in a terrible situation. Merely by virtue of being associated with a body-mind in this world, you are identified with bodily existence (and with conditional existence altogether), you are attached to bodily existence (and to conditional existence altogether), and you are clinging to bodily existence (and to conditional existence altogether). You know that the body is going to die--that it is not going to last, that it is going to go through all kinds of changes in its progress toward inevitable death, and that it can die at any moment. You know that the body can suffer tremendous losses, pain, shocks, degradation—of all kinds. And, yet, you (in your bodily existence here) are impulsed to be, and to be greatly—to be happy, to acquire this and that relationship or experience or object, to feel good, as if you were building a paradise.
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Yet, you are not in paradise. You are in this mortal
condition. Nothing you can acquire, obtain, or associate with in the realm of conditional experience will last. No matter what you seek, no matter what you obtain, your situation is still the same: From the point of view of "you" (as an apparently separate psycho-physical being), existence is just a knot of egoity, inevitably bound to suffer. Having no great Realization, you try to solve the "problem" (or the difficulty, or the terrible circumstance) in which you find yourself, by pursuing every kind of pleasure, consolation, and distraction. Moment by moment, you make efforts to desensitize yourself to the situation you are really in.
You are constantly fantasizing a future of fulfillment. Much of religious dogma invents a future, in this world or after death, wherein all the kinds of things you hope to obtain by struggle in this life are eternalized. Some like to philosophize about this world, saying that some great event (or even Man-made result or effect) is going to happen that will "utopianize" (or otherwise perfect and eternalize) life in this world. Some like to believe that everyone is going to be physically resurrected after death, such that life in this world will continue "forever". Others like to fantasize a future beyond this world, in which exactly the same thing happens--the eternalization of the self-fulfillment one has sought in this life.
No matter how (or in whatever form or manner) it is proposed, complete and permanent self-fulfillment, in this or any other conditionally manifested world, is merely an ego-based illusion--a mortal fantasy! It is the conventional religious fantasy--and it is also the ordinary human fantasy.
You all do this egoic fantasizing "in small". You may not presently be thinking about eternalizing this world (or going to an eternal place of pleasure in another world), but you are always seeking for self-fulfillment, for pleasure, for consolation, for every kind of egoically satisfying distraction—so that you will not be required to experience your real (mortal, threatened, and limited) situation. Effectively, in your self-consoling mind, you are always "creating" a "utopia" (or imagining a "heaven"), and entertaining the expectation that "everything" is going to turn out "wonderfully" and "forever". Some things may last for a while, and some things are more pleasurable than others, but (nevertheless) your real situation remains the same—mortal, threatened, and limited.
If you were not preoccupied with all the things you use to console and indulge yourself (functionally, relationally, practically, and so on)—if you were not preoccupied either with the search or with some (necessarily, temporary and limited) circumstance that gives you the illusion that you are satisfying yourself—you would inevitably become sensitized to your real situation. And, if you allowed yourself to be thus sensitized, you would, necessarily, become aware that you are afraid. Your situation, as the separate psycho-physical ego-"I", is (inherently) frightening. Of course, you do not want to experience fear, you do not want to experience loss, sorrow, and separation, you do not want to experience any lack of pleasure at all—you do not want to suffer. Yet, really, all of these unwanted conditions are inevitable. You are constantly seeking to fantasize a way out of your real situation—trying to desensitize yourself (mentally, emotionally, and physically) to your real situation. You (the presumed ego-"I") are always trying, struggling, efforting, or (in every psycho-physical manner) seeking to forget your real situation.
This is how you tend to use ordinary life. All the functions of existence could, instead, be put to the Great Purpose—but to do that requires counter-egoic (or ego-surrendering) sadhana. Because you are self-contracted in the face of all this suffering, you use everything to serve the ego's purpose to be relieved of its disturbance. Even imagination serves this purpose. You will use anything to desensitize yourself to your actual situation. You fantasize "enlightenment", you fantasize "heaven", you fantasize living "happily", "freely", and "forever", you fantasize having perfectly self-fulfilling sex (every day, and forever)—you constantly fantasize self-fulfillment in every form, manner, and degree. Such fantasies are part of the nonsense of your ordinary egoity—including your ordinary religiosity.
In the traditional setting, many individuals have seriously wondered about all of this, in the midst of this entirely mortal condition. Generally, it can be said that the analysis of life represented collectively by the total Great Tradition of mankind has two essential features that are complementary to one another.
