Introduction > A Word on Skeptics and Critics

For Skeptics and Critics
of a Most Extraordinary Communication

by Chris Tong, Ph.D.



Artistic rendering by Martin Goulding


It almost goes without saying that, in the world of the twenty-first century, when the extraordinary suggestion is made that a real human being of our time and place (not some mythical "long ago and far away") could be an Incarnation of the Divine, it provokes incredible skepticism and reactivity.


Materialistic skeptics. Obviously a good deal of this is due to the materialistic view that dominates our times: Anything greater than material is doubted by the materialist. End of story, for most materialists — not only in considering Adi Da as Divine Incarnation, but in considering the possibility of genuine Spiritual Masters, or even any kind of greater-than-material reality. But is materialism really the "end of story"? We hope some of the hundreds of stories on this site — of miracles and more — will help our materialist readers to reconsider their position.


Scientific materialism is a strange philosophy for everyone to be attached to . . . Why should it be the preferred philosophy? Of all the philosophies, it’s the one that allows the least hope relative to any matter whatsoever! If it were so — well, that’s that, that’s the way it is. But why should one hope that it is the one that turns out to be so? Why should one so much want it to be so that one is moved to presently affirm that it’s already so, even though you haven’t really found out that it’s so yet? . . .

Why that, rather than just be willing to have it be whatever way it is, but here to find out the way it really is?

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, Drifted in the Deeper Land


Judeo-Christian skeptics. Those raised in the Judeo-Christian tradition often will bring a different kind of doubt to the table, including "How can the God who created, and is in charge of, the universe appear in a limited human form (with the paradoxical exception of Jesus for Christians)?" However, the presumption behind such a question is that, when we refer to "God", we are necessarily referring to "the Creator of the Universe". Adidam is based on a very different notion of "Real God". In our view, God is not the Creator of the universe, and is not "in charge" of it, in the sense of intentionally directing the course of the universe. God is more akin to the Consciousness "dreaming" this universe. A very rare set of circumstances makes it possible for the Dreamer to appear as a "character" in the dream (as a "Divine Incarnation"), for the purpose of awakening the "dream characters" (who are just forms of the Dreamer — that includes all of us) from the dream. This is God-Realization: the greatest possible human destiny and purpose of existence, transcending every limited form of egoic destiny and purpose (within the dream).


You are just beginning to Awaken.You are just beginning to Awaken.

I am like the sunlight in the morning. I intensify the light of morning until you Awaken.

Until the Light Awakens you, even the Light of Consciousness Itself, you continue to dream, try to survive within the dream, manipulate yourself within the dream, pursue all kinds of goals, searches — none of which Awaken you.

Those who are Awakening in Truth begin to notice something. They begin to recognize the signs. They begin to recognize the activity of dreaming. They begin to sense something very unusual about Me. I Am your own True Self-Nature Appearing within the dream to Awaken you.

I Am your Awakening, and your Always Already Conscious State.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, The Ancient Walk-About Way


Ex-devotee critics. Still others, including some who have "tried" Adidam for some time and then "moved on", will take exception to some of the "Crazy-Wise" means used by our Spiritual Master to awaken His devotees, to shake them loose from this mortal dream. Those of us who have "stayed the course" have a different perspective to offer, as you will discover in reading the stories on this site:


The compassionate Master does not do for others everything He can do within the bounds of propriety. The compassionate Master will do everything, whether in the realm of propriety or not, for the sake of Awakening others.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj



While all new religious movements have significant turnover, the great majority of ex-devotees have a respect and appreciation for Adi Da and their time in Adidam. (For example, 90% of all ex-devotees view Adi Da as a "great religious teacher".) There are a few vocal "ex-devotee" critics who do not represent the great majority of ex-devotees, but even some of them are now expressing a different understanding and new appreciation of Adi Da.

Providing the evidence. We well understand that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", as Carl Sagan has put it. We don't blame anyone for harboring doubt, or raising questions about how such a thing could be. It is extraordinary! But to those of us with firsthand experience, it is no longer unbelievable. And Adi Da Himself has instructed us to compile the evidence and make it available to everyone:


Devotees are obliged to tell this extraordinary story that is ordinarily unacceptable to Western consciousness. You are more than Westerners, because you have a Great "Experience", a Great "Consideration" to present. It is a Timeless Sublimity, with a Great Purpose making its moment.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, 1988


You must speak about being in the company of someone who functions on a supernormal basis. You must speak about the prevention of a huge storm, and various other kinds of what people would otherwise call miraculous happenings, which you have all witnessed repeatedly for over 35 years. You must tell the story of the lifetime of someone whose Presence here makes a difference, and proves things that are otherwise dismissed commonly. You must set Me apart, based [on your confession of your recognition of Me as the Divine, and therefore] on your confession that I am what your lives are all about. . .

This whole "trash world without a miracle in it" needs to be told about the Divine Avataric Intervention here. The world must hear from you about it. Tell the story and present the evidence, as people who understand.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, February, 2008


This website is a labor of love purposed toward providing the evidence — in the form of hundreds of personal, firsthand accounts — that supports a most extraordinary communication, and a most extraordinary opportunity for a world and a time that could certainly use one: the offering of the Divine State of Perfect and Eternal Happiness.





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May the transition of Beloved remove the doubt from the attention of any: we are not separate individuals attempting to survive on a planet in time with some enlightened and some not.

