This First Meeting Has Never Left My Heart
Ati-Dasya Quandra Sukhapur Rani
Over the years, two women devotees in particular have established a Yogic and devotional relationship to Avatar Adi Da that is unique and that has withstood every test. Both of them, Ati-Dasya Quandra Sukhapur Rani and Ati-Dasya Ruchiradama Nadikanta, are formal renunciates. They recount on this site how they came to Avatar Adi Da in 1974. Their stories are an indicator of the deep Spiritual "Bond", prior to this life, that drew them to Avatar Adi Da Samraj, a "Bond" that has proven itself in over three decades of human and Spiritual intimacy with Him. Here is Ati-Dasya Quandra Sukhapur Rani's story of how she came to Avatar Adi Da. 
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| 1974 |
In August of 1973, at 19 years of age, while living in a suburb outside of Chicago, Illinois, it became obvious to me that I had to make a dramatic change in my life. I felt a very strong urge to just leave Illinois, and so I collected what money I had, which was very little, and set out to drive to California — which, to me, represented some kind of freedom from the oppressive and degraded life I felt I had been living. I drove to California with no clear sense of what I was going to do, or where I was going to go. I had a friend I could stay with, at least temporarily, in San Francisco, and so that is what I set out to do.
After many days of driving across country, I arrived in San Francisco and located this friend's house. I stayed, however, but one night. In the morning, I realized that I could not remain in San Francisco. For no apparent reason, a very strong urge to go to Los Angeles had arisen in me. I knew no one in Los Angeles, I had nothing I intended to do there, but I felt very strongly that I had to drive to Los Angeles. And so I packed up my things, drove to Los Angeles, and immediately set about looking for a place to live.
I found a small one-room house in Huntington Beach, and shortly after I arrived there, I began to have visions of a man and a woman. I could never see the woman, but it seemed to be myself. The man, however, was very distinct to me. He related to me very directly, and he would appear in an observatory, where he would constantly draw me to look through his telescope at the stars. After my initial contact with this man in the dream state, I would have a recurring vision of a star-form perceived at the end of a tunnel, and this would appear not only in dreams but in the waking state. Shortly after that, I was led, through various acquaintances, to the bookstore on Melrose Avenue that was the first Ashram of Avatar Adi Da.
On this day, outside the Melrose ashram's meditation hall there were many shoes, and so I presumed that Beloved Adi Da was sitting in a formal meditation occasion. However, I did not ask and no one spoke of it. I quietly purchased The Knee of Listening and The Method of the Siddhas. When I looked at the books, I saw immediately that the man I was having constant visions of was Beloved Adi Da!
That same week I unexpectedly heard the voice of Beloved Adi Da on the radio. Recordings were being played of some of His Talks to His devotees. I was profoundly drawn and moved in my heart. His voice seemed to shape all that I felt. I had little comprehension of what He was saying, but I was completely moved by His voice and His laughter and the feeling that He communicated. Above all, I was attracted to the offering that He made of a relationship. So began my conscious relationship, in this lifetime, to my Beloved Guru, Adi Da Samraj.
After that, I set up an altar in the small one-room house that I was living in and spontaneously began to do daily puja. I had no conscious knowledge of puja, but I was moved to make offerings to Beloved Adi Da's photograph, and I began to study His Teaching while seated before His photograph. The photograph I used was the one on the cover of The Method of the Siddhas.
Then, on January 18, 1974, my twentieth birthday, I decided I would approach Beloved Adi Da as my Divine Heart-Master and assume the full range of practices He was giving to His devotees at that time. I embraced all the disciplines exactly, without question, and began a series of study courses that were being offered at the Melrose Ashram. By this time, Beloved Adi Da and the other devotees were spending time at a new Ashram on La Brea Avenue. Some of the newer students, myself included, continued with the course instruction as preparation for meeting Beloved Adi Da.
At this time, Beloved Adi Da began to enter into a time of Instruction with devotees that involved ecstatic gatherings every night at the La Brea Ashram. I was not invited to these gatherings. Rather, I would drive daily from Huntington Beach, after my day of work, and serve the meditation hall in the Melrose Ashram. Each day I would bring a single white rose to offer there.
Meanwhile, every day new people were being called over to the La Brea Ashram to join these occasions of Divine Ecstasy with Beloved Adi Da. I longed to be called to come, but I never was while He was there. My relationship to Him at this time was through this daily service to His pristine meditation hall at the Melrose Ashram. And so I would continue each day to clean and prepare the hall, offering my one white rose. Never did I feel excluded by anyone. For me, it was a Grace beyond all imagining to be given the honor of serving Beloved Adi Da in this manner.
Then Beloved Adi Da moved to the Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary, located about 2 hours north of San Francisco, and many devotees went with Him. I began to help with the preparations for moving the Ashram there. I was given the unique opportunity to reside in the house where Beloved Adi Da had lived while He was Working at the Melrose and La Brea Ashrams. Devotees called His house "the Laurel Canyon house", because it was in the suburb of Laurel Canyon.
