Gerald
Sheinfeld has
been a devotee of Adi Da since the beginning of Adi Da's work
with devotees. He accompanied Adi Da on His 1973 trip to India,
and has participated in countless sacred occasions and events
in the company of Adi Da in the intervening years. Click
here to visit his website.
At the Feet of
the Spiritual Master
Gerald Sheinfeld
Self-published 6" X 9" paperback (illustrated)
396 pages
ISBN 978-0692924983
September, 2017
Stories of life lived with Avatar Adi Da Samraj. These
are entirely true stories, in some traditions called Leelas,
about the Play of the Enlightened Master with His devotees,
and ultimately with all beings. Each story helps us feel
Adi Da's Enlightened State, as the truth of our own Enlightened
State, which is Revealed prior to our act of ego separation.
Even from ancient times, it has been a mystery for most people
to understand why some respond to the profound attractiveness
of an Enlightened Person. In these stories, I tried to help everyone
feel that attractiveness. It comes spontaneously as a deep heart
feeling in response to Adi Da's Brightness. Adi Da has always
said, "When the truth is heard and felt the heart knows it to
be true". What happens is the enlightened Spiritual Master, Avatar
Adi Da, can be felt in each of these stories, or "Leelas"
(the Sanskrit word for "the play of the Divine").
As the book progresses, the Leelas show the progress of greater
and greater awakened recognition of His egoless Enlightened State
and the awakened, spontaneous devotional response.
In some ancient spiritual traditions, it was acceptable for devotees
to exaggerate or even make up stories about the greatness of their
Guru, or Spiritual Master. In contrast, none of the stories in
this book are exaggerated or made up. These stories are true accounts
of events that I experienced firsthand.
The Divine Avatar Adi Da Samraj works at all levels of Consciousness,
so while I understood things that related to my own separate perception,
He was also working to transcend the illusion of identification
as a separate being. He was (and is) communicating His Divine
State of Consciousness Itself. His Divine State of Consciousness
is very different from the consciousness that a “separate being"
experiences, for it is perfectly egoless.
The Leelas in this book take the mystery out of enlightenment.
They show that enlightenment is the Divine condition of all, but
it is the condition that is prior to the separate illusion of
ego-I. Adi Da's living demonstration and His Teaching fully explain
it all and reveal how all separation from our true love-bliss,
egoless reality is transcended as a free gift. There is no greater
gift than the freedom from all that is less than true love.
length: 01:54 event date: October 1, 2017 views: 1626
A short video about how longtime devotee Gerald Sheinfeld organized many stories — from his diary over 40 years in Adi Da's Blessing Company — to create a new book, At the Feet of the Spiritual Master, and a CD with the same title.
Photographs from the Book
The book contains 29 rare black and white photographs (dating
back to 1971), including the ones below (which are reprinted here
in color).
click photos to enlarge
Adi Da with Gerald
Adi Da in India, 1973: on the Ganges in Benares
(photograph by Gerald Sheinfeld)
Sunrise on a mountain top in Nepal, 1973
(photograph by Gerald Sheinfeld)
Adi Da in India, 1973: leaving the Taj Mahal
(photograph by Gerald Sheinfeld)
Gerald attending Adi Da — Naitauba, Fiji, 2008
Endorsements for At the Feet of the Spiritual Master
A brilliant U.S. scholar once stated, “Adi Da Samraj is the greatest
Spiritual Master in all of history.” Gerald Sheinfeld is uniquely
blessed to have spent decades in intimate proximity to the God
man Adi Da Samraj. Gerald describes some of what it was like to
live in the midst of such an incomparable, magnificent, humanity-serving,
radiant Force. I felt the presence of God throughout the pages
of his book, which is a rare gift to the world.
Charmian Anderson, Ph.D.
Author, The Heart of Success
and one of the first individuals to receive an advanced degree
in Transpersonal Psychology in the United States
“I offer you a relationship not a technique”: These words by
Adi Da Samraj open the engaging and revealing stories of Gerald
Sheinfeld’s 45 years with his Spiritual Master. Gerald’s stories
give a unique insight into the Guru/devotee relationship, beginning
with his confession that feeling Adi Da’s Enlightened State answered
his search for God and truth. Then over time Adi Da served that
heart-awakened response by revealing more and more of His Awakened
Condition, spontaneously generating a deeper devotional response.
These stories show how spiritual growth happens as a free gift
by the Enlightened Master. A book worth studying, filled with
the awakened recognition of Divine Reality and profound lessons
in ego transcending self-understanding.
