poster: CDBaby length: 12:21 date added: February 17, 2016 event date: January 18, 1976 language: English views: 6478; views this month: 79; views this week: 30
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.
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.
"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.
poster: CDBaby length: 05:28 date added: January 1, 2019 event date: July 1988 language: English views: 2375; views this month: 55; views this week: 25
In July 1988, during several talks at the Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary in northern California, Avatar Adi Da Samraj described the first six stages of life (based upon His own seven-stage schema), and the unique and Graceful process of real Transmission/index.html>Spiritual Transmission. This audio excerpt is from one such occasion.
This excerpt is track 4 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.
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.
poster: CDBaby length: 08:24 date added: June 19, 2023 language: English views: 304; views this month: 57; views this week: 18
This talk excerpt is track 5 of the CD, Reality Is Beyond "Point Of View", a selection of talks by Adi Da (from the 30 years of His formal Teaching-Work) on the true nature of Reality. Brings together samples from His vast Divine Instruction relative to the true nature of Reality — as the unknowable Condition that is Always Already the Case, prior to the presumption of a separate “point of view”.
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.
Beyond Sex, Science, and self poster: DawnHorsePress length: 10:00 date added: July 27, 2011 event date: January 21, 2005 language: English views: 6238; views this month: 55; views this week: 21
In this Adidam Revelation Discourse from January 21, 2005, Adi Da reveals that Liberation cannot ever be achieved through sex, science, or religion! And He makes the astounding assertion, “Realization has nothing to do with the body-mind.”
Watch this DVD for Adi Da's Instruction on True Freedom, which He says is discovered only in the utter transcending of “point of view”, by means of the Transmission of Reality Itself. "The 'self'-contraction, the 'point of view', the 'point-of-view'-machine and what it presumes to be Reality, the illusions of Reality created by 'point of view' — these are the important matters to be understood. The 'you' to which you refer as 'I', the ego-'I', is a 'point-of-view'-machine. It is subject to the illusions of the cosmic apparition, the illusions that 'point of view' itself is subject to — space-time, mass, and so forth."
The DVD, Beyond Sex, Science, and "self", is available from The Dawn Horse Press. Subtitles in English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Russian, Polish, Czech, and Hebrew. A CD version is also available.
Conversion To The Guru poster: DawnHorsePress length: 05:45 date added: November 7, 2016 event date: June 28, 1973 language: English listens: 3355; listens this month: 38; listens this week: 14
On this CD, Avatar Adi Da Samraj masterfully explores the relationship between experience, understanding, and Truth: Experience cannot ever lead to Truth -- but, in the context of the devotional relationship to Avatar Adi Da, experience can serve the crisis of understanding that makes a person available to His Transmission of Truth.
The CD includes Avatar Adi Da's lively recountings of two genuine conversion stories -- one from a modern Christian minister and the other His amusing free-rendering of the story of Ribhu and his disciple Nidhaga (from the Ribhu Gita, an epitome of traditional Non-dualist teachings).
The Secret Of Experience poster: DawnHorsePress length: 08:32 date added: November 16, 2013 event date: 2004 language: English views: 4274; views this month: 52; views this week: 17
What kind of experiences might you notice arising in the course of esoteric practice or via Spiritual Transmission? What is the secret to relating to them rightly?
On the DVD, The Secret of Experience, Avatar Adi Da Samraj addresses questions on this topic in two revelatory Discourses.
On December 5, 2004, when asked by a devotee about a particular experience, Avatar Adi Da contrasted the self-authenticating nature of the experience with the attitude of having a question about the experience.
And on August 13, 2004, Adi Da talked about the potential of blissful experience to create unrealistic presumptions about the self and about real practice.
This video clip is an excerpt from the DVD, in which Adi Da is responding to a devotee who asked Him a question on the phone. The DVD includes Spanish, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Polish, Czech, and Hebrew subtitles.
The Secret of Experience poster: DawnHorsePress length: 06:41 date added: April 8, 2014 event date: 2004 language: English listens: 3529; listens this month: 31; listens this week: 16
The CD contains excerpts from two Avataric Discourses (December 5, 2004, and August 13, 2004), in which Adi Da addresses the questions: What kind of experiences might you notice arising in the course of esoteric practice or via Spiritual Transmission? What is the secret to relating to them rightly?
On December 5, 2004, when asked by a devotee about a particular experience, Avatar Adi Da contrasts the self-authenticating nature of the experience with the attitude of having a question about the experience.
On August 13, 2004, Adi Da speaks about the potential of blissful experience to create unrealistic presumptions about the self and about real practice.
