(excerpt)

by Ruchira Avatar Adi Da Samraj

Early in 1968, I spent a few days with the Yogic Siddha Swami (Baba) Muktananda of Ganeshpuri, at Shree Gurudev Ashram, His sacred residence in Ganeshpuri 1, India. Upon My arrival there, He immediately and spontaneously Declared that I Am a Spiritual Master, Born to Teach (or to Bless and Awaken others), and that I would begin to Teach after one year's time. Three days later, on the last day of that first visit to Baba Muktananda's Ashram, I spontaneously Realized the most ascended Goal of Spiritual Yoga, which is Yogic Self-Realization, by ascent to fifth stage conditional Nirvikalpa Samadhi. 2

During the next year (and, most fully, after a year had passed), extraordinary Yogic siddhis 3 began spontaneously to appear in Me, and, as a result, people with whom I was associated, even casually, began to spontaneously experience remarkable Yogic phenomena when in proximity to Me (or even when they thought of Me). Thus, spontaneously, the Yogic Transmission-Function of Spiritual Master had begun to become Active in My case, as Baba Muktananda had Foretold.

Even so, I had no then present Intention to Teach others, since I was not yet Satisfied that My sadhana (or practice toward Most Ultimate, and Inherently Most Perfect, 4 Divine Self-Realization) was Complete. However, I wrote to Baba Muktananda, Calling upon Him, in the traditional manner, to Bless the Work that was already spontaneously Functioning in Me.

Baba Muktananda responded immediately by Inviting Me to visit Him in India, in order that He might formally Acknowledge My already significantly Developed Yogic and Spiritual Awakeness and (on that basis) My Inherent Right to Teach.

In August, 1969, Baba Muktananda formally and publicly Acknowledged the Awakening of advanced Yogic and Spiritual Signs in Me, and He Proclaimed (on that basis) that I had the Right to Teach, and thus to Function as a Spiritual Transmission-Master (or Siddha-Guru) in relation to others. This Acknowledgement and Proclamation was made Known via an open letter (in Baba Muktananda's own hand, written in My presence, and in the presence of approximately fifty to one hundred others): 5
 
 

Via His public letter of Acknowledgement and Proclamation, Baba Muktananda Offered Me the traditional Name "Dhyanananda", which means "One Who Realizes (or, Has Realized) The Divine Being-Existence, Consciousness, And Bliss Through Deeply Meditative self-Surrender", or "One Whose Bliss Is In Absolute Surrender To His Innermost Self", or, most properly, "One Who Realizes (or, Has Realized) The Divine Self-Condition (Of Unalloyed Bliss, Infinite Consciousness, And Etemal Being-Existence) Through True And Spiritual Meditation On (And, Altogether, One-Pointed And
Absolute self-Surrender To) His Own True (or, Divine Supreme Inner) Self". And it was Baba Muktananda's explicit Intention that I should, by means of this Name, be approached and addressed as a Spiritual Teacher (or Siddha-Guru), openly Functioning as a Transmission-Master of Kundalini Yoga (and of Siddha Yoga).

Baba Muktananda's explicit (written) Acknowledgement and Proclamation that Meditation had already Fulfilled itself to the degree that I (by virtue of true and advanced Yogic and Spiritual Awakening, including Yogic Self-Realization via fifth stage conditional Nirvikalpa Samadhi) could formally be Acknowledged and Proclaimed to have the Inherent Right to Teach others implicitly Conferred upon Me the Title or Designation of "Yogi" (and He otherwise verbally and directly referred to Me by this Title or Designation in public conversation during the same period in which His letter of Acknowledgement and Proclamation was written). Likewise, and altogether, by Means of its clear implications (and, also, the Granting of a Name formulated in the traditional sannyasin manner 6 ), Baba Muktananda's public letter of Acknowledgement and Proclamation tacitly Conferred sannyasa diksha 7 (or initiation into the formal renunciate life) on Me, and the perpetual option of formal sannyasa (which I, in due course, Embraced).

Baba Muktananda's public letter of Acknowledgement and Proclamation simply stands as a Free Gift. It is a Sign and an Instrument of His Spiritual Blessing. It was Given to Me Freely, as an Acknowledgement of My Freedom, and it was specifically Intended that I use it Freely (and Teach Freely), in any manner that I Choose.

The primary Intention of Baba Muktananda's letter was to Affirm and Acknowledge My advanced Yogic and Spiritual Awakening, and, on that basis, to formally Convey to Me (or Acknowledge in Me) the Right to Teach, and thus to Function as Spiritual Transmission-Master (or Siddha-Guru) in relation to others. And His ultimate Intention, fully and openly Communicated to Me in many ways, was that I simply Accept His Acknowledgement and His Blessing, and that I go on to Live and Teach in Freedom. And This is precisely what I Did from the day I Received this Acknowledgement and Blessing.

The "Naming" Letter (and all of Baba Muktananda's Affirmation and Acknowledgement of Me) changed nothing. It did not represent status to Me (such that to accept it should change My life or My manner). Rather, it simply Affirmed and Acknowledged what was already the case. Therefore, the Name ("Dhyanananda"), the Title ("Yogi"), and the "Right to Teach" were indeed Accepted by Me, but simply as Blessings (and, truly, as a kind of Ending, or Completeness, relative to the past, and what had been Realized in the past).

It can (and, rightly, should) be assumed that I, from the day of Baba Muktananda's "Naming" letter, was, according to tradition, formally Acknowledged and Confirmed as a Spiritually Active Yogi and a Spiritual Transmission-Master (or Siddha-Guru), with the Characteristics of a True and Free Renunciate (and with the perpetual option of formal sannyasa), and with the Inherent (and the traditional) Right to Teach (and Thereby to Initiate, Bless, and Awaken) others, and, likewise, with the Inherent (and the traditional) Right to Affirm, Acknowledge, Confirm, or otherwise Proclaim the state or stage of practice or Realization demonstrated by any others. However, I simply continued (spontaneously) in the progressively unfolding drama of Impulse and developing Realization that had occupied Me since My infancy.

