Preface
The following is devotee Carolyn Lee’s ‘The Message of Adidam’, written in 2008. This paper does not lend itself easily to summary or simple explanation—not because it is disorganized, but because it is formally cumulative. It is not merely expository; it is liturgical, testimonial, doctrinal, and visionary all at once. It unfolds like a living scripture—a blend of philosophical thesis, spiritual confession, and revelatory manifesto.
Introduction to The Message of Adidam
By Ed Reither, Beezone
What follows is a rare and comprehensive presentation of the teaching and person of Adi Da Samraj, composed in 2008 by Carolyn Lee, one of his closest devotees and most articulate interpreters. The Message of Adidam is neither an academic treatise nor a promotional brochure—it is a work that sits somewhere between scripture, spiritual autobiography, and theological proclamation. Written in what devotees refer to as the “Aletheon-time” of Adi Da’s life, it was intended to provide an encompassing and clarified view of what Adi Da considered to be his final and complete Revelation.
The essay outlines Adi Da’s claim to be not merely a spiritual teacher or enlightened being, but the very Incarnation of Reality Itself—the “Divine Avatar” who appears not to support existing religious traditions, but to supersede them entirely. He called the Way he offered Adidam—a “Reality-Way” that begins not with belief, effort, or progressive realization, but with direct devotional recognition of his Presence as the very Condition all traditions have, in different ways, sought to describe.
Lee’s writing gives voice to the radical premise of Adidam: that the Divine is not elsewhere to be sought, but has appeared here as a living Transmission. That premise stands apart from both conventional religion and modern spirituality. This is not a call to belief, but to encounter—an encounter that Adi Da asserted requires profound turning, discipline, and response.
For those unfamiliar with Adi Da or Adidam, this document may read as uncompromising or provocative. But it is meant to be so. It is a challenge to prevailing notions of spiritual authority, religious seeking, and even the self. And while it may be most accessible to those already drawn to Adi Da, it also offers a compelling view into a modern articulation of the perennial aspiration for ultimate Truth and Liberation.
I offer this essay here on Beezone not as a final word, but as a beginning—for anyone who feels moved to inquire further.
—Ed Reither
Founder, Beezone
Table of Contents
Bhagavan Adi Da Samraj as Divine Avatar
Adidam is Not a Call to Belief, but to Recognition
Avatar Adi Da’s Revelation of What the Divine Is
What Makes Adi Da’s Birth Avataric
The Purpose of His Incarnation
Why Adidam is the Consummate Divine Way
Adidam is a Form of the Ancient “Walk-About Way” of Devotion to the Master
“Radical” devotion, Right Life, “Perfect Knowledge”
Adidam Is a Transcendental Spiritual Way
The ego Is a Closed Fist, Rather than Open Hand
The ego Is a Seeker and a Consumer
Esoteric Spiritual Practice is not a “consumer product”
The Scapegoat Game: How egos Function as a Collective
The Orpheum—Avatar Adi Da’s Literary Illustration of the Scapegoat Ritual
How Adi Da Samraj Submitted to Teach the Reality-Way of Adidam
Why Avatar Adi Da Did Not Do Public Work
The Three egos—gross, subtle, and causal
How Avatar Adi Da “Considered” All the Possibilities of the First Six Stages of Life with Devotees
The Seven Stages of Life as the Means to Understand Humankind’s Wisdom-Search
Adidam Is the Seventh Stage Way from the Beginning
The Fruitlessness of the “Method” of Submission
The Necessity for the “Method” of Mere Self-Revelation
Adidam After the Lifetime of the Master
“The Divine Intervention in its fullest Revelation is in This Body and in this time.”
This essay was written by Carolyn Lee in order to give devotees an Aletheon-time understanding of the Reality-Way of Adidam and Bhagavan Adi Da’s Message to the world.
Bhagavan Adi Da Samraj as Divine Avatar
The Message of Adidam is the proclamation of a Divine Intervention that exceeds even all of human prayers. This Intervention is the Appearance in this world of Bhagavan Adi Da Samraj, Who is what has anciently been called an “Avatar”—meaning the Descent of the Divine Being into incarnate form. The Appearance of Avatar Adi Da is a Free Divine Event and Grace for all beings. He has not come to associate Himself with, or to validate (or to invalidate), any existing religious or Spiritual tradition. Rather, He is the Incarnation of What Ultimately Is, beyond all forms and names and myths. And He has come to establish something entirely new, a new Way, which He calls “The Non-’Religious’, Post-Scientific, and No-Seeking Reality-Way” of Adidam.
My Divine Avataric Incarnation here Is Prior to all—and My Divine Avataric Incarnation here Is For all.
I Am Beyond everybody’s expectations. Yet, I Am Exactly the One Who has been expected by all.
To truly accept Me in My Completeness, humankind must cease to view Me through all the “lenses” that human tradition has designed relative to how the “Final Divine Appearance” is supposed to look.
All should accept What Is Prior to all. I Exceed the limits of whoever comes to Me. Therefore, everyone should come to Me.
[“I Am One”, The Aletheon]
Adidam is Not a Call to Belief, but to Recognition
The Message of Adidam is not a call to belief in any doctrine, myth, or idea about Avatar Adi Da Samraj, but, rather, an invitation to discover Him for yourself. It is an opportunity to be attracted to His State, to recognize Him as the direct Revealer of What the Divine Is, beyond all the ideas and methods and searches to attain to God, or the Truth, that have made up the history of humankind.
True believers merely believe in believing.
True “knowers” only “know” what they find out.
If I am heart-recognized, the Divine is Perfectly Found.
