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In very early days of the teaching Adi Da taught a 12 week course on the Knee of Listening, elaborating and going into more depth the ideas and teaching within his autobiography. This is one of the lessons. The
Cosmos There are three qualities that arise relative to spiritual life. There are the stages of the conscious process, there are the stages of the Shakti process, and there are the stages of the relationship to the Guru. So just as there are the different qualities in the conscious and Shakti processes, there are the different qualities in the stages of one's Satsang. And in the beginnings they are more formal and oriented to the plans of life, in the life of the disciple they are more intimate but also formal in the sense that he is applying himself to the conditions of spiritual life, both externally and internally, and increasing as a true devotee. But in the perfect stage of devotion there is absolute turning to the Guru, without withdrawal at any time, without reluctance, without mediocrity in any form. And just so at the stage of the devotee, the most intense communication of the Form of Reality, or of Truth or the Divine manifestation is enjoyed. The stages less than that of a devotee also represent stages of the reluctance of one who is living the life of understanding in Satsang. They also are representative of the quality of his resistance, the quality of his Narcissism, the quality of turning in upon himself rather than turning to the Guru. There is never any turning from the Guru. You never outgrow your need for the Guru. And there is a danger in spiritual life when the qualities of spiritual life begin to be awesome. When the spiritual experience begins to become profound, Narcissus becomes a wild man, begins to feel very independent, very full, he begins to suspect these qualities arising in him are his qualities, that he contained them all along, and he's really got them now and he realizes that his Guru is a lot of nonsense or that he is unnecessary, and he's, yes, he's a Guru. But the quality of devotion begins being the devotee, the quality of Satsang begins to die in such a person, because he is beginning to think that he is independent. He begins to think that his realization he is independent, and that realization itself is a kind of independence. But in fact, the more intense the life of a man in Satsang, the more of a devotee in the genuine sense he becomes. So there is a crisis that occurs in the highest form of one's spiritual activity in which one endures a radical transformation of all one's faculties, even the ones at the highest level and turns utterly from resort to them to the Form of Truth, both in its ultimate sense and also in the Form of the human Guru. So. in true spiritual work of which ours is a representative, there is a link established with Siddhas, and that link is absolutely necessary. If the link is broken by anyone along (along) the line, the source is cut off. The source is the God-world, and the Siddhas are the medium of its communication in this world. 'Anyone who enjoys the process of the Siddha Yoga in the fullest sense, and enjoys its awakening and fulfillment in himself, must forever maintain his connections to his sources. If he dissolves them, if he ever becomes less than a devotee, he begins to witness the death of the process in himself, or if the process within him is intense and full, what he may begin to experience is certain dramas that occur in his life as a Guru, his life relative to others. This real spiritual process is not just one where you get told a couple of things and you go off and do it. It is a relationship, a living relationship, and that relationship is also a process, it's the condition of a process, a sacrificial event, a meal of the communication of qualities and their transformation. Only the God Force and the God condition can be purified perfectly of karmas. If the Guru cuts himself off from his own sources and, therefore, diminishes his connection with the Divine itself, the karmas of his disciples turn in on him and bind him to the world, bind him to the lower planes. So the Guru must maintain, absolutely must maintain, his connections purified otherwise the karmas of his teaching become unbearable. So that's why you see me constantly maintaining my connections, purifying them. with all those who have been a source for me. It's for the sake of this work. The work of the Guru in the world depends on him maintaining his connections and the state of his connections is a direct reflection of the quality that his own teaching will generate in his own case. So for the work to remain pure, for its full force to continually move through you purely, I must be responsible for those connections. Just so, all who live this work are responsible for maintaining themselves in Satsang and being very aware of that relationship as the fundamental condition from day to day. Just as he will observe other things, he will Observe the conscious process in himself and the manifest process. A third aspect of the process of the relationship to the Guru, as something to which a person must turn each day and be aware of the quality of his connection. If the quality of that connection is impure. .....it's broken, if it's mediocre, all of these things must be examined because they have an absolute and direct effect on the quality of your sadhana. And if your connection is not pure and full and open, you are remaining in yourself. To the degree you turn