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,
"I liked your music, Chris."
My forgotten, buried question exploded
to the surface and disintegrated! My heart broke open like a cracked egg, and
a flood of love for my Guru poured out. I grabbed His hand and kissed it: "Thank
you, Lord!!" And left His bedroom, overwhelmed by the Happiness of pleasing
the Guru and being released from "self" and its concerns.
* * *
Adi Da had revealed to me, on this occasion and several
others, how He could completely read whatever was in my mind and heart, because
He was me.[4] But extraordinary as that was, what
was just as extraordinary to me was how He never used this Siddhi arbitrarily. He would
always choose (with masterful, even surgical precision) exactly the right moment
and the right way of Revealing what was in one's own heart to break one's heart
open and release it from self-contraction, restoring it to its Native State of
Happiness and to fullest love of its Divine Guru.
In this most direct way,
He repeatedly showed me how He was truly the Heart-Master of His devotees.
In
1995, The Mummery Book was essentially still identical to the first version
that Adi Da wrote before His Re-Awakening in 1970, and its annual performance
was about four hours in length. Over the following decade (starting on May 27,
1998), Adi Da would expand it to something more like three times that length.
[2]
"having 100% of their energy and attention available for the task at hand, whatever it might be" — as
opposed to much of one's energy and attention being wasted by resistance to doing
the task, self-doubt, upset at not getting it instantly right, reactions to others one has to work with, etc... all the
things that egos usually do.
[3]
An orchestral treatment of music composed for
The Mummery Book is well within the realm of possibility. One of my fellow devotee composers, John Mackay, who himself has composed
music for The Mummery Book several times, has honed his craft of musical composition to the point where he could certainly put together
orchestral arrangements with the sophistication I am imagining — just listen to an orchestral performance of his piece, Soli Gloria, to hear
what I mean. (John composed and orchestrated the piece, and is the pianist in this performance.)
[4]
Many
devotees have attested to Adi Da's ability to completely read whatever was in their minds and hearts. Here is another extraordinary
story about that.