poster: AdidamPodcasts length: 12:29 date added: March 17, 2012 language: English listens: 5827; listens this month: 16; listens this week: 10 Adi Da writes: "Adidam is not a conventional 'religion'. Adidam is not a conventional way of life. Adidam is about the transcending of the ego-'I'. Adidam is about the Freedom of Divine Self-Realization. Adidam is not based on mythology or belief. Adidam is a Reality-practice. Adidam is a 'Reality consideration' in which the various modes of egoity are progressively transcended. Adidam is a universally applicable Way of life. Adidam is for those who will choose it, and whose hearts and intelligence fully respond to Me and My Offering. Adidam is a Great Revelation and it is to be freely and openly communicated to all."
This podcast contains excerpts from two talks, in which Adi Da clarifies that the Way of Adidam is based solely on the inherent heart-response to His Transcendental Spiritual State. That heart-response leads to the self-understanding and willingness to take up the real ego-transcending practice.tags: Radical Truth Audio SeriesAdidam
poster: AdidamRevelationMagazine length: 08:27 date added: November 23, 2013 event date: October 12, 2004 language: English views: 4967; views this month: 15; views this week: 8 The CD, The Master Is The Means, is a compilation of talks in which Avatar Adi Da describes the spontaneous heart-response to the Spiritual Master as the great, effective, and anciently known Means of Spiritual Awakening.
By exposing the true nature of ego, and pointing out our false and limiting presumptions about Spiritual Masters, Avatar Adi Da enables a free consideration of what is truly needed to Realize the Truth of our Condition. He provides a traditional context for the purpose of His human Form here, while also communicating the utterly unique appearance and offering He Is.
This is track 9 of the CD.
This audio excerpt, "Divine Realization Is a Gift", is from October 12, 2004. Here Avatar Adi Da states clearly that the Divine must be Self-Revealed by Grace. No method, no technique, no form of seeking of any kind is the means to Realize the Divine. All such seeking is simply evidence of contraction upon the separate "self" — which is the continuous, unsurrendered gesture of ego.
The essence of Adidam is, instead, living in the present Company of the Divine, turning whole bodily to that Divine Reality Appearing as Avatar Adi Da — and through that turning, being moved by Grace to His Perfect State of Divine Reality and Truth.tags: CDAvataric Discourse
Enter the Inherently Fearless Condition poster: AdidamRevelationMagazine length: 14:08 date added: November 23, 2013 event date: September 18, 2004 language: English views: 5738; views this month: 24; views this week: 8 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.
In "Enter the Inherently Fearless Condition", a video segment from September 18, 2004, Avatar 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.
This compilation of ten talks spans thirty-four years of Avatar Adi Da's Work. It includes His compassionate Instruction about: - the sorrow of loss - the fear of death - serving the dying person - how to practice during and beyond the death process - the Ultimate Demonstration of Divine Translation (or Most Perfect Realization of the deathless Condition).
From His Perfect Disposition of Absolute Freedom, Avatar Adi Da Samraj reveals the greater process within which death occurs, and the Ultimate Demonstration of What Is, Prior to life and death.
[Note: Since we posted this video, we have also posted a longer excerpt from the same DVD track here.]tags: deathDVDAvataric Discourse
Searchless, Lawful Management of the Body poster: AdidamRevelationMagazine length: 04:24 date added: July 10, 2013 language: English listens: 4303; listens this month: 14; listens this week: 8 A devotee reads an excerpt from Adi Da's essay, "Searchless, Lawful Management of the Body", from the book, Green Gorilla.
In this essay, Adi Da addresses "lawfulness" in relation to diet, in contrast to the fascinated preoccupation with food that characterizes people in the modern world. This preoccupation is based in the egoic search for fun and pleasure, and inevitably results in suffering and pain. The lawful diet is not an end in itself, but a simple, ordinary practice that establishes "the 'position' of well-being of the body" and is part of a larger practice of what Adi Da calls "right life".
For more on this topic (as well as the text of the complete essay, "Searchless, Lawful Management of the Body"), read the Adidam Revelation Magazine's article, Searchless, Lawful Management of the Body. Further excerpts from Green Goriila can be found here.tags: Green Gorilladiet
poster: AdidamRevelationMagazine length: 05:35 date added: January 30, 2014 event date: June 20, 1972 language: English listens: 8157; listens this month: 78; listens this week: 20 "The Avon Lady" is a classic talk given by Avatar Adi Da in the early years of His Teaching-Work. In this humorous and penetrating discourse, Avatar Adi Da offers basic instruction regarding the nature of seeking and the Awakening Function of the True Guru.
In this audio excerpt entitled “There Is Already No Dilemma”, Avatar Adi Da describes the human egoic drama of separation, suffering, and seeking. All pleasures, distractions, and experiences reinforce that same drama of the apparently separate self. But the True Guru does not support the search, does not promise any fulfillment of that search. That is the uniqueness and the invaluable quality of the True Guru. Adi Da compares the True Guru to an unusual elevator – where one steps in, expecting to go up (toward Spiritual attainment or some other fulfillment), but instead the bottom drops out. This is why the search begins to fall apart once there is recognition of the True Guru. Then the real Spiritual process can begin.tags: CD
poster: AdidamVideos length: 08:49 date added: January 28, 2009 language: English views: 7629; views this month: 28; views this week: 11 Bhagavan Adi Da Samraj discusses the unattainability of Divine Self-Realization by effort of the individual body-mind, and the necessity of Grace, by which an individual is able to spontaneously respond to His Free Gift.