to the Guru in this , work, you become available to the appropriate manifestation of the process of Truth. To the degree that you contract from that relationship. the communication itself doesn't take place. In meditation the man of understanding may perceive a movement of consciousness and energy in relation to the centers in the body. The yogi, his search for Shakti or the Self, draws energy down from above and directs it upwards along the spine to the sahasrar, then down to the point between the brows. In other words, the yogic search in a sense is one in which there is meditation on drawing the force from above, down through the body, returning it upward through the spinal centers and perhaps bringing it down again, resting it in the center between the eyes. This is one of the forms of this Shakti concentration, yoga. "He may even at times see it moving out of the sahasrar to return to its origin in the heart." So you see he may see the force in its relationship to the Heart. But in the natural process of living being, generated from the heart and expanded as the Amrita Nadi the circulation of energy is the reverse of the yogic process of return. It is instead a creative emanation from the heart which includes all forms, animates all forms, and sacrifices all forms again to the heart. So the point of view, the true point of view of this spiritual view is that of Truth itself, realization itself, the Guru, the Heart, all of these things are the origin of one's spiritual life. From the yogic point of view, from the seeker's point of view, the Heart, the Guru, the Self, the ultimate Form, God, the Form of Reality, these are the goals of the spiritual process. So the yogi directs himself through the medium of various activities to return toward these ultimate sources where he may consider them to be. But the true process begins with them. And the true process is a kind of flowering of all of the qualities of existence from the Heart. Thus, the man of understanding may perceive the blissful energy rising out of the heart to the sahasrar as the Amrita Nadi, his blissful presence. This is in the case (where he), the case of the ultimate example of the devotee who is beginning to have perceptions in subtler forms of the life of Amrita Nadi. Anyone in various stages of this work randomly may have these experiences of the blissful energy rising out of the Heart to the sahasrar. Then it may appear to descend through the various centers to the muladhar. In turn it may appear to rise again from the muladhar, through the root of the sex center and the solar plexus, surrendering itself in the sahasrar above. He may even perceive this movement in relation to the breath. Now this is the reverse of the yogi's perception of it. The man of understanding perceives it rising out of the Heart to a terminal above then down through the circuit of manifestation, the frontal form, then ascending again through the spinal form. The yogi sees it rather, if he sees it at all, descriptively he sees it perhaps descending and then ascending again, ultimately getting to the sahasrar and then perhaps ultimately then again getting to the Heart. But the man of understanding from the beginning witnesses this process from the Heart. And he may even perceive this movement in relation to the breath. When he inhales, the energy may appear to rise from below to the sahasrar and then drive downward to the Heart. So he may inhale and feel force rising and then come down into the Heart. Then there may be a retention of breath accompanied by silence in the mind. The breath may stop momentarily. Then he exhales again the energy may appear to rise forcefully from the Heart through Amrita Nadi to the 'bright.' then down through the centers in the spine to the muladhar, and rest there during another brief retention. Or this same process may appear to take place entirely between the heart and the sahasrar, so that consciousness does not appear to move through the forms of mind and life. In descriptions in this book I am not separating the descending and the ascending forces quite as diagrammatically as I have recently. So I don't mean that it falls down the ascending pattern of the spine. Rather it comes down the frontal portion of the body and rests below. Anyway "seeing this" or various phenomena like this that may arise, meditations on the force, and meditations on this force (In) relative to the breath cycle. "the man may think he has recovered a superior kind of yogic process." And in many ways this may appear. It can appear in other ways than I've described it here. "He may try to use it deliberately to control and purify the instrument." In other words, spontaneous kriyas and movements of Shakti and spontaneous pranayama, whatever, may show themselves in him and he may trace them and see how they are operating in himself, and then he may try to do this thing, thinking that this is (this) some sort of superior process. He may try to imitate it and use it to purify himself and do other kinds of work in himself. This may seem to be the very yoga of understanding itself. But he will find that as he begins to engage this process he will become a seeker as before. So as soon as he begins to attach himself to processes arising in himself and imitates' them, he finds himself falling back into the old point of view, the old position. So these phenomena when they arise are simply spontaneous activities, very fluid and they simply show themselves to you at times. And when they arise spontaneously they have