Divine Distraction is the nature of the Guru-devotee relationship

The liberating relationship between the devotee and the Spiritual Master is by nature, a devotional relationship. Love Itself, Happiness Itself, God Himself, is appearing through the form of the Spiritual Master, and the devotee very naturally and spontaneously falls in love with That One — not the human being in himself, but the One Who is being Revealed transparently through that egoless human form. The character in the dream is more and more distracted from the dream by the supreme Attractiveness of the Awakened State in the form of the Master; Waking from the dream thus occurs not by any kind of self-effort per se, but by this responsive and ego-transcending Divine Distraction. Communion with (and absorption in) God, and ultimately Identification with (and Awakening as) God is the outgrowth of this love relationship with our own True Self appearing in the dream.

Like the way we effortlessly respond to an attractive man or woman, or a gorgeous day — but profoundly more so — Adi Da Samraj's Transmission attracts the devotee: it is Blissful; it is Happiness; it is Delight; it is Contentment beyond all sense of problem. Adi Da's devotee wants to be around Him all the time, to be intoxicated by His Transmission; in short, the true devotee of Adi da samraj very naturally falls in love with Him. And because Adi Da Samraj is a complete Incarnation of the Divine, the Transmission is not just a communication of Spiritual energy but of Reality itself. In other words, it is revelatory, and over time, the true nature of everything is revealed more and more: Who Adi Da Samraj really is, and What the entire world and self is ultimately. Through persistent devotional practice, the devotee ultimately realizes exactly what Adi Da Samraj has realized: that there is only God, that separate "beings" and "things" are not ultimately real in themselves, and that separation altogether is not ultimately real. The Ultimate State is one of most perfect non-separation. This realization — God-Realization — coincides with perfect, lasting, and infinite Happiness. Hence God-realization is the only completely effective address to human mortality and human suffering.

What is supremely Attractive in the manifest universe and in the human world is the God-Man. All beings, male or female, must become Attracted, Distracted by that One. This is the Ultimate Means, the Supreme Means, the Supreme Yoga. It is for this reason, you see, that the Divine Appears in manifest Form in the likeness of those who are to be drawn out of bondage — but only in their likeness. It is the Divine that Appears in that likeness, and it is the Divine that is made visible through that likeness. Those who become capable of acknowledging That One become capable of responding to that Attraction. Those who become capable of being Distracted by That One become participants in this Supreme Way of the Heart, which truly is the Way of Grace, because it requires no [self-]effort at all. It requires nothing but Grace and the response to it. That response is not effortful. It is easy. It is easy to respond to what is Attractive, except for those who refuse to do it. Those who refuse are bound to the will, are willfully binding themselves in one form or another, may even be willfully trying to understand, willfully trying to buy their way out of hell and purgatory and take heaven by storm. Such beings are not responding to the unique Advantage that the God-Man represents.

Such people are given all kinds of means that may serve their liberation from their own willfullness, that may release energy and attention and ultimately enable them to respond to the God-Man and to the Divine Condition. But for those who can make this response directly, the Way of Adidam is simply as I have described to you from the beginning — Satsang with Me, the devotee’s relationship to Me, the Spiritual Master. The relationship takes the form of a life of practice, of disciplines, including Remembering Me and meditative practices. All that is true and useful, all that is part of Spiritual life, but the essence of such a life, the essence of these disciplines, is this Distraction.

Those who are Distracted by Me are not merely distracted by this physical Form. This Form is simply an Agent for their attention. What they are Distracted by is the Divine Presence, the Divine Condition, and they enter into Communion with That, into Union with That, into Unity with That, through the real Process of Spiritual life. Wordly people want nothing to do with that Process, and likewise worldly religionists, scholars, pundits, and egoically self-possessed “guru”-figures want nothing to do with it.

Nevertheless, the supreme Secret of Spiritual life is this Distraction by the God-Man. But even though it has been made available in many times and places, it has unfortunately not been accepted and truly fulfilled by many . . .

By trying to break through the ego’s dilemmas yourself, by trying to realize or discover the Truth yorself, you will find that you cannot do any such thing, not finally. And that discovery, you see, is what breaks the heart, or makes it possible for you to be Distracted by What is beyond your egoic self and to make use of your relationship to Me rightly, truly, such that your relationship with Me becomes Ecstatic. Simply to give Me your regard should be the moment of Ecstasy. It should naturally draw you into the emotional response, the feeling response, the mood of love, devotion, freedom from mental bondage, physical bondage, relational bondage. If you become Ecstatic by such Means, then you will also be Intoxicated by My Company. Thus Ecstatic, thus Intoxicated, you are naturally capable of incarnating this Love, this Divinity, through all the forms of practice, including your love-relations and friendships. . . .

