Adi Da 1980
God is not
Elsewhere
a talk
SPIRITUAL MASTER:
God is not elsewhere. If you would
penetrate and see through the things that you put in front
of yourself, through our own tendencies, you would see
directly what is present, which pervades all space and every
atom. If you could penetrate what is before you, if you
could break through the obstructions of your own
self-contraction, you would see this profundity in the
present.
All of space contains all of the
Truth. Every fraction of matter and every part of light, if
penetrated, reveals the Absolute. That which is to be
Realized is absolutely and eternally Present, and
Omnipresent, All-Pervading. It need not be sought elsewhere.
It need not be sought in a particular place inside ourselves
or in the world. Wherever you would look inside, outside, if
you penetrated the limiting conditions that your attention
confronts,you would realize the Revelation.
The dogma that God is to be sought
within is an expression of a philosophical point of view.
God is no more within than in the room. If you did samyama
on anything you put your attention on and if you transcended
the limitations that you brought to that moment of attention
you would see the revelation of the Truth completely. It is
not a matter of where you direct attention in the body-mind
and or in the world. It is a matter of what you do with
attention when it confronts anything whatsoever. In other
words, wherever attention passes in the conventional sense,
inside or out, we must enter into God Communion. We must let
attention be in God. Whatever the circumstance, whatever the
phenomenon that seems to be arising in the moment, nothing
is to be seen but this one Reality. And it is not just to be
believed to be there. It can be most perfectly and directly
Realized as the obvious.
This is why it is possible, you
see, to be in the highest state of samadhi, or God Union,
free of self, and at the same time bodily present, talking,
thinking, acting, doing everything in the ordinary fashion.
In that highest state of samadhi, no matter what is arising
to attention is penetrated, is seen through, so that only
the Divine is obvious. Thus, it is not necessary that
attention be turned away from the world, or turned away from
certain parts of the self. It is not necessary ultimately
that attention be concentrated at all, or be limited, turned
away from one thing and turned toward another. Attention
need not be controlled at all in the ultimate fullness of
this Realization because there is only God, and only God is
obvious.
Therefore, attention is finally set
completely free, and no matter what is arising there is
still only God. The ultimate or highest samadhi is not lost.
In that free state of attention, everything is transfigured.
Wherever there is free attention there is free energy. The
world is seen to be free energy, not energy in bondage. The
world is seen through. Its absolute aliveness or
blissfulness is realized. Therefore, one knows the Condition
even of these ordinary conditions, these conditions have no
necessity. They arise for now and they pass. There is no
self-contraction, no self holding on to anything or
demanding it. There is simply the recognition of the
ultimate Condition of every appearance.
This specific realization is
possible only when attention and energy are liberated from
the self contraction, from all of the karmic structures of
the body-mind. Thus, in Truth, there is only absolutely free
energy and no forms. There is only infinite Being, no mind,
no self, no fixed attention That Being is available even in
the moment of forms and states of attention. It is a matter
of recognizing the forms of energy and the states of
attention tacitly. If we are Realized to that point of
recognition, then the world of forms and states of mind
becomes transparent.
The process of God Realization is a
matter of the transcendence of the contraction of energy and
the illusion of attention. This body-mind is nothing but
energy and attention, but energy and attention are fixed in
various states and thus they are not free, they do not
realize their actual Condition. I say "they," but "they" are
actually one. They are only Radiant Being. Thus, the
fundamental conditions of our present existence are actually
Absolute in nature. Attention or awareness now is fixed,
moving toward various objects, but in Truth, if it could
transcend itself, transcend those limits, it would realize
that it is Infinite Being, Infinite
Consciousness.
Energy seems to be locked into
physical forms and low levels of potency, but if such energy
could become ecstatic, transcend its fixation, its
contraction, its formality, it would realize that it is
Infinite Radiance. It is the awakening of energy and
attention to their Real Condition that is Enlightenment and
that transfigures the body-mind. If energy realizes it is
Infinite Radiance, and if attention realizes it is
Unqualified Being, even in this instant when the body-mind
is existing, obviously the body-mind will be transformed,
and your future will be determined by your response to this
understanding, just as what has been experienced and known
by you up until the point of heating has been determined by
your own tendencies of attention and energy.
