In the Ruchira Avatara Gita, I Speak critically of the conventional (or childish, and, otherwise, adolescent) orientation of "Guru cultism". Such cultism is a tendency that has always been present in the religious and Spiritual traditions of mankind. Anciently, and in the present time, both true Spiritual Masters and ordinary Wisdom-Teachers have been "cultified", and, thereby, made the merely fascinating Object of a self-contained popular movement that worships the Spiritual Master as a Parent-like Savior, while embracing very little of the significant Wisdom-Teaching of the Spiritual Master.

The error of conventional cultism is precisely this childish, and, otherwise, adolescent, and, altogether, ego-based orientation to fascination with Spiritual Masters, Wisdom-Teachers, "God"-Ideas, myths, sacred lore, inherited beliefs, traditional propaganda, and psycho-physical (or merely body-mind-based) mysticism. And the cultic tendency in religion and Spirituality is the essence of what is wrong with conventional religion and Spirituality.

The "problem" is not that there Is no Real God, or that there are no true Wisdom-Teachings, or that there are no true Spiritual Masters, or that there should be no devotion to any true Spiritual Masters. The "problem" with conventional religion and Spirituality is the same as the "problem" of all ordinary life. The "problem" is the childish, and, otherwise, rather adolescent, egoism that is the basis of all forms of ordinary existence.

Yet un-Enlightened (or, otherwise, not yet Most Perfectly Enlightened) people are egoically "self-possessed" (or self-absorbed). Therefore, egoity is the "disease" that all the true Spiritual Masters of religion come here to cure. Unfortunately, those who are merely fascinated by Spiritual Masters are, typically, those who make, or at least transform, the institutions of the religion and the Spirituality of their Spiritual Masters. And true practitioners of religion and Spirituality are very hard to find, or develop. Therefore, religious and Spiritual institutions tend to develop along lines that serve, accommodate, and represent the common egoity—and this is why the esoteric true Teachings of true Spiritual Masters tend to be bypassed, and even suppressed, in the drive to develop the exoteric cult of any particular Spiritual Master.

The relationship to Me that is Described (by Me) in the Ruchira Avatara Gita is not an exoteric cultic matter. It is a profound esoteric discipline, necessarily associated with real and serious and mature practice of the "radical" Way (or root-Process) of Realizing Real God, Which Is Reality and Truth. Therefore, in the Ruchira Avatara Gita, I am critical of the ego-based (or self-saving, and self-"guruing", rather than self-surrendering, self-forgetting, self-transcending, and Divine-Guru-Oriented) practices of childish, and, otherwise, adolescent, and, altogether, merely exoteric cultism.

The common religious or Spiritual cult is based on the tendency to resist the disciplines of real (and really counter-egoic) practice, and to opt for mere fascination with extraordinary (or even imaginary) phenomena (which are, invariably, not understood in Truth and in Reality). Apart from the often petty demand for the observation of conventional rules (generally, relative to social morality, or merely social religion), the cult of religious and Spiritual fascination tends to become righteously associated with no practice (that is, with the even official expectation that there be no real, or, otherwise, truly right and full, practice of religious and Spiritual disciplines, especially of religious, Spiritual, and meditative disciplines of an esoteric kind). Just so, the cult of religious and Spiritual fascination tends to be equally righteous about maintaining fascinated faith (or indiscriminate, and even aggressive, belief) in the merely Parent-like "Divine" Status of one or another historical individual, "God"-Idea, religious or Spiritual doctrine, inherited tradition, or force of cosmic Nature.

Religious and Spiritual cultism is, thus, a kind of infantile collective madness. (And such madness is equally shared by secular cultists, in every area of popular culture, including politics, the sciences, the arts, the communications media, and even all the agencies and institutions of conventional "officialdom" relative to human knowledge, belief, and behavior). Religious and Spiritual cults (and, likewise, all secular cults) breed "pharisaism", or the petty righteousness of conventional thinking. Religious and Spiritual cults breed "Substitution" myths (or the belief that personal self-transcendence is, both generally and ultimately, impossible, but also unnecessary, because of what "God", or some "Master", or even some "priest" has already done). Indeed, religious and Spiritual cults (and, likewise, all secular cults) breed even every kind of intolerance, and the chronic aggressive search for exclusive social dominance and secular power. Religious and Spiritual cults are, characteristically, populated by those who are, generally, neither inclined toward nor prepared for the real right practice of religious and Spiritual discipline, but who are (and always seek to be) glamorized and consoled by mere association with the "holy" things and beliefs of the cult itself.

