Adi Da Up Close
Audio/Video Library

In this seminal discourse (at The Mountain Of Attention), from the early years of His Teaching Work, Adi Da speaks about the inevitable process of self-revelation and self-understanding that prepares the being for true Spiritual life.

The full talk is available on the CD, The Grace of Suffering, and on DVD as Volume 2 of the 25th Anniversary DVD Series.

Tags: CD   DVD  

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 this 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.

Adi Da: "Sex is fundamental ego-identity, lived. And generally speaking, it is a problem for everyone. . . The social pattern of 'self' and 'other' is founded upon emotional-sexual patterning to a very great degree. . . So it certainly is an important dimension of bondage, and therefore an important aspect of sadhana. The Perfect Practice is not based on any reference to the body-mind, or any method of the body-mind."

In this Avataric Discourse (from January 21, 2005), Adi Da explains why the Perfect Practice (the most advanced development of the Way of Adidam) has nothing to do with sex (or the ego-"I" altogether), and is not a "method" of the body-mind or something to be applied to the body-mind. The Self-Condition prior to the body-mind is the domain of the Perfect Practice. The Self-Condition is not a separate "self", but the Nirvanic Condition that is always already the case, and that inherently transcends the body-mind.

This excerpt is from the DVD, Beyond Sex, Science, and self. Subtitles in English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Russian, Polish, Czech, and Hebrew.

A CD version is also available.

Tags: Avataric Discourse   Perfect Practice   DVD   CD  

Adi Da answers a question from a 10-year-old boy who wants to not be so angry and "righteous" all the time. Adi Da reveals some basic secrets about the nature of love. A very sweet exchange. From the talk, "Remember The Mystery In Which You Live", given by Adi Da on October 28, 1978, in Land Bridge Pavilion at The Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary in Northern California.

The excerpt of Adi Da talking is followed (at 6:36) by commentary by longtime devotee Abel Slater.

An audio excerpt from Adi Da Samraj's early talk, "Renouncing the Search for the Edible Deity", accompanied by more recent photos of Adi Da.

Adi Da: "When we look out into the universe we feel insulted, rejected, unloved. And so we make philosophy out of our apparent independence. Fundamentally, it is not our experiences in particular relationships that tell us we are not loved. Some people do not love us, surely, but nevertheless we are simply, always, and already philosophically disposed to believe that we are not loved. It is our interpretation of existence, not on the basis of any relational experience we have had with other human beings, but on the basis of our apparent independence itself. Our sense of independent bodily existence means separation to us, whereas, you see, it is really only the sense of independent bodily existence. When you become strong — if you ever can become truly strong — autonomous, able to take a deep breath, then you stop interpreting the universe as a form of rejection, as a great parent from whose company you have been expelled, under whose domination you live, who has rejected you and does not love you. Everyone is simply born into the conventional condition of independence and everyone interprets that condition as rejection, as 'you don't love me.' "

"Renouncing the Search for the Edible Deity" is available as a CD here. A transcript is also available online and as a chapter in the book, The Yoga Of Right Diet.

An audio excerpt from Adi Da Samraj's early talk, "Renouncing the Search for the Edible Deity", accompanied by photos of Adi Da from a more recent Avataric Discourse.

We experience "independent" existence as a kind of madness, a seeming separation from food (both because of the cutting of the umbilical cord and as a feeling of separation from our ultimate source of sustenance, the Very Divine). We must instead be like the eating gorilla. . .

Adi Da: "The eating gorilla finds a cabbage in the jungle, sits down like a slob and munches away at the cabbage, and is completely benign, completely peaceful. . . . Therefore, the eating gorilla is the image of the true man, the true woman. He demonstrates the principle of true politics, of real human existence, in which we are always presently connected to the Food Source in Truth, and are always presuming connection, relationship, 'I love you.' "

"Renouncing the Search for the Edible Deity" is available as a CD here. A transcript is also available online and as a chapter in the book, The Yoga Of Right Diet.

Tags: searchless diet  

Adi Da gave this talk on May 24, 1983, in Fiji. In it he describes how all processes (including diet) associated with transformation of the body-mind (making it an appropriate yogic vehicle compatible with the Transcendental Spiritual Way of Adidam) necessarily first go through purification and rebalancing phases (for as long as they take) — associated with Fire — before they enter the regeneration phase — associated with Light. Knowing this helps one persist in the fire of the purification and rebalancing phases to the point where one comes out the other side.

Tags: searchless diet  

A simple, potent, silent occasion in which Adi Da sits with His devotees (on June 2, 2008 at Adi Da Samrajashram) and communicates His Divine State.

Tags: Darshan  
Comments: 1

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.

The full talk is available on the DVD, The Commitment To Real-God-Realization.

For more on this subject, read our article, Why Great Spiritual Realization Requires a Spiritual Transmission Master.

