An Open Letter
To All Who Would Find Heart-Breaking Freedom

Adi Da, 1999

My Beloved every one,

I have Come here to Offer you the Complete Divine Way.

I Submitted Myself utterly to the conditions of humanity, in order to (once again) Realize and (thereafter) Reveal the Way of Divine Self-Realization in Truth.

My Avataric Divine Work of Teaching and Revelation was Brought out of Me through This, My Ordeal of Avataric Self-Submission.

That Submission took the form of My living "Consideration" relative to all things.

Therefore, My Teaching-Revelation is not a mere transformation of ideas otherwise found in the Great Tradition of mankind.

Rather, My Teaching-Revelation was entirely Brought out of Me — first, through the Ordeal of My own Sadhana, and, then, through the Ordeal of My All-Encompassing "Reality Consideration" with My devotees.

The world into which I was Born is empty.

Therefore, I had no choice but to Discover the Truth Myself.

Even as an infant, I saw that I would have to be the world in order to Divinely Re-Awaken here.

I was spontaneously Moved to take on all the qualities that I found here — and I Struggled until I Transcended them all.

This utter Submission to the human condition — for the Sake of the Most Ultimate Divine Liberation of every one — is My Unique "Craziness".

And this "Craziness" is the Sign of My Purity.

This, rather than any conventional measure, is the right basis for people's valuing of Me — for their devotion to Me, for their heart-recognition of Me and their heart-response to Me.

I am not withdrawn, in the Eastern manner.

I Conjoined Myself with this "Franklin" Body here in order to Conform to the West, so that I could Teach in the West.

My Avataric Self-Submission Brought the Complete Teaching out of Me, the Teaching That Transcends both the East and the West — including all, without excluding any.

In the years of My Teaching-Work and My Revelation-Work, I Developed the full and complete practice of the Way of Adidam through My interaction (and "reality consideration") with those who approached Me as My devotees — and they were, in general, ordinary, self-indulgent Westerners.

I Made My Avataric Self-Submission to them just as they were — and I Straightened them out.

Indeed, that Process of Straightening out My devotees, by Submitting to Teach them in the midst of their illusions, is What I Did in all the years of My Teaching-Work and My Revelation-Work.

The universal human confusion was there to be Purified in My devotees — but I Did that Purifying Work for the Sake of all.

In the years of My Teaching-Work and My Revelation-Work, I did not Work with conventional "super-straights".

I Worked with people who were moved to drop social taboos, who had no myths they felt obliged to believe in — people who very much wanted to enter into a free "consideration" about Spiritual practice, and everything in life.

Therefore, I Dealt with everything as an open "consideration" — and it was a remarkably difficult process.

Through that process, I Revealed the Truth and the life of Truth.

I Offered this process of open "consideration" to those who were interested.

On the one hand, there are people who do not want to deal with an open "consideration" of life, who prefer (instead) to live by their culturally inherited presumptions and values without questioning them.

On the other hand, there are people who find they cannot accept the culturally prevailing presumptions and values, and are moved to a real investigation of life — and such were the people with whom I "Considered" things.

The people who approached Me asked (both explicitly and, by virtue of their lack of human maturity, implicitly) that I Deal with the foundation matters of human life — the entire realm of human existence that I have Described (in summary) as "money, food, and sex".

If I had not Entered into this "consideration" with them, they would not have been prepared for Spiritual life, because they had no ability to deal with the foundation matters.

They were full of problems related to "money, food, and sex", and full of limitations imposed by the social persona.

Such was, in fact, inevitably the case — because that is what the human world is, and that is what they came from.

I have always Worked in a Free and Unconventional Manner.

I was not a "local pastor".

I Deal with everyone as if they have come to Me for Most Perfect Divine Self-Realization.

I Know what it takes for people to Realize Me Most Perfectly — and I Do all of that Spontaneously.

That is why I have always stayed out of the public sphere — because only those who become My formal devotees have demonstrated their Impulse to Realize Me in a manner that I can take seriously.

Therefore, I Bless all, but I cannot Instruct all.

I can only Instruct those who demonstrate a real heart-response to Me, by becoming My formal devotee.

