This Youtube video is the most concentrated description of Adidam Practice, it could have been spoken in the No Remedy book, printed out in the early 70’s. A must listen if you are interested in the subject.
Archive for the ‘Adi Da’ Category
Adidam (Practice) in a Nutshell
Friday, August 20th, 2010Q:Is Adi Da Teaching Exclusivity-One Way or Path to God
Sunday, August 15th, 2010A relative asked me this question some time ago, and feel it needs addressing, below is one way of viewing it.
Is Adi Da teaching one exclusive means to God or The Divine, through him and the institution-Adidam-alone, or are a multiplicity of paths and religions all leading to God?
Here the question itself is the problem (or creates a dilemma) where there need be none. To start with, Adi Da does not teach any sort of path to God (no matter how contradictory this statement may appear) and secondarily, Adi Da does not use or define God in the usual manner (and again this is not a mere language device ) Adi Da uses the terms Real God or Reality (and many other more literal terms) to point to what is actually “Really God”; rather than a believers God, a creator God, a personal God, God the parent( mother or father ) or any form of illusion that is considered God or a god. The point he makes over and over is that God actually is Real and it does not require belief-illusions and the bondage (that comes with it) to make that the case.
Adidam (which can mean the institution itself, and the practice of Adidam) is based on a most radical assumption- that all beings already are even now completely one with Real God, clearly then no one is ever separated from Real God or can ever be damned or denied that same condition so in that sense there can be no exclusive means or path to the Divine including any religious means because none are necessary, since the condition sought can never be attained or to put it another way “can never be lost or found ” or to put it even more realistically, all traditional paths and religious means are doomed to fail in there quest for Ultimate Realization, that is not to dispute all the traditional states of realization, samadhi or enlightenment, they certainly are attainable, that is not doubted and there have always been and will always remain great and lesser Realizers of these most honorable traditions (Including Christianity, Judaism, Sufism, Hinduism, Buddhism and all the other major and minor genuine traditions) By the same token (and Adi Da has stated this many times) if Adidam is practiced incorrectly it becomes another seeking means to God , Realization and Liberation and therefore cannot be and will not be fruitful and must fail in the individuals case for the same reasons as above (unless graceful influence can make a difference)
So no, in the sense outlined above Adi Da and Adidam do not represent an “exclusive” path or means to God, Adi Da absolutely champions what is great in the religious traditions and absolutely criticizes what is illusionary and binding in those same traditions (as a compassionate, Avataric voice in the midst of often great confusion)
In considering this question it is so important to remember genuine spiritual traditions are greatly honored and respected by Adi Da and Adidam, great compassion, tolerance and universal co-operation are part of his teaching and I have found this to be the case. A devotee of Adi Da can freely go to any religious figure, temple, holy site or institution and honor what is great there in a sensitive and tolerant manner. In fact I have found a deepening of my appreciation of many spiritual traditions and Realizers and Teachers within those Traditions as I study the works of Adi Da Samraj. There is a universal thread that is honored, enjoyed and respected via these agencies, that underlying universal thread could be said to link Adidam to all other Divine Honoring traditions whatever form they take.
However having said all of that, there is only One means to the Divine Realization and the Absolute Freedom that is the Seventh Stage Realization of Reality Itself or Real God and that is through the means of Avatar Adi Da Samraj and His Agency: Adidam. So yes it is “exclusive” in that sense and there is no use saying it is otherwise. Adi Da Samraj makes it abundantly clear, overwhelmingly clear that this is exactly the case. An example is the constant use of the “Only-By-Me-Given”. It is constant and the devotee or regular reader of Adi Da’s Work may get a little immune to it, but it remains a blunt reminder for anyone who starts getting too universalistic, egalitarian and idealistic about the process (as is my own tendency).
As with many others my own tendency is to dilute that aspect of Adidam, in my own case because it smacks so much of the hideous “One Way” messages of Christianity and many other (if not all) exoteric religions. To date I have tended to deny this reality of Adidam and be almost an apologist for its possibility, but I clearly note this is an internal conflict of mine, and many others have no problem with it all, and are very clear on the matter as is Avatar Adi Da.
Rare find in 2nd hand bookshop
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010I came across this 1986 pristine hardback in a 2nd hand book store in Cairns North Queensland Australia. It even had an insert updating the original. Its beautiful orange cover with the 3 Heart Station icon is just wonderful, I have never seen this copy before and even though I have some basic paperback versions from the same era, nothing matches this Gem.
I walked into the shop without motive, perhaps looking for a bit of local reading, but this appearance left me stunned and ecstatic, I said to the woman owner- “How much for this little gem?” . She picked it up and half in jest ( I think) said “$110″. ” You must be joking ?” I replied (would have been happy to pay that much) “OK- 5 bucks!” she said, “Done” I said.