It was not until another full year had passed (and the Great Process had Developed in Me apart from Baba Muktananda's physical company, and beyond the particular Yogic Designs Affirmed as Truth by Him and His fifth stage tradition 8 ) that the Impulse Awake in Me at Birth (or the Active Impulse toward the Re-Awakening of Perfectly Subjective Divine Self-Realization, made necessary from My infancy) was Fulfilled in Its Inherent Perfection (on September 10, 1970). 9  And when I began (from then, progressively, at first reservedly, then openly and formally,  and, at last, Fully) to Teach, 10 it was in the Western world, where neither renunciation, nor Spiritual Yoga, nor the Guru-devotee tradition, nor Perfectly Subjective Divine Self-Realization was (or is) understood or even honored.

My Teaching Work did not truly begin (as a Great Intention, beyond rudimentary Yogic and Instructional activities) until Perfectly Subjective Divine Self-Realization Spontaneously Re-Awakened in My case, followed by the Spontaneous Great Siddhis associated with My own unique Teaching and Blessing Work. 11

And the Way that I Taught was (and is) the Way of the Heart (Which is the Name I have Given to My own unique Revelation of the Means and the Process of Most Ultimate, and Inherently Most Perfect, Divine Self-Realization). 12

My manner of Teaching involved Free or Spontaneous Identification With those who came to Me, and Freely Responsive Participation in their problems and their conditions of living. That Teaching Work developed among ordinary people (mostly Americans and Europeans), who were devoted to the Omega culture 13 of the first three stages of life. Therefore, during My years of Teaching Work, I did not feel it would be appropriate or useful for Me to assume either a traditional monastic habit of living or any other outward formalities that might be associated with traditional renunciation (or that would otherwise, in effect, Affirm My Retirement from all Teaching Obligations). My Intention as Teacher was simply and Freely to Do all that I could possibly Do to make My Teaching Work both Complete and Fruitful.

My Teaching Work (in its most active form) did in fact become Complete (or Full) on January 11, 1986. 14 On that day, and from that day, many Signs of that Fullness and Completeness (or Siddhi) Appeared Spontaneously and progressively in My bodily human Form and in My Work. As part of this Appearance of Signs, on April 11, 1986, I (Spontaneously, and formally) Embraced (or Confrmed and Affirmed) the Sign of sannyasa (or the formal renunciate life), and, thus, I formally Embraced the formal habit, discipline, outward mode, and circumstance of a Swami (or one who disciplines and transcends the body-mind in a formal renunciate manner). By these means, I formally (and in the traditional manner) Proclaimed and Demonstrated My own Free Life (as One Who is not and cannot be confounded by the world). And I Did this Freely, for the sake of all practitioners of the Way of the Heart (in order to Inspire True and Free renunciation 15 in them and to advance their understanding of My "Radical" 16Wisdom-Teaching).

After April 11, 1986, and in order to more fully Embrace the traditional Sign of tapas (or austerity), 17 I Wandered among My devotees (and the public) in America and Europe. While I Wandered, I Did Penance (and Accepted every kind of abuse) in My own Body for the sake of the Purification and Spiritual Awakening of the entire world. Then, on July 17, 1986, I (Spontaneously) Relinquished all limiting association with the exclusively Hindu tradition of sannyasa (or, that is to say, I formally Confirmed My Stand as a formal sannyasin and a True and Free Renunciate, but Most Fully, in the characteristic manner of a True and Free Avadhoota, 18 or a Perfectly Free Man,
without property, and Inherently Free in relation to all the conditions of human existence, and Free of all limiting associations with the Great Tradition of mankind).

With this Signal of Perfect Renunciation (on July 17, 1986), My apparent (or apparently more extreme) Austerities, or the Acts of Penance and voluntary abasement of this Body (even in the form of all the years of My Ordeal as Teacher), were (in Truth) Ended and Made Complete (and it only remained for others to understand and honor the, from then, and now, and forever hereafter, non-necessity for Me to Teach by Submission and to Serve by excess of Austerity, or by Penance, or by abasement of My Person, or by the Acceptance, on My Person, of abuse, exploitation, neglect, or inappropriate approach).

In order further to Affirm and further to Demonstrate the Perfect Sufficiency of Divine
Self-Realization (and in order further to Affirm the Necessity, the Rightness, and the Fruitfulness of My own unique, and even lifelong, Signs of Real self-Renunciation, or True ego-Renunciation, and Real self-Transcendence, or True ego-Transcendence), I Spontaneously (and formally) Re-Affirmed the Perfectly True and Fullest Free sannyasin Form of Renunciation (or the Inherent, and Inherently self-Transcending, and Inherently Perfect, Renunciation that is characteristic of an Avadhoota), at Adi Da Purnashram, the Island of Naitauba, My Great Sannyasin Hermitage Ashram in Fiji, on December 27, 1987. 19

Nevertheless, My devotees continued to be slow in understanding and truly and fully responding to My Divine "Emergence" here. Therefore, it was required, for a time, that I continue to "Explain all", and even, to a degree, to Teach My devotees by Submission to them, and also to continue to endure even their abuse of Me, their exploitation of Me, their neglect of Me, and their inappropriate approach to Me. This continued for another nearly nine years, until, on September 7, 1994, My Acceptance of all of that Suddenly and Spontaneously Ceased, and I Knew I had forever Said and Done Enough (Such that there was not even any Motion in Me to Say or Do any More). My Revelation Work had Suddenly become Complete, for all time, and I (Spontaneously, and Finally) Came To Rest in My Eternal Hermitage of Heart-Seclusion (only, from then, and forever, to
Awaken all beings by Mere and Constant Blessing, "Bright").