Nevertheless, all are the same to Me.

I Am everyone, and everything.

In this "late-time" (or "dark" epoch), all kinds of people act as if they are prepared to enter into the esoteric stream of Spirituality, when (in fact) they have not even dealt with the foundation.

However, that is not what happened in the "reality consideration" I had with My devotees.

We entered into a direct "consideration" of all aspects of life— money, food, sex, religion, Spirituality, egoity—everything that has to do with making it possible to move on to real Spiritual practice in the advanced and the ultimate stages of life.

Our "consideration" was about all matters—conditional and Unconditional.

It was non-puritanical.

It was very straightforward.

There was no double-mindedness or daintiness about sex or anything else.

Therefore, devotees of Mine are not "hush-hush".

I Taught them everything about how to rightly deal with life "below the belt".

There was no phony self-purity involved.

Sex — or, more accurately, emotional-sexual life — is the primary obsession of human beings, especially in the earlier stages of life and in the beginnings of sadhana.

Therefore, I Addressed the emotional-sexual matter very thoroughly, in direct, face-to-face dialogue with My devotees.

This emotional-sexual business is a nest of odd creatures — nasty little things, biting and screeching everywhere.

Sigmund Freud

This was obvious to Freud — but (notwithstanding the accuracy and usefulness of many of his observations) he did not want to really deal with it.

He wanted to keep things safe on the psychoanalyst's couch, to eliminate emotional-sexual problems with talk in an office.

That is how he wanted to cure his patients — because he felt threatened by his own emotional-sexual tendencies, and he wanted to bring sex under the control of the social ego.

Thus, Freud suppressed himself — because he saw that the unmastered emotional-sexual ego is wild and powerful.

That suppressive disposition (or point of view) is not a workable basis for true religious and Spiritual life.

Nevertheless, the Great Tradition of humankind has characteristically operated in a manner similar to Freud's—by suppressing emotional-sexual life in one manner or another.

Thus, religious and secular thinkers typically think alike relative to this matter.

But I am "Crazy" in My Impulse to Serve the human, Spiritual, and (most ultimately) Divine Freedom of all — so I have Dealt with the cat out of the bag, or out of the closet.

I Know what to do about sex.

Most people do not know what to do about sex — so they generally just keep their pants on, if they are seriously involved in religious and Spiritual life.

But I do Know what to do about sex — and I Know how to Serve My devotees in this matter.

I am not an ordinary man.

What I Do is Unique.

I Straightened My devotees out about sex.

No "lily-white" approach to dealing with sex can come even close to straightening anyone out.

My Wisdom-Teaching includes a Complete "Consideration" of emotional-sexual life — and that "Consideration" is an absolute Straightener.

There are all kinds of conventional social rules for controlling sexual behavior — but they are designed to serve the purposes of the social ego, and (therefore) have nothing to do with ego-transcendence or Spiritual Realization.

Merely to become a well-behaved social ego is not a sufficient basis for entering into the real Spiritual process.

The Great Tradition of mankind is, as a whole, unresolved and ambivalent relative to the entire matter of sexuality, and is even generally sex-negative in its orientation.

All such puritanical righteousness must be gone beyond — otherwise, one's emotional-sexual egoity is never truly inspected and dealt with.

In that case, attention remains fundamentally (even if unconsciously) bound in emotional-sexual dilemmas of all kinds, thereby limiting the degree of real Spiritual growth that is possible.

However, I look to Draw My devotees to the transcending of any obstruction of energy, any dramatization of the self-contraction — in relation to sex or any other aspect of life.

I really do not have a moralistic reaction to anything about the emotional-sexual life of human beings.

To Me, emotional-sexual difficulty (of whatever kind) is simply a sign of egoity in whomever it appears — and, therefore, it is simply something to be dealt with, in a straightforward and non-problematic manner.

Thus, I have always approached emotional-sexual matters in an open fashion — throughout My Life, and in all My relationships with My devotees — in an effort to really Deal with emotional-sexual matters, so that emotional-sexual integrity can be the basis for the eventual development of real Spiritual practice in the advanced and the ultimate stages of life.

