During most of the period from spring, 1996 through summer, 1997 (except for three months when Adi Da was in Europe), I was a member of the Dasya Mandala, Adi Da's "travelling party", the small group of devotees who accompanied Him wherever He went. Early 1996 was an especially intense travelling period. During that time, we travelled to Hawaii (the Da Love-Ananda Mahal Sanctuary in Kauai), Cape Cod (Massachusetts), and Northern California (the Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary).

In June of 1996, Adi Da decided to return to Adi Da Samrajashram in Fiji. Adi Da Samrajashram is an island — the island of Naitauba — that Adi Da has empowered to be His primary Spiritual Sanctuary and Residence. It is a very holy place, and Adi Da has always required that the residents of the island be strong practitioners of the Way of Adidam. At the same time, the residents collectively had to be a group of people capable of providing all the necessary functions for maintaining the island, from its food needs (e.g., growing vegetable gardens) to its spiritual needs (e.g., serving as priests at each of the holy sites or temples), to Adi Da's personal needs. Finally, because Adi Da Samrajashram was located on a remote island in the South Pacific, travel expenses were significant, and there was a limited travel budget that had to be considered as well.

At times, Adi Da would reconsider the staffing on the island, taking into account all these different factors. So at this moment, in June 1996, when He was planning to leave the Mountain Of Attention and return to Adi Da Samrajashram, He engaged in just such a consideration, or “staffing Puja”, as we sometimes called it. He asked for the devotees in leadership positions to put together a proposed "Adi Da Samrajashram staffing list" for Him.

So the next day, those devotees came back to Adi Da with a list of proposed devotees, and their associated functions on the island. Adi Da went through the list with the devotees, making comments about which suggestions He approved and which He did not. When they reached the end of the list, He said, “I noticed Chris Tong‘s name is not on the list.” The devotees compiling the list explained that, when they took all the factors into account, I was not needed. Adi Da nodded, and the devotees went off to compile a new version of the list, based on their conversation with Adi Da.

They came back the next day with a new list. Adi Da went through it with them again, name by name. When He reached the end of the list, He commented, “I notice Chris Tong's name is still not on the list.” The list compilers gave a response similar to the one they gave the day before (about how, in compiling the list, they were taking everything into account and I didn't seem to be needed).

But the list compilers took note of Adi Da's repeated comment. And when they came back the third day with the newly revised list, my name was on it this time! And when Adi Da saw that, He said, “Good.”

So a few days later, I was on a plane to Fiji to be with Adi Da on Adi Da Samrajashram.

Three months into my stay on Naitauba, Adi Da asked me a question. (He did this through “Notes” — where the devotee who was the intended recipient would receive a printed copy of Adi Da‘s words and questions, and the devotee would respond in writing.) He said, “You are the head of the Internet Mission. Are you sure that you are able to carry out that function as effectively as possible on Adi Da Samrajashram?” Of course, He was alluding to the fact that we were on a remote island in the South Pacific. I had no desire to be apart from Him. Adi Da Samrajashram was His primary residence, so my thinking was that it would be the best place to live if I wanted to be in His physical Company as much as possible. So I responded with my best argument for why I could still fully carry out everything I needed to do here on Naitauba. (Among other things, the island did have full Internet capability.) He accepted my argument.

However, a couple of weeks later, Adi Da asked me the exact same question again: “Are you sure you’re able to carry out your function as effectively as possible on Adi Da Samrajashram?”

The exact same question! I took the “hint”. I had learned from His dialog with the staffing list compilers that, when He repeats a question, we should allow ourselves to become more sensitive to Him, and reply to what He wants, and not merely to what He says. Clearly He had some reason why He thought it would be better for me to be at the Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary (in Northern California) — which was the obvious alternative place I’d be living — rather than Adi Da Samrajashram.

So this time, I replied by saying: no, probably I’d have access to more and better resources in Northern California for carrying out the Internet Mission, than on Adi Da Samrajashram.

His reply: “I thought so!”

