"My
Self Is in My Heart"
My sons remarkable relationship
with Avatar Adi Da
by Karl
Kaiser
Karl Kaiser owns a software company in Florida and
has been a formal devotee of Avatar Adi Da since 1999. This story first appeared
in the book, Love and Blessings.
I
discovered Avatar Adi Da Samraj around the time of my son Ivan's birth, in 1996.
As I began reading Adi Da's Teaching, I was struck by the incredible breadth
and depth of His Wisdom, as well as the "bulletproof" coherence of His vast exposition
on practical, philosophical, and Spiritual subjects.
Among His published
writings are several books and booklets on raising children in the Way of Adidam.
They contain many practical suggestions on how to raise mature and Spiritually
sensitive children, without succumbing to the temptation of first-time parents
to over-stimulate a child's self-centered impulses.
Although I was not
yet a devotee, I applied many of Adi Da's recommendations in the raising of Ivan.
On several occasions during his infancy, I felt the Presence of Avatar Adi Da's
all-pervading Blessing-Grace, and even noticed apparent spontaneous responses
in my very young son to Adi Da's Spiritual Presence. As Ivan grew and began asking
questions about "God" and "Life", I introduced him more directly to Adi Da, all
the while trying not to force my own impressions upon him, but leaving him to
develop his own response.
Children
Must Be Free and Ecstatic Excerpts from Adi Da Samraj's Wisdom-Teaching
on raising children
Educate everyone from conception on to live
in freedom, to live in Truth, to Commune with Me and to adapt rightly, stage by
stage, to every function of their conditional existence and to the Ultimate, or
Non-conditional, Condition That I Am and That I Reveal. Love,
Wisdom, and Happiness in the First Three Stages of Life Each
child must be free and ecstatic at the simple native level of his or her own existence.
Children must be awakened to feel that they are associated with an Infinite Power,
or Mystery, that sustains them, that gave them birth, that is their Destiny, and
that is the Power that moves their entire future if they will associate with It
rightly.
The
Scale of the Very Small You must give children the cause and
freedom to be ecstatic. Children must understand what ecstasy is, what Happiness
is. Parents and teachers should discover the functional dimension to which children
are sensitive at every stage of adaptation, and then teach them in those functional
terms.
The
Practice of Ecstasy with Children |
Unfortunately,
Ivan's mother and I separated when he was just three. My former wife did not like
the idea of a Guru, and, on a few occasions when Ivan seemed to make advances
in his own sensitivity to Adi Da, she responded to his enthusiasm with displeasure.
As the years went by, Ivan adapted by tactfully removing photographs and
other signs of his feelings for Adi Da from his home with his mother. This situation,
along with the growing willfulness typical of older children, made it increasingly
difficult for me to encourage Ivan to remain open to Adi Da, and I especially
did not want to impose the issue of his parents' divergent religious perspectives
and practices, and thus entwine my son's Spiritual life with the conflicts of
his parents.
I became a formal devotee of Avatar Adi Da in 1999. Then,
in 2002, it was decided that Ivan, now six years old, would have to undergo several
intensive medical procedures, including open-heart surgery, to correct an unusual
and complicated congenital heart-lung condition. At this time, I brought his medical
case directly to Avatar Adi Da. He Graced my son and myself with His Blessing-Regard
over this difficult year, sending us His Love and Blessings, and even keeping
up with the surgeries hour by hour.
Ivan's operations, while lengthy and
even more technically difficult than first expected, went very smoothly. During
this time, I felt Adi Da's Blessing-Regard descending over the entire hospital
campus like a bright star in the night sky, and, on one very traumatic occasion,
felt the "familiar" feeling of Adi Da's Spiritual Presence radiating out of my
son's heart-region.
After the first operation, Ivan suddenly began expressing
an intense desire to go to Fiji to see Adi Da, and asked me daily whether I had
gotten "permission" for him to go!
Within a few months of the last operation,
Ivan was given a clean bill of health by the doctors, who said they were "very
happy" with his progress. None of the several potential complications from his
new circulatory system had arisen. And, within six months, he underwent a growth
spurt that moved him from the twenty-fifth to the fiftieth percentile of weight
for his age. Moreover, Ivan recovered well from the emotional and visceral fear
associated with these many traumatic and invasive physical events.
Before
long, Ivan had moved into his middle childhood, with the surgeries seemingly long-passed.
At this time, on the few occasions we discussed Adi Da, Ivan seemed rather
disinterested. Although he had practiced meditation in the past "feeling the
Mystery", and "breathing out the bad stuff and breathing in the good stuff", as
Adi Da recommends to children he was now more resistant. I began to lament that
he might soon request to terminate any association with Adidam, and so I all but
ceased to talk to him about Beloved Adi Da.
Then, in August 2004, Avatar
Adi Da began a period of internet broadcasts from Fiji to devotees all over the
world, in which He addressed their questions. This was the first time I had ever
seen my Beloved Guru speaking, and the living manifestation of His Humor, Intelligence,
Love, and Compassionate Address to devotees drew me to Him even more deeply.
These
five- and six-hour broadcasts occurred in the evening in Fiji, which was very
late at night in the eastern United States. So it was that, very early one Sunday
morning, while my son slept in the next room, I was graced to be able to ask a
question directly of Avatar Adi Da by phone.
