Catalyst House

Happy Birthday Beloved DA!

From the moment of His birth November 3, 1939, Adi Da Samraj existed in an unspeakable Condition of constant Radiance and Joy.


Zemanta Related Posts ThumbnailAnd when, as an infant, He acquired the capability of language, He gave a name to this Condition. He called it simply “the ‘Bright'”. His naming of the “Bright” was the beginning of His Work of Teaching the Truth about Reality.

Beloved Adi Da has recommended that everyone be told this joke on their birthday each year:

A person jumps out of a skyscraper window. On the way down, someone shouts out from a window as the jumper passes by: “How’s it going?”

The jumper responds: “So far, so good!”

Moral of the ‘joke’? —

“For human beings, death Is A Proposition and A Puzzle That Must Be Understood and Transcended (By Correct and Revealing Information, or Fullest Education, and By The Real Process Of self-Transcendence). There Is No Peace For human beings Until This Matter Is Resolved.”

— Avatar Adi Da Samraj, from Eleutherios

Today is November 3rd, the Jayanti (birthday) of Beloved Adi Da Samraj.  We wanted to post something about Beloved Da’s teaching-transmission, as well as have it relate to His and everyone’s birthday.

We found this gem at the marvelous repository of transcendental wisdom, the Beezone.  One of our favorites among Master Da’s essays and talks.

Happy Divine Birth-day, O’ Ruchira Buddha Sapta-Na Adi Da, we bow down to your Divine Lotus feet.

——–

A Birthday Message from Jesus and Me

an essay and talk by

Sri Adi Da Samraj

The All-Pervading Life-Spirit, or the Self-Radiant Transcendental Spirit-Being, is Love, the Source of beings and worlds, the Great Power, All-Bliss, Reality Itself. To live and Be in Oneness with the Eternal Spirit is God-love, Salvation, Enlightenment, and literally eternal life.

Adi Da's BirthdayThose who love God totally (as self-transcending spirits, surrendered as the total body-mind, feeling as and in the Self-Radiant Energy or Spirit of Being) also inevitably love others, Communicate or Magnify God in the worlds, and always transcend themselves in all relations, under all conditions, and in every state. Therefore, be “born again”—be reborn or re-Lived now—by the discovery and affirmation that you and all beings and things are Spirit, or an eternal process of Energy (rather than unconscious and mortal matter). What is presumed to be mortal matter (in the form of body, mind, and world) is only a phenomenal state of Energy, or Energy in one moment of Its beginningless and endless sequence of transformations. Awaken and Be in the Spirit and then fulfill the double Law of the Spirit—which is to love God, or the Transcendental Spirit-Being, until you become Love, and so love all others.

Be Happy and altogether healed or en-Livened by this conversion of “matter” into Energy. This conversion is repentance, or release of all non-Spiritual views, acts, and “karmas”, 1 or the habit-results of “sin”—which is simply the ego-based or self-contracting denial of Oneness with the Divine Spirit-Being. And this same conversion is also Salvation, or restoration of resonant Oneness with the Divine Spirit-Being.

As a spirit (or a body-mind-self that is only or entirely living and conscious energy), Be surrendered into Oneness with the Transcendental Spirit-Being. Transcend yourself in Love-Bliss. Transcend the present world (and all materially or mortally conceived conditions and concepts). By all of this, enter into a totally new Destiny—in God, or Spiritual Being. That Destiny goes beyond self and, ultimately, beyond every plane of conditional Nature. It is the Destiny of Love-Bliss, or uninterrupted Existence in the Divine Condition, or the Divine Domain, wherein there is no trace or memory of conditional existence.

Only this is true and useful religion. Religion is self-transcending Spirituality. It is to be restored to inherently Free Spirit-living, and not merely to submit to the myths and rituals of dogmatic beliefs and the lifeless or Spirit-less disciplines of the concerned social ego.

Accept the Spirit-Blessing of the Adept Spiritual Master. Even the body-mind is only Energy. Realize the Spirit-Being is the Reality in which self and world are arising as spontaneous but unnecessary and non-binding modifications of Itself. Be the Spirit-Being only. See all things and beings in and as the Spirit. And always Magnify the Spirit-Force, which is Love, Blessing, Tolerance, Forgiveness, Help, Healing, Nurture, Delight, Joy, Bliss, Peace, and total Happiness. —November 3, 1982

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Adi Da's JayantiADI DA: I call this essay “A Birthday Message from Jesus and Me” for several reasons. Today is my birthday, first of all. The essay also speaks of being born again in the Spirit, so it is in some sense a message about everybody’s “rebirthday” or spiritual birth. And it is “from Jesus and Me” because the essay also paraphrases the Teaching of Jesus.

There is a likeness between my Teaching and all of the high and great and radical Teachings of the Great Tradition. In the book Nirvanasara I explore the likeness between this Teaching and the traditions of Advaita Vedanta and Buddhism. I suggest in that book that one of the descriptive names of this Teaching is Advaitayana Buddhism. This does not mean that the only precedents for this Teaching or its only likenesses are to be found in the traditions of Vedanta and Buddhism. I have also suggested other descriptive names for this Teaching and explored the likenesses between my Teaching and many traditions outside the Transcendentalist Teachings of Advaitism and Buddhism. But, I differentiate those aspects of the Great Tradition that represent great Teaching and those that represent conventions of the human mind, human life, false religion, pseudo-religion, lesser religion. I explore and examine all of the traditions critically, and therefore I criticize aspects of all traditions, but there is also a congenial likeness to be found between my own Teaching and the great or high Teachings of all the traditions.

Christianity is historically the dominant religious tradition of the Western world for all kinds of reasons, most of which have nothing whatever to do with the Truth. Therefore, I criticize Christianity on a number of levels. But over the years I have also considered Christianity—actually not so much Christianity as the Teaching of Jesus—in terms of its likenesses to my own Teaching.

Jesus preached a Way of life that involved stepping outside the bondage to tradition and institutionalized religiosity. His was a radical Spirit-Teaching that communicated the religion of conversion to the Spiritual Reality, to the Divine as Living Spirit, rather than to the Divine as the remembered and honored “God of our fathers,” the God of the book, and so on. Jesus preached that people should be altogether converted from their false views and sinfulness, that they should be transformed by the Realization of the Spirit, and that they should make their religion a way of life in immediate and constant Communion with the Divine Spirit.