If you will exercise attention and
energy freely in their true domain in the environment of
Radiant Being, then all the limits on attention and energy
will be transcended and undone. The only reason we are
seeming to be born in this form is because of tendencies of
energy and attention. There is no need to wonder why we are
experiencing what we are experiencing. It is not as if
somebody else has created it. We are experiencing what we
are experiencing, knowing what we are knowing, because that
is what we tend to do. We are disposed toward it. We are
inclined toward it. We are the seed of this experiencing,
this knowing, this limitation. Some God is not determining
it, you see. Such a God would be demoniac. God cannot be
blamed for it. We are playing upon God.
And we are given an understanding,
a revelation of how all of our tendencies toward knowing and
experiencing can be transformed. If we do not respond to the
Revelation, that is our own choice. Only the suffering that
comes from persisting in our illusion will ultimately serve
us to the point of transformation, of awakening us, of
moving us to respond to the Truth. So, if you want to view
your life in that way, think of your difficulties as a Grace
then, because it is only by life's continuing to be
difficult that you will be moved to understand. Even so, it
is not the case that God is choosing that you be in bondage
so that you will awaken. You simply are in bondage to
yourself. It is your own tendency, your own
inclination.
Our ordinary lives are nothing but
the contraction of good feeling, a limit on good feeling.
Good feeling is pervasive, inherent, and absolute, but we
are contracted upon it. This contraction is recognized by us
as disease, disharmony, discomfort. Stop limiting the force
of good feeling, and all Revelation comes. Yet, it is not a
matter of merely stopping the suppressing of good feeling at
some ordinary emotional or thinking level. You must stop
suppressing it at every single level, at absolutely every
level.
Therefore, physically, emotionally,
psychically, mentally, you must observe and understand every
dimension in yourself in which you contract upon the force
of good feeling or bliss. When you have understood and
practiced to the point that you can be responsible for those
contractions, then this good feeling is native and
pervasive.
Then, uncontracted, you suddenly
see what is before you, what is the case, what is obvious.
Whatever you recognize in that infinite good feeling will
vanish. It vanishes in that moment of recognition. When all
conditions are thus recognized as nothing buy modifications
of the One Divine, everything is vanished. There isn't
anything except the infinity of Radiant Bliss, perfect Being
and Energy.
So, what lies between you and the
obvious is this contraction. Therefore, you do not see the
obvious. You see the evidence of this contraction.
Understand this. Become responsible for it. Then what is
obvious reveals itself spontaneously. If the being is
transfigured by the Infinite, even though the conventions of
appearance persist, there is no dilemma. Thus, if you sit
here in an essentially open state, you can feel at various
levels in your own body-mind the evidence of contraction.
Wherever you can observe such contraction, that is a
dimension in your life that you must transform or convert
into a form of prayer, or God-Communion.
If the contraction is physical, you
must surrender bodily, transform the body lawfully. If it is
emotional, it is emotional surrender that you must practice.
If it is mental, then mental surrender is necessary. If the
contraction is in the psyche somewhere, it is the psyche
that must be surrendered. Energy and attention in every
aspect of the body-mind must be turned to the simplicity of
Remembrance. Do this more and more profoundly, make more and
more room for this Influence, and you will see day by day a
transformation of the elements of your existence, both
internal to the body-mind and in its relations. This
transformation confirms to you the rightness of the Way and
makes it possible for you to understand this Way more
profoundly and to practice it more profoundly.
The body-mind itself is just a
circuit for that Energy which is pervading everything. Stop
breaking the circuit at the level of the skin and all the
centers of the body-mind and let it conduct the Radiance of
Life without obstruction, without contraction, without
doubt, without fear, without limiting ideas. Instead of
letting attention fitfully run to all conventional
categories of limited knowing and experiencing, turn
attention to Remembrance. Relax the body into the Living
Principle. Turn attention On to the Living Being. This is
the basic understanding of prayer, and it is a consideration
or conception that applies to the total Way and all of its
stages. Transcend fear by surrendering as the body into What
it depends upon. Transcend this sense of separation from God
by letting your head relax into the Infinite Principle. Then
feel and breathe that Reality, head to toe, toe to crown. Do
you all understand this?
