Adi Da Up Close
Audio/Video Library

Adi Da's entire human lifetime was a unique demonstration of His Eternal Form — the State He calls the "Bright", the Conscious Light that is Reality Itself.

From His birth on November 3, 1939 on Long Island in New York, to His passing from the body on November 27, 2008, on the Island of Naitauba, Fiji, His Life is the story of the Intervention of the "Bright" in human time.

The fruits of Avatar Adi Da's Lifetime are the establishment of a new and unique possibility for the transformation of all beings and the world itself. His Revelation is of the Divine Reality, which is always Shining — like the sun — as the Prior Condition of every one and every thing.

[Show actually begins at 00:56, after a commercial and a brief excerpt from Mozart's Symphony No. 40.]

In this episode of the radio show, A Better World, host Mitchell Rabin conducts a Round Table discussion on the relationship between diet and climate change. He raises the tremendous possibility for both personal-planetary transformation and spiritual growth.

Joining Mitchell are Abel Slater and Dina Lautman. Abel and Dina have been devotees of Adi Da for over 25 years, and have spent significant time in Naitauba, Fiji at Adi Da’s principal Hermitage Sanctuary, Adi Da Samrajashram, where they received direct guidance from Adi Da, both in practical life wisdom and esoteric spiritual practice. Now based in New York, they also travel extensively throughout the world presenting Adi Da's spiritual teachings about right life, including diet, sexuality, meditation and conductivity. Recently, they have been focused on raising awareness about the benefits of the raw vegan diet by promoting Green Gorilla raw treats across the U.S. and around the world.

What occurs at the micro level of each individual's diet is effectively magnified at the macro level of the collective global ecosystem. Today, over 70 billion land animals are killed annually to support human meat consumption. A recent United Nations environmental impact study determined that livestock is the source of 18% of global greenhouse gases, now exceeding emissions from all transportation sources globally, which account for 17% of global greenhouse gases. Meat consumption is growing exponentially and is increasingly jeopardizing the health of the planet. Today’s Round Table will address these issues in depth. This conversation and the information we consider is vital to our personal health and to the collective survival of our species and all sentient life.

This video begins with longtime devotee, Anthony Costabile, describing how the relationship to Adi Da is manifesting after the end of Adi Da's human lifetime.

Then at 2:29, Adi Da also speaks on this subject. This is an excerpt from a talk He gave on April 16, 1995, "Love is How I Got To Here". You can read a transcript of much more of this talk here. The talk is also available as a CD here.

At 6:43, another longtime devotee, Dennis Coccaro, talks about the direct relationship to Adi Da after His lifetime.

For much more about Adi Da's human passing and Eternal Presence, visit our section, Adi Da's Divine Mahasamadhi and Adidam In Perpetuity.

An archival talk from July 15, 1973. One of the earliest video recordings of Avatar Adi Da speaking. Here He talks about the Free State of the fully Realized being, which is neither inward nor outward.

Adi Da: "God is neither within nor without. This is the principle of Satsang [the relationship with the Guru]: the Divine already present, the Divine lived with, the Divine as your Condition."

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  

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  

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  

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.

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, 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."

Tags: cult  

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.

He describes the difference between the left-brained, scientific, control-oriented way of relating to the world, and the magical, psychic, or shamanistic point of view, in which the elements of the non-human world are related to in a participatory manner.

This audio excerpt is from the CD, The Bridge To God.

Tags: CD  

In this talk from April 16, 1995 (available on the CD, Love Is How I Got to Here, Adi Da describes how the preparatory stages of practice of the Reality-Way of Adidam are associated with attention, and how the attachment to attention and all its objects prevents the Realization of Reality As It Is.

He goes on to describe the unique advantage that His bodily Incarnation provides in the process of such Realization, for all time, and how the relationship to Him occurs — directly and personally — beyond the life of His human Form.

Tags: CD  

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 ("Devote 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.

Tags: Darshan  

Adi Da: "Nothing in [the devotee] is one with God. So the Divine Activity is generated to make that person one with God. The Divine does the Yoga. The Divine Assumes His Oneness with the devotee. He does not create means, methods to be generated in dilemma, experiential paths by which to realize that Oneness — He simply Establishes It."

"The way for such a devotee, then, is simply to be a devotee: to simply live that relationship as the Principle and Condition of his life. And if he does that, then the conscious and formal Qualities that are native to the Divine Condition are generated spontaneously and intelligently within him."

At Da Love-Ananda Mahal, on December 17, 1982, Adi Da gives the talk, "The Baptism of Immortal Happiness".

"The ego is such a heavy grip, such a clench on the Divine Light, that Spiritual experience through Spiritual Transmission in life does not amount to much for most people. They cannot make it part of their existence. This is why I expect My devotees to prepare themselves by listening to and then hearing My Wisdom-Teaching. Then My Spiritual Baptism can Awaken you to My Spirit-Presence, and you will begin to practice the Way of Adidam in Spiritual relationship to Me."

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