Freedom Is The Only Law poster: AdiDaVideos length: 04:13 date added: January 17, 2020 language: English views: 1218; views this month: 55; views this week: 17
The audio recording is an excerpt from a recitation of Adi Da's essay, "Freedom Is The Only Law and Happiness Is The Only Reality". This is the Epilogue from Adi Da's book, The Truly Human New World-Culture of Unbroken Real-God-Man, which was originally written in 2001, and updated on November 13, 2019. The essay is read by a student of Adi Da. In the secular world, words like "freedom" and " love" are given a very limited definition. In this essay, Adi Da expands the true meaning of both of these words.
ADI DA: I Am here to Divinely Liberate all beings.
I Am here to Grant True Freedom to every one.
“Freedom” is one of the principal words associated with the politics of this “late-time”. The general trend toward the democratization of the entire world carries with it an intensified interest in the concept of freedom and in the pursuit of freedom. However, in the context and circumstance of this “late-time”, the word “freedom” is used in such a way that the true import of the word is lost, and its meaning is transformed, and even vulgarized.
The same process of vulgarization has also occurred in the case of other words, such as (for example) the word “love”. The word “love” represents a profound concept and reality, but the word itself tends to be used very casually. People commonly say that they “love” this or that, meaning something quite different from what the word “love” rightly and truly signifies.
“Love” is a word that rightly refers to the universal Sacrifice of ego-“self”. Real love is a matter of transcending “self” (or going beyond your limitations in relation to others)—but, in the “late-time” circumstance of vulgarized culture, the word “love” has come to be used in relation to whatever satisfies your inclinations, or fulfills your desires, or (otherwise) somehow compensates for limitations in your life by pleasing you and (thereby) supporting your egoic disposition. None of that has anything to do with real love.
So it also is with the word “freedom”, and the notion of freedom. The world-culture of this “late-time” is essentially an ego-culture associated with complications in the first three stages of life. It is essentially an adolescent culture. And it is in the context of that culture that great words like “love” and “freedom” become vulgarized. In the adolescent disposition, the word “freedom”, like the word “love”, is reduced to an egoic meaning. People say they want to be “free”, or want to act “freely”, or want to be “free” to do this or that—but what they actually mean is that they want to be able to fulfill their desires without limitation. An adolescent reacting to parental authority or parental expectations regards any such authority or expectations to be oppressive or limiting. Therefore, such adolescents say that they want to be “free” to do whatever they please. And that is, in general, what is meant in this “late-time” by the word “freedom”. Even in the larger political sphere, the word “freedom” is used to express the (personal, and also collective) intent to be able to fulfill desires—and those desires are (necessarily) fundamentally ego-based.
What does the fulfillment of desires have to do with true freedom? Rightly, the word “freedom” is synonymous with the word “liberation”. To “be free”, or to “be liberated”, means to “go beyond bondage”. The opposite of “freedom” is “bondage”. If one is truly moved to be truly free, one is moved to relinquish (and go beyond) bondage. Such is the true Wisdom-understanding of freedom.
Neither true freedom, nor real love, nor any other great concept is rightly understood via the words and concepts of adolescents. There must be human maturity (and, therefore, growth in Wisdom) for the great meanings underlying these concepts to be understood and actually lived.
Be moved toward real love, without limit. Be moved toward real happiness, without limit.
Be moved toward true freedom, without limit. You should (and, ultimately, must) be so moved. But to actually realize love (or real happiness, or true freedom) without limit, you must deal with yourself most profoundly. You cannot merely be reactive, like an adolescent or a worldly person.
If you want to be truly free, you must first understand that you are bound, and you must understand how you are bound, and then you must do something about that. If, on the other hand, you are merely reactively inclined to fulfill desires, and you want to be (so-called) “free” to do so, then you are not examining your bondage—what its roots are, what its signs are, what its characteristics are—and, if you are not examining your bondage with real discriminative intelligence, you are also not doing what you must do in order to be truly free.
