Adi Da’s seven stages of practice model

Posted by Broken Yogi on Feb-9-05

I could go back and forth on this topic all day, defending the utility of stages, and attacking them, as my mood sees fit. Certainly it’s evident that every process in life moves through stages of one kind or another, and the spiritual process, at least as it appears in life, follows a similar developmental cycle.

The problem, of course, comes when we assume there is only one spiritual process, and therefore only one series of stages that we all must pass through, and then try to figure out where we are, and what we need to do, and where everyone else is, and what they need to do, etc. Adi Da's seven stage model is just one of many such systems that has a certain degree of validity if you take on a process particular to that path. But others may take on other paths and go through entirely different processes, and stages, etc., and comparing the two will never yield uniform answers that can be agreed upon by all. Adi Da's hubris was in trying to create one system, and one way of looking at spiritual practice, that would incorporate every possible point of view and process into a single set of stages that would allow anyone to make sense of anyone else.

And guess what? It doesn't work. Adi Da's seven stage model simply doesn't cover every point of view and every process. In fact, it really only covers Adi Da's own point of view, and no one else's. It's an interesting model, useful in a very crude way for certain broad characteristics of spirituality, but it really doesn't get at anything deep or profound. When it tries to get at something deep and profound, it actually has to abandon its own stages and resort to other processes.

For example, the spiritual practice that Adi Da actually teaches doesn't work according to the seven stage model. He's created a whole other set of stages and processes for himself and his devotees that is only peripherally connected to the seven stages. Not even he can confine himself to the seven stage model. So if one looks at the straight-jacket he's created in the seven stages, it's clear it's something he intends other religions to wear, not himself or Adidam. But why would they submit to wear his straight-jacket? Why would they do that, anymore than he would want to submit to wearing their straight-jackets? Does it even apply? No, not really, unless you just dogmatically smash round pegs into square holes all the way through the traditions.

The real question is, does the spiritual process really have anything to do with stages at all? My own view on this - and this isn't something I'd want to impose on anyone else - is that what is truly transcendent and genuine about the spiritual process simply does not go through any stages at all. It is simply true and complete from the beginning, and remains exactly what it is from there to the end. It is inherently enlightened, inherently true, inherently always already reality itself, and reality simply transcends all stages. My view is that the minute you start thinking of the spiritual process as something that goes in stages, you have lost it, you have lost the essential view that is present and eternal and instead have taken a view that is conditional and puts enlightenment off into the future. In my view, the spiritual process is just one thing, and it is always and only and forever just that one thing, and you either do that well, or you don't, and there isn't really any parts to it that you could break it down into, because it is simply whole, simply single, simply reality itself.

Once you start breaking it down into parts and stages, you have lost it, and you might as well just go fuck yourself at that point. Of course, one way of fucking yourself is to practice it one stage at a time, as if that's a sensible way of going about things. It isn't. You have to grasp the essential process, and do it, and do it forever. Maybe you get better at doing that one thing, but it can't be broken down into two things, because it's just one thing, and so you can't create stages out of it. The point of view that sees stages in that one process is the point of view that can't do it anymore, and can never get it going again. Only the point of view that sees it as one thing can do it, and then it can't create stages out of it, it can only do it or not.

Anyway, that's my rant for the day, and I'm sticking to it.