[“Perfect Adidam”, The Aletheon]
The origin and beginning of the only-by-Me Revealed and Given Reality-Way of Adidam (Which is the Reality-Way I Teach to all-and-All) is a tacit (or pre-verbal) recognition and whole bodily (or total psycho-physical) attracted response to My Perfectly egoless State. [“The Way That I Teach the Dog in My House”, The Aletheon]
Avatar Adi Da’s Revelation of What the Divine Is
The Revelation of Bhagavan Adi Da Samraj is that the Divine is not a great separate Being “out there”, not the “Creator God”, not a “Parental Deity”. Rather, the Divine is What Is, the Root-Reality of existence, utterly non-separate from everythin and everyone. That Root-Reality is Divine—Sublime beyond anything one’s body or mind can register. It is absolute Consciousness and Radiance, or “Conscious Light”, or, to use His childhood term, the “Bright”.
That Root-Reality, the “Bright”, is the True Nature, the True Self (or “Self-Condition”), of every being and every “thing”, and of the entire cosmic domain.
What Makes Adi Da’s Birth Avataric
Avatar Adi Da has absolute clarity about His Birth and Infancy, as He recounts in His Spiritual Autobiography, The Knee of Listening. He was Born fully Awake as the “Bright”—He did not “work toward” Enlightenment, or full Spiritual Realization.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: My true story is the Divine Avataric Story, Transcendentally Spiritually fully Awake from Birth. This is a unique situation not only because of this full Transcendental Spiritual Awakening, but because there was no karmic entity that was born. Karmic entities are born and they seek Realization. Full Spiritual Realization does not come into birth except through an Avatar. [February 26, 2008]
The Purpose of His Incarnation
The Purpose of the Incarnation of Adi Da Samraj is to Reveal the real nature of Reality, and to make it possible for human beings to directly participate in Reality Itself as their fundamental Awareness, rather than remaining caught in the interminable web of illusions and sufferings that make up the usual human existence.
The Life Story of Adi Da Samraj is one of a profound Love-Submission. He had to learn (and, thus, to suffer) the un-Enlightened human state so as to be able to Communicate a Teaching and Establish a Way whereby human beings could Awaken to the “Bright”. Having fully accomplished that Purpose, through an ordeal of many decades, He is now simply Radiant here, Transmitting His Divine State, the “Bright”.
My State now is not, in any sense, different from My State in the moment when I was Born.
My State has always been the Same.
My Life-Adventure was entirely a Teaching, a Revelation, a Process I had to Suffer.
Thus, an Instructional Narrative, or Sign, has been Made by My Life, as I had to Live It.
That Sign should Instruct you.
My Own State Is the Same now as It was at the beginning—the “Bright” Infant. [“Adidam Is No-Seeking Practice Is
Perpetual Reality-Practice”, The Aletheon]
Why Adidam is the Consummate Divine Way
Avatar Adi Da Samraj is the Bearer of a new tradition, the Reality-Way of Adidam.
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: It is the Intention of My entire physical lifetime to bring a new tradition into this “world” that has never been brought before, the consummate Divine Way. And it is not built upon anything except Truth Itself, Reality Itself, the Divine Self-Nature, Self-Condition, Self-State Itself.
3 [February 26, 2008]
Adidam is the consummate Divine Way, because, in Adidam, there is no search to find the Divine, or the Truth. The search is over in finding Adi Da Samraj, because, in the instant of recognizing and responding to Him, there is direct access to, and participation in, His Divine State. Just the Sighting of Him, and/or Listening to the stories (or Leelas) of His Life and hearing His Teaching is sufficient to awaken this recognition, when one is available to it. It is entirely a process of Divine Grace, and response to Grace.
I Am your Great Advantage.
By Means Of This Bodily (Human) Avataric-Incarnation-Form, Reality Itself (Which Is Always Already The Case, and Which Is The Truth Itself, and Which Is The Only Real Acausal God) Is Revealing Itself To you.
Therefore (As and By Means Of My Bodily Human Avataric-Incarnation-Form), Reality Itself Is Revealing To you Its Own True (and Self-Evidently Divine) Nature.
Before The Physical Lifetime Of My Bodily (Human) Avataric-Incarnation-Form, There Never Was a time When I Was Not Present—but No one Realized Me In The Most Ultimate (or Most Perfect) Sense.
Therefore, It Was Necessary For Me To Intervene Through This Avataric Incarnation—In Order To Embrace All Of The conditional (or Cosmic) Domain, and To Conform It All To Myself, and To Manifest My Inherently Perfect Divine Samadhi here (and every “where” In The Cosmic Domain).
Thus, It Is Only From The Time Of My Bodily (Human) Divine Avataric Intervention That The Ultimate Divine Means Of Most Perfect Divine Self-Realization Has Appeared In Direct (and Complete) Form.
All The Traditions Of Humankind Have Tried Their Various Means Of Association With Me In The Past, and There Were Some Kinds (and Degrees) Of Effective Communion With Me—but The Capability For Ultimate, Most Perfect Divine Self-Realization Has Been Made Possible Only By My “Late-Time” Intervention.
[“I Am The One Who Has Always Been Here”, from Aham Da Asmi]
Adidam is a Form of the Ancient “Walk-About Way” of Devotion to the Master
The Reality-Way of Adidam is continuous with the tradition that has existed since before recorded human time—the recognizing of a Realized Master, and falling at the Master’s Feet in the swoon of worship of the Master’s Spiritual State. The devotee’s deepest desire is to be in the company of the Master and to see to the Master’s every need and instruction, based on the understanding that the Master is the Revelation of the Very Divine, and gives the Way of Realization—and thus the Master’s very existence is a Divine Blessing for beings.
4 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. . . .
My Sitting before you, without speaking, is Sufficient.
That mere Sitting without speaking is My Essential Teaching. There is nothing more fundamental than That.
Simply Behold Me.
[“The Ancient Walk-About Way”]
The essence of the practice of the Reality-Way of Adidam resides in eight simple admonitions Given by Avatar Adi Da:
Listen to My Word Gaze upon My Form
Feel My Spiritual Presence Contemplate My State
And:
Call Upon Me Feel Me Breathe Me Serve Me1
“Radical” devotion, Right Life, “Perfect Knowledge”
Practice of the eight admonitions establishes the foundation of the Reality-Way of Adidam, which is most fully expressed as “Radical” devotion, Right Life, and “Perfect Knowledge”.
