FIRST WORD

Avatar Adi Da's first words to Spiritual seekers, in His Discourse of April 25, 1972, were an address to the fundamental fault of ego—the fault of presuming to be separate from everyone and everything "else" and of actively contracting into a state of would-be-independence and would-be-immunity. As He indicated on that night, and as He has elaborated in innumerable ways over the thirty years since then, this fundamental fault is the single and precise reason why the Infinitely "Bright" Reality of the Divine is not constantly experienced by human beings. And it is also the single and precise reason why Divine Help has, in general, been refused by human beings even when It is directly Offered.

Avatar Adi Da points out that the very same self-contracting tendency that is enacted by every human individual is also enacted by human collectives. This, He explains, is the real nature of "cultism"—not in the popular media sense of a "fringe" religious group, but in the sense of the universal human tendency to form groups (social, political, intellectual, philosophical, religious, and so forth) which are obsessively focused on some kind of "cult-object" (whether it be a certain set of beliefs, a certain book, a certain person, or a certain favored activity) and which tend to define themselves as distinct (or separate) from all other groups on the basis of their particular "cult-object".

Because cultism, understood in this larger sense, is simply the fault of egoity played out in the collective (rather than the individual) scale, Avatar Adi Da has always been a fierce and incisive critic of cultism—even before "cult" became a media buzzword. He has always refused to play into any tendency of others to relate to Him as the center of a "cult", as the "man in the middle"—because to allow such "cultism" would be to allow the fundamental fault of egoity to perpetuate itself, and it would be to allow a fundamentally wrong and inauspicious form of relationship to Him.

This matter of approaching Avatar Adi Da in a non-egoic and non-"cultic" disposition is essential to the process of studying His "Source-Texts" and receiving the Blessing that His Word conveys. When His Word is rightly (non-egoically and non-"cultically") received, then His Message can truly reach the heart and transform the being. In order to guide us in this process of rightly receiving His verbal Revelation, Avatar Adi Da has written an extended Essay—a "First Word"—which He has placed at the beginning of each of His "Source-Texts", as His Introduction to each Text.

Do Not Misunderstand Me—
I Am Not "Within" you, but you Are In Me,
and I Am Not a Mere "Man" in the "Middle" of Mankind,
but All of Mankind Is Surrounded, and Pervaded,
and Blessed By Me

(excerpts)

The only true religion is the religion that Realizes Truth. The only true science is the science that Knows Truth. The only true man or woman (or being of any kind) is one that Surrenders to Truth. The only true world is one that Embodies Truth. And the only True (and Real) God Is the One Reality (or Condition of Being) That Is Truth. . . .

Beloved, I Am Da, the Divine Giver, the Giver (of All That I Am) to one, and to all, and to the All of all—now, and forever hereafter—here, and every "where" in the cosmic domain. Therefore, for the Purpose of Revealing the Way of Real God (or of Real and True Divine Realization), and in order to Divinely En-Light-en and Divinely Liberate all-and-All—I Am (Uniquely, Completely, and Most Perfectly) Avatarically Revealing My Very (and Self-Evidently Divine) Person (and Spiritually "Bright" Self-Condition) to all-and-All, by Means of My Avatarically Given Divine Self-Manifestation, As (and by Means of) the Ruchira Avatar, Adi Da Samraj. . . .

The "cult" (whether of religion, or of politics, or of science, or of popular culture) is a dramatization of egoity, of separativeness, even of the entrapment and betrayal of the "center" (or the "middle"), by one and all. Therefore, I have always Refused to assume the role and the position of the "man in the middle"—and I have always (from the beginning of My formal Work of Teaching and Blessing) Criticized, Resisted, and Shouted About the "cultic" (or ego-based, and ego-reinforcing, and merely "talking" and "believing", and not understanding and not really practicing) "school" (or tendency) of ordinary religious and Spiritual life. Indeed, true Satsang with Me (or the true devotional and Spiritual relationship to Me) is an always (and specifically, and intensively) counter-"cultic" (or truly non-"cultic") Process. . . .

Therefore, no one should misunderstand Me. By Avatarically Revealing and Confessing My Divine Status to one and all and All, I am not indulging in self-appointment, or in illusions of grandiose Divinity. I am not claiming the "Status" of the "Creator-God" of exoteric (or public, and social, and idealistically pious) religion. Rather, by Standing Firm in the Divine Position (As I Am)—and (Thus and Thereby) Refusing to be approached as a mere man, or as a "cult"-figure, or as a "cult"-leader, or to be in any sense defined (and, thereby, trapped, and abused, or mocked) as the "man in the middle"—I Am Demonstrating the Most Perfect Fulfillment (and the Most Perfect Integrity, and the Most Perfect Fullness) of the Esoteric (and Most Perfectly Non-Dual) Realization of Reality.