Excerpt from "Ego-Death and the Chaos Of Experience", an early talk from Adi Da, in which He speaks about the true spiritual process of ego death. Adi Da compares this to the mystical and seeking paths of inward or outward experiences in which the seeker is following the path as a reaction to life itself.
[Contains Spanish 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.]
Adi Da recites "El Corazón del Entendimiento" ("The Heart of Understanding"), the Prologue to His autobiography, The Knee Of Listening. "The Heart of Understanding" also is the Prologue to His book, Easy Death.
The recitation is accompanied by photos of Adi Da.
"The Heart of Understanding" is extraordinarily good news: death itself can be transcended! The death of the body-mind is not a problem, and is utterly acceptable, if one realizes and stands as Consciousness Itself, in which all mortal forms and limited worlds are arising.
In the final words of "The Heart of Understanding", Adi Da reveals that He is That: Consciousness Itself. Because this is so, He transmits that Revelation to all beings, and provides (and is) the means whereby all of us finally can be free of mortality and the mortal vision.
This excerpt is track 1 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.
[Contains Spanish 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", 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 DVD and on CD, and as an online transcript.
ADI DA: Life is foolishness. This is no time, in any case, to be tolerant of foolishness. The world is mad, and these are dreadful times. Things are not going to be easier in the years ahead. The spiritual process has always been lived in difficult times. Therefore, the spiritual process tolerates no fool. The spiritual process itself will spit you out. It is not an easy attainment, but a profoundly difficult affair. Even what you have listened to today has been heard by only a fraction of the human race in all of history. The opportunity to practice is extremely rare, and the fulfillment of practice is practically unknown.
In some sense you could say this life is hell. . . The nature of this hell is that we are self-possessed. We are born in un-Happiness and we do not transcend it readily. We constantly pursue Happiness through all kinds of incredibly complex means, and we never attain It. . .
If Spiritual Realizers did not turn about and Teach, this would truly be a hell instead of being like a hell. It would truly be a hell if there were no possibility of Enlightenment, if there were no Teaching, no Spiritual Masters, no sacred Way, no sacred community, no capacity for understanding or self-transcendence.
[Contains Finnish 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.]
Avatar Adi Da Samraj kutsui ihmisiä lähestymään Häntä Hengellisenä Opettajana ensimmäistä kertaa 25. huhtikuuta 1972 Hänen uudessa ashramissaan Melrose Avenuella Los Angelesissa. Tuona iltana Avatar Adi Da ensin istui hiljaa noin tunnin verran läsnäolijoiden kanssa, Levittäen heille Hänen Säteilevää Toteutuksen Olotilansa Ylevyyttä.
Sitten Adi Da puhui: ADI DA: "Onko kellään kysymyksiä?" Kukaan ei vastannut, joten Avatar Adi Da Samraj kysyi uudelleen: ADI DA: "Kaikki ovat ymmärtäneet?" KYSYJ Ä: "En ymmärtänyt. Selitä minulle." ADI DA: "Hyvä on. Mitä et ymmärtänyt?"
Ja niin alkoi Adi Dan Opetustyö!
For the first time, on April 25, 1972, Avatar Adi Da Samraj invited people to approach Him as Spiritual Teacher at His new ashram center on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles. That evening, Avatar Adi Da first sat in silence for perhaps an hour with those present, Transmitting to them the Sublimity of His Radiant State of Realization. Then, Adi Da spoke.
ADI DA: Are there any questions?
No one replied, so Avatar Adi Da Samraj spoke again.
ADI DA: Everyone has understood? QUESTIONER: I have not understood. Explain it to me. ADI DA: Very good. What have you not understood?
[Contains Finnish 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.]
Adi Dan intialainen omistautuja, joka palvelee Adi Data Hänen Erakkola-Ashramissaan Fidzillä, keskustelee tarvettaan sovittaa yhteen hänen vahvat intialaiset kulttuuri- ja perhevelvoitteensa sekä hänen halunsa palvella ja harjoittaa Tietä Adi Dan omistautujana. Adi Da käsittelee hänen kysymystään myötätunnolla, huumorilla sekä tiedostamalla tämän omistautujan kulttuurin vahvat vaatimukset. Adi Da myös huomioi, että tämä on asia, jonka tämän omistautujan täytyy päättää suhteessa siihen, mikä on hänen perimmäinen aikomuksensa elämässä.
