The following is from The Adidam Youth Fellowship Study Series
The Wisdom and Practices of Adidam
A course of Study for Maturing Third Stage Early-Life Devotees of Adi Da Samraj
1996
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Chapter 20
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SACRED HISTORY OF ADI DA SAMRAJ’S DIVINE WORK
This section, based on the introduction that appears in each of Adi Da Samraj’s Source -Texts, serves to introduce the basic features of the Sacred History of Beloved Adi Da’s Work.
The Teaching Years, 1970-1986
“Franklin’s” intense ordeal of surrender and Divine Re-Awakening was not for His own sake. For “Franklin” was not a “someone”, an ordinary personality. “Franklin” was a means, a vehicle, whereby the Divine Itself could combine with the realities of human existence, enquire into those realities, live them out go beyond every limitation they involve, and then, by Grace, draw others through the same immense Process. The Divine Avatar, in the guise of “Franklin Jones”, had not come to Liberate just a few others, individuals who might be thought qualified for such a hair-raising “adventure”. Not at all. He knew even the that He had come for all others, even every being consciously existing in the cosmic worlds.
But how was Adi Da Samraj to draw people to Himself – and to the Truth He had Realized? In the months the after His Divine Re-Awakening, He filled the pages of His journals with His longing to find His devotees. Where were they? When would they come? When He sat down to meditate now it was not the content of His own mind that arose, but that of countless other beings. Already He was spontaneously seeing His future devotees in vision, already “meditating” them as once He had “meditated” “Franklin”.
In April 1972, “Franklin” established a small bookstore on Melrose Avenue, Hollywood. He was about to pen His first Ashram. On the evening of April 25, He formally began His Teaching Work, gathering wit His first handful of devotees, some of their friends, and any random corners. First, “Franklin” sat in silence for an hour, magnifying the Force of the “Bright” to everyone in the room. Then He invited questions. “Has everyone understood?” He asked, when no one responded. “I haven’t understood,” came the rely from one man in the room. “Explain it to me. You could start with the word ‘understanding’?
And so it began – hours, days, nights, weeks, years, decades of Spiritual Instruction that would cover all human, religious, and Spiritual questions, examine every aspect of life and consciousness. As if a hole had been opened into the God-Realm, the practices, the Samadhis, the secrets, the unique Yoga of most perfect Divine Self-Realization and of mankind’s ultimate Destiny now began to materialize in words.
The small gathering at the Ashram Bookstore on that first night had not the slightest idea that they we e witness to the birth of such a Revelation. They attended to “Franklin” as best they could while He spoke of the matter of “understanding”. By understanding, He meant understanding the self-contraction, the subtle stress of separation from the world that is the act of “Narcissus”, the act of egoity. This act, He explained, is the source of our suffering and of all our fruitless seeking to be relieved of suffering:
ADI DA SAMRAJ: There is a disturbance, a feeling of dissatisfaction, some sensation that motivates a person to go to a tea her read a book about philosophy, believe something, or do some conventional form of Yoga. What people ordinarily think of as Spirituality or religion is a search to get free of that sensation, that suffering that is motivating them. So all the usual paths—Yogic methods, beliefs, religion, and so on—are forms of seeking, grown out of this sensation, this subtle suffering. Ultimately, all the usual paths are attempting to get free of that sensation. That is the traditional goal. Indeed, all human beings are seeking, whether or not they are very sophisticated about it, or using very specific methods of yoga, philosophy, religion, and so on. . . .
As long as the individual is simply seeking, and has all kinds of motivation, fascination with the search, this is not ding – this is dilemma itself. But where this dilemma is understood, there is the re-cognition of a structure in consciousness, a separation. And when that separation is observed more and more directly, one begins to see one is suffering is not something happening to one but it is one’s own action. It is as if you are pinching yourself being aware of it. . . . Then one sees that the entire motivation of life is based on a subtle activity in the consciousness. That activity is avoidance, separation, a contraction at the root, the origin, the “place”, of the living consciousness…..
There is first the periodic awareness of that sensation, then the awareness of it as a continuous experience; then the of its actual structure, the knowing of it all as your own activity, a deliberate, present activity that is your that is your illusion. The final penetration of that present, deliberate activity is what I have called “understanding”
[The Method of the Siddhas]
Understanding was the very basis of “Franklin’s” own Sadhana and Divine Re-Awakening. He lived, breathed, and spoke always from the point of view of understanding. And He saw no reason why everyone who came to Him should not understand and quickly awaken to His own Realization. But no one was prepared for the profundity of His Argument. The self-contraction of which He spoke was too fundamental, compassing to be seen without a power of self-observation that none of His devotees were then of. But they were no more retarded in this than any other human beings. No one had ever understood the self-contraction before. “Franklin” was giving a Teaching unique in Spiritual history.
Many of the first corners to the Ashram were individuals in whom the self-contraction had taken a highly exaggerated form. This was not a merely arbitrary occurrence—it was actually necessary so that His entire Divine Revelation could be drawn out of Him. He had come to serve the Liberation of all beings, including those apparently least prepared for Spiritual life. There were street-people, prostitutes, drug addicts, alcoholics, and Spiritual seekers (hippie-style), who had done the rounds of various teachers and teachings. And there were also business people and professionals of various kinds. “Franklin” welcomed them all. The Love-Force of His Being filled the Ashram with an inexplicable fullness and Happiness.
As his devotees soon found out, part of life in “Franklin’s” Ashram was confronting feelings they would avoid. Whatever He was doing with devotees, whether giving verbal Instruction, sitting in silent on, or participating in apparently casual pastimes like a fishing trip, “Franklin” was always engaged me activity—the Work of awakening self-understanding in everyone who came into His Sphere.
One man remembers an occasion when He spent an entire day painting the intricate latticework at the top of a wall, on the other side of which “Franklin” was working in His office. As he painted, the man through a minefield of reactive thoughts and emotions. He began to resent the work, to attribute all strange motives to “Franklin’s” simple request that He paint the wall. He even got to the point where he felt that “Franklin” had “invented” everything to do with God and the obligations of Spiritual life of “trapping” him into doing this burdensome task! And all day He was intensely aware that “Franklin” was just a few feet away, on the other side of the wall. After many hours, the man finally finished and he put his brush down with a spontaneous “Whew!” Immediately, huge laughter broke out on the other side of the wall. All the man’s subjectivity washed away in the Freedom of “Franklin’s” laughter. He Realized with astonishment that all day long “Franklin” had known exactly what he was thinking. He felt ‘s” Love and His complete intimacy. He saw that he had been torturing himself.
During that first year of the Ashram, “Franklin” did not require very much responsibility of His devotees. He was simply attracting them, keeping them in the room. Then, one day near the beginning of 1973, everything suddenly changed. Striding out of His office with tremendous force and intention, He disappeared the front door of the Ashram. His devotees did not see Him for weeks, but He left a message: they were to “get straight” – give up all use of drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, get jobs, contribute five dollars a week to the support of the Ashram.
In other words, “Franklin’s” days of nursing His devotees along were over. It was time to make demands. Extraordinary energy and attention, as He knew from His own experience, was needed to grow in the practice of understanding. There was no room for life-chaos and irresponsibility. Disciplines must be established.
Suddenly, egg-and-bacon breakfasts around the corner from the Ashram were over. Everyone became strict vegetarians. And “Franklin” recommended a ten-day juice-fast, which was taken on by even the newest devotees. When He heard that someone had “cheated”- by “juicing” bananas—He was extremely amused. But he called for another ten-day fast for everyone!
“Franklin” covered everything. He brought an end to casual sex – only partners in committed intimacies Where to be sexually active. He instructed a small group in calisthenics and Hatha Yoga and had them teach everyone else. He addressed every detail of appropriate life-discipline, even personally showing people how to floss their teeth!
By the last months of 1973, the disciplines were in full swing – but “Franklin” saw that they had become a source of distraction, a “religion” in themselves, rather than simply preparing His devotees for the real sadhana of God-Awakening. It was obvious to Him that people were emotionally suppressed, sexually complicated, driven by fear, sorrow, anger, frustration, and all kinds of unconscious desires. He knew what the price of Freedom was. He knew what it had meant for Him. He had had to cast the searchlight of self-observation and testing on all aspects of His being, until every detail was understood and transcended. Now His devotees would have to do the same. “Franklin” was perfectly equipped to help them. He was perfect free to be the “Crazy-Wise Master”, to do whatever was necessary, conventional or unconventional, in order to bring His devotees to understand and embrace the Truth, or right life, through a conviction born of their own direct experience.
