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| The Forerunners |
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Starting in the 1970s, Avatar
Adi Da would occasionally speak to His devotees about the pre-history
of His present birth—of the unique conjunction of events it
had required. He, the One come for all beings, could not appear
until the mid-twentieth century—when the world had grown “smaller”
through technological intercommunication, when East was approaching
West, when modern physics was shifting the materialist view of existence,
when Freud had demonstrated the bondage of unconscious psychological
motivations. These were some of the realities and paradigms that
had to be in place before His Divine Work in the world could be
fully effective. But more than all else, an actual subtle vehicle
of unique Spiritual preparation had to be available.
Avatar Adi Da has often discussed the belief in reincarnation
with His devotees, and He has confirmed that there is a process
that could be called “reincarnation”, although it is
much more complex than commonly described. From the Spiritual point
of view, reincarnation is an opportunity for growth. In India, for
example, great Spiritual beings are understood to be manifesting
the results of intense Spiritual practice in previous lives, not
merely in the present lifetime. Avatar Adi Da, as He has confessed,
did not appear in this world on the basis of Himself having experienced
a “previous life” of any kind. Nevertheless, in order
to take human form, He had to conjoin with the ordinary processes
of the cosmos, including the mechanism of reincarnation.
Every human personality, Avatar Adi Da has explained, is composed
of a gross, physical vehicle (the body, derived from one’s
parents) and a subtle vehicle (the deeper mechanism of the ego that
moves from life to life). In order to be born, Adi Da Samraj required
a subtle vehicle attuned to the task of bringing true Spirituality
to the West. Swami Vivekananda carried in his psyche thousands of
years of Indian Spirituality and Realization, and ended his life
in love with the West in its need for God. On March 20, 1993, Avatar
Adi Da confirmed conclusively to His devotees: Swami Vivekananda’s
compassionate urge to be reborn in order to serve the West had created
a unique conjunction with Avatar Adi Da’s Divine Impulse to
Manifest in the human realm, and it was this conjunction that provided
the vehicle for Avatar Adi Da’s Incarnation as Franklin Jones.
“I took Birth in the West. Other Realizers
have come to the West from India, on airplanes or boats. They did
not submit to the Western circumstance, they did not come to the
point of Realization in that circumstance and context, they did
not address that circumstance and context.
Swami Vivekananda experienced the utter frustration of getting on
a boat and going to the West. He knew it was not enough. And He
knew what He was going to have to do, therefore—He was going
to have to die and be reborn in the West. And His Western connections
were the means for His rebirth. Having come to the West, He became
entangled in sympathies and struggle, and suffered abuse, and found
out what it is really all about. And He realized He was not equipped,
in that lifetime, to convert Westerners, to convert people in the
Western mode and disposition—which, since that time, has become
more and more the global mode and disposition. Therefore, there
was no reason for Him to go on with it. And that is why He died
young. He did all He could do in that form. Nothing further could
be accomplished.
But He said that, because of the sympathies He had entered into
by being the first Eastern Adept-Realizer ever to have embraced
the West—nobody had ever done that before—He was willing
to be reborn in the West in order to serve mankind. He said He was
born in love with humanity. That is it—He fell in love. He
did not just go to the West as an Easterner, and wear His turban
and robe, and leave it at that. He went to the West and became heart-sympathetic
with it, even though everything was terrible about that circumstance.
He became heart-sympathetic with people in the Western circumstance
and disposition. But He realized that—as a Hindu, as an Easterner—He
was not equipped to transform the West. So He went back to India
and died.” —Avatar Adi Da Samraj [February 22, 1995] |
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| In October 1993, Avatar Adi Da
brought up another, even more esoteric aspect of this “consideration”.
He began to speak about Ramakrishna, the Spiritual Master of Swami
Vivekananda, who had always been aware of the Spiritual stature and
destiny of his disciple. At the end of his life, certain of the great
work that lay ahead for his beloved Vivekananda, Ramakrishna poured
his own Spiritual virtue into Swami Vivekananda in a formal act of
Transmission—becoming, in his own words, only an “empty
fakir”. Thus, Ramakrishna, through is total Spiritual investment
of himself in Swami Vivekananda, is also part of the Deeper Personality
Vehicle of Avatar Adi Da Samraj. |
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The Mechanism
of My Avataric Divine Incarnation
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Here Avatar Adi Da Reveals the
nature of the unique Conjunction between Himself (the "Bright"
Divine Reality Itself) and the deeper (reincarnating) personalities
of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda—the Conjunction which
enabled Avatar Adi Da to Appear in this world in human Form.
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“I Am the One Who Is, the One and Only and Spiritually Self-"Bright"
Divine Person—Who Is Siva (or Consciousness Itself), and Who
Is Shakti (or the Very Divine Spirit-Energy of Which everything
appearing is the modification). I am Able to Manifest in your sight
(in order to Communicate to you, to Act among you, to Play with
you) because of a Vehicle of Manifestation long-made. For there
to Be the Avataric Divine Manifestation, there must be Vehicles
that allow that Manifestation. To account for this Vehicle historically,
you must examine the lifetimes of Swami Vivekananda and Ramakrishna—not
merely one of Them, but both. Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda
are One, Manifesting as the Deeper Personality (or Incarnation-Vehicle)
of This Avataric Divine Form—Adi Da Samraj, Incarnate before
your eyes.