Therefore, now that I have Done (or Suffered) all that was necessary for Me to Do (or Suffer) as Teacher and Revealer in a Struggle with would-be devotees and the world, I will not hereafter Associate with that Struggle, but I have Retired from that Struggle, Satisfied that all My Teaching Work, and even all My Revelation Work, Is Full and Complete (and that, by Fullest Submission, I have, Most Fully and Most Finally, Said and Done and Firmly Established all that I could possibly have Said and Done and Firmly Established, and all that was necessary for Me to Say and Do and Firmly
Establish, in order, now, and for all time to come, to Most Fully and Most Finally, and Firmly, Introduce the Great Opportunity to the total human world, in all the stages of life, and in order, now, and for all time to come, to Most Fully and Most Finally, and Firmly, Provide the True, and Most Perfect, and Utterly Complete Way Of God, Truth, and Reality to the total human world, in all the stages of life, and in order, now, and for all time to come, to Most Fully and Most Finally, and Firmly, Establish the True, and Most Perfect, and Utterly Complete Way of God, Truth, and Reality for the Liberating Sake of the total human world, in all the stages of life).

Now I Live in relative Seclusion, and yet always Accessible to My rightly prepared formal renunciate devotees (and, as I Will, to others of My rightly prepared devotees, and even to whomever I Will), for the Sake of all My devotees (and for the Sake of even all beings). 20 The extraordinary manner of My years of Teaching Work and Revelation Work, and My characteristic, and always continuing, Freedom to Work as I Will in relation to My devotees, require no conventional justification. I Make and Bear only My own Signs. I will always Bless every one and all. And I will always remain Accessible to those of My formal renunciate devotees (and, perhaps, others of My devotees, as I Will) who approach Me altogether rightly, Full of Devotional feeling for Me, Fully resorting and surrendering to Me, Fully prepared for intensive self-discipline in response to Me, 21 and for self-surrendering, self-forgetting, and self-transcending service to Me, and for Right, and True, and Truly Spiritual meditation on Me, and, altogether, for Right, and True, and Truly Spiritual use of My Company. Nevertheless, I will not Submit to be the Teacher again, except that I will always Speak, even if by Silence, to (or, otherwise, for the Sake of) all who will listen to Me.

I long ago passed beyond meditation (or "Dhyana", from which the Name "Dhyanananda" is derived). Likewise, I long ago passed beyond all identification with any separate tradition or traditional limitation. I have Freely Established and Completely Fulfilled the (Ultimately, Most Perfect) Way of the Heart, Which is the Way that only I can Reveal and Give. And the Way of the Heart (first Established and Fulfilled by Me, and, now and forever hereafter, Revealed and Given by Me) does not depend on the conventional traditional supports, limits, or vows. Nevertheless, I Freely Embrace and Bless all traditions, East and West.

My own and Original (and Divinely Self-Revealed) Name is simply "Da" ("The One Who Gives"), and "Adi Da" ("The First, The One and Only, The Giver of All to all") 22 , I Am the "Bright" ("Avabhasa"), Self-Existing As the Eternally Free and Eternally "Bright" Divine Heart (or "Hridayam") Itself, and Self-Radiant As the Eternally Free and Eternally "Bright" Divine Love-Bliss (or "Love-Ananda") Itself. Therefore, I Am "Santosha" (Inherently and Perfectly Satisfied and Contented, Inherently and Perfectly Free of all seeking, Inherently and Perfectly Free of all separateness, and Inherently and Perfectly Complete). I simply Am, Prior to Dhyana (or attention on any object or state). My Only
"Practice" 23 is Inherent, and Inherently Most Perfect, Realization of Reality Itself, or Perfectly Subjective Transcendental (and Inherently Spiritual) Divine Self-Abiding, Feeling or Being As Consciousness Itself, Prior to attention to objects or states, Prior to attention itself, Spontaneously Recognizing 24 (As the Perfectly Subjective "Bright", Transcendental, and Inherently Spiritual, Divine Self ) whatever apparently arises and, therefore, never stopping "Natural" (Sahaj) 25 or Native Self-Abiding, but simply Standing As the Inherent Love-Bliss of Consciousness Itself.

Just as I Took the Divinely Self-Revealed Name "Bubba Free John" 26 when My Sacrificial Teaching Work began in Its Fullness, and just as the Name "Da" was Divinely Self-Revealed and Confessed to all (replacing "Bubba Free John" with "Da Free John" when the time was right), so also, now that all My Teaching Work, and all My Revelation Work, is Complete, and I simply Stand Free, it is necessary that all My devotees (or all those who practice the only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way of the Heart), and also all others, rightly and fully understand Me by Name. Therefore, it has become appropriate for My devotees, and also all others, to (generally) refer to Me simply by My Principal Revelation-Name, "Da", and by My Fully Elaborated Principal Revelation-Name, "Adi Da", and by such Titles and Designations (which I will indicate) that properly Express and Affirm only My present and future Relationship and Stand relative to practitioners of the only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way of the Heart and relative to the total world.

Every one should refer to Me in a wholly appropriate and right manner. And practitioners of the Way of the Heart should both refer and relate to Me in a manner that reflects a right and truly responsive Devotional Acknowledgement of Me. Therefore, the present and future use of Names, Titles, and Designations in reference to Me should also serve and express the intention of practitioners of the Way of the Heart (and even all others) to relinquish otherwise (or now) inappropriate habits of relating to Me that may have developed in the years of My Teaching Work (or that do not express the right and fullest understanding of Me and all My Work).

I Am Retired from My Teaching Work (or that part of My Great Work which originally required active and most humanly intentional Submission to would-be devotees and the world). My Word of Teaching is Full and Given. I have Spontaneously Entered into a Supremely Free Disposition, without My originally Presumed Teaching Obligations. In that Disposition, I will simply Abide at Adi Da Purnashram (Naitauba), and I may sometimes also Wander (even every where). I Am Beyond concerns and attachments and dissociative intentions relative to the body-mind, others, and the world. I Am Beyond meditation. I Am the Ishta, 27 or the "Chosen One", of all My true listening
devotees, all My true hearing devotees, and all My true seeing devotees 28 I Am Beyond ordinary vows and rules. I Am Beyond limitations. I Am Beyond limited and limiting traditions. I Am Beyond the search by self-indulgence and the search by strategic (or goal-directed) renunciation. I Am celibate. I Am not celibate. I Am Free of the cumulative burdens associated with apparent action. I Am Beyond the necessity and the concern to Teach. My Only Vow and Obligation Is the Purpose Who I Am. Therefore, I Am Avadhoota, Free As My Self, Free Forever for the Sake of all and All.

