Finding Adi Da > Chris Tong

Finding the Divine In Person
and Waking Up From the Dream

Chris Tong


Chris Tong

Chris Tong has been a devotee of Adi Da Samraj since 1989. He is one of the founders of this website. You can read his biographical information in the About Us section.

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    INTRODUCTION

Coming Soon.


    PART I. FINDING THE DIVINE IN PERSON

My Earliest Darshan   1. My Earliest Darshan — Any story of my relationship with Adi Da must begin with the earliest time He Graced me with His Darshan. It was the fall of 1957. I was only a few months old, and Adi Da was 17 or 18 — he was taking an undergraduate math class with my mother, who was a professor at Columbia University.
 
The Happiest Moment of My Early Life   2. The Happiest Moment of My Early Life — The happiest moment of my early life occurred in 1970 (when I was thirteen). One day, an overwhelming Revelation of the inherent Happiness of Reality washed over me. It would only be years later that I would make the connection that the day I had that Revelation — September 10, 1970 — was the day my Spiritual Master, Adi Da Samraj, re-Awakened to Divine Enlightenment.
 

  3. "You Become My Devotee in Your Past As Well As in the Present" — One of the most curious things about the story I've been telling is how Adi Da appears in it from the very beginning and then ongoing, even long before I "knew" of Him or became His devotee. He attended the class my mother was teaching at Columbia University; I first met Him in His human form when I was just a baby. Then, when I was thirteen, He gifted me with His Revelation of Perfect Happiness on the day of His Divine Re-Awakening (September 10, 1970). Now I'll tell the story of how I ended up going to the same university He went to: Columbia University.
 
A Crisis of Faith   4. A Crisis of Faith — As an undergraduate student at Columbia University, I was exposed to a great variety of new influences — the ones considered most influential in shaping "Western civilization"... from the ancient Greek writers, to Hobbes, Hegel, Darwin, Marx, and Freud. While a few of these sources (for example, St. Augustine and Dante) were religious, most were materialistic in their philosophy and secular in their focus, and the fact that all of these new viewpoints seemed to have a grain of truth to them shattered the religious simplicity of my childhood.
 
Further Preparation   5. A Greater-Than-Material Universe — Almost every story you read about how devotees found Adi Da includes events in their early life (before becoming Adi Da's devotee) that demonstrated to them that there was more to reality than just the material universe as it is conventionally understood. At some point before they became a devotee, each person became open (to some degree) to the greater-than-material universe. I'll now describe a few of those transformational events in my life, a veritable potpourri that includes telekinesis, astral projection, cessation of breathing, a UFO encounter, contact with non-material beings, and an expanded consciousness that saved my life.
 
Finding My Guru   6. Finding My Guru — In 1983, I was working toward my Ph.D. at Stanford University. Adi Da's books were in the spiritual literature section of virtually every bookstore in northern California. Through that Graceful means, I was able to find and read His book, The Dreaded Gom-Boo. This was what I had been groping for, in the dark, for years — but had only been finding little grains of "truth" here and there, which I had tried to piece together, like a jigsaw puzzle, into a meaningful portrait of the nature of reality. Suddenly, here was the entire Truth, given all at once! The time between 1983 (when I discovered Adi Da's teaching) and 1989 (when I became His devotee) was a period of intensive preparation for me. I studied Adi Da's teaching in depth. And a lot of what He wrote about was being shown to me in my life. In retrospect, it was obviously His Grace (flowing to me because I was placing my attention on Him and His Word) that was granting me these revelations. I'll next talk about three of the subjects in Adi Da's teaching that were revealed in my actual life during this final period of preparation: feeling without limitation, positive disillusionment, and synchronicity.
 
Feeling Without Limitation   7. Feeling Without Limitation — After getting my Ph.D., I became a professor of Computer Science at Rutgers University in New Jersey, in 1984. I spent the next few years preparing to become Adi Da's devotee. I studied His teaching in depth. And a lot of what He wrote about was being revealed to me during this time. In this section, I'll tell how His teaching about "feeling without limitation" demonstrated itself in my life.
 
Positive Disillusionment   8. Positive Disillusionment — To actually become Adi Da's devotee and fully take up the Way of Adidam, one also has to go through a process Adi Da calls "positive disillusionment". We are born here with karmic patterns and forces that powerfully drive us to continue in our ordinary destiny, lifetime after lifetime. In order to participate in a Greater Destiny, we must not only find the Guru, who makes such a Greater Destiny available; we must also become dis-illusioned with our ordinary destiny and whatever keeps attracting (and binding) us to it. I remember a particular moment which epitomized that process of positive disillusionment in my own life.
 
Becoming Adi Da's Devotee:
The Eternal Relationship   9. The Summer of Synchronicity — In the summer of 1989, Adi Da Gracefully gave me an extraordinary Revelation about the nature of Reality as a Unity that transcends the apparent split between the subjective and the objective. . . through numerous, amazing occurrences of synchronicity.
 