Is an ant an ego? poster: AdiDaVideos length: 18:44 date added: August 10, 2018 event date: October 20, 2004 language: English views: 2420; views this month: 61; views this week: 23
In this humorous and profoundly insightful Avataric Discourse (given by Adi Da on October 20, 2004 at Adi Da Samrajashram), Adi Da considers the difference between self-consciousness and egoity, referring to both humans and non-humans (including dogs, ants, and trees).
ADI DA: [Laughs] You generally attribute egoity to human beings, but you wonder about everything else. For instance, what about not something relatively inert like a rug or even just standing there and not seeming to be particularly responsive, like a tree. But what about a dog? Is a dog, do you think dogs are egos when you see them, just as readily as you think of human beings as egos? But, why do you draw the line? I mean how far does it go? Where do you stop thinking of living entities, at least, as egos? Do you just presume everything bigger than a cricket is an ego? Or is everything that moves in your, from your perspective experientially or in your natural presumptions, how far do, does the fact of egoity extend in your presumption.
Well, is an ant an ego in your presumption?
The word “ego” is actually a Greek word which means “I”. I consider it with you and talk about it in terms of self-contraction and so forth, but, so that’s the elaboration on its meaning, but the word simply means “I” which means the reference, self-reference, the reflexive, reflexive pronoun as it’s called of self-reference. So, does an ant feel self-referential?
You observe them protecting themselves and struggling with others. Couldn’t do so without some kind of self-consciousness, could it? So, you naturally presume that even something like an ant is, is a self, an ego, self-aware. Does something have to move from its spatial location? Does it have to be able to take a walk or, such as an ant or a human being, or can a tree? Does a tree have self-consciousness, exhibit self-consciousness. . .
What about trees? They are entities with apparent self-consciousness of a kind. They are in that sense, egos. But are they egoic? Are they functioning egoically? Are they feeling that they are in bondage and moved to seek as human beings are and as you feel in your own case, you see? Trees don’t seem to behave, generally speaking, in quite that way. They are self-conscious as organisms, but they don’t seem to be particularly disturbed about being trees. They seem more characterized by some kind of contemplation in which they don’t feel disturbed.
But if you observe non-humans, virtually all of them show signs of setting themselves apart and entering into a contemplative state that resembles some kind of a samadhi or meditative condition.
Why do you think human beings are disturbed? You see, why is human egoity what it is? If you observe how it appears in evidence in non-humans, suggests that human beings are the way they are because they’re confined, and not just confined by walls and bars. Some people are, and they get very disturbed there, and walk back and forth or get catatonic.
Your bondage is your own activity, and it also extends from conditions. Conditions can reinforce or seem to justify self-contraction. But still what you’re suffering is self-contraction itself.
So, human beings are actually confined, and they are self-confined, and otherwise, also, living in various modes and degrees of confinement by conditions of life and in fact, human beings feel confined by bodily existence, because however healthy you may be at the moment, you know you’re going to die, and are potentially, potentially, you could suffer any number of great happenings. And you anticipate that inevitably, you will, sooner or later, experience some fundamental difficulties that you would prefer not to have to endure, including disease and death.
Well, everything that’s physically living is going to die. The trouble, the difference is does it drive you crazy, make you seek, or are you at ease, because you haven’t lost touch with what transcends that possibility?
The Unity of Humankind poster: AdiDaVideos length: 09:46 date added: July 27, 2013 event date: August 22, 2004 language: English views: 5011; views this month: 30; views this week: 11
Excerpt from the Avataric Discourse of August 22, 2004.
Adi Da describes how humankind is a single family, a single species in "diaspora" — dispersed across the earth as the result of migrations from a single point of origin (in Africa) thousands of years ago. Making much of superficial differences due to race, nation, religion, language, tribe, political system, etc. obscures this more fundamental, deeper reality of the unity of humankind. For the sake of everyone's survival, humankind must begin to live on the basis of its unity, and establish a global cooperative order that includes and serves everyone.
