Finding Adi Da > Lassi Lammassaari

The Room Exploded Into Brightness

Lassi Lammassaari


Lassi Lammassaari has been a devotee of Adi Da since 1998. Lassi Lammassaari

In May 1998, I was preparing to graduate from art school in London. I was 24. I was busy getting my final exhibition together. One day as I was downtown getting some supplies for the show, I swung by a familiar bookshop which stocked spiritual literature. I saw copies of The Knee Of Listening, Adi Da's autobiography, piled on a table. In the cover picture, Bhagavan Adi Da was standing on a beach wearing an orange sarong, surrounded by devotees. I think I was late for something and had to leave, so I didn't buy anything that day. But the cover of the book just persisted in my mind's eye, just sort of hovering there. I felt that there was something unique about this man. He looked so intense and radiant. And I felt like I already knew him somehow.

A couple of weeks later, I got the chance to pop into the bookshop again because the image of the cover was still persisting in my mind. I eagerly bought the book. Maybe that same day, or maybe the next day, I sat down to read the book. I skipped the introductory sections, going straight to Chapter One: The "Bright":


On November 3, 1939, at 11:21 A.M., in Jamaica, Queens County, New York, I was born "Franklin Albert Jones". . .

Even as a baby, I remember only crawling around inquisitively with a boundless Feeling of Joy, Light, and Freedom in the middle of my head that was bathed in Energy moving unobstructed in a Circle — down from above, all the way down, then up, all the way up, and around again — and always Shining from my heart.

It was an Expanding Sphere of Joy from the heart. And I was a Radiant Form — the Source of Energy, Love-Bliss, and Light in the midst of a world that is entirely Energy, Love-Bliss, and Light. I was the Power of Reality, a direct Enjoyment and Communication of the One Reality. I was the Heart Itself, Who Lightens the mind and all things.

I was the same as every one and every thing, except it became clear that others were apparently unaware of the "Thing" Itself.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj
Chapter One, The Knee Of Listening


Immediately, I felt like I was breathing in something nectarous directly from those first paragraphs and pages. The Knee of Listening is an amazing book.

Something about Adi Da's naturalistic tone got me, and I totally relaxed. In the next instant, the room exploded into Brightness. There was no me, no body, no world, nothing but this radiant orb of energy. It felt a little like hovering just above the sun, minus the obliterating heat. Somewhere really deep, I felt like I had returned home. It was really, really happy.

I don't know how long that extraordinarily happy state lasted. . . probably less than a minute. Soon objects such as body, personality, and room returned. I clearly felt, in that transition, how none of those things are separate from that Brightness, that, inexplicably, they appear in conjunction with That. But I also felt myself making a choice, a preference for the familiar, a gesture rooted in fear, which caused that intense Brightness to recede. And so that deep intuition faded over the next minutes and hours. But I felt like there was really something here, and I had to know more!

Ever since that extraordinary moment, I've felt deep love for Adi Da in my heart, and I feel compelled to contemplate Him, and wish to always surrender more and more of my life at His Feet. I can't explain it. I feel like He did something incredibly benign and loving to my nervous system, etheric body, whatever, I don't even know. Those sensations continue, and there are many more stories to tell, but that's how it began.

At the back of The Knee of Listening, I found a phone number for the local community of devotees and called them up. I explained that some really interesting stuff was happening, and could I come to meet some people. I was introduced to a radically new, happy way of life and a group of loving, energetic people. It was a supreme fortune to sit in Bhagavan Adi Da's physical company for the first time in July 2000, on another retreat in 2005, and to serve His circumstance while bodily alive.

With all my heart, I feel that Adi Da is Happiness itself. May all beings enjoy His Radiant Company.



This story appears in the following sections:
Finding Adi Da and
Blessings, Miracles and Extraordinary Evidence



Quotations from and/or photographs of Avatar Adi Da Samraj used by permission of the copyright owner:
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