Finding
Adi Da > Anthony Costabile
First Meeting: A Personal Story
Anthony Costabile
Anthony
Costabile has been a devotee of Adi Da Samraj since 1975. With an M.A. in Education, he has been a professional school teacher and administrator. He is the Director of the Adidam
Midwest Center in Chicago. He has served as a writer and lecturer, producing monographs, educational materials, and numerous articles about Adi Da Samraj and the Reality-Way of Adidam, including his recent "The
Restoration of Spiritual Culture" (pdf), and his article, "Disciples, Fools, and Enlightenment". Anthony has lived in Adidam sanctuaries in California, Hawaii, and Fiji. He travels internationally, leading public retreats and introducing Avatar Adi Da Samraj and His Wisdom-Teaching to a variety of public audiences. Anthony is currently doing a series of public lectures on Avatar Adi Da’s masterwork, The Aletheon.
At age fifteen, I sustained a near-fatal motorcycle crash that left me
physically disabled and in emotional shock for years to come. I was high on
some reckless combination of alcohol and other substances when I
careened headlong into a car at sixty miles per hour. Of the array of painful
images that have remained with me ever since, the most striking is that of
looking up into my mother's anxious face, just as I was about to be wheeled
into emergency surgery. I simply said to her, "I'm going to die tonight,
aren't I?" I spoke feebly, but with a tone of certainty and resignation. I can
only imagine the shocking impact those words had on her, but there was no
resistance or struggle in me against my impending death.
As it happened, it took eight hours of surgery and several blood
transfusions for the surgeons to reconnect the shattered nerve endings and
piece together the compound, multiple fractures I had sustained all over
my body. Afterwards, I was confined to a hospital bed for nearly four
months, much of the time in traction, while my broken limbs and nerves
began to repair themselves. Avatar Adi Da has remarked that every event
contains a test, a lesson, or a blessing, even if seemingly hidden and
obscure. In this case, I was compelled by my physical confinement and by
the sheer magnitude of what had happened to reappraise the course of my
life. I'm convinced that had I not been so severely injured at the time, I
would have died soon thereafter by some other violent means — which
should convey to you something of the recklessness and desperate
confusion of my early adolescence.
After a full year of convalescence, I had recovered sufficiently to
somehow endure the remaining year of Catholic high school. This was
despite my defiant resistance to authority figures, my damaged physical
condition, and an increasing alienation from virtually everyone and
everything. Remarkably, I even managed to complete my university studies,
making my way by playing drums, despite my injuries, in local rock bands
and indulging in as much sex and drugs as I cautiously dared. I also dabbled
in TM and various other meditation techniques and yogic practices. I grew
determined to discover a deeper meaning to life — something more
profound and comprehensible to me than the middle-class trajectory
toward an empty career, a quiet retirement, and a burial service at the local
cemetery. By graduation, I still had no plans, no career, and was entirely
clueless about my life and future.
Culturally, it was a time of exuberant self-indulgence, which afforded
me the luxury to become a formal seeker after "truth" and "ultimate
knowledge". I studied philosophy with an attitude known only to the self-
enamored hippie generation of the late sixties and early seventies. All the
while, life's problems, uncertainties, and injustices weighed heavily on me,
and I readily criticized the conventional ways that others — especially the
super-straight types — presumed to live. Had I read Will Durant at the time, I
would have objected to his characterization of the philosophic quest as a
kind of romance associated with the "golden days in the June of life" [Will Durant, The
Story of Philosophy, p.1]. My own seeking after truth seemed the only real
and self-validating necessity. I was too vain and naïve to see that the
cynicism driving my philosophical quest was simply romantic idealism. Nor
could I appreciate how readily time conspires with human tendency — and
with the practical concerns and pressures of ordinary living — to temper
one's passion for truth.
By the time I was twenty-two, my philosophic dilettantism had been
thoroughly exposed and worn thin in me. I was only troubled and
disheartened. Seeking had led me through several unnerving encounters
with spiritual groups, teachers, and new age paths. I had sat in T-groups,
heard lectures on the chakra body and kundalini, chanted mantras, studied
scriptures and arcane texts from ancient esoteric traditions, and was
initiated into several forms of yoga and meditation. I had read all I could
find by several modern spiritual teachers, endlessly pondered the meaning
of life and death, struggled to discreetly negotiate an active sexual intimacy
along with several outside affairs, and wondered why I was so bewildered
and unhappy.
