Adi Da Up Close
Audio/Video Library

The Mystical Positivist is a weekly, two-hour radio show on KOWS 107.3 FM, Occidental, CA. The program is dedicated to the application of reason in the pursuit of spiritual practice and development. The show is hosted by Stuart Resnick and Dr. Robert Schmidt. Stuart has been a Tayu Meditation Teacher since 1993. He received apprentice and master-level training in the alchemical transformation of human consciousness from Tayu Meditation Center. Dr. Robert Schmidt is the director of the Tayu Meditation Center, and a co-founder of the Many Rivers Bookstore in Sebastopol, California. He is also currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Archaeological Research Facility at U.C. Berkeley.

This audio clip is part 1 of The Mystical Positivist's interview with devotee, Leroy Stilwell. Leroy has been a formal devotee of Adi Da since 1977. Since 1986, he regularly lived in Hermitage on Naitauba, Fiji, for extended periods during which he participated in cycles of consideration with Adi Da, and served as editor, photographer, videographer, communications manager, ashram manager, and personal assistant to the Ruchira Sannyasin Order. He is the author of Love’s Sacrifice: Witnessing the Self-Revelation of the Divine Person - 30 Years with my Spiritual Master, Adi Da (2014) and For Those Who Call For Light - Learning How to Think about Religion (2013). Leroy is also a co-founder and managing editor of the Adi Da Up Close site.

Note: The actual show does not begin until 08:17.

Tags: radio   interview   presentation  

[Contains Dutch subtitles. For the version without subtitles, click here.]

Adi Da: "Sex is fundamental ego-identity, lived. And generally speaking, it is a problem for everyone. . . The social pattern of 'self' and 'other' is founded upon emotional-sexual patterning to a very great degree. . . So it certainly is an important dimension of bondage, and therefore an important aspect of sadhana. The Perfect Practice is not based on any reference to the body-mind, or any method of the body-mind."

In this Avataric Discourse (from January 21, 2005), Adi Da explains why the Perfect Practice (the most advanced development of the Way of Adidam) has nothing to do with sex (or the ego-"I" altogether), and is not a "method" of the body-mind or something to be applied to the body-mind. The Self-Condition prior to the body-mind is the domain of the Perfect Practice. The Self-Condition is not a separate "self", but the Nirvanic Condition that is always already the case, and that inherently transcends the body-mind.

This excerpt is from the DVD, Beyond Sex, Science, and self. Subtitles in English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Russian, Polish, Czech, and Hebrew. A CD version is also available.

Tags: Avataric Discourse   Perfect Practice   DVD   CD   Dutch  

This audio clip is from the CD, What Is Your Intention?. This talk was originally published in Chapter 6 of the Love Ananda-Gita.

Avatar Adi Da describes the three options of human destiny: one can reinforce one's present existence in gross (physical) form; one can go beyond gross existence into subtler dimensions of existence; or one can transcend conditional existence altogether, in the Great Process of seventh stage Divine Self-Realization. He suggests that most people (and most devotees) are opting (generally unconsciously) for the first (and lowest) option.

For those who discover the heart-impulse to the Great Process, Avatar Adi Da offers Graceful Means — but, He clarifies, a most intensive ego-transcending process will be required of such devotees, a constant relinquishment of identification with the separate self.

The talk, What Is Your Intention?, is also available on the DVD, The Commitment to Real-God Realization. A video clip from that DVD is available here.

Tags: CD   DVD  

A "Fear-No-More Zoo" historical compilation that includes pictures of Fear-No-More Zoo (at The Mountain Of Attention), audio clips of Adi Da speaking about the "non-humans", and pictures and video footage of Adi Da Blessing and interacting with the non-humans.

Tags: Fear No More Zoo  

A video excerpt from part 1 ("A Question Too Boring to Answer") of the DVD, You Are The Question You Ask, which was drawn from Adi Da's Avataric Discourse of August 30, 2004.

In addition to some of His most potent Instruction about the nature of devotional turning to Him (previously only available on CD), in this DVD, Avatar Adi Da addresses a broad range of topics including:

• how questions themselves are a signal of the ego-activity that is at the root of the questioner's suffering and seeking


• practice in the later phase of life


• the great potential for unity in this “dark time” of pervasive conflict


• esoteric and exoteric Christianity

Tags: DVD   Avataric Discourse  

Devotee Ben Grisso talks about growing up in the community of Adi Da's devotees and the joy of being with Adi Da as a child. He describes how he later lived on Naitauba and served Adi Da's Image-Art work for many years. He tells a humorous story of the Crazy-Wise play Adi Da engaged in, to reflect to Ben his tendency to be "analytic".

Ben was in the room with Adi Da at the time of His Divine Mahasamadhi (on November 27, 2008), and he talks about that moment, and its significance.

Tags: Image-art   mahasamadhi  

"The Avon Lady" is a classic talk given by Avatar Adi Da in the early years of His Teaching-Work. In this humorous and penetrating discourse, Avatar Adi Da offers basic instruction regarding the nature of seeking and the Awakening Function of the True Guru.

In this audio excerpt entitled “There Is Already No Dilemma”, Avatar Adi Da describes the human egoic drama of separation, suffering, and seeking. All pleasures, distractions, and experiences reinforce that same drama of the apparently separate self. But the True Guru does not support the search, does not promise any fulfillment of that search. That is the uniqueness and the invaluable quality of the True Guru. Adi Da compares the True Guru to an unusual elevator – where one steps in, expecting to go up (toward Spiritual attainment or some other fulfillment), but instead the bottom drops out. This is why the search begins to fall apart once there is recognition of the True Guru. Then the real Spiritual process can begin.

Tags: CD  

Adi Da: "Sex is fundamental ego-identity, lived. And generally speaking, it is a problem for everyone. . . The social pattern of 'self' and 'other' is founded upon emotional-sexual patterning to a very great degree. . . So it certainly is an important dimension of bondage, and therefore an important aspect of sadhana. The Perfect Practice is not based on any reference to the body-mind, or any method of the body-mind."

In this Avataric Discourse (from January 21, 2005), Adi Da explains why the Perfect Practice (the most advanced development of the Way of Adidam) has nothing to do with sex (or the ego-"I" altogether), and is not a "method" of the body-mind or something to be applied to the body-mind. The Self-Condition prior to the body-mind is the domain of the Perfect Practice. The Self-Condition is not a separate "self", but the Nirvanic Condition that is always already the case, and that inherently transcends the body-mind.

This excerpt is from the DVD, Beyond Sex, Science, and self. Subtitles in English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Russian, Polish, Czech, and Hebrew. A CD version is also available.

Tags: Avataric Discourse   Perfect Practice   DVD   CD  

The DVD, I Am Always Already Free, commemorates the Divine Mahasamadhi of Avatar Adi Da, which occurred on His Hermitage Island, Adi Da Samrajashram, on November 27, 2008. This DVD is a very beautiful and deeply moving treasure.

This video excerpt is the first track, "Now, and Forever Hereafter". It is a slideshow created immediately after Adi Da's Passing, which includes photographs and video clips from the last month of His life.

Tags: DVD  

The CD, The Master Is The Means, is a compilation of talks in which Avatar Adi Da describes the spontaneous heart-response to the Spiritual Master as the great, effective, and anciently known Means of Spiritual Awakening.

By exposing the true nature of ego, and pointing out our false and limiting presumptions about Spiritual Masters, Avatar Adi Da enables a free consideration of what is truly needed to Realize the Truth of our Condition. He provides a traditional context for the purpose of His human Form here, while also communicating the utterly unique appearance and offering He Is.

This is track 9 of the CD.

This audio excerpt, "Divine Realization Is a Gift", is from October 12, 2004. Here Avatar Adi Da states clearly that the Divine must be Self-Revealed by Grace. No method, no technique, no form of seeking of any kind is the means to Realize the Divine. All such seeking is simply evidence of contraction upon the separate "self" — which is the continuous, unsurrendered gesture of ego.

The essence of Adidam is, instead, living in the present Company of the Divine, turning whole bodily to that Divine Reality Appearing as Avatar Adi Da — and through that turning, being moved by Grace to His Perfect State of Divine Reality and Truth.

Tags: CD   Avataric Discourse  

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  

In this excerpt from the CD, The Ultimate Outshining of Death, Adi Da communicates, with great passion and compassion, the only way to be truly Free of the sorrow from the loss of a loved one.

Adi Da: "Loss, or separation — apparent separation through death or any other life-happening — is not only possible, it is inevitable. And there is nothing amusing about it. It is so. It is not possible to be consoled about it. But it is possible to be Free, utterly Free — only by Realizing That Which Is Inherently Free."

Tags: death   CD   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.

"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