[Speaker 2] (0:08 - 0:11) Hello, Julie. Good morning.
[Speaker 1] (0:11 - 0:12) Hi, Ed.
[Speaker 2] (0:12 - 0:13) How are you?
[Speaker 1] (0:14 - 0:16) I’m doing well, yeah. How are you doing?
[Speaker 2] (0:17 - 1:11) Very well, very well. So it’s morning for Julie, afternoon for Ed, and for our listeners and watchers, this is the second portion of our discussion on the Ashvamedha horse sacrifice as it relates to Adi Da’s divine revelation and also his divine emergence, which was a period of time in his revelation that was profound and also had great consequences all throughout the rest of his life from 1988 to 2008. And so for those listeners and watchers who haven’t seen the first interview, I recommend them to look and watch the first interview, which would make this one a little bit more understandable.
So, Julie, last time we left off, we were talking about the divine emergence in 1988 and also…
[Speaker 1] (1:11 - 1:11) 86, 86.
[Speaker 2] (1:12 - 1:14) 86, my bad, my bad.
[Speaker 1] (1:14 - 1:14) Yeah, yeah.
[Speaker 2] (1:15 - 3:57) And so, but also this horse sacrifice, the Ashvamedha, which as it relates to India, it’s an Indian term, a Sanskrit term in the Mahabharata, but it had great significance for Adi Da and his revelation. And so I want to start with a reading that came in a magazine in 1990 for the listeners because it creates a context of what it is that I would like to talk about. Okay.
So it says, through his own divine submission to the fire of sacrifice, he, Adi Da, has now given everyone, every malecha, which is a term meaning outsiders, the capacity to live that liberating process in communion with him by contemplating him. Adi Da Ashvamedha, the resplendent dawn horse. There are many signs of the beginnings of this glorious fruition.
Adi Da’s four Kanyadana Kumaris, the women dedicated to serving him intimately, were by their own confession malechas, outsiders to spiritual life, when they came to him. And yet, in a few short years, especially during the period of his divine emergence, they have grown into a level of spiritual maturity exceedingly rare in human history. And they have, many times in the course of their sadhana, experienced the great blisses and samadhis that yogis spend lifetimes striving for.
And what this last paragraph refers to is an article that I have up on my screen about the first to confess. It was a 1988 article that basically said that the four women, and you were being one of them, who were Kanyas at the time, intimates of Adi Da, awoke to this sixth stage, or a very high level of realization in the traditions of India, to who he is, to what he gave in this divine emergence, or the dissension of the horse into the cosmic, or breaking through the cosmic mandala. So those are a lot of terms for people who are trying to grasp all this.
But I was wondering if you could speak to this moment, to the awakening that you were experiencing, that other people in the community were confessing, but also really to the bigger issue of the horse sacrifice.
[Speaker 1] (3:57 - 9:01) Yes, yes. So there would be many individuals who could probably speak well and in a more educated fashion about the details of the Ashvamedha as it relates to the sacred traditions as a whole, and the way that it has been prophesied or ritualized or dramatized in different traditions. It’s the prophecy of the enactment of this sacrifice of the unconditional into the conditional, and the manifestation of that in space-time.
And the culminating revelation in terms of how Adi Da speaks about it, and has spoken about it since this event in 1986. So I won’t try to myself address it in those terms, because I do genuinely know there are others who would do that much better than I could. So I will speak about that time as best I can go back into feeling the event in that moment, and what it felt like and what was understood, and then how it feels now in terms of that understanding.
In 1986, we spoke about this, the event itself, just briefly in our last dialogue together. And the profundity of it, as we both have understood it, and as Adi Da has described it, is continuing to unfold. Even at that time it was, and he now would refer to it, and has referred to it as the eternal time that is coinciding, is priorly and inherently manifesting that which is truth itself.
And so in the time that this was occurring, as you indicated, there were some very extraordinary events occurring amongst all devotees. And there was the yajna, the orange period of sannyas and renunciation, and the fire of that that was being communicated at that time, which was understood by all of us and the worldwide gathering and the world itself in many different ways. And there were many different reactions to it also by different devotees and by the world itself.