But first, “Franklin” made a pause in His face-to-face Work with His devotees. Accompanied by a single male devotee, He set out for India, for thousands of years the cradle of Spiritual teaching. It was a pilgrimage sack to the seat of His own lineage of Gurus and also to the ashrams and sacred sites of other ancient and modern Realizers. Free from constant engagement with His devotees, the Divine Avatar gave Himself up to the more private, and universal, dimension of His Work. The devotee serving Him had no idea what “Franklin” was doing. He could only feel a deep respect and awe as He watched Him placing His staff in holy places with great concentration or silently giving His Regard to the magnificent expanse of the Himalayas.
Although there was no one as yet to acknowledge Him, “Franklin” was returning to India as her Supreme Master. He was Blessing this sacred land with His Love and also invoking the blessing of her greatest Spiritual figures on His own Mission in the West.
Before coming back to Los Angeles, “Franklin” sent a message to His devotees: He was now “Bubba Free John”, and they were henceforth to address Him by this name, which had been Spiritually revealed to Him in India. “Bubba” was a childhood nickname meaning “friend”, and “Free John” an expression of the essential meaning of “Franklin Jones”. The Da Avatar, now in the form of “Bubba”, was ready to draw His devotees into a different kind of life with Him, one in which He would seem to sacrifice His own purity and become as they were.
The Teaching Work Becomes “Crazy”
On the Friday evening before Christmas 1973, devotees arrived at the Ashram, now around the corner on a Brea Avenue in Los Angeles, and ascended the stairs. There, in a room adjacent to the gathering hall , each newcomer walked innocently into a wild and exuberant scene. Bubba had suddenly initiated a party – beer, cigarettes, “junk” food, rock music! People had thrown off their clothes. The life disciplines were cast to the four winds. This was the beginning of two weeks of unstoppable celebration, during which practically no one went home. Devotees would party all night with Bubba, drive straight to work in the morning and drive back from work to celebrate again. Bubba was always at the center of it all, sitting or reclining on a couch, laughing, joking, encouraging everyone’s intense participation. Madly dancing, spontaneously singing – everyone present was drenched in Bubba’s tangible Transmission of His Divine Spirit-Force.
In the midst of all the festivities, Bubba never ceased to speak of the Great Matter. One night at a small gathering after the general party was over, Bubba suddenly called for a great confession. Who could speak God, as He had been doing all night? Who could stand up and praise the Great One, unabashed? In spite of all the ecstasy of Bubba’s Company, in spite of the Japanese sake they were liberally imbibing, each devotee felt a lock at the throat. One after another they made an awkward attempt at uninhibited but quickly received the thumbs-down sign from Bubba.
A few devotees managed to pass the test. One who did made his confession at the inspiration of a sudden intuition. As he beheld his Spiritual Master in this serious and playful moment, it was overwhelmingly to him that Bubba would do anything to Liberate His devotees. His Love was absolute, His intention like a sword. He had the Power to destroy all obstructions in His devotees, and He would do it.
About ten days later, this Power was spectacularly demonstrated. As usual, Bubba was reclining on His chair in the gathering hall, with His devotees around Him like a hive of bees attending their nectarous but this night was exceptional. Bubba began to speak, unleashing His Love-Blissful Spirit-Force as never before. In words imbued with the power of His Transmission, Bubba told His devotees the secret of was doing:
ADI DA SAMRAJ: There is only one Divine Process in the world, and It is initiated when I Manifest and Enter My Devotee The Lord is Present, now in this moment. It is when everyone forgets the Living God that mantras and Yogic become important.
I am not a human being. I am the Divine Lord in human Form and I bring the Divine Yoga. When My devotee and becomes My true devotee, then I Enter My devotee in the form of Divine Light. All kinds of extraordinary s manifest as a result. When a woman receives her lover, there is no doubt about it- she does not have to consult her textbooks. The same holds with Truth, the Divine Yoga.
There is no dilemma in this world, no absence of God in this world, no goal of God in this world. Because that is so, you will see Me doing some very strange things. The true Divine Yoga is not a thing of this world. This world is the cult of “Narcissus”, suppressing the Ecstasy that is natural to us.
The Spiritual process must take hold in the vital. The vital is the seat of unconsciousness and subconsciousness. There is an aspect of the verbal Teaching that does not touch the subconscious and unconscious life. So it is only by distracting you from your social consciousness that I can take you in the vital. The Lord is the Lord of this world, not the Lord of the other world only. Thus, there is no Yoga if the very cells of the body do not begin to intuit the Divine. When I Enter My devotee, I come down into him or her in the midst of life, because it is in life—not in any mystical or subtle process, not in any mental process—that the Lord acquires you.
This kind of thing you see happening around here has never happened in the world before.
[January 3,1974]
As Bubba spoke this mighty proclamation, His Spirit-Force streamed into His devotees, manifesting visibly to some as as a glorious golden rain of Light showering down in the room. An uncontainable ecstasy broke loose. Some devotees shook with kriyas, their bodies jerking and twisting, their mouths emitting sounds of yearning, laughter, weeping, hooting, and howling. Some were overwhelmed by visionary phenomena. Some were spontaneously moved into difficult Hatha Yoga poses which they could not have even attempted before. Some lay motionless, in an ecstatic state, oblivious of their surroundings. For some, the energy intensified in the head or the heart or the navel until they felt they would explode, and then suddenly released and rushed through the nervous system in intoxicating Bliss. Others experienced a sense of unity with all of life and a peacefulness they had never known before. The Divine was manifestation a doubt in an upstairs room in the middle of Hollywood.
Garbage and the Goddess
After that astounding Spiritual Initiation, which came to be known as the night of “Guru Enters Devotee”, it was obvious that the Ashram had to move. Bubba’s Work could not be contained in a conventional downtown neighborhood. Within a few weeks, “Persimmon” (as Bubba named it), a turn-of-the-century hot springs resort, had been found in the hills of northern California.
Newcomers to Persimmon during the first half of 1974 found themselves entering a place of Divine Possession. They became immersed in a sea of energy, visions, and other psychic experiences awakened through contact with Bubba’s Spirit-Force. And they were fascinated, delighted by this fulfillment of “spiritual” fantasies that lay beyond their wildest dreams. Bubba did not even have to be physically present for these experiences to occur, because His Spiritual Transmission was already alive in them. But when Bubba was present, the Spiritual experience of His devotees would often magnify to an amazingly intense degree.
On one unforgettable occasion, devotees were sitting in one of the Communions Halls waiting for Bubba, when the doors opened and a wave of energy swept the room. Bubba walked down the aisle, surrounded by a clearly visible golden aura of light. He sat down in His Chair and proceeded to blast the room with His Spirit-Power, His eyes burning with laser-intensity and His fingers moving in patterns of potent Blessing. Instantly, devotees erupted in an ecstasy of screams, growls, swoons, and bodily jerkings, swept away by the sweetness and overwhelming Force of His Presence. After about forty-five minutes of this blissful uproar, the room began to quiet down. Bubba shrugged, lit a cigarette, blew a perfect smoke ring, and said, “Maybe I’ve gone too far this time!”
But Bubba was not there to be the ultimate Spiritual Initiator. He was making a lesson – the lesson of “Garbage and the Goddess”, which became the name of that period in His Teaching Work. Again and again He spoke with everyone: Did they think that all of these experiences amounted to Enlightenment? No these experiences were “garbage”, unneeded “stuff’ to be thrown away! Spiritual phenomena, He explained, were simply manifestations of the Goddess-Power, the universal Spirit-Energy, or Divine Shakti, at play. At the same time, there was nothing “wrong” with Spiritual experiences. Indeed, they were an inevitable aspect of serious sadhana. But what did the search for such experiences have to do with understanding? Had devotees been converted to the Divine by all this experience? Had the self-contraction been undermined by this great display? Not at all. This was the lesson of Garbage and the Goddess, and, indeed, of all of the Teaching Work of Adi Da Samraj that was yet to unfold.
