FAQs about Adi Da & Adidam > Taking Up the Way of Adidam > Recognition > Part 4

4. Placing Recognition of Adi Da in
a Historical and Cultural Context


This is Part 4 of Chris Tong's five-part article, The Significance of Recognition in the Way of Adidam.

This Part has several subsections:

  1. The Eternal Fire-Sacrifice: Fanning the Flame
  2. The Ancient Walk-About Way
  3. The Ancient Walk-About Way in the Modern Godless World
  4. Recognition in the History of Esoteric Traditions and in this Moment of Adidam
  5. Adidam History: From "The Way of Radical Understanding" to "The Way of Me"
  6. The "Paradox" in Establishing the Recognition Capability
  7. The Further Development of the Recognition Capability

Avatar Adi Da Samraj


4.1. Moments of Recognition versus the Recognition Capability


I'm not talking "moments".

Avatar Adi Da Samraj


The only-by-Me Revealed and Given Reality-Way of Adidam can be rightly and truly lived only by those who devotionally recognize Me. The Reality-Way of Adidam is not a progressive process of seeking to go beyond egoity, until, at last, you (only eventually) devotionally recognize Me. The Reality-Way of Adidam is about devotionally recognizing Me from the beginning, and constantly thereafter. . . . The Reality-Way of Adidam is The . . . Way of whole bodily (or total psycho-physical) pre-conversion to constantly responsive (and intrinsically ego-transcending, or "self"-contraction-transcending) relationship to Me.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"In Place (Where and As I Am)"
Part 14, The Aletheon


If we look at the criteria listed in part 1 ("How to tell whether one is recognizing Adi Da"), some of us who are devotees can point to moments (particularly in Adi Da's physical Company) that appear to match criteria (1) through (4), even as fewer of us can fit ourselves to criterion (5): "The Revelation of recognition leads to a spontaneous unfolding of practice".

If we have had such a moment of recognition, would we be "recognizing Adi Da"? Not according to Adi Da Himself.[1] During the final years of His human lifetime, in referring to the majority of the sangha, He repeatedly communicated that nobody was "recognizing" Him, right up to His Divine Mahasamadhi in November, 2008. Here are just a few examples:


The Initiation of My Divine Avataric Self-"Emergence" [on January 11, 1986] was not the end of the Process of My Perfectly Coinciding with everything and everyone — because there was yet no right and true whole bodily devotional recognition-response to Me on the part of My devotees.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "My Divine Avataric Event Will Brighten all-and-All"
Part 19, The Aletheon


People didn't show up in My Company as devotees. This is a third of a century later [since the start of My work with people]. They didn't show up as devotees. They were given the opportunity to have access to Me and to notice, to come to the point of recognizing Me and being there on a right basis. It never happened. Never ever happened. People just came, and went . . . No one was transformed. No one recognized Me and stayed on the basis of rightness with Me, of profound devotion to Me. No one.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, March 21, 2005


You don't know Me, My State, the significance of My Birth, the significance of My Gifts, the reason for My urgency. You all are asleep. . . .

I'm not merely a link in the chain. I'm not merely the "Master for our time" kind of stuff, as you might say. I am the Absolute Person coincident with this time, consequential forever. And I have yet, to this day, to be recognized. And the import of My Revelation has not been understood. It's as if you're all so veiled in your disposition, even in your perception, that you cannot get this. You cannot see Me. You cannot accept that there could be a Divine Revelation. Everything must just be this sort of ad hoc human product.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, June 22, 2007


Anybody who is recognizing Me is absorbed into My State. It is a profound Transcendental Spiritual condition. That's how I tell. All this bland, awkward, half-baked functionalism here, there's nothing ecstatic about it. Why does that happen? It's because people are not surrendered to Me. They are self-possessed. They try to be correct or get away with something. They're either exploiting Me or ignoring Me. They're playing a game. That's what makes them awkward. A true devotee is not awkward with Me. A true devotee is Communing with My Person, My State, is a servant of Mine, and in every moment of service is Communing with Me. That's what right service to Me is. It's completely egoless and involved in participating in My State, profoundly.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, October 7, 2008


Now some devotees sometimes say things like: "Well, I think I am recognizing Adi Da as the Divine Person, but my recognition is 'weak'." When someone put it that way to Adi Da Himself (during one of the Avataric Discourses He gave from 2004 to 2005), He humorously replied: "You can't be half-pregnant."

We can't "sort of" recognize Adi Da (or "weakly" recognize Him) as the Divine Person. Adi Da continued in His response to the questioner by asking him: "Who would you be relating to?" In other words, the Way of Adidam is based on the relationship with the Divine Person — so if one is not recognizing Adi Da as the Divine Person (in every moment), then one can't be relating to Him on that basis, and one must be relating to Him either as an ordinary man, or, at most, as an extraordinary man or Spiritual Transmission Master (but not as the Very Divine).

Having crossed the threshhold of recognizing Adi Da as the Divine Person, it is true that recognition does deepen with practice:


If I am devotionally recognized most profoundly, there is Divine Translation.

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


So one can't be half-pregnant. However, once pregnant, there is a process that unfolds that makes one more and more pregnant, and that culminates in giving birth.

So how can we resolve the sense that we've perhaps had "moments of recognition" (perhaps even becoming a devotee on the basis of such a moment — a perfectly appropriate response to that Revelation), but that this apparently is not what Adi Da Himself means by recognition (or He wouldn't say "nobody is recognizing Me")? Here is the primary distinction (the bold is ours):


Adidam Ruchiradam requires moment to moment recognition-response to Me, not just getting comfortable with some fraction or other of whatever I may be saying that you can isolate from the rest, package in a manner that makes you feel comfortable.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, October 17, 2008


When I am recognized on Sight — moment to moment — My devotee is intrinsically, inevitably, and whole bodily (or as a psycho-physical totality) moved to actively devotionally respond to Me.

That whole bodily devotional recognition-response manifests spontaneously, inevitably, and voluntarily as "self"-surrendering searchless embrace of all the forms of the only-by-Me-Revealed and Given practice of Adidam Ruchiradam.

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


Devotion to Me is established through listening to My Word, My Leelas, sighting My Form Bodily here. When this becomes the finding of Me, the recognition of Me, then devotion to Me is established. This Way is not established before then. Until then you can study this Way, you can listen to the stories of My Life and Work, you can sight My Bodily Human Form, Avatarically Born Divinely here, and all that continues until there is the true recognition-response to Me. Then The Way can begin.

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


People are always shrinking from Satsang into some mediocrity or self-concern or some aggravated state. They don't maintain the devotional relationship to the Guru, the force of the Guru has no effect. It is not active in them. The Guru is out there somewhere, and they are moving around and touching him every now and then. But the devotee maintains continuous contact. It is only the devotion of the devotee that provides a channel for the force of the Guru. If there's no real devotion, no literal devotion, no functional devotion, the Guru is turned away, the Guru has no way through. A mediocre person gains nothing because he is only obstructing the force of the Guru. Nothing occurs in such a one.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
The Dawn Horse Magazine, Vol 2, No. 2, Jubilee Issue, August 1974


It's only when you stay connected to Me through living means of devotion that I have the connectedness whereby My response to you can be conducted. So that's how devotion "causes" My Blessing and gives It room, gives It a conductor. And if you don't maintain this connectedness to Me through this turning to Me, and neglect it, you see, the lines of connection fall apart and you fall back on yourself. You fall on yourself and your tendencies, patterns of body-mind. And you may still talk the way, keep My picture and do some things that look like devotion, but it won't be connecting to Me.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "The Living Connection"


So by "recognition", Adi Da means "moment to moment" recognition, not "moments of recognition": an established capability, in other words. Everything we've been describing that follows from recognition — including the spontaneous unfolding of practice, the Way of Enchanted Divine Distraction, being Mastered, etc. — depends on this establishment of recognition as a moment-to-moment capability, through our personal responsibility for acting on what we are given. For example, one can't be Divinely Mastered without this moment-to-moment capability:


The devotional relationship I Offer is a Divine Gift. I Offer That Gift to everyone. . . If you are not heart-moved to be obedient to Me — tacitly understanding why obedience to Me is necessary — it is because you do not yet truly devotionally recognize Me. If you do not devotionally recognize Me as the Avatarically Incarnate Divine Person, you will not be obedient to Me.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "Divine Self-Obedience"
Part 9, The Aletheon


Just so, without recognizing Adi Da (in present time, moment to moment), the other aspects of the practice of Adidam are meaningless:


The entire devotional process in My Divine Avataric Company . . . is the unfolding magnification of "Root"-Coincidence with Me. If that "Root"-Coincidence is not (really, truly, and moment to moment) the case, it does not make any difference how "correct" My devotee is seeming to be, or how My devotee otherwise appears to be conforming to "correct" behavioral details of the practice I Reveal and Give. None of that "correctness" is authentic without That "Root"-Coincidence. Without That "Root"-Coincidence, there is nothing but mere behavior, mummery, ego-enactment — fruitless and meaningless nonsense. . . .

Every aspect of the Reality-Way of Adidam is a Magnification of right and true whole-bodily-recognition-responsive devotional Communion with Me As I Am (or As My Divinely Avatarically Revealed Person and State).

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "Always Know Me Perfectly"
Part 9, The Aletheon


One cannot grow in the Way of Adidam without first establishing recognition as a capability. Thus, at the present time in the history of Adidam, even though many devotees have had "moments of recognition", only a few have the recognition capability (demonstrated by the spontaneous unfolding of, and advance in, their practice), and it is for that reason that Adi Da said repeatedly, "Nobody is recognizing Me."

Remembering experiences with Adi Da — including past moments of recognition — can serve as inspiration (that recognition of Adi Da as the Divine Person is real, that it is possible, etc.), but cannot take the place of present-time recognition:


Merely because you have some kind of "experience" does not mean that your practice of the only-by-Me-Revealed and Given Reality-Way of Adidam (or Adidam Ruchiradam) should thenceforth be different. . . There is something about "experiences" that leads you to be attached to them or to be glamorized or stimulated or distracted by them. . . . The "experience" you remember does not make any difference in Reality Itself. It is like yesterday's lunch. Where is it? You have nothing to show for it.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "All There Is To It"
Part 9, The Aletheon


You are all wrapped up in the patterns of body-mind, the structures of language, of thinking, the structures of presumed perception, and presumptions about the identification of things and the “world of reality”. And these are actually obstacles to the Realizing of Reality. There are psycho-physical reasons why you don’t recognize Me. If it were not for that, if you were not doing that now, your recognition of Me would be Perfect, Tacit, Un-“caused”, Self-Evident, Always Already the Case — of that Nature, therefore not temporary, not just a somehow temporarily “caused effect”.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, October 6, 2005
Enter Into Unlimited Profundity


You Cannot Connect To Me Through Mere Memory. You Must Turn To Me Directly, Through Devotional Recognition Of Me As I Am. . . .You Must Be Really Turned To Me — Not To The Memory Of Me, and Not To a mind-form About Me. . . . All Images Of Me (Whether "subjectively" Or "objectively" perceived) Are Simply Means To Enter Into present-time Relationship To Me and (Thus) Into Devotional Communion With Me. My Devotees Must Never Make a "cult" Out Of My "remembered" Self. . . . The Idea That All You Have To Do In Order To Cultivate The Relationship To Me (As My Devotee) Is Simply To Remember My Murti or Entertain Certain concepts That You Associate With My Reality-Teaching — and Merely Carry This Word or Image Inside You — Is Utterly False. . . . Anything Within The Domain Of mind and Memory Is (At Best) Simply A Means. I (Myself) Am Beyond (and Prior To) All Such Means. And I Am Beyond You. . . .

