Adi Da Up Close
Audio/Video Library

Throughout the years of His Divine Avataric Teaching-Revelation, Avatar Adi Da spoke at length in response to devotees' questions on all subjects relative to the human circumstance — including death, and all the sorrow and fear inherent in the circumstance of human mortality.

In "Enter the Inherently Fearless Condition", a video segment from September 18, 2004, Avatar Adi Da describes the choice we face: to live in fear, the "native mood of the ego" — or to realize the profundity of the inherently fearless Condition.

Avatar Adi Da calls us to a surrendered life that is about Realization and all that is relevant to Realization, including compassionate service. Such a surrendered life is the key to an "easy" death.

This excerpt is part of the two-and-a-half-hour DVD, Easy Death — Discourses on the Ultimate Transcending of Death and Everything Else. Subtitles in English, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Polish, Czech, and Hebrew.

This compilation of ten talks spans thirty-four years of Avatar Adi Da's Work. It includes His compassionate Instruction about:
- the sorrow of loss
- the fear of death
- serving the dying person
- how to practice during and beyond the death process
- the Ultimate Demonstration of Divine Translation (or Most Perfect Realization of the deathless Condition).

From His Perfect Disposition of Absolute Freedom, Avatar Adi Da Samraj reveals the greater process within which death occurs, and the Ultimate Demonstration of What Is, Prior to life and death.

[Note: Since we posted this video, we have also posted a longer excerpt from the same DVD track here.]

Tags: death   DVD   Avataric Discourse  

In this 1973 talk, Adi Da Samraj responds to a question from a student about the tendency to either suppress, rise above, or indulge emotional states. He makes clear that "doing something else" - namely, the sadhana - is a different (and inherently right) alternative to all these other choices, in every moment.

What kind of experiences might you notice arising in the course of esoteric practice or via Spiritual Transmission? What is the secret to relating to them rightly?

On the DVD, The Secret of Experience, Avatar Adi Da Samraj addresses questions on this topic in two revelatory Discourses.

On December 5, 2004, when asked by a devotee about a particular experience, Avatar Adi Da contrasted the self-authenticating nature of the experience with the attitude of having a question about the experience.

And on August 13, 2004, Adi Da talked about the potential of blissful experience to create unrealistic presumptions about the self and about real practice.

This video clip is an excerpt from the DVD, in which Adi Da is responding to a devotee who asked Him a question on the phone. The DVD includes Spanish, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Polish, Czech, and Hebrew subtitles.

Tags: DVD   Avataric Discourse  

Antonina Randazzo's new CD, Fall Into My Heart, contains ten tracks of devotional music — including live chanting occasions from Adi Da Samrajashram, Fiji, and new, original musical settings of Avatar Adi Da’s Ecstatic Words.

This excerpt from her album is track 2, "Fall Into My Heart". Ron Strauss is playing viola.

You can listen to (or purchase) the individual tracks here. The CD can be purchased here.

For Antonina's story of how Adi Da taught her the sacred art of devotional singing, click here.

Tags: devotional   music  

"The force of primary geometric forms is everywhere in the world. . . once you begin to get the sense of shape, then you can see that the world of perception is actually made of primary geometries. It is just that there are so many of them all at once that the natural world seems to have feathered edges."
--Avatar Adi Da Samraj

With works from Adi Da's Image-Art projected in the background, the contemporary dance piece, "Feathered Edges", was performed at the Adidam Midwest Center in Chicago, in celebration of Adi Da's 74th Birthday.

"FEATHERED EDGES, a joint creation that encapsulates rapturous elements that make the couple's forays into contemporary dance so compelling. They swirl and yearn, hover over one another and intertwine. In the Everts' world, geometry in motion is often a means to sensuality in motion."
--DONALD ROSENBERG (THE PLAIN DEALER/Cleveland)

''When Tom and Susana perform together on stage my own reality of time, place, and context is blurred. Their dance duets embrace their dualistic energies with intrinsic vulnerability and compassion."
--DANIEL WHITLEY (Visual Artist/Cleveland)

Choreographers and Dancers: Susana Weingarten & Tom Evert
Costume Design: Luzano Rey & Janet Bolick
Lighting Design: Deb Malcolm
Music: The Cinematic Orchestra
Sound engineer: Jordan Davis
Video: Alejandro Rivera

Projected Image-Art:
The Scale of Perfection, Part One: NYC, NYCSTET I (from Geome Three) 2006, by Adi Da Samraj, © 2013 ASA

Tags: Image-Art   dance  

Interviews and overview of Adi Da's solo exhibition at the Cenacolo di Ognissanti in Florence, Italy, in 2008. How Adi Da's art was chosen for exhibition in Florence at Cenacolo di Ognissanti.

Tags: Image-Art   Florence   Cenacolo di Ognissanti   Christina Acidini   Monica Bietti   Gary Coates   Paula Crema  

Every year in late October and early November, devotees, friends, and supporters of Adi Da Samraj gather to enjoy an extended weekend of Celebration and Spiritual Retreat focused on the Life, Teachings, and Avataric Work of Adi Da Samraj. The occasion is the birthday anniversary of Adi Da, during which we joyously acknowledge that this Supremely Realized Spiritual Master has appeared in the world to Awaken all beings to Radiant Love, Perfect Freedom, and Indestructible Light. This year’s Celebration is also based on the new book, The Gift Of Truth Itself, and like all Adidam Events, is founded on the acknowledgment that Adi Da Samraj uniquely bestows the ultimate Gift of Divine Truth or “Reality Itself” to the human heart.