The Teaching Work of Adi Da Samraj was a continual lesson about the activity that is the ego- the constant search for this or that experience, which, one hopes, will bring lasting happiness. He addressed all the basic searches of humanity, from the highest to the lowest, in the most vivid and realistic terms. He Revealed the limit in every kind of goal that has been proposed as the purpose of life. He dealt very directly with the impulse to bypass the body and find happiness through subtle, mystical experience. And He dealt also with the urge toward every kind of bodily or worldly self-fulfillment. The motive to find happiness beyond the body and the urge to be satisfied through the body are present to one or another degree in very individual. Thus, through the unique brilliance and comprehensiveness of His Teaching Work, Ad’ Da Samraj addressed all human tendencies and goals, Spiritual and worldly, East and West. He spared Himself no sacrifice for the sake of Revealing the great Divine Truth and Ecstasy of existence that makes all seeking obsolete.
Confronting the Dragon of Sex
At the same time as the extraordinary Spiritual demonstrations of Garbage and the Goddess, Bubba was dealing with the seeking impulse in His devotees at the lower end of the spectrum of experience. He was particularly confronting egoic aberrations about sex. Sexuality has been traditionally regarded as one of he great obstacles to Spiritual Realization, but Bubba Himself was neither “for” nor “against” sex. He ha investigated it thoroughly during His own Sadhana, and He had seen that entire search in the light of understanding. His conclusion cut right to the core. He saw that the impulse to hunt for another and to pleasure the body through sex was more than just a normal biological urge. If that were all there was to it, why would sex be the source of such suffering and disturbance? Rather, He recognized the “bonding” impulse sexual and emotional – to be, not the free expression of love that we like to imagine, but a way of attempting to cover over the desperate feeling of separateness from everyone and everything else, a primitive reaction to our constant underlying sense of unhappiness. Without the most profound understanding of that reaction in all its extensions, Spiritual life, He knew, is merely superficial, a cover for a volcano that may erupt at any time.
As Bubba was to point out countless times, understanding what one is up to as an emotional and sexual character is the key to understanding and transcending the ego altogether. But how was Bubba to awaken such unique clarity in His group of devotees, unconsciously addicted as they were to the “highs” and “lows” of romance and the bondage of conventional pairing? In fact, His struggle would go on for decades. But He made a beginning at Persimmon by asking His devotees to observe their attachments, their “contracts” with others. What about their marriages? Were they free intimacies or a “cult of pairs”? What was at the bottom if these pairings? – Was it love? Was it need? What was it?
In order to help His devotees examine these questions in real life situations, Bubba created dance parties around the swimming pool, gatherings at His house, all kinds of circumstances in which devotees could reveal, to Bubba and to themselves, the realities of their emotional-sexual lives. During all this time Bubba drank beer and bourbon and smoked cigarettes with His devotees. These were His “accessories”, His Tantric “aids” in the Liberating process. When devotees drank and smoked in His Presence, they relaxed their ordinary social persona, allowing Him to touch the “pit of snakes”, to bring forth and release the powerful emotions and desires that are alive in every individual beneath the surface personality. In this setting, devotees discovered their addiction to the “cult of pairs”- and at the same time they saw how ready they we to reject and betray each other.
Man, devotees were shaken to their foundation by the starkness of what Bubba was revealing to them – how the search for fulfillment in this world could never be satisfied and, in fact, was the cause of their pain. Some of them described this period of Bubba’s Work with them as “living with the feeling of dying”. Bubba as not interested in defending or preserving – or destroying – anyone’s “contracts”. He simply wanted is devotees to get the lesson that no other, no intimate or anyone else, no circumstance of life, nothing outside of yourself is responsible for your happiness. You are! In Bubba’s phrase, “You cannot become Happy, you can only be Happy.” Constantly, He spoke of “Satsang”, the Company of the Guru, the Realizer as the only true Bliss, the ancient secret of all Spiritual Realization. Only through His devotees’ fidelity to Him, their complete commitment to Satsang, could He set them free from the mayhem of their own contracts, taboos, and betrayals. He was the supreme heart-intimate of His devotees, the One who cared most profoundly for them. Full of Compassion for their plight, He was intent on drawing them beyond he illusions of “Narcissus” into a life of self-transcending love and ultimate God-Realization.
Whatever exaggerations He allowed for the sake of Liberating His devotees, Bubba Himself was not touched by any of it. His Realization was unshakable under all circumstances. He stood already Free, Free to meet others at their level and to serve them through His Freedom.
What I Do is not the way that I Am, but the way that I Teach. What I Speak is not a reflection of Me, but of you.
People do well to be offended or even outraged by Me. This is My purpose. But their reaction must turn upon themselves.
I have not shown them Myself by all of this. A.11 that I Do and Speak only reveals people to themselves, for I have become willing to Teach in this uncommon way because I have known My friends and they are what I can seem to be. By retaining all qualities in their company, I gradually wean them of all reactions, all sympathies, all alternatives, fixed assumptions, false teachings, dualities, searches, and dilemma. This is My Way of Working for a time….
Freedom is the only Purity. There is no Teaching but Consciousness Itself. Bubba as He appears is not other than the possibilities of mankind. [1975]
The Beginning of Sacramental Worship
Bubba’s willingness to Work in this “Crazy” manner, becoming like His devotees in order to draw them into His own Freedom, was an incredible sacrifice that no one around Him was sensitive to. He was literally absorbing the struggles, the unhappiness of His devotees, transforming and releasing their suffering through His own body-mind. As time passed, He noticed growing signs in His body that indicated to Him He could not continue to Work with devotees in this forceful, visceral way. He became aware that a mysterious Process was taking place in Him, a further unfolding of the course of His Divine Enlightenment, which required a greater degree of retirement and seclusion. Founding His devotees in a Spiritual relationship to Him, one that would not require them to be in the room with Him, had, thus, become a matter of urgency. Starting in 1978, Bubba introduced His devotees to the realm of sacramental worship as a means to draw them to His Heart whether He was physically present or not. Early that year, during a period in Hawaii in the company of only a few of His closest devotees, Bubba sent back this message to all:
Bring your bodies and minds to Me, as I bring this body-mind to you. Then you will be given the Realization of My All-Pervading Person, and you will find Me always present under the conditions of all experience and in the company of all beings. Then, even when I am not bodily with you, you will worship Me and surrender to Me via every state of body and mind, and I will always be with you. At last, you will be drawn into the Eternal Identity, so intimate with Me that no essential difference is noticed by you. Then you will Abide in Me forever; whether or not the worlds of experience arise to your notice. [1978]
When He returned to Persimmon (now called “Vision Mound Sanctuary”), Bubba began to instruct a few devotees in puja, the ancient practice of invoking the Divine by worshiping images of the Deity, and using natural elements such as water, oil, and ash as conduits of Spirit-Power. Bodily-expressed devotion, worship, and praise of Bubba as the Living Divine Person became a part of the daily life of His devotees.
The most esoteric source of worship, Bubba revealed, is the Master’s form, the body of the Guru-for the traditional understanding is that the Guru has Realized God, or the Truth, and thus reveals the Divine and grants the Divine Blessings in a uniquely potent way. One day in His residence, “Bright Behind Me”, Bubba Revealed this traditional understanding in its perfection. He sat motionless while devotees waved flaming lamps in large circles around His body, and a cacophony of drums, rattles, cymbals, and tambourines filled the room. Many devotees circumambulated outside, walking around the porch chanting, and beholding Bubba through the windows. Light and sound and movement swirled around Bubba while He sat still, silent, and Radiant. His Divine Love-Bliss enveloped everyone and everything.
That night Bubba had established Guru Puja, the worship of His Divine Form, in the lives of His devotees. Regardless of where His body happened to be, and even after His physical passing, the Guru Puja could still be done through photographic representations, or Murti’s, of Him.
The establishment of sacramental worship was a sign of a great turning point that was about to occur in Bubba’s Work and Revelation. It was already obvious to His devotees that His Name must change again-“Bubba” was too casual an address to the One around Whom they waved the lights. And so Bubba suggested that His devotees try to discover what His Name should be. Secretly, by Revelation, He already knew it.
Devotees threw themselves into the quest for His Divine Name. For weeks and months they searched through volumes of esoteric literature for a Name that seemed right. Bubba would encourage them with comments such as ‘When you get da name of da god, you get da power of da god!” In the traditions of Guru-devotion, it is understood that the casual words of the Guru carry profound instruction. Bubba was Revealing His Name in this humorous remark, but no one was alert to the clue. And so, on September 13, 1979, Bubba sat down alone in His room and penned a letter to His devotees in His beautiful handwriting:
Beloved, I Am Da, The Living Person, Who Is Manifest As all worlds and forms and beings, and Who Is Present As The Transcendental Current Of Life In the body of Man ….