“Radical devotion” is the constant turning of mind, emotion, body, and breath to Avatar Adi Da.
“Right life” is the bringing to order of the wandering energies of body and mind through Given disciplines, and thus supporting the constant devotional turning to Avatar Adi Da.
“Perfect Knowledge” is the direct “Locating” of Reality Itself—which “Knowledge” He is always Transcendentally Spiritually Transmitting.
The practice of “radical” devotion to Me is the one-pointed disciplining of whole bodily attention. . . turning to Me, moment to moment—thus forgetting, rather than dwelling upon, psycho-physical ego-patterning—such that this devotion becomes one-pointed “self”-forgetting and whole bodily surrender to Me (or searchless Beholding of Me), moment to moment. . .
The practice of right life, in accordance with My Instructions, is the one-pointed disciplining of the energies of the total body-mind. . . .
1 These eight admonitions have been specifically Given by Bhagavan Adi Da to summarize the practice of His devotees in the Third Congregation and the Fourth Congregation of Adidam.
The preliminary practice of “Perfect Knowledge” is the establishing of the Intrinsic Prior Self-Position, rather than the body-mind or ego-”I”, as the basis for moment to moment practice of “radical” devotion and right life in devotional recognition-response to Me.
[“The Way That I Teach the Dog in My House”, The Aletheon]
Adidam Is a Transcendental Spiritual Way
I cannot do anything but Transmit My State, which is of a Transcendental Spiritual Nature. [February 28, 2008]
Avatar Adi Da Samraj is what was traditionally known in India as a “Transmission-Master” (or “Siddha”), an Enlightened being who intentionally Transmits his or her Spiritual Force to prepared devotees.
Bhagavan Adi Da is a Transmission-Master of the ultimate degree. He Transmits the “Bright”, the Conscious Light of Reality Itself—rather than awakening the kundalini, or working with any of the energies that originate in the body or the subtle and psychic dimensions of existence.
His Transmission reveals that Reality Itself is inherently Spiritual, or Self-Radiant, and that, at the same time, Reality Itself is Perfectly Transcendental, or beyond the body, mind, and cosmos.
After a period of preparation (of perhaps a year), in which the fundamentals of “radical” devotion, right life, and “Perfect Knowledge” are established, Avatar Adi Da Invites devotees to come to Him in His Hermitage to be Initiated, by Him,2 into the full Transcendental Spiritual process of Adidam.
In this Initiation, Adi Da directly Reveals that Reality Itself is a Field of Conscious Light, with no separate objects, but only a continuum of apparent, non-separate happenings. He Transcendentally Spiritually Reveals that existence is a prior unity. On this basis, He Works to Awaken His devotee to Most Perfect Divine Enlightenment, or the permanent, utterly Love-Blissful Realization that there is only Reality Itself, of which all apparent “things” and events are a merely apparent and temporary modification.
The limit on receiving the Transcendental Spiritual Transmission of Avatar Adi Da is the ego.
From the day He began to Teach, Avatar Adi Da Samraj Revealed that human beings are involved in a universal activity—the act of contracting into a point of awareness that is identified as “self” in relation to “everything else”. This is His definition of ego—contraction into the presumption of separate self. This is a false view of Reality, but, it is, nevertheless, the one with which the entire body-mind is identified.
After Avatar Adi Da’s Physical Human Lifetime, this Initiatory Function will occur in the physical human company of His Ruchira Sannyasin (renunciate, and Transcendentally Spiritually Awakened) devotees, in the circumstance of Sacred Places He has Transcendentally Spiritually Empowered.
My Teaching is about ego. There is not a particle of human life that is not totally
controlled by ego—the dissociative, “self”-possessed disposition of recoil and control. That is what everyone and everything and all modes of collective human life are about, without exception—except where there is the most profound, true surrender into the Divine egoless “Brightness” of Reality Itself.
[February 29, 2008]
The ego Is a Closed Fist, Rather than Open Hand
The ego is the body-mind, “self”-protected, and “self”-contracted on itself—like a tightly clenched fist, and as if hiding itself in the fortress of its secluded palm of hand.
My devotee is “self”-surrendered to Me, via a whole bodily (or total psycho-physical) turning to Me—and, thus, like an open hand, uncovered, and without a protected “inner” part, or any place yet left behind or held “within”.
[“Be The Open Hand”, The Aletheon]
The ego Is a Seeker and a Consumer
From birth, the human being (by reaction to the blows and limits of psycho-physical existence) begins to presume separate existence to be his or her very nature— and, on that basis, the human individual spends his or her entire life generating and serving a circle of ownership (or “self”-protecting acquisition) all around the ego-”I”. The egoic motive encloses all the other beings it can acquire, all the “things” it can acquire, all the states and thoughts it can acquire—all the possible emblems, symbols, “experiences”, and sensations it can possibly acquire.
[“Do Not Misunderstand Me”, The Aletheon]
Esoteric Spiritual Practice is not a “consumer product”
Bhagavan Adi Da points out that one of the “goods” that the modern consumer-ego wants to acquire is esoteric Spiritual practice, now popularized through books, magazines, manuals, pundits, and “enlightenment weekends”. But popular esotericism is a travesty. The fullness of esoteric practice requires profound preparation, and a real Master, and this is so in the Reality-Way of Adidam.
Esotericism for the masses is a lie. It is something cooked up primarily in the West because money can be made in the “religion” business and power can be exercised by deluding or feeding the illusions of ordinary people. Spiritual life and Realization are the possibility for everybody, yes, but only on the basis of right practice, not on the basis of being ego-bound and unprepared.
