Pilgrimage to Adi Da Samrajashram
Ed Reither
Adi Da Samrajashram
Dear Friends, Readers and Visitors to the Beezone,
Recently I returned from a pilgrimage (October 21 – November 3, 2015) to Adi Da Samrajashram, the principal Hermitage of Avatar Adi Da Samraj. I want to share with you some of my impressions during my sacred journey.
Adi Da is a World Teacher, as stated by Him in his voluminous writings and by the confessions and declarations of his devotees. He is, as the great traditions of India have held alive throughout thousands of years, a Siddha Master, an Awakened One. These statements clearly are not verifiable nor believable on their face value.
For those of you who have no way of accepting this kind of declaration I ask that you ‘stay put’, allow yourself what an enlightened heart allows and hear my communications. I am not a formal devotee of Adi Da Samraj. I was invited to come to Adi Da Samrajashram as a friend. I understood I was entering a sacred environment which has certain laws and requirements. One of the guidelines recommended upon entering the Ashram is that one drop any role or social persona. One enters these sacred grounds in a manner that is respectful with the understanding that there is a potently and palpably Spiritual Presence present. This was indeed my experience. I found not only the meditation temples to be alive with a force and a potency, but the island itself had a intensity that required me to continuously be yogically mindful.
Adi Da Samraj
Another guideline is you come with a gift. My offering of gratitude is my work with the Beezone which I presented in a document I prepared. This offering was to deepen the friendship with Adidam and demonstrate how Beezone has extended Adi Da’s teachings in the world.
While at Adi Da Samrajashram, Ruchiradama Quandra Sukhapur Rani, the sole person given the responsibility to govern and establish the Sacred Form (the pattern for the future of Adidam) directed and oversaw my activities. Her direct involvement with personal communications and cultural liaisons allowed me to meet with cultural, legal, and editorial personal. In these meetings it was clear many of the items we discussed were of a new nature. The atmosphere was always direct, open, friendly, cooperative and creative. Because of these meetings, I am happy to say, tentative agreements were reached to allow the Beezone and Adidam to work together in a new and more expansive manner.
On the island of Naitauba and in the culture of Adi Da Samrajashram there is a clear and unmistakable feeling of devotion and one pointed service to Adi Da Samraj in all his forms. The devotional services of the devotee was unmistakably alive in all manner of activities. I was given access to places of worship and meditation. Religious and sacramental services are performed continuously in one form or another for 24 hours of the day. It was clear only one thing was going on and that was serving the Enlightened Presence of the island through all forms of practices, personal disciplines, religious and functional activities. To put it in the language of Adidam, “Beloved Adi Da’s egoless structure is the only pattern that governs the lives of the devotee”.
“Brightness” Gates
Devotees at Samrajashram have renounced the world and have dedicated themselves to a devotional and renunciate way of life. Adi Da Samrajashram is not a fully manifested body of enlightened mature practitioners. It is a place of dedicated practitioners performing their sadhana in a place of purification and blessings. As Adi Da Samraj has written, “The Reality-Way of Adidam Ruchirdam is about transcending the universal uninspected conventional presumption that the human being is a separate body-mind-complex. The true esoteric process requires profound purification of your ordinary human existence and thus profound purifications of the structure of identity.”
A dominant form of the culture, aside from the 24 hours of service required to maintain and serve Adi Da Samrajashram, is the practice of gift-giving. The giving of gifts is a representative form of the gratitude the devotees feel for the Gift they have received from their Master. As Quandra Sukhapur writes, “I want us to be a culture of men and women who have actually received the Gift. Therefore in order to receive the Gift, there is a great deal that we must do, not only individually, but also collectively”.
The current work of Adidam is to create a sacred structure or form that Adi Da developed in the last years of his incarnation. The sacred form of Adidam being developed and governed by Ruchiradama Quandra Sukhapur Rani is a ‘egoless pattern’ of response. Devotees today had the good blessings to be directly related to Adi Da during his incarnation. But what about future devotees? Who will guide them? What will be in place for devotees of the future? It will be this ‘Sacred Form’ of Adidam.
