Radical Transcendentalism and the Introduction of Advaitayana Buddhism
Da Free John (Adi Da Samraj) - 1982

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Table of Contents

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XVIII

Atman, Brahman, Shunyata, and Nirvana

The Radiant Transcendental Being is not the "atman," the soul or presumed eternal individual self-essence. There is no such eternal individual. What is presumed to be the individual self is a temporary configuration that is the present result of a continuous play (without apparent beginning or end) upon the Only Eternal, which is the Radiant Transcendental Being. Therefore, the "atman" is Really Brahman, or Transcendental Being, in which all beings and conditions appear to arise, but which is characterized as Void ("Shunyata"), the Nirvanically or Transcendentally Real. All conditions arise in the Radiant Transcendental Being or Void like thoughts arise in the mind. There is no ultimate substantiality, eternality, or necessity to any of it.

If conceived relative to the conditions of manifest being, the Transcendental Reality or Being may seem to be an ultimate negative. But if the Radiant Transcendental Being is actually Realized, It is found to be the Radiant Fullness of Love-Bliss.

The Radiant Transcendental Being or Reality is the Identity (or Self) of all beings and the Condition (or Source-Substance) of all conditions. Therefore, this Realization does not require a self-negative, body-negative, or world-negative presumption. Realization is not associated with rejection or non-awareness of the world, but it is a matter of tacit, unmediated, or non-problematic recognition of the world. Therefore, all conditions may simply be recognized in the Radiant Transcendental Being and thus permitted their spontaneous arising, changing, and passing away. But this same recognition of conditions and self in the Radiant Transcendental Being also ultimately Outshines conditions and self in the Nirvanic Love-Bliss or Void-Fullness of the Truth.

The radical or seventh stage Realization is not a matter of the separation of the ultimate Self from the body-mind (or "Purusha" from "Prakriti"). They are One, ultimately Identical to one another (or equally and simultaneously recognizable in the Radiant Transcendental Being). Thus, radical Realization is a matter of the recognition of all such separate categories (or states of cognition) in the One Reality. All that is cognized or experienced as existing (such as self, mind, thoughts, body, others, the world, God, and all objects, relations, or "others" than the self) is to be recognized in the Radiant Transcendental Being. Thus, in the case of such recognition, there is inherent transcendence of conditions (and even of self) without strategic or problematic separation from them. And, therefore, the evidence of Transfiguration and Transformation may appear in the process of the seventh stage of life, before the Outshining (or Translation in Bhava Samadhi) becomes complete.