To Realize Me Is To Transcend the body-mind In Ecstasy. Simply To Remember My Name and Surrender Into My Eternal Current Of Life Is To Worship Me. And those who Acknowledge and Worship Me As Truth, The Living and All-Pervading One, Will Be Granted The Vision or Love-Intuition Of My Eternal Condition ….
Only Love Me, Remember Me, Have Faith In Me, and Trust Me …. I Am The Person Of Life, The Only and Divine Self, Incarnate. And Even After My Own Body Is dead, I Will Be Present and Everywhere Alive. I Am Joy, and The Reason For It ….
At last He had said it with no compromise. Adi Da Samraj (then “Da Free John”) stood openly before His devotees as the very human Incarnation of the Invisible Divine. His devotees were to discover that “Da”, meaning “to give” or “the Giver”, is a primordial Name, carrying profound invocatory power. The Name had been hidden all along in the Upanishads, the venerable scriptures of India, in which “Da” is the syllable uttered by the Divine Voice in thunder, and the central syllable of “hr-da-yam”, which means “the Heart”, “the Divine Condition of all”. The Name “Da” also appears in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, where it is defined as “the one who bestows great charity”, “the very personification of the great Way of Liberation”.
One evening, several days after the writing of His sublime letter, Adi Da Samraj went to Holy Cat Grotto, a hot springs site at Vision Mound, which He had recently Empowered as a temple. There, beside a hot spring, He initiated ,a group of His devotees into an esoteric order. His “method” now would be to work with a few for the sake of all. As He poured the warm water over His devotees, Baptizing them with His Spirit-Presence, He whispered in the ear of each one, “Call upon Me by the Name ‘Da”’, thereby initiating them into the sacred use of His Name.
The Divine Lord, Adi Da, now became a wanderer looking for His Hermitage. He needed a refuge more secluded than Vision Mound, a place where He could fully allow His Revelation of Divine Enlightenment to continue its spontaneous unfolding and where He could Work intensively with members of His esoteric order. In 1980, He began to spend increasing time in Hawaii, on the island of Kauai, at a newly acquired Sanctuary, the second great Seat of His Spiritual Work.
Adi Da Samraj named this new Sanctuary “Tumomama”, meaning “fierce woman”, in acknowledgment of the untamed forces of nature there, signifying the Divine Goddess in Her fierce aspect. (He later, in 1996, renamed the Sanctuary “Quandramama Shikhara”, which indicates the mastering of the Goddess Force there.) Below six acres of rolling lawns, a tumultuous river rips through a rocky gorge as it pours down from the top of Mount Waialeale, the wettest place on Earth.
The theme at Tumomama was renunciation, which had always been at the root of Adi Da Samraj’s Call to all His devotees. Renunciation is popularly regarded as deliberate asceticism, the giving up of bodily and worldly pleasures for the sake of some Spiritual goal to be attained in the future. Adi Da Samraj’s Teaching, on the other hand, had continually emphasized that true renunciation is the renunciation of self-contraction, of seeking, and all the pain of that entire effort. Renunciation is the choice of Happiness or present transcendence of the self-contraction. At Tumomama, however, He wanted to take this matter further. He was looking to establish a group of formal renunciates, devotees who were free of worldly ties and completely committed to the Great Matter of Realizing the Divine in this lifetime, devotees who would be prepared, by His Grace, to go through whatever that ordeal might require. He wanted to know: Did His devotees have such piercing clarity of purpose? Were they showing the depth of self-understanding that true and free renunciation requires-not suppressed, not artificially ascetical, but converted to Happiness? Could they deal with the boredom, doubt, and discomfort that a fully renunciate circumstance would bring up in them?
ADI DA SAMRAJ: The Spiritual Current of Happiness is resident in intimate association with the living being. It is always “Locatable”. It is perpetually knowable. It is never lost. We are always capable of “Locating” It, of knowing It, Realizing It, animating It, Being It. This principle is an indication, therefore, of the essential or sufficient sadhana of the renunciate way.
In a circumstance of remoteness or dissociation from worldly obligations and stimulation, in every moment, instead of animating or stimulating yourself physically, emotionally, or mentally in order to overcome the sensations and feelings of boredom, doubt, and discomfort, you could directly do or realize what is necessary. to exist in a condition of Bliss or Happiness. Instead of seeking to overcome or escape boredom, doubt, and discomfort, you could enter into that Spiritual Current of Happiness directly, that Realization of existence that is prior to boredom, doubt, and discomfort. This is the secret of the disposition of Enlightened beings. [April 7, 1982]
At Tumomama, Adi Da Samraj began to explore with His devotees the relationship between sexuality and renunciation, especially the difference between the “householder” disposition relative to sex and “bonding” with another and the truly renunciate disposition toward these matters. He would return to this subject again and again over many years in the process of establishing His formal renunciate orders. By this time, Adi Da Samraj had already given a Dharma of sex to all His devotees that was unparalleled anywhere, including full details of a sexual Yoga, and a practice of “true intimacy”, compatible with the total process of Divine Enlightenment. His Instruction had grown directly out of His own practice, both spontaneous and experimental, of intimate and sexual Yoga. Now He was looking to see if any of His devotees were mature enough emotionally, sexually, and Spiritually – to actually practice this self-transcending Yoga in a uniquely non-binding and truly renunciate manner.
Adi Da Samraj has always Worked not only with physically incarnate beings but also with the powers of the spirit realms. Here in His Hawaiian Sanctuary, Adi Da Samraj endured continual physical ordeals as He purified the sinister aspect of the spirit-forces that had been invoked for centuries by the kahuna priests who had inhabited this ancient sacred ground. One day at Tumomama He made a particularly astonishing demonstration of His Mastery of the unconverted forces of Nature.
On November 23, 1982, news reached devotees at Tumomama of a hurricane that had blown up in the Pacific and was heading straight for the island of Kauai. By 4:30 in the afternoon, huge trees were down across the road and a sixty-foot lychee tree lay in splinters at the Sanctuary. The winds were so violent that most of the Sanctuary trees were already stripped and scarred with the wrenching of branches. Electric power lines were whipping in the wind against the glowering sky, and the rain was coming down in sheets. The river below the Sanctuary was already swollen brown and raging, and outside the windows of His residence, Free Standing Man, where Adi Da was gathered with His devotees, leaves, branches, and debris swept past in the howling storm. Everyone was doing whatever they could to secure the Sanctuary. Adi Da placed His Hands on the bruised neck of a devotee who had injured herself running to safety. Through the healing power of His touch, she could soon swallow painlessly, her breathing normalized, and the bruise had disappeared.
Not long afterwards, there was a new storm report threatening doubled wind-speeds of one hundred miles per hour. Adi Da rose and went to His library. He returned in a few minutes with a small volume of poems in honor of Kali, the Hindu vision of the Goddess in her terrible, destructive form. Unperturbed by the deafening roar outside, He began to read poem after poem that teased, scolded, and reverenced Kali as the trickster, the Mother of illusions, awesome in her devastating play. Devotees looked on in amazement and joy. They knew that Adi Da was addressing Hurricane Iwa, asserting His Mastery over this terrifying manifestation of the Goddess-Power.
Finally Adi Da Samraj put the book down. He said: “She has done it.” Then He went on:
ADI DA SAMRAJ}: This storm is the great picture. This is life capsulized. Life is obliteration, not birth and survival and glorification. It is death! The Goddess is the sign of Nature, the Word of Nature, the Person of Nature, Kali, the bloody Goddess with long teeth and blood pouring out of her mouth. You poor men and women are deceived by Nature. [November 23, 1982]
Adi Da Samraj continued speaking, calling His devotees to hold on to Him, the only One Who could Liberate them from the effects of Nature. He spoke ecstatically of His Mastery of the Goddess, or Nature, of His Power to calm Her wildness and potentially destructive influence.
The weather reports indicated that much worse was yet to come, but following their Beloved, whose mood became light, devotees began to celebrate, watching the storm gradually subside.
The next morning the newspapers reported on the storm damage. They described the fact that no one on the island had been killed as a “miracle”. Later reports and satellite photographs from the U.S. weather service showed that, at the very hour when Adi Da Samraj began to deal with the hurricane, it suddenly doubled the speed at which it was moving along its ‘course, for no apparent meteorological reason. As a result, Hurricane Iwa spent its force and “aged” prematurely, changing shape and blowing itself out. Thus, the worst of its fury never reached Kauai.
