Finding the Divine In Person and Waking Up From the Dream: Part I, Chapter 18

The Mummery Book

It was January, 1995. I was on retreat on the island of Naitauba. The annual performance of Adi Da's The Mummery Book was soon to take place, as it did every January. While The Mummery Book often is performed (in part or entirely) at this time of year by devotees in various places around the world, this particular performance on Naitauba would be attended by Adi Da Himself.

At that time, The Mummery Book was a four-hour performance [1], and much of that performance was to be accompanied by music, in the same way that much of a movie is accompanied by music, greatly augmenting its emotional force. The devotees producing and directing The Mummery Book had been relying on a particular devotee musician to arrive with the music he had composed for this year's production, and who came every year to direct the music (and who would personally perform some of it). But at the last minute, that devotee had gotten sick, and was not able to come, and his musical notes were in a form that only he could make sense of.

So on this particular day in January of 1995, the devotee directing The Mummery Book came to me and said, "Can you do it?" and handed me a copy of the book, which was not thin. As I skimmed the pages, I thought: Four hours of music. Four days to compose it. It felt completely overwhelming! But there was no one else who could do it that was available, and there was no way to "cancel" or "postpone" it, so I said: "Okay!"

I learned many lessons over the next four days! These included lessons about the music of Adidam, and the music of Adi Da's The Mummery Book, in particular. (For a longer version of this story that contains many of those lessons, click here.)

After two days (with another two days before the performance), I had many key pieces created, and musical sketches for many more. (Thanks to Adi Da's daughter, Naamleela, for letting me use her music studio to compose, and to perform — I couldn't have completed it otherwise.)

While most of the composed music was in the form of notes and musical scores for myself, for use in playing and singing, I did record "rehearsal" tracks for a small number of the pieces, which still survive.

The Blue Ointment of Her Hands

You want to make Her Open —
like recessions
of the Sea.
And She will trace
Your feeling,
in the blue ointment
of Her hands.
She will Speak
to You —
and Call You Wonderful.
That Sounds Her anklet jewel,
in the sand.
Her Love will Ring around
the Spire of a Swan —
And Wind Your Flowers
through the Sea.

The Dome Of Conscious Light

To Me?
Yes!
The Shape of Water,
Stands —
within the trees.
With houses,
in a yellow Place —
that Carry Me.
And Fly,
between each other —
like a Churn!
of Fish.
My foot
is Swollen! —
in the stairs.
My head lies downward,
in the cellars —
beneath the barriers
of Water.
I see the Dome
of Conscious Light —
Her Shrine of Visibility!

Now You Will Be With Her

Now,
You will Be —
with Her.
She Is —
here.
Whose forehead rests,
in a cool air.
Clear, blue eye.
Shadow-waisted.
Delicious One —
Of thighs.
Civil arms —
that narrow,
in Your neck.
Her Sound —
of Pleasures.
Her Pleasure Is You.
Her bruised feet —
sliding in Your heels.
The arches of Your hands.
Her knees —
Deep in Your mind.
All blue Ease
of senses
Weave You
to the wood.
Your sides grow Rigid! —
with Enjoyment.
While All Your
Consciousness
Is Falling through
the Flowers.

The Hole in the Universe

The Hole in the universe,
Stands —
before the mind.
Oranges,
in a napkin.
The Shape of the Room —
when eyes are closed.
Raymond.
Darling.
Bright Heart.
Stone and Mirror —
of the Real.
Knee of Listening.
Lights
behind the head.
The Sphere of temperatures.
Green
Is here.
Round —
forest,
No blue "thing".
Raymond Darling.
Rising out of the Heart —
The Visibles
Sliding underground.
The "Oh!" of Pleasure,
Draws You up.
Your heel,
Your thighs,
Your feeling-shoulders.
The "I"
of Space
Pours out
the Hollow Blossom —
in Your ears.

Quandra Follows Darling Up The Stairs

Quandra follows Darling —
up the stairs.
The stairs are green wood.
Painted green.
Green, over an old white.
Wood, without worm —
but gray.
The stairs are simple.
Through the spaces —
as They rise,
She sees
the city-lights.

At First There Are No Rooms

At first,
there are no rooms.
A dark hall —
for waiting.
Your heels are sensitive.
Your neck is soiled.
Her thumbs will pierce Your hips.
There is a memory of the Sea —
and of literature.
Costumes,
Beds,
beside a pool of Water.
Knees.
Tables.
In the Sea,
are sounding animals.
On the beach,
nothing can grow.
Liftless air
within the Fire.
They embrace the Bride.
Open-Full.
Resistant as a tree.

The Last Hallucination

On the beach,
ships can be counted in thousands —
through a glass.
with Whales
and Great Birds
like Torches
in the under-Sea.
Horses
Run Around
the Ocean edges,
on the cliffs.
While Dogs
Run Horses
into caves —
to Drown.
All Night,
You wait —
lying in the Fire.
Your hand hangs Open,
across Your eye.
Your Wife hands You
a Cut Flower —
to Remember Her.
This
is
the last hallucination.
Then,
the boats,
and the salad.