Andrew Harvey
Author, Evolutionary Love Relationships, Teachings of
Rumi,
and The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism
Gerald Sheinfeld has written an up-close account of his lifelong
devotion and service to his Guru, Adi Da Samraj. In brief vignettes,
this Leela book chronicles Gerald’s 45-year struggle for increasingly
profound self-understanding aimed at ego-transcendence. The Leelas
make abundantly clear that living in the ever-blessing presence
of the Guru is an utterly demanding practice, keeping devotees
on their toes all the time, out of their comfort zone, without
a let-up, moment to moment, day after day. The reader becomes
a witness to the intimate play in which the Guru, with no holds
barred, creates an endless variety of teachable moments, often
out of seemingly innocuous events and circumstances, and thereby
confronting devotees with their interminable acts of self-contraction.
The Guru mirrors devotees back to themselves, all for the sole
purpose, and ultimate reward, of Enlightenment.
Rolf C. Carriere
Senior UN official (1971–2004)
and senior advisor to several INGOs (2005–present)
Gerald Sheinfeld, a devotee of Avatar Adi Da since the early 1970's, tells a wonderful story about how he found his Guru, Adi Da Samraj and his immediate recognition of Adi Da's unique state of Freedom, Happiness, and Liberation. Gerald speaks about how that recognition of Adi Da has the capacity to awaken others to that state of Prior Unity.
Gerald Sheinfeld, a devotee of Avatar Adi Da since the early 1970's, tells the story of the day he became Adi Da's devotee. It happened about eight months after he first met Adi Da. On that day, Gerald experienced (and was overwhelmed and heart-opened by) Adi Da's absolute vulnerability and complete lack of egoic armoring and received the Revelation of Adi Da's Divine State.
On his new downloadable album, At the Feet of the Spiritual Master, devotee Gerald Sheinfeld tells leelas — true stories of his life of over 45 years with Avatar Adi Da Samraj. These stories begin before the first ashram opened in 1972. They provide details of how Avatar Adi Da awakened ordinary people into devotees of Real God. These stories are based on the awakened recognition of the prior Unity of Divine Reality. They are full of lessons of self-understanding and brightening heart-joy in finding the truth about God, the truth about life and death. The truth of prior Happiness which is the true Condition of all, prior to the ego-I act of separation.
Gerald has been a devotee of Adi Da since the beginning of Adi Da's work with devotees. He accompanied Adi Da on His 1973 trip to India, and has participated in countless sacred occasions and events in the company of Adi Da in the intervening years — so he has many stories to tell!
Some of those stories are on this downloadable album. This audio excerpt is track 8, "The Vision Of Love", on Gerald's downloadable album.
Gerald Sheinfeld, describing an occasion of Darshan of Adi Da at Banyan Bay, on Naitauba, Fiji, in February, 2005: "Just by Adi Da's Free Presence all sense of separation fell away. The awareness was prior to the act of ego-'I'. The feeling had no separate self-sense to it, it was simply Reality. The Love-Bliss natural state of perfectly free Conscious Being."
In April, 2016 (close to the end of his tour), Gerald hosted several events at The Mountain Of Attention. This hour-long audio clip contains excerpts from those events — so if you were unable to attend any of Gerald's events. . . here is a taste!
Gerald has been a devotee of Adi Da since the beginning of Adi Da's work with devotees. He accompanied Adi Da on His 1973 trip to India, and has participated in countless sacred occasions and events in the company of Adi Da in the intervening years — so he has many stories to tell.
The quality of this audio clip is not perfect, but clear enough to understand. For higher quality, and more material, you can now purchase a downloadable album, At the Feet of the Spiritual Master.
Stops on Gerald's worldwide tour: July, 2015 - May, 2016 Melbourne, Australia Sydney, Australia The European Danda, the Netherlands Berlin, Germany London, England Cambridge, England Tiperary, Ireland Florence, Italy Natick, Massachusetts Portland, Oregon Seattle, Washington Vancouver, BC Canada Walk About Joy, Trinidad, California Santa Rosa, California Marin, California Los Angeles, California Joshua Tree, California Palm Springs, California San Diego, California Natick, Massachusetts Ripton, Vermont Montreal, Canada Sutton, Canada Piedmont, New Hampshire Los Angeles, California Tucson, Arizona Santa Fe, New Mexico Fort Worth, Texas Houston, Texas Slidell, Louisiana Birmingham, Alabama Atlanta, Georgia Jupiter, Florida High Springs, Florida Durham, North Carolina Richmond, Virginia Potomac, Maryland Kenilworth, New Jersey Long Island, New York New Paltz, New York Brooklyn, New York Cleveland, Ohio Chicago, Illinois The Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary, Northern California Gold Coast, Australia Byron Bay, Australia Melbourne, Australia Auckland, New Zealand Adi Da Samrajashram, Naitauba, Fiji
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