The Real "Knowledge" Of Me Is Not Something "remembered". Therefore, Nothing That Occurred In the past, Nothing You Have Ever thought or "experienced", Is (Fundamentally) Relevant To The Practice Of Real (Always present-time) Devotion To Me. Real (Whole bodily) Turning To Me Is Always Now. . . . Real (Whole bodily) Turning To Me Has No content, No Memory, No mind, No "Program". Real (Whole bodily) Turning To Me Is Based On Tacit Devotional Recognition Of Me — My Self-Evidently Divine State and "Bright" Person — In the present moment, Right Now, and (Yet, Paradoxically) Transcending All Reference To time. . . . Only Real (Whole bodily) Turning To Me — As Opposed To Any Form Of Mere Ritual or "Program" — Actually Has To Do With Me.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "Attachment and Obedience"
Recognition Of Me Is Liberation


If recognition is truly one's capability, then it not only can be practiced moment-to-moment in this lifetime, but it also persists as one's capability across lifetimes. Adi Da describes what is involved in enabling that multi-lifetime recognition to be the case. In particular: If we are truly recognizing Adi Da as the Divine Person, then the One we are recognizing is the Divine Person; and we can recognize the Divine Person in any other forms in which the Divine Person might appear (for example, in subtle realms beyond death), besides Adi Da's human form:


My Appearance does not limit you. The appearance of any other human being limits you. Mine does not. This is also fundamental to your devotional recognition of Me. Your right recognition of Me is such that even if you did not perceive Me in the likeness of this human Manifestation, you would still devotionally recognize Me. It is still Me. This is why, while you are alive in human form, you must devotionally recognize Me and Commune with Me in all of My Forms, at every level of recognition. This gives you the strength, the capability beyond this "world" — beyond death — to participate in the Transcendental Spiritual process of devotional Communion with Me, where you may (possibly, though not necessarily) be shifted out of any association with this human likeness. Your devotional recognition of Me will still permit you to recognize Me — in that place, in that state, in that moment — As I Am, and in some other Form that is not associated with this human likeness. But you may also see this Appearance or a transformed version of It. You will always "Know" Me.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, September 9, 1984


4.2. The Eternal Fire-Sacrifice: Fanning the Flame

What we can do that is fruitful are all the things Adi Da said to do to open ourselves to moments of recognition (or more moments of recognition) — we might call this "pre-Adidam practice", insofar as Adi Da says the Way of Adidam Ruchiradam does not begin until recognition is established:


Some of you are still beginners, not because you are not nice people or serious people, nor even because you are not practicing virtuous, worthy, and intelligent disciplines, but because you are in the position of the listener. That fundamental self-transcending insight has not achieved at least sufficient force in your case that you are practicing the Way sheerly on the basis of Self-Radiant Communion with the Living One, without seeking, free of neurosis. . . .

I hope that most people, after some period of time at any rate, will discover that the consoling force of practicing as a beginner is not sufficient. Then they will become moved to use the very thing that has always been available to them in our community. It will suddenly become useful to them, suddenly become profoundly interesting to them, to a degree that mysteriously they did not comprehend before. And then their apparent progress will be quickened.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "The Imaginary Disease of Un-Reality"
The Dreaded Gom-Boo


Devotion to Me is established through listening to My Word, My Leelas, sighting My Form Bodily here. When this becomes the finding of Me, the recognition of Me, then devotion to Me is established. This Way is not established before then. Until then you can study this Way, you can listen to the stories of My Life and Work, you can sight My Bodily Human Form, Avatarically Born Divinely here, and all that continues until there is the true recognition-response to Me. Then The Way can begin.

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



And then whenever another such moment of recognition is Gracefully Given, we must (responsively, not strategically) do everything possible to fan the flame, and sustain that recognition. (One can't do anything to cause recognition, but one can do things that sustain already present recognition. One can also do things that cause recognition to cease.) For this reason, whenever Adi Da would grant us His Darshan (i.e., the devotional sighting of Him), He also expected us to then go into the Communion Hall and meditate for an extended period of time on the Revelation of Him that we had received. That is an example of how to "fan the flame". Similarly, He gave us the Murti and Paduka Pujas as means for "fanning the flame" in transitioning from early morning meditation to the open-eyed world of active life. By installing Him before us through the active means of the puja — in meditation, we forget the body, whereas in puja, we use the body to actively serve and worship the Divine — we establish a basis for bringing Him into all the activities that occur throughout the rest of the day [2], to "become a Dancing-Prayer of Love":

By Means Of Devotional Recognition Of My Avatarically Self-Revealed Divine Form, and Presence, and State, You Should Become A Constant Whole bodily Dancing-Prayer — Of Responsively ego-Transcending Devotional and Spiritual Love-Communion With Me.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "The Plight of The Divine Avataric Master"
Part 1, The Aletheon


Physically (and Formally) Engaged Sacramental Devotion Involves The Externalization Of attention Via Intentional Activation Of the body-mind (or frontal personality). In Contrast To This, Formal (and Deep) Meditation Involves Progressive Relinquishment Of physical and other outward-Directed frontal activity. Generally, daily Practice Of The Way Of The Heart Should Involve An Appropriately Balanced (and Formal) Measure Of Meditative and outward-Directed activities, but Even all outward-Directed activities Are To Be Realized As Forms Of functionally Expressed Heart-Practice . . .

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, The Dawn Horse Testament


And so all the various forms of practice, artfully applied throughout the day, serve to keep the flame alive, moment to moment, serve to magnify that flame, and serve to turn whatever one is engaged in into a form of God-Communion.


The day that unfolds after you have gone to the Communion Hall in the early morning is not a vacation until nightfall when you go to the Communion Hall again. No. All the hours between the times when you go to the Communion Hall are the times of this same Yoga. You must do it persistently and artfully. Do not allow yourself the vacation of wandering into the content of the conditioned body-mind. The only thing it is going to show you is its conditioning, based on your egoic "self-possession" and denial of God. Your business is this Yoga, in the midst of your practice of it noticing this and that in order to apply a discipline of right life that is in conformity with Me, and in greater conformity with Me always.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"Surrender the Faculties of the Body-Mind to Me", Ishta


This matter of turning every moment into God-Communion, regardless of what one is doing, is something Adi Da would give us lessons about on occasion. Here's one example from my own experience with Adi Da. At many gatherings with Him, we would be dancing with each other in front of Him, while He sat in His chair and gave us all His Regard. Sometimes I'd "drop out" from the dancing to simply sit by His chair, and look up and contemplate Him. He'd let me do that for a while, but always, at some point, He'd turn to me and make a circular gesture with His index finger pointing downward that was like a spoon stirring in a bowl — which was His simple way of saying: okay, now get back to dancing! The point was that I should be able to contemplate Him even while dancing. (That was a major reason He had us dance in the first place.) It should not be the case that the only time we could contemplate Him successfully is in the quiet of the Communion Hall, or when one is sitting quietly next to His chair looking up at Him. We needed to free up enough energy and attention, and have sufficient self-understanding, to be remembering Him no matter what else is going on.

Fire Puja

This metaphor of practice as a continual "fire puja" or a priestly "fanning of the flame" is one that Adi Da drew from the traditional image of the faithful priest in the temple, tending the fire and fanning the flame twenty-four hours a day.


The relationship to the Divine is the Ritual of Fire Sacrifice. It is to surrender all things, all relations, and the body-mind-self into the Present and All-Pervading Fire. . . This Sacrifice is to be performed constantly, as if sitting eternally before the Fire. . . . Surrender the relations of attention into the Fire, and Surrender attention into the Transcendental Being Who Exists in the Fire.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "The Ritual Fire-Sacrifice Is the Root of Religion and the Essence of Wisdom"
The Fire Gospel


All these bodies are just puja articles. The elements you throw into the Puja Fire are representations of your own body and all the bodies of humanity, of all elemental forms, all forms, everything conditional. The Fire Puja is an expression of the Way of Adidam — sacrifice, death, relinquishment of separate self. The circle of mortality and limitation that surrounds the Puja Fire is the context of sadhana. You are staying focused on the fire at the center of the circle, not trying to escape the Fire but continuing to throw into the Fire the elements of the body, life energy, the breath, feeling, mind, thoughts, attention, experiences, throwing it all into the center and never digressing, never letting the fire go out never pulling aside any stone that rings the circle to let yourself out, never forgetting the Fire.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj


You Must Become Entirely Heart-Conformed to Me — By Practicing The Divine Priesthood of Whole bodily Devotional and Spiritual Love-Communion With My Avatarically Self-Revealed Person.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "The Plight Of The Divine Heart-Husband"
The Dawn Horse Testament


It reflects the fact that the Way of Adidam Ruchiradam is based solely on recognition of Adi Da as the Divine Person, and cannot be practiced otherwise. Recognition is the flame. The Way of Adidam is not based on there being no flame, and then seeking for one or imagining one, or trying to use a "fan" (such as meditation) to bring a non-existent flame into existence.


The Revelation I Have Given Is Not About You. The Revelation I Have Given Is About Me. . . . The egoic Tendency To Manufacture A "Substitute" For Me, By Presuming That I Am Already "Inside" (or "In The Heart Of") the ego-entity — and, As A Result, To Present Yourself To Me as the mummer, Rather Than As My Truly self-Surrendered Devotee — Is One Of The Fundamental Means Whereby My Devotees Avoid (and Prevent) The Real (and Only-By-My-Avataric-Divine-Grace-Given) Process That Becomes (In Due Course) The True Hearing Of Me. Indeed, Such "Substitution"-Delusion Is A Dramatization Of The Very egoic Mechanism That Is Specifically Understood and Transcended By Means Of Truly Hearing Me. Therefore, You Must Not Establish Any "Substitutes" For Me, and You Must Not Establish Any "Substitutes" For The Real Practice Of Surrender To Me. The Manufacture Of Such "Substitutes" Is Precisely How the ego Works. . . . In That Case, It Is Impossible To Establish Even The Foundation Of Devotional Resort To Me, Because the mummer (or the "performing" ego — who is "Narcissus") Is Always Being Consoled and Aggrandized and Elaborated — Forever Dissociated From Me, and Totally self-Involved. This Is How Practice Of The Only-By-Me Revealed and Given Way Of The Heart (or Way Of Adidam) Fails To Be True. You Cannot (By Any egoic Means or Efforts) "Take Heaven By Storm".

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, Sutra 29
The Dawn Horse Testament


The flame must already be there in order for practices whose purpose is to "fan the flame" to work. "Fanning the flame" magnifies what is already there. In this way, recognition and the Lesson of Life go hand in hand: "You can't become Happy. You can only be already Happy." When Adi Da admonishes, "Come to Me when you are already Happy", He is indicating that the Way of Adidam Ruchiradam can only truly begin when one has already received the Happy Revelation that is recognition of Him as the Divine.


The Way Of The Heart Is, From The Beginning, A Heart-Response To The (By-Me-Given) Call To Realize My Inherently Perfect Fullness Of Divine Love-Bliss, or Happiness Itself. Therefore, Even The Inherently Perfect Happiness Of The Seventh Stage Realization Of The . . . Divine Reality Must Inform and Inspire (and Progressively Characterize) Practice In The Context Of Each and All Of The Potential Stages Of Life. . . . And It Can Be So, If Every Developmental Stage Of Life . . . Is Lived (and Transcended) In Devotional Recognition-Response To . . . Me.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, Sutra 22
The Dawn Horse Testament


Here are Adi Da's words again:


Without That "Root"-Coincidence, there is nothing but mere behavior, mummery, ego-enactment — fruitless and meaningless nonsense. . . .

Every aspect of the Reality-Way of Adidam is a Magnification of right and true whole-bodily-recognition-responsive devotional Communion with Me As I Am (or As My Divinely Avatarically Revealed Person and State).

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "Always Know Me Perfectly"
Part 9, The Aletheon


So the great secret and miracle of the Way of Adidam is that its real starting point in any moment is the Grace of God — God Revealing Himself to us, and, on that basis, His Acquiring us — not any qualification of our own.


From the beginning of the only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way of Adidam, the ego-forgetting process is made possible by the Acausally-Enabling Divine Process That I Am. The practice of the way of Adidam is entirely the devotional recognition-response to Me. That practice opens my devotee to Me, because that practice is ego-forgetting. . . .

I Establish Myself As My devotee. My devotee does not do something in order to attain Me, or to attain My State, or to imitate Me, or to manipulate "self" in its structures in order to (somehow or other, by that method) achieve My Likeness, or to achieve union with Me. Divine Self-Realization is a Grace. Divine Self-Realization is Given directly, by Me, and As Me.

