FAQs about Adi Da & Adidam > The Need For a Spiritual Master > The Talking School

4. Truth Is Always Already the Case, But the Spiritual Master is Still Required for Realizing the Truth


Chris Tong, Ph.D.

This is Part 4 of Chris Tong's six-part article, Why Great Spiritual Realization Requires a Spiritual Master.

The Truth is Where you Stand. The Truth is Inherent. You don't have to turn away or within inside or outside to realize it.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj


Question: If, as Adi Da says, Truth is always already the case, how can any process I engage in (including a process involving a Spiritual Master) realize the Truth?

One of Adi Da's many major contributions to our understanding of Reality and the Great Tradition of the world's esoteric practices and schools was to identify and correct a flaw in logic that He referred to as the "Talking School" error. The logic goes as follows: Since Truth is already the case, there is no method one can fruitfully engage to "find" the Truth (including any process involving a Spiritual Master); therefore, what one should do instead is simply meditate on what is already the case (in some verbal form: for example, "I am That") until one Realizes It.

Adi Da criticizes this logic. A deeper consideration actually confirms the absolute need for the Spiritual Master.


"Talking school" is where there simply is no preparation expected, no discipline of body-mind particularly, just conversation. And some basic ideas like "you are the Self" (or whatever) is exchanged, "you are the Transcendental Self or Consciousness", and so on. And, without preparedness, without profundity of examination of the implications of what is said, or the Truth of what is said, it's just presumed that you've been convinced by words — and now, just having thought about it (or whatever), you're Enlightened!

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
unpublished talk, 2005


The understanding of the relationship between the devotee and the Spiritual Master is of great importance since is the basis of all spiritual traditions, prophecies and teachings.

If people didn't fully study my Teaching on this matter they might tend to associate and even identify it with some of the traditional exercises. . . in such traditions as the Advaitic tradition. And there's a tendency in the Advaitic tradition to develop this kind of "talking school" approach to Realization. And therefore it tends also to legitimize the point of view of certain kinds of advocates who can be read, and even heard in public. Who preach to people about consciousness and call them to identify. . . merely to identify with it. They try to talk people into identifying with consciousness, or merely to relax their minds and so forth, and settle into a conscious state, that doesn't have any particular reference to the body-mind, although its still associated with it practically.

There are many such advocates. I've spoken about Krishnamurti from time to time, he's just one. There are many such people these days. They have in common, call to people to do something like the. . . exercise of logic recommended in the Advaitic "talking school". They call upon them to identify with Consciousness, presently, to believe and affirm that the essence of the being, the consciousness behind thoughts and actions is presently and always already identical to Brahman or the Transcendental Condition. Therefore, merely by involving yourself in this kind of analytical exercise, you can presume that you are enlightened, or that you have achieved Jnana. That's not at all true. The same kinds of advocates are also busy telling people that there is no real purpose for a Spiritual Master, except to bind yourself to another ego and so on.

The reason they can so easily dismiss the Spiritual Master is because they have already dismissed the whole process of spiritual practice. And all that's necessary for them is this kind of analytical effort of identifying with Consciousness. It is true that our own consciousness, that which is at the root of attention is ultimately, even inherently identical to the Transcendental Being. But must be Realized to be so. And it cannot be Realized to be so until energy and attention are free for that most profound and radical intuition. It's not merely factually so. It's not factually so that Atman and Paramatman or Brahman are identical. It's not factually so that Nirvana and samsara are the same. By definition these are opposites. Nirvana and samsara are actual or absolute opposites of one another. That's how the two terms arose in traditions. They indicate two entirely different states of existence, one Transcendental and the other conditional.

Well, in the Buddhist tradition, this formula developed eventually, that states that Nirvana and samsara are the same. Well, this is a confession of Adepts. This is a confession of Realization. In the case of Realization it is true. In some profound, paradoxical sense. But it is not factually true. It's true only in the case of Realization.