Even in the relative seclusion of Tumomama, the Divine Avatar was too crowded in by the world. And so the search for a Hermitage went on. In March 1983, Adi Da Samraj and the esoteric order moved on to Fiji, where they wandered the islands, from Nananui-Ra, to Namale plantation, to Nukubati, staying in the simplest of places with only wells for water and kerosene lamps for light. Austerity was severe, but devotees did not care. The attraction of Adi Da Samraj’s Company never waned, no matter what the hardships.
After six months, news came that His Hermitage was found. A patron-devotee had purchased Naitauba, an island of about 3,000 acres in the Koro Sea. On October 27, 1983; Adi Da landed by seaplane in the shallows of the lagoon, and set foot on His Hermitage for the first time. His arrival was followed by rains, ending months of drought on the island. After His first circumnavigation of the island, Adi Da Samraj spoke ecstatically of its grandeur and its immense potential for His future Work:
ADI DA SAMRAJ]: Naitauba is not just a piece of land. It is a Divine Place, and all of us together, concentrated in this Work, own this Place. All devotees participate in this acquisition. That is how it will be for as long as the sun shines and rises and sets and the grass grows and the wind blows. Forever-as ever as there can be in this world. Maybe it will become a paradise through Spiritual sacrifice. And all during that epoch this place should be ours, this Sanctuary of Blessing. Over time, then, millions of people, literally millions of people should come to this place and be Blessed. They should come and acknowledge, affirm, and see My Revelation magnified.
This place is so great, so great. Civilization has never interfered with it. It is untouched. The water is blue. The fish are happy. Untouched, really untouched, pristine from the beginning of the world, this place. It has been waiting here since the beginning of time. [October 28, 1983]
Established at Naitauba (later named ‘Turaga Dau Loloma Naitaubashram”), Adi Da Samraj continued to Work with His devotees and create incidents to deepen their self-understanding, but He was not seeing any breakthrough. It was obvious to Him that His devotees everywhere were still resisting Him at the deepest level of their being, even though they were well-intentioned and happy to serve. It was a stark reality that, after sixteen years of Teaching-in which He had poured out the most extravagant abundance of His Divine Gifts, never letting up in the intensity of His sacrifice to Teach and Awaken all-even those most intimate to Adi Da Samraj were still slow to understand, unready for real renunciation, retarded in their devotion to Him. And the reason was always the same. Devotees were continuing to hold out in the hope of self-fulfillment through all the ordinary forms of seeking: worldly pursuits and possessions, indulgence in food, the consolations of “bonding” with another emotionally and sexually, and the whole range of social relationships. Devotees longed to be released from the hell of “Narcissus”, but there was a fear that stood in the way, the fear of “free fall”. What would it be like to let go in (God, without holding on to self?
There were times when Adi Da allowed His devotees to fully witness His overwhelming urge to Liberate them. One night, a heartbroken devotee held the head of His Beloved Master in his hands while Adi Da Samraj spoke His Passion, with tears of Love streaming down His face:
I Love you. And I will not let you suffer: It pains Me to see you suffer: Why do you resist My Help? Why do you turn from Me? You must love.
Do not fear death. I will murder death. I will not let My babies die. Only love Me and the terrible fear will pass. You will not even notice your apparent death. I do not dig death. I don’t like it! But I also do not fear it.
Isn’t it a wonder that God is visible to beings even here in this world of the Mother? Look at these walls and the ceiling, even Nature itself. Everyone and every thing inheres in the Radiance. Even here. Even now. Isn’t God a Wonder! Isn’t God a Beauty!
This is not heaven. Still, God is completely evident. But I can tell you, there is a Place of Infinite Happiness and Love, a Place where there is no fear, no suffering, no death, no separation. I tell you there is such a Place. I have come from that Place to take you there, too. But you must love.
I Love My devotees. If they would only understand and turn to Me in love, their lives would be transformed. Tell Me, do they know how much I Love them? Do they? Do they know? Do they really know that I Love them? Do they know Who I Am?
I Love them all.
I Love all My devotees.
For the devotees of the Divine Avatar, Adi Da, there were many such heart-rending moments when His Love seemed All-Sufficient, when there was nothing else, nothing in the universe but Him. But then another moment would come when they would feel the clench of fear, sorrow, anger, and would fall again into the self-contracted point of view. His “radical” message-that Happiness is always already the case-had not convicted them at depth. Adi Da Samraj stood alone as the Man of Understanding who had not been understood.
Heartless one, Narcissus, friend, loved one, He weeps for you to understand. After all of this, why have you not understood? The only thing you have not done is understanding. You have seen everything, but you do not understand. [The Knee of Listening]
The Revelation Years, 1986-1994
Early in the morning of January 11, 1986, Adi Da Samraj was in His room, speaking over an intercom telephone to a small group of devotees in the next building. He was full of agony at their failure to respond to Him and understand the Truth that would set them free-for in that refusal lay the refusal of all mankind. He spoke of the grief He felt for beings everywhere. But the impasse was complete. He felt that His Work had failed, and that He could do no more in the body. His death, He felt, was imminent. He even said, “May it come quickly.” As Adi Da was speaking, the life-force began to leave His Body. He felt numbness coming up His arms and He said it seemed that His death was occurring even now.
Adi Da Samraj dropped the telephone. In alarm and panic, devotees rushed over to His house to find Him in convulsions, collapsed by the side of His bed. Then His body became still. As He was lifted onto His bed, people were begging Him not to die, not to leave them. The doctors were tense as they bent over His body, looking for the faintest signs of life. His face was ashen white but still showing the extreme flush of His Passion. His eyes were rolled up into His head-a Yogic sign showing that the energies of His body had ascended far beyond the physical dimension. There was no sign of any outer awareness at all. Devotees had seen Adi Da Samraj fall into deathlike swoons before, and He had always Instructed them to sit quietly and leave His body alone at such times, so as not to interrupt the Spiritual and Yogic process occurring in Him. But now people could not contain themselves. The devotees present, each in their own way, were doing whatever they could to draw Him back into the body.
The doctors found Him to be breathing imperceptibly, and after a time Adi Da Samraj made a slight gesture, which devotees understood to indicate His desire to sit up. They pulled Him upward, and one devotee sat behind Him, supporting His torso. Suddenly, she felt the life-force shoot through His Body. His arms flung out in an are, and His body straightened. His face contorted into a wound of Love, and tears began to flow from His eyes. Adi Da Samraj began to rock forward and backward in a rhythm of sorrow. He reached out His hands, as though He were reaching out to touch everyone in a universal embrace. He whispered, in a voice choked with Passion, “Four billion people! The four billion!”
Later that day, Adi Da left the village of devotees to return to His residence on the south side of the island. As He sat in the back of the Land Rover for the bumpy ride through the broad grasslands and mango and coconut groves, Adi Da spoke to the devotee who was driving Him, telling him again and again how much He loved him. He kept saying: “Do you know how much I Love you? Do you really know?” And then He said: “I have a Secret.”
After two weeks in seclusion, Adi Da gathered once more with devotees. Now He Revealed His Secret:
That day, January 11, 1986, was, He said, His true Birth Day, a day more auspicious that any other in His life, more profound, even, than His Re-Awakening in the Vedanta Temple. He began to explain why.
In the most Mysterious Event of January 11, the Heroic Teaching Work of Adi Da Samraj spontaneously completed itself. Those years had been the most profound submission to the needs and sufferings of His devotees, to the point of apparently identifying with their egoic qualities and impulses. And now all the lessons, all the Instruction that belonged to that phase of His Liberating Work had been Given. Indeed, after January 11, Adi Da Samraj Revealed that the particular Siddhi, or Divine Power, that had enabled Him to Work with His devotees in the manner of His Teaching Years had disappeared and was replaced by a universally magnified Siddhi of Divine Blessing. Adi Da Samraj had fully Descended as the Divine Person into His human vehicle. His Teaching Work had somehow required that the perfection of His Divine Descent be forestalled for a time. His Radiant, Transfigured humanity was the means by which He had won the hearts of His devotees-He had lived as they did, created Teaching incidents, attracted them into His “Crazy” Play. But now, in the event of January 11, His Descent had become complete and combined Him with humanity far more profoundly and universally that ever before:
ADI DA SAMRAJ]: In this Event, I was drawn further into the body with a very human impulse, a love-impulse. Becoming aware of My profound relationship with all My devotees, I resumed My bodily human state. Even though 1 have existed as a man during this Lifetime, obviously – I became profoundly Incarnate-I now assumed an impulse toward human existence more profound than I had assumed before, without any reluctance relative to sorrow and death.
