Adi Da Up Close
Audio/Video Library

Brian Deschamp, Former Senior Adviser, United Nations High Commission for Refugees, talks with great fondness about hosting Beloved Adi Da's visit to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1996, and how Adi Da's Blessing (and being Adi Da's "instrument" for conducting that Blessing in the right time and place) helped serve his work with the United Nations. He also discusses the uniqueness of Adi Da's Teaching and Revelation in the history of the world's great spiritual traditions.

Tags: peace  

Rolf C. Carriere, former official with UNESCO and currently Senior Advisor to the Non-Violent Peace Force, describes his experience reading Adi Da's books communicating social wisdom, including The Transcendence of Ego and Egoic Society and Not-Two Is Peace. He also describes his conversation with Beloved Adi Da in Cape Cod, Massachusetts (in May, 1996), and his experience of serving as Adi Da's spiritual instrument in the right times and places so as to affect human history in a positive manner.

Tags: peace  

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  

Adi Da talking to devotees in New Zealand in 1988.

He responds to a devotee who is wanting to go beyond his "limitation on love". Adi Da makes the point that this is not possible merely via idealism and will. One's current limit on love is due to an as yet uninspected resistance to love. Only through self-understanding (and disciplines that serve self-understanding) can one transcend this limit.

An audio excerpt from the CD, God Is Not In Charge.

Have you ever wondered:

• Is God a Being, or the Being, taking care of everyone?
  
• If there is a God, then why isn't God obviously just in charge?
  
• Why do individuals who don't believe in God very often seem to have a relatively enjoyable life, and believers just as frequently suffer?
  
• If God is a Parent-Force, then why doesn't the commitment to God bring into your life evidence that you are being protected and sustained?
  

These are some of the questions that Avatar Adi Da considers with devotees participating with Him in the gatherings from the 1980's presented on this CD. What unfolds is a lively consideration that you too can participate in, wherever or whenever you are, by listening to this CD.

Special terminology used in this excerpt: gnosis

Tags: CD  

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.

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."

Dr. Sally Taylor serves the Adidam culture by helping devotees with their practice of the Way of Adidam.

In this video, she talks about her voluntary participation in Adi Da's considerations about the emotional-sexual dimension of life. She describes the instructions she received, and the profound benefit she has derived by being "grown up" beyond childish patterns of self-suppression, shutting down of the life force, promiscuity, and limitations on love.

For more about Adi Da's wisdom on the emotional-sexual dimension of life, visit our Crazy Wisdom section.

Tags: emotional   sex  

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 teaches children all about the Mystery (aka Divine Ignorance) beyond knowledge and death, expanding their awareness beyond the materialistic. He invites us all to enter into a relationship with Him through the Mystery.

Recitation is from Adi Da's book, What, Where, When, How, Why, and Who To Remember To Be Happy. Recitation is by a 7-year old child, accompanied by Ray Lynch on piano, from Ray's album, Truth Is The Only Profound.

Tags: children   mystery  

In this seminal discourse (at The Mountain Of Attention), from the early years of His Teaching Work, Adi Da speaks about the inevitable process of self-revelation and self-understanding that prepares the being for true Spiritual life.

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

Tags: CD   DVD  

Adi Da Samraj talks about the pain of loss, and about liberation. This is in response to a devotee's question about the Devotional Prayer Of Changes and the death of the devotee's grandchild.

This video excerpt is from the DVD, Easy Death. Subtitles in English, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Polish, Czech, and Hebrew.

Tags: death   Devotional Prayer of Changes   DVD   Avataric Discourse