The Reality-Way of Adidam is entirely esoteric. As in any other sound and true esoteric cultural form in the past, you do not get access to the Master or to the process until you have passed the tests and have proven your preparedness. [March 1, 2008]
The Scapegoat Game: How egos Function as a Collective
Essential to the right practice of Adidam is understanding cultism, which is the ego operating in its collective mode.
In Adi Da’s definition, a “cult” is any collective of egos gathered around a “center”, whatever that “center” may be—a person, a book, an ideology, or anything in the domain of human culture, be it political, social, or religious.
From the first week that He began to Teach, Adi Da spoke about cultism, indicating that a cult eventually destroys what is “in the middle”, even if that center is the apparent object of admiration or worship. He quotes the ancient popular ritual of “enthroning” and “de-throning” kings, leaders, and every kind of “star”, which has existed from time immemorial to the present day.
In the culture of the ancient Hebrews there was the scapegoat ritual, in which a goat was chosen to be the symbolic bearer of the sins of the people and turned loose into the wilderness to die.
The scapegoat ritual is inevitably what a collective of egos does. It makes a victim of the one “in the middle”.
Cults are not about the members being enslaved to somebody; cults are about the “man in the middle”, the scapegoat game, what egos do to what they control. [February 29, 2008]
This understanding of collective egoity is fundamental to Bhagavan Adi Da’s Teaching, because it applies to how people will tend (and have tended!) to relate to Him.
I have always Refused to assume the role and the position of the “man in the middle”—and I have always (from the beginning of My formal Work of Teaching and Blessing) Criticized, Resisted, and Shouted About the “cultic” (or ego-based, and ego-reinforcing, and merely “talking” and “believing”, and not understanding and not really practicing) “school” (or tendency) of ordinary “religious”, and even would-be-Spiritual, life.
[“Do Not Misunderstand Me”, The Aletheon, Part Six]
Avatar Adi Da has always emphasized that this cultic tendency of the collective ego must be noticed, and not done by His devotees—through the Grace of recognizing (and turning to) His Divine State, rather than relating to Him as an “other”, who is “in the middle”. Through sobering lessons over several decades, Bhagavan Adi Da Samraj showed His devotees that they will always fall back into the cultic disposition and enact the scapegoat game unless profoundly turned to Him.
The true devotional and Transcendental Spiritual relationship to Me is an always (and specifically, and intensively) counter-”cultic” (or truly non-”cultic”, and inherently non-”religious”) Process. [“Do Not Misunderstand Me”]
The Divine is not an “It”-”object”. . . . You are Given the Gift of My Avataric Incarnation of the Divine State, so that you can rightly and truly devotionally recognize the Divine in and As My Person, and have This—My Divine Avataric bodily (human) Vehicle—be the “Root”-Focus of the psycho-physical faculties. In that turning, you can be combined with My Very (and Inherently egoless) State, not merely My physical Appearance as a “thing”, in and of itself.
[“As I Am—and In Plain Sight”, The Aletheon, Part Eighteen]
The Orpheum—Avatar Adi Da’s Literary Illustration of the Scapegoat Ritual
Avatar Adi Da’s literary Trilogy, The Orpheum, consisting of The Mummery Book, The Scapegoat Book, and The Happenine Book, is a monumental masterpiece that communicates through every kind of literary mode—poetry, narrative, teaching dialogue, drama, liturgy, parable—the essence of the scapegoat game. While The Orpheum is fiction, it has come out of the profound Ordeal of Bhagavan Adi Da’s life.
The Orpheum is a Direct Expression and Sign of My Own Person and Life. The Orpheum is not merely a work of fiction I happened to write, completely apart from What I Am.
The Orpheum is Perfectly Coincident with all of My Teaching-Work, and with all of My Life altogether.
[“Adidam Is No-Seeking Practice Is Perpetual Reality-Practice”]
How Adi Da Samraj Submitted to Teach the Reality-Way of Adidam
It is part of My Avataric Sign, that I entered into this domain with full Truth, and Told it, and have suffered the proof of it on My own Body. [March 1, 2008?]
The story told in The Orpheum includes the gesture on the part of the hero, Raymond Darling, who is an Avatar of the Divine, to teach those who come to him. This is what Bhagavan Adi Da began to do when He opened His first Ashram on Melrose Avenue, in Los Angeles, in 1972. It was obvious to Him that He was taking a huge risk in Teaching people with no understanding of the ego or of the requirements of Spiritual life, but nevertheless, He Submitted to do it absolutely. He could not otherwise prepare people for the real Transcendental Spiritual process He had come to Transmit.
Thus He Submitted, without reserve, to relating to egos on their own terms, in the hope of Awakening them to understand and transcend their ego-activity and relate to Him rightly.
What was fundamentally missing in those who came to Me at first was a preparatory or foundation culture. Especially the Western world is cultureless. Or, put another way, the only culture is worldly ego-culture, consumer ego-culture, social ego-culture, bodily “self”-indulgence culture.
So that was the state of everybody who came to Me. That is why I began to Teach as I did, reflecting people to themselves as a basic approach, Instructing them on the basis of their observation when it was reflected to them, but Submitting Myself to participate in all aspects of their characteristics of living.
That was the nature of My Work. That was the reason for the form it took, the purpose of it. Fundamental to it was the purpose of establishing a culture of preparation for Spiritual life. That was the first thing I had to achieve. [March 7, 2008]
Why Avatar Adi Da Did Not Do Public Work
From the beginning, Adi Da only engaged His Teaching Work with people who approached Him seriously. He did not do public work—because He was Bringing a real esoteric Way, necessarily based on the devotional relationship to Him, and not a method or technique that people could take to themselves, and go off and practice on their own.
He was well aware that ego will always revise and modify His Teaching, to suit itself. Because of this, the right practice of Adidam requires accountability within an authentic culture of practice.
. . . . every ego that examines My Divine Avataric Teaching-Word will tend to revise It instantly—even in the very moment of reading or listening to It.
The ego instantly conforms My Way and My Person to itself. . . .