On the one hand, it has been (and continues to be) observed by the "wise" (in the traditional setting) that, in this circumstance of conditional existence (in and of itself), there is no complete, final, perfect, and permanent self-satisfaction (or personal egoic happiness)—that no one and no thing lasts, every one and every thing changes, every one and every thing passes, and every one and every thing disintegrates (or dies).
On the other hand, it has also been noticed by the "wise" (in the traditional setting) that what the human being (and, indeed, even any being) wants is to be happy. To say so may sound rather trite or obvious, but it is fundamentally and profoundly true that all beings are urged to happiness—not merely to ordinary, temporary, and (necessarily) limited happiness, but to Ultimate, Perfect, Complete, and Permanent Happiness! Thus, it has been traditionally observed that True Happiness, if It is to be Really and Truly the Case, must be Unchanging, Unending, and utterly Satisfactory. This observation is the complement (and even the apparent contrary) of the first observation (that there is no complete, final, perfect, and permanent self-satisfaction, or personal egoic happiness, possible in the circumstance of conditional existence itself).
These complementary observations have always puzzled human beings. Here and there, great individuals have appeared who have confirmed, based on their own real experience, that There Is True Happiness, that There Is a Condition Which Is Eternal, Unchanging, Never-Ending, Never-Beginning, and (therefore) Not-Caused. That Condition has also been recognized (by such Realizers) to be All-Sufficient, Perfectly Satisfactory, Absolutely Blissful, and Infinite. That Condition has been (and is) called by various names—"the One", "God", "Nirvana", "the Self", and so on. And each of the many and various traditions has its own language for making reference to the Revelations and Confessions of those unique individuals who have, on the basis of actual Realization (and not mere hope and belief), Confessed the Truth of "True Happiness".
You are all seeking and suffering and binding yourselves in all kinds of ways—vigorously and obsessively trying to immunize yourselves against your difficulty and your inevitable pain, and not being very successful at it. You are merely "amateurs" at getting "What" you want. You do not really "Know" how to go about (or have the "Knowledge" that would Direct you Toward) getting "What" you want. And, what is more, you do not truly "Know" (or have the "Knowledge" that would Describe and Explain) "What" It Is That you want.
Truly, one of the words that most aptly indicates what you (and even every one) is seeking is "Happiness". You (at heart, and fully) want Happiness, although (in some sense) you would rather not even confess that Happiness is what you truly want—because you feel that the real attainment of Happiness is not even possible. Nevertheless, truly and always, this is what you want: Unalloyed, Unchanging, Absolute Happiness. The "problem", simply stated, is that you are not any good at "getting" It! And you do not "Know" What True Happiness Really Is. Therefore, you are in the same situation that the rest of ordinary humanity has been in all along.
I am not here merely to instruct you in how to improve your search, or how to be better at consoling yourself with illusions of True Happiness. I Am here to Speak and Do the most "radical" Criticism of what you (as an ego-"I") are always doing. I Call you to directly (and in every present-time moment) "Bond" yourself to True Happiness Itself, instead of (first and always) binding yourself to un-Happiness (and, on that basis, seeking for True Happiness). All your ordinary pursuits are an ego-based search that is moving in the opposite direction from the actual Realization of True Happiness—or the (necessarily, egoless) Realization of Truth, or Reality Itself, or the only Real God (Which Is the Non-Separate and Indivisible and Indestructible and Inherently egoless Divine Self-Condition and Source-Condition of all-and-All).
You, in the midst of this circumstance of mortality, are (simply) afraid—and you are always trying to console yourself, to feel better, to forget about the dreadful situation you feel you are in. However, you are also more than merely afraid—you want True Happiness. To want True Happiness is inherent in your heart, in your deepest disposition of body-mind. Yet, what you are always doing in this mortal circumstance is effectively (and, altogether, experientially) cutting you off from yielding to your inherent and great heart-Impulse (and from the fulfillment of that Impulse). Instead of (directly, moment to moment, and, at last, Most Perfectly) Realizing True Happiness, you are preoccupied with all kinds of activities that are consoling and temporarily pleasurizing, and (in that process) you are actively "forgetting" your fear (or covering it up, by becoming desensitized to conditional reality), and you are also (in your constant habit of self-consolation and self-indulgence) effectively forgetting (or covering up) your heart-Impulse to True Happiness Itself, Freedom Itself, and Love-Bliss Itself.
