Adi Da Up Close
Audio/Video Library

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  

On July 6th, 2015, a team of professional art handlers, Da Plastique staff, and volunteers delivered and installed twelve of Adi Da’s monumental-scale art fabrications at the Bargello National Museum in Florence, Italy, in preparation for the July 9 opening of the exhibition of Adi Da Samraj's art, "The Ascent of Orpheus", at the Bargello Museum.

Tags: Orpheus One   Linead One   Image-Art  

John Wubbenhorst interviews master dhrupad player Rishabh Dhar (via Skype). Rishabh lives in Calcutta, India. He is the son of the first lady dhrupad singer in India, Ashoka Dhar), and travels around the world giving concerts and workshops.

Rishabh first talks about having spent twenty years living in his music Guru's house, immersed in in-depth learning of his musical craft in the traditional Gurukula (family of the Guru) manner.

He then talks about the many times he has played music for Adi Da on Naitauba in Fiji. He recalls giving a sacred musical offering for Adi Da, and about an extraordinary occurrence that took place when Adi Da gave him prasad after the offering. He also talks about the amazing resemblance of Adi Da and Swami Vivekananda which holds a special significance for him.

On November 2, 2013, the eve of the seventy-fourth anniversary of Avatar Adi Da’s Birth (Da Jayanthi), a live concert was held at The Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary in Northern California to celebrate His Eternal Blessing of all. The recording of this concert is now available on a CD, Ode to Divine Joy.

This audio clip contains a sample medley from the CD, featuring the voices of devotees JoAnne Sunshine ("Made by Your Hand"), Mel McMurrin ("Mary Don’t You Weep"), and Crane Kirkbride ("Ode to Divine Joy"), the voices of the Adidam Choir, and the piano-playing of Naamleela Free Jones. You can also hear the Choir singing devotee and Billboard Award-winning composer Ray Lynch's song, "This Is the Great Gift".

The rendition of Beethoven's "Ode To Joy" (retitled "Ode To Divine Joy" with new, devotional lyrics) performed during the concert was a unique fusion of two performances: the live performance and a 1990 studio recording played as accompaniment. This unique amalgam of both studio and live performances of Ode to Divine Joy, as well as all of the other pieces of the live concert included on this CD, are offered in the spirit of celebration and gratitude.

Tags: CD  

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.

Composed by Jacqueline Clemons and Nick Milo, and sung by Jacqueline Clemons, this soulful rendition of Adi Da's prayer for world peace, "The Universal World-Prayer", was sung many times at The Parliament of the World's Religions in Cape Town, South Africa, in December, 1999.

The song accompanies a slideshow of pictures of Adi Da.



Tags: music   peace   CD  

This video appreciation of Adi Da's Image-Art begins with a testimonial from devotee Stanley Hastings, who grew up in the Adidam community and is the Co-Director of Da Plastique (the group that presents Avatar Adi Da's Art to the public), and who worked with Adi Da on His Divine Image-Art.

Then, at 9:34, we hear various art professionals express their appreciation of Adi Da's Image-Art.

This is followed (at 13:14) by a slideshow of photos drawn from some the Exhibitions of Adi Da's Image-Art, from 2001-2009.

The video concludes (at 18:58) with a slideshow of photos of Adi Da creating His Image-Art from 1998-2008. Background music is Naamleela Free Jones, "I Served to Priest the Pharaohs", from her album, Eyes In Other Worlds.

Tags: image-art   Stanley Hastings   Mahasamadhi   Tribute   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  

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  

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  

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).

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  

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.

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  

Devotees describe the beneficial impact of sacred music on their practice of the Way of Adidam, during the Celebration of Da Purnima on Adi Da Samrajashram, in July, 2014. The music was performed by John Wubbenhorst and Peter Van Gelder (sitar), on many different occasions.

John writes: "It was a very full Celebration of Da Purnima at Adi Da Samrajashram in Fiji. Peter Van Gelder (sitar) and myself (bansuri flute) came for music service and we were very busy every day. Each morning we would sit for several hours practicing the most refined compositions from Peter's music guru Ali Akbar Khan and we would chose what we felt would be the best gifts for our Guru, Adi Da, that day. Almost every day there would be offerings and also many chanting occasions. It is very tangible the difference between playing at Adi Da Samrajashram and playing music anywhere else. The island is so full of Beloved Adi Da that as soon as we would start to play, we would feel the music coming from a deeper place and that would in turn help everyone to drop into deeper communion with Beloved, which would then allow the music to be deeper — and on and on."

Tags: music