The Purpose of My Living is Divine. In other words, I have not come here simply to suffer your resistance and absorb your limitations, but to Distract you out of this condition, out of this place, into the Divine Domain. My Purpose is to awaken you to a disposition of Divine Distraction, in which you are Ecstatic, free of your limits, inherently sinless, karma-less, so that without effort you can move with Me out of this limitation, this place of purification and suffering.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
in James Steinberg, Divine Distraction

The ancient legends of Krishna and his gopis are an allegory of Divine Distraction. As Krishna wandered about in the fields, the women who tended the cattle [the "gopis"] would see Him from day to day, and in spite of themselves they would wander away and leave their posts. They completely forgot about the cattle. They forgot to go home and cook for their husbands. They wandered about where they thought they might find Krishna, and when they found Him they gazed at Him as He sat in the distance somewhere. This legend is a play upon the romance between Krishna, or the Divine manifest in human form — the Spiritual Master in God — and these ordinary women, who became madly involved in an absolute attachment to Krishna, and who, as a result of this attachment, became more and more ecstatically absorbed in the God-State.

The foundation of the practice in My Company is exactly that attachment. If it does not develop relative to the Spiritual Master in God — not cultic attachment, but Divine attachment — if that attachment is not there that overwhelms the life completely, distracts you from the conventional destiny to which you are disposed through the medium of your desires, inclinations, and circumstances, then this practice of real or Spiritual life cannot exist.

The cattle that the women abandoned represent the force of the tendencies of life. The husbands they left are the fundamental attachment to separated existence, to existence in form, to bodily existence, individuated existence, egoic life on its own, motivated toward survival and distinct from the Divine in Consciousness. Thus, in the allegory of the relationship between Krishna and His gopis, we see a fundamental description of the principle of the sadhana [spiritual practice] of the Way of Adidam. Sadhana is not about bearing down and being motivated by problems in your life, by some sort of philosophical detachment or some inclination to have Yogic and mystical experiences. Nor is it about doing what you have to, in order to produce the changes that you desire. This sadhana is about distraction from the life of tendencies. It is a distraction from that life. It is not a motivated kind of detachment from your life of tendencies or an effort relative to them or the taking on of conditions to stop tendencies from arising or lifetimes from occurring. It is not a method of the ego. It is not characterized by any kind of effort relative to tendencies — for such a path is completely hopeless.

There are innumerable conventional paths that involve self-conscious efforts or hopes to produce changes, high and low [i.e., on subtle levels and on this material level].These efforts and hopes are themselves forms of tendency that may be realized and suffered in human and other terms. They are not Liberating in the fundamental sense. They are not God-Realizing. They are themselves expressions of the movement toward fulfillment. The Way of sadhana, the Way of Truth, is the Way of complete distraction from the tendencies that produced your birth and that now produce the drama of your existence from day to day. Only when there is complete distraction by the Guru, by the Divine, from the way of life that is producing your experiential destiny, do your tendencies become obsolete. They do not become obsolete when you direct effort against them. It is only when that distraction appears in the midst of the affair of your life that another principle, another process, is established.

The gopis simply left the cattle. They did not say, "I'm not going to tend cattle anymore! I'm not going to submit to my desires, my tendencies, my job!" They did not make any such decisions. They simply forgot about the cattle. They were so distracted, so in love with Krishna, so ecstatic, that they just forgot to go home. It never even occurred to them to go home. They never worried about "Should I go home or should I stay here? Should I watch the cattle or should I go look for Krishna? Should I discipline myself?" They did not create a problem out of their sadhana or out of their relationship to God.

Anybody who approaches Me is obliged to involve himself or herself in just this kind of ecstatic Spiritual relationship. When that devotional relationship to Me becomes the condition of your conscious existence, fully, through all of the conditions of life, then the force of limiting tendencies us weakened — not by doing anything to it, but by virtue of the fact that you are no longer even involved with it. If your relationship to Me is essentially ordinary, mechanical, mediocre, not Divine, not a form of Contemplation of Me, then you are not doing sadhana. You are intending to do some other kind of conventional sadhana perhaps, but you are not doing this sadhana. You are not involved in the sadhana of Truth, you are not involved in Divine sadhana, you are not involved in that opportunity that is made available in human time through the Function of the Guru.

The Guru is not simply present to rap out a philosophy or distribute techniques that you may apply depending on your intelligence. The Guru is present to enjoy a Divine relationship with all those willing to assume such a relationship, with all those who have the capability for distraction by the Guru in an absolute love-relationship that is more and more distracting. But if that distraction is not present, if that love-desire distraction is not present in an individual's life, then the form of this sadhana is not initiated. It cannot begin.

There is no point in even discussing the technical and abstract aspects of the development of this sadhana until the individual has begun to enjoy an ecstatic relationship with Me, a Spiritual relationship — not one that is in the air but one that includes the whole of life, that draws the emotion, that awakens the love, that awakens the heart. That distracting relationship that is the principle of this sadhana must be established. On its basis the individual may begin to assume life-conditions, turn them into service to Me, and realize that service in more personal and complex ways over time.

