The Teaching Years Were "Fruitless"
Mulund has been a devotee of Avatar Adi Da since the earliest years of Adi Da's Work in Los Angeles. He was a corporate attorney at the time he was introduced to Avatar Adi Da, and he has been the principal attorney for Adidam for over 25 years. Note:
"Mulund" is the name given to Michael by Avatar Adi Da, and so we use this name
here. Mulund:
Adi Da's Work during that time began like this: In 1972 He would sit in His chair in the Ashram in Los Angeles and Transmit only the purest Divine Blessings. He observed that we could receive and enjoy something of what He was Transmitting. But He also saw that we weren’t growing — we weren’t making real use of what He gave us. So He began talking to us as well. He would sit in silence but He would also talk, He would instruct, He would answer questions. And He continued to see no significant change in us, because we were so caught up in the karmas that we brought to Him — karmas of self-fulfillment, of a bodily based possibility. So, since we couldn't "come to Him" — even though He was sitting in the room with us — He began coming to us. He began the Teaching Years, in which He would identify with everything in us and begin to live like us and with us. It was the most remarkable thing — because you hear about things like people having parties with Him and so forth. Well, even the word “party” — what we mean when we use the word “party” is that He was living like us. He was finding things we were interested in doing, that we were able to bring some passion and attention and energy to. But in the midst of that, He also would always be calling us to Him As He Is, as His Divine State. He continued His attempt to evoke in us the capacity to feel and contemplate Who He Is, so that He could draw us beyond the karma, beyond the mind. Where on Earth do you find anything that invites you to self-transcending God-Realization? Nowhere, nowhere in my experience, except at the Feet of Beloved Adi Da Samraj. Everywhere else you find experiential possibilities. And whether they look like extravagant self-indulgence or the tempered mediocrity of middle class life, or even traditionally ascetical approaches to escaping the futility of life, they are just a vast array of experiential choices that are literally ultimately about self-fulfillment — even self-fulfillment in the higher realms of ascended human possibility, Yogic possibility, but self-fulfillment nonetheless. Beloved Adi Da has never called anybody to any of that. He’s always called everybody beyond all of that, all of it, all of it.So for several days recently [August 1990], Beloved Adi Da spoke about what all His Teaching Years were about, what He did with us, and why. And He talked about how there came a time when everything combined to end the Teaching Work in the event of His Divine Emergence on January 11, 1986. What He said was "the Teaching Years were fruitless". But then He went on to explain what He meant. He said that the Leelas [stories] of His Work with His devotees in those years do serve a great purpose. So it's not that the years of His Teaching Work were wrong — they were necessary. He said that His Teaching Years were His "Consideration" of the entire Way of Adidam and of everything that is fruitful to the purpose of Divine Self-Realization. And He said that, as a result of His Work during that time, He proved that the activities that constitute the searches of humankind are fruitless. What Avatar Adi Da proved to be fruitless was the search, because He exhaustively and creatively allowed us to search high and low, and He Divinely inspired us in that search. Suddenly mommy and daddy weren’t telling you you couldn’t do something. The "Teaching Years" were a fabulous, ribald, wonderful, glorious, sometimes sober, sometimes mad adventure. And at the end of it, He had clearly demonstrated that everything in us that was the search, and everything it would lead to, was fruitless. I can confess that from the depths of my heart. I’m a person born in the United States of America in the 20th century, born to search [laughter] and born to fulfill much of the materialist search that is possible. He allowed me to search and to be fulfilled far beyond my wildest expectations [laughter], and at the end of it there is the possibility of getting the lesson that you cannot be become happy or totally fulfilled through any seeking at all. You can only already be happy. This is what He calls "the lesson of life" and which can mark the beginning of Spiritual practice. Adi Da
added that, during
His Teaching Years, He
also proved that various remedies that are often
and traditionally proposed are fruitless. So
He also proved fruitless all the things you’re inclined to do when you see the
fruitlessness of the first things you were inclined to do. Even when you see,
with those in the East, that bodily based life is fruitless, and you’re then inclined
to go to the cave, He would crawl right back in the cave with you and show you
the fruitlessness of that, because you know the Teaching years weren’t just us
drinking beer and having sex and stuff. They were also about Nirvikalpa
Samadhi [one of the most exhalted and treasured of Spiritual experiences].
