The self-Contraction
Is Separative (or Dissociative), and Only Destructive. This Must
Be (Directly) Observed and (Most Fundamentally) Understood. That
Most Fundamental Understanding Must Not Merely Inform the mind.
It Must Unlock The Heart.
From
the beginning of His Teaching Work, Avatar Adi Da Samraj has emphasized
that the two primary and complementary aspects of the practice of
Adidam are the
devotional relationship to Him; and self-understanding.
Even the relationship with the Divine Presence through
the Agency of the Spiritual Master isn’t sufficient, by Itself,
to Fully Awaken a human being. This is so because both our awareness
of the Divine Presence, and our reception of It (our ability to
be Melted in and Awakened by It), are cut off, hindered by the
ego:
At
the same time you are in My Company you are separated from My
Company, you are dramatizing the act of self-contraction right
now! Therefore, merely to be in My Company is not enough. How
often has it been regretfully said in the traditions that even
though people were given access to [Spiritual] Realizers of one
degree or another, allowed to be in the Company of the Realizers,
[Who were] serving them all the time, most of these people got
nothing — or very little. Why is it so, then? Since My Radiant
Presence Is sufficient, and since all you have to do is come into
It, why do you not feel altogether good? Why are you not sublimed
to the Perfect Degree right now?
Of
course, such sudden Realization is eminently possible, but the
reason it is not happening is that you are engaged in a particular
act right now, here in My Company, as you are at all other times.
You are enforcing that action constantly and making a life out
of it. Therefore, you are doing it right now, and you are also
feeling it and all its results and all its impositions on you.
Therefore
it is essential to Spiritual growth that we understand (not merely intellectually, but in the direct manner that "unlocks the heart") and transcend
the "ego",
the "self", as it is the primary obstacle to Spiritual
Realization.
The
self-contraction —
We conventionally
view “me” as a given; it simply goes without saying. "Obviously",
there’s “me” here, there’s “you” over there, etc. But what is
this “me”? We are literally re-creating our sense of being a "separate
self” in every moment through a separative activity of self-contraction,
that is something like making a fist.
The
hearing capability: the discovery that the self-contraction
is one's own activity
—
Most fundamental "self-understanding" is a matter
of observing the “self” in feeling (not merely intellectually)
to the degree that the primal act, the self-contraction, is
discovered to be one’s own activity.
That discovery, which Avatar Adi Da Samraj calls
hearing, then becomes one’s capability from that
point on. In any moment, one can directly locate this activity
and feel beyond it, transcending the sense of being a separate
self.
Seeking
and desensitization—Even though we always are acting (mostly unconsciously)
on all levels of egoic activity, most of our time we find ourselves
only consciously inhabiting the outermost circle of ego activity.
This is the most peripheral or superficial level, corresponding
to the least depth of feeling. In fact, our motive for only
being conscious there is to desensitize ourselves from what
is being generated at the deeper levels of ego activity, especially
the pain at the core. Avatar Adi Da Samraj describes our occupation
at the peripheral level as seeking
— and it generally takes place in the areas of money, food,
sex, and relationships.