FAQs about Adi Da & Adidam > Taking Up the Way of Adidam > Recognition and Practice

Recognition and Practice


Question: I'm currently a devotee of Adi Da. I've been reading the articles on your site (including the one on The Eternal Vow), and now I'm really wondering whether I actually "recognize" Adi Da (as the Divine Person) — Adi Da's prerequisite for becoming a devotee — and what form of practice I should engage if I conclude that I am not recognizing Him. Help!

This article has the following subsections:
  1. Recognition as Essential to Practicing the Way of Adidam
  2. Placing Recognition in a Historical Context
  3. How To Know Whether One Recognizes Adi Da as the Divine Person
  4. What To Do if You're a Devotee Who's Not Recognizing Adi Da as the Divine Person
  5. A "Pre-Adidam" Practice for Devotees Who Haven't Yet Recognized Adi Da

1. Recognition as Essential to Practicing the Way of Adidam

If you read Adi Da's final and greatest text, The Aletheon, you will see everywhere throughout it that recognition of Him as the Divine Person is the very basis for the Way of Adidam, and hence the essential "entrance requirement" for becoming His devotee now.


. . . If I am devotionally recognized, the "Radical" Reality-Way of Adidam Ruchiradam Is Revealed. Indeed, the "Radical" Reality-Way of Adidam Ruchiradam Is Found only if I am devotionally recognized — because Adidam Ruchiradam Is participation in Me. Adidam Ruchiradam Is the Process That Spontaneously Unfolds if I am devotionally recognized. Adidam Ruchiradam is not a practice that is engaged merely because someone is moved by Me (or relates to Me) as an "objective other", or as a Teacher-Master in some not-yet-most-profoundly recognized sense. . . .

If I am not devotionally recognized, there is an enormity of "world" and ego-"self" to be figured out, and there are always a lot of things yet to seek and do. When I am devotionally recognized, there is not anything to do anymore, because there is no "problem", and (therefore) no basis for seeking. None whatsoever. . . .

Adidam Ruchiradam begins only when I am straightforwardly devotionally recognized in exactly these terms. . . .Whole bodily devotional recognition of Me Is the "Root" of Adidam Ruchiradam.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, Part 24, The Aletheon


For this reason (as we describe in our article on The Eternal Vow), the Eternal Vow that is taken when one becomes a devotee explicitly refers to one's recognition of Adi Da:


Beloved Bhagavan Adi Da Samraj, I recognize and acknowledge Your Divine Person to Be the Eternal Source of Perfect Divine Grace, the Divine True Heart of all conditionally manifested beings, the Very Divine Person Who Avatarically Self-Manifested in bodily (human) Form for the Sake of the Divine Liberation of all-and-All. Thus, I recognize and acknowledge Your Divine Person to Be my Eternal Divine Avataric Master.

Adi Da Samraj, "Radical" Transcendentalism


One cannot (and should not) take this vow unless one is recognizing Adi Da as the Divine Person. (It's not something you do on the basis of belief, only on the basis of Revelation.)


2. Placing Recognition in a Historical Context

You describe yourself as a devotee who may not be recognizing Adi Da as the Divine Person. Some readers might ask, "How is that possible?", given that Adi Da writes of it as the essential prerequisite before one can take up the Way of Adidam. The answer is that recognition as a prerequisite was not always the case. Adi Da's reference to devotional recognition of Him as the basis for Adidam dates back to the Ruchira Dham event in April, 2000 — not surprisingly, since, in that event, the Divine Person was made more transparent to ordinary people than ever before, and for this reason, Adi Da was able to make recognition of Him the basis for the Way of Adidam Ruchiradam: because of the availability of that extraordinary Divine Gift (after April, 2000).

Understanding this historical context allows us to understand why people who became devotees before the Ruchira Dham event might not be recognizing Adi Da — since that was not a prerequisite for their becoming a devotee back then. But it gets a little more confusing: the Adidam Mission has yet to really "enforce" this entrance requirement — in part because only with the publication of The Aletheon (in 2009) is Adi Da's Word on this matter crystal clear. So this also means that people who became devotees between 2000 and 2009 also may not be recognizing Adi Da as the Divine Person.


3. How To Know Whether One Recognizes Adi Da as the Divine Person

This clarity about recognition being essential to practicing the Way of Adidam makes it essential (even urgent!) for any devotee to determine whether he or she is recognizing Adi Da (or not). Note that having spiritual experiences in response to Adi Da, "feeling" His Spiritual Transmission (in the body-mind), believing that He is the Divine Person on the basis of His extraordinary Teaching — none of these is the same as direct recognition of Adi Da as the Divine Person.