3WBC Radio Interview of James Steinberg poster: AdiDaUpClose speakers: James Steinberg, Jan Bucknell length: 53:05 date added: October 16, 2014 event date: October 16, 2014 language: English listens: 6330; listens this month: 33; listens this week: 10 Devotee James Steinberg is interviewed about Adi Da and Adidam on 3WBC 94.1 FM, Melbourne, Australia on October 16, 2014, for the program, "Jazz and Spiritual", hosted by Bill Livingston, Minister at Unity of Melbourne. Australian devotee Jan Bucknell also joins in the conversation every now and then.
The program ends (at 47:14) with a recording of Adi Da reciting from The Spiritual Gospel of Jesus of Galilee, Adi Da's rendition of "The New Testament" (available on CD).
Divine Distraction with James Steinberg poster: AdiDaUpClose speaker: James Steinberg length: 50:54 date added: February 1, 2016 language: English listens: 6237; listens this month: 29; listens this week: 12 James Steinberg is interviewed on the podcast, Vajra Body Vajra Mind. Vajra Body Vajra Mind is a provocative podcast that explores the outer limits of spiritual practice and human development. James Steinberg is a longtime devotee of Adi Da, and the author of Divine Distraction and Love of the God-Man.
In this episode of Vajra Body Vajra Mind, we discuss James' life with Adi Da. We talk about the practice of Guru Yoga, challenges in reading Adi Da's Teaching, anti-Guru sentiment in contemporary culture, sexuality in spirituality, the importance of discipline in the Way of Adidam, the unique Transmission of Adi Da's Revelation and Presence (through photographs, videos, Image-Art, etc), resistance to the Guru by the ego, positive disillusionment (aka "the Lesson of Life"), and more.
I’ve sung Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas to Beloved Adi Da many times over the years — at the Manner of Flowers, at Adi Da Samrajashram, at First People / Great Food Dish, etc. (as one of a small group of singers, and usually also as the keyboardist) — and I’m singing it to Him again (and all of you!) here. It is one of my favorite songs at this time of year.
For me (starting with Judy Garland's original film version), it has always been an emotion-filled song, by turns joyful, playful, nostalgic, and wistful — so that is how I sing it here.
This song as a bridge to God. In Beloved Adi Da’s Company, everything (from Mickey Mouse to cookie-making) becomes “a bridge to God”.
ADI DA: “You must Awaken and discover the Divine World wherein everything is a bridge to the Infinite, One Being.”
And so for me, the words of this song have always taken on a significance beyond the usual secular understanding of the song. They lead me through a consideration that I’ll share with you here.
Have yourself a merry little Christmas Let your heart be light From now on our troubles will be out of sight
Have yourself a merry little Christmas Make the Yuletide gay From now on our troubles will be miles away.
Here we are as in olden days Happy golden days of yore Faithful friends who are dear to us Gather near to us once more
Through the years we all will be together If the fates allow Hang a shining star upon the highest bough And have yourself a merry little Christmas now.
That wistfulness: Raymond’s problem. On the surface, the words of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas are purely joyful — "faithful friends" coming together each year in a joyous Christmas celebration. And yet, one of the emotions I feel when I sing this song is wistfulness. So where is the wistfulness coming from? It's that big "IF" in the song: "if the fates allow". In fact, as every one of us knows (more and more, with each passing year), fate (conditional existence) only allows such reunions for a limited number of years. As I sing, I have a vision of a photograph of a gathering of friends, from a Christmas or Danavira Mela many years ago, and, in this vision, each face in the photograph — one by one over the years — turns "ghostly", either through our circumstances (high school, college, living near each other) no longer being shared, or life paths that have moved in different directions, or the passing on of that person. My awareness of that inevitable reality is the source of the wistfulness and nostalgia. The inevitable disappearance of the (mortal) loved one is “Raymond’s problem”, a phrase Adi Da uses, based on the central character of The Mummery Book.
Danavira Mela: A Divine Celebration in the midst of a conditional universe. The joy and playfulness of the song comes from the celebration we can still have together, even in the midst of an ever-changing, conditional universe. One of my (and many other devotees’) favorite quotes of Beloved Adi Da has always been this extraordinary prayer, from “Death is a Perfect Insult” in The Enlightenment of the Whole Body:
“Let us surrender into Infinity with all our friends and hold on to no thing or condition that ever appears. Let us forget all things in present Happiness, and so forgive the universe for all its playful changes. Let us always love one another, and so forgive one another for appearing, for changing, and for passing out of present sight. So be it.”
