Adi Da and Adidam: Money in Adidam: I Aready Knew I Had Won

Claire: Thank you, Charles, for sitting down with us for this interview. . . I wanted to first introduce you and talk about how you came to Adi Da Samraj.

Charles: Sure. I moved to San Francisco when I was 21 to be a dancer. That was my only goal in life. The last thing in my mind was finding a spiritual teacher. But one of my first jobs in 1974 was at Stacy's Books where one of my co-workers was Bob Delollis (a longtime devotee of Adi Da Samraj). He would come in with a little cassette player and play a tape called "Garbage and the Goddess" and other early talks by Bhagavan Adi Da. And that's how I came across Adi Da Samraj. It was just one of those wonderful, graceful connections.

But I thought I knew what I wanted to do, and it had nothing to do with having a Guru. However, I did start reading Adi Da's books. And for seven years, as I was dancing in San Francisco, I continued to read them. No other spiritual books were interesting to me. But I wasn't ready to be deterred from my conventional life yet.

Then in 1981, I went to Massachusetts for a visit, and a friend of mine who lived there called me. She said, "There's going to be a Celebration of Good Company this weekend. Do you want to go there and find out more about Adi Da with me?" I said, "Yeah, let's do it!"

It was a wonderful weekend of events with videos of Adi Da and music. At the end, they did a raffle. Just before they were going to pull the winning name out, I felt this descent of a very calm, but strong Force. I felt it in my body, but it also felt like a blanket coming down over the whole room. I've since identified this as a characteristic quality of Adi Da. But at the time, I didn't know what it was. All I knew was that after this Force descended, I knew I had won the raffle. I was so calm. I'd never been so sure of anything.

And so when they pulled the name out and announced me as the winner, I wasn't even surprised.

I already knew I had won.

I signed up to be a student of Adi Da that same day. And then I moved to Seattle to be a part of the Adidam community there.

Claire: What drew you to serve the Sacred Archives?

Charles: This is an interesting story, because I’d never thought of serving the Archives. That wasn't a part of my goals, but I didn't know what my goals were. I'd come to a point in my life where, at 56, I couldn't make a living being a dancer anymore. I didn't want to do any of the other work I had already done.

So I just sat down in front of Bhagavan's Murti Photograph in my little hovel in Santa Rosa and I did the Devotional Prayer of Changes. I mean it wasn't profound or anything. I just briefly prayed for right livelihood.

I’d come to a place where I knew I needed Help. And then I remembered that when you pray, you have to also change your act. So I went on a retreat at The Mountain Of Attention. I thought, "I've got to do something with my life". So I went on a retreat for five days. And on the third day, I was asked to serve in the Sacred Archives. I went to the photo lab with Scott Campbell and he showed me how to scan a slide, and I started to work. Then at the end of the day, Elliott Mehrbach completely surprised me by asking me if I'd like to move to The Mountain Of Attention and do this service fulltime. It was a no-brainer. It was obviously Bhagavan Adi Da's answer to my prayer.

Claire: That's such a great story!

Charles: Yeah, Adi Da just intervened. He plucked me out of my life in Santa Rosa and deposited me here. And I've been here three years now. I asked Scott, how did you know I was the right person? Because you know Scott is very particular. And he said, "I just knew."

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Money in Adidam