poster: MysticalPositivist speakers: Stuart Goodnick, Robert Schmidt, Leroy Stilwell length: 66:33 date added: June 21, 2014 event date: June 14, 2014 language: English listens: 6691; listens this month: 20; listens this week: 9
The Mystical Positivist is a weekly, two-hour radio show on KOWS 107.3 FM, Occidental, CA. The program is dedicated to the application of reason in the pursuit of spiritual practice and development. The show is hosted by Stuart Resnick and Dr. Robert Schmidt. Stuart has been a Tayu Meditation Teacher since 1993. He received apprentice and master-level training in the alchemical transformation of human consciousness from Tayu Meditation Center. Dr. Robert Schmidt is the director of the Tayu Meditation Center, and a co-founder of the Many Rivers Bookstore in Sebastopol, California. He is also currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Archaeological Research Facility at U.C. Berkeley.
This audio clip is part 1 of The Mystical Positivist's interview with devotee, Leroy Stilwell. Leroy has been a formal devotee of Adi Da since 1977. Since 1986, he regularly lived in Hermitage on Naitauba, Fiji, for extended periods during which he participated in cycles of consideration with Adi Da, and served as editor, photographer, videographer, communications manager, ashram manager, and personal assistant to the Ruchira Sannyasin Order. He is the author of Love’s Sacrifice: Witnessing the Self-Revelation of the Divine Person - 30 Years with my Spiritual Master, Adi Da (2014) and For Those Who Call For Light - Learning How to Think about Religion (2013). Leroy is also a co-founder and managing editor of the Adi Da Up Close site.
poster: MysticalPositivist speakers: Stuart Goodnick, Robert Schmidt, Leroy Stilwell length: 50:06 date added: June 21, 2014 event date: June 14, 2014 language: English listens: 6229; listens this month: 11; listens this week: 3
The Mystical Positivist is a weekly, two-hour radio show on KOWS 107.3 FM, Occidental, CA. The program is dedicated to the application of reason in the pursuit of spiritual practice and development. The show is hosted by Stuart Resnick and Dr. Robert Schmidt. Stuart has been a Tayu Meditation Teacher since 1993. He received apprentice and master-level training in the alchemical transformation of human consciousness from Tayu Meditation Center. Dr. Robert Schmidt is the director of the Tayu Meditation Center, and a co-founder of the Many Rivers Bookstore in Sebastopol, California. He is also currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Archaeological Research Facility at U.C. Berkeley.
This audio clip is part 2 of The Mystical Positivist's interview with devotee, Leroy Stilwell. Leroy has been a formal devotee of Adi Da since 1977. Since 1986, he regularly lived in Hermitage on Naitauba, Fiji, for extended periods during which he participated in cycles of consideration with Adi Da, and served as editor, photographer, videographer, communications manager, ashram manager, and personal assistant to the Ruchira Sannyasin Order. He is the author of Love’s Sacrifice: Witnessing the Self-Revelation of the Divine Person - 30 Years with my Spiritual Master, Adi Da (2014) and For Those Who Call For Light - Learning How to Think about Religion (2013). Leroy is also a co-founder and managing editor of the Adi Da Up Close site.
This recording of Above the Clouds was made in November 2010, during a three day, 24-hour-a-day vigil of meditation and puja on the veranda of Aham Da Asmi Sthan, Adi Da's home on the island of Naitauba. Devotee John Wubbenhorst speaks of the sacred occasion of being dropped out into the space of being 'not really there' while the Guru plays the musical instrument (and the instrument that is one's body-mind).
"Above the clouds, There Is Always The Sun — Forever Free Of Earthly Weather. By Tendency, You Are Always Looking At the local weather, and Not At The Sun Itself. That Is What egoity Is About — Always Suffering The Changes Of The local Patterning That Is the body-mind In its egoic Bondage. Instead, You Must (In every moment) Turn To Me . . . "
Spectra Suite poster: Francesco Rampichini length: 10:36 date added: August 2, 2017 event date: 2008 language: English views: 4615; views this month: 29; views this week: 16
As part of the 2008 Inverno a Firenze (Winter in Florence), Adi Da's Image-Art was featured in the medieval church, the Cenacolo di Ognissanti, strikingly juxtaposed with Domenico Ghirlandaio's Last Supper (1480). More about this art exhibition here.
