Fear of Life poster: TheBeezone length: 05:50 date added: October 18, 2012 event date: September 18, 2004 language: English views: 2950; views this month: 5; views this week: 3
Adi Da speaks about the fear of death being a characteristic of life and identification with the body-mind. Adi Da relates this to the fundamental condition of ignorance and the nature of reality. He draws His listeners into considering that the ego has a more fundamental context than even death, as the most primal action of the human condition.
Notes on the Adidam Mission poster: TheBeezone length: 07:55 date added: September 18, 2012 event date: 2004 language: English views: 3719; views this month: 3; views this week: 1
In 2004, Adi Da Samraj talks to devotee Peter Harvey-Wright about using the Devotional Prayer of Changes to serve the Adidam Mission. He distinguishes conventional "neurotic prayer" (in which a person relates to God like a big "Parent") from the Prayer of Changes, which requires not just visualization but a change in action. As part of that change in action, He mentions the "barefoot Mission" (a phrase meant to emphasize the one-on-one nature of a truly effective Mission). He also stresses the importance of an authentic culture of Adidam as essential for attracting new devotees.
Adi Da talks about how being in the Company of a Spiritual Realizer is the best possible use of one's life, but it doesn't guarantee Realizing the Master's State, because Realization depends on the practitioner as well.
[Note: The video ends a bit abruptly, in the middle of a sentence.]
Self-Contraction poster: TheBeezone length: 00:53 date added: November 30, 2012 event date: 2004 language: English views: 3113; views this month: 5; views this week: 1
Adi Da speaks about our failure to notice the Divine Reality and why this is so: self contraction of the body-mind as "Narcissus", the separate self.
In this excerpt from an Avataric Discourse from October 19, 2004, on Adi Da Samrajashram, Adi Da talks about the Great Tradition. He describes The Basket of Tolerance as a tool for transcending religious provincialism and the limits of one's cultural upbringing. Through use of such a tool, one is relieved of one's "belief systems", but is also made increasingly aware of the Reality-based Way that truly liberates.
The complete Avataric Discourse is available on the DVD, Human History Is One Great Tradition. Subtitles in English, Spanish, French, German, Dutch, Finnish, Polish, Czech, Chinese, Japanese, and Hebrew. Also available on CD.
A video excerpt from an Avataric Discourse given by Avatar Adi Da on November 6, 2004, at Adi Da Samrajashram.
The complete Avataric Discourse (nearly four hours long) is available on the DVD, There Are No Historical Selves. In this Discourse, Adi Da elaborates His assertion that although we refer to others as "you" and ourselves as "I", we have never really experienced any such separate entities. Furthermore, the self-reference is a reference to a fiction, a convention from the society of egos.
ADI DA: You refer to yourself every time you say a sentence because that's how sentences are supposed to be constructed, and yet you have no experience of that "self" that you keep referring to. You don't experience it any more than you experience the room. You can experience "yourself", so-called, from the point of view of the moment or what could be called the "late time' of every perception and thought. It's the "late time" because it's after when it occurred. But it's called the present because it seems to be happening now.
In this discourse, Adi Da proposes that all human lifetimes are a “quest for the historical self”. He describes how this search is based on the activity of “self”-contraction — the erroneous presumption of an actual, defined, knowable “self”.
[Contains Italian 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.]
"Le formiche hanno un ego" ("Ants have an ego") is a video excerpt from a humorous and profoundly insightful Avataric Discourse (given by Adi Da on October 20, 2004 at Adi Da Samrajashram), Adi Da considers the difference between self-consciousness and egoity, referring to both humans and non-humans (including dogs, ants, and trees).
ADI DA: [Laughs] You generally attribute egoity to human beings, but you wonder about everything else. For instance, what about not something relatively inert like a rug or even just standing there and not seeming to be particularly responsive, like a tree. But what about a dog? Is a dog, do you think dogs are egos when you see them, just as readily as you think of human beings as egos? But, why do you draw the line? I mean how far does it go? Where do you stop thinking of living entities, at least, as egos? Do you just presume everything bigger than a cricket is an ego? Or is everything that moves in your, from your perspective experientially or in your natural presumptions, how far do, does the fact of egoity extend in your presumption.
Well, is an ant an ego in your presumption?
The word “ego” is actually a Greek word which means “I”. I consider it with you and talk about it in terms of self-contraction and so forth, but, so that’s the elaboration on its meaning, but the word simply means “I” which means the reference, self-reference, the reflexive, reflexive pronoun as it’s called of self-reference. So, does an ant feel self-referential?
