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Adi Da's picture in The Dreaded Gom-Boo
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In 1983, Adi Da's books were in the spiritual literature section
of virtually every bookstore in northern California. Through that
Graceful means, I was able to find and read His book, The
Dreaded Gom-Boo. On a couple of visits to my favorite
local bookstore, I picked the book up, but put it down again shortly
after, because the picture of Adi Da that I saw when I opened
the book did not match my notion of a "Spiritual Master".
(For one thing, He was American, not Indian.[1])
But the third time I picked the book up and opened it, I made
it past the picture and actually started reading it. I instantly
recognized that Adi Da's communication was on a completely different
level than that of any other book I had ever read: His Teaching
only communicated from the viewpoint of Ultimate Truth,
and only supported the Realization of that Ultimate Truth.
It was uncompromising in its refusal to let the reader lapse into
a lesser view or become fascinated by a lesser Realization. Even
so, it accounted for all those lesser views and Realizations (and
what was "fascinating" about them), at the same time as it clearly
identified their limitations.
This was what I had been groping for, in the dark, for years
— but had only been finding little grains of "truth"
here and there, which I had tried to piece together, like a jigsaw
puzzle, into a meaningful portrait of the nature of reality. Suddenly,
here was the entire Truth, given all at once (all the pieces
already fitted together into a coherent whole), and over and over
again, described from every possible vantage point — truly the
richest possible Treasure that can be expressed in words!
I immediately began reading everything Adi Da wrote. I listened to every audiocassette (and later, every video recording) of Adi Da’s talks. My practical
life continued its course — I completed my Ph.D. at Stanford,
and, at 26, I became a professor of Artificial Intelligence at a major
university (Rutgers University in New Jersey). I supplemented and supported
what I was learning from Adi Da by driving up to Connecticut once
a week, to the home of Alexander and Leslie Lowen (the creators
of bioenergetic therapy) [2], and engaging
in bioenergetic therapy with them. But all the while, I was studying
Adi Da's teaching and being re-oriented to (and re-organized by)
His radical viewpoint of Truth Itself.
* * *
The time between 1983 (when I discovered Adi Da's teaching) and 1989 (when I became His devotee) was a period of intensive preparation for me. I studied Adi Da's teaching in depth. And a lot of what He wrote about was being shown to me in my life. In retrospect, it was obviously His Grace (flowing to me because I was placing my attention on Him and His Word) that was granting me these revelations.
I'll now talk about three of
the subjects in Adi Da's teaching that were revealed in my actual life during this final period of preparation: feeling without limitation, positive disillusionment,[3] and synchronicity.
Chapter 7
FOOTNOTES
Chapter 7