This video was a part of that exhibition. It is an animated work that combines art drawn from Adi Da's The Spectra Suites with new electronic music by Francesco Rampichini. It was conceived and directed by Valeria Patera, and edited by Valeria Spera.
The Spectra Suites. Between 1998 and 2006, Adi Da focused on camera-based imagery, creating a highly complex body of work (in both black-and-white and color) that now exceeds 60,000 images and a great many hours of videotape. The Spectra Suites is a consequence of His work from that great library. In these suites, Adi Da combines digitally generated imagery with images He created using still and video cameras. To achieve each finished work, He then meticulously crafted every detail by digital means. Each of the ten Spectra Suites is based on one or more of His fundamental images — many of which are a powerful visual and philosophical complexity.
Francesco Rampichini. Through his music, master guitarist and composer, Francesco Rampichini, has created a wide range of sound and image interconnections, composing for theater, dance, digital art and collaborating on important exhibitions and museum installations. He taught at the Civic Music Schools in Milan, Opera, Locate Triulzi and at the Ateneo della chitarra and the European Music Institute in Milan. He teaches at CPSM at the Conservatory of Milan (of which he has been vice president) and at the Civica Music School of Locate Triulzi (guitar, ensemble music, computer music). He is President of the Jury of Guitar Competition Rocco Peruggini, artistic director of the Lyric Competition Principessa Cristina Trivulzio di Belgiojoso, and was the first Italian President of the Jury of the Django d'Or International Award under the High Patronage of the Embassy of France in Rome (1999). More about Francesco at his website.
Valeria PateraValeria Patera studied philosophy of science at Università degli Studi di Milano, and graduated in dramaturgy from the Civic School of Art.e Dramatic Paolo Grassi. She is a playwright, director, actress and scholar of the relationship between art, science, and philosophy. She collaborates with prestigious universities, research centers and European foundations including University of Sheffield, State University of Milan, ROME THREE, La Sapienza, La Sorbonne, University of Leeds and Portland, Gulbenkian Foundation, Sigma Tau Foundation. Since 2002, she has written, published and staged live work shows and life stories that have radically altered our way of seeing the world, including "Alan's Apple" about Alan Turing, the inventor of the computer; and "I, Charles Darwin: Traces and voices of my life", on the father of the theory of evolution.
Valeria Spera.Valeria Spera has a degree in "Communication Sciences and Technologies" and a specialized degree in "Television, Cinema, and Multimedia Production" from the University of Milan. She currently works with the Feltrinelli Group's La Effe TV in creating new formats for their autumn television season.
This excerpt is from one the Adidam Revelation Discourse of November 6, 2004. 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”. His Discourse exposes that neither experience nor memory nor the sensations of the physical body actually define a separate entity. The “I” is a fiction, a lie—and Reality Itself is Self-Evident only when the activity of the “self”-contraction is transcended.
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”.
The Gift of Ripening poster: DawnHorsePress length: 03:25 date added: July 19, 2015 event date: December 19, 2004 language: English listens: 5287; listens this month: 17; listens this week: 8
This audio clip is an excerpt from an Avataric Discourse by Adi Da on December 19, 2004. The Discourse is available as a CD: The Gift of Ripening.
By listening to this Discourse, you will receive Avatar Adi Da’s Guidance in understanding your level of ripeness. And such a realistic (rather than idealistic) assessment is an essential element in preparing for the process of Realizing True Happiness He Offers — the process of the “transcending of all conditionality in the Self-Radiant Conscious Light that is the 'Bright'”.
Quotes from this CD:
Adi Da: "Realization is not "caused". It is Given. It is made tacitly obvious. I can, through interaction with you and by being accessible to you, ripen you, so to speak, for this Spiritual Apprehension of Reality. And I am made available to you through this Bodily Sign which gives a focus for the faculties in the process of them being purified and relieved of their patterns."
