SEVENTEEN COMPANIONS

Santosha Adidam is Avatar Adi Da's Revelation (in explicit detail) of how "Santosha"—the Divine State of Perfect Satisfaction (or Perfect Contentment, or Perfect Searchlessness)—is progressively Realized through the practice of Adidam.

Avatar Adi Da's first thirty years were a period of unimaginably intense investigation of existence, conducted through all kinds of in-life means, including intellectual, religious, and Spiritual efforts. Therefore, everything that Avatar Adi Da describes in Santosha Adidam—relative to the nature of existence, the nature of the human being, and the nature of the process of Realization—is His "report" of what He has confirmed to be the case, through His own participatory observation of reality (in all its dimensions—gross, subtle, and causal).

In Santosha Adidam, Avatar Adi Da confirms certain of the conclusions about the nature of reality which have been reached by great Realizers of Truth (particularly in the traditions of India). And, even more significantly, He Reveals many remarkable esoteric secrets about reality and human existence that have never been told before—secrets that revolutionize our understanding of reality and human existence, secrets that make plain the total "design" of conditional life and its relationship to the Unconditional.

The fundamental argument of Santosha Adidam centers around the structure of the human mechanism and how that structure relates to the process of Spiritual growth—for the complete course of Spiritual practice must encompass the gross, subtle, and causal dimensions of the being. Avatar Adi Da acknowledges the accuracy of the Hindu description of the human structure as composed of five "sheaths" (or "bodies")—and He gives His own precise definitions of each of these sheaths.

In Santosha Adidam, Avatar Adi Da describes how the complete Spiritual process of the Way of Adidam is a matter of progressively taking responsibility for the fundamental ego-activity of self-contraction, in the context of each of the five sheaths. Because each of the five sheaths is a distinct realm of experience and activity, the disciplines that relate to each of the sheaths are distinct. Therefore, one of Avatar Adi Da's principal purposes in Santosha Adidam is to describe the disciplines (ranging from diet to sexuality to community living to the fundamental practice of devotional Communion to different forms of meditation practice) that relate to each of the five sheaths (and, thereby, to the progressive course of the Way of Adidam through the first six stages of life, culminating in the Realization of the seventh stage of life).

Avatar Adi Da offers a true, complete, and radically new communication about "cure". Cure not as a body free of disease and a mind free of disturbance, but as body and mind in-filled with the Omnipresent Light of Eternal Consciousness.

Bill Gottlieb
author, Alternative Cures
former editor-in-chief, Rodale Books

The Esoteric Anatomy of the Human Structure
The Gross Body Is a Food-Process
There Are No Separate Waters in the Sea

The Esoteric Anatomy of the Human Structure

The body-mind is progressively transcended by transcending egoity (or self-contraction) in the context of each of the functional levels of the body-mind. This Process moves from the gross functions toward the subtle functions, and from the frontal line (or the frontal personality, or the gross personality) to the spinal line (or the subtle personality)—until the Process of transcending the central (or causal) dimension of the apparent (or conditional) personality (associated with the right side of the heart) becomes the Direct Means for the Realization of Consciousness Itself.

In fact, if the various primary functional levels of the body-mind can be rightly perceived and (most fundamentally) understood, then the key to each developmental stage of practice is Revealed. And this right perception and most fundamental understanding is already suggested by the traditional names for the functional levels (or sheaths, or coverings, or superimpositions on Consciousness) represented by the body-mind:

The gross body (or the physical body) is annamayakosha (the "food-sheath", or the "food-body").

The subtle body—or the internal personality (or group of functions)—is made of three functional parts. The first (which may be contacted inwardly, but which is really surrounding the gross body) is pranamayakosha (the "pranic sheath", or the "pranic body", or the "body of personal life-energy"). The second is manomayakosha (or the "sheath of lower mind"). The lower mind includes the conscious mind, the subconscious mind, and the unconscious mind—and the functional activity of the lower mind (or brain-mind) is generated from a position that stands above (and is senior to) the pranic body. The third (and most senior) part of the subtle body is vijnanamayakosha (the "sheath of higher mind", the "sheath of superconscious mind", or the "sheath of intellect"). At the core of the higher mind is the central will and discriminative (and naturally observant) intelligence of the conditional "I" (or limited self)—and the functional activity of the higher mind is generated from a position that stands above (and is central, and senior, to) the sheath of lower mind.

Finally, there is anandamayakosha (the "sheath of conditional bliss", or the "causal body"), which is the causative root of conditional selfhood. The true causal body is associated with the right side of the heart (which is, itself, the Ultimate Passageway to Transcendental Self-Consciousness). . . .

Thus, there is one gross sheath (and it is primarily associated with the frontal—descended, or descending—personality). There are three subtle sheaths, and they are associated, in their lower range, with the frontal line (or the gross personality), and, in their upper range, with the spinal line (or the subtle personality—whether in the gross or the exclusively subtle context). And there is one causal sheath, originating in association with the right side of the heart. Just so, if these sheaths (or levels) of psycho-physical existence are really and rightly perceived, and (most fundamentally) understood (such that they are Released from the binding and deluding motive of self-contraction), and (most directly) transcended, then passage through and beyond the limits of the first six stages of life can be truly accelerated (and soon, and Inherently, Perfected).

