Introduction
> The Seven Stages of Life
The Seven Stages of Life
edited by Chris
Tong, Ph.D.
Sections
in this article:
- Introduction
- Stage one: individuation
- Stage two: socialization
- Stage three: integration
- Relational maturity and the first three stages of life
- Dysfunction in the first
three stages of life and how to outgrow it
- The first three stages of
life are the necessary foundation for the later stages
of life
- Stage four: spiritualization
- The fourth stage of life and the Way of Adidam
- Stage five: higher spiritual evolution
- The fifth stage of life and the Way of Adidam
- Stage six: awakening to the Transcendental Self
- The sixth stage of life and the Way of Adidam
- Stage seven: Divine Enlightenment
- A new Possibility for
humankind
- The Way of Adidam is
a seventh stage Way from the beginning
- Related resources
1.
Introduction
What is the total process of human growth? What
is the fullest extent of our potential? Avatar Adi Da Samraj
offers a framework of seven stages of life, which
represents His Wisdom on the entire spectrum of human possibility.
He has systematically described not only our physical, emotional,
and mental development, but also all the phases of Spiritual,
Transcendental, and Divine unfolding that are potential
for us, once we mature in ordinary, human terms. This unique
schema, which proceeds from more familiar stages of human
development to the ultimate phases of Divine Enlightenment
(most likely over the course of multiple lifetimes), is
a central reference point in Adi Da's Wisdom-Teaching. It
is an invaluable tool for understanding how we develop as
individuals, and also for understanding how the Teachings
and practices proposed by the various schools of religion
and spirituality fit into the entirety of human potential.
The first three stages of life are the stages of ordinary
human growth from birth to adulthood. They are the stages
of physical, emotional, and mental development. Ideally,
they would occur in three periods of approximately seven
years each (until approximately twenty-one years of age).
But this ideal seldom occurs.
Most individuals who reach adult age show some growth in
the first three stages of life. In most cases, though, that
growth is not complete — there is incomplete growth
in some or all of the first three stages. Some people are
what might be called "chronic first stagers", or "chronic
second stagers", because they remain centered in the first
(or second) stage of life even from one lifetime to the
next; their egoic patterning includes mechanisms that keep
them locked in that stage of life and resistant to further
growth (e.g., having a disposition of "first stage and proud
of it"; finding ways to surround oneself with people who
"enable" the continuation of one's immature patterns; etc.).
There is a time to be an infant, and a time to be
a child, but if we become neurotic as infants or as
children, then we become chronically dependent.
We express our self-contraction through fear, separation,
and the search for immunity or release.
Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "Spiritual Neuroses",
"I"
Is the Body of Life
|
2. Stage one: individuation
The first stage of life is the process of adapting to life
as a separate individual, no longer bound to the mother.
Most important for the first stage child is the process
of eating, and learning to accept sustenance from outside
the mother's body. In fact, this whole stage of life could
be described as an ordeal of weaning, or individuation.
Ideally, the first stage of life occurs and is fully completed
in the first seven or so years. This is a time of tremendous
physical growth as well as an enormous amount of learning;
one begins to manage bodily energies and begins to explore
the physical world. Acquiring basic motor skills is a key
aspect of the first stage of life: learning to hold a spoon
and eat with it, learning to walk and talk and be responsible
for excretion.
If the first stage of life unfolds as it
should, the separation from the mother completes itself
in basic terms. But there is a tendency in most human beings
to struggle with this original individuation, or to not
accept its necessity. The result of such resistance is that,
by the age of seven or so, we are left with a chronic (usually
lifelong) feeling of being separate from the source of life
and support. Note that this feeling of separation from the
food source is an overlay on top of (or extension of) the
original feeling and activity of separation that is the
ego itself: the self-contraction.
3. Stage two: socialization
Ideally, between the ages of five and eight years, we begin to become
aware of the emotional and relational dimensions
of existence; how we feel and how others respond to us emotionally
becomes of great importance. This is the beginning of the
second stage of life, the stage of social adaptation and
all that goes with it: a growing sense of sexual differentiation,
awareness of the effects of one's actions on others, a testing
of whether one is loved. These are all the natural follow-ons
to the individuation of the first stage of life.