My "reality consideration", which continued for many years and covered every conceivable aspect of emotional-sexual life, is Summarized in My twenty-three Divine "Source-Texts" (and principally, among My twenty-three Divine "Source-Texts", in Ruchira Avatara Hridaya-Tantra Yoga).

Thus, I Am the One Who has Completed the great "consideration" of human emotional-sexual life — and I Did So for the Sake of every one.

I Am the One Who has made it possible for human beings to comprehend the emotional-sexual dimension, and to completely transcend egoic reactivity, and to grow beyond the ordinary emotional-sexual limitations that the worldly mind represents, and (by all of this) to have an altogether sane life.

Such emotional-sexual clarity and integrity is essential for the real Spiritual process.

In the Great Tradition, various kinds of emotional-sexual discipline have been required or recommended — but none of these disciplines were sufficient for the thorough transcending of the emotional-sexual ego.

In the only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way of Adidam, the emotional-sexual ego (and, indeed, the ego of "money, food, and sex" altogether) must be really and truly gone beyond — and this must occur in the foundation stages of the Way of Adidam, as part of the basis for real and true growth into the advanced and the ultimate stages of Spiritual life in the Way of Adidam.

Therefore, I Call My devotees to deal with "money, food, and sex" first — before there can be any advancement into the Spiritually Awakened stages of the Way of Adidam.

This is an essential part of My Message and My Revelation: Human beings must deal with the money-food-and-sex ego first.

From the conventional point of view, My exhaustive "consideration" of emotional-sexual life might be regarded as some kind of "lapse" or "mistake" — but such is not at all the case.

My "consideration" of emotional-sexual life was a profoundly important and absolutely necessary part of My Teaching-Work.

In the history of the Great Tradition, there has never been the freedom — or the understanding — to enter into the full "consideration" of emotional-sexual life and bring that "consideration" to completion.

The entire Intention of My Work with My devotees has been to allow people to live in Freedom.

The culturally enforced demand on Spiritual Teachers, in both the East and the West, is that they be exemplars of social morality — even to the degree of renouncing sexual activity, and showing the sign of celibacy.

That is an example of the exoteric disposition being superimposed on esoteric Spiritual traditions.

In fact, within the domain of esoteric Spirituality, the principal tradition relative to sexuality is the esoteric transformation of sexual energy—or what is called "Tantric" sexual practice.

However, because of the double-mindedness of the common culture relative to all things sexual, it has traditionally been presumed that esoteric Spiritual Teachers had to do all of this in secret.

That disposition of double-mindedness leads to puritanical and judgmental righteousness—and it is that disposition that is wrong, not the Tantra.

Anyone's sexual activity appears to be "crazy" and unacceptable—and, in that sense, "wrong"—when viewed from the point of view of the normative public "face".

Particularly in Western (and "Westernized") cultures, the social personality is not supposed to have anything to do with sexuality or excrement.

There are all kinds of taboos relative to what is "below the belt", and those taboos lead to social and religious hypocrisy.

The double-minded personality has a great fear of losing face, and the same is (collectively) true of double-minded society.

The usual social demand is to not lose face—and, in a very fundamental sense, loss of face has to do with embarrassment about what is "below the belt".

From the conventional point of view, people in the religious world are not supposed to even relate to sexual issues in public—rather, they feel obliged to show the puritanical double-mind.

This is entirely a matter of "face".

"Face" is what the public personality-game is about, and it seems to be fundamental to everyone's public discourse in conventional society.

However, in private, behind closed doors, very human realities go on for the representatives of public religion—the same kinds of realities that are confronted in private by any human being.

Unresolved emotional-sexual issues—and all kinds of manifestations of egoity—lie behind the closed doors of "official" religion.

However, from the point of view of human authenticity and growth, the social expectation that people must be different in their public persona than in their real life is absurd nonsense.

I have always Worked to go directly beyond all of this.

There must be honesty and straightforwardness—not double-mindedness and hypocrisy.

What is fundamentally required is the elimination of the culture of double-mindedness and the establishment of an open, free atmosphere for "consideration".