As soon as I was informed
I would be the next person to ask a question, I began to feel Avatar Adi Da's
Spiritual Presence in my heart and my home. By the time I began to speak to my
Beloved Guru directly, I felt His Spiritual Radiance flowing down like hot honey
through the top of my head.
In response to my question about His process
of Divine Re-Awakening, Adi Da recounted several incidents in His childhood. As
He lovingly described these events, I was drawn to remember similar events in
my own childhood, but this time with a radiant, "love-full" intensity, as if somehow
Avatar Adi Da's childhood were an epitome of the Joy inherent in every childhood
itself!
But what happened later that morning was most astounding of all.
After Ivan awoke, I told him over breakfast about my "phone call" with Adi Da
and His talk about His childhood.
At this, Ivan immediately launched into
countless stories of his own psychic and Spiritual contact with Adi Da, seemingly
going back for many years! He recalled with great clarity and enthusiasm detailed
encounters with Adi Da in dreams, while playing with friends, and, especially,
during his hospital stay.
While my son enjoys creative story-telling on
occasion, the sheer volume, pace, and clarity of these stories far outstripped
any typical story-telling session. But my mind was completely blown when he suddenly
interrupted these recollections to explain to me very directly that . . .
"My
self is in my heart, and inside that is a bright light, and inside that is Adi
Da."
I recognized that this statement as quite similar to the text of the
Narayana Sooktam, an ancient Indian invocation and prayer from the Vedic
tradition of India, adapted by Avatar Adi Da for use by His devotees in
their worship of Him:
I know my son had never heard this recitation, and he would not likely have
understood it in any case! I received this sudden confession of profound ancient
wisdom from an eight-year-old like a "calling card" from my Beloved Guru.
It
soon became clear to me that, despite all the emotional turmoil of his parents'
divorce, and his conscious suppression of his feelings for Adi Da, Ivan had been
having an intensive, if subliminal, devotional relationship with Adi Da for many
years. And this subliminal life had been unearthed and brought to full conscious
recollection in one morning, seemingly as a result of the spiritual Blessing Regard
of Adi Da Samraj.
In retrospect, it is remarkable how unremarkable these
recollections were for my son. From his point of view, he had always been in a
relationship with Adi Da, and there was no surprise in "finally" recalling and
talking about it.
Since that morning, Ivan has felt the need to declare
that he will still be a Buddhist "at Mommy's house". But his recollections of
Avatar Adi Da persist, including how, during one surgery (probably when his heart
had been stopped) Adi Da took him to view his own body from the outside. Ivan
remarked how "strange" his own body appeared to him then, and I sensed from his
reaction that this instruction was a demonstration of yet another frequent admonition
from Avatar Adi Da: of the falsity of identifying with the physical body.
I
am joyfully heartbroken that, beneath the realm of psychological stress and suppression
that afflicts many children of divorce, and even in the face of my son's own conflicted
feelings towards Him, Adi Da has continued to work lovingly and patiently with
him, as with any other devotee.
The following summer (in 2005), Avatar
Adi Da traveled to California, where Ivan and I had a chance to see Him for the
first time in many years. This summer had become an extraordinarily expansive
and Grace-Full period, during which Avatar Adi Da granted His Darshan to all devotees,
as well as many public guests.
One afternoon, I received a request that
Ivan and I present a gift of a flower to Avatar Adi Da when He granted Darshan.
There was no reason given for this request, but I assumed it was due to Avatar
Adi Da's Help during Ivan's medical ordeals.
As we awaited His arrival,
I began to recall how frightening and painful the surgeries had been two years
before memories which I realized I had "put behind me" and I became tearful
from the feeling of deep gratitude for Avatar Adi Da's Blessing-Regard at that
time, so much so that Ivan reacted with embarrassment.
After Avatar Adi
Da had taken His seat, we were brought before Him to offer our flowers. Adi Da
Regarded me briefly, and then for a long while Regarded Ivan with incredible sweetness
and love. There was a rising feeling of such profound love throughout the gathering,
that I began to weep, and then Ivan broke down as well.
Avatar Adi Da gestured
for Ivan to approach, and then embraced Him with the greatest gentleness and affection.
Ivan wept and thanked Him. Adi Da stroked his hair, kissed him, held his face,
and put His hand over his heart.
With every Gesture of Adi Da, waves of love swept through the
gathering. Loving gestures towards one child seemed to be directly and intimately
experienced by every person present, until many among those gathered were weeping
and even wailing loudly. The tangible love felt by all was unmistakably recognizable
as "Love" and yet it felt infinitely more profound, transcendent, and pervasive
than the "love" we normally feel.
(Sometime later it struck me as amusingly
wise and fitting that Adi Da would take a child embarrassed about his father's
crying and then cause over a hundred adults to weep with joy before him!)
Eventually,
Ivan sat back down beside me, and we both continued to behold Adi Da. As He continued
to Regard Ivan, I noticed tears on Adi Da's face.
Finally, after a few
minutes of this intense tenderness, Avatar Adi Da stood up before all present
and became utterly calmed and motionless. After showing us how profoundly he feels
our own predicament of loving in the face of mortality and loss, it seemed that
He was now Communicating, by way of direct Demonstration and Blessing, a profundity
of blissful Calm and inviting us to commune with Him, as He truly Is, in the Divinely
free space beyond all fear, mortality, and loss.