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"Le formiche hanno un ego" ("Ants have an ego") is a video excerpt from a 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?
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Adi Da Samraj risponde compassionevolmente, ma da un punto di vista radicale, ad un devoto che ha perso il nipote.
In "Perdita della Vita e Dolore Umani" ("Loss of Life and Human Suffering"), Adi Da Samraj talks about the pain of loss, and about liberation. This is in response to a devotee's question about the Devotional Prayer Of Changes and the death of the devotee's grandchild.
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This video excerpt, "Non siete voi a Pensare" ("You Do Not Think") is from an Avataric Discourse given by Avatar Adi Da on October 10, 2004, on Adi Da Samrajashram.
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In this video clip from the 1988 talk, "What Is Your Intention?", Adi Da criticizes the "do-it-yourself" approach to spirituality that is popular in the world today, and speaks about why a teacher is necessary.
Adi Da reminds us that, historically, all the world's spiritual traditions have taught that Spiritual Realization requires the help of a Spiritual Realizer. This is actually built into the laws of how Spiritual Realization works, and can't be changed just because times and cultures change, just because we don't happen to like the way the laws work or what they require of us, etc. For this reason, Adi Da makes the point that, nowadays, our resistence to authority, and addiction to "do it yourself" approaches, represent unfortunate hindrances to our own Spiritual growth: if we simply go with the flow and let these culturally instilled programs dominate our life choices, they will keep us from Realizing our greatest destiny.
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"Quello che Accade Dopo la Morte E' Determinato dal Come Si E' Vissuti" ("What Happens After Death Is Determined By the Way You Live") is published as "After Death, Mind Makes You", in the book, Easy Death. It is from a talk given by Adi Da on December 12, 1988 at Adi Da Samrajashram.
In this sobering discourse, Adi Da speaks of the condition after death in which mind determines one's circumstance, without the limitations of the body, brain and unconsciousness. He addresses the fact that where one's attention is fixed during life affects attention and destiny after life. He recommends that devotees direct their attention to sadhana so that the purification process gives one wisdom that frees one from karmic limitations.
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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, "Dedicate la vostra vita alla Realizzazione del Divino" ("Dedicate 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.
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Un discorso raro e non ancora pubblicato del 1986. Adi Da si rivolge alla primaria emozione umana del dubbio, nel modo più semplice e diretto.
In 1986, Adi Da made His first visit to the European community of His devotees. He travelled through England, France and Holland. In the South of Holland, in the village of Maria Hoop close to the German border, a former Catholic monastery was found which could be rented for a few weeks. Devotees swiftly cleaned buildings and the grounds. Adi Da stayed in a specially prepared wing of the monastery for several days. During this time, He granted Darshan and held "Question and Answer" occasions in the chapel (now called Adi Da Kapel) with German, English, Dutch, French and American devotees. The former monastery has since been acquired by the European community of Adidam and is now known as The European Danda.
In "Cos'è il Dubbio?" ("What Is Doubt?"), a rare excerpt from one of the "Question and Answer" occasions, Adi Da addresses the primal human emotion of doubt in a most direct and simple manner. He describes how doubt is not ultimately a sign that we have been "betrayed" in some way. The radical solution to doubt is to identify with the Divine Itself, beyond the temporary cycles of the body and mind and beyond the sense of being a separate self.
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In this clip, "Avvicinatevi a Me con il Cuore" ("Approach Me From Your Heart"), Adi Da speaks to devotees in the Manner Of Flowers (at the Mountain Of Attention), during the "Love of the God-Man" Celebration on March 8, 1984. Adi Da talks about praise speech, ecstasy, and Satsang.
Some of the questions Adi Da addresses in the full talk are: What is a Divine experience? Who is God that God could be identified over against anything whatsoever? Who is a Spiritual Master if He can find Himself apart from God, such that He could say: “This piece is Me and this piece is God”? How could such distinctions continue in the consciousness of one who has Realized the Divine?
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This is a video excerpt from Adi Da's classic talk, "The Bodily Location of Happiness", which He gave on November 28, 1981. This talk was originally published in the book, The Bodily Location Of Happiness. The full talk is available on DVD and on CD, and as an online transcript.
ADI DA: Life is foolishness. This is no time, in any case, to be tolerant of foolishness. The world is mad, and these are dreadful times. Things are not going to be easier in the years ahead. The spiritual process has always been lived in difficult times. Therefore, the spiritual process tolerates no fool. The spiritual process itself will spit you out. It is not an easy attainment, but a profoundly difficult affair. Even what you have listened to today has been heard by only a fraction of the human race in all of history. The opportunity to practice is extremely rare, and the fulfillment of practice is practically unknown.
In some sense you could say this life is hell. . . The nature of this hell is that we are self-possessed. We are born in un-Happiness and we do not transcend it readily. We constantly pursue Happiness through all kinds of incredibly complex means, and we never attain It. . .
If Spiritual Realizers did not turn about and Teach, this would truly be a hell instead of being like a hell. It would truly be a hell if there were no possibility of Enlightenment, if there were no Teaching, no Spiritual Masters, no sacred Way, no sacred community, no capacity for understanding or self-transcendence.
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This is a video excerpt from Adi Da's classic talk, "The Bodily Location of Happiness", which He gave on November 28, 1981. This talk was originally published in the book, The Bodily Location Of Happiness. The full talk is available on CD and on a new DVD, The Location Of Happiness.
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In this discourse, a student of Adi Da asks Him for suggestions to help her dying mother. Adi Da then responds both with compassion and also with very practical advice on how to serve the dying.
[The recording of Adi Da's voice is slightly distorted, but understandable.]
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Adi Da critica il cultismo in genere e in particolare quello religioso. Questo discorso, che risale al 1978, è uno dei ricorsi sullo stesso tema che si sono susseguiti negli anni.
Adi Da criticized religious cultism, long before the subject gained any popular attention. (For an audio clip of His earliest criticisms — in June, 1972 — click here.) This discourse, "Cos'è il Cultismo?" ("What Is Cultism?"), given in 1978 at The Mountain Of Attention, is one of His summary addresses on the subject. Adi Da observes that the primary characteristic of a cult member is shared enthusiasm (like enjoying the energy of the crowd at a football game). For example, in "the cult of the Spiritual Master", everybody is enjoying the enthusiasm (their own and each other's) associated with having "found" the great Master; but no one is actually engaged in significant deepening of the devotional and spiritual relationship with the Master, and practicing on that basis — hence no Spiritual growth or Realization occurs.
Adi Da: "My purpose in My Teaching is to make it possible for you to duplicate what I have done — not to be eternally separated from Me, but to be in Communion with Me — to be intimate with Me in Spiritual terms, so that you, yourself, may live this practice, and fulfill it in your own case."
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"Avete Imparato a Sentire Perfettamente?" ("Have You Learned to Feel Perfectly?") is a video 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.
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Questo testo è un estratto da un più completo discorso intitolato " Il Fuoco deve fare il suo Percorso". Il completo discorso di Adi Da Samraj è disponibile in inglese sul DVD "The Fire Must Have Its Way".
"Non C'è Luce Se Prima Non C'è Fuoco" ("There Is No Light Without Fire") is a video 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 5. It is also available as a CD. The talk also appears in written form in the book, My "Bright" Sight and online here.
[Contains Italian subtitles. If the CC icon ("Subtitles/closed captions") has a red line under it, the subtitles should appear. If you don't see them, just press the CC icon to turn them on.]
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.
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