Supportive Disciplines in the Way of Adidam: from the Adi Da Samraj site

In this section, we provide brief overviews of the secondary and supportive disciplines in the Way of Adidam. We begin by discussing the disciplines associated with the immediate sphere of the individual: disciplines applied to our own body-mind (diet, health, exercise, and sexuality) and in relation to our intimates (emotional and emotional-sexual disciplines). Then we discuss the disciplines that apply to spheres larger than the individual: disciplines that apply to work in the world, service to the Avatar Adi Da Samraj's work of liberating all beings, and the community of one’s fellow spiritual practitioners. All areas of one’s life must be transformed into “surrender to God”, energy and attention freed up more and more to be absorbed in God rather than self, if hearing, and ultimately complete Awakening, is to occur.

The role of discipline: some useful analogies — Before discussing the specific areas of discipline, several analogies are worth introducing and considering.
The role of conventional wisdom in serving the Greater Purpose — Much conventional wisdom — that is, wisdom developed for purposes less than Spiritual Awakening from the dream — can play a role. All the scholars, researchers, and clinicians in an area such as diet are studying the same phenomenon: the human body, how it assimilates and eliminates food, how different foods facilitate or detract from this process, and the positive or negative side effects on the body altogether, both in the short term and the long term, of different kinds of diets, etc. It is just that the results of these dietary studies are primarily used to address such questions as health and longevity; whereas, in the Spiritual Way, the same results are harnessed to a different purpose: the freeing up of energy and attention so as to expedite Waking Up.
A prototypical example: the discipline of diet — It is one thing to romantize Spiritual life, and talk knowingly about “disciplining oneself”. But it is another thing to do it! And, short of doing it, there is nothing like reading the details of a discipline that hits us in the “gut” — the dietary discipline — and getting a sense for how much we use food as a consolation, and how little inclined we (or at least most of us) are to adopt a diet like the one described above, despite its noble purpose, because it is boring. But boredom (as a primary motivator of the ego) must itself be understood in true spirirual practice.
The discipline of conductivity — This discipline refers directly to the process of the unobstructed conducting of energy through the Circle of the body-mind. The practices of conductivity prevent the loss of energy in the body, supports general health and well-being, and supports general reception of Avatar Adi Da Samraj's Transmission.
The discipline of health and radical healing — The viewpoint of radical healing is that disease is a result and expression of self-contraction. Responsibility for maintaining a state of bodily health — thus freeing up attention and energy otherwise spent on dealing with disease and bodily imbalance — is based on three means: faith, prayer, and fasting.
The discipline of conscious exercise — Most of us tend to have habits of bodily posture and movement that tend to bind rather than free up or conduct the energy of the body. Thus, as part of this discipline, one re-learns bodily posture altogether: how to stand, sit, and walk, appropriately and consciously. One also regularly practices various exercises that keep the body balanced. The purpose of conscious exercise is to convert bodily posture and movement into devotion to the Divine, in every moment.
The emotional-sexual discipline — Emotional intimacy and sexual activity are two of the areas that most bind our energy and attention, as we can all gather, reflecting on our own life experiences and priorities. Two of the most important aspects of the emotional-sexual discipline for freeing up energy and attention are: understanding and transcending oedipal patterning by being love; and understanding and transcending the addiction to the degenerative orgasm.
The discipline of cooperative community — Like-impulsed spiritual practitioners — that can constitute what Avatar Adi Da Samraj refers to as “good company” — can cooperate, and live together and work together in a cooperative fashion that creatively frees up time, energy, attention and money. Again, like all the disciplines, the discipline of cooperative community cuts into an addictive habit: living separately as “householders” in our separate family “castles”, and thus avoiding making ourselves vulnerable to the influence of and agreements with others that is a necessary part of such a cooperative arrangement. But again, like all the other disciplines, once the adaptation has been made to this new habit, great energy and attention are released for the Greater Purpose. The establishment of local cooperative communities is also the beginning of a process which, when, carried out on a global scale, begins to relieve world tensions and relieve everyone of the anxiety that comes from the fear of global threat or annihilation.
The discipline of money, work, and handling business — Even spiritual practitioners living in cooperative community with each other still have bills to pay every month. As spiritual practitioners, though, we must always keep in mind that the purpose of earning income and handling business is to support the greater purpose of life: Spiritual Realization.
The discipline of service to the Spiritual Master — There is a Spiritual law, which Avatar Adi Da calls, “The Sacrament of Universal Sacrifice”, that requires the devotee of the Spiritual Master to serve the Master and His or Her great work of liberating all beings from the dream, in return for and in gratitude for receiving the Master’s unceasing gift of Communion with the Divine, and ultimately Awakening as the Divine.
The cultural disciplines — The cultural disciplines that free up energy and attention for the Greater Purpose include meditation, sacramental practices, and education.