Do Not Reduce This Institution to a Religion Business
Updated: Aug 29
Adi Da: "All of the Adepts basically act as if, in their sort of bright-eyed fashion, they are going to save the world. What they have Realized obviously has great consequences. If everybody else could Realize it likewise, things certainly would be remarkably different. Thus, the Adepts are always laying the Teaching onto people and suffering and being abused for doing so. What is the history of mankind? It is not the absence of Adepts and Teachings. These have always appeared. It is the non-use of them, the non-response, the abuse, the suppression. Yes, religion is famous, but not as true religion, not as the servant of Truth, not even as the medium of Truth. Religion has become famous because it is not really religion. It is the same thing that existed before the Truth was proclaimed. And it makes the Truth or the atmosphere of Truth into something else entirely, basically a justification for the conventions of worldliness, not Enlightenment.
And yet religious institutions have value in that they keep some sort of stream of Spiritual teaching in the world. What they present is often falsified, manipulated, suppressed, abused, and miscommunicated, but these institutions are the only vehicle apart from the occasional arising of an Adept. This is why it seems important to me to create an institution that functions rightly, but not because I have even the slightest sense that the world could be suddenly changed by hearing the Truth. It has never happened, and it is never going to happen, at least not with humanity as it is. In general, it is not going to happen in the manifest realms, and there is no other place where it could happen.
To communicate the Truth is always difficult because the Truth is about waking up from the presumption you are making on the basis of manifest existence. Even religion and so-called Spiritual endeavor tends to be based on that same presumption. The religion people hold on to, cling to, feel consoled by, is the religion based on that error, that false presumption. The Truth is another matter. The Truth is taught in a religious or Spiritual context, but if it is to be practiced, the error you are making on the basis of manifest appearances must be thoroughly transcended. Such transcendence is Enlightenment. Such transcendence is hearing the Teaching.
Just to begin the Way you must hear the Teaching. You must Awaken. Whole-bodily Enlightenment in the most thorough, full, and high sense involves a Great Process, but Enlightenment is not its goal. Enlightenment is its root. Enlightenment is a fundamental Awakening, a fundamental insight, which you then use moment to moment to create the Way. A practice that is not based on that fundamental insight is not based on Truth.
Therefore, the basic Teaching this institution should represent is the understanding of this fundamental error, or the mechanism associated with manifest existence that makes it into an illusion, into suffering, un-Happiness, un-Enlightenment, Godlessness. You cannot merely believe something positive and develop a true religious or Spiritual life. Enlightenment is not simply a matter of believing in conventional God-ideas that motivate you to be better. All such ideas must be understood. You must enjoy this Awakening, this insight. You must hear the Teaching Argument."
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