When I sing this song, I hear it giving further guidance for just how to do this.
poster: AdiDaUpClose speaker: Steve Alexander length: 13:17 date added: July 8, 2012 language: English views: 4383; views this month: 19; views this week: 14 Steve Alexander describes his experiences of Huichol shamanism (while in his twenties), and his aspiration to become a shaman. Then, while on a Huichol pilgrimage in Mexico, "everything that could possible go wrong, did". For a "suburban kid from Los Angeles" it was like "trying to put on someone else's shoe".
Steve returned to focus on his university education in fine art. All the while, an awareness of a Divine Presence in his heart was growing. He describes how he cultivated his relationship with that Presence, even as he became increasingly aware of his own egoity and the ways it would tend to shut down that Presence.
Steve describes how his formal relinquishment of Huichol shamanism opened the door to the intensification of that Presence, and ultimately, to his devotional relationship with the human form of that Presence: Adi Da.tags: leela
poster: AdiDaUpClose speaker: Steve Alexander length: 14:15 date added: July 8, 2012 language: English views: 4164; views this month: 17; views this week: 10 Steve Alexander describes his experiences of Huichol shamanism (while in his twenties), and his aspiration to become a shaman. Then, while on a Huichol pilgrimage in Mexico, "everything that could possible go wrong, did". For a "suburban kid from Los Angeles" it was like "trying to put on someone else's shoe".
Steve returned to focus on his university education in fine art. All the while, an awareness of a Divine Presence in his heart was growing. He describes how he cultivated his relationship with that Presence, even as he became increasingly aware of his own egoity and the ways it would tend to shut down that Presence.
Steve describes how his formal relinquishment of Huichol shamanism opened the door to the intensification of that Presence, and ultimately, to his devotional relationship with the human form of that Presence: Adi Da.tags: leela
The Baptism of Immortal Happiness poster: AdiDaUpClose length: 05:46 date added: July 13, 2013 event date: December 17, 1982 language: English listens: 5779; listens this month: 22; listens this week: 8 At Da Love-Ananda Mahal, on December 17, 1982, Adi Da gives the talk, "The Baptism of Immortal Happiness".
"The ego is such a heavy grip, such a clench on the Divine Light, that Spiritual experience through Spiritual Transmission in life does not amount to much for most people. They cannot make it part of their existence. This is why I expect My devotees to prepare themselves by listening to and then hearing My Wisdom-Teaching. Then My Spiritual Baptism can Awaken you to My Spirit-Presence, and you will begin to practice the Way of Adidam in Spiritual relationship to Me."
The Grace of Turning to Me poster: AdiDaUpClose length: 05:03 date added: December 13, 2014 event date: 2004 language: English listens: 4041; listens this month: 12; listens this week: 5 In this excerpt from the double CD, The Grace of Turning to Me, Adi Da describes how "turning to Him" — the moment-to-moment turning of the faculties of the body-mind to Him — must be based on the Graceful recognition of Him as the Divine and response to Him based on that recognition.
On this double CD, Adi Da uses every Compassionate Means in His Manner — sometimes Humorous, sometimes Fiery — to Call His devotees, again and again, to be sensitive to the Grace-Given and spontaneous heart-Attraction to Him, and thereby turn to Him, the Divine in human Form — rather than to the endless content of the body-mind, which only reinforces egoic bondage and the illusion of separateness. In this way, Avatar Adi Da Masterfully Reveals the secret of True Liberation in His Avataric Divine Company.
The talks on this double CD were drawn from Avataric Discourses that took place in 2004.tags: avataric discourseCD
The Knowledge Of Light poster: AdiDaUpClose length: 04:14 date added: November 30, 2021 event date: February 3, 1985 language: English listens: 723; listens this month: 33; listens this week: 17 An audio excerpt from the new CD, The Knowledge Of Light, from The Dawn Horse Press.
In the early months of 1985, Avatar Adi Da was residing at His Hermitage-Island in Fiji, working intensively to complete the first edition of His Supreme Scriptural Text, The Dawn Horse Testament. Avatar Adi Da began this occasion by reciting a newly written essay, which He subsequently added to The Dawn Horse Testament — and then spoke at length about the import of the essay.
In this Discourse, Avatar Adi Da invites everyone to consider the implications of the common understanding that everything — all that you see, hear, breathe, taste, smell, feel — is energy, or light. Rather than suggesting yet another method of seeking within the infinite forms of experienced light, Avatar Adi Da Offers (and Is) the direct Transmission of Light — which Reveals Itself to be the Self-Radiant Bliss of Consciousness Itself.
ADI DA: The most intimate presumption, the real presumption — that all this is Light — should be sufficient to make your hair stand on end. Real Communion with Light, or True Baptism — founded on “self” understanding — produces ecstasy, profound transformation of the being, liberates you from all of your egoic psychology.tags: CD
Truth For Real Bookstore and Reading Room poster: AdiDaUpClose length: 01:26 date added: February 17, 2012 language: English views: 3183; views this month: 6; views this week: 3 Mark Stewart takes us on a brief video tour of the new "Truth For Real" Bookstore and Reading Room (which is also a Video Viewing Room) in Portland, Oregon. This space is dedicated to making the Great Work and Person of Adi Da available in a direct, effective, and classy manner.
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