Glistened Retreat

I am on meditation retreat on His Island Hermitage of Naitauba. Divinity is felt everywhere on Naitauba. Parama Sapta Na Adi Da Samraj is a miracle- absolute. He liberates me, changes me most basically. The meditations take me to ecstasy. Understanding about reality, most fundamental understanding is taking root. I feel clear about what I am, what a human being is. The path to Total Liberation is clear. I began the path built and guided by Adi Da in 1996.

I started dating a woman who first came to Adi Da in the 70’s. She had become a peripheral participant in Adidam over the years. It was a casual relationship. Nice but not filled with a lot of romantic passion. We used to talk dharma. She spoke of her guru. I wasn’t into the idea of a guru at all. She had given me three books of Adi Da to look at. I glanced at them briefly and was not interested. She then lost interest in me. As time passed I became obsessively in love with her. I had decided to win her love. This went on for months. I was miserable. It was if all of life had failed. One miserable year faded to the next- 1997. I was being her friend. I would take her son for outings. Everything that I attempted did not win her love. Bhagavan Adi Da drew her back into the fold. He had set up a level of participation for those that couldn’t meet the usual stringent requirements. I was still promoting her and I as a “relationship”. Once she replied that her primary relationship was with The Guru. This incited jealousy. Most mornings I would wake up and contemplate my suffering. It was about this longing for her love. One morning I was pondering it all and thought “if I was a Christian I would think that I was being punished for all my sins” and then the first magical meeting with Adi Da happened. A mind form appeared. It was a vision but not external. Very visable to the mind’s eye. It was in the shape of an “S”. It had the appearance of smoke and electricity. Then the mind- form spoke. The words were as clear as a bell. Definitive as if I was listening to a person sitting next to me. “It isn’t about you, it’s about me”. When I think back on this I shake my head, wondering how could a person be so stupid, such was my reaction. I knew it was Adi Da. I dramatized male competitiveness. I was offended, insulted. This was a miracle, the kind that I always dreamed of happening- I answer with profanity. The vision disappeared. This made me proud, as if I had showed him.

A couple of months later I was curious as to Adi Da’s teaching. I was moved to the eastern philosohies- e.g. the Upanishads that I had given up in the 70’s. I was given The Mehod of the Siddas (now called My Bright Word) and told to read the chapter titled Understanding. I recall reading Adi Da’s teaching. He said that there is a felt sense of dilemma that leads to a search. That all of life is a search. There was more to what I read than information. It is hard to say exactly what that is. What happened is easy to say. It was the most profound event. Everything made sense. I started to expand in consciousness. I felt lifted, freed. “Oh my god!!” is what sums up how I felt. It was what I always read about as the moment of Enlightenment. It didn’t last though. I had, what were to me, profound experiences for the next two weeks. I took vows to be formal devotee a few months later. A few months after that I went on retreat to Naitauba, Fiji. This whole time I was still madly in love. I figured that I was in a good spot to finally get in the “relationship” with this woman that I was yearning. There is something called the Prayer of Changes. It is something that Adi Da has Given to help devotees. I want to give this a try. My prayer- Marriage. I do this prayer for a couple of nights. Magic happened! The next time I saw this woman I was no longer in love! Seriously, it was if it was a normal friendly “how are ya?” kind of thing. Magic continued and does to this day.

Quirkily I connected with a woman on the internet. She was a devotee and had served Adi Da in His Inimate Sphere for many years. We had met on the island. I remember the first time I saw her, she was a vision. We hit it off and cyber-romanced into orbit. More magic was on it’s way. I have sabotaged a lot of relationships. Just when I had attempted this by doing my needy clingy thing something would get in the way. Once I had written a letter full of needy clingy, explaining what I had meant when I figured that she had been put off. Her mailbox was full. Then she sends me a needy clingy email – I was empowered! We lived an extraordinary life. We were in the Adi Da’s Sphere. He is a spiritual master who performs miracles. He causes spiritual phenomena and that is fluff compared to the understanding that comes with living in His Company. This went on for 7 years. I experienced love beyond any that I have ever known or could have fathomed. Adi Da taught me how to love. I used to want adoration and called that being in love. I discovered that love is a sacrifice- love is when my needs are not what is important. This love was launched into fable storybook realm when she saved my life- literally.