In the end I was disillusioned with it all. I grew moody and
withdrawn — a character trait I struggle with to this day. I remember talking
to a friend who candidly admitted that he could not see what my "troubles"
were all about. After all, my recovery from the motorcycle crash was
virtually complete, I had a fetching and talented girlfriend and all the sex I
could manage, a hot rock and roll band, a college degree, and what seemed
like a wide-open door to the future. So what the hell was my problem?
I could find no way of explaining myself to him. And rather than
attempt a psycho-spiritual self-study here, it's best, I think, to recount a
revealing and poignant incident that happened at the time.
One summer evening, I stood on the front steps of the house I shared
with my girlfriend, facing her as she stood in the doorway. I was saying
good-bye to her before heading off as usual to a late-night gig at a local
nightclub. Suddenly, as I looked into her eyes, I was stricken with unbidden
despair and a sorrow deeper and more intense than any I had ever known.
These feelings surged in me like a flood of raw emotion. I began to weep
and sob uncontrollably. Nothing like this had ever happened before, and
my girlfriend was visibly shaken and alarmed. "My God," she cried, "What's
wrong with you?"
For a moment I stood speechless, crying effusively and gasping for
breath. How could I possibly express to her the depths of my despair and
sense of futility? All of this had suddenly burst in me like an enormous dam
of untouched sorrow. Somehow I managed a few faltering words,
attempting to give voice to my feelings. "Look," I pleaded, gazing at her
with upturned arms. "This whole scene is just not working out. My heart is
just not in it anymore." My face was one of utter pain and helplessness. I
only hoped that she could somehow understand.
But her alarm only increased, since she naturally presumed that I was
talking about our relationship. I managed to explain that our intimacy was
not the problem, at least, not the principal one. The root of my dismay was
the stark mortal fragility so forcefully pressed on me by the motorcycle
crash. But along with it was my inability to deal with the insane machinery
of human life — not just the endless wars, atrocities, and senseless conflicts
in the world, though certainly these — but humanity's unspoken conspiracy
against love and real happiness. It was our collective denial of the
unbearable suffering endured by everyone, our refusal to squarely deal
with mortality and death. And it was all the illusions and distractions we
have created to immunize ourselves from the tenuous reality of our
condition. I simply could no longer reconcile the trivial pursuits and
attitudes of the world, even all its temporary pleasures, with the fact that
we are all going to die — and all of life will vanish in an instant.
This is what so deeply distressed me. And while she breathed a sigh
of relief to know that our deeply bonded relationship was not in jeopardy, I
was all the more distraught and stood in front of her feeling as empty and
alone as an ancient ruin.
Somehow I managed to overcome my dejection and persist. But as
time passed the gnawing desperation in my heart only increased. I knew I
had to connect with a reality that was infinitely greater than the social
expectation to work hard, raise a family, get an occasional buzz on, and
attend the local church. Indeed, I required something even more to the
heart of things than my fascination with TM techniques, J. Krishnamurti,
astral planes above the earth, and improbable myths about God, Satan,
heaven, and hell.
Now, years later, I can recall that moment on the doorstep with my
girlfriend not as some kind of clinical breakdown, but as a spiritual crisis
penetrating the depths of my being with inexorable intensity. I knew that I
required the unqualified knowledge of God, truth, and reality to the fullest
satisfaction of my heart. But where and how could I possibly find such a
thing? Who would reveal to me, plainly and for real, this great and urgent
truth?
The Meeting
Some weeks later I chanced upon the book that contained for me the
answers to my heart's deepest questions and urgent longings. As I look
back on it now, some of the answers came in the form of printed words,
but the fundamental one came as a silent communication, a transmission,
blessing, and intelligence that touched me in my depths, beyond my
emotional turmoil, troubled mind, and endless verbal abstraction. The book,
now entitled, My "Bright" Word, was by Adi Da Samraj, who was then
known as "Bubba Free John" — perhaps the most offensive self-styled
"spiritual" name I had ever heard!