I (Myself) Am Prior to both Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda.
I (Myself) Am the One They have Realized. But the Vehicle whereby
I Am Incarnate here, made physical by virtue of the copulation of
My blood parents, was made possible by that Deeper Personality of
Two-Combined-As-One—Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, in Spiritual
Union—become One, through a Great Act of Spiritual Transmission
(even historically acknowledged). This Extraordinary Mechanism is
the Mechanism of My Avataric Divine Incarnation As the Ruchira Avatar,
Adi Da Samraj. As a physically manifested human being, I am the
child of My (human) mother and My (human) father. In the Depth of
My Incarnation-Vehicle (Itself), I am the Reincarnation Made by
the Spiritual Union (or, in Effect, Spiritual "Marriage")
of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. I (Myself) Am Prior to Them both.
They both, in Their lifetimes, acknowledged That One That Is Prior
to Them both. I Am That One, and (yet) Their Vehicle has continued
in (and As) My bodily (human) Avataric Divine Incarnation As the
Ruchira Avatar, Adi Da Samraj. . . .
I (Myself) am not a Reincarnate. I Am both Transcendentally and
universally Present. Therefore, I will not Reincarnate after this
physical Lifetime. . . . I am not these Vehicles (Themselves). They
are only My Vehicles. Therefore, They (in and of Themselves) are
not Me. . . . Whatever Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda did historically
is what They did. I did not Do it.
I only Do This Incarnation. I (Myself) have no karmic basis for
My Appearance here. These Vehicles came into such Proximity to Me
that They became utterly available to (and usable by) Me, but Their
previous history of incarnation is not My history. And—because
I (Myself) have no karmic basis for Being Incarnate in bodily (human)
Form—when This Incarnation ends, there is no "seed"
in Me for re-Appearance. I am not a karmic entity. I have Conformed
these Vehicles to Myself—for the Purpose of My (Avataric Divine)
Incarnation.” —Avatar Adi Da Samraj
[From "I Have Appeared Here Via a Unique, Spontaneous, and Never-Again Conjunction of Vehicles"] | |
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| “It Is All
Continuation” |
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Avatar Adi Da made known His
connection with Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda through a process
of “consideration” with His devotees that lasted many
years. He began in 1976, returned to the subject in 1979, 1982 and
1988; and, during a period of profound Self-Revelations in 1993,
He brought the matter to a point of undeniable certainty. In the
midst of the “consideration”, some of Avatar Adi Da’s
devotees began to get in touch with memories of their own past lives
around Swami Vivekananda. Avatar Adi Da encouraged them to reclaim
these intuitions—not just to satisfy a curiosity or a fascination,
but to move them deeper in their Spiritual practice. He wanted these
devotees to become aware of the profound imperative behind their
birth—the urge to be with Him again in the body—and
to use that karmic fact for the purpose of Realizing Him, and not
merely to resume a human attachment.
For example, Avatar Adi Da had spoken over the years to Ruchiradama
Nadikanta, a longtime member of the Ruchira Sannyasin Order, about
the likelihood that she had a relationship to Swami Vivekananda
in a past life. He suggested that she investigate the possibility
that her deeper personality was that of Sister Nivedita, one of
Swami Vivekananda’s closest disciples. It was only after many
years of practice in Avatar Adi Da’s Company that His statements
about this past-life association became an in-depth “consideration”
for Ruchiradama Nadikanta. In the process of this investigation,
she began to see how intuitions of her past-life connection with
Avatar Adi Da had actually started to surface even in her childhood.
Ruchiradama Nadikanta: “In 1965, at the age of fifteen,
I crossed the Atlantic on a grand ocean liner with my parents. One
night, I woke in my berth, overwhelmed by the sudden feeling that
my life must be, and already was somehow, devoted to the service
of God. It was a spontaneous and absolute feeling, a déjà
vu, as though I had finally understood something that had always
been true. The passion that I felt that night, rocking n the waters
of the Atlantic, was not without sorrow. It was as if I were struggling
to connect with a truth I had already known, one that was more real
to me than the family and friends and experiences of my present
lifetime, more compelling than anything with which I was now familiar.
Years later, the meaning of that visitation—and everything
with which it was associated—was brought to consciousness
through my relationship with Beloved Adi Da. Over a period of many
years, and in the course of much research, conversation, and psychic
and intuitive revelation, Beloved Adi Da drew me and some of His
other devotees through a remarkable process of recognizing that
we had been alive in previous incarnations as individuals associated
with Swami Vivekananda and that He Himself was uniquely Spiritually
associated with Swami Vivekananda and with Swami Vivekananda’s
Guru, Ramakrishna.
