INTRODUCTION
(page 6 of 8)
"Then Einstein's equation begins to makes sense in daily life,
and the idea that matter is dead and merely solid is realized
to be naive and false."
The Bodily Revelation of Conscious Light
When Einstein expressed the relationship between matter and light in his famous equation,
E = mc2, he changed the face of physics forever, but not (generally speaking) the worldview of physicists themselves, nor that of other ordinary human beings.
Who lives on the basis of the truth that matter is energy? Who participates in the universe as a transparent, ecstatic play of light?
Mathematical theory is not enough. No difference is made at the heart of human beings, unless the equivalence of matter and light is seen, felt, experienced, and lived as true. And there is no way that can happen except by Divine Revelation.
This is the peerless contribution of The Knee Of Listening to human culture. This book is not about a theoretical realization about Reality. The Knee Of Listening is about the bodily Revelation of Conscious Light in the Form of the Ruchira Avatar, Adi Da.
It is about Reality (or Conscious Light) Itself coming "out of the closet " and into the Room — in Person. Based on this recognition of the Ruchira Avatar, and turning the psycho-physical faculties (of body, emotion, mind, and breath) to Him (which is the practice that He gives to His devotees), the literal nature of Reality as Conscious Light is felt and verified in one's own case.
Then Einstein's equation begins to makes sense in daily life, and the idea that matter is dead and merely solid is realized to be naive and false.
To read Part Three is to enter into incomparable profundities of Energy and Light.
The first of the Great Yogic Events described by Avatar Adi Da is Initiated in Him by a Descent of His own Divine Spirit-Force so profound that His body is entirely overwhelmed and apparently comes close to death.
His life-signs reappear, and the resulting transformation in His bodily Vehicle is extraordinary. There is an unearthly Radiance transmuting the cells, a great magnification of His "Bright" Fullness of Being. He is entirely given over into that perpetual Samadhi, which inevitably changes His Manner of Working from what it had been before.
The second and third Yogic Events are even more profound. In fact, they represent two parts of one Event, separated in time by one year. In this Process, the Divine Avatar's Body is further Transfigured. He "Returns " to His own Condition of Supernal Light while mysteriously maintaining a thread of association with the physical.
And His State is not changed to this present day. In fact, the Process of His own "Self-Brightening " simply continues. The Ordeal of this ultimate Divine Transformation is scarcely communicable — but it is described by Avatar Adi Da, the only One Who can truly speak of it, in the sublime Commentaries of Part Three.
No mere human being could ever make these Utterances. To receive the Confessions of His Divine Process — and its Meaning — is to stand on the most holy ground the heart could ever know.
The Tradition of the Dissolution of the Body in Light
Over the years, Avatar Adi Da has spoken with His devotees, both humorously and seriously, about the esoteric (and at times bizarre) tradition of the spontaneous dissolution of the body into light, in the case of rare individuals.
Whatever the verity of these reports — which come from legend, literature, and oral tradition, and which are (therefore) impossible either to substantiate or to disprove — they reflect a primal human impulse. That impulse is to demonstrate, in the body, that gross (or "dead ") materiality is, in reality, energy — and, ultimately, light — beyond all mortal suffering.
In this sense, the reports of "going up in light " are premonitions of Avatar Adi Da's Avataric Revelation of the Divine Conscious Light, and of what He calls "Divine Translation ", which is being more and more profoundly Demonstrated in His case, even while He remains Embodied.
An ancient and moving account of disappearance in light figures in Sophocles' final play, Oedipus in Colonus. At the climactic moment of the drama, Sophocles describes the miraculous death of Oedipus, most cursed and most noble of men:
But after a little while, some paces off,
we glanced around
And Oedipus was nowhere to be seen
but only the king,
holding up his hands to screen his eyes
as if he had beheld a vision —
one too dazzling for a mortal's sight....
How Oedipus passed, no man shall ever tell.*
next: Divine Translation
*Sophocles, The Complete Plays
trans. Paul Roche
(New York: Signet Classic, 2001), 330
