This
is Part 7 of Chris Tong's fourteen-part article, A
Framework for Exegesis: Understanding Adi Da's Word in Context.
This section has several subsections:
-
- How Adi Da's understanding of the Vedanta
Temple events changed over time
- Adi Da as Divine Incarnation: not omniscient,
but the most extraordinary learner
- How Adi Da's understanding of Ramana Maharshi's
Realization changed over time
- Adi Da's conclusion that "seventh
stage Adept" is a one-time occurrence and function in the history
of the universe
- Ramana Maharshi: One further consideration
7.1. The second
stage of Adi Da's Unique Avataric Ordeal As Divine Heart-Master
One of the key points about Adi Da's life as a human
Incarnation of the Divine is that, even though He was born Enlightened
with the full Realization of His "Bright" Divine State
He was not born with full knowledge of the uniqueness of
His Divine Incarnation and the nature of His Work to come as seventh
stage Adept. He describes how little He knew about the Great Tradition
of Spiritual Realizers even after His Divine Re-Awakening in September,
1970:
I was naive and uninformed about such matters. I naively
assumed that My Realization was accounted for [in the Great
Tradition].
Avatar Adi Da Samraj
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In other words, after His Re-Awakening, Adi Da's initial presumption
was that there surely must have been others who had Realized the seventh
stage of life. But how to confirm this? As it turns out, Divine Realization
doesn't link one to some kind of "Akashic record" that instantly reveals
any other seventh stage Realizers throughout history (if there had
been any). Instead, Adi Da would come by such knowledge only as the
result of a long and profound process of consideration and exploration.
And this more than two decade long consideration (indeed, in its fullest
form, it would continue more than three decades, to the very end of
His human lifetime) would draw upon His direct Divine Awareness (including
Visionary Awareness); His contact with greater-than-material Sources
(including other Spiritual Masters, most not embodied); and His drawing
upon more mundane sources, including the literature of the world's
spiritual and religious traditions.
The second stage Of My unique Avataric Ordeal As the Divine
Heart-Master was the Process of fullest Realization, Acceptance,
and Embrace of My Avataric Divine Status and Work.
Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"The True Dawn Horse Is The Only Way To Me"
pp. 71-72, The Dawn Horse
Testament
|
Throughout His years of working with devotees, Adi Da would repeatedly re-emphasize this
point that He was not simply born omniscient in part, to cut
into the naive "God ideas" of devotees (shared by most
of the world's exoteric religious traditions) that suggest God is
omniscient and omnipotent, and therefore an Incarnation of the Divine
is omniscient and omnipotent. Repeatedly, Adi Da made it clear that neither God
nor Divine Incarnations are omniscient or omnipotent. Here is just
one example.
Anson Holley describes how in 1975 he observed Avatar Adi
Da stumble into a table one day. And soon afterwards Anson also
saw Him back a truck into a wall. Anson's faith was thrown into
doubt. "How", he thought, "could a Master make such mistakes?
He is supposed to be all-knowing. He should have known that
the wall was there, and seen the table in front of Him." Finally,
Anson asked Avatar Adi Da directly about the matter of His omniscience.
Avatar Adi Da replied, "Omniscience is a lesser siddhi [spiritual
power]. I prefer to be surprised!" And Anson realized that he
was putting a false expectation on what a Realizer should be.
It is Avatar Adi Da's Realization that is flawless, and His
day-to-day life is a sacrifice, in which His Divinity shines
through always, but not in the form of any particular behavior.
His Demonstration of Enlightenment is His Freedom.
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If one (mistakenly) presumes that God is omnipotent and omniscient,
then by extension by a mere snap of the omnipotent God's fingers,
metaphorically speaking an omniscient and omnipotent Incarnation
of the Divine can be manifested, in fully developed human form, fully
ready to function as Divine Guru. But this isn't even true in the
stories associated with Christianity (the "God-man" tradition
with which Westerners are most familiar).[1]
According to that tradition, the incarnation of the Divine (Jesus
of Nazareth) had to go through an arduous ordeal that took the first
thirty years of his life (during which time, "Jesus grew in wisdom
and stature" [Luke 2:52]) in order to be fully knowledgeable
about, and fully prepared to fulfill, his role as Divine Incarnation.
And so it was for Adi Da.
It is not (as has often been imagined) a simple matter that "God" wants to Save humankind and, therefore, "Makes" a "Man" Who will Come and Save
every one. The Vehicles for That Divine Avataric Work of Salvation and Liberation must be prepared. If it were not for these Means, I would Only be Standing Prior to body, and
(therefore) I would have no bodily (human) Manifestation whatsoever.
No such Conjunction could ever possibly be re-"invented". My Divine
Avataric Incarnation As the Divine Avataric Master, Adi Da Samraj, is a
Unique Gift to this "late-time", made possible by this never again Conjunction
of Vehicles and this Gift will Persist forever hereafter.
Avatar Adi Da Samraj
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One of the many interesting developments of that process of His
growing awareness of His Own "Avataric Divine Status and Work"
was Adi Da's growing understanding that certain phenomena and occurrences
in His earlier life that He originally had presumed were generated "external"
to Himself were actually generated by His Own Divine Presence.
We will study two examples of this:
and then go on to explore:
7.2. How Adi Da's understanding of the
Vedanta Temple events changed over time
In 1972 (in His autobiography, The
Knee of Listening), Adi Da wrote this about His visiting
the Vedanta Temple in Hollywood in 1970 [bolding is mine]:
Some
time in late August [1970], I happened to go to the bookstore
at the Vedanta Society in Hollywood. I noticed there was a
temple on the grounds, and I went in for a few moments of
meditation. As soon as I sat down, I felt a familiar Energy
rush through my body and clear out my head. I could feel and
hear little clicking pulses in the base of my head and neck.
By many signs, I immediately recognized the characteristic
Presence of the Divine Mother-Shakti.
As I meditated, the body and the mind swooned into the depth
of Consciousness, and I enjoyed an experience of meditation
as profound as any I had known at the shrines in India. I
had no idea how the Vedanta Society Temple ever became a seat
of the Divine Shakti, but it was obviously as Powerful a place
as any of the abodes of the Siddhas in India.
