Adi Da Up Close
Audio/Video Library

This is an audio excerpt from The Commitment to Real-God-Realization, a DVD containing conversations between Adi Da and His devotees in 1988, in the United States, Fiji, and New Zealand. In these direct and challenging talks, Adi Da discusses how, through consideration, one can determine relatively quickly that one will survive death; on that basis, one can live life not merely for the sake of the physical body (which is going to die), but can practice in the context of (and in cooperation with) one's Eternal destiny: God-Realization.

Adi Da: "Some work for goods and blessings in this world, some work for movement into other worlds. Some transcend all conditional possibilities and Realize the Divine Domain. If Real God is proven, then you must live a life devoted to Real God. . . If the Divine Reality were obvious, the commitment to God-Realization is instant."

Adi Da makes clear that the motive to God-Realization is a Gift of Grace given by Him, and not the result of will or self-effort.

This excerpt is track 6 of the CD, Death and the Purpose of Existence, a collection of talks and recitations that exemplify Avatar Adi Da's essential Wisdom-Teaching on death and dying.

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

Note: Due to distribution policies set by CDBaby (and beyond the control of this website and Adidam), this video may not be playable in every country. However, sometimes, even when you can't play it on this page, you may be able to play it on YouTube: click here.

Tags: CD   death  

[Contains German subtitles. If the CC icon ("Subtitles/closed captions") has a red line under it, the subtitles should appear. If you don't see them, just press the CC icon to turn them on.]

"Das getrennte Selbst Ich ist eine Illusion" ("The Separate Self Is An Illusion") is a video excerpt from an Avataric Discourse given by Adi Da on July 7, 2005 in Land Bridge Pavilion at The Mountain Of Attention.

Adi Da Samraj speaks about the action of self-contraction, which creates the sense of being a "separate self" - whereas, in Reality, no matter what arises, you are only and merely the Witness Consciousness.

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.

Tags: German   Deutsch   Avataric Discourse   DVD  

Longtime devotee and Adidam educator, Anthony Costabile, summarizes the purpose of Adi Da's lifetime succinctly, and describes how the practice given by Adi Da authenticates itself.

For more about Adi Da's Teaching, click here.

For more about Adi Da's Spiritual Transmission of Divine Enlightenment, click here.

For more about Adi Da's Work with human beings after His lifetime, click here.

For more about how Adi Da made the Offering of Adidam available for all beings for all time, click here.

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.

An audio excerpt from the CD, Your Real Condition Is Prior To Waking, Dreaming, and Sleeping.

In this excerpt (from August 26, 2004), Adi Da responds to a questioner who asks how she can practice devotion in her dream state.

Adi Da indicates the necessity of self-understanding, in order for devotees to grow in practice. He points to the depth of existence that is always the case regardless of the changing states of awareness (waking, dreaming, and sleeping). And He Calls for ego-transcending practice (sadhana) to be engaged at this depth—so that What Is Prior to all conditional states can be Realized.

Tags: CD   Avataric Discourse  

This is a video excerpt from Adi Da's classic talk, "The Bodily Location of Happiness", which He gave on November 28, 1981. This talk was originally published in the book, The Bodily Location Of Happiness. The full talk is available on CD and on a new DVD, The Location Of Happiness.

An excerpt from the talk, "The Grace of Suffering", given by Adi Da on January 18, 1976.

This excerpt is track 1 of the CD, The Impulse to God-Realization, a collection of talks focusing on Adi Da's clarifying Wisdom on the Impulse to Realize God that is inherent in all beings, and His Divine Offering and Instruction on the Ultimate Means to cultivate this heart-Impulse, thereby allowing it to become the guiding force of one's entire life.

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

This selection of Talks by Avatar Adi Da Samraj focuses on His clarifying Wisdom on the Impulse (inherent in all beings) to Realize God, and His Divine Offering and Instruction on the Ultimate Means to cultivate this heart-Impulse, thereby allowing it be the guiding force of one's entire life. As Avatar Adi Da points out, the real Spiritual Process cannot be truly initiated until and unless one’s Impulse to God-Realization becomes the governing principle of one's life.

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

Note: Due to distribution policies set by CDBaby (and beyond the control of this website and Adidam), this video may not be playable in every country. However, sometimes, even when you can't play it on this page, you may be able to play it on YouTube: click here.

"The Grace of Suffering" is a beautiful talk by Adi Da. But it IS very compressed, making quite a few points in a short space, and depending to a significant degree on a familiarity with Adi Da's spiritual teaching. Here are some notes that may help.

Throughout the talk, the technical term, "sadhana" (spiritual practice), is used.

Genuine spiritual practice is not about belief systems, mere rituals, or a little "peace of mind", but rather about actually locating the Divine, through the tangible Transmission of the Spiritual Master.

After a recent illness, a devotee mentions to Adi Da that he notices how the physical suffering of illness was distracting enough that he was not "able" to find Adi Da's Transmission when he is ill.

Adi Da acknowledges this, and responds with three more general points.

