The Celebration of Da Purnima

In yogic lore, it is said that Guru Purnima was the day that saw Shiva become the Adi Guru ("first Guru"). The story goes that, over 15,000 years ago, a yogi appeared in the upper regions of the Himalayas. Nobody knew what his origins were. But his presence was extraordinary, and people gathered. However, he exhibited no signs of life, but for occasional tears of ecstasy that rolled down his face. People began to drift away, but seven men stayed on.

When at last, he opened his eyes, they pleaded with him, wanting to experience whatever was happening to him. He dismissed them, but they persevered. Finally, he gave them a simple preparatory step and closed his eyes again.

The seven men began to prepare. Days rolled into weeks, weeks into months, months into years, but the yogi's attention did not fall upon them again.

After eighty-four years of sadhana by these seven men, on the summer solstice that marks the advent of Dakshinayana, the earth's southern run, the yogi opened his eyes again and looked at them. He saw that, through all their long years of spiritual practice, they had become shining receptacles, wonderfully receptive. He could not ignore them anymore. On the very next full moon day, the yogi turned south and sat as a guru to these seven men. Shiva, the Adiyogi (the "first yogi") thus became the Adi Guru to these seven devotees. He expounded the mechanics of life to his devotees for many years. His devotees became famous as the "Saptarishis" (the seven men of knowledge), who then took this knowledge to the seven corners of the earth.

The Adi Guru with his seven Saptarishis
(click to enlarge)

Guru Purnima is held sacred in the yogic tradition because the Adiyogi opened up the possibility for a human being to evolve consciously. The seven different aspects of yoga that were put in these seven individuals became the foundation for the seven basic forms of yoga — Hatha Yoga, Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Raja Yoga, Tantric Yoga, Jnana Yoga, and Kundalini Yoga — something that has still endured.

Adapted from "Guru Purnima" (Wikipedia article)

The Guru appears in the world As the Heart. . . The Guru, the one who would awaken you, is not a person, The Guru is a function. He is not an individual within the dream. He is your very consciousness. He is the Real, Self, Light, the true Waking State and The Heart. The Guru is breaking through the force of dreaming, within the dream as an ordinary man.

Essentially the Guru is your own nature appearing within the dream to awaken you. The Guru is your awakening, and your always already Conscious state. He is not some separateness, some individual, nor does He live as an "other" in any sense. He is Very Consciousness. The Guru is one's own nature, absolutely, not symbolically.

The Guru is not simply a human individual, a cultic figure. The Guru is a special Function in God. It is not a form of status, nor is something to be achieved. The Guru is not a big guy, a superman or superhero who appears among a lot of little guys in some form of superiority or narcissism. He must always become nothing so that the Divine Power becomes active.

The true Guru is not the fascinating initiator of experience in men, but one who has died in the Heart, who has become empty of powers and without self, who has found that fullness is only, always and already God. The Guru is an agent of the Divine Work, not because He has all kinds of heroic accomplishments in His psyche, but because He has become nothing. He has attained nothing, He has been undone. The Guru is not identical to a person. The only reason an apparent human individual can function as Guru is because He has consciously ceased to be identical to a human individual in limitation. . .

There is no longer any sense whatsoever in the human Guru of separate existence. None. The Guru is not a personality. The only reason He can perform the function of Guru is because He is dead. He is finished with all the cults and conventions of human life. He has already wrecked Himself, so you don't have to worry about Him. He is finished, the Guru in the world is a paradoxical event. He is always a paradox, like the universe itself. The Guru is not an idol or a form of fascination. The Guru is not just a human person who can have human effects on you. The Guru is active, Present as that Divine Power, dead or alive. The Guru is communicated to you under all conditions: twenty-four hours a day, three hundred sixty five days a year, winter, spring, summer or fall, in good times and in bad, The Communication is always being given.