"Raymond and Quandra" theme

A version of this instrumental theme would often be played whenever Raymond would be thinking about Quandra.

"Meridian Smith" theme

A version of this instrumental theme would often be played whenever Meridian Smith would come on stage.

Now came the next part of this adventure: Involving (and writing parts for) other musicians, so it wouldn't be just me singing and playing on the keyboard (although Naamleela's synthesizer — a gift from Billboard Award-winning composer and devotee, Ray Lynch — did have an impressive range of instrumental alternatives, which I took full advantage of during the actual performance). And in the remaining two days, I also had to train a "male choir" to sing a number of these pieces. (The Mummery Book explicitly refers to this choir as an essential element of the performance, performing a role something like the chorus in the ancient Greek plays.)

As it turned out, the first part was easy. Another devotee on retreat was a professional harp player. And one of the residents on Naitauba, Leroy Stilwell (one of the co-founders of this site), played the shakuhachi (a traditional Japanese bamboo flute). Their accompaniment would greatly enrich the musical performance.

As for that "male choir" . . . Among the retreatants to Naitauba and the residents of Naitauba, I was easily able to find ten willing volunteers. It was a time of celebration, and residents who normally would not be available because of their services were free during this time to fully participate. Now not too surprisingly, most of these guys had no professional musical experience whatsoever . . . (For example, two of them spent most of their time tending the farms on Naitauba.) But what impressed me was how, despite the lack of any training, they came together in this task over the next two days.

This is something I've seen over and over again among Adi Da's devotees, especially in those who served Adi Da closely for many years: they were now able to take on anything for the Guru, and usually do a credible job at it, even if they had no training. And the reason was because they were trained — personally and repeatedly, by Adi Da — in laying their egoic reactivity aside, and thus having 100% of their energy and attention available for the task at hand, whatever it might be.[2] And so I gave each man a copy of the rehearsal tape with the songs they were to sing as a group. It was truly delightful to see them over the next two days walking across the village green, with earphones in, players on, and looks of studious concentration as they sang the pieces to themselves! And each time we met to rehearse, we got better at it.

The recordings I've posted are from the rehearsal tape I gave each of them (with just me singing on it). I wish I had a recording of those men singing, for you to hear! They had much heart and little self-consciousness.

* * *

Would these musical creations please my Guru? I hoped so, because, to the best of my ability, I had fashioned them to conform to His text and His purposes for the performance. I had rehearsed the choir and musicians as much as was possible in the two days available. But we would just have to see what His response would be.

It is always possible to do more! For example, I would have loved (and still would love) to have had the time, resources, and ability to score the music of The Mummery Book for symphonic orchestra, like the movie soundtracks of big box office movies; and to make the pieces for the "choir" be truly choral pieces with multiple melodic lines (fully developed) and rich vocal harmonies.[3] The Mummery Book cries out for that kind of monumental treatment, in the same way Adi Da's Image-Art calls for it. Whereas sheer physical size is the means by which Adi Da's Image-Art can be "monumental" (engaging the entire body-mind) by being larger than the body, by analogy, means like a full-fledged symphonic orchestra are part of how the music of The Mummery Book can be monumental in the realm of sound and its effect on the whole body-mind. But it was beyond our capability and resources in the few days we had to make that happen; at best, I could (and did try to) "suggest" an orchestral accompaniment here and there, through careful choices of synthesized instruments.

The Performance

The day of the performance finally arrived. And over the course of the four-hour performance, everything went off without a hitch, from the acting to the music. It is a real "workout" to take part in such a performance (particularly when Adi Da was attending it, as was the case here), both because of the sheer length of it (and the stamina required to keep investing oneself in it and keep putting out the necessary high level of energy), and because of what one has to come up to (and what one must transcend in oneself) in order to give such a devotional performance, in order for it to move all present in the ways Adi Da intended, and Reveal What He had intended. For example, in my own case, I had to play the keyboard, direct the choir, sing solo parts, and improvise extensively in places where I had had no time to create a full score but only had time to sketch a few musical ideas and themes as a "jumping off place" for improvisation. And I had to do all this in direct, devotional relationship to Adi Da, Who was sitting right there before me in the room.

At the end of the performance, Adi Da Graced all the devotees in the room by giving them prasad He had Blessed.

Adi Da giving Chris Tong prasad after the performance

Adi Da giving Chris Tong prasad after the performance
(click to enlarge)

After the performance, the first responses — from our devotee friends in the audience — were encouraging: they had been moved by the performance. And they liked the music! Then word came that Adi Da Himself was very pleased with the performance (confirming that He too felt that the performance had served the purposes He had intended). So much so, that He invited those of us responsible for the performance to a gathering with Him in His bedroom a couple of nights later.

