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Glossary of Adidam
Words
Adepts – Spiritually Realized Adepts are the
principal Sources, Resources, and Means of the esoteric Way.
Adepts inevitably Instruct others, but the function of
Instruction is then passed on through good books, and
through informed others, and so forth. The Great Function of
the Adept Guru is, however, specific only to Adepts
themselves, and this is the Guru-Function supremely valued
by Spiritual practitioners since the most ancient days.
Advaita Vedanta – Advaita Vedanta (Advaita
Vedanta) is a sub-school of the Vedanta (literally, end or
the goal of the Vedas, Sanskrit) school of Hindu philosophy.
Advaita (literally, non-duality) is often called a monistic
system of thought. The word “Advaita” essentially refers to
the identity of the Self (Atman) and the Whole (Brahman).
The key source texts for all schools of Vedanta are the
Prasthanatrayi the canonical texts consisting of the
Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and the Brahma Sutras.
All-Pervading Matrix – The origin of everything is
the Creative Spirit, the Intelligent Life-Principle, the
All-Pervading Matrix of the total world.
All-Pervading Transcendental Consciousness –
Radiant Transcendental Consciousness, which is All-Pervading
or Transcendental in nature, but also coincident, because it
is All-Pervading, with the body-mind.
Astral – see Gross, Subtle, Causal Dimensions
Avatar – A divine incarnation. According to Hindu
belief, God as Vishnu descends into the finiteness of name
and form in various ages to re-establish the forgotten
truths of religion and to show mankind by his living example
how to ascend to himself.
Bodhisattva – The true Bodhisattva is not one who
in any sense prevents his or her own Enlightenment in order
to first Enlighten others. How can an un-Enlightened being
Enlighten anyone else? Rather, the true Bodhisattva is
either pursuing ultimate Enlightenment (and perhaps doing so
in the context of service, or positive social and cultural
relations with others) or else he or she is already fully
established in the Awakened Wisdom of true Enlightenment
while still alive.
Body-Mind – With this term, Adi Da is
communicating that each human being is a complex
of fundamental faculties. Those fundamental faculties
include body and mind, and also emotion and breath.
Casual – see Gross, Subtle, Causal Dimensions
Cosmic Mandala – The Sanskrit word
mandala (literally, circle) is
commonly used in the esoteric Spiritual traditions of the
East to describe the hierarchical levels of cosmic
existence. Mandala also denotes an artistic
rendering of a visionary representation of the cosmos.
Avatar Adi Da uses the phrase Cosmic Mandala as
a reference to the totality of the conditionally manifested
cosmos (or all worlds, forms, and beings), which (He has
Revealed) can be visually perceived (and, thus, represented)
as a pattern of concentric circular bands (or, more
accurately, spheres) of certain distinct colors (each of a
particular relative width), with a Brilliant White
Five-Pointed Star at the center.
Current – see Life-Current
DarshanDarshan (the Hindi
derivative of Sanskrit darshana) literally means
seeing, sight of, or vision
of. To receive Darshan of His Divine Presence, Avatar
Adi Da, is, most fundamentally, to behold His bodily (human)
Divine Form (either by having been in His physical Company
during His physical Lifetime, or, at any time, by directly
viewing a photograph or other visual representation of Him),
and (thereby) to receive the spontaneous Divine Blessing He
Grants Freely whenever His bodily (human) Divine Form is
beheld in the devotional manner. In the Reality-Way of
Adidam, Darshan of Avatar Adi Da is the very essence of the
practice.
Bhava Samadhi – Divine Translation, or “Bhava
Samadhi,” is Transcendental Absorption in God-Love, or
Ecstatic Intuition of the Absolute Divine Personality, the
true Self. It is the Perfect Stage of human existence, in
which all limitations are transcended. It is not
annihilation, but Ecstasy. It is not self-preservation, but
Ecstasy. It is Paradox, beyond explanation.
Divine Ignorance – You do not and cannot know what
even a single thing is. Because though you presume
familiarity with objects and others, such familiarity is
only a product of your presumption of separateness from
them. The movement to name things and presume
familiarity is based in fear of unknowability or loss of
control, but names are only superficial and ultimately
arbitrary. Your native state of being is not
separation, knowledge, or familiarity but the unknowability
of simple Existence beyond fear or contraction. Avatar Adi
Da calls this feeling-intuition of your native state
Divine Ignorance.
Divine Person – The Divine Being is the Person of
Life–Radiantly Conscious, Infinite, and Eternal, Pervading
all of space and time with Energy and Light. The Divine
Person is Perfectly Happy, Perfectly Free. The Divine Person
is the “Heart” of every one and every thing, our Source and
our Substance, our primal Condition, our very Identity–if
we will only transcend our illusory identification with the
separate, dying body-mind, and Awaken to Immortal Being
Itself, to the Blissful Oneness of the Divine Person.