Truth must confront a man, live him and meditate him. It is not your meditation that matters, Truth must meditate you. The matter of Truth is entirely academic until it communicates itself to you and takes you over. Then it creates sadhana and creates the conditions for transformation. So the Truth must find some way to communicate Itself as a function in specific relationship to you. Therefore, the human Guru is an appropriate means, and that is why He exists. Truth itself must become the process of life and communicate and create conditions in life, and make demands which restore the conscious participation of the individual.

Individuals are terrified in the face of the Divine. Because in the Face of the Divine there is the Demand and The Revelation. The Demand is the sacrifice of self; and the Revelation is there is only God, your present state. If the Demand is not made there is only separate existence — ego — and fear, contraction.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, 1973

Anciently, it was presumed that, in any generation, if you had any interest in Realizing something more than the mayhem of your own suffering, you should go and find a Realizer.

It was presumed that you should try very hard to find a Realizer, and that, when such a one is found, you should throw yourself at that one's feet and take his or her Instruction — because that one was the only one (or, at most, one of a few) in that generation who (to some profound degree) enjoyed the capability to go through the ordeal and discover what the Structure of Reality is and what to do within It.

This discovery (and this capability) is not something that every individual can find out on his or her own. You are not born with the tendency to do it, and you will not do it on your own.

Well — if a person must find the Great Process at the Feet of a Realizer, you see what difficulty this generation is in! This generation is dramatizing a disinclination toward authority — every man for himself, every woman for herself. A struggle against authority characterizes this generation and many generations now past. The great link to the Ultimate Process is being thrown away with this disinclination.

Some apparently think that, because of the (generally, Omega-like, or preferentially outward-directed, independent, and ego-preserving) orientation typical of Westerners, the True Spiritual Way (Revealed to any profound degree) cannot be brought to them as It truly Is, and It must, therefore, be changed for Westerners.

According to this kind of thinking, the Guru and all kinds of matters associated with devotion and the Spiritual Process as It has been traditionally communicated must be disregarded, and the True Spiritual Way must be changed into something a Westerner can do by himself or herself.

However, simply because Westerners are (or have been), by tendency, not disposed (or inclined) to take up the True Spiritual Way as It (necessarily) Is does not mean that the True Spiritual Way can be changed, and that they will (thereby) wind up Realizing It. It does not work that way.

The True Spiritual Way is just the way It Is. Its own Laws are inherent within It. The True Spiritual Way is characterized by certain Laws of process. They simply cannot be changed.

Individuals are all born with certain tendencies of attention, and they are simply tending to fulfill their destiny. Realizers (of whatever degree) appear in order to help break the spell, and to link individuals with the Great Process.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
Ruchira Avatara Gita: The Avataric Way of the Divine Heart-Master

What is the significance of the Guru's feet? The Guru has all kinds of body parts, you know. Why the Guru's feet? First of all, to relate to anyone at the level of his or her feet, you yourself must assume a physical position that is different from the usual stand-up, handshaking, egoic mode. The attitude of surrender is suggested, then. . . .

Another aspect of relating to the Guru through His feet is Yogic. The current of Divine Transmission passes through the Guru's Feet. Every aspect of the Guru's body-mind is registered in various parts of the feet. [ed: This is a well-known principle of reflexology and acupuncture too.] The feet are the epitome of the body. So various Yogic aspects of Transmission are epitomized in the feet of the Sat-Guru.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
in James Steinberg, Love of the God-Man

Praise To The Guru, Body Of Light

music by Ray Lynch
performed by the Sacred Music Guild

Praise to the Guru, Body of Light.
Da is the Truth that Shines through the darkness.
Radiant Form, Bliss and Light!
Joy and Humor of the "Bright".

I have appeared from the Realm Of Light —
I have Come for the sake of My Own.

Come alive in Brightness
and receive the Gift of Light.

The Divine Heart-Master is the Supreme Help Offered by the Real and Ever-Living God. There is no Friend greater than the Divine Heart-Master. Therefore, body and mind should be entirely devoted to the Divine Heart-Master, so that attention is set free in His Heart of "Brightness".

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
Ruchira Avatara Gita: The Avataric Way of the Divine Heart-Master