I’ve sung Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas to Beloved Adi Da many times over the years — at the Manner of Flowers, at Adi Da Samrajashram, at First People / Great Food Dish, etc. (as one of a small group of singers, and usually also as the keyboardist) — and I’m singing it to Him again (and all of you!) here. It is one of my favorite songs at this time of year.
For me (starting with Judy Garland's original film version), it has always been an emotion-filled song, by turns joyful, playful, nostalgic, and wistful — so that is how I sing it here.
This song as a bridge to God. In Beloved Adi Da’s Company, everything (from Mickey Mouse to cookie-making) becomes “a bridge to God”.
ADI DA: “You must Awaken and discover the Divine World wherein everything is a bridge to the Infinite, One Being.”
And so for me, the words of this song have always taken on a significance beyond the usual secular understanding of the song. They lead me through a consideration that I’ll share with you here.
Have yourself a merry little Christmas Let your heart be light From now on our troubles will be out of sight
Have yourself a merry little Christmas Make the Yuletide gay From now on our troubles will be miles away.
Here we are as in olden days Happy golden days of yore Faithful friends who are dear to us Gather near to us once more
Through the years we all will be together If the fates allow Hang a shining star upon the highest bough And have yourself a merry little Christmas now.
That wistfulness: Raymond’s problem. On the surface, the words of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas are purely joyful — "faithful friends" coming together each year in a joyous Christmas celebration. And yet, one of the emotions I feel when I sing this song is wistfulness. So where is the wistfulness coming from? It's that big "IF" in the song: "if the fates allow". In fact, as every one of us knows (more and more, with each passing year), fate (conditional existence) only allows such reunions for a limited number of years. As I sing, I have a vision of a photograph of a gathering of friends, from a Christmas or Danavira Mela many years ago, and, in this vision, each face in the photograph — one by one over the years — turns "ghostly", either through our circumstances (high school, college, living near each other) no longer being shared, or life paths that have moved in different directions, or the passing on of that person. My awareness of that inevitable reality is the source of the wistfulness and nostalgia. The inevitable disappearance of the (mortal) loved one is “Raymond’s problem”, a phrase Adi Da uses, based on the central character of The Mummery Book.
Danavira Mela: A Divine Celebration in the midst of a conditional universe. The joy and playfulness of the song comes from the celebration we can still have together, even in the midst of an ever-changing, conditional universe. One of my (and many other devotees’) favorite quotes of Beloved Adi Da has always been this extraordinary prayer, from “Death is a Perfect Insult” in The Enlightenment of the Whole Body:
“Let us surrender into Infinity with all our friends and hold on to no thing or condition that ever appears. Let us forget all things in present Happiness, and so forgive the universe for all its playful changes. Let us always love one another, and so forgive one another for appearing, for changing, and for passing out of present sight. So be it.”
When I sing this song, I hear it giving further guidance for just how to do this.
The Five Reality-Teachings poster: AdiDaUpClose length: 03:30 date added: September 3, 2023 language: English views: 689; views this month: 64; views this week: 13 As part of His recitation of The Happenine Book in April, 2006, at Adi Da Samrajashram, Adi Da recites "The Five Reality-Teachings". A chanted version is available here.
THE FIVE REALITY-TEACHINGS
Notice this:
1. You are not the one who wakes, or dreams, or sleeps.
2. You Are the actionless and formless Mere Witness of the three common states — of waking, dreaming and sleeping — and of all the apparent contents and “experiences” associated with the three common states, of waking, and of dreaming, and of sleeping.
3. You are not the body, or the doer of action, or the doer of even any of the body’s actions or functions.
4. You are not the mind, or the thinker, or the doer of even any of the actions or functions of mind or of body-mind.
5. No matter what arises — whether as or in the state of waking, or of dreaming, or of sleeping — you Are the actionless, and formless, and thought-free Mere Witness of attention itself, and of every apparent “object” of attention, and of any and every state of “experience”, and of the entirety of whatever and all that arises.
