In December, 2016, I learned that I had prostate cancer. Discovering I had "cancer" (and in our culture, just the word alone is terrifying, and has all kinds of negative associations) really put me through it — facing my mortality, experiencing my fear of death very fully, etc. I had friends who had died of prostate cancer. But the news also immediately led me to explore alternative health modalities for addressing the cancer.[1]

The primary blood test for measuring the amount of prostate cancer in the body is the PSA test.[2] I did extensive research and found a powerful mixture of herbal supplements that stabilized or decreased PSA level in about 46% of participants in an associated medical study.[3] So I began taking it, and succeeded in changing my rapidly rising PSA level into a flat line — no increase in the amount of cancer. (In the graph below, the "flat" period started with the PSA at 9.2 and ended with PSA at 8.8, 6 months later. It had been rising rapidly before that. I started taking the supplement when the PSA reached 7.8.)

The cancer was being held at bay! But before I started taking the supplements, the PSA level had increased in level very rapidly (at a rate of 3.6 per year), suggesting I might have an aggressive form of prostate cancer.[4] So I decided to have a prostatectomy (surgical removal of the prostate), because I couldn't be sure that herbal supplements alone were reliable for indefinitely keeping the cancer from metastasizing beyond the prostate.[1]

In March, 2017, the operation was performed using the latest technology. It was a "robotic prostatectomy", which the surgeon carried out sitting in front of a computer screen, viewing 3D images of the surgical site, typing into the computer, and manipulating mouse and joysticks (which would shift the view, or cause the robot arms to move the actual surgical tools). While the robot arms were a development of AI-based robotics, there was no AI programming being used here; the "robot" was just fancy hardware that never did anything on its own. Every step in the operation was entirely directed by the surgeon. But the 3D images and sophisticated robotic surgical hardware allowed the surgeon a convenience and an accuracy that was typically superior to what surgeons could do when they themselves had to hold the scalpels, etc.[5] And, behind the controls, I had the best, most experienced, young surgeon at this new kind of operation in Northern California.

The operation went very well. After the operation, there were no signs of any cancer left behind. And while there sometimes are long-term side effects of a prostatectomy (sexual dysfunction, incontinence, etc.), I was Graced to have a very quick recovery and no lasting side effects.

As it would turn out, there was a recurrence of the cancer two years later (in 2019). The cancer had been growing aggressively before I stabilized it with the supplements and had the prostatectomy, so probably some rogue cancer cells had escaped the (soon-to-be-removed) prostate and implanted themselves somewhere else in the body, and had now grown to the point of being detectable.

So I started the herbal supplements again, remembering how powerfully beneficial an impact they had had, prior to surgery. But this time, they appeared to have no effect whatsoever. The first month of the recurrence, the PSA level was .02.[6] I then re-started the supplements. In spite of that, the following month, the PSA level had increased to .03.

So I started engaging the Devotional Prayer of Changes (DPOC) very intensively. Because of the unwieldy length of the phrase, "Devotional Prayer of Changes", I’ll instead generally refer to it with the abbreviation, "DPOC" (or alternatively: "the Prayer"). Several important points about the DPOC will be illustrated in this story:

• Divine Communion is the Source of the power of the prayer
• The Prayer should be based on a detailed model of what you want and how to realize it
• We'll examine the Agency that accomplishes the prayer

Adi Da often contrasted the DPOC with what He called "conventional prayer". A conventionally religious person in my situation (i.e., with prostate cancer) might formulate a prayer along the lines of: "Please God, cure my cancer". The "God" they would be praying to is typically a Being presumed to have vast — even unlimited — knowledge and powers, conceived as a kind of giant "Parent in the Sky". The prayer to such a God might be similar to the appeal a child might make to their parents for something they wanted. But there is an important distinction: when children go to their parents for something, they know without a doubt that their parents are real, are listening to them, have abilities to get things for them that they can't get for themselves, etc. In "conventional prayer", the "God" being prayed to is a being whose existence one believes in, but one doesn't have any tangible evidence of — not in the same way you can see and touch your parents, or hear them respond to your requests. And just as the"God" in conventional prayer is a believed God, one is engaging in an "imaginary relationship" with that believed "God", rather than a relationship that has been confirmed as real.

