Adi Da: A Brief Biography

Adi Da Samraj was born "Franklin Albert Jones" on Long Island, New York, on November 3, 1939. From His birth, He was established in a unique State of spiritual illumination that He (as a child) called the "Bright".[1] He describes it as a "boundless feeling of Joy, Light, and Freedom" — it was the Divine State.

That Adi Da's earliest memories of His human lifetime were associated with the Divine State was just the first of innumerable signs throughout His life indicating that He was born as a human incarnation of the Divine Person.

Adi Da has described how much spiritual sacrifice by many great spiritual beings over many millennia was required to create the circumstances that finally enabled His Incarnation. Much could be said about this preparation, but for the purpose of this short biography, here is the briefest of summaries:

Adi Da was born by Divine Intention, in response to countless human prayers. He took birth in order to make two Great Revelations: His Revelation (as the Very Divine Person) that the Divine Is Real; and His Revelation of the Way by which all human beings can Realize eternal Oneness with Him (Divine Enlightenment).

Throughout His first two years, Adi Da existed in a state of constant Spiritual Radiance and Joy, without any sense of separate self (or ego). He Radiated His "Bright" State to all then just as clearly as He did in His later life. But during that very early period, Adi Da also noticed that others were not aware of the "Bright" — even though it was obvious to Him that all beings were arising in that same Divine Person and State. He observed that this unenlightenment was the case for every being He came into contact with, from the members of His family to the dogs He played with: they all suffered profoundly from lack of awareness of their Real Condition, and their mistaken presumption that they were only separate, mortal, limited egos.

And so, at the age of two, out of a profound feeling of love for others and compassionate identification with their suffering, Adi Da spontaneously and consciously "became" a human ego, submitting Himself to embrace the human condition with all its limitations, even while (paradoxically) remaining aware of His "Bright" Divine Condition. He did this so as to experience, firsthand, what the human "problem" is, or why people suffer so much unhappiness. He also did this in order to bring His own Divine Being directly into the grossest domains of the manifest cosmos — to Divinely Descend so that even the "outer reaches" of the cosmos would be fully Pervaded by His Divine Light (a process that He finally established fully with His Divine Self-"Emergence" in 1986).

He had already decided to make this submission even before His birth, but the actual moment of that Descent only occurred (at age two) after the physical body was sufficiently prepared for it.

Adi Da made it His life's purpose to "learn man": to discover how that human "problem" of suffering and mortality can be overcome, enabling everyone to realize the supremely blissful and eternal state of Divine "Brightness" that He had known since birth (and before); and how to develop a means (verbal, visual, etc.) for communicating the nature of Reality and the Way for realizing the Divine State. As part of this investigation, He engaged in intensive academic studies, as well as experimentation with all forms of experience, from the mundane to the extraordinary. (These experiments were never for the sake of the experience itself, but always for the sake of understanding the mechanisms underlying all human seeking and experience.) He graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. in Philosophy in 1961, and from Stanford University with an M.A. in English Literature in 1966.

In 1964, Adi Da Samraj initiated a six-year period of intense spiritual practice under a succession of highly accomplished spiritual masters in the United States and India — Swami Rudrananda, Swami Muktananda, and Bhagavan Nityananda — leading Him to experience the highest forms of traditional mystical attainment. During Adi Da's first visit with Swami Muktananda in 1968, Swami Muktananda indicated that Adi Da was a spiritual master by birth, and “the most extraordinary Westerner” he had ever encountered. One year later, in a unique letter of acknowledgment, Swami Muktananda made an open public declaration that Adi Da was inherently qualified, by virtue of His evident spiritual signs and demonstrated states, to teach others independently, and to awaken others spiritually by direct transmission of His Own State.

Adi Da always related to these great spiritual masters with the deepest devotional surrender and gratitude. But it also eventually became obvious to Him that His process of discovering the way of perfect Truth for all could not come to completion under their guidance — because He had come to know, from direct experience, that the kinds of Realization offered by these masters were not the equivalent of the "Bright" State He had known from birth (and before). As the devotee of these spiritual masters, He discovered that all forms of Spiritual Realization that had ever been sought and attained were still based on an effort of the ego — whether it was the effort to surrender to the Divine (emphasized by Swami Rudrananda, and proponents of what Adi Da called "fourth stage" approaches); or the effort to mystically ascend to the Divine (what Adi Da calls the ""fifth stage Realization", emphasized by Swami Muktananda and Bhagavan Nityananda); or the effort to detach oneself from "self" and "world" in order to enjoy the Bliss of Pure Consciousness (what Adi Da calls the "sixth stage Realization"). Even if only in the subtlest manner, it was always still the ego making the effort, and that ego prevented perfect Divine Realization (what Adi Da calls the "seventh stage Realization").

The only Way truly capable of fully Realizing the Divine would be one based on the Divine not "sought" but already present, and the egoless heart-response of the being to the already present Divine. What would enable "Franklin Jones" to Realize the Divine was a unique circumstance: the Divine had incarnated as Him, and so was directly present and available to Him. Then, in turn, He Himself would enable anyone else to Realize the Divine by making the "Divine already present" for them, through the vehicle of His own Divinely Realized body-mind.