Emanationist – Emanationism is an idea in the
cosmology or cosmogony of certain religious or philosophical
systems. Emanation from the Latin ’emanare’ meaning “to flow
from”, is the mode by which all things are derived from the
First Reality, or Principle. All things are derived from the
first reality or perfect god by steps of degradation to
lesser degrees of the first reality or God, and at every
step the emanating beings are less pure, less perfect, less
divine. Emanationism is a transcendent principle from which
everything is derived, and is opposed to both Creationism
(wherein the universe is created by a sentient God who is
separate from creation) and materialism (which posits no
underlying subjective and/or ontological nature behind
phenomena, being immanent). The Emanationist
tradition has developed many forms of practice, according to
the stage of life represented by the concerns of each
particular school. One major common element that can be
found in all of the Emanationist schools (or the
Emanationist cultures of the first six stages of life) is
the idea that faith (or the affirmation of belief) is the
necessary basis for practice and the precondition for the
attainment of the ultimate Revelation or Realization.
Energy (etheric) Body – Avatar Adi Da has
described the “energy body” or “etheric body” as the Field
of energy, magnetism, and space that surrounds arid
permeates the physical body and serves as a conduit for the
forces of universal light and energy to the physical body.
In practical terms, the etheric aspect of the being is our
emotional-sexual, feeling nature.
EnlightenmentThe actual Realization of
Reality Itself, or Truth ItselfWhich Realization is
Inherently Full of Light. Adi Da sometimes sets the word
Light off in hyphens (as in
En-Light-ened) to emphasize the root-meaning of
the word.
Four phases of the seventh stage of life
Avatar Adi Da has Revealed that the Awakening to the seventh
stage of life – or Divine Enlightenment – is not an
endpoint but is (rather) the beginning of the
final Transcendental Spiritual process. One of the unique
aspects of Avatar Adi Das Revelation is His precise
description of the seventh stage process as consisting of
four phases: Divine Transfiguration, Divine Transformation,
Divine Indifference, and Divine Translation.
The First Sign (or Demonstration) Of The Only-By-Me
Revealed and Given Seventh Stage Of Life (In The
Radical Reality-Way Of The Heart) Is Divine
Transfiguration, In Which the body-mind Of My . . . Devotee
Is Self-Radiant With My Avatarically Self-Transmitted Divine
Love-Bliss, Spontaneously Blessing all of the (Apparent)
relations of the body-mind.
The Second Sign (or Demonstration) Of The Only-By-Me
Revealed and Given Seventh Stage Of Life (In The
Radical Reality-Way Of The Heart) Is Divine
Transformation, In Which the body-mind Of My . . . Devotee
Effectively Exhibits The Only-By-Me Revealed and Given Signs
and Powers Of Real (Acausal) God.
The Third Sign (or Demonstration) Of The Only-By-Me
Revealed and Given Seventh Stage Of Life (In The
Radical Reality-Way Of The Heart) Is Divine
Indifference, In Which Even the body-mind Of My . . .
Devotee Is Pre-Occupied With The Self-Existing Event Of My
Self-Radiant Love-Bliss, and the world of
(Apparent) relations Is (More and More) Minimally and Not
Otherwise Noticed. . . .
The Final Sign (or Demonstration) Of The Only-By-Me
Revealed and Given Seventh Stage Of Life (and Of The Total
Practice Of The Only-By-Me Revealed and Given
Radical Reality-Way Of The Heart) Is The Great
Event Of Divine TranslationWhich Is . . . The Process
Of Transition To (or Dawning As) My Divine
Self-Domain Via The Divinely Bright Outshining
Of The Cosmic Domain In The Only-By-Me Revealed and Given
Divine Sphere and Sign Of The Midnight Sun (Most
Perfectly Beyond and Prior To all-and-All Of Cosmic, or
conditional, forms, beings, signs, conditions, relations,
and things).
Great Tradition – The Great Tradition
is Ruchira Avatar Adi Das term for the total
inheritance of human, cultural, religious, magical,
mystical, Spiritual, and Transcendental paths, philosophies,
and testimonies, from all the eras and cultures of
humanitywhich inheritance has (in the present era of
worldwide communication) become the common legacy of
humankind.
Gross, Subtle, Causal Dimensions – Ruchira Avatar
Adi Da (in agreement with certain esoteric schools)
describes conditional existence as having three fundamental
dimensionsgross, subtle, and causal.