The DPOC has a completely different foundation. Because of how the Prayer works (you must be in Communion with the Divine as you engage the Prayer), only devotees of Adi Da can participate in a DPOC. And one only becomes Adi Da's devotee on the basis of a Revelation one has received: the Revelation that Adi Da is the Divine in human form.That Revelation reveals the reality and true nature of the Divine Person — for example, the Divine Person is not "the Creator of the universe" or the "God in charge of everything", but the Consciousness in which the universe is arising, and the very Source of one's own being. And that recognition of who Adi Da is coincides with being able to be in Divine Communion: to be able to locate and be immersed in His Divine State of unlimited Happiness.

On the basis of that Revelation, the beginning practice of the Way of Adidam is to be in Divine Communion with Adi Da from moment to moment. And it is from that position — having immediate access to, and being a conduit for, Real Divine Power — that one engages the DPOC. There is nothing imaginary about it. You are not praying to a God who is a separate Other and is at a distance. Rather, you are embracing God, you are dissolved in God (so "you" are not in the way), and you are directly invoking, drawing upon, and directing the Power of God to Accomplish the desired changes. The effectiveness of the prayer does not depend on how persuasive an appeal you make to a great "Parent God" in the sky. It depends on how profoundly you are in Communion with Real God, and how much your "self" is out of the way, surrendered, and forgotten. The more those are the case the more effective your own body-mind will be as a conduit for the Power of God, and the more effective the Prayer will be.

In conventional prayer, an appeal is made to God, and then it's all on an omniscient and omnipotent God to figure out how to fulfill the prayer. But in the DPOC, the devotee is the one who formulates the Prayer, serves as conduit for the Divine Power, and often is part of the Agency that makes what is being prayed for actually manifest. So the devotee is playing a very active role. (For this reason, a key instruction accompanying the Prayer is that those participating in the Prayer must also change their own actions in whatever way is necessary or useful to best serve the Prayer.) Consequently, a prayer like "cure my cancer" is too vague. We need much more detail, a real sense of how the cancer is going to be cured. The DPOC is not "magic". It works within the psychophysical laws of the conditional universe.[8] So it's important to have as detailed a picture as possible of what you're visualizing you want to happen. What is my understanding of the cancer and how it works? More specifically: I am going to use those powerful herbal supplements as the basic approach to curing my prostate cancer. What is my understanding of why the herbal supplements were working before, but are not be working now? What would I need to have happen to get them to work now? That's the level of detail I was working on, which helps immensely with the actual fulfillment of the Prayer.

I knew the supplement I was taking was very powerful for the purpose at hand: killing prostate cancer cells. It had stabilized my PSA level before the prostatectomy. So I knew very specifically that the supplement worked in my case, on my prostate cancer cells. I also knew that the one big issue with supplement effectiveness is bioavailability: how much of the supplement is actually reaching the site (or sites) of the prostate cancer cells. In my detailed model of prostate cancer and my approach to addressing it, that seemed the obvious thing that could be different now: the cancer cells were now growing in some place that was harder to get the supplements to than where they had to get to before (the prostate). A good guess (based on where prostate cancer cells like to migrate and grow if they escape from the prostate) would be lymph nodes. And oral supplements definitely have a harder time reaching lymph nodes. Ingested orally, the supplements enter the bloodstream through the walls of the stomach and the intestines. Lymph nodes are part of the circulatory system (along with blood vessels and the heart), but relatively little of anything passed along by the bloodstream ends up entering the lymph nodes. As one research paper puts it: "intravenously administered drugs [i.e., drugs injected into the bloodstream] rarely enter the lymphatic system." So, based on this detailed model of how things work, my DPOC was formulated in very specific terms: I specifically visualized much more of the supplement reaching the sites of the prostate cancer cells, wherever they might be in the body (including the lymph nodes).