Because as you say, if this is understood correctly, it doesn’t relate to simply those who were around his body as a siddha guru. This, as he is confessing, is a descent from the siddha realm as an avataric event that is actually meant to intervene in transforming and revealing something significant for everyone. And at that time, we didn’t have a clue that that was what was occurring.
So for us personally, though, it was an extraordinary confrontation with the understanding of the renunciation that he was asking for. And the only reason why we were able to respond to that in the manner that he required for his process to be authenticated through our response to him was that it became obvious that we could no longer relate to him on the basis that we had previously and that something significantly had changed in him. And I felt that liberation and freedom in him because he was saying he was no longer bound to having to exercise himself in relationship to anyone or anything in this manner of submission.
In other words, being like or participating with the act or the play or the theater or the drama or the mummery of egoity itself so that he was having to address all the details of it and instruct us in that context. He actually went through a remarkable transformation. And you could see that, obviously.
Everybody was shocked to see it.
[Speaker 2] (9:01 - 9:04) So how did you see that?
[Speaker 1] (9:05 - 13:40) His whole being became incredibly translucent, softened, let go. He shed a huge amount of not only physical weight, but psychophysical entanglement or forms of association in his body. You could see the relief.
He was happy. I mean, he was always happy, but you could see the struggle in him and how taxing it was on him psychophysically to do what he was required to do during the teaching years. And while it was so colorful to observe and to feel his intimacy and his love and also his passion and his anger, too, his frustration, his genius, his flexibility in the teaching years, it was clear that it was a suffering of a kind.
It was a sacrifice to actually see him engaging in this. And he was unwell physically a lot, had to have a lot of attention to his health. And we personally spent a lot of time helping to physically keep him going, to actually be able to be incarnate, to accomplish what he was doing and to take care of him, because we knew that it was important for him to continue what he was doing.
At this time, though, and particularly when I returned with him after the event, there was literally a reevaluation of everything around him and how he lived, what the environments looked like, how they felt, who served him, what he ate, how he communicated, what he did, who would be around him. He said, finally, I can live the way that I have always wanted to. This is not me reflecting you. This is me. This is how I live. This is renunciation. This is sannyas.
And then there was the whole dialogue that he entered into with us about his connection with the Sarasvati tradition of sannyas associated with Baba Muktananda. Now, I won’t go into all that because that’s immense, but that lineage was connected to.
And he wore orange. And he moved out of the residence that he was in that accommodated a wider sphere and moved into a very small room as if he was going to be living eternally on retreat in this small space, simple space, you know, dressed very simply in his orange and beginning to fast. So those are the signs I’m talking about and in him.
And I felt it in seeing him do this was a huge relief in my own being. Equally, it was a confrontation of. Oh. This is a big change. And being so close. And I know many a lot of it was videoed and communicated and all of this.
Everyone realized this is a huge change. He’s embracing sannyas and renunciation. What does that mean for us?
And he’s indicating no longer can he relate to us as he did in the past. So immediately, all of the ways that any of us would have related to him during those years would have to be shed. That in and of itself was huge.
And every emotion you can imagine, even down to the fundamental sense of terror and fear and sense of betrayal. And, oh, my beloved, you know what? What’s happening here? But you promised this and you said this and we did this and this seemed true. And what does all this mean?
[Speaker 2] (13:41 - 13:42) Yeah.
[Speaker 1] (13:43 - 14:42) And in his communication, he said that what he did was absolutely essential. So you cannot negate. He said that there’s no dissociation or negation or anything negative about what I am stating here.
I’m simply indicating that the shift is happening. The turnabout is happening here. And this is a profoundly auspicious, esoteric event, which means you don’t relate to me in on any other terms than recognizing and me and transcending the ego.
I act in satsang with me as the siddha that is giving you that transmission and that blessing. And I can’t relate to you on any other terms because this mechanism can’t do that anymore. I need to be unseated fully in this body as is, as reality, truth itself.
[Speaker 2] (14:43 - 14:51) And he’s asking you to relate to him instead of him responding to you.
[Speaker 1] (14:51 - 15:13) Exactly. Exactly. That’s the turnabout.
That’s that’s the turnabout, not requiring his energy and attention for our ego drama and for him to have to continually address it because we’re not taking responsibility for that yoga, that precise yoga. The radical yoga.