This error of religious and Spiritual cultism, and of ego-based culture in general, must be examined very seriously, such that the error is truly rooted out, from within the cult and the culture itself (and not merely, and with equally cultic cultural righteousness, criticized from without). Cultism of every kind (both sacred and secular) must be understood to be a kind of ritualized infantilism, bound to egocentric behavior, and to the embrace of "insiders" only, and to intolerance relative to all "outsiders". The cultic tendency, both sacred and secular, causes, and has always caused, great social, cultural, and political trouble—as can even now be seen in the development of worldwide conflicts based on the exclusive, or collectively egocentric, orientation of the many grossly competitive religious traditions, political idealisms, and national identities.

All cults, whether sacred or secular, thrive on indulgence in the psychology (and the emotional rituals) of hope, rather than on actual demonstration of counter-egoic and really ego-transcending action. Therefore, when all egos meet, they strive and compete for the ultimate fulfillment of searches and desires, rather than cooperate with Truth, Reality, or Real God, and in a culturally valued and rewarded mood of fearless tolerance and sane equanimity.

Clearly, this cultic tendency in religion and Spirituality, and the egoic (and, thus, cultic) tendency in life in general, must become the constant subject of fundamental human understanding, and all of mankind must constantly be put to "school", to unlearn the method of egocentrism, non-cooperation, intolerance, and dis-ease.

The Ruchira Avatara Gita is a thoroughly new Text, which I have freely developed from (and built upon) the principal verses of the traditional Guru Gita—one of the great esoteric Revelation-Texts of mankind's collective Great Tradition.

The traditional renderings (and interpretations) of the Guru Gita are, typically (and characteristically), presented in terms of the fourth and the fifth stages of life,¹ but the implicit Teaching (and the essence of the explicit Teaching) of the Guru Gita ultimately relates to the sixth stage of life (and, in principle, beyond it, even to the only-by-Me Revealed and Given seventh stage of life). Therefore, in the Ruchira Avatara Gita, I Describe the esoteric Guru-devotee relationship in terms of the total and full and complete process of the fourth stage of life through the only-by-Me Revealed and Given seventh stage of life, and I indicate that, in the only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way of Adidam, the entire process of Guru-devotion is to be oriented, from the beginning, to the Realization of the seventh, or Inherently Perfect, and Inherently Most Perfectly Real-God-Realized, stage of life.

The Ruchira Avatara Gita is intended, by Me, to be a basic part of the real education of all those who, in the true religious and Spiritual (and truly human) manner, go to "school" in My Company. The Ruchira Avatara Gita is My unique (and, yet, tradition-based, and tradition-honored) Teaching-Revelation about the right, true, full, and fullydevotional relationship to Me, the Divine Heart-Master—the Realizer, the Revealer, and the Revelation of Adidam. Therefore, the Ruchira Avatara Gita Works to rightly educate those who responsively embrace My Divine Self-Revelation and My Revelation of the Divine Way of Adidam (Which is the only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way of the Heart). The education thus received is the Lesson about self-transcendence and the Truth-Teaching about Realization of That Which Eternally Transcends the separate and separative self. Therefore, the Ruchira Avatara Gita is intended, by Me, to counter the cultic tendency in those who practice the only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way of Adidam, Which is the counter-egoic esoteric Way of self-surrendering, self-forgetting, and really self-transcending devotion to Me, and, thus and thereby, to the Divine Person Revealed in and by and As Me.

I Am the Divine Heart-Master of every one, and of all, and of the All of all. Therefore, I Call upon every one (and all) to rightly and positively understand My Divine Self-Revelation. And I Call upon every one (and all) to truly devotionally recognize Me, and to responsively demonstrate that devotional recognition of Me in the context of, and by Means of, the right, true, full, and fully devotional, and really counter-egoic, practice of the only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way of Adidam.

In My Company, there is no culturally accepted alternative to the active discipline, both personal and collective, of right, and really counter-egoic, practice of devotion to Me. In My Company, there is no "Substitute" for the Realization of the Transcendental (and Inherently Spiritual) Divine Self-Condition, Which Is Reality, Truth, and the Only Real God. Right, and really counter-egoic, devotion to Me is not mere cultic (and egoically "gleeful") enthusiasm, but the profound practice of the always expected functional, practical, relational, and cultural self-disciplines of the Way of Adidam, on the basis of the right, and really counter-egoic, Principal Practice of devotion to Me, rather than on the basis of self-"guruing" self-concern and the search for self-glorification.

I Am the Divine Heart-Master. I am not a Surrogate "God", but I Am the Proof of Real God and of the Way of Divine Self-Realization. In My bodily (human) Form, I Am a Divine Demonstration, a Divine Sign, an Agent of Divine Transmission, and the Divine Awakener of those who are willing to surrender their egoic "self-possession" (or self-absorption) in right, true, and full, and really ego-transcending, devotion to Me. The Way of Adidam is the only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way to live in Freedom, not to be bound by separate and separative self, or by conditional Nature as a whole. Therefore, the ego-transcending devotional relationship to Me is the Context and the Means of Free Divine Self-Realization, and not a justification for popular ego-culture, childish dependency, adolescent reactivity, merely conventional (or socially idealistic, and ego-serving) social behavior, or even any of the methods of ego-fulfillment, or even any goal or tendency of the self-deluded, and cult-seeking, and cult-making, and cult-preserving, and even (sometimes, but only egoically) cult-criticizing, and always self-serving and separative ego (which is always only "Narcissus",² or the self-contracted body-mind of any and every ordinary "I" of humankind).

Footnotes

1. Avatar Adi Da has Revealed the underlying structure of human growth in seven stages.

The first three stages of life develop, respectively, the physical, emotional, and mental/volitional functions of the body mind. The first stage begins at birth and continues for approximately five to seven years; the second stage follows, continuing until approximately the age of twelve to fourteen; and the third stage is optimally complete by the early twenties. In the case of virtually all individuals, however, failed adaptation in the earlier stages of life means that maturity in the third stage of life takes much longer to attain, and it is usually never fulfilled, with the result that the ensuing stages of Spiritual development do not even begin.

In the Way of Adidam, however, growth in the first three stages of life unfolds in the Spiritual Company of Avatar Adi Da and is based in the practice of feeling-Contemplation of His bodily (human) Form and in devotion, service, and self-discipline in relation to His bodily (human) Form. By the Grace of this relationship to Avatar Adi Da, the first three (or foundation) stages of life are lived and fulfilled in a self-transcending devotional disposition, or (as He Describes it) "in the 'original' or beginner's devotional context of the fourth stage of life".

The fourth stage of life is the transitional stage between the gross, bodily-based point of view of the first three stages of life and the subtle, psychic point of view of the fifth stage of life. The fourth stage of life is the stage of Spiritual devotion, or surrender of separate self, in which the gross functions of the being are submitted to the higher psychic, or subtle, functions of the being, and, through these psychic functions, to the Divine. In the fourth stage of life, the gross, or bodily-based, personality of the first three stages of life is purified through reception of the Spiritual Force ("Holy Spirit", or "Shakti") of the Divine Reality, Which prepares the being to out-grow the bodily-based point of view.

In the Way of Adidam, as the orientation of the fourth stage of life matures, heart-felt surrender to the bodily (human) Form of Avatar Adi Da deepens by His Grace, drawing His devotee into Love-Communion with His All-Pervading Spiritual Presence. Growth in the "basic" context of the fourth stage of life in the Way of Adidam is also characterized by a Baptizing Current of Spirit-Energy that is at first felt to flow down the front of the body from above the head to the bodily base.

The Descent of Avatar Adi Da's Spirit-Baptism releases obstructions predominantly in the waking, or frontal, personality. This frontal Yoga purifies His devotee and infuses him or her with His Spirit-Power. Avatar Adi Da's devotee is awakened to profound love of and devotional intimacy with Him.

If the transition to the sixth stage of life is not otherwise made at maturity in the "basic" context of the fourth stage of life, the Spirit-Current is felt to turn about at the bodily base and ascend to the brain core, and the fourth stage of life matures to its "advanced" context, which involves the ascent of Avatar Adi Da's Spiritual Blessing and purifies the spinal line of the body-mind.

In the fifth stage of life, attention is concentrated in the subtle, or psychic, levels of awareness in ascent. The Spirit-Current is felt to penetrate the brain core and rise toward the Matrix of Light and Love-Bliss infinitely above the crown of the head, possibly culminating in the temporary experience of fifth stage conditional Nirvikalpa Samadhi, or "formless ecstasy". In the Way of Adidam, most practitioners will not need to practice in the context of the fifth stage of life, but will rather be Awakened, by Adi Da's Grace, from maturity in the fourth stage of life to the Witness-Position of Consciousness (in the context of the sixth stage of life).

In the traditional development of the sixth stage of life, attention is inverted upon the essential self and the Perfectly Subjective Position of Consciousness, to the exclusion of conditional phenomena. In the Way of Adidam, however, the deliberate intention to invert attention for the sake of Realizing Transcendental Consciousness does not characterize the sixth stage of life, which instead begins when the Witness-Position of Consciousness spontaneously Awakens and becomes stable.

In the course of the sixth stage of life, the mechanism of attention, which is the root-action of egoity (felt as separation, self-contraction, or the feeling of relatedness), gradually subsides. In the fullest context of the sixth stage of life, the knot of attention dissolves and all sense of relatedness yields to the Blissful and undifferentiated Feeling of Being. The characteristic Samadhi of the sixth stage of life is Jnana Samadhi, the temporary and exclusive Realization of the Transcendental Self, or Consciousness Itself.

The transition from the sixth stage of life to the seventh stage Realization of Absolute Non-Separateness is the unique Revelation of Avatar Adi Da. Various traditions and individuals previous to Adi Da's Revelation have had sixth stage intuitions or premonitions of the Most Perfect seventh stage Realization, but no one previous to Avatar Adi Da has Realized the seventh stage of life.

The seventh stage Realization is the Gift of Avatar Adi Da to His devotees, Awakened only in the context of the Way of Adidam that He has Revealed and Given. The seventh stage of life begins when His devotee Awakens, by His Grace, from the exclusive Realization of Consciousness to Most Perfect and permanent Identification with Consciousness Itself, Avatar Adi Da's Very (and Inherently Perfect) State. This is Divine Self-Realization, or Divine Enlightenment, the perpetual Samadhi of "Open Eyes" (seventh stage Sahaj Samadhi), in which all "things" are Divinely Recognized without "difference" as merely apparent modifications of the One Self-Existing and Self-Radiant Divine Consciousness. In the course of the seventh stage of life, there may be spontaneous incidents in which psycho-physical states and phenomena do not appear to the notice, being Outshined by the "Bright" Radiance of Consciousness Itself. This Samadhi, which is the ultimate Realization of Divine Existence, culminates in Divine Translation, or the permanent Outshining of all apparent conditions in the Inherently Perfect Radiance and Love-Bliss of the Divine Self-Condition.

In the context of practice of the Way of Adidam, the seven stages of life as Revealed by Avatar Adi Da are not a version of the traditional "ladder" of Spiritual attainment. These stages and their characteristic signs arise naturally in the course of practice for a fully practicing devotee in the Way of Adidam, but the practice itself is oriented to the transcending of the first six stages of life, in the seventh stage Disposition of Inherently Liberated Happiness, Granted by Avatar Adi Da's Grace in His Love-Blissful Spiritual Company.

For Avatar Adi Da's extended Instruction relative to the seven stages of life, see The Seven Stages Of Life—The Seventeen Companions Of The True Dawn Horse, Book Ten: Transcending The Six Stages Of egoic Life and Realizing The ego-Transcending Seventh Stage Of Life In The Divine Way Of Adidam.

See also The Seven Stages of Life

2. In Avatar Adi Da's Teaching-Revelation, "Narcissus" is a key symbol of the un-Enlightened individual as a self-obsessed seeker, enamored of his or her own self-image and egoic self-consciousness. In The Knee Of Listening, Adi Da Samraj Describes the significance of the archetype of Narcissus:

He is the ancient one visible in the Greek "myth", who was the universally adored child of the gods, who rejected the loved-one and every form of love and relationship, who was finally condemned to the contemplation of his own image, until, as a result of his own act and obstinacy, he suffered the fate of eternal separateness and died in infinite solitude.

(Return to Politics)

(Return to Adidam Revelation Excerpts)

(Return to Truth for Real booklet series)

(Return to DAbase Main Page)