What Is Given (by Me) Transcends the body-mind and the "point of view" of the body-mind. What Is Given (by Me) Transcends all of the sheaths (or koshas), including the causal body (or ananandamayakosha). I Reveal Myself As That Very (and all-and-All-Transcending) Nature, Condition, and State. And, In My Divine Avataric Self-Revelation As That Nature, Condition, and State, I Draw My devotee into My Own Acausal Divine Self-Nature, Self-Condition, and Self-State by a Transcendental Spiritual process that is effective in the context of the body-mind. You may see various signs in the body-mind — but, fundamentally, the process is simply this: You become Established As That Which Is Always Already The Case (rather than merely being changed in and as the body-mind).

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "The 'Perfect Practice' of 'Perfect Knowledge'
Is
The Avatarically Given Divine Way of Adidam"
"Radical" Transcendentalism


It is God's Meditation, not our own, that is ultimately consequential. (Adi Da's talk, "The Divine Does the Yoga" is a good reference.)


Therefore, My Meditation will be your meditation, because you are with Me, you Commune with Me. . . . If you will respond to My confession and become absorbed in Me in love, so that all the artifacts of your ordinary impulses, your ordinary life, your conventional desiring, are superficial, then your meditation on Me, your Communion with Me, will become tantamount to My Meditation. My Meditation is not a grinding affair. My Meditation is absolute. . . .

Your attachment to Me will become overwhelming, without any goal whatsoever, but a motive of Happiness, an indelible simplicity. You will simply Commune with Me. The energy of your attention will rest with Me day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. And without your doing anything about it, I will meditate you. I will do everything.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "I Will Do Everything"
"Radical" Transcendentalism


The Horse Takes us . . . our "job" is to keep holding the tail of the Horse:


An ancient text says: "Mankind does not know. Only the Horse knows". Therefore, you must grasp the tail of the Horse, or the God-Realizer. Grasping the tail of the Horse is your devotional, self-surrendering, feeling-Contemplation of Me. The Horse takes you (I take you) Where there is to go. The Horse knows. I know. You do not know.

Your devotional feeling-Contemplation of Me is not an end in itself, and it is not the means of your Liberation. It is simply your responsibility, your connection to Me, whereby My Grace comes to you and makes the Way of the Heart for You. This Guru-Yoga, this Ishta-Guru-Bhakti, this Realization by My Blessing, is the great esoteric secret of the Great Tradition.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"The Master Is the Means", Ishta


This is why, when any moment of recognition occurs, we do anything and everything to stay in that recognition, to perpetuate it, to magnify it, and finally, to establish it as a moment-to-moment practice. That "anything and everything" is not done in desperation or as a form of seeking. It is simply a matter of staying in (and magnifying the feeling-awareness of, and devotional response to) the Enchanted State, and not allowing anything else to distract us from That, or cause us to fall out of It. The means for staying in that Enchanted State include all the aspects of Adidam practice, of course, which we now can engage fruitfully, so long as we are staying in that moment-to-moment recognition. If we fall out of that, if we do lose "the thread of practice" despite everything, then it's back to "pre-Adidam practice" for us. If the car stalls, there's not much point in pressing down the accelerator pedal or turning the wheel — things that are only useful when the engine is running and the car is moving. One has to start the engine again first. And in the Way of Adidam Ruchiradam, recognition is the engine of practice.

Thus the recognition capability requires a personal responsibility that is profound but also ecstatic. Moments of recognition are Adi Da's Gift to us. But the recognition capability is our gift to Him.[3]

You have to do the discipline in the Divine Avataric Company of the Real-God-Realizer. You cannot avoid that. You cannot get Realized without going through the ordeal. It is not a believing matter. You do not get it for free, in that sense. You get the Grace for free, yes, but you Realize it by accepting the ordeal. In every heart, there is this disposition to Realize That. And there is no end to karma, no end to struggle, no end to life, until there is that Perfect Realization.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, December 31, 1994

There are some moments in My Company in which it just happens. You do not know how it happens. You did not do anything. You did not especially make a gesture of submission — at least it was no greater than on any other day. It was given to you for free, you see. That is good, because that is the Blessing, the instant granting of God-Realization. But with that Gift comes the demand of the Law. You must practice self-submission to stay one with that Realization. Grace will always be available. That Blessing will be given to you again and again, but you must fulfill the Law. You cannot bypass that obligation, and that obligation is the sadhana. . . .

This Blessed Realization is given to you for free, and you are in a state of total Ignorance, immersed in Mystery, and at the same time absolute certainty. Wisdom without limits can grow in you if you remain established in the Living Divine. You will tend not to do that. Everyone who has gathered for this celebration will tend not to do this next week. It is not that they will not do it at all but that they will be tending not to do it. They may become depressed or despair or think that they must go on and look for something else now, whereas what they must do is simply practice. They must know what that practice is, however, and they must become sensitive to the symptoms of egoity and how it turns them from Ecstasy and Intoxication to self-contraction, self-bondage, and all the complications of ordinary life.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"What I Look For", Crazy Wisdom, April, 1984


4.3. The Ancient Walk-About Way


A moment of Darshan should be sufficient to motivate a lifetime of practice.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj


One thing that may be confusing to some readers is that Adi Da often writes about recognition (including in very recent books like The Aletheon) in a way that can sound like He is saying there is a single, utterly profound moment of recognition, and then that's it: an Enchanted practice of Divine Distraction spontaneously unfolds from there.


Devotional recognition of Me is a life-transforming response. Devotional recognition-response to Me makes your life utterly different from then on.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"Adidam Is No-Seeking Practice Is Perpetual Reality-Practice"
Part 9, The Aletheon


This is indeed the traditional model, the one Adi Da calls "the Ancient Walk-About Way".


. . When you find a True Realizer, you simply see the Realizer in front of you, and you tacitly feel the State of the Realizer. That tacit recognition is not about words. It is not about the Realizer's state of mind. It is not about the Realizer as an extension of the language-game. It is simply a tacit recognition of the Realizer As the Self-Realization (and the Self-Revelation) of Reality Itself.

When you find such a one — of whatever degree or mode of Realization —you tacitly recognize him or her as Master. That recognition converts you, on the spot, to the most ancient (and even pre-historical) Way. In other words, as soon as that recognition occurs, the Way of devotion to the Realizer begins. That Way of devotion is a spontaneous happening, which is beyond the patterning that binds you to the world-mummery and the pursuit of egoic self-fulfillment. . . .

Fundamentally, the only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way of Adidam is a tacit (or wordless) matter. The Way of Adidam is inevitably practiced by someone who heart-recognizes Me — just as the Way of devotion to the Spiritual Master has been practiced in spontaneous response to the Spiritual Master since the most ancient of pre-historical days. If you are disenchanted with the world (and not merely governed in your attention by its possibilities), you are (thereby) open to noticing My Primal Divine State and capable of surrender into the Inherent Attractiveness of My Primal Divine State. My true devotees notice Me exactly As That Primal Divine State. If you are not merely bound in your attention by your own ego-patterning, you can notice Me and become My devotee. Simply to see a photograph of My Bodily Form should be enough. To "Know" Me Is "Perfect Knowledge" of Reality Itself. . . .

The disposition of the ancient Walk-About Way is simply to turn to the Realizer in the very moment of sighting the Realizer. Just so, My true devotees simply turn to Me on sight. They turn to Me with everything "inside" and everything "outside" — such that the entire body-mind is turned to Me, rather than turned on itself and wandering in its patterning. Such devotional turning to Me is a simple matter. And those who do not immediately turn to Me on sight should be served in such a manner that they can come to that point in due course.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "The Ancient Walk-About Way"
"Radical" Devotion


The pivotal moment in Adi Da's Ruchira Avatara Gita is that in which a devotee finally actually recognizes Him as the Divine. (The Ruchira Avatara Gita is Adi Da's free adaptation of the Guru Gita, a traditional epitome in song of the Guru-devotee relationship, in which Parvati asks her husband, Shiva, to teach her about the devotional relationship between devotee and Guru. The specific passage below is based on an actual moment that occurred with one of Adi Da's devotees, who takes the place of Parvati in Adi Da's "Gita" or Song.) His description of this moment — of Who is being recognized, and what follows from recognition of the Divine appearing in human form — is astounding, and accurately and forcefully conveys (even through the limitation of human language) what the moment of recognition of the Divine in human form is truly like. He begins by describing the Divine in human form, about to be recognized by a devotee for the very first time:


So it was, There, in the Sphere and Sanctuary of His Most Beautiful "Bright" Person — Avatarically Descended in Man-Form to a Place and Motion of His own, having Said and Made an Earthly Hermitage of His Single Indivisibility, the Man Whose Whitest "Brightness" is, by Means of the Mandalic Prism of our Cosmic Shape, Appearing in His own and sudden-colored Summary, Himself a Garden of Luminous Identity, Universally Adorned with Unity and Strength and Love, Roving and Speaking in the manner of all the flowers — the Self-Incarnate Divine Person, the Divine and Truly Human Heart-Master, Adi Da Samraj, Thoroughly and Finally Expounded All the Divine and Spiritual Truth of the One Reality to the Great Occasion of His first gathering of devotees. At Last, His Whitest Silence Fell to a Round, like a Breath of True Water, Pressured from Above.

One who loved the Master most was sitting close to Him in the Divine Light-Fall, when, in That Sudden of His Avataric Self-"Emergence", her face — like His own — became translucently "Bright". Merely Beholding Him, in ecstatic love — forgetting herself in the all-at-once of true love's devotional Contemplation of Him — the Divine Self-"Brightness" of Adi Da Samraj Filled (and Over-Filled) her heart, and His Eternal Love Bliss-Radiance Un-Fractured the Whole of every living part of her. By (Thus) truly Finding Him, the woman (in the Sudden) Realized — beyond all doubt — that she was hearing (and understanding) the True Divine Word, without a thought, and seeing the True Divine Person, even with her own eyes, and recognizing the True Divine Person, with her very heart, and Truly Knowing the One and Spiritual Divine Reality, by Grace of "Brightest" Gift of Only God.

This Gracefully heart-Awakened devotee said out loud, and from her heart, for even all to hear: "Divine Heart-Master, Adi Da Samraj, 'Bright' Before me, I Surrender. You Are the Divine Heart-Master of the entire world. You Are Supreme. You Radiate the 'Bright' Realization of the Supreme. All beings should always heart-recognize You and worship You with true devotion.

You Are the One — the Supreme Being, the Source and Domain of all true worship and right praise.

Radiant Heart, Domain of Truth, please Sing to us the Great Secret of devotion to You, the Divine Heart-Master.

Reveal to us the Secret Method whereby living beings may Realize You, the Transcendental and 'Bright' world-Outshining Real God. I bow down to You, the True and Spiritual and Self-Evidently Divine Person. I worship Your Feet. Kindly Teach the Way of You to all of us."

When the Divine Heart-Master, Adi Da Samraj, Saw this 'Bright' face of Awakened devotion and Heard this confession of Great Sight, He Spoke the following Words, His Heart Overflowing with His All-Outshining Joy:

"This is the Secret of all secrets. I could not Speak This Me-Revealing Word until one of you first confessed you see the Vision of Real God in My Avatarically-Born Bodily (Human) Divine Form. I shall Tell you This now, because of your true heart-recognition of Me and your Greatly Awakened devotion to Me.

My Beloved, every one and all — you are each arising in the One 'Bright' Divine Being. This request, made by one who heart-recognizes Me, will benefit all of you, and even the entire world. Therefore, I shall Reveal the Truth and the Way of This Vision to you, for the Sake of all and All."

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, Ruchira Avatara Gita (verses 3 - 14)


The Ruchira Avatara Gita then goes on to describe in detail this "Secret of all secrets" that is practice based on recognition of the Divine in human form, in every moment. But the key to it all is that first, utterly profound moment.


4.4. The Ancient Walk-About Way in the Modern Godless World

Thus, much of the writing in The Aletheon describes a sequence of this kind: a moment of recognition, followed by the spontaneous unfolding of the Way of Adidam. For example:


. . . once I am devotionally recognized, then all seeking has become obsolete — because I am Found (or "Located"). Such is The True Process of Divine Adidam. Such is The Way of My Divine Self-Revelation, Avatarically Given.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "In Place (Where and As I Am)"
Part 14, The Aletheon


When you recognize Me As I Am, there is no doubt in you.
One who Beholds Me As I Am (and with right and true devotional recognition-response) is Beholding the Divine (or Reality Itself) As "It" Is. Every moment of whole bodily devotional turning to Me is simply that — Beholding the Divine As "It" Is, moment to moment.