And so, on September 10, 1970, Adi Da spontaneously Re-Awakened to His own "Bright" Divine (and inherently egoless) Self-Condition — not fundamentally because of any process or insight associated with any of the spiritual masters with whom He had been associating, but primarily as a continuation of the incarnation process that the Very Divine had initiated at (and through) His birth.

While meditating in the Vedanta Society Temple in Hollywood, California, Adi Da suddenly and perfectly "regained" what He had (at two years of age) volunteered to "lose". Only now, He, as the Divine, had fully acquired the body-mind of "Franklin Jones" and had conformed it to Himself, to the point where "Franklin Jones" had Realized Him. From the viewpoint of "Franklin Jones", this was Divine Enlightenment, but from the viewpoint of the Divine incarnating, this was a Re-Awakening.

At the same time as Adi Da was conforming the body-mind of "Franklin Jones" to the Divine, He was submitting all of conditional reality to the Divine Reality, thus enabling all beings to Realize the Divine from that moment on, as Adi Da describes [bold ours]:

Adi Da had Re-Awakened as the Divine. He had Awakened the Divine Siddhis that would (at long last) enable all beings to Realize the Divine. In effect, He had created a "hole in the universe", enabling conditional beings to "enter" (and ultimately Realize) the Divine Domain for the first time. And through His comprehensive experimentation, He had equipped Himself with the fullest possible experiential knowledge of the human condition, the process of spiritual growth, and the Way for beings to fully awaken into the Divine Condition beyond egoity. Having all these means at His disposal, Adi Da was now enabled to begin His unprecedented work of teaching others and serving as their Spiritual Master, as the very means by which they could tangibly locate and commune with the Divine in every moment.

Adi Da Samraj's formal teaching work began with the opening of His first ashram on Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles, in April of 1972. For the remaining thirty-six years of His human lifetime, He devoted Himself to creating a vast repository of wisdom, covering every area of human and spiritual life, in living dialogue with those who approached Him. In the early 1970's, Alan Watts, the well-known author of numerous books on eastern religion and philosophy, acknowledged Adi Da as "a rare being", adding, "It is obvious, from all sorts of subtle details, that he knows what IT's all about."

During the years of His teaching work from 1972 to 2000, Adi Da created and established an entirely new way of life: the way of devotional and Transcendental Spiritual relationship to Him which He called "the Way of Adidam". Through contemplation of Him — His Transcendental Spiritual Transmission of Himself, always accessible to all devotees wherever they might be — devotees would recognize and commune with Him as the Divine Person, and would ultimately duplicate His Divine Realization, via the spiritual law, "you become what you meditate on". Many of the stories on this site from devotees recount their recognition of Adi Da as the Divine and the realizations that occurred as they engaged this practice of contemplating Him as the Divine, and receiving His Transcendental Spiritual Transmission.

From 1972 on, Adi Da worked directly with thousands of people who approached Him as Divine Heart-Master. He wrote thousands of pages of Revelation and Instruction, and He spoke thousands of hours of discourses, in face-to-face dialogue with His devotees. In so doing, He called into being a new culture and spiritual tradition — with its unique forms of worship, artistic creativity, and cooperative living, all based on a life of Communion with Him as the Divine in Person. Adi Da brought the same burning urgency and passionate commitment to His Work of Teaching and Revelation that He had demonstrated during His earlier years of "learning Man".

During this period, Adi Da created a Wisdom-Teaching comprised of a vast and comprehensive body of literary and spiritual writings: more than sixty published books.

About Adi Da's Wisdom-Teaching, Professor of Religious Studies, Jeffrey Kripal, writes (in the Foreword to The Knee Of Listening): "The writings of Adi Da Samraj are the most doctrinally thorough, the most philosophically sophisticated, the most culturally challenging, and the most creatively original literature on radical nonduality currently available in the English language." Author Henry Leroy Finch adds: "There exists nowhere in the world today, among Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, native tribalists, or any other groups, anyone who has so much to teach, or speaks with such authority, or is so important for understanding our situation. If we are willing to learn from him in every way, he is a force to be reckoned with — a Pole around which the world can get its bearings."

Here is just one story (among hundreds) of a Revelation received upon reading Adi Da's words:

Adi Da also established and spiritually Empowered five Hermitages and Sanctuaries: The Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary and Tat Sundaram (in Northern California); Ruchira Dham Hermitage (in Washington State); Da Love-Ananda Mahal (in Kauai, Hawaii); and Adi Da Samrajashram (in the Fiji Islands). Thousands of devotees and non-devotee visitors have experienced the Blessing Power of these Holy Places. As Adi Da describes them:

Many visitors to these Holy Places tell extraordinary stories. Here is just one:

I went up back to the "Brightness" Temple in the early afternoon. . . A group of devotees was sitting there already, chanting in front of Adi Da's Photographs. The entire area seemed to vibrate with a tangible Presence that was very familiar to me as Bhagavan's Spiritual Form. As I sat down on the ground, I became conscious of the fact that this was only about thirty feet away from the chamber in which Bhagavan's physical form was buried. Soon the feeling of intimacy with my Master started increasing significantly. There was a quickly growing feeling of very tangible Love-Bliss energy in the body. I noticed this energy entering my hands — which were placed on the ground in front — moving up and filling the entire body with the most blissful Love-Touch. The feeling of the intimacy of touch was the most outstanding part of the experience. . . Weeping with tears of joy, I fell into a swoon that lasted for hours. My body seemed to have become a "loop" within the energy field of the Earth, one with it. The energy was first circulating in the body through the bodily base, but later it didn't feel like "flowing" anymore — it was simply present everywhere at once. I felt my Guru's Presence everywhere at once, like a pillar. I also felt the entire Planet was radiating with this Love-Bliss energy, as if Bhagavan had injected Himself all the way into the Earth's core; now touching not just my body but all beings on Earth. This felt like His last Gift to humankind, to the world — by placing the "ash" of His physical form into the Earth's ground. M. M., Touched By Him

From the very beginning of His work, Adi Da made it clear that what He offered to His devotees was "a relationship, not a technique." He entered into His teaching in a very actively relational manner, teaching those who came to Him by addressing their doubts, questions, and dilemmas. In this process, Adi Da considered every aspect of human life, including functional, practical, relational, and spiritual life. For many years, He taught in a heroic, "crazy-wise" manner, using unconventional means to reflect His devotees to themselves, and thus serve their spiritual awakening.

Adi Da's Teaching and the Way of Adidam evolved in phases and periods, marked by profound transformations in His work with devotees, and in His own body. He took on new names that coincided with new phases in His life and work. On January 11, 1986 (the initiation of Adi Da's Divine Emergence), and again in April, 2000 (the "Ruchira Dham" Event), Adi Da experienced extraordinary, death-like yogic events that involved loss of bodily consciousness and a subsequent re-integration of the Divine Person with the human body in a new way. In these events, His body became ever more profoundly transformed and transfigured by the Divine "Bright" Condition, making the Divine State ever more accessible to all beings through the means of Adi Da's human form.

For this reason, after 2000, Adi Da Samraj's work became that of direct Revelation and universal Blessing, the pure communication of the "Bright" State that was His illumined experience at birth (and always). From 2000 until the end of His human lifetime in 2008, Adi Da lived mainly at Adi Da Samrajashram, His Sanctuary in Fiji — a place spiritually Empowered by Him as the primary seat from which His Blessing flows perpetually to the world.

He continually magnified His universal Blessing from there, inviting His devotees into His Company on spiritual retreat, and constantly working to express the truth of existence through modes of communication to which all human beings could respond, including works of literature, theater, art, and philosophy.

Since His childhood, Adi Da Samraj had turned to art as a means to convey the humor and freedom of the "Bright" to others, producing images and artifacts in various modes even throughout the years when He was otherwise concentrated in developing His teaching and establishing the Way of Adidam. Beginning in the late 1990's, He began to focus with increasing intensity on creating artistic images that could directly serve His Work of Revelation. His artistic works, vast in number, have been featured in internationally acclaimed venues (including the Venice Biennale). Internationally renowned art critic, Donald Kuspit, wrote of Adi Da's art, "It is a rare artist who can convey, convincingly, the sense of being face to face with the source of being. Adi Da can clearly live in the depths without succumbing to their pressure, bringing back pearls of art to prove it."

In the final years of His life, along with His artistic work, Adi Da turned His regard with great intensity to the current state of humanity and the common world. He actively called upon people of all faiths and nationalities to live in cooperation and peace with one another, based on the presumption of “prior unity”, for the sake of the world. Adi Da was not political in any ordinary sense of the word. Rather, His address to humanity and the process of civilization (particularly through His book, Not-Two Is Peace) was made in the blessing stance of a true "world-friend", coming from His lifelong intention to communicate the truth of existence and restore all beings to the "prior unity" of the Divine.

On November 27, 2008, Adi Da Samraj passed from His physical body while working in His art studio on Adi Da Samrajashram. His passing was sudden and peaceful. On the very morning of His passing (which His devotees call His "Divine Mahasamadhi"), He completed His writing of The Aletheon, the book He designated as “first and foremost” among all His writings.

For years, Adi Da had spoken to His devotees about the inevitable end of His human lifetime, and how He worked throughout His life to leave humankind with forms of Agency through which His blessing Presence would forever be felt and magnified, and through which an eternally living relationship with Him would always be possible (and through that, Divine Enlightenment would be realizable). Through His Empowered Hermitages and Sanctuaries, His vast literature of Spiritual Revelation and Instruction, His monumental Image-Art, the storied lessons of His uniquely born life (including all the stories of His work with and Blessing of devotees and non-devotees alike), and the devotional and spiritual response and growth of His community of devotees, Adi Da Samraj has made Himself — and thereby, Divine Enlightenment — transcendentally spiritually available to everyone, now and forever.