authenticity. Try to imitate then apart from those times and they are binding. Because when you do that you are taking yourself out of the true position of consciousness or understanding. So he will become concerned for purification, creative activities on a subtle level, various forms of concentration, etc. Thus he will begin to act again on the basis of a dilemma in consciousness and form." "He should simply remain in understanding and enquire. When such processes arise, spontaneously he should simply understand and enquire. They will continue only by themselves and not bind him by identification, differentiation and desire. Thus he will only witness even these ultimate events, and he will remain in his own form, residing in the heart, generate as the 'bright.'" The one thing I want to point out to you here, the point of view at every stage of sadhana or every form of intensity of sadhana in the face of any kind of experience that may arise, the quality of one's sadhana, one's meditation is always that of understanding, in the forms of understanding. That is always the position, that conscious position relative to what is arising. Because I'm speaking this way, because I speak with emphasis on the conscious process as the root of spiritual life, doesn't mean that I'm justifying some sort of contempt for the spontaneous and subtle events. And people should not get the ego of a little mental understanding and think that they have become superior to the Siddhas, who manifest all the glorious Siddhis. It is simply that the fundamental process of spiritual life and understanding in Satsang is the conscious one, and it is neither here nor there in terms of identification or separation from phenomena and functions. So the process of understanding is always one of not identification or not seeking toward or separating from any kind of phenomenon. It is always one of understanding. On the other hand, in one who understands and lives the process of Satsang, phenomena do tend to arise. But they should be approached from the point of view of understanding and of Satsang. And at a certain appropriate stage in one's spiritual life, the more profound degrees of being a disciple and then of a devotee, then it becomes appropriate to say something perhaps of some of these phenomena. But prior to that time it makes no sense whatsoever, it is of no concern whatsoever. And they should not be of anyone's concern until he is told by his Guru, "such and such is so about this and that." The Guru will always inform his disciple or his devotee about things relative to the phenomena arising in him that he should have some at least perhaps momentary concern for. Apart from that, the affair is always that of the conscious process of understanding in Satsang. Now I want to read you a paragraph here on page 199 in the middle there. "An experience similar to what I described as the 'thumbs' may arise during real meditation. It is the astral or desire body, spherical in shape." So this is the level of the astral or desire body. What is called in the books the astral and desire body is what I am describing here when I'm talking of the thumbs, this drifting into the spherical form. When it arises the individual is not entering the astral worlds of the psyche, it is discarding or surrounding the vital and physical form, at least temporarily." The vital and gross physical are below the astral or emotional body. "Then he may find himself alive in visions or illumined with subtle light. But if he continues to understand and enquire, he will find himself dissolved in the Heart of silence Heart and Silence are capitalized." Then as enquiry continues, he will know only Reality, he will know the eternal Form, the Amrita Nadi, the spire of Sound and Light (capitals Sound and Light) that stands forever in the Heart." I just wanted to say something more about this experience of the thumbs because I wanted to account for this phenomena that may arise in peoples' meditative experience in this chapter on meditation. And if in some case it does arise, this movement into this spherical body, wherein mental consciousness is still awake, because the mind, the conscious mind, is above the emotional body or the astral body, or encloses it. If you see all these bodies, they are sort of encasing one another like sheaths. But the vital and gross physical are lost. The sensation of them is dissolved in this spherical enjoyment. And people like to enjoy these kinds of experiences. There may be other experiences of an astral variety that may arise or be quickened in one who &~ is in this condition temporarily. So he may have visions or feel subtle illumination of various kinds, literally, visually, and other kinds of experiences. But if he remains in the form of enquiry, in that condition as well, you know, not very hurriedly and sort of nervously saying,"I don't want to experience this" , that's not the point of view at all but resting within it neither grasping it or resisting it. If you try to grasp it or resist it in both cases it will tend to disappear. So that's not the point. But by abiding in understanding and enquiry at that point. it will begin to dissolve in its own good time, whenever it's appropriate for it to do that. Satsang is as in every other case where something arises and enquiry is generated in the midst of it, such a one in this case, may find himself falling into the Heart, the root of the mind. And then he will knew only Amrita Nadi, which here Is described as "the spire of Sound and Light that stands forever