FAQs about Adi Da & Adidam > Taking Up the Way of Adidam > Disciplines & Artfulness

1. Life Changes Can Help Open One to the Divine Gift of
Recognition of Adi Da as the Divine Person


This is Part 1 of Chris Tong's eight-part article, The Necessary Artfulness in Taking Up Disciplines in the Way of Adidam.

Like all milestones in the Way of Adidam, the first milestone, and prerequisite for becoming a devotee — recognition of Adi Da as the Divine Person — is what Adi Da calls "Acausal": it is not something we can "cause" or make happen . . . it is a Gift from the Divine, in other words.

Why are we not directly aware of God right in this very moment? Even when exposed to Adi Da's Grace (through the stories on this site, reading His Teaching, watching videos of Him, etc.)? Adi Da has made it clear that it is always because of something we are doing to obstruct that "vision of God". So it makes sense that changing our act is an essential preparation for receiving this Gift of direct awareness of the Divine:


At the same time you are in My Company you are separated from My Company, you are dramatizing the act of self-contraction right now! Therefore, merely to be in My Company is not enough. How often has it been regretfully said in the traditions that even though people were given access to [Spiritual] Realizers of one degree or another, allowed to be in the Company of the Realizers, [Who were] serving them all the time, most of these people got nothing — or very little. Why is it so, then? Since My Radiant Presence Is sufficient, and since all you have to do is come into It, why do you not feel altogether good? Why are you not sublimed to the Perfect Degree right now?

Of course, such sudden Realization is eminently possible, but the reason it is not happening is that you are engaged in a particular act right now, here in My Company, as you are at all other times. You are enforcing that action constantly and making a life out of it. Therefore, you are doing it right now, and you are also feeling it and all its results and all its impositions on you.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj


Changes in one's life that free up attention and energy from the places they usually are bound certainly can help open one to that Gift, and increase one's chances of receiving it (and increase the chances that that reception will be sooner rather than later).

For example, a change of diet — a vegetarian diet, or even a raw diet (the diet recommended by Adi Da, if taken up wisely and with proper medical precautions [1]) — certainly can help free up energy and attention, which, if bound (rather than free), prevents the reception of Adi Da's Transmission (and thus the Gift of recognition). Our conventional diet tends to bind our energy (for hours or days at a time), forcing it to deal with the digestion and assimilation of dead and difficult-to-assimilate foods, short-term bodily imbalances, and long-term health issues. The conventional diet binds our attention to the bodily discomfort of that indigestion and bodily imbalance. And the body chemistry produced by junk foods tends to spill over into, and influence the rest of one's life (and in that sense, "you are what you eat"), locking one into addictive patterns of seeking oriented around stimulation.


Adi Da SamrajYou will perhaps be bored with this vegetarian diet, which, when compared to the great cuisines of the Chinese and the French, is extremely boring. But after a while you also begin to realize that there is nothing written that food must be interesting. No great revelations have pointed out that food, or anything else for that matter, must be interesting or distracting to the point that you feel the illusion of ecstasy. Even a fine meal with fine wine and traditional accessories is not God-Realization. How good does it feel? It feels good for only a few minutes. The hours and days that follow are filled with physical discomfort and aberrated energy and inclinations.[2] But as you persist in the discipline, eventually the natural pleasurableness of the diet appears, and the desires that previously motivated you in your eating and drinking weaken. The chemistry of the body changes, the blood chemistry changes, the cellular life is transformed, and the purifying phase begins to come to an end. Then you begin to observe the regenerative power of this way of diet, and you start to feel good. Thus, it no longer matters whether the diet is interesting or not. It is the same with this practice altogether. There is simply a right way to live.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, The Fire Must Have Its Way


In parts 2 through 7 of this article, we will discuss the issues involved for devotees taking up and adapting to disciplines. Then in part 8, we will return to the question of prospective devotees taking up and adapting to disciplines, to serve their reception of Adi Da's Revelation.

 
[1] Nothing in this article, or on this site, is intended as a diagnosis, prescription, or recommended treatment or cure for any specific "problem", whether medical, emotional, psychological, social, or Spiritual. One should apply a particular program of treatment, prevention, cure, or general health only in consultation with a licensed physician or another qualified professional.
 
[2] Avatar Adi Da Samraj has identified imbalanced diet as the source for many cravings and impulses — sexual, emotional and otherwise — that we wouldn’t necessarily even think to attribute to diet.

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