Practical Lessons in
The Way of Adidam

Both individually and collectively, Adi Da's devotees have learned many lessons about how to practice the Way of Adidam in a fruitful manner. This section contains stories of devotees living various aspects of the practice. These experiential stories complement the instructions and descriptions in the Source Texts and practical texts, helping to bring Avatar Adi Da's words to life, and illustrating (sometimes unexpected) issues that may come up in the actual living of the practice.

We have only just opened this new section; over time, we will be adding many more stories and lessons from devotees.

1. Lessons about the Core Practice
   1. Devotional Recognition of Adi Da
   2. Positive Disillusionment
2. Lessons about Egoic Patterning
   1. Oedipal / Emotional-Sexual Patterning
   2. Character Type: Solid, Peculiar, Vital
   3. Rudi's Trifecta: Self-Pity, Negativity, and Self-Imagery
3. Lessons about the Functional, Practical, and Relational Disciplines
   1. Diet
4. Lessons about the Cultural Practices
   1. Devotional Chanting
   2. Visiting and Making Right Use of the Adidam Empowered Sanctuaries, Holy Sites, and Communion Halls
   3. The Devotional Prayer of Changes
   4. Practice Consideration Groups
      

1. Lessons About the Core Practice

Primary cultural resources on devotional recognition of Adi Da include the books, Recognition Of Me Is Liberation and Right Life Is Free Participation In Unlimited Radiance (particularly "Part Two: Right-Life Practice Is An Unfolding of Devotional Recognition-Response To Me"). Another useful resource is our article, The Significance of Recognition in the Way of Adidam.

		The Graceful Key to Recognition of Adi Da — Michael Shaw tells the story of moving beyond the mind and the search to "get it". From the consideration period known as "The Overnight Revelation of Conscious Light."

Positive disillusionment. A secondary dimension of the core practice is positive disillusionment. It is one of the key prerequisites for actually advancing in the practice of the Way of Adidam.

Because all of us have engaged in illusions about the nature of happiness for lifetimes, it can take us quite a few years (or even lifetimes) to go through the "positive disillusionment" process. While conventionally, the word, "disillusionment", has a mixed connotation (e.g., "older but wiser"), Adi Da refers to the process associated with Him as "positive" because the disillusionment frees up one's life and destiny for a Greater Alternative.

A primary cultural resource on positive disillusionment is Adi Da's essay, "Perfect Dis-Illusionment", in Part 8 of The Aletheon. You can also watch this video.

Until one has successfully completed the "positive disillusionment" consideration, one tends to be "double-minded": having one foot in the "self-fulfillment" camp, and one foot in the "self-transcendence" camp, with the bigger foot in self-fulfillment, compromising one's practice of the Way of Adidam. With positive disillusionment, the "self-fulfillment" alternative collapses, double-mindedness disappears, and both one's feet are now solidly in the "self-transcendence" camp.

There are many dimensions to the "positive disillusionment" consideration, including:

		Lived By The Divine — Roger Briggs tells the story of a profound ordeal he went through, and the growth in practice required to come out the other end of that ordeal.

2. Lessons About Egoic Patterning

The entire Way of Adidam is about ego-transcendence: transcendence of egoic patterning. However, Adi Da has singled out certain certain key forms of egoic patterning worthy of special attention. These include: oedipal patterning; character type (solid, peculiar, vital); and self-pity, negativity, and self-imagery.

Oedipal / emotional-sexual patterning. Early in the twentieth century, Freud observed that emotional-sexual conflicts originate in the “oedipal” dynamic between children and their parents. He saw that one's sexual impulses, which are present even in early childhood (especially in relation to one's parents), are at the root of various emotional patterns and psychological problems. There can be no basic emotional ease or equanimity in human life until individuals achieve at least a personal resolution to this conflict, and mastery of their oedipal patterning. Adi Da has observed that such self-understanding is an essential part of the foundation of human maturation upon which genuine spiritual growth must be based:

Adi Da also pointed out that the Guru-devotee relationship itself tends to be impacted by the devotee's oedipal patterning. Women devotees tended to approach Adi Da (and, indeed, all men) as "daddy" or "lover", often rejecting and betraying others, including their intimates, for access to Him. Meanwhile, men tended to approach Adi Da (and all male "others") — not only as "daddy", but as "rival" and "opponent" — competing (in the case of Adi Da) for victory over Him in all the games of life. So understanding and transcending one's oedipal patterning is essential to growth in the relationship with Adi Da Samraj, and the Spiritual Realization associated with that growth.