Skeptical yet curious when I first saw the book, I began to read. Page
by page, I was captivated by the most remarkable voice of clarity and
wisdom. Avatar Adi Da's words restored me to my senses, awakened my
humor, and relieved my growing fears of perpetual alienation and madness.
At the level of His verbal communication, He not only validated my
despairing experience of life and the world, He exposed the specious logic
and self-imposed reactions that were its basis and support, and He fully
corroborated my troubled state of mind. In so many words, He was saying:
"Of course you're upset! Human life is not only mortal; it is, at its very core,
an irreducible dilemma, reinforced and made all the more tragic by the
desperate drama of all our misguided seeking."
Indeed, life, as we commonly live it, is a relentless round of pain and
suffering. This was Gautama's (the Buddha's) principal discovery, made
plain to all in his first noble truth: "All life is ill; all life is suffering." Everyone
feels it and tacitly knows it to be so — if only because all have been issued
an immutable death sentence at birth, but few squarely accept this fact,
and fewer still deal with its spiritual implications. We prefer illusions over
our real situation.
Indeed, we either deny or struggle to overcome mortality by every
kind of seeking effort. Some seek for wealth, others for sex partners and
drugs, the winning lottery ticket, or simply the consolations of fine food and
good friends. Still others for thrills and new adventures, a house, a car, a
better job; a happy family, a miracle cure for some dreadful disease, artistic
achievement, success and power, a safer, more congenial world. We also
seek for God and salvation through religion, prayer, mysticism, and
meditation, and we seek to live not just well and happily, but for a very,
very long time.
And yet, everyone dies and everything passes away. To ponder this,
to come to terms at heart with it is to know for certain that there is no final
satisfaction in this world — only a progression, however slow or quick,
pleasurable or painful, toward death and dissolution.
Thus, to be solely preoccupied with the distractions of this world (or
some hopeful heaven beyond) is a kind of insanity, like indulging one's
addictions and pretending that all is fine — until we find ourselves lamenting
as Macbeth famously does when stricken with the irretrievable news of his
wife's tragic death:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
William Shakespeare, Macbeth
Act 5, Scene 5, lines 18-27
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As I became able to look beyond the religion of my childhood, I saw
that the common myths and dogmas about an eternal after-life, either of
happiness or damnation, are not convincing to the heart in its primal
condition of raw spiritual need. In such a disarmed state, God and Truth
must be immediately obvious — and absolutely Real — or not at all.
Remarkably, to be so deeply troubled by what Avatar Adi Da merely
calls "the usual life" is both sensible and appropriate. Paradoxically it is also
unnecessary. Our suffering, He says, like the seeking we indulge in to avoid
it, is actually a self-imposed contraction. And that contraction, which
registers as "I" or "me", or the ego-"I", can itself be understood and
transcended. Indeed, the primary impulse of the human heart is to exceed
the limitations of mortality and to Realize Infinite Love, Boundless
Freedom, and Radiant Happiness. This, however, cannot be accomplished
by any form or method of seeking. In Avatar Adi Da's words:
Ordinarily, if you suffer, you immediately seek to get free of it,
of your dilemma, your contraction, this separation, this
unconsciousness. You pursue the absence of suffering in all kinds of
distractions, searches for perfection, the search for acquisitions, food,
sex, money, good weather, lunch, until this entire process begins to
become uninteresting.
At some point, your search for the absence of suffering begins
to wind down. Now you begin to realize its hopelessness. It begins to
lose its ability to occupy you. Some quality in consciousness begins to
turn away from this process of seeking, this reaction to your
suffering, and rests in the suffering itself. Even a vague disinterest in
life's pleasures may come over you.
You begin to realize that you are actually suffering, whereas
previously you were completely occupied with your seeking, and
suffering was not really the object of your contemplation. But now
suffering becomes your experience, your obsession. It completely
absorbs you, and then you begin to see in fact, what your suffering is.
That subtle sensation that is motivating your entire search becomes
the thing that occupies you. You can no longer do anything about it.
You see what suffering itself is, at this moment. You begin to see it
precisely. It is a present activity. You begin to re-cognize it, to know it
again in consciousness.
Avatar Adi Da Samraj, My "Bright" Word
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When I first read Avatar Adi Da's description of suffering and seeking,
I felt He was speaking an unknown truth to my heart. I recall a forceful
surge of excitement and energy in my body. I knew I had chanced upon a
singular source of spiritual wisdom. Every word of His Teaching resounded
with clarity, depth, and compassion.