The foundation of this sadhana is the distraction that is described between Krishna and His gopis. You must flee to Me from all your life, from all your tendencies — not from your obligations, that is not what this allegory is all about — but from your tendencies, from the foundation of distraction by yourself, by your own thoughts, your own conditions, your own belongings, your own beliefs, your own reading, your own mystical intentions, your own philosophical presuppositions. You must flee to Me from all that. It must be completely uninteresting to you. It is certainly not interesting to Me!

You cannot argue a woman into loving you. And you cannot argue individuals into the Divine Satsang [Relationship] of distraction. Satsang can be offered and a circumstance provided in which people can approach and become sensitive to that communicated Presence, that Siddhi. But apart from making it available openly and providing a way of approach to Me, there is no argument whatsoever. I am completely without argument. There is nothing I can do to convince you of the Truth of this Way, nothing I could do outwardly or verbally that could in itself fundamentally convince you of the relationship you must enjoy with Me in order to fulfill this sadhana. It is like falling in love with someone, in conventional terms, in life. It is not something you argued yourself into doing. It was initially a form of distraction, of absorption, without any reasons, and, perhaps, if you examined it to find a reason for it, it would seem unreasonable to you, not justified. You know, your lover does not look the way you wanted him or her to look. And in many ways I do not look and act and talk like the conventional, cultic guru is supposed to!

Once there is that distraction, the theater of your evolution is in the hands of the Divine. The gopis did not have an elaborate life. They were distracted by Krishna. Krishna played all the games and created all the circumstances for their play with Him. They were only attached to Him. Their lives had all kinds of theater and drama after that, but Krishna created it all. They did not create anything. They did not think about anything. They did not create an elaborate system of philosophy and belief and self-meditation and self-manipulation. They did not care about making life work out right. They did not even know What He was!

They were just distracted. They were in love. And their love for Krishna became the principle of their lives. Krishna played upon their distraction and taught them. By Grace, they learned. But all they learned was to be more and more absorbed in God, totally beyond their attachment simply to the [human form] of Krishna. Their minds became overwhelmed by this distraction, and all their petty tendencies to return to their solid and secure positions, in life or in themselves, were always undermined. There is no insurance. There is no guarantee. There is nowhere to go. There is no end phenomenon in the love of God. That love is in itself the Truth.

The same approach is necessary for all, and it is represented in the allegory of Krishna and His gopis. Without that distraction by the Guru in God, there is no sadhana in any form in anybody's case. Once that distraction exists and the movement of the individual begins to become governed by the intuition of the Divine, the enjoyment of the Divine, then all the disciplines, the theater, the lessons, the responsibilities, the Teaching, and all the rest begin to appear, according to the individual's capability and state of existence.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
in James Steinberg, Divine Distraction

 

The functions of spiritual life take place in the form of a relationship! It is the relationship between the devoted disciple and the Siddha-Guru. It doesn't take place at the level of some philosophy or some technique that you apply to yourself. It is a relationship and it appears only where it is alive, where it is actually functioning in life. Therefore, many of the same functions that exist between lovers exist between Guru and disciple.

If I never thought of you, I would have very little opportunity to live this relationship to you and to intensify it. This relationship could never take place if the only time I ever contacted you was when I happened to be in the same room with you. I must think of you. I have thought of you many times since I saw you last. Just so, I expect you to think of Me.

For these reasons, the disciple always thinks of the Guru. It is a necessary aspect of their relationship. This thinking of the Guru, or even sitting in Satsang by means of the contemplation of the Guru's picture, all such things are very natural, homely, human, and real things to do. . .

If you sit down for meditation without being aware of your Guru, then you are meditating out of Satsang. There is no genuine meditation, no useful meditation, except in the Condition of Satsang, the conscious awareness of one's Guru and the Condition of relationship to one's Guru. There is a characteristic presence that one senses. The Presence of the Guru is not felt or assumed visually. This Presence transcends the Guru's picture, or even the Guru's physical form.

But the motive of My true devotees is not the disciplines, nor mystical experience, nor philosophy. My true devotees practice the Way of Adidam because they love Me. They have no personal (or inherent) capability to utterly turn away from the world, or to utterly transcend themselves. Therefore, I have Come to Live with them (now, and forever hereafter). When My devotees Find Me, the same weakness that led them to distraction by all the merely binding and passing possibilities of this mummery-world, and to attachment to the possible experiences of its indifferent maze of mere patterns patterning, becomes the very capability that makes possible their Liberation into My Eternal "Bright" Domain of Love-Bliss. Thus, because I am the Ultimate and Most Absorbing "Object" of their inherent weakness, I Distract My devotees to Me, away from all the mummery of possible experiences and endings. They become Attached to Me by the power of their own tendency to distraction. Therefore, even their own (and, otherwise, binding) power of desire leads them to the Ecstasy of egoless heart-Communion with Me, because they love Me.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "What Will You Do If You Love Me?"
in Da Love-Ananda Gita