Becoming Adi Da's Devotee: The Eternal Relationship   10. Becoming Adi Da's Devotee: The Eternal Relationship — At last, at the end of the summer in 1989, I became Adi Da's devotee, in a formal initiation ceremony in New York City (Brooklyn) in which I felt His Spiritual Force crashing down on my head and through my body with great power.
 
The Capability To Feel With the Heart   11. Feeling With the Heart — The practitioner of the Way of Adidam regularly makes use of a primary instrument or 'muscle': the capability to feel with the heart. I write about how this capability developed in my case. This capability would soon be put to good use, as I describe in the next section.
 
Touch My Heart, And I Will
Widen You To God Knows Where   12. The Devotee Feeds the Guru, and the Guru Feeds the Devotee — In July, 1991, I thought I was going on a ten-day retreat at the Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary (in Northern California) — my first such retreat at one of Adidam's Empowered Sanctuaries. Little did I know what was really in store for me! After my retreat at the Mountain Of Attention, I would be headed for Adi Da Samrajashram, the Fijian island of Naitauba, to be in my Guru's physical company.
 
Club Rat   13. Club Rat — On July 6, 1992, Adi Da led a gathering He called "Club Rat", a most unusual evening! During Club Rat, He used music to open my heart.
 
No Pity For Him!   14. No Pity For Him! — One night, in December 1992, at Adi Da Samrajashram, Adi Da Gracefully and permanently relieved me of all self-pity. I learned many lessons from that miraculous, karma-dissolving gift.
 
Dancing For Happiness Without Thinking   15. Dancing For Happiness Without Thinking — I went on retreat to Adi Da Samrajashram in late 1993. One of the female devotees on retreat started to act out in a rather dramatic way: she told Adi Da she wanted to "fuck every man on the island". Adi Da spontaneously created a "teachable moment" out of her dramatization, by calling for some man to dance with this woman, but without thoughts of sex — indeed, without any thought, simply Happy in Him, and dancing for Happiness only. Here's what happened!
 
Restored To Perfect Happiness   16. Restored To Perfect Happiness — One night when I was
with Adi Da at Adi Da Samrajashram, I suddenly had a terrible vision, the fabrication of "doubt-mind": all I could see was a roomful of apparent cult members, all following their apparently megalomanical leader. And then a miracle occurred: Adi Da revealed Himself to Me to be the Divine. The disturbing vision vanished in an instant, and all my doubts were dissolved in Adi Da's Divine State of Perfect Happiness.
 
Passing His Tests   17. Passing Adi Da's Tests and Educating the Six Billion — One of the most challenging transitions I have ever undergone was — in response to Adi Da's personal invitation — the transition (in 1994) from a more conventional, worldly life (as a university professor and world leader in Artificial Intelligence, and someone with a wonderful, loving intimate partner) to a life dedicated to, and concentrated in, serving my Spiritual Master's Divine Work. After I had settled in at the Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary, Adi Da acknowledged that I was "passing His tests", even at the same time He revealed His larger purpose for me: "Does he know that he is now responsible for the education of the six billion?"
 
Composing Music for The Mummery Book   18. Composing Music for The Mummery Book — In January, 1995, while on retreat at Adi Da Samrajashram, I was asked to compose the music for a performance of Adi Da's The Mummery Book — and Adi Da would be in the audience. I had four hours of music to compose, and only four days to do it! Here is the story of how that was accomplished. I also describe how, at one point, Adi Da read my mind and set my heart free, with the surgical precision that comes from being the Heart-Master of His devotees.
 
Upon This Rock, I Will Build My Church   19. Upon This Rock, I Will Build My Church — A personal story (from 1996) about the importance of recognition of Adi Da as the Divine to the survival and flourishing of Adidam.
 
Lulu   20. Lulu's Back In Town — My dear cat friend Lulu was a great being, appearing in a little body, bringing us great joy very often. In this section, I tell of some extraordinary events that occurred after her passing in 2019.
 
Surrendered at the Master's Feet   21. Surrendered at the Divine Heart-Master's Feet — I end my story with the most sacred event of my life, which took place on December 24, 1994 (the eve of Danavira Mela): the extraordinary Grace of holding Adi Da's Feet (traditionally considered the most sacred part of the Spiritual Transmission Master's body) for half an hour, at the end of which I disappeared.
   
PART II. WAKING UP FROM THE DREAM

1. Come To Me When You Are Already Happy
— Establishing the baseline of practice.

Coming Soon


Part I, Chapter 1: My Earliest Darshan


Quotations from and/or photographs of Avatar Adi Da Samraj used by permission of the copyright owner:
© Copyrighted materials used with the permission of The Avataric Samrajya of Adidam Pty Ltd, as trustee for The Avataric Samrajya of Adidam. All rights reserved. None of these materials may be disseminated or otherwise used for any non-personal purpose without the prior agreement of the copyright owner. ADIDAM is a trademark of The Avataric Samrajya of Adidam Pty Ltd, as Trustee for the Avataric Samrajya of Adidam.

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