Only in such an environment can matters related to the emotional-sexual character be truly inspected and resolved.

Such an environment is difficult to find—and such an environment of open, free "consideration" is exactly the situation I created and entered into with My devotees.

Sex is not the "great evil".

Sex is not evil at all.

Egoity is the root and source of all evil and all problems.

Sex is transformed and made right only through the process of transcending egoity.

Therefore, sex itself need not—and should not—be treated like an enemy.

It is emotional-sexual egoity that must be gone beyond.

In the 1960s, there was a well-known saying: "Make love, not war."

Understood in the most profound sense, this saying suggests an important principle—not that sex in and of itself can eliminate war, but that the transcending of emotional-sexual egoity has everything to do with bringing an end to human conflict altogether.

I have Revealed what is necessary to entirely transcend emotional-sexual bondage and emotional-sexual egoity altogether—in the context of the process of listening to Me, and (then) hearing Me, and (in due course) seeing Me, as My formal devotee practicing the total (or full and complete) practice of the Way of Adidam.

Thus, My Work with My devotees relative to emotional-sexual matters has not been a form of conventional Tantra (in which the energy of sexuality is "harnessed" for still egoic purposes in the context of the advancing stages of life).

Rather, in My Work with My devotees, I Revealed to them the inherently ego-transcending True Tantra of Adidam (or Ruchira Avatara Hridaya-Tantra Yoga).

I Say to you, and to all: True religion is ego-transcendence.

Thus, the Great Purpose of My years of Teaching-Work and Revelation-Work was to Reveal the Complete Way of ego-transcendence.

That Complete Way of ego-transcendence is (necessarily) the Complete Way of devotional Communion (and, ultimately, Most Perfect Identification) with Real God, or Truth Itself, or Reality Itself.

From the time of My infancy, it has been obvious to Me that human beings do not have access to a complete foundation (or exoteric) practice (or "outer temple")—a practice which would fully account for the realm of "money, food, and sex", and which would fully prepare people for esoteric Spiritual practice (or the "inner temple" of Spiritual life).

Therefore, I Freely Submitted to humankind—at first, in the form of those who surrounded Me in My early Life, and, later, in the form of My devotees—in order to create this "outer temple".

The "outer temple" of the Divine Way of Adidam is a Great Revelation and a great sadhana.

In the setting of the Great Tradition, the "consideration" and revelation of the foundation practice has never been brought to completion.

That "Consideration" and Revelation has been Completed only by Me.

In this "late-time" (or "dark" epoch), human beings are becoming more and more deeply disenchanted with conventional religion and conventional "answers".

I (Myself) was utterly dissatisfied with conventional religion and conventional "answers", and it was for that reason that I Entered into the Ordeal of My "Sadhana Years" and My years of Teaching-Work and Revelation-Work.

As a result of that Great Ordeal, I have Made religious life possible again, for all—on a Real basis.

Therefore, I Call every one to "consider" My Teaching-Word relative to Real religious life in My Company, and I Offer the Divine Way of Adidam to all who are moved to become My formally acknowledged devotees.

That Divine Way is, most fundamentally, devotional heart-recognition of Me and devotional heart-response to Me—the One and Very (and Self-Evidently Divine) Person of Reality and Truth, Appearing here before you As the Ruchira Avatar, Adi Da Samraj.

In this "late-time" (or "dark" epoch), the human world is ruled by the point of view of scientific materialism.

Scientific materialism has deprived humankind of all profundity of view—relative to the nature and significance of the conditional universe, and relative to the Reality of the Divine.

Scientific materialism is a global cultural "program", which has so effectively supported the ego's motive to achieve a perfectly independent state of "self-sufficiency" that, as a result, the human collective has brought itself to the point of global destruction and universal despair.

I have Shown every one the Way out of that.

I have Shown every one, again, "Where" the Divine Is.

Anyone who seriously studies My Teaching-Word will see the Virtue in It and the Truth of the Adidam Revelation.

I have been Unconventional in My Doings.

It was necessary for Me to Function Freely and Unconventionally in order to Do My Teaching-Work.

