Adi Da Up Close
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The trailer for Conscious Light, an award-winning documentary on the life of Adi Da Samraj.

In every time and place, human beings have sought to grasp the ultimate mysteries of life and death. From time to time, great spiritual realizers have appeared in the world to reveal and transmit the secrets of reality and truth to all. Avatar Adi Da Samraj (1939-2008) is one of the rarest of such beings. His entire life was devoted to the discovery, demonstration, and spiritual revelation of the highest truth.

Conscious Light offers a penetrating glimpse into the remarkable life and enlightened teachings of Avatar Adi Da and His work to create an enduring legacy of potential spiritual realization for everyone.

Drawing on an extensive archival collection of film, photography, and audio recordings, as well as interviews with students who lived with Adi Da and practice His teachings, this intimate documentary takes the viewer on a journey of spiritual awakening in the company of one of the great spiritual masters of all time.

For more information, screening locations and ticket purchase go to the Conscious Light film website.

In this humorous and profoundly insightful Avataric Discourse (given by Adi Da on October 20, 2004 at Adi Da Samrajashram), Adi Da considers the difference between self-consciousness and egoity, referring to both humans and non-humans (including dogs, ants, and trees).

ADI DA: [Laughs] You generally attribute egoity to human beings, but you wonder about everything else. For instance, what about not something relatively inert like a rug or even just standing there and not seeming to be particularly responsive, like a tree. But what about a dog? Is a dog, do you think dogs are egos when you see them, just as readily as you think of human beings as egos? But, why do you draw the line? I mean how far does it go? Where do you stop thinking of living entities, at least, as egos? Do you just presume everything bigger than a cricket is an ego? Or is everything that moves in your, from your perspective experientially or in your natural presumptions, how far do, does the fact of egoity extend in your presumption.

Well, is an ant an ego in your presumption?

The word “ego” is actually a Greek word which means “I”. I consider it with you and talk about it in terms of self-contraction and so forth, but, so that’s the elaboration on its meaning, but the word simply means “I” which means the reference, self-reference, the reflexive, reflexive pronoun as it’s called of self-reference. So, does an ant feel self-referential?

You observe them protecting themselves and struggling with others. Couldn’t do so without some kind of self-consciousness, could it? So, you naturally presume that even something like an ant is, is a self, an ego, self-aware. Does something have to move from its spatial location? Does it have to be able to take a walk or, such as an ant or a human being, or can a tree? Does a tree have self-consciousness, exhibit self-consciousness. . .

What about trees? They are entities with apparent self-consciousness of a kind. They are in that sense, egos. But are they egoic? Are they functioning egoically? Are they feeling that they are in bondage and moved to seek as human beings are and as you feel in your own case, you see? Trees don’t seem to behave, generally speaking, in quite that way. They are self-conscious as organisms, but they don’t seem to be particularly disturbed about being trees. They seem more characterized by some kind of contemplation in which they don’t feel disturbed.

But if you observe non-humans, virtually all of them show signs of setting themselves apart and entering into a contemplative state that resembles some kind of a samadhi or meditative condition.

Why do you think human beings are disturbed? You see, why is human egoity what it is? If you observe how it appears in evidence in non-humans, suggests that human beings are the way they are because they’re confined, and not just confined by walls and bars. Some people are, and they get very disturbed there, and walk back and forth or get catatonic.

Your bondage is your own activity, and it also extends from conditions. Conditions can reinforce or seem to justify self-contraction. But still what you’re suffering is self-contraction itself.

So, human beings are actually confined, and they are self-confined, and otherwise, also, living in various modes and degrees of confinement by conditions of life and in fact, human beings feel confined by bodily existence, because however healthy you may be at the moment, you know you’re going to die, and are potentially, potentially, you could suffer any number of great happenings. And you anticipate that inevitably, you will, sooner or later, experience some fundamental difficulties that you would prefer not to have to endure, including disease and death.

Well, everything that’s physically living is going to die. The trouble, the difference is does it drive you crazy, make you seek, or are you at ease, because you haven’t lost touch with what transcends that possibility?

