Practical Lessons in the Way of Adidam > Lived By The Divine

Lived By The Divine

Roger Briggs

Roger Briggs is the founder and CEO of Naptech, a company specializing in refurbishing electronic testing equipment for resale. He has been a devotee of Adi Da for many years. He lives in Northern Califonia.

Roger Briggs While on retreat in 2003 at the Da Love-Ananda Mahal Sanctuary in Kuaui, I began to feel a blissful energy pervading my head at times. The feeling was very attractive to me and I wanted to feel it more.

Soon after returning home (in Northern California), I began to realize I could help that energy to flow intentionally and could feel it at will by kind of sucking the bodily energy up into my head. From there it felt like it pervaded the nerves and ventricles all over in the head and brain area, and it was a blissful feeling.

It was so attractive to me and I thought it was part of the process for me such that I would feel it all day long every day for several years from the time I got up and meditated in the morning until the time I meditated and went to bed in the evening. I remember falling into a trance-like state sometimes at work while sitting at my desk.

I realize now that I had made my practice of the Way of Adidam be about feeling that blissful energy and hoping it would lead to more and better — rather than turning whole bodily to Avatar Adi Da from the heart. At that time, I figured it was part of the process for me: since it felt blissful, I figured that must be a good sign.

But I realize now that I was actually manipulating the energy to feel that bliss. . . even though I knew nothing about kundalini or other bodily energies. I had somehow stumbled across a way to feel it regularly and pretty much constantly all day long every day.

On retreat in September and October, 2006, I was involved in this process also. I remember having a special Darshan with Bhagavan Adi Da in a room where there were only three retreatants, the two RSO members, and a few of His attendants. We offering gifts to Him in the room. He looked at each of the retreatants for some time. I was sitting alone on one side of the room. When He looked at me, it was for a long time, with a very intense look on His face. He seemed to be looking above my head mostly. I had the distinct feeling that He was seeing something about my future over the top of my head. I remember He looked timeless with that glance. He looked like He was when He was in His 30's (even though He was actually now in His mid 60's). It was a timeless and very serious look.

One night, I think one or two days after I returned home from that retreat, I was simply standing in my room when I felt something (it felt like nerves) in the left temple area burst or collapse. I had no idea what was actually happening there, but it seemed like a very serious problem. I could no longer draw the blissful energy up into my head. It felt blocked in the left temple area and the pressure would build up behind it and feel like a quite painful knot of pressure. I continued meditating in the way I was accustomed to, but the energy was now blocked regardless of how much I meditated and tried to get beyond that knot. The energy had become a part of my being, and now it seemed like I could not return to the kind of solid character I had depended on being most of my life. I felt very devastated and almost dysfunctional.

In 2007, I finally wrote to Beloved Adi Da about this (although I didn't tell Him about the manipulation of energy I had been involved with for several years). I asked for His Love and Blessings. He responded saying that, perhaps rather than dealing with it as an energy or spiritual phenomena, I should have it looked at medically with an MRI and see doctors who specialize in chemical imbalances like Dr. Allen in Los Angeles. So soon after, I had an MRI and CT scan done. I was surprised when the imaging results did not show anything unusual going on in the left temple area. I also did see Dr. Allen a few times and he prescribed various supplements and anti-depressants. I was diagnosed with major clinical depression. I was very depressed, and felt like crying much of the time.

It was also difficult at work — not only because I felt pretty dysfunctional, but also because my business (Naptech) was failing. EBay had started taking over the used test equipment business I was in, and I now had hundreds of competitors selling the same kind of equipment we sold, and at half the price. The prices for the equipment we had in the warehouse plummeted over the next several years and we lost a lot of money. We went from 25 employees down to 4 over the next 10 years or so and I had to lay off many employees, something I really did not want to do, but had to in order to stay in business. We also had a large bank loan of over 1.2 million dollars we had to pay off. If we were unable to pay them back I was concerned they would come after everything I personally owned as banks will try to do. This went on for years. Around 2012 or so, the bank was finally paid off. However, we still had financial problems.

Health-wise, I saw many different healers over the years. I received acupuncture treatments every week for one to two years. I saw neurologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, medical intuitives, Amen clinic, etc. I tried for many years to find a cure for this problem. The knot in my left temple seemed to always be there regardless of what I did — moment by moment, hour by hour, day by day, year after year. I kept track of the years as they continued from October 2006 onward. I took many different antidepressants over the years, but none of them seemed to help very much. Some made me feel even more disassociated.

Around 2012, I found a doctor who prescribed hydrocodone (an opiate) for the pain and Xanax for the anxiety. These did seem to help the pain and my mood so I continued taking them for many years. They were really the only drugs I found that were effective. I was taking more and more of the opiates over the years to get the relief I desired. I did try to get back to Beloved Adi Da in 2008 to tell Him the MRIs showed nothing abnormal and that the things the doctors prescribed didn't seem to help much either. But His Divine Mahasamadhi occurred before my letter reached Him. I continued to meditate in the way I had become accustomed to, hoping eventually it would break through or go beyond the knot.