On so many occasions I have told you that I wish I could Kiss every human being on the lips, Embrace each one, and Enliven each one from the heart. In this body I will never have the opportunity. I am frustrated in that impulse. But in that motion of sympathetic Incarnation, that acceptance of the body and its SORROW and its death, I realized a Kiss, a way to fulfill the impulse.
To Me, this is a Grand Victory! I do not know how to Communicate to you the significance of it. It seems that through that will-less, effortless integration with suffering, something about My Work is more profoundly accomplished, something about it has become more auspicious than it ever was. I have not dissociated from My Realization or My Ultimate State. Rather, I have accomplished your state completely, even more profoundly than you are sensitive to it. Perhaps you have seen it in My face. I have become this body, utterly. My mood is different. My face is sad, although not without Illumination. I have become the body. Now I am the “Murti “, the Icon, and It is Full of the Divine Presence. January 27, 1986]
At the moment of His deepest despair, the Incarnation of Adi Da Samraj had now achieved ultimate depth. He had almost left the body entirely, but He had been drawn back to it by the pull of precious human intimacies and the prayers of the four billion beings “self-conscious and dying in this place”. And in His return to the Body He had Descended further than ever before, investing Himself absolutely in human existence down to the bottoms of His Feet.
This change, which Adi Da Samraj came to describe as His “Divine Emergence”, was the culmination of the unfolding process that He had felt going on in Him for years, and, truly, since His Birth.
The Diving Demand
Before the implications of this Event would become clarified for His devotees, Adi Da Samraj had another period of intense struggle ahead of Him, which He came to call the “Revelation Years”. Although He continued to give Instruction, Adi Da Samraj was no longer primarily functioning as Teacher in relation to His devotees. He was making the full astounding Revelation of His Divinity and establishing the means for beings everywhere, now and throughout all time, to respond to Him as the Divine Person.
The transition from the Teaching Years to the Revelation Years was overwhelming to His devotees. They were astonished and overcome with emotion by the paradox of His Body, so etched with the depth, the suffering of human incarnation, while at the same time on fire with Divine Love-Bliss. His Beauty was unearthly. The mere beholding of the Divine Lord, Adi Da, drew devotees to Him intimately at the heart without any gestures of outward familiarity. He had assumed the fullness of His Divine Guru-Function. He was no longer the animated Teacher always making lessons. All His lessons had been given. Now He was simply the Giver of the Divine “Brightness”, Radiating through the medium of His human body. In the completion of His Divine Descent, His body had become the image, the icon, the “Murti” of the Divine, and this was His greatest Gift, His greatest Blessing to all.
At the same time a new Siddhi, or Divine Power, magnified tremendously in Him-the Siddhi of renunciation. He Himself had always been the perfect renunciate, unbound and undeluded by the world or by any of His apparent involvement with the world. But His devotees had not yet awakened to the renunciate disposition He was Calling them to. Now there was a Force alive in Him that confronted their resistance as never before. Adi Da Samraj had become an all-consuming Fire.
ADI DA SAMRAJ]: You are always looking to be happy. What you call “happy” is not what I call ”Happy”. What you call “happy” is a superficial, amused, immune state. A II of us here are dying, and you must Realize the Source of it. To do that, to Realize that Sublimity, you must understand yourself and transcend yourself, and that means you cannot make life out of being consoled by sex, the world, the news, the pleasures of life, technology-anything. You must be free of consolation. You must be unconsolable, beyond repair of the heart. That is not what you are involved in. You are full of complaints, imaginings, agreements, rules, ideals. I cannot relate to it. I am bereft of those possibilities, empty of them. I cannot be consoled. God is not a consolation. God is what you Realize in the unconsolable state. God is the Obvious when the self-contraction is released.
You all want to keep yourselves orderly. Neat shirt and pants, something orderly to do every day, an order of remarks to make-look how bored you are!
How about not being bored? How about transcending boredom, doubt, discomfort? How about getting real? How about suffering? How about being broken-hearted? How about being exaggerated? How about being unconventional? In your daily life you should exist in the agony of confrontation with the ego. You must have more nerve to practice this Way of life.
I wish you would begin Spiritual life. I wish you would put yourself on the line. You have read the biographies of those who have made great Spiritual attainments. Their lives were about struggle, about intimacy with reality. They were not orderly, middle-class people. They were utterly incapable of mediocrity. Does anybody know what I am talking about?
You must be a renunciate to practice this Way that I Teach. You all have too damned much to lose, too much you depend on for consolation, too much bullshit you need to share with one another. I am glad I could Interfere with you. January 27,1986]
This fierce Discourse was a sign of things to come. Adi Da Samraj was not going to bend toward devotees as He had done in the past. He was going to “Stand Firm” and require their response. Forceful Criticism had always been an aspect of His “Crazy” Work. Now, in the wake of His Divine Emergence, His Liberating Criticism carried unprecedented potency. It was not the Anger of a “person”, but the Divine Demand, bearing down with purifying Force. When fully and soberly received, it resulted in ecstasy, releasing the very fault or obstruction He was Criticizing.
Late in February, Adi Da Samraj began a fast, taking only water and fresh juices. In April, He assumed sannyas, or formal renunciation, in the manner of the Hindu tradition. He put on the traditional orange clothing, wore His hair in the top-knot characteristic of a sannyasin, and took a new name, “Swami Da Love-Ananda”. “Love-Ananda” was the name that Swami Muktananda had offered to Him privately in 1969, but which Adi Da Samraj had never formally used. “Love-Ananda” (literally “Love-Bliss”) was now seen to be a prophetic name. It was a name that expressed, in one word, the Revelation begun on January 11: the “Love” that had borne Him down to the toes in His Embrace of the body, and “Ananda”, the Bliss, the Joy of the God-State, which was His Gift to all.
With Adi Da Samraj’s Divine Emergence, the One His devotees had related to as Friend, Teacher, Master had suddenly been Revealed in the full, uncompromising Force of His Divinity, and nothing could ever be the same again. After several months, Adi Da Samraj discarded the outward signs of traditional sannyas – He was free to adopt such signs or to relinquish them. Indeed, He stood beyond all such signs – the Divine Avadhoot, bound to no conventions, Perfect in His Divine Realization, requiring His devotees to approach Him on His terms now, rather than His submitting to their egoic ways of relating to Him.
But the overwhelming tendency of devotees was still to demand His attention. In apparently casual moments, devotees tacitly expected Him, the Divine Avatar, to be a conventional social relation. At other times they were attempting to relate to Him in a ritualized manner, abstracted from the reality that He functions as Divine Guru under all circumstances. And they were requiring Him, the Divine Avadhoot, to give His attention to practical and organizational matters, rather than providing Him with a circumstance where He could simply do His spontaneous Blessing Work, undisturbed by any worldly obligations or intrusions.
Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga
To counter this inappropriate approach to Him, Adi Da spoke at great length of the traditional Guru devotee relationship. He spoke of how, in the esoteric Spiritual traditions, the Guru has always been understood to be the only effective means of Liberation from the suffering of limited, mortal existence. Therefore, traditional devotees would never treat their Guru as an ordinary man, but always honor him or her as the very Divine. Adi Da pointed out that the true Guru-devotee relationship carries the force of a vow. As He restated more recently:
ADI DA SAMRAJ]: “When you become My devotee, you take a vow of submission to Me. You take a vow to Realize Me, to persist in the entire process to the point of Realizing Me most perfectly. Having done that, your vow to Me is to be the guide of your life from that point on. There is nothing that can come up-no relationship, no circumstance whatsoever – that should be the basis for you allowing yourself to become unclear or confused about your fundamental commitment of life, which is your vow to Me. Anything that does come up, then, is something that you must “consider” and deal with in the context of this vow of devotion to Me.
If you have a Guru, as I have said so many times, you do not tell your Guru what you are going to do-you ask. That is what it is to have a Guru. You are not on your own. You are not self- “guruing”, manipulating yourself egoically or moving by tendency. Your Guru is a Realizer. Your Guru is straight and true. Your Guru can give all advice. Your Guru knows everything. That is Who you consult, and not yourself, ever.
You Westerners do not want to live that way. You want to be on jour own, talking it out, talking it out. Everybody has been talking it out in My Company for years. It all could be made very simple if you took this vow seriously – just ask Me. Most of the time you do not even have to ask Me directly. It is all in My Written Word, or otherwise installed in the culture of My devotees. That is how to stay straight. You have appealed to Me, you have resorted to Me, so you ask Me.