[Speaker 2] (15:14 - 15:59) And this is where he coined the term. You have to grab the tail of the horse, meaning that you need to stay with him. Otherwise, this is not something that you can manufacture on your own.
This is a true submission to who he is. Yes. And also the responsibility.
Now, the whole process is about you magnifying as an instrument. We talked about you as a coin, as an instrument, as a vehicle, as a puja, as a temple. But the people around him, you particularly, and your sisters, the Kanyas, were profoundly responsible to stay in this new response.
[Speaker 1] (16:00 - 16:21) Yes, yes, yes. Ecstatic tapas. And.
As we know, the Sanyas period, though, did come to an end. And because he said there wasn’t a response or a true understanding of what it was.
[Speaker 2] (16:22 - 16:38) Right. But but I want to just address this article back here where you and the four, the four ladies, you being one of them. Actually, we’re able to be. And confess.
[Speaker 1] (16:39 - 16:39) Yeah.
[Speaker 2] (16:39 - 16:57) A very high level of realization. Through his. Cities through his under his his new, if you will. Yeah.
[Speaker 1] (16:58 - 17:20) His testing, improving intent, transmission really is what it was, because the event itself. Was the revelation and the awakening of true renunciation, which means the true radical yoga of ego transcending sadhana. It placed us in the context of his person.
[Speaker 2] (17:20 - 17:21) Right.
[Speaker 1] (17:21 - 17:30) State of being rather than relating to him in the context of assuming a failed ego drama.
[Speaker 2] (17:30 - 17:31) Right.
[Speaker 1] (17:31 - 18:00) So and even though the the orange time came to an end, this occurred, as you will notice, we’re not dressed in orange there, you see. And so when we returned to the island after the Yajna period, it became a time of incredible testing and proving relative to what had occurred in relationship to him. I mean, there’s so many details that I could go into.
Right.
[Speaker 2] (18:01 - 18:01) Right.
[Speaker 1] (18:01 - 18:38) You know, relative to what happened on the Yajna, how it what failed and how the whole thing happened. But to relate to what you’re specifically asking in regards to that article, is that with the the four of us, Sukumai, Nadikanta and Supriti and myself. Remember, actually, it was Tripura, Navinita, Supriti and Remembrance at that time.
We were absolutely one pointed. That’s that’s what really I could describe.
[Speaker 2] (18:38 - 18:39) Right.
[Speaker 1] (18:39 - 22:39) Is that 20 like literally, as I said, 24 seven, we were on him and not as we had been in the past, because this unfolding awakening and emergence of his the way he was manifesting his work. And that would contest continued was obvious to us. And there was an unrelenting necessity for us to communicate to him on that basis, practice in relationship to one another on that basis, serve him on that basis, communicate to others upon that basis, inspire others and call them to that.
Serve his daughters on that basis, serve the ashram wherever we were, presentations, communications, whatever we did. It was to be upon the basis of us being wedded in perfect fidelity to him in the the the grip with the gift that we had been given to the greatest of our ability. And to hold one another to account and to do that in relationship to the culture itself, where there was a reciprocation in which we were not just accountable to him and to one another, but also to the culture.
We were always interacting with the culture. And so in that context, we meditated with him every day, long time. And there was lots of meditation apart from that, lots of study and consideration and communication and interaction with him.
Similar periods of time during the teaching years that produced the Dawn Horse Testament, but then the Dalai Lama Nanda Gita was written and more communication came out as a result of our continued interaction with him. And it was all about the radical Dharma, the highest teaching, which is about living in the context of conscious, the consciousness domain itself, rather than nearly the body mind domain in the limited perspective in time and space based upon the ego act. However, even though that was awakened, it was also he spoke to us and made it clear that was not realization.
That wasn’t perfect realization. It wasn’t seventh stage awakening by any means of the imagination. It was, as he said, and how many times have you sat in a gathering or heard him speak where he would say to us right now, right now.
What is your relationship to what is arising? Are you aware? Are you feeling awareness? Are you attention or are you the witness? What is your true relationship to what is arising? And he would always point out to us that, yes, everybody confessed to this as being true, that I am merely witnessing this.