Adi Da’s Gifts are not only for devotees, they are for the World. He plainly and clearly stated that he is “Here for all”. The Adi Da Foundation is a form Adi Da created for non-devotees. This structure exists to serve, preserve, and endow Adi Da Samraj’s universal work of service to humankind. One need not be a formal devotee to participate in the Adi Da Foundation as it is designed for public people who are interested his literary art forms, transcendental philosophy, practical wisdom and larger issues of world peace The Adi Da Foundation is responsible for bringing Adi Da’s wisdom and art to the world through The Adi Da Institute, Da Peace, Da Plastique, and Da Orpheum.
In the last years of his life Adi Da finalized and fully gave manifest form to the establishment of “The Reality-Way of Adidam”. One aspect of this final and full communication took on a totally new comprehensive happening called ‘Zero Point’ Reality “Consideration”. This consideration was for the total transformation of human culture based on the Revelation of the Realizer. This ‘consideration’ is the current work of Adidam today. Adi Da Samrajashram is not utopia – “utopia is not in the cards” – as he so plainly stated. The practice and way of life offered and lived at Adi Da Samrajashram is still very much in its infancy.
The Matrix
The island has all the requirements people have but they also have the responsibility to create a whole new ‘new order‘, a new way of living in a sacred manner. Adi Da Samrajashram, as I said earlier, is not a utopia, it is way of transcendence. It allows for all elements of the conditional world to be transformed by the Brightness of the One, Self-Existing, Self-Radiant, Conscious Light or Reality Itself as practiced in devotional relationship in the Form and Person of Adi Da Samraj.
Make no mistake this ‘transcendence’ is not about perfection nor is it an idealist statement about some hopeful ‘savior’. I’m reminded of Paul Brunton’s statement about Ramana Marharshi’s Ashram:
“It is common…to find among seekers the illusion of perfectionism. It shows itself in the belief that somewhere there exists a Master who is perfect in every respect. It shows itself also in their hopes of finding an ideal environment where they can live a fully spiritual existence, particularly in some ashram. Let them give up such vain dreams, for nowhere on earth will they find the one or the other.” – Delusions and Painful Awakenings, The Illusion of Perfection.
My time at Adi Da Samrajashram and what it holds for the future is yet to be revealed. For me personally, it was a true pilgrimage to a very sacred ground that demonstrates a culture of devotion, love and service. The palpable Presence that radiates throughout the island was unmistakable and I felt graced to have had the opportunity to see first hand how this is being embodied in the lives of devotees.
Ruchiradama Quandra Sukhapur Rani graciously gave me a number of gifts on my departure from the island. One of them was a card in which she wrote: “May your glimpse into the Sacredly Manifested Location in the world of The Source of Existence Itself be felt. May this be the beginning of a life long friendship”.
May it be so.
With Heartfelt Gratitude,
Ed Reither
November 12, 2015
“The most Powerful Place of My Transcendental Spiritual Transmission on Earth”.
Adi Da Samraj, November 20, 1993
I Look to Establish a new global order of men and women, who will actively establish and sustain a universal new human age of sanity and wisdom. That new age will not be an age of the occult, the conventionally religious, the scientific, or the technological glorification of humankind.
Rather, that new age will be the anciently expected universal age of authentic human existence, wherein human life will be everywhere engaged entirely apart from the tragic history of human ignorance, dissociativeness, bewilderment, and great search.
The would-be “new age” envisioned by mere seekers is a spectacular display that only extends the traditional madness, exploitability, and foolishness of humankind. Therefore, I Am here to Awaken a new global order of men and women, who will not begin from all that was, but who will, instead, apply themselves, apart from all dilemma and all seeking, to the harmonious event of prior unity and cooperative peace.
That new universal order and age of global humankind will be always Illuminated by the Intrinsic Freedom of Reality Itself, and it will be always Thus Bright and New.
“I Am Here To Awaken A Bright New Age of Global Humankind”, Not-Two Is Peace, Adi Da Samraj