He spoke of Narcissus, the self-enamored youth of Greek lore,
renowned for his beauty, but also for his pride and disdain of admirers. As
the myth goes, after a long day of hunting in the forest, Narcissus stops at a
pond to refresh himself. As he gazes into the water, he mistakes his own
reflection for a beautiful nymph and instantly falls in love with it. He is so
entranced that he cannot tear himself away. Never suspecting he is only
looking at his own image, days and weeks pass. Eventually he dies in abject
solitude at the pond's edge.
Narcissus, Adi Da says, personifies the self-absorbed condition of all
human beings. We too mistakenly presume the thoughts and images
reflected in our own minds to be reality. In fact, Reality Itself is infinitely
greater. Yet like Narcissus, we are distracted by ourselves, viewing
everything through the lens of our own self-involvement. By doing so, we
recoil and contract from all others and from Reality Itself, which stands
always present, free, and available, if only we will turn from ourselves to
the Light of Truth.
The antidote to this contraction, Adi Da says, is Satsang (the
Company of Truth), the living relationship enjoyed between the Realized
Master and every devotee. Out of an infinite compassion and by virtue of
His own Divinely Realized Freedom, Avatar Adi Da attracts others beyond
the act of self-contraction (or constriction of attention) in every moment. In
doing so, He Gracefully reveals the liberating Truth, the Condition of Self-
Existing Conscious Light that is "always already the case" and also patently
obvious whenever this self-contraction is undone.
I soon noticed that the persuasiveness of Adi Da's argument was not
merely in His Words alone. There was, and continues to be, a primary,
living, and experiential dimension to it. I felt intuitively drawn to Adi Da
Himself, as if a magnet were tugging at my chest and heart. It was
profoundly tactile and compelling. And yet despite my best efforts, I could
not explain or account for any of this to my friends and family, not even to
my girlfriend at the time. It came down to a deeply personal and spiritual
matter between Avatar Adi Da and myself. I knew only one thing for
certain: I had to go and meet this remarkable being in person.
And here we come full circle to the spring of 1975, when I first
arrived at Avatar Adi Da's retreat Sanctuary in northern California and took
my place among the other devotees in His spiritual community. I recall
walking into the Sanctuary's dining hall wearing an East Indian style shirt
that hung mid-calf over a pair of faded blue jeans. I also recall my throbbing
headache and my fear and apprehension, like surges of electricity coursing
through my head, chest, and belly. And I recall my astonishment as I
entered that hall.
It was large with great high ceilings. Along the back wall were rows of
tables with colorful tablecloths. These were brimming with beer and soda, a
lavish assortment of liquor, trays of cigarettes and party foods, all nicely
arranged. People — most seemed to be around my age or slightly older —
were milling around smoking, drinking, talking, and laughing. I could hear
rock music playing at a moderate volume in the background. And for my
first impression, I might as well have walked into a suburban cocktail party!
I was shocked, dismayed, and annoyed. What did any of this have to
do with spiritual life, with the pristine wisdom and genius I found in Avatar
Adi Da's books, and with the intuition of Divine Truth in His Words that
sounded such a deep and sympathetic chord in me?
Despite my initial offense, I was soon captivated by a man in his mid-thirties
reclining on a davenport at the far end of the room. He was more
regal and serene in His countenance, more easeful in His demeanor, more
visibly radiant than anyone I had ever seen. He was smoking a cigarette and
laughing uproariously with several others who gathered around Him and
were obviously delighted to be in His presence. He wore a red and white
striped caftan and was lavishly adorned with silver and turquoise jewelry.
Anyone else similarly attired would have looked ridiculous, but I recall the
effect on Him to be strikingly hip and appealing.
Of course, I recognized Avatar Adi Da Samraj at once. And I also knew
right then and there that it was definitely Him — the living, breathing Being
and Person now Present before my eyes, and not only His profound and
wise Teachings — that had drawn me to this place. I began to watch Him
intensely, observing His movements and gestures, His robust, infectious
laughter, His ease, and the indefinable luster and energy that radiated from
His body. He was, it seemed to me, completely un-self-conscious, given fully
over to the present moment and freely related to everyone and everything.