Adi Da
points out that in the second stage of life, children naturally
develop their psychic capacity and their sensitivity to
etheric energy. For this reason, children should be encouraged
to feel that they are "more than they look like" — they
are not just their physical bodies — for the sake of their
future Spiritual growth. The second stage of life is the
primary stage of socialization, involving moral or right
relational development. The socialization to which we are
referring is based on feeling-sensitivity to the etheric
dimension and one's effect on all others, rather than conventional
socialization or worldliness.
The full process of growth
in the second stage of life is frustrated if we become locked
in patterns of feeling rejected by others and rejecting
and punishing others in return.
4. Stage three:
integration
Ideally, in the early to mid teens, the third stage of life establishes
itself. The key development of this stage is the maturation
of mental ability — the capacity to use mind and
speech in abstract, conceptual ways — together with the
power to use discrimination and to exercise the will. On
the bodily level, puberty is continuing (having begun during
the later years of the second stage of life) with all its
attendant bodily and emotional changes.
The purpose of the third stage of life is the integration
of the human character in body, emotion, and mind, so that
the emerging adult is a fully differentiated (autonomous),
sexual and social human character.
4.1. Relational maturity and the first three stages of life. The third stage of life includes not only integration of
the parts of the individual (body, mind, and emotions), but
also integration of the individual and the world: maturation in the relational sphere.
In the first stage
of life, one becomes aware of (and learns how to satisfy)
one's own needs. In the larger relational sphere, this enables one to become responsible for oneself, and not be a burden on society due to immaturity.
In the second stage of life, one becomes
sensitive to (and caring about) the needs of others. Through etheric sensitivity and interaction with others, one becomes aware of others as having as much apparent independent existence as oneself.
In
the third stage of life, one develops the conceptual, problem-solving
skills that allow one to come up with creative, intelligent
solutions for balancing one's own needs and the needs of
others.
This is the result of developing conceptual mind and discriminative intelligence. An entire suite of relational skills are developed in this stage: collaboration, coordination, negotiation and compromise, management of shared resources, constructive submission to authority, constructive criticism of authority, etc.
One of Adi Da's earliest communications was that egoity can be characterized as the avoidance of relationship. In the first three stages of life, one becomes progressively responsible for transcending the avoidance of relationship in its most obvious forms in the sphere of human relationships. Ultimately, in the seventh stage of life, one has transcended every form of avoidance of relationship, every separative act and form of self-contraction: "He becomes present as the Force of Reality Itself, unmoved, untouched, without trouble, already full, unqualified relationship itself." (Avatar Adi Da Samraj, 1971)
4.2. Dysfunction in the first
three stages of life and how to outgrow it. If the process
of growth in the first and second stages of life has proceeded
unhindered, then the integration of the third stage of life
can take place in a natural manner. If, however, there have
been failures of adaptation in the earlier stages — a chronic
feeling of being separate or unsustained, or chronic feelings
of being rejected or unloved, and consequent difficulties
in relating happily to others — then the process of integration
is disturbed. Unfortunately, this is the case for most individuals.
Thus, in most people, the process of the third stage of
life becomes an adolescent struggle between the conflicting
motives to be dependent on others and to be independent
of them. This adolescent drama tends to continue throughout
adult life. It is one of the signs that growth has stopped,
that the work of the first three stages of life was never
completed: the conflicted individual is not fully integrated.
This is the case with most of us.
Because the ideal of growing into a fully mature adult
in the third stage of life happens so infrequently (especially
in contemporary culture), most people are "adult" in age,
but not maturity. We can identify large numbers of people
who are "adult first stagers" and "adult second stagers".
For example, adult first stagers are narcissistic and pre-relational.
Many are capable of functioning in the world, and therefore
necessarily must develop ways of interacting with others,
but only as "objects"; they only take other people
into account to the degree that those others serve or threaten
their own needs.
In the context of reincarnation, someone who has matured
fully in the first three stages of life in the past lifetime
has a predisposition to do the same — to recapitulate
that development — in the next lifetime. In contrast,
a person can be a chronic first stager, stuck in
that phase of development lifetime after lifetime, and creating
environments and values (e.g., a fixation with and over-valuing
of self-reliance) in each life that serve to enable, reinforce,
and perpetuate their first-stage pattern.
