On July 2, 1988, in Land Bridge Pavilion at The Mountain Of Attention, Adi Da gives the talk, "Contemplation, Satsang, Sadhana", which would appear in the May/June 1988 issue of Crazy Wisdom Magazine.
In this excerpt ("Devote Your Life To God-Realization"), Adi Da speaks about the necessity for "sadhana", or spiritual practice, in relationship to the God-Realized Spiritual Master.
"All there is is a mechanism to be dealt with. You're not uniquely born. It's the same mechanism as in all other cases. And, in all cases it requires a tremendous ordeal."
Beginning at 17:30 (and continuing to the end of this video), a formal Darshan occasion is shown.
Two important art exhibitions in which Adi Da was invited to participate were the Venice Biennale (2007) and the Cenacolo di Ognissanti in Florence (2008), where His Art was exhibited in the same room as the famous large fresco by Domenico Ghirlandaio of "The Last Supper".
The audio recording is an excerpt from a recitation of Adi Da's essay, "Freedom Is The Only Law and Happiness Is The Only Reality". This is the Epilogue from Adi Da's book, The Truly Human New World-Culture of Unbroken Real-God-Man, which was originally written in 2001, and updated on November 13, 2019. The essay is read by a student of Adi Da. In the secular world, words like "freedom" and " love" are given a very limited definition. In this essay, Adi Da expands the true meaning of both of these words.
ADI DA: I Am here to Divinely Liberate all beings.
I Am here to Grant True Freedom to every one.
“Freedom” is one of the principal words associated with the politics of this “late-time”. The general trend toward the democratization of the entire world carries with it an intensified interest in the concept of freedom and in the pursuit of freedom. However, in the context and circumstance of this “late-time”, the word “freedom” is used in such a way that the true import of the word is lost, and its meaning is transformed, and even vulgarized.
The same process of vulgarization has also occurred in the case of other words, such as (for example) the word “love”. The word “love” represents a profound concept and reality, but the word itself tends to be used very casually. People commonly say that they “love” this or that, meaning something quite different from what the word “love” rightly and truly signifies.
“Love” is a word that rightly refers to the universal Sacrifice of ego-“self”. Real love is a matter of transcending “self” (or going beyond your limitations in relation to others)—but, in the “late-time” circumstance of vulgarized culture, the word “love” has come to be used in relation to whatever satisfies your inclinations, or fulfills your desires, or (otherwise) somehow compensates for limitations in your life by pleasing you and (thereby) supporting your egoic disposition. None of that has anything to do with real love.
So it also is with the word “freedom”, and the notion of freedom. The world-culture of this “late-time” is essentially an ego-culture associated with complications in the first three stages of life. It is essentially an adolescent culture. And it is in the context of that culture that great words like “love” and “freedom” become vulgarized. In the adolescent disposition, the word “freedom”, like the word “love”, is reduced to an egoic meaning. People say they want to be “free”, or want to act “freely”, or want to be “free” to do this or that—but what they actually mean is that they want to be able to fulfill their desires without limitation. An adolescent reacting to parental authority or parental expectations regards any such authority or expectations to be oppressive or limiting. Therefore, such adolescents say that they want to be “free” to do whatever they please. And that is, in general, what is meant in this “late-time” by the word “freedom”. Even in the larger political sphere, the word “freedom” is used to express the (personal, and also collective) intent to be able to fulfill desires—and those desires are (necessarily) fundamentally ego-based.
What does the fulfillment of desires have to do with true freedom? Rightly, the word “freedom” is synonymous with the word “liberation”. To “be free”, or to “be liberated”, means to “go beyond bondage”. The opposite of “freedom” is “bondage”. If one is truly moved to be truly free, one is moved to relinquish (and go beyond) bondage. Such is the true Wisdom-understanding of freedom.
Neither true freedom, nor real love, nor any other great concept is rightly understood via the words and concepts of adolescents. There must be human maturity (and, therefore, growth in Wisdom) for the great meanings underlying these concepts to be understood and actually lived.
Be moved toward real love, without limit. Be moved toward real happiness, without limit.
