In February of 1994, when Avatar Adi Da’s youngest daughter had just become a teenager, she went on a special retreat in His Company. The retreat took place on Naitauba Island, at a primitive campsite on the far side of the island.

 

In the evenings, Adi Da would sit around the campfire, or more often, a small group of devotees would gather around Him in a hut on the beach. During that time, He guided his daughter in intensifying her practice of the disciplines of Adidam, in her recognition of His blessing, and her understanding of the serious responsibilities of life and practice altogether.

 

Here is an excerpt of the instructions He gave to her then—which remains a call to seriousness for all young people who would take up the practice of Adidam:

AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: You must take your practice seriously. Do not be merely superficial, conforming yourself to external influences. Ask real questions. Always say exactly what you feel and what you are thinking. Make your life of practice real, and not just a life of conforming to what others tell you or ask you to do. Of course, the people around you are probably suggesting right discipline for you—but you must make it real for yourself, by getting real about your practice of the Reality--Way of Adidam, and staying real. No matter what the people around you are doing, the profundity of your practice depends on you.

What examples did I have in My early Life? I Did My Practice in New York. I grew up on Long Island. There was no esoteric tradition. There was no Great Teaching. There were only extremely ordinary, “worldly” people. Yet, the very ordinary circumstance in which I grew up did not persuade Me against the life of practice. Ultimately, yes, it would be better if everyone around you were in the “Perfect Practice” of Adidam, as examples and help to you--but your practice is not based in your surroundings. Your practice is based in your own integrity, your own responsiveness, your own seriousness, your intention to make Reality Itself Real, and not be dissociated from Reality Itself through ego-possession, superficiality, and stupidity.

 

Your life of practice is not just told to you and given to you. You must struggle to practice this ego--transcending Reality--Way of Adidam. Ego--transcending practice is inevitably a struggle—and that is fine. What is not fine is being oblivious and stupid, and the struggle that comes from that. That struggle is fruitless, leading nowhere but to suffering and more stupidity. There is a real and right struggle, and then there is the nonsensical struggle that comes when you are just stupid. You must know the difference, but you also must understand that the life of real practice is a struggle to go beyond your superficiality such that you ask your real questions, such that you are expressive of what is going on with you and are always confessed. Live the ego--transcending practice of the Reality--Way of Adidam for real, rather than as a merely “outward” observer.

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The conditional existence that is before you, including your own physical existence presently, is a process that changes and eventually dies. It is a process within a Great Reality, a Great Process, in Which nothing and no one actually dies but in Which everything is transformed, everything changes, even dramatically, including the dramatic change that is death. You must devote your life to That in Which all of this is happening—the Very Divine Person, the Very Divine Reality Itself, Eternally Free, Eternally Love--Blissful. All these changes occur in That One.

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In the meantime, the situation in which you are appearing here, apparently, at the moment is that everybody is going to die here. Almost all of My friends and relations who were of an older generation when I was a boy are dead. So, also, in your lifetime you will “experience” the same changes, as people die and separations occur. I Myself will disappear bodily—and others you love will disappear, too, in due course. Nevertheless, the Source--Condition in Which the changes are occurring Is Eternal. It Is Reality Itself--Divine, Absolute. That Is the Condition you should want to be in all your life. I Am That Divine Condition.

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Therefore, embrace and worship the Divine Condition, the Divine One, the Divine Reality, the Divine
Process in Which you are appearing. To attach yourself to, bind yourself to, associate yourself with,
Commune with, give yourself up to, the Divine Condition in Which all these changes are happening—that is true ego--transcending practice.