The Perfect Practice

In the Waking Up process, the Morning Light (in the form of the Spiritual Master) intrudes to a greater and greater degree. The Waking Up process progressively shifts the fundamental sense of reality and self from the conventional physical sense, to a sense of Reality as primarily Energy and Spirit, and finally, in the Perfect Practice, to a sense of Reality as fundamentally the Divine Consciousness. The Spiritual Presence of the Divine is the bridge between the material reality and the Awakened State, because it both pervades the material Reality and is simultaneously rooted in the Awakened State.

Hearing, seeing, and the practice of absorption in the Divine based on hearing and seeing, form the necessary preparation for the Perfect Practice. We ordinarily are perpetuated in the dream, bound to the dream by a set of dream-oriented habits of the body-mind that keep reinforcing the dream, the “separate self” sense: the searches for satisfaction in the realms of money, food, relationships, and sex, active in every moment, keep us locked in the dream, totally preoccupied. The practice of absorption in the Divine (aided by all the secondary and supportive disciplines) directly counters the search, breaking the habit of concern for the body-mind, bringing the body-mind into a state of profound equilibrium and “low maintenance”, and, consequently freeing up sufficient energy and attention (that would otherwise be engagaed in the search and coping with the symptoms of imbalance in the body-mind) so that we can locate the Awakened State.

Thus there comes a moment of Grace, when we are suddenly and permanently shifted in our identity, from being a Spiritual practitioner practicing absorption in the Divine Being, to being a practitioner practicing Identity with the Divine, standing as, what Avatar Adi Da Samraj calls “The Witness-Consciousness”. Thus begins the first stage of the Perfect Practice.

The Perfect Practice has three stages, all taking place in the Domain of Consciousness, that is, in direct relation to the Awakened State and the Divine Person in His Ultimate Identity as Consciousness:

Consciousness (Itself) is Inherently Free of the implications, or effects, of the body-mind and the apparent cosmos of conditional Nature.

Therefore, the (Inherently Perfect) Witness-Consciousness is not (Itself) un-Happy, afraid, sorrowful, depressed, angry, hungry, lustful, thoughtful, threatened by bodily mortality, or implicated in the alternately pleasurable (or positive) and painful (or negative) states of the body, and of the mind, and (altogether) of conditional Nature.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, Eleutherios

Stand There and Be, Consciousness Only, Inherently objectless, relationless, without a “thing”, but Neither separate Nor separated from All.

Stand Free and Feel (What Is, and what arises), but Do Not Look (or become “other” than what arises).

Do Not Indulge (or Luxuriate) In the act of attention (which is Always “other” than what arises), and Do Not Seek the Illusion-mind of objects, or other, or all “things”, but Always Merely Feel (Like a hand feels into a glove) and Be the “Feel” Itself.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, The Lion Sutra

	Ruchiradama Quandra Sukhapur Rani with Avatar Adi Da Samraj

On February 2, 1988, Avatar Adi Da Samraj Transmitted His Very (and Inherently) Perfect State to me directly, moving me literally beyond the motion of energy and attention in the psycho-physical circuitry of the body-mind. By His Grace and in that moment, He established me in the Witness-Position spontaneously and stably. Since then, my life has changed dramatically, not as an act of will, but effortlessly and spontaneously. I no longer suffer the bondage or goal-seeking strategies that troubled me in previous years and stages of practice. I have felt a consistent Calm, even in the midst of profound testing, as all forms of seeking for physical and even higher psychic, mystical, and yogic experience and knowledge have relaxed through the Grace-Given capability to stand as the Witness-Position of Consciousness.

Suddenly, without effort, all of the struggle that I had suffered previously subsided.

All of the sorrow and weakness vanished. I became clear and capable of confronting the difficulties of conditional reality and of allowing the Love-Blissful Fullness of the Unconditional Reality. Thus, my practice became direct, as my Heart-Master Granted me the strength to remain heart-opened, not moved to seek, not needing to protect myself from the wounds of conditional existence. . . . As I practiced sensitivity and fidelity to Avatar Adi Da Samraj's Inherently Perfect [Heart-Transmission], this practice showed itself to be steady under all conditions.