Always intensively “consider” these Five Reality-Teachings.
Always intensively observe and notice every moment of your “experience” — whether waking, dreaming, or sleeping — and, thus and thereby, “consider” and test and directly prove these Five Reality-Teachings in the moment-to-moment of your every kind and state of “experience”.
Using the Shamanistic traditions of North America to illustrate right relationship to the invisible, energy realms of existence, Avatar Adi Da urgently calls everyone to overcome the addiction to the false doctrine of materialism. Free and full participation in the energy dimension of existence, Avatar Adi Da says, provides the necessary foundation for restoring balance to the Earth-world, and for ecstatic embrace of the Reality-Realizing Process in His Divine Company.
ADI DA: Aren’t you still . . . limited by this materialistic “point of view”, such that you do not yet feel free to accept the Reality of the Very Divine (and the spirit-“world” itself) in all of Its dimensions? . . . You have to break the spell of the doctrines of your own time that limit your consciousness to the material domain. . . . You have to Wake Up. tags: CD
poster: CDBaby length: 01:49 date added: June 19, 2023 language: English views: 266; views this month: 19; views this week: 7 This talk excerpt is track 9 of the CD, Reality Is Beyond "Point Of View", a selection of talks by Adi Da (from the 30 years of His formal Teaching-Work) on the true nature of Reality. Brings together samples from His vast Divine Instruction relative to the true nature of Reality — as the unknowable Condition that is Always Already the Case, prior to the presumption of a separate “point of view”.
Note: Due to distribution policies set by CDBaby (and beyond the control of this website and Adidam), this video may not be playable in every country. However, sometimes, even when you can't play it on this page, you may be able to play it on YouTube: click here.tags: CD
Acércate a Mí desde el Corazón poster: Videos de Adi Da - Español length: 06:19 date added: May 8, 2023 event date: March 8, 1984 language: Spanish views: 470; views this month: 31; views this week: 1 [Contains Spanish subtitles. If the CC icon ("Subtitles/closed captions") has a red line under it, the subtitles should appear. If you don't see them, just press the CC icon to turn them on.]
In this clip, "Acércate a Mí desde el Corazón" ("Approach Me from the Heart"), Adi Da speaks to devotees in the Manner Of Flowers (at the Mountain Of Attention), during the "Love of the God-Man" Celebration on March 8, 1984. Adi Da talks about praise speech, ecstasy, and Satsang.
Some of the questions Adi Da addresses in the full talk are: What is a Divine experience? Who is God that God could be identified over against anything whatsoever? Who is a Spiritual Master if He can find Himself apart from God, such that He could say: “This piece is Me and this piece is God”? How could such distinctions continue in the consciousness of one who has Realized the Divine?tags: SpanishDVD
Adi Da: His Unique Offering poster: AdiDaVideos speaker: Vanessa Kenoyer length: 08:14 date added: April 1, 2023 language: English views: 416; views this month: 21; views this week: 2 A devotee of Avatar Adi Da speaks about His Unique Offering and how it differs from other approaches. In an excerpt from one of His essays, "There Is A Way And Reality Itself Is It" (in The Aletheon), Adi Da states: "What I Bring to here is not mythology. What I Bring to here is not ‘religion’. What I Bring to here is not anything that human beings already ‘know’. What I Bring to here is not a path or a search that is already evident in the history of the Great Tradition of humankind. What I Bring to here has never been offered before, never heard of before, never practiced before."
La Comunión Con El Maestro Espiritual Hace Posible La Rendición poster: Videos de Adi Da - Español length: 12:38 date added: March 10, 2023 event date: October 28, 1978 language: Spanish views: 454; views this month: 86; views this week: 2 [Contains Spanish subtitles. If the CC icon ("Subtitles/closed captions") has a red line under it, the subtitles should appear. If you don't see them, just press the CC icon to turn them on.]