So if one is stuck, how does one begin to grow again? One
certainly can find all kinds of conventional help — psychotherapeutic
help, conventionally religious help, conventional education,
etc. — for one's liabilities in individuation, socialization,
and mental development. But this help is not provided with
the "bigger picture" of the seven stages of life in mind.
These forms of help tend to turn development in the first
three stages of life into a lifelong (or even multi-lifetime)
effort, rather than merely the beginning of a life dedicated
to realizing one's fullest human potential.
The ideal way to begin to grow again is by participating
in a living culture of spiritual practitioners, that understands
and rightly nurtures each stage of development. This is
Adi Da's recommendation, and it is the circumstance He worked
to create for His devotees by establishing the Way of Adidam.
Anyone, at any age, who becomes a practitioner of Adidam
can begin the process of understanding and transcending
the limitations of his or her growth in the first three
stages of life and in all the stages of life that follow.
It is that last part — "all the stages of life that follow"
— that makes Adidam unique.
Adi Da has identified many key forms of egoic patterning,
from oedipal patterning to character type (solid, peculiar,
vital). These represent forms of dysfunction, relative to
right and full development in the first three stages of
life. As one grows in the first three stages of life, one
also masters these egoic patterns to a significant degree.
(The completion of that mastery occurs in the Way of Adidam
in the "seeing" stage of practice, where the Crashing Down
of Adi Da's Presence, "washes" the body-mind of its patterning.)
Conversely, if one is dramatizing solid, peculiar, or vital
character traits in an overt, dysfunctional manner, it reflects
lack of growth in the first three stages of life. Thus,
a "first-stage peculiar" is very different from a "third-stage peculiar" — the former has little mastery over
the "peculiar" pattern and dramatizes unconsciously and
overtly; in contrast, the "third stage peculiar" displays little
overt sign of the "peculiar" pattern in daily life, having much self-understanding of (and much practice in disciplining) that patterning.
4.3. The first three stages
of life are the necessary foundation for the later stages
of life. Adi Da refers to the first three stages of
life as the "foundation stages", because the ordeal of growth
into human maturity is mere preparation for something far
greater: Spiritual Awakening, and ultimately, Divine Enlightenment.
This greater process begins to flower in the fourth stage
of life on the basis of a profound conversion to love,
the natural human development after individuation, socialization,
and mental development. If, as often occurs in this or that
spiritual tradition, one tries to "skip ahead" to spiritual
development without first having fully established the human
foundation for it, one will tend to use the spiritual practices
as a means for dramatizing one's human shortcomings: yogis
who becomes good at escaping from this world into other
astral worlds because they are not capable of functioning
or relating to others in this one; "holy men" or "holy women"
who develop miraculous powers for the purpose of showing
off and getting attention or "love", to compensate for their
unconscious feeling of not being loved; shamans who use
their highly developed psychic and etheric capabilities
for "black magic"; and so forth.
The third stage of life is mature when the individual enjoys integrated responsibility for the whole of the living being (physical, emotional-sexual, and mental). Thus, he is in that case able to be present as a clear will and as love under all the otherwise frustrating or pleasurable conditions of lower experience. Those who seek to begin spiritual life must be mature in this sense in order to move on to higher maturity. Otherwise they will have no stability of will and love to keep them in the practice. Those who are constantly complaining and regressing in the practice of the Way are simply not yet mature in the ordinary human sense. They are weak of will (thus of mind) and of love (thus of life and body and feeling). Prepare yourself first. Approach Me when you are strong in the human way. And waste no time in that preparation. Otherwise you will only suffer a life and a future that are mediocre, foolish, frustrated, obsessed, and unawakened to Truth and Happiness.
Avatar Adi Da Samraj, The Enlightenment of the Whole Body
|
5.
Stage four: spiritualization
Even while still maturing in the first three stages of
life, many people devote themselves to religious practices,
submitting to an ordered life of discipline and devotion.
This is the beginning of establishing the disposition of
the fourth stage of life, but it is only the beginning.