Primary cultural resources on oedipal patterning are the books, Always Enact Fidelity To Me and The Complete Yoga of Human Emotional-Sexual Life.

		An Early Oedipal Consideration — Aniello Panico tells the story of how Adi Da led Aniello through a consideration of his oedipal patterning — specifically, his relationship with his father. He describes the present-time understanding of (and even release from) patterning that can occur when the oedipal consideration is done properly.
		The Call To Be Love (And To Live As Love In All Relations) — Michael Costabile's article about the ordeal necessary to earn emotional-sexual self-understanding. Includes stories from Frank Marrero (about knowing how to have sex, but not how to love), Katsu (about having a body-negative, sex-negative, fearful, and self-suppressed point of view), and Eileen McCarthy (how, as an emotional-sexual being, she was self-suppressed and hidden), where each devotee describes how Adi Da gifted them with self-understanding in these areas.
		The Bright Master of Peace — Alaya Gernon tells of travelling to and attending a retreat at The Mountain Of Attention, and the many Graceful Revelations given to her by Adi Da along the way. In particular, she was gifted with an understanding about her oedipal conflict with her father (originating in an abusive childhood) that was getting in the way of allowing Adi Da to be her Guru and Master her.

Character type: solid, peculiar, vital. Avatar Adi Da has observed that everyone is crippled in the dimension of feeling. And He went on to point out that there are three characteristic ways whereby human beings strategically fail to feel (or actively avoid relationship) by resorting instead to the exaggerations of either the gross physical, the emotional, or the mental possibilities that the body-mind affords. Adi Da Samraj calls these strategies, respectively, "vital", "peculiar", and "solid". Studying these character strategies and discovering ourselves in them is a key part of the process of self-understanding as well as a compassionate understanding of others in the Way of Adidam.

The vital person is obsessed with submission to the energy, or vital force, of bodily life. The vital person exploits or yields to the physically oriented power and desires of the vital being, the navel. When his or her “moon” is full, the vital person may be hyperactive, gleeful, negative, violent, self-conscious, obsessed, and self -indulgent relative to food, sex, and casual speech. He or she communicates these qualities with force, from the navel. There is no true humor in the vital person—only irony or hysteria or vulgar enthusiasm. The vital person becomes completely absorbed in the aspect of his or her vital life that happens to be presently in phase. As his or her moon phases, the vital person may even take on apparent qualities of solidity and peculiarity, but they are only a play in him or her that further demonstrates the underlying power of his or her fixed vital strategy.

The peculiar person is one whose principal focus of attention and dramatization is the emotional-sexual being. Such a one tends to physical weakness, alienation from gross functions and requirements of life, and sympathy with egoic satisfactions in emotional and even psychic forms. The peculiar person may reflect the apparently “higher” and aesthetic range of emotional life, and he or she may exhibit interests and tendencies in myst ical and Yogic developments of experience. The peculiar person is, thus, in his or her negative reaction to the gros s physical, tending to project himself or herself into the more ascended or ascending ranges of experience, which move toward or are epitomized in psychic and psychological dimensions of a subtle, subconscious, or dreamlike variety.

The solid person is one in whom the verbal-mental, or willful and conceptual, functions are the focus of life and attention. Thus, the solid person stands on or chronically controls the emotional, sexual, energetic, and gross physical dimensions of his or her being with complex mental structures that rigidify his or her psyche. Such a one chronically assumes the position of the verbal mind in the midst of the descending and ascending pattern of life. He or she is usually willful, and through force subdues and controls the pervasive influence of emotion, sex, and physical experience. The solid person phases from absolute rigidity (unreceptive and uncreative) to varying degrees of emotional and physical sympathy. He or she feels excessively vulnerable to emotions and threatened by all demands on his or her feeling and psychic being, including pain, pleasure, and mortality, a nd so the solid person generally tends toward a rigid, verbal-mental, and self-conscious pattern of self-presentation. The solid person’s principal reaction is to the energetic, psychic, and emotional-sexual dimension of his or her being. The solid person tends to be constitutionally stronger in the physical than the peculiar person, but he or she also tends to be neglectful of the physical.

The three character types are not mutually exclusive. A given person's character type might be best explained by one, two, or all three of these strategies.

Primary cultural resources on character type are the book, The Eating Gorilla Comes in Peace (particularly Chapter 5: The Imbalancing Act) and The Dawn Horse Testament.

		"Try the Suppository" — Much of the Work Adi Da does with His devotees involves their emotional character alone (without involving their sexuality). Da-vid Forysthe's story is a beautiful illustration of how Adi Da works with some common male character liabilities — a particular form of the "solid" character type — that negatively impact Spiritual growth.

Rudi's trifecta: self-pity, negativity, and self-imagery. When Adi Da was a student of Swami Rudrananda ("Rudi"), He said Rudi used to repeatedly stress the profoundly negative impact of self-pity on spiritual practice:

		"No Pity For Him!" — Chris Tong describes how, one night in December, 1992, Adi Da Gracefully and permanently relieved him of all self-pity. Chris talks about the lessons learned from this miraculous, karma-dissolving Gift. In particular, it allowed him to see that our modern Western culture is largely a culture of weakness, which tends to undermine the strength each of us must cultivate, in order to fully engage the practice of the Way of Adidam.

3. Lessons About the Functional, Practical, and Relational Disciplines

These disciplines include: diet; health and radical healing; conscious exercise; sexuality; money and service; and cooperative community.

The primary cultural resource on the functional, practical, and relational disciplines is the book, Right Life Is Free Participation In Unlimited Radiance (particularly "Part Five: The Functional, Practical, Relational, and Cultural Disciplines of The Reality-Way of Adidam").

Diet. Diet is of fundamental importance to practice of the Way of Adidam. Our diet has a profound effect on our overall health, level of energy, general state of well-being, and free attention. Avatar Adi Da has frequently remarked that a good deal of what is troubling individuals — including in the emotional dimension — could be corrected simply by a change in eating habits. Previous to His Divine Re-Awakening, Avatar Adi Da Himself experimented with diet and read many books on the subject, with the intention of discovering the most supportive dietary regime for spiritual practice. During the years of His Teaching Work, He developed this Consideration to its conclusion.

The primary cultural resources for diet in the Way of Adidam are Green Gorilla and Right Life Is Free Participation In Unlimited Radiance (particularly the section of "Part Five: The Functional, Practical, Relational, and Cultural Disciplines of The Reality-Way of Adidam" on diet).

		A Fasting Success Story — Interrupting the daily dietary regimen with an extended fast is a part of the dietary practice of Adidam. Frank Marrero recently completed an eleven-day fast. He felt it was so successful in terms of balance, energy, cleansing, and ease, that he wanted to share the details. As Frank puts it: "Being a regular faster for 43 years, the nuances here are long-considered and hard-won, and perhaps useful to others (personalized though they may be)."

4. Lessons About the Cultural Practices

The cultural practices in the Way of Adidam include: Darshan; meditation; Name invocation; puja; devotional chanting; the Sacrament of Universal Sacrifice; studying and listening to Adi Da's Word; Beholding Adi Da's Image-Art; telling leelas about Adi Da; visiting and making right use of the Adidam Empowered Sanctuaries, Holy Sites, and Communion Halls; the Devotional Prayer of Changes; the culture of inspiration and expectation; and practice consideration groups.

A primary cultural resource on cultural practices in Adidam is the book, The Sacred Space Of Finding Me.

Devotional chanting. The practice of devotional chanting to Avatar Adi Da is a powerful means for serving the connection with Him and the magnification of devotion to Him. Like all the other forms of whole bodily engaged devotional activity, chanting serves the purpose of turning all the faculties of the body-mind (attention, feeling, body, and breath) to Adi Da Samraj, in a single heart-based gesture of devotional response.

		Devotional Singing: "The Focus Is On The Divine" — Antonina Randazzo describes how Adi Da taught her the sacred art of devotional singing.

		Visiting the Empowered Sanctuaries — I'm not a devotee, but I'm very interested in Adi Da and the Way of Adidam. Can I visit any of the Empowered Sanctuaries?
		Ripples in the Deep of Feeling — Bill Somers: "Sitting in the Silver Hall is the most extraordinary circumstance I have experienced in this life. To be with Avatar Adi Da in that concentrated pure place is to leave the world and be immersed in His Divine Transcendental Spiritual Presence." . .

The Devotional Prayer of Changes. The Devotional Prayer of Changes is a practice given by Adi Da Samraj of prayerful Communion with Him for the sake of positive change in life-circumstances and the world.

Adi Da contrasts the Devotional Prayer of Changes — which is based on present-time Communion with the Divine (and the Virtue that flows from that) with conventional prayer — which is based on separation from the Divine and the presumption that the Divine is a Great Other whom one can approach like a parent for favors and blessings.

The stories below are about a particular form of the Devotional Prayer of Changes: the Adidam Prosperity Puja. "Puja" means sacramental worship and invocation of the Divine in a bodily active manner (in contrast with, say, meditation). In an Adidam Prosperity Puja, participating devotees engage in a powerful, collective form of the Devotional Prayer of Changes and sacramental worship of Adi Da. It is a time when the participants invoke Adi Da's Divine, All-Accomplishing Power and specifically visualize abundance and growth and relinquish all presumed limitations to prosperity.

		Handled! — For one devotee from New Zealand, overcoming her own resistance to participating in the Prosperity Puja led to the Graceful overcoming of seemingly insurmountable obstacles, and the fulfillment of her heart's desire to be with Adi Da at The Mountain Of Attention.
		The Transformation of My Relationship to Money and Energy — A devotee describes her participation in the very first Prosperity Puja at The Mountain Of Attention in 1979, and how it completely transformed her.
		Showered with Challenging Blessings — Participating in a Prosperity Puja always links the devotee with Adi Da's Divine Blessing Power. At times, that Blessing can take challenging forms, and in this story, an Australian devotee describes how she learned to cooperate with the labor pains associated with a spiritual rebirth in her relationship to money and business.
		Within 30 Days. . . — After being downsized out of a job the previous year, a devotee participated in her first Prosperity Puja. Within 30 days, her life was completely different.
		From "Dead-In-The-Water" to Alive, By Grace — Charles Syrett tells the story of how his invoking Adi Da's Grace through the Devotional Prayer of Changes and participating in a Prosperity Puja resurrected a 'dead-in-the-water' business opportunity, the very morning after the Prosperity Puja took place.

Practice consideration groups. (Aka devotional groups.) Practitioners of the Way of Adidam are aided in their practice by belonging to a practice consideration group. A practice consideration group is a key element of the culture of Adidam. Its primary purposes are to provide occasions for collective devotional invocation of Adi Da, and to help each other grow in ego-transcending practice. Through time and intimacy, members of a practice consideration group get to know each other well, and therefore, get to know each other's egoic patterning as well. Group members are thus in a unique position to serve each other's practice, by seeing things a particular member might not see about himself or herself, by helping members take on disciplines that cut into their particular egoic patterns, and by helping members stay accountable for fulfilling and persisting in the counter-egoic disciplines they take on. Such reflection and disciplining of egoic patterning is essential for growth in practice of the ego-transcending Way of Adidam.

A primary cultural resource on practice consideration groups is Adi Da's talk, "When the Tiger Disappears".

		The Artfulness of Helping Others Take Up (and Persist in) Disciplines — Chris Tong: When one becomes a devotee, one is, in effect, also "hiring" Adi Da to provide the Revelation, Blessing-Force, and wisdom for how and what to practice, in order to Realize the Divine; and "hiring" the culture of devotees to help one practice. At its best, the culture of devotees can be an enormous help in one's practice, and what Adi Da would call "good company". At its worst (through ignorance or immaturity), one's fellow devotees can be "bad company", and actually impede one's growth in practice. While we could write an entire book about the art involved in being a cultural server of one kind or another, we will just mention a few points here, in passing, to give you a sense for the issues involved.