I had a brain operation. A few days later some swelling was noticed. She asks a doctor in the recovery hospital about it. He says that it was normal. This isn’t good enough for her. She calls the lead surgeon at UCSF. He says that an MRI should be done. The MRI machine wasn’t working at St Marys. She arranges to have me taken by ambulance to UCSF. The lead surgeon- this is a world renowned guy- looks at it. He sees that I had a hematoma. This is fluid building up inside the brain causing the brain to be pushed over from the pressure. He schedules an emergency operation. I don’t know if I would have been dead but at the very least vegetable matter if she hadn’t been there. Adi Da had trained her how to get things done. She works human miracles.

Thing is though this love was flawed. The feelings were real enough but it wasn’t founded in Truth. Adi Da’s Revelation contains this- “there is no other”. We are not separate. We live in a conditional world in which we come and go. Consciousness stays put. It is everlasting and realizable. This is Enlightenment. A person needs to be focused on this- and not be led astray by ego’s desires to be the beloved. Or, to be grounded in the unenlightened state of needing a teddy bear love with another. To Realize Unity one needs to give up all the attachments that are binding. Especially the security blanket of being paired. Adi Da calls it the “cult of pairs”. He spent 35 years considering the emotional/sexual aspect of life with His devotees. He lived it. He said that the emotional/sexual aspect of life is the single most obstruction to spiritual gains.

We were seperated, living at different places in the world. I couldn’t live in Fiji due to my physical incapacities. She wasn’t leaving Fiji, the seat of the Master. We were mature, not having agreements about fidelity. I was free to do whatever I chose. This gets complicated. I didn’t feel free. The relationship was comfortable but the truth be told I was unsatisfied. I yearned for physical touch. I desired sex. But feeling that would mean a betrayal. Seeing as how I am 56 and living a monastic life things seemed to be in a nice slow never changing stall. Then the Guru’s Magic happens. A woman that I have known for the last 10 years shows up. I hadn’t ever been attracted to her, nor she to me. But lightening strikes. All manner of boy-meets-girl drama ensues. We had chemistry. We were similar in many ways. I think that the most similar trait that we had was insanity. To truly move into a new relationship I would have to relinquish my prior one. No problem, right?- but it was, and it was large. I went to Fiji for meditaion retreat and met with my love of so much and so long. I was driving the two horse carriage being pulled by two blind horses – Love and Sex. In Adidam this kind of thing is handled culturally. Rules are set in place. We were to not have any interactions and go into a seclusive mode. Same with the new squeeze. Again His Magic. I was at a very holy place. I felt Adi Da’s Presence, His Divine Nature. A question arose- What is wanted? Then I felt a power change me. My heart feeling changed. Adi Da now resided in the place that had always been where I needed a woman’s love and loving touch. I was in love with Him. And I am now. My feelings had changed. I still loved this woman but differently. The smoke hasn’t cleared to be able to clearly define this relationship. It feels that we aren’t a “couple” anymore.

On this retreat I got a sense of the hold that the world has on me. I feel the sense of separate self- the feeling is in my heart. I turn to the Divine One Person, where there is no seperateness. The sense of seperateness dissolves. There is no “me”. There is only the One Divine Person turning my feeling heart to this Truth. It is by the Divine Heart-Master Adi Da. He Is The One Reality that Is Love. He is Da.

Emotional/Sexual Extravagansa

One of my first recalls of the major emotional turmoil in the male-female dance was in the 6th grade. Ten years old and it hurt- bad. It gets stowed in the folder titled “humorous child recalls by adult”- And yet it is still alive today, still potentially painful. Life as Adi Da’s devotee makes me feel my living more. Profound is the pain. Profound enough that one can easily foresake the male-female dance. Back then her name was Linda Bruce. My feelings for were very strong. I didn’t know how to act. I could have said “Dad, I am having these strong feelings of affection, angst, pain, confusion, what is it all about? what do I do about it?” “Well son it is all very natural….” I wonder if there was anyone who asked such a question of their parents. They must have achieved greatness. Yearning need, boundless happiness in receiving love from the desired one, total turmoil in rejection, guilt of betrayal. I have felt complete insanity coming from this male-female dance. And it hasn’t let up except when I retreat and “go to ground”, meaning a compromised “cult of pairs” life. Where agreements, contracts and rules gloss over the fundamental “Id” that lurks below.

