Simplicity Incarnate
Adi Da Samraj (1939-2008) is the most perfectly simple man I ever met, and I would venture the simplest who ever lived. Like each of us, He embodies the whole of the cosmos, where every moment throbs the universal climax now. But being so simple, Adi Da Samraj was always perfectly transparent to This; His Company transmits This. Even His pictures convey this perfect simplicity. As He Simply States:
“When it is seen directly, it has no cause. It did not begin in the past. It is presently arising. It is a spontaneous activity whose mystery is understandable only in the instant of re-cognition. Prior to that, nothing can be said about it that makes any difference – because it has not begun in the past. It is always arising presently. At the subtlest level, it is a completely voluntary activity. That is why it is a simplicity. That is why understanding, Self-realization, whatever you want to call it, is a simplicity.”
As has been praised since the most ancient days, there is a bridge or threshold or imprint to this simplicity and fundamental Ground: we may choose the company of the Free One, the company of the One who lives fully in and simply as this fundamental Ground. The Company of such a One is the Way of “right relationship” or in Sanskrit, “Sat-sang”.
Such an enlightened One dispels the darkness of self-possession: Gu-light, ru- darkness. Guru is dispeller of darkness, a teacher, and at best, a Teacher Standing in the Heart. Invoke the most intimate Beloved: Satsang with one's chosen Guru.
In the spirit of sacred company, we are graced to let all feelings be, let every thought be. In Beauteous Company, all is gracefully acceptable. Most naturally. Trusting and Resting in Sacred Company. Permeated by love and loving. The gifts of the holy are always here.
Thus it is said that the Way is simple: live with your Beloved, please him or her, Him or Her. Appreciating, receiving, and presently beholding spiritual company: Satsang. “It is always arising presently. At the subtlest level, it is a completely voluntary activity. That is why it is a simplicity... Now and now and now.” The myopias of separation dissolve gracefully as we persist in accepting Satsang's offering, elegance, and simplicity. Resting in the grace of divine company, trusting, loved, and loving, resting in Satsang, beholding Beloved; reality is beauty. The light beyond the cave is always Given, if only we recognize our interiority, stand out of our cave and ecstatically receive the luminesence of Beloved. Outside our underground chamber is the light of the awake One; we breathe the Presence of Beloved in Fullness.
Please doubt my presentation of Adi Da with every discrimination you have. Don't believe a thing I say or that Adi Da says. He calls us not to belief, but to really consider the truth sacred words convey. He taught me how we must use doubt as a sharp tool, in adherence to what is most real. Thus, we nakedly engage the wisdom ourself. Glimpsing the enlightened state of the avatar, one can cut through doubt itself as the default mode and thus use it only when necessary. When doubt is a tool and not a mode of living, we still call out “shit from shinola”, but the central issue to love is empowered and grows to be unbridled.
[A good introduction to the critical approach that is necessary is Adi Da's 19 minute address on cultism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8flLpaHkUQ. A full range of videos are at www.adidavideos.org and a host of studies can be found at www.adidam.org, www.beezone.com, and www.adidaupclose.org. ]
Impossible to explain or even describe, Adi Da is out-of-human-scale yet always so vulnerable and simple that our every angle and animal complication becomes obvious in His sacred company. Effortlessly transmitting self-knowledge for those who glimpse such freedom, Adi Da heartily invites us to the responsibility for communion, joyous understanding, and a radical responsibility as to what we add to this moment. He also details the way exquisitely and shouts the challenge to spiritual responsibility explicitly; He transmits His State Eternally.
In addition to the forty years I have been studying Adi Da Samraj's dharma/scripture/teaching and sitting with Him in larger gatherings, I spent perhaps a thousand hours in a very small room with the One I am blessed to call Beloved. I capitalize “Him”, “His”, et cetera, because the transparency to the very Heart I experience(d) in His Company clearly transmits Presence, communion, brilliance, and love without end, washing us into no-difference: Sat–Chit–Ananda, Being–Consciousness–Love-Bliss. Over and over, powerful waves of His Love vaulted, melted, and dissolved my awareness in the Fullness of Transcendental Consciousness, where only oceanic heart-joy shines forever. He does this still; anyone may Intercourse with His Tangibile Gifts. Resting in Satsang, we inherit “the Tacit Self-Apprehension of Being”.
Years before, I looked like the proverbial hawk at him, trying to see where he got off or took a bit self-congratulations. Not an iota. Always giving everything. Always serving passionately. Always ruthlessly burning any obstruction to the Heart. Freely humorous, perfectly simple, always understanding. I am gracefully overwhelmed by His unending fount of sheer Joy and Incarnate Power of Love, and purified by His Bright Simplicity.
In the deepest core of my heart, I see His Eyes. I can exclaim many wonderful and brilliant points about Adi Da, but mostly, I am touched by His Love. Beyond the plethora of radical spiritual understandings that enlighten and empower us, the Love He gives does more than all those words. Via bright and joyful inundations, we simply fall in love.
This is what I hoped for — A true holy man or woman, a person of perfect and exquisite love, care, and joy: clear divinity, powerfully shown, felt, and transcendentally Present. I found a genius without end, enlightened and enlightening through and through. I listened with an open heart (despite poor self-knowledge) as He explicated with divine genius and incarnated with whole body radiance what I understand as enlightenment. His writings are “the greatest script ever penned by the human-transcendental spirit” (Ken Wilber). I agree.
“All I have asked is that you understand. It is a simplicity signaled in many ways. Do not imagine that it is more or less than the time you heard Me and understood.”
Adi Da embodies unending genius in a host of fields. Teacher, artist, playwright, and Avatar; His spiritual teachings are considered the most sublime, most developed, and most inclusive of all past revelations and contemplations. He suffers the genius' misunderstanding: so far ahead, he is praised by an esteemed and lucky few, scorned still by many. This will change as time goes forward and we can culturally inherit sheer genius. In my vision, He will transform whatever is left of this self-mad world after it smashes into itself and we culturally repent from putting “I” where only Love belongs.
Not only did Adi Da teach exquisitely, He Demonstrated what existence is like when lived at infinity. I am a witness to this. Always free, always serving, always shining through every mummery act, always loving. Naturally and simply. Every second. Breath-taking. Breath-giving.
Because of the transmission of Adi Da's teaching and company, unconditional Reality itself is clear. That spontaneous beauty is everywhere displayed as forms of light and in the feeling of being itself. He is the stamp of the avatar, the imprint of the Incarnation, giving and confirming realization of transcendental consciousness, supreme being, and Love unending.
I exalt in His Teaching and use it to align my attention to what is most real. Fortunately, at its root, this process is simpler than all of that. I am simply touched heart-deep by my Beloved. I find myself contemplating images of Him, thinking about Him, talking and writing about Him. I love to remember His magnificence, His all-consuming Silent Brightness and Presence, simply the Heart, in Person. Seeing Him, He completes my rest and trust in this Conscious Reality, His Company, Love-Bliss-Fullness. By the Grace of His Loving Simplicity, I am drawn into boundless Reality — naturally beyond belief and doubt and mind — into His Present Heart. What a Wonder this Great One Is!
Adi Da's Incarnation is ongoing beyond His MahaSamadhi. Beyond His body-time, a growing potency is always available. Anyone can receive and embrace the heart-crowning joy.
“My promise is the same as all other Awakened Servants. I am with you now, as I have always been, and I will always be with you.”
The Natural State of the enlightened One awaits our contemplation and communion.