So acknowledging that there can be a philosophical comprehension of that. But what he was doing with us at that time was going through the rigors of asking us what are the spiritual signs of that transcendental awakening? Are they present? Are they there? Are they true? And so in that particular article that you’re speaking about is when he was acknowledging that those spiritual signs were also coincident with that awakening that had been given as a gift of renunciation, ego renunciation, realization and renunciation at the time of the divine self emergence.
And the reason why that was so important as it began to become clear as time went on is that he said this was his purpose for his embodiment.
[Speaker 2] (22:40 - 22:40) All right.
[Speaker 1] (22:41 - 22:46) Was this crossing down or the avataric descent from the Siddha realm?
[Speaker 2] (22:48 - 23:22) To awaken, to awaken not only, and this is the profundity of it, not only those who are close and intimate with him, but that crossing down into the cosmos is a world awakening. Right. And this is where only later on in the early 90s does he confess in the full sense of the confession as being the world teacher.
[Speaker 1] (23:22 - 23:48) Correct. That’s absolutely true. Yes.
And so our relationship to that was, as I communicated in our last dialogue, is that there was always the intuition of that, the profundity of it, but not a complete comprehension of it as a realization, you know, or a certainty by his confession.
[Speaker 2] (23:48 - 23:52) But also his confession to it.
[Speaker 1] (23:52 - 23:53) Yes.
[Speaker 2] (23:53 - 24:05) Because as he later on spoke about it is that he was waiting for that understanding or that confession or realization from his devotees.
[Speaker 1] (24:06 - 24:33) That’s right. That’s right. And as you keep indicating, which is so, so important, because this breaks the cultic spell of the ego act in relationship to anyone or anything, no matter who you are or what you belong to, is that any truly esoteric spiritual revelation or realization by a true Siddha master has universal impact.
[Speaker 2] (24:33 - 24:33) Right.
[Speaker 1] (24:33 - 25:00) So it’s not just those, as you say, in the room with him on his body. And he said that to me so many times, you know, to make it abundantly clear. And so the confession that any one of us could have made and did at the time, what was so ecstatic about it was the heart intuition of the magnitude of it.
[Speaker 2] (25:00 - 25:01) Right.
[Speaker 1] (25:01 - 25:25) That was inexplicable. You can’t really speak about it, but you feel a certainty of it because you’re living or awakened in a context that is not merely identified with a very finite and minute sense of existence anymore. Right.
It’s not merely psychophysical. It’s universal.
[Speaker 2] (25:26 - 25:27) Right.
[Speaker 1] (25:27 - 25:37) You know, the patterns, the context within which the patterns are arising, identity, sense of identity is different.
[Speaker 2] (25:37 - 26:11) Well, in the traditions, this is where you, and it’s spoken to in various areas of the tradition, is that you are now in universal mind, if you will, to use a Buddhist term. You’re in the cosmic mind. You’re not in the individual personal mind.
You’ve transcended the lower levels of identity of body, mind, tradition, history, whatever. Now you’re in a cosmic moment, an eternal moment. Right.
[Speaker 1] (26:12 - 27:04) Yes. And the awakening that he granted us and gave, continued to consider every day with us relative to communicating about what occurred in our meditation from 1986 to 19, well for me until 1992, day in and day out. It continued even after that, all the way until his Mahasamadhi.
He still engaged us in that consideration of understanding, most radical, perfect knowledge understanding. But from that specific period of time, it was prior even to universal mind, because we were established in the witness position, which is then in terms of understanding the esoteric anatomy and the, you know, the levels of esoteric…
[Speaker 2] (27:04 - 27:08) Well, I mean, when you’re splitting atoms, you know.
[Speaker 1] (27:08 - 27:46) Yeah. And this point, however, is very critical in terms of his uniqueness because of, even in terms of his relationship to Baba Muktananda and the sannyas that Baba gave him in terms of his awakening. And then the apparent debate around where is the heart? Where is the source? Heart on the right, the blue bindu above, you know, and what is Atmanadi, Amritanadi? I mean, this is all the esotericism, but this is the stuff we were speaking about.
This is the process within which it was being tested and proven.
[Speaker 2] (27:47 - 28:07) And that’s necessary for people who have more of a kind of a kind of a Jnani or knowledge-based orientation to this. And I just want to stay without getting lost in the abstractions of the dharma.
