In this discourse, Adi Da proposes that all human lifetimes are a “quest for the historical self”. He describes how this search is based on the activity of “self”-contraction — the erroneous presumption of an actual, defined, knowable “self”.
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.
[Contains Italian 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.]
"Adidam non è un modo religioso" ("Adidam is Not a Religious Way") is a video excerpt from an Avataric Discourse, given by Adi Da on January 21, 2005, at Adi Da Samrajashram.
ADI DA: "Religion" belongs to a domain of efforts that are "point-of-view"-based, cosmological in nature, associated with myths of apparent Reality as perceived. None of that has anything to do with the Realization of Reality Itself.
[Contains Italian 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.]
Gerald Sheinfeld, un devoto di Avatar Adi Da sin dai primi anni 70, ci racconta la magnifica storia dell'incontro col suo Maestro, Adi Da Samraj, e del suo immediato riconoscere in Adi Da la singolarità del Suo stato di Felicità e Liberazione. Gerald parla anche del modo in cui il riconoscere Adi Da risvegli implicitamente il nostro stesso stato di Unità-a-priori.
Gerald Sheinfeld, a devotee of Avatar Adi Da since the early 1970's, tells a wonderful story about how he found his Guru, Adi Da Samraj and his immediate recognition of Adi Da's unique state of Freedom, Happiness, and Liberation. Gerald speaks about how that recognition of Adi Da has the capacity to awaken others to that state of Prior Unity.
[Contains Italian 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.]
"Avete Imparato a Sentire Perfettamente?" ("Have You Learned to Feel Perfectly?") is a video excerpt from the longer talk, "The Fire Must Have Its Way". The full talk is available on the DVD, The Fire Must Have Its Way, on which this is track 1. It is also available as a CD. The talk also appears in written form in the book, My "Bright" Sight and online here.
The bottom line: If you want to feel good, you have to learn how to feel good!
ADI DA: Somehow in the midst of this round of existence you realize that you can feel a lot better than you now feel, that you can feel absolutely blissful, that you can love absolutely, that you can be absolutely free. But feeling blissful stands in contrast to your common state. You are addicted to reactive emotion, low levels of energy, gross fixations of attention, psycho-physical obstruction. You are addicted to countless programs that are less than love. In every moment your attention is moving toward one or another object, and your feeling in every moment is an expression of the program of mind into which you are locked in that moment.
Now, what have you learned in your whole life? Have you learned to feel perfectly? To feel absolutely? Did you ever go through a period of study in which you learned to feel to Infinity, to feel Absolute Divinity? No, you learned all the reactive patterns of life, all the desires for ordinary things. You knew them even before you became familiar with them again in this body. You cannot feel any better than you can feel, and you are addicted to feeling less than love, to being less than ecstasy.
[Contains Italian 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.]
In this clip, "Avvicinatevi a Me con il Cuore" ("Approach Me From Your Heart"), Adi Da speaks to devotees in the Manner Of Flowers (at the Mountain Of Attention), during the "Love of the God-Man" Celebration on March 8, 1984. Adi Da talks about praise speech, ecstasy, and Satsang.
Some of the questions Adi Da addresses in the full talk are: What is a Divine experience? Who is God that God could be identified over against anything whatsoever? Who is a Spiritual Master if He can find Himself apart from God, such that He could say: “This piece is Me and this piece is God”? How could such distinctions continue in the consciousness of one who has Realized the Divine?
[Contains Italian 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.]
Devotee Ben Grisso, who grew up in the Adidam community, and who worked with Adi Da on His Divine Image-Art, offers this testimonial to Adi Da's life and work.
Excerpt from Second Evening: Track 11 on the DVD, A Tribute to the Life and Work of His Divine Presence, Adi Da Samraj. More than 7 hours long, this Tribute DVD was filmed on the occasion of the first Anniversary of Adi Da's Divine Mahasamadhi, when devotees, family, and friends of Adi Da Samraj gathered at Adi Da Samrajashram, Fiji (Adi Da's principal Hermitage), to acknowledge Adi Da as the Divine in human form, to praise His Greatness, and to express their heart-felt gratitude for the Blessings they have received from Him.
A list of all the tracks on this DVD can be found here.
[Contains Italian 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.]
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 DVD and on CD, and as an online transcript.
ADI DA: Life is foolishness. This is no time, in any case, to be tolerant of foolishness. The world is mad, and these are dreadful times. Things are not going to be easier in the years ahead. The spiritual process has always been lived in difficult times. Therefore, the spiritual process tolerates no fool. The spiritual process itself will spit you out. It is not an easy attainment, but a profoundly difficult affair. Even what you have listened to today has been heard by only a fraction of the human race in all of history. The opportunity to practice is extremely rare, and the fulfillment of practice is practically unknown.
In some sense you could say this life is hell. . . The nature of this hell is that we are self-possessed. We are born in un-Happiness and we do not transcend it readily. We constantly pursue Happiness through all kinds of incredibly complex means, and we never attain It. . .
If Spiritual Realizers did not turn about and Teach, this would truly be a hell instead of being like a hell. It would truly be a hell if there were no possibility of Enlightenment, if there were no Teaching, no Spiritual Masters, no sacred Way, no sacred community, no capacity for understanding or self-transcendence.
[Contains Italian 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.]
"Il sé Separato è un'illusione" ("The separate self 'I' 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.
[Contains Italian 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.]
Adi Da talks about the presumption of the egoic "separate self" sense that is the root of human suffering. He contrasts this with our actual Position in Truth: the Position of Conscious Light.
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.
[Contains Italian 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.]
Come spiega Adi Da, la pratica spirituale diventa possibile quando la dipendenza e le limitazioni relative alla vita ordinaria sono del tutto chiare e comprese.
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.
[Contains Italian 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.]
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.
[Contains Italian 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.]
Questo testo è un estratto da un più completo discorso intitolato " Il Fuoco deve fare il suo Percorso". Il completo discorso di Adi Da Samraj è disponibile in inglese sul DVD "The Fire Must Have Its Way".
"Non C'è Luce Se Prima Non C'è Fuoco" ("There Is No Light Without Fire") is a video excerpt from the longer talk, "The Fire Must Have Its Way". The full talk is available on the DVD, The Fire Must Have Its Way, on which this is track 5. It is also available as a CD. The talk also appears in written form in the book, My "Bright" Sight and online here.
[Contains Italian 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.]
"Non Si Può Vedere La Stanza Come E'" ("You Do Not See The Room As It Is") is a video excerpt from an Avataric Discourse given by Adi Da at Adi Da Samrajashram, on January 21, 2005. The Avataric Discourse is available on the DVD, Beyond Sex, Science, and self.
In this Discourse, Adi Da explains why Liberation cannot ever be achieved through science or conventional religion.
[Contains Italian 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.]
In this video clip from the 1988 talk, "What Is Your Intention?", Adi Da criticizes the "do-it-yourself" approach to spirituality that is popular in the world today, and speaks about why a teacher is necessary.
Adi Da reminds us that, historically, all the world's spiritual traditions have taught that Spiritual Realization requires the help of a Spiritual Realizer. This is actually built into the laws of how Spiritual Realization works, and can't be changed just because times and cultures change, just because we don't happen to like the way the laws work or what they require of us, etc. For this reason, Adi Da makes the point that, nowadays, our resistence to authority, and addiction to "do it yourself" approaches, represent unfortunate hindrances to our own Spiritual growth: if we simply go with the flow and let these culturally instilled programs dominate our life choices, they will keep us from Realizing our greatest destiny.
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