One of the most curious things about the story I've been telling is how Adi Da appears in it from the very beginning and then ongoing, even long before I "knew" of Him or became His devotee. I described (in part 1) how He attended the class my mother was teaching at Columbia University; I first met Him in His human form when I was just a baby. Then I described (in part 2) how, when I was thirteen, He gifted me with His Revelation of Perfect Happiness, on the day of His Divine Re-Awakening (September 10, 1970). Now I'll tell the story of how I unexpectedly ended up going to the same university He went to: Columbia University. Choosing a College In the spring of 1974, I was a senior in high school, preparing to go to college. I had been accepted at all the colleges I had applied to — Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, MIT, etc. — and I was trying to decide where I should go. I was the only person in my high school who had been accepted to Harvard, and I was strongly leaning in that direction. Even though both my parents had received their doctorates at Columbia and had taught there, they didn't steer me in that direction, and would support whatever choice I made. In my junior year at high school (in New Jersey), I had actually taken a course at Columbia University on Einstein's "Special Relativity Theory" for "exceptional high school students" in the New York area. It was offered by Columbia as a kind of early taste of university — and probably a recruiting tool as well. I had enjoyed the course, the university, and New York City. Even so, I was still leaning toward Harvard, with Princeton as my second choice, and Columbia in third place. Harvard
Dyson's curiosity had no limits. . . This was reflected in the kinds of topics he explored in his research and his books ("Disturbing the Universe", "Origins of Life", "The Scientist as Rebel", "From Eros to Gaia", etc.), and it included chatting with a sixteen-year old kid (me). When he learned that I was in my senior year, had been accepted into all the Ivy League colleges, was trying to decide which one I should go to, and was leaning toward Harvard, he immediately jumped into the consideration. "Oh, don't go to Harvard!!! Everyone thinks so highly of it. . . but my daughter goes there, and they only teach Mickey Mouse courses. If you really want to learn something, go to Princeton." And he continued at length, elaborating on the liabilities of going to Harvard, and extolling the virtues of a Princeton education. Now it's true that Princeton was his university, so he might have been a little invested in it. But his observations (and the years of experience behind them) struck me with such force that I completely revised how I was thinking, and I ended up going to Princeton. It shocked my high school classmates who had wished they had gotten into Harvard — so much so that I received comments in my yearbook like "To Chris Tong, who turned down the Big H...". Princeton In some ways, my freshman year at Princeton was wonderful. Princeton has a beautiful campus, and I loved taking long walks there. Many of my classmates would become world leaders in some area, and interacting with them was always an interesting experience.[1] And yet education-wise, I never really connected with the university. Over the course of that year, I increasingly felt that I was in a beautiful "bubble". I was thrown into classes with specialized, advanced topics right from the start, and felt that I was missing getting an education in the basics that would really prepare me for the world. I began to think about Columbia University, and how it was situated in the heart of New York City. It was likely to provide me with a far more grounded experience and pragmatic education than the "country club" atmosphere of Princeton. Columbia And so on that basis, I transferred to Columbia for my sophomore year. It turned out to be the right choice. While my one year of education at Princeton had little impact on me, my education at Columbia would utterly devastate and transform me (as I will describe in the next section), just as it did Adi Da.
A Psychophysical Resonance with Adi Da With the passage of time, I have increasingly taken a "shamanistic" view of events. All events are not merely physical but psychophysical. There are no meaningless coincidences, only meaningful synchronicities, whose meaning can often be deciphered. (And much of the shaman's craft is about deciphering the meaning of particular synchronicities.) And so, as I look back at this early period of my life, I can't help but view the roundabout sequence of events leading me to Columbia University (as an undergraduate, and then Stanford University as a graduate student) as a "psychophysical resonance" with Adi Da (who had attended the same schools eighteen years before me). It was not only an indication that I was His devotee; it also re-shaped my life, and prepared me for becoming His devotee and for serving His Work in the world in very specific ways (that build upon the same academic training He had received). Adi Da once said that — as the human incarnation of the Eternal Divine Person prior to all space and time — His impact on His devotees' lives was so profound that it could even change their past (or shift them onto a different "timeline" with a different past).
I wonder a little about that possibility as I write this story of "finding" Him in this lifetime, and recall these various moments that suggest He was in my life (or my life was resonating with Him) long before I ever "knew" of Him! But perhaps it is just as He once said to another devotee: "When are you going to learn that our relationship doesn't depend on time and space?" Whatever may be the case, it certainly makes writing this story much easier! — since it is not merely a conventional, egoic story about "my" life, but the story of the Divine (in the living form of Adi Da) in my life from the very start. . . and then over and over again.
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