Finding Adi Da > Chris Tong > Part I, Chapter 2

The Happiest Moment of My Early Life

This is Part I, Chapter 2 of Chris Tong's book, Finding the Divine In Person and Waking Up From the Dream.

The happiest moment of my early life occurred in 1970, when I was thirteen. My family had just moved (from Connecticut) into a new house in a new town (in New Jersey). I was setting up and cleaning my new room, and was listening to a song on the radio, when an overwhelming Revelation of the inherent Happiness of Reality washed over me. I was incredibly happy! And that moment was imprinted on me, to the point where, whenever I would hear that song in later years (even now), I would reconnect with that moment and that Happiness. Naturally, having no greater understanding at the time, I attributed the experience to the circumstance itself. But, these many years later, I can look back and know (with much more life experience under my belt) that just being in a new house and listening to a particular song can be pleasurable, but it doesn't send me into an overwhelming, ego-dissolving state of ecstasy!

It would only be years later that I would make the connection that the day I had that Revelation — September 10, 1970 — was the day my Spiritual Master, Adi Da Samraj, re-Awakened to Divine Enlightenment. And it was clear in retrospect that His Realization washed over me and many other beings on that day, like an immense explosion spreading outward across the entire cosmos. I was not yet His devotee, of course — He would not begin formally accepting devotees until 1972. But from that moment on, He began meditating His future devotees, and so I'm very happy to be able to describe what it was like to be on the receiving end of that Great Meditation that He described in His autobiography, The Knee Of Listening:

In this most perfect Realization of Non-separateness [on September 10, 1970], many extraordinary Divine Siddhis suddenly, spontaneously appeared. . . I spontaneously began to "meditate" countless other people, and also countless non-human beings, and countless places and worlds and realms, both high and low in the scale of Reality. I observed and responded to all that was required for the Awakening and the true (and the Ultimate) well-being of each and all. And, each time I did this (and, in fact, the process quickly became the underlying constant of all my hours and days), I would continue the "meditating" of any (and each) one until I felt a release take place, such that his or her suffering and seeking was vanished (or, at least, significantly relaxed and set aside). Whenever that occurred, I Knew my "meditating" of that one was, for the moment, done. By such means, my now and forever Divine Work (by Which I must Teach, and Bless, and Awaken all and All) began. Avatar Adi Da Samraj, The Knee Of Listening

Here are some additional stories from two of the countless people Adi Da began meditating (starting on September 10, 1970), who would later become His devotee.

Since the time I'd been a child, I was waiting for my Master to appear. I had this very strong feeling of a direct relationship to the Divine, but I wanted and needed my Master. One day, at Harvard University, in 1970 (when Adi Da's Re-Awakening occurred), I had a very strong vision of this great Spiritual Being. We were together on a rooftop. All of a sudden, everything was illuminated — first the Cosmic Mandala of lights (the rainbow lights); and then that dissolved in a brilliant, illuminated white Brightness, that was nothing I had ever seen with my eyes. I knew then that my Master would appear soon. Ruchiradama Nadikanta, Adi Da's Divine Life and Work

One evening in October or November, 1970, I was alone in my room [at Yale University] when I was suddenly moved beyond body and mind and dissolved in Bliss beyond words. It was a complete dissolution. I have no memory of the event itself, and I remember its Perfect Bliss only as it faded and as I returned to my "normal" state. But a lifetime of accumulated mind had fallen away in a moment. . . And even though I had read nothing about the esoteric spiritual traditions of the world, I somehow knew that my life's purpose was to find a spiritual teacher who would make this glimpse my stable realization. . . It was some fifteen years later that I realized what had happened that night at Yale. After I had been a devotee of Avatar Adi Da Samraj for some time, I came to understand that moment as my first contact with Him. Across the apparent barriers of space [and time], I had been touched by the One who was to be my Guru. Thus began the long, only partially conscious process of finding and approaching Him. Don Webley Beyond All Doubt

Chapter 3