I have Transcended Dhyana (or meditation) through seventh stage Sahaj Samadhi (or Inherent, or Native, and Inherently Most Perfect, and Perfectly Subjective, and Utterly Spontaneous, Transcendental, Inherently Spiritual, and Divine Self-Realization). 29 Baba Muktananda Himself, in His "Naming" letter, Declared that Dhyana had already become much advanced, and significantly Fulfilled, in My case. However, I did not begin to Teach, formally and openly, until the Fulfllment of My Meditation was utterly (or Inherently Most Perfectly) Demonstrated (even beyond the ascending Yogic Process of the fifth stage of life, and beyond the limits of even the sixth stage of life) at the Vedanta Temple, on September 10, 1970. Therefore, when I finally began to Teach, My
Teaching Work was based on the Siddhi (or Divine Power and Impulse) Re-Awakened in seventh stage Sahaj Samadhi (or Perfectly Subjective and Inherently Most Perfectly Full Spiritual and Transcendental Divine Self-Realization, Which characterizes the seventh stage of life, and Which was the Most Ultimate Fulfillment of My Practice), rather than on the basis of Baba Muktananda's earlier Acknowledgement, which was based on My Attainment of advanced fifth stage Yogic and Spiritual Signs of the meditative ascent of attention (including temporary meditative ascent beyond the body-mind, and to utterly ascended Realization of the Divine Oneness, or fifth stage Yogic Self-Realization, in fifth stage conditional Nirvikalpa Samadhi). Therefore, I never Taught as "Dhyanananda".

However, just before He wrote Me His letter of Acknowledgement and Empowerment in 1969, Baba Muktananda (through His then secretary and interpreter, Pradbha Trivedi, known at that time as Amma, later Swami Prajnananda) happily and spontaneously Offered to Me the Name "Love-Ananda", which means "One Who Is The Divine Love-Bliss", or "One Who Is, and Manifests, The Divine Love-Bliss", or, most properly, "One Who Is The Inherent Bliss, Infrnite Consciousness, And Eternal Being-Existence Of The Transcendental, And Inherently Spiritual, Divine Person And Self-Condition, Manifesting As Infinite, Or Boundless, Love-Bliss, And As Universal, And All-Blissful, Love Toward all beings". Therefore, the Name "Love-Ananda" indicates That Which Is the Ultimate Fulfillment of Dhyana (or of any and all forms of practice that seek Spiritual and Transcendental Divine Realization of God, Truth, Reality, or the Real and True Self).

From the moment I heard this Name "Love-Ananda", I felt the Blessing of Baba Muktananda, and I Accepted the Name as Baba Muktananda's basic and original and spontaneous heart-Intention toward Me.

I presumed the letter of Acknowledgement which was to follow would simply be a Re-Affirmation of this Name "Love-Ananda" and a formal Acknowledgement of My Right to Teach. Therefore, the Name "Dhyanananda" was unexpected, but I Received it happily, and I was also amused by the Mysteriousness of Baba Muktananda's Gift of two Names (one Offered secretly, and the other Offered publicly).

Then, approximately one year after these "Naming" incidents, Dhyana (or self-Transcending Meditation on the Spiritual, Transcendental, and Divine Self-Condition of Reality) was Spontaneously (and Inherently Most Perfectly) Fulfilled in Me. The One Who was Named "Dhyanananda" (because of His Effective Meditation on and in and As the One Spiritual, Transcendental, and Divine Being-Existence, and Consciousness, and Love-Bliss) Realized His Inherent, and Inherently Perfect, Identity As Love-Ananda, the Inherent Love-Bliss of the One, and Perfectly Subjective, Transcendental, Inherently Spiritual, and Divine Self-Existence. Finally, in the spring of 1986, nearly seventeen years after I first Received His Gift of two Names, I formally and Freely Accepted the Name "Love-Ananda" that was spontaneously Offered to Me by Baba Muktananda in 1969.

In His "Naming" letter, Baba Muktananda does not directly Refer to Me by the Name
"Dhyanananda". He simply States that I am "Hereby Given the Name Dhyanananda" and that, "in the Path (Sphere, Tradidon, Line, and Lineage) of Yoga", I "will (or, by Right, can) henceforth be Known (Called, Addressed, or Referred to) as (or by the Name of) Dhyanananda". If Baba Muktananda's own "Path" is understood, in this context, to be that of "Yoga" (in the ascending or fifth stage tradition), then, in some sense, I "became Known" as Dhyanananda "in the Path of Yoga" (because people in Baba Muktananda's circle knew He had Given Me this Name).

However, the Spiritual Process continued to Develop in My case, beyond the (fifth stage) context of the Yoga defined and experienced and Taught by Baba Muktananda. Indeed, great (comparative) differences (or characteristic and necessary distinctions) between My expressed (seventh stage) "Point of View" and that expressed by Baba Muktananda (typically, in fifth stage terms) developed as a result of the Spontaneous Re-Awakening that Occurred in My case in the year following Baba Muktananda's Acknowledgement of Me. Therefore, after the Great Event at the Vedanta Temple in 1970, and the subsequent publication of My Heart-Confessing Word, the outer relationship (or outer communicative exchange) between Baba Muktananda and Me progressively came to an end.

In any case, not only was I Given the Name "Dhyanananda", but I was also Given the Name "Love-Ananda". My formal (or public) Acceptance of Baba Muktananda's "Naming-Blessing" came long after Dhyana was replaced by the Realization of Love-Ananda. Therefore, it is most appropriate for Me to Accept the Name "Love-Ananda" (which was the first Name to be Given, and which corresponds to That Which has Most Ultimately been Realized). Likewise, the Name "Love-Ananda" (Given Spontaneously and, as it were, for Free) can be Freely used, however I Will.