What is Fear of Death? poster: AdiDaVideos length: 14:09 date added: November 22, 2016 event date: September 18, 2004 language: English views: 4579; views this month: 48; views this week: 11
Throughout the years of His Divine Avataric Teaching-Revelation, Avatar Adi Da spoke at length in response to devotees' questions on all subjects relative to the human circumstance — including death, and all the sorrow and fear inherent in the circumstance of human mortality.
This video excerpt is from an Avataric Discourse given by Adi Da on September 18, 2004. In this Discourse, Adi Da points out that all fear is fear of death or fear of extinction. This fear is like a constant background noise, from which we constantly try to distract ourselves with the games of life. Adi Da describes the choice we face: to live in fear, the "native mood of the ego" — or to realize the profundity of the inherently fearless Condition.
Avatar Adi Da calls us to a surrendered life that is about Realization and all that is relevant to Realization, including compassionate service. Such a surrendered life is the key to an "easy" death.
What is Fear of Death? poster: AdiDaVideos length: 14:09 date added: September 14, 2022 event date: September 18, 2004 language: English views: 447; views this month: 29; views this week: 10
In this excerpt from an Avataric Discourse given on September 18, 2004, at Adi Da Samrajashram, Adi Da points out that all fear is fear of death or extinction. This fear is like a constant background noise, from which we constantly try to distract ourselves with the games of life. Adi Da describes the choice we face: to live in fear, the "native mood of the ego" — or to realize the profundity of the “inherently fearless condition”.
You Do Not Think poster: AdiDaVideos length: 06:53 date added: October 1, 2016 event date: October 10, 2004 language: English views: 4201; views this month: 32; views this week: 14
This is an excerpt from the DVD, Locate What Is Real, an Avataric Discourse given by Adi Da on October 10, 2004.
In this excerpt, Adi Da explains how all the beings and things we tend to presume have an independent existence are in fact only apparitions arising in a single, universal Consciousness and are modifications of a single, underlying Divine Reality. Adi Da notes that the presumption that we are generating our actual thinking process is a part of this apparition. He says that even thoughts themselves are only an activity arising in Consciousness, and, if we truly examined this activity, we would notice that we are not generating the thinking process.
On the full DVD: * Adi Da describes how Reality is the true “first experience” for everyone — more fundamental to existence than identification with the apparently “born” being. * He speaks about how music and other arts can function as extensions of Spirituality. * He talks about Ramana Maharshi and the sixth stage orientation, in contrast to His seventh stage Reality-Way. * He addresses a devotee’s experience of emotional trauma, and how such events can affect one’s life. * He describes His own Submission, in His early life, to the process of Christian mystical experience.
[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.
poster: antoniavidor speaker: Toni Vidor length: 05:02 date added: February 2, 2012 language: English views: 5792; views this month: 46; views this week: 11
Toni Vidor talks about healing a non-human friend, the German shepherd, Megan in 1980, at Adi Da's request. She describes a fundamental lesson she learned: if oriented properly, the devotee healer serves as a conduit for Adi Da, and Adi Da does the healing, with an efficacy and speed not otherwise possible.
For much more about Toni's relationship with her Spiritual Master, Adi Da, read her book, Beyond The Illusion.
Guru as Prophet poster: belleislesound length: 58:23 date added: February 8, 2020 event date: December 23, 1973 language: English views: 1618; views this month: 74; views this week: 28
A talk by Avatar Adi Da titled "Guru as Prophet", given on December 23, 1973. The full talk is available on the double CD, Money, Food, and Sex / Guru as Prophet. A written version of this talk is available in the book, My "Bright" Word.
In this talk, Adi Da distinguishes between the Spiritual function and the "prophet" function of the True Guru. As prophet, the Guru offends, criticizes, and undermines the usual ego-based life by confounding the search and the need for consolation and fascination. This process works to bring about a crisis of understanding in anyone not yet involved in the real Spiritual process.
