On the Divine
Person by Frank
Marrero , For Beloved
Avatara Adi Da Love-Ananda,
Samraj, Eleutherios, The Bright Ruchira
Buddha Chapter 4: Welcome to the Gom-Boo That afternoon Denise and I got an evening
invitation to come to Master Da's house, called
Free Standing Man. Soon everyone who worked on the
ladder received an invitation, and then all
devotees- about 30 people all together. We crammed
into a breakfast room off the kitchen with the
Living God in Person, and His Embrace of us became
the theatre for a Divine Play, or Leelas, that
would go on for months, change everyone, and
recapitulate the Divine Teaching of all fully
awakened beings. That evening, we entered the side door coming
through the kitchen. The old-timers were excited
for us, being initiated to the personal company of
a god-drunk-man. I couldn't imagine what was in
store for me, indeed, I will never plumb its full
depth. I came into view of the Master, He was seated on
a pillow on the floor with sixteen others, and upon
seeing me, the Beloved of my heart bolted to His
feet, stared directly at me and screamed loudly,
"HANNUMAN-JI!!!" and then walked out of the
gathering to the bathroom. Hannuman was the monkey-god and I felt the
blessing of Master Da in calling me that. The
monkey part was right anyway. But beyond that
thought my whole body was still vibrating to the
sound of His voice and I was lost in a swoon,
although trying to remain as normal looking as
possible. I was to be known from that moment
forward as Hannuman-ji. I was very proud. As the god-possessed one returned, we bowed
until He took His seat. To bow near His body is a
pleasure beyond description, although I was too
nervous to notice anything or anyone else. The
Person of Love leaned forward and graciously
engaged me, "Oh, I hear you have a photographic
memory." Now my memory is quite good and I can recite
long passages of scripture, poems, lyrics, etc. The
Master was helping me out of my social nervousness,
or so it seemed. However, there was something else
in his voice, a playfulness, a sweet and dangerous
playfulness. Something about the way He said it
signalled me that the question was a set up. I tried to both deny my ability while accepting
as much glory as possible. "Oh no, I don't have a
photographic memory, I have a good memory," I said,
emphasizing good as much as I thought I could get
away with. My Loving Master persisted. He feigned surprise.
"My, I've heard so much about you, how you recite
the Teaching instead of reading it at gatherings,
how you know the Teaching well and can recite it
verbatim." Which was true, but again the tone in His voice
belied another implication: my egoity at being able
to recite in front of everybody. I could see it was
a trap, but it didn't matter, to be trapped so
graciously was His great service. So I kinda
gestured that it was true. He pretended to help me clarify my thoughts.
"Well, how do you do it, do you ever see the words
mentally on the page?" He asked so sincerely. Somewhere it was obvious that this trickster was
like Krisna, the All-Pervading One in Person,
delighted to play the human game with divine
wisdom, but now I was captured by His
performance. Most of the time my memory is not visual but
rhythmic, but I thought of the times that I did
deeply remember something by reading it off a
mental page. I answered in the affirmative. "That's photographic," He emphasized, as if the
proof was in and clarified. "Well Hanuman-ji, I was
looking over some poems I have written and I
thought you could show us some of your stuff." The Lord of the Sacrifice picked up a paper and
prepared to read. I went into right brain mode
where I do not remember words but rhythms and
spatiality and use the left brain to gather a very
few words as signposts for the change of direction.