The New Testament declares that there is only one unpardonable sin. Among all of the enumerated sins only one is unpardonable: the denial of the Holy Spirit or the Spirit of God. If that is the one unforgivable sin, then something about that sin must epitomize sin itself. All the forgivable sins must somehow be the lesser versions of this primary sin. Therefore, sin itself has to do with our tendency to deny or dissociate from the Spiritual Divine.

All that we might do that could be called sin in the Semitic and Christian traditions is a version of our tendency to dissociate from the Spiritual Divine. What is unforgivable about the unforgivable sin is not that it is merely an immediate form of behavior that temporarily dissociates us from the Spiritual Divine, but that it is sin raised to its absolute degree. It is perpetual sin. It is not unforgivable because God does not forgive or because God is not forgiving. It is unforgivable because the act itself will not accept forgiveness. To accept forgiveness is to become involved with the Divine. Therefore, to deny the Divine is to be in a perpetual state of dissociation from the Divine and, therefore, dissociation from forgiveness. Only once we have ceased to deny the Divine is forgiveness possible.

Therefore, sin is simply the denial of the Holy Spirit or denial of the Spiritual Divine, and it becomes most critical when it becomes an absolute act of absolute denial. Forgiveness is liberation from the effects of all denials of God. It is restoration to God or repentance, which is on this side of forgiveness. Repentance in the Christian tradition, and in the Semitic tradition in general, is the act of giving up sin or returning to God.

Adi Da fractal Mandelbrot

In one of the key passages in the New Testament, Jesus meets a man named Nicodemus, who was a major figure in the temple. Nicodemus came to see Jesus at night, because he did not want anybody to know that he was going to see this renegade who was preaching a free form of religion outside temple life. He had learned of Jesus from others who had heard Jesus preach, and he wanted to know precisely, beyond hearsay, what this man was Teaching.

Jesus told him, “You must be born again. You must be born in the Spirit even as now you are born in the flesh. You must be Baptized in the Spirit, you must receive the Spirit, you must enter into Communion with the Spirit. God is Spirit, Man is Spirit, every individual is a spirit, and all of the spirits, including the entire world, are arising in God, in intimate, eternal Communion with the Spirit, God. Religion is to repent or be converted from an unspiritual point of view, the whole life of self-possession and the mortal mind, and to enter fully into Communion with the Divine as the Living Spirit. Only on the basis of such conversion can the law of Israel be fulfilled.”

Jesus was asked on one occasion, as reported in the New Testament, “What is your summary of the Law?” And Jesus repeated the summary that is already found in the Old Testament: “Love God completely, with every aspect of your being, and love all others. Treat all others as you would be treated. Treat them as your very self and as you would have yourself treated.” From Jesus’ point of view that Law could not be fulfilled except through spiritual rebirth or conversion from the mortal, self-possessed point of view to Communion with the Divine as the All-Pervading Spirit. The Law could therefore be summarized completely from Jesus’ point of view in just this brief statement. There was no need for the complicated sub-laws and rituals and mechanical aspects of religiosity, all of which are built upon the ordinary mind. If just this one simple process of conversion could be realized, then the Law would inevitably be fulfilled. However, if this conversion were not realized, to fulfill the Law would be impossible, even if one practiced the ritual fulfillment of the Law down to the last detail.

In his Teaching, Jesus criticized the tendencies of religiosity in his time, saying basically that no real religion existed then. There was a great deal of religiosity, a great deal of temple life and ritual, many laws and legalisms, many beliefs and myths, but none of that had anything to do with religion. Such pseudo-religion was about God in the book, the God who created everything and is now to be viewed as untouchable, holy, elsewhere. The religious life of most people had been reduced to the popular form of religiosity, just as it has been in our time—or as it is in any time.

Jesus preached a radically simplified form of religion. He preached what I call basic religion. Only one affair is religion: the conversion from self, and all the views based on self-possession and mortal self-consciousness, to Communion with the Living Spirit-Being or Radiant Transcendental Being, the recognition that all of Nature is made of that One, that every being is a spirit and one with the Transcendental Spirit. That which is born of the Spirit, he said, is Spirit, is of the same nature, and, therefore, can Realize a state of perfect Identification with that Great Spirit or Transcendental Being, and by that perfect Divinity be drawn into the Domain of unqualified spiritual existence.

My own Teaching to you is fundamentally the same. During the last few days I have told you that ultimately the Way transcends the conventional point of view of religion and spirituality. The Way of the Heart is the Way of radical self-transcendence and Perfect Realization of a state of Identification with the Radiant Transcendental or Divine Being and Condition. Nevertheless, the Way begins with true and basic religion, and basic true religion is spirituality, life in the Spirit, life as the Spirit. Such religion is not transcended in the Way—it is the essence of the Way.

The process of our submission to the Spiritual Condition is realized in stages that correspond to the seven stages of life. There are therefore lesser stages of maturity in the process of Transcendental Communion and ultimate Enlightenment, lesser stages, higher stages, and the ultimate stage. But they are all aspects of true religion, or spiritual existence. You cannot enter into the process of this Way unless you are born again in the same terms that Jesus preached. You cannot enter into the process of the Way until you Awaken into the acknowledgment of the Living Spiritual Reality, not merely the God to be believed, but the Spiritual Reality that is tangibly Present and with Which we are inherently intimate. We need only acknowledge It and submit ourselves to Its Living Current and enter into Its Ultimate Condition. This submission is a natural and free process, always available to human beings if they will repent or convert from their self-possession and their denial of the Spiritual Reality.

I have told you that without such conversion, it makes no difference how many of my books you read or how many of the specific disciplines you apply. The disciplines will not be fruitful, they are not even true in your case, unless you first become religious in the spiritual sense. You must first be converted. We suffer many conditions of existence because we do not presume the Spiritual Reality of existence. When we cannot be intimate with God, we start to think and when we cannot be intimate with other people, we start becoming physically self-indulgent. All the behaviors that are called sin in the traditions are simply the variations on these two possibilities, indulgence in the self-mind and its mortal views, and physically based self-indulgence.

The reason we enter into the conditions of existence that are self-contracted, ego-based, and self-possessed is that we become incapable of intimacy with Reality. The first form of that dis-ease, that imaginary disease, the “dreaded Gom-boo,” 2 is the denial of the Holy Spirit, the denial of the Spiritual Reality, the denial of the fact that all beings are spirits or spiritual entities, not merely spirits somewhere inside and behind the body and the mind, but spirits as the body-mind.