Gross means made up of material (or
physical) elements. The gross (or physical) dimension
is, therefore, associated with the physical body. The gross
dimension is also associated with experience in the waking
state and, as Avatar Adi Da reveals, with the frontal line
of the body-mind-complex and with the left side of the
bodily apparent heart (or the gross physical heart).
The subtle dimension, which is senior to and pervades the
gross dimension, consists of the etheric (or personal
life-energy) functions, the lower mental functions
(including the conscious mind, the subconscious mind, and
the unconscious mind) and higher mental functions (of
discriminative mind, mentally presumed egoity, and will),
and is associated with experience in the dreaming state. In
the human psycho-physical structure, the subtle dimension is
primarily associated with the middle station of the bodily
apparent heart (or the heart chakra), the spinal line, the
brain core, and the subtle centers of mind in the higher
brain.
The causal dimension is senior to both the gross and the
subtle dimensions. It is the root of attention,
or the root-sense of existence as a separate
self. The causal dimension is associated with
the right side of the bodily apparent heart, specifically
with the sinoatrial node, or pacemaker (the
psycho-physical source of the heartbeat). Its corresponding
state of consciousness is the formless awareness of deep
sleep.
Hearing – See Listening, Hearing, Seeing.
Heart – ‘The Heart’ is the Infinite and Radiant
Consciousness that is the serve Nature and Condition of all
beings and things. Although intuited at the right side of
the physical heart, the Heart is not inside body and mind,
nor located in any place in relation to body and mind. The
body and mind arise within this All-Pervading Condition, and
they are modifications of It.
Ida – see ida, pingala and sushunim
Ida, Pingala and Sushunim – Man is more than just
nerves, flesh, muscles, bones an blood. Throughout the body
there are subtle centres and nadi, psychic nerves, which are
described as having variou colours, as seen by clairvoyants.
There are 72,000 nadis in th body, of which 14 are principal
nadis. Out of these the three mos important are named ida,
pingala and sushunim. All psychic systems have their
physical aspects in th body. The ida nadi functions through
the sympathetic nervou system. The pingala nadi functions
through the parasympathetic nervous system. These three
important nadis are linked with the breath in the
nostrils.
When the left nostril is flowing freely, ida is
functioning. h this state the man is ready for mental and
imaginary work. This is: the moon or female aspect in man.
When the right nostril is flowin1 pingala is functioning;
the man is full of physical vitality and he is ready for
action and physical work. This is the sun or male aspec in
man. Ida has a cooling effect, whereas pingala has a heating
effect.
These three nadis run from the perenium at the base of
the spine to the medulla oblongatta. Sushumna goes directly
up through the centre of the spinal cord. Ida and pingala
interweave crossing from opposite directions up to the top
of the spinal column.
At the points where ida and pingala cross are the psychic
centres, called chakras.
Ignorance – see Divine Ignorance
Jivanmukta – A Jivanmukta or liberated sage.
Karma – A mental or physical act; the consequences
of an individuals actions in this and previous lives; the
chain of cause and effect operating in the moral world. Each
individuals karma is made up of potentialities which guide
his motives and conduct in the present as well as his future
thoughts and actions. Thus every karma becomes a seed of
another karma. The fruits of karma are reaped in the form of
happiness or misery, according to the nature of each thought
or act. Although each person imposes upon himself the
limitation of his own character as determined by his past
thoughts and actions, at the same time he can choose to
follow the tendency he has formed or to struggle against it.
The area of choice or free will in each individual reflects
the freedom of the Atman, the indwelling Spirit. Devotion to
God, enhancing good karmas and mitigating evil ones, begins
to loosen the bonds of karma. When a man achieves
illumination, his acts cease to produce karmas. In the
Vedas, karma means also ritualistic worship and
philanthropic deeds.
Life Current – The Force of Life that pulsates and
sustains the body-mind. This is differentiated from the
physicial elements of blood, heart, breath and other
physical elements. Also assoicated with Prana.The Universal
Prana is called Mahat or Sat in manifestation, a universal
life principle, whereas in individual cases the two aspects
are clearly perceptible as body and life.
Listening, Hearing, SeeingAvatar Adi Da
describes the entire course of the Radical
Reality-Way of Adidam Ruchiradam as falling into four
primary phases:
Listening – Commonly associated with studing the Dharma
and considering the teaching argument of the Teacher.