Tags: DVD  

In this excerpt from the film, "Reality, Truth and Conscious Light", Adi Da describes Reality from the "point of view" of Conscious Light. (The excerpt includes a clip of Adi Da speaking, from an Avataric Discourse on November 11, 2005. A longer excerpt can be watched here.)

The complete film, "Reality, Truth, and Conscious Light" can be viewed at our "Reality, Truth, and Conscious Light" introductory events, held worldwide. Click here to locate an event near you.

Narrator: Nick Elias

Tags: Avataric Discourse  

This audio excerpt is from "Tell Me True - Have You Got the Gom-Boo?", a talk given by Adi Da on August 30, 1982. The talk appears as Chapter 2 in Adi Da's book, The Dreaded Gom-Boo.

Adi Da: "The presumption of being [the presumption of one's own existence] is not made on the basis of [scientific observations of nature]. . . The force of being itself is self-authenticating.. . . The Consciousness that is single is not evident in the body. . . In the profundity of the research into that presumption of being (rather than the mechanical associations of it), we realize - intuitively, directly - the Being that is to be presumed to be ultimately associated with all of nature."

This excerpt is also track 4 of the CD, Science and the Myth of Materialism, a collection of talks from throughout the 30 years of Avatar Adi Da’s formal Teaching-Work that brings together samples from His vast Divine Instruction relative to the psycho-physical nature of the world, the limits of scientific materialism, and the Inherent Unity of Existence.

The album is available through iTunes, Microsoft, and The Dawn Horse Press.

Note: This video may not be available or viewable in every country.

Tags: CD  

In this beautiful and intimate Discourse given on December 30, 1983 at Adi Da Samrajashram, Avatar Adi Da speaks with a man who suffers from claustrophobia. Avatar Adi Da points to the self-generated cause of such terrifying experiences, describing them as symptoms of feeling-contraction from the Field of Divine Existence. He calls this man—and all who are sensitive to suffering and anxiety—to find the Bliss of Divine Existence in His Company, and to intensively practice feeling beyond all emotional limits on living in That Bliss.

This audio clip is an excerpt from the CD, Surrender Without Limitation. "Surrender Without Limitation" is also Chapter 16 in the book, My "Bright" Sight.

Tags: CD  

This video excerpt is an excerpt from Adi Da's talk, "The Bridge To God", from October 27, 1980. (The full talk, "The Bridge To God", is available as a CD and as an online transcript.)

On the previous day, a shaman from Mexico visited The Mountain Of Attention, Avatar Adi Da Samraj’s Northern California sanctuary. The following day, Avatar Adi Da considered with His devotees the inherently magical nature of the world and our psychic relationship to it.

Adi Da: "The world is a psychic phenomenon. In other words, we never experience the world except psychically. We never experience it except as knowledge and perception. We never experience it except as a condition that includes us. We are not separate from it. What we are at the level of the psyche and at the level of consciousness is just as much an inherent part of the world as the so-called material, objective forms. When we associate with the world on the basis of the totality of all the conditions of our existence, we participate in the world of forms as a psychic process. By participating psychically in the psychic phenomena of the world, we learn the laws whereby we can influence the phenomena of the waking state. We generate a process wherein we can become sensitive to the phenomena of the waking state so that we can observe unusual coincidences of form and psychic significances that our verbal mind tends to exclude from what we are observing."

Tags: CD  

[Note: We reposted this video from Vimeo. Not everyone will be able to play this video on this web page, but you can always watch it on Vimeo.]

In this video, longtime devotee and Adidam educator, Carolyn Lee, introduces "The Zero Point", a retreat taking place at the European Danda, April 28 - 30, 2017.

Read or watch the daily news these days and you will find it filled with identity politics and the fear and anxiety that such politics engenders. Identity politics is a major threat to the world. In this retreat, we explore the root of identity politics: the presumption of difference and separateness. We also study and consider Adi Da's Wisdom on understanding, un-learning, and transcending the illusion of separateness and the act of separation, and Realizing Prior Unity, Non-Separateness, and unlimited relatedness to everything and everyone.

The "Zero Point" is the place where we can drop all the limited and superficial points of view, and find the profound depth of Reality Itself. This has the potential for initiating a Reality-informed and Reality-transformed personal process and a collective activism in the contemporary world.

For more information about the retreat, write info@adidam.org.

Tags: peace  
Comments: 1

Adi Da: "Science is not a human activity, because it is an activity in which what is specifically human is fundamentally suppressed, abstracted, separated out. We're supposed to be devoted to finding out about this external world. We're not supposed to be devoted to participation in a total world in which reality includes not only the objects of perception and conception, but the process of perception and conception, and the being or consciousness in which perception and conception are experienced or recognized."

This talk excerpt is track 2 of the CD, Science and the Myth of Materialism, a collection of talks from throughout the 30 years of Avatar Adi Da’s formal Teaching-Work that brings together samples from His vast Divine Instruction relative to the psycho-physical nature of the world, the limits of scientific materialism, and the Inherent Unity of Existence.

Tags: CD