Chris Tong has been a devotee of Adi Da Samraj since 1989. He is one of the founders of this website. You can read his biographical information in the About Us section.
Because
ghosts do exist, and can linger around environments for many years,
Adi Da has given His devotees purification pujas
(rituals) for psychically cleansing environments. These pujas
include means for helping any discarnate spirits "stuck" in the
environment to move on. They also coincide with making our environments
more conscious: clean and orderly, in the manner of a "Swiss dairy
farm":
Make every environment and room in which you live, play,
and work an attractive expression of your feeling-Contemplation
of Me. The quality of your living environment is always
an expression of your own state — and, conversely,
the quality of your environment directly affects you whole-bodily,
not just physically, but emotionally, psychologically, psychically.
So make the spaces in which you live and work pleasing and
attractive to the whole body, not just to the sense of visual
aesthetics or to the thinking mind.
Every square inch of the Ashram should look
like a Swiss dairy farm, meaning: in order, clean, bright,
showing the signs of conscious control, real discipline,
and care. That is to say, every square inch of the Ashram
should be treated as an extension of My bodily (human) Form
and as a suitable embodiment of My Presence altogether.
Avatar Adi Da Samraj
The more conscious the environment, the less likely a discarnate
spirit will linger there. (Note: Adi Da uses the word, "Ashram",
in the very broad sense of all devotees' living environments,
not just the Empowered Sanctuaries of Adidam.)
While purifications pujas can be performed whenever they are
useful or needed, they are regularly performed by devotees (in
devotee homes and in Adidam's sacred environments) twice a year:
in spring (a kind of "spring cleaning"), often in February (you
can look up the date this year on our
calendar); and on October
31 (associated with the secular celebration of Halloween,
or "All Souls Day").
We contemplate the following readings from Adi Da as we prepare to engage our purification pujas.
Just as the recently dead can be helped by their friends,
reminding them of what is going on when the physical body
is dead, so also those recently dead who are locked into
the etheric and who are what might be called "ghosts" can
be helped. Those individuals may not be present in the physical
plane all the time. They may pass into unconsciousness and
then return again. They may go into some field of subjective
revery, and it is in that plane that they experience what
could be called "hells" and difficulties and strange frustrations,
like strange dreams. Then they may again return to association
with the physical plane while they are yet in the etheric
body, invisible to most others but perhaps even experienced
there.
Some of you may have had experiences with such individuals,
perhaps people you knew and whom you experienced in this
way shortly after their death. I have had contact with many
such individuals. They can be released by associating with
them very much as you would associate with someone who is
alive right now. You must help them be aware of their actual
situation, because they think they are still physically
alive. They have not quite figured out their situation.
It is a problem to them. They are not in a normal state.
They are emotionally shocked and agitated, strangely attached
to people and places.
The one major thing that is going on with them is that
they are not aware they have died. They think they are alive,
and yet something about their situation does not quite make
sense to them. They cannot get people to respond to them,
and the people who are in the rooms that used to belong
to them act as if they are not there. Yet they move around
and they do things like everybody else. They could sit and
watch TV with you at night. They could hang out in your
rooms, watch you have sex, even try to have sex with you.
The one thing you can do to help them is to make them aware
that they are dead, explain what has actually happened to
them, and describe the next step of their relinquishing,
relaxing, letting go, moving on. Such direct address to
these individuals, if you have some perception of them,
can be useful to them.
Avatar Adi Da Samraj, July 3, 1987
Fear of death is fear of surrender to Infinity.
Learn to surrender, to exist at Infinity while alive, and fear of death dissolves.
Fear of death is fear of the Unknown.
Realize the Eternal Unknowability of the Totality of Existence, and fear of death is transcended in the Feeling Beyond Wonder.
If Happiness (or Freedom) depends on the Answer to the Question, then there can be no Happiness (or Freedom).
The Question cannot be satisfactorily or finally Answered.
For one who Abides at Infinity—Happy and Free, at ease with his or her Ultimate (or Divine) Ignorance—the Question and the Answer are equally unnecessary.
What began will come to an end.
What is More than Wonderful is not threatened.
The Process of the Totality of Existence is Transcendental, Inherently Spiritual, and Self-Evidently Divine—and It is Eternal.
Only a fraction of the Whole can pass away in any moment, since only a fraction of the Whole appears in any moment.
Therefore, the True Divine Heart Itself is Always Already Full of Love and More-than-Wonder.
“I” is the body-mind, the fraction of the Whole that is now appearing and will soon disappear.
“I” must be surrendered to the True Divine Heart, to the Whole—Which Is Infinity, and Love, and More (and More) than even Wonder knows.
Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"What Is More Than Wonderful Is Not Threatened", from Easy Death
Purification Puja in the Ashram Kitchen
Auckand, New Zealand, October, 2014
(Click on image to view enlargement)
When we perform a purification puja, we do so with strong voices
and bell ringing (loud enough to "wake the dead") — ghosts may be unconscious or in another (nearby) dimension, and we want to attract their
attention to the event of the puja. We make liberal
use of purifying elements such as water, ash, light, and incense.
When the purification puja is performed at an Adidam
Sanctuary or Center, or a devotee residence, we repeat the
words in the following Admonition, speaking directly (and compassionately)
to any discarnate spirits that may be present, making them aware
that they have died, and helping them relinquish their bondage
to the earth realm and specifically to this particular place:
This is the Divine Domain of His Divine Presence, Avatar Adi Da Samraj, Who has restored Happiness to the world and regenerated the Liberating Way of the Heart for all beings. This is no longer your home or place to be. You are dead, and with the Blessing of the Divine Person, Who Is Da, leave now. Relax and continue your growth and destiny in the Great Process. So do not struggle. Have no regrets. Go!
When we perform a purification puja, we consciously and continually
Invoke the Blessing-Influence of Adi Da for the auspicious transition
of all discarnate spirits in that environment. Thus we not only
serve the process of the discarnate spirits, in helping them move
on; we also engage the spirits in cooperating with Adi Da's Divine
Emergence. This is especially the case when the spirit is
"stuck" in one of Adidam's Empowered Sanctuaries, or an Adidam
regional center, or the home of devotees. Through the devotion
of His devotees (and the cooperation of the spirits), Adi Da spiritually
acquires (or re-acquires) these places and environments for the
sake of His Work, Blessing, Transmission, and Liberation of all
beings.
Purification Puja circumambulating the building
Auckand, New Zealand, October, 2014
(Click on image to view enlargement)