When you rightly and truly devotionally Behold Me, you are in the Divine Self-Domain, you are in the Paradise of Reality Itself, and you have been Given all the Divine Gifts. In the Divine Self-Domain, there is not anything lacking. Such is the characteristic of right and true devotion to Me. Right and true devotion to Me is Beholding That Which Is All-Sufficient — in and As My Very Person (As I Am).

Devotion is an absolutization of the human sign, and it is unmistakable. When "self"-attention is forgotten, devotion is self-evident. And when "self"-attention is not forgotten, the lack of devotion is absolutely obvious, like a pile of garbage. There is no mistaking one for the other.

Beholding the Spiritual Master is the Ancient Walk-About Way — spontaneously turning to (and, thus and thereby, whole bodily surrendering to) the Divine in the every moment the Spiritual Master is in Sight. Having thus Sighted the Divine, you remain in that turning-surrendering disposition — and you would not, and do not, turn away from the Spiritual Master, ever again. That is devotion.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "As I Am — and In Plain Sight"
Part 21, The Aletheon


What astonished Adi Da, in observing His devotees, was that such a profound moment of recognition of the Divine (and even many later moments of recognition) did not spontaneously translate (via His devotees' response) into a moment-to-moment capability for recognizing Him. It was like turning the car key, cranking the engine, but then the engine not starting. Or it starting, and the car driving for a little while, but then stalling. This was not the traditional model of the "Ancient Walk-About Way"! (Perhaps we could call it the "Modern Sputtering Way".) What Adi Da expected was for recognition to be a one time, life-transforming event, like the moment He portrayed in the Ruchira Avatara Gita. His expectation that this would be so was even greater after the Ruchira Dham Event in April, 2000, which brought the Divine State as close as possible to ordinary human beings, via Adi Da's bodily form. To the extent that Adi Da Himself could make sense of why recognition was still not becoming established in most of His devotees [4], He wrote in The Aletheon:


The only-by-Me Revealed and Given Reality-Way of Adidam begins in the instant of devotional recognition of Me As The Self-Evidently Divine Person and Self-Condition and Self-Domain. In that devotional recognition of Me, there is an inherent devotional response — and that response must carry the individual. The individual must allow himself or herself to be carried by the devotional recognition of Me — and, therefore, to Be (Always Really Profoundly) Coincident with Me, by always actively, and fully, and rightly, and consistently practicing The Way I have Revealed and Given. Therefore, My true devotee does not take up a position abstracted from Me — such that he or she does not volunteer to magnify the devotional response that devotional recognition of Me would inherently inspire.

If you refuse to be carried by the devotional recognition of Me (or, in other words, if you undermine your own devotional response to Me), then you are choosing a position abstracted from Me, and dissociated from Me, and detached from Me. In that case, it is not possible for you to grow in The Way of devotional recognition-response to Me.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "In Place (Where and As I Am)"
Part 14, The Aletheon


Devotee Theo Cedar Jones gives a good description of how recognition can occur, but still be simultaneously accompanied by an incredible egoic resistance to the implications of that recognition:


Up to 2000, I'd been reading [Adi Da's] books. I had instant recognition of who He was the first time I saw a picture of Him and it kind of terrified me a little bit, because I felt like "Okay, this is it. This is the ultimate guru, teacher, God-man, that's ever going to exist, He's given the ultimate Teaching for all now but now He's got all these demands. . . you know you've got to be a devotee and do all these vows and actually fulfill all these practices. . . and I wasn't ready. So for many years, I studied but kept my distance, in a way.

Theo Cedar Jones, "This is the God for me!"


Adi Da discusses this kind of "self-sabotage" at length:


You are self-possessed. Your self-possession is your own concern. It cannot be relieved magically. Thus, the ultimate gesture of transcendence is necessarily yours. Grace attracts you to Itself with great force, but if you are repelled, if you do not surrender, then you will take a great deal of time to become free.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, Compulsory Dancing


Anyone who comes into contact with the Adept will in one way or another or to one degree or another experience an awakening. Of course, they may defend themselves against it. They may have it momentarily and then contract from it, but that awakening is the significance of the true Adept. The function of the Adept is not to call people back to Realize God but to grant people the Realization of God instantly. Having established you in such Realization, the Adept calls you to practice the Way of that Realization, the Way of constantly abiding in that Realization. Such abiding requires the discipline of self-transcending submission to Divine Communion.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, What I Look For


So it's not just a matter of feeling at Me. You must receive Me, feel Me, "Locate" Me, know Me Spiritually. . . . People come and sit with Me and are experiencing all kinds of signs of My Spiritual Presence. It's so commonplace that I think sometimes people aren't even noticing that it's the case. It's more or less taken for granted. So you've already proven, by that, something remarkable about the nature of Reality. If you can feel Me — and with that kind of profundity, ten feet away from Me — then what am I about? What is Reality about? What are you about? It's a knowledge, you see. Then you have to let it change you. Why would you play the conventional persona when you have such knowledge? It's an old adaptation, but now you must oblige the body-mind to adapt to it.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "The Torque of Attention"
The Mountain Of Attention, January 13, 1996


Anyone in this Communion who goes on for years not growing, or becoming worse in one fashion or another, is simply not practicing. He or she is only thinking about practice and wishing it were true in his or her case. . . . There is no capability in the mechanisms of this body-mind to prevent the Radiant Force from manifesting if the being becomes oriented to that Radiant Force to begin with. If you make that Radiant Being and Force the context of your conscious existence in each moment, if you commune with It, live in It, it is absolutely inevitable that the mechanisms of egoity, self-contraction, and the collapse of Radiance will fall away. They do not have any superiority. They are not necessary. They are not eternal. Transcending them is simply a matter of understanding, recognizing the Spiritual Master, entering into the Divine Context of existence, and practicing Divine Communion moment to moment. . . .

You certainly do have the capability not to practice, not to understand, not to recognize the Spiritual Master, not to enter into Communion with the Divine. But that non-living of the Way is not inherent in your being. It is simply a diversion, a weak course toward which the contracted personality may gravitate simply because it requires little intelligence and little creative effort. But it is not a desirable course. It is not a Happy course. It is simply a course that perpetuates suffering, bewilderment, un-Enlightenment. There is no intelligent basis for choosing such a course.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "Never Abandon the Work of This Way"
The God In Every Body Book


As you can see, if one were not already absorbed in a life of Divine Communion, he could very easily become obsessed by the content of his inspection and observation in the way of understanding. And, in fact, that is certainly a possibility for any student. There is one sure sign of this kind of obsession: You become unhappy. You forget the simple principle of this work and opt for forms of mind and action that have nothing to do with the natural, present joy of Divine Communion. If this occurs at any time in your sadhana, and you find yourself confused, upset, fascinated, or concerned to the point of chronic unhappiness, then it is time to return to the basics. It is far, far better to be already happy in God. So what if you don't understand. If you are already living God, who cares?

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"If It Has Become Complicated, Return to the Basics", No Remedy


The "refusal" that Adi Da refers to (in the above quote from The Aletheon) need not be overt, sudden, defiant, dramatic, or even conscious. It can be a refusal that stems from a lack of self-understanding, with the consequence that the profundity of a moment of recognition slowly fades over the following days, weeks, or months, as egoic patterning re-exerts its control.

For example, one may (largely unconsciously) engage (because of the force of lifetimes of addiction) in one's usual (egoic) habits, "certain" that the Love-Bliss one still feels from that moment of recognition will overpower any negative effects . . . and only discover, over time, that the Love-Bliss is fading away, and one is back to being an ego. Here is one example from my relationship with Adi Da.

* * *

In late 1995, Adi Da made Frans Bakker and myself the co-directors of the Adidam Mission. We were both living at The Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary in Northern California. He invited us to be with Him at Adi Da Samrajashram (in Fiji), in time for the evening of Danavira Mela (Christmas Eve). It was clear that He wanted to directly work with the heads of His Mission in the most wonderful way (at the most wonderful time of the year!), for the sake of their practice, and for the sake of His Mission.

We arrived in Adi Da Samrajashram, and gave Adi Da our gift. (It was a beautiful globe of the world, signifying our intent to bring Him the world, so He could liberate all beings — which He then placed in His most sacred temple, the Sukra Kendra.) He then had Frans and I sit at His feet all evening, even as He was receiving gifts from His other devotees, and embracing each of them, one by one. It was a wonderfully happy evening.

At some point, I spontaneously took hold of both His feet. Now this is not something I or any devotee ever would do in their "right mind"! But I was not in my "right mind" — Adi Da's Spiritual Transmission had shifted me into a completely different state, in which I was profoundly drawn to Him, even to the point where my mind was dissolving and my body was animating itself to be closer to Him in this way. In fact, I barely noticed that I was holding His feet in my hands, so entranced was I by the Brightness radiating from Him and out all around His body. As it would turn out, Adi Da gracefully let me continue to hold His Feet for the next half hour or so. And at the same time, He and the room got Brighter and Brighter — with Him as the obvious Center and Source of that Brightness — until it became directly obvious that Beloved Adi Da, the room, and everything were all a Unity in this Brightness. It was a sustained moment of clear recognition of Adi Da as the Divine Person. And in that moment of recognition, the Brightness enveloped me as well, and "I" disappeared in It. The next thing "I" knew, I was outside the gathering hall, in the open air, after some unknown time had passed. I have no recollection of the time between when I disappeared, and when I "reappeared" — to discover I was being supported on either side by friends who were taking me to lie down. Mind you, I hadn't passed out — I had passed in . . . to God knows where.

Adi Da has always said that, whenever we gather with Him (as we did that night), He works to bring us to a point in the evening where we "disappear", and lose a period of time in our memory; He has said that if we could only allow that to happen, we would never be the same again. It happened for me . . . I was in a state of continual bliss for the next three months. And I can vouch for it: I haven't been the same since.

While that evening with Adi Da was a moment of recognition that changed me profoundly, it did not lead to the recognition capability. I was engaging the practice intensively the whole time, but — looking back — I can see that I would have needed greater self-understanding to sustain that recognition as a permanent capability. Without being aware of it, I was automatically (and unconsciously) engaging in egoic patterns that were not supportive of sustained recognition. Even though I was carrying out all the basic disciplines that all devotees take on as beginners (as well as additional ones that were specific to my patterning), there were still less obvious areas of egoity specific to me that my disciplines at the time were not yet covering. All the "loopholes" must be plugged — the "whole guy" must be covered — in order to sustain recognition moment to moment. (The same requirement is necessary for hearing to occur.)

* * *

For any devotee who has had something like this occur (and who has yet to establish the recognition capability), the lesson to take into this present moment is that "right life" (and all the counter-egoic disciplines that comprise it [5]) and great self-understanding (the fruit of all those counter-egoic disciplines) is absolutely essential as a support for maintaining recognition, and for staying in the Enchanted State. One must not only fan the flame; one must also keep the wind from blowing out the flame. As we mentioned in Part 1, it is only after Divine Self-Realization that one's behavior no longer can affect one's State. In the meantime, in every moment there must be both recognition of the Divine and the responsive practice that expresses, sustains, and magnifies recognition:


The Way is Sacrifice of self. . . .

The Realization is the Radiant Transcendental Consciousness, in which there are no objects, no differentiated conditions. . . .

In every moment, there must be the Way and the Realization, simultaneous, actual, and true, as long as the conventions of experience persist.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"The Way Is Forever, but the Realization Is Absolute"
The Enlightenment of the Whole Body


The life of devotion to Me Is both a Communion with Light and a Purification by Fire. There may be many years of This Fire-Light in My Divine Avataric Company, and you should welcome all of them.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"The Way of Light Is The Way of Fire"
Part 19, The Aletheon


Another example: People have confessed recognition of God with absolute certainty in the presence of Adi Da, but then have left His Company and never returned. One was a well-known Hollywood movie star. One day, he received Adi Da's Darshan. I was sitting next to him, as we both sat before Adi Da in front of Paduka Mandir, one of the temples at The Mountain Of Attention. As we were walking away from the occasion, one of us asked him, "So what was it like for you?" He was silent for a moment, and then exclaimed, "What can I say when I have just seen God?" But then he returned to his life in Hollywood, and eventually was talked out of that Divine Revelation by caring but spiritually ignorant friends who mocked his "gullibility" around what they were certain was a "cult" and a "cult master". For this reason, Adi Da places great emphasis on maintaining "good company": people (ideally, devotees of Adi Da) who can support one's practice and one's recognition.

