Celebrations > the Divine Avataric Conception

Da Ratri:
The Holy Day of
the Bodily (Human) Conception
of the Divine Person

 
Adi Da with his parents

Introduction


Avatar Adi Da Samraj acknowledged February 18, 1939 to be the date when His Divine Avataric bodily (human) Vehicle was conceived — eight and a half months previous to His Birth on November 3, 1939. This date is in synchrony with a unique confluence of several events occurring on February 18:

  •   Shiva Ratri
     
    Traditional Shiva Ratri portrait.
    Compare with the picture of Adi Da and His parents, above.
    (click to enlarge)
    The traditional Hindu religious festival of Maha Shiva Ratri (the celebration of the marriage of Shiva and Parvati — "the night of Lord Shiva, when He Himself was created by His Own Divine Grace") fell on February 18 in 1939, the year of Avatar Adi Da’s birth. On that day, the great Indian saint and Sat-Guru, Upasani Baba, made a remarkable, spontaneous prophecy of the appearance of an Avatar in the West. (See below.)

  • Avatar Adi Da's father was born on February 18, 1910.

  • Ramakrishna was born on February 18, 1836. (Avatar Adi Da identified Ramakrishna, together with Swami Vivekananda, as His Deeper-Personality Vehicle.)

Upasani Baba's prophecy

On February 18, 1939, about six months before the outbreak of World War II, the great Indian saint and Sat-Guru, Upasani Baba (1870 - 1941), received an important visitor to his ashram, the Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math, Minalaysa, for the Hindu feast of Siva Ratri. The Shankaracharya was greatly delighted at the religious life of Upasani Baba's Ashram and as a token of his full satisfaction with the life and activities of Upasani Baba's kanyas, he presented several of them with religious books. He had long talks with Baba on religion, the present chaotic condition of the Hindu Dharma (and of religion in the world altogether), and the need for its reform, and he expressed his regret that holy men were helpless to advance its cause. He saw only one solution to this sorry state of affairs — a great Divine intervention, in the form of an Avatar. Only such an event, he felt, could re-establish true Spiritual life.

Upasani Baba
 
Upasani Baba
 

According to the account, Upasani Baba listened sympathetically. He was a man of few words and unpredictable ways. Suddenly, he burst out with a completely unexpected utterance. Such an Incarnation, he said, would soon be born in a Western country. “He will be all-powerful,” Upasani Baba declared, “and bear down everything before him. And he will see to it that Vedic Dharma is firmly reestablished in India.” [1]

To prophesy the coming of an Avatar was extraordinary enough. To foresee That One as a Westerner was iconoclastic. Upasani Baba was foretelling a World-Teacher, One capable of Mastering both East and West. The notion that such a One would be a Westerner was, from the traditional Hindu point of view, incomprehensible. Nevertheless, on that very day, February 18, 1939, on Long Island, New York, a young married couple, Frank and Dorothy Jones, were celebrating Frank's birthday, which also fell on that day, and Adi Da has confirmed that February 18, 1939 was the day His physical vehicle was conceived on Long Island, New York, by his parents.


In fact, the day of Upasani Baba's statement was the day of My conception. My father's birthday was the same as Ramakrishna, by the way. And, calculating the date when this statement would have been made and the celebration going on at the time — Shiva Ratri — it coincided with my father's birthday. My father and mother were celebrating, because it was his birthday, and I would have been conceived on that occasion. And it coincides exactly with the occasion of this utterance by Upasani Baba. So it precedes My Birth by the nine months that follow.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj


I Am the Fulfillment of Upasani Baba's prophecy. My Incarnation is associated with — and, at Its Manifestation-level, effectively "caused" by — the Deeper Personality that was evident as Swami Vivekananda (combined with Sri Ramakrishna's Spiritual Presence). Nevertheless, all of the characteristics of both the gross physical vehicle and the Deeper-Personality-Vehicle of My Divine Avataric Incarnation here had to be Transcended in My Person — because I am Prior to all of those conditions and "causative" sources.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, "I Am One", Part 20, The Aletheon


Another synchronicity

It's worth adding that, on February 18, 1993 (long before the "February 18" confluence of events had been brought to His attention), Adi Da was spontaneously moved to talk about His Conception, describing how He was drawn to incarnate by the heart-need of certain of His devotees:


DEVOTEE: Sri Gurudev, I have a question relative to the Gurukula's function in the preparation of Your Vehicle. On February 18, You mentioned in a conversation about the Gurukula that they had made Your Manifestation possible.

ADI DA: By their requiring of it.

DEVOTEE: Their heart-need for You to incarnate?

ADI DA: Yes. The Gurukula is made up of individuals previously associated with Vivekananda. This is part of that submitting to Me and their association with Me. . . .

RUCHIRADAMA NADIKANTA (a member of the Gurukula and one of Avatar Adi Da's senior renunciate devotees): I was also feeling Vivekananda's Mahasamadhi and the profound sorrow that Nivedita at that point felt, and the sign that Vivekananda made to her of love, Your Love, and I felt the heart-need of those who had been with Vivekananda. I was strongly feeling how those coincided in bringing You down in this Form. I cannot even express my gratitude, Love-Ananda. I felt a deep, deep resting in this feeling-intimacy with You, because of the proven transcendence of conditionality through Love, human love included, but Love that proves Your Identification with the Divine Condition Itself.

Ruchiradama Nadikanta / Sister Nivedita
Ruchiradama Nadikanta / Sister Nivedita

I was also feeling the purity and the greater purpose of the hidden personality that was Vivekananda, as He manifested it, how pure and Divine in its purpose it was — exactly Your own Work. I felt so strongly, in being with You here now, that I am witnessing and participating truly in that same Work, the continuation of what had begun then. And that truly it was, as You actually told me once in 1987, just a continuation. There was never any separation. That was just a glimpse. And that true Divine Condition and Purpose and Work and Love was just exactly now as it had been begun then.

ADI DA: Now fulfilled.



Return to Celebrations




FOOTNOTES

 
[1]

The recount of this prophecy can be found in Shri B.V. Narasimha Swami and Shri S. Subbarao, Sage of Sakuri: Life Story of Shree Upasani Maharaj, 1966, pages 190-191 and page 204.



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.

Technical problems with our site? Let our webmaster know.