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In this excerpt from an Avataric Discourse from October 12, 2004, on Adi Da Samrajashram, Adi Da addresses the inevitability of death, the life of profound purpose that outshines mortality, and how living life as a sacrifice in the Divine is the key to the death process.

The full Avataric Discourse can be found on the DVD, The Wordless Condition Prior to "I".

Tags: Avataric Discourse   death   DVD  

Adi Da communicates esoteric secrets about the nature of His Divine Incarnation, at The Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary in 1988.

A "human being" is comprised of a gross personality (a physical body) and a deeper personality (a subtle body), both arising in the Divine Consciousness.

In most human beings, when the physical body dies, the deeper personality reincarnates, associating itself with a new physical body.

In the extraordinarily rare case of a Divine Incarnation, the physical body of a great Spiritual Realizer dies, and the deeper personality is so profoundly submitted to the Divine that the Divine is able to incarnate through that deeper personality. Such an extraordinary vehicle was provided to Adi Da through Swami Vivekananda and Sri Ramakrishna, upon the death of Swami Vivekananda in 1902.

While all beings arise in the Divine, most people live completely unconscious of their Source, and even great Spiritual Realizers are aware of (and are lived by and as) the Divine only to a certain degree. In the rare case of a Divine Incarnation, the Divine is consciously animating the gross and deeper personalities of the human being, and progressively conforms the gross and deeper personalities to Itself completely, over the lifetime of these vehicles.

In the course of fully preparing His human Incarnation for its Divine Purpose of Awakening all beings, Adi Da needed to completely conform the "gross personality" (the physical vehicle) and completely transcend all remaining limitations in the deeper personality, to the point where "there's nothing left of the gross or the deeper personality but the ash".

In this rare historical footage from 1973, Adi Da speaks about the relationship with the Guru in Satsang (the Company of the Awakened One) as the Way of Truth, and Reality Itself.

Adi Da: "During My 'Sadhana Years', whenever My Guru asked Me to do something, I would do that. The rest of the time, I would sit there and be absorbed in Him. And there was nothing else I could do. The Guru is sufficient — and the devotee of the Guru is one who knows that."

Tags: DVD  
Comments: 2

In this excerpt from the double CD, The Grace of Turning to Me, Adi Da describes how "turning to Him" — the moment-to-moment turning of the faculties of the body-mind to Him — must be based on the Graceful recognition of Him as the Divine and response to Him based on that recognition.

On this double CD, Adi Da uses every Compassionate Means in His Manner — sometimes Humorous, sometimes Fiery — to Call His devotees, again and again, to be sensitive to the Grace-Given and spontaneous heart-Attraction to Him, and thereby turn to Him, the Divine in human Form — rather than to the endless content of the body-mind, which only reinforces egoic bondage and the illusion of separateness. In this way, Avatar Adi Da Masterfully Reveals the secret of True Liberation in His Avataric Divine Company.

The talks on this double CD were drawn from Avataric Discourses that took place in 2004.

Tags: avataric discourse   CD  

An audio excerpt from Adi Da's talk, "Identification of the Beloved". This talk is now available on a CD from the Dawn Horse Press.

Adi Da draws us into noticing the true nature of this world, in which we find the Beloved — the True Loved One — only in its passing forms. This leads to attachment to what is temporary, generating a constant cycle of reaction and seeking for a Happiness that will overcome death. Adi Da Admonishes everyone to find the True Beloved, in Its Eternal Form — our True Condition — if Happiness is to be truly found.

Tags: CD  
Comments: 1

An audio excerpt from Adi Da's talk, "I Will Do Everything". This talk, and the talk, "Guru, Faith, and Divine Communion", are now available on a CD from the Dawn Horse Press.

In this excerpt, Adi Da describes the structure of egoic patterning, and how the principle of change is non-use of past patterns (rather than psychoanalysis, etc.) by doing what is inherently right instead.

In these two talks (“I Will Do Everything” and “Guru, Faith, and Satsang”), Adi Da beautifully illuminates the nature of the relationship to the Spiritual Master. This sacred relationship to the Guru is the direct means by which the Divine Principle becomes operative in one's life.

As feeling-attention is magnified toward the Spiritual Master —through the force of attraction, of love, of devotion — the reactive forces and habits that drive one's egoic life begin to lose their force, and the Divine becomes the Mover and Principle of one's life.

Tags: CD  
Comments: 3

In this excerpt from an Avataric Discourse given at The Mountain Of Attention in early 2006, Adi Da responds to a devotee's question about the difference between sixth stage and seventh stage non-dual Realization. He also distinguishes between the "imperfect" sixth stage practices in the Great Tradition, that involve the body-mind in a conditional activity of turning the faculties to Consciousness Itself; and the Perfect Practice of the Way of Adidam, which does not involve the body-mind at all, but involves a Self-Abiding in Consciousness Itself that is an Acausal Gift of the Divine.