"La Comunión Con El Maestro Espiritual Hace Posible La Rendición" ("Communion with the Spiritual Master is What Makes Surrender Possible") is from a question and answer session with Adi Da on October 28, 1978, in Land Bridge Pavilion at the Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary in Northern California. This is track 3 on the DVD, Surrender of self Is A Koan.
In this excerpt, Adi Da addresses the fact that although the struggle and distractions in the early stages of spiritual practice are great, there is also great help in the relationship with the Spiritual Master. Attention to all of the ups and downs of the body-mind can be transcended and surrendered through that relationship.tags: SpanishDVD
Samoistna Boska Domena poster: Adi Da Video Polska length: 04:25 date added: February 15, 2023 language: Polish views: 362; views this month: 11; views this week: 1 [Contains Polish subtitles. If the CC icon ("Subtitles/closed captions") has a red line under it, the subtitles should appear. If you don't see them, just press the CC icon to turn them on.]
Avatar Adi Da describes the Divine Self-Domain. An audio of Adi Da speaking is played over a Darshan video of Adi Da.tags: PolishDarshan
Přibližuj se ke Mně srdcem poster: Adi Da Videa, čeština length: 06:20 date added: February 15, 2023 event date: March 8, 1984 language: Czech views: 567; views this month: 24; views this week: 4 [Contains Czech subtitles. If the CC icon ("Subtitles/closed captions") has a red line under it, the subtitles should appear. If you don't see them, just press the CC icon to turn them on.]
In this clip, "Přibližuj se ke Mně srdcem" ("Approach Me From the Heart"), Adi Da speaks to devotees in the Manner Of Flowers (at the Mountain Of Attention), during the "Love of the God-Man" Celebration on March 8, 1984. Adi Da talks about praise speech, ecstasy, and Satsang.
Some of the questions Adi Da addresses in the full talk are: What is a Divine experience? Who is God that God could be identified over against anything whatsoever? Who is a Spiritual Master if He can find Himself apart from God, such that He could say: “This piece is Me and this piece is God”? How could such distinctions continue in the consciousness of one who has Realized the Divine?tags: CzechDVD
Pelon itsesolmun ylittäminen poster: Adi Da Videot Suomi length: 31:19 date added: January 4, 2023 event date: August 13, 2004 language: Finnish views: 367; views this month: 8; views this week: 2 [Contains Finnish subtitles. If the CC icon ("Subtitles/closed captions") has a red line under it, the subtitles should appear. If you don't see them, just press the CC icon to turn them on.]
"Pelon itsesolmun ylittäminen" ("Transcend the self-Knot of Fear") is an excerpt from the Avataric Discourse of August 23, 2004 at Adi Da Samrajashram.tags: Finnish
No hay nadie para rendirse poster: Videos de Adi Da - Español length: 13:50 date added: December 6, 2022 event date: October 28, 1978 language: Spanish views: 506; views this month: 18; views this week: 6 [Contains Spanish subtitles. If the CC icon ("Subtitles/closed captions") has a red line under it, the subtitles should appear. If you don't see them, just press the CC icon to turn them on.]
In this excerpt, "No hay nadie para rendirse" ("There Is No One To Surrender"), Adi Da Samraj considers the spiritual transformation of a human being, and states of the body-mind. The real spiritual process is not based on effort or having more (or greater) experiences, even in the mystical dimension. In the true spiritual process, experience, in all its forms (first physical and then mystical), must be transcended through our heart-based practice of God-Communion.tags: DVDSpanish
The Key To Sexuality Is Emotion poster: Adi Da Videa, čeština length: 08:34 date added: November 21, 2022 language: Czech views: 345; views this month: 25; views this week: 6 [Contains Czech subtitles. If the CC icon ("Subtitles/closed captions") has a red line under it, the subtitles should appear. If you don't see them, just press the CC icon to turn them on.]