For more about this retreat, click here.
Videographer: Matt Braithwaite

Tags: European Danda   retreat  

Excerpt from an Avataric Discourse given by Adi Da at Adi Da Samrajashram on October 24, 2004.

For more on Adi Da's running theme, "You Can't Get There from Here", read our article, Why No Self-Applied Technique is Capable of Realizing the Divine.

Tags: Avataric Discourse  

Video excerpt from an Avataric Discourse given by Adi Da Samraj on July 7, 2005, in Land Bridge Pavilion at The Mountain Of Attention.

Adi Da talks about the presumption of the egoic "separate self" sense that is the root of human suffering. He contrasts this with our actual Position in Truth: the Position of Conscious Light.

This talk is from the first occasion in many years in which Avatar Adi Da spoke directly to a gathering of His devotees in California. Questions from devotees about intimate, familial, and social issues are met with Avatar Adi Da's Compassion and Humor, as well as His Liberating Wisdom.

The complete Avataric Discourse is available on the DVD, Relinquish the Mummery of This World. (This video excerpt is from Part 3 of the DVD.)

At 19:58, a formal Darshan occasion begins (at Adi Da Samrajashram) and continues to the end of this video clip.

Tags: Avataric Discourse  

A nine-minute audio excerpt from "Use Your Unique Advantage", a discourse given by Adi Da Samraj in October, 1985.

In this talk, Avatar Adi Da affirms the great law: "You become what you meditate on." One implication of this law is that we keep rebinding ourselves karmically, lifetime after lifetime. But this same law also can be used to free us from karma. Because "you become what you meditate on", Adi Da is the unique Advantage of His devotees. Those who feel the inherent heart-attraction to Avatar Adi Da’s Divine State are spontaneously moved to meditate on Him and to thereby "become" (or commune with, and ultimately Realize) His Divine State.

This talk is published in The Aletheon and is now available for the first time to read online, in the Adidam Revelation Magazine article, I Am Your Unique Advantage.

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.

Tags: Avataric Discourse  

On November 25, 2004, at Adi Da Samrajashram, one of Adi Da's devotees asks Him: "Is there any way to know . . . what is the relationship of ancient Realizers to the traditions that they were associated with?"

Avatar Adi Da responds by illustrating the process of myth-making around Realizers, both in ancient and modern times. He explains that, regardless of what is historically true of any Realizer, any tradition can be understood in terms of the underlying structure of the human being. Throughout the Discourse, Adi Da makes use of examples from numerous traditions including Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, and Christianity.

Adi Da: "Traditions do not really depend on there having been an historical individual, whether or not there was one. They can nonetheless still be understood in terms of the structure of the psycho-physical anatomy. And the psycho-physical anatomy, not mythology extending from it, but the psycho-physical anatomy itself — and this is My Instruction to you, to all — that structure itself determines what is regarded to be religious truth, or esoteric truth. Underneath it is a structure, not merely Truth. That structure must be transcended, or there is not Truth Realized."

In this excerpt, Adi Da specifically talks about the Christian tradition, and the importance of distinguishing a "faith" (or system of beliefs) from factual observations of phenomena throughout recorded history.

The full Discourse is now available on the 2-CD set, Myths, Realizers, and Divine Revelation.

Tags: avataric discourse   CD  

[This interview is in Dutch, with English subtitles.]

On February 24, 2013, Dutch devotee Tom Jacobs (currently a resident of Adi Da Samrajashram) was featured on the popular Dutch TV program, De Reünie ("The Reunion"), which is seen by two million viewers.

Each episode of De Reünie focuses on the lives of a few members of a particular school class from decades ago. This week featured members from Tom's class - including Tom.

The full interview explores Tom's life as a devotee of Adi Da Samraj, and then explores a tragedy in Tom's early life (the trauma of which was completely relieved by Adi Da, as Tom describes). The interview is in Dutch, but English subtitles have been added. The interviewer (and show host) is Rob Kamphues.

For a fuller account of how Tom found Adi Da (written by Tom), click here.

Videographer: Matt Braithwaite

Note: Unlike most of the videos in our library, this is a Facebook video; we have discovered that, for some reason, some people are not able to play it.

Tags: Dutch  

Adi Da visiting rescued sea turtles sent to Adi Da Samrajashram.

Slideshow by Andrew Dorfman.

Music is "What Will You Do If You Love Me?" from Naamleela Free Jones, Eyes in Other Worlds.

Andrew writes: "Bhagavan Blessed the release of rescued sea turtles, shipped to us by a neighboring island, for safe release into the waters off Adi Da Samrajashram. The turtles are hunted now more vigorously by humans than in the past, so in addition to the natural forces with which hatchlings must contend, there are now human adversaries as well. This occasion with Bhagavan broke many hearts."

Tags: animals   non-human  

Adi Da Samraj: "The force of primary geometric forms is everywhere in the world. . . once you begin to get the sense of shape, then you can see that the world of perception is actually made of primary geometries. It is just that there are so many of them all at once that the natural world seems to have feathered edges."

Choreographers and Dancers: Susana Weingarten & Tom Evert
Costume Design: Luzano Rey & Janet Bolick
Lighting Design: Deb Malcolm
Music: The Cinematic Orchestra
Sound engineer: Jordan Davis
Video: Alejandro Rivera

Projected Image Art:
The Scale of Perfection, Part One: NYC, NYCSTET I (from Geome Three) 2006, by Adi Da Samraj, © 2013 ASA

Tags: dance   image-art