For the two years and four months that have ensued since that profound initiation, this practice has required my full intention in order to preserve the Gifts Given to me by my Beloved Guru. But truly, the capacity to fulfill the [Perfect Practice] can only be based on reception of the Grace-Gift of His Divine State, Attractive beyond all noticing of the searches in the body-mind.

Ruchiradama Quandra Sukhapur Rani

The Second Stage of the Perfect Practice: Contemplate Consciousness

In Table 1, we suggested that the second stage of the Perfect Practice is roughly analogous to, now, not only feeling oneself as the body lying in bed (the analogy to the first stage of the Perfect Practice), but also beginning to be aware of the “room”, the environment around the sleeping body — its sounds, smells, etc. — and going in and out of the dream, alternating between awareness of the dream and deepening awareness of the room. Such a waking process proceeds by responsively choosing to place attention on the waking state sensations (the sound of the alarm clock, or someone saying, “wake up, John!”, or someone shaking your body) rather than the dream sensations. Such noticing grants even greater freedom from the dream when one’s attention returns to the dream again, as now one is truly on the very brink of waking up.

Ruchiradama Quandra Sukhapur Rani continues her account of her practice, now personally describing this second stage of the Perfect Practice. In her description, she makes reference to “the heart on the right”. Another fact of esoteric anatomy that Avatar Adi Da Samraj has provided is that the primary point of connection between Consciousness and “self” can be felt (in the advanced stages of practice, and, on occasion, before) at the right side of the heart. This is the point (which in the self-contracted being is a knot) at which Infinite Consciousness and Being is “narrowed down to” or “filtered through” as finite attention and the feeling of being a separate being. In the second stage of the Perfect Practice, one who is contemplating and absorbed in the Spiritual Master’s Transmission is spontaneously “carried” by that transmission “through” the knot at the heart, allowing the second stage practice, the Contemplation of Consciousness Itself:

It is not merely by standing in the Witness-Position that my practice has developed. . . . Each time I sit to meditate, in a matter of minutes I move beyond all awareness of gross and subtle states through exclusive devotion to, or Contemplation of, Avatar Adi Da Samraj as the Very Embodiment of Divine Consciousness. I feel the mechanics of the body-mind quickly and spontaneously fall away as Avatar Adi Da Samraj’s Current of Love-Bliss moves me into the heart on the right, dispelling all movement of attention to the body-mind or the phenomenal world and its objects. . . . I am Drawn by His Grace into meditative Contemplation of His Very (and Inherently Perfect) State. I feel Him Standing in the heart on the right making His Perfect State most obvious, and then I feel Him Press or Drive me deeper. . . .

After meditation I feel very vulnerable and sensitive and Spiritually aware of the nature of conditional existence, and the suffering implicit in the fundamental root-activity of separation and seeking. I feel a greater sensitivity to Avatar Adi Da Samraj’s Sacrifice as the Unconditional Reality to Appear in a conditional world.

The . . . work of relinquishing attention in the first five stages of life [the dream state] in the Well of Being [the Awakened State] is also what I practice in daily life, and the depth state of [the Ecstatic State] in meditation is carried over into life. I feel my devotional Contemplation of Avatar Adi Da Samraj’s bodily (human) Form, and Spiritual (and Always Blessing) Presence, and Very (and Inherently Perfect) State as if I am eye to eye to Him, as He Is, even in the ordinary moments of each day. I feel only peripherally related to what arises in the context of the body-mind and the phenomenal world.

Although this practice is intentional, it is effortless because His Transmission at the heart releases the knot of attention and brings the wandering of attention to rest, resolved in Him.

