Finding Adi Da > D.L.

"I Will Find You Again and Then
You Will Know Me By Name"

D. L.

Here is the story of my first encounter with Adi Da. I'll keep the details of my life and circumstances to a minimum. Enough to shape the context of the events I'll describe — however, this story is fundamentally not about me, but about Adi Da, and the extraordinary Offering He is making available to everyone.

I was the child of two loving parents. In my early teenage years, they were killed in a car crash. The suddenness and irrevocable nature of my parents' absence — essentially overnight — completely undermined any sense of confidence and trust I may have had concerning life. It was as if I had been hollowed out. What remained was an appalling feeling of life, at its root, as uncertain and cruel; and an overwhelming need to know, if life can involve such arbitrary and absolute endings, what is life, and what is death in it? I was thrust into an unrelieved anxiety where the normal world began to appear as a false and thin veneer of "normalcy" overlaying a fundamental unease at the real heart of things, that no one seemed interested in or even aware of.

I was taken in by my aunt and uncle. They were an eccentric and childless couple. They were kind people, but their lives were entirely concentrated in that normalcy which I now suspected as false, and I was left to deal with my deeper concerns on my own.

My aunt and uncle had a dog named Scamper, who became my constant companion and my only real friend. We lived on a private rural acreage surrounded by woodlands and fields, and bounded on one side by a large lake. As often as we could, Scamper and I would set out on long walks. For me, these were not pleasure excursions. They were a way of focusing without disturbance on what had become my only concern: the desperate need for an answer to the question, "What is being, if it contains within itself its own apparent termination?"

In our wanderings, Scamper and I had discovered a favorite spot overlooking the lake. It was a natural clearing on an escarpment, surrounded by a grove of beautiful old trees. Here we came most every day, Scamper scampering and I, in my disturbed state, ruminating over the apparent absence of answers to my questions.

One fine sunny day, I was sitting on my favorite rock when Scamper came up to me, whining and tugging at my jacket. He glanced worriedly out over the lake. I followed his gaze and saw on the horizon what looked to be a bank of clouds gathering from nowhere. Very suddenly, this apparent cloudbank began to move at great speed toward us until it was entirely surrounding us and overhead. Our first response was to get away as fast as possible. If Scamper also had not been aware of the same thing, I think I'd have concluded that I'd finally tipped into insanity, and was hallucinating what was occurring around us.

When it surrounded us, the phenomena no longer seemed cloudlike, but seemed more composed somehow of luminosity. I sensed it as a gigantic dome or sphere extending limitlessly upward. Its light seemed to infuse everything in the area. The light had a living quality and all around, from rocks to trees, to grass, to water, to the air itself was glowing with a brightness that seemed to be somehow shining from within. On top of this was an undeniable Presence of Something or Someone. Someone vast. The sensation may be comparable to what an ant, going about its own business, might feel when it notices it is being observed by something as gigantic and foreign as a human being.

Fear enveloped both Scamper and me. We began to run like crazy, away from that place. There was a sudden, non-verbal command to STOP! We both did so immediately, probably out of sheer shock at the unexpected telepathic communication.

In the next instant, the fear had vanished, as though it had never been. It was replaced with the most delicious feeling of ease and happiness. The fear was gone for both of us; Scamper was excited and happy with his tail wagging. Then a further non-verbal communication occurred, which, had it been spoken, might have been: "You are entirely free to go, as you wish, and I will never harm you. I am your Friend, and if you stay, I will help you." This was expressed as a deep sensation throughout the body of no threat whatsoever, accompanied by the most benign good nature and unconditional love.

We calmed down completely, and returned to our seats, I on my rock and Scamper beside me. A bright Feeling of freedom and openness permeated us and pulsated through everything around us. None of this seemed the least bit strange. It felt far more completely natural than anything in "normal life". After luxuriating in this Feeling for some time, there was one additional message, again communicated non-verbally: "The choice is always yours, but if you choose to return, I will also, and I will aid you and guide you through the difficulties you are now experiencing." With that, the Presence left, and Scamper and I returned home.

From that time whenever Scamper and I returned to our spot, our new Friend (or perhaps old Friend?) would also return. It was as though I was being instructed by this Friend, through a kind of in-depth pondering on the nature of life, death, and Being itself. Over time, under the guidance of my always present Friend, I became aware, even bodily, of a re-cognition that life, in its utter Mystery, is a mutually playful and completely harmless exchange of appearances and disappearances. A "birthing" and "deathing" of all possible points of view in a Single Field of entirely unthreatenable Energy that is always Conscious of Itself as that mere Being-Feeling that this Presence, through Grace, was allowing Scamper and I to delight in.

All of this finally reduced in my mind to the feeling-conception: "Existence involves a constant creativity and destruction, and that exchange can be understood and enjoyed on the basis of Conscious Participation in Life and heart-felt Appreciation of simply Being."