My Message Is a Criticism of the entire ego-”world” and all the permutations of the seeking-ego.
Thus, the Reality-Way of Adidam is not like any other exoteric or esoteric path, culture, or institution.
The Reality-Way of Adidam is an entirely new—and Divine Avataric—Revelation. [“Adidam Is No-Seeking Practice
Is Perpetual Reality-Practice”]
The Three egos—gross, subtle, and causal
What is so strikingly new about the Reality-Way of Adidam is that it is a criticism of all of the ego’s forms or “disguises”. Whether the ego is manifesting as gross self-indulgence, or seeking in the domain of religious or mystical experience, or even seeking to dissolve itself in infinite Consciousness, it is all the same ego! All human activity is based on the same fundamental error—the presumption of “I” and “other”, and the inveterate seeking that results, trying to overcome the stress of the felt sense of separateness. All traditional religion and Spirituality, as well as all ordinary activity, results from, and is supported by culturally-enshrined forms of the ego’s search.
Bhagavan Adi Da has shown how this ego-based seeking operates with reference to the total body-mind of the human being, and how the various traditionally proposed methods of Enlightenment or Realization relate to this total structure.
In Adi Da’s description, the human being can be understood as composed of three fundamental aspects—gross, subtle, and causal—which correspond with different dimensions of the psycho-physical structures of the brain and nervous system. (Ancient understandings of the esoteric structures of the body-mind include the chakra system and the “koshas”, or sheaths, but no traditional description includes the “furthest reaches” of the process of Divine Self-Realization, as That Process is described in Avatar Adi Da’s Written Teaching).
The effort to solve the problem of the stress of ego may be exoteric, or outer-directed, taking the form of gross pursuits (in the realm of “money, food, and sex”), and presuming identification with the gross (or physical) “point of view”, and the waking state.
Then there are the kinds of ego-efforts that could be called esoteric. The first of these esoteric orientations could be called the “Spiritual” orientation. In the case of such efforts, the “point of view”, or primary mode of identification, is with the subtle dimension, the dimension of energy and mystical experience.
The second of the esoteric orientations could be called the “Transcendental”
orientation. In the case of such efforts, the “point of view”, or primary mode of identification, is with the causal dimension, which has to do with “root”-awareness.
All these efforts—gross, subtle, and causal—are rooted in egoity, “point of view”, the presumption of separate consciousness, or the presumption of actually being a separate body-mind trying to fulfill itself or get free, etc. Therefore, each of these efforts has its particular search, or problem-solving approach, based on identification with one or the other of the primary structures of the human body-mind. And because each of these approaches uses conditional means and techniques in the attempt to Realize, the Realization potentially attained by each approach is also conditional, temporary, passing, not Final. Thus, each of these approaches is inherently limited, incapable of absolute, permanent Realization.
Is there a way beyond the limits of all these forms of ego, or all these “points of view”? Avatar Adi Da’s answer is yes. There is a Realization prior to the ego-structure. This Realization “happens” when Reality Itself Stands Free As Itself, without any “I” , or ego-center, imposing a “point of view”. But this Realization cannot be “achieved”. It is not a “goal”. The ego-structure can only be undone at the root when the intrinsic Nature and Power of Reality Itself is directly apprehended—and found to be Perfect Satisfaction.
This Realization is a Gift, which Awakens in the devotional relationship to Adi Da Samraj, through a great process that unfolds by His Grace. There is no other equivalent process anywhere, because this Realization could only be brought to here by the Divine Avatar, by an Intervention from beyond the worlds of ego, beyond all the planes of existence, which are based on one or another “point of view”.
Bhagavan Adi Da has shown how the three egos—gross, subtle, and causal—are played out in a process of six stages of life.
The vast majority of humanity is functioning in the first three stages of life, because their fundamental “point of view” is that of the physical, or gross, reality.
Rare individuals have established themselves in the “point of view” of the subtle dimension, through intensive Spiritual practice. These are the genuine esoteric practitioners of the fourth to fifth stages of life.
Other rare beings have turned away from every kind of experience, both gross and subtle, focusing their search in the causal dimension, even to the degree of deep abiding as the Transcendental Self, or the “emptiness” of the Nirvanic State. These are practitioners of the sixth stage of life.
How Avatar Adi Da “Considered” All the Possibilities of the First Six Stages of Life with Devotees
Through all the years of His Submission to Teach, Avatar Adi Da Samraj Gave to His devotees astonishingly profound experiences of all the potentials of the fourth, fifth, and sixth stages of life, as well as examining, without compromise, all of the “money-food-and-sex” driven motives of the first three stages of life. And, always, His Message was the same: “This is not ‘It’, not ‘It’, not ‘It’”. Always, He would turn His devotees back from their wandering of attention in all these possibilities to Him, to recognize Him as the “Root”-Source, the One Who Is and directly Reveals the Divine Condition, in which all these lokas of possibility were arising.
Adi Da never Taught a withdrawal from the world or from any possibility. Rather, He was Teaching that all of it is co-incident with Reality Itself, but this must be Realized. He would say, “Nirvana and Samsara are not the same, except in the case of Perfect Realization.” And what is that “Perfect Realization”?—the seventh stage of life! Not the seventh, in the sense of following on from the sixth stage of life. No. The seventh stage of life has nothing to do with the first six. It is Prior to, senior to, utterly Beyond the ego-domain of the first six stages of life, because it is not a stage of life conditioned by any “point of view”. The seventh stage of life is the Egoless Divine View, it is Reality Itself “Knowing” Itself. It is “Perfect Knowledge”.
The Reality–Way of Adidam—Which Is the Way of Reality Itself—Is Prior to conditional (cosmic and psycho-physical) patterning.
If you truly enter into the Reality–Way of Adidam, as My formally practicing devotee, all conditional (cosmic and psycho-physical) patterning is (thus and thereby) made obsolete.