Hearing – Hearing is an awakening that comes in the
summary of self-observation, not in some moment of seeing
some thing about yourself. When you’ve seen the totality of
it and see what the totality is, what it is, not what one
portion of it is, when you see that it is self-contraction,
when it is thoroughly understood in all of its opposites as
being just the self-contraction and that is your own action,
something that you are adding to reality in every moment,
then bondage to that script is released and you awaken to
that in which all of this has been arising and which it is
happening, that to which all that is being added. That is
Hearing. Hearing is a summary observation not the witnessing
of some action.
Seeing – Seeing Is self-Transcending Participation In
What Is . Seeing Is Love. Seeing, or Love, Is Able To
“Locate”, Acknowledge, and Feel My All-Pervading Spiritual
Radiance. Seeing Is Spiritually Activated Conversion Of
attention, emotion, and the Total psycho-physical
personality From self-Contraction To The Spiritual Form Of
God.
Lower coil – The “lower coil” refers to the gross
physical dimension of the body-mind or the complex of
functions below the heart, epitomized at the navel.
Mahashidda – Maha meaning ‘great’ and Siddha
meaning adept. is a term for someone who embodies and
cultivates siddhi (or power) of perfection.
Perfect Knowledge – The direct, tacit Realization
of the Indivisible Unity of Reality Itselfprior to any
presumption of separation between knower and
known. Perfect Knowledge contrasts
with all forms of ordinary knowledgewhich
are based on the presumption of an irreducible separation
between knower and known, or
subject and object.
Perfect Practice – The Perfect
Practice is Avatar Adi Das technical term for
the discipline of the most mature demonstration of practice
in the Radical Reality-Way of Adidam Ruchiradam.
The Perfect Practice is practice in the domain
of Consciousness Itself (as opposed to practice from the
point of view of the body or the mind). The
Perfect Practice unfolds in three phases, the
third of which is Divine Enlightenment. This term is placed
in quotation marks to indicate that His Divine Presence
Avatar Adi Da uses it with the specific technical meaning
described here.
Pingala – see ida, pingala and sushunim
Sahaj Samadhi – is the Realized Condition in which
the body-mind is itself Enlightened (or allowed to be the
circumstance of Enlightenment) by virtue of an Awakening to
the Transcendental Reality. Thus, in Sahaj Samadhi, the
Radiant Transcendental Being is Realized to be the Context
of manifest existence, whereas, in the conventions of the
six stages of ordinary human existence, the ego, or
self-contraction, is the presumed context and originator of
manifest existence.
Sahasrar – The sahasrar is the highest “chakra” or
center of Life-Energy, the terminal goal of the conventional
yogi, It is associated with the crown of the head, the upper
brain and higher mind. For a description of the “severing of
the sahasrar” of Master Da Free John, see The Knee of
Listening, pp. 117-I8.
Samadhi – 1. The superconscious state, in which
man experiences his identity with the ultimate Reality. 2.
Absorption, the eighth limb of raja yoga, in which the mind
takes on the form of the object of meditation. It is defined
by Patanjali as a state in which “the true nature of the
object shines forth, not distorted by the mind of the
perceiver.”
Seeing – See Listening, Hearing, Seeing.
Self-Existing and
Self-RadiantSelf-Existing and
Self-Radiant are terms describing the two
fundamental aspects of the One Divine Person (or
Reality)Existence (or Being, or Consciousness) Itself,
and Radiance (or Energy, or Light) Itself.
Seven Stages of Life – Ruchira Avatar Adi Da
Samraj has mapped the potential developmental
course of human experience as it unfolds through the gross,
subtle, and causal dimensions of the being, describing this
course in terms of six stages of life. These six stages of
life, He explains, account for, and correspond with, all
possible orientations to religion and culture that have
arisen in human history. He describes His own Divine
Avataric Revelation as the seventh stage of lifethe
Realization of the Bright, or Reality Itself,
Prior to all experience.
The first three (or foundation) stages of life constitute
the ordinary course of human adaptationbodily,
emotional, and mental growth. Each of the first three stages
of life takes approximately seven years to be established.
Every individual who lives to an adult age inevitably adapts
(although, generally speaking, only partially) to the first
three stages of life. In the general case, this is where the
developmental process stopsat the gross level of
adaptation. Traditions based fundamentally on beliefs and
moral codes (without direct experience of the dimensions
beyond the material world) belong to this foundation level
of human development.
The fourth stage of life is characterized by a deep
impulse to Communion with the Divine, felt to be a great
Other in Whom the being aspires to become
absorbed through devotional love and service.
In the fifth stage of life, attention naturally moves
into the domain of subtle experience and seeks the Samadhi
states associated with ascending energy in the spinal line.
The esoteric Spiritual traditions associated with mystical
experience correspond with this higher level of human
potential.
