The Gnosticon

The Gnosticon

In The Gnosticon (which means "The Book of Knowledge"), Avatar Adi Da examines the Transcendentalist Teachings of the Great Sages, in light of His own Revelation of the Transcendental Spiritual Reality-Way of Adidam.

The Gnosticon includes His renderings of key texts from the traditions of Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta, together with essential texts of His own "Perfect Knowledge" Reality-Teaching.

"Adi Da Samraj has created a body of work that surpasses in its force and insight that of any other author and teacher of our time. . . .

The present book [is] a mature document that culminates forty or more years of reflection and articulation on Adi Da Samraj's part. I can only add my own humble invitation to all to plunge into its ecstatic waters and savor The Gnosticon."

From the foreword by Paul E. Muller-Ortega
Professor of Religion, University of Rochester
Author, The Triadic Heart of Shiva

The Gnosticon includes a full bibliography of Avatar Adi Da's additional Writings on key topics covered in the book:

• The Esoteric Stages of Life
• The Seventh Stage of Life
• The Psycho-Physical Structures Underlying the Stages of Life
• The Historical Traditions of the Sixth Stage of Life
• Advaita Vedanta and Buddhism, and Their Relationship to the Seventh Stage Way of Adidam
• Avatar Adi Da's Commentaries on and Renderings of Traditional Hindu Scriptures
• Avatar Adi Da's Recorded Discourses on the Great Tradition and the Stages of Life

From The Gnosticon

1. The Perfect Tradition
   Introduction to The Gnosticon by Carolyn Lee, PhD
2. Table of Contents

Supplemental Reading

The following essays (cited in the bibliography to The Gnosticon) were originally published in various magazines in the 1970s and are being made available here in updated versions:

1. The Old Religions, the New Scientism,
   and the Awakening of the Psyche
   "The oldest level of human consciousness operates in the etheric manner. Everybody has little superstitions, little ritual activities."
   
   Etheric Culture and Astral Culture
   "One can see the meeting of the etheric culture and the astral culture in the Old Testament, in the struggle out of which appeared the 'religion' of Yahweh."
   Transcendental Culture
   "Transcendental culture is never very popular, because the mass of humanity is still struggling with the passage from the etheric dimension into astral consciousness."
   The Universal Scientism of Modern Society
   "Scientism denies the connection to the energies and 'creative' sources of the 'world'. Human beings are denied right 'religion' and true Spirituality by scientism "
   Right "Religion" and True Spirituality
   "You are perfectly free to 'experience' everything from ghosts and invisible forces to the most sublime subtle visions or absorption in the Absolute Transcendental Consciousness — and you are obliged to transcend it all."
2. Avatar Adi Da Samraj and Swami Muktananda:
   A Confrontation of Dharmas
   "I did not intend to engage in any kind of confrontation, because there was nothing to win. If Baba's position was simply contrary, that is what I wanted to find out."
   
   The "Blue Pearl" Bindu
   "Is not This Consciousness the same Perfect, Self-Luminous Reality of Which all things are the modification?"
   The True Heart on the Right
   "The relationship between the True Heart on the right and the sahasrar is called Amrita Nadi, and one in who all of this has come alive by Grace knows Reality (or God) through or in the form of Amrita Nadi."
   The Divine Process Awakened by God
   "The Divine Process Awakened by God through the Power of Grace may develop in the intuitive Way of the Jnanis or Buddhas, just as well as the 'experiential' Way of the Yogis."
   The End of the Interview
   "There is no special function He [Swami Muktananda] can perform for Me psychologically or internally, no need for any of that."
   The Full Realization of Amrita Nadi
   "I came to this Realization of Reality directly, without the 'knowledge' of a single human Source that would confirm it or even parallel it."
   Limitations of the Yogic Samadhis
   "The Yogic Samadhis are essentially trance conditions. They are remarkable mental states, but they are temporary and only forms of 'experience'."
   Ascended versus Sahaja Nirvikalpa Samadhi
   "Seventh stage Sahaja Nirvikalpa Samadhi is the highest form of Samadhi. It is the Samadhi of Consciousness Itself. It is not associated with any particular trance (or 'subjective' state)."
   Mind Cannot Be the Principle of Practice
   "Because the mind is loaded with such liabilities and illusions, it cannot properly be the principle of ego-transcending practice. The Divine Itself must be the principle of practice."
3. Hinduism and Buddhism
   "Hindu paths are, in general, based on the search for Realization (and, thereby, Liberation) via progressive 'knowledge' of the cosmic 'secret' (or principle)."
4. In the Spirit of Buddhism
   "The 'waking world' is not a 'place', an 'earth', but a realm, just as the dimension into which you enter in dreams is a realm."

Further Reading

To accompany Section 2. "A Confrontation of Dharmas"
(printer-friendly PDF documents):

1. The Way Becomes Conscious
   Chapter 18 of The Knee of Listening (as it will appear in the final forthcoming edition)
2. The Five-Sheath Structure of
   the Human Body-Mind-Complex
   ...and the Relationship of That Structure to the Fifth Stage Yogic Understanding of the Nature of Liberation, Including the Nature and Significance of the "Blue Pearl" - excerpted from the book Santosha Adidam
3. Avatar Adi Da's Final Summary Description of
   His Dialogue with Swami Muktananda
   An excerpt from Avatar Adi Da's summary Essay on His relationship to His Lineage-Gurus and to the Great Tradition altogether