Here are five criteria that help one determine whether one has received this Revelation of recognition:

  1. The Revelation is an immersion in the Divine State Itself. That utterly "changes the game" for one who is so immersed!

    Anybody who is recognizing Me is absorbed into My State. It is a profound Transcendental Spiritual condition. That's how I tell [whether someone is recognizing Me].

    Avatar Adi Da Samraj, October 7, 2008


    The Adept incarnates, is, and is established in That which is perfectly attractive — to which beings should be attracted, and in which they may realize their True Condition. They become blissful through attraction, through the force of attractiveness. And when they submit themselves to it perfectly, then every aspect of the stages of the Way — all the kinds of transitions I consider with you — occur quite spontaneously.

    It's not that you practice a "yoga of being attracted". You do all the things that are associated with our discipline. But the essence of it, the driving force of it, the essential content of it, is this attractedness. And the fundamental quality of your life — to the degree that you are really involved in that practice — is Enchantment. . . . What is Enchanting you is the Living Presence of the Divine, That in which you stand, That which is Omnipresent and All-Pervading. . . . That which is absolutely attractive is incarnate, stands before beings, and draws them into relationship. . . . And those who practice the Way communicated in that Company develop more and more the capacity to submit to the State of Enchantment, to the point where they are absolutely Enchanted by the State of That which is attracting them. . .

    How can ordinary beings come to the point of confessing this Absolute? Because you are Enchanted! . . . You discover the essence of the Way is Enchantment. It is expressed through all the disciplines — it doesn't override them. It's not like there's some sort of "Enchanted Way" and everybody else is inquiring, or considering the Witness Position — it takes just that form! The Force that is essential to all of it is Enchantment. The more Enchanted you are, the more you allow yourself to be gravitated toward That which is attracting you.

    Avatar Adi Da Samraj, Enchantment (April 26, 1983)


  2. That Revelation convicts one of the Divine Reality: there is a State that is perfectly Happy, perfectly Free, and which transcends all conditionality: life, death, and all forms of suffering, and that one can always connect with (and ultimately, Realize perfectly).

  3. Because the Source of that Revelation is the contemplation of Adi Da, it is tacitly clear that Adi Da is none other than that Divine State, here in Person. It is tacitly clear that contemplation of Adi Da is what restores us to that Divine State, consistently and repeatedly. That Divine State, and Adi Da, are not separate from ourselves. (In other words, Adi Da's "Spiritual Transmission" is not like a radio transmitter, from "over there" to "here".) Rather, the Revelation tacitly makes clear that we are arising in that Divine State, in Adi Da as Divine Person. That Divine State also immediately reveals the Perfect Non-Separateness of Reality. Therefore, it is completely clear that the "devotional relationship" to Adi Da is not of the "me/other" kind between two apparently separate beings, but rather of the "me surrendered into my very Source" kind.

    And so the Revelation that Adi Da is the Divine Person is not of an experiential kind per se — great visions, sounds, or the kind of thing we might conventionally tend to associate with the word, "Revelation", from our traditional religious backgrounds — but rather a taste of the experience- and experiencer-free, non-dual Divine State Itself. But it also equally clear the Adi Da's appearance here, as an "apparent other", an incarnate human being, has provided the means by which from now on we can locate our very Source directly.

  4. In receiving this Revelation, it is tacitly obvious to all of us that our own egoic activity is the only reason we haven't already realized this Divine State perfectly — because what we (always) experience, in our contemplation of Adi Da as Divine Person, is (a) the Divine State; and (b) our egoically imposed limit on that completely unlimited State. It is tacitly obvious that the profundity of our practice (or lack thereof) in any moment is what is determining the degree of Realization. But even those of us who are spiritual beginners are directly aware of (and, in this sense, are "given") the Ultimate Realization from the start, even as we also see the self-activity we are going to have to transcend perfectly (over time) in order to realize that Ultimate Realization perfectly and permanently. As Adi Da puts it: the Way of Adidam is a seventh-stage Way from the outset. The repeated Revelation is always immersion in the Divine State, but with whatever forms of egoic resistance we still have not understood present and revealed as that which needs to be transcended in order for our Realization of the Revelation to be perfect and permanent. To put it another way: By virtue of the nature of the Revelation, every one of us who has received this Revelation is already in a position to bear witness to the Ultimate Realization of the Way of Adidam, even though we still may be spiritual beginners.