"The Key to Our Sexuality Is Emotion" is an excerpt from a longer Discourse in which Adi Da communicates how all our problems (including sexual problems) are rooted in the feeling of being a separate self, which coincides with the feeling, "you don't love me", the feeling of rejection by (or lack of sustenance from) the universe, and leads to the reaction, "I don't love you".tags: Czech
El proceso espiritual siempre se havivido en tiempos difíciles poster: Videos de Adi Da - Español length: 10:16 date added: September 19, 2022 event date: November 28, 1981 language: Spanish views: 666; views this month: 24; views this week: 1 [Contains Spanish subtitles. If the CC icon ("Subtitles/closed captions") has a red line under it, the subtitles should appear. If you don't see them, just press the CC icon to turn them on.]
This is a video excerpt from Adi Da's classic talk, "The Bodily Location of Happiness", which He gave on November 28, 1981. This talk was originally published in the book, The Bodily Location Of Happiness. The full talk is available on DVD and on CD, and as an online transcript.
ADI DA: Life is foolishness. This is no time, in any case, to be tolerant of foolishness. The world is mad, and these are dreadful times. Things are not going to be easier in the years ahead. The spiritual process has always been lived in difficult times. Therefore, the spiritual process tolerates no fool. The spiritual process itself will spit you out. It is not an easy attainment, but a profoundly difficult affair. Even what you have listened to today has been heard by only a fraction of the human race in all of history. The opportunity to practice is extremely rare, and the fulfillment of practice is practically unknown.
In some sense you could say this life is hell. . . The nature of this hell is that we are self-possessed. We are born in un-Happiness and we do not transcend it readily. We constantly pursue Happiness through all kinds of incredibly complex means, and we never attain It. . .
If Spiritual Realizers did not turn about and Teach, this would truly be a hell instead of being like a hell. It would truly be a hell if there were no possibility of Enlightenment, if there were no Teaching, no Spiritual Masters, no sacred Way, no sacred community, no capacity for understanding or self-transcendence.tags: SpanishCDDVD
The Five Reality-Teachings (in Mandarin) poster: Paul Litchfield speaker: Jane Yang length: 02:05 date added: September 11, 2022 event date: 2008 language: Mandarin views: 747; views this month: 34; views this week: 8 Devotee Jane Yang translated Adi Da's The Five Reality-Teachings into Mandarin. Here is her 2008 recitation of that translation.
Consideration of "The Five Reality-Teachings" is one of the core practices of The Transcendental Spiritual Way of Adidam. "The Five Reality-Teachings" are part of "The Teaching Manual of Perfect Summaries", in Part 11 of The Aletheon. They also are featured in the book, Notice This.
THE FIVE REALITY-TEACHINGS Avatar Adi Da Samraj
Notice this:
1. You are not the one who wakes, or dreams, or sleeps.
2. You Are the actionless and formless Mere Witness of the three common states — of waking, dreaming, and sleeping — and of all the apparent contents and "experiences" associated with the three common states, of waking, and of dreaming, and of sleeping.
3. You are not the body, or the doer of action, or the doer of even any of the body's actions or functions.
4. You are not the mind, or the thinker, or the doer of even any of the actions or functions of mind or of body-mind.
5. No matter what arises — whether as or in the state of waking, or of dreaming, or of sleeping — you Are the actionless, and formless, and thought-free Mere Witness of attention itself, and of every apparent "object" of attention, and of any and every state of "experience", and of the entirety of whatever and all that arises.
Always intensively "consider" these Five Reality-Teachings.
Always intensively observe and notice every moment of your "experience" — whether waking, dreaming, or sleeping — and, thus and thereby, "consider" and test and directly prove these Five Reality-Teachings in the moment-to-moment of your every kind and state of "experience".
Avatar Adi Da Samraj, pp. 559-561, The Gnosticontags: MandarinChinese
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