Finding Adi Da > Aniello Panico

Life with Adi Da Samraj

Aniello Panico

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Letter sent by Aniello
(in 1973) to some of
the earliest readers of
The Knee Of Listening
(click to enlarge)

Aniello Panico (aka Neil or Paris) had a background in the publishing industry from 1959 to 1972, working as a sales representative for Simon and Schuster and Macmillan and Company, and then opening his own bookstore in Los Angeles in 1970. He has been a devotee of Avatar Adi Da ever since their first meeting in 1972. Over the years Aniello's primary service to Adi Da's great Work of liberating all beings has been the publication and distribution of Adi Da's books. He has been one of the principal people involved in the creation and continued success of The Dawn Horse Press, the publishing house responsible for the publication of Avatar Adi Da's Teaching.

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Several decades ago, Aniello wrote a "first version" of his time with Adi Da called Anyone Can Be Transformed. Later, in his 80's, Aniello provided many more written and videotaped stories. We have included all of these below. Having spent considerable time in Adi Da's Company throughout his life, Aniello wanted to share with everyone a lifetime of enjoying the wisdom, energy, blessings and love of Adi Da Samraj — an enjoyment so profound that he considered himself the "luckiest man alive!" He writes, "I hope that my leelas communicate both the profound and joyful humanity of the Guru and His Divine Spiritual Presence and State that lives on."

Aniello left his body on February 3, 2022, at 86 years old. This page commemorates and celebrates his life of devotion to Adi Da Samraj. Aniello sent us the videos to post on this site. Many of the other materials are either from his Facebook page or from an earlier Adidam publication. We have organized them in chronological order (as best we could ascertain).

Note: In these stories, Adi Da sometimes calls Aniello "Paris", a nickname Adi Da gave Aniello (as He did many devotees).

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		Anyone Can Be Transformed — On April 19, 1968, Aniello Panico turned 33. He had it all: He was a successful businessman, he had a loving wife and four great kids, a beautiful home, three new cars, and interesting friends. He appreciated good literature, classical music, and the arts. He was living the good life. And he was also on the verge of committing suicide. Aniello tells what brought him to this point, and how he found his Spiritual Master, Adi Da Samraj, in the nick of time. There Has Got To Be More To Life Than This The Knee Of Listening Meeting the Man of Understanding A Greater Vision The Way of Adidam is a Relationship, not a Technique The Power of Attraction Becoming Responsible For Love The Spiritual Transmission Master The Real Miracle Epilogue

		My First Encounter with Adi Da Samraj (video) — Aniello tells the story of his first encounter with Adi Da Samraj, in 1972, at the Melrose Ashram in Los Angeles.

		My Earliest Times With Adi Da (video) — Aniello recounts some of his earliest times with Adi Da Samraj in 1972.

ANIELLO: The Way of Adidam can be described in many ways, but for me it always comes down to its essence: the Way of Adidam is the relationship with Adi Da. It is a Spiritual relationship, not an ordinary human relationship, and that Spiritual relationship makes possible Spiritual Realization that no meditation technique or system of beliefs can enable. In the early months of my relationship to Adi Da, after I became His devotee, I started to teach a course on The Knee Of Listening, my favorite book (and, at the time, Adi Da's only published book). I consider myself extremely fortunate—Adi Da spent many, many hours helping me prepare for the course, going over each paragraph in the book and explaining in more detail what He meant, what the import of the book was. I told Him then that it was clear to me that the brilliant process of understanding that He describes in those pages (and in the more than fifty books He has published in the years since) can only come alive when you are established in that Spiritual relationship with Him. It is through that relationship that Adi Da Works a transformation in you that awakens real understanding, and that affects every area of your life. Working on The Knee Of Listening course with Adi Da

Working on The Knee Of Listening course with Adi Da

Working on The Knee Of Listening course with Adi Da

Working on The Knee Of Listening course with Adi Da

		An Early Oedipal Consideration — Aniello tells of a trip he took with Adi Da to Mexico in December, 1972. He also tells how, at the Mountain Of Attention in 1974, Adi Da Samraj introduced a simple way ("the oedipal consideration") for His devotees to consider their early life experiences, specifically their relationship to their mothers and fathers, and how these experiences set in place certain patterns that then obstruct their relationship to others (including Adi Da) in later life.

		Garbage and the Goddess — Adi Da Transmits the Force of the Divine to Aniello, during the Garbage and the Goddess Period of early 1974.