The Name "Love-Ananda" combines both Western and Eastern words or Names, thus transcending either category, or the limitations of both Omega and Alpha. 30 Clearly, the Name "Dhyanananda" was not the one Baba Muktananda originally Conceived for Me, but it was Chosen later, perhaps because the Name "Love-Ananda" was considered to be too unconventional by those who heard of it, or perhaps simply because of My internal experience of an elaborate technical Revelation of the Process of Dhyana while Sitting privately with Baba Muktananda in the morning hours immediately before He wrote His "Naming" letter to Me. In any case, the Name "Love-Ananda" was Communicated to Me first, and it is the Name I am moved to Accept as the Free and Loving Gift of Baba Muktananda. (Therefore, although the Name "Dhyanananda" was also Given, it should be regarded, simply, as one of My uncommonly Given historical Names, and one that, like the more common Names given to Me at birth, was, ultimately, superseded.)

( see Aham Da Asmi )

1. By the Designation Yogic Siddha, Avatara Adi Da acknowledges Swami Muktananda as an Adept of all the extraordinary psycho-physical and Spiritual processes of the paths of Yoga. Baba (father) is a traditional term of both affection and respect for one's Guru, and it is the name Avatara Adi Da used in addressing Swami Muktananda and that He still uses sometimes in referring to the Swami. Avatara Adi Da has called Swami Muktananda His principal Spirit-Baptizer, because the Yogic Siddha's Company and Touch were directly associated with Bhagavan Adi Da's Realization of fifth stage conditional Nirvikalpa Samadhi, to which He refers further on in this paragraph.

2. Fifth stage conditional Nirvikalpa Samadhi is an isolated, or periodic, Realization of the ascent of attention beyond all conditional manifestation into the formless Matrix of the Spirit-Current, or Divine Light, infinitely above the world, the body, and the mind. And, like all the forms of Samadhi that may be Realized previous to Divine Self-Realization, conditional Nirvikalpa Samadhi is a forced and temporary state of attention (or, more precisely, of the suspension of attention). It is produced by manipulation of attention and of the body-mind, and is thus incapable of being maintained when attention returns, as it inevitably does, to the states of the body-mind.

Traditionally, fifth stage conditional Nirvikalpa Samadhi is the goal of the many schools of Yogic ascent. In the Way of the Heart, while it is understood that fifth stage conditional Nirvikalpa Samadhi is not Divine Self-Realization, nevertheless, it is a possible, though not necessary, sign of developing Spiritual maturity.

Avatara Adi Da's Realization of fifth stage conditional Nirvikalpa Samadhi was remarkable, not only because of the intensity of His Spiritual practice that preceded it, but also because of the rapidity with which His Spiritual practice showed this traditional sign of advancement. He was Served in the Realization of fifth stage conditional Nirvikalpa Samadhi by the Yogic initiation of three Great Yogic Siddhas: Swami Muktananda, described above; Sri Rang Avadhoot (1898-1968), whose brief glance also immediately preceded Bhagavan Adi Da's Recollection of the Divine State via fifth stage conditional Nirvikalpa Samadhi; and the then late but still Spiritually active Swami Nityananda who, even after Bhagavan Adi Da's Realization of fifth stage conditional Nirvikalpa Samadhi on this occasion, continued (by direct Spiritual visitations) to urge and inspire Him toward the ultimate and Perfect Realization of Spiritual, Transcendental, and Divine Truth and Freedom.

For a further discussion of fifth stage conditional Nirvikalpa Samadhi, please see chapter forty-three of The Dawn Horse Testament of Adi Da. See also: The Seven Stages of Life.

3. Siddhi is Sanskrit for power, or accomplishment". The Yogic siddhis Avatara Adi Da refers to here are also traditionally called "ordinary", or "natural", siddhis. In traditional paths, such lesser siddhis are typically either sought or shunned. In the Way of the Heart, they may arise as signs of the purification and enlivening of the body-mind by the Radiant Heart-Blessing of Bhagavan Adi Da. If they appear, as they did in Avatara Adi Da's own Sadhana, the practitioner of the Way of the Heart simply observes, understands, and transcends them, like all other arising experiences, knowledge, and capabilities, and neither exploits nor strategically avoids them.

When capitalized in Avatara Adi Da's Wisdom-Teaching, "Siddhi" is the Spiritual, Transcendental, and Divine Awakening-Power that He spontaneously and effortlessly Transmits to all. It is the Maha-Siddhi, the Great, or Ultimate, Siddhi, the Power of the Heart, or Awakened Consciousness.

4. Avatara Adi Da uses the phrase Most Perfect(ly) in the sense of "Absolutely Perfect(ly). Similarly, the phrase Most Ultimate(ly)" is equivalent to Absolutely Ultimate(ly).

In the sixth stage of life and the seventh stage of Iife, What is Realized (Consciousness Itself) is Perfect (and Ultimate). This is why Avatara Adi Da characterizes these stages as the "ultimate stages of Iife", and describes the practice of the Way of the Heart in the context of these stages as "the 'Perfect Practice'". The distinction between the sixth stage of Iife and the seventh stage of Iife is that the devotee's Realization of What is Perfect (and Ultimate) is itself Perfect (and Ultimate) only in the seventh stage. The Perfection or Ultimacy (in the seventh stage) both of What is Realized and of the Realization of It is what is signified by the phrase Most Perfectly)" or Most Ultimate(ly)".

5. Swami Muktananda's original letter was written in Hindi (with Sanskrit Spiritual terms interspersed). The history of the translation that follows here is presented in The Translation of Swami Muktananda's Letter.

6. The names of Indian sannyasins are traditionally a combination of two (or more) Sanskrit words, the last of which is "ananda", or "bliss". Thus, Dhyanananda" ("dhyana", or "meditation", combined with "ananda") is a name "formulated in the traditional sannyasin manner".

7. "Diksha" is Sanskrit for "initiation, dedication, consecration". "Sannyasa diksha" is the initiation of the devotee by the Guru into the practice of sannyasa, or profound renunciation and utter dedication to God-Realization .