The real leap involved in transitioning to the fourth stage
of life is one that very few ever make. It is the transition
we associate with saints: nothing less the breakthrough
to a Spiritually-illumined life of Divine contemplation
and selfless service. How does such a life become possible?
Only on the basis of a heart-awakening to the Divine that
is so profound that the common human goals — to be fulfilled
through bodily and mental pleasures — lose their force.
For this reason, Adi Da strongly recommends that young
practitioners in the Way of Adidam do not engage in sexual
activity until their growth in the first three stages of
life is sufficient to enable them to make the transition
to the fourth stage of life, which is ruled by the awareness
of, and communion with the Divine Being. The joy of God-Communion
vastly exceeds the pleasure of sexuality, as one deepens
in one's practice of it. But if one becomes addicted to
the pleasure of sex first, after that point, one may never
again be able to free up enough energy and attention to
even find God, let alone practice God-Communion to the point
where the binding force of sexuality is naturally transcended
(whether sexual activity is still engaged or not) by the
joy of God-Communion. This is the ideal sequence in life;
but of course, many of us find the Way of Adidam later in
life, and have to deal with the task of overcoming the force
of habit associated with our self-absorbing addictions to
money, food, and sex. The longer we have lived a life given
over to bodily and mental self-indulgence, the more difficult
the task of transcending the force of habit later on — the
necessary prereqisite for the transition to the fourth stage
of life.
We have mentioned that the fourth stage of life is a Spiritually-illumined
life of Divine contemplation and selfless service.
Both elements are necessary. We often point to people who
have devoted their lives to helping others and call them
"saints". They are good people, no doubt. But they are only
saints — that is, in the fourth stage of life — if their
selfless service is, first of all, to God, and only then
to others; and that on the basis of awareness of and communion
with God. True saints are Spiritual Realizers, not merely
moral human beings.
The purpose of existence for one established in the fourth
stage of life is devotion, a moment-to-moment heart-intimacy
with the Spiritual Reality. That intimacy is tangible and
ecstatic, and it changes one's sense of reality. Everything
that appears, everything that occurs, is now realized to
be a process full of Spirit-Presence. This new vision of
existence is given through Spirit-Baptism, an infilling
of Spirit-Power described in many different religious and
Spiritual traditions. The source of Spirit-Baptism is almost
always a Spiritually Awakened Master (either in this life
or a past life).
5.1. The fourth stage of life
and the Way of Adidam. These days, with globalized
access to information about all the world's religious and
spiritual traditions (including Adidam), many spiritual
seekers presume they can just read about a particular esoteric
practice, take it up, and grow spiritually. However, in
reality, all such esoteric practices require a certain level
of maturity of the practitioner as a prerequisite —
and this is certainly true in the Way of Adidam as well,
if there is to be any real growth in the Way. In brief,
the Way of Adidam requires (as a prerequisite) full
maturity in the first three stages of life; and beginning
maturity (heart-awakening to Adi Da) in the fourth stage
of life — because the Way of Adidam is a Way of God-Communion.
So either one must already have that level of maturity upon
becoming a devotee of Adi Da, or one must develop that maturity
in the beginning stages of practice of the Way of Adidam,
if one ever is to grow beyond the beginning stages of practice.
At the beginning of the Way you must break through
the limit of the first three stages of life and move
on to the fourth stage of life, which is a profound
transition that very few have made in human time.
Basically all of humanity is at school, and the fourth
stage of life is the next transition. Therefore, this
transition is most profound and requires great preparation.
Thus, you must humanize yourself to a significant
degree before you take up practicing stage one.
Avatar Adi Da Samraj
|
Of course, you cannot practice the Way until you
represent at least the responsibility that coincides
with entrance into the fourth stage of life. Thus,
the transition to the fourth stage is the real, true,
and critical point of Transcendental instruction for
you all. Those who would then live the Way must live
it in equanimity, representing the human characteristics
of one in the fourth stage of life. You cannot be
a disoriented or disharmonious person, self-possessed
and functioning in chronic levels of negativity, bewilderment,
and frustration. You must represent the true devotee
in the fourth stage of life, because such a devotee
enjoys the constant Company of the Transcendental
Personality in all forms and as his or her very consciousness
and being.
Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "The Vision of
God", Compulsory
Dancing
|
(. . . access to the Spiritual Way and the Adept-Company
is effectively denied to ordinary people by popular
taboos and the psychological limitations of the
first three stages of life) until the truly developmental
and (soon) Spiritual Motive Awakens the heart's Great
Impulse to Grow Beyond.
Avatar Adi Da Samraj
|
Without this Divine Impulse to Realize, this impulse
to Samadhi, religious life becomes rather conventional
and socially oriented. It is organized around the
first three stages of life.
Avatar Adi Da Samraj, December 29, 1995
"The
Absorptive Samadhi of Devotion to Me"
The "Brightening" Way Talk Series
|
For the devotee in the Way of Adidam, Adi Da's Spirit-Baptism
is first felt as a Current of energy descending from above
the head, down through the front of the body to the perineum,
or bodily base. This descent is forceful, sublime, and very
effective in purifying and Spiritualizing the human personality,
bringing forth the signs of radiance, peace, and universal
love that characterize a Spiritually Awakened being. By
the time the fourth stage of life is complete, not only
has the Spirit-Current descended down the front of the body
but It has turned about at the bodily base and ascended
up the spine to a place deep behind the eyes (called the
"ajna chakra" or sometimes the "third eye"), where It is
felt to rest.
Even though the fourth stage of life represents a profound
and auspicious advance beyond the foundation stages, in
the "big picture" of the seven stages of life, it is only
the beginning of truly Spiritual growth. Avatar Adi
Da Samraj points out that the primary presumption of (and
primary error made by) someone in the fourth stage of life
is that God and the individual personality are inherently
separate from one another. God is the Sublime "Other"
with Whom one Communes and in Whom one may become ecstatically
absorbed at times, even to the point of apparent union.
Nevertheless, such raptures pass, and one is left with the
continuing urge for union with the Divine Beloved. The individual
being is still a separate ego, still searching, even though
the goal of seeking is Spiritual in nature.
6. Stage five: higher
spiritual evolution
All Yogic, and religious (or mystical) practices
associated with the process of Spiritual ascent (via
the spinal line and the brain core, to and through
the subtle levels of mind, and to and through the
crown of the head, and, ultimately, to the "Highest"
Realization, above the body, the brain, the mind,
all conditional knowledge, all conditional experience,
and all conditional worlds) may, in some general sense,
be described as "fifth stage" practices. However,
that ascent is made in two distinct phases (or steps).
The first step is associated with ascent to the "ajna
door" (or brain core) [in the fourth stage of life],
and the second step is associated with ascent above
the "ajna door" [in the fifth stage of life]. The
first step is associated with bodily exercises (of
posture, breath, and so on) as well as exercises of
feeling (or intentional emotion) and attention (and
mind in general), whereas the second step is almost
exclusively associated with the exercise of attention
alone.
Avatar Adi Da Samraj, The
Basket Of Tolerance
|
The fifth stage of life could be described as the domain
of accomplished yogis or saints — individuals involved in
the pursuit of Enlightenment through mystical experience
(such as the vision of the "blue pearl", the vision of Jesus
Christ), or the attainment of psychic powers. But it is
important to note that, just as exceedingly few religious
practitioners fully Awaken to the Spiritual Reality in the
fourth stage of life, even fewer would-be yogis or saints
become fifth-stage Realizers.
The important difference between the fifth stage of life
and all the stages of life that precede it is that awareness
on the gross physical plane is no longer the normal mode
of existence. Rather, attention is steadily engaged in subtle
realms, that is, dreamlike or visionary regions of mind.
The phenomena of the fifth stage of life arise as a result
of the further movement of the Spirit-Current, now in the
higher regions of the brain. In the fifth stage of life,
the Spirit-Current moves from the ajna chakra through and
beyond the crown of the head, and attention moves with it.
At its point of highest ascent, the Spirit-Current triggers
the yogic meditative state traditionally called "Nirvikalpa
Samadhi" ("formless ecstasy"), in which all awareness of
body and mind is temporarily dissolved in the Divine Self-Condition.
Even though it is temporary, such an experience marks an
enduring change in one's being. It is now clear that the
individuated self in any limited form whatsoever — physical
body or "spirit" or "soul" — has no eternal existence
or significance. Only the Divine Condition of absolute Freedom
and Perfect Happiness truly exists. Once the Divine Condition
has been glimpsed in the state of "formless ecstasy", one's
relationship to embodied existence is entirely different.
