Finding Adi Da > Andre Decio

The Divine Is Everything and Everyone

Andre Decio


Andre Decio has been a devotee of Adi Da since 1988. He runs an internet technology consulting business, and currently lives in Thailand.

I will never forget it. I often cry when I remember it. There's no comparison in my life. Let me try to tell you about the deepest yearning of the human heart, and how it was fulfilled beyond measure, by the truth of all.

* * *

I left university back in 1985, a bit lonely and down. I could no longer believe in the "normal" way of life. I was suffering, and the usual life seemed to me to be just more suffering.

I read the Bible, Koran, the Bhagavad Gita. I went to different Christian groups. I got a little familiar with Hare Krishna, and used to chant the Hare Krishna mantra a bit in the mornings. I read the Scientology book, Dianetics, and decided to go and have a session with those people.

The morning following the session, I decided to chant the Hare Krishna mantra alone in my bedroom. A feeling of dread came over me — a deep fear — but I continued chanting anyway. Gradually, my breathing became calm, and my mind slowed to a standstill. No thoughts. . . and then no movement at all. And then, in a split second, the most painful truth hit me like a sledgehammer: my unhappiness was my own "complaint". I had always been stressed. That stress was my very identity. I saw literally that it was my own "crunch". All my life, I had only been doing that.

It was an instantaneous realization, not pre-meditated. Just a direct awareness, given by Divine Grace. Automatically and inevitably, I let go of the stress. My hands spontaneously shot up in the air, and my head snapped back. I felt a sudden opening in my head, my neck, and all down my front. It felt like air or water rushing in from above my head. It went down to the base of my spine, and then I felt like I was rotating forward as the "air" rushed up my spine, and then seemed to fall into a "bottomless pit" in my chest/heart area.

Then came the "thing" itself. The most intense sorrowful "grip" on my heart was felt. The rushing "air" pierced me like a hot poker, and I was released to nowhere/everywhere. My whole sense of anything was instantly vapourised, and the whitest, burning Light — too bright to look at — became my "place", there, "where" I am. I was aware of the most intensely and personal loving Presence. And then, just as suddenly, I was aware of the room again, sitting as (perhaps a second or two) before.

I was totally transformed. I was aware of my body, mind, and feelings in a completely unrestricted way. But it was all as nothing, a totally released sense of being. My heart was constantly rushing with love towards anything that I put my attention on. Quickly, friend after friend, loved-one after loved-one, rushed through my mind, and I felt a love and gratitude that cannot be described, pouring into the vision of each one.

I cried/laughed/danced madly for two hours. Then, I slept for an hour from exhaustion, but it was no difference being awake or asleep. The same feeling was there. Utter peace, utter happiness, and this infinite depth of Love. A person? Me? No. . . just Love.

I'm not joking or exaggerating in the least. I will never forget it. You can't forget it. Everything else is "piddling" compared to that revelation.

* * *

I jumped on my motorbike and drove into London for no reason and with no intended heading, apart from the West End — which had attracted to me to live in London in the first place. (Now I know why. . . You will know too, in just a moment.)

I went to the bank, and strolled around. Everything and everyone was like a piece of the Divine. I could see directly that the Divine IS everything and everyone, but the individual forms are believing they are discreet and separate. What a laugh! I couldn't stop laughing. People must have thought I was mad. That indescribable Presence was like a "hole" through which others and myself constantly were falling, through this heart-surrendered response to this inexplicable, loving Presence.

I wandered down Poland Street, and a sky-blue shop sign caught my eye. "The Dawn Horse Bookshop." It had a white horse on it. I walked to the shop window, and there was a photograph of Avatara Adi Da Samraj, sitting, with an arm resting on His knee. I had never seen Him before, but my first thought was: "He is exactly the same as me." Strangely, I wasn't surprised. I went into the shop. The funny thing was that I was now no longer seeking for any answer to my "problems". I bought a magazine called The Laughing Man. So fitting! Everything was just a joke. It was His joke, with me and all. There is no separation.

I sat on the south side of the Thames that beautiful sunny day (May 8, 1986), and opened the magazine. There He was again — Avatara Adi Da — and I read His declaration: "I Am The Servant and The Realizer Of The Divine Person." No surprise. Just tears of gratitude. Every word that I read was a reminder of that ecstatic feeling. That is Who He Is. He had revealed to me the essence and the power of my living relationship to the Divine Presence.

The unusual state that I was in lasted for more than two weeks. In that time, many more things happened that were extraordinary, ecstatic, and full of happiness and love. But the fundamental thing that happened was that, in the most graphic and irrevocable way, the exact nature of the relationship between the devotee and the Divine Guru was confirmed to me: how it comes (by Divine Grace); why it comes (in response to the human heart's vulnerable confession of its greatest need); and what must be done to constantly re-remember that.

I cannot tell you how relieved and indebted I am to have had that certainty and Divine inspiration so clearly given at the beginning! I am unable to ever repay that Gift of my Divine Heart-Master. It is "impossible". It is "fantastic". And amazingly. . . it is true.

I saw my Beloved Guru Adi Da Samraj for the first time, nine years after that first liberating touch. A communication came to me upon viewing His Divine Bodily Human form: "Ohh, so there you are! You took your time coming to Me."

Life is definitely not what it seems.

In praise and eternal debt to Da Love Ananda, the Ashvamedha, the Divine Person who has invaded the lives of all, for the Love itself, and for the Happiness of all.