Through examples like these, one begins to get a sense for why it is so hard to establish recognition of the Divine — when one has been brought up in (and is surrounded by, and indeed, bombarded by) the "modern", materialistic, Godless world! Not only is God (or even anything spiritual) doubted, and the value of genuine spiritual practice and genuine Spiritual Masters questioned, but people who are interested in genuine spiritual life are discouraged in that interest by virtually everyone and everything.

So not only must one fan the flame moment to moment (through devotional practices); not only must one keep the wind from blowing it out (through disciplines and increasing self-understanding); one must also do one's best to stay away from windy areas in the first place (through the principle of "good company", that chooses the most stable, practice-supportive arrangements for life and work). All this is part of what Adi Da refers to as "right life", serving the establishment of moment-to-moment recognition.


4.5. Recognition in the History of Esoteric Traditions and in This Moment of Adidam

The establishment of any esoteric tradition has always depended upon a critical moment occurring when sufficient numbers of people around the the Spiritual Master finally recognize Him or Her, and in this sense finally become His or Her devotee in a true (and truly consequential) sense, through the response that follows (which includes shouldering the responsibility for the survival of the esoteric tradition or spiritual community that the Master has created). For example, Adi Da describes Ramana Maharshi's rather dramatic situation before He had any devotees who recognized Him:


Ramana Maharshi[He would] just find somewhere and sit down . . . Kids would come by and mock Him, throw stones, throw excrement at Him, yell at Him, make jokes about Him and so forth. He's covered in shit, bothered all over the place. That's what He lived in going from one place to another. But finally, some person, His first devotee, submitted to Him, surrendered at His feet, gave Him, promised Him his life, his goods, all that was his, and his lifetime of service, twenty-four hours a day. "Will you please", he pleaded with Him, "come, and I'll provide you with refuge in my domain?" That was the beginning of Maharshi being recognized, and recognized by devotion, by a devotee, who then took on the responsibilities of devotee.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, April 27, 2006


A very similar story is told about the disciples of Jesus. While it is hard to say what of the New Testament accounts is historically accurate, the metaphor communicated is certainly spiritually accurate. In a real sense, prior to Jesus's death, His disciples were not yet His true devotees. Indeed, they showed all the signs of weak human beings, particularly in their betrayal of their Master in the moments just before His arrest and death. But prior to His death, a crucial exchange occurred between Jesus and the inner circle of His disciples, over exactly this matter of recognition:


Peter confessing to Jesus: You are the ChristWhen Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, "Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?" So they said, "Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"

Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are "Peter" [6], and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it."

Matthew 16:13-18


So in the New Testament story, recognition of Jesus as the Divine was the foundation for the Christian esoteric tradition. The story continues: Jesus dies, and after His death, all His disciples recognize Him as the Divine. On that basis, they are able to be "possessed by the Holy Spirit", and are transformed from weak men and women into extraordinary men and women, able to bring about the flourishing of the Christian church, and ultimately able to endure horrific deaths brought on them by their advocacy of Jesus and His Way.


You may recall in the New Testament, Jesus of Galilee asks, "Who do you say I am?" And his disciple Peter responds and essentially acknowledges the Divine status of Jesus. Then Jesus says, "Upon this rock I will build my church." Well, in the beginning of the Ruchira Avatara Gita (passage cited earlier in this section), I am referring to something similar. This gathering of My devotees, and the mission of the gathering, must be founded on My Divine Avataric Self-Revelation and the full receiving of It by one or many, so that the devotee’s voice can speak the Truth. Until there are such devotees like the one in the Ruchira Avatara Gita, the mission does not begin, and right relationship to Me as the Divine Avataric Master does not begin. As long as I am some kind of 'other' to you, there is no great mission. The mission begins when you get My Divine Avataric Self-Revelation of Myself and become converted and your throat opens and your heart opens and you speak the Truth of Me. Then, the gathering of My devotees authenticates itself through that confession, others respond likewise, and the 'world' becomes a field of missionary work.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj


* * *

I can never think about that story of Jesus without remembering a particular moment in my relationship with Adi Da. It was 1996, and Adi Da was visiting the European community of Adidam at the time. The devotees taking primary responsibility for the success of His Work (the work of liberating all beings) were all gathered in a room at The Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary in California. We were on the phone with Adi Da, and it was an extremely difficult and fiery conversation, because we were having to report to Him our lack of success. On the one hand, it was not too surprising: A seventh stage Way appears on earth for the first time in human history, during a period when civilization is at its most materialistic, and anything greater-than-material is in doubt, let alone an Incarnation of the Divine! And those of us gathered in the room had no special spiritual maturity or special abilities or influence in the world — like the disciples of Jesus (who were fishermen, tax collectors, and so on). So apart from our devotion to our Spiritual Master, we were eminently unqualified for being responsible for Adi Da's Great Work. And yet the necessity for that Work to succeed was absolutely clear to all of us, as was our responsibility to make it happen, both in our identification with Adi Da's Own Purpose for incarnating, and in our gratitude for all the Gifts He had given to us.

The conversation was so fiery that devotees began leaving the room, burnt out. Finally, only two of us (James Steinberg and myself) were left. We took turns trying to tell our Spiritual Master what good news we did have to tell, but we knew — and He knew — it wasn't nearly enough. What Adi Da was trying to accomplish here (in the short span of a single human lifetime) was an extraordinary Vision for the world (and the creation of a corresponding Vehicle of liberation for all beings), but there were key elements of that Vision which had yet to manifest (I felt this very personally and painfully), over and against the shortness of the time remaining. I reached a point of complete despair, and stopped talking on the phone. Suddenly, I felt Him Spiritually descend into the room with overwhelming Force. An instantaneous recognition of Him overcame and overpowered me, and I raised my hands, and began mindlessly and spontaneously confessing that recognition to Him: "You are the very Divine, here and alive in human form!" There was absolute silence on the other end of the phone. And then something completely unexpected occurred: Adi Da began making plans to come to The Mountain Of Attention! His "mood" had completely changed. All the fieriness had disappeared. He was now completely expansive. He completely changed the subject — it was as though the previous difficult conversation had never taken place! — and He instead went into detail after detail about the upcoming trip to California, about creating His "Dasya Mandala", etc.

I came away from this moment with a very personal understanding of the importance of recognition of Adi Da as the Divine — not only for one's own growth in the Way of Adidam but as the foundation for the success of Adi Da's Work altogether. It was "on this rock" alone that He would build His Church. I also learned that moments of recognition are unearned gifts from Adi Da. It was the Force of God descending on me in that moment — out of God's Own Urgency for the sake of His Work — that granted that Revelation, not any qualification of my own. Indeed, all I had presented to Him the moment before was failure! (And more importantly, complete surrender, stemming from that failure.) As it turned out, I would not be able to sustain that moment of recognition forever. But I now understood its significance.

* * *

Recognition of the Master (in His Realization, whatever that may be for the particular Master) thus is not only the critical foundation for growth in one's individual practice in the Way of the Master; it is also the critical foundation for ensuring the survival and flourishing of the Way Itself down through history.

Adidam is at just such a "make or break" moment in its history right now. In some sense, because we are at the very start of a seventh stage Way appearing on earth for the first time in history, it shouldn't be too surprising that it is very challenging, and might take some time, for such a radically distinct Way to "take root". If sufficient numbers of devotees make the breakthrough of establishing the recognition capability in the next few years, then Adidam will survive [7], and even flourish.

The first small group of devotees established in recognition came into being on the basis of the major breakthrough of (and magnification in) the Force of the Divine represented by the event of January 11, 1986 (marking the beginning of Adi Da's "Divine Emergence"). The further breakthrough of the Force of the Divine initiated by the Ruchira Dham event in April, 2000, now provides sufficient Grace for all devotees to be established in recognizing Adi Da as the Divine, and for all beings to recognize Him as the Divine:


Every single being will be able to devotionally recognize Me, because I have manifested my Incarnation-Form on Earth in all time.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, Adi Da Samrajashram Magazine
Volume One, Number Four (page 11)

For the sake of the liberation of all beings, may it be so!


4.6. Adidam History: From "The Way of Radical Understanding" to "The Way of Me"

From the start of Adi Da's Teaching Work to now, the Way of Adidam has taken a variety of forms, but it has always been a seventh stage Way, characterized by the following two competences, to be exercised simultaneously in every moment of practice, as egoless Communion with the Divine:

  1. the ability to enter into Satsang — to locate and commune with the Divine (or to locate and magnify "Happiness", as in "the bodily location of Happiness") through the relationship with Adi Da.

  2. the ability to be egoless in any moment, free of seeking and dilemma.

Perhaps the most significant change in the Way of Adidam over the years is just what means was being used for (2). Up until April, 2000, the primary means was hearing (and thus (2) was associated with fundamental self-understanding). However, since April, 2000, recognition has superceded hearing as the primary capability for entering into egoless Communion with Adi Da in every moment. This is so much so, that you'd be hard-pressed to find the word "hearing" in the nearly 2,000 pages of The Aletheon.[8] Recognition is associated tacitly with self-understanding:


Whole-bodily-responsive devotional recognition of Me is "radical" (or always "at-the-root") "self"-understanding — because whole-bodily-responsive devotional recognition of Me vanishes egoity at the "root", and vanishes all "difference" at the "root".

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


Hearing (also referred to as "most fundamental 'self'-understanding") remains a major milestone in the Way, but it is now understood to be a development of the earlier capability for (moment-to-moment) recognition.


Devotion to Me is "radical" devotion, enacted through devotional recognition-response to Me — turning the four psycho-physical faculties to Me, and ignoring all the contents and patterning of ego-"I". "Radical" devotion to Me is, itself, the seed of most fundamental "self"-understanding. If such "radical" devotion to Me is the case, most fundamental "self"-understanding will be readily awakened — because "self"-understanding is already established as the circumstance of your practice of the "Radical" Reality-Way of Adidam Ruchiradam, through devotional recognition-response to Me (or persistent devotion to Me, based on devotional recognition of Me).

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "The Distinction Between The Preliminary Listening-Practice of Perfect Knowledge and The Perfect Practice of Perfect Knowledge"
Part 11, The Aletheon


As we have suggested several times in this article, the unfolding of Adi Da's seventh stage process has led to breakthroughs in the Revelation of the Divine available to humankind through Adi Da. The Ruchira Dham event (in April, 2000) made Adi Da's Divine State directly and transparently accessible to all through His human form (because He entered the final phase of the seventh stage of life — Divine Translation — while still being associated with the body). On this new foundation, Adi Da re-envisioned the Way of Adidam on the basis of recognition of Him as the Divine — because of the accessibility of the Divine Revelation. He called that re-envisioning, "the Way of Adidam Ruchiradam", because it was instigated by the Ruchira Dham event.


In some sense, I — As I Am — First Appeared here in the year 2000. In some sense, I — As I Am Was only "on the way" to here before the Ruchira Dham Event..... A Profound Process Began, Which has Been Unfolding since That Great Event of Yogic Death.... The Happenings That have Occurred since the Divine Avataric Event at Ruchira Dham Hermitage Are All ‘Outer’ Signs of the Divine Avataric Process That Is the Direct Self-Revelation of My Divine Self-Nature, Self-Condition, and Self-State.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, The Boundless Self-Confession


Adi Da has always described devotion (of which recognition is the foundation) and self-understanding as the two key aspects of practice. Both are necessary. And the devotional relationship with Adi Da has always been the senior principle of the two:


The first principle of this Way is Satsang. The second principle is the consideration of Narcissus, based on self-observation to the point of understanding.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "Narcissus, Ignorance, and the Way of Life"
"I" Is the Body of Life


But the two — devotion and self-understanding — are related to each other in "chicken" and "egg" fashion. The Divine can be right in front of us (even in human form), and yet our lack of self-understanding will prevent God-recognition, devotional response, and God-Communion (let alone God-Realization):


Maybe the atheist cannot find God for the same reason a thief cannot find a policeman.