[The Divine Reality-Way”, The Aletheon, Part Eleven]
In Divine Enlightenment in the Reality-Way of Adidam, or the seventh stage of life Perfectly Realized, there is no shred of identification with the apparent persona. The veil of ego has been utterly penetrated. Reality Itself, Conscious Light, is set free from the fetters of presumed identification with a persona or a body-mind. And yet life continues, effortlessly, in apparent relationship with all beings and things (even though it is supremely obvious that there are no separate beings and things!). Or, in truth, life continues thus until the Force of the Divine Light Pouring through the “things” becomes overwhelming, and the body itself dies, Sublimed beyond the physical capacity to Conduct the Light. This ultimate event of Divine Enlightenment is Divine Translation, the direct and irrevocable Dissolution of all conditions in utterly Love-Blissful Reality Itself.
The Seven Stages of Life as the Means to Understand Humankind’s Wisdom-Search
Over many decades, Bhagavan Adi Da has been assembling a vast work, The
Basket of Tolerance, in which He shows how the various stages of life are illustrated not only in individual cases, but also in the cultural evidence of history. The Basket of Tolerance is a bibliography structured according to His Schema of the stages of life, together with commentary. It consists of thousands of books, articles, and audio-visual materials, each item selected from the many more thousands of items about the wisdom-search of humanity that have been shown to Avatar Adi Da over the last several decades. The Basket of Tolerance is an unparalleled achievement, which offers, by means of the seven stages of life, a universal systematic philosophy, a “unified field theory” of human culture and possibility, against which any human endeavor or idea can be tested and understood. Through this unique seven stages of life understanding, the entire scope of human knowledge, Wisdom, all traditional paths and practices, can be seen as what Avatar Adi Da describes as a single “Great Tradition” (rather than being an assemblage of oftentimes contradictory and seemingly irreconcilable and different “points of view”). Each practice, tradition, Teaching now has its understandable place in one overall schema, which is based on the literal “esoteric anatomy” of the human being, which Avatar Adi Da has Revealed in its utter fullness for the first time.
The Basket of Tolerance is a beacon of Truth for all who can receive it. Through this book, Avatar Adi Da is making a profound Call for universal tolerance and mutual respect amongst peoples and traditions, all of whom, in the manner of their stage of life, have enriched the Great Tradition of humankind.
The Reality–Way of Adidam is not about criticizing the characteristics of the first six stages of life. The Reality–Way of Adidam is about My seventh stage Divine Avataric Revelation of the Divine Reality-Truth. That Revelation is not merely an “alternative”
to—or in “competition” with—what anyone may be bound up in. Rather, That Revelation Stands Prior to whatever anyone may be bound up in. [“The Divine Reality-Way”]
Adidam Is the Seventh Stage Way from the Beginning
Human seeking operates either at the “out-there” objective level, or on the “in-here” subjective level. These two gestures, “outward” and “inward”, are related to the structure of brain and nervous system3, and they have divided human culture into two basic orientations, exemplified by East and West.
The Message of Adidam is not biased toward either the Eastern or Western orientations of life, culture, and religion. It is not “ascetic”, or “best-to-escape-from-this-world” in its orientation (in the traditional Eastern manner), nor is it outer-directed, “let-us-strive-to-perfect-this-world-made-by-the-Creator”4 (in the typical Western mode).
Adidam is something entirely different. It begins with what is otherwise sought.
Real Spiritual life is “from the top down”, not “from the ground up”. Therefore, the Way I have Revealed and Given does not begin from the “platform” of the first three stages of life. The Way I have Revealed and Given begins with Me. The Reality-Way of Adidam is only devotional recognition of Me and devotional response to Me—turning to Me, following My Instructions, conforming to Me, serving Me, and entering into moment to moment heart-Communion with Me. The Reality-Way of Adidam is only that—not any kind of Western “program” or Eastern “program”.
I am not Western—and I am not Eastern. I Am the Divine Avataric Presence here, the Divine Avataric Intervention here—neither of the East nor of the West. . . .
I Am That Which Is Prior to all.
[The Aletheon]
Adidam is based on the seventh-stage-of-life disposition from the outset. In other words, it is founded in the direct Revelation of, and participation in, Reality Itself. That Revelation comes in every moment of heart-recognition of Avatar Adi Da—that Revelation is literally Transmitted by Him, moment to moment. Thus the Reality-Way of Adidam is founded in Avatar Adi Da Himself and demonstrated through right relationship to Him—or utter respect for, and obedience to, the Source and Person of Self-Evident Truth. This relationship calls forth and requires the greatest human attributes—the innate heart-intelligence that can discriminate between truth and falsity, between what is great and what is merely mediocre, however glossy the appearance. The world is ever ready to sell what is mediocre, and, therefore, ultimately unsatisfactory. Truth is something else. It is not “for sale”. It can only be recognized and embraced as a free Gift—and a profound responsibility.
3 In general, the “outward” or Omega or “Western” functions correlate with the left hemisphere of the brain, while the “inward” or Alpha or “Eastern” functions correlate with the right hemisphere of the brain. These cultural divisions and approaches can also be associated with other structures of the nervous system as well (parasympathetic nervous system and sympathetic nervous system, etc).
4 The Western “let-us-strive-to-perfect-this-world” strategy also takes the non-religious form of secular humanism and scientific materialism.
The Fruitlessness of the “Method” of Submission
Avatar Adi Da’s Teaching Work was a Submission to awaken this great heart-intelligence in His devotees. That is why He had to Work relentlessly with the issues of “money, food, and sex”, and oedipal patterning, to reveal in exact detail what kinds of discipline and self-responsibility are required at the foundation level of life, before there can be free attention for the profundities of the Transcendental Spiritual Process.
