poster: DawnHorsePress length: 08:00 date added: February 27, 2014 event date: August 20, 2004 language: English views: 5821; views this month: 31; views this week: 10
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
February 22, March 2, and March 5, 2014 — An evening of sacred devotional music and chanting, in honor of Adi Da Samraj. Beautiful video Darshan of Adi Da and stories of His Divine play, told by longtime devotees.
John Wubbenhorst, who has played for Bhagavan Adi Da many times, will be offering bansuri. Dhrupad vocals will be offered by Nirmalya Dey and Ashoka Dhar. Rishabh Dhar will be playing pakhawaj. Felix Woldenberg will lead us in chanting.
Adi Da: "The worship that occurs in Sacred Arts is surrender to the Divine Form and through that surrender, reception of the Divine Shakti or the Divine Energy of that Divine Form. If you surrender to the Divine Form in the Bodily Human Divine Form of the Guru, then the Divine Shakti will move you. To practice Sacred Art, you must surrender to the Guru and receive the Guru’s Transmission. The Guru's Divine Transmission does the sacred art."
There Is Only Light poster: 2012spirit length: 05:06 date added: October 29, 2010 language: English views: 5767; views this month: 41; views this week: 15
Light Imagery created by Ute Posegga-Rudd against the backdrop of music and chanting from the Adidam Music Guild, based on the Word of Adi Da Samraj.
"There is Only Light" is by John Mackay, from his album, Danavira. It draws on the Qawwali tradition of Sufi devotional music (exemplified by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan). Read Adi Da's appreciation of the Qawwali musical tradition here.
This album of Adidam devotional music from The First Amendment Choir was originally released on audiocassette tape in 1981. (The name, "First Amendment Choir", was chosen for the choir by Adi Da, which performed for Him on several occasions.)
The album begins and ends with "The Divine Invocation":
Radiant Da, All-Pervading Current of Life, Consciousness where I appear and disappear, Hear My Breathing Heart.
Awaken me To feel the Heart of Light and Love, Where this life and mind and body may dissolve. I hold up my hands.
"The Divine Invocation" was an early version of what we now call The First Great Invocation. Now we would begin with the First Great Invocation and end with the Second Great Invocation — but Adi Da had not yet created the Second Great Invocation at the time this album was created.
Many of the songs on this album were composed by Billboard Award-winning composer Ray Lynch or by JoAnne Sunshine. Ray Lynch is also the guitar player. Eric Leber is the choir director. Besides Ray Lynch and JoAnne Sunshine, vocalists include Brad Crawford, Robin Richardson, Kathleen Ewart, Sylvia Hayden, Carol Mabin, Janet Kopieki, Rita Gordon, Happy Hayden, Ginny Leber, Maggie Roberts, Lynzee Elze, Ron Guba, Steve Benson, Chris Cardullo, Phyllis Hyde, Karen Booth, and Antonina Randazzo (among others). The album was recorded at Prune Production Studio, in Mill Valley, California, and was released by the Laughing Man Institute.
The volume is low, so you may need to turn it up. The sound quality of this digital version is not up to contemporary standards, but many listeners — old and new — may find it just as heart-moving now as so many found it when it was originally released.
What is Cultism? poster: AdiDaVideos length: 19:00 date added: January 2, 2014 event date: December 16, 1978 language: English views: 5443; views this month: 34; views this week: 14
Adi Da criticized religious cultism, long before the subject gained any popular attention. (For an audio clip of His earliest criticisms — in June, 1972 — click here.) This discourse, given in 1978 at The Mountain Of Attention, is one of His summary addresses on the subject. Adi Da observes that the primary characteristic of a cult member is shared enthusiasm (like enjoying the energy of the crowd at a football game). For example, in "the cult of the Spiritual Master", everybody is enjoying the enthusiasm (their own and each other's) associated with having "found" the great Master; but no one is actually engaged in significant deepening of the devotional and spiritual relationship with the Master, and practicing on that basis — hence no Spiritual growth or Realization occurs.
Adi Da: "My purpose in My Teaching is to make it possible for you to duplicate what I have done — not to be eternally separated from Me, but to be in Communion with Me — to be intimate with Me in Spiritual terms, so that you, yourself, may live this practice, and fulfill it in your own case."