Francis Thompson


At the same time you are in My Company you are separated from My Company, you are dramatizing the act of self-contraction right now! Therefore, merely to be in My Company is not enough. How often has it been regretfully said in the traditions that even though people were given access to [Spiritual] Realizers of one degree or another, allowed to be in the Company of the Realizers, [Who were] serving them all the time, most of these people got nothing — or very little. Why is it so, then? Since My Radiant Presence Is sufficient, and since all you have to do is come into It, why do you not feel altogether good? Why are you not sublimed to the Perfect Degree right now? Of course, such sudden Realization is eminently possible, but the reason it is not happening is that you are engaged in a particular act right now, here in My Company, as you are at all other times. You are enforcing that action constantly and making a life out of it. Therefore, you are doing it right now, and you are also feeling it and all its results and all its impositions on you.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj


On the other hand, Adi Da always acknowledged that a relative few among devotees might recognize Him (in the manner we have been describing in this article), and always provided for that possibility in His Talks and in the various alternatives He offered in practicing the Way of Adidam. The following is a good example:


Turn to Me and understand. If you cannot do this, then understand and turn to Me.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj


In other words: if you can recognize Adi Da as the Divine Person, then let that be the driver of your practice and let self-understanding (and hearing) flow from that recognition. If you (like the majority of devotees), do not recognize Him in the manner of the Ancient Walk-About Way, then do everything to cultivate self-understanding, come to the point of developing the hearing capability, and thus be able to egolessly recognize and commune with the Divine on that basis. The following passage makes a similar point (with the understanding that Adi Da is not describing ordinary human love, but love based on recognition of Him as the Divine Person):


The Principle of devotional surrender to Me is complete and sufficient in itself. All personal and moral disciplines, all esoteric revelations, and all the Excellences of Transcendental God-Realization appear spontaneously and naturally to one who simply turns his attention to Me at all times and performs all activities as instants of Love-Communion with Me. . . .

My true devotees are simply distracted by Me and attached to Me. They find Me to be the greatest of all distractions. Therefore, they need not make any effort to be constantly attached to Me. They naturally remember Me at all times. They only think about Me, talk about Me, and listen to others tell stories about Me. They read My Teachings, they accept My disciplines, but, even more, they are profoundly and obsessively absorbed in attention to My Person, My Blissful State, My Form, My Gestures, My Play with devotees. . . .

My special Mission is to Live with such devotees. I have always looked for them. I test everyone, to see if they are My Lovers. I wait. Many surround Me in My Place. Many come and ["listen" to] Me, and practice all around Me. Many turn to Me with the good heart. But those who Love Me best Realize God by exclusive attachment to Me in Person. . . .

Truly, none can "hear" Me and practice the Way [of Adidam] except those who Love Me. But some are, at first, most involved in right understanding of the Teaching and responsible practice of the disciplines, while others are always naturally more capable of distraction and attachment. Therefore, some practice disciplines and Love Me, while others simply Love Me, and the disciplines arise without any special application on their part. Some mature in Love by stages. Others simply Love Me. At last, even the most disciplined or experienced of My devotees simply Loves Me.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "What Will You Do If You Love Me?" (1978)
(This original version is from The Enlightenment Of The Whole Body;
the newest version is in "What is a Greater Message Than This?",
Part 26, The Aletheon)


So for years, Adi Da has described the possibility of recognition-based practice (and its eventual appearance in those who practice to the point of "hearing" and "seeing" Him). But His observation was that very few devotees were recognizing Him as the Divine, so they needed to grow in self-understanding first. For most devotees, recognition would only be something that would develop down the line.

In each person's case, it always boils down to the Force of the Divine versus the force of the ego. That Adi Da re-conceived the Way (after April, 2000) as based on recognition from the start for all devotees is very good news for all of us. It suggests that Adi Da deemed that the magnification in the Force of the Divine (dating from the Ruchira Dham event) was so profound that what He had observed as a relative rarity before — recognition-based practice — could now become the norm . . . and even constitute the entrance requirement for becoming a devotee, independent of their particular egoic patterning.

Of course, even so, recognition and self-understanding continue to be related in a "chicken" and "egg" fashion. Even with the extraordinary breakthrough of the Divine represented by the Ruchira Dham event, it still does not seem that one can just take an unprepared person off the street and have the Divine Revelation occur (at least not very often). It appears that some significant degree of self-understanding (and even self-disciplining) — and a significant degree of "deprogramming" out of all the worldly, knee-jerk reactions many of us (raised in Godless, materialistic cultures) have to the notions of Guru, devotional surrender, a human Incarnation of the Divine, etc. — may be required to open the being to the Revelation of recognition in moments (let alone as an established, moment-to-moment capability). Then it's just a question of whether that self-understanding and self-disciplining is occurring "pre-Adidam" (given that recognition is now the entrance requirement); or "within Adidam" (for those people who are formal devotees, but who have not yet established the recognition capability).

Perhaps the most common scenario as we head into the future of Adidam will be people becoming devotees on the basis of a moment of recognition of Adi Da as the Divine Person; and then using their initial time as devotees (in the Second Congregation of Adidam) developing recognition as a moment-to-moment capability.[9] In that context, one takes the Eternal Vow based on the initial moment of recognition, and then allows the Vow to hold one in place — even if the initial moment of recognition fades (until recognition is developed as a moment-to-moment capability). Adi Da describes this very movingly in the video below, saying, "If the Revelation [of God] is made clear in this moment, then make a solemn, eternal vow of absolute commitment to God-Realization, and commit yourself to do whatever is necessary for the sake of God-Realization. Devote this life to it, devote whatever time and space appears entirely to God-Realization."

Someone who has already had a moment of recognition also has a "devotional seed" planted by Adi Da, which they can (if they haven't lost track of it, through lack of use) keep drawing upon until they develop the recognition capabilty:


Devotion to Me is something you must do. . . . As you will discover, or as you perhaps have already discovered, the seed of your devotion to Me is My Gift to you, but it is not, in any particular moment, necessarily shown to you in a dramatic way. You must, as often as necessary, re-"Locate" (or re-discover) the "Place" in you where I have already Given this Gift to you (there, where you inevitably respond to and spontaneously feel My Inherent "Bright" Attractiveness), and then you must practice, or intentionally animate and magnify, that feeling-devotion to Me.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"Throw your body to the Floor, and Yield your Heart"
The Love-Ananda Gita


Therefore, by always first (responsively, actively, and intentionally) "Locating" the feeling-Place in you that already and presently and effortlessly feels Attracted to My Avatarically-Born bodily (human) Divine Form, and My Avatarically Self-Revealed Spiritual (and Always Blessing) Divine Presence, and My Avatarically Self-Revealed (and Very, and Transcendental, and Perfectly Subjective, and Inherently Spiritual, and Inherently egoless, and Inherently Perfect, and Self-Evidently Divine) State, Yield (responsively, actively, and intentionally) to the feeling of the Inherent "Bright" Attractiveness of My Avatarically-Born bodily (human) Divine Form, and Yield (responsively, actively, and intentionally) to the feeling of the Inherent "Bright" Attractiveness of My Avatarically Self-Revealed Spiritual (and Always Blessing, and progressively by-Me-Avatarically-Self-Revealed) Divine Presence — and, by all of this, responsively, actively, and intentionally Yield (and more and more deeply forget) your ego-"I" (or your own action of separation, separateness, and separativeness) in the "Bright" and Very Space of My (progressively) by-Me-Avatarically-Self-Revealed (and Very, and Transcendental, and Perfectly Subjective, and Inherently Spiritual, and Inherently egoless, and Inherently Perfect, and Self-Evidently Divine) State.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, verse 46, "Da Love-Ananda Gita"
Da Love-Ananda Gita



4.7. The "Paradox" in Establishing the Recognition Capability


The disposition of the ancient Walk-About Way is simply to turn to the Realizer in the very moment of sighting the Realizer. Just so, My true devotees simply turn to Me on sight. They turn to Me with everything "inside" and everything "outside" — such that the entire body-mind is turned to Me, rather than turned on itself and wandering in its patterning. Such devotional turning to Me is a simple matter. And those who do not immediately turn to Me on sight should be served in such a manner that they can come to that point in due course.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "The Ancient Walk-About Way"
"Radical" Devotion


Adi Da has always said that the most difficult period of practice is before the Godward life has been established — both in establishing recognition and in establishing the foundation of right life that breaks the patterns and addictions of the ego (many of which have been in place for lifetimes).

But beyond how difficult it is, there is the original question Adi Da asks (with which we began this article): 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? The practices of Adidam Ruchiradam are devotional practices that are meant to be engaged solely on the basis of present-time recognition of Adi Da as the Divine Person, in which the ego has been vanished:


Those who heart-recognize Me... are recognizing (or tacitly Apprehending) My Divine State. Such heart-recognition is "Radical" devotion — because such heart-recognition of Me is already "at the root".

In that case, there is no body-mind-ego responding to Me. Rather, there is direct heart-recognition of Me — Prior to all identification with the body-mind, and Prior to all identification with the patterning of the body-mind. . . .

The disposition of right practice of The Way of Adidam simply "Coincides" with Me.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "In 'Place' ('Where' and As I Am)"
Part 14, The Aletheon



The entire devotional process in My Divine Avataric Company . . . is the unfolding magnification of "Root"-Coincidence with Me. If that "Root"-Coincidence is not (really, truly, and moment to moment) the case, it does not make any difference how "correct" My devotee is seeming to be, or how My devotee otherwise appears to be conforming to "correct" behavioral details of the practice I Reveal and Give. None of that "correctness" is authentic without That "Root"-Coincidence. Without That "Root"-Coincidence, there is nothing but mere behavior, mummery, ego-enactment — fruitless and meaningless nonsense.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj,"Always Know Me Perfectly"
Part 9, The Aletheon


The idea of obedience to an "other" is anathema to the adolescent Omega mentality of the West. According to Omega "doctrine", every individual is supposed to be independent of all "others", "self"-driven, and goal-oriented — "working it out" by himself or herself.

However, in the Wisdom-Way, you are not called to be mastered by an apparent "other". In the Wisdom-Way, the One by Whom you must be Mastered Is the Divine Person. And the Spiritual Master must be devotionally recognized as not different from the Very Divine Person. . . .

If you do not devotionally recognize Me as the Avatarically Divine Person, you will not be obedient to Me.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "Divine Self-Obedience"
Part 9, The Aletheon


So what is one to do, then, if one is a devotee struggling in the "no man's land" of having had a past moment of recognition (or many such moments), but not yet having established the capability for moment-to-moment recognition? How does one engage the practice, absent present-time recognition of Adi Da (which allows the practice to be the expression of recognition in the manner we have been describing throughout this article, and which is, in some sense, the main theme of The Aletheon)? Further, one is under vow (based on what was then a present-time moment of recognition, if the vow was made correctly) to engage a practice based on recognition, but that recognition is not now present. What to do in that circumstance?

It is neither a small nor an insignificant question! And it applies to a large number of devotees.

In some sense, the "paradox" associated with doing any practices prior to establishing recognition is the same one Adi Da originally raised (back in the 1970's) about engaging the disciplines prior to hearing: "You wouldn't do them right." That is, they wouldn't be engaged egolessly (from the position of fundametal self-understanding), but would tend to be engaged as forms of seeking. Even so, He concluded that disciplines were necessary anyway, because otherwise the egoic habits of a lifetime would bind energy and attention so greatly that hearing could never occur. (See "Self-Discipline is Necessary Prior to Hearing".)

Just so, for most of us, without engaging any disciplines, our energy, attention, and heart-feeling are so bound that we tend not to be open enough to receive the Revelation of recognition (the bold is ours):


. . . The Way Of The Heart Requires An Ordeal Of The Heart. Even From birth, and Even In The Context Of Each Of The First Three Stages Of Life, The Heart (or The Power Of Inherently Free Being, Consciousness, and Love-Bliss) Should Be Awakened (By Means Of My Avatarically Self-Transmitted Divine Grace, and In The Manner Appropriate To Each Such Stage), or Else human Adaptation and Growth Will (Necessarily) Be Retarded and Made un-Happy By The self-Contracting Efforts Of egoity.

