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What are the
right and wrong ways
to approach the Guru? |
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| Teaching as He has in the
cultural wasteland of the modern West, Adi Da has been confronted
by individuals approaching Him with a seemingly endless variety
of wrong notions, fantasy orientations, and cultic beliefs relative
to Spiritual practice and the relationship to the Sat-Guru.
He has said that not a single individual approached Him with
genuine self-understanding and an appreciation of the laws inherent
in the Guru-devotee relationship. Thus, as the years of His
Teaching-Work with aspirants progressed, Adi Da found it necessary
to require people to demonstrate greater and greater preparation
and understanding before they could approach Him as Divine Guru.
All of this rigorous preparatory discipline and study reflects
Adi Da Samraj's utter commitment to prevent His devotees from
indulging in the errors of cultism and nominal practice, which
have historically all too often undermined the practice of true
religion, reducing it to sheer exotericism. The true Sat-Guru
must deal effectively with the presumptuousness and other delusions
of his or her beginning devotees. |
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| Beyond ego-based
fascination with the Guru |
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“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…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.”
–Avatar Adi Da Samraj
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| Beyond childish
and adolescent approaches to the Guru |
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One of the key mistakes
we make in our egoic assumptions is to think that “Avatar
Adi Da” is just another human being like us—thus,
we either seek His attention childishly or adolescently resist
the process of surrendering to Him as the Divine. This occurs
when we see Him either as the “God in charge of everything”
or as a mere human being, without understanding that His Human
Body is completely submitted to (and thus a vehicle for) His
Spiritual Presence and Divinely Perfect State.
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“The mature individual or true devotee is free of childish
and adolescent approaches to the Spiritual Master. He is neither
childishly dependent, as upon a parent, nor adolescently independent,
as in revolt against a parent. Rather, he turns to the Spiritual
Master freely, in love and service, in gestures of surrender
to the Process and the Reality that are always Present and
Awakening in that Company. Such an individual is not motivated
by the [un-Happy] dilemmas and the self-protective searching
for solutions that characterize the usual man. He has been
awakened to intuition of his own Real Condition and to the
native activity of love in service… Thus, he is not
bound or afraid. He is free to surrender in love to the Agent
of his own Destiny, and in such surrender in love he fulfills
the Law of practice wherein Grace may be given and transformation
made.” –Avatar Adi Da Samraj, The Enlightenment of
the Whole Body
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The key to the right relationship to the Sat-Guru is a true
understanding of Who That One Is, and, therefore, what is
actually being offered in the Guru-devotee relationship. Such
a Sat-Guru has not become "God" in any exclusive
sense, as the Supreme Being apart from all others. Rather,
the Spiritually Awakened Sat-Guru is one who has (to one or
another degree) transcended his or her egoic activity and
has thus Realized Identity with the Divine Condition that
is also the Identity of all beings. Such a Sat-Guru brings
that Blessing to others as a gift, calling them to also take
up the practice of self-surrender in which they will more
and more fully Realize the same Condition.
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“Do not practice the 'childish cult' of superficial
and ego-serving emotionalism (full of wanting dependency,
and empty of faith), and do not practice the 'adolescent cult'
of non-feeling (willful, self-absorbed, abstract, and independent)--but
always practice (and cultivate) the true …devotion to
Me…Neither Real God nor the Divine Heart-Master is your
Parent. Therefore, do not expect Real God or the Divine Heart-Master
to justify or protect or preserve or fulfill your egoic want
and separateness…You are Called, by Me, to surrender
your separate and separative self in Real God…”
–Avatar Adi Da Samraj, Ruchira Avatara Gita
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| Do not believe
in the Guru |
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It is easy for us to relate
to Avatar Adi Da Samraj improperly, in a manner that serves
the purposes of ego-fulfillment rather than ego-surrender.
Thus, it is important to remember that no one is asked to
"believe" that Avatar Adi Da is the Divine. He has
even said, "You must not believe in Me." Why? Because
mere belief is not transformative. Only what is revealed in
one's real experience of body, heart, and mind altogether
(rather than mind only) can transform the being.
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“Mere belief in a "Savior" or a "program"
of "Liberation" is not sufficient…All beliefs,
all conventional and consoling religions, all merely strategic
religious and Spiritual methods, are extensions of the self-contraction.”
–Avatar Adi Da Samraj
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Therefore, Avatar Adi Da does not offer you a set of beliefs,
or even a set of Spiritual techniques. He simply offers you
His Revelation of Truth as a free gift, to respond to as you
will. And, if you are moved to take up His Way, He invites
you to enter into a direct Spiritual relationship with Him.
Those of us who have taken this step have found the Spiritual
relationship to Avatar Adi Da Samraj to be a supremely precious
gift, a literally miraculous blessing, the answer to our deepest
longings—greatly surpassing anything we have ever experienced
or even imagined to be possible. |
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| [Adapted from
Divine Distraction: A Guide to the Guru-Devotee
Relationship by James Steinberg] |
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| Further Reading: |
| Quotations
from Gurus and Devotees Throughout History |
| Why
is the Guru necessary for spiritual practice? |
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