[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.]
Ote keskustelutuokiosta heinäkuulta 1978.
"Elä tulessa ja puhdistu" ("Live In the Fire and Be Purified") is an excerpt from the longer talk, "The Fire Must Have Its Way". The full talk is available on the DVD, The Fire Must Have Its Way, on which this is track 3. It is also available as a CD. The talk also appears in written form in the book, My "Bright" Sight and online here.
In this occasion at The Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary from October 6, 2005 (the last time Adi Da spoke formally, in response to a devotee's question about practice), a longtime devotee, Cheech Marreo, who recently has had an automobile accident, asks Avatar Adi Da a question about the role of karma in his life and practice. Adi Da, in turn, points to something even more fundamental than the universal law of cause and effect. He also clarifies that the old saying, "through suffering comes wisdom", is just not true. If it were it so, He asserts with amusement, then everyone would be wise — because everyone suffers. Mere suffering makes no difference, unless there is availability to Reality.
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.]
poster: CDBaby length: 06:50 date added: February 9, 2020 language: English views: 1620; views this month: 76; views this week: 39
"Facing Beloved / No One Like Me" is by John Wubbenhorst. It is track 2 from Disc One of the double CD, May You Ever Dwell In Our Hearts. John Wubbenhorst plays bansuri, drum master Subash Chandran plays ghatam and konnokol, and drum master Ganesh Kumar plays kanjira.
May You Ever Dwell In Our Hearts is a deeply moving, sacred, contemplative CD that celebrates Adi Da's Life of Love and Blessing. This tribute to Adi Da Samraj includes music from many different genres, ranging from Indian classical to jazz to world music and other contemporary styles.
With over two hours of devotional songs filling this double CD, you can listen to pieces composed and performed by many devotee artists, including Naamleela Free Jones, Tamarind Free Jones, Ray Lynch, John Wubbenhorst, John Mackay, Sally Howe, Crane Kirkbride, Antonina Randazzo, Katya Grineva and many others.
Some of the twenty-five pieces on May You Ever Dwell In Our Hearts were written and offered in the days immediately following Adi Da's Passing on November 27, 2008, or in the year-long period of formal mourning that followed. Other songs were offered to Him in person during His Lifetime. This CD also contains new songs never released before by Naamleela, Tamarind, and other musicians.
Feathered Edges poster: SusanaWeingarten length: 10:09 date added: November 9, 2013 event date: November 2013 language: English views: 4601; views this month: 39; views this week: 23
"The force of primary geometric forms is everywhere in the world. . . once you begin to get the sense of shape, then you can see that the world of perception is actually made of primary geometries. It is just that there are so many of them all at once that the natural world seems to have feathered edges." --Avatar Adi Da Samraj
With works from Adi Da's Image-Art projected in the background, the contemporary dance piece, "Feathered Edges", was performed at the Adidam Midwest Center in Chicago, in celebration of Adi Da's 74th Birthday.
"FEATHERED EDGES, a joint creation that encapsulates rapturous elements that make the couple's forays into contemporary dance so compelling. They swirl and yearn, hover over one another and intertwine. In the Everts' world, geometry in motion is often a means to sensuality in motion." --DONALD ROSENBERG (THE PLAIN DEALER/Cleveland)
''When Tom and Susana perform together on stage my own reality of time, place, and context is blurred. Their dance duets embrace their dualistic energies with intrinsic vulnerability and compassion." --DANIEL WHITLEY (Visual Artist/Cleveland)
Choreographers and Dancers: Susana Weingarten & Tom Evert Costume Design: Luzano Rey & Janet Bolick Lighting Design: Deb Malcolm Music: The Cinematic Orchestra Sound engineer: Jordan Davis Video: Alejandro Rivera
Monthly, twenty-four hour Fire Pujas are held at the Hermitages, Sanctuaries, and regional centers of Adidam to celebrate Holy Days, Events and Gifts given by Adi Da Samraj. The Fire Puja in this video clip was held at the Fire Keeper site at Da Love-Ananda Mahal, in Kauai, Hawaii.
poster: DawnHorsePress length: 03:23 date added: May 12, 2013 event date: April 15, 1974 language: English listens: 4602; listens this month: 25; listens this week: 10
[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!"
poster: DawnHorsePress length: 09:19 date added: May 12, 2013 event date: September 23, 1982 language: English listens: 4040; listens this month: 34; listens this week: 16
Adi Da calls devotees to consider whether there is any evidence that a God exists Who one can hook up with through mere belief; and Who will then, like a Parent with Infinite Resources, start granting the believer a better life: reduced suffering, all kinds of earthly benefits, etc.
poster: Adidam Europe speaker: Tilly length: 03:28 date added: April 5, 2012 event date: March 2012 language: English views: 5293; views this month: 31; views this week: 13
Tilly talks about the value of growing up within the Adidam community, her relationship and time with Adi Da, and her Sacred Art of music.
poster: AdiDaVideos speaker: Megan Anderson length: 06:39 date added: July 7, 2018 event date: November 29, 2009 language: English views: 2349; views this month: 34; views this week: 10
Devotee Megan Anderson, who grew up in the Company of Adi Da, offers this testimonial to His life and work. She also describes how she was encouraged by Adi Da to take up her service to Him as one of the key editors of His Word, and how He personally guided her growth into human maturity.
Excerpt from Second Evening: Track 7 on the DVD, A Tribute to the Life and Work of His Divine Presence, Adi Da Samraj. More than 7 hours long, this Tribute DVD was filmed on the occasion of the first Anniversary of Adi Da's Divine Mahasamadhi, when devotees, family, and friends of Adi Da Samraj gathered at Adi Da Samrajashram, Fiji (Adi Da's principal Hermitage), to acknowledge Adi Da as the Divine in human form, to praise His Greatness, and to express their heart-felt gratitude for the Blessings they have received from Him.
A list of all the tracks on this DVD can be found here.
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