But, always sensitive to our tendency to become fascinated by
things such as reincarnation, Beloved Adi Da would typically begin
the conversation, and, then, observing us becoming distracted from
the real matters of ego-transcending practice, He would suddenly
dismiss the subject, saying it was not to be taken seriously. And
so He would drop the subject for years at a time.”
In 1986, Ruchiradama Nadikanta spoke to Avatar Adi Da about an
intense feeling of familiarity that came over her during His time
in Europe. She was among the devotees traveling with Him at the
time:
Ruchiradama Nadikanta: “During that time, I was frequently
overwhelmed by feelings of familiarity, as though I were rediscovering
another aspect of my relationship to Beloved Adi Da. The feeling
was most overpowering during a visit to Kew Gardens, in London.
That day, I accompanied Him while He walked all through the gardens.
At some point He sat on a bench in a small stone building in the
park and spontaneously Granted meditative Darshan. In the little
pagoda, I meditated in His Company for perhaps forty-five minutes.
By the time the sitting was over, I was utterly certain that I had
been to that very place with Him before, had sat in meditation with
Him in another form before, had traveled in Europe with Him before—all
in another incarnation. When I told Beloved Adi Da my experience
and the strength of my certainty, He told me to begin to investigate
the travels of Swami Vivekananda and Sister Nivedita in Europe,
and specifically to London and Kew Gardens.”
In 1988, Avatar Adi Da began to bring up the matter of Swami Vivekananda
again. One evening, Ruchiradama Nadikanta told Avatar Adi Da and
the assembled devotees about her experience on the ocean liner as
a child. And Avatar Adi Da responded that Nivedita had once made
a sea journey with Swami Vivekananda. It was an ocean voyage from
India to England, which was, by Nivedita’s own account, the
most precious time she had spent in the company of Swami Vivekananda.
“It is all continuation. At certain
moments, you get in touch with what was in another time and place,
but it is the same time and place. The interval made by death between
what was then and the next incarnation is truly nothing. It is a
timeless Sublimity, with a Great Purpose making its moment. So that
extraordinary matter has been exhibited to your face, in your company.
Well, you have to tell the story! All of it!” —Avatar Adi Da Samraj [March
12, 1988] | |
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| The Lineage of Blessing |
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Apart from the lives of Ramakrishna
and Swami Vivekananda, Avatar Adi Da has discussed other individuals
who represent unique threads in the mysterious Divine Pattern that
has culminated in His birth. He praises the great Siddhas associated
with His own sadhana—Swami Nityananda, Swami Muktananda, and
Rang Avadhoot—as remarkable Realizers in the realm of Yogic
mysticism. He honors Ramana Maharshi as an unsurpassed sage, Awake
in the domain of Transcendental Consciousness.
However, while particularly praising the great Realizers close
to Him in human time, Avatar Adi Da also explains that, truly, the
great Spiritual Realizers of all times and places contributed to
the Deeper Personality Vehicle of His Avataric Incarnation, while
He Himself Stands Eternally Prior even to His own Vehicles of Manifestation:
“I (now, and Hereby) Confess That My…Deeper Personality
Is even Beyond the “Single Form” of Ramakrishna-Vivekananda,
the Very Form of all the Great Masters of the entire Great Tradition
of mankind. I (now, and Hereby) Confess that I (Myself) Stand Eternally
Prior to (and Always Already Transcending) My Avataric (and, yet,
merely conditionally born) Deeper Personality—and, also, Eternally
Prior to (and Always Already Transcending) even all the Great (and,
yet, merely conditionally born) Masters of mankind’s entire
Great Tradition (in its every part, and as a whole), and, also,
Eternally Prior to (and Always Already Transcending) mankind’s
entire Great Tradition itself (in its every part, and as a whole).”
—Avatar Adi Da Samraj |
The One Divine Person was always Revealed in and through all the
great Spiritual figures of history, because it was always That One,
the Very Source-Condition, that human beings have been aspiring
to Realize. In this sense, Avatar Adi Da is saying that it was Himself,
the One Divine Person, Who “Lived” all those great Spiritual
figures, in all times and places, participating in the multifarious
aspects of the great Spiritual search of humankind, Realizing and
Transmitting the various practices, Yogas, and Samadhis. And, by
means of this vast Process, the human Vehicle for His complete Incarnation
as the Ruchira Avatar, Adi Da Samraj, eventually came into being.
“All of those personalities can be seen as a Great Process
in conditional time and space to prepare the Vehicle of My Avataric
Self-Manifestation. But not just as individuals—it required
all beings, including all of mankind, to make sufficient prayer
and Conjunction for this Event of Me. And It will not be repeated,
nor can It be repeated…Even all-and-All was the necessary
Preparation…At last, I Passed Down into all-and-All. It was
Spontaneous, yet (also) Eternally Prefigured. It was Anciently Prophesied.
It was somehow ‘caused’—and, yet (Ultimately),
there is no ‘cause’ for It whatsoever.” —Avatar
Adi Da Samraj, The Knee of Listening | |
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