In
1993, ethnic strife in the former Soviet Union between Jews and Muslims led my
family to come to the United States. We were fortunate enough to be brought over
by a Jewish organization that specialized in helping Russian Jews get settled
into American life. My family ended up in Birmingham, Alabama, and was blessed
with the ability to send me to the local Jewish elementary school at virtually
no cost.
Over the next eight years, I attended the Jewish Day School, where
I learned about God and Judaism. I was fascinated by all the stories from the
Torah, and was earnestly excited to learn about God every day. However, as time
went by and I grew older, all of my Jewish education began to seem like more of
a mythology than reality. The God that was mentioned in the Torah was not tangible
to me, and did not seem to have any direct interference or relationship to my
life. All the while, my parents questioned why they had to be taken away from
their beloved homeland of Russia, their close friends, and their accustomed way
of life.
My interest in God became dormant, and did not re-emerge until
later in high school, when I became heavily interested in philosophy. I intuitively
felt that there was something greater in life; that all the answers were available,
but I had no idea how to access them. I remember one day asking my mother if there
were any books written about consciousness. She immediately laughed, and told
me that there was a whole world of books about the subject!
Almost immediately,
I began reading every spiritual and New Age book I could get my hands on. I was
stunned by what I read. The idea of separation from God was merely an illusion,
caused by the ego. God is all, and all are perfectly interconnected in God. The
Universe is a boundless, limitless existence unfathomable to the human mind. Love
is the great principle of life and God is that Love. Life was Truth, and humans
were evolving toward the Cosmic Consciousness that the great sages all spoke of.
The root cause of all human suffering was the ego, and all that humankind had
to do was transcend egoity and all would be revealed! The next few years were
spent in excited investigation of these truths. I began meditating and learning
about manipulating the energies in my body — and thus my intuition of the
Truth about existence magnified.
However, I was not getting any more enlightened!
My ego was still soundly alive and thriving. The various techniques I had learned
for transcending the ego were not having much of an effect, and so I became resigned
to the idea that spiritual enlightenment wasn't for me, at least not in the present
lifetime. I would experience some subtle energies and feel good, but when I wasn't
meditating, all my usual complexes and insecurities came to the forefront.
I
deeply wished that I could meet someone my own age to consider spirituality with,
because it was such an important part of my life. My senior year of high school,
I was blessed to developed a close friendship with another young man, Neeshee
Pandit, who shared my deep interest in spirituality. We would get together
on the weekends and talk about philosophy and our experiences and intuitions of
the Divine. It was apparent to us that the majority of the world did not live
in accordance with the great principles of life and Love, and everything around
us seemed to be an absurdity. I yearned for God, but all I got from books was
knowledge, not the Divine Itself.
Soon it was time to graduate from high
school and continue my studies at the University of Alabama. Neeshee was still
in high school back home, but we maintained contact as often as we could. My interest
in spirituality began to recede as I was exposed to life away from home and the
college party scene. I seemed to be enjoying a nice worldly life, but I was far
from happy. Deep down I knew that God was the only answer, but I was far too distracted
with "fun."
When I came home for vacation, Neeshee had some big news to
share. He had found a spiritual teacher named Adi Da Samraj, who claimed to be
the Divine in person. I had never seen anyone like Adi Da before . . . He was
very attractive and absolutely radiant! My interest was piqued of course, and
so I began watching some videos of Him on the internet. At once, I knew that Adi
Da was very unique, but I was not in the mindset to take up any sort of spiritual
practice at the time. I was stunned to find out that Neeshee was actually going
to forgo college to live at Adi Da's Sanctuary
in California. How could he ruin his success in life on such a childish
impulse? It wasn't as if he were going to become enlightened!
The whole
situation was odd to me, but even so, I felt deeply moved to learn more about
Adi Da. I spent the next few months watching videos of Him on the Internet and
noticed that whenever I felt particularly vulnerable or open, a subtle force of
joy would emanate from Him. I didn't think too much of it at the time and probably
would have forgotten about Adi Da had Neeshee not been insistent on sticking with
Him. The more I watched and read, the more I realized that Adi Da was transmitting
something to me that I was not quite ready to receive. I had no idea at the time,
but Adi Da planted a seed in me during those months that was soon to grow at an
alarming rate. Later that year, Neeshee told me of a dream he had in which he
saw me going through a process of purification
that Adi Da would be involved in. Purification didn't sound too appealing to me,
but it soon manifested in full force in the form of chicken pox! Chicken pox at
age nineteen was miserable, but I intuited that something very special was going
on.
One night as I lay in bed watching videos of Martin Luther King, my
heart was opened up by the power of his word. Spontaneously, I decided to put
on a video of Adi Da granting Darshan, and the moment the video started, my heart
was broken by the immensity of Divine Force emanating from Him. I wept and wept,
my body radiating with His Spiritual Transmission. The chicken pox immediately
made sense. I had to be made vulnerable to accept the Gift that I had been so
reluctant to see earlier. It was such a Divinely orchestrated occasion! My whole
life had been leading up to this moment. The Divine Love I felt was the Perfection
of God that I had only read about but never thought possible to experience while
alive. He had already taken His Divine
Mahasamhadi, but His Presence was Alive and Real. It cut through any and all
egoic illusions that have pervaded mankind for thousands of years. He was the
answer, and I became deeply and truly happy.
Soon after this incident,
I began studying Adi Da's Teaching and was constantly blown away by the Truth
Emanating from His Words. Never has God Revealed Himself so fully as in the form
of Adi Da Samraj. This was absolutely undeniable. I had read and seen many spiritual
teachers, but Adi Da was completely different. He didn't just teach a philosophy
or technique for meditation. He is a Real Force, Revealing the Truth as Himself.
He is the Form of Perfection. Enlightenment is not only possible, but is our present
condition, Alive as Adi Da. He is here to Give the Gift of true ego-transcendence
to all those willing to enter into relationship with Him. It has been an incredible
Grace to have the opportunity to live in Communion with the Divine Reality, Adi
Da Samraj, especially at a young age. There is no better life to look forward
to than one of serving His Divine Work. His Gifts of Revealing Himself have become
the greatest Blessing in my life. May all beings be Blessed to feel His Divine
Presence. What a wonder that He is here!
Om Sri Parama
Sapta-Na Adi Da Love Ananda Hridayam.
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