This was my moment to perform, my favorite
occupation. I listened with intent to catch the
prize. I've often thought of buying a cane. After all, my left side is weak but Inever bought one at all and thus I seem to walk, inclined to my
weakness and my weaker side sometimes I limp Perhaps I should take an injury and indulge
myself in an ebony walking stick with an ivory or amber handle or else a white or silver one with a carving in
the end to rest my hand I don't know how or if I'll manage it but all the while I'll keep a mind for my weaker side and limped or stood upon a cane I'll keep you mindful of it too Well, I did not understand the poem at all-thus
there was no foundation for memory-and it twisted
and turned so many times I didn't get very far. The Living One in Person began to look confused,
"I've heard so many stories about you, about your
great memory and all, where does all of it come
from?" His Glance and real question pointed to my own
activity of seeking attention to try and heal an
unseen pain. "Here let me read it again, maybe that
will help." My attention was not on the poem, however but
the pain of my egoity. Only part of me was
listening. He came to the end of the poem and
waited for my recital. A flash struck me, "Oh,
photographic memory means that I have to see the
words." I thought that I would be able to memorize
it with no problem if I could see it, but more
importantly I had dodged the bullet. "Oh, but of course, monkey-man," the Master said
appreciatively, as He handed me the page. "Read it
over for a few minutes and then show us your
stuff." I looked the poem over, setting it up for my
attack. The poem was complicated, and it was going
to be hard. And worse, I still hadn't the slightest
idea what the poem was about! But my attention was
still in the subtle communication from Master Da
about my negative egoity and the unconscious pain I
was compensating for by my famous exhibitions. Just
as I realized that I would never memorize the poem,
Beloved implored me, "Well, let's hear it." I was
on the spot again. I remembered back in junior high when the coach
asked me to perform a skit with the varsity
cheerleaders which involved me dribbling and
shooting a basketball. My older sister advised me
to either be sure I could make the shot or else
just throw it wildly away. I thought I could make
it and so went for it. I missed, I wished I had
lost face voluntarily instead of the laughter I
endured. "I don't think I can do the first line," I said,
this time heeding the wisdom of my sister. Master Da feigned surprise and astonishment.
"Where do these stories come from?" He looked at
me, I told Him with my eyes that I understood where
they came from, from the 'please love me' hidden
deeply in childhood pain. Master Da turned to the
devotee who usually sat beside him, "Bodha, how do
these stories get around?" Bodha defended my reputation. "I've heard him,
Lord, he can recite the Teaching for hours." Master Da whirled around at me, glaring. Behind
him, Bodha was waving his hands, 'come on, come
on'. So after my trial by fire, my moment did
arrive, I had better not blow it, I chose one of my
favorites. I tried to speak with as much feeling
and authority as I could. The conditions of experience are summarized in
the Teaching. The conditions of experience is a
summary or circle of pairs, of opposites. When the
whole affair of arising is clearly seen it is felt
to be an irreducible dilemma. Experience, in
itself, is futile, unrelieved, contradicted.
Therefore, we are moved to the principle of
Freedom. The experience of the devotee duplicates the
field of contradictions, even in the case of
realization of Truth. Except that the devotee
realizes the paradoxical nature of all pairs. When
contradiction becomes Paradox, the strife of time
and space becomes overwhelmingly beautiful, and the
devotee begins to contemplate in the Humor of our
God. The "Groucho Marx of Avatars" puffed out His
chest, rubbed His hands up and down His hairy, bare
chest in glory. "Did I write that?" He asked
me. Another lesson for Hannuman-ji was hilariously
under way. Master Da was parodying me and the way I
read His Teaching. Beloved Da continued to inquire
as He turned to Bodha, "Did I write that?", (since
I had taken ownership of it by my performance) and
at Bodha's assurance, the Lord of Humor proudly
proclaimed, "God, I write good shit." Beloved Da went on and on like this for about a
minute, as we all laughed at His parody of me. The
Enlightened One's parody was genius, He acted
exaggeratedly like me, and His theatre revealed to
me my subtle communications. The Lord of
Understanding gives magnificient service to His
devotees. There are those special times when somebody
makes such gracious fun of you that even you can
join in the laughter at yourself, this was one of
them. It was a wonderful embrace. Bodha prompted me once more and again I recited
the Teaching, this time for several minutes,
stringing together several selections from several
sources. I would always get a glance or raised
eyebrow from Him when I ran related pieces
together. The Eternal One likened me to the bards and
singing poets of ancient Greece and elsewhere that
roamed the land making a living by recitation. My
initiation had begun. Bodha handed me a beer and cigarette, freely
consumed to burn up the stress of the divine fire.
