The
year was 1997. I was 45 years old. I owned a nice house in an
upscale section of the East Bay of San Francisco. I had lots of
money and a good paying job — but I was miserable. My father
had just passed away. I was in the process of chalking up another
failed love-life event. There was nothing that brought happiness
or was satisfying in life. I thought that I understood life and
yet it was failing. I contemplated this suffering, it had become
a daily contemplation. I summarized my life one morning and had
the thought that if I was a Christian, I would think that I was
being punished for all of my sins. Then a form appeared in my
mind, viewed by my mind’s eye. It was in the shape of an “S”.*
It had qualities that appeared to be like smoke and electricity.
The mind-form spoke in very clearly heard words. “It isn’t about
you, it’s about Me.” I felt offended and resentful. I knew it
was Adi Da. I had been told that Adi Da was a spiritual master
by the woman I was trying to have an intimate relationship with.
She had told me that Adi Da was the only primary relationship
that she could have. I was jealous.
Sometime later. I wanted to know about the philosophy that Adi
Da taught. I asked a couple of His followers and never got an
understandable explanation of what it was all about, exactly.
One of them gave me a couple of books. He told me that it was
all there in Chapter One of The
Method Of The Siddhas. I got home and opened the book.
I found Chapter One and started reading. Adi Da spoke about a
fundamental feeling of dilemma that motivates a “search”. A search
to satisfy this feeling. He said that all of human life is one
form or another of this search.
These pages struck me deeply as Truth — so deep that an event
started to occur. Everything that I had read about as enlightenment
started to happen. Forces deep within me started moving. A sense
of understanding came forth. Everything made sense. I felt lifted,
expanded. Emotionally I was beyond joy. I felt that I was being
taken beyond mortal existence. Then I saw that in order for this
event to continue. I would have to die. That set off something
akin to a psychic domino effect. The moment of enlightenment went
into reverse. I felt that enlightenment wasn’t possible. I collapsed
into a dismal state both of emotion and mind.
The next day I was receiving an acupuncture treatment. As I lay
alone face down on the table I felt a distinct presence. Then
the most incredible thing happened. It felt as if an actual physical
hand was firmly pressing down on me. Then I went into fear. I
had only seen such things in horror movies. I felt that I had
opened the door to something that I knew nothing of, and it scared
me. This obviously had something to do with Adi Da. I felt vulnerable
and afraid. My knowledge of what to do was limited, but I went
home and wrote a letter to Adi Da.
Then I needed an address to mail it to. I got a phone number
and had my first conversation with a formal institutional member
of Adi Da's organization, a “devotee”. I tried to explain that
I had written Adi Da a letter and it was important. I was told
that he won’t be receiving such a letter. I went on to explain
again how important it was and was hit again with “no”. The conversation
ended with the idea that I should read more. Then I called another
number. I spoke with a woman who gave me a comforting reality.
When I told her what had happened she laughed, gently saying,
“don’t worry about it, you’re not even a devotee”. She made me
feel that I was safe.
I read some more out of The Method Of The Siddhas. It
became clear that Adi Da was a living spiritual master. This was
news! I had only read about dead enlightened beings. The emotional/psychic
reaction went away. Then for the next two weeks, I had very profound
experiences. After two weeks I went to a place called The Danda
in San Rafael, California. I took an introductory course, then
another course.
One time when I was first experimenting with the practice, this
marvel occurred: an energy started to descend into me. The energy
seemed conscious. It was intelligent. It moved steadily. It wasn’t
affected by anything I did. It must have taken about thirty seconds
to go all the way down my body. It was the most amazing thing
to feel. I felt love as I have never experienced it. It was pure
love. It was not being loved by someone. Nor was it being in love
with someone. It was simply that LOVE was all there was —
all of reality was LOVE.
I started to have experiences that I had never imagined. I became
affected emotionally and even physically in seeing pictures of
Adi Da. In the fall of 1997, when I was first considering becoming
a devotee, I went to the Mountain Of Attention in California.