One begins to see the body as a rather arbitrary, even humorous
phenomenon.
Even so, a limit on one's Realization remains. Nirvikalpa
Samadhi, the culminating achievement of the fifth stage
of life, is not a permanent Realization. It is, rather,
a fleeting experience. At some point, bodily consciousness
returns, and so does the ache to restore that boundless
Bliss, free of the limitations of embodiment. What goes
up must come down. For all its profundity, fifth stage Nirvikalpa
Samadhi is held in place (while it lasts) by a subtle stress,
performed by the ego. It is the ultimate fruit of the yogic
strategy to escape the body by directing one's awareness
upward into infinite Light.
6.1. The fifth stage of life
and the Way of Adidam. Adi Da reveals that higher
mystical experience and the achievement of profound meditative
states in the maturity of the fourth and fifth stages of
life are not prerequisites for ultimate Divine Enlightenment.
The Way of Adidam provides a means by which most practitioners
(except those few who have karma associated with the fourth
and fifth stage phenomena) can bypass the entire
tour of the subtle planes, via Adi Da's unique Transmission
of the Love-Blissful Power of the Divine Itself.
When, in the fourth stage of life, the devotee in the Way
of Adidam is mature enough to be steadily receiving and
"conducting" Adi Da's Spirit-Current, a most extraordinary
process begins in the body-mind. The Infusion of His Spirit-Current
purifies and quickens the body-mind in every cell from the
crown of the head to the toes. Every knot in the body-mind
is opened up in this ecstatic reception of Him.
When this sublime Infusion has completed its work, a great
conversion has occurred in the body-mind. One is no longer
susceptible to the fascinations of visionary experience,
even when such experiences arise. Neither is one moved to
direct one's attention up and out of the body into the infinitely
ascended state of "formless ecstasy". Rather, the "tour"
of mystical experience has been revealed to be simply more
of the futile search to be Perfectly Happy via egoic fulfillment.
The pursuit of mystical satisfaction relaxes, and the devotee
is then easily drawn beyond all habits of identification
with bodily states and even beyond identification with the
subtle mind states of the fifth stage of life, into the
pristine, sixth-stage understanding of Reality as Consciousness
Itself. Unique to the Way of Adidam, The "Thumbs" is the transitional Revelation that serves as the direct "doorway" from the body-based viewpoint to the Consciousness-based viewpoint, enabling
the bypassing of the fifth stage of life.
7. Stage six: awakening
to the Transcendental Self
In the sixth stage of life, one is no longer perceiving
and interpreting everything from the point of view of the
individuated body-mind with its desires and goals. One stands
in the Transcendental Position, Awake as the Very Consciousness
that is the Ground of all that exists. In that position,
one stands as the "Witness" of all that arises, even while
continuing to participate in the play of life. While life
goes on like a movie on a screen, one sees the greater import
of Existence and the non-necessity of all that arises. This
is the beginning of what Adi Da calls "the ultimate stages
of life", that is, the stages of Identification with Consciousness
Itself.
The sixth stage of life may include the experience of Jnana
Samadhi, which, like fifth stage Nirvikalpa Samadhi, is
a form of temporary Realization of the Divine Self. However,
fifth stage Nirvikalpa Samadhi comes about through the strategy
of ascent, the urge to move attention up and beyond the
body-mind; in Jnana Samadhi, awareness of gross and subtle
states is excluded by concentration in Transcendental Self-Consciousness.
Nirvikalpa Samadhi occurs via absorption in the Radiance
of the Divine, whereas Jnana Samadhi occurs via exclusive
identification with the Self of the Divine.
Historically, the most prominent among the great sixth
stage Realizers have been the Hindu and the Buddhist sages,
and in some cases, the Taoist sages, who eschewed the fascinations
of experience — physical or subtle — from the beginning.