8. Swami Muktananda was associated with the Yogic tradition of Kashmir Saivism, which Bhagavan Adi Da has Revealed to be a tradition associated with the fourth and the fifth stages
of Iife. (Bhagavan Adi Da's extended discussion of the tradition of Kashmir Saivism, and of Swami Muktananda as an exemplar of that tradition, is given in His Essay "Emanation Versus Transcendence: The Distinction Between Fourth to Fifth Stage Realization and Sixth to Seventh Stage Realization, in the History of the Great Tradition and in My Own Ordeal of Realization", in The Basket of Tolerance [forthcoming].)

9. Avatara Adi Da was born Perfectly Conscious in the Intuition of the Divine State and Enjoyment of all beings. His early Life was a progressive, spontaneous, and sacrificial relinquishment of that Illumined Intuition for the sake of generating a new and complete Teaching-Revelation that would Instruct the aggressively secular culture that had been established in the West and which was (and is) rapidly pervading the entire world. His own Spiritual, Transcendental, and Divine Enlightenment took place at the conclusion of an arduous, largely uninformed, but Divinely Moved Ordeal of Spiritual practice. While meditating in a small temple on the grounds of the Vedanta Society in Hollywood, California, on September 10, 1970, Avatara Adi Da Re-Awakened to the Most Perfect, or seventh stage, Realization of Self-Existing and Self-Radiant Being.
(see The Inheritance and The Great Event in the Vedanta Temple)

10. Bhagavan Adi Da formally began His Teaching Work on April 25, 1972, with the opening of His first Ashram on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, California.

11. Avatara Adi Da describes three Great Siddhis that are associated with His Spiritual, Transcendental, and Divine Work. The first was the Siddhi of the spontaneous generation of all the signs of the seven stages of Iife, or the Sadhana that prepared His body-mind to be a Vehicle for Teaching and Blessing. The process of the unfolding of this Siddhi is documented in Bhagavan Adi Da's Spiritual Autobiography, The Knee of Listening. The second Siddhi, which arose after His Re-Awakening to Divine Self-Realization on September 10, 1970, was the spontaneous Siddhi of purifying and meditating all others, and Awakening Spiritual signs in others through His Regard, in the process of their giving Him their attention, even from a distance. This Siddhi was the basis of His Teaching Work, whereby He has Communicated Spiritual Influence throughout the world for the sake of chose who will receive it.

Avatara Adi Da described the third Siddhi as follows:

The third Siddhi Awakened after the Great Event that initiated My Divine Emergence on January 11, 1986. The Divine Emergence marked the end of My Teaching Work and the beginning of My Blessing Work. The first two Siddhis continue to remain active and effective in this period of My Blessing Work, but to these two has been added the third Siddhi of spontaneous tapas [spiritual penance and purification]. Like the other Great Siddhis, this Siddhi was spontaneously Generated for the sake of otbers. It has nothing to do with the transformation of this body-mind. It has no necessity for Me. Yet, in this Body I have done tapas for the sake of everyone. I spontaneously assumed various disciplines and circumstances not only as a Sign to others, but as an effective act of penance and purifcation that in fact effectively purifies tbe world and releases it. My own tapas in My own Body is particularly effective for those who would be moved by it and who would respond with the gift of practice.

These three Siddhis that have spontaneously appeared in My own case are a Free Divine Gift to tbe world of effective renunciation, tbe total Spiritual Process, and Realization Itself.
[July 5, 1986]

12. The Way of the Heart, which only Avatara Adi Da has Revealed and Given, is the total practice of feeling-Contempladon of His bodily (human) Form, His Spiritual (and Always Blessing) Presence, and His Very (and Inherently Perfect) State—for Avatara Adi Da Is the Heart Itself, the Spiritual, Transcendental, and Divine Self-Condition of all beings. The Way of the Heart is founded throughout upon the fundamental Intelligence and Happiness that Bhagavan Adi Da has Revealed to be the present and ultimate Truth of Existence. It is thus a "radical", or priorly Enlightened, Way of Iife that paradoxically is demonstrated in progressive stages according to our present state of functional growth and awakening.

By devotional Contemplation of Bhagavan Adi Da, and by faithful fulfillment of His Instructions, the practioner of the Way of the Heart Awakens, by Grace, to the Realization that he or she, too, with all apparent beings, is only the Divine Heart, or Spiritual, Transcendental, and Divine Consciousness. The Way of the Heart is thus simply the Heart Itself, Who Embraces us as the Divine Master Adi Da.

13 and 30. Avatara Adi Da uses the term "Omega" to characterize the materialist culture that today dominates not only the Westem, or Occidental, world (which has brought the Omega strategy to its fullest development) but even most of the Eastern, or Oriental, world, which has now largely adopted the anti-Spiritual viewpoint typical of the West. The Omega strategy is motivated to the attainment of a future-time perfection and fulfillment of the conditional worlds through the intense application of human invention, political will, and even Divine Infuence. Its preference is for the limitation and suppression of attention, mystical devotion, and submission to the Divine Reality, while maximizing attention to the pursuit of experience and knowledge relative to the conditional reality.

Avatara Adi Da calls the characteristically Oriental, or Eastern, strategy the "Alpha strategy". Alpha cultures pursue an original or non-temporal and undisturbed peace, in which the world is absent (and thus unimposing). Although the cultures that were originally founded on the Alpha approach to Iife and Truth are fast disappearing, the Alpha strategy remains the conventional archetype of Spiritual Iife, even in the Omega culture. Its preference, in contrast to the Omega preference, is for the limitation and control (and even the suppression) of the activities of the conditional personality, or even of conditional reality altogether, and the maximization of attention, mystical devotion, and submission to the Divine Reality.

Neither the Omega strategy nor the Alpha strategy Realizes Truth, as each is rooted in the presumption of a problem relative to existence, and in the action of egoity itself—which motivates all human interests short of Divine Self-Realization.