It Is Free and Effective Heart-Feeling (or the Free Power Of The Heart) That Enables human beings to Heart-Recognize Me and Heart-Respond To Me, and To Receive My Avatarically Self-Transmitted Divine Grace, and Thereby, To Grow Beyond self-Contraction To Most Ultimate (or Inherent, and Inherently Most Perfect) Realization Of My Avataric Divine Self-Revelation Of Real God (or The Divine Self-Condition and Source-Condition) — and If Free Heart-Feeling Is Suppressed (or If The Free Power Of The Heart Is Not Awakened and Made Steady, Stage Of Life By Stage Of Life, In The Course Of human Development), humn beings Cannot Grow Beyond The Un-Happy Settlements Of The First Three Stages Of Life.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, Sutra 22
The Dawn Horse Testament


So it's a "chicken" and "egg" matter again. Adi Da resolved this (in part) by saying that prior to hearing, the disciplines would primarily be engaged as means for reflecting oneself to oneself (in addition to helping to free up energy and attention), until hearing, after which they would become the egoless expressions of self-understanding. Just so, in any moment when one is not recognizing Adi Da, the disciplines can be be engaged as means for reflecting oneself to oneself, and for freeing up energy and attention (which is essential for recognition to occur), until they become the expressions of established recognition. Practices for "devotional contemplation" of Adi Da (as the Divine) also serve to reflect the self, until Adi Da is recognized as the Divine Person. Adi Da has indicated that one sees oneself reflected in Him (like a "Mirror") until that time.


I Am As I Am.
I am not merely Reflecting.
The Mirror is not "busy" Reflecting everything.
The Mirror Is What Is.
The Mirror Is the Reflector to (and of) egos — but Always Acausally (or Indifferently), Always Free-Standing As Itself (Prior to and Beyond all apparent "differences").
The Mirror is not doing any Reflecting. The Mirror is not doing any observing. The Mirror is not doing anything.
The Mirror is Inherently Free. The Mirror is of a Transcendental, Inherently Spiritual, and Self-Evidently Divine Nature. The Self-Condition That Is the Mirror Itself Is What must be "Located" and Realized — moment to moment (and, at last, Most Perfectly). . . .

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "The Ancient Walk-About Way"
"Radical" Devotion


Many of the "right life" disciplines are ones that are taken up by many non-devotees for conventional reasons. It's just that such people are not engaging these practices in either a devotionally responsive manner or a "searchless" manner (as in, for example, all the same exercises, but not "conscious exercise"; or the same raw diet, but not "searchless diet" — see Green Gorilla: The Searchless Raw Diet). But such examples demonstrate that adaptation to such new habits is completely humanly possible, even without recognition. And — even if they are not currently being engaged searchlessly and egolessly — these new habits can serve recognition through the freeing up of energy and attention. But they do need to be engaged artfully (if not searchlessly), with the understanding that they are being engaged with the ego intact, rather than egolessly. We recommend reading the article, "The Necessary Artfulness in Taking Up Disciplines in the Way of Adidam" to get a feeling for the artfulness required in engaging these disciplines (especially prior to having established recognition).

* * *

If you understand and truly feel the paradox — and the "stuckness" — being described here as your own situation, then you'll also feel why it doesn't hurt to sometimes just throw yourself on the Grace of the Divine, like all the saints of old in their most difficult or "stuck" moments in practice:


Even the Guru's Instruction has no effect on the mediocre devotee.

If you are too rigid to express your devotion to Me, you should be breaking through that rigidity by engaging more in demonstratively expressive devotional practices (such as pujas, full feeling-prostrations, chanting, and all the forms of ecstatic devotional singing, including vigorous kirtan). . . .

You should not just sit there passively. Put your face to the floor, and beg with your heart for My Gift of devotion. . . . You must . . . . not be satisfied with your limits. To practice devotion to Me, you must be absolutely intolerant of your presumptuousness and your idiotic orderliness and your pretending to be your own "Guru". . . . If you are to transcend your presumptuous ego, you must animate your devotion to Me.

Devotion to Me is something you must do. It is not something to merely think about doing, nor is it something that, as an active sadhana, merely happens to you. It is something that you must practice intentionally. As you will discover, or as you perhaps have already discovered, the seed of your devotion to Me is My Gift to you, but it is not, in any particular moment, necessarily shown to you in a dramatic way. You must, as often as necessary, re-"Locate" (or re-discover) the "Place" in you where I have already Given this Gift to you (there, where you inevitably respond to and spontaneously feel My Inherent "Bright" Attractiveness), and then you must practice, or intentionally animate and magnify, that feeling-devotion to Me. If it is just a little "thread", or only a "thimbleful", then you must throw your body to the floor and yield your heart, so that the "vessel" that you are becomes larger to receive My Grace.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"Throw your body to the Floor, and Yield your Heart"
The Love-Ananda Gita



4.8. The Further Development of the Recognition Capability


Come in and know me better, man!

Avatar Adi Da Samraj quoting The Spirit of Christmas Present
in Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol


We mentioned earlier in this section that the recognition capability does develop with practice, and that in a real sense, the entire practice of Adidam is all about "getting to know Adi Da better":


If I am devotionally recognized most profoundly, there is Divine Translation.

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


Devotion to Me is surrender — not the effort of surrender, but the surrender that is volunteered upon tacitly recognizing My State, My Condition, My Very Person, Which Is Reality Itself. It is Realization Itself. I am That. By recognizing Me, you are drawn into My Condition, and that is what makes this devotion profound and brings it into coincidence with the “Perfect Practice”. The “Perfect Practice” is the “Perfect Practice” of devotion to Me. It is established by means of this devotion, which carries with it modes of instruction requiring discipline of body and mind, and of all the habits and interactions in relationships associated with the body-mind. And it involves reception of My Spiritual Transmission, which simply Draws you profoundly into the “Perfect Practice”.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, October 6, 2005
Enter Into Unlimited Profundity


Adi Da has identified four stages in that developmental process of recognition of Him, beginning with the first moment of recognition, and ending in Divine Translation:


And The Way Of The Heart Develops (In Its Totality) Through Four Progressive Stages Of Devotional Recognition-Response To Me and Devotional Realization Of Me.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
Sutra 14, The Dawn Horse Testament


The first stage of recognition of Adi Da as the Divine is when the Divine Person is revealed by (and as) Adi Da's human form, and through all the manifestations of that human form (Adi Da's Teaching, the stories of His devotees, the Sanctuaries He Empowered, etc.). This coincides with the "listening" and "hearing" stages of practice in the Way of Adidam.


The First Stage Of The Progressive Devotional Recognition-Response To Me Is This: The Divine Person (or Inherently egoless Self-Condition, and Perfectly Subjective Source-Condition) Is Revealed (As Person and Truth) By (and As) My Avatarically-Born Bodily (Human) Divine Form — For I Am (Even As My Avatarically-Born Bodily Human Divine Form) The Self-Evidently Divine Person (and The "Bright" Avatarically Self-Manifested Divine Word-Bearer) Of The Heart, and My Avatarically Self-Revealed Divine Heart-Word Is Always Present (or Directly Revealed) In (and Via, and As) My Avatarically-Born Bodily (Human) Divine Form, and I Am Always Present and Active In (and Via, and As) My Avatarically Self-Revealed (and Fully Spoken, and Fully Recorded, and Fully Written, and Fully Preserved) Divine Wisdom-Teaching, and In (and Via, and As) The Form Of My Own Divine Story (Preserved In The Recorded and Documented Form Of All My Avatarically Self-Manifested Divine Leelas), and I Am (Even As My Avatarically-Born Bodily Human Divine Form) Directly Revealed (As The Divine Person and Truth) To those who Truly Love Me (As My Avatarically Self-Revealed, and Self-Evidently Divine, Person), and who (Thus) Devotionally Recognize Me and Devotionally Respond To Me.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
Sutra 14, The Dawn Horse Testament


The second stage of recognition of Adi Da as the Divine is when the Divine Person is revealed by (and as) Adi Da's Divine, Spiritual Presence. This coincides with the "seeing" stages of practice in the Way of Adidam.


The Second Stage Of The Progressive Devotional Recognition-Response To Me and Devotional Realization Of Me Is This: The Divine Person (or Inherently egoless Self-Condition, and Perfectly Subjective Source-Condition) Is Revealed By (and As) My Avatarically Self-Transmitted Spiritual and all-and-All-Pervading Divine Heart-Presence Of Love-Bliss — Which Is My Always Living (or Spiritual) and Personal Divine Presence (or Avatarically Self-Transmitted and Self-Revealed Divine Spiritual Body) Of Immediately ego-Vanishing Divine Spiritual Grace (Cosmically Extended To all beings), and Which Is Directly (and Fully) Revealed (By and As My Avatarically Given Divine Spiritual Heart-Transmission) To those Who Truly Love Me (As My Avatarically Self-Revealed, and Self-Evidently Divine, Person), and who (Thus) Devotionally Recognize Me and Devotionally Respond To Me.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
Sutra 14, The Dawn Horse Testament


The third stage of recognition of Adi Da as the Divine is when the Divine Person is revealed as (and Realized as) Adi Da's Divine State (or Consciousness Itself). This coincides with the "Perfect Practice" of the Way of Adidam.


The Third Stage Of The Progressive Devotional Recognition-Response To Me and Devotional Realization Of Me Is This: The Divine Person (or Inherently egoless Self-Condition, and Perfectly Subjective Source-Condition) Is Revealed By (and As) My Avatarically Self-Revealed (Transcendental, Inherently Spiritual, Inherently egoless, and Self-Evidently Divine) Self-Condition (or Inherently egoless, and Inherently Perfect, State) — The One and Very and Self-Evidently Divine Self-Condition (or Inherently egoless, and Inherently Perfect, State) That Is Consciousness Itself, Beyond the ego-"I", In the case of all conditionally Manifested beings — Which One and Very Self-Condition Is The Identity and Truth Directly Revealed (By and As My Avatarically Given Divine Spiritual Heart-Transmission Of My Own, and Self-Evidently Divine, State Of Person) To those who Truly Love Me (As My Avatarically Self-Revealed, and Self-Evidently Divine, Person), and who (Thus) Devotionally Recognize Me and Devotionally Respond To Me Perfectly, By Means Of Inherent (and Inherently Transcendental, and Perfectly Subjective, and Inherently Spiritual, and Inherently egoless, and Inherently Perfect, and Self-Evidently Divine) State.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
Sutra 14, The Dawn Horse Testament


The fourth stage of recognition of Adi Da as the Divine is when the Divine Person is revealed (and Realized) as Conscious Light. This coincides with Divine Self-Realization, the Most Perfect Recognition and Realization of Adi Da — Indivisible Oneness with Him — also coinciding with the "Most Perfect" stage (the third stage) of the Perfect Practice, and signalling entrance into the seventh stage of life.


The Fourth (and Final) Stage Of The Progressive Devotional Recognition-Response To Me and Devotional Realization Of Me Is This: The Divine Person (or Inherently egoless Self-Condition, and Perfectly Subjective Source-Condition) Is Revealed Merely (and Most Perfectly) As Is (Self-Existing and Self-Radiant, One and Only), and (Therefore) Merely As The Transcendental, Inherently Spiritual, Inherently egoless, and Self-Evidently Divine Self-Condition (or Consciousness Itself), Which Is The (By Means Of My Avatarically Given Divine Self-Transmission) Divinely Self-Transmitted "Bright" — or The Inherently Non-Separate, Inherently Indivisible, Inherently Irreducible, Infinitely Expanded (or Inherently Boundless), Infinitely Centerless (or Inherently egoless), and Self-Evidently Divine Sphere and Space Of Love-Bliss — and Which (One and Only) Is My Ultimate (and Inherently Perfect, and Perfectly Subjective, and Self-Evidently Divine) Avataric Self-Revelation, Given (By Means Of My Avatarically Self-Transmitted, and Always Immediately ego-Vanishing, Divine Grace) To those who Truly Love Me (As My Avatarically Self-Revealed, and Self-Evidently Divine, Person), and who (Thus) Devotionally Recognize Me and Devotionally Respond To Me Most Perfectly, As I Am (and who, Thus, By Realizing Indivisible Oneness With Me, Awaken, Beyond the ego-"I", To Realize What, Where, When, How, Why, and Who they Really and Truly and Divinely Are). . . .