in the Heart." But Sound and Light capitalized, meant in perfect terms, not sound and light as simply the lesser phenomena that you can turn on by yogic concentration, but the perfect Sound and perfect root of Sound, and the perfect Light and perfect root of all Lights. Alright now, up to this point in this chapter the argument has been en all those processes that lead up to full and conscious realization of the Heart in Amrita Nadi. The material that follows in this chapter assumes this previous material, or assumes the point of view of Amrita Nadi. and now gets back to discussing lesser matters than these perceptions of Amrita Nadi itself. And again not lesser matters in a value sense. review again of the practical affairs related to the life of understanding. Understanding is always beholding Bhagavan, the Form of Reality whose center is the Heart and whose extremities are the mind and the activities of enjoyment." Understanding is truly the faculty of the devotee. He is always beholding Bhagavan, the Guru, the Form of the Lord, the Form of Reality. And he is always beholding fully open to the Form of Reality both as an inward and ultimate perception and as a life perception of the living Bury and as subtle perceptions of the Gurus and the Siddhas and the Divine manifestations. So understanding is always beholding Bhagavan, under all of these forms. True understanding is perfect and motiveless and spontaneous attachment to the Form of Reality, who is also the Guru. "There is nothing else that is ever experienced or known but this one enjoyment of reality, by reality, which is reality. There is only the one process, the one form, the one experience. It is beholding, enjoyment, unqualified present bliss. It has no special origination I. time or form. Therefore, cessation or change has nothing to do with it. These things do not qualify it. They are only the conditions of the same primary enjoyment, as forms churning in the light, cycling about the sun, resolving and dissolving in an endless pattern of enjoyment, as the loved-one turns herself before her lover. "When there is no understanding these things continue as dilemma, enforcing the adventure of Narcissus. When there is understanding these things continue as before, but consciously, in the Form of Reality. And the one who understands appears no different than before, except he is given to pleasures, laughter, wisdom and unqualified adventure." So one who has gone through all of these sublime realizations and everything has begun to enjoy more of the fullness of the life of understanding and returns to all of the qualities of life and lives them and appears essentially as everybody, not in the sense that he is the same old good guy that everybody else is, in the sense that he functions, you know, in all of the forms of life, all of the functions of life and consciousness. "Then one lives as the 'bright' one no longer knows oneself as descended, separate, etc. Thus, there is no longer any need to ascend through the chakras. There is only the present enjoyment of tents Amrita Nadi, the form of conscious reality. It is pure existence (no-seeking) in the heart. It is no dilemma in the mind. It is bliss in the sahasrar. This radiance illumines all forms, all levels, all bodies, realms and experiences. It is the one experience. Everything else only reflects it. Thus, one who is aware as the Form of Reality gives life to all things." But I said there is no longer any need to ascend through the chakras, I mean that as a (as a) peculiar event associated with the process, the conscious process, the activities of ascending through the chakras, leading to the sahasrar as not anything that needs yet to be accomplished, not anything in which there is special purifying activity. That is essentially accomplished, conductivity through the chakras is firmly established. So the qualities that arise when the chakras are being pierced, penetrated, and purified, and intensified, these qualities that are generated in the sort of yogic level of experience are quite subdued, because the chakras are already full. They are not obstructed. So consciousness evolves out of these processes into the continuous process of tents Mmdi and the benign activity or Siddhi then, of the Shakti~W, the true Shakti, the great Shakti, bha-Shakti, which is that activity of the Divine itself, which gives life to everything, which lives everything. This experience that I described the first time I was at Babe's Ashram in which it became perfectly apparent that the principle of continued existence and of present existence was not within the individual. But the principle was outside, included the individual. The individual was something that was being lived, was a function being lived. The identity of the individual then is ultimately what is living the individual. One who understands in this perfect sense consciously then lives this function that lives all things. And so this is the reason why the Guru has a certain quality of affect on those who are intimate with him, those ~ live with him. Why they are drawn to him and sense something about him is because (of) they are subtly identifying him with that quality or source that it also the source of their continuous existence. "There is only the avoidance of relationship, but you are in relationship even to this." You are in relationship to this avoidance. in other words. "You are what is always, already in relationship to whatever arises." You are that. "By enquiring of yourself in relationship, not yourself