You observe them protecting themselves and struggling with others. Couldn’t do so without some kind of self-consciousness, could it? So, you naturally presume that even something like an ant is, is a self, an ego, self-aware. Does something have to move from its spatial location? Does it have to be able to take a walk or, such as an ant or a human being, or can a tree? Does a tree have self-consciousness, exhibit self-consciousness. . .
What about trees? They are entities with apparent self-consciousness of a kind. They are in that sense, egos. But are they egoic? Are they functioning egoically? Are they feeling that they are in bondage and moved to seek as human beings are and as you feel in your own case, you see? Trees don’t seem to behave, generally speaking, in quite that way. They are self-conscious as organisms, but they don’t seem to be particularly disturbed about being trees. They seem more characterized by some kind of contemplation in which they don’t feel disturbed.
But if you observe non-humans, virtually all of them show signs of setting themselves apart and entering into a contemplative state that resembles some kind of a samadhi or meditative condition.
Why do you think human beings are disturbed? You see, why is human egoity what it is? If you observe how it appears in evidence in non-humans, suggests that human beings are the way they are because they’re confined, and not just confined by walls and bars. Some people are, and they get very disturbed there, and walk back and forth or get catatonic.
Your bondage is your own activity, and it also extends from conditions. Conditions can reinforce or seem to justify self-contraction. But still what you’re suffering is self-contraction itself.
So, human beings are actually confined, and they are self-confined, and otherwise, also, living in various modes and degrees of confinement by conditions of life and in fact, human beings feel confined by bodily existence, because however healthy you may be at the moment, you know you’re going to die, and are potentially, potentially, you could suffer any number of great happenings. And you anticipate that inevitably, you will, sooner or later, experience some fundamental difficulties that you would prefer not to have to endure, including disease and death.
Well, everything that’s physically living is going to die. The trouble, the difference is does it drive you crazy, make you seek, or are you at ease, because you haven’t lost touch with what transcends that possibility?
[Contains Italian 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 spiega il perché religioni convenzionali e avvicinamenti spirituali non riescono a Realizzare pienamente il Divino.
"L'Essenza nella Via di Adidam" ("The Essence of the Way of Adidam") is an excerpt from an Avataric Discourse given by Adi Da at Adi Da Samrajashram on April 12, 2004.
Adi Da describes why conventional religious and spiritual approaches fail to fully realize the Divine. He then summarizes, in a simple way, the practice He offers: the Reality-Way of Adidam.
[Contains Italian 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.]
"Unità Umana" ("The Unity of Humankind") is an excerpt from the Avataric Discourse of August 22, 2004.
Adi Da describes how humankind is a single family, a single species in "diaspora" — dispersed across the earth as the result of migrations from a single point of origin (in Africa) thousands of years ago. Making much of superficial differences due to race, nation, religion, language, tribe, political system, etc. obscures this more fundamental, deeper reality of the unity of humankind. For the sake of everyone's survival, humankind must begin to live on the basis of its unity, and establish a global cooperative order that includes and serves everyone.
[Contains Italian 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 video excerpt, "Non siete voi a Pensare" ("You Do Not Think") is from an Avataric Discourse given by Avatar Adi Da on October 10, 2004, on Adi Da Samrajashram.
[Contains Italian 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 Samraj risponde compassionevolmente, ma da un punto di vista radicale, ad un devoto che ha perso il nipote.
In "Perdita della Vita e Dolore Umani" ("Loss of Life and Human Suffering"), Adi Da Samraj talks about the pain of loss, and about liberation. This is in response to a devotee's question about the Devotional Prayer Of Changes and the death of the devotee's grandchild.
[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.]
"La Esencia Del Camino de Adidam" ("The Essence of the Way of Adidam") is an excerpt from an Avataric Discourse given by Adi Da at Adi Da Samrajashram on April 12, 2004.
Adi Da describes why conventional religious and spiritual approaches fail to fully realize the Divine. He then summarizes, in a simple way, the practice He offers: the Reality-Way of Adidam.
[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.]
Una charla de Adi Da Samraj acerca de la Realización como la unica liberación de la pérdida humana. 3 de Octubre de 2004 en Naitauba, Fiyi.
In this excerpt, "La Pérdida y Dolor Humano" ("Human Loss and Pain"), Adi Da Samraj talks about the pain of loss, and about liberation. This is in response to a devotee's question about the Devotional Prayer Of Changes and the death of the devotee's grandchild.
This video excerpt is from the DVD, Easy Death. Subtitles in English, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Polish, Czech, and Hebrew.
[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.]
In "La trampa de la experiencia" ("The Trap of Experience"), a video excerpt from an Avataric Discourse given on September 1, 2004, Adi Da addresses the fact that people tend to value good experiences and shun the bad ones. Adi Da reveals that all experience — positive or negative — is inherently binding (which may come as a surprise to many).
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