They were going to show a Darshan video. It was shown on a large
projection screen. When the image of Adi Da was projected on to
the screen I had this intense physical response. It was as if I was
being breathed. Then my breathing spontaneously became like bellows!
I wasn’t doing this — it was happening under some other
control.
I took my first vow in December of 1997. This is another thing
that is unusual to an American — vows.
There are wedding vows that seem to not mean too much, but there
isn’t much in the way of a spiritual commitment for the ordinary
person on the street. I understood vows to be an important point
in eastern spiritual practice. A vow establishes a psychic bond.
That bond became active from the start. I felt drawn to Adi Da.
I had an opening of a depth of feeling. Just feeling more of all
of life.
Adi Da lived at times on an island in Fiji called Naitauba.
I went on retreat on Naitauba in the spring of 1998. I was new,
but I had to go. The first time that I saw Him is a memory ingrained
in me. You are taken by skiff to a beach. You prostrate there.
I lay my face down in the sand and could immediately feel the
spiritual energy that is unique to Adi Da. Then someone said “Beloved
is coming. Come quickly for Darshan.” He was being driven in a
small SUV-like car and looked briefly at those lined up as He
went by. Our eyes met. The look in His eyes in a moment became
one of total recognition. I felt completely known. Everything
about who I am was known by Him. He had driven by and we walked
away. Then there was this unbridled happiness — completely unreasonable
and unfounded happiness. This became the usual feeling being around
Him. Happiness.
A few days later I received the first formal Darshan from Adi
Da. I hadn’t been a devotee very long, and wasn’t really educated
on what to do. I had some thought about an upright posture and
resting the tongue on the roof of my mouth. I was seated directly
in front of Him, about ten feet away. It wasn’t too long into the
event that something miraculous started to happen. His face started
to change into the faces of others. This had the sense of an optical
illusion, as if my eyes were playing tricks on me. So I tried
to shake it off by looking away and blinking. The thing would
start to happen immediately when I looked back at Him. It seemed
to me that these were the faces of other spiritually enlightened
beings, not that I would know what any of them actually looked
like. There were Oriental, Middle Eastern, Indian, Caucasian,
every continent, every race, until He became a vision of a golden
being emanating rays of energy. Yet, I couldn’t help but feel
that I was being fooled. The next day I was at the location where
the Darshan had occurred. It was on a veranda. It was all cement.
I looked for a possible way that there could have been a holographic
image making device, or some such. It wasn’t at all possible.
In the Spring of 2000, I became a part of the group of devotees
who traveled with Adi Da. He was in California. While Adi Da traveled
He did not stop doing what He always did. He worked. He did His
artistic photography. He wrote. He communicated His Revelation.
He granted Darshan. He lived. On the road an RV was taken along.
I became the RV driver. I started in Marin, California.
Adi Da had started again doing photography while He was at the
“Outshining Brightness”, during the period of the Kosovo War.
I remember the first time I looked at the photos He took. One
was simply a chair yet I was drawn deep into feeling. It was both
profound and tranquil. He had said that He combines Himself with
what He is photographing and therefore to look at one of His photographs
is a form of His Darshan.
During one of the trips I took with
Adi Da, He was photographing in the sand dunes of that area. We
were all staying out of sight so as to not interfere with the
natural look. I was laying in tall grass behind the crest of one
of the dunes and I peeked through the tall grass. I saw Adi Da.
He was facing the ocean. Maybe twenty to fifty yards away. As I lay there
I was taken by the reality that I was looking at The Enlightened
One — who had no sense of separate self. He then abruptly spun
the tripod around and pointed the camera straight towards the
sand dune that I was on. I slunk down making sure that I was in
the shadow of the grass. Then the space became something out of
a science fiction or fantasy movie. It was if a powerful form
of energy moved the structure of the space. The sand and grass
started to undulate. It felt as if my body was doing the same
thing. It felt incredible.
