The Bodily Location of Happiness poster: AdiDaVideos length: 13:12 date added: May 4, 2016 event date: November 28, 1981 language: English views: 7793; views this month: 34; views this week: 20
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!"
poster: AdidamPodcasts length: 25:49 date added: March 17, 2012 event date: January 18, 1973 language: English listens: 7023; listens this month: 22; listens this week: 10
In an excerpt from His historic talk from 1972, "Money, Food, and Sex" (now published in My "Bright" Word), Adi Da addresses the dilemma those taking up "spiritual life" encounter when bringing discipline to the areas of money, food, and sex.
poster: SanctuaryKitchen speaker: Douglas Short length: 08:01 date added: January 27, 2011 event date: January 27, 2011 language: English views: 6221; views this month: 12; views this week: 4
In keeping with Adi Da's recommendation that devotees eat a maximally raw diet [see Adi Da's Green Gorilla], Douglas Short, the head chef at First People (The Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary kitchen), instructs us on how to make a less oily salad dressing. Ingredients: cucumbers, carrots, red bell peppers, avocadoes, apple cider vinegar, honey, olive oil, salt, coriander. Interesting tip about adding olive oil while the blender is running.
[The clip actually starts with Douglas showing us the red lentil dal soup that was the subject of part 7.]
poster: SanctuaryKitchen speaker: Douglas Short length: 07:55 date added: January 26, 2011 event date: January 26, 2011 language: English views: 5780; views this month: 12; views this week: 4
While Adi Da recommends a maximally raw diet [see Adi Da's Green Gorilla], the Sanctuary Kitchen occasionally makes a cooked dish drawn from the broader vegetarian cuisine. In this video, Douglas Short, the head chef at First People (The Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary kitchen), instructs us on how to make red lentil dal soup. (You can see the finished result in Part 8.)
poster: DawnHorsePress length: 04:34 date added: June 23, 2012 event date: January 18, 1973 language: English listens: 5707; listens this month: 20; listens this week: 9
An excerpt from "Money, Food, and Sex", a humorous and penetrating Discourse from the very earliest years of Avatar Adi Da’s Teaching-Work. Adi Da criticizes the typical conception of Spirituality as having nothing to do with the realities of day-to-day life and says that taking responsibility for money, food, and sex creates the foundation practice of genuine spiritual practice.
poster: SanctuaryKitchen speaker: Douglas Short length: 04:27 date added: January 9, 2011 event date: January 1, 2011 language: English views: 5473; views this month: 11; views this week: 5
In keeping with Adi Da's recommendation that devotees eat a maximally raw diet [see Adi Da's Green Gorilla], Douglas Short, the head chef at First People (The Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary kitchen), instructs us on how to make vegetable sushi. In this part, Douglas prepares the ingredients, and provides instruction on using the mandoline slicer.
poster: SanctuaryKitchen speaker: Douglas Short length: 07:50 date added: June 9, 2011 event date: June 9, 2011 language: English views: 5381; views this month: 9; views this week: 4
While Adi Da recommends a maximally raw diet [see Adi Da's Green Gorilla], the Sanctuary Kitchen occasionally makes a cooked dish drawn from the broader vegetarian cuisine. In this video, Douglas Short, the head chef at First People (the kitchen for The Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary), instructs us on how to make quinoa tabouli. Douglas also shows us a nice trick for dicing tomatoes efficiently with a very sharp knife.
poster: SanctuaryKitchen speaker: Douglas Short length: 04:27 date added: January 9, 2011 event date: January 1, 2011 language: English views: 5279; views this month: 16; views this week: 7
In keeping with Adi Da's recommendation that devotees eat a maximally raw diet [see Adi Da's Green Gorilla], Douglas Short, the head chef at First People (The Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary kitchen), instructs us on how to make vegetable sushi. In this part, Douglas rolls the sushi.
poster: SanctuaryKitchen speaker: Douglas Short length: 06:15 date added: January 19, 2011 event date: January 19, 2011 language: English views: 5212; views this month: 9; views this week: 2
In keeping with Adi Da's recommendation that devotees eat a maximally raw diet [see Adi Da's Green Gorilla], Douglas Short, the head chef at First People (The Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary kitchen), instructs us on how to make jicama and fresh mint salad.
[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!"
[Contains French 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.]
Un discours classique donné par Avatar Adi Da en 1981 sur la nature du Vrai Bonheur et la façon dont il peut être Réalisé d'un moment à l'autre, mais pas en le recherchant.
This is a video excerpt from Adi Da's classic talk, "The Bodily Location of Happiness" (French: "L'Emplacement Corporel du Bonheur"), 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: 05:03 date added: June 23, 2012 event date: December 23, 1973 language: English listens: 5052; listens this month: 11; listens this week: 4
An excerpt from "Guru As Prophet", a humorous and penetrating Discourse from the very earliest years of Avatar Adi Da’s Teaching-Work. Adi Da speaks of the Guru's role as prophet in the world, which is to create "an aggravation, a criticism, an undermining of the usual life". He speaks of how the Guru in the function of prophet is always working to produce a condition in which people's illusions may be undone.
poster: SanctuaryKitchen speaker: Douglas Short length: 01:54 date added: January 13, 2011 event date: January 13, 2010 language: English views: 4894; views this month: 10; views this week: 2
In keeping with Adi Da's recommendation that devotees eat a maximally raw diet [see Adi Da's Green Gorilla], Douglas Short, the head chef at First People (The Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary kitchen), instructs us on how to peel a kiwi (the fruit).
poster: Wisdom Tools for Humanity length: 09:49 date added: March 19, 2017 language: English views: 4736; views this month: 31; views this week: 8
An audio excerpt from Adi Da Samraj's early talk, "Renouncing the Search for the Edible Deity", accompanied by photos of Adi Da from a more recent Avataric Discourse.
We experience "independent" existence as a kind of madness, a seeming separation from food (both because of the cutting of the umbilical cord and as a feeling of separation from our ultimate source of sustenance, the Very Divine). We must instead be like the eating gorilla. . .
Adi Da: "The eating gorilla finds a cabbage in the jungle, sits down like a slob and munches away at the cabbage, and is completely benign, completely peaceful. . . . Therefore, the eating gorilla is the image of the true man, the true woman. He demonstrates the principle of true politics, of real human existence, in which we are always presently connected to the Food Source in Truth, and are always presuming connection, relationship, 'I love you.' "
poster: SanctuaryKitchen speaker: Douglas Short length: 11:50 date added: January 15, 2011 language: English views: 4397; views this month: 8; views this week: 2
In keeping with Adi Da's recommendation that devotees eat a maximally raw diet [see Adi Da's Green Gorilla], Douglas Short, the head chef at First People (The Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary kitchen), instructs us on how to make raw chocolate orange truffles.
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