1. The illness didn't "make" the devotee lose the thread of practice; rather, he allowed himself to be distracted from God by the illness. When the devotee gets this, and sees how he himself is "doing" the turning away, he'll be able to "do better next time" by not turning away even when ill.

2. Until Divine Enlightenment — in other words, until there is no limit on one's spiritual practice — sadhana (spiritual practice) is always only reflecting back to devotees the remaining limits in their practice: where they are still turning away from the Divine, where they still need to become responsible for not turning away.

In the beginning, the "turning away" is very "crude": even mere physical suffering is enough to distract one from God. (If we find ourselves saying, "what do you mean, MERE physical suffering?" that definitely identifies us as spiritual beginners! :-) ) But as one grows in practice, and ceases to turn away in such a crude manner (as one becomes a "saint", "yogi", "sage", etc.), one discovers that one is still turning from the Divine at an even subtler level of the being (in the mind, the psyche, etc.)

It is only when that "turning away" has been inspected, understood, and transcended in every dimension of the being that Divine Realization occurs.

In this sense, for the genuine spiritual practitioner, physical suffering — along with every other circumstance that reveals to us our turning away from the Divine — is truly a Grace, enabling us to grow in our practice.

3. Where we are turning away is a reflection of what we are identifying with: the body, the mind, the soul, etc. (For example, if physical illness is enough to distract us from God, then the physical body is what we currently are identified with.) God-Realization only occurs when all "identities" less than God are understood and transcended.

In this sense, "there are no winners in God" — the Way is not about seeking, accomplishment, or winning, but rather about surrender to God, sacrifice of self, and ego-death. There's no "one" left to "win"! But the One Who Remains is perfectly, eternally happy.

Tags: CD  

This video clip includes:

• Commentary from Jonathan Condit (at 0:00) — Jonathan Condit was Adi Da's senior editorial assistant, and is Senior Editor for the Adidam Editorial Department. Jonathan talks about "The Function of the Spiritual Literature of Adi Da Samraj", and how Adi Da's Teaching works as Transmission of His Transcendental Spiritual State, and serves the Spiritual Realization of the reader.



• Excerpt from an Avataric Discourse by Adi Da (at 5:35) — The Discourse is "My Teaching is a Direct Transmission of Me", from October 28, 2005. Adi Da talks about how His Teaching Word is a form of Spiritual Transmission, that enables Divine Communion with Him (if the devotee is in the right devotional disposition), in the same way that a Murti photograph does, or any of the other forms of Agency that Adi Da has created for this purpose.



• Commentary from Megan Anderson (at 12:44) — Megan Anderson is an editor in the Adidam Editorial Department. Megan talks about Adi Da's great, final masterpiece, The Aletheon as the purest communication and Transmission of Adi Da Himself (among all His many, extraordinary books), and describes receiving the Revelation of Adi Da as she was proofreading The Aletheon before its publication.

Tags: Avataric Discourse  

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, never before published 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.

Tags: European Danda  

This audio clip is an excerpt from an Avataric Discourse by Adi Da on December 19, 2004. The Discourse is available as a CD: The Gift of Ripening.

By listening to this Discourse, you will receive Avatar Adi Da’s Guidance in understanding your level of ripeness. And such a realistic (rather than idealistic) assessment is an essential element in preparing for the process of Realizing True Happiness He Offers — the process of the “transcending of all conditionality in the Self-Radiant Conscious Light that is the 'Bright'”.

Quotes from this CD:

Adi Da: "Realization is not "caused". It is Given. It is made tacitly obvious. I can, through interaction with you and by being accessible to you, ripen you, so to speak, for this Spiritual Apprehension of Reality. And I am made available to you through this Bodily Sign which gives a focus for the faculties in the process of them being purified and relieved of their patterns."

Adi Da: "Divine Self-Realization is not just some happy-hunting-ground metaphor in the mind. It is not just a light. It is not the light at the end of the tunnel that people see in the death process. That is not it either. Do you have any idea how many tunnels there are, how many lights there are, how many 'worlds' there are to the left and right, how many ends of that tunnel there are? You have no idea. You do not know what it is about, generally speaking."

Adi Da: "Anything in the mind or of the mind is not true. So all of your pursuit of 'answers' or states of mind or content for your thinking is fruitless — but what are you going to do about it?. . . You do not even necessarily notice that your thinking is a matter of seeking. You think there are some kinds of thinking that may be said to be motivated by a search, but you do not think that thinking is seeking. And yet it is always seeking. Thinking is itself seeking. So if the Way is not seeking nor can the Truth be Realized by seeking, then thinking has nothing to do with it and you should just forget about thinking from now on — but you cannot do that, can you? You are already thinking, even though I just told you that. . ."

Tags: CD   Avataric Discourse  

In this short video clip from 1988, Adi Da talks to His devotees about what is required, in any moment, to open the doorway from "here" to the Divine Domain. He describes how devotion to Him and His "Brightness" is the means for locating the "loka" (place) of His Spiritual Transmission and for growth in spiritual practice (ultimately, to the point of Divine Translation).

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."

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  

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