Be moved toward true freedom, without limit. You should (and, ultimately, must) be so moved. But to actually realize love (or real happiness, or true freedom) without limit, you must deal with yourself most profoundly. You cannot merely be reactive, like an adolescent or a worldly person.
If you want to be truly free, you must first understand that you are bound, and you must understand how you are bound, and then you must do something about that. If, on the other hand, you are merely reactively inclined to fulfill desires, and you want to be (so-called) “free” to do so, then you are not examining your bondage—what its roots are, what its signs are, what its characteristics are—and, if you are not examining your bondage with real discriminative intelligence, you are also not doing what you must do in order to be truly free.
poster: AdiDaVideos length: 06:39 date added: July 7, 2018 event date: November 29, 2009 language: English event speaker: Megan Anderson views: 2329; views this month: 25; views this week: 11
Devotee Megan Anderson, who grew up in the Company of Adi Da, offers this testimonial to His life and work. She also describes how she was encouraged by Adi Da to take up her service to Him as one of the key editors of His Word, and how He personally guided her growth into human maturity.
Excerpt from Second Evening: Track 7 on the DVD, A Tribute to the Life and Work of His Divine Presence, Adi Da Samraj. More than 7 hours long, this Tribute DVD was filmed on the occasion of the first Anniversary of Adi Da's Divine Mahasamadhi, when devotees, family, and friends of Adi Da Samraj gathered at Adi Da Samrajashram, Fiji (Adi Da's principal Hermitage), to acknowledge Adi Da as the Divine in human form, to praise His Greatness, and to express their heart-felt gratitude for the Blessings they have received from Him.
A list of all the tracks on this DVD can be found here.
Growing Up in the Adidam Community poster: AdiDaVideos length: 05:37 date added: October 30, 2012 event date: November 29, 2009 language: English views: 4737; views this month: 13; views this week: 9
Devotee Rachel Kuhn, who grew up in Adi Da's community, gives her testimony about her relationship to Him.
Excerpt from Second Evening: Track 7 on the DVD, A Tribute to the Life and Work of His Divine Presence, Adi Da Samraj. More than 7 hours long, this Tribute DVD was filmed on the occasion of the first Anniversary of Adi Da's Divine Mahasamadhi, when devotees, family, and friends of Adi Da Samraj gathered at Adi Da Samrajashram, Fiji (Adi Da's principal Hermitage), to acknowledge Adi Da as the Divine in human form, to praise His Greatness, and to express their heart-felt gratitude for the Blessings they have received from Him.
A list of all the tracks on this DVD can be found here.
poster: AdiDaVideos length: 14:47 date added: July 16, 2019 event date: July 17, 1978 language: English
This is an excerpt from the longer talk, "The Fire Must Have Its Way". The full talk is available on the DVD, The Fire Must Have Its Way, on which this is track 1. It is also available as a CD. The talk also appears in written form in the book, My "Bright" Sight and online here.
The bottom line: If you want to feel good, you have to learn how to feel good!
ADI DA: Somehow in the midst of this round of existence you realize that you can feel a lot better than you now feel, that you can feel absolutely blissful, that you can love absolutely, that you can be absolutely free. But feeling blissful stands in contrast to your common state. You are addicted to reactive emotion, low levels of energy, gross fixations of attention, psycho-physical obstruction. You are addicted to countless programs that are less than love. In every moment your attention is moving toward one or another object, and your feeling in every moment is an expression of the program of mind into which you are locked in that moment.
Now, what have you learned in your whole life? Have you learned to feel perfectly? To feel absolutely? Did you ever go through a period of study in which you learned to feel to Infinity, to feel Absolute Divinity? No, you learned all the reactive patterns of life, all the desires for ordinary things. You knew them even before you became familiar with them again in this body. You cannot feel any better than you can feel, and you are addicted to feeling less than love, to being less than ecstasy.
