About Us > Website Staff > Chris Tong

Chris TongChris Tong, Ph.D. is one of the founders and managing editors of this site. He is also the founder of The Practical Spirituality Press, the director of The Institute for Real God, The COTEDA Institute for Global Accord, and FIRM (The Foundation against Intolerance of Religious Minorities), and the primary developer of the World Meeting Place.

Chris received his BA summa cum laude in 1978 from Columbia University (where he also was awarded the 1976 Van Amringe Mathematical Prize by the Department of Mathematics for being the "best freshman or sophomore mathematics student"), and his Ph.D. in 1988 from Stanford University (where he was also awarded a fellowship for being the outstanding graduate student at the Knowledge Systems Laboratory in 1983). From 1984 to 1994, Chris was a professor of computer science at Rutgers University, one of the first winners of the CSGSS Award for Excellence in Teaching, a leading researcher in Artificial Intelligence in Design, Knowledge Compilation, and Machine Learning, recipient of major government research grants (from DARPA and the National Science Foundation), co-editor of a state-of-the-art series of books about his field (published by Academic Press and still used by graduate courses in the field), and a visiting professor at MIT. He was also a main participant in the Knowledge Systems Area of Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (see a humorous video of researchers watching their AI systems compete), and a visiting researcher at IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center. The stability algorithms he developed while at IBM initiated a new field of research — "Lyapunov function construction" (see here and here). They have been widely cited and have had broad applicability, in areas as diverse as biotechnology and the stabilization of greenhouse gases required by the Kyoto Protocol.

Chris has been a devotee of Adi Da Samraj since 1989. (Story here.) From 1990 to 1994, he was the chief missionary for the New England region of Adidam, developing and leading workshops and retreats in Boston and New York City, and creating Adidam's original, official website in 1994 (the year the Web became available for public use), which went on to win awards from Lycos and Magellan. He has been a resident at Adidam's sanctuaries in Northern California, Hawaii, and Fiji, travelling with and serving Adi Da as He moved between sanctuaries, and accompanying Adi Da in His world travels during 1995-96, as a member of Adi Da's Dasya Mandala. He has served in many positions within Adidam, including: co-director of the Adidam Word and Mission Division, production manager of the Dawn Horse Press, head of the Lay Renunciate Order, Adi Da's cultural sarvadhikari, co-chair of the Samrajya Board, head of worldwide Adidam Education, head of education at Adi Da Samrajashram, Adi Da Samrajashram cultural board member, and composer and musical and choral director for the performance of Adi Da Samraj's Mummery Book in Fiji, 1995. (Story here.) He has served as a priest at several Holy Sites at The Mountain Of Attention, including Seventh Gate Shrine and the Manner Of Flowers, and served as head priest for Skyway Temple. Chris has also made numerous contributions to the Adi Da Up Close website.

Chris writes:


In 1994, in my first major function serving the Adidam Institution — as head of worldwide Adidam education — Adi Da sent me these Notes: "Does he know that he is now responsible for the education of the six billion?"[1] Even though I served Adidam in many other functions after that, most of them directly or indirectly served this joyful, challenging responsibility of bringing Adi Da's transcendent wisdom — and Adi Da Himself — to all of humankind. In keeping with that purpose, this website provides an important piece of that education.

I have spent a lifetime studying and experimenting with the traditional and contemporary "solutions" to the basic Spiritual problems with which humankind has struggled for eons. And so I can say without a doubt (not merely as a scholar, but as a practitioner) that Avatar Adi Da Samraj offers to all beings the greatest Spiritual Realization ever made available on this planet — Perfect, Eternal Happiness — and for realizing it, He provides a foolproof means whose only limit is oneself. Strong words! Words that affront many who are raised in our contemporary materialistic society (and its obligatory but uninformed egalitarianism: "all spiritual paths are equal" — they are not). Words that require much to back up. But I've dedicated much of my recent life and creativity — including the creation and development of this site — to doing just that: providing the evidence . . . with the passionate intent that many others become aware of, and drink from, this Unlimited Fountain of Perfect Knowledge and Perfect Happiness.

The viewpoint of materialism so fiercely dominates today's world that the appearance of a genuinely great and true Spiritual Master — a human incarnation of the Divine — may be greeted with either a yawn (while surfing a Web full of both "spiritual teachers" and ways to materialistically indulge oneself) or a smirk ("must be yet another megolomanical cult leader"). I believe this site has the potential to help cut into that materialistic view, to the point where the most serious of our site's visitors will realize the extraordinary import of a Being who offers all of us Perfect, Eternal Happiness
for real.


 


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FOOTNOTES
[1]

Eight billion, as of November, 2022.


Quotations from and/or photographs of Avatar Adi Da Samraj used by permission of the copyright owner:
© Copyrighted materials used with the permission of The Avataric Samrajya of Adidam Pty Ltd, as trustee for The Avataric Samrajya of Adidam. All rights reserved. None of these materials may be disseminated or otherwise used for any non-personal purpose without the prior agreement of the copyright owner. ADIDAM is a trademark of The Avataric Samrajya of Adidam Pty Ltd, as Trustee for the Avataric Samrajya of Adidam.

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