"Radical" Devotion

"Radical" Devotion is Book Six of the "Perfect Knowledge" Series by Avatar Adi Da Samraj. It contains writings from August and September of 2006.

These essays are an invitation to embrace the devotional relationship with Avatar Adi Da — just as human beings have recognized and turned to the Realizer in all eras of human history. As Megan Anderson writes in the introduction:

"Avatar Adi Da's Offering stands in continuity with the esoteric core of even the most ancient forms of human religion: the spontaneous, non-verbal response to the mere sight of an illumined being."

As all the esoteric traditions of Spirituality indicate, finding the Realizer and devoting one's life to That One are necessary for Realizing Truth. The Reality-Way of Adidam is the Way of "Radical"devotion to the Divine Reality manifesting as the human Form of Avatar Adi Da Samraj.

This devotion is "Radical" because it is a process that occurs prior to identification with the body-mind-"self" and its patterning.

The books of the "Perfect Knowledge" Series comprise the complete text of Avatar Adi Da's "Source-Text "The Gnosticon.

"Radical" Devotion

Introduction - Part 1

— by Megan Anderson

This book is a direct invitation from Avatar Adi Da Samraj to anyone and everyone. In these essays, Avatar Adi Da Speaks to the heart-depth of our being, to our longing for Truth and profound experience. And He Offers to all a Way of life that makes Truth and profundity a constant, living reality.

The core of Avatar Adi Da's Way is simply the relationship with Him — the Very Divine Person, Incarnate in human Form. Avatar Adi Da Is the One Who Reveals the Primal State of Truth, and Who Is the Giver of Truth-Realization. And the unique sacred relationship to Avatar Adi Da unfolds entirely on the basis of recognition of His "Bright" State.

To recognize Avatar Adi Da is to be utterly moved by the sight of His Form, to wordlessly "know" His Bodily Communication of Non-separateness and Freedom with every aspect of one's being.

This tacit "knowing" is as direct and obvious as physically entering a sacred place — and the Force of Avatar Adi Da's Divine State tangibly transforms the being.

As the title of His essay "The Ancient Walk-About Way" emphasizes, Avatar Adi Da's Offering stands in continuity with the esoteric core of even the most ancient forms of human religion: the spontaneous, non-verbal response to the mere sight of an illumined being.

The Wisdom-Way of Adidam that Avatar Adi Da has Given is, in its fundamental practice, part of a Great Tradition — which began, even before recorded history, with the earliest evidence of human beings walking the Earth, over fifty thousand years ago. As He once described to a gathering of His devotees:

Though there are many historical traditions of religion and Spirituality, in Truth, there is one Great Tradition. In fact, that Great Tradition is even older than the history that humankind has recorded.

There is a prehistorical background to all the historical traditions — which I call a "Walk-About tradition" — that existed before there were concentrated bodies of civil society where human beings became highly organized in large numbers. Even anciently, people were being religious.

In fact, ancient peoples were being everything that human beings, generally speaking, are now. Even the ancient, prehistoric peoples are part of the Great Tradition.

The Great Tradition of humankind is a universal tradition, because it is based on the One Reality — not only the Great, Indivisible Non-conditional Reality, but also the unity of conditional existence and the commonality and unity of human beings themselves.

— Avatar Adi Da Samraj
September 8, 2004

Although there is a Great Tradition of response to Truth, Avatar Adi Da also addresses the history of human bondage.

In general, human beings are educated from birth into expectations and desires that focus in physical life and what can be achieved by means of physical, emotional, mental, and social interactions.

Furthermore, human beings are obsessed with mind, and with a fixed "self"-image that is created on the basis of the identification with mere mind-forms.

On the basis of such presumptions and patterning of body and mind, the methods of all of humanity's religious and Spiritual paths to date have been founded on the idea that the desired Divine State to be achieved is not the state in which we are presently existing.

As a result, the "starting point" of all traditions has been identification with the conditional structures of body, mind, and "self".

Thus, the human impulse to attain re-Union with the Great State (however conceived) has inevitably involved techniques of manipulating body and mind — in order to reach the presumed goal of any specific path.

Avatar Adi Da's startling Revelation is that it is not possible to achieve the True Divine State (by means of any technique) — because That State is necessarily Reality Itself, Which Is Always Already the Case.

The Divine State does Exist — and it is possible to go beyond our bondage to the patterns of body, mind, and "self ". Avatar Adi Da Reveals that the body-mind-self (or ego) we presume to be can be transcended — because it is entirely our own, "mythological" creation.

There are no egos in Reality Itself — none. It is not that Adidam is a Way in which you overcome egoity by a process of "wearing it down" — as if emptying water from a boat with a bucket, such that you eventually succeed in getting all of the water out of the boat.

There is no water in the boat. There is no ego in the body-mind. There is no ego in Reality Itself. The ego does not, in Reality, exist.

— Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"The Mirror and the Checkerboard"

Therefore, nothing can be done to and as the separate body-mind-self in order to Realize Truth. Any strategic manipulation of the body-mind merely reinforces the ego.

In the Walk-About Way of devotion to Adi Da, the devotee simply ceases to give attention to the patterns and sufferings of identification with body, mind, "self", and world, and instead turns the total body-mind to Adi Da.

Through this conversion from self-obsession to true devotion, the devotee is purified by means of Avatar Adi Da's Divine Grace.

Such devotion is not something the ego does — or can do. Indeed, such devotion necessarily occurs prior to any form of identification with body, mind, or "self".

It is in this sense that devotion to Avatar Adi Da is "Radical" (literally meaning "at the root") — because that devotion happens in the root-"Place" of Reality Itself.

Those who heart-recognize Me... are recognizing (or tacitly Apprehending) My Divine State. Such heart-recognition is "Radical" devotion — because such heart-recognition of Me is already "at the root".

In that case, there is no body mind ego responding to Me. Rather, there is direct heart recognition of Me — Prior to all identification with the body mind, and Prior to all identification with the patterning of the body mind.

— Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"In 'Place' ('Where' and As I Am)"

Next: The Later Essays