She pranamed in Eastern style to me and I could not respond, just walked out into the bright sunshine. I was over the moon, bought a spirulina and juice smoothie nearby to celebrate and sat to enjoy this great find. An intoxicated man staggered passed me and said “Looks like a great little book!” Its brilliant orange cover sparkled in the sun.
The Humor of The Heart
Friday, July 2nd, 2010There is a chapter in The Enlightenment of The Whole Body (1978 Bubba Free John) titled “The Mood Of Enlightenment” one of my favorite talks from all the books, I had forgotten about, it’s a truly great essay on the Humor and Perfect Freedom at the heart of 7th Stage Enlightenment. Click here to read full chapter. Short quote below.
“But the seventh stage, the Enlightened stage, is not serious at all. In that stage we Realize our native Transcendence of everything. There is the tacit Realization that there is nothing serious whatsoever about experiential existence. It could end in this moment, casually, and that cessation in itself would not have the slightest significance. Or, it could continue for infinite eons of time, through infinite permutations and transformations of experience, and its continuing would not have any significance either. That is the Disposition in Enlightenment-Realization of the non-necessity of everything. Absolutely nothing is of serious consequence or of ultimate necessity-absolutely nothing.
The ordinary reactive personality, who is basically in despair and hysterical, can also say that life is meaningless, but such a person is very serious. The Enlightened man, however, Realizes total Freedom. He is no longer serious, but neither is he self-destructive. He has passed into Ecstasy. He has not suppressed or separated from himself-rather, all that he is has been transcended in the Radiant Transcendental Consciousness. Thus, he is full of humor and delight. He is not aggressively opposed to the world, nor is he clinging to it. All the tension in his heart has been re-leased. To speak of Enlightenment without that sign is nonsense. There is no Enlightenment without the release of the heart from all of its seriousness, all of its clinging to phenomena, high and low.”
Adidam & Shamanism
Thursday, June 17th, 2010
Above : A senior Adidam Renunciate performing a ceremonial service (Puja) on a Holy Site at The Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary
In this talk Adi Da comments at length on the book Black Elk Speaks and goes into great detail on the role and validity of Shamans and Shamanic cultures and practices.
“A likeness naturally exists between those who live the Way of Adidam and those who are otherwise yogis, mystics, shamans, magicians, medicine men, witch doctors, and so forth. It is simply that the Way of Adidam has its own cultural and Spiritual uses of the psychic faculties.” ~ Adi Da Samraj
Click on to play or
Download as Mp3 
Moving beyond the “human nature” model
Sunday, May 30th, 2010Or the importance of understanding our structural limitations in the 3rd stage of life
“I have never, in all my various travels, seen but two sorts of people I mean men and women, who always have been, and ever will be, the same. The same vices and the same follies have been the fruit of all ages, though sometimes under different names”
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
The realists of mankind have often said mostly with some regret when reporting the actions of a good man or woman failing in some shape or form, “it’s human nature”. That is the accurate view that structurally explained in a simplistic manner the seemingly endless failing of individuals to act other than within a predictable model.
For instance war and conflict between nations and states is seen as a predictable model, no matter what seemingly good intentions are brought to bear, there is never any real movement passed this. Thus war and conflict are part of “human nature” it’s an openly fatalistic prediction that is apparently inevitable.
Adi Da’s model of the seven stages of human life, allows a “realistic” or structural explanation and true possibility of actual and demonstrable growth beyond the inevitable and constant “failure” of humankind.
The constant failure of humankind and individuals and the apparently inevitable victory of ordinary ends and means wherein the lowest outcomes always prevail may now be understood in structural terms, similar to organic growth patterns and inevitabilities such as childhood, puberty and old age.
The recognition of inevitable structure would be part of the growth to maturity of a human being. Without recognition(in some shape or form) or acknowledgement of a current limitation which will be in almost all cases, you may as well say universally, the third stage of life, then we will be stuck with just the inevitability of more of the same. This is in contrast to the idealistic view that there is a current spiritual evolutionary movement going on that will transform the human race.
You could say truthfully that what is commonly referred to, often philosophically, as human nature is merely but accurately expressing humanities failure to grow fully into and beyond the third stage of life in Adi Da’s model.
Conscious Exercise
Sunday, May 23rd, 2010Conscious exercise is a fundamental functional discipline in Adidam practice, it tends to be a discipline easy forgotten and given less attention than many others. The basic routines and philosophy written in the book, “Conscious Exercise and the Transcendental Sun” remain as written, however new forms of exercise and movement have been added as well as the discipline itself being seen as a devotional responsive practice. A new and updated version of this book, will be published in the near future- look forward to this.
“The principle of Love applied to exercise and the method of common physical action. A science of whole body wisdom, or true emotion, intended most especially for those engaged in religious or spiritual life.
Do not randomly think and daydream, but apply the mind as free attention to the whole process of the present activity.