Likewise, in the Advaitic tradition, in many places in the Hindu tradition, we hear the proclamation that Atman and Paramatman, or Atman and Brahman, are identical. This is not factually true in the original development of these terms. They were meant to indicate complete opposites. They are Realized to be identical by Adepts. The equation is Realized to be true, or the Truth in the case of an Adept. But not otherwise. The equation is not factually true, it's only true by virtue of Realization. So you cannot, merely by inverting upon the self essence, identify with the Transcendental Being. To invert upon the self essence is merely to continue the act of Narcissus. It is to meditate upon the self-essence, the essence of the ego, the root consciousness of the ego. Until the ego is transcended, that's all that's at the base of the "I" thought.

We may have some sense, some intuition of that which goes beyond the limit of self-contracted consciousness, but we cannot realize our identity with it, apart from the fullest development of spiritual practice. In fact, therefore, it is a heresy to claim that Atman and Paramatman are the same, or that Atman and Brahman are the same, until you have Realized it. It is a heresy to declare that Nirvana and samsara are the same. Its a ridiculous claim except in the case of Realization.

Spiritual understanding in our discussion is not to be equated with a kind of "talking school" conceit, or the presumption of the ego, that want to be realized immediately without having to go through the hard school of purification, liberation, and awakening. Spiritual understanding involves the transcendence of the ego, or conditional attention and this develops by stages — it has a number of forms. . .

The reason for this is that the ego is not merely some superficial notion. The ego applies to every single aspect, every part, function, state, relation, and condition of the self. There is no part of the manifest self that is not characterized by the ego or self-contraction. It's not merely a superficial part of you, underneath which there is this eternally free essence which you should identify with. Even that essence underneath it all, that fundamental sense of self-consciousness, is a fraction of this total character that is the ego or seperate self. This total character must be understood and transcended. In every feature, function, part, relation, state — waking, dreaming, and sleeping — this consciousness that is identified with in the "talking school" is nothing but the bare consciousness of the waking state, or attention apart from objects. It is not, in any sense, a practice of enlightenment or enlightened understanding; it is simply egoic consciousness. That egoic consciousness in all of its forms must be transcended for any spiritual understanding to awaken.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
What Is The Conscious Process?


Truth is always already the case. . . But that is not something we Realize "on our own". Truth (in the form of the Divine Master) must find us and meditate us.


Truth must Confront you, "Live" you, "Meditate" you. It is not your meditation that matters. Truth must "Meditate" you. I must "Meditate" you. Such is the Siddhi of Satsang with Me.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"One-'Point'-edness", My "Bright" Word


For our part, we must recognize the Divine Master as Truth — as the living Divine. That is our part in the division of labor that comprises the searchless process of Realization. That recognition is "grasping the tail of the Horse", which then allows the Horse to take us. We don't take ourselves. The Horse takes us. It's not a Talking School. . . we do have to do something. But the "something" is very specific: we have to grasp the tail of the Horse, and let the Horse take us. All the practices and disciplines in the Way of Adidam serve to strengthen this grasping of the tail of the Horse, and serve to weaken our egoic grasping of ourselves. The more we do of one of these, the less we do of the other.


A man went to his Master and said, "Master, I feel like there are two dogs fighting inside me, a good dog and a bad dog. Which one is going to win?" The Master said, "The one that you feed the most.

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The practices in the Way of Adidam serve to weaken all the ways in which we are undermining (or refusing to cooperate with) the Divine Process of Liberation.


From the very beginning of your practice of the Way of Adidam, I Require that you be responsible in relation to certain functional and practical levels of life. There must be a foundation for this process of Satsang with Me. Thus, when you become My formally practicing devotee, you assume various practical disciplines in relation to your diet, your work and responsibilities, your environment and living conditions, the relationships in your life, and so on. As my devotee, you must be willing to assume practical responsibility for what would otherwise be an endlessly dramatized life.

My devotee must be responsible for the processes of money, food, and sex. I do not mean that you have to become a sudden saint. But, when you live with practical intelligence, there is a living firmness, a foundation for the "revelation of Narcissus" that you will inevitably have to endure. If there is nothing but a hole at the bottom, then every time something is thrown in it just goes out the bottom. If you are only ready to indulge what arises in you, then Satsang with Me will only give you more energy for that. In that case, you need a parent, not a Master!

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"One-'Point'-edness", My "Bright" Word


Truth is always already the case. But egoity is also always already the case, until fundamental self-understanding is Given, by Grace. It is true enough that we don't have to go anywhere else to locate the Truth, because it is right here, always already the case. It is true enough that in some sense we "simply" have to notice the Truth, we "simply" have to "open our eyes" and see It. But there's the rub: there is nothing simple about "opening our eyes", when our eyes are glued shut by habit, and have been glued shut for lifetimes, and we are terrified of opening them. We can toy intellectually with the idea of opening our eyes, and allow ourselves to be deluded by how simple that sounds. . . but in reality, we will never do it.

The self-contraction is the name Adi Da has given to the chronic activity of separation, which we enact in every moment. In every moment, that separative act creates a "wall of separation" with two profound consequences, one inward and one outward: we re-create the sense of self; and we separate ourselves from (and hide our awareness of) the Divine Reality, the Truth. If we were to cease to do that separative act in any moment, the "wall of separation" would dissolve and both of those consequences would cease: we would become aware of the Divine Reality ("opening our eyes"); but we also would cease to exist, as a separate self.

It is because that act of self-contraction is at our very root — it creates us, and we are absolutely committed to our own independent existence — that we will never "let go", we will never "open our eyes" on our own. Oh, we will a little, now and then. . . but only to the degree that "I" can have a blissful experience, with "me" still intact. Never to the degree of perfect dissolution of self, perfect Realization of the Divine, perfect Realization of the Truth.

That is where the Divine Guru comes in: He Who in His Transmission of the "Bright" Divine Reality so mightily distracts us from ourselves that we forget ourselves, remembering Him — that is the secret of how the ego is transcended: not by a frontal assault but by distraction. Adi Da's Transmission is the Truth that is to be Realized. And so It is a perfect Distraction, a Divine Distraction, because It is the very thing we must Realize, and It distracts us from the very thing that keeps us from Realizing It.

The Divine is a Being, the very Being of us all. And in the form of the Guru who incarnates the Divine, It is also a Force. Until the Force of the Divine enters our lives (in the form of the Divine Guru), two things will always already be the case in every moment: the Truth; and "me", which is separating from (and hiding) the Truth. That Divine Force is capable of granting Revelatory moments in which "me" is (temporarily) dissolved and there is only the Truth, only the Divine. And if, over time, we cooperate with that Force (which is what the Way of Adidam is all about), then ultimately, we completely, and permanently Realize that Truth — "me" is permanently transcended, and only God and Truth and Reality is always already the case.

* * *

Until then, or in any moment I am not engaged in that "me"-dissolving, "me"-forgetting Divine Process, "me" is always already the case, obscuring the Truth which is always already the case.

Until then, or in any moment I am not engaged in that "me"-dissolving, "me"-forgetting Divine Process, "me" is the obstacle, the reason I am not "opening my eyes" and seeing the Truth, the reason I am so fascinated with the idea of opening my eyes "by myself", the reason I am so attracted to the (impossible) idea of Realizing the Divine without sacrifice of "self".


The Way is Sacrifice of self. . . .

The Realization is the Radiant Transcendental Consciousness, in which there are no objects, no differentiated conditions. . . .

As long as the conventions of experience persist, there must be the Way and the Realization, both.

Those who seem to practice the Way, full of self-denial, meditation, and good acts, but who do not Realize the Radiant Transcendental Consciousness in every moment, have only emptied themselves.

Those who constantly speak of the Radiant Transcendental Consciousness, indulging their minds in concepts of emptiness, transparency, and pure space, but who do not practice the Way of self-transcending Love-Communion in every moment, are only full of themselves.

In every moment, there must be the Way and the Realization, simultaneous, actual, and true, as long as the conventions of experience persist.

Then there is only Radiant Fullness, or Love, without dilemma, without self, and without inherent circumstance, even in every moment of the Mystery of all relations.

I am the Consciousness behind attention, the Self from which mind arises.

I am the Radiant Life that pervades the world, the energy of which every object is the modification.

Love Me with open eyes. Turn to Me beyond all experience and every thought. Let Me live you. Dissolve in My Current of Bliss.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"The Way Is Forever, but the Realization Is Absolute"
The Enlightenment of the Whole Body




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