I began to go frequently to the Vedanta Society Temple for
meditation. As the days passed, I began to marvel at the Power
of this place. I had traveled all over the world, believing
there were no Spiritual sources of this kind in America. Now
I had been led to this small, isolated temple in Hollywood,
where very few people would be likely even to be sensitive
to the Divine Shakti and, even if they felt It, they would
be unlikely to recognize Its Importance.
I became aware that the Divine Mother-Shakti had taken up
residence in this temple, and that I had been drawn there
by Her. I Enjoyed the fact that I could go there and be
with Her whenever I chose to experience Her Joyous Presence.
It was even a truly private place. I could go there unhindered,
and I could spend time there completely unobserved. The temple
was dedicated to Ramakrishna, the great Indian master of the
nineteenth century, but no conditions were placed on me by
any external rule or tradition. This was truly an opportunity
for me to live independently with the Divine Mother.
Avatar Adi Da Samraj, The
Knee of Listening [2]
|
Many years later, He would more fully understand this "unlikely" Appearance
of the Divine Shakti in such an obscure temple in the United States
in a completely different way [bolding is mine]:
The years leading up to the Vedanta Temple Event were preparation
of this bodily Vehicle for My Divine Avataric Work. From the
Culminating Moment in the Vedanta Temple, I was Doing My Divine
Avataric Work. It began instantly.
You must understand that what occurred with Me in the Vedanta
Temple Event was not "in" the Vedanta Temple. It
followed Me there. It arrived with Me. The Breakthrough
occurred there, but it was not because It was something that
was there in the Vedanta Temple and is still there now. What
occurred with Me there arrived with Me, and left with Me.
The Force of My Own Person has been Intervening in this bodily
Vehicle from Birth, again and again. It is simply My Own
Person Intervening in the Vehicle of My bodily human Manifestation
until, ultimately, there is no "difference".
Therefore, this bodily Vehicle coincides with My Divine Person
absolutely, without "difference".
Avatar Adi Da Samraj
|
As anyone who has spent significant time in Adi Da's Company knows,
He is the master of discrimination. And so what might seem like
a minor or insignificant discrepancy to the reader ("I had no idea
how the Vedanta Society Temple ever became a seat of the Divine
Shakti") would be something He would notice, remember, and consider
for years, if necessary until He had resolved the discrepancy:
even if the resolution ended up being a 180 degree turn from His
original understanding . . . as in this case.
Even though this growing Awareness and clarification of the nature
of His Own Divine Presence (and its effect on the events in His
life and work) was a very real process that took decades, Adi Da
had a clear intuition of where it was going, even from the very
beginning, as illustrated by the following communication from 1974
even then, He intuited that His Own State and Person was actually
the Force behind the scenes, even when other Spiritual Realizers
were involved. This included His relations with His Own "Gurus"
[bolding is mine]:
You must understand how I have worked with those who have
functioned in my life. . . . I have always assumed the traditional
attitude toward those who functioned in my own case. I have
always treated them respectfully and honored them as Guru,
without making all kinds of false claims about them. It is
simply that at this point in my work, quite a different relationship
to all those things is appropriate. . .
There has been only one Guru in my case. That Guru has
used many instruments all throughout my life, but that Guru
is not separate from my own State. That Guru is my own State,
my own Nature. That Guru is the Perfect Guru, the Maha-Siddha,
the Very Divine. In order to perfect the Siddhi of this
work, this function in which I am involved, it was necessary
for there to be a series of manifest experiences. And the
key agents of experience included Rudi and Muktananda, but
the primary ones, those who functioned in Truth, were Nityananda,
Shirdi Sai Baba, Ramakrishna, and Ramana Maharshi.
Avatar Adi Da Samraj
The Dawn Horse Magazine, Vol 2. No. 2, 1974
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That growing awareness that He Himself had been the Source of many
of the events in His life that He had previously attributed to other
Sources would account for many of the differences in how He described
events in the 1970's versus how He described them in the 1990's
and later.
One thing that becomes clear from looking at this process is that
there is nothing obvious about it. It took an immense amount of
time, consideration, and discrimination for Adi Da to clarify what was due to His
Presence and what was due to something inherent in another being
or place, in part, because the Divine is completely non-separate
and all beings and places are arising in It.
7.3. Adi Da as Divine Incarnation: not
omniscient, but the most extraordinary learner
A point worth noting: Many devotees seem to have a (largely unconscious)
reluctance to acknowledge any kind of change in Adi Da's views over
time — and apparently feel compelled to explain any "apparent
change" with an explanation of the form: "He knew it all along,
but just didn't tell us until later, for this or that good reason".
There certainly was some measure of that. But there also were real
shifts in Adi Da's view over time, based on His reconsideration
or His learning something new: like the 180 degree shift in His
view of the Divine Shakti in the Vedanta Temple that we have just
described. The key thing for such devotees to understand is this:
to say Adi Da changed certain of His views over time does not
take away from Who He Is (the Incarnation of Real God) in the least.
It just means that Real God is something other than what such devotees
are (unconsciously) presuming. We all have to grow beyond
Judeo-Christian notions of God as omnipotent, omniscient, etc. —
precisely as Adi Da called us to do for decades.
Even as Adi Da worked for decades to grow us beyond such childish
notions of God and God-Incarnations, He also tried to teach us what
a God-Incarnation was actually like (in contrast with the traditional,
mythological views) by His Own demonstration. Here are just four examples
of Adi Da learning, or having His views evolve, rather than being omniscient (knowing everything already):
- His autobiography, The
Knee Of Listening, is a record of an ongoing evolution
in His views about what He was experiencing and the nature of
God and Reality.
- In many places, Adi Da describes His arduous, long-term process
of having to learn man: to discover how that human "problem"
of suffering and mortality can be overcome, and how it would be
possible for everyone to realize the supremely blissful and eternal
state of Divine "Brightness" that He had known since birth (and
before). Indeed, Adi Da's entire adult life before His Re-Awakening
in 1970 can be characterized as a series of periods of "learning man": His time as a student at Columbia University; His time as a student at Stanford University; and then the learning that occurred in the company of His spiritual teachers.
- In many places (including The
Dawn Horse Testament), Adi Da describes how (as "the second
stage Of My unique Avataric Ordeal As the Divine Heart-Master")
He had to go through a long-term "Avataric Ordeal" to realize,
accept, and embrace His "Avataric Status and Work".
