Spiritual Recognition of Adi Da > A State of Absolute Freedom

A State of Absolute Freedom

Anne Henderson

Anne Henderson has been a devotee of Avatar Adi Da since 1976. She has served Adidam as a writer, editor, educator, and public speaker since 1982, and as a chronicler of Bhagavan Adi Da's Life and Spiritual Work between 1993 and 1999. In addition to being part of the teaching staff at the Adidam Academy, Anne currently hosts and directs the Adidam Study Group program and serves the Third Congregation of Adidam.

It was a Sunday in early April of 2013. I was sitting at the dining room table in the late morning, breathing consciously to try to relax a little bit before giving a presentation that was going to happen in an hour or so, when, suddenly, there was what Bhagavan Adi Da would call “a transformation of view”.

First, there was the clear awareness, or the clear apprehension, that Bhagavan Adi Da is all there is. Literally — all there is. Or perhaps it is clearer to say: it was clear that Avatar Adi Da Is Reality Itself and that there is nothing that is not That. This was a profoundly Happy Revelation.

Then, there was awareness of the body-mind, seated there at the table. It remained exactly as it had been the moment before this “transformation of view” occurred. It was just sitting there, breathing consciously, trying to calm down. But its “status” was now entirely different. It was obviously simply a pattern, or a collection of patterns — the "Anne" pattern. It wasn't “me”. It wasn't “self”. It had something of the quality of a shadow.

At the same time, there was a clear sense of being completely coincident with and completely non-separate from the body-mind. There wasn't a particle of dissociation from the body-mind. And yet, there was an equally clear sense of there being absolutely no identification with it whatsoever. It was not "self". It was not "me".

Most of all, there was the most incredible Freedom — unbounded, limitless Freedom — no bondage, no implications, no complication, no problem, no suffering. . . total, absolute Freedom. And Joy.

And, then, after a time, there was the seamless reappearance of the ordinary point of view.

Almost immediately, I realized that there was something else about this event that was very odd. It was the transition from the ordinary state to this state of absolute Freedom. . . There was something very peculiar about how that sudden change had occurred. There was nothing about it that could be figured out with the mind, so I just stayed focused on the feeling of the "oddness" itself. And, eventually, it became obvious: the transition had not occurred in time. There was no way to "prove" this, of course, let alone understand it, but I knew it was the case.

Shortly afterward, I serendipitously stumbled upon this passage from The Aletheon:

There is another Dimension — a Dimension That Is Coincident with (but not Identical to) all of the troubling appearances-in-time displayed by the four psycho-physical faculties. That Always-Already Dimension can, in some sense, be said to be "space", rather than "time"-"space" in the Non-conditional (rather than conditional) sense. The Always-Already Dimension has nothing whatsoever to do with time. The Always-Already Dimension Precedes time. The Always-Already Dimension has nothing to do with strategically stopping anything — stopping thinkings, stopping emotings, stopping perceivings, and stopping breathings by the seeking-means of ego-life. Avatar Adi Da Samraj "The Divine Avataric Self-Revelation of Adidam Ruchiradam" p. 1699, Part 19, The Aletheon