Adi Da's picture in The Dreaded Gom-Boo

In 1983, 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. On a couple of visits to my favorite local bookstore, I picked the book up, but put it down again shortly after, because the picture of Adi Da that I saw when I opened the book did not match my notion of a "Spiritual Master". (For one thing, He was American, not Indian.[1]) But the third time I picked the book up and opened it, I made it past the picture and actually started reading it. I instantly recognized that Adi Da's communication was on a completely different level than that of any other book I had ever read: His Teaching only communicated from the viewpoint of Ultimate Truth, and only supported the Realization of that Ultimate Truth. It was uncompromising in its refusal to let the reader lapse into a lesser view or become fascinated by a lesser Realization. Even so, it accounted for all those lesser views and Realizations (and what was "fascinating" about them), at the same time as it clearly identified their limitations.

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 (all the pieces already fitted together into a coherent whole), and over and over again, described from every possible vantage point — truly the richest possible Treasure that can be expressed in words!

Click to enlarge

I immediately began reading everything Adi Da wrote. I listened to every audiocassette (and later, every video recording) of Adi Da's talks. My practical life continued its course — I completed my Ph.D. at Stanford, and, at 26, I became a professor of Artificial Intelligence at a major university (Rutgers University in New Jersey). I supplemented and supported what I was learning from Adi Da by driving up to Connecticut once a week, to the home of Alexander and Leslie Lowen (the creators of bioenergetic therapy) [2], and engaging in bioenergetic therapy with them. But all the while, I was studying Adi Da's teaching and being re-oriented to (and re-organized by) His radical viewpoint of Truth Itself.

* * *

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 now talk about four of the subjects in Adi Da's teaching that were revealed in my actual life during this final period of preparation: feeling without limitation, considering the Great Questions, positive disillusionment,[3] and synchronicity.

Part I, Chapter 8

FOOTNOTES

[1]		I was amused to learn that fellow devotee James Steinberg had a similar reaction to Adi Da, upon first seeing His picture. Of course, for other devotees, a picture was the means by which Adi Da Revealed Himself to their hearts. Different people are moved to recognize Him through different means.
[2]		Alexander Lowen was the founder of bioenergetic therapy, and has written numerous seminal books on the subject, including Bioenergetics: The Revolutionary Therapy That Uses the Language of the Body to Heal the Problems of the Mind, Joy: The Surrender to the Body and Life, and Narcissism: Denial of the True Self. The techniques developed in bioenergetics can play a supportive role in the Way of Adidam ("Da bioenergetics"), in much the same way that Adi Da has adapted various practices from Chi Gong ("Da Chi Gong"), calisthenics, and hatha yoga to support practice of "conscious exercise" altogether.
[3]		Adi Da did not actually begin to use the phrase, "positive disillusionment", until much later (after 2000). However, during the period I'm describing (1983 to 1989) He was communicating much the same concept using other language (e.g., "The Lesson of Life", "Come to Me when you are already Happy", etc.).

Part I, Chapter 8

Part I, Chapter 8