This world that we perceive is the spiritual world in a certain form. It arises in the Spiritual Divine, the Transcendental Spirit-Being, the Transcendental Condition of existence. When you lose sympathy with that Reality, when you cannot be intimate with It, cannot submit to It, even bodily, emotionally, with the whole mind—as Jesus said, you must love the Spiritual Divine with your mind, heart, soul, all your strength—when you cannot be intimate with the Living Spirit-God, you as a spirit, with every aspect of your being and personality, then you are self-contracted and self-possessed. You fall in upon yourself, and are no longer capable of intimacy with the Spiritual Divine or with any of the conditions of existence.

Adi Da's BirthdayYou are not capable of intimacy with other beings, therefore. You cannot love God or others, you cannot be love in the world, you are not free, you are not Happy, you become un-Happy. Then you try to become Happy through the exercise of mind and physical possibility, but when mind and physical possibility are generated on the basis of the loss of intimacy, the inability to be submitted to love, to surrender, to enter into Communion with the Living Being directly and in the form of all beings, then all the forms of mind and body become self-indulgent, self-possessed, sinful, disoriented from the Divine. They “miss the mark.” To sin is to “miss the mark,” as in the Greek word “hamartia,” for example, which means a miss of the mark.

Thus, human beings are suffering from this imagined disease, this self-created or self-imposed disease. Its root is an emotional problem, the incapacity for intimacy with the Real or the Transcendental Reality and all of the modifications of the Transcendental Reality that appear in the form of living beings and conditions of existence in this world and in all other worlds. The Way, therefore, begins when we can repent or be converted from this self-possessed disposition and all of the acts and habit patterns, thought patterns, points of view, the whole affair of the disease of egoity. We must be converted from self. We must Awaken from self-possession to the acknowledgment of the inherent Spiritual Reality of existence. We must be restored to intimacy or Communion with That One.

When intimacy is restored, the body-mind is restored to a state of equanimity on the basis of its resonant Communion with the Living Current of the Spiritual Being. This restoration of intimacy with the Living Divine is likewise a restoration of intimacy with all other conditions of existence and all other beings. When love of God returns, then love of others also returns. Life is simplified. Life becomes capable of a harmonious disposition and of magnifying the characteristics of Spiritual Being. We cannot first love others. We must first be restored to God. We must first be converted spiritually.

The primary principle is God-Love, God-Communion, self-transcending submission to the Living Current and Transcendental Being. When that conversion is established, then we become capable of fulfilling the second part of the great Law. When we love God to the point of becoming love, when we Commune with the Spirit to the point of becoming spiritual, then we love or magnify the characteristics of the Spirit in all relations, under all conditions, in all states, in all possible worlds.

The essence of the Way is the spirituality of self-transcending Communion with the Living Divine. It is spirituality, you see. It is life in the Spirit. It is not merely a matter of developing the programs of the social ego. It is not merely a matter of being fitfully committed to creating the politics of social peace. Such is the great program toward which all of Nature and all of humanity are striving, and yet peace is not about to be instantly created! Even so, we should not be disheartened or become dispirited because the conditions of life are frustrating and do not show the signs of the universal invasion of the world by the Divine Spirit. The world is not likely to become converted to the Spiritual Divine in all of its billions, to become converted to the true process of religion in our lifetime. Perhaps it will never be converted.

It is possible that anyone who hears and sees the Spirit-Born Adept will be converted to the Living Spiritual Reality and enter into the process of spiritual realization in community with others who have been likewise converted. Such individuals magnify their disposition in the world and are of use in the world to help the world in the direction of Ultimate Transformation, but without distress. Still, the fundamental process of their existence is spiritual, or a matter of moment to moment God-Communion. That Communion is their Happiness. By submission to that Condition, through the spiritual process inherent in God-Communion, they are transformed in this world and ultimately Translated beyond all conditional worlds, or all worlds in which dissociation from the Spirit, or self-possession, is possible. Those who fulfill the Way perfectly are Translated into the Divine Domain or the Transcendental Condition.

This conversion to spiritual Communion is the essence and fundamental necessity upon which this Way depends. Thus, it must constantly be emphasized. Without such conversion, without true “hearing” and “seeing,” 3 without spiritual rebirth, the Way cannot be practiced. It can be imitated, but it cannot be practiced. None of the disciplines are fruitful apart from such conversion. Those who are simply listening to the Teaching, who have not entered into this conversion in the Company of the Spiritual Master, may as part of the natural discipline of listening assume the various practical conditions associated with the practice of this Way, but even so they are not yet practicing the Way. They are listening or giving their attention to the possibility of practice. When there is full conversion, or “hearing” and “seeing” to the point of real practice, then real preparation for the ultimate form of the Way begins—and not until then.

Spiritual conversion is the most fundamental matter to be considered by beginners and the most fundamental event for listeners. When it occurs, it changes the entire quality of your existence. You become Happiness Itself, and you can never become un-Happy or bound again. You may seem to become bound again, perhaps, if you commit the ultimate sin, if you deny the Spirit, become self-possessed in your mind, emotion, and body again. Bondage is always possible short of perfect Enlightenment. But once you are established in the Principle of God-Communion, nothing in that Principle can bind you again or cause you to become un-Happy. Once you discover It, if you will simply abide in It, the process of the Way is assured.

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Your growth toward maturity will be limited only by the force of your application to the Way of the Spiritual Reality once you become converted to It. This is the great discovery to be made on the basis of hearing my Argument and giving me your attention or living in my Company. This is the Baptism that is always being generated by my Presence here. When I call you to consider the Teaching, I call you into my Spiritual Company, even if you are simply sitting down to read my books. 4 Whenever you are in my Company, whenever you give me your attention, then you are as good as sitting in the room with me where this Baptism is being given. I do not stand in a river to perform the water ritual. I stand in the fire to perform the Spirit ritual, which purifies, enlivens, and grants Enlightenment. It is the perfect Baptism.

Thus, those who give me their attention, in whatever form it may take at any moment, align themselves to my Baptizing Power, the profusion of Grace that is manifested through the Adept, which is simply a magnification of the Spiritual Divine to living beings. When you have heard and seen me, when you have understood and located my Presence, experienced this Baptism and Awakened to the Spiritual Reality, then you have entered into the stream and fire of the Way. Then all of the disciplines become fruitful, but not otherwise. This is the fundamental import of your involvement with me in this Way of Life and this Teaching. All of the gatherings of our community and all of the moments in which devotees attend to this Teaching and this practice are the moments of this Baptism, the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, as it is called in the Christian tradition, the reception of the Living Current that is the substance of existence, that is Self-Radiant Transcendental Being, Love-Bliss, Happiness.