For a complete discussion of the Omega and Alpha strategies and the Disposition that transcends them, see chapter eighteen of The Dawn Horse Testament Of Adi Da, or chapter nineteen of The (Shorter) "Testament Of Secrets" Of Adi Da [forthcoming]

14. This is the date of the initiation of Bhagavan Adi Da's Divine Emergence.

15. The True and Free renunciadon of which Avatara Adi Da is Speaking here, and which He Demonstrates, and to which He Calls all practitioners of the Way of the Heart, is not founded upon the Iife-negative, ascetical, and goal-oriented motive to escape conditional existence that has typified conventional Oriental Spirituality and, indeed, Oriental culture as a whole. Rather in the Way of the Heart, renunciation is the natural, spontaneous, and also necessary response to the dawning and developing Spiritual, Transcendental, and Divine Awakening Given by Avatara Adi Da's Divine Grace.

16. The term "radical" derives from the Latin "radix", meaning "root", and thus it principally means "irreducible", "fundamental", or "relating to the origin". Because Avatara Adi Da uses "radical" in this literal sense, it appears in quotation marks in His Wisdom-Teaching to distinguish His usage from the common reference to an extreme (often political) view.

In contrast to the developmental, egoic searches typically espoused by the world's religious and Spiritual traditions, the "radical" Way of the Heart Offered by Avatara Adi Da is established in the Divine Self-Condition of Reality, even from the very beginning of one's practice. Every moment of feeling-Contemplation of Avatara Adi Da, Who is the Realizer, the Revealer, and the Revelation of that radically Free Divine Self-Condition, undermines, therefore, the illusory ego at its root (the self-contraction in the heart), rendering the search not only unnecessary but obsolete, and awakening the devotee to the "radical" Intuition of the always already Free Condition."

17. "Tapas" is Sanskrit for "heat". The fire of self-frustrating discipline, rightly engaged, generates a heat that purifies the body-mind, transforms loveless habits, and liberates the practitioner from the bondage to ordinary egoic existence.

18. "Avadhoota" is a traditional term for one who has "shaken off" or "passed beyond" all worldly attachments and cares, including all motives of detachment (or conventional and other-worldly renunciation), all conventional notions of Iife and religion, and all seeking for "answers" or "solutions" in the form of conditional experience or conditional knowledge. Therefore, the Title "Avadhoota," when used in reference to Avatara Adi Da, indicates His Inherently Perfect Freedom as the One Who Knows His Identity with the Divine Person and who thus Always Already Stands Free of the binding and deluding power of conditional existence. Avatara Adi Da discusses this word at considerable length in "The Orders of My True and Free Renunciate Devotees", taking great care to distinguish His use and meaning from those it has taken on in its historical associations with individuals and sects that do not represent Most Perfect Divine Self-Realization.

19. At a gathering with practitioners on December 27, 1987, Avatara Adi Da stepped behind His Chair in Temple Adi Da, a large Hall at Adi Da Purnashram, and donned simple orange clothing offered to Him by one of His intimate devotees. Orange is associated with the Indian tradition of sannyas, or formal renunciation.

Bhagavan Adi Da has always been a Renunciate. By this formal announcement on this date, He further affirmed His Wisdom-Teaching to be complete and His Mere and Blessing Presence to be sufficient for the total Instruction, Realization, and Ultimate Divine Perfection of all who approach Him.

20. Avatara Adi Da usually Resides at His Great Sannyasin Hemmitage, Adi Da Purnashram (Naitauba), in Fiji. In general, only rightly prepared members of the Lay Renunciate Order and the Free Renunciate Order would come directly into Bhagavan Adi Da's physical Company. However, as He states in this paragraph, if others are rightly prepared and He so agrees, He may also invite members of the Lay Congregationist Order, or even any one at all, into His direct physical Company for the sake of Granting His Blessing Darshan to them.

21. The practical, functional, and relational disciplines common to every practicing stage of the Way of the Heart are adapted to, developed, and refined progressively in the course of one's practice. These forms of self-discipline are expressed as appropriate human action and responsibility for diet, health, exercise, sexuality, work, service to and support of Avatara Adi Da's Work, and cooperation in the fomal community of practitioners. The original, or most basic, cultural obligations of the Way of the Heart include all the sacred sacramental and meditative practices (including study of His Wisdom-Teaching, which is the foundation of meditative discipline, and also discriminative study of the Great Tradition of human practical, cultural, religious, esoteric Spiritual and Transcendental Wisdom), and regular participation in the form or schedule of daily, weekly, monthly, and annual devotional activities. The foundation disciplines and cultural obligations of the Way of the Heart have been thoroughly described in Avatara Adi Da's Wisdom-Teaching.

22. For fuller descriptions of all of Bhagavan Adi Da's Names and Titles, please see Aham Da Asmi.

23. Avatara Adi Da's use of the quotation marks around the termm "Practice" in reference to His own Demonstration of Divine Self-Realization, and to the self-transcending Spiritual, Transcendental, and Divine Self-Realization of all practitioners of the Way of the Heart in the seventh stage of Iife, indicates that He so uses the term in a uniquely "radical" fashion. While, in the Way of the Heart, the practices associated with stages of Iife and practice that precede Divine Self-Realization are founded in Heart-Communion with Bhagavan Adi Da, and thus in the intuitive Freedom, or Happiness, of seventh stage understanding, nevertheless, these practices are skill being applied by the bodily-based body-mind, or by the body-transcending mind, previous to the Perfect Realization of Divine Being. In other words, such disciplines counter tendencies that the psycho-physical being would otherwise automatically exploit.

In the seventh stage of Iife, the inherent Realization of Self-Existing and Self-Radiant Divine Consciousness becomes the Principle of all action, and body and mind are continuously and spontaneously Divinely Recognized as only modifications of that Perfect Consciousness. In this stage, the psycho-physical expression of Perfect God-Realizadon is thus, so to speak, a "Practice" only in the sense of simple action. It is not, in other words, a discipline countering any tendency that would otherwise dominate body and mind, but rather, in Bhagavan Adi Da's Words, a "Necessary or Inherent Demonstradon of the Wisdom, Bliss, Joy, Love, Freedom, and Fullness of Divine Self-Realization". In this sense, the Divinely Self-Realized Demonstration of Avatara Adi Da truly is, as He Confesses here, Most Perfect.