The result of all of that was a revelation of supreme importance: The ego cannot transcend itself, by itself. The ego cannot simply notice what it is up to and change its behavior, and have that result in genuine transcending of ego (and, thus, Spiritual growth). Either the hand opens, or the fist remains. When the hand opens, there is no ego. And when hand stays tight, there is only self-contraction, only ego. Bhagavan Adi Da’s very willingness to constantly Submit to the dialogue with the ego, only reinforced the ego! The hand did not open—except in the moments when there was simple distraction by His Supreme Attractiveness.
The Magnetism of His Presence, His Person, was the only Means whereby His devotees could go beyond the ego. And so, the point came where there was no usefulness whatsoever in His continuing to Submit to the day-and-night interactive Work of reflecting devotees to themselves in the hope that they would wake up. His Avataric Work had to be able to reach all beings, and not remain confined to a struggle with a few.
The Necessity for the “Method” of Mere Self-Revelation
Finally, the point came when Avatar Adi Da began to “shed” even the capability to Submit to the ego, a process that unfolded through a series of profound Events where His Avatar-Body was overwhelmed and “re-patterned” by His own Divine Force. The most intense of these Events showed extreme “death-like” symptoms. After the first of these, on January 11, 1986, Avatar Adi Da lost all impulse to continue to relate to His devotees by assuming their likeness. Rather, He sought to firmly establish the essentials of Adidam as “radical” devotion, right life, and “Perfect Knowledge”, or the direct ego-forgetting resort to Him as Reality Itself.
But the ego-transcending response in His devotees was still weak, and it was many years before His Relinquishment of all Submission became complete. As He Writes in The Aletheon:
In the years after January 11, 1986, there was no significant response to Me. Indeed, I was required to Endure the demonstration of implacable indifference in human beings, to the point that My Impulse to continue Working in the Manner of Self-Submission utterly Vanished—most conclusively, on July 10, 2007. The fruitlessness of My Effort of Self-Submission became so overwhelmingly obvious that That Effort entirely Fell Away.
Now My “Method” Is Only Self-Revelation. My “Method” is no longer Self-Submission. Divine Avataric Self-Revelation-Only Is the “Method” That has Come About through a Lifetime of Divine Avataric Self-Submission—in the course of Which the fruitlessness of My Self-Submission was conclusively proven.
Direct Self-Revelation of My Own Person and Self-State—Which Is Direct Self-Revelation of the Self-State of Reality Itself—Is the Only Means That Is (and can Be) Effective.
[“Walk-About To Me”, The Aletheon, Part Nineteen]
On July 10, 2007, as Avatar Adi Da indicates, the Mystery of His Avataric Leela reached a culmination. Even the slightest motion in Him to Submit, to accommodate the ego was erased, gone, all Shed. And, in that perfect Shedding, His Transcendental Spiritual Work is enabled as never before. He is simply Free to be As He Is, as He Was in His Infancy—Effulgent Being, Rested in His own Self-Radiant Sublimity, and therefore Transcendentally Spiritually available to all, Blessing all, obliged to no one. He describes His State now as “Sapta Na Sannyas”, or the inherent “Divine Indifference” of the seventh stage of life.
Day by day, moment by moment, Bhagavan Adi Da’s Miraculous Avatar-Body survives—the perpetual Absolute Pressure of Conscious Light Fusing with His human Form. This Divine Yoga is unfathomable, and has been in evidence throughout His Life.
Adidam After the Lifetime of the Master
The remainder of the human Lifetime of Avatar Adi Da is devoted to ensuring that His Transcendental Spiritual Work is planted in the world in perpetuity, with an inviolable integrity. His Communication of the Nature of Reality, and how to live the design of Reality in the human context, is conveyed not only through His vast written Teaching (summarized in The Aletheon, The Pneumaton, The Gnosticon, The Dawn Horse Testament, and twenty-two other “Source-Texts”), but also by powerful artistic means—through The Orpheum, and through visual Art of consummate beauty and originality, extending to many thousands of images.
In all these media, verbal and non-verbal, Avatar Adi Da is Making, as He says, “the Direct Self-Utterance of Reality Itself—Which Is Always Already Prior to time, space, ‘location’, ‘point of view’, and ego-’I’“.
He has also Established two renunciate orders: The Naitauba Ruchira Sannyasin Order and the Muliwai Lay Renunciate Order, of which the Ruchira Sannyasin Order is the senior governing authority (based in Adi Da’s principal Hermitage, Adi Da Samrajashram, Fiji) and the Lay Renunciate Order, the active arms of the Ruchira Sannyasin Order, rightly manages all of the dimensions of His Global Work. The Ruchira Sannyasin Order also includes, potentially, another order, the Sapta Na Sannasyin Order, consisting of devotees demonstrating an advanced profundity in the seventh stage of life. Avatar Adi Da Himself is the original, and (at present) only Sapta Na Sannyasin.
The Sannyasins functioning together, especially those fully Awake in the seventh stage of life, will be the collective Transcendental Spiritual Instrumentality by which Bhagavan Adi Da will continue to Transmit His Transcendental Spiritual Influence beyond His Lifetime.
Avatar Adi Da’s Empowered Sanctuaries, His entire Teaching Word and Literary Work and His Image-Art will always function as Agency, a direct touchpoint for Transcendental Spiritual Communion with Him, just as His human Body does in His Lifetime (and as it will continue to do through photographs and representations after His Passing).
Because of His unique Nature as Avatar of the Divine, Bhagavan Adi Da cannot be succeeded by any non-Avataric means, even by a devotee awakened in the seventh stage of life. He will have no successor, no “lineage” in the sense that some traditional Masters have had. And so He devotes Himself with greatest intensity every day to ensuring that all the forms of His Instrumentality and Agency are right and incorruptible.
The Source must be extended by Agency and Instrumentality beyond My physical Lifetime. That is, all of My Gifts— My Teaching, My Image-Art, all of the Empowered Sanctuaries, and the renunciate orders. It must include there being fully seventh-stage- functioning devotees—sannyasins, and, optimally, lay renunciates similarly, coordinated with the sannyasins. And then everything that I am Purposed to Bring to here will have its vehicle. Then, this physical Body is no longer necessary—not in any absolute sense necessary—because what It had to transfer into this world will have been done.