To enter into that Happiness is to be healed. All Power is within It. All Transformation is inherent in It. To enter into Communion with the Living Divine is to be Transfigured, to be Transformed, ultimately to be Translated. To enter into the Company of the Spirit-Baptizing Adept is, in fact, to enter into the seventh stage of life. The processes of the seventh stage of life, which are Transfiguration, Transformation, and Translation, are inherent in the moment of God-Communion, and therefore this Way begins in the seventh stage of life. But we acknowledge that there are habits or tendencies in every individual that must be purified, and therefore we also acknowledge that there are stages of maturity or stages of the development of the practice. Yet even preparation for the Way develops within the ambience of the seventh stage of life, or the living Environment of the Spiritual Divine.

Spiritual Transmission is the reason for the occasions of celebration when I sit with everyone, whether they are in the room with me or sitting at a distance. It is the reason that I gather with people under all kinds of circumstances. It is the reason that I return to The Mountain of Attention periodically to see people there. It is the reason that I maintain constant communication of one kind or another with all devotees through the Agencies of this institution. The import of my Presence here is that I be a Baptizer, an Agent of Transmission. Part of the import of my Presence here is that I consider the Argument of the Way and consider the right culture of devotees and develop the practices in your company, but the ultimate import of my Presence here is simply that I be Present, not merely to exist but to Baptize, to Transmit the Spirit-Awakening.

Those who Awaken in my Company then know how to use me. They understand why I am here. Others who are still listening, who have not passed through this remarkable conversion or matter into energy, or egoity into Spirit-living, appropriately maintain a relatively distant or formal relationship to me, although they give me their attention. And their granting of attention to me bears the fruit of conversion when they thoroughly intuit and feel that all that arises is Spirit or Energy. The Spirit is not merely behind what arises, pervading it as some sort of invisible essence. The Spirit is this, just this exactly, as it is all the other forms of appearance with which we might become associated. The Living or Spirit-Current pervades all of this, is all of this, and we may contact It intimately through the submission of our body-minds to It.

We breathe the Living Current, we feel It, our fundamental emotion is one with It. The Current is felt as an energy bodily. It is also felt as an emotion, the emotion of love, unqualified emotion, radiant feeling. Be diverted from your thinking, your self-possessed process of mind, and grant attention to this Living Current. Then you will realize that the essence of that Current is not only energy, not only love, but unconditional Being or Consciousness Itself.

There is a very practical means for living in Communion with the Spirit-Being or the Divine. I have considered that practical means with you for many years. I have described three basic Ways of practicing this Communion—the Way of Insight, the Way of Faith, and the Perfect Practice. 7 But all three of these Ways and all of the disciplines associated with them can be summarized as two basic practices: the practice that I call conductivity and the practice that I call the conscious process.

Conductivity is the whole affair of physical and emotional and psychic feeling-surrender into the Living Spirit or Life-Current. We animate this form of our practice through all kinds of practical disciplines related to diet, daily living, sexuality, and service to others. We also animate it through the features of our meditation that involve the technical process of conductivity or breathing and feeling the Living Current, the Spirit-Current with which you are Baptized and to which you Awaken in my Company.

That Living Current is breathed in a Circle, descending in the front of the body and ascending in the spinal line of the body, between the crown and the feet or the crown and the bodily base of the perineum. It is felt from the heart in all directions. It is love or radiant emotion. We should be constantly relaxed from base to crown or foot to crown into this Living Current, breathing It in the Circle and feeling It from the heart in all directions. Jesus’ instruction to love God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength is to practice conductivity as a meditative process and as a process of daily disciplines and daily living, associated intimately with our feeling, breathing, living, physical personality. We are not merely to go inward to find the Spirit. We are the Spirit and we must live in the Spirit even bodily.

The other most fundamental aspect and the primary form of our practice, for which our practice of conductivity of the Spirit prepares us, for which our conductivity of the Spirit gives us a support, a basis in equanimity, is the conscious process. As the practice of conductivity liberates energy and attention in the Spirit, it liberates energy and attention from the contractions of egoity. We must devote that free energy and attention to the conscious process, radically intuiting or entering into a state of identification with the Transcendental Being, That which is Self-Radiant and appearing as all forms and beings, That which simply is.

Thus, through the artful practice of conductivity and the conscious process, we remain in perpetual Communion with the Spirit-Being, the Living Divine. If we do so, we mature inevitably and by stages to the point of Perfect Awakening, Enlightenment, Self-Abiding, Abiding in a state of Identification with the Transcendental Being and inherently and spontaneously recognizing all arising conditions in the body-mind and its environs or relations. There is nothing but the apparent, unnecessary, non-binding, free modification of the Spiritual Radiance of the Divine or the Transcendental Self.

The religion of the Spirit is fulfilled in Enlightenment, in which all conditions are recognizable. By the power of Self-Abiding recognition, the tendency of attention to be associated with conditions is dissolved. At first association with the grosser conditions continues. Then as the tendency of those associations is gradually released, a subtler disposition appears in this life or after this life, in other spiritual worlds or again in this world. By our continuing in this disposition of Self-Abiding recognition, the tendency of attention to associate with conditional existence in any plane whatsoever is dissolved, so that ultimately the being is Translated into the Divine Condition without the slightest noticing of conditional existence.

We may say of Translation that it is simply perfect Identification with the Divine Self or Radiant Transcendental Being, without qualification. Whether it is also associated with a sublime Domain beyond our imagining, beyond our conception in this world, is to be seen, but we enter into it through Enlightenment, through recognition, through the dissolution of conditional associations, not by clinging to ideas of a place to which we want to go.

I also Teach, as Jesus Taught, the radical religion of the Spirit. A religion about Jesus was created by some who knew him, by some who did not know him, by Christian-made priests, by all of the contingencies of historical Christianity. That religion is just another version of conventional religion, the kind of religion that Jesus himself criticized. It is not the free religion of the Spirit, and it contains no esotericism about the life of the Spirit and the transcendence of conditional existence. It is a myth-laden religion, a priest-laden religion, a religion of rules, enforced conduct, and beliefs. It is not to any absolute degree different in kind from the religion of Israel in the day of Jesus. Thus, like Jesus in his time, I live in a time full of religions that must be criticized. I am a renegade outside the temple, preaching the radical religion of the Spirit and Teaching a practical Way of entering into Communion with the Spirit.