Ruchiradama Quandra Sukhapur Rani

As in every stage of practice, Contemplation of Avatar Adi Da Samraj is the key. It is as though He were a Sacred Horse, and our practice from the beginning all the way through to Awakening were to keep holding on to His Tail, as He carrried us to only God Knows Where. In earlier stages of practice, He appeared in the dream itself, both in human form and as all-pervading Spiritual Presence, and Contemplation of Him in these forms led to absorption in God. Now practice has moved on to the “Consciousness” side of the fence prior to the dream, where continued Contemplation of the Spiritual Master leads to recognition of Him in His True Identity, as Divine Consciousness Itself, the One in Whom all the worlds are arising:

This middle stage (or intensively deepening counter-egoic exercise, and, thus, central part) of the “Perfect Practice” . . . is complete when there is no longer the slightest feeling (or possibility) of doubt relative to the Divine Status of Consciousness (Itself) — As the Transcendental and Inherently Spiritual (or Love-Blissful), and (necessarily) Divine, and Perfectly Subjective Source (and Source-Condition) of the conditional self and of all of conditional Nature.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, Eleutherios

In the third stage of the Perfect Practice, this Ultimate Realization of Being the One in Whom all the worlds are arising is our Realization as well.

The Third Stage of the Perfect Practice: Transcend everything in Consciousness, Recognizing all objects in and as God

At last, through unceasing Grace, and persistence in the second stage of the Perfect Practice, we Wake Up completely. This is Divine Enlightenment — without effort or mind, we obviously (“tacitly”) Recognize every thing and every one to be God. In fact, it is absolutely clear that there is only God, and that I am That One.

In Truth, there is no way to draw an analogy between ordinary waking up from a dream and Awakening as the Divine Being, because in ordinary dreaming and waking, there is an apparent separation between the waking state and the dream state. But the Awakened State is an unspeakable Unity in which there is no separation whatsoever. One is Fully Awake, and yet the “dream universe”, and even one’s specific body-mind are still completely evident. One is the Divine Consciousness, in which world and body-mind are arising, and one is all the dream worlds and selves at the very same time. Consciousness, Spirit, Light, Energy, Happiness, Love-Bliss, “space-time”, “matter”, apparently separate selves and things, apparent “subject” and apparent “object”, apparent “I” and apparent “other”, are “all” an Indivisible Oneness. In the Buddhist terminology, “Nirvana [the Awakened State] and Samsara [the dream state] are Realized to be One.” In the Hindu terminology, Shiva [Consciousness] and Shakti [the Radiance or dream of Consciousness] are United in an Inseparable Embrace.

When attention is without limit, it is Divine Consciousness Itself, just Consciousness. When energy is without limit, it is Free Force, Love-Bliss. When there is no limit on energy and attention, there is only Self-Radiant Being, without limit — and even the whole world becomes obviously That. And you, in the form of the manifest personality, become someone who is active as the Divinely Transfiguring Power that is Inherent in the realm of conditional Nature and that Transcends It also.

There are no separate waters in the sea, but every wave or motion folds in one another on the Deep.

“The Deep Of Consciousness Itself”
in Avatar Adi Da Samraj, Drifted in the Deeper Land

Eventually, awareness of the dream does dissolve completely, not by an act of dissociation or separation, but by being “Outshined” in the Brightness of the Awakened State, resulting in the unthinkable Transition (called Divine Translation by Avatar Adi Da Samraj) to our unthinkable Ultimate Destiny, the Infinite Sea of Undifferentiated Happiness:

At first this Realization Shines in the world and Plays “Bright” Demonstrations on the waves.

Ultimately, the “Brightness” Is Indifferent (Beyond “difference”) In the Deep, There Where Primitive relatedness Is Freely Drowned, and When “Bright” Recognition Rests Most Deeply In Its Fathomless Shine, the Play of motions Is Translated In Love-Bliss, Pervasive In the Water-Stand, and, like a Sea of Blankets, All the Deep Unfolds To Waken In the Once Neglected (Now Un-Covered) Light of Self-Illuminated and Eternal Day.