apart from the present configuration of relationship, you do the action of the Heart, and you realize the enjoyment that is the Heart's consciousness." In other wards, enquiry is always under the conditions of what is arising at this moment. It's net an attempt to feel oneself isolated from these rising conditions. It is always enquiry in the midst of the conditions. Because what gives you the sense of being independent from thus, as well as being identical to them, is a process within you which must be understood. So enquiry must be realized in the terms of the present configuration of relationship. "When you have understood that you are always in relationship to whatever arises, and the movement of avoidance in you has become utterly vulnerable to understanding and present enquiry, thereafter be the Heart in relationship to whatever arises." And this is just what the man of understanding does. Now in him randomly all the qualities of understanding. enquiry, recognition, radical intuition arise functionally. But essentially continually he lives as the Heart, he functions as the Heart consciously. If you are always present in relationship, not the avoidance of relationship, and enjoy that radical state under all conditions, you will not assume the forms of identification, differentiation or desire. You will simply be present in relationship, and this is itself perfect control , and I mean this literally. Control of the functions of existence comes about spontaneously, naturally and easily in one who understands. But one who tries to control himself in the midst of compulsions and difficulties never succeeds, because he always gravitates karmically back to the condition itself because he hasn't penetrated it. He hasn't understood. But where the quality of the avoidance of relationship subsides and one is fully living one's functions, they no longer operate as dilemma, they no longer create the quality of dilemma) disharmony, compulsion they no longer are out of control. As long as there is the avoidance of relationship in any sense.~ all the qualities, in which this activity is generated, toward which It's generated, all these functional qualities are disturbed and out of control. So the ordinary person has all these peculiar difficulties, problems. And all these problem. areas are areas in which this contraction is chronically occurring in him in a manifest pattern of his life of avoidance.
Where the life of avoidance subsides in him, moves and dissolves in the midst of him, then all of a sudden quite naturally, without attention whatsoever, his life achieves a kind of orderly harmonious natural balanced quality. So you will simply be present in relationship and this is itself perfect control Relationship itself is perfect control," Wherever you live fully in relationship to someone, all the qualities are generated happily in relationship to them. for it is not liable to identify with anything, to dissociate from anything. or to pursue anything by these means in desire. Then there is only the perception of what arises, and the direct, creative participation in what arises. There is no involvement in ignorance, conflict. compulsion or search.
"If you are troubled by what arises, you are simply not in your proper relationship to things. You are not existing in relationship to what arises at all. You are avoiding relationship by an act of identification with what arises, differentiation from or within what arises, or some form of desiring or motivation produced by these and which seeks to overcome their implications in cognition and experience." So all trouble, all sense of trouble relative to the qualities of existence, is simply a sign that you are not living in relationship in the areas in which you are experiencing this trouble and also the areas relative to that area. That's all it is And the ways in which the% avoidance of relationship is performed by you in these cases is either by an act of identification with some quality that's arising within and without or differentiation separation from such qualities, or some form of desire or motivation, which is a reaction to the qualities of identification and differentiation. It is not necessary or true to try and overcome this dilemma and trouble." This is a very, it almost reads like a rule or a law. "It's not necessary or true to try and overcome this dilemma and trouble." In other words, the attempt to overcome dilemma, the attempt to solve fundamental dilemma the search, is not true. It is a false principle that does not work. "All such seeking only extends the same form by exploitation and reduction of the living Heart. Only understand and enquire. See your actual relatedness to things, see that you are only present free. The Heart is not deep or subtle, but only present and free. If you only understand and do not seek, you will enjoy the creative ease of the Heart. "Understanding and enquiry does not cause things to vanish. Such is not the true means where you will cease to be perturbed. Understanding only realizes in you the nature and actuality of your relatedness, your position. There is no magic or subtle freedom involved in understanding. It is not a resort to religion, spirituality, or philosophical analysis. It is only the direct cognition and experience in relationship, as presence and creative non-identification, simple relationship, non-separation and love. Understanding is not separation or turning into subtlety and forms of mentality that are applied to what arises. It is simply the unqualified