A Collective Force
of Obligation
a Talk by Avatar Adi Da Samraj,
1988
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ:
Self-discipline must come from self understanding, or it is
just another form of self-contraction. Without
self-understanding, discipline is just another expression of
the will of the ego-“I”.
Instead, self-discipline in the
only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way of Adidam is based on that
force of intention that expresses the capability to
transcend yourself by feeling beyond yourself, by feeling
beyond all of the body-mind’s intentions, tendencies, and
patterns.
Right discipline is associated with
the radiant disposition of ego-transcending devotion to Me,
not the effort of the self-contraction. To be impulsed
toward ego-transcending Real-God-Realization through your
devotion to Me-that is a radiant disposition. On that basis,
you take on some (by Me Given) disciplines. You observe the
self-contraction, and you add detail to the discipline of
your life based on that observation.
The disciplines of the Way of Adidam
include more than just vital things like food and sex. The
discipline covers everything. That is why you must practice
all the disciplines, including all the functional,
practical, cultural, and relational disciplines.
Traditionally, people have had a way
of simplifying the matter of all the disciplines by taking
on what is sometimes called “Ashram Dharma”. “Ashram Dharma”
means entering into a community in which everyone embraces
particular disciplines and maintains them through norms and
expectations. The discipline is simply what you do in
Ashram. You don’t go out and live with a bunch of other
people who have nothing to do with the intention of
practice. You don’t wander around in the ordinary world and
try to stay disciplined. Rather, you enter into the
community of discipline and use the community for your
advantage relative to practice. In such a traditional
Ashram, all of the disciplines are mapped out. And, if you
are going to live in the Ashram, you do such and such and
such and such, and that is it. There is no question about
it. You do not have to struggle with it. You just accept it
as the pattern. You simply expect it of yourself.
One of the ways you have of getting
yourself to do the discipline is to crunch up and get
righteous about it. But, if it is simply something that is
expected of you, if you simply expect it of yourself and all
others expect it of themselves, then what kind of badges can
be acquired for doing what everybody is supposed to do? You
don’t have to be always puzzling about whether to do it or
not. The discipline of the Way of Adidam is just a simple
pattern of life that you have accepted, and there is no
further struggle with it. The community of My devotees (in
My Description of it) is really just a form of Ashram Dharma
then.
All of your varying tendencies, all
of your patterns of old adaptation, your own egoic
patterning – all of that gets impinged upon in such a
setting. I think this is probably one of the reasons why you
have not embraced the discipline of formal cooperative (or
community) association with one another as fully as you
should. Because as soon as you enter into that life of
community with one another, with all the cultural signs that
should be associated with that, you represent a collective
force of obligation to one another. Hmm? [May 9,
1988]
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