Therefore, I Did So. All I have Done has been with the Right Heart toward all.

Adidam is not a conventional religion, not a conventional way of life.

Adidam is about the transcending of the ego-"I" and the Freedom of Divine Self-Realization.

Adidam is not based on mythology or belief.

Adidam is a "reality" practice.

Adidam is a "reality consideration" in which the various modes of egoity are progressively transcended.

Adidam is a universally applicable Way of life.

Adidam is for those who will choose it, and whose hearts and intelligence fully respond to Me and My Offering.

Adidam is a Great Revelation, and It is to be freely and openly communicated to all.

In this "late-time" (or "dark" epoch), the rug has been pulled out from under the feet of traditional religion.

Anyone who seriously "considers" the modern Western intellectual and philosophical critique of conventional religion discovers that there simply is no basis in reality for conventional religious presumptions and ideas.

For all who have despaired at the emptiness of conventional religion, I have Revealed the Truth again.

And those who have not thus despaired (but who are content with conventional religion) should display the right moral disposition of cooperation and tolerance toward all who are not satisfied with the conventional answers.

I Call anyone who is attracted to Me to exercise his or her free intelligence and true discrimination and true heart-choice (founded in real self-understanding)—and, on that basis, to become profoundly moved to Me and heart-committed to the practice of Adidam.

Such free intelligence and true discrimination and real selfunderstanding are the real virtues of My true devotees.

And the exercise of those real virtues is what the Way of Adidam is about—not conventional piety, or moralistic self-righteousness, or puritanical idealism.

I was Born in the West, and I had to Make My Avataric Self-Submission in the midst of that circumstance.

I did not carry a tradition with Me.

I Woke in the midst of nothing.

Therefore, I am not a traditional figure—whether of the East or of the West.

I am not an example of the Great Tradition.

I have Completed and Transcended the Great Tradition.

Everything I Teach is something I have lived—everything I Teach about the Great Tradition, and everything I Teach about life altogether.

I did not get anything from books.

I got it from no one.

I Did it all, I "Ate" it all, and I Transcended it all.

That is how the Great Way of Adidam came into being.

My Avataric Divine Work of Self-Submission is not a development of any Hindu or Buddhist or other Oriental tradition (or combination of traditions)—not even a development of the "Crazy Wisdom" tradition, or of the "Atiashrami" tradition, or of the "Avadhoot" tradition.

People can be helped to understand something about Me by studying such traditions.

Indeed, in any authentic religious or Spiritual tradition there are elements to be studied which can help people to come to a fuller understanding of Me.

However, no such tradition (or combination of traditions) defines (or fully describes) Me or the Nature and Significance of My Work in this world.

I do not "belong to" the Alpha culture, on the left-hand side— just as I do not "belong to" the Omega culture, on the right-hand side.

I do not belong to any "side" at all.

I Am the Whole here.

I Transcend all, in this Alpha-Omega world.

All conflict comes to an end in Me.

All limitations—whether of the East or of the West—are gone beyond in Me.

All "differences" between East and West are resolved in Me.

There is no precedent for What I have Done.

The Adidam Revelation is a Unique Transcending of all elements, East and West, in the entire Great Tradition of humankind.

I have no "tribe".

I have no traditional allegiances.

I have no ax to grind, of any traditional or conventional kind. Mine is a Free and Spontaneous Self-Revelation.

I am not here to be the center of a cult.

I Am here for the Sake of Free life.

I Am humankind.

Therefore, those who love Me love the Truth That is in humankind, and That Is Reality Itself.

I am not here to be a conventional religious authority.

I Am an egoless, Un-armored Presence here.

I Am the Self-Evidently Divine Person in the midst of humankind.

I am not an "other".

I Am the egoless Divine Self of all.

I Am the Conscious Light of Reality Itself—All-and-all-Surrounding, and All-and-all-Pervading, and Standing Free As the Heart of Being.

For those who would embrace a religious life based on heartbreaking Freedom—I Am here.

I Am Unique in the world.

Let every one come and bathe in My Light.

RETURN TO "THE WAY THAT I TEACH"