To my eyes, Avatar Adi Da was exquisitely beautiful in every way. In all of
my previous meetings with teachers, gurus, masters, and yogis of every
sort, I had never seen anyone remotely like Him. Avatar Adi Da was
perfectly Radiant, Happy, Powerful, and Free.
And then suddenly the crowd of people in the room parted
unaccountably to reveal an aisle, much like, it strikes me now, the biblical
parting of the Red Sea. For a timeless instant, there was not a single person
in that large and crowded room obstructing the line of sight between
Avatar Adi Da and myself. He instantly turned to meet my gaze full-on with
the most clear and penetrating eyes, like translucent pools of deep and
fully conscious water, extraordinarily large and riveting. I was transfixed.
His gaze carried with it a tangible, vibrant, and powerful Force. Later I was
to learn that this was His Ruchira-Shaktipat, or Spiritual Blessing and
Transmission. It emanated from Him to me — and then all through my body,
mind, and beyond with incredible intensity.
His simple glance pierced me to my depths, so that — and this was my
actual experience — time stood still and space dissolved, along with all sense
of what was happening to me and around me. Avatar Adi Da and I were
suspended, for what seemed to be several long minutes (but in reality
could only have been a matter of seconds) in the most penetrating visual
exchange of love and mutual recognition I have ever known. I was stunned,
more disarmed and vulnerable than I had been in all my life. I knew that He
saw and comprehended "me" completely, not just physically or even
psychologically, but down to the very last detail of secrecy, suffering, and
doubt in my body, mind, and heart.
At first I felt totally mortified and ashamed, as if caught naked under
a blinding spotlight. But the feeling quickly vanished in the healing streams
of compassion and love that flowed from Avatar Adi Da like cool, soothing
water. I felt His gaze of blessing wash through every part of me — my body
and mind; my entire past, present, and all future time; all my pain, longing,
and seeking; all the struggles of my life, and all the sufferings I had endured
even previous to this lifetime. He saw all of it — received and accepted it all
with no judgment, only the most extreme compassion, acceptance,
understanding, and love.
And then, in a wordless transmission of tenderness and calm, He
reassured and relieved my troubled heart. It was as if He were speaking
vocally to me: "I understand, my beloved. I know your deepest heart and all
your suffering. Give these to me now and know that everything is all right.
Accept my blessing and know for certain that there is only this pure love,
this deep and unspeakable heart-bond between us. I can help you. I can
liberate your heart, and if you stay with me, if you will love and trust me, I
most certainly will." I received this gift of blessing from Him entirely and to
my depths.
Then the clear line of sight between us closed again. Avatar Adi Da
was hidden from my view, and I was left to ponder that (while the world I
had previously known was forever vanished in an instant's gaze) a new and
profoundly spiritual world stretched out before me — full of demands and
challenges beyond my ken and ability, but grounded indelibly in Avatar Adi
Da's matrix of infinite love and radiant light.
This was the great meeting that marked the end of my early life.
Incredibly, I had been initiated into a spiritual depth and vision of Love and
Truth that exceeded everything in my previous experience. I had the
unshakable conviction that Avatar Adi Da Samraj was a True God-Man.
Indeed, He was the Divine Heart-Master. While apprehensive, I was also
overcome with inexpressible happiness and gratitude. I recall a sentence
spoken by Avatar Adi Da some months later that brought this home to me
in words that pierced my heart. He simply said, "Realize what it is you have
stumbled upon while wandering in the wilderness: the True Guru is only the
Function of God."
It was this fortuitous meeting that initiated the spiritual adventure
and unfolding process that was to be my life from that moment on. I had
been touched in my very depths by Avatar Adi Da's unqualified love,
blessings, and grace. There was an instant healing in my heart. Looking
back, I now see that everything that has happened in my life since that first
meeting has been a gradual, increasingly conscious reception of all that
Avatar Adi Da Transmitted to my heart with His initial loving gaze. This is
the Master to whom I surrender my heart and life — the Very Divine Being
Who, I am convinced, will Awaken the heart of all beings to the Happiness,
Freedom, and Truth of Real God.
Beloved Adi Da Samraj, Master of my heart, I bow in joyous gratitude
at Your Divine Feet.