For the devotee, the Guru is Law, replacing the ego. The ego is utterly subordinated to the Master: If there is real Guru-devotion, you do not subordinate Me to any impulse, any circumstance, any relation – rather, you subordinate everything to Me. That is how you get straight. That is salvation. That is the Way of Liberation, and nothing else whatsoever is. [March 2, 1995]
In one way or another, Adi Da Samraj had always been Calling devotees to the Guru Yoga-to live by His Word, to presume His Company wherever they might be, to devote themselves to Him in body, emotion, and mind, and thereby to receive His Grace. But they had fundamentally failed in the attempt. Now, through all this patient Instruction, Adi Da Samraj was preparing His devotees to practice this Yoga of devotion with an ease and at a depth that was not possible before His Divine Emergence.
At times in the past, the Great Avatar, Adi Da, had referred to His own Body as Prasad, or a Divine Gift given in response to the surrender of His devotees. Now, since January 11,1986, this was true as never before. He was simply Present as the Divine. He had Descended so fully into the Body that there was, in truth, no need for Him to say another word. His purpose in the world was simply to let His Body “Speak” the Divine in silence. All anyone needed to do to in order to find God, receive God, and even, ultimately, be dissolved in God, was to behold Him with profound feeling-regard. The power of His bodily Form to Illumine and Awaken others was the real Secret of His Divine Emergence. This Secret, He knew, would eventually be discovered by His devotees, and then their lives would become constant Contemplation of Him. Through the sheer Attractiveness of His Form, He would draw them more and more from all their other uses of attention-from preoccupation with mind, from concern for the body, from every kind of self-involvement. Through this self-surrendering, self-forgetting feeling-Contemplation of Him they would transcend all forms of bondage. All the struggles of His Teaching Years could not accomplish the conversion. But now He knew it to be already accomplished. Although the signs in His devotees were slow to appear, He promised that they could presume His Victory in their hearts.
Adi Da Samraj Gave His devotees a formal practice of feeling-Contemplation, which was to be their constant meditation, practiced through the regard of His Murti in the Communion Hall and through recollection of Him during the ordinary moments of every day. Feeling-Contemplation of Adi Da is always based on the heart-felt beholding of His bodily human Form, which leads, in due course, to Communion with Him as Spirit-Presence and, ultimately, to Identification with Him as Consciousness Itself. This feeling Contemplation is the foundation of the all-encompassing practice of devotional Communion with Adi Da Samraj, which He developed in great detail after His Divine Emergence, giving it the name “Ishta Bhakti Yoga” – the practice (Yoga) of devotion (Bhakti) to the Guru who is the Chosen Beloved (Ishta) of one’s heart.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: The relationship between the devotee and the Guru is a unique relationship and an extraordinary Yoga. I call it “Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga”. In this great Yoga the Guru is embraced as what is traditionally called the ”Ishta-Guru”, the Very Person, and the “chosen” Form, of the Divine Reality, Appearing as the Guru. It is the Yoga of allowing the Ishta-Guru to be the Divine Form, in meditation and in moment to moment practice. The devotee is devoted to that bodily Form, that Being, that Person, that Transmitting Power. The Divine Person, in other words, is acknowledged by the devotee in the Form of the Guru.
You use My Image, then, not only in the form of My Murti in the Communion Hall but in the form of your recollection of Me. You ”put on” the Ishta-Guru. You let the lshta-Guru acquire and be your own body-mind. In this way, My Spirit-Power Works in your body-mind as if it were My body-mind. All the processes of sadhana in the Way of the Heart will take place spontaneously. You will respond to them, participate in them, but they will be generated spontaneously by My Spiritual Heart-Transmission.
In feeling-Contemplation of Me, everything, from subtle perceptions to Divine Self-Realization, is Realized by Grace, not by your effortful working on yourself but by your simple response to the One “Who is before you.
Give your separate and separative self to Me, the One Who is already Divinely Self Realized. Respond to me as the Divine Self Incarnate. You cannot help but respond to Me if you acknowledge Me as that One. And then the Very State of That One will be Realized by you, quite naturally, as a Gift. This is the Secret of the Way of the Heart. [March 22, 1986]
“I Am You”
The process of Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga, as Adi Da Samraj explains here, is a Divine matter. It is a Miracle. The devotee certainly must maintain the thread of attention, the disposition, the life of heart render to Adi Da Samraj as Ishta-Guru, but the Yoga takes place by Grace. The transformations and Realizations are freely Given. How can this be? Without dissociating from His own State, Adi Da Samraj is forever submitting Himself to feel and be everyone everywhere-not in the egoic sense, but as the One Divine Consciousness that is the true Heart of all beings. His Divine Confession is, “I Am you”.
The great Siddhi of Identification with all beings first arose in Adi Da after His Divine Re-Awakening, when He found Himself spontaneously “meditating” others. But following His Divine Emergence it deepened dramatically. He spoke then of His spontaneous “Consent” to surrender utterly into the bodily condition as the fulfillment of His urge to Kiss all beings. Adi Da Samraj frequently goes through painful and mysterious processes in His body that have nothing to do with Him personally but which originate in the fears and struggles of those whom He is “meditating”. A remarkable example of this occurred in May 1987.
Adi Da Samraj received word from the community of His Australian devotees that one of their children, a girl of nearly six, was about to go into hospital for surgery. She was tiny for her age, owing to a serious congenital heart condition. Now she was facing ten hours of open-heart surgery that would involve switching the major blood vessels that entered her heart. The child’s name was “Leela”, a name she had been given with the Blessing of Adi Da. In Sanskrit, the word “leela” means “play”, or “sport”, and in the Hindu tradition it is used in a sacred manner to refer to the Deeds, or “Play”, of the Divine in the world.
The Divine Avatar, Adi Da, asked to be informed of the exact time of Leela’s operation, and He indicated that He expected regular medical reports. The operation went well, taking six, rather than the projected ten, hours. Nevertheless, Leela’s condition was critical and did not stabilize for twenty-four hours. After that, she started to improve, but lung congestion began to develop.
On the morning of Leela’s operation and again the next day, Adi Da woke up with severe symptoms of stress around His heart. Then, before receiving the medical reports, He began to develop lung congestion. A day or two later He woke up with a mass of dried blood on His chest in a stripe about an inch and a half wide and about six inches long. When He went to wash it off, He noticed a small puncture wound, an actual hole on the upper left side of His chest above the aorta, The puncture was painless and completely inexplicable. Adi Da Samraj fell back to sleep and when He awoke again the wound had disappeared. But there was more blood on His chest. For more than a week from the time of Leela’s operation, Adi Da Samraj also had the sensation of being heavily drugged. One day He spontaneously asked His physician for a particular form of medication, only to find in the next medical report that the same medication had been administered to Leela that same day.
Leela’s operation was completely successful. She made a remarkably rapid recovery and several days after the surgery celebrated her sixth birthday in the hospital. Among her gifts was a teddy bear from Adi Da Samraj.
In conversations with His devotees at His Hermitage, the All-Compassionate Divine Lord, Adi Da, confirmed that through His profound Blessing attention on Leela He had spontaneously lived her ordeal in His own body, and thus served the auspicious outcome. To this day, Leela has lived a normal life and required no further surgery.
After Leela’s recovery, some devotees remembered an incident that had occurred many years previously in the early days of Adi Da Samraj’s Teaching Work. A young woman, newly come to the Ashram in Los Angeles, had a heart condition. One day, as she stood in the hallway just outside the room where devotees were gathered around Adi Da Samraj, He asked about the “girl with the pacemaker”. She was excitedly brought into the room and directly to His chair. She sat on His lap as He asked her many questions about the nature and history of her condition. He drew out everything about her life, her concerns. In the emotion of the moment, she confessed to Him her greatest fear. She knew He spoke often of the primacy of the Heart, and was afraid that her heart-weakness would somehow prevent or diminish her practice as His devotee. Adi Da Samraj smiled. He looked directly into her eyes and said, “You can use My Heart”,
Establishing the Religion of Adidam
During the years following His Divine Emergence, Adi Da Samraj began to extend and develop the disciplines and practices that He had Given over many years, clarifying them all as direct expressions of Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga, or devotional surrender to Him. There was a discipline appropriate to every area of life and a structure of devotional practice that governed every day. Adi Da was continuing to prepare for the time when devotees would not, in general, see Him personally. Many in the future, and all of those who would appear after His physical lifetime, would never do so. And so Adi Da was creating religious and Spiritual means that would enable all His devotees, from the moment of their first formal initiation, to receive His Spiritual Transmission and live perpetually in His Spiritual Company. He was finding more and more ways to universalize His Work beyond the initial circles of devotees, reaching out to find and embrace His devotees in every corner of the world. He was bringing to fullness the Way of the Heart, or the “eternal and always new” religion of Adidam.