Adi Da explains that teachings about ordinary life or even about Spiritual life tend to console the seeker in some way, exploiting the search for self-fulfillment. But contact with the True Guru frustrates the seeker instead, and draws the individual into the feeling of dilemma that is at the root of his or her search. This serves the crisis that must precede the real Spiritual process whereby the True Guru's Spiritual Function may be discovered.
Later in the Discourse, Avatar Adi Da returns to the primary theme of the Guru-devotee relationship. When the ego-frustrating process is engaged as Satsang, or relationship to the Guru, then present Realization of the Divine can be Awakened by Grace, and the real Spiritual process can begin.
ADI DA: To the extent that I appear in public at all—for example, by writing books, or even simply by the existence of the gathering of My devotees in this world—My visible Role can only be that of Prophet. I do not serve people's random needs to be fulfilled, to be consoled, to be fascinated. Every individual who is moved to Realize Real God, Truth, and Reality in My Avataric Divine Company must approach Me as My formally practicing devotee—and, in every such case, the usual egoic process will (and must) be Offended, Criticized, and Undermined by Me.
As the Avataric Incarnation of the Very Divine Person, I must be Paradoxical, I must be Free—in order to Serve the Divine Liberation of My devotees. The qualities of My Avataric Divine Activity cannot be predetermined. I do not consistently assume the qualities of any particular archetype—the holy man, the Yogi, the Sage. I must be Free to Appear as I will. I am always Acting to Undo the egoic life of My devotees—even if only by Merely Being Who I Am.
Ragas and Leelas: January 7, 2012 poster: brightworld1 length: 02:02 date added: January 7, 2012 event date: January 7, 2012 language: English views: 4151; views this month: 27; views this week: 13
John Wubbenhorst (bansuri) and Samrat Kakkeri (tabla) will be playing North Indian ragas. John will also tell leelas of his recent five weeks in Fiji at Adi Da Samrajashram. The concert is a special fund raising event for Bright World Arts, a unique non-profit group promoting the arts.
time: Saturday, January 7, at 7:30 pm place: Hands Up Hall (the Adidam Lake County regional hall) 12055 Shenandoah Circle Middletown, CA suggested donation: $15 Call 301-346-0789 for more information.
Peter van Gelder (sitar), John Wubbenhorst (bansuri), and Samrat Kakkeri (tabla) will perform a Sacred Offering of classical Indian ragas on 2pm on June 3, 2012, in Land Bridge Pavilion at The Mountain Of Attention.
This is a fundraising event to support sending musicians to Naitauba for Da Purnima.
Suggested donation: $15. (No one is turned away.) For more information, call: 301-346-0789.
poster: CDBaby length: 08:56 date added: February 25, 2017 language: English views: 3382; views this month: 40; views this week: 15
Adi Da: "Science is not a human activity, because it is an activity in which what is specifically human is fundamentally suppressed, abstracted, separated out. We're supposed to be devoted to finding out about this external world. We're not supposed to be devoted to participation in a total world in which reality includes not only the objects of perception and conception, but the process of perception and conception, and the being or consciousness in which perception and conception are experienced or recognized."
This talk excerpt is track 2 of the CD, Science and the Myth of Materialism, a collection of talks from throughout the 30 years of Avatar Adi Da’s formal Teaching-Work that brings together samples from His vast Divine Instruction relative to the psycho-physical nature of the world, the limits of scientific materialism, and the Inherent Unity of Existence.
This CD contains a selection of Discourses from 1974 to 1997, which cover a broad spectrum of Avatar Adi Da’s Instruction. They provide a basic introduction to His Wisdom-Teaching and include Adi Da addressing principle matters of Spiritual life.
These Talks encompass the relationship to the Spiritual Master, the principle of Attraction, what occurs in the death process, the fundamental error at the root of all seeking, the limits of conventional religion and scientific materialism, and more.
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.
an audio. Special categories of interest include:
