FAQs about Adi Da & Adidam > Taking Up the Way of Adidam > Recognition > Introduction

The Significance of Recognition
In The Way of Adidam:
Introduction


This is the introduction to Chris Tong's article, The Significance of Recognition in the Way of Adidam.


True religion is not about the “me” of “you”. True religion is not about the ego-“I”. True religion is not about the “me”-person who participates in religion. Rather, true religion is about the Divine — with Which any individual is re-associating, or re-uniting. True religion is, ultimately, about discovering Oneness with the Divine Self-Condition to be Always Already the Case. That is true religion.

In this “late-time” (or “dark” epoch), religion has been reduced to being a reflection of humankind. The “talkers” of religion are constantly making pronouncements about matters of a social (and obsessively sexual) and political nature — matters that are essentially about humankind (rather than about the Divine), and of a gross nature (rather than of a Spiritual, Transcendental, and Divine Nature). . . .

Thus, in this “late-time” (or “dark” epoch), religion is being used “Narcissistically” — as if religion were about the human ego, instead of being about the Divine Condition of Reality Itself. To Realize the Divine Condition of Reality — to re-unite with That, to discover Oneness with That — requires the transcending of the human ego. . . .

When people’s participation in religion is “Narcissistic”, their religion is merely a reflection of themselves — and, in that case, people do not find the Divine. Thus, all over the world, true religion is being lost — and religion is being misused, for “Narcissistic” purposes. That is not true religion. That is false religion.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, Up? (2006)



Avatar Adi Da Samraj. . . I have Appeared in this world by virtue of a Magnification of the Spiritually "Bright" Divine Heart Itself (Which Is My Own Heart), and a Materialization of the Divine Light (Which Is My Own Light).

I have Come for the sake of My own, those who heart-recognize Me and heart-respond to Me when I Reveal Myself to them in Forms of Life, Light, and Truth....

I am here to Live with My own, to Discipline and Teach them, to Reveal the Truth to them, and to Draw them to Me.


Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"The Heaven-Born Gospel of the Ruchira Avatar" (March 11, 1973)
My "Bright" Word


From the beginning of His work with devotees, Adi Da has always said that the Way of Adidam is not a technique, but instead is all about the relationship with Him. Particularly since the Ruchira Dham event of April 2000, He has refined that communication: the Way of Adidam is entirely about recognition of Him as the Divine Person.[1] As He said to one person a few years ago: Who are you relating to, when you contemplate Me? Are you relating to Me as an ordinary man? Are you relating to Me as a Transmission Master? Or are you recognizing Me as the very Divine, and relating to Me and responding to Me on that basis?


At some time or other every one of you will come to a moment of understanding What has entered your life. Maybe this is that moment. Sooner or later all devotees, every single one, will come to understand, Realize, and be undone by the recognition of That Which has come into their lives.

It is not just a man with unusual energy [a Transmission Master], although such recognition is a basic aspect of what devotees acknowledge from the beginning. You will reach another moment — whether you have reached it now or not is for you to know — but you will come to a moment, during My life or after it, in which you understand, you comprehend, you are transformed by What you are witnessing.

You are seeing a miracle, but you do not necessarily understand It as such. You interpret It in ordinary terms, thus making it possible for you to live conventionally in relation to Me. But at some point, you will begin to understand that you have been seeing a miracle through this ordinariness. That is the devotee’s confession. The real miracle is not something totally outside the range of human comprehension, as if I walked into the yard and My body turned into a pile of chocolate bars! No. Extraordinary signs are exhibited through My person in relationship, but basically you see an ordinary demonstration, magnified umpteen times in myriad relations.

I appear through the vehicle of ordinariness, but the Force of What you are observing will at some point utterly transform you. During My life or after It, this miracle will utterly transform you. The exhibit of this ordinariness will suddenly be observed by you to be a miracle. The Seed of it, the necessary Source of it, the real Source of it, will suddenly be understood. You will suddenly understand and transcend comprehension: you will be confronted by the Great One. That is what devotion is about.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, August 24, 1983


It is only on this Divine basis that the Way of Adidam is (as Adi Da repeatedly describes it) a Seventh Stage Way from the beginning. And it is only on this Divine basis that the Way of Adidam Ruchiradam can actually begin for real.