And when this understanding and
practice become most profound then it becomes completely
obvious that this manifestation is in fact a dream, not
metaphorically but literally a dream, a psychic appearance
caused by your own state of mind, just as the subjective
dreams of the interior at night are likewise caused by your
own psychic condition within the dream you dream but the
dream itself is nothing other than a dream, an unnecessary
condition of energy and attention. It is transcended by
awakening and creative exercise of self. It is transformed
by that same exercise, but of greatest import is the
transcendence of it.
Since we do not need these
limitations, there is no reason to choose them beyond the
instant of perfect transcendence. There is no need for human
existence once Realization is perfected. There is no need to
dream once you awaken We are not disposed negatively toward
human life, but our positive orientation to it is an
expression of God-Communion, of the choice of God. Having
chosen God, ultimately you make God, or the domain of
God,your destiny rather than this domain, which is based on
the self and its limitations.
This life having been transcended
in that perfect sense then, in the moment of death the
current of existence that is animating us as independent
selves returns to its universal domain. Level by level, each
part of the mechanics of the self is dissolved, becomes
transparent, disappears, is forgotten. All the planes of
possibility, even subtle in nature, are likewise dissolved.
There is no contraction of the Infinite Being. It is as if
all apparent creation is nonexistent. The dream is utterly
dissolved.
Now, what there is when the dream
is utterly dissolved is beyond conception. It is to be
realized. Therefore, overcome your dependency on the self
and its limitations and realize absolute, perfect dependence
on what is Divine, Infinite, infinitely Existing, infinitely
Radiant utterly Free. Depend on That, and realize yourself
as That. Realize your condition as That.
At first this process balances you,
brings order to your existence, and more and more profoundly
you become sifted out. In the infinite is a grid, with
countless numbers of holes in it. Nothing even so small as
an atom can pass through one of those holes. All of these
limits must be transcended in order to pass through that
grid. Everything is trained out, sifted out. Only what can
pass through that grid moves through Infinity, and only one
thing can pass through that grid. That is the Divine Itself,
the very Being. Everything else is sifted out. Everything
else is to gross.
Viewed in another fashion, between
here and infinity there is a single point infinitely small.
Only God can pass through it. Everything else is strained
out. If you are yet too large, not one with God, you cannot
pass through that point and you settle in whatever plane of
association to which you cling, with which you
identify.
This entire universe is like a
little dark box that projects an image against one side. The
light comes through a point of infinite smallness, seeming
to fill the box with light, but you cannot enter into the
domain of that light until you pass through that point,
until you are relaxed, released of everything that is too
great to pass through that point.
In some sense this description is a
metaphor. But I am also describing something that is
literally so, that is perceived just in this sense, as, in
fact, a point. We are pressurized into this phenomenal
state, because we cannot presume identity with what is on
the other side of that point. We see the reflections, the
modifications, of that infinite Radiance, but we do not
enjoy identification with that Condition itself. We are
stuck, trapped in this box, this illusion. This illusion is
made of that same light and pervaded by it. It is not
separate from it. Until we realize the Source and condition
of this modified realm of light, however, we feel bound and
limited and we are forced to endure all kinds of
adventures.
There is freedom from this dis-ease
only in the advent of identification with the Condition and
Source of this manifestation. In that event, we are
Translated into that Condition itself. We pass though this
point, the bindu that determines this appearance. By
surrendering as this self, we make this aperture infinitely
large so that we can pass through it. But when we awaken on
the other side, it is as if none of this present
manifestation exits. To awaken on the other side of that
point, therefore, it the equivalent of waking up in this
world having slept or dreamed.
I can tell you this, having passed
through that point, not believing it merely. Those who have
been brought by Grace through that point and then returned
can speak with authority about it and serve the capability
of others to pass through it. They do not speak merely in
metaphors, or merely philosophically.
Adi Da Samraj
God is not Elsewhere
1980
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