state, wherein the motive of avoidance does not arise. It is not the ground of the abandonment of what arises, but it is the ground of the creative use of what arises. "Understanding is not a matter of turning toward the Heart or the true Self." I was talking before about the form of self enquiry that Ramana recommended. The traditional motivated forms of meditation and spirituality are ways of turning to the Self, turning to God. This is the method. But that to which you are trying to turn by these various methods is your own nature. It is that which you already are at any moment. So can you see then that to be turning to it is always to be turning to something else, it is always to be directing yourself toward some configuration that's elsewhere, some quality with which you can identify. In other words, you are not loving and living the quality that you are, but you are performing some secondary motivated activity in order to discover what you are. To turn to the Self then through meditative means or any other means, or to turn to God, to seek God by any of these traditional means is sin in the sense that is meant by sin. Sin means, as I've said before to miss the mark. So to seek God, to turn to the Self, is a form of this sin. All turning, then, is sin, all turning is to miss the mark. To pursue Truth or God through experiences or on a lower level is to miss the mark, to miss God, to miss the Self. To turn to the Self or God through experiences on a higher level is to miss God, miss the Self. To turn within to find, to turn away from something to the within to find God. the Self, is turning, is to miss the mark. All turning then, turning is the quality. All turning is to miss the mark. All turning is sin. So the activity of turning then is the quality of separation, the quality of narcissus. is the quality of contraction. Resort to the Guru is not then sin. It is not a turning it is not a turning away, it is not an exclusive turning toward, it is not a form of seeking. It is the assumption of the real Condition. And all true Satsang has this quality. True Satsang is not a form of the search. When the qualities of the search are generated in one relative to the Guru, it is simply that you have taken on the sinful life again. You have become a suffer again. Simply by turning to spiritual things doesn't mean you have ceased to be a sinner, if we can use this word, this traditional word. So "It is not a matter of concentrating on or in the Heart by any form of enquiry or search. It is not the action of meditating on the Heart or the Self by any means. Thus. "understanding" is unlike Self-enquiry or any other form of traditional meditation. "Understanding does not proceed by a gradual sudden or subtle removal of conditions. It is not the action of concentration within, toward deeper and deer forms of subtlety, until the subject-consciousness is reduced to its exclusive source. It is not a matter of perceiving or entering into the Heart in same special state, where there is only potent void or subtlety, and a trance between you and ordinary awareness of the worlds." "Such is not itself the action and wisdom of the living Heart. It is search, not present understanding. But the true Heart is the present Heart, alive in these conditions that have already arisen, with which it is joined in cognition, perception and experience. The true Heart is the living Heart in the midst of what is now An the field of awareness. It is the present Heart, not the Heart to be sought and found by reduction and inwardness. It is the inclusive Heart, not the exclusive Heart we would seek in dilemma. "Things do not cease to arise. They have not ceased to arise. The Heart is not that, which must be realized by turn from what arises. Understanding is not a perception of oneself in any gross or subtle for, over against what arises. It is simply the perception of what arises, the direct cognition and experience of what arises, but in truth, not through the medium of avoidance." Well here I'm talking about about understanding as it's functioning in the midst of ordinary life. So I'm speaking of cognition of experience and I'm speaking of the use of the mind, whatever. Previously we were talking about the stage of re-cognition in which the mind is resolved and the stage of radical intuition in which there is transcendent enjoyments. How one who is living such functions of himself, functions relative also to the mind again, functions also relative to the qualities of life. But he does so not through the medium of avoidance, not through the quality of dilemma. "Therefore, to know what arises in truth is simply to be in relationship to what arises. To be in relationship to what arises is the simple, unqualified action and nature of the Heart. Thus, understanding is simply to be in relationship to what arises, and not to be confused in what arises by the process of identification, differentiation or desire. "To be in relationship to what arises is not to differentiate yourself from what arises, or to perceive what arises as itself a differentiated field. Such differentiation also depends on identification and difference, not relationship. Therefore, non-separation is the nature of the Heart's awareness prior to differentiation." Neither identification with a quality or state, nor differentiation fro m it is the nature of true consciousness. But non-separation, which is quite a different thing from identification with something or even union with |
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