We are the Very Divine Itself Awakening Deeper and Alive and Well.

We always have been all along.

Dear John Skeptic,

I think it's true enough to say that many experiences if not all experiences occur to the experiencer from a subjective point of view. Even if two or three or four people had the same or similar experience at the same time it is still a subjective experience, since everyone has experiences of some kind or another. Experiences in Adi Da's Company that are related to Him directly or indirectly can occur due to an individual's own sensitivity toward Adi Da that allow such experiences to manifest. The fact that you did not have such experiences of an extraordinary kind does not discredit these experiences, it merely points to the matter of your own experience in Adi Da's Company. As a student of Adidam the most important connection I have found toward Adi Da is the matter of heart attraction. Through this attraction has come an intuitive heart response to Adi Da. All the best.

[Editors' note: One of the secondary purposes of the Adi Da Up Close site is to confirm to those who do have such religious/spiritual intuition and/or experiences that they indeed are "real" (or not necessarily to be merely discounted); and that they reflect a Greater Reality that the present modern society is, in general, failing to notice. Additionally, one of the primary purposes of this site is to also demonstrate Adi Da's unique position in the midst of this Greater Reality, through the telling of these stories.]

 

I think it's far easier to doubt than to have faith or believe, especially when so much in this world turns out to be less than what we want to have faith in, or believe in. I began studying Adi Da's Teaching in the early 70's, and I became a devotee in the late 90's. I can hardly make any claims to being a "perfect devotee," and, relative to the Guru/devotee relationship, I certainly acknowledge all the ways in which I fall short. But I have had experiences of Adi Da that transcend everything about my ordinary, daily life. Across great distances, and even across a yard where He got into a van and was whisked away, I FELT Him, I felt His Transmission, I felt a wave of something penetrate me in the right side of the chest which I have only felt in relation to Him. It was a feeling of the "painful Loving" He has described on many occasions, and it brought me to tears. It was the hole in the universe where He is able to communicate His Divine State. And I cannot explain it in any kind of ordinary way; I certainly have experienced love for many, many people in my lifetime, but no such feeling FEELS like Adi Da. But this is just my experience. I know other devotees who have felt this, and I know plenty of people (including other devotees)who haven't. I don't think this makes me special, but it is definitely what makes me a devotee! And, in spite of whatever shortcomings I have as a devotee, I can say without any hesitation I LOVE Adi Da with all my heart and I have faith and I believe.
I too, doubted Adi Da was a REAL Master. I studied with the teaching daily for two years. I lived in the Community with much contact with the Spiritual Master for years. It was cool and enlivening and purifying, BUT no Big deal. Then, one day, even as I harbored my doubts, He overwhelmed all. I was subsumed into unending oceanic joy without end. Bliss is too weak a description. Thereafter, I could understand my self and come to see what He meant by His Self-references as the Divine Person, who is Reality Itself, Face to face.

Dear john skeptic,

Thank you for your comment. What you describe is actually true for many devotees as well!

One of my closest devotee friends has been with Beloved for around 30 years. He too has served Him intimately for many years. He had his first "spiritual experience" only 4 years ago. It is like Avatar Adi Da says: experience is not the point. Awakening beyond the presumed separate (egoic) point of view that is the experiencer is the point. In the first movie of Avatar Adi Da ever made, "A Difficult Man", many devotees are interviewed during the period of Garbage and the Goddess. One man was interviewed along with his wife. His wife talks about her experiences, then he says something like "I don't know what she is talking about. I haven't had any" — even though this was a period when many devotees were having intense spiritual experiences.

There are many reasons why people either have or don't have "spiritual" or other unusual experiences. Some have them right from the beginning. That may be the result of their "karma", or an already yogically sensitive or purified body-mind, or whatever other psycho-physical propensity they may have for such experience. For others, it is a matter of the real sadhana [practice] of devotion and self-discipline as Adi Da instructs. And there are just plain old, random, mystical-type experiences that happen to people at various times, all over the world. But in Adidam, attaining experience is never the point. In Adidam, it is the consistent turning to Adi Da Samraj that eventually becomes true surrender and the Realization of Conscious-Light, because He Is That. The Realization Avatar Adi Da offers is not about experience, but experience can point to or give a glimpse of it.

It is not the intention of this site to prove anything by appealing to any reader's potential fascination with experience, or to imply that experience proves anything. What is of value is the sum total of everything on this site, which we hope communicates a right understanding of the nature of such experiences. Again, our sense is that all of this points to the overwhelming evidence of the "greater than ordinary", the reality of the spiritual process, and the uniqueness of Avatar Adi Da's Intervention.

So, we appreciate that you chose to write about how you yourself personally "cannot confirm any claims made here". But even so, the stories on this site remain absolutely true, and are only representative of literally thousands of other similar stories. It is our intention to post many, many more to make the point that the "extraordinary evidence" for the claims on this site is overwhelming.

i am an ex-devotee. i haven't "tried" adidam for just a little, but for 15 years. i even served adi da for 4 years intimately.

i cannot confirm ANY claims made here on this site. i have seen no miracles, i have not recognized him as anything unusual (except that he's a gifted writer and artist), i have had NO extraordinary experiences - not one. i simply cannot confirm any claims made here.
Quotations from and/or photographs of Avatar Adi Da Samraj used by permission of the copyright owner:
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