[February 26, 2008]
“The Divine Intervention in its fullest Revelation is in This Body and in this time.” [February 26, 2008]
All human beings alive today are Graced to be living in the epoch of this Divine Lifetime. And the end is not yet written. The end depends on all those who are yet to come to Avatar Adi Da, together with the small few devotees who lived with Bhagavan Adi Da during His Submission time. Those small few have their essential life-long task— to pass on, far and wide, what they have received and witnessed. All those who are yet to come have their essential task—to spread the Name and Work of Avatar Adi Da Samraj all over the world, even in His human Lifetime, so that no human being will be denied the opportunity to find out Who has come.
Avatar Adi Da is waiting for His present-time devotees to wake up to the magnitude of what has been Given, on the same basis that is He is waiting for all human (and non-human) beings to recognize Him and respond. He has Enacted (and continues to enact) a great Divine Avataric Revelation in our midst, but still, no one yet fully knows what has happened. History has been penetrated, ego-history (which is all the history we know) with another possibility—a Way of life that is not based on ego.
No one has a unique advantage with Bhagavan Adi Da, whether they have been in His Company for over thirty years, or found out about Him today, because He no longer Addresses egos. He has Addressed egos fully, and left an incomparable Legacy of Teaching, and now He is merely Present for all, Radiant with all-Blessing and all-Awakening Transcendental Spiritual Power.
Avatar Adi Da does not live in the domain of space-time, nor has He Given a Way that is limited to space-time realities. He has Given a unique possibility of living—a life founded in the present-Intuition of, and Communion with, Reality Itself, which is instant liberation from chasing after, or trying to avoid, the flow of life experiences. Sanity is inherent in the direct “knowledge” of Reality Itself, which is His Gift, leaving no need to attach oneself any longer to this or that structure of belief.
Avatar Adi Da has Exposed the illusions of every kind of mere belief, whether in the scientific materialist paradigm (“the earth is a just piece of rock and when you’re dead, you’re dead”) or in a “Santa Claus” God, who is presumed to be taking care of you, and everything. Avatar Adi Da has Shown that neither the scientific materialist nor the old myth-based religious philosophies are sufficient basis for a viable human future. Nor are the enticing modes of “self-help” esotericism, which merely exploit the potentials of mind, or otherwise seek to overcome, or empty, the mind.
Bhagavan Adi Da Samraj has Given the possibility of a life liberated from
mind—from all the great thoughts and all the petty thoughts, all the dreams, visions, and planes that arise and pass in the endless plastic of cosmic energy. He is Offering something so profoundly Attractive that it overwhelms the mind. He is Offering Himself, the human portal of Conscious Light.
It is now time that Avatar Adi Da’s devotees can and must speak, confessing all the beyond-extraordinary moments that have been witnessed in His Company, and the universal Blessing Lessons that He has Given to individuals out of a Depth of Compassion and Love that is unquestionably Divine.
It is now time for everyone who is Graced to find out about Him, to hear the Leelas of His Life, to read His Books, to see His Image-Art, to pause and take in the Miracle that He is here. The ego is blind, but the heart can see, and it will be the intelligence of the human heart and its innate attraction to Truth that will break open the treasure-trove of Avatar Adi Da’s Gifts.
In the meantime, Avatar Adi Da waits for those who will most fully recognize Him, proclaim that He is here, and prepare to come to His Feet for Blessing, and for the Divine Transcendental Spiritual Process that He alone can Give.
I Am Retired from My Original (or First) Work—of Teaching and Self-Revelation by Means of Extraordinary Submission to would-be devotees and the “world”.
My Divine Avataric Word of Teaching and Self-Revelation Is—now, and forever hereafter—Full, Perfect, and Completely Given.
I have Spontaneously Retired into My Own (Always Prior, Native, egoless, Perfect, and Supremely Free) Disposition—without My originally Self-Presumed Teaching Obligations, and without My active First Impulse to Be Self-Revealed by Means of Self-Submission.
In My Supremely Free Disposition, and Perfectly Retired to Me, I constantly bodily Self-Abide at Adi Da Samrajashram, My Always First and Final Hermitage and Blessing-Seat.
I no longer also Wander from My Blessing-Seat—except I am not Fixed in mere “location”, and I Am forever now Extended by An Persistent Omni-Presence, all-and-All-Pervading, while I Sit down and here to Lone. . .
[“My Final Work Is Me—Alone”, The Aletheon, Part Twenty]
I do no institutional work of any kind. I do no public work of any kind.
Fundamentally, I Live in the traditional manner, as Realizers (in all the time of the Ancient Walk-About Way) have lived in their hermitages.
I Am a Sapta Na Sannyasin, Utterly Free. . . . I am simply present here, As I Am.
If people will devotionally respond to Me and relate to Me rightly, they can be invited to enter into My Divine Avataric Company for Blessing.
© 2008 The Avataric Samrajya of Adidam Pty Ltd, as trustee for
The Avataric Samrajya of Adidam. All rights reserved. Perpetual copyright claimed.
17 Blessing Is simply My Nature, My State, My Intrinsic Condition of Self-Radiance.
[“I Stand Free Apart and Not in the Middle Here”, The Aletheon, Part One]
The Universalization of Truth is fundamental to My Divine Avataric Incarnation here—in the context of the prior unity that transcends all tribalism, all cultural limitations, all cultural identities (East and West). By Means of My Divine Avataric Incarnation here, the Universal Truth is Available to all. All are Called to Me, and to the practice of the only-by-Me Revealed and Given Reality-Way of Adidam.
[“I Am One”, The Aletheon, Part Seventeen]
________
© 2008 The Avataric Samrajya of Adidam Pty Ltd, as trustee for
The Avataric Samrajya of Adidam. All rights reserved. Perpetual copyright claimed.