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About
Us > Website Staff > Chris Tong
Chris
Tong, Ph.D. is one
of the founders and managing editors of this site. He is also the founder of The
Practical Spirituality Press, the director of The
Institute for Real God, The
COTEDA Institute for Global Accord, and FIRM
(The Foundation against Intolerance of Religious Minorities), and
the primary developer of the World Meeting Place.
Chris received his BA summa cum laude
in 1978 from Columbia University (where he also was awarded the
1976 Van
Amringe Mathematical Prize by the Department of Mathematics
for being the "best freshman or sophomore mathematics student"),
and his Ph.D.
in 1988 from Stanford University (where he was also awarded a
fellowship for being the outstanding graduate student at the Knowledge
Systems Laboratory in 1983). From 1984 to 1994, Chris was a professor
of computer science at Rutgers University, one of the first winners of the
CSGSS
Award for Excellence in Teaching, a leading
researcher in Artificial Intelligence in Design, Knowledge Compilation, and Machine Learning, recipient of major
government research grants (from DARPA and the National
Science Foundation), co-editor of a state-of-the-art
series of books about his field (published by Academic Press
and still used by graduate
courses in the field), and a visiting professor at MIT. He
was also a main participant in the Knowledge Systems Area of Xerox
Palo Alto Research Center (see a
humorous video of researchers watching their AI systems compete),
and a visiting researcher at IBM
Thomas J. Watson Research Center. The stability algorithms
he developed while at IBM initiated a new field of research — "Lyapunov function construction" (see here and here). They have been widely
cited and have had broad applicability, in areas as diverse
as biotechnology
and the stabilization
of greenhouse gases required by the Kyoto Protocol.
Chris has been a devotee of Adi Da Samraj
since 1989. (Story here.)
From 1990 to 1994, he was the chief missionary for the New England
region of Adidam, developing and leading workshops and retreats
in Boston and New York City, and creating Adidam's original, official
website in 1994 (the year the Web became available for public
use), which went on to win awards
from Lycos and Magellan. He has been a resident at Adidam's
sanctuaries
in Northern California, Hawaii, and Fiji, travelling with and
serving Adi Da as He moved between sanctuaries, and accompanying
Adi Da in His world travels during 1995-96, as a member of Adi
Da's Dasya
Mandala. He has served in many positions within Adidam,
including: co-director of the Adidam Word and Mission Division,
production manager of the Dawn
Horse Press, head of the Lay
Renunciate Order, Adi Da's cultural sarvadhikari,
co-chair of the Samrajya Board, head of worldwide Adidam Education,
head of education at Adi Da Samrajashram, Adi Da Samrajashram cultural
board member, and composer and musical and choral director for
the performance of Adi Da Samraj's Mummery
Book in Fiji, 1995. (Story here.)
He has served as a priest at several Holy Sites at The Mountain Of Attention, including Seventh
Gate Shrine and the
Manner Of Flowers, and served as head priest for Skyway
Temple. Chris has also made numerous
contributions to the Adi Da Up Close website.
Chris writes:
In 1994, in my first major function
serving the Adidam Institution — as head of worldwide
Adidam education — Adi Da sent me these Notes: "Does
he know that he is now responsible for the education of
the six billion?"[1] Even though
I served Adidam in many other functions after that, most
of them directly or indirectly served this joyful, challenging
responsibility of bringing Adi Da's transcendent wisdom
— and Adi Da Himself — to all of humankind. In keeping with that
purpose, this website provides an important piece of that education.
I have spent a lifetime studying
and experimenting with the traditional and contemporary
"solutions" to the basic Spiritual problems with which humankind
has struggled for eons. And so I can say without a doubt
(not merely as a scholar, but as a practitioner) that Avatar
Adi Da Samraj offers to all beings the greatest Spiritual
Realization ever made available on this planet — Perfect,
Eternal Happiness — and for realizing it, He provides
a foolproof means whose only limit is oneself. Strong words!
Words that affront many who are raised in our contemporary
materialistic society (and its obligatory but uninformed
egalitarianism: "all spiritual paths are equal" —
they are not). Words that require much to back up.
But I've dedicated much of my recent life and creativity
— including the creation and development of this site
— to doing just that: providing the evidence . . .
with the passionate intent that many others become
aware of, and drink from, this Unlimited Fountain of Perfect
Knowledge and Perfect Happiness.
The viewpoint of materialism so fiercely dominates today's
world that the appearance of a genuinely great and true
Spiritual Master — a
human incarnation of the Divine — may be greeted
with either a yawn (while surfing a Web full of both "spiritual
teachers" and ways to materialistically indulge oneself)
or a smirk ("must be yet another megolomanical cult leader").
I believe this site has the potential to help cut into that
materialistic view, to the point where the most serious
of our site's visitors will realize the extraordinary
import of a Being who offers all of us Perfect, Eternal
Happiness — for real.
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