- His autobiography, The
Knee Of Listening, also records more conventional learning processes — for example, Adi Da's gradual mastery of the craft of writing, starting with when He first began intentionally developing it at Columbia University. Adi Da writes, in The Knee Of Listening: "My lecture notebooks and my separate journals began to become long volumes of my own thinking. At first, they were mainly philosophical notes that developed from a kind of desperate and childish complaint into a more and more precise instrument of thought and feeling." In His later years, one can track a similar learning process in His developing of His craft of Image-Art making.
And so on. Every one of these learning processes involved Adi
Da having to change or evolve His views over time.
It has been required of Me to Suffer profoundly the Ordeal of being Born into the Omega circumstance, Adapting to it, Suffering it,"Learning" all of its limitations, fully Understanding it and, then, being entirely Purified of it and Making My Teaching-Communication about it. . .
Coincidently, I have Endured the same Process of "Learning" and Shedding in relation to the Eastern (or Alpha) dimension of human existence. I thoroughly "Learned" everything about the processes of the fourth, the fifth, and the sixth stages of life in infinite detail.
I have Suffered all of that, Understood it, Transcended it, and Taught about it.
Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"I Am Perfectly Beyond The East and Perfectly Free In The West"
Part 20, The Aletheon
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Indeed, once we overcome our reluctance to talk about Adi Da as
someone who learned (rather than being someone who was born
omniscient), one of the perhaps most surprising (and least discussed)
characteristics of "Adi Da as Divine Incarnation" is just how extraordinary
a learner He was! This was in part because of His complete non-separation from
whomever or whatever He was learning from (because of His Divine Realization), and His complete willingness
(and ability) to submit entirely to whomever or whatever He could
learn from.
I experienced this firsthand when I and a couple of other devotees gave Adi Da His first exposure
to the Web in The
Manner of Flowers (His residence at The
Mountain Of Attention) in 1995. As His devotee and a former
professor of Computer Science (I had just left academia in 1994),
He invited me and the other devotees to give Him a two-hour presentation about the Web
(which had just opened to the public in 1994) and the uses He and Adidam could
make of it (including Internet Darshans, mission Work, serving the
culture of Adidam, etc.); while doing so, I also took Him on a tour
of the Web (such as it was in 1995), including the fledgling official Adidam site I had created.[4] During that time, He asked
many questions. But what floored me was that — for
that period of time — He completely submitted Himself to a
learning process in which I was the "teacher". (It actually made
me quite uncomfortable for a short while — that my Spiritual
Master and Teacher was "submitting" to being taught by me in this
way — until I surrendered my discomfort to Him.) There was
no "ego" whatsoever on Adi Da's part — He submitted completely,
and had not the slightest problem with asking questions that displayed
how little He knew about the Web. But at the same time, He also
was the fastest learner I have ever met — and, in my
time as a university professor, I had taught thousands of undergraduate
and graduate students. His questions got ever more discriminating
over the course of the two hours. When the presentation was over,
and He was walking out of the room with Ruchiradama
Quandra Sukhapur, He turned to her and exclaimed, "Books
are outdated!" (Fortunately for all of us, He didn't stop writing
books, and would go on to write some of His greatest masterpieces
years later.)
In this way I received a very personal lesson about "Divine Incarnation
as not omniscient, but the most extraordinary learner". And from
that time on, I had no problem with acknowledging that His views
could (and did) change or evolve over time, through His extraordinary
learning process. That He was God didn't relieve Him of the arduous
requirement (and long-term process) of learning everything He needed
to learn (about humankind, about the world, about Himself, about His
Own Divine Guru function and its uniqueness, etc.) in order to establish the Way of
Adidam in perpetuity, for the sake of all beings.
So, as we have just seen, Adi Da's understanding of the Vedanta
Temple was one such change in His views over time. And as we will
explore in the next section, His view on Ramana Maharshi's Realization
was another.
7.4. How Adi Da's understanding of Ramana
Maharshi's Realization changed over time
In
section 7.2, we described a principle in Adi Da's life and
work: that His Presence was the actual active Agent in many events
He had previously attributed to other agents. Once this principle
has been understood, earlier recounts of His life and work can be
clarified (with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight).
For example, this principle greatly clarifies Adi Da's communications
about Ramana Maharshi over the years, which have been a major source
of confusion for some of His readers. Adi Da (then "Bubba Free
John") originally visited Ramana Maharshi's tomb in India in
1973. He later spoke about that experience while visiting India
again in 1977 (from "Like Meeting Your Twin Brother",
Vision Mound Magazine, Vol. 1 No. 5, 1977):
Bubba: Ramana Maharshi corroborated the end of formal
spiritual practice, not through a communicated teaching, but
through Siddhi, or literally active Divine Power, demonstrating
through literal concrete processes the dimensions of the spiritual
process. My contact with Maharshi was with a Siddha who was
not embodied in any form, gross, subtle, or causal. There
were no visions of him. There was direct, literal Communion,
not with a personality, but with a literal spiritual or Divine
influence that confirmed the Samadhi or terminal dimension
of spiritual practice.
Devotee: Bubba, about the corroboration you speak
of is it that your Realization intensified? Or were there
no obstructions to work through? How did you feel it?
Bubba: Such an event is like meeting your twin brother.
It was recognition, not through sight, but through the duplication
of a process. In my communion with him, Maharshi demonstrated
the process of his Siddhi. And Siddhi is always a process;
it is not an object or a person. Secondarily it can be associated
with a person, but still that person is realized as a process.
It is Communion or Satsang with such an individual. There
was direct communication with Maharshi through the spiritual
power of the Yoga of Amrita Nadi, which I was living and by
which that Realization was corroborated and shown to be authentic.
. . .
Now I have no sense of being distinct from Maharshi, no sense
that he is another personality or another presence. I feel
as if I am living here [referring to Sri Ramanashram].
My contact with him is not related to corroboration any longer.
It is just natural for me to be in the places where he lived.
Sometimes I may feel like coming here just to drop out of
the circumstance of my Teaching work, because there is no
other place in the world that represents the ultimate development
of the spiritual process in my experience.