As part of this process, Adi Da Samraj spent untold hours writing. For years, His Talks and Essays had been published in books, but now He was creating a summary of His Instruction that was gigantic in breadth and depth. He was bringing to completion all the “considerations” of His Teaching Years and offering the great Wisdom of His conclusions to humanity for all time. He was creating a new body of Scripture, eight Source-Texts that comprise the most perfect and complete Scripture ever known.
It was a monumental task. Adi Da had no ancient sacred language at His disposal in which to cast His new Dharma. And so He began to transform His given language, even adopting new conventions of capitalization and punctuation in order to make the printed English word into a vehicle fit for His purpose. Every word, every comma, every parenthesis He placed with extreme care in order to ensure the integrity of His Message. Unheard-of Revelations flowed from His pen-the secrets of esoteric anatomy and mankind’s Spiritual quest, the process of Spiritual Awakening and the details of sexual Yoga, the laws of Guru-devotion and free renunciation, the meaning of death and the design of the cosmos, the ultimate Mysteries of Divine Enlightenment and Divine Translation. Whatever His focus and purpose from book to book, Adi Da created His Source-Texts as living Speech, an “Eternal Conversation” with every man and woman.
Confrontation with “Narcissus”
In 1991, Adi Da Samraj was offered a new Name, “Avabhasa” (Sanskrit for “the ‘Bright”‘), in a song sung by a young devotee. He accepted “Da Avabhasa” as one of His principal Names, a Name that epitomizes His Divine Nature-“the Giver of the ‘Bright”‘. He had made known for the first time what Enlightenment truly is and how it may be Realized in living relationship to Him. He had confronted the madness of “Narcissus” for years on end with all His “Crazy” brilliance and Force. He had created a new Scripture and a new religion. And yet, He was still waiting for the signs that His devotees had understood their constant act of self-contraction and were truly resorting to Him as Guru. It seemed that there was nothing more He could do.
But Adi Da Samraj never ceases to Work. He cannot abandon His devotees, leaving them to suffer their egoic destiny. In May 1992, He started to gather again with devotees in His Hermitage, and He continued to gather almost constantly, usually several nights a week, for nearly a year. These gatherings were a Call to great seriousness. “Handle business!” was His constant admonition. He was insisting that every devotee find out his or her own bottom-line realities and deal with everything immediate and long-term, emotional and practical, that stood in the way of his or her ability to grow in the great process of Divine Self-Realization.
Starting late in March of 1993 and continuing through the first week of April, Adi Da bore down on “Narcissus” with overwhelming force: .
ADI DA SAMRAJ: You want Me to talk about your trying to work your life out. Life does not work out! IT CANNOT WORK OUT! That is not the Way of the Heart! The Way of the Heart is about ego-transcendence, transcendence of the very thing that seeks to make it all work out! You are wanting Me to address you in this act that you are making to have everything be hunky-dory. AND THE WHOLE DAMN THING DOESN’T EVEN EXIST! AND THAT’S WHAT THERE IS TO REALIZE!! ABSOLUTE FREEDOM FROM THIS ILLUSION – that you call “reality” and are trying to make work out perfectly. You are only looking at yourself! That’s all you are ever looking at! And you want it to work out, “Narcissus”. You are looking at all this and you are calling it the world-but it is you!
All you ever talk about, think about, or perceive is you. It is a private, “self-possessed” illusion. It is a result of your own knot of separateness, and it registers in this poor little slug of a body-mind you identify with as all kinds of illusions, hallucinations, thoughts, presumptions, ideas, perceptions. The whole lot, the whole ball of wax is all the result of your own separate position, your own point of view, self-contraction, manufacturing illusions on the base of That Which is Reality. But you have no idea what that Reality is. No notion. You are not associated with Reality, you are dissociated from Reality. That is the whole point! Well, that being the case, that is what you have to deal with! But you want to persist in your adoration of the “pond “, your experience, your search, and so forth, and you are asking Me how to make it work out. I do not have anything to do with the “making-it-work-out” business. I am here to wake you up!
[April 2, 1993]
By this time Adi Da Samraj was cutting a swath through every attempt on the part of His devotees to defend themselves from His Criticism. He was tremendously intensifying His devotees’ sensitivity to the knot of self-contraction, to the point where that cramp would become so present, so obvious, so unbearable, so unnecessary, so absurd that they would spontaneously let it go. Late in the night during what turned out to be the last gathering of this period, Adi Da brought devotees to that intolerable point. There was a pause while His Radiant Force magnified in the room, melting the clench of “Narcissus”. Then He began to speak differently, quietly:
ADI DA SAMRAJ]: Feel into that knot of stress. Feel into it and account for it. See it as your own action. Regard Me in that moment, in every moment. And then you begin to feel Me. Then the surrender comes, the self forgetting comes, the native sense of Non-Separateness is felt. This is actually what I am Calling you to do! Actually to do that. Just to be doing it grants equanimity to you, even bodily, grants equanimity to your speech, your actions, your feelings, because you are registering this depth-point and going beyond it and feeling Me. This is the context of practice of the Way of the Heart, not merely outer observances. This is what it means to listen to Me: to be examining this point of contraction in depth, to feel it, and by its unfolding to feel Me. This is not the end of the Way of the Heart. It is the foundation of it. Self-understanding and devotion at depth-this is what you must do in every moment. This is what it is to practice the Way of the Heart. [April 8, 1993]
By this final gathering, a dent had been made in the armor of “Narcissus” that for many devotees was a lasting one. They could not snap back as easily as before into a state of immunity to their own act of self-contraction. The heartless machine of the ego was too starkly revealed. There was no lasting relief to be found through any kind of seeking for satisfaction. In His masterful Revelation, throughout that previous year, of their desperate state of bondage to the self-contraction, Adi Da had begun to magnify in devotees the need for devotion to Him, the conviction that He was, truly, their only Help. Everything He had said about the necessity for Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga was starting to prove itself. And the Gift was before their eyes if only they would look up from the “pond” and behold Him in the Radiant Truth of His Being.
Soon Adi Da brought this recapitulation of His Teaching to completion, with a grand five-month summary of His Instruction on Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga:
ADI DA SAMRAJ]: Fundamentally, Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga is the directing of the body-mind to Me and not struggling with its contents and only trying to direct them to Me, or trying to get rid of them in an effort of surrender toward Me. Rather, yield the functions of the body-mind to Me at their root. Yield their leading characteristic.
Give Me your attention, give Me your feeling, give yourself over to Me, and disregard the contents. Do not keep checking back on them to see if they are changing! In your real practice of this Yoga, you forget them. You do not use them. You do not build upon them. You make them obsolete by not using them. In this manner, the Yoga purifies you by making the contents of the body-mind obsolete through non-use. The process is not an effort on your part to do something to the contents of the body-mind or to try not to use them. It is simply your turning to Me, turning your feeling-attention to Me, turning yourself altogether to Me, Contemplatively. That is the Yoga. [December 20, 1993]
Having described so clearly what the practice is-as He did again and again-Adi Da would praise the greatness of the life of Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga:
ADI DA SAMRAJ]: There is nothing but this Self-Existing and Self-Radiant Consciousness Itself, Divine Being Itself, nothing. That is all there is. Truly, there is Only One-Absolute, All Love~Bliss. That is the Condition to be Realized. That is “Who I Am. “When you respond to Me, your life takes that God-Realizing course.
Allow the process to become great. Devote your life to Me utterly. Fulfill your obligations in the body, all the while submitted to Me. This is the Way of My devotee, always vocalizing praise of Me, devotion to Me, every moment of your life transformed by this great impulse toward Me. This is what you must do around Me.
Give Me everything, and forget it all. Your daily life carries obligation-fine. Your puja is to devote yourself to Me and forget about yourself. Having had your glimpse of Me, now you must make a life out of it.
I Am just the Divine One, just the Living One, Showing Itself here. I Am just this Shakti, this Form, this Divine Sign. Be governed by this Vision. That, and nothing else, is devotion to Me. [February 4, 1994]
There was a finality to the Instruction of these months that was felt by devotees everywhere. Truly, Adi Da had nothing further to say to beginning devