When I opened this Part (Part IV) of my book, I gave the example of a devotee who couldn’t get her conductivity practice to work. Adi Da observed that she wasn’t sitting exactly vertically, and as soon as she corrected her posture, the energy was able to flow in the full circle — through the perineum at the base of the spine, and up the spinal column.

In his Yoga Sutras, Patanjali describes an eight-limbed path that provides a framework for personal growth and self-realization. Asana — posture — is the third limb of yoga. It is understood to be the means by which the student is able to embody the higher limbs: pranayama (breath control), pratyahara (sense withdrawal), dharana (concentration), dhyana (meditation), and samadhi (absorption in bliss).

It is certainly true that the greatest obstacle in fruitful practice of the Way of Adidam is very likely how moved one actually is to transcend oneself, given one’s devotional response to the Divine (via the human form of Adi Da).

However, after hundreds of conversations with devotees (including myself) over decades of time, I have concluded that there are many devotees who are strongly moved to practice, but who may not be engaging the primary Asanas of the way of Adidam correctly. And as the conductivity example shows, all it takes is for us to be off in one detail of an asana for the practice to not work. And, as in all profound spiritual practices, the asana includes not merely “physical posture”, but clarity, consciousness, intelligence and heart — all of those have to be correctly oriented for the practice to be fruitful.

As Adi Da has said from the beginning, the fundamental asana of the Way of Adidam is to turn to Him. But what has also become clear to me after decades of practice is that the context in which one does that turning changes as one grows in practice. So in the next three chapters, we'll explore how the asana of turning to Adi Da develops with practice:

1. the asana of turning to Adi Da and being happy
2. the asana of turning to Adi Da and living in the Divine Domain
3. the asana of turning to Adi Da and enabling Him to fill the cup

After countless conversations with devotees, my strong sense is that most practicing devotees are engaging the first asana, and not the second asana — and that this is largely because they aren't even aware that "living in the Divine Domain" is central to growth in practice, and possible from early on in practice, if one understands how to enter and maintain that asana. Consequently, we will explore it in depth, with the intent of helping to move many devotees beyond what I experience as a "beginners' plateau" in the practice of the Way of Adidam.