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
Sutra 14, The Dawn Horse Testament


Ultimately, that Most Perfect recognition of Adi Da results in Divine Translation, or the Outshining of the Cosmic Domain altogether, through continued "Self-Abiding Self-Recognition Of the conditional self, and Of all conditional forms or events" as Adi Da's "Bright" Divine Person.


The Practice Of The Only-By-Me Revealed and Given Way Of The Heart (or Way Of Adidam) Is Characterized By A Gradual Progression Of Awareness Of Me (and Of Direct Devotional Recognition-Response To Me), and By Progressive Devotional Heart-Communion With Me (Most Ultimately, To The Most Perfect Degree Of Inherent, and Inherently Non-Separate, and Inherently Indivisible, and Inherently egoless Oneness With Me) — Progressively Revealed and Progressively Realized By (and As) My Four By-My-Avataric-Divine-Spiritual-Grace-Given (and, By You, Devotionally Recognized and Devotionally Acknowledged) Forms.

This Progress Becomes The Outshining Of The Cosmic Domain (and Translation Into My Divine "Bright" Spherical Self-Domain) — When (and Only When), By Means Of My Avatarically Self-Transmitted Divine Spiritual Grace, There Is Always Already (Inherent, and Inherently Most Perfect) Realization Of Me (Most Ultimately and Finally Demonstrated Via Inherent, and Inherently Spiritual, and Inherently egoless, and Inherently Perfect, and Perfectly Unconditional, and Perfectly Subjective, and Truly Divine Self-Abiding Self-Recognition Of the conditional self, and Of all conditional forms or events, In and As My "Bright", and One, and Only, and Self-Existing, and Self-Radiant, and Inherently egoless, and Inherently Perfect, and Perfectly Unconditional, and Perfectly Subjective, and all-and-All-Including, and all-and-All-Transcending, and Self-Evidently Divine Person).

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
Sutra 14, The Dawn Horse Testament


Adi Da uses language in a highly precise, technical manner in these passages (as is His manner throughout The Dawn Horse Testament). For example, He uses the word "Perfect" in the context of practice taking place prior to the body-mind, or conditional existence altogether, in the Transcendental realm of Consciousness Itself. But then He uses the phrase "Most Perfect" to refer to the seventh stage Realization and context.

Another theme in these passages is Adi Da's reference to "those who Truly Love Me" in each of the stages of practice, which He originally introduced in His 1978 book, The Enlightement Of The Whole Body, in the essay, "What Will You Do If You Love Me?" (see below). But in the above passages, He clarifies the reference, distinguishing love of the Divine Person from ordinary love of another human being:


I Am (Even As My Avatarically-Born Bodily Human Divine Form) Directly Revealed (As The Divine Person and Truth) To those who Truly Love Me (As My Avatarically Self-Revealed, and Self-Evidently Divine, Person), and who (Thus) Devotionally Recognize Me and Devotionally Respond To Me.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
Sutra 14, The Dawn Horse Testament


Recognition of Adi Da as the Divine Person is heart-recognition ("devotional recognition") from the beginning, a falling in love with the Divine Person. Growth of that love coincides with advance in the Way of Adidam. You become what you meditate on . . . you Realize what you love.


You become (or take the form of) what your attention most really moves upon. Therefore, if I Am your Beloved, your love-attention for Me allows you to Realize Indivisible Unity with Me — moment to moment, in every now of time and space.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "What Is a Greater Message Than This?"
Part 26, The Aletheon


It is on that Divine basis that love of one's very Source grows, and one comes to love the Divine Person "Perfectly", and at last, "Most Perfectly".


Avatar Adi Da SamrajThe Way of [Adidam] is the Way of those who Love Me. The principle of devotional surrender to Me is complete and sufficient in itself. . . .

My true devotees are simply distracted by Me and attached to Me. They find Me to be the greatest of all distractions. Therefore, they need not make any effort to be constantly attached to Me. They naturally remember Me at all times. . . .

In this manner, those who Love Me are gradually relieved of all distraction by ordinary things, experiences, relations, desires, and thoughts. I distract them even from all experience. Their obsessive and exclusive attachment to Me leads them to absorption in My State, My Radiant Transcendental Consciousness, My Ecstasy, My Love. . . .

The motive of My true devotees is not the discipline, nor mystical experience, nor philosophy. My true devotees practice because they Love Me. They have no personal or ultimate capacity to turn away from the world or to transcend themselves. Therefore, I have come to Live with them. When My devotees find Me, the same weakness that led them to distraction and attachment in relation to the experiences of this world becomes the very means of their Salvation. Since I am the ultimate and most absorbing Object of their weakness, I distract them from all experiences. They become attached to Me by the power of their own tendency to distraction, fascination, and obsession. Therefore, their own desire leads them to Ecstasy, because they Love Me. . . .

Truly, none can "hear" Me and practice the Way of [Adidam] except those who Love Me. But some are, at first, most involved in right understanding of the Teaching and responsible practice of the disciplines, while others are always naturally more capable of distraction and attachment. Therefore, some practice disciplines and Love Me, while others simply Love Me, and the disciplines arise without any special application on their part. Some mature in Love by stages. Others simply Love Me. At last, even the most disciplined or experienced of My devotees simply Loves Me. . . .

Love is what we fear to do — until we fall in Love. Then we no longer fear to Love, to surrender, to be self-forgetful and foolish, to be single-minded, and to suffer another. Those who fall on Me fall into My Heart. They are free of all demands for fulfillment through experience and self-survival. Their Love for Me grants them Life, since I am the Life-Current of Love. . . .

I grant all My own Excesses to those who Love Me, in exchange for all their doubts and sufferings. Those who bind themselves to Me through Love are inherently Free of fear and necessity. They Transcend the causes of experience, and they Dissolve in the Heart of God. What is a Greater Message than This?

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "What Will You Do If You Love Me?"
The Enlightenment of the Whole Body



 
[1]

It is important to distinguish Adi Da's published books from the Notes He would give to devotees every day. We can make an analogy with science's distinction between "theory" and "observation". Scientists create theories, then they test a theory by observing reality and seeing whether it matches the theory. If it does not, they revise the theory accordingly. Adi Da's books were something like His "theories", while His Notes were based on His actual daily observations of devotees. So His "theory" (in the form of The Aletheon, etc.) can present what recognition is and what will follow for those who are established in that recognition (in abstract, "summary" form); while the "Notes" will communicate the "data": how many (and which) devotees are actually established in recognition of Him (as assessed by Him). As in science, one only gets a complete picture by looking at both the theory and the data: both Adi Da's published texts and His Notes. The data confirms the theory: the few who are recognizing Adi Da have indeed experienced a "spontaneous unfolding" of their practice as a result. What the theory doesn't specifically predict is how many or few will recognize Adi Da in any given period of history:

I have Come at a particular time. My Avataric Divine Self-Revelation Appears in many forms in the world. My verbal Wisdom-Teaching will become part of all the communication in the world, and (as such) may influence many people. But there are other aspects of My Avataric Divine Wisdom-Teaching that are more immediate to My Own Unique (Avataric Divine) Life and Work. Those include the forms of My Wisdom- Teaching that pertain to the devotional (and, in due course, Spiritual) relationship to Me during the Lifetime of This Body.

But there are only a finite number of those who are alive in the world who are likely to devotionally recognize Me and devotionally respond to Me during the Lifetime of My Avatarically-Born bodily (human) Divine Form — because every being in the world is active in a different stage of experience, a different stage of understanding. It is, of course, true that I have Entered the world for the sake of those whom I can Contact (while I am physically alive) and Draw to My Own Divine Person. However, even though I have Come for such devotees, My Avataric Divine Spiritual Work is (ultimately) for the sake of the entire world — and (thus) even all beings, in all possible times and places. Whenever beings heart-recognize Me, they are (simply and directly) “locating” the Truth That I Am and That is Manifesting As My Avataric Divine Life and Work. . . .

There is truly no limit to the Flood of My Divine Light That is Descending into this gross dimension. Therefore, there is no limit to the Force of Satsang with Me. The limits are only in those who receive My Transmission of Light. The greater the number of functions made available to the Light and the Truth, the more Light and Truth Appear. Light and Truth Appear Spontaneously wherever They have Use. And Light and Truth Appear Perfectly wherever They have Perfect Use.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "The Heaven-Born Gospel of The Ruchira Avatar"
My "Bright" Word

 
[2]

For more on the purpose of puja in the Way of Adidam, listen to Adi Da's talk, The Primal Space.

 
[3]

Read our article, The Way of the Bone, for an in-depth exploration of how many of us have created a kind of "addict's revision" of the Way of Adidam that is focused on receiving all of Adi Da's Gifts (including moments of recognition), but not on giving back to Him — the other half of the Guru-devotee relationship — in the form of response altogether, and responsibility for practice and self-transcendence in particular. In this revision of the Way, the Gifts received are converted by the ego into temporary (pleasurable) effects in the body-mind that don't bear fruit in the form of actual growth or Realization.

 
[4]

But it should also be noted that there are very few passages like this — describing the refusal of the Divine after recognition of the Divine — in the nearly two thousand pages of The Aletheon, perhaps reflecting Adi Da's continuing astonishment at the possibility of the refusal of the Divine in the transparent and potent Form He made available to all, especially after April, 2000.

 
[5]

For a good introduction to Adi Da's wisdom and instructions on "right life", read Part 9 ("What is Radical, Right, and Perfect?" about the three elements of practice: radical devotion, right life and Perfect Knowledge) — particularly the essay, "The Necessary Foundation Of Right Life" — in Volume III of The Aletheon, or read the books, Right Life Is Free Participation In Unlimited Radiance and The Sacred Space of Finding Me.

 
[6]

"Peter" ("Petros") is Greek for "rock" or "stone". From it come English words like "petrified" ("turned into stone") and "petroleum" ("rock oil").

 
[7]

For an extended consideration of what must be established in order to ensure the survival of Adidam in perpetuity, click here.

 
[8]

There is at least one occurence: in "The Perfect Practice of Perfect Knowledge Is The Avatarically Given Divine Reality-Way of Adidam", in Part 16 of The Aletheon.

 
[9]

That is essentially the current function of the Second Congregation of Adidam, as described in the most recent detailed Notes Adi Da gave on the subject (in July, 2008), whereas the First Congregation requires recognition to be established as a moment-to-moment capability (providing the backbone for the renunciate disposition and life which is the primary characteristic of all First Congregation members).

What I have done is identify this Lay Congregationist culture of practice as a whole culture, a complete culture of practice. Not an end in itself, as I said; there is practice beyond it for those who mature in it, but it is a complete life of practice, whole and complete, and it is as much as most people are going to do.

If you're talking about the total population on earth, how many are going to be seriously preparing for formal renunciation? [But] they could all become devotees of Mine, and they should. . . . So, you have to have that whole culture of the Lay Congregationist practice — the Second Congregation. . . You have to make it feasible and possible for everybody by having a full spectrum of kinds of agreements that will fit to everybody's real potential, and still have real requirements about it. . . . When they're at that point of maturity in the Second Congregation, and when they are prepared to make the choice to move seriously toward an eventual formal renunciate life and practice, they can enter the Forward Lay Congregationist Order of the First Congregation.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, May 15, 2007

The First Congregation is characterized by a culture that is mastered by the Divine, whereas the "world" is characterized by insubordination. Even though the "world" may be, in many cases, full of words about "God", the ego-"world" is God-less. It is subordinating That Which Is Divine to itself, and is, therefore, insubordinate, and indulges in desecration, falseness, illusion, and dark-mindedness. Out-growing the insubordinate character of the ego is not merely about petty rightness or the conventions of ego-based obedience, which are simply a kind of egoically "self"-deluded uptightness and righteousness. It is not about that. It is about surrender and being rightened, and being Drawn into the Transcendental Spiritual Sphere of the Divine egolessness of Reality Itself. It is a great profundity.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, July 9, 2008


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