Cultism and Religion

In the modern world, any group of people gathered for any “unconventional” religious or social purpose tends to be labelled a “cult”. But what is a cult?

Adi Da Samraj describes a cult as a group of people enthusiastically encircling a center—which can be a book, person, symbol, idea, and so on. At first, cultists tend to idolize the center childishly, excluding all that is outside. Sometimes a cult deposes and abuses its center, adolescently reacting to its own idealism and childishness. Truly, Adi Da says, a cult is the self-contraction and the avoidance of relationship functioning in a human collective.

Going beyond the human ritual of cultism is part of self-understanding and ego-transcendence in Adidam. Avatar Adi Da has always been very critical of His devotees’ own tendency to exhibit cultic attachment to Him, as He has no inclination to play “the man in the middle” of a cultic group of enthusiasts. He expects that everyone who becomes His devotee has done so on the basis of real self-inspection and an intelligent and conscious decision to embrace His Spiritual authority.

In Adidam, the cultic tendency is undermined by right devotion to Adi Da, which is based on both recognition of Him as the true Divine Person and true understanding of the self-contracting tendency of every individual.

Read an excerpt from Avatar Adi Da’s
Teaching about the cultic tendency