Mind is not, in itself, thought. Thought is only one of many objects of attention. Mind is basically consciousness, conscious awareness, or free attention itself. Therefore, the basic condition of mind in any moment is thoughtless free attention, or awareness. If attention is not turned into the relations of the whole body, it will, because of our habitual adaptation to separative and self-possessed games of existence, tend to reflect or randomly turn upon subjective and self-meditative phenomena.
Thus, we always think, randomly and obsessively, and we always turn within and away, and we always daydream or meditate on our own sense of independent existence, unless we are already and presently turned into the functional pattern of present relations.
2. Do not merely “perform” actions, as if you were causing them to happen from some detached heaven within or above the body, but feel the entire process of action, with constant attention to every moment of the action.
Attention is free of thought and all other objects only when it is connected to present events through direct and fully permitted feeling. Attention has no more connection to bodily action or bodily states than it does to the shoes on the lawn, unless that connection is presumed in the present.
That presumption is feeling. We may be connected as free attention to whatever objects, functions, or states we may intend, but only if that connection is the one of feeling. Feeling is the medium of relationship. Feeling is the energy of attention. Feeling is the life-force. Feeling is our participation in the universal medium in which all objects, including the physical body, arise. Feeling is the whole body intuition of the universal Life and Radiance. Unobstructed feeling is Love.
3. Consciously, intentionally, as a matter of whole body feeling rather than thought, breathe the constant cycle of inhalation-exhalation as a process of reception and release, and allow it to be timed with the rhythm of all activity, including formal exercise.
4. Act, or else be in repose, but always intentionally.However
do not intend only or, in general, at all through thought, or the head alone, but through the spontaneous feeling-intention of the whole body. Such action or repose is always in love, pleasurable, intense, open, and true.
5. In summary, always remain active, or associated with the pattern of relations, and do this by presuming the discipline of abiding as constant free attention, through profound whole body feeling (rather than reactive or negative and partial-body emotions), in and through the living, breathing, rhythmic play of all functions.
If you will live and exercise in this manner, it will be natural for you to be aware and to feel in and as the universal theatre of life-force, or manifest light. The environment of the whole body is not solid, like a wall of concrete pressed against the psyche.
When attention is free as present and constant feeling in and through the functions of life, the psycho-physical nature, rather than the merely physical nature, of our total environment begins to become obvious. Then breath and body are realized to be a single process in a single environment, which is made not only of solid elements, but of subtle ranges, including all that may be felt, and thought, conceived, intuited, and realized in Truth.
The whole body is the body that includes not only the physical but the etheric, the emotional, the mental, the transcendental, and the conscious¬ness.
The environment of the whole body is like the whole body, since the whole body arises from and within it. The environment of the whole body is Light, or Radiance. The Condition of the whole body and its environment is Truth, or the Real. Those who live and exercise in the manner of consciousness, as described here, may also become sensitive and disposed to the whole way of life that characterizes devotees in Truth.
Excerpted from Conscious Exercise and the Transcendental Sun, by Bubba [Da] Free John, pp. 35-37.
© 2010 The Da Love-Ananda Samrajya Pty Ltd, as trustee for the Da Love-Ananda Samrajya. All rights reserved. Perpetual copyright claimed
Adidam History:The 4 Fundamental Questions
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010“The Four Fundamental Questions” was published in 1980 and has Adi Da’s handwriting on the cover, the four questions later became more extensive and expanded to ten. They were covered by the term “pondering” as a preparatory form of Practice (later made redundant)
“What are the questions that if answered truly would Enlighten you and lead to practice the Way of Truth. Obviously you have never asked yourself these questions, or you would be totally transformed by now! You could ask many useful questions that may lead you to consider or think about the Way, but what questions would make the practice of real or spiritual life inevitable if you were to answer them fully?”
Da Free John (Adi Da Samraj)
- Are you the one who is living you now?
- What is your relationship to that one?
- Do you know what anything is?
- What is your relationship to all experience, and to every being and thing that exists?
New Comprehensive Adi Da YouTube Video Site
Monday, May 10th, 2010If you are looking for YouTube videos of Adi Da Samraj or on the Way of Adidam the adidaupclose.org website has dedicated a section to over 300 videos of Adi Da collected from different users of YouTube. If you are a reader, friend or devotee of Adi Da and want to be instructed or receive Darshan then this is the best and most comprehensive site (by far).
The Great Bird That Flies to the Heart
Tuesday, April 27th, 2010
This is one of my favorite chapters from The Dreaded Gomboo from February 3, 1983
The full chapter is located Here it contains unique Esoteric and Transcendental instruction that won’t be found anywhere as near complete as here, it also fundamentally gels with Adi Da’s final word on the necessity of Divine Grace as the means (or The Great Bird, Garuda) to Realisation epitomized perhaps in the essay “Atma Nadi Shakti Yoga” (The Aletheon)