Adi Da Up Close
Audio/Video Library

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  

In 2016, on a summer night in the beautiful city of Florence, the Florence Dance Company performed the multimedia dance event, Quattro Maggiore ("Four Seasons") — set to the music of Vivaldi (his most well-known work, "Quattro Maggiore", performed live) and the art of Adi Da Samraj as the backdrop. Vivaldi's masterpiece has four parts, corresponding to the four seasons. In this newly expanded performance, musical preludes have been added before each season, featuring the musical composition and performance of hang drummer extraordinaire Paolo Borghi of Rome. In this excerpt, we hear Borghi's "Prelude" to Vivaldi's "Winter".

The performance took place on the Ponte Vecchio, a medieval multi-arch bridge over the Arno River in Florence, Italy. The Ponte Vecchio is one of the most historic bridges in the world, and the earliest bridge at this spot is believed to have been built in Roman times.

This performance is in preparation for a planned, fuller performance in 2017.

Tags: Florence Dance Company   Image-Art  

Gerald Sheinfeld, a devotee of Avatar Adi Da since the early 1970's, tells the story of the day he became Adi Da's devotee. It happened about eight months after he first met Adi Da. On that day, Gerald experienced (and was overwhelmed and heart-opened by) Adi Da's absolute vulnerability and complete lack of egoic armoring and received the Revelation of Adi Da's Divine State.

Tags: CD   DVD  
Comments: 1

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,
do not Let 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.

Comments: 3

One of the tracks on Tamarind Free Jones' CD, Traditional Chants in Praise of Avatar Adi Da Samraj.

Tamarind Free Jones, one of Avatar Adi Da's daughters, offers devotional chants from the sacred traditions of India. These chants have been sung for hundreds of years in sacred places and forest hermitages all over the world. They not only serve to quiet the mind and relax the body, they also awaken the heart's devotion. Several of these chants are sung in the daily cycle of devotions practiced by devotees of Adi Da Samraj.

Tags: music   CD