Jesus likewise taught esoteric means of living in Communion with the Spiritual Divine, but those means have been lost within the tradition. We know that Jesus spoke of Spirit-Baptism. We know he spoke of conversion to the Divine as Living Spirit. We know he spoke of conversion from the flesh or the views of mortality, including religious views that correspond to that disposition. In spite of all the mythology laid upon Jesus in the New Testament, what comes through is still a Spirit-born personality who was Transfigured, Transformed, magnified, made effective as a Siddha by virtue of God-Communion, Spiritual Communion. All the rest of it, all the “washed-by-the-blood-of-Jesus” mythology, all of the salvation-through-the-death-of-Christ mythology, has nothing whatever to do with the Teaching of Jesus. It is a popular mythology, a conventional religion, an alternative to true religion, which is spirituality or an essentially esoteric process of being God-born and ultimately Translated into the Divine Condition.

The story of Jesus reports a person Transfigured and Transformed by intimacy with the Spiritual Divine. It suggests also that he was Translated. Most of the New Testament is discardable, the product of a tradition, a church, a very worldly institution I have criticized frequently, but the Teaching of Jesus need not be criticized. It stands in the great tradition of the Siddhas.

No Transmission comes directly from Jesus now. The link with Jesus through Baptized devotees has been broken. But many other Adepts appeared before Jesus and after Jesus, and they too have come and gone. Some precincts may exist within the Great Tradition here and there where this true spirituality is still alive—it is alive in my Company. I am an individual of the same type as Jesus and other Adepts who have Taught and Demonstrated the radical religion of the Spirit and who have Baptized individuals in the Spirit.

You are called first to the Spiritual Divine, and you must enter into this conversion physically, emotionally, psychically. You must become practically involved with every dimension of the being in spiritual community. Until you do, you are still a listener, and until you have fulfilled the process in perfect Enlightenment, you are still preparing for the Way in its fullest sense, even though you have entered into the stream and fire of the Way, in some sense into the Way itself, through this Communion, this Spirit-Baptism, this Transfigured life in my Company that begins when you have located my Influence and become established in the Living Current of the Spiritual Divine.

When you are established in the Current, then you no longer view life with the mortal mind through contracted emotion and a disharmonious physical vehicle. Rather, you see everything as energy, you treat everything as energy, you live as energy, you are a Life-Bearer, you magnify the Living Spiritual Being in all of your relations, you are transformed by It, you accommodate It in every feature of your life. You initiate practical changes to make your life coincide with your spiritual disposition. You change all the factors of your practical living that do not coincide with the spiritual orientation of your living. You must do so. To accommodate the Spiritual Divine in every feature of your existence, to be devoted to It wholly and entirely, not merely in the mind with a kind of subjective acknowledgment, but very practically, physically, emotionally, mentally, psychically, is the practice.

Therefore, I do not call you merely to believe in God, but I Baptize you in this Spiritual Force and call you to act differently, to submit to it physically, to feel it, breathe it, relax into it, animate it, manifest it through service and love in all relations. I call you to worship God in Spirit, as Spirit, worship God spiritually, through spiritual means, through living, through meditation, not through conventional prayer. I call you to realize that you are one with this Spirit, not merely experiencing It but identical to It, so that you may, by overcoming every fraction of the self-contraction, Realize a state of perfect and uncaused Identification with It, Realize a perfect equation with the Divine Being and Condition.

This is the secret Teaching. Baptism is the secret method. Recently we published a book called The Secret Gospel, by Morton Smith, about a fragment of a letter by Clement of Alexandria, who lived in the second century. It contains a brief description of a secret process of Initiation or Baptism engaged by Jesus with his intimate circle, those who had passed through the initial process of listening, who had been converted and who had shown the evidence of a true response, who were eventually brought to either Jesus or one of his empowered disciples and Baptized spiritually. The Current of the Spiritual Reality was magnified to them so that it was tangibly felt physically, emotionally, mentally, and psychically.

It is said that this process was conducted at night and that it was associated with a certain ritual of purification. The initiate came dressed in a white garment and was brought into a closed room for the initiation, which was Spirit-Baptism, or true “Shaktipat” 8 (without certain of the peculiar philosophic and psychic limitations of the Hindu tradition). Shaktipat is popularly associated with the orientation of the fifth stage realization, which has been superimposed on the process that is true Shaktipat. Shaktipat is Spirit-Baptism. It is the same process that occurs in my Company, but to which you are freely oriented, without fifth stage limitations. In this Way you are called to enter into a process of perfect unification with the Living Spirit to the point of Enlightenment, transcending all conditional realizations at the level of experience or presumed knowledge. Shaktipat is experientially associated with the Awakening of the Life-Current in the spinal line. Aspirants in the Hindu traditions of the fifth stage are thus devoted to a process of strategically raising the Current to dissociate from existence in this world. Such an orientation, common to the conventions of Hinduism, is not really part of a tradition that acknowledges the Divine Spirit fully. It views the individual self as a spiritual being behind the body-mind and separable from it. It conceives of God as the Being that Pervades the world and is separate from it, ultimately to be Located elsewhere. Thus, the conventional orientation to Spirit-Baptism or the Shaktipat of the traditions is generally ego-based and dissociative.

I call you to understand that the Spirit is the Substance of ths world. The body-mind is one with that Current. Therefore you are not rightly devoted to attaching yourself to one aspect of this Current in order strategically to dissociate from this world. You must enter into Spirit-Communion utterly, breathe the Spirit in its full Circle, be sublimed in It, Transfigured and Transformed by It, transcend yourself in It. And then, quite naturally, association with the limiting conditions represented by this world and other planes beyond this world will disappear. Otherwise, the strategy of egoic dissociation and attachment to the ascending quality of the Living Current will only produce temporary, ego-based results.

Spirit-Baptism, therefore, is a greater affair than is commonly understood in the yogic terms of Shaktipat, but it is a communication of the same spiritual force. It is also a communication of more than force or energy that we may feel over against ourselves. It is a communication of the Reality, the Transcendental Being, which is Radiant, manifesting as all beings and worlds, manifesting as the present body-mind, which is not merely in the body-mind but is the substance of the body-mind.

Therefore, I call you to acknowledge that you are in the Spirit presently, that you are in the Domain of the Spiritual Divine presently. If you can Awaken to this realization, then you will be Happy presently and you will not need to ascend to become Happy. Ascent is natural at some stage and true to Enlightenment in the seventh stage, but you need not go through the process of ascent to be Happy or to be God-Realized.

