In recent decades, yoga and meditation have become a regular part of the daily lives of millions of people around the world. Through these and other practices, people develop stronger bodies, more personal discipline, better health, more loving relationships, and a greater ability to manage the stresses of modern life.
In the last few months, however, it has suddenly become universally apparent that these benefits are not be enough. Life is not programmed to produce lasting satisfaction and immunity to the challenges, inherent suffering, and mortality of existence.
In this Avataric Discourse, Avatar Adi Da Samraj describes how "positive disillusionment" with ordinary life is a necessary prerequisite for entering into the truly liberating process of spiritual practice.
ADI DA: "I find people's sorrows and losses to be heartbreaking and terrible and an immense burden and I am sympathetic and bless people in their trouble. However you must understand that is the nature of this place. This is not utopia, it is not paradise. It is a place of death, endings, suffering, brief amusements. It is not enough and merely to react to your difficulties for overlong and try to make an entire life out of it is fruitless. You do have to move on beyond that reaction to any moment's suffering and loss. You must know the place you're in and live in accordance with that knowledge instead of being sympathetic with some false view of the world or self or trying to idealize some aspect of potential experience, indulging in what amounts to addictions, repetitions of experiences, in order to avoid the knowledge of what is inherent in life, as well as all the hell that is coming on earth and is here. You will not be fulfilled."tags: Avataric Discourse
poster: CDBaby length: 08:53 date added: February 9, 2020 language: English views: 1709; views this month: 11; views this week: 3 "Avadhoota Stotram" is by Alexandra Fry. It is track 4 from Disc One of the double CD, May You Ever Dwell In Our Hearts.
May You Ever Dwell In Our Hearts is a deeply moving, sacred, contemplative CD that celebrates Adi Da's Life of Love and Blessing. This tribute to Adi Da Samraj includes music from many different genres, ranging from Indian classical to jazz to world music and other contemporary styles.
With over two hours of devotional songs filling this double CD, you can listen to pieces composed and performed by many devotee artists, including Naamleela Free Jones, Tamarind Free Jones, Ray Lynch, John Wubbenhorst, John Mackay, Sally Howe, Crane Kirkbride, Antonina Randazzo, Katya Grineva and many others.
Some of the twenty-five pieces on May You Ever Dwell In Our Hearts were written and offered in the days immediately following Adi Da's Passing on November 27, 2008, or in the year-long period of formal mourning that followed. Other songs were offered to Him in person during His Lifetime. This CD also contains new songs never released before by Naamleela, Tamarind, and other musicians.tags: musicCD
Where Is Happiness? Retreat Testimonial poster: Debra Helleren speakers: Dennis Duff, Alexis length: 02:36 date added: January 5, 2019 language: English views: 2032; views this month: 9; views this week: 2 Alexis talks about her "Where Is Happiness?" Retreat at the Man Of Radical Understanding Retreat Center (behind her) at the Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary in Northern California.
Everybody wants to be happy, but how do you actually "do" happiness? Please join us to find out more about true happiness in the free two day retreats that we offer in many locations around the world.
The retreats are based on, and inspired by, the Wisdom of Adi Da Samraj. They include guided meditations, yoga lessons, video presentations, group considerations, personal stories, contemplative walks, and delicious vegetarian meals.
The retreats are hosted by a team of experienced and long time practitioners of Avatar Adi Da’s Teachings who guide the retreat program in an inspiring fashion.
The complete weekend program (including workbook and materials) is offered for free. You only pay a contribution for food, drinks and your possible lodging during the weekend. Costs can differ depending on the location.
For more about these free weekend-long retreats, click here.
poster: AdiDaVideos length: 04:18 date added: June 14, 2017 language: English views: 3637; views this month: 13; views this week: 3 An audio excerpt from Adi Da Samraj's early talk, "Renouncing the Search for the Edible Deity", accompanied by photos of Adi Da from a more recent Avataric Discourse.
We experience "independent" existence as a kind of madness, a seeming separation from food (both because of the cutting of the umbilical cord and as a feeling of separation from our ultimate source of sustenance, the Very Divine). We must instead be like the eating gorilla. . .
Adi Da: "The eating gorilla finds a cabbage in the jungle, sits down like a slob and munches away at the cabbage, and is completely benign, completely peaceful. . . . Therefore, the eating gorilla is the image of the true man, the true woman. He demonstrates the principle of true politics, of real human existence, in which we are always presently connected to the Food Source in Truth, and are always presuming connection, relationship, 'I love you.' "
poster: Wisdom Tools for Humanity length: 08:47 date added: March 25, 2017 language: English views: 4123; views this month: 110; views this week: 2 An audio excerpt from Adi Da Samraj's early talk, "Renouncing the Search for the Edible Deity", accompanied by more recent photos of Adi Da.
Adi Da: "When we look out into the universe we feel insulted, rejected, unloved. And so we make philosophy out of our apparent independence. Fundamentally, it is not our experiences in particular relationships that tell us we are not loved. Some people do not love us, surely, but nevertheless we are simply, always, and already philosophically disposed to believe that we are not loved. It is our interpretation of existence, not on the basis of any relational experience we have had with other human beings, but on the basis of our apparent independence itself. Our sense of independent bodily existence means separation to us, whereas, you see, it is really only the sense of independent bodily existence. When you become strong — if you ever can become truly strong — autonomous, able to take a deep breath, then you stop interpreting the universe as a form of rejection, as a great parent from whose company you have been expelled, under whose domination you live, who has rejected you and does not love you. Everyone is simply born into the conventional condition of independence and everyone interprets that condition as rejection, as 'you don't love me.' "
poster: Wisdom Tools for Humanity length: 09:49 date added: March 19, 2017 language: English views: 4712; views this month: 18; views this week: 5 An audio excerpt from Adi Da Samraj's early talk, "Renouncing the Search for the Edible Deity", accompanied by photos of Adi Da from a more recent Avataric Discourse.