I was ecstatic.

Gathering with the Divine Heart-Master

But then a perverse thought came up: What if He liked the performance in general a lot, but didn't particularly like the music?

Looking back these many years later, it seems like a completely ridiculous thought, and a not particularly important one at that (in that the performance had succeeded in its purpose). I now understand that "do whatever pleases your Guru" is to be accompanied by a "karma yoga" disposition: "Do whatever pleases your Guru" guides all one's actions; the occasions of your Guru letting you know your actions pleased Him are truly wonderful ones; but you are not attached to that outcome. The whole point is forgetting "self", and remembering the Guru instead!

But I didn't fully understand that at the time. (As with many aspects of practice, one's understanding of such principles and admonitions is refined with time and experience.) And so I let that question, "Did He like my music? Did I please my Guru?" plague me now and again, until the night of our gathering with Adi Da finally arrived, and we packed ourselves into the truck and drove out to be with Him, in His Bedroom at Aham Da Asmi Sthan.

Adi Da's Bedroom at Aham Da Asmi Sthan

Adi Da's Bedroom at Aham Da Asmi Sthan
(click to enlarge)

Of course, once I was with Adi Da, I quickly forgot my "concern", both because of our being in the extraordinary "Brightness" of His Company for such an extended and intimate period of time — He Sat on His bed and we all sat around the bed for the next seven hours or so; and because that night, He engaged us so fully in so many vibrant, living considerations that one couldn't possibly hold on to such a small concern.

During the course of the evening, He engaged one devotee in a consideration that led the devotee to make a choice of celibate renunciation, for the sake of that devotee's further growth in practice. He led another devotee through a consideration about his recently deceased intimate and their relationship. He had many more such considerations throughout the night with many of the devotees in His bedroom. And while He was taking His devotees through these extraordinarily personal and substantive considerations (each aimed at growth in their practice), all the while, He was also generating new Teaching that would prove useful for all His devotees around the world.

Here is just a taste from His hours of consideration with us:

If you look at it, life is more about dying than about being alive. You people are thinking you just live to get laid. How much actual time have you spent getting laid? [All of us talk at once.] That's what you lived for for the years you've lived so far. Count up the number of actual minutes or hours you actually spent getting laid. You lived for it, and how much time did you actually spend doing it? A few days, a week or two, all told? And even that you thought you were doing as a matter of free will, but it was just some reproductive insanity, some [biological] program forcing you to do it. Of course, you volunteered because you don't know the difference between the body and God, and wasted your life with all that enthusiasm, lost all your discrimination, and got obsessed with other things like food and TV. What the fuck is the point? It's all horseshit. [He laughs]...

You bullshit yourself all the way through, you see, and what it comes down to is the only time you get serious is when you die. Then you find yourself almost totally unequipped and you see the little headlight right there and then zoom! Right past you. You missed it again. Shucks! [Laughs.] That's what happens. And you've all done it many times before and that's why you're here right now. You missed it every time. Basically, you're still bargaining. Your case is getting sort of academic.

You are not going to get any relief by merely dying. . . . Going down the tunnel and seeing the Light is just the first step. People talk about it as if it is the ultimate result. It is just the beginning! If you don't Realize it as the Divine or Very Condition it keeps on getting modified. It is only "Jesus" (or whomever you may see) for a brief time. Then it becomes your limitation, your fear, your self-possession, visions, appearances, associations, dreamlike blah blah blah, until there is, in all this spinning, a reconjunction with another exposition, which is reincarnation, perhaps, either in this human condition, or in some other condition, non-human or other than human, here or in some other arbitrary plane perhaps, depending on the development of the individual. . .

You cannot die right without dealing with Reality. You cannot die right without living right or in Reality. You can actually avoid Reality altogether, in life and death, if you identify with this contraction, this separativeness, self-possession. But this is not merely a matter of importance at the end of life. It is a matter of importance in life. But you have to be rather serious to get real. Most people aren't very serious, in general. They don't particularly get real. They just play all these absurd games that human beings play — this kind of satire or mummery. And that's part of what My book, The Mummery, is about. Life without this greatness is a mummery, a mock show, a way of avoiding Reality. . . .

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, January 14, 1995
"Little-ji or Me", My "Bright" Sight

You could see why I forgot my little concern in the midst of such profound wisdom about truly significant matters! Even so, that now forgotten question ("Did My Beloved Guru like my music"?) lay dormant in my psyche and had not yet been released or dissolved.

Dawn finally came, and Adi Da ended the gathering so that we all could get some sleep. We stood up and slowly filed out of our Guru's bedroom, each of us thanking Him and saying good night to Him just before we left His room.

Just as it was my turn to leave, Adi Da looked straight into my eyes, and said softly,

Composing Music for The Mummery Book