4.

As I said in The Knee of Listening, this is the other world. This is the Spiritual Domain. This is the Spirit World.This is the world of God. God is not merely invisible and inside us. This is the manifestation of God. There are many other manifestations of God as well, but we must not deny this manifestation. We must submit to God in the context of this world and transcend it. To do so is our obligation. Our ascent will not be final or true or free if we do not Realize God in this moment and in this condition.

To seek God elsewhere is to deny the Spirit presently, to deny that the Spirit is Present, that the Spirit is the Substance and Condition of existence presently. To go within and seek for God elsewhere is therefore a form of sin. It is a form of un-Happiness. We become Happy when we realize that we are in the Spirit presently. Therefore, those who Awaken through free spiritual Baptism become Happy presently. They are enlivened by the Spirit. They are liberated emotionally by It. They are liberated in their minds by It. They become blissful, Self-Radiant, manifest as Love, Happiness, Joyous Feeling, Freedom. These qualities, rather than the dismal qualities of the inverted ascetic, are the qualities of the God-born, the Spirit-Baptized, those who live in Communion with the Living Divine presently.

This is not to say that life in the Spirit in the world is not in some real sense a school or a trial, and a hard school at that, but it is a trial that occurs within the Domain of God. It is a necessary trial. We ascend from it, but only by transcending ourselves and allowing the Spirit-Current to ascend naturally when the free conditions for its ascent have been established. Thus, we do not merely enter into this Current to ascend. We allow It to ascend, we allow It to descend, we live in It utterly, submit ourselves to It utterly, and are purified by the Happiness of the inherent Spirit of God.

This Way is not therefore associated with a problem but with the inherent Happiness to which we Awaken when we are Baptized by the Spirit, when we Locate the Current of Bliss, the Current of Happiness. When we thus Awaken, all our darkness disappears and all our negativity and our negative views are weakened. If we continue to submit ourselves to the Spiritual Reality, all these contractions, states of mind, states of emotion, states of the psyche, states of the body, states of relatedness are purified and transformed.

You must cease to be troubled by the mortal and self-possessed vision of life and enter into the Spirit, be possessed of Its Vision, Its Radiance, which shines through us physically and emotionally and mentally and psychically when we Awaken to It whole bodily, fully, and in Truth. Such religion is free. It is native religion, God-made religion.

Those who enter into such a religious process may live with one another, create a structure or an institution for association with one another and the communication of the Teaching, but their religion itself is free and immediate. It is a process that is always intimate, that one can practice in every moment of existence, that one must practice in every moment of existence. It is not a practice to be engaged only sometimes in meditation or in weekly church gatherings. It is a perpetual obligation, but it is also a perpetual Happiness. It is to allow your body and your emotion and your mind and your psyche to be converted by this Baptism, this Transmission, to be changed in your minds, in your feeling, in your bodies. Breathe It and feel It. Circulate this Living Force and grant your attention to the Being that is Self-Radiant, the Consciousness that is inherent in every fraction of existence.

All this is arising in that Consciousness. All the things that seem, all the differences, are a play upon one Force, one Energy, one Light or Life, one Love, Bliss, Happiness. If we contract upon ourselves, then life seems otherwise. Therefore, we must be converted from our self-contraction and Locate the Spiritual Reality in every moment.

This is my Teaching. In essence it is also the Teaching of Jesus. It is a kind of renegade Teaching. It is not smiled upon by religionists and worldly people. It is resisted by the ego. It is resisted by sin or the effort of self-contraction, the denial of the Spiritual Reality. It is resisted by you, therefore, and I call your attention from yourself to “hear” and “see” this Living Being and to find this Current.

Awaken to the Spirit, and you can see the Radiance pervading the space of the room. You can feel It Shining out of your eyes. Awaken to the feeling of It, and all negative and therefore self-contracted emotions disappear, and the emotion becomes Radiant. Submit to It physically, and all the disharmony in the body disappears. The body becomes Radiant and enters into a state of equanimity or balance, in which the Circle of the Life-Current is continuous, always being magnified, always purifying every aspect of the personality.

When you enter into such enlivened Union with the Living Spiritual Reality, then you naturally magnify It or express It in all of your relations. Service is therefore not a conventional discipline, a means of eventually realizing the spiritual state, but the natural expression of the spiritual state. It is not possible to enter into the disposition of service or community with others and the ability to live with others spiritually until you Awaken to the Spiritual Divine. Those who are Awakened to the Spiritual Divine naturally do love others, tolerate others, magnify help and blessing to others, and become a benign presence.

Such service makes it possible for us to fulfill the various obligations of life we assume, but because our disposition is fundamentally involved with the Divine, our lives are fundamentally involved with the Divine in the process of God-Communion. Our devotion to Communion with the Spirit economizes our involvement with the world and our involvement with others. It does not in any sense make our involvement with the world and with others negative. It simply economizes the amount of time, energy, and attention we grant to the conditional states of life, so that we may be more and more profoundly magnified in the state of God-Communion.

At some stage, therefore, we appear to renounce the world. Our lives become simplified and, ultimately, we leave this world at death. We should have so fulfilled this process that, at the very least, at death we will not return to this dimension. We will have completed this schooling and have no fraction of habit-energy left over to make this particular experience of the spirit worlds necessary. We must make this experience unnecessary through fulfillment of the Way. At the very least, your fulfillment of this discipline should be thus effective, but even if it is not and you are reborn in human form, you will continue this Way. You will reconnect with this disposition somehow.

There is no higher world to which we should aspire. Our aspiration should be toward the Present God, toward a state of perfect Identification with the Living God. This disposition does not aspire toward transitions to other worlds or a temporary transition out of this world and a return to it. The perfect fulfillment of this Way is demonstrated through Translation, or the complete dissolution of the habit-energies of attention that lead toward conditional embodiment and experiencing. It is not by aspiring to go elsewhere that we enter into the Divine Domain but by entering directly into the Living Divine, always, presently.

All aspirations move attention toward conditional states. In other words, all the motives of attention lead toward conditional states, except for the primary motive, wherein attention is dissolved in its Source. That process leads toward the bypassing of conditional existence in all planes and makes possible direct Translation into the Divine Domain. Lesser fulfillment of the Way may lead toward embodiment in a higher or subtler plane after death, simply because attention has not been released perfectly in the Divine Condition. But perfect fulfillment of the Way is demonstrated in Translation, wherein there are no further transitions, no returns, no ascents, no descents. We enter into a state of sublime resonance with the Divine Condition and do not move from It, but Awaken more and more profoundly into Its Domain. This is the fulfillment of the spiritual disposition.