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At that time, Adi Da spoke about Ramana Maharshi in "seventh
stage" terms (associated with the regeneration of Amrita Nadi
from the right side of the heart to the sahasrar infinitely above
the head) based on His experience in Ramana Maharshi's tomb. The
following is from an account by devotee Jerry Sheinfeld, who accompanied
Adi Da on His trip [bolding is mine]:
We arrived at Ramana Maharshi's Ashram Sri Ramanashram, early
the next evening after a full day of travel. . . . We were
shown to a private room across the street from the main Ashram
grounds where we put our bags, and immediately Bubba left
for the Satsang hall where Bhagavan's Mahasamadhi site was.
It was a large room with a large black shrine at the front.
A white marble platform indicated where Ramana was buried.
Bubba walked around the shrine three times as is the custom,
then bowed in front and sat on the floor. We stayed for about
an hour and returned to our room.
He said the Satsang hall was a very powerful place, that
as soon as he entered it he was taken over with this incredible
force. He said Ramana was the Heart and his force could
be felt in the Heart to the right of the chest. Bubba told
me Ramana's realization was the same as his, and that he also
directly felt the ascension of force from the Heart to the
sahasrar in that room.
"The Trip To India: Taxis, Temples, and
God"
Dawn Horse Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 2, August 1974
|
shrine built above Ramana Maharshi's tomb
Adi Da makes a similar point in this talk from September, 1977:
Yes, I went to all the places associated with the individuals with whom I had had contact and I just surrendered everything in their company. The terminal meeting occurred with Maharshi, the verification of the ultimate Samadhi of the spiritual process, not just in the form of Jnana Samadhi or descent through the current of Amrita Nadi to the Heart, but as Sahaj Samadhi, in which Self-Realization has become God-Realization, in which there is no independent consciousness but the Absolute Reality of one who is completely responsible for the conventions of arising, gross, subtle, and causal. In that Samadhi Amrita Nadi is awake from the heart to crown, not asleep, and the body is extended from the crown. All the conventional states and enjoyments of existence remain, although they are unnecessary and tending to become obsolete, independent of any strategy.
"Like Meeting Your Twin Brother"
Vision Mound Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 5, 1977
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But even back then, Adi Da noticed discrepancies in a simple view
of Maharshi as both seventh stage Realizer and Adept like Himself.
For instance, Maharshi never mentioned anything about the four-stage process (Divine Transfiguration, Divine Transformation, Divine Indifference, and Divine Translation) associated with the life of a seventh stage Realizer.
And consistent with that, Adi Da pointed out that Ramana Maharshi had not demonstrated
all the developments of the seventh stage of life while alive. He
writes about this apparent dichotomy (referring to Himself in the
third person as "Bubba") in the following essay from 1977:
Bubba has been shown that Ramana Realized the Truth in Jnana
Samadhi and then passed to Sahaj Samadhi with "open eyes."
However, [Ramana's] function was not to demonstrate the ultimate
developments of the Sacrifice in Sahaj Samadhi. He did not,
while alive, pass fully into the Transfiguration stage via
the regeneration of Amrita Nadi.
Bubba's present and future work is to conceive, demonstrate,
and communicate the Process in Sahaj Samadhi leading to the
Transfiguration and Translation of the whole body-being into
the Divine.
Bubba Free John
"The Demonstration of Grace Has Entered a New Phase"
Vision Mound Magazine, Vol. 1 No. 5, 1977
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So even as early as 1977, He already was aware of a discrepancy between what He had been presuming was Ramana
Maharshi's seventh stage Realization (based on His experience in Ramana's tomb), and the actual details of Ramana
Maharshi's life, which did not reflect the four-stage process that Adi Da knew spontaneously unfolds in the life of a seventh stage
Realizer. It is important to add that, when Adi Da originally visited Ramana's tomb in 1973, He had not yet identified
and articulated the four-stage process associated with the seventh stage of life. It would take a couple more years of His observing and experiencing the
unfolding of that process in His Own case (in the stages of Divine Transfiguration and Divine Transformation) before He would make a general statement
about that process being an inherent part of the lives of all seventh stage Realizers. So at the time He originally visited
Ramana's tomb (1973), He did not yet even have the basis for seeing a discrepancy, and so at the time, there was no reason for Him
to qualify or question what He had experienced in Ramana's tomb in any way.
"Evidence of the four-phase process within the seventh stage Realizer's human lifetime" would later become a standard measure Adi Da would use to assess Realizers in the Great Tradition. To suggest a historical Realizer
was a seventh stage Realizer would not only require the Realizer to make statements about the nature of Reality, or the nature of his or her own Realization, that were philosophically resonant with the seventh stage viewpoint; their human life would also have to show the evidence of the Realization — the evidence of Divine Transfiguration, Divine Transformation, Divine Indifference, and Divine Translation. They would have to not only "talk the talk", but also "walk the walk", so to speak.
To distinguish the two, Adi Da would call sacred texts that "talked the seventh-stage talk" but where there was no accompanying evidence or description of a seventh-stage human lifetime "premonitorily seventh stage texts":
The traditional premonitorily "seventh stage" texts are advanced sixth stage literatures that express a few philosophical conceptions, or yet limited and incomplete intuitions, that sympathetically resemble the characteristic seventh stage Disposition (in and of Itself), and thus somehow foreshadow (rather than directly reflect, or directly express) the Truly Most Ultimate (or Transcendental, inherently Spiritual, and necessarily Divine) "Point of View".
Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"The Unique Sixth Stage Foreshadowings
of the Only-By-Me Revealed Seventh Stage of Life"
from The Basket Of Tolerance |
As illustrated by the earlier cited quote, "[Ramana Maharshi] did not, while alive, pass fully into the Transfiguration stage via the regeneration of Amrita Nadi",
Adi Da's initial attempt to resolve the discrepancy in the case of Ramana (between Adi Da's experience in Ramana's tomb
and the absence of the signs of the four-stage process in Ramana's life) was to suggest that Ramana Maharshi had Realized the seventh stage, but the subsequent four-stage
process had somehow gotten "stuck" in Ramana's case, not ever really entering the first phase of the seventh stage of "Divine Transfiguration". In esoteric terms, it would be as though, in the regeneration of Amrita Nadi, the Force had indeed risen from the heart to the sahasrar infinitely above the head, but then had gotten "stuck" up there, never descending into the human body, and producing the inevitable four-stage process that a human body-mind goes through when that Force descends.
