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Places and Things > Introduction > The
Spirit and the Spiritual
The
Spirit and Spiritual in AdidamLeroy Stilwell
and Laura deBaun Leroy
Stilwell has been a devotee of Adi Da Samraj since 1976. He is one of the
founders of this website. You can read his biographical information in the About
Us section. Laura
deBaun has been a devotee since the early 1980s. She is a marriage and family
therapist. Her principal services in Adidam includes caring for Holy Sites at
The Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary.
Often one hears people use the word "spiritual" to refer to
many different things, for instance: a reflective walk on the beach, a
singularly ecstatic orgasm, a philosophical or poetic feeling, a devotional
religious sentiment. Particularly in this section on Spiritually Empowered Holy
Sites and Objects, it is important that we make clear how in Adidam (and on this
website) we use the word "Spiritual" in a particular (and precise) technical sense.
This article provides more detail. An Empowered Place or Object
is where one can contact the Spirit, Spiritual Force or Power, or Spiritual Transmission.
In relation to a Spiritual Master, it is a Means where, or through which, one
literally contacts that Spiritual Master. It is a Mysterious, but absolutely real
process. Avatar Adi Da has made it part of His Work to establish such Empowered
Places and Objects as vehicles to extend His Blessing and Transcendental Spiritual
Transmission beyond the lifetime of His Human Body. In Adidam, one invokes Adi
Da and enters into literal devotional and Spiritual Communion with Him. In that
Communion with Him, an extraordinary process of conformation of the being to the
Reality That Adi Da Is takes place. Adi
Da has given devotees many aids to entering into Communion with Him. In addition
to the moment-to-moment practice and disposition He Gives, there is meditation,
puja (or sacred religious ceremony), and service. In this section of our website,
you will read stories that specifically illustrate the tangibility of the Spirit
and Spiritual Process. These types of stories — and they are innumerable — demonstrate
for devotees the singleness of Avatar Adi Da as Human Spiritual Master and Avatar
Adi Da as Spirit. These stories epitomize, perhaps, the devotional relationship
to Him, which devotion is fundamental to the Way that He teaches. There
are stories where devotees’ experience is described more in terms of perceived
Spiritual Force and even spontaneous healings happening coincident with participation
in a sacred occasion and/or being in an Empowered Temple.
And there are stories where one is moved beyond even the relationship to Avatar
Adi Da as Spirit (or Divine Person), to unity, then utterly self-forgotten identity
with Him as Self-Radiant Love-Bliss-Consciousness Itself.
All of these stories, then, point to what is meant in Adidam by “Spiritual”.
The devotional and spiritual relationship to Adi Da is an infinitely more-than-remarkable
relationship with Reality Itself, manifested through the deepest humanly-felt
intimacy with the Divine Person, in the Person of Adi Da and Adi Da as Spirit
and Adi Da as Transcendental Being Itself. Once a devotee is established in, and
formally responsible for, the Spiritual relationship to Avatar Adi Da, He can
do His Work of Liberating that apparent one.
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