The Sermon on the Mount poster: DawnHorsePress length: 04:42 date added: October 4, 2011 event date: May 26, 2006 language: English listens: 4840; listens this month: 39; listens this week: 17
On May 28, 2006, with breathtaking clarity and insight, Avatar Adi Da offered a rendering of the moral and Spiritual Teachings of Jesus of Galilee, revealing the true depth of Jesus’s authenticity as a great Realizer, in continuity with the ancient esoteric tradition of Spiritual Transmission-Masters. This communication is available on the double CD from the Dawn Horse Press, The Spiritual Gospel of Saint Jesus of Galilee.
This audio excerpt is Adi Da's rendering of Jesus' Teaching from Matthew 5:1 – 5:10: "The Sermon on the Mount".
poster: frank marrero speaker: Frank Marrero length: 07:56 date added: March 17, 2009 language: English views: 3566; views this month: 29; views this week: 12
Continuation (two minute "overlap" with part 1).
How Frank Marrero's struggle with Adi Da's "Divinity" was undone by Adi Da's Transmission at the Initiations after The Day of the Heart, in 1981.
The Silver Hall poster: realityway speaker: Jonathan Condit length: 05:57 date added: September 30, 2009 language: English views: 6011; views this month: 42; views this week: 17
The Silver Hall is a set-apart hall in Adi Da's home on Naitauba, Fiji. Adi Da uses this hall for the purpose of "Transmission Sittings" during which He Initiates his mature devotees into the Spiritual dimension of the relationship to Him. The Silver Hall continues to be used for this very special purpose, after Adi Da's Divine Mahasamadhi.
For the sixth episode of the Fire from Heaven series, we are joined by Frank Marrero, a long-time student of Adi Da and the curator of several web resources on Adi Da's teachings. Frank talks with Layman Pascal about his experiences of transmission with Adi Da, his understanding of the nature of consciousness, and some of the unique characteristics of the spiritual transmission process.
2) The second half of the talk "A Birthday Message from Jesus and Me" where, Frank says, "The transmission was WOW. Glimpses can be seen and your listeners can hear from Adi Da, not just the beginner me."
3) Frank's recommended book for someone interested in Transmissive Dharma. Adi Da's first talks in My "Bright" Word.
poster: TheBeezone speakers: James Steinberg, Ed Reither length: 05:42 date added: February 1, 2011 event date: January 26, 2011 language: English views: 4748; views this month: 28; views this week: 10
Ed Reither of The Beezone interviews longtime devotee James Steinberg about his early life up to and including becoming a devotee of Adi Da Samraj. James talks about the early times of Adidam and people's desire to have transmission experiences from Adi Da Samraj and how Adi Da Samraj constantly emphasized that Spiritual Realization had nothing to do with any conditional experience regardless of whether it is spiritual or material.
[This clip is actually only 5 minutes and 42 seconds in length.]
The Dreaded Gom-Boo poster: TheBeezone length: 16:15 date added: November 5, 2017 event date: September 9, 1982 language: English views: 3914; views this month: 46; views this week: 18
"The Dreaded Gom-Boo, or the Imaginary Disease That Religion Seeks to Cure" was the primary talk given by Adi Da at Da Love-Ananda Mahal (in Kauai, Hawaii) during a period of His Work with devotees (September 9, 1982 - February 4, 1983) that focused on renunciation. Many of the talks and essays from this period were included in a book by the same name, The Dreaded Gom-Boo.
This audio begins with a testimonial from one of the devotees who participated in the "Dreaded Gom-Boo" gatherings with Adi Da. The actual talk begins at 1:25.
The focus of this talk is a startling and humorous insight: All religion seeks to cure us of an unreal disease, which Adi Da humorously calls the "Dreaded Gom-Boo". This disease is our constant presumption that we have somehow "fallen from Grace" and are in need of the salvatory "cure" of religious belief.
Adi Da uproots this religious conceit and illusion by confessing (based on His Own Realization) that we are always already present and alive in and as Divine Being. The "good news" of Adi Da's Way is that, in present Communion with the Divine (made available through Adi Da's Spiritual Transmission), we need not seek to be cured, but must only feel, observe, understand, and renounce the very activity of seeking itself, and thus be restored to our native Happiness and Freedom. This insightful, liberating message cuts through thousands of years of religious and mystical dogma and beliefs by revealing a radical spiritual way eminently suited to the needs of modern men and women.
poster: TheBeezone speakers: Ed Reither, James Steinberg length: 11:02 date added: January 29, 2011 language: English views: 4690; views this month: 44; views this week: 19
Ed Reither of The Beezone interviews longtime devotee James Steinberg about his early life up to and including becoming a devotee of Adi Da Samraj. James talks about the early days of Adidam and people's desire to have transmission experiences from Adi Da Samraj and how Adi Da Samraj constantly emphasized that Spiritual Realization had nothing to do with any conditional experience regardless of whether it is spiritual or material.
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