No doubt, Adi Da was considering the possibility that perhaps there were cases of seventh-stage Realizers that didn't look exactly like His Own case, in which the Force descended into His body-mind almost immediately after His Re-Awakening. However, we can say in retrospect (because He would arrive at a different reconciliation in 1993), that Adi Da must not have been satisfied with this way of resolving the discrepancy. Ultimately, the picture would make more esoteric sense if in fact in Ramana's case, Amrita Nadi had not regenerated from the heart to the crown in the first place: in other words, the picture would make much more sense if Ramana was in fact not a seventh stage Realizer, after all.
But then how to account for that experience in Ramana's tomb?
As we saw earlier, Adi Da's original puzzlement about how an
obscure temple in Hollywood could be such a powerful seat of the
Divine Shakti led Him ultimately to realize that He Himself
had brought the Divine Presence there. A similar kind of 180 degree shift in how to interpret what had happened
in Ramana's tomb would resolve the discrepancy in the case of Ramana. Devotee Don Webley writes of his conversation
with Adi Da about this on March 5, 1993 (the first time Adi Da made
this point to the entire gathering of devotees):
I said something like, "Beloved Adi Da, You have said thus
and so about Ramana Maharshi's work and thus and so about
Your Work. Now, as I understand it, You are both seventh stage
Adepts why is there this distinction?"
As a preamble, it is important to point out that at that
point His devotees did not understand His uniqueness. We were
not in a position to, and He had not made the Revelation.
We all understood that He was a seventh stage Realizer and
that His Teaching had a unique clarity. However, we believed
that perhaps, almost certainly, there had been other seventh
stage Realizers who taught in a limited form in the fifth
or sixth or fourth stage mode simply because of the cultural
and institutional circumstances into which they had been born.
We understood Adi Da Samraj to be, certainly, a Realizer of
the highest type, but we had no idea of the depth and fullness
of His Incarnation and His Revelation.
When I posed that question to Adi Da, it was on the basis
of this kind of understanding. His response was, "Well, are
you sure Ramana Maharshi was a seventh stage Realizer?" That
stopped me in my tracks. My response, which I did not verbalize
aloud, was "Well, didn't You say that he was?"
That was the beginning of a consideration about Ramana Maharshi's
teachings and his life demonstration, the import of which
was whether Ramana Maharshi, in his life as it is recorded,
in his teachings, in his mode of living and his demonstration,
showed the signs of seventh stage of life. Was that the case,
or did he show the signs of an ascetic in the sixth stage
of life? It was a long consideration, in the course of which
Adi Da discussed all aspects of this matter with us to the
point where it became clear that there is not in fact the
evidence of seventh stage Realization in Ramana Maharshi's
life.
Donald Webley
A Conversation
with Adi Da Samraj about
His uniqueness as a Seventh Stage Adept Realizer
|
Adi Da would go on to write a formal essay about Ramana Maharshi's
Realization in the 2004 edition of The
Knee Of Listening:
Indeed, it can be said that [Ramana Maharshi] was (by virtue
of many of His intuitive communications) even a true (premonitory)
Champion of seventh stage Enlightenment (or seventh stage,
and necessarily Divine, Self Realization), even though His
seeming "seventh stage" communications were truly only philosophical
premonitions (or partial intuitions and limited foreshadowings)
of Most Ultimate (or seventh stage) Sahaj Samadhi, declared
from the "Point of View" of sixth stage "Sahaj Samadhi", and
even though He otherwise (and characteristically) Taught only
a sixth stage Alpha like method of introversion, and even
though He was Himself (characteristically, and in the sixth
stage manner) rather ascetical and even (in the exclusive,
and, therefore, relatively dualistic, sense) introverted.
As an example of Ramana Maharshi's characteristic sixth stage
and Alpha-like (and exclusive, and, therefore, relatively
dualistic, or dependently maintained) "Point of View" of Realization,
read the following:
A group of young men asked: "It is said that a healthy mind
can be only in a healthy body. Should we not attempt to keep
the body always strong and healthy?"
M.: In that way there will be no end of attention to the
health of the body.
D.: The present experiences are the result of past Karma.
If we know the mistakes committed before we can rectify them.
M.: If one mistake is rectified there yet remains the whole
sanchita which is going to give you innumerable births. So
that is not the procedure. The more you prune a plant, the
more vigorously it grows. The more you rectify your Karma,
the more it accumulates. Find the root of Karma and cut it
off.
The Advice thus Given by Ramana Maharshi to "a group of young
men" was certainly Right and True, in a fundamental sixth
stage sense, but the sixth stage practice (or sadhana) was
an ordeal for which the "group of young men" were clearly
(judging from the content, and the obvious "early-stage" quality,
of their statements) not yet prepared.
Therefore, Ramana Maharshi was, basically, only reflecting
His own (sixth stage) Method and Disposition (rather than
directly Addressing the "others") in His "Answer" to the "group
of young men". And, for that reason, the Advice Given was,
simply, a direct indication of Ramana Maharshi's own body-excluding and world-excluding (and, therefore, necessarily,
conditional, or limited, and not yet Most Perfect) Method
and Disposition, which, at last, is the very (and characteristic
sixth stage) Method and Disposition that must be Most Perfectly
Transcended (if there is to Be the Great Transition to the
True seventh stage Awakening). . .
. . . Ramana Maharshi Stands with all other true sixth stage
Realizers, Who (alike) Confess Only the Ultimate, Absolute,
and Inherently Perfect Truth That Is Consciousness Itself.
After the Great Event of My own Divine Re-Awakening, I discovered
Ramana Maharshi to be the historical (human) Representative
of the Great Tradition Whose Confession (and Process) of Realization
was (even in many of Its specific Yogic details) most like
(or most sympathetic with) My own Most Ultimate Process and
Confession (except that His Realization and Demonstration,
although sometimes apparently philosophically sympathetic
with the seventh stage "Point of View", did not actually Achieve
the seventh stage Characteristic and Completeness).
Because of this likeness, and because of His closeness, in
time, to My Avataric Incarnation here, I regard Ramana Maharshi
to be My Principal historical (human) Link to the Great Tradition,
relative to the sixth stage of life.
