Religion and Reality

The book Religion and Reality presents Avatar Adi Da’s lucid description of the true relationship between religion and reality.

Within the book’s essays Avatar Adi Da describes the mature religious orientation and distinguishes between popular or exoteric religion (based on the concerns of physical and social existence) and esoteric religion (characterized by inward seeking for Realization).

As the editors note, "to most deeply receive Avatar Adi Da’s Communication in this book is to be loosed from centuries of misunderstanding and to find the freedom to ‘consider’ the real purpose of the world and the Nature of Real God as Reality Itself."

Introduction - Part 1

By Megan Anderson, Jonathan Condit, PhD,
and Carolyn Lee, PhD

Adi Da Samraj once opened an essay with the provocative statement, "Religion is ‘cult’". By definition, He went on to explain, religion is a "sacralized" system of philosophical and practical observances within the domain of time and space.

Because it necessarily consists of defined beliefs and rituals, dependent on the existence of the concrete world in which it appears, Adi Da Samraj points out the self-evident fact that no religion can ever, in and of itself, be equal to Truth or Reality.

Reality Itself is always senior to the cults of humankind.

So what is the right and true relationship between religion and Reality? Religion and Realiy presents Avatar Adi Da’s answer to that question.

Reality Itself Is the Only Real God

Real (Acausal) God is not a myth. Real (Acausal) God is not merely an idea. The Existence of Real (Acausal) God cannot be disproven. And, paradoxically, the Existence of Real (Acausal) God cannot even be proven.

Rather, the Existence of Real (Acausal) God is Self-Evident, or Self-Affirming and Self-Authenticating — because Reality Itself Is Inherently The Case, Inherently True, and Inherently Divine.

— Avatar Adi Da Samraj

"Reality" (with a capital "R") is Avatar Adi Da’s simplest reference to the Ultimate Condition that is the Prior Truth of existence. What appears in the world of beings is a myriad of always changing and passing forms and states.

The Ultimate Condition is That Unbroken Reality Which neither arises nor passes away. Reality Itself is, as Avatar Adi Da has described, "Always Already the Case". Reality is in no way separate from anything that appears, because everything that appears is only an apparent modification of that Divine Reality Itself.

Of course, the Ultimate Reality is conceived by human beings in various ways. One of the principal descriptions of Ultimate Reality is as Great "Other" (often called "God").

But this conception, as Adi Da Samraj thoroughly addresses in the essays that follow, is based in childish and adolescent views. Presuming to be separate from a Prior Condition, human beings have looked to account for the appearance of all "things" and to feel "safe" in the face of their mortal condition.

However, while the concept of a "Creator/Parent God" is widespread, it is a myth.

That Which truly could be called "God" (in the sense of the Ultimate Reality) does not cause the world to exist, nor cause any of the happenings in the world of appearances. The machine of the universe is its own cause, and is only caused from its own "point of view".

Real God is the Divine Reality — the Acausal (or Non-causative) Condition within Which the universe arises.

In some ways, then, to most deeply receive Avatar Adi Da’s Communication in this book is to be loosed from centuries of misunderstanding and to find the freedom to "consider" the real purpose of the world and the Nature of Real God as Reality Itself.

Next: Exoteric and Esoteric Religion