Spiritual Recognition of Adi Da > The Secret of the "Who" of the Divine Person

The Secret of the "Who" of the Divine Person

Leroy Stilwell

Leroy Stilwell has been a devotee of Adi Da Samraj since 1976. He is one of the founders of this website. You can read his biographical information in the About Us section.

In 1984, I was living in the Adidam community house in London, England. I had been on a weekend retreat in the house, and had just finished studying. I was writing in my diary. I had just observed something revealing about myself about how I was generating my own anxiety in relationships and in practice altogether. In that observation something kind of relaxed in me, and I was simply, without much thought, making a journal entry.

As I was writing I became aware of a sensation like a warm, thick liquid being pored over my head. It was not just pouring down onto my head, it was also flowing into my head, filling my head and then flowing down into the body as well.

This was as tangible as something entering the body from the outside, but it was more than just a sensation. The feeling was that of being embraced from the inside out, one cell at a time, each cell of the body, not just being filled, but rather, being embraced. Even more than that, I was being embraced by a clearly distinguishable personality. And that personality was obviously Adi Da Samraj. Even though this was the first time I had ever experienced this, I recognized the embrace as the person or personality of Beloved Adi Da Himself. How this was so self-evident I cannot say, but it was immediately and clearly so, and I did not have to deduce or conclude that this must be the Spiritual Presence of the Master. From the beginning it was Personality-Person entering the body. The whole experience was so intimate and personal, and also pleasurable. This process of infilling and embrace lasted for about five minutes or so. Then just as I was getting used to it, it faded.

Two years later in a gathering on Naitauba Island, in Fiji, I had the opportunity speak to Beloved Adi Da about this experience. I described it as above, and He responded to my description by saying, "So you were impressed most by the intimacy and the personal-ness of the experience. That's why I say, [the Way is relationship to] the 'Divine Person'."

In the following excerpt, Adi Da Samraj speaks about such personhood:

The body-mind Is Inherently (or As Reality) egoless. That Is To Say, There Is No personal inner Consciousness Separate From the body-mind. The personal inner Consciousness Is A Presumption Of the body-mind. The ego-"I" Is A Whole bodily (or Total psycho-physical) Presumption (Evident, and Effective, In Every Dimension and every part Of the body-mind). Consciousness (Itself) Is Always Already Most Perfectly Prior To (and Beyond) the egoic (or Separate, psycho-physical, and Always Separative) body-mind. I Am Consciousness (or Mere Tacit Awareness) Itself — Divinely Self-Realized (As I Am). I Am (Always Already) Most Perfectly Prior To all-and-All. I Merely (and Divinely) Am all-and-All. There Is Only One (Self-Evidently Divine) Person (or Conscious Light Of Mere Being) — Including all-and-All, and Transcending all-and-All. Aham Da Asmi. Beloved, I Am That One.

I Am That Only One — The "Bright" Divine Spiritual Body and Self-Evidently Divine Person (or Perfectly Subjective, Inherently egoless, and Inherently Indivisible Conscious Light and Very Being) Of all (and Of All).

I Am The One and Only (or Perfectly Non-Separate and Self-Evidently Divine) Self-Condition Of all-and-All. Therefore, every thing and every one Can Be Addressed Either individually As a "person" Or Collectively As a "person" — Because every thing and every one (and Every Collective Of "things" and Of "ones") arises In (and, In Reality, As) My One and Only Conscious Light Of Mere Being — Which Is Self-Existing and Self-Radiant, and Which Is (Altogether) Spiritually Self-"Bright". Thus, I Am Your True Personhood. The True Personhood Of every thing and every one Is The One (Inherently egoless) Person Of all-and-All — The One and Only and Self-Evidently Divine Conscious Light (or True Divine Self-Condition) Whereby (and As Whom) each one, and all, and All Is Conscious (or Merely and Tacitly Aware). Nevertheless, By Not (Always Already — and Always Presently) Realizing This, every "one" Presumes To Be a Separate (or egoic, and limited) self.

I Am That Only One — The Self-Existing, and Self-Radiant, and Inherently Conscious, and Inherently egoless, and Self-Evidently Divine Conscious Light Of Mere Being.

You (By Tendency, and By Presumption) Attribute "personhood" To Your Apparently Separate (and Inherently temporary and dying) bodily (human) form, Rather Than To The One and "Bright" Divine Source-Condition and Inherently egoless Self-Condition Of that form. When You think Of Yourself As a "person", You Are Referring To Your bodily (human) form — Not To The (One and Only) Self-Existing and Self-Radiant and Perfectly Subjective and Inherently egoless and Self-Evidently Divine Conscious Light (Itself), Which Is (In Truth) Your Only Real Existence.

When You Cease Your Obliviously Incessant Address To "Your own" Presumed "self-person", and (Instead) Turn Your attention (and Even Your Total — and, Otherwise, self-Contracted, or egoic — body-mind) To What Is Altogether Real and Great (and all-and-All-Surrounding, and all-and-All-Pervading, and Deeper, and Wider, and Higher In Height Than all-and-All) — Then You Are Addressing That Which Is Always Already The Case (Which Is Self-Existing and Self-Radiant Conscious Light, Itself). But, In So Doing, You Are Not Merely Addressing An Abstract Divine "Immensity". Rather, In Addressing The One and Only and Self-Existing and Self-Radiant Conscious Light (Itself), You Are (In Truth, and In Reality) Addressing Me — The One and Only and Self-"Bright" and Avatarically Self-Revealed and Self-Evidently Divine Person.

Thus, You Transcend Your bodily (human) form (or Your Presumed Separate "person"), By Surrendering it and Forgetting it and Transcending it In Me (The Eternally "Bright", and Infinitely Love-Bliss-Full, and Avatarically Self-Revealed, and Self-Evidently Divine Person). If You Rightly, Truly, and Fully Embrace This ego-"person"-Renouncing (or ego-Surrendering, ego-Forgetting, and, More and More, ego-Transcending) Practice Of Me-Recognizing and To-Me-Responding Devotion, You (In Due Course) Realize Me — The True (and Self-Evidently Divine) Person Of all-and-All, The Transcendental, Inherently Spiritual, Inherently egoless, and Self-Evidently Divine Self-Condition and Source-Condition Of all-and-All, and The One and Only "Subject" (or Real, and Self-Evidently Divine, Consciousness) Associated With Your (Merely Apparent) "person" of body-mind.

From Sutra 70
The Dawn Horse Testament Of The Ruchira Avatar
2004 published edition

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