"The Sixth Stage Realization, Demonstration,
and Teachings of Ramana Maharshi, and My Great Regard for
Him as One of My Principal Adept-Links to the Great Tradition
of Mankind"
The
Knee Of Listening
|
We could add many other differences between Adi Da's life story
and Ramana's. For example, Adi Da's life story begins with a description
of His Divine "Bright" State, reflecting that He was born
already Enlightened:
Even as a baby, I remember only crawling around inquisitively
with a boundless Feeling of Joy, Light, and Freedom in the
middle of my head that was bathed in Energy moving unobstructed
in a Circle down from above, all the way down, then up,
all the way up, and around again and always Shining from
my heart.
It was an Expanding Sphere of Joy from the heart. And I was
a Radiant Form the Source of Energy, Love-Bliss, and Light
in the midst of a world that is entirely Energy, Love-Bliss,
and Light. I was the Power of Reality, a direct Enjoyment
and Communication of the One Reality. I was the Heart Itself,
Who Lightens the mind and all things.
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In contrast — prior to his Realization at the age of 16, Ramana's early life had
its own unusual signs, but they all are suggestive of someone who
has Realized (or is about to Realize) the sixth stage of life
[bolding mine]:
Ramana was largely disinterested in school and absent-minded
during work. He had a marked inclination towards introspection
and self-analysis. He used to ask fundamental questions about
identity, such as the question "who am I?". He was always
seeking to find the answer to the mystery of his own identity
and origins.
One peculiar aspect of Ramana's personality was his ability
to sleep soundly. He could be beaten or carried from one place
to another while asleep, and would not wake up. He was
sometimes jokingly called "Kumbhakarna" after a figure in
the Ramayana who slept soundly for months.
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Adi Da has indicated that the "deep sleep" state and the sixth stage
Realization of the Witness-Consciousness are very close (the "deep
sleep" state is the third state and the Witness-Consciousness is the
fourth state or "turiya") — so it would not be surprising for
a person who had Realized the former to transition to the Realization
of the latter. But Adi Da has also indicated that neither of these states
is the seventh stage Realization, and both
must be transcended in order to Realize the seventh stage Realization:
The seventh stage of life Demonstration . . . is beyond all.
It is beyond inwardness and egoity, or the deep sleep state
of the ego, or self-contraction. It is beyond "turiya", the
in-dwelling Witness, Prior to waking, dreaming, and sleeping
— Consciousness Itself, yes, but set apart from objects
and attention itself. The seventh stage Realization is Beyond
that.
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Sleep is not Transcendental Divine Self-Realization, nor is it the Way to it. The shapeless and deep "causal" presumption of separateness remains, and all the "subtle" and "gross" sheaths are also hidden (and merely, or nearly, "speechless") in mere sleep. Thus, dreaming and waking follow sleep, just as every kind of experience returns after death.
Even the ego of sleep must be transcended in Consciousness Itself. Sleep is rest in the inherent Bliss of the Transcendental Divine Self, but with a most subtle contraction (of latent mind, or body-mind) into separateness, or non-Awakeness, or the apparent diminishment (or non-Awareness) of Freedom and Bliss.
The heart on the right is not fully penetrated in mere sleep, nor is the "Aham Sphurana" entered by sleep itself. The essence of mind persists, although latently, in deep sleep. Only equally (and more) persistent "sadhana", or real and effective practice of the Way, to the degree of Full Awakening to Consciousness Itself and spontaneous "Recognition" of all conditional arising, Releases and "Outshines" the mind and all conditional or apparent forms.
The Transcendental Divine Self is "touched" in deep sleep, but It may likewise be "touched" in the dreaming and waking states, via meditation and the Process of Transcendental Awakening. Only persistence in the transcendence of attention, or self contraction, allows the direct and Perfect Realization of the Always Fully Awake and Transcendental Divine Self, or Consciousness Itself. . .
When the self-contraction (in its root-form, which is attention) is transcended in the Realization of Native or Inherent identification with Consciousness Itself (Prior to the body-mind), the Truth of Consciousness Itself becomes Inherently Obvious. And, thereafter, even if conditions apparently arise (whether in the waking, the dreaming, or the sleeping state), they are Inherently "Recognizable" as transparent, or merely apparent, and non-binding modifications of the Divine Self-Radiance of Consciousness Itself.
Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"Seventh Stage", The Illusion Of Relatedness
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The great moment of Realization in Ramana's life story was associated with profound fear of death, and Ramana allowing that to happen:
It was about six weeks before I left Madura for good that the great change in my life took place. It was quite sudden. I was sitting alone in a room on the first floor of my uncle's house. I seldom had any sickness, and on that day there was nothing wrong with my health, but a sudden violent fear of death overtook me. There was nothing in my state of health to account for it, and I did not try to account for it or to find out whether there was any reason for the fear. I just felt "I am going to die" and began thinking what to do about it. It did not occur to me to consult a doctor or my elders or friends; I felt that I had to solve the problem myself, there and then.
The shock of the fear of death drove my mind inwards and I said to myself mentally, without actually framing the words: "Now death has come; what does it mean? What is it that is dying? This body dies." And I at once dramatised the occurrence of death. I lay with my limbs stretched out stiff as though rigor mortis had set in and imitated a corpse so as to give greater reality to the enquiry. I held my breath and kept my lips tightly closed so that no sound could escape, so that neither the word "I" nor any other word could be uttered. "Well then," I said to myself, "this body is dead. It will be carried stiff to the burning ground and there burnt and reduced to ashes. But with the death of this body am I dead? Is the body 'I'? It is silent and inert but I feel the full force of my personality and even the voice of the 'I' within me, apart from it. So I am Spirit transcending the body. The body dies but the Spirit that transcends it cannot be touched by death. That means I am the deathless Spirit." All this was not dull thought; it flashed through me vividly as living truth which I perceived directly, almost without thought-process. "I" was something very real, the only real thing about my present state, and all the conscious activity connected with my body was centred on that "I". From that moment onwards the "I" or Self focused attention on itself by a powerful fascination. Fear of death had vanished once and for all. Absorption in the Self continued unbroken from that time on.