These great Realizers turned away from the enticements of
"money, food, and sex" in the first three stages of life,
as well as from the attractions of devotional (fourth stage)
rapture and yogic (fifth stage) mysticism. Instead, the
sages of the sixth stage of life have traditionally contemplated
the freedom and purity of Consciousness — to the degree
of Realizing that Consciousness Itself, eternal and prior
to any mortal form or temporary experience, is our True
Condition, our True Self.
But even deep resting in the freedom of Transcendental
Consciousness is not Most Perfect Enlightenment. An egoic
stress is holding this Realization in place, as was the
case with the fifth stage Realization of Nirvikalpa Samadhi.
Sixth stage practice and Realization is expressed by turning
within, away from all conditional objects and experiences
(including the energies and the movements of attention of
one's own body-mind), and concentrating upon what is felt
to be the Source of individual consciousness. Thus, the
root of egoity is still alive. The search still remains,
in its most primal form. The sixth stage of life is the
search to identify with Pure Consciousness prior to and
exclusive of phenomena.
7.1. The sixth stage of life
and the Way of Adidam. Adi Da has Revealed that the
true Spiritual process, beginning in the context of the
fourth stage of life, involves two great dimensions — which
He calls the vertical and the horizontal.
The descending aspect of the vertical process characterizes
the fourth stage of life, while the ascending aspect characterizes
the fifth stage of life. As it has been known in the history
of the Great Tradition, the fifth stage process is the ascent
toward absorption into the Divine Matrix of Light Infinitely
Above, thereby (ultimately) Realizing the Divine as Light
(or Energy) Itself. (Although this Realization is a true
"taste" of the Very Divine Condition, It is achieved by
means of the conditional effort of ascent—and, therefore,
the Realization Itself is also conditional, or non-permanent.)
The fifth stage of life is the ultimate process associated
with the subtle dimension of existence.
The horizontal process characterizes the sixth stage
of life. As it has been known in the history of the Great
Tradition, the sixth stage process is the exclusion of all
awareness of the "outside" world (in both its gross and
subtle dimensions), by "secluding" oneself within the heart
— in order to rest in the Divine Self, Realized (ultimately)
as Consciousness Itself. (Like the ultimate Realization
associated with the fifth stage of life, the sixth stage
Realization is also a true "taste" of the Very Divine Condition.
However, It is also achieved by conditional means — the
conditional effort of exclusion — and, therefore, the Realization
Itself is also conditional, or non-permanent.) The sixth
stage of life is the process associated with the causal
dimension of existence.
As Adi Da has pointed out, even though the fifth stage
and sixth stage processes are, in fact, stages in the single
process that culminates in Divine Enlightenment (or the
seventh stage Realization uniquely Given by Him), the typical
traditional view has been that the two processes are alternative
approaches to Spiritual Realization. Indeed, these approaches
(of either going "Up" or going "Deep") have usually been
regarded to be incompatible with each other.
The Perfect Practice (the ultimate practice in the
Way of Adidam) encompasses both the vertical process (otherwise
characteristically associated with the fifth stage of life)
and the horizontal process (otherwise characteristically
associated with the sixth stage of life). Thus, in the Way
of Adidam, there is no "preference" exercised in favor of
either the "Upward" process or the "Inward" process — either
the Realization of the Divine as Light Itself or the Realization
of the Divine as Consciousness Itself. In the Way of Adidam,
both the ultimate "Upward" Realization and the ultimate
"Inward" Realization are Freely Given by Adi Da to the rightly
prepared and practicing devotee. No effort — either of ascent
or of exclusion — is required. And, in fact, all such effort
must be inspected, understood, and transcended.
This unique and unprecedented orientation to the developmental
processes of the fifth and sixth stages of life is made
possible by the full reception of Adi Da's Gift of Divine
Spiritual Transmission. When the devotee (in the context
of the fourth stage of life in the Way of Adidam) is fully
open to Adi Da's Spiritual Transmission, His Spiritual Descent
of the "Thumbs" takes over the body-mind, showing specific
Yogic signs. In this "Samadhi of the 'Thumbs'", there is
a profound turnabout in one's awareness of Him. While still
always turning to Him devotionally in His bodily (human)
Form, one begins to recognize Him, Spiritually, as Consciousness
Itself — the Root-Position of existence, Prior to all that
is arising in body, mind, and world. This recognition is
Spiritually established — and it is the basis for making
the transition to the "Perfect Practice". It is a profound
shift, away from identification with the body-mind. From
this point on, Adi Da’s Revelation of His own Condition
of Consciousness Itself becomes the Position in which one
Stands, and from that Position the sixth stage of life will
arise. In the "Perfect Practice", one is no longer practicing
from the point of view of the body-mind and its faculties.