This resolution occurred over a period of years. Once the final communication had been received, and felt throughout the body and came to rest in the "heart-place", my Friend returned one last time. He (and that Presence was, even from the beginning, felt to be a male force and indeed, beyond a force, a Person) said to me: "I have done everything I can for you up to this time. I have relieved you of a great distress and given you a Foundation to deal with what's to come. This will be My last visit with you for now, but there will come a time when, through all that's yet to follow, your need for Me will be great and I promise I will find you again and then you will know Me by Name."

At this last visit, I noticed that, behind Him, silent and full of immense Love, was a Female Presence. It became instantly obvious that that Female Presence was the Radiant Light that had surrounded and pervaded Scamper and myself whenever the Conscious "Voice" appeared. It was a single Being with two attributes. His attribute was Complete Awareness and of Being Itself as Free. Her attribute was the Light of constant Love. And the apparent "two", He and She at the Heart of it all, were, in fact, the Same One; there was no difference between Them. With that, They left, and so did Scamper and I.

From that point, my life involved many years of frenzied search that, from a conventional perspective, would likely be interpreted as a kind of madness. As the memory of my unusual Friends dissipated over time, I became a wanderer, doing odd jobs to meet basic needs, and scouring libraries for anything in the Spiritual traditions of the East or the West that might remind me of that period in my youth. I found occasional hints, but nothing that truly satisfied, and so the search only left me feeling more desperate.

Adi Da

One day, as I walked through a large city, I happened upon a second-hand bookstore. On impulse, I entered, and in its religious studies section, I came across a book called Easy Death by Adi Da. I was immediately struck by the title and was moved to read it. The Feeling generated by that reading was the same as that of my Friends by the lake! I knew then, without a doubt, as I gave my attention to Adi Da's Bodily Form, that That One had returned as He'd promised, and that That One had taken the form of a human being whose Name was Adi Da.

* * *

I'm aware how, to the rational mind, what I've written here might seem beyond belief, and I sympathize with any reader who may have that sentiment. Had Scamper and myself not encountered this Presence together, and confirmed Its reality to each other, I'd have dismissed the event as incredible, the febrile imaginings of a child in a circumstance of extreme duress.

But Adi Da does not expect belief. He specifically speaks against it. What He does request is a fair hearing. He asks only that, if you are so moved, to Consider His Argument regarding the paradox of this strange event of Existence in which we all arise, and to receive His Revelation directly, yourself.

Reality is not what you think. Avatar Adi Da Samraj from the talk, Reality Is Not What You Think This existence is mortal — sorrowfully so. It should be fully felt as it is. But I am not here merely to remind you of your mortality. . . I am here to Help you Realize the Deathless Reality... I would not have anyone die. . . To serve the Realization of the Eternal Transcendental Spiritual Nature of Existence is the Purpose of My Submission. Serving the Divine Deathless Condition is why I Am here. I would not have anyone be submitted to this mortal round. Through a Profoundly Compassionate Response to mortality and suffering, this Birth was Made. The Message of This Birth is not that you are mortal. Mortality is something that I must, at times, Remind you of. No one must die Spiritually. I Am here so that everyone will have this Opportunity to transcend the binding force of mortality. I Grant you the Joy of complete submission of feeling, to the degree that That Which Is, Beyond the limit of sorrow, may be Felt and Realized. This Heart-Feeling is the Ultimate Intensity. But you do not pass to Joy without the breaking of the heart, without the breaking of the knot that separates you. Sympathy Itself, Feeling Itself, is the Means, the Way, the Communion. It is magnified (more and more) through the course of the Way of Adidam — and when it is utterly broken and you stand Prior to it and Beyond it, then you get the Great Vision. Then the Very Divine is magnified in your being — through your being, through all the fractions of the apparent universe — and you Stand Free. Then the body can weep all it likes — and it should. Avatar Adi Da Samraj excerpt from the talk, "The Ultimate Intensity" (November 10, 1987) in the Introduction of Easy Death We must willingly give up our fear of death, by completely embracing the event of life with total fearless self-abandon. The happening of total surrender, which feels like oblivion to the illusory identity of the ego-"I", but if completely heart-trusted, is allowed to expand to infinity. Total Unity. Full Self-Realization. You have always existed. You will always exist. You are Existence Itself. There is only "One" of "us" here. Fall into the Heart with total faith. Avatar Adi Da Samraj

Something and Someone More than Wonderful has entered into (and is continuing to emerge in) the most intimate fabric of this world of conditions, limits and apparent death, in a Bodily Form like our own, in the Person of Adi Da. The sole Function of That Body — Adi Da's Body — is to act as a perfectly unobstructed Transmitter of the Limitless Freedom, Perfect Happiness, and Real Love, that is — in spite of appearances and our own actions — our True State, our deepest intuition and desire, and our ultimate and perfect Destiny.

So that is the story of my first encounter with Adi Da. It is my heart-felt wish that, when you are ready, you too are moved to choose to enter into Relationship with That Reality, with Reality Itself, that is available to you Now and to all because Adi Da Has Been Born.

Come slowly or come quickly but surely come to Me. Avatar Adi Da Samraj

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