Even with the medication, my life seemed miserable. I began to think I might be better off dying and being reborn in a normal body-mind that could experience at least some natural happiness. I actually hoped and prayed that I would die naturally of some disease. Almost anything seemed like it would be better than the situation I was in.

I became so disturbed by my situation that, one night, I decided to take the rest of the bottle of opiates and Xanax. I went to bed hoping for the best. I did not wake up the next morning and my wife found me in a coma. She could not wake me up. She called an ambulance and they took me to Redbud Hospital.

I was in a coma for about three days. Then I awoke in the ICU at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital. All the same problems I had before were right there again. The knot in my head and problems with my business were all still there. It became obvious to me that suicide was no solution and that there was something more I needed to learn in life. The only thing I remember from the coma was that it seemed very peaceful and no pain. I understand my heart almost stopped beating during that time and I did almost die.

They kept me in the hospital for several days, and then handcuffed me and took me out on a stretcher in an ambulance to another place called Aurora which is a psyche ward. They kept me there behind locked doors for about a week, until they felt I was well enough to leave. The people in the hospital and in the psyche ward were mostly very nice and kind people.

After they released me, I came home and back to work, etc. It was very difficult for me, but what else could I do? I went back to my doctor and was surprised when he refilled my prescriptions for opioids and Xanax. I continued on with my life in this fashion, not really knowing what else to do. I would usually run out of the drugs after about three weeks and would refer to the fourth week as "hell week" since I would have no drugs to pacify myself with until I could refill the prescription.

One day while driving to Santa Rosa for medical reasons, I got pulled over by the police. They said someone had complained about my driving. I freely admitted the drugs I was taking. Since they were prescription drugs, I thought that it wouldn't be a problem. However, they did some tests with me and then arrested me for DUI, and put me in jail for the day. I had to go to DUI school for several months after that. I tried to quit the drugs after that, but it was very difficult.

So I continued on with my hellish life. I went to work every day, because I didn't want things to get even worse. I continued looking for a cure for my illness and symptoms, and eventually got into the UCSF Headache Clinic in San Francisco and was seeing Dr. Levin, the head doctor of the clinic. I told him my symptoms and he said he really didn't know what was wrong with me, but he wanted to try some remedies to see if they would help. He didn't think it was a migraine. There is a headache called hemocrania continua, which is very rare but it is a persistent headache on one side of the head that is there all the time. This had some resemblance to my symptoms. So he tried Endomethican on me. If it works, it means you have hemocrania continua. However it did not work for me. They also tried medicine for trigeminal nueralgia since the trigeminal nerves are right in the area that was knotted up in my left temple. That didn't work either. I told the doctor I thought it may be a result of too much pressure being forced through the nerves for so many years, a case of kundalini gone wrong. He had no idea what I was talking about.

My abdominal pain and constipation from using the opioids and Xanax for all those years was becoming quite bad and I felt quite certain that if I continued using them, I would die a slow death from the damage they were doing on my internal organs. So around January 2018, I decided to quit taking the drugs. I felt so miserable and awful, with no hope for getting better that I felt I might as well be dead without the drugs. But I had already tried dying, and it was no solution.

Relax, nothing is under control.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj

The possibility of true spiritual life, or participation in the graceful process of liberation in the prior, Divine Reality, begins only when there is conviction in the functions of life and intelligence of the inherent suffering of manifest existence (its essential dilemma or self-contradictory condition) and the fruitlessness of all destiny and action to produce liberation or true happiness (since all action is separative, self-defining, and a realization of limitation). . . . When the conviction of suffering and hopelessness matures to the point of profound psychic and psychological disorientation from the conventional theatre of experience, ordinary or extraordinary, so that there is heightened sensitivity to the intuition and influence of the Divine Reality, then the individual becomes circumstantially related to the stream of true Teaching and, at last, to the direct influence of the manifest Guru.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, Epilogue, No Remedy

Everything was the same or worse when I came back, and I knew I had more lessons to learn about life. So instead of physically dying, I thought: I don't really care what happens to "me" anymore — so why not just allow whatever happens to occur spontaneously in each moment, with no more concerns about what happens to "me"?