I Affirm and Confirm to you, on the Firm Basis of actual (and Eternal) Realization, that There Is the Infinite, Satisfactory, Unchanging, Eternal, Divine Condition, and that It Is the One and Only True Happiness—but I am not telling you that this world is going to turn into utopia, and I am also not telling you that what is merely "after death" is utopia (or that True Happiness is inevitable, or guaranteed, "after death").
In their ordinary religiosity, many people like to imagine that, when one dies, if one has been good, one receives back everything one lost by dying. Such people imagine that, after death, every one and every thing you ever positively wanted is permanently (and freshly) given back to you—all your relations and all the pleasures—and that every one and every thing you ever did not want is permanently removed from you. Indeed, it is commonly imagined that the so-called "after-life" is about such fulfillment of personal desires.
It is, indeed, the case that experiences can be attained, and relations can be associated with, under the many and various conditions that may arise after death, just as they can be experienced and associated with under the many and various conditions in this life—but (generally speaking) both the desired and the undesired experiences and relations are possible after death, and (in any case) none of it is permanent. In that respect, "life after death" is not a different circumstance than one's present life in the world. Just as in life, after death one's particular experiences and relations do not last. Just as in life, after death there are constant changes in your experience, new forms constantly arising, requiring a constant struggle. There is not anything finally Satisfactory, no True and Eternal Happiness, to be gained merely by the passage into the realms of
"after-death".
Even the (so-called) "higher" planes—which do exist—are not about the eternalization of all the relations and things you wanted in this life. The "higher" planes are about Contemplation—the most profound movement toward What Is Beyond the ego-"I" and its conditional desiring. What Is (Inherently) Perfect is the right possible orientation (or occupation) in the "higher" planes, but (nevertheless) there is no permanent Satisfaction gained merely by exist-ing and functioning and Contemplating in those planes.
The sadhana of the only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way of Adidam . . . requires you to be altogether sensitive—and not desensitized. The sadhana of the only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way of Adidam requires you to be sensitive to the reality of your mortal condition—and not merely to be consoling and indulging yourself, such that you manage to remain unaware of that reality. The sadhana of the only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way of Adidam also, and more profoundly, requires you to be sensitive to your inherent and great heart-Impulse—to be sensitive to the inherent deep awareness that you are not merely impulsed to be consoled, distracted, pleasurized, and self-indulgent, but that you are inherently and deeply and greatly Impulsed to be Truly and Infinitely Happy. You cannot be Really and Truly Happy when you are identified with something that is mortal, or changing, or unsatisfactory, or not-Happiness-Itself. This dual sensitivity—both to the entirely limited and mortal condition of your present psycho-physical form and circumstance and to the inherent and great heart-Impulse that would be Truly, Completely, and Un-conditionally Happy—is both necessary and fundamental to the practice of the only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way of Adidam. And the constant maintenance (or right use) of that dual sen-sitivity requires right devotion, right practice, right disci-pline, and truly (and not merely conventionally) right life.
The fundamental Principle of the only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way of Adidam is devotional recognition of Me and devotional response to Me—becoming, in due course, searchless Beholding (and Spiritual reception) of Me. I not only Confess the Truth to you, but I Am here. I Am the Very "Thing" I Confess, the Very (and True, or Un-conditional) Happiness you would Realize. And I Am (now, and forever hereafter) constantly Revealing and Giving Myself to you—to one, and to all, and to All. Therefore, the fundamental Principle of the Way of Adidam is to surrender yourself, forget yourself, and (always more and more) transcend yourself, in heart-Communion with Me. There must be this dual sensitivity I just Described, and the appropriate life-discipline to maintain that dual sensitivity. In that dual sensitivity, you must receive My Avataric Divine Self-Revelation and make the Eternal Vow of devotion to Me, such that your practice (moment to moment) is the commitment to True Happiness, the commitment to Realize Me—and not merely the oblivious "commitment" to wander in the searches and the results of your egoic (or self-contracted) impulses. . . .
I have exactly and fully Revealed the Way of True Happiness. It is the only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way of Adidam. That Way is not about any ordinary (or ego-based) binding of "self" to this world, or to any ego or any thing in this world, or to any limiting condition or conditional world at all. The only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way of Adidam is about heart-"Bonding" to Me—Which is heart-"Bonding" to Truth, or to Reality Itself, the One and Only and Non-Separate and Indivisible and Indestructible and Inherently egoless Divine Self-Condition and Source-Condition of all-and-All.