"Et voi tyydyttää kaikkien odotuksia" ("You Cannot Satisfy Everyone's Expectations") is a video excerpt from an Avataric Discourse given by Adi Da Samraj on July 7, 2005, in Land Bridge Pavilion at The Mountain Of Attention.
In this excerpt, Adi Da responds to a devotee from India who asks for Adi Da's guidance on how to reconcile his traditional family obligations with his impulse to serve His Spiritual Master.
Every year in late October and early November, devotees, friends, and supporters of Adi Da Samraj gather to enjoy an extended weekend of Celebration and Spiritual Retreat focused on the Life, Teachings, and Avataric Work of Adi Da Samraj. The occasion is the birthday anniversary of Adi Da, during which we joyously acknowledge that this Supremely Realized Spiritual Master has appeared in the world to Awaken all beings to Radiant Love, Perfect Freedom, and Indestructible Light. This year’s Celebration is also based on the new book, The Gift Of Truth Itself, and like all Adidam Events, is founded on the acknowledgment that Adi Da Samraj uniquely bestows the ultimate Gift of Divine Truth or “Reality Itself” to the human heart.
poster: TheBeezone speakers: James Steinberg, Ed Reither length: 05:42 date added: February 1, 2011 event date: January 26, 2011 language: English views: 4741; views this month: 22; views this week: 12
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.]
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: antoniavidor speaker: Toni Vidor length: 02:06 date added: January 14, 2012 language: English views: 4817; views this month: 31; views this week: 12
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.
[Contains Polish 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.]
Klasyczny dyskurs Awatara Adi Da z 1981 r. Adi Da rozważa naturę prawdziwego szczęścia i tego, jak nie szukając szczęścia można je realizować w każdej chwili.
"Gdzie umiejscowione jest szczęście?" ("Where is happiness located?") is a video excerpt from Adi Da's classic talk, "The Bodily Location of Happiness", 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 Polish 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.]
Gerald Sheinfeld, uczeń Awatara Adi Da od wczesnych lat 70-tych, opowiada wspaniałą historię o tym, jak odnalazł swojego Guru i natychmiast rozpoznał wyjątkowy Stan Adi Da: Miłość, Szczęście i Wyzwolenie. Gerald mówi o tym, w jaki sposób rozpoznanie Adi Da budzi człowieka do Stanu Inherentnej Jedności.
Gerald Sheinfeld, a devotee of Avatar Adi Da since the early 1970's, tells a wonderful story about how he found his Guru, Adi Da Samraj and his immediate recognition of Adi Da's unique state of Freedom, Happiness, and Liberation. Gerald speaks about how that recognition of Adi Da has the capacity to awaken others to that state of Prior Unity.
Give the ego gone to Me poster: jef108 length: 03:01 date added: January 27, 2009 event date: July 10, 2005 language: English views: 7943; views this month: 55; views this week: 27
Darshan of Adi Da, as He sits at three locations at The Mountain Of Attention (the second is in front of Ordeal Bath Lodge; the third is at The Manner Of Flowers).
Give the ego gone to Me. Find out My Self-of-Radiance, Which Is All-Love-As-Bliss. Let the ego be Un-Happened— now.
Guru as Prophet poster: AdidamRevelationMagazine length: 05:10 date added: October 22, 2013 event date: December 23, 1973 language: English listens: 4214; listens this month: 29; listens this week: 15
Excerpt from Adi Da's talk, Guru As Prophet - available on a double CD from the Dawn Horse Press. This talk is also published in the book, My "Bright" Word. A course, My "Bright" Word, is also available from The Laughing Man Institute.
In this talk Adi Da distinguishes between the Spiritual (Transmission) Function of the True Guru and the public function of Guru as "prophet" (or critic).
For another excerpt from the same talk, click here.
See also the Adidam Revelation Magazine article, Guru as Prophet.
Guru as Prophet poster: belleislesound length: 58:23 date added: February 8, 2020 event date: December 23, 1973 language: English views: 1615; views this month: 74; views this week: 39
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.
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.