In October of 1978, in Land Bridge Pavilion at the Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary in Northern California, devotees of Adi Da Samraj gathered with Him for an occasion in which He responded to their questions. At one point, a young boy stood up to ask a question. With quiet determination, he asked Avatar Adi Da if he could help him find a way to stop being self-righteous with other people. Avatar Adi Da gave the boy a radiant smile and began to speak to him with great gentleness and love. This is a video excerpt from that Talk. This is track 6 on the DVD, Surrender of self Is A Koan. It is also available in audio form as Track 3 of the free, downloadable CD, The Liberating Word of Avatar Adi Da Samraj, Volume 1.
poster: AdiDaVideos length: 10:53 date added: October 23, 2016 event date: 2016 language: English event speaker: Gerald Sheinfeld views: 4494; views this month: 28; views this week: 14
Gerald Sheinfeld, a devotee of Avatar Adi Da since the early 1970's, tells a wonderful story about how he found his Guru, Adi Da Samraj and his immediate recognition of Adi Da's unique state of Freedom, Happiness, and Liberation. Gerald speaks about how that recognition of Adi Da has the capacity to awaken others to that state of Prior Unity.
A simple, direct confession from Adi Da about the fact that His State of Perfect, Eternal Happiness is our own True Condition and State. Accompanied by pictures of Adi Da.
ADI DA: I am your Real State — Real Condition — speaking to you, being present with you through a form like your own. I'm not merely suggesting all this is so, logically so, communicating this as a metaphor. I am this. This is My Realization. This is My State. I am telling this to you because it is also your State. I am here in this form to make this communication to you and this Transmission to you so that you will realize that State.
Image-Art Testimonial: Ben Grisso poster: AdiDaVideos length: 08:30 date added: June 11, 2014 event date: November 29, 2009 language: English event speaker: Ben Grisso views: 5982; views this month: 19; views this week: 8
Devotee Ben Grisso, who grew up in the Adidam community, and who worked with Adi Da on His Divine Image-Art, offers this testimonial to Adi Da's life and work.
Excerpt from Second Evening: Track 11 on the DVD, A Tribute to the Life and Work of His Divine Presence, Adi Da Samraj. More than 7 hours long, this Tribute DVD was filmed on the occasion of the first Anniversary of Adi Da's Divine Mahasamadhi, when devotees, family, and friends of Adi Da Samraj gathered at Adi Da Samrajashram, Fiji (Adi Da's principal Hermitage), to acknowledge Adi Da as the Divine in human form, to praise His Greatness, and to express their heart-felt gratitude for the Blessings they have received from Him.
A list of all the tracks on this DVD can be found here.
To watch more excerpts from the Tribute DVD, click here.
poster: AdiDaVideos length: 25:06 date added: March 31, 2015 event date: November 29, 2009 language: English event speaker: Stanley Hastings views: 10538; views this month: 38; views this week: 24
This video appreciation of Adi Da's Image-Art begins with a testimonial from devotee Stanley Hastings, who grew up in the Adidam community and is the Co-Director of Da Plastique (the group that presents Avatar Adi Da's Art to the public), and who worked with Adi Da on His Divine Image-Art.
Then, at 9:34, we hear various art professionals express their appreciation of Adi Da's Image-Art.
This is followed (at 13:14) by a slideshow of photos drawn from some the Exhibitions of Adi Da's Image-Art, from 2001-2009.
The video concludes (at 18:58) with a slideshow of photos of Adi Da creating His Image-Art from 1998-2008. Background music is Naamleela Free Jones, "I Served to Priest the Pharaohs", from her album, Eyes In Other Worlds.
Is an ant an ego? poster: AdiDaVideos length: 18:44 date added: August 10, 2018 event date: October 20, 2004 language: English views: 2365; views this month: 12; views this week: 4
In this humorous and profoundly insightful Avataric Discourse (given by Adi Da on October 20, 2004 at Adi Da Samrajashram), Adi Da considers the difference between self-consciousness and egoity, referring to both humans and non-humans (including dogs, ants, and trees).
ADI DA: [Laughs] You generally attribute egoity to human beings, but you wonder about everything else. For instance, what about not something relatively inert like a rug or even just standing there and not seeming to be particularly responsive, like a tree. But what about a dog? Is a dog, do you think dogs are egos when you see them, just as readily as you think of human beings as egos? But, why do you draw the line? I mean how far does it go? Where do you stop thinking of living entities, at least, as egos? Do you just presume everything bigger than a cricket is an ego? Or is everything that moves in your, from your perspective experientially or in your natural presumptions, how far do, does the fact of egoity extend in your presumption.