Soon after, I felt everything was just arising spontaneously. It became a wonderful feeling, a deep intuition that I was being "Lived by the Divine". This intuition continued, hour after hour. When I awoke the next morning, I still felt that I was being "Lived by the Divine". This state had a vague feeling of familiarity to it, like I had felt this way at some time in the distant past, but I couldn't remember when in this lifetime. It was a wonderful feeling of peacefulness, without concerns for what might occur in the future or even in the next moment. It felt like this body-mind was just part of whatever was arising in the moment, moment by moment, and not really separate from anything except of course there was still an apparently separate body-mind. Feelings of fear and doubt still did arise, but I realized I could allow them to arise and simply feel completely whatever was arising, and they would come and go as I felt and breathed through them. I realized that this was a Blessing, and had everything to do with Adi Da and His Teaching. It continued for three or four days. My head would still feel knotted sometimes but when I'd relax and forget about it, sometimes I'd hardly notice it at all. I was no longer concerned about it, or anything at all. After about four days in this Blessed State, I thought I'd add some opiates back into the mix; perhaps my head was a little more bothersome at that time. But then I noticed this deep intuition of being "Lived by thje Divine" fading — and I really didn't want to go back to my concerns and all that suffering.

So I pretty much permanently gave up the drugs at that time and I also realized I was always being "Lived by the Divine". Not just for those few days as an experience of some sort, but that was always the true condition — not only for "me" but for everyone. Everyone and everything is arising in the Divine, moment to moment. I only wanted to continue this practice and not fall back into my old patterns again of concern for "myself". Reading Adi Da's Teaching, it seemed very clearly to be what He called the practice of feeling to infinity and remaining open, the process of self-transcendence, the sacrifice of the separate self sense.

My life remained pretty much the same. I continued to attend to my business each day. Everything proceeded in the same way as before except now my very most primary interest was to continue practicing this feeling and breathing of Avatar Adi Da as much as possible, regardless of whatever else I was obliged to do. It became very clear to me that the life of egoic self-concern was suffering, and I wanted nothing to do with it anymore.

I started the day by waking up and saying to myself (using Beloved Adi Da's words): "Get out of bed and drop dead" — in other words drop all concerns, like "I want this", "I need that", "what should I do?", "me" this, "me" that. Drop anything having to do with "I" or "me" and simply feel and breathe whatever was arising in any moment.

Then most mornings, I'd go over to the Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary to attend meditation or the puja and it felt clearly like the best way to start the day. Beloved Adi Da's Teaching made so much sense and I could relate to every word He said now. The vow of "Always invoke Me, breathe Me, feel Me, and serve Me", "Always turn body, emotion, mind and breath to Me", "Always commune with Me, ever present, never absent, and always Love-Blissful" were things I'd recall at random throughout the day especially in difficult moments or when I wasn't feeling Him as deeply.

I began feeling more of the feelings of Happiness and Love more of the time and more deeply. I dropped more concerns for "myself" and my success or future in life, and really just wanted to primarily continue in this process of feeling Him more and deeper in whatever I may be obliged to do like go to work each day, etc. The pain in my left temple would come and go, but I wasn't concerned about it anymore. In fact I now regarded the knot in my left temple area to be a blessing, because I no longer really had any options except to practice or otherwise suffer the conditional self and all the problems, concerns, dilemma, and struggling that went with it. I really didn't want to have anything to do with it anymore, and realized what a Blessing the practice actually was. The Happiness and Love-Bliss I felt through practice was of a different nature altogether than I had ever experienced before.

I can clearly say that the past year (2018) was the best and happiest year of my life. In addition to all that I've described, my business actually had a very good year for the first time in years, without the need for me to be concerned and struggle every day. We lost our salesperson and shipping person at the end of 2017. I became the only salesperson and we actually did much better in 2018 without the other employees.

I feel so fortunate to have Beloved Adi Da's Teaching, Blessing, and Grace in my life to guide me in this process with Him. I realize that, never before in the history of mankind, has this completely full Seventh-Stage Teaching been given — this possibility to completely transcend yourself and be transformed through Adi Da's Grace. Everything before Adi Da appeared was only suffering in the first six stages of life (and almost entirely in the first three stages of egoic existence for the vast majority of humankind). Now with His Teaching, there is another wonderful option available that the vast majority of humankind still knows nothing about.

How much you throw into the Fire while you live determines whether you Realize Divine Translation or pass into other [lesser] possibilities.

Into what realm of possibilities? How much closer to the core of the Cosmic Mandala?

Again, how much did you throw into the Fire, for real, not merely as a ritual representation of the sacrifice but doing it, being it, without withholding, utterly self-submitted, utterly self-forgotten, more and more profoundly, every day of your life?

This is the work of My devotee. This is true life. . .

Throw yourself into the Fire! If you are merely cast into it, you only suffer it. The only way not to merely suffer in the sacrifice is to participate in it, to volunteer to be conformed to the Law. I am here to tell you, to show you, to Demonstrate to you, that you need have no fear about participating in the sacrifice. It leads to Realization Ultimately. There is Only God.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"Throw Yourself in the Fire", January 15, 1994, Ishta