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."
Prelude II poster: DawnHorsePress length: 02:24 date added: November 7, 2010 event date: 2000 language: English listens: 5241; listens this month: 17; listens this week: 9
Adi Da Samraj has often praised J.S. Bach as one of the truly authentic composers of sacred music in the Western tradition. In this album, Naamleela Free Jones and several other devotees of Adi Da Samraj (the John Mackay Trio) create jazz interpretations of several of Bach's classic piano preludes. This music invokes a sacred sphere of Happiness inspired by Adi Da's great Love and Blessings.
poster: CDBaby length: 10:24 date added: January 21, 2017 event date: March 28, 1994 language: English views: 5228; views this month: 37; views this week: 14
In this talk, Avatar Adi Da describes the Way of Adidam as the utter transcendence of fear — including fear of being without a body or world (in the Divine State of Infinite, Eternal Love-Bliss). He speaks about finding True God as Source rather than "Creator", and He describes the mechanism that is actually responsible for generating the conditional universe. Adi Da closes with spontaneous and ecstatic poetry, communicating the Sublime Peace that is Realized in His Sphere of Love-Bliss.
This excerpt is track 8 of the CD, Death and the Purpose of Existence, a collection of talks and recitations that exemplify Avatar Adi Da's essential Wisdom-Teaching on death and dying.
Note: Due to distribution policies set by CDBaby (and beyond the control of this website and Adidam), this video may not be playable in every country. However, sometimes, even when you can't play it on this page, you may be able to play it on YouTube: click here.
[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!"
poster: AdiDaUpClose speaker: Terry Cafferty length: 09:12 date added: April 5, 2011 event date: August 2009 language: English views: 5046; views this month: 23; views this week: 6
Terry Cafferty is an aerospace engineering consultant specializing in orbiting imaging systems, and has worked for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Hughes Aircraft, and Raytheon. Terry tells how, even in the midst of a conventionally "successful" life, he became aware of his own inability to truly love, feel, and be in relationship with others. The crisis engendered by this realization led him to consider spiritual practice, and ultimately led him to his Spiritual Master, Avatar 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: 5034; views this month: 25; 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."
poster: DawnHorsePress length: 03:22 date added: April 9, 2014 event date: December 27, 1988 language: English listens: 5031; listens this month: 22; listens this week: 10
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.
Hear My Heart Call poster: DawnHorsePress length: 03:56 date added: November 6, 2010 language: English listens: 4963; listens this month: 22; listens this week: 8
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.
poster: DaPeace speaker: Brian Deschamp length: 10:06 date added: October 30, 2013 event date: 2013 language: English views: 4888; views this month: 23; views this week: 9
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.
poster: DawnHorsePress length: 08:41 date added: May 12, 2013 event date: November 30, 1998 language: English listens: 4852; listens this month: 25; listens this week: 11
Track 9 of the free, downloadable CD, The Liberating Word of Avatar Adi Da Samraj, Volume 1. From a talk given by Adi Da on November 30, 1988. Adi Da wanted all human beings to receive the transcendent truth communicated in this talk, which eventually led to the creation of the free ebooklet, We Are Consciousness Itself.
ADI DA: You are not attention, which exists over against all 'objects'. Consciousness Itself is not that which is over against what arises. Consciousness Itself is That Which Is the Self-Nature, Self-Condition, Source-Condition, and Self-State of what arises. . . The self-aware pleasure of existing is the fundamental gift, the Divine gift, the persistent gift that you are tending to ignore. . . When conditions arise, or change, or pass away in the view of Consciousness, Consciousness Itself remains always as the same Free Love-Bliss of Being.
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."
poster: antoniavidor speaker: Toni Vidor length: 08:50 date added: February 2, 2012 event date: January 2012 language: English views: 4779; views this month: 23; views this week: 10
Toni Vidor talks about her experience of Adi Da's relationship and play with non-humans.
For much more about Toni's relationship with her Spiritual Master, Adi Da, read her book, Beyond The Illusion.
poster: Wisdom Tools for Humanity length: 09:49 date added: March 19, 2017 language: English views: 4752; views this month: 45; views this week: 20
An audio excerpt from Adi Da Samraj's early talk, "Renouncing the Search for the Edible Deity", accompanied by photos of Adi Da from a more recent Avataric Discourse.
We experience "independent" existence as a kind of madness, a seeming separation from food (both because of the cutting of the umbilical cord and as a feeling of separation from our ultimate source of sustenance, the Very Divine). We must instead be like the eating gorilla. . .
Adi Da: "The eating gorilla finds a cabbage in the jungle, sits down like a slob and munches away at the cabbage, and is completely benign, completely peaceful. . . . Therefore, the eating gorilla is the image of the true man, the true woman. He demonstrates the principle of true politics, of real human existence, in which we are always presently connected to the Food Source in Truth, and are always presuming connection, relationship, 'I love you.' "
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