Now, devotional turning to Him takes the form of simply
"choosing" to Stand in His Position (rather than the ego-position)
— inspecting and feeling beyond the root-tendency to contract
and create the self-identity called "I".
8. Stage Seven:
Divine Enlightenment
The seventh stage of life is release from all the egoic
limitations of the first six stages of life. Remarkably,
the seventh stage Awakening is not an experience at all.
The true Nature of everything is simply obvious. Now the
Understanding arises that every apparent "thing" is Eternally,
Perfectly the same as Reality, Consciousness, Happiness,
Truth, or God. And that Understanding is Supreme Love-Bliss.
Avatar Adi Da Samraj calls this Divine Awareness "Open
Eyes". No longer is there any need to seek meditative seclusion
in order to Realize Identification with the One Divine Reality.
The Ecstatic and world-embracing Confession, "There Is Only
God", is native (and therefore effortlessly perpetual) to
one who enjoys the State of "Open Eyes". Consciousness is
no longer felt to be divorced from the world of forms, but
Consciousness Itself is directly understood to be the very
Nature, Source, and Substance of that world. And so the
life of the seventh stage Realizer becomes the Love-Blissful
process of Divinely Recognizing, or intuitively acknowledging,
whatever arises to be only a modification of Consciousness
Itself.
In the seventh stage of life, it is obvious that no aspect
of the body-mind-self is necessary, and all of it can be
happily "sacrificed" — released to the Divine —
so that one's Divine Identity may be restored:
The human individual is nothing more than a peripheral
and temporary modification of Conscious Light, appearing
to surround, and emanate from, a central core of Light
(or Self-Illuminated Space).
In Truth, the human "individual" (or ego-"I") is
non-necessary — not even an emanation, but only a
conventional appearance, without Divine "Cause".
Therefore, human beings are Called (by Me) to whole
bodily devotionally recognize Me and whole bodily
devotionally respond to Me As the egoless and Self-Evidently
Divine Person of Reality Itself.
My devotees are Called (by Me) to turn to Me, and
(thus) to intrinsically and Perfectly transcend the
illusion of egoity.
In the transcending of egoity, the total body-mind-complex
is Awakened (by My Divine Avataric Transcendental
Spiritual Grace) to its Divine Identity.
Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"Divine, or Seventh Stage, Enlightenment", The
Aletheon
|
The Divinely Self-Realized Being is literally "Enlightened".
The Light of Divine Being Flows in him or her in a continuous
circuitry of Love-Bliss, that rises in an S-shaped curve
from the right side of the heart to a Matrix of Light above
and Beyond the crown of the head. This is Amrita Nadi, the
"Nerve of Immortal Bliss", mentioned in the esoteric Hindu
Spiritual tradition, but only fully described for the first
time by Adi Da. After His Divine Re-Awakening in 1970, Adi
Da experienced the "Regeneration" of this Current of Love-Bliss,
and He came to understand Amrita Nadi as the Original Form
of the Divine Self-Radiance in the human body-mind (and
in all conditional beings and forms).
In the seventh stage of life, or the context of Divine
Enlightenment, the evolutionary process continues. Adi Da
describes the seventh stage of life as having four phases:
186,104 people have liked our site's pages and shared them with their Facebook friends - Most Shared Pages
Alaya S. - Tewin, United Kingdom
(Sent Friday, February 20, 2015 7:51AM)
© 2025 Copyrighted materials used with the permission of The Avataric Samrajya of Adidam Pty Ltd, as trustee for The Avataric Samrajya of Adidam. All rights reserved. None of these materials may be disseminated or otherwise used for any non-personal purpose without the prior agreement of the copyright owner. ADIDAM is a trademark of The Avataric Samrajya of Adidam Pty Ltd, as Trustee for the Avataric Samrajya of Adidam.
Technical problems with our site? Let our webmaster know.