I am on the island of Naitauba. Bhagavan Adi Da is felt here, greatly. His Presence is undeniable. Bhagavan Adi Da has been taking me through a process where the egoic patterns of holding onto “another” has been in purification. My heart is no longer yearning to be held and satisfied by another. I am in love with the One Divine Person. The feeling is ecstacy. A powerful energy is felt. There is no problem, no dilemma. It is mindless, objectless, free and clear. I truly wish I could pass this feeling onto everyone.

The Giver

My Stroke of Insight by Jill Taylor Bolt brought about an integration of my psyche. I didn’t understand what Bhagavan meant when He was referring to how we construct reality in our minds but that isn’t really how reality is. But I really wanted understanding. Jill had this near-fatal stroke. As the brain was shutting down she saw things differently. The start of her description is scientific. The physical universe can be broken down in terms of atoms. Everything is composed of atoms. These super small particles which are composed of even super smaller whirling particles actually aren’t particles but energy, maybe. Scientists are stymied as exactly what they are. It is a mystery. They are supposed to be affected by consciousness. Some say that they are even consciousness itself. Now that leads down a path that I love to contemplate. But there is a point that strikes me. It is how when her brain was shutting down she started to see this field of energy and felt bliss. She said it felt like Nirvana. This goes to a major “ah ha”. It is how Beloved Adi Da says “Reality As It Is”. I used to scratch my head trying to figure out what He meant exactly. What is actually occurring is this vast field of energy. Our brains seeing a segment of the spectrum put together reality in a way that we can navigate through. So even though the air is whirling atoms we don’t see it. Fundamentally we are manifest to be seen and heard and experience. The manifest world exists as theater but that is another subject. So now let’s notch up “Reality as Consciousness” and “The Purpose of Manifest Existence” for later discussion- jeesh, I’m brain damaged and this is pretty heady stuff. Now there has got to be some intellectualized big-brainer who can trot out streams of well spitooned rightly written knowing and I am far from that. And as an aside spitoon is a word that is formed by using an english word with a french suffix – octoroon is another and that means being an eighth black. Word-makers must have been hella bored before Playstation came into being.

All this adds up to a consideration and contemplation of the Divine. It can’t be seen. All the senses have to be felt beyond, even the senses that we feel with. How can that be done? This is where I feel incredibly fortunate. The Divine Condition must be given. Da means “giver”. Adi means “first”. Adi Da gives the Divine Condition. Often He absorbs me into this condition. What is being realized is that there a depthful ocean of bliss that one can be (“in”) if they drop the usual activities of sight and hearing and emotion and thinking, bringing objects into view. This is real, actually felt.

During A Fast

I was pretty far along in a fast- juice and vegetable broth. I was having these intense food desires. I would spend much of my day figuring out what I was first going to have after the fast- prime rib, pizza, pad thai. The desires matched any sexual desires that I have ever had- kind of being horny for food. One night while I was outside of Adi Da's House something struck me- Wanting all this food is not wanting enlightenment. To yearn and find pleasure in donuts and high cuisine is to want physical satisfaction. To want physical satisfaction is to want embodiment. I guess that amounts to an Alcholics Anonymous meeting type of statement. "Ah my name is Bill. And I am addicted to embodiment".