I don't like alcohol in general and beer in
particular, but I wasn't about to refuse. I whispered to William, "This is my first beer,"
to which he casually replied, "Yeah, this is only
my third." I reiterated, "This is my very first
beer." William shouted to the Master that I was a new
drinker. Soon the Beloved of my heart was grilling me
again. I tried to explain that I just don't
particularly like alcohol, when Bulls-Eye-Ananda
interrupted me, "Hold it, you are not the goodie
type, what's your poison?" I proudly told Him of my
past use of pot and LSD. "Oh, a purist!" He exclaimed as He once more
became me exactly; except He did a better job of me
than I do. His characteurs of devotees were
stunning in their brilliance, a perfect theatre,
with all one's subtle communications exaggerated
and all the implications enlarged. Extremely
humorous and gracious, He cuts like a warrior to
the heart of the matter. Chameleon-like He rose His lip into a snarl and
theatrically barked, "Sorry we don't have any
HEROIN!-we try to stay within the limits of the
law!" All broke into loving laughter as all
appreciated His genius parody of devotees. Master Da did not merely speak, He infused his
words with passion; He pleaded, He confessed; He
cut, He ran through; He mused and gestured with
perfect Presence, He enlightened His listeners, He
embraced, He spoke as a man possessed. Indeed. I heard the Lord said that on this first
evening, He looked out across the new devotees that
were with Him, and He saw a single voice rising
from each head or written across each forehead,
"Take us through it. Show us the whole thing. Give
us the great revelation." He launched into the famous talk, Master Da: "Have you all heard about the Dreaded
Gom-Boo? Or the impossible Three-Day
Thumb-and-Finger Problem? Ah ha! You see? Nobody
tells you about these things except me. "A myth has been circulating for many centuries
now that mankind is diseased, that all beings are
suffering from what I call the Dreaded Gom-Boo,
also called sin, maya, ego, suffering, separated
individuality, illusions, delusion, confusion, and
indifference. We are all supposed to accept this
diagnosis, realize how diseased we are, and submit
ourselves to the local religious hospital, where a
father or mother doctor will confirm our disease
and require us to submit for the rest of our lives
to various regimes for our own healing and ultimate
cure. This is the basic proposition of traditional
religion, and it begins with the diagnosis of the
dreaded disease. "Tradition has it that we are all, by birth, by
virtue of our very existence, even now diseased,
sinful, separated from the Great One. What a
horror! Yes! What an obscenity has been laid upon
us through the traditions of society, which, merely
because of the impulse to survive as the body-mind,
have for centuries required human beings to invest
themselves with the belief in this disease and to
suppress their own life-motion, which comes only
from the Great-One, in order to fulfill the
presumed needs of our chaotic society. "I come to tell you, as I stand in the midst of
the priests of this horror, that not even one of
you is suffering from this disease. It is an
imaginary disease, a terrible disease, but
altogether imaginary. No one has ever actually had
this disease. No one single being has ever had the
Dreaded Gom-Boo, or the impossible thumb-and-finger
problem. It has never happened! It does not
exist! "What is the Truth? We are Happy. We live in
God. The Great One is our very Being. We inhere in
the Blissful, Forceful Being of the Starry God, the
Wonder, the Mystery, the Person of Love. This is
our Situation and our Destiny. I am only one among
many voices, but this is my Message to you: There
is no disease. There is nothing to cure. We are not
patients and we are not parented. We are not
children. No dreadful destiny. "How do you contract this imaginary disease and
become involved in seeking its imaginary cure? I
call you to observe yourself, and you will see,
you're grabbing your ass! You are pinching your
belly, you're causing yourself great pain because
of your motive to be independent. "You will never be independent. There is not
even a molecule of wood in this wall that is
independent. Nothing and no one is independent. All
of us inhere in the Great One, the Wonderful Lord,
the Marvelous Starry Person, the Delight of Being.
All of us live in That. That is our situation now.