All transitions to other worlds are the products of a psychic intention, a tendency of attention toward conditional fulfillment. If we do not transcend the habits of attention relative to this world and the possibilities associated with gross human embodiment, then we will return to these conditions and be reborn in human form again merely by repeating this exercise, which has no independent necessity, but to which we grant necessity by submitting to the self-contracting disposition of the ego. We must transcend all of the appearances of necessity that we seem to find in this world or in any other worlds. We must be free of the aspiration toward conditional existence and be full of the aspiration that is God-Communion.

Therefore, you are called to enter into the perfection of Enlightenment, the fulfillment of God-Communion to the point of Translation, not to the development of the psychic ability to ascend, to be embodied in after-death realms, the world of high yogis and great beings in the higher scale of Nature. Thus, we do not use this Baptism for the sake of psychic ascent but for the sake of self-transcendence, the dissolution of all the conditional tendencies of attention in the Spirit Being, in Enlightenment. We are not devoted to the conventional possibilities of yoga or mysticism, just as we are not devoted to the possibilities of being spiritual and blessed in this world. We are devoted to God, the Transcendental Condition Itself, and this devotion, rather than any intention to be here or to go elsewhere, dissolves all the tendencies of attention.

The Way is demonstrated as Translation in Enlightenment. This is one of the principal distinctions between this Way and the various conventional and traditional paths. The traditional and conventional paths associated with the first five stages of life generally lead toward the improvement of conditions for spirits in the spirit worlds, to an improved life in this world or an improved birth in other worlds. The sixth stage of life is truly a transitional stage that should lead to the seventh, but in and of itself it is based on an heretical disposition toward exclusive inversion, a problematic view of life that wants to dissociate from the conditions of existence because it is not Spirit-born, because it has not recognized and Awakened to the Spirit in the moment of conditional existence. The sixth stage of life should lead to the seventh or the recognition of all conditions in the Spiritual Divine, which ultimately dissolves all the habits of attention.

If we enter into the seventh stage of life most fully, we will not accumulate karmas in other worlds. We may see other worlds or become associated with the possibility of the transition to other worlds, but we will recognize those possibilities as they arise. We will not become involved in the psyche, but we will recognize the psyche. Therefore, we will fulfill the Way perfectly in the seventh stage of life and not migrate after death but be dissolved in the Living One, allowing the Living One to generate our destiny in Its own Domain.

You could say, therefore, that my call to you is a call back to the Transcendental Domain. But that Domain is not a someplace else. You cannot get There from here. No road leads to It. It is not up, It is not down, It is not within. It is present. We see It when we Outshine what seems to be in the present. We are already There. We need only Awaken to It. It is not like another place. It is simply not visible to us because our vision is qualified by the modifications of the Spirit that are presently arising. The more we enter into the Spirit, then, the more this arising world is Transfigured to the point of being Outshined, and we will discover that we have been all the while sitting in the heavenly Domain, as people awaken from dreams and find they have been lying in their beds all night!

Because the possibility for Translation exists in death, death is for the Enlightened a blessed process, a process of Translation, ultimate Samadhi, 9 Outshining, the moment of the arising of the perfect Vision, the moment of infinite Brilliance, not of darkness and unconsciousness and all the weirdness we seem to feel may be associated with death and the afterlife. But we will enter into that Brilliance, that clear white Radiance, only if we have lived a spiritual life to the point of becoming perfectly resonant with the Spiritual Reality, enabling it, therefore, to Outshine conditional existence when this body-mind comes to its natural end.

The ultimate form of death is Translation, or the Outshining of conditional existence. It is to enter into the Brilliance, the Radiance, the Bright of God, not to make a transit to another world, but to be Sublimed and overcome by the blissful Radiance of the infinite God at the moment of death. If we are still subject to the self-contraction, then we will withdraw and fall into the outer lights of the Cosmic Mandala, into the spirit worlds, gravitating back to those conditions toward which our habits of attention gravitate.

Those who fulfill the spiritual Way perfectly Outshine all worlds at the point of death and enter into the Divine Domain represented in the Cosmic Mandala by the central white Brightness, what is called the “clear white light” in the Tantric Buddhist tradition, represented in the visualized sphere of lights as a white star. The cosmos manifested in the Spirit may be seen as a sphere of lights, a system of concentric circles, at the outer reaches of which is reddishness and golden yellow, then a moonlike whiteness, then a brilliant blue, and at the center a white star. When we enter into the white star, we enter an infinite place of Outshining Radiance, the Divine Domain.

Yogis make much of the other lights, but all the other lights are associated with conditional existence. High realms appear in the blue field, but they are not the Divine Domain. They represent conditional possibilities of the manifest ego, and most human beings will gravitate toward the lesser lights, the outer field, toward grossness, the etheric and lower astral planes, re-embodiment in human form. But by living a spiritual life, by becoming spiritualized through God-Communion, we enter into that disposition that ultimately Outshines all conditional realms. Therefore, death in its perfect form is Translation into the Divine Domain beyond all the lights.

Translation is the perfect furfillment of this Way. It is the last stage of the Way. The Way begins with hearing and seeing, understanding the self-contraction, repenting of it, moving beyond it, and seeing or locating the Spirit of God, Which is Transmitted in the Company of the Spiritual Master and thereafter found in all times and places by maintaining that Communion constantly and submitting to the discipline of the Adept.

When this Baptizing Power is contacted, It is felt as a pleasurable force enveloping and pervading the body. It may be felt to be Shining through the eyes. It creates a melting sensation in the heart of the emotional being. It creates feelings of the movement of energy in the body. As we enter into the life of Communion with That which we Locate through Baptism, then we enter into a process in life and meditation wherein we are purified. All of the chronic tendencies, physical, emotional, mental, and psychic, are brought to the surface, to some degree lived through, struggled with in spiritual terms, eventually transcended. The Way is the entire process, not merely meditative enjoyments. You must appreciate that the Way involves these purifications and that we must be actively involved in submission to the Spiritual Divine in the context of our limitations.

