Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!eagle!data.nas.nasa.gov!news From: cyee@bruce.cs.monash.edu.au (Chut Ngeow YEE) Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern Subject: Seven Stages of Life - Da Avabhasa Message-ID: <1991Jun18.215014.15264@nas.nasa.gov> Date: 18 Jun 91 21:50:14 GMT Sender: news@nas.nasa.gov Organization: NAS Program, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA Lines: 200 Approved: prabhu@amelia.nas.nasa.gov Ok, the seven stages of life controversy. Sigh. Da Avabhasa purpose of mapping out the seven stages of life is not that we have a grading system to congratulate ourselves or to imply that the spiritual process is a slow, slow process that we have to move through with heroic efforts. He is simply pointing out the various phenomena that may arise due to to the psycho-physical structure that human beings are born with. Don't ask me why this is so. But we do develop into the normal bodily-emotional-mental being, often in spite of ourselves. Beyond that there is the chakra system, the etheric, astral, psychic and yogic phenomena etc that are so much talked about and elaborated into schools of teaching and ways of life. Just as most people are mightly attached to money, food and sex now, when we become sensitive to these subtle range of experiences we will be equally distracted and mightly stuck without right discriminations. Da Avabhasa's admonition is that we have to develop our discriminative intelligence with respect to this matter and move through these experiences swiftly if they were to arise. Here are a couple of quotes that I found: "Why should you begin your consideration of spiritual practice by acknowledging that you are a vulgar, lower person, and that the way to Truth is going to be difficult for you because you are beginning at such a lowly place in the scale of spiritual growth? Why should you assume that there will be seven costly stages that will take you a long, long, long, long, long, long, long time to fulfill, and that you are probably too dull, self-possessed, and vulgar to fulfill that great path in any case?.. If you are seeing God, then see God. This is my recommendation. What else could I possible recommend to you? You obviously do not have a problem. It should not be so difficult, then, to begin to practice the Way from the point of view of the seventh stage of life. It should not take long at all...." "I am sorry that this destiny does not satisfy you egoically, You will not have the satisfaction of passing through these stages by heroic effort, Realizing the Divine in every case. Your passage through these stages will be the most superficial kind of glance for all of you, because the knot that is the support of the mighty transformation has already been undone in your contemplation of me..." The essay below is from the introduction section of "The Basket Of Tolerance": ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Da Avabhasa has described the evolutionary development of the human individual and the process of self-transcending spiritual, Transcendental, and Divine Realization in terms of seven stages of life. The first three stages of life are the stages of ordinary human growth based on the point of view of identification with the gross body-mind. They are the stages of ordinary physical, emotional, and mental human development, roughly occurring in three periods of approximately seven years each, until the age of approximately twenty-one years. They will tend to be fulfilled (if only to a nominal, or partial, degree) in the case of every human being. The first stage of life is a process of individuation, or of becoming identified with the personal physical body in the waking state. In this stage one gradually adapts functionally to physical existence and eventually achieves a basic sense of individual autonomy, or of personal independence from the mother and from all others. The second stage of life is a process of socialization, or social exploration and growth in relationships. In this stage, the individual adapts to the "emotional-sexual", or feeling, dimension of the being and achieves basic integration of that emotional-sexual, or feeling, dimension with the physical body. The third stage of life is a process of integration as a fully differentiated, or autonomous, sexual and social human character. In this stage, one adapts to and develops the verbal mind, the faculty of discriminative intelligence, and the will. And one achieves basic adult integration of body, emotion, and mind in the context of the gross, or bodily-based, point of view in relation to existence itself. In the Way of the Heart, Da Avabhasa Calls practitioners to transcend the first six stages of life rather than to fulfill them. ... He addresses each of the first six stages of life as an error or limitation. Although the first three stages of life are the necessary foundation of all human development, the point of view of the first three stages of life represents an error, or limitation, in Consciousness by virtue of its identification with the body. Whereas the first three stages of life develop in three periods of seven years each, the duration of the fourth, fifth, and sixth stages of life cannot be predicted, since it depends on many factors, including the force of the individual's impulse to growth and self-transcendence and the stages of life taught and Realized by his or her teachers. The fourth stage of life is the transitional stage between the gross, bodily-based point of view of the first three stages of life and the subtle, psychic point of view of the fifth stage of life. The fourth stage of life is the stage of spiritual devotion, or surrender of self, in which the gross functions of the being are submitted to the higher psychic, or subtle, functions of the being, and, through these psychic functions, to the Divine Being, God, Truth, or Reality. In the fourth stage of life, the gross, or