Tags: Avataric Discourse  

An excerpt from the video, Reality, Truth, and Conscious Light. Includes a video clip (starting at 1:38) from a formal Darshan occasion on Adi Da Samrajashram that took place on August 6, 2008.

To watch the complete video, and talk with longtime devotees of Adi Da, we invite you to attend one of our Reality, Truth, and Conscious Light introductory events held in Adidam regions around the world each month.

Narrator: Nick Elias

Tags: Darshan  

This extraordinary poem, “The Mummery-cult Of Pairs Set Free”, was spoken completely extemporaneously (in the style of William Shakespeare) by Avatar Adi Da Samraj, in a gathering with devotees in 1998, in response to the suffering of the world. The text being recited here was only slightly edited by Adi Da from His original spontaneous Outpouring, and appears in Adi Da’s Happenine Book. The metaphors, Liberated Proclamations, and wisdom about our desperate search for the object-other flowed from Adi Da’s Heart in an astounding soliloquy that left the devotees at the gathering in awe.

Devotee Steve Brown is reciting. He stands before the River Avon in Stratford, Shakespeare's hometown.

Videographer: Matt Braithwaite

Tags: poem   Steve Brown   Orpheum  
Comments: 10

Excerpt from a talk given by Adi Da on June 18, 1976, at The Mountain Of Attention.

Adi Da describes how, through the Grace of His Company, the devotee becomes increasingly aware of suffering and its nature. Increasingly, Grace reveals that suffering is the result of the devotee's own activity.

Consequently, the Way of Adidam [called "The Way of Divine Communion" in this 1976 talk] involves a life of counter-egoic activity, that focuses on devotion to the Divine Presence of the Guru, rather than working on one's tendencies. Over time, the act of devotional surrender to the Divine (and the Happiness associated with that surrender) replaces the act of self-possession (and the suffering associated with that self-possession).

Comments: 1

On October 26, 1980, a shaman from Mexico visited The Mountain Of Attention, Adidam’s primary Sanctuary in Northern California. The following day, Avatar Adi Da considered with His devotees the shamanic view of the world, the inherently magical nature of the world, and our psychic relationship to it.

In this deeply instructive discourse, released now as a CD entitled The Bridge to God, Adi Da makes clear the necessity to discover and participate in that magical condition in order to go beyond the suppressive confines of the conventional materialistic point of view and discover the happiness inherent in existence.

This CD audio excerpt is track 3, "Discover the Real Nature of Existence".

For more about this talk, read the special Adidam Revelation Magazine article on The Bridge To God.

Tags: CD  
Comments: 4

Devotee James Steinberg is interviewed about Adi Da and Adidam on 3WBC 94.1 FM, Melbourne, Australia on October 16, 2014, for the program, "Jazz and Spiritual", hosted by Bill Livingston, Minister at Unity of Melbourne. Australian devotee Jan Bucknell also joins in the conversation every now and then.

The program ends (at 47:14) with a recording of Adi Da reciting from The Spiritual Gospel of Jesus of Galilee, Adi Da's rendition of "The New Testament" (available on CD).

Music (during breaks) from Naamleela Free Jones' CD, In The Time Of Light; and from What To Remember To Be Happy (reciter: Jonah Strauss, piano: Ray Lynch).

Tags: interview   radio   CD   James Steinberg  
Comments: 1

On the evening of July 24, 2014, 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. The performance was called "Dancing on the Bridge of the World", because it 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 slideshow includes photographs of "Dancing on the Bridge of the World" by Richard Osbourne.

Music is by Aaron Nakagawa.

Tags: Image-Art   Florence Dance Company  
Comments: 1

The video, from Adidam India, begins with a slideshow of photos from Adi Da Samrajashram, accompanied by traditional Indian chanting by Nirmalya Dey, with devotee John Wubbenhorst playing the bansuri.

As the musical accompaniment continues, the video shows photos and video clips of Avatar Adi Da, accompanied by excerpts (and adaptations) from the recitation, Aham Da Asmi ("I Am Da"), overlaid on the screen.

Comments: 8

In this Discourse (which took place on November 11, 2005 at The Mountain Of Attention), Avatar Adi Da answers a devotee's question about the human condition. He criticizes reductive viewpoints (scientific, religious, etc.) that try to account for a multi-level phenomenon (such as evolution) in terms of just one level (the gross level of bodies), ignoring other levels that participate in the phenomenon (the impact of subtle or "mind" level influences on evolution, the impact of molecular level influences on evolution, etc.). He also criticizes the presumption that everything can be explained, and points out that the multi-level phenomenon that is life and experience is (when fully examined) so complex that it is "irreducible", beyond comprehension. Beyond all the apparent (and incomprehensible) arising that is conditional existence is the indivisible Conscious Light in which all is arising. To Realize Conscious Light is to be liberated from all need for explanations. As Adi Da puts it: "When It is Realized, it becomes entirely clear what everything is and how it is happening."

Tags: Avataric Discourse