I Want Freedom

I have had this feeling that I think is pretty common. I always felt stifled as a child. The feeling abated when I was flying on my bicycle. I used to hate the feeling of being penned in and school was torture. Getting older helped. You get to drive a car and in California that means a lot of freedom. I was very fortunate that my folks decided that skiing would be good to do. Being physically active was the antidote to feeling bound. I was a ski instructor. Every day I was on the hill early and came off late. The last run of the day I would “shoot the Face”. It’s pretty self-explanatory. I used to hit about 60 MPH. That was respite from the feeling. The feeling was also temporarily satisfied with other physical pleasures. This feeling which feels like I am trapped can accurately be described as a disease. Bhagavan uses the term “Dis-Ease”. One of His genius coinages. Feeling stifled in the physical sense is only part of the package. It feels this way on the emotional level and the mental level also. The feeling is loosed by physical pleasure or some emotional satisfaction, such as being shown that I am liked, or some intellectual stimulation that leads to “oh I see”. It’s amazing to me that I’ve led my whole life being moved by vague undefined impulses. Always involved in the search for satisfaction but never knowing that is what I was doing. It was if I was striving to “arrive” in some satisfactory situation only to find that satisfaction either wasn't had or was just a brief dimming of the spark that kept me lit on fire. Finally I feel satisfaction. It is through the pratice that Adi Da teaches. It is Yoga with the Divine- and it quenches.

Out of this Body- Out of this realm

One time I was standing a few feet away from where Adi Da was sitting. It struck me that He was always going to be my Master. Something phenominal began. I began to leave the body. It was if I was being pulled up and out by some force. The perception of the body and room seemed to take on a telescopic perspective. There was even a feeling that I was leaving the emotional “body”. This is hard to convey. It was if I was leaving this dimension. So it wasn’t that I was lifted out of the room then the house and shot in the sky. The telescopic perception was in all directions of space. So it was as if I was going miniscule yet expanding and out of everything. It was kind of hitting escape velocity and leaving the gravitational pull of existence. I floated for a bit in the field of the “Bright”. And then I came back into this plane of existence.

Drama in Alaska

The bars in Alaska are social meeting places, similar to what I have heard about pubs in the British Isles. One afternoon I was shooting pool in Kito’s Kave. I noticed a woman walk through the front door. She scanned the bar until the look of recognition smacked her face. The bar was a circular affair that you could walk around taking seats. It was on a different level than the entrance. I saw what she was looking for. There was a guy sitting next to a woman. He appeared to be lamenting his miserable life, gazing steadfast at the drink in front of him. He wore a Cold Storage hard hat. Cold Storage is a fish processing facility. It’s basically a large two story building that is mostly comprised of being a freezer. Also housed in the building is where the fish are gutted- it really stinks. You can understand this fellow’s lament. Now the woman kind of stomps her foot. I think I was the only one in the bar who noticed. She definitely wasn’t at all noticed by the guy even though he faced in her direction. She goes up the couple of steps and takes place adjacent to the man and woman. She holds a look of pure miff which is accentuated with acceleration by the fact she is still unnoticed. She bustles around the bar stopping directly behind the man and woman. She is furious yet stymied by not knowing what to do. Finally she acts. She was carrying an umbrella and whacks the guy on top of the head with it. He was so deep in thought that he looked mystified by the fact that something that he didn’t fathom had just happened. The frozen moment broke though the dark cloud which crossed her face did not by her next move, she umbrella’s him again and was going to go for another. He had turned around by this time and caught the third swing. She blurts out a truly classic line “And with my bestfriend!”

As day dawns I am seeing that I am always involved in something similar. There’s a take I have that is myopic, and all too often with some flair of drama attached. It’s a pattern of Narcissus. I think it’s an amazing consideration. Here’s another one.

It was in the fall. The summer fishing season was just over. The population had shrunk drastically. Days are short and the nights are long and cold. Kito’s was a good place to spend warm time. Me and a few of the guys are shooting pool. The set up in this flashback goes to raunchy, racey, and unique. Seeing as how this is going out G-rated I have to cut and splice most of it and get to a guy named Dave who is waddling with his pants down around his ankles. His arms are outstretched. The look on his face is one of pained, sorrowful, alcohol induced stupification. His stance is a beckoned plea that is following a woman whose strut away is haughty. Full of pride she tosses her long black hair over her shoulder and turns her head so he can hear her. “And after all I’ve done for you!”

This is mental imagery that just cracks me up.