We experience "independent" existence as a kind of madness, a seeming separation from food (both because of the cutting of the umbilical cord and as a feeling of separation from our ultimate source of sustenance, the Very Divine). We must instead be like the eating gorilla. . .
Adi Da: "The eating gorilla finds a cabbage in the jungle, sits down like a slob and munches away at the cabbage, and is completely benign, completely peaceful. . . . Therefore, the eating gorilla is the image of the true man, the true woman. He demonstrates the principle of true politics, of real human existence, in which we are always presently connected to the Food Source in Truth, and are always presuming connection, relationship, 'I love you.' "
Divine Distraction with James Steinberg poster: AdiDaUpClose speaker: James Steinberg length: 50:54 date added: February 1, 2016 language: English listens: 6212; listens this month: 12; listens this week: 4 James Steinberg is interviewed on the podcast, Vajra Body Vajra Mind. Vajra Body Vajra Mind is a provocative podcast that explores the outer limits of spiritual practice and human development. James Steinberg is a longtime devotee of Adi Da, and the author of Divine Distraction and Love of the God-Man.
In this episode of Vajra Body Vajra Mind, we discuss James' life with Adi Da. We talk about the practice of Guru Yoga, challenges in reading Adi Da's Teaching, anti-Guru sentiment in contemporary culture, sexuality in spirituality, the importance of discipline in the Way of Adidam, the unique Transmission of Adi Da's Revelation and Presence (through photographs, videos, Image-Art, etc), resistance to the Guru by the ego, positive disillusionment (aka "the Lesson of Life"), and more.
The Divine Does the Yoga poster: AdiDaUpClose length: 31:44 date added: July 15, 2013 event date: 1973 language: English listens: 2977; listens this month: 7; listens this week: 2 Adi Da: "Nothing in [the devotee] is one with God. So the Divine Activity is generated to make that person one with God. The Divine does the Yoga. The Divine Assumes His Oneness with the devotee. He does not create means, methods to be generated in dilemma, experiential paths by which to realize that Oneness — He simply Establishes It."
"The way for such a devotee, then, is simply to be a devotee: to simply live that relationship as the Principle and Condition of his life. And if he does that, then the conscious and formal Qualities that are native to the Divine Condition are generated spontaneously and intelligently within him."
The Recognition of My State poster: AdiDaVideos length: 10:30 date added: November 3, 2012 event date: October 20, 2004 language: English views: 4075; views this month: 9; views this week: 2 In this talk ("Tacit Recognition Of My State") Adi Da describes what He means by recognition of Him (as the Divine), and response to Him on that basis.
special terminology: Ruchira Avatara Bhakti Yoga; Murti forms; Samadhi.
This excerpt is part of the longer DVD, The Divine Is Not The Cause. Subtitles in English, Spanish, French, German, Dutch, Finnish, Polish, Czech, Chinese, Japanese, and Hebrew. A CD version is also available.
Adi Da Samraj Offers a Relationship poster: satsang length: 04:49 date added: February 5, 2009 language: English views: 4039; views this month: 10; views this week: 0 What can possibly carry you deeper than your everyday self? Any focus or occupation added from the outside can't disolve your apparent limitations and boundaries; it only reinforces them.tags: AdidamDivine RealizerSatsangYogaMeditationSpiritualRelationship
The Beginnings of Spiritual Conductivity poster: Chandirah length: 03:00 date added: February 1, 2009 language: English views: 3751; views this month: 7; views this week: 2 This is a short talk where Adi Da describes the beginnings of reception in the body of spiritual energy, the 'conductivity' of it, and the yogic pattern of it. This is something He has talked a lot about, and is one of the main parts of His teachings and our practice.tags: YogaEnergySpiritualChiKiKundaliniSpirit
Love of the God-Man poster: jonobono length: 09:29 date added: February 1, 2009 event date: October 10, 1983 language: English views: 4252; views this month: 10; views this week: 0 Talk given by Adi Da on October 10, 1983, in which He makes clear that only ego-transcending responsive devotion to the Real-God-Man relieves the heart of the ego's "self"-created "purgatory" of separation, separativeness, and unlove.
Adi Da: "What is supremely attractive in the conditionally manifested universe and in the human "world" is the Real-God-Man. All beings, male or female, must become Attracted, Distracted by That One. This is the Ultimate Means, the Supreme Means, the Supreme Yoga. It is for this reason that the Divine Appears in manifested form in the likeness of those beings who are to be Drawn out of bondage — but only in their likeness. . . Those who become capable of recognizing That One become capable of responding to That Attraction. And those who become capable of being Distracted by That One become participants in this Supreme Way, Which is truly the Way of Divine Avataric Grace, because it requires no effort. It requires nothing but My Divine Avataric Grace and the response to it."tags: Adi Da Samraj
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