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The gross body is, very simply, the food-body. The gross body (itself) depends on (and is made of) food. The quality and quantity of food largely (or very basically) determines the state and desire and action of the physical body and the sense-mind. If food-taking is intelligently minimized, and if the food selected is both pure and purifying, then the physical body (and even the entire emotional dimension of the being, and the total mind) passes through a spontaneous natural cycle that shows (progressive) signs of (first) purification, (then) rebalancing, and (finally) rejuvenation. Therefore, if food-taking is controlled, the physical body itself (including its desires and activities) becomes rather easily (or simply) controllable.

On the basis of this principle, it is very simple (in principle) to restore the gross body to balance, health, and well-being. The basic treatment of any unhealthful condition of the gross body is a food-treatment (generally accompanied by rest from—or, otherwise, right and effective control of—all the enervating influences and effects of daily life). Therefore, primarily, it is through the food-discipline (accompanied by general self-discipline) that gross bodily purification, rebalancing, and rejuvenation are accomplished.

This "food-principle" is the fundamental physical basis of all physical healing. Some bodily conditions may require special healing treatments, but even such special approaches will be useful (in the fullest and long-term sense) only if accompanied by fundamental changes in diet (and simultaneous changes in one's habits of life). Therefore, always, the primary (and right) approach to physical health and physical well-being must be (first) to address (or examine) and (then) to treat (and to discipline) the gross body simply (or directly) as a food-process. . . .

Therefore, the Yoga of right diet is a principal physical means in the only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way of Adidam whereby the body is utterly conformed to the Purpose of Most Perfect Realization of Real God, or Truth, or Reality. The ego would adapt the body-mind to purposes of worldly fulfillment and mere survival, but My devotee who rightly, truly, fully, and fully devotionally resorts to Me (and who, thus and thereby, understands egoity) no longer limits the body-mind to merely conventional and worldly purposes, but (rather) makes the body into a Yoga-body, through the exercise of Ruchira Avatara Bhakti Yoga (including all the disciplines of "conductivity").

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If the separate "I" and its separate "other" are Most Perfectly Relinquished (or Most Perfectly transcended), such that the complex presumption of separate "I" and separate "other" (or of the feeling of relatedness itself) is transcended (and is not superimposed on what otherwise arises, or on what is otherwise perceived conditionally)—then what arises?

If conditions arise, but no separate "I"-"other" feeling is added to what arises—then what arises?

It is not that, in that case, there are no perceptions of conditions—but all conditions (including the perceiving body-mind) are Comprehended (or Most Perfectly Felt) Prior to the self-contraction and its "I"-"other" structure of feeling, perceiving, and presuming.

Therefore, if the separate (and separative) "I"-"other" presumption is not added to what arises, what arises appears only As it Is, or Inherently Free of the feeling-concept of inherent separateness (or "difference").

This Unique and Original Freedom may be likened to the perception of waves from the point of view of the ocean (as compared to the perception of waves from the point of view of any single wave).

If any conditional pattern In What Is becomes a point of view (or the point of view) Toward What Is, then What Is ceases to Be Obvious, and the pattern merely perceives itself (separately, or "differently", over against all other patterns).

If the separate "I" becomes the point of view, then the "other" is everywhere multiplied and perceived, and only the stress of the separate "I"-"other" confrontation is experienced and known.

However, if the separate conditional point of view is transcended, and What Is (Prior to it) becomes the Disposition In Which all conditions (including the perceiving body-mind) are observed—then the pattern of conditions is no longer a problem, a dilemma, or a confrontation of "one" (or the separate "I") against an "other", but the pattern of conditions is an inherently problem-free totality (or an open sea of motions).

In the totality thus perceived, there is no separateness—even if manifold complexity is (apparently) perceived.

There are no separate waters in the sea, but every wave or motion folds in one another on the Deep.

Such is the Disposition of the only-by-Me Revealed and Given seventh stage of life.

In the only-by-Me Revealed and Given seventh stage of life, whatever arises conditionally (including the conditional body-mind) is Divinely Self-Recognized As it Is (or In and Of and As Self-Existing and Self-Radiant Consciousness Itself—Which Is the Deep Ocean of all apparent events). . . .

Therefore, Deep (Inherently egoless, and Self-Evidently Divine) Self-Recognition Realizes Only Self-Existing and Self-Radiant Love-Bliss where the conditional patterns of merely apparent modification rise and fall in their folds.

At first, this Realization Shines in the world and Plays "Bright" Demonstrations on the waves.

At last, the "Brightness" Is Indifferent (Beyond "difference") In the Deep—There, Where Primitive relatedness Is Freely Drowned. And, When "Bright" Self-Recognition Rests Most Deeply In Its Fathomless Shine, the Play of motions Is Translated In Love-Bliss, Pervasive In the Water-Stand—and, like a Sea of Blankets, All the Deep Unfolds To Waken In the Once Neglected (Now Un-Covered) Light of Self-Illuminated and Eternal Day.

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