Finding the Divine In Person and Waking Up From the Dream: Part I, Chapter 3

One of the most curious things about the story I've been telling is how Adi Da appears in it from the very beginning and then ongoing, even long before I "knew" of Him or became His devotee. I described (in part 1) how He attended the class my mother was teaching at Columbia University; I first met Him in His human form when I was just a baby. Then I described (in part 2) how, when I was thirteen, He gifted me with His Revelation of Perfect Happiness, on the day of His Divine Re-Awakening (September 10, 1970). Now I'll tell the story of how I unexpectedly ended up going to the same university He went to: Columbia University.

Choosing a College

In the spring of 1974, I was a senior in high school, preparing to go to college. I had been accepted at all the colleges I had applied to — Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, MIT, etc. — and I was trying to decide where I should go. I was the only person in my high school who had been accepted to Harvard, and I was strongly leaning in that direction. Even though both my parents had received their doctorates at Columbia and had taught there, they didn't steer me in that direction, and would support whatever choice I made. In my junior year at high school (in New Jersey), I had actually taken a course at Columbia University on Einstein's "Special Relativity Theory" for "exceptional high school students" in the New York area. It was offered by Columbia as a kind of early taste of university — and probably a recruiting tool as well. I had enjoyed the course, the university, and New York City. Even so, I was still leaning toward Harvard, with Princeton as my second choice, and Columbia in third place.

Harvard

Freeman Dyson

My mother — the mathematics professor — ran a lecture series at her university (she was now a professor at William Paterson College in New Jersey), with guest lecturers who were often very well-known. One spring day, her guest lecturer was the famous physicist, Freeman Dyson. If Einstein constituted the "top tier" of physicists, Freeman Dyson was just below that in his accomplishments and in the respect accorded him by his colleagues and the world altogether. After the lecture, my mother invited him to our house for dinner — and I was delighted to get to know him a little, at the family table.

Dyson's curiosity had no limits. . . This was reflected in the kinds of topics he explored in his research and his books ("Disturbing the Universe", "Origins of Life", "The Scientist as Rebel", "From Eros to Gaia", etc.), and it included chatting with a sixteen-year old kid (me). When he learned that I was in my senior year, had been accepted into all the Ivy League colleges, was trying to decide which one I should go to, and was leaning toward Harvard, he immediately jumped into the consideration.

"Oh, don't go to Harvard!!! Everyone thinks so highly of it. . . but my daughter goes there, and they only teach Mickey Mouse courses. If you really want to learn something, go to Princeton." And he continued at length, elaborating on the liabilities of going to Harvard, and extolling the virtues of a Princeton education.

Now it's true that Princeton was his university, so he might have been a little invested in it. But his observations (and the years of experience behind them) struck me with such force that I completely revised how I was thinking, and I ended up going to Princeton. It shocked my high school classmates who had wished they had gotten into Harvard — so much so that I received comments in my yearbook like "To Chris Tong, who turned down the Big H...".

Princeton

Princeton University
The Princeton campus

In some ways, my freshman year at Princeton was wonderful. Princeton has a beautiful campus, and I loved taking long walks there. Many of my classmates would become world leaders in some area, and interacting with them was always an interesting experience.[1]

And yet education-wise, I never really connected with the university. Over the course of that year, I increasingly felt that I was in a beautiful "bubble". I was thrown into classes with specialized, advanced topics right from the start, and felt that I was missing getting an education in the basics that would really prepare me for the world. I began to think about Columbia University, and how it was situated in the heart of New York City. It was likely to provide me with a far more grounded experience and pragmatic education than the "country club" atmosphere of Princeton.

Columbia

Columbia University
The Columbia campus in the middle of New York City

And so on that basis, I transferred to Columbia for my sophomore year. It turned out to be the right choice. While my one year of education at Princeton had little impact on me, my education at Columbia would utterly devastate and transform me (as I will describe in the next section), just as it did Adi Da.

Adi Da occasionally reminded us that He was raised in New York City, and would delight us with "New Yorker" talk or jokes, often interjecting at some point with "I hope I'm not being too vulgar for you!" We'd always vehemently shake our heads (as we awaited more).

Here is one of many "New Yorker" jokes He told comparing Harvard and Columbia. Of course, Columbia always came out favorably in the telling! Less "up in the air / ivory tower" and more "down to earth / pragmatic / streetwise".