Everybody All At Once poster: globalpeacecentral length: 04:24 date added: February 13, 2009 language: English views: 5352; views this month: 38; views this week: 24
The Twelve Laws for World Peace by the World Friend, Adi Da Samraj, from Adi Da's book, Not-Two Is Peace.
poster: DawnHorsePress length: 03:31 date added: December 11, 2014 event date: May 17, 1977 language: English listens: 5344; listens this month: 47; listens this week: 25
An audio excerpt from Adi Da's talk, "I Will Do Everything". This talk, and the talk, "Guru, Faith, and Divine Communion", are now available on a CD from the Dawn Horse Press.
In this excerpt, Adi Da describes the structure of egoic patterning, and how the principle of change is non-use of past patterns (rather than psychoanalysis, etc.) by doing what is inherently right instead.
In these two talks (“I Will Do Everything” and “Guru, Faith, and Satsang”), Adi Da beautifully illuminates the nature of the relationship to the Spiritual Master. This sacred relationship to the Guru is the direct means by which the Divine Principle becomes operative in one's life.
As feeling-attention is magnified toward the Spiritual Master —through the force of attraction, of love, of devotion — the reactive forces and habits that drive one's egoic life begin to lose their force, and the Divine becomes the Mover and Principle of one's life.
Kalimba Chant poster: FacingEast108 length: 09:58 date added: May 20, 2010 event date: July 2008 language: English views: 5200; views this month: 51; views this week: 31
This is an improvisation that took place in July 2008 on the island of Naitauba, Fiji. On this occasion, we were playing while Adi Da Samraj was working on His Divine Image-Art. It was truly a blissful and ecstatic time.
[Contains German 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" (German: "Der körperliche Sitz des Glücklichseins"), 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.
The talk communicates several core insights:
1. Everybody is intuitively familiar with happiness. You don't have to be a devotee of Adi Da! This was part of the reason Adi Da chose "happiness" as the focus of this Teaching period: because the subject was so accessible. Everyone knows what it's like to be happy (at least a little). It's just that most people are not aware that Perfect, Eternal Happiness is possible and Realizable. (And it certainly isn't, through ordinary human means.) Adi Da: "All beings are always already Happy. You always know, at this very moment you know exactly, what it would be to look and feel and be and act completely Happy." The esoteric reason everyone is familiar with happiness is because everyone is always, already happy. And the esoteric reason everyone yearns for complete happiness is because complete happiness is realizable — and everyone's heart knows that.
2. Adi Da's "Lesson of Life":"You can't become happy; you can only be (already) happy." People are always seeking for happiness. The "pursuit of happiness" (not happiness itself!) is even enshrined as an "unalienable right" (alongside life and liberty) in the preamble of the United States Declaration of Independence. Its author, Thomas Jefferson, knew better than to think a government could guarantee happiness itself — hence only the guarantee of "the pursuit of happiness". Only a Divine Incarnation can guarantee Happiness Itself.
Adi Da reveals that happiness is the native state of beings. It is already the case. Every attempt to seek for it (mis-identifying the source of happiness as some object or other) in fact serves to dissociate one from it. Adi Da: "You think that you can seek Happiness and find it. Your search for Happiness is itself a confession of un-Happiness. You cannot realize Happiness by persisting in un-Happiness, persisting in the method of un-Happiness. All seeking is an expression of un-Happiness, all seeking is the method of un-Happiness, the practice of un-Happiness. This must be understood. It is not merely true — it must be understood."
Self-understanding allows one to get this point. Based on self-understanding, one can devote oneself to Happiness rather than to seeking for It and settling for the little bit of Infinite Happiness that "bleeds through" the clench of ego into conditions. This ultimately enables the Eternal Realization of Infinite, Perfect Happiness. Adi Da: "Understand your un-Happiness. Then you will be capable of locating Happiness, and, having located Happiness, you will be capable of practicing the Way of Adidam, which is nothing but the devotion of life to Happiness."
3. The Transmission of the Divine Guru is How One Locates Happiness. The subtitle of the book, The Bodily Location Of Happiness, is: "On the Incarnation of the Divine Person and the Transmission of Love-Bliss". In other words, you can't apply "The Lesson of Life" by somehow "locating" happiness directly, by yourself (or in yourself). Happiness is our native state, but that doesn't mean it can be located by an egoic, "do it yourself" process. We locate happiness directly as a Grace-given Gift, through devotion to the Transcendental Spiritual Transmission of Adi Da. Adi Da: "Happiness is presently the case. In this moment you are already Happy. Sitting with Me, locate this Happiness." We locate our "Native State" by recognizing and submitting to our "Native Person" — our Very Self appearing here in bodily (human) form.