During the Garbage and the Goddess Period of early 1974: Aniello, Sal Lucania, Nina Davis, and another devotee

		Playing Pool with Bhagavan Adi Da — Aniello tells the story of the profound lesson he received through playing pool with Bhagavan Adi Da in 1974.

		Watching a Baseball Game with Bhagavan Adi Da Samraj — Aniello started to tease Adi Da. He began to rub it in to Beloved Bhagavan that His team (the Oakland Athletics) was going to lose, and that the Yankees were going to win. . . Suddenly, in what had been a completely tight and well-played game, the Yankees started making errors. . . suddenly the Yankees were falling apart! All His devotees there were suddenly aware that Beloved Bhagavan was Divinely Willing Oakland to win. There was Beloved Bhagavan just smiling, and Aniello looking a little resentfully at Adi Da and just shaking his head. (August 14, 1975)

		Radiance — A 1976 talk in which Adi Da first makes the point that "You always know what it would be to look, feel, be, and act completely Happy." Then He calls Aniello (called "Paris" here) to get up and demonstrate this point by "dancing completely madly and completely happily". Aniello gives it his best shot, cheered on by his fellow devotees.

		Singing Opera With Adi Da — During His years of face-to-face Teaching Work, Bhagavan Adi Da used singing opera with His devotees as a skillful means that drew those present into selfless feeling-ecstasy. Aniello and devotee/opera singer Roger Ohlsen describe what that was like. (Photo from December, 1977.)

Aniello managing the distribution of Adi Da's books

Adi Da with Aniello and other devotees on the platform in the middle of Mother's Bed (at the Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary) July 7, 1982

		For the Love — On November 26, 1984, a remarkable dialog took place between Adi Da Samraj and Aniello Panico, who, at that time, was serving in the kitchen at Adidam Samrajashram in Fiji. Aniello had discovered a large rat there — surrounded by the corpses of five mice, whose heads had been chewed off. Repelled, Aniello had asked Adi Da for one of the cats on the island to "take care" of this rat.

Adi Da has Aniello dress as Saint Francis of Assisi (1987)

Dancing with Adi Da during the Indoor Yajna Period (late 1987)



		Adi Da and the Passing of My Son (video) — Aniello tells of his son Alexander's suicide in 1994 (when Adi Da was at the Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary), and the story of Avatar Adi Da's Blessing Regard for Alexander and for Aniello.

Aniello as cheerleader for a dance with no thinking (late 1994)

		Adi Da Blesses My Mother (video) — Aniello tells a story from one of the happiest days of his life: the day Bhagavan Adi Da met and Blessed his mother (when she was 79 or 80 years old) at the Mountain Of Attention, during the Ten-Day Gathering of 1995-1996. This video tells the whole joyous story, including Adi Da's parting words to Aniello's mother: "Thank you for giving me Aniello."

Aniello with his intimate partner, Brenda Phillips, and friends in Kauai, Hawaii (2010). (Thanks to Hal Okun for the photo.)

		My 2017 Visit to the Manner of Flowers — Aniello describes his visit to the Manner of Flowers, Adi Da's Residence at the Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary, on Aniello's 82nd birthday in 2017.

[Aniello's friend, Tally Rhodes, describing (on her blog) visiting him shortly before his passing (on February 3, 2022):] When COVID occurred, I had the opportunity to stay at home and focus on being a mom and writing. During that time, Aniello, whom I had met many decades ago with Adi Da, was nearing the end of his life. He agreed I could visit weekly but made it very clear that his interest was in Conscious Light, telling me, “That’s where I spend my time now.” His house was filled with a deep Presence of “the Holy.” His concentration in Conscious Light was immanent, flowing through and magnifying the spirit. After these visits, I was in a different place. No thoughts came for a long time. I was stillness and complete relationship simultaneously, time did not register. I was completely at rest. Aniello with his devotee friend, Hal Okun, right (January, 2021). (Thanks to Hal Okun for the photo, which he captions: "Still on the Planet!".)

HAL OKUN (writing about Aniello after his passing): An Exemplary devotee, a True friend, a Cultured Gentleman and Scholar, a person of Humor, a Lover and most Loving Human Being, and an utter Italian-American Universal Paradox. Such was Aniello Panico, he who lived to distribute Adi Da's Dharma of Reality-Truth to the World. "The Way of the Heart" describes him well.