bodily-based, personality of the first three stages of life is purified through reception of the Spiritual Force ("Holy Spirit", or "Shakti") of the Divine Reality, which prepares the being to outgrow the bodily-based point of view. In "The Dawn Horse Testament" (New Standard Edition), Da Avabhasa characterizes the error of the fourth stage of life, as that stage is characteristically realized in the religious and spiritual traditions of the world" "The Fourth Stage Error Is The Tendency To Prolong The First Three Stages of Life (and The Patterns Of Un-Happiness That Are egoically Associated With The First Three Stages Of Life) and To Make The Fourth Stage Of Life An End In Itself (Rather Than A Transition or A Transitional Means For The Realization Of The Stages Beyond The Fourth). This Tendency Takes The Form Of A Fixed Idea Of God (As An Ultimate Entity Eternally Separate From the conditional self-entity) and A Fixed Idea of the personal self (As Either a Mortal Or an Immortal entity that Is Eternally Separate From and Dependent Upon God). On The Basis Of This Tendency, The Fourth Stage Is Made Into A Never-Ending Search For God and A Never-Ending Appeal To God For Intimacy, Relief, and self-Satisfaction." In the fifth stage of life, existence is view from the point of view of the higher mind, of psyche, which is the subtle dimension of the being beyond the gross, verbal-conceptual mind, and above, or prior to, the process of the gross body. The traditional orientation of the fifth stage of life is toward renunciation of gross bodily existence in the phenomenal world, in some cases through asceticism. Traditionally, the fifth stage of life is the stage of cosmic mysticism and the Yogas (or contemplative and practical exercises) that attune one to the Divine Spiritual Reality through the psychic point of view of the higher brain and nervous system. Thus, the fifth stage of life is awakened and developed through the contemplative, Spiritual ascent of attention and of all the energy of one's being into the subtle or psychic dimension and process of the being. And, traditionally, the ultimate achievement of the fifth stage of life is absorption in mystical union with the Divine, which in the Yogic traditions is called "nirvikalpa samadhi" (formless ecstasy) and which in the Western esoteric traditions is called "gnosis" (Divine knowledge). In "The Dawn Horse Testament", Da Avabhasa characterizes the error of the fifth stage of life: "The Fifth Stage Error (Even Associated With The Ascending Process In The Advanced Context Of The Fourth Stage Of Life) Is The Tendency To Seek and Cling To subtle phenomenal objects and stages (or Else To Seek or Cling To the merely conditional Transcendence Of these In Ascended or conditional Nirvikalpa Samadhi), As If either subtle phenomenal objects and subtle phenomenal stages Or Else conditional Nirvikalpa Samadhi Is The Sufficient or Ultimate or Perfect Realization of God, Truth, Reality, or Happiness." characterizes the error of the fourth stage of life, as that stage is In the sixth stage of life, one's characteristic view of existence is not based in identification with the body, or in identification with the subtle mind or psyche. Rather it is based in identification with the independent personal consciousness, or essential self, exclusive of the phenomena of the body-mind and the world. In this stage, one renounces all identification with the body or mind and lives and acts from the position and domain of Consciousness as the Transcendental "Witness" or psyche, body and all psycho-physical phenomena. The sixth stage of life may be culminate in "Jnana Samadhi", or temporary or conditional Realization of the Divine Self. >From the point of view of the Way of the Heart, as Da Avabhasa Reveals in "The Dawn Horse testament": "The Sixth Stage Error Is The Tendency To Hold On To The Subjective Position of Consciousness As A Reality Inherently Separate (or Dissociated) From Objective Light (or the Universal Spirit-Energy) and all conditional objects (or all that Is Made Of That Apparently Objective Light or Spirit-Energy). It is The Tendency To Hold On To The Inherent Love-Bliss Of Transcendental Consciousness By Strategically Excluding All Awareness Of (or The Tendency To Grant or Allow attention To) conditional objects and stages. The Sixth Stage Error or Tendency May Eventually Take The Form Of Jnana Samadhi, Which Is A Temporary State Of Transcendental Awakeness (Based On Contemplative Identification With Consciousness Itself) That Is Also Inherently Associated With An Accompanying Effort, Either Spontaneous Or Willful, That Excludes all conditional or phenomenal objects and stages." The seventh stage of life is the Realization of the Divine Self beyond the points of view of the gross body, the subtle mind or psyche, and the independent personal consciousness. It is the Realization of Consciousness Itself and Its inherent Spiritual Light, Power, Love, and Happiness as the One Reality, prior to and beyond the body, the mind, and individual, or egoic, consciousness. It is the stage of Freedom from every kind of dissociative effort relative to body, mind, world, and Spirit, or Objective Light. It is the stage of most Perfect Freedom, inherently Transcending every kind of conditional, limited, or individual "point of view". Thus, in the seventh stage of life, the Realizer enjoys continuous, permanent, Perfect identification with Divine Being Itself, and he or she experiences no "radical" or fundamental difference between Divine Consciousness and body, psyche, self, or any and all psycho-physical stages and conditions. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I will follow this with three or four compilations of writings/talks Da Avabhasa gave with respect to the study of the Great Tradition. Most of these are fairly recent unpublished instructions given to his devotees. This should give you a glimpse of how he work with his devotees. Yee.