We grant more force to this purification through our meditation. We not only experience pleasurable meditative conditions, but by opening in the process of meditation we liberate more energy into our daily lives and consequently experience more of the purifying difficulties, perhaps, as well as signs of Blessing and enjoyments in life. Then in the meditative process, in the cycles of conductivity and the conscious process, all kinds of physical and emotional and mental and psychic changes develop. As they arise, we must not become attached to them, cling to them, and become self-contracted on the basis of them, but we must continue to submit ourselves into the process of conductivity and direct attention into the disciplines of the conscious process.

Thus do we always go beyond or become purified of our meditative enjoyments. Whatever arises is the “Garbage of the Goddess.” 10 There are simply modifications of the Spirit. We must continue our practice and not become distracted by them. We must relate to them naturally and persist in the essential disciplines. All the spiritual and meditative experiences and the experiences of ordinary life described in the esoteric traditions are potential in this Way and may be experienced at one time or another by devotees, but the thrust of our practice is in the conscious process toward which we are liberated through our discipline. In every moment of our practice we free energy and attention from the habits of the self-contraction. Therefore, we can practice the conscious process, perhaps in the form of true prayer or perhaps in the form of enquiry and re-cognition or the forms of the Perfect Practice. Ultimately the Perfect Practice is fulfilled in the Awakening to Sahaj Samadhi 11 and Self-Abiding recognition in the seventh stage of life, which becomes Transfiguration, Transformation, indifference or motiveless renunciation, and Translation or Unconditional Nirvikalpa Samadhi, 12 which is ultimate rebirth into the Divine Domain.

5.

The purpose of all the gatherings of devotees is to consider the Teaching to the point of hearing or self-understanding and to grant attention to the Spiritual Master in the Forms of his Person, his Agencies, and his Spirit-Blessing magnified to devotees to the point of the tangible Awakening to and acknowledgment of the Spiritual Divine. This entire institution and this whole community of devotees should be devoted to these purposes.

Practice daily. Gather constantly for the sake of hearing and seeing and communicating to one another about actual hearing and seeing. Tell the stories of your practice. Support one another’s Awakening. Give one another opportunity for the demonstration of the Way in good company. And call everyone to the real discipline and technical practice of this esoteric Way, this radical Way, in daily life.

Do this as individuals and do this as a gathering, a community, and an institution, and you will see the fruits of my birth and of your own birth. Then this institution and this community will be unique and will have great value. They will be real, they will grow, they will stop stumbling and falling back. It all depends on true hearing, self-understanding, and the acceptance of this Baptism.

November 3, 1982

1. Karma is action that entails consequences or re-actions. Thus, karma is destiny, tendency, the quality of existence that is determined by previous actions or conditions. And, by extension, karma is also latent tendencies, or patterns of action and reaction condition and experience, that originate prior to and apart from the presently conscious mind.

2. The imaginary disease of egoity is discussed in The Dreaded Gomboo, or the Imaginary Disease That Religion Seeks to Cure: A Collection of Essays and Talks on the “direct” process of Enlightenment Taught by Adi Da Samraj.

3. Seeing” is a technical term for emotional and total bodily awakening into faith, or direct feeling-intuition of the Divine Reality under all circumstances. Conversion from self-possession to God-Communion in, as, and through all relations and all phenomenal experience.

4. Please see the bibliographies on the DAbase Main Page

5. Adi Da here alludes to the ancient distinction suggested in the New Testament between the exoteric, cleansing, or water baptism of repentance and forgiveness for the sin of turning away from the Divine Spirit-Power, and the esoteric baptism by “Fire,” or Spirit-Baptism, wherein those who have been converted to Divine Communion are initiated into esoteric practice and transformation

6. Adi Da’s meeting with devotees is always a spontaneous affair. While the Adept’s Spiritual Transmission is perpetual, Bhagavan Adi Da reserves the opportunity to sit in meditation on the six major devotional Celebrations of Adidam. Devotees around the world gather for meditation at a prearranged time to receive the Master’s Spirit-Blessing. These special occasions serve to magnify the Radiance of the Living Spirit among the gathering of devorees, thus initiating and demonstrating the process of Spirit-Baptism as described throughout this book.

7. The Way that Adi Da Teaches is comprised of three Ways of practice or forms of approach to the ultimate practice of God-Realization. They are the Way of Faith, the Way of Insight, and the Perfect Practice. Each of the three Ways is founded in present understanding or the Transcendental Principle of Enlightenment.

8. “Shaktipat” is spiritual initiation or awakening through the Agency of the Spiritual Master, often in the form of his Glance, Touch, or Regard.

9. Samadhi is spiritual Consciousness cr Equanimity, Balance. Samadhi is also used, conventionally, to refer to trance states, spontaneous ecstasies, yogic blisses in meditation, or extremely subtle or sophisticated realizations of the nature of ordinary conscious states. Most traditional samadhis are phenomena of the vital and subtle life-force, and as such are temporary symptomatic experiences that occur when there is a peculiar intensification of one’s energy field and circuitry. The highest and only true samadhis are those of Consciousness itself

10. Adi Da here refers to the period of his Sacred History called “Garbage and the Goddess,” one of the great Teaching Demonstrations of Adi Da, which occurred in 1974, and one of the greatest incidents of transcendental Teaching in the history of spirituality. Bhagavan generated, via secondary yogic powers, a most extraordinary and sustained display of yogic, mystical, magical, psychic, and intuitive phenomena in the lives and environments of his ordinary Western devotees, who otherwise had no capacity to attain such marvels. At the same time he intensified his Transmission of the Siddhi or force of Consciousness itself or radical understanding, and he constantly drew their attention to and criticized the illusions and suffering inherent in mere experience of any kind, ordinary or sublime. Through these means he humorously and compassionately Taught them the lesson that all experience high or low is but a temporary manifestation of “the Goddess,” the Shakti or great Manifesting Power of the worlds, and should therefore be treated as “garbage” and thrown away or sacrificed through insight, recognition, and radical understanding in consciousness.

11. Sahaj Samadhi is the “open eyed” or natural state, in which whatever arises is seen to be only the modification of the prior Divine Condition, or the natural disposition of clear Identification with the Transcendental Self or Being rather than the Self-contraction in any sense.

12. In his Teaching Adi Da distinguishes between the fifth stage phenomenon of conditional nirvikalpa samadhi (the yogic Self-Realization and the traditional epitome or highest possible reach of the process of yogic absorption of attention in the rising force of the bodily Current of Life) and Translation, or Unconditional Nirvikalpa Samadhi, the ultimate stage of the seventh or God-Realized stage of life.

Catalyst House