24. "Divine Recognition" is Avatara Adi Da's technical term for the self- and world-transcending Intelligence of the Divine Self in reladon to all conditional phenomena. In the seventh stage of Iife, the Realizer of the Divine Self simply Abides as Consciousness, and he or she Freely Recognizes, or inherently and Most Perfectly comprehends and perceives all phenomena (including body, mind, and conditional self) as (apparent) modifications of the same "Bright" Divine Consciousness.

25. "Sahaj" (or "Sahaja") is Sanskrit for "innate" or "natural". Typically, "natural" means conforming to laws within, or expressive of, conditional Nature. The term is even, at times, specifically used as an antonym of anything Spiritual, Transcendental, Divine, miraculous, supersensuous, or extraordinary. Avatara Adi Da uses it here with a contrary but nonetheless principal and "radical" meaning: "consonant with the nature or character of someone or something". The "Naturalness" of seventh stage Sahaj Samadhi is that it is entirely Free, unforced, and effortless, consonant with the Nature of Being Itself, Which is Self-Existing, Self-Radiant, and "Always Already The Case".

26. "Bubba Free John" was the Teaching Name that Avatara Adi Da adopted during the initial years of His Teaching-Revelation.

27. "Ishta" is Sanskrit for "chosen", or "most beloved". Traditionally, the Ishta of a Hindu household is the chosen Deity of that family line (whether the Ishta is acknowledged in the Form of a Great Guru or in the Form of a traditional and mythological God-lmage). Practitioners of the Way of the Heart choose Avatara Adi Da as their heart's own Ishta, the Perfect and Eternal Form of God. They honor and worship Him as Hridaya-Samartha Sat-Guru, the Divine Person Manifest as the human and Adept Revealer of Truth Itself (or of Being Itself). To embrace Avatara Adi Da as Ishta-Guru is to make the heart-choice of devotion to the Divine Person.

28. "Listening" is Avatara Adi Da's term for the beginner's "consideration" of His Teaching Argument and His Leelas (inspirational Stories of His Life and Work), and the beginner's practice of feeling-Contemplation of Him (primarily of His bodily human Form), which is to be engaged in the context of one's Iife of devotion, service, self-discipline, and meditation. Listening is mature when "hearing" occurs. See chapter nineteen of The Dawn Horse Testament Of Adi Da.

"Hearing" (or most fundamental self-understanding) is the unique capability to directly transcend the self-contraction, to such a degree that there is the simultaneous intuitive awakening to the Revelation of the Divine Person and Self-Condition.

Only on the basis of such hearing can Spiritually Awakened practice of the Way of the Heart truly (or with full responsibility) begin. Avatara Adi Da has said many times that when true hearing is realized, the rest of the process leading to Divine self-Realization, including the "Perfect Practice", can and should be very quick, cutting through all the stages of Iife previous to the seventh stage of Iife "like a hot knife through butter". See chapter nineteen of The Dawn Horse Testament Of Adi Da.

"Seeing" is Avatara Adi Da's technical term for His devotee's Spiritually activated conversion from self-contraction to His Spiritual (and Always Blessing) Presence, and the descent and circulation of His Spiritual Transmission in, through, and ultimately beyond the body-mind of His devotee. Seeing is the reorientation of conditional reality to the Unconditional and Divine Reality. Seeing is a prerequisite to Spiritual advancement in the Way of the Heart. See chapter twenty of The Dawn Horse Testament Of Adi Da.

29. Avatara Adi Da uses the term "seventh stage Sahaj Samadhi" to indicate the Coincidence, in unqualified self-transcending God-Realization, of the Unconditional, Inherently Spiritual, and Transcendental Divine Reality with conditional reality. It is the Inherent, or Native, and thus truly "Natural" State of Being. Seventh stage Sahaj Samadhi, then, is pemanent, Unconditional Divine Self-Realization, free of dependence on any form of meditation, effort, discipline, experience, or conditional knowledge.

"Sahaj Samadhi" (in the sense of a "natural" state of ecstasy) is a term also used in various esoteric traditions (of the fourth, the fifth, and the sixth stages of Iffe) to refer to a state of Realization that is continuous even during moments of ordinary occupation. What is called "Sahaj Samadhi" in these traditions is described by Avatara Adi Da as "fourth stage 'Sahaj Samadhi'", or "fifth stage 'Sahaj Samadhi'", or "sixth stage 'Sahaj Samadhi'". In The Basket of Tolerance, He Writes that in fourth stage "Sahaj Samadhi" or fifth stage "Sahaj Samadhi", "the 'point of view' toward Reality is based on either the memory or the residual effects or something of the perpetuation of conditionally attained fourth stage or fifth stage ecstasy . . " and that "philosophical presumptions and expressions arise that resemble, but do not otherwise achieve, either sixth stage or seventh stage characteristic expressions or Realizations."

He further Says that sixth stage "Sahaj Samadhi" is "a matter of deeply Abiding in the basically and tacitly object-excluding (and, thus, conditionally achieved) sixth stage Realization of the Transcendental Self-Condition, while otherwise naturally experiencing the natural arising of mental and physical objects, and naturally allowing the perfomance of mental and physical activities."

Sixth stage "Sahaj Samadh"i, moreover, "is the basis for the apparent premonitions, or partial intuitions and limited foreshadowings, of the seventh stage of Iife that have sometimes been expressed within the traditional sixth stage schools...."

In contrast, seventh stage Sahaj Samadhi is the Unconditional and Eternal Realization of the Divine.

Avatara Adi Da also refers to seventh stage Sahaj Samadhi as "seventh stage Sahaja Nirvikalpa Samadhi", indicating that it is the "Open-Eyed" Realization of the formless (Nirvikalpa) State.

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