Perhaps the most easy criterion to check is this one:

  1. If you recognize Adi Da as the Divine Person, then your response is instantaneous and extraordinary, and should spontaneously demonstrate itself by your passing through the crisis of hearing any time within a few months to a couple of years after recognizing Him. In short: you advance through the levels of practice "like a hot knife through butter", to use Adi Da's words.

So if you have been a devotee for more than a couple of years, and you have not yet passed through the crisis of hearing, it is highly likely you are not (yet) recognizing Adi Da as the Divine Person.

If this is your situation, know that you are not alone! Many others are also in the same boat.

Now some devotees say things like: well, I do think I'm 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." In other words:


I can only Confess to you My State. Either you recognize Me or you do not.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, February 16, 1983
God is not a Gentleman, and I Am That One


You can't "sort of" recognize Him (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, then one can't be relating to Him on that basis, and one must be relating to Him either as an ordinary man, or as an extraordinary man or Spiritual Master (but not as the 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, Part 24, The Aletheon


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


4. What To Do if You are a Devotee Who Is Not Recognizing Adi Da as the Divine Person

If you have gone through the consideration we just presented you with, and have determined that you are a devotee who is not recognizing Adi Da as the Divine Person (despite however many decades you may have been Adi Da's devotee, however many extraordinary experiences you may have had, etc.), the obvious next question is: what should you do? Adi Da's words above make it clear you can't practice the Way of Adidam Ruchiradam — you are missing its very basis.

You might have a passing thought that the "honorable" thing to do would be to step back from being a devotee. But this would violate a spiritual principle that Adi Da takes very seriously: once a devotee, always a devotee. He takes your Eternal Vow completely seriously, and expects you to do the same. Adi Da Himself was very aware of the devotees who weren't recognizing Him, and He never asked them to step back from practice, or from being devotees. Instead, He called them to recognize Him.


5. A "Pre-Adidam" Practice for Devotees Who Haven't Yet Recognized Adi Da

So all devotees who are in this situation are in a kind of limbo. At some point, the formal culture of Adidam will have to provide guidelines for all such devotees. But until it does, here are a few insights right now.

The best way to get out of this limbo is first to recognize that this is where you are truly at, rather than staying "murky" and unclear about the real reason your practice is "stuck", and continuing to try to practice a Way that you don't have the proper foundation for yet.

The next thing is to focus on doing everything possible to cultivate the Gift of recognition — through complete immersion in Adi Da. You may have been feeling His Transmission in the body-mind, in some experiential (less than Divine) sense, and basing your practice on that. Understand, then, that that response to Him is still "pre-Adidam", and that recognition of Him is beyond that, greater than that. Allow yourself to be moved by Adi Da beyond your limited reception, until the Gift of recognition is Given to you.

This should not take forever — Adi Da made it the basis of the Way of Adidam after the Ruchira Dham event because of the availability of the Gift! But to receive it, you do need to acknowledge that you haven't yet received it, and completely open yourself up to receiving it, through immersing yourself in Him. Use the elements of practice — meditation, the life disciplines, etc. — but knowing that you are not yet able to engage them in the same way you would if you were already recognizing Adi Da. The life disciplines are especially important, because one's lack of recognition is due to lack of free energy and attention and the disciplines can help free up more energy and attention:


My Heart-Master, Adi Da Samraj, Divine and True and Free —
may Your Radiant "Bright" Blessings Awaken me,
whose eyes are covered over by the images of a separate self,
and whose mind is held captive by visions of the world.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, Ruchira Avatara Gita


Even before recognizing Adi Da as the Divine Person, you can still surrender to him like a man surrenders to God, as Adi Da demonstrated in relation to His first Spiritual Master, Rudi, who was not a Divine Incarnation:


I gave myself up to him as a man does to God.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, The Knee Of Listening


One can respond to Adi Da not as an ordinary man, and not (yet) as the Divine Person, but as a great Spiritual Transmission Master, understanding that one's present reception of His Transmission must continually be felt beyond until the Gift of recognition of Him as the Divine Person is received, and one is immersed in His Divine State, rather than experiencing Him in the body-mind.


Quotations from and/or photographs of Avatar Adi Da Samraj used by permission of the copyright owner:
© Copyrighted materials used with the permission of The Avataric Samrajya of Adidam Pty Ltd, as trustee for The Avataric Samrajya of Adidam. All rights reserved. None of these materials may be disseminated or otherwise used for any non-personal purpose without the prior agreement of the copyright owner. ADIDAM is a trademark of The Avataric Samrajya of Adidam Pty Ltd, as Trustee for the Avataric Samrajya of Adidam.

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