Tags: Avataric Discourse  
Comments: 1

Devotee Megan Anderson, who grew up in the Company of Adi Da, offers this testimonial to His life and work. She also describes how she was encouraged by Adi Da to take up her service to Him as one of the key editors of His Word, and how He personally guided her growth into human maturity.

Excerpt from Second Evening: Track 7 on the DVD, A Tribute to the Life and Work of His Divine Presence, Adi Da Samraj. More than 7 hours long, this Tribute DVD was filmed on the occasion of the first Anniversary of Adi Da's Divine Mahasamadhi, when devotees, family, and friends of Adi Da Samraj gathered at Adi Da Samrajashram, Fiji (Adi Da's principal Hermitage), to acknowledge Adi Da as the Divine in human form, to praise His Greatness, and to express their heart-felt gratitude for the Blessings they have received from Him.

A list of all the tracks on this DVD can be found here.

Tags: tribute   Megan Anderson   DVD   Tribute   Mahasamadhi  

Excerpt from an Avataric Discourse given by Adi Da Samraj on October 6, 2005, at the Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary.

ADI DA: "I find people's sorrows and losses to be heartbreaking and terrible and an immense burden and I am sympathetic and bless people in their trouble. However you must understand that is the nature of this place. This is not utopia, it is not paradise. It is a place of death, endings, suffering, brief amusements. It is not enough and merely to react to your difficulties for overlong and try to make an entire life out of it is fruitless. You do have to move on beyond that reaction to any moments suffering and loss. You must know the place you’re in and live in accordance with that knowledge instead of being sympathetic with some false view of the world or self or trying to idealize some aspect of potential experience, indulging in what amounts to addictions, repetitions of experiences, in order to avoid the knowledge of what is inherent in life, as well as all the hell that is coming on earth and is here. You will not be fulfilled.”

Tags: Avataric Discourse  

This is a video excerpt from Adi Da's classic talk, "The Bodily Location of Happiness", which He gave on November 28, 1981. This talk was originally published in the book, The Bodily Location Of Happiness. The full talk is available on DVD and on CD, and as an online transcript.

ADI DA: Life is foolishness. This is no time, in any case, to be tolerant of foolishness. The world is mad, and these are dreadful times. Things are not going to be easier in the years ahead. The spiritual process has always been lived in difficult times. Therefore, the spiritual process tolerates no fool. The spiritual process itself will spit you out. It is not an easy attainment, but a profoundly difficult affair. Even what you have listened to today has been heard by only a fraction of the human race in all of history. The opportunity to practice is extremely rare, and the fulfillment of practice is practically unknown.

In some sense you could say this life is hell. . . The nature of this hell is that we are self-possessed. We are born in un-Happiness and we do not transcend it readily. We constantly pursue Happiness through all kinds of incredibly complex means, and we never attain It. . .

If Spiritual Realizers did not turn about and Teach, this would truly be a hell instead of being like a hell. It would truly be a hell if there were no possibility of Enlightenment, if there were no Teaching, no Spiritual Masters, no sacred Way, no sacred community, no capacity for understanding or self-transcendence.

Tags: CD   DVD  

In this excerpt from a never-before-published discourse, Adi Da speaks about the necessity to become disillusioned with mortal life in a positive sense. Positive disillusionment is emerging when one begins to understand and relinquish the stressful and ultimately futile search for personal survival, worldly happiness, and ultimate life fulfillment. Only then can one be drawn into recognizing, learning about, and ecstatically participating in Reality Itself, in relationship to a True Realizer.

Tags: Avataric Discourse  
Comments: 2

In this discourse excerpt, Adi Da addresses the fact that the assumption of a separate self or being, is not really the case. It is, in fact, an illusion — a "lie" that rules our entire life. But based on this assumption, we assume all kinds of limitations, and struggle to get out of our suffering through the very means (our assumption that we are separate) which binds us in the first place. All that does is reinforce the illusion.

At 7:07, there is Darshan of Adi Da, continuing to 9:09.

Music: John Mackay and Matt Nicholson

The full talk is available on the DVD, The Quest for the Historical Self.

This talk is also available on a CD.