4. It is a Process of Whole Bodily Location. "The bodily location of Happiness" is not primarily a reference to some place where Happiness resides in the body (although Adi Da teases His listeners with this idea: "Look for it in your toes, in your fingers, in your shirt, in your head"). It refers to a process ("the bodily location of Happiness" = "the locating of Happiness with the whole body-mind") that involves the surrender and transformation of every aspect of the body-mind, immersed in the Perfectly Happy State of the Divine Guru, through recognition of Him as the Divine in every moment. Then the secondary and supportive practices of the Way of Adidam become means for staying immersed in that Divine State in every moment: "Having located Happiness [having recognized Adi Da as the Divine], you will be capable of practicing the Way of Adidam, which is nothing but the devotion of life to Happiness [Adi Da, recognized as the Divine]. The practices of this Way are not methods for attaining Happiness, but they are the expressions of Happiness. The disciplines of money, food, and sex are not a way to become Happy. Discipline is difficult enough — why should we also burden it with the obligation to make us Happy!"
[Contains French 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.]
Un discours classique donné par Avatar Adi Da en 1981 sur la nature du Vrai Bonheur et la façon dont il peut être Réalisé d'un moment à l'autre, mais pas en le recherchant.
This is a video excerpt from Adi Da's classic talk, "The Bodily Location of Happiness" (French: "L'Emplacement Corporel du Bonheur"), 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.
The talk communicates several core insights:
1. Everybody is intuitively familiar with happiness. You don't have to be a devotee of Adi Da! This was part of the reason Adi Da chose "happiness" as the focus of this Teaching period: because the subject was so accessible. Everyone knows what it's like to be happy (at least a little). It's just that most people are not aware that Perfect, Eternal Happiness is possible and Realizable. (And it certainly isn't, through ordinary human means.) Adi Da: "All beings are always already Happy. You always know, at this very moment you know exactly, what it would be to look and feel and be and act completely Happy." The esoteric reason everyone is familiar with happiness is because everyone is always, already happy. And the esoteric reason everyone yearns for complete happiness is because complete happiness is realizable — and everyone's heart knows that.
2. Adi Da's "Lesson of Life":"You can't become happy; you can only be (already) happy." People are always seeking for happiness. The "pursuit of happiness" (not happiness itself!) is even enshrined as an "unalienable right" (alongside life and liberty) in the preamble of the United States Declaration of Independence. Its author, Thomas Jefferson, knew better than to think a government could guarantee happiness itself — hence only the guarantee of "the pursuit of happiness". Only a Divine Incarnation can guarantee Happiness Itself.
Adi Da reveals that happiness is the native state of beings. It is already the case. Every attempt to seek for it (mis-identifying the source of happiness as some object or other) in fact serves to dissociate one from it. Adi Da: "You think that you can seek Happiness and find it. Your search for Happiness is itself a confession of un-Happiness. You cannot realize Happiness by persisting in un-Happiness, persisting in the method of un-Happiness. All seeking is an expression of un-Happiness, all seeking is the method of un-Happiness, the practice of un-Happiness. This must be understood. It is not merely true — it must be understood."
Self-understanding allows one to get this point. Based on self-understanding, one can devote oneself to Happiness rather than to seeking for It and settling for the little bit of Infinite Happiness that "bleeds through" the clench of ego into conditions. This ultimately enables the Eternal Realization of Infinite, Perfect Happiness. Adi Da: "Understand your un-Happiness. Then you will be capable of locating Happiness, and, having located Happiness, you will be capable of practicing the Way of Adidam, which is nothing but the devotion of life to Happiness."
3. The Transmission of the Divine Guru is How One Locates Happiness. The subtitle of the book, The Bodily Location Of Happiness, is: "On the Incarnation of the Divine Person and the Transmission of Love-Bliss". In other words, you can't apply "The Lesson of Life" by somehow "locating" happiness directly, by yourself (or in yourself). Happiness is our native state, but that doesn't mean it can be located by an egoic, "do it yourself" process. We locate happiness directly as a Grace-given Gift, through devotion to the Transcendental Spiritual Transmission of Adi Da. Adi Da: "Happiness is presently the case. In this moment you are already Happy. Sitting with Me, locate this Happiness." We locate our "Native State" by recognizing and submitting to our "Native Person" — our Very Self appearing here in bodily (human) form.