A month after I added to my regimen of taking supplements this DPOC of directing the supplements to the site(s) of all prostate cancer cells in the body, I took the PSA test again. The PSA level was now down — to .02! I let out a huge, joyous shout — YES!!! — at the test result. And I was enveloped in a feeling of gratitude toward everything and everyone who had helped, including first and foremost my Beloved Guru, Adi Da, Who was the Source of the Divine Power behind the Prayer.

My urologist — that same young surgeon who had done such an excellent job removing my prostate — was stunned. He told me that, in all his experience with hundreds of prostate cancer patients (and in all his medical knowledge of people with prostate cancer in general), after a recurrence of cancer has begun and the PSA level begins to rise, it never goes down (without further conventional medical treatment, like radiation or hormone therapy). Rather, it's always a question of determining how fast it is rising (the so-called "doubling time"). But he insisted we wait another month, for more data, before we reached any conclusions.

So we waited. And I continued my Prayer and my supplements. I took the PSA test again the following month. The PSA level had dropped even further — it was now "undetectable"! (.02 is the lowest amount the test is capable of measuring. Any smaller level of PSA is below the sensitivity of the test and is labelled "undetectable".)

At this point, my doctor now completely believed and accepted the reversal of the cancer, and was fascinated by my explanation of how that came about.

Even though I could no longer measure any further drops in PSA with the PSA test, if the rate of dropping that had occurred while it was measurable continued, the PSA level would reach 0 (i.e., "no cancer left in the body") in another couple of months. So of course I kept up my regimen of supplements until then — and indeed, for another year, for good measure — to allow enough time to pass to be sure the cancer was completely eliminated.

I've had regular PSA tests ever since then. As I write this (in July, 2025), it is now six years later. I had initially been getting a PSA test every month, but now it is reduced to only twice each year, and the test result continues to be "undetectable".

So at this point, I consider myself to be cured!

After I began engaging the DPOC, and the PSA test showed a drop in PSA level, it was clear that sufficient amounts of the supplement were now reaching — and killing — the prostate cancer cells, ultimately to the degree of eliminating the cancer altogether. The Prayer had worked! But how exactly did the Prayer work? Who or what was the Agency that directed the supplements to the right places in sufficient quantities to do the job?

As I mentioned earlier, the foundation of that Agency is the devotee's Communion with the Divine. Recognizing Adi Da as the Divine and being immersed in His Divine State of Happiness gives the devotee access to the All-Accomplishing Power of the Divine. However, the Divine Itself is not the Agency that directs and carries out the changes in the conditional universe. Here's a quick summary of the two possibilities: It is either the devotee in Divine Communion, having (sometimes latent) capabilities of their own body-mind awakened or amplified by Divine Communion; or it is other helpers, material and non-material, who are drawn to help and serve the fulfillment of the Prayer, attracted by the "high vibration" of the devotee in Divine Communion; or a combination of both. I'll now elaborate on this.

Even though the Divine is indirectly the Source of the Power underlying the DPOC, the Divine does not carry out the DPOC Itself:

When Adi Da says, "as you well know", He means if we look around, it is completely obvious that a loving God could not be having much (or even any) influence here, given how obviously this is a universe full of chaos, suffering, and mortality. But He also indicates that a Divine Incarnation is the turning point: when the Divine acquires a body-mind — in other words, when the Divine acquires actual Agency in the conditional universe — the Divine can begin changing everything here. And, while alive, Adi Da put enough in place so that, even though He is no longer humanly alive, the universe can continue to be transformed by the Divine through His devotees. I provided this quote from Adi Da in the Introduction to this Part, but it is core Communication that is worth looking at again:

So the Divine is Emerging in the conditional universe, through His devotees being in Divine Communion whole bodily. This is how the Divine Purpose of liberating all beings will be fulfilled. And this is also how the DPOC is "powered": the Power of the Divine flows into the devotee (through Divine Communion) and enables the devotee's body-mind to accomplish things that would not otherwise be possible, by awakening and powering all manner of latent or sleeping capabilities and "siddhis" [spiritual powers] in the body-mind of the devotee, or capabilities that can be learned or developed. I gave a good example of this in the previous chapter, where I described how use of the DPOC awakened a capability in me for "healing" computers. Just so, the DPOC I engaged for curing my prostate cancer may have awakened in me a capability for being able to telekinetically direct the supplement to the right places in my body.