[Speaker 1] (28:07 - 28:16) Yeah. Well, it is abstractions because that’s not the context even of the most radical understanding of Adi Da’s work. Yeah.
[Speaker 2] (28:17 - 28:36) Yeah. Well, as he says, I mean, his real teaching is the silence, if you will, the transmission. So it’s not about, primarily it’s not about the word or concepts, perceptions.
[Speaker 1] (28:41 - 28:42) Of any kind.
[Speaker 2] (28:42 - 29:55) So we’re speaking in that prior place that is prior to everything else that arises, but includes everything that arises. So this is the paradigm. Yes.
Yes. But I want to stay with this Ashvamedha, which really gets into later on, and we’ll speak about it later on. And maybe we should kind of summarize a little bit here.
This is really the first breakthrough for him and also for others and also for the larger world, as the Ashvamedha points to and has pointed to for eons. That this is really a new time, not just for the people within the Adi Da community, but also the world time. This is a new moment.
And it is an eternal moment. It’s not something that’s going forward into some future time. No.
We are now in eternal time.
[Speaker 1] (29:56 - 30:03) Yes. Yes. Yes.
That is what he said he accomplished. That was what was accomplished.
[Speaker 2] (30:03 - 30:04) History is over.
[Speaker 1] (30:05 - 30:06) Accessibility.
[Speaker 2] (30:06 - 30:37) He is the culmination. He’s the culmination. This is a culmination.
There’s no more, nowhere to go. Nothing happening. This is now fully.
The revelation is here. And it’s the understanding that needs to be adapted or understood that this is now an eternal moment, not a future moment or a past moment. It’s a culmination of the great tradition, if you will.
[Speaker 1] (30:37 - 30:42) Yes. Yes. And that is ecstatic.
And it’s not a negation.
[Speaker 2] (30:43 - 30:44) No. It’s an inclusion.
[Speaker 1] (30:45 - 31:08) It’s an inclusion. And that is a primary error in understanding to feel that somehow the eternal time or the unconditional or non-conditional, however it could be described or pointed to throughout the great tradition, that somehow or other, there was something that had to be done as an other in relationship to that for it to be achieved.
[Speaker 2] (31:08 - 31:13) He’s saying it’s a completed, it’s a completion.
[Speaker 1] (31:14 - 31:33) Yes. And all-inclusive completion in which there’s a radical turnabout in understanding the nature of truth and reality itself as the condition of everyone and everything.
[Speaker 2] (31:38 - 31:40) Put that in your Cheerios.
[Speaker 1] (31:41 - 31:56) Exactly. It’s not a threat, it’s not a threat, it’s ecstatic, it’s a liberation.
[Speaker 2] (31:58 - 32:20) To what is he saying? It’s a liberation to the confinement. It is literally, I think Frank Marrero wrote an article, I praise your death.
And maybe in the next session we could talk about it, because really what this is in the esoteric and the deep, it’s a transcendence of that.
[Speaker 1] (32:20 - 32:32) It comes down to something very simple. The ability to be loved unqualifiedly as loveless in unqualified relationships.
[Speaker 2] (32:32 - 34:27) I want to finish this with a reading by a wonderful woman, who in her own life is incredible. Judith Tyberg, and she was associated with a lot of things going on in California, but in India and Aurobindo and whatever. But she was a Sanskrit scholar, and I think maybe we’ll just end this particular session with her description.
Of the Ashvamedha divine horse sacrifice. She says, it is the divine man who is called the white horse to symbolize strength and power and all colors, hence power of full plentitude. Also, conqueror of Yama, death of all duality, all opposition, all darkness, the divine man on earth, one with the infinite divine.
And that’s what she called was the breakthrough of the horse, the divine horse of the Ashvamedha sacrifice. And so that’s the level of which we’re addressing here. And without getting too lost in the hyperbole or the revelation, just to keep it real, I think we’ll continue the discussion later on to further and fill in what this moment is for everyone who understands what it is that we’re speaking about.
[Speaker 1] (34:28 - 34:31) Yeah, thank you, Ed. That’s beautiful.
[Speaker 2] (34:33 - 34:44) So until the next time, for our listeners and watchers, thank you very much, and we’ll pick it up next week. Yeah. Bye-bye.
Bye. Bye-bye.