One time around 1980, I was sitting with Beloved Adi Da in Bright Behind Me [Adi Da Samraj's residence at the time] with about 20 people, and it was about dawn. And He was talking about the esoteric instruction of Jesus. And He was saying that there’s at least one point of view that when Jesus spoke about the morning star, he was speaking allegorically about the "blue bindu" of ascended Yogic experience, the "blue pearl" [a very blissful Spiritual experience some Yogis say is associated with the realization of Consciousness Itself]. And what Jesus would do is spend these occasions with his disciples in his tent, and he would raise them up to this ascended realization of the morning star. And of course as Beloved Adi Da is speaking this, I begin to perceive this vision. Even though I am looking at Him, suddenly I am contemplating this star, the blue bindu. It is as if I am at the feet of Jesus in 1980, I’m having the experience of the blue pearl. Now this is what I sometimes feel nostalgic for about the Teaching years, because on that particular morning I can’t imagine where in manifest existence would have been a more wonderful place to be than sitting there being gifted with this revelation of the blue pearl. And Beloved Adi Da said to me, “Do you see that?” And I said, “Yeah.” And He said, “Describe it.” So I described it, and He said, “Yes, that’s it.” And He said, “Now tell me everything you feel about it,” and I talked about how I felt about it. And He said, “Now do you feel the limit in it?” And I felt the limit in it. And I knew that my capacity to feel the limit in it was something He was also giving me in that moment, just as the capacity to see it was His gift to me that in the moment. So there I was having an ascended experience as a gift from Him and also seeing the limits as a gift from Him.Well the same thing in other occasions, having some delightful food possibility or sexual possibility — always Him showing the limits and the fruitlessness of the search. To continue with Beloved Adi Da's communication: He said that the years of His Teaching Work (and the summary of that time) are a demonstration and a proof of a great lesson, which He has called the "Lesson of life". He said that when He first began to teach, devotees came to Him with all kinds of expectations and demands and disabilities relative to the process of Realization. It very quickly became clear to Him that such devotees would not be able to make use of Him without His first entering into a "grand Play" with them, through which they would be relieved of their seeking. That Liberating Play was the basis for the years of His Teaching Work. So in this sense, Adi Da said, it was inevitable that the Work of His Teaching Years would "fail" — because the "consideration" of this period was of seeking, and all seeking is fruitless. He said that the years of His Teaching Work were a "grand Submission" on His part, in which He Gave to humankind the "Lesson of life" as a free Gift. He indicated that it is a Gift from Him that can be received by anyone who will rightly and truly study the demonstration of His Teaching Work and the stories of the Blessings He is presently offering devotees via the Way of Adidam. He said that, since the Initiation of His Divine Self-Emergence (and by Means of that Great Yogic Event), He has come to a "Firm Stand" in relationship to all present and potential practitioners of the Way of Adidam, and that as a result, His Work during the Teaching Years now can truly serve everyone in perpetuity. Adi Da said that as a consequence of His Work during the Teaching Years and His summary of that Work, His devotees don't have to go through a long (and self-indulgent) process of analyzing themselves. He said that all they need to do now is to examine the stories of His Work of Teaching and of Blessing, and, in a simple and intelligent manner, study His Word of Divine Confession and Blessing Instruction. This, Adi Da says, is sufficient to establish a basis for a right and true practice of the Way of Adidam. What Adi Da has been saying is the gift He has to give us since the Divine Emergence is that in our Spiritual resort to Him, in our resort to Him in practice, He now creates the opportunity for us to move beyond ourselves into His State. But in that process we’re always also constantly having our ego reflected to us, our tendencies reflected to us, whatever is inhibiting our Communion with Him — without Him having to do anything. We do not have to duplicate the Teaching Years. We simply have to turn to Him. |
I'd
like to present to you some Communications from Beloved Adi Da about the years
of His Teaching Work. 
| Quotations
from and/or photographs of Avatar Adi Da Samraj used by permission of the copyright
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