4. It is a Process of Whole Bodily Location. "The bodily location of Happiness" is not primarily a reference to some place where Happiness resides in the body (although Adi Da teases His listeners with this idea: "Look for it in your toes, in your fingers, in your shirt, in your head"). It refers to a process ("the bodily location of Happiness" = "the locating of Happiness with the whole body-mind") that involves the surrender and transformation of every aspect of the body-mind, immersed in the Perfectly Happy State of the Divine Guru, through recognition of Him as the Divine in every moment. Then the secondary and supportive practices of the Way of Adidam become means for staying immersed in that Divine State in every moment: "Having located Happiness [having recognized Adi Da as the Divine], you will be capable of practicing the Way of Adidam, which is nothing but the devotion of life to Happiness [Adi Da, recognized as the Divine]. The practices of this Way are not methods for attaining Happiness, but they are the expressions of Happiness. The disciplines of money, food, and sex are not a way to become Happy. Discipline is difficult enough — why should we also burden it with the obligation to make us Happy!"
Above The Clouds poster: DawnHorsePress length: 03:14 date added: October 21, 2013 event date: November 2010 language: English listens: 5080; listens this month: 47; listens this week: 25
"In November 2010, a group of musicians traveled to the sacred hermitage island of Adi Da Samrajashram (Naitauba, Fiji) for spiritual retreat. We played daily at many of the holy sites on the island. We particularly fell into a blissful mood when playing on the veranda of our Guru's house."
"There, in the open air, with fresh breezes blowing, gentle waves washing, and birds chirping, we fell into deep devotion as we played. The music on this recording was spontaneously created on these occasions." —John Wubbenhorst
In celebration of the month of Da Naitauba (October), this album is currently on sale from the Dawn Horse Press at 40% off through October 31.
The Essence of Devotion poster: RayLynch length: 02:29 date added: November 7, 2010 language: English listens: 5058; listens this month: 22; listens this week: 11
Produced in 1982, Truth is the Only Profound has circulated for years in bootleg editions and worn out cassettes and features the radio popular "What to Remember to Be Happy" recited by a 7 year old child. An unusual collection of Lynch's trademark melodic music with potent readings from Ray Lynch's spiritual teacher, Adi Da Samraj.
Darshan: 12/24/95 poster: andredecio length: 00:53 date added: February 19, 2011 event date: December 24, 1995 language: English views: 5044; views this month: 32; views this week: 13
Darshan given by Adi Da Samraj on December 24, 1995, in Land Bridge Pavilion at The Mountain Of Attention.
Devotee Andre Decio was present: "It took nine years of devotional practice before I saw my beloved Spiritual and Heart Master Avatara Adi Da Samraj. I went in November 1995, and then again in December. It was a culmination and affirmation of my entire and truest motivation in life. . . That has never changed, but only more and more intensified. I really want people to know that true heart surrender to Adi Da is the greatest and happiest possible committment in life. All else pales in comparison."
Ruchira Avatara Gita poster: DawnHorsePress length: 02:04 date added: November 7, 2010 event date: March 2001 language: English listens: 5034; listens this month: 32; listens this week: 18
A remarkable recording of Naamleela Free Jones chanting Avatar Adi Da’s Ruchira Avatara Gita in a manner that serves contemplation and devotion. The entire text is chanted in the traditional mantric “swadhyaya” manner. This most beautiful devotional Gita is sometimes broadcast in Adidam temples and centers around the world. Recorded in Temple Adi Da at The Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary in California on March 28 & 30, 2001.
Hear My Heart Call poster: DawnHorsePress length: 03:56 date added: November 6, 2010 language: English listens: 4976; listens this month: 32; listens this week: 13
The Dawn Horse Press has released a new CD from Naamleela Free Jones, Hear My Heart Call, an album of improvisatory “piano chants”, featuring beautiful piano interpretations of devotional songs.
This is Naamleela's first solo album of original piano music. It is a richly expressive album of piano improvisation based on the melodies of devotional chants. Many of the melodies are familiar to friends and devotees of Adi Da Samraj, and all were offered in His Company on numerous occasions over the last thirty or more years. In this unique album, Naamleela spontaneously brings to life the devotion in these chants, subtly reinterpreting them as beautiful piano pieces filled with love and profound heart feeling.
The song heard here is "Paramahansa". Click here to hear Jaya's version of this song.
Our multimedia library currently contains 1206
YouTube video clips and audio clips about (or related to) Adi Da and Adidam.[1]
Enjoy! indicates
a video, and
an audio. Special categories of interest include:
Thanks to the many videographers who took the footage, to the many editors who
created these videos and audios, and to the 132
people and organizations who posted these videos and audios on YouTube and other places on the
Web. Special thanks to Lynne
Thompson, who did a lot of the data entry for our audio/video database.