Tags: Avataric Discourse   Darshan   DVD   CD  

Audio excerpt from a Discourse given by Adi Da Samraj at Adi Da Samrajashram, on January 7, 1994, accompanied by a slideshow of more recent photographs of Adi Da.

Adi Da leads us to inspect all the unconscious presumptions that determine our sense of what is "real" - including the core presumption of being a separate "self". "Notice the chronic disposition of mistrust and fear that accompanies this core illusion", He says, "and allow your heart to trust What Is Real."

The complete Discourse is available on the CD, The Grace of Trust.

Tags: slideshow  

Video excerpt from an Avataric Discourse given by Adi Da Samraj on July 7, 2005, in Land Bridge Pavilion at The Mountain Of Attention.

In this excerpt, Adi Da responds to a devotee from India who asks for Adi Da's guidance on how to reconcile his traditional family obligations with his impulse to serve His Spiritual Master.

Tags: Avataric Discourse   DVD  
Comments: 4

Adi Da Samraj creating the Orpheus One and Linead One suites. Accompanied by Adi Da talking about His Image-Art. Edited by Carmen Morrow.

[This version of the video has Italian subtitles.]

Tags: image-art  

An audio excerpt from Adi Da Samraj's early talk, "Renouncing the Search for the Edible Deity", accompanied by photos of Adi Da from a more recent Avataric Discourse.

We experience "independent" existence as a kind of madness, a seeming separation from food (both because of the cutting of the umbilical cord and as a feeling of separation from our ultimate source of sustenance, the Very Divine). We must instead be like the eating gorilla. . .

Adi Da: "The eating gorilla finds a cabbage in the jungle, sits down like a slob and munches away at the cabbage, and is completely benign, completely peaceful. . . . Therefore, the eating gorilla is the image of the true man, the true woman. He demonstrates the principle of true politics, of real human existence, in which we are always presently connected to the Food Source in Truth, and are always presuming connection, relationship, 'I love you.' "

"Renouncing the Search for the Edible Deity" is available as a CD here. A transcript is also available online and as a chapter in the book, The Yoga Of Right Diet.

Tags: searchless diet  
Comments: 1

In this seminal discourse (at The Mountain Of Attention), from the early years of His Teaching Work, Adi Da speaks about the inevitable process of self-revelation and self-understanding that prepares the being for true Spiritual life.

The full talk is available on the CD, The Grace of Suffering, and on DVD as Volume 2 of the 25th Anniversary DVD Series.

Tags: CD   DVD  

Cheech Marrero was one of Adi Da's earliest devotees. In this video clip, Cheech describes the defining moment in his relationship with Adi Da.

You can read an extended version of Cheech's story here.

After Cheech's story — at 5:18 in the video clip — a slideshow of images of Adi Da begins, followed by a video clip of Darshan of Adi Da at 7:38. The soundtrack for the slideshow and Darshan is Jacqueline Clemons singing her and Nick Milo's composition, Universal World-Prayer, which sets to music the words of Adi Da:

Beloved, Inmost Heart of every heart,
do not Let our human hearts be broken
by our merely mortal suffering here —
but Make our mortal human hearts break-Free
to an unconditional love of You,
that we may, Thus, love all living beings
with Love's own True, and Truly broken, Heart.

Comments: 3

In this excerpt from an Avataric Discourse, Adi Da gives a Radical and profound description of the true nature of the Divine Reality, stating that the Divine is the substance of all that arises, not the "cause" of anything, Adi Da goes on to describe how it is our own separation from that which is the very Divine, that causes the assumption of separation (and all our suffering).

This talk excerpt is followed by a clip of Darshan of Adi Da (at 4:27).

Tags: Darshan   Avataric Discourse  
Comments: 1

Longtime devotee and Adidam educator, Anthony Costabile, summarizes the purpose of Adi Da's lifetime succinctly, and describes how the practice given by Adi Da authenticates itself.

For more about Adi Da's Teaching, click here.

For more about Adi Da's Spiritual Transmission of Divine Enlightenment, click here.

For more about Adi Da's Work with human beings after His lifetime, click here.

For more about how Adi Da made the Offering of Adidam available for all beings for all time, click here.

Comments: 2