poster: CDBaby length: 12:21 date added: February 17, 2016 event date: January 18, 1976 language: English views: 6418; views this month: 33; views this week: 17
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.
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.
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"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.
Adi Da's Teaching as Transmission poster: AdiDaVideos speaker: Jonathan Condit length: 17:55 date added: January 25, 2016 event date: January 2016 language: English views: 6443; views this month: 29; views this week: 13
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.
What Is Doubt? poster: AdiDaVideos length: 13:25 date added: September 26, 2015 event date: July 20, 1986 language: English views: 4036; views this month: 19; views this week: 8
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.
Adi Da: "The sadhana of discipline arises in the context of the Way of God-Realization. It is a gesture made in that context, in response to the Divine. What is discipline anyway? It is the process of self-transcendence, of breaking through limit."
The Gift of Ripening poster: DawnHorsePress length: 03:25 date added: July 19, 2015 event date: December 19, 2004 language: English listens: 5289; listens this month: 18; listens this week: 7
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. . ."
The Ultimate Secret poster: TheBeezone length: 03:52 date added: June 27, 2015 event date: 1988 language: English views: 2932; views this month: 9; views this week: 2
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).
There Is No Self Within poster: AdiDaVideos length: 07:20 date added: May 29, 2015 event date: July 15, 1973 language: English views: 3370; views this month: 12; views this week: 3
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".
The Guru Is Sufficient poster: AdiDaVideos length: 12:41 date added: December 20, 2014 event date: July 15, 1973 language: English views: 4079; views this month: 21; views this week: 12
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."
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.
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).
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."
Adi Da recites "The Heart of Understanding", the Prologue to His autobiography, The Knee Of Listening. The recitation is accompanied by photos of Adi Da.
"The Heart of Understanding" is extraordinarily good news: death itself can be transcended! Death is not a problem, and is utterly acceptable, if one realizes and stands as Consciousness Itself, in which all mortal forms and limited worlds are arising.
In the final words of "The Heart of Understanding", Adi Da reveals that He is That: Consciousness Itself. Because this is so, He transmits that Revelation to all beings, and provides (and is) the means whereby all of us finally can be free of mortality and the mortal vision.
Where is Heaven? poster: Mormon Transhumanist Association speaker: Mike LaTorra length: 41:02 date added: July 4, 2014 event date: May 10, 2014 language: English views: 7234; views this month: 59; views this week: 21
Transhumanism is a movement whose goal is to fundamentally transform the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities and overcome present liabilities, including brief lifespan and limits on intelligence (e.g., through integration with artificial intelligence aids or networks).
What transhumanism and religion share is the question: what is the greatest potential (or destiny) for human beings, and how can it be realized (technologically, spiritually, etc.)?
"Heaven" is a popular subject these days - The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Heaven is for Real, and Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife are all huge, recent bestsellers. Because "heaven" is used in many familiar religions to signify the ultimate human destiny, Mike uses it as his jumping off point for this talk (which introduces the Buddhist view and the Adidam view). He distinguishes different kinds of "heavens", introducing Adi Da's "seven stages of life" framework, the Cosmic Mandala (as a "map" that helps answer the talk's title question), and other esoteric concepts helpful in understanding our ultimate potential. He draws on stories about visiting other realms, from devotees Anne Rogers and Connie Mantas and from Adi Da Himself.
[For a related exploration of these themes of human potential, technology, and spirituality, read our article, We Are Consciousness Itself.]
poster: MysticalPositivist speakers: Stuart Goodnick, Robert Schmidt, Leroy Stilwell length: 50:06 date added: June 21, 2014 event date: June 14, 2014 language: English listens: 6232; listens this month: 12; listens this week: 6
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 2 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.
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are all huge, recent bestsellers. Because "heaven" is used in many familiar religions to signify the ultimate human destiny, Mike uses it as his jumping off point for this talk (which introduces the Buddhist view and the Adidam view). He distinguishes different kinds of "heavens", introducing Adi Da's "