Well, is an ant an ego in your presumption?
The word “ego” is actually a Greek word which means “I”. I consider it with you and talk about it in terms of self-contraction and so forth, but, so that’s the elaboration on its meaning, but the word simply means “I” which means the reference, self-reference, the reflexive, reflexive pronoun as it’s called of self-reference. So, does an ant feel self-referential?
You observe them protecting themselves and struggling with others. Couldn’t do so without some kind of self-consciousness, could it? So, you naturally presume that even something like an ant is, is a self, an ego, self-aware. Does something have to move from its spatial location? Does it have to be able to take a walk or, such as an ant or a human being, or can a tree? Does a tree have self-consciousness, exhibit self-consciousness. . .
What about trees? They are entities with apparent self-consciousness of a kind. They are in that sense, egos. But are they egoic? Are they functioning egoically? Are they feeling that they are in bondage and moved to seek as human beings are and as you feel in your own case, you see? Trees don’t seem to behave, generally speaking, in quite that way. They are self-conscious as organisms, but they don’t seem to be particularly disturbed about being trees. They seem more characterized by some kind of contemplation in which they don’t feel disturbed.
But if you observe non-humans, virtually all of them show signs of setting themselves apart and entering into a contemplative state that resembles some kind of a samadhi or meditative condition.
Why do you think human beings are disturbed? You see, why is human egoity what it is? If you observe how it appears in evidence in non-humans, suggests that human beings are the way they are because they’re confined, and not just confined by walls and bars. Some people are, and they get very disturbed there, and walk back and forth or get catatonic.
Your bondage is your own activity, and it also extends from conditions. Conditions can reinforce or seem to justify self-contraction. But still what you’re suffering is self-contraction itself.
So, human beings are actually confined, and they are self-confined, and otherwise, also, living in various modes and degrees of confinement by conditions of life and in fact, human beings feel confined by bodily existence, because however healthy you may be at the moment, you know you’re going to die, and are potentially, potentially, you could suffer any number of great happenings. And you anticipate that inevitably, you will, sooner or later, experience some fundamental difficulties that you would prefer not to have to endure, including disease and death.
Well, everything that’s physically living is going to die. The trouble, the difference is does it drive you crazy, make you seek, or are you at ease, because you haven’t lost touch with what transcends that possibility?
Just Give It To Me poster: AdiDaVideos length: 10:39 date added: February 19, 2017 language: English views: 3265; views this month: 17; views this week: 6
Cheech Marrero was one of Adi Da's earliest devotees. In this video clip, Cheech describes the defining moment in his relationship with Adi Da.
You can read an extended version of Cheech's story here.
After Cheech's story — at 5:18 in the video clip — a slideshow of images of Adi Da begins, followed by a video clip of Darshan of Adi Da at 7:38. The soundtrack for the slideshow and Darshan is Jacqueline Clemons singing her and Nick Milo's composition, Universal World-Prayer, which sets to music the words of Adi Da:
Beloved, Inmost Heart of every heart, donotLet our human hearts be broken by our merely mortal suffering here — but Make our mortal human hearts break-Free to an unconditional love of You, that we may, Thus, love all living beings with Love's own True, and Truly broken, Heart.
poster: AdiDaVideos length: 15:27 date added: August 19, 2019 event date: July 17, 1978 language: English
This is an excerpt from the longer talk, "The Fire Must Have Its Way". The full talk is available on the DVD, The Fire Must Have Its Way, on which this is track 3. It is also available as a CD. The talk also appears in written form in the book, My "Bright" Sight and online here.
Excerpt from the Avataric Discourse of August 23, 2004 at Adi Da Samrajashram.
Adi Da explains how ordinary meditation techniques accomplish nothing more than relaxation. They don't touch the egoic identification with the body-mind. Only the Way of Adidam (practiced in every detail) does that. Practice of the Way of Adidam does not require one to stop fear (which continues to serve a useful, practical role for the survival of the body-mind). But in every moment of real practice of the Way of Adidam, one is released from identification with the body-mind, and so one is not bound by any fear the body-mind may be experiencing.
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