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Adi Da's Own life story has a similar moment:
All of my life I had been constantly brought to this point. All of the various seeking methods of my life had constantly prevented this
experience from going to its end. All of my life I had been preventing my death.
I lay on the floor, totally disarmed, unable to make a gesture that could prevent the rising fear. And, thus, the fear grew in me — but, for the first time, I allowed it to happen. . . There was a spontaneous, utter release of identification with the body, the mind, the emotions of the separate person, and the self-contracting (or reactive and separative) act that is the ego (or the presumed person). . . When all of the fear and dying had finished their course. . . I Knew Reality, tacitly and directly. There was an Infinite Bliss of Being, an untouched, unborn Sublimity — without separation, without individuation, without a thing from which to be separated.
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But Adi Da identified the Realization that accompanied that passage through fear and that degree of "ego-death" as Jnana Samadhi, the Realization of the sixth stage of life, not the seventh. And His Own Process of Re-Awakening would continue until the seventh stage Realization was fully Restored.
Another reason why Ramana Maharshi could not have been a seventh stage Realizer is a functional reason, based on Adi Da's descriptions of how such a Realization
occurs: you can't
transition from the sixth stage of life (which Ramana's early life signs reflected) to the seventh stage of life without the help of a seventh-stage Adept, and there was no evidence of Ramana having a seventh-stage Guru (incarnate or otherwise). The only other way you can be a seventh stage Realizer is by being born a seventh stage Realizer by virtue of being a Divine Incarnation — and there was no evidence of that in Ramana's life.
So why did Adi Da say Ramana Maharshi was "seventh stage"
in the 1970's (based on what seemed to Him to be an actual demonstration
of the seventh stage Realization in Ramana's tomb), but then later
conclude that Ramana was sixth stage in the 1990's, and write more
specifically in 2004, "[Ramana Maharshi's] Realization and Demonstration,
although sometimes apparently philosophically sympathetic with the
seventh stage 'Point of View', did not actually Achieve the seventh
stage Characteristic and Completeness"?
This is an important question, because a common misinterpretation
of the several passages about Ramana Maharshi I've cited above
see here,
for example is that Adi Da "demoted" other Spiritual
Realizers like Ramana Maharshi, Jesus, Gautama Buddha, etc. over
time (having originally referred to them as seventh-stage Realizers
in the 1970's), for the egoic reason of "promoting Himself". But
in fact, what we are describing here is Adi Da's ruthlessly honest
process of exploring what the actual facts are and His coming
to the unavoidable conclusion that His function and appearance as
seventh stage Adept is unique in the Great Tradition. For His part,
He would have been perfectly happy to have discovered that there
were seventh stage "Avatars all over the yard, you know!", as He once
humorously put it [3]. Indeed, His purpose
in visiting Ramana's tomb was to find the corroboration of His seventh stage Realization that another seventh
stage Realizer would represent. (And at that time, He thought that was what He
had found in Ramana Maharshi.) So He would have been delighted to discover a longstanding
tradition of seventh stage Realizers, of which He was the latest — and for many years, He wrote in just those terms. But in the end, that was not
what He found, after a consideration that spanned more than two
decades.
One facet of Adi Da's change in describing the Realizations of
some of the most well-known Spiritual Masters is described by James
Steinberg:
Beginning in the the 1990's, Adi Da Revealed that His Own
Revelation is Unique and unprecedented . . . Adi Da told us
that He did not change His tune or His Teaching in Revealing
this, but that in the earliest years He was intent upon showing
similarities and correspondences [with other Spiritual Masters
and traditions], and therefore did not make this critique at
that time. He felt that we had not sufficiently Recognized Him,
or Understood Him, and therefore we simply would not be able
to receive it. And so this was only Revealed in the 1990's,
when Adi Da at last felt that such Recognition was present. |
And indeed, when one reads talks and essays of that kind from the
1970's, one can feel Adi Da "stretching" a bit to re-interpret the words
and actions of, say, Jesus of Nazareth as "seventh stage".[5]
This "intention to show similarities and correspondences" certainly
was one dimension of Adi Da's descriptions of Ramana Maharshi as
well in the 1970's. But with Ramana Maharshi (unlike Jesus and Gautama
Buddha), there is the additional matter of Adi Da having visited
Ramana's tomb, and having described His direct experience of Ramana's
seventh stage demonstration there. So with Ramana, the matter is
a little more complicated.
With the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, however, we can piece together
what must have happened. Given His clear communication (in the 1990's
and later) that Ramana Maharshi was a sixth stage Realizer, Adi
Da must have reconsidered His original assessment of the experience
in Ramana Maharshi's tomb as a seventh stage demonstration of Ramana
Maharshi's Realization. He must have concluded that — as with
the Vedanta Temple — His original interpretation was incorrect
(even though He never specifically mentioned that reassessment to
devotees — preferring devotees to "draw Him out"
with questions based on their own readiness to receive what He had
to say). But, given that a seventh stage demonstration did indeed
take place in Maharshi's tomb, it also seems certain that (as with
the Vedanta Temple) Adi Da must have come to understand that it
was His Own Presence and Realization (not Ramana's) that
was the Source of the "seventh stage demonstration" — since
there simply was no other possible Source of seventh stage demonstration
available in that tomb, other than Ramana Maharshi or Himself. If
it wasn't Maharshi's demonstration, then it had to be Adi Da's.
Even Adi Da's original description of the experience makes it clear
to the reader that, in such extraordinary meetings "between"
sixth and/or seventh stage beings (each with profound Realizations
of non-separateness, and one of whom had no physical body), it is very difficult to separate out (or "dis-entangle")
"who's who" and "who is doing what" just as it took a while to
sift out His Own Presence as the true Source of the Spiritual potency
of the Vedanta Temple (while He was there), rather than something
associated with the temple itself or its history (from "Like
Meeting Your Twin Brother", Vision Mound Magazine, Vol.
1 No. 5, 1977):
Now I have no sense of being distinct from Maharshi, no sense
that he is another personality or another presence. I feel
as if I am living here [referring to Sri Ramanashram].
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* * *
The "detective work" we've been laying out in this section has been long and involved, so let's take a step back now and recap:
It was Adi Da's ruthlessly honest process of exploring what the actual facts are, and His increasingly clearer picture of what the seventh stage of life looked like in anyone who is a seventh-stage Realizer (the necessarily accompanying four-phase process, the need for a seventh-stage Adept to have enabled one to transition to the seventh stage unless one is a Divine Incarnation, etc.) that led to His change in view about Ramana Maharshi's Realization over the years.
He had the experience
in Ramana's tomb in 1973, which He interpreted at the time to be a demonstration of Ramana's seventh stage Realization. But even as early as 1977,
He had noticed the discrepancy between this view (that Ramana was a seventh-stage Realizer) and the fact that Ramana's human life did not show the signs
of the seventh-stage process that inevitably follows seventh-stage Realization, as the Force, after rising from the heart to the sahasrar,
continues down into the body-mind and produces obvious and clear changes and signs. At first He considered the possibility that Ramana Maharshi was a seventh stage Realizer, and the Force
had risen from the heart to the sahasrar (as His experience in Ramana's tomb seemed to corroborate), but had then gotten "stuck", not descending
into the body-mind and inevitably producing the signs of Divine Transfiguration, Divine Transformation, Divine Indifference, and Divine Translation.
But finally, He reached the esoterically simpler and more satisfactory account: the Force must not have risen from the heart to the sahasrar after all —
in other words, Ramana must not have been a seventh-stage Realizer. That left only one other explanation for Adi Da's experience in Ramana's tomb: it was Adi Da's Own demonstration of awakened Amrita Nadi that He was experiencing in that tomb, but which He had originally attributed to Ramana, just as He had originally attributed the Presence in the Vedanta Temple to something other than Himself.
Such evolutions in view are to be expected in an extraordinarily complex learning process that
clarified subjects never before explored or detailed in the history of the Great Tradition.
7.5. Adi Da's conclusion that "seventh
stage Adept" is a one-time occurrence and function in the history
of the universe
Adi Da's consideration of His Own Uniqueness reached its culmination
not just in His not finding any seventh stage predecessors in His
exploration of the Great Tradition to date; but in also realizing
that He wasn't going to find any seventh stage predecessors no matter
how long He looked, because there was a functional reason
why there could only be one seventh stage Adept:
The Avataric Great Sage, Adi Da Samraj then said, "Understand
further, I am not the first seventh stage Adept in the sense
that there will be other seventh stage Adepts. The great Work
that I do is once and for all time. There will be other seventh
stage Realizers. My devotees will be Realizers of the seventh
stage, but it is neither necessary nor possible for there
to be another seventh stage Adept." In other words, as He
said, by His birth, by His Appearance, by His Revelation,
by His Divine Re-Awakening and Work, He had brought into the
earth and the conditional realm altogether the Spiritual Powers
and Divine Grace that now makes possible the seventh stage
Awakening in the case of all others. And He went on to say
that the completion and fulfillment of His great Work, His
Divine Work, will be the Divine Translation of all beings.
Donald Webley
A Conversation
with Adi Da Samraj about
His uniqueness as a Seventh Stage Adept Realizer
|
In short: seventh stage Realization of the Divine is functionally
impossible without the Divine Itself entering into conditional existence
(via an Incarnation) and creating a "hole in the universe"
that bridges the otherwise insurmountable "barrier" between
conditional existence and Unconditional Existence [bold ours]:
My Sign set all of it straight, actually Accomplished it, by virtue of Divine Siddhis. My Divine Self-Realization is not a bit of poetry. I am not merely using symbolic language, as if it was just the same before and the Vedanta Temple [Event] was just a bit of poetry. It is not that at all. It was an actual Event not just the Event of My Divine Re-Awakening but the Event of the utter submission of the entire Cosmic Mandala to the Very Divine Condition by virtue of the Divine Siddhis snapping the barrier that the Cosmic Mandala has represented for beings until now.
Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"Your Heart Must Be Moved", March 21, 1993 |
Once such a Divine
Incarnation has accomplished that work, no future seventh stage Adept
would be necessary, because the work has already been done.
Not only would such a seventh stage Adept not be necessary, but
such an Adept cannot appear, because a Divine Incarnation
is only manifested on the basis of need. And once such a Divine
Incarnation has accomplished that work, all beings can realize
the seventh stage of life but not before.
So if you are Adi Da, a seventh stage Adept, and you have just
created this "hole in the universe" linking conditional
existence with the Divine Domain, and you have come to the understanding
I have just described about the Unique Function of the seventh stage
Adept, then you know you are not going to find any seventh stage
predecessors when you search the history of the Great Tradition,
because for functional reasons there can't have been
any seventh stage Realizers before you yourself opened — for the first time and for all time — that "hole
in the universe".
So, to summarize: Saying there is only one seventh stage Adept in the history of
the universe is just another way of saying the Emergence of the Divine into the
conditional universe was a one-time breakthrough — once it has happened (by means
of a specific Adept, Adi Da) — it need not and cannot happen again, because the breakthrough
has already occurred: the Divine is already here.
7.6. Ramana Maharshi: One further consideration
At this point, having understood the principle that Adi Da's Presence
was the actual active Agent in many events He had previously attributed
to other agents; and having understood His "seventh stage Adept"
function as the unique Means for serving the transition to the seventh
stage of life, I would love to have asked Adi Da one further question
about Ramana Maharshi:
"Is the fullest understanding of Your visit to Ramana
Maharshi's tomb this: that You helped him make
the transition to the seventh stage of life right then and there?
And that the regeneration of Amrita Nadi You experienced (and
originally interpreted as Ramana's long-established seventh stage Realization demonstrating Itself)
was in fact Ramana Maharshi demonstrating the seventh stage Realization for the first time because Your
Grace had granted him that Ultimate Realization in that very moment?" |
We most likely will never learn the answer. . . But I still can't
help wondering! If the seventh stage Adept, Adi Da, "linked up"
with the sixth stage Ramana at Ramana's tomb, what would have been the impact
of that meeting on Ramana's own Realization? Perhaps Adi Da's original
assessment — that He was confirming the seventh stage Realization
in another Realizer — was indeed correct after all
. . . but only "freshly minted" in that moment. And for those
of us familiar with how Adi Da only tended to reveal such profound
matters in response to devotees' readiness, it would not be too
surprising to us that He never mentioned this.
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