That Process of heart-"Bonding" to Me is done in the context of this apparent born existence, but it is a Process of always present-time (or non-seeking) ego-transcendence, or of constantly going Beyond your self-contracting (or separative, and seeking) disposition. This sadhana is a purifying Process. There is growth in it. The practice of the Way of Adidam is about devoting your life to always presently (and, at last, Most Perfectly) Realizing True Happiness, and not using up your life by remaining ego-bound, merely pursuing consolations and indulging in the illusion that "bonding" to what is merely conditionally existing can produce True Happiness. It cannot.
True Happiness (Itself) is not a result of anything. True Happiness (Itself) Is Inherent. Therefore, True Happiness (Itself) cannot be attained by seeking. True Happiness (Itself) Is the Divine Self-Condition and Source-Condition (Itself). Anything that appears merely as "object" (or merely as conditionally "other") is (necessarily) limited and (inevitably) passing. You cannot Realize True Happiness (Itself) by "bonding" yourself to any "object" (or anything that is merely "other"). And you cannot Realize True Happiness (Itself) by strategic renunciation of (or strategic dissociation from) any "object" (or anything that is merely "other").
True Happiness (Itself) Is Realized when the ego-“I” (that otherwise seeks) is itself transcended in its Ultimate (or Divine) Source. . . .
The only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way of Adidam neither idealizes nor merely consoles bodily-based (and egoic) existence, but the practice of the Way of Adidam requires the disciplining of bodily existence, from the very beginning (or foundation) of the Way. Therefore, by conforming all of your bodily existence to Me, by practicing right, true, and full (and, in due course, searchlessly Me-Beholding) devotion to Me, and by being psycho-physically purified through right, true, and full (and, in due course, searchlessly Me-Beholding) devotion to Me—you come to know Me better, and (more and more) in the truly esoteric (and truly Spiritual) manner, such that you grow to Commune with Me Spiritually (and truly Divinely), and (on that basis) you (in due course) move on to the (Spiritually) fully technically responsible stages of practice in the only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way of Adidam. . . .
It seems you have plenty of time! Indeed, you have nothing but time—and space! Over and over and over again. That is what is called "samsara" (or the endless cycle of rebirths). In samsara (or the conditional domain), there is a seemingly endless resource of time and space, but no resource at all of Real True Happiness. True Happiness (Itself) is the Greater Well, Beyond time and space. True Happiness (Itself) is the Divine Source, to Which you must resort directly. Only by resorting to the Divine Well of True Happiness (Itself) can you go Beyond this horror to which you are now bound.
You are mind, perpetuating a circumstance of bondage to what suffers and is limited and passes. You feel you can cope with that circumstance, you do not even mind it all that much, and you are willing to put up with it because you can acquire some pleasure in the midst of it. That is how you commit yourself to time and space. Yet, if you really do not like it, if you truly do not want to be conjoined with death, or with what is (altogether) not satisfactory, or with what is not True Happiness (Itself), or with what is changing (rather than Unchanging)—if you really and truly do not want to be bound to all of that (or even associated with all of that), it is not necessary for you to be thus bound (or associated). I Reveal and Give to you That Which Transcends all that is insufficient, unsatisfactory, and incomplete. By right, true, full, and fully devotional resort to Me, you can (and do, and will) Realize My Avatarically Self-Revealed Infinite Divine Self-Condition of Absolute Love-Bliss-Happiness (Which Is True Happiness, Itself).
The Infinite Divine Self-Condition (or the Divine Well of True Happiness, Itself) Does Exist. I Am That. That Condition Is the Truth. That Condition Is Reality Itself.
You are, inherently, completely able to actively commit your life utterly to the Realization of Me, to the Realization of My Avatarically Self-Revealed (and Self-Evidently Divine) Self-Condition of Infinite Love-Bliss-Happiness, rather than to any other "program". By Means of My Avatarically Self-Transmitted Divine Spiritual Grace, you can (in due course) truly (and, Ultimately, Most Perfectly) fulfill that commitment. . . . By practicing the only-by-Me Revealed and Given discipline of devotion to Me, you will be more and more purified of those limitations. . . .
If you are My formally acknowledged and formally practicing devotee, you are no longer merely seeking Me, but you (in even every moment) have Found Me—the Avatarically Self-Revealed Divine Reality of True Happiness (Itself), and the Avatarically Self-Transmitted Divine Means for your Realization of True Happiness (Itself).
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- The Urge To Happiness8:59
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