I laughed heartily when I read His reply! It was so obvious that the whole affair — of getting me to live on the island and now moving me off the island to the Mountain Of Attention — was entirely His Divine Play. The advisability of my doing my Internet service on Adi Da Samrajashram had not changed one bit, from the start of my stay on Naitauba to the end! He could just as well have asked me up front (during the "staffing puja") whether it was a good idea for me to be doing my Internet service on Adi Da Samrajashram, which would have led to the conclusion that I shouldn't be a resident of the island. But He didn’t bring it up then, because at that time, for His Own Purposes, He wanted me to be a resident of the island. He only asked whether the island was the best place for my service when He wanted to move me off the island (for reasons yet to be revealed).

So a week later, in September, 1996, I left Naitauba, and moved to the Mountain Of Attention. And, as it would turn out, Adi Da Himself, who happened to be in Europe at the time we were dialoguing, would soon travel to the Mountain Of Attention in October, 1996. So, even though I couldn’t have known it at the time, Adi Da was sending me to be where He Himself was going to be soon! And the interchange was just a little test, to see whether I would follow His Guidance (given in this case indirectly, in the manner of a hint) and actually end up living near Him, rather than stick with my own limited ideas about how to be close to Him (where I would have argued in favor of continuing to live on Naitauba).

And as it would turn out, not only would I be with Him again at the Mountain Of Attention; I would end up playing a crucial role (brought about entirely through His Grace) in bringing Him to the Mountain Of Attention, as I described in the last chapter.

It was an amazing "Leela" — a Divine Play — in which everything was moving magically and wondrously, in a perfect Divine Order that was unfolding in a manner beyond anything a conventional mind could grasp. It didn't involve Adi Da "thinking ahead" and making decisions based on knowing what was coming. I don't think it was that He "knew" in advance that He was going to the Mountain Of Attention and so He sent me there. No, it was much more mysterious than that. As the Divine Person, He always "stands" in a place that is Prior to all space and time, in which all moments in time — past, present, and future (including all potential timelines) — are simultaneous. All His actions were spontaneous and without thought, moved by that incredible, unfathomable Consciousness of Eternity, which was simultaneously aware of past, present, and future. And it was from that place that He sent me to a location where He would later be Himself.

So as things would turn out, my residence on Naitauba was relatively brief: from June to September, 1996. And looking back, as I write this chapter, I still wonder why Adi Da was so insistent on my being there.

I have no conventional answer to that question. But as I recall that brief time living on the island, one event stands out, and that event might provide an unconventional answer, a psychophysical answer.

One morning while living on Naitauba, I awoke from a very unusual dream. While most dreams tend to be about people, events, and that sort of thing, this dream felt more like a communication. It was about the core practice of the Way of Adidam.

The core practice of the Way of Adidam is a devotional practice that involves devotionally turning the faculties of the body-mind (attention, feeling, body, and breath) to the Guru in every moment, and by so doing, entering into Divine Communion, immersed in His Divine State of Perfect Happiness.

The dream was very specifically about the name for that core practice of the Way of Adidam. At the time, the name Adi Da was using for the core practice was “Ishta-Guru Bhakti Yoga”. “Bhakti Yoga” is a traditional Hindu phrase indicating that the spiritual practice ("Yoga") is focused on devotion ("Bhakti"). “Ishta-Guru” means “Chosen Guru”. So altogether, “Ishta-Guru Bhakti Yoga” means “the spiritual practice of devotion to one’s chosen Guru”. In my dream, an authoritative voice was speaking to me. It said that the current name for the core practice could be misunderstood to mean you could select any Guru you want, and practice the Way of Adidam with that "chosen Guru". However (said the voice), the Way of Adidam and its core practice have been uniquely detailed in many books by Adi Da, and it is a practice that can only be done in relationship to Adi Da. So (said the voice), ideally the name for the core practice would directly refer to Adi Da in some manner, so that this misinterpretation (that any chosen guru could suffice) would not be possible.

A very unusual dream!

The name for the core practice was not a subject that I had been thinking about, so the dream was not reflecting my own thoughts. Instead, it felt like I was just a conduit (or channel), and this was a communication that I was meant to pass on to Adi Da.