Adi Da went to Lopez Island, Washington State. I stayed in a
rented house with other devotees. The talk among devotees was
that Adi Da was having an enjoyable time. Then a call came that
Adi Da was having the same symptoms that had initiated His
Divine Emergence, on January 11, 1986. This is when He goes into death. No one
knows what will happen. We were called to His House and were asked
to chant. The house was thick with the same spiritual energy that
I felt on Naitauba the year earlier. For me, it has a searing
and piercing quality and my chest swells and gets real warm, my
throat chokes, and I am often moved to an uncontrollable weeping.
I was sitting next to a woman devotee who was having a very intense
kriya. She was laid flat on her back. Jerking uncontrollably.
Later she told me of a very profound vision that she was having
during the kriya. After some hours Adi Da was taken by ambulance
to a medical facility. He started to recover. I understand this
now to have been and continue to be a most profound yogic event.
The Divine is coming into our reality in a way that we can relate
to.
In the years that followed (until 2007), I lived close to Adi Da all
the time. I was part of the staff that attended Him: His life,
His work, and His comings and goings. This was sadhana. Normally
we would view spiritual practice in terms of technique. One would
perform specific meditations, rites, different exercises in whatever
genre they had adhered to. Sadhana lived by practitioners of the
Adidam Revelation is done by being in relationship with Adi Da.
This is true yoga, meaning ‘yoke’: you are hooked up with the
enlightened condition.
These years could be summarized as follows: I received the Revelation
of the Divine. In itself, that Revelation doesn’t amount to enlightenment. Yet the path
to enlightenment is clear to me. Adi Da showed me that being a
separate self is the unenlightened state. He did this by setting
the stage where I could see this fact very clearly. He brought
the Divine Condition into my awareness over and over. The Divine
Condition is the One True Self. It is Love-Bliss. It is Consciousness.
It is God. The Divine Self is the essence of everything that we
see and that we are. Adi Da calls this the “Bright”.
The year of 2007 began, and I was on Naitauba. I was doing a
puja at Da Ashvamedhanath Bhavan, a very sacred place,
and I had a seizure. I knew that something heavy was happening
to me. My family has a history of heart disease and that has always
been hanging over my head. I thought that this might be IT. Fear
arose. Then I was able to commune with Beloved Adi Da and the
fear went away. I went to Suva (the main island in Fiji), and
then to the United States, for medical testing. It was found out
that I had a tumor inside my skull impacting the brain stem. One
surgeon said the tumor was in “pricey neighborhood”. I had it
operated on. I almost died.
Bhagavan Blessed a shawl that I kept next to the pillow of my
hospital bed. I came out of the operation with the entire right
side of my body paralyzed yet I felt comforted by His Blessing
Presence which I felt tangibly via the shawl. Bhagavan’s Blessing
from the outset of this major turning point in my life yielded
a feeling of “No Problem”.
Adi Da was there for me. He guided and moved me in His Sphere
through very difficult times. He still does. The Miracle of Parama-Sapta-Na
Adi Da Samraj manifested in this life from mundane things like
getting expert medical care to His drawing my awareness to what
is beyond the mortal condition. This miracle continues to this
day.
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I knelt down and melted into His arms. All my feeling-attention
flowed to Him. It was the most wonderful feeling. With my
eyes closed I lay my head to His Chest — Words fall short
in description. I didn’t feel that I was holding onto a body.
I felt that I was falling into a sea of Love-Bliss, Formless
with infinite depth. |
I still have some negative after-effects, and in some ways I
am handicapped. Yet I am happy. And I feel freer and happier than
I ever have felt. I understand what I have always wanted to know
about God and Enlightenment. I feel Adi Da’s Spiritual Presence
and Energy bringing me beyond the mortal condition. I have a handle
on the path. There are no words that can express the gratitude
that I feel for receiving Adi Da’s Divine Intervention. I feel
the deepest heart-love for Adi Da Samraj.