What this site is not. This site is
not officially associated with Adidam. The primary official site
for Adidam is www.adidam.org.
The perspectives or commentaries that you find on this site represent
the viewpoints of the individual authors (presenters, interviewees,
etc.) or our editorial and review staff. They should not be taken
as an official viewpoint. The only
voice truly representative of the Teaching of Adidam is that of
Avatar Adi Da Samraj. For this reason, we have included, with
permission, some of Adi Da's own Teaching
on this site so that you can know what He has directly said about
a variety of subjects. If you find the materials on this site
interesting, we encourage you to deepen your exploration of Adi
Da, His Teaching, and His Work altogether — click
here for what you can do next.
What
this site is. This site provides personal perspectives about Adi Da Samraj
and Adidam: stories of personal interactions with Adi Da, as well as
expository pieces sharing personal insights into some aspect of Adi Da's Teaching
or the Way of Adidam. This site is designed and managed by a
group of Adi Da's devotees, and is greatly benefitted by the contributions
of hundreds of other devotees and appreciators of Adi Da.
As we state in our introduction,
the purpose of this site is to bring a living dimension to Adi Da Samraj's Teaching,
principally through the devotee's story of his or her relationship to Avatar Adi
Da Samraj, the practice, and the gathering of devotees.
Part
of this site focuses on that period of Avatar Adi
Da's Work with devotees roughly between 1973
and 1986 — we often refer
to this period as Avatar Adi Da's "Teaching
Years". We offer extensive materials about this period on
our site because the unconventional "Crazy
Wisdom" Work Adi Da engaged in with devotees during this time
is often misunderstood. We hope our site will help clarify such
misunderstandings.
This
site also includes many stories about Adi Da's recent Work with devotees (including
after His human
lifetime), which is of a very different nature: It is "Blessing and Revelation
Work", rather than "Submission Work". The key difference is that, during His
Teaching Years, Adi Da "submitted" to us — becoming like us to reflect our tendencies
to us, such that we would grow in self-understanding and the impulse to self-transcendence.
After 1986, and increasingly so ever since, Adi Da made it clear
to devotees that His Teaching ordeal of assuming our likeness
was no longer appropriate
or necessary; and that all of the diverse kinds of conventional
human seeking (money, food, sex, etc.) and unconventional human
seeking (spiritual experiences) are fruitless,
in that they do not (and cannot) bring about Perfect Liberation,
Enlightenment, or Happiness.
Today, the practice of Adidam is simply the fullness of the traditional
relationship to the Spiritual Master that was taught by Adi Da
from the beginning: recognize
and contemplate the Guru, live by His Instruction, and thereby
receive and be transformed by the Divine State He is always Transmitting.
Premier Adidam news resource.
If you are wanting to find out what's currently happening
in Adidam around the world, the Adi Da Up Close site is your
most current and comprehensive resource. We gather together
for you in one place (usually right
on our
home page):
Danavira Mela Celebration in Auckland, New Zealand
Communication
of a new spiritual tradition. These days, if you are wanting
to find out more about one of the world's great religious or
spiritual traditions (Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam,
etc.) — either as a current
member or as someone interested looking in from the outside
— there is a wealth of information
available on the Web about every aspect of that tradition, down
to the last detail: every holy place is available in pictures,
videos and words; every aspect of the practices or rituals is
posted; every sentence of every sacred text has accompanying
exegesis from the
best scholars and practitioners of the tradition; and countless
common questions are answered.
We believe Adidam deserves no less in terms of Web resources
and tools both for supporting the deepening of practice in current
devotees and for supporting the needs of non-devotees interested
in that possibility, and learning more about it —
in-depth. Thus, one major intention behind our site is to develop
a resource that provides a comparable, "world religion"
level of support for the new spiritual tradition of Adidam —
the vastness and profundity of Adi Da's Teaching, and the subtlety
of the actual practice of, and growth in, the Way of Adidam
demand such a tool. The Way of Adidam is simple in principle
and at heart, but extremely detailed and sophisticated in practice,
especially over and against the always competing egoic communications
of the world and our own egoic patterning.
To create such a resource is a tall order! But we've made what
we believe is a good start, and will be constantly adding to
and refining this resource over time.
