FAQs about Adi Da & Adidam > Adi Da's Teaching Over Time > Words in Context

Dimension 5:
Temporary (or Partial) Viewpoint vs.
Conclusive "Summary Statement"

A lot of Adi Da's talks were given in the context of a longterm (even decades-long) consideration by Adi Da about the exact form some aspect of the practice should take. This is especially the case in the practical areas of money, food, and sex, where we can read talks that represent or put forward specific viewpoints or practices in these areas, which were adopted for a limited period of time, experimentation, and consideration, but then were sometimes dropped (or more carefully qualified), in the long run. For this reason, Adi Da has stressed that readers should be directed to the Source Texts that contained His summary of, and final conclusions about, such longterm experiments, rather than getting confused by talks that He gave in the midst of such considerations, which might only communicate a partial or temporary viewpoint.

As I wrote earlier, everything Adi Da did at all points in His decades-long work with His devotees held sacred import, and is worthy of our respect and our recording for posterity. So even though the summaries of these long periods of experimentation are the "crown jewels", the particular experiments along the way — what was of value, and what wasn't — have a value in themselves. . . . not least of which is: "Thinking of trying this? Adi Da already did try it with His devotees, and here's why it didn't work out the way you might think or hope it would."

And that is one of the main values of this Community. It represents in living terms, since you have passed through all this stuff yourselves, that real argument in the world against the whole search for experience, even spiritual experience. Because of your own certainty, you represent an argument for the sufficiency of the perfect, absolute Divine Siddhi, that is not itself experiential or yogic in nature. It is not even mystical in nature. But it is perfect nonetheless, and more than sufficient. It is real, absolute. Those who engage in such sadhana do not require the experiential dimension to be communicated in yogic or mystical-visionary ways. Avatar Adi Da Samraj Chapter 14, Garbage and the Goddess

Language as a puja article: Adi Da's special use of language to magnify emotional investment during considerations. One of the things devotees who have engaged in many considerations with Adi Da over the years discover is that He likes to use superlatives in the "heat" of a consideration of a particular topic. So if the consideration is about celibacy (for example), He might give a talk about celibacy being the secret of spiritual growth. Or if, conversely, the consideration is about intimacy in human relationships, He might give a talk about how being "in love" is the greatest of all samadhis short of the great Spiritual and Transcendental Samadhis of the advanced stages of the Way of Adidam. The use of such heightened language was one of the ways Adi Da took the consideration beyond the merely intellectual, becoming the completely invested Pujarist (or "Priest") of the consideration, using language as a "puja article" to heighten the emotional investment (His own, and that of all participants) in the topic under consideration. He would also use actual experience, not just words, asking devotees to actually engage in an alternative lifestyle being considered and report their findings to everyone. (For example, He wouldn't just talk with devotees about a new diet; they would experiment with that new diet themselves.) And He would sometimes use greater-than-material Forces in synchrony with the consideration. For instance, when I was on Naitauba during a period when He was engaging all of us there in an emotional-sexual consideration, it was the common experience of all of us there that there was "something in the air" which was greatly magnifying our emotional rawness and our sexual desire. For example, I would have to hold myself back from approaching one female devotee I found attractive, so great was the urge to have sex with her. (There's a little of that sometimes in ordinary life, of course, but what I'm describing was extreme! [1]) The net effect of the Divinely charged language and the Divinely charged "atmosphere" was a very real and full consideration.

Understanding this amazing "puja" that Adi Da performed when engaging in considerations with devotees leads one to be cautious about mis-interpreting the "superlatives" His speech might contain during a consideration, by taking them out of context. So for example, if I were a newcomer to Adi Da's Teaching who ran across a talk entitled "Celibacy is the Great Secret" (that came out of the middle of a celibacy consideration), I might incorrectly infer that Adi Da was recommending that everyone become celibate. Just so, as such a newcomer, if I ran across a talk (from a consideration about human intimacy) about how being "in love" was a great samadhi and Realization, I might incorrectly conclude that Adi Da was recommending that everyone be in an intimate relationship. Both of these were partial viewpoints — perfectly appropriate as "puja articles" for their respective considerations, but not appropriate as summary statements of Adi Da's Teaching. Instead, Adi Da has always emphasized — as His actual summary Teaching (that consequently appears in His Source Texts) — that to be focused on the "sex question" (whether to be in an intimacy or to be a celibate) was to be missing the point.

So a key point in understanding Adi Da's words in context is to be aware that He uses superlatives as "puja articles" during considerations, to interpret them accordingly, and to only treat communications made in His Source Texts as His final, conclusive Word on any given subject. [2]