And so that’s exactly what I did. The next morning, I sent Adi Da a note that included all the details of the dream.

Adi Da responded immediately. First, He wanted me to re-confirm to Him that I had received this in a dream, and describe the context of the dream: the voice, etc. That aspect seem to be of paramount importance to Him. When I confirmed all this, He said this was a very important communication.

A couple of days later, Adi Da formally announced a new name for the core practice of the Way of Adidam. The first new name He gave it was “Da Avatara Bhakti Yoga”, because His Own primary title at the time was “the Da Avatar”. But at the same time that He was re-considering the name of the core practice (initiated by the report of my dream), He also was going through a consideration about His own name and title. That consideration would conclude with His primary title being “The Ruchira Avatar” — which means “The Avatar of Brightness”. Having finalized His title, He then also finalized His name for the core practice of Adidam accordingly, to be “Ruchira Avatara Bhakti Yoga” — a name that unmistakably indicated that the only Guru with whom one could engage this core practice is Adi Da, the Ruchira Avatar.[2]

I have the strong feeling that the dream I had could not have occurred anywhere but on Naitauba. I also had the strong feeling that that had been part of the psychophysical reason I needed to be on Naitauba. So as part of this incredible "Divine Leela" that I wrote about a little earlier, in which everything is moving magically and wondrously in a perfect Divine Order beyond anything the conventional mind can grasp, I "happened" to have been placed in the right place — on the Sacred Island of Naitauba — at the right moment, so that I could be used as a conduit from the Divine (whose voice I presume I was channeling in my dream) to the Divine (in the human form of Adi Da).

And all of that is very mysterious!

Adi Da sometimes referred to His most esoteric secrets as "High Dharma". In telling the stories in this chapter and the last, I have the strong feeling that I've stumbled across some of that "High Dharma". I'm struggling to make full sense of it, but I'll give a progress report here of what I've understood so far — which I may return to and refine later, as I continue to understand this matter better.

I'll refer to this High Dharma as "The Divine Responding to the Divine in a Manifest Form".

I described how, in having this dream, I appear to have been used as a conduit (or "channel") from the Divine (whose voice I presume I was channeling in my dream) to the Divine (in the human form of Adi Da).

Curiously, there is a similarity between this story and the story in the last chapter, where everything was deadlocked between Adi Da (in Holland) and His devotees (at the Mountain Of Attention) until the moment Adi Da successfully descended into me — taking me over, dissolving "me" altogether, and animating my body to spontaneously shout out the recognition of Him as the Divine Person. It was Him doing that shouting! I know, because I could feel the body "being shouted". It was again the Divine meeting the Divine through the body of a devotee, and that changed everything, leading Adi Da to travel to the Mountain Of Attention. . . even as, in the Naitauba dream, the Divine spoke to the Divine, and that led to the changing of the name of the core practice.

To these two extraordinary moments — which I can recount here because I personally participated in them — I'll add all the moments when Adi Da "conferred with" the Goddess in His Sukra Kendras. "The Goddess" is Adi Da's name for the Radiance of the Divine — the subtle Personification of the Creative Universal Spirit-Energy.

Adi Da regularly went into special temples He Created solely for His Own Use — the Sukra Kendras — where He would "talk" with the Goddess. The Sukra Kendras are the most sacred of all the temples He created. He had a Sukra Kendra at each of His Empowered Sanctuaries and at the European Danda. For whatever profound Divine Reason, Adi Da often found it useful to engage in "conversation" with the Goddess, manifested in human form before Him in one of His Sukra Kendras, even though the Goddess was an aspect of Himself.

But it is also true Adi Da sees each of His devotees as the Divine — as Himself — too.

So perhaps His devotees too — when they were in a state of egoless devotion — sometimes served a similar purpose for Him as the Goddess, as a particular, unique way of communicating with Himself, or as a particular, unique way of helping to move His Work forward in some way.

I suspect that there may have been many more moments during Adi Da's lifetime like the ones I have described here, of the Divine responding to the Divine in Manifested Form — involving many other devotees. If any devotee reading this has a similar story to tell, please let me know!