Site
development and response (2007 - present). Since its launch in February, 2007,
we have greatly
expanded this site. Here are some of the key additions:
An Audio/Video
Library that now includes over
video and audio clips (from over 80 contributors) of Adi Da talking or giving
Darshan, devotees telling stories about Adi Da, videos of Adi Da's Image-Art,
videos on Adi Da's Not-Two Is Peace, and much more.
In
addition to our Regional Events page, a Special
Events section that for events that may hold a broader-than-regional interest:
workshops, retreats, exhibits of Adi Da's Image-Art, Celebrations at The Mountain
Of Attention, etc.
A
Celebrations section,
which lists the Adidam Celebrations and their dates this calendar year, and provides
a growing number of presentations on the various celebrations.
A
comprehensive Adidam History database, and a "Today in Adidam History"
section on the home page, generated daily from the database.
A
Contributors, Sources,
and Helpers page listing the hundreds of people whose creations and efforts
we have drawn upon in creating and evolving this site (in addition to our primary
Source, Adi Da Himself). This is truly an "everybody-all-at-once" site!
An
ever-growing number of entries in our glossary,
and links to individual glossary entries throughout this site, wherever specialized
terminology is used. To get the most out of our stories and articles, please make
use of these, wherever you see a double link that looks like this!
Many
technical improvements and enhancements, including:
The site is entirely iPad-compatible. Everything now "works" on the iPad, including audios and videos.
Adi Da Up Close regional event pages that are automatically
"in synch" with the Adidam.org event pages. For
example, here
is the Adidam.org page for events in Los Angeles, California.
And here
is the Adi Da Up Close version of the same page (which is
generated in real time from the Adidam.org version).
The addition of many features for effective search of
our Audio/Video Library, including: listing of all clips
from a particular year or poster; listings of clips by various
measures of popularity (this
week, this
month, and all
time); quick retrieval of clips of frequently requested
types (Adi
Da's Talks; formal
Darshan occasions; etc.); tag cloud access; and the
ability to order results by title, date added, event year,
or number of views/listens.
The addition to our Audio/Video Library of extensive support
of multi-part videos, including: links that make it easy
to watch all the parts in sequence; and a feature that displays
subtitles for the parts, so one can jump to a particular
part of interest. (Click
here for an example of such a multi-part video.)
The most recently posted clips from our Audio/Video Library
now automatically appear on the home page.
Pictures that enlarge "in place" (instead of
having to go to a different web page).
Videos that play "in place" (instead of having
to go to a different web page).
We've completed an upgrade
to the site to make it entirely iPad-compatible.
The ability to "like" pages on Facebook, and
share pages on Facebook and a large number of social networks.
A Twitter feed you can follow, which will post Adi Da
Up Close site updates and other goodies. Click on the Twitter
icon at the bottom of any page to get to our Twitter feed.
The extension of our on-site search engine to include
audio/video library clips in the results.
A much improved, multi-level drop-down menu at the top
of every page.
A "coming
events" link that identifies (by event date) and
returns audio/video clips featuring upcoming events.
and many more less obvious technical improvements and
enhancements.
Coming down the line: a mobile-friendly
version of this site!
The number of visitors and the response to our site (which includes
over
views/listens of clips in our Audio/Video
Library) has increased greatly with the increasing breadth and depth of its
contents, as this letter from one visitor illustrates:
For
me, the Adi Da Up Close website is the richest resource today on the internet
for anyone with real interest in the Divine Reality-Way of Adidam.
You
know a website is "deep" when you can't come close to exhausting its offerings
in one good, absorbed sitting. And I especially love its dynamic nature, changing,
improving and growing every week. It feels alive.
Beloved Avatar Adi Da's
Divine Spiritual Transmission tangibly flows through the "one's & zero's" that
create the appearance of this wonderful site.
This is such a great service
to devotees and friends of Adidam worldwide.
Considering what we know as
devotees, and the unstoppable Force of Adi Da's Divine Siddhi in the world, we should expect to see many,
many more such transparent, egoless forms of "web-Agency" in the very near future.
Thank you once again for your service, sarah
You
can read more responses to the overall site here,
and responses to specific articles or stories in the comments that appear at the
bottom of those pages.
Part
of this site focuses on that period of Avatar Adi
Da's Work with devotees roughly between 1973
and 1986 — we often refer
to this period as Avatar Adi Da's "