The Realizer of the sixth stage of life is focused in the
causal depth of the being. He or she identifies with
Consciousness (in profound states of meditation) by
excluding all awareness of phenomena, both gross and subtle.
And, when phenomena do arise, the sixth stage Realizer
stands as the Witness of phenomena, not
implicated by body, mind, or world. Such is genuine
Realization of the sixth stage of lifebut Avatar Adi
Da has also pointed out the tendency in some traditional
circles to attempt to identify with Consciousness (or
the Self) based on a talking-school
approach that is founded in mind, rather than genuine
Realization.
The seventh stage of life, or the Realization of the
Bright Reality Revealed through the Incarnation
of Avatar Adi Da Samraj, transcends this entire course of
human potential. In that Awakening, it is suddenly, tacitly
Realized that there is no difference between
Consciousness Itself and the objects of
Consciousness. Thus, the seventh stage Realization wipes
away every trace of dissociation from the body-mind-complex
and the world. Consciousness Itself, or Being Itself, Is all
there is, and Consciousness Itself is found to be Radiant,
or Love-Bliss-Full. Thus, every thing and every
one that appears is inherently recognized to be
a mere modification of the One Divine Brightness
(or the Divine Conscious Light).
Shakti – Shakti from Sanskrit shak – “to be able,”
meaning sacred force or empowerment, is the primordial
cosmic energy and represents the dynamic forces that move
through the entire universe. Shakti is the concept, or
personification, of divine feminine creative power,
sometimes referred to as ‘The Great Divine Mother’ in
Hinduism.
Siddha – means “one who is accomplished” and
refers to perfected masters.
Skaktipat – The process (Yoga) of receiving
Spiritual Blessing-Transmission (Shaktipat)
Spiritual Transmission – spiritual transmission
itself in the various forms in which it is possible is very
rare And there are various forms of it (e.g. energy
transmissions) depending on the nature of the Master the
degree of the Master in terms of realization, the mode of
realization associated with the master, the stage of life of
which the master’s life is associated, and the master’s
degree of realization within it.
Spritual Master – The Awakened Personalities that
become Present to Guide and Awaken human beings are
Personifications of Man in his Transcendental Totality.
Thus, the Living Spiritual Master, and all other such
Personalities met at the Threshold between independent
self-consciousness and the transcendence or perfect
Sacrifice of self in the Absolute Personality of the Real,
is a Personification of Man, or the human individual, in his
whole bodily Unity and Awakened Transcendence of
psycho-physical limits.
Stages of Life – see Seven Stages of Life
Sushumna – see ida, pingala and sushunim
The Way of Divine Ignorance – After Adi Da wrote
an autobiography and statement of his Enlightenment and
Understanding in the book The Knee of Listening. He began to
communicate to early devotees the principles, practices, and
critical lessons of his Teaching, the Way of Divine
Ignorance, or Radical Understanding. The Way of Divine
Ignorance is the Way of love, or service – the Way of the
fulfillment of the Law by Grace of the Revelation in Truth
of the Condition of all conditions. Practice of the Way does
not Realize any ultimate Object as a result of love or
service. Love itself, service, whole body sacrifice through
feeling in action, the Law itself, is the fulfillment and
Truth of the Way. The Way of Divine Ignorance, begins in the
fourth stage of life
Threshold Personality – The Awakened Personalities
that become Present to Guide and Awaken human beings are
Personifications of Man in his Transcendental Totality.
Thus, the Living Spiritual Master, and all other such
Personalities met at the Threshold between independent
self-consciousness and the transcendence or perfect
Sacrifice of self in the Absolute Personality of the Real,
is a Personification of Man, or the human individual, in his
whole bodily Unity and Awakened Transcendence of
psycho-physical limits.
Transcendental Spiritual – Adi Da uses this phrase
as a description of the two fundamental aspects of Reality
Itself, and also of the process of Reality-Realization (or
Enlightenment). Transcendental refers to
Existence (or Being, or Consciousness) Itself, and
Spiritual refers to Energy (or Light) Itself.
Adi Da has revealed that these two aspects inherently
coincide in Reality Itself, Which is Indivisible.
Transcendental Divine – Transcendental
refers to the Consciousness aspect of Reality, and
Spiritual refers to the Energy aspect of
Reality
Transfiguration – See four phases of the seventh
stage of life.
TransformationSee four phases of the seventh
stage of life.
Translation – See four phases of the seventh stage
of life.
Upper coil – The “upper coil” is the range of
higher human functions above the heart, including the
subtler dimensions of the psyche.
Vital center – The center or epitome of the life
aspect of this force is the vital center in the general
region of the navel (solar plexus or stomach region)
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