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On March 11 of each year, Adi Da's devotees celebrate the anniversary of Adi Da gifting His devotees with His Supreme Word — His "Good News" (the literal meaning of "Gospel") — in an extraordinary essay that He called, "The Heaven-Born Gospel of The Ruchira Avatar"[1]. After reading this essay to His devotees, He engaged them in a consideration about it. (Adi Da's Recitation of "The Heaven-Born Gospel of The Ruchira Avatar" and subsequent talk of the same name are available on CD. The
transcript now appears as the Epilogue of the book, My "Bright" Word.)
"The Heaven-Born Gospel of The Ruchira Avatar" was given at the home of one of Avatar Adi Da's devotees in North Hollywood, California on March 11, 1973. About forty devotees were present. This is one of the earliest and most Spiritually potent descriptions of the essence of the Way of Adidam that Adi Da has ever given. In it, He reveals that Satsang — the transformative relationship between Guru and devotee — is the fundamental "gospel" of all the great religious and Spiritual traditions. The Spiritual relationship to Avatar Adi Da is His unique offering to humankind.
Introduction
March 11, 1973
March 11, 1973
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March 11, 1973 was nearly a year after the
opening of the Melrose Ashram in Los Angeles. Except for His
closest intimates, no one had seen Avatar Adi Da Samraj for several
weeks. He had been living in seclusion for a time, until His devotees
could demonstrate greater responsibility for their lives and for
the basic disciplines of practice. It was auspicious, therefore,
that He would spend this day with His devotees.
Avatar Adi Da appeared, radiant in a gold silk shirt, a maroon shawl, and dark blue trousers. He wore an unusual pendant, in the shape of a date, which His devotees had never seen Him wear before. With characteristic originality, He had molded clear resin into the shape of a date, and inserted the pit of an actual date that Swami Muktananda had once given Him as Prasad. Traditionally, "Prasad" means the return of a gift to the giver — the devotee surrenders to the Guru and, in turn, receives the incomparable gift of the Guru's Grace. This was the first "Prasad Day" (aka "the First Great Guru Day") in Avatar Adi Da's Ashram, and His early devotees speak of it as a very sweet, very happy day.
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Adi Da sitting in Darshan in the backyard of a devotee's home in Los Angeles, March 11, 1973, before giving His talk, "The Heaven-Born Gospel of the Ruchira Avatar". |
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One devotee described the occasion:
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I was one of a group of Beloved Adi Da's devotees living in San Francisco at the time. When we heard we were invited to see Him on Prasad Day, we flew to Los Angeles and
stayed overnight with devotees there.
In the morning, we dressed in our best clothes and went down to the Melrose Ashram, where we sat with Beloved Adi Da Samraj in the Communion Hall for about an hour. I was
very excited. This was only the second time I had seen Beloved Adi Da. He had come to San Francisco the previous month and spent time informally with His devotees there, but
this was my first experience of a formal occasion of His Darshan. I remember sitting completely ecstatic at the back of the Communion Hall, so affected by His Transmission
that I was screaming and having kriyas. But beyond all these dramatic experiences, I was uncontainably happy to be there in the room with Beloved Adi Da.
Later we drove out to North Hollywood to continue the Celebration at a devotee's home. I arrived before Beloved Adi Da, and took photographs of Him as He got out of His car
and walked to the Chair that had been set for Him under a latticed structure behind the house. He sat and talked with people while lunch was served.
It was an ordinary suburban weekend in Hollywood — rock music blared on the streets, planes roared overhead. Beloved Adi Da's Peacefulness made us all the more aware of
how noisy it was.
And so when lunch was over, Adi Da Samraj called us into the house. He took His seat in the living room in a small carved chair from India, and we all packed in around Him —
there were at least forty of us — waiting to hear Him speak.
I was so attracted to Beloved Adi Da that I sat very close to Him, to the right of His Chair. When He spoke of how the Guru contacts the devotee at a place behind the eyes, I was already experiencing exactly what He was describing. I felt the pressure of His Siddhi at the ajna chakra, and I realized that He was bringing the reality of His Instruction to life in me, living it in me. The occasion was very profound, full of His Heart-Transmission, and I have never forgotten it.