Adi Da: "Divine Self-Realization is not just some happy-hunting-ground metaphor in the mind. It is not just a light. It is not the light at the end of the tunnel that people see in the death process. That is not it either. Do you have any idea how many tunnels there are, how many lights there are, how many 'worlds' there are to the left and right, how many ends of that tunnel there are? You have no idea. You do not know what it is about, generally speaking."
Adi Da: "Anything in the mind or of the mind is not true. So all of your pursuit of 'answers' or states of mind or content for your thinking is fruitless — but what are you going to do about it?. . . You do not even necessarily notice that your thinking is a matter of seeking. You think there are some kinds of thinking that may be said to be motivated by a search, but you do not think that thinking is seeking. And yet it is always seeking. Thinking is itself seeking. So if the Way is not seeking nor can the Truth be Realized by seeking, then thinking has nothing to do with it and you should just forget about thinking from now on — but you cannot do that, can you? You are already thinking, even though I just told you that. . ."
The Illusion of Seeking poster: Religion99 length: 05:49 date added: February 1, 2009 event date: April 8, 1993 language: English views: 3146; views this month: 12; views this week: 4
A talk about seeking and self-understanding (audio), accompanied by video footage of Adi Da.
On the CD is a seminal Discourse on self-understanding given by Adi Da on April 8, 1993. In this Discourse, Adi Da calls all those inclined to Realize True Freedom to first recognize the failure of their search — which is based on the illusion of separation. Rather than engaging the ordinary pursuit of union with all others and things from which we feel separate, Avatar Adi Da says we must find out that our inherent Condition is one of Perfect Non-separation.
ADI DA: You are doing this contraction. The stress you say you are feeling is the result of that. . . The more you feel that you yourself are doing it, the more it relaxes. . . You are, as it relaxes, directly surrendered, truly forgetting yourself, entering into the Field of Non-Separateness — which is My Very Nature, Condition, Sign, Demonstration, Transmission.
The Gift of Discipline poster: jonobono length: 09:49 date added: June 6, 2010 event date: July 2, 1988 language: English views: 4151; views this month: 9; views this week: 5
Adi Da: "The sadhana of discipline arises in the context of God-Realization. It is a gesture made in that context, in response to the Divine. What is discipline anyway? It is the process of self-transcendence, of breaking through limit."
poster: Wisdom Tools for Humanity length: 04:24 date added: March 19, 2017 event date: May 24, 1983 language: English views: 4136; views this month: 16; views this week: 5
Adi Da gave this talk on May 24, 1983, in Fiji. In it he describes how all processes (including diet) associated with transformation of the body-mind (making it an appropriate yogic vehicle compatible with the Transcendental Spiritual Way of Adidam) necessarily first go through purification and rebalancing phases (for as long as they take) — associated with Fire — before they enter the regeneration phase — associated with Light. Knowing this helps one persist in the fire of the purification and rebalancing phases to the point where one comes out the other side.
poster: CDBaby length: 10:28 date added: March 13, 2017 event date: August 30, 1982 language: English views: 3083; views this month: 15; views this week: 11
This audio excerpt is from "Tell Me True - Have You Got the Gom-Boo?", a talk given by Adi Da on August 30, 1982. The talk appears as Chapter 2 in Adi Da's book, The Dreaded Gom-Boo.
Adi Da: "The presumption of being [the presumption of one's own existence] is not made on the basis of [scientific observations of nature]. . . The force of being itself is self-authenticating.. . . The Consciousness that is single is not evident in the body. . . In the profundity of the research into that presumption of being (rather than the mechanical associations of it), we realize - intuitively, directly - the Being that is to be presumed to be ultimately associated with all of nature."
This excerpt is also track 4 of the CD, Science and the Myth of Materialism, a collection of talks from throughout the 30 years of Avatar Adi Da’s formal Teaching-Work that brings together samples from His vast Divine Instruction relative to the psycho-physical nature of the world, the limits of scientific materialism, and the Inherent Unity of Existence.
The Bodily Location of Happiness poster: AdiDaVideos length: 13:12 date added: May 4, 2016 event date: November 28, 1981 language: English views: 7777; views this month: 23; views this week: 10
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 CD and on a new DVD, The Location Of Happiness.
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 "pursuing 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 (or mis-identify 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 German 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" (German: "Der körperliche Sitz des Glücklichseins"), 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!"
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