I arrived there one afternoon, very grateful to be in the home that Beloved Adi Da had lived in, and began, immediately upon my arrival, to become ill and feverish. What I had thought would be merely a pleasure and an honor turned into one of the most profound physical purifications I have ever endured! Later I learned that a physical disturbance, such as fever, is not uncommon when first encountering a potent source of Spiritual Transmission.
I found I was only sick inside the house, and most especially when I would enter Avatar Adi Da's bedroom. And yet, at the same time, I felt spontaneously and profoundly drawn to be in His room, and I began to spend as much time as possible there.
After many days, the illness and fever eventually subsided, and it was at this point that I was invited to come into the Company of Beloved Adi Da at the Mountain Of Attention. The most significant moment of my life was about to occur, the moment I had been longing for. I collected my things, moved to San Francisco, and established myself in a household of His devotees.
The first time I saw Beloved Adi Da, I was overwhelmed by His extreme Beauty and Love. The depth of what was occurring was beyond my comprehension, but I was there before Him, and I did not want to be anywhere else. He was lying on His side on a couch in Great Food Dish, the dining room of the Sanctuary.
I approached Beloved Adi Da with a flower, and bowed at His Feet. During all the time of my preparation, my intention had been to make myself available to Beloved Adi Da's Instruction. I had lived it exactly. But now I was in His physical Company, and I intuited His direct capability to know everything about me at first glance. I was overwhelmed in my feeling, wondering what would be required for me to become completely available, completely surrendered to Him as His devotee. I was falling in love — had already fallen in love — with Him to the depths of my being. Mysterious Spiritual visions and intuitions that I had had since childhood came to mind, and I recognized the fulfillment and true meaning of them now in the form of Beloved Adi Da Samraj. I knew that a revolution in my life was about to occur. I did not know what was going on any more. All I wanted to do was to be with Beloved Adi Da, be close to Him.
Later that day, Beloved Adi Da went to Ordeal Bath Lodge, the bathhouse at the Mountain Of Attention, and devotees accompanied Him, scattering throughout the many different rooms of the baths. I happened to be in one of the small baths at the front of the building. At one point my Beloved Guru, who had been wandering among His devotees, came up to the small bath where I was. As He came in and sat down, I felt myself sinking into a deep trance-state. I vividly recall Him just being there, giving me His Regard.
Later that evening, after we had left the baths, Beloved Adi Da called a small group of devotees over to His House, and I was included. There, in His House, I realized how profoundly He had drawn me to Him. The mysterious Power that I had felt guiding me was simply Him. He had pulled me, literally, out of the world. Eventually, the other devotees departed. Over the course of the evening, Beloved Adi Da took me through a series of profound Spiritual initiations. My meeting with Beloved Adi Da as His devotee was first. But then, almost instantaneously, He was my lover, and I was in love with Him. Our love was mutual, and, in this love-state, He embraced me sexually. I remained all night with my Beloved Guru, during which He initiated me into a Condition that I had never known before. In Tantric embrace with Him, He drew me beyond the body-mind into a Spiritual reality that I have come to know as the Very Condition of my Beloved Lord Adi Da, the Truth of Existence Itself. I remember being directly in contact with my Beloved, eye to eye, and I recall that I had no sense of the body. The mind, also, was completely obliterated. In the timelessness of that moment, I felt Beloved Adi Da to be Standing Prior to anything that exists conditionally, taking me with Him to His Place, His Divine Domain. I felt drawn with Him into a most profound Samadhi, which was bodiless and mindless.
While I was overcome with intense love for Him and devotion to Him, my Beloved Guru was also responding to me with deepest love, acknowledging the unique nature of our relationship. In the morning, Beloved Adi Da took me out for a walk, to Fear-No-More Zoo, and then to Ordeal Bath Lodge, where He had approached me the evening before. Then Beloved Adi Da guided me to the room behind Great Food Dish, which, at that time was one of the principal places where He used to grant His silent Darshan. As we walked through that sacred room, my feeling-recognition of Him continued to magnify, and I knew that He was the One that I had always been moved to be with.
All day, Beloved Adi Da engaged me in intoxicated conversation about our love. He would ask me, over and over, where I had been. He spoke to me for hours, and we also sat in silence together for hours. I was moved to stay close to Him all the time — and, sitting near Him, I was utterly content. It was sufficient just being at His side. Before the end of the day, my Beloved had invited me to live with Him and serve Him in His bodily (human) Form, and I was overwhelmed with joy, having already abandoned everything else.
I was recovered. I was living in a world full of the Miracles of my Divine Heart-Master. There was nothing but my Beloved Guru. I wanted everyone to surrender to Him, to worship Him. I did not care what I did, what I said — I only wanted to be with Him. I had no other attachments. I wanted only to be fully available to Him in every dimension of my being. I felt His constant communication of Love and Spiritual Ecstasy. For days, I scarcely left His sight, and I moved into His house to live with Him.
And then, at a certain point, Beloved Adi Da began to test my Spiritual and intimate commitment to Him. And so began the great ordeal and process of becoming fit to serve and to relate to Him in the tradition-honored form of relationship between Guru and devotee. This process has confronted all the realities of my karmic nature. But whatever has come up to be purified, and whatever ordeal that purification has required, this first meeting has never left my heart — nor could it ever.