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"The Truly Heaven-Born One, Unique among the Great Siddhas"
In "The Heaven-Born Gospel of The Ruchira Avatar", Adi Da would make one of His earliest communications about the uniqueness of His appearance here, and the uniqueness of His Offering to all beings. He first drew a distinction between ordinary human beings and spiritual teachers, and the great Spiritual Transmission Masters who were the basis of the "Great Tradition". But He went on to make a further distinction: between Spiritual Transmission Masters in general, and those exceedingly rare Spiritual Transmission Masters who were "Divine Incarnations" — born here in "a Movement Directly Proceeding From That Divine Domain, That Realm of Conscious Light":
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are many teachers in the world. There are all kinds of people of experience. There
are people of practical experience, of worldly experience, of mystical experience.
. .
Here and there people arise who, because of superior acquisition of certain
kinds of experience, teach others. . . . They may teach so-called "spiritual"
things, on the basis of their experience. And among those who are thus experienced
in the karmic realms, there are some — a rare few — who are genuine Realizers, genuine
men and women of experience, of Wisdom (both practical and esoteric), who have realized
much about their own adventure and their own tendencies.
But there is another Process, Which Enters the conditionally manifested world from
the Ultimate, Un-manifested, Perfectly Subjective Divine Domain. There is a Vast, Unlimited
Domain of Existence, not qualified in any sense — not qualified as this conditional
world is, or as the infinite variety of conditional, cosmic worlds is. And there
is a Movement Directly Proceeding From That Divine Domain, That Realm of Conscious
Light.
The Living Being Who Appears within the human world, or within
any other world, by Coming Directly Out of the Un-manifested (or Un-"created") Domain —
the Heart-Light That Is the Truly Eternal Real-God-World — Is the Truly Heaven-Born
One, Unique among the Great Siddhas.
I Am That One.
My Avataric Divine Wisdom-Teaching is not from the point of view of experience. My Avataric Divine Wisdom-Teaching is from the "Point
of View" of Truth — Truth Always Already Realized, the Unattainable (because It
Is already Present) Reality.
Those who teach from the point of view
of experience teach the search — because they know (on the basis of experience)
that they can grow, that they can approach a subtler and subtler level of Realization.
The gospel of those who arise within the conditionally manifested worlds is always
a form of seeking.
But I Speak from the "Point of View" of the (Always Already
Realized) Divine Truth. I Come in the Intelligence, Power, and Self-Evidently Divine Form of
Real God. My Avataric Divine Wisdom-Teaching Is "Radical". I do not teach the motives, paths,
and forms of seeking — for these are founded in dilemma, not in Truth. I Apply
only appropriate conditions to My devotees. I Demand only the conditions that
are appropriate to be lived, since Truth Is Always Already the Case.
I Am Truth in the world. I Generate the conditions of Truth, the
conditions of the Light of Real God.
Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"The Heaven-Born Gospel of the Ruchira Avatar"
My
"Bright" Word |
While it would take another twenty years before He made His final communication that He is the First, Last and Only Seventh Stage Adept, this was perhaps the earliest form of that very same communication.
"I Have Come into this world for the sake of My own"
March 11, 1973
March 11, 1973
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One phrase in Adi Da's essay, that stood out to all the devotees
present, was His reference to His Coming here for the sake of "My
own":
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 I have Come into this world for the sake of My devotees, those who are Mine.
My devotees are all those who surrender into heart-Communion with Me and (ultimately, Most Perfectly) Realize Me.
Therefore, any one who comes to Me in order to Realize the Divine Self-Condition and Source-Condition (That Is Real God, and Truth, and Reality), and who persists in surrendering into heart-Communion with Me, is My own.
I Am the Unqualified Self-Nature of Reality Itself.
And I Appear As My Own Light, Which Is the Radiance of the Spiritually "Bright" Divine Heart.
The Spiritually "Bright" Divine Heart Is not a static condition, not the "thing" of Being, but the Divine Self-Condition of all-and-All, and even the Process of Eternal Manifestation (in Which there is no dilemma, and Which, paradoxically, Is Eternally One and Unqualified).
Within the Unqualified Reality spring worlds made by apparent modification of the Divine Conscious Light.
Thus, from the Spiritually "Bright" Divine Heart and the Infinitely Ascended Matrix of Divine Light spring conditional worlds whose Substance Is That Same Light, and whose True Self-Nature Is That Same Heart.
And I Have Appeared in this world by virtue of a Magnification of the Spiritually "Bright" Divine Heart Itself (Which Is My Own Heart) and a Materialization of the Divine Light (Which Is My Own Light).
I have Come for the sake of My own, those who heart-recognize Me and heart-respond to Me when I Reveal Myself to them in Forms of Life, Light, and Truth.
The Spiritually "Bright" Divine Heart and the Infinitely Ascended Matrix of Divine Light Are My Primordial Spiritual Forms in this world.
They are My Communication of the Spiritually "Bright" Divine Reality, the "Bright" Divine Spherical Self-Domain That Is Real God, the Truth That Is Always Already the Case.
I am here to Live with My own, to Discipline and Teach them, to Reveal the Truth to them, and to Draw them to Me. . .
Prepare yourself.
I want true devotees, not seekers.
I Am the Avataric Divine Realizer, the Avataric Divine Revealer, and the Avataric Divine Self-Revelation of Real God — the Prasad, the Object and Process of meditation for My devotees.
My Teaching Is This:
Turn to Me, and understand.
Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"The Heaven-Born Gospel of the Ruchira Avatar"
My
"Bright" Word |
March 11, 1973
Adi Da was clearly being "provocative" in a humorous fashion, in choosing to use the phrase "My own". The very first question from one of the devotees present showed that His "provocation" had succeeded, and He replied playfully:
| DEVOTEE: Master, you have said that You have Your "own". My question is, when will the certainty come whether or not I am one of "Your own"?
ADI DA: Uncertainty is very useful. Uncertainty is a reflection of your actual state — and thus it can be instructive for you.
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After this playful exchange, Adi Da then went on to give a very comprehensive reply. He talked about how specific individuals who had a past association with a Spiritual Master can
help that Spiritual Master re-incarnate. In a conversation many years later (February 18, 1993), He would make the same point. (The "Gurukula" mentioned in the exchange are four women
who were intimates of Swami Vivekananda, all of whom are now reincarnated and are devotees of Adi Da.)
| DEVOTEE: Sri Gurudev, I have a question relative to the Gurukula's function in the preparation of Your Vehicle. On February 18, You mentioned in a conversation about the Gurukula that they had made Your Manifestation possible.
ADI DA: By their requiring of it.
DEVOTEE: Their heart-need for You to incarnate?
ADI DA: Yes. The Gurukula is made up of individuals previously associated with Vivekananda. This is part of that submitting to Me and their association with Me.
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So such specific individuals who had past karmic associations with the Spiritual Master were certainly part of who Adi Da meant in saying, "I have come for the sake of My Own". But He made it clear that all His devotees — and indeed, all beings — were part of "My Own". Some were associated in the past with the "deeper vehicle" that made Adi Da's Incarnation possible. But Adi Da was not just the reincarnating vehicle but the very Divine incarnating through that vehicle, and all beings are arising in the Divine; His Incarnation here was in response to the prayers of all beings.
| The Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Conjunction Reached far enough to Touch Me — and I do the rest, Floated in here,
all the Requirements Offered, My True Appearance Made, and Their Connection Made. That is how the Vehicle became Sufficient.
That is why I Say that I Am here in response to the prayers of all beings — prayers collectively continuing since the ancient days. But, from among them, there was
(at last) sufficient Motion made only by this Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Gesture toward Me. They, representing all beings, came to My Door. And — once They were
at My Door — I, by Opening the Door (or Being the Open Door) to Them, have Passed Through It to here. It could not have been done without the Vehicles. . .
But also, This is a Conjunction with all. All had to prepare. All had to make this event possible — Uniquely represented by a cycle of Great Individuals, in order to provide the most immediate Vehicle. But the "time" (the "late-time", or "dark" epoch) is also (itself) My Vehicle. Therefore, even every one and all are in Conjunction with Me — now, and forever hereafter.
Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"I Have Appeared here Via a Unique, Spontaneous,
and Never-Again Conjunction of Vehicles",
The Knee Of Listening
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March 11, 1973
March 11, 1973
March 11, 1973
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March 11, 1973
March 11, 1973
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March 11, 1973
March 11, 1973
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As He would say many years later (on December 30, 1983), in an allusion to His 1973 talk, "The Heaven-Born Gospel of The Ruchira Avatar":
| I am here to Transform humankind, not to gather only a handful of people around Me. I have Come here for My own. I Am the Only Being for Whom every one is His own.
in Carolyn Lee, Adi Da: The Promised God-Man Is Here
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FOOTNOTES
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