This moment is the moment of Happiness, as is every
future moment, every moment after death, beyond
this world and other worlds, higher worlds, after
worlds, no worlds. It is all the moment of infinite
Delight, unless we become self-conscious and
withdraw from our relations and contract upon our
Happiness and forget It." -The Dreaded Gom-Boo pp. 33-4 Pure Consciousness with a human voice embraced
each and every devotee present, revealing each one
to themselves. And after this Sacrificial Fire had
burned forth from every altar, after His revelation
of devotees, He began to reveal Himself. His words
were closer than closeness, they erupted in our
hearts as He spoke them. He led us, He helped us,
He infused us with Love, and in such Divine Company
He took us to the realm of eternal life, all Bright
with Heart Light and Divine Love; and He held us
there by the Power of His Passion. He Radiated
Always, and by His baptism we were suspended us in
a divine realm. Floating in such Grace, He spoke to
us of the passage beyond mortality. "And now," He trumpeted, "when you do come to
die and let the body go, you can remember Me,
remember this night, and hold on to My Big Toe and
I will pull you Here again." He gestured upwards with His arms towards the
light beyond mortality and exclaimed again and
again, "Just hold on to My Big Toe!" He was the
eternal flame, the blissfull miraculousness known
only to the Company of the Divine Person. Later that evening, Master Da again addressed me
and my memory. "Oh, Hanuman-ji, I've got another
poem for you, except this time I just want you to
relax and receive it, OK?" I agreed to the terms of the test, as everything
fell silent. Master Da picked up a sheet of paper,
read the first lines to himself, then looked
directly at me, Every body is an island for its one The "I", adrift is space, is masted to the earth
core. Before Avatara Adi Da looked back down at His
paper, He looked at me directly, to add import to
the meaning of His words, to make sure I
understood. The Living Buddha continued. The body, bright, rising slightly from the
currents of life-light. A single tree is rising there, antennae to the
sky of mind. Its root in sex and foliated brain Again, He looked into my eyes, He gazed past my
face into the mind and inward vision where I
understood His divine vision. Only then did Voice
of the Supreme Self continue. That tree surveys the earth and sky, the mindful
scene, the move of life, and would uncapture this attentive "I". Now when His eyes met mine, a deep conversation
was already going on, and He was leading my soul
into the embrace of realization. How can this island fly or drown, To what space can space be gone? This isle will be forgotten when the source of
"I" is found. He looked up, saw that His understanding shone
from my own eyes, He saw that His communication had
been received and we gazed into each others eyes in
open heartedness. In truth, we were not gazing into
each others eyes, but celebrating the non-dual
divinity Who lives every being and Who shines from
every heart. Awareness seemed to vault to distant
horizons as the Divine Person looked out of my eyes
into His. Master Da spoke softly, "Did you get it?" The exquisiteness of transcendental
consciousness was unbroken as was our gaze. I
nodded, "Yes, I got it," delivered as I was. Suddenly Master Da looked away and announced,
"Well, show it to us then. Recite the poem!" Recite the poem! Recite the poem!? I watched in
utter amazement as the transcendental state to
which the Person of God had vaulted me collapsed as
I contracted and funnelled toward self. Suddenly,
only a sliver of that pure and free awareness
remained and it was 'me', sitting there, who hardly
recalled a poem having been read. I was too
befuddled at the change of states of consciousness
Master Da had taken me on to think about any kind
of social participation, but I seemed to remember
Master Da teasing me about my great memory
again. I had been floated beyond mortality, given a
spiritual name by the Avatar, burned in
self-understanding, swooned into blisses,
translated into Transcendental Consciousness, and
given a front row seat as it went from God to me.
That was the first evening.
The Radiant Transcendental Being Resides in the Speech and in every Body Part of the
Master. Therefore, devotees Awaken to the Great
One via the Master's Blessing at all times. This is
not difficult, since One Who is truly Beloved is
never forgotten. Beloved Adi Da's The Hymn of the
Master Chapter
Two: I Didn't Understand Chapter
Three: The Secret Place Chapter
Four: Welcome to the Gom-Boo Chapter Six: The Cult of
Pairs Revisited Chapter Seven: The Thief
Chapter Eight: The Storm of
the Century Chapter Nine: The Christmas
Miracle
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"The perfect among the
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us"
Tripura
Rahasya, Chap
XX, 128-133
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