I have mentioned a second possible way Agency occurs in the DPOC: other helpers, material or non-material, can be drawn to help and serve the fulfillment of one's Prayer, attracted by the "high vibration" of the devotee in Divine Communion. So it may not have been me directing the supplement to the right places, but some non-material helpers. In this particular example, I have no way of knowing which it might be. If you asked me, "how does one telekinetically direct supplements to the right place?" I'd have nothing I could say to you about it! But that doesn't mean I'm not the Agency behind it. A lot of people sit at a computer each day, having no idea how a computer actually works, but accomplishing extraordinary things on the computer, because they know how to make use of the computer, without knowing (or needing to know) how it works. Another example: I walk from my office down the hall. But how exactly did I do that? How did my intention to walk get translated into nerve impulses to my legs that led to muscle movements causing me to stand up and walk? I don't know! But it is not necessary for me to be able to say how I do it. I simply am able to do it, without needing to know how it is done.[7] In an earlier chapter, I gave an example of telekinetic capability, where I rolled doubles with a pair of dice seven times in a row! How did I do that? Beyond the ability of the mind to move objects, how did I somehow make sure they were doubles? I have no idea! But I did.

So, powered by the Divine, I may have been the Agency that cured my prostate cancer. Alternatively: I may have had help from non-material beings who perhaps had much more awareness of how to accomplish the telekinetic task I was visualizing happening, and they lent a hand. Or maybe it was some combination of me and them — I don't know! But my great gratitude to any and all non-material helpers who assisted in my healing. And my great gratitude to my Beloved Guru, Adi Da, who was the Power behind the Agency, however exactly it manifested here as Agency in the conditional universe.

In speaking about the "Agency" that accomplishes the Prayer, I've drawn on several different terms that Adi Da uses (and distinguishes) with great precision. It's worth pointing out these distinctions, so there is no confusion:

• Agency — Agency is the means through which changes in the conditional universe take place. The Agent provides the intention to make the change, as well as the conditional means to make the change, even at the same time as its ability to carry out the change may be greatly enhanced (or even made possible) by the Power of the Divine. The Divine alone is not the Agent making conditional changes. The Divine alone is merely present.
• Divine Power or Virtue — This is an infinite potential that can be drawn upon by a conditional Agent and used to make changes in conditional existence. The Divine Power alone cannot make any changes in conditional existence. It is only when it is combined with an Agent in conditional existence that changes can occur. The Divine Power can be contrasted with "creature power". "Creature power" — what is possible by conditional Agents "on their own" — is extremely limited. The Divine Power is unlimited in what changes are possible in the conditional universe through It, when combined with conditional Agents. This is why Adi Da refers to it as His "All-Accomplishing Power".
• "God has zero influence" in Itself in the conditional universe — God is the Source of the conditional universe but, as Source only, the Divine has no Agency in the conditional universe, and so "God has zero influence", i.e., neither Power nor Agency in conditional existence, in Itself. It is only by means of a Divine Incarnation that an Agent is introduced into conditional existence that can draw upon the Divine Power in the most full fashion. That initial Agent is the beginning of a Divine Emergence into the conditional universe. Once that initial "opening" (or "hole in the universe") has been made, the devotees of that Agent can then become Agents of the Divine Power themselves through Divine Communion, which gives them access to the Power of the Divine for making unlimited changes in the conditional universe. The Divine Emergence is a progressive process. The more people there are who are in Divine Communion, the more the Divine has Emerged in the conditional universe, and the greater the collective effect of those in Divine Communion can be on the conditional universe. At the end point of the process of Divine Emergence, the collective power is so transformational that the entire universe is translated into the Divine.