The Divine Mahasamadhi of Adi Da Samraj:
A Personal Account

Michael Shaw

Michael Shaw lived and served closely around Avatar Adi Da Samraj for many years. From teaching horsemanship to Adi Da's daughters, to managing Adi Da Samraj's household and travels, Michael has regularly served within the Divine Guru's intimate sphere. Michael has also participated in several of Avatar Adi Da's principal Teaching Revelations.

Michael wrote this account eight months after Avatar Adi Da Samraj's Divine Mahasamadhi.

The call came over the radio that Bhagavan Adi Da had collapsed in Picture Perfect. It was immediately clear that this was extremely serious, so I ran to the room of Charles Seage, Bhagavan Adi Da’s physician, and we got on a cart [1] and were at Picture Perfect within two minutes of the event. I remember that, while driving to Picture Perfect on the cart, I was frightened, but I was also thinking “it’s a swoon, it has to be.”[2]

Picture Perfect quickly became a very busy scene of service to our Master, we all were focused in touching His precious Body, assisting the doctors, and seriously invoking and calling to Him to return to His Body. Some of us were telling Bhagavan that we weren’t ready for Him to leave yet. Adi Da's youngest daughter, Naamleela, held Bhagavan’s great head and whispered softly to His Divine Presence in His ear.

Looking back on it, I can see that it took a long time for me to realize that Bhagavan had passed. I think that we were so focused in serving His return — and for me, in denial and hope and fear all at once — that it must have been an hour or more before I realized this calling to Him and serving His Divine Body were not causing Bhagavan to re-animate His Avataric Bodily Human Form. I asked the doctors what else could be done, and they both said “it is a Spiritual matter now, there is nothing more that can be done medically.”

When it was clear to all of us in the room that Bhagavan had passed, we brought in the stretcher and gently placed His Blessing Body on it. We carried our Beloved Master to His bedroom at Aham Da Asmi Sthan and placed Him on His bed in a seated posture. Then the vigil began.

I was in shock, and didn’t really allow the full descent of the sorrow until the next day when I was orienting Bhagavan Adi Da’s Fijian devotees from Ciqomi.[3] I was telling them that they would be invited into Bhagavan’s Bedroom to view His Body. When I looked at Finiasi’s face, I could see His deep sorrow, and I began to weep. I walked over to Ruchiradama Quandra Sukhapur, and when she saw my face, she began to weep. We went inside the bedroom, and the Fijians didn’t hold back, they were fully expressive in their sorrow at the loss of the physical form of their Master. This helped me to also feel to a greater depth; there was no self-protection effective in that environment. While this event was very emotional, it also was the beginning for me of finding Bhagavan Spiritually after His passing. His Transcendental Spiritual Presence was thick, a Force field in the atmosphere of His Sacred Bedroom space.

Not long after Bhagavan’s Divine Mahasamadhi, devotees started to confess that they felt Him alive in His Murti, and they felt that He had magnified His Spiritual Presence through this profound event. I was skeptical of this at first, and didn’t want to hype anything out of need to find Bhagavan.

Now, looking back eight months later, I am feeling the Truth of what Bhagavan had predicted, that after His Divine Mahasamadhi, we would go through a time of sorrow, and then we would find the Humor of His continuing Presence. I find Bhagavan Adi Da to be very much alive Spiritually, and the relationship with Him to be continuing in tangible terms.

Now I also see the great Grace of the Silver Hall process. In fact, so many things that Bhagavan Said or did altogether have become clear to me as Perfect, Brilliant, and of great service to devotees. Before Bhagavan Adi Da Love-Ananda took His Divine Mahasamadhi, He revealed His Divine State to His devotees almost daily in the concentrated and set-apart circumstance of the Silver Hall. He showed us that His Divine Spiritual Body is not bound to His physical Body, even though He is contacted through beholding the Gift of His Form. Bhagavan showed us that He is Brightly pervading the room and beyond. He persisted until we could “see” Him there in the Hall as the Bright, a great Sphere that included His Body, but was also “larger” than His physical Body. And Bhagavan kept sitting with devotees. He revealed that this Spiritually alive Body we were finding, is the same as the Perfect Knower of the Preliminary Practice of Perfect Knowledge, that the tacit “knowing” of Bhagavan as His Transcendental Spiritual Blessing is always Prior, Spiritually Full as Love-Bliss Presence, without any separation, Present in the mere beholding of Him. He said that this discovery is profound and can radically alter the life of the devotee. I find that this Spiritual revelation given by Bhagavan is slowly becoming the core of the culture here at Adi Da Samrajashram.

This story appears in
Adi Da's Divine Mahasamadhi and Adidam in Perpetuity and
Spiritual Transmission

FOOTNOTES
[1]	Because many of the buildings on Adi Da Samrajashram were at some distance from each other, Adi Da and His devotees sometimes used electric carts as a means for getting from place to place, especially when there was a need for speed (as in this case).
[2]	Michael had attended Adi Da on other occasions (e.g., the January 11, 1986 Event that initiated Adi Da's Divine Emergence) where Adi Da had gone into a death-like "swoon", but had then come out of it some time later.
[3]	Ciqomi is the village on Adi Da Samrajashram where the Fijian employees live while they are on Adi Da Samrajashram. All have more permanent homes on other Fijian islands.