If you don't find Me, don't know Me, aren't attracted to Me, then you will not turn to Me. If you're simply self possessed you can try and reorient the body-mind to Me. But what does that mean? You will be somehow or other moving attention toward a picture of Me or an idea of Me perhaps and so on, but it is not Me. That is My Sign, but it is not the recognition of Me. The recognition of Me is the tacit participation in My Self-Revealed Person, Presence, and State.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "Find Me, Know Me, Recognize Me"
The Way Beyond Ego (CD)


I have asked you a number of times in these recent occasions about your sense of the Divine, or your sense of Me, and you have had very little to say. This suggests that even though you want to be religious, the fundamental dimension that would enable you to be religious is somehow unreal to you. You are all that is real to you. You cannot do Yoga if you are the only thing real to you. You yourself are the barrier to Yoga. Life does not become Yoga until That Which is to be Realized is in some fundamental sense Real to your heart and mind.

How can you surrender to something that, in your estimation, is the same as you? There is no great result in doing so, no Yoga. You must find the Living One in the True God-Realizer, and do the Yoga according to That One's Instruction.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"The Yoga of Body, Mind, Emotion, and Breath", Ishta


"Recognition of Adi Da" is more fully described as "whole bodily devotional recognition-response to Adi Da", as indicated in the following passages [bolding is mine]:


If I am whole-bodily-responsively devotionally recognized, the Divine "Bright" Spherical Self-Domain Is The Case — and not the "world".

If I am whole-bodily-responsively devotionally recognized, then there is participation in the Water Itself — not in the mirroring-"effects" of illusion, mind, seeking, conditional bondage, and suffering.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "The Boundless Self-Confession"
Part 24, The Aletheon


The worship of the "Bright" must be established in this conditional realm. I Am the inherently egoless Divine (and Acausal) Person and the Avatarically-Born Divine (and Acausal) Self-Revelation of the "Bright".

I must (in and as My Avatarically-Born bodily human Divine Form and Person) be whole bodily (or in a total psycho-physical, and, ultimately, most perfectly egoless, manner) heart-recognized as the "Bright".

Only one who thus (ever more deeply) heart-recognizes Me is My true (and, ultimately, truly perfect) devotee. . .

I am not merely in the Divine State.

I Am the Divine State — here and forever now.

My inherent Divine State and inherently egoless Divine Personal Identity is (now, and forever hereafter) spontaneously Self-Transmitting itself — as Me (Avatarically Self-Manifested in and as My Avatarically-Born bodily human Divine Form, and Avatarically Self-Transmitted as and by means of My always-Blessing Divine Spiritual Presence, and, altogether, Avatarically Self-Revealed as My Divine, and very, and inherently egoless State).

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, Chapter 17, The Scapegoat Book


In the following introductory video, a number of devotees speak about their recognition of Adi Da as the Divine:



Because recognition of Adi Da as the Divine is both the basis for becoming a devotee and the key to fruitful practice of the Way of Adidam, a discriminating article on recognition can be very helpful for both prospective and current devotees.

For this reason, I have written at length on some of the key points and issues associated with recognition in parts 1 through 5 of this article. This article explores such issues as: recognition as a Revelation, not a belief (part 1); determining whether one has recognized Adi Da as the Divine Person (part 1); recognition as the primary requirement for becoming a devotee and for growing in the Way of Adidam (part 2); how the recognition capability is associated with spontaneous growth in the practice of Adidam (part 3); the difference between a moment of recognition and the moment-to-moment recognition capability (part 4); how moments of recognition are Adi Da's gift to us, but the recognition capability is our gift to Him (part 4); and the "recognition consideration" for prospective devotees, whose successful conclusion (the Revelation Itself) dissolves all questions or doubts they may have about becoming Adi Da's devotee (part 5).



Part 1: How To Tell Whether One is Recognizing Adi Da


 
[1] The timing is not coincidental: the Ruchira Dham event brought the Divine State directly into conjunction with Adi Da's human body in the most transparent fashion, making it easier than ever to recognize Adi Da as the Divine Person.


Quotations from and/or photographs of Avatar Adi Da Samraj used by permission of the copyright owner:
© Copyrighted materials used with the permission of The Avataric Samrajya of Adidam Pty Ltd, as trustee for The Avataric Samrajya of Adidam. All rights reserved. None of these materials may be disseminated or otherwise used for any non-personal purpose without the prior agreement of the copyright owner. ADIDAM is a trademark of The Avataric Samrajya of Adidam Pty Ltd, as Trustee for the Avataric Samrajya of Adidam.

Technical problems with our site? Let our webmaster know.