ADI DA: Two guys were in a bathroom in neighboring urinals, doing their business. Turns out one was a Harvard graduate, and the other was a Columbia graduate. They both finished about the same time, and, while the Harvard guy walked over to the sink, the Columbia guy headed for the door. Terribly offended, the Harvard guy shouted to the Columbia guy: "At Harvard, they teach us to wash our hands after we pee!" The Columbia guy turned around, looked the Harvard grad in the eye, and replied: "At Columbia, they teach us not to pee on our hands!"

A Psychophysical Resonance with Adi Da

With the passage of time, I have increasingly taken a "shamanistic" view of events. All events are not merely physical but psychophysical. There are no meaningless coincidences, only meaningful synchronicities, whose meaning can often be deciphered. (And much of the shaman's craft is about deciphering the meaning of particular synchronicities.) And so, as I look back at this early period of my life, I can't help but view the roundabout sequence of events leading me to Columbia University (as an undergraduate, and then Stanford University as a graduate student) as a "psychophysical resonance" with Adi Da (who had attended the same schools eighteen years before me). It was not only an indication that I was His devotee; it also re-shaped my life, and prepared me for becoming His devotee and for serving His Work in the world in very specific ways (that build upon the same academic training He had received).

Adi Da once said that — as the human incarnation of the Eternal Divine Person prior to all space and time — His impact on His devotees' lives was so profound that it could even change their past (or shift them onto a different "timeline" with a different past).

In some real sense it is also true that when you become My devotee, even if you were not in any sense before — having become My devotee, you become My devotee in your past as well as in the present. It covers all time. You all must have seen films or read stories in which time is played upon — time machines or whatever else, or somebody gets the ability to change the past, and it changes for other people as well. Well, it is literally so when you become My devotee. It may even be that, if you examine your past (having become My devotee), you realize things about it that are different than it was as you remembered it before. And you remember other aspects of it, and they become important even in the present time in a way that they were not before. . .

For all you know, maybe the past that you now remember was not the way it was before you came into My Company! [laughs] And now it has become a usable past. Maybe that "past" past no longer exists! And anybody else who has some memories about you has a different memory of you now than they did before-at least a memory that is in some profound, indefinable sense, remarkably and entirely different.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, May 26, 1995
"You Become My Devotee in Your Past As Well As in the Present"
The Completing Discourses of the 25-Year Revelation

I wonder a little about that possibility as I write this story of "finding" Him in this lifetime, and recall these various moments that suggest He was in my life (or my life was resonating with Him) long before I ever "knew" of Him! But perhaps it is just as He once said to another devotee: "When are you going to learn that our relationship doesn't depend on time and space?"

Whatever may be the case, it certainly makes writing this story much easier! — since it is not merely a conventional, egoic story about "my" life, but the story of the Divine (in the living form of Adi Da) in my life from the very start. . . and then over and over again.

. . . I have been Meditating everyone throughout all the years of This Divine Avataric physical Lifetime here — and even throughout all time previous to This Divine Avataric physical Lifetime here. In Meditating everyone, I Take On each and every one — to Myself. . . All have been Meditated by Me. All have been Embraced by Me. . . In all times and places, My devotees will appear — Finding Me after I have Already Entered into Perfect Coincidence with them, having Meditated them.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
"The Boundless Self-Confession", The Aletheon

This is how people come to Me to become My devotees, or (otherwise) come to Me for Blessing. They become associated with one or another aspect of My world-Work. It is Prior Meditation. In other words, I Priorly Coincide with everyone and everything, and then Signs emerge. This is how I Work. This is My Divine Avataric Nature Showing Itself in the larger world-picture . . . And this is, in fact, how people end up coming to Me.

The devotional relationship to Me does not begin simply when people formally enter into the gathering of My devotees. My Work begins before people even come into My Divine Avataric Company. Some recognize and know that, and there are rather dramatic signs of it. In other cases, individuals are simply drawn to Me and have nothing in mind to say why, other than they heard about Me and were moved.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, February 2008
"Tell Everyone My Leela Everywhere"
Adi Da Samrajashram Magazine, Vol. 1, #1

Chapter 4

FOOTNOTES

[1]

For example, Eric Lander was in my freshman math class. He was the MIT scientist who spearheaded the sequencing of the human genome, and went onto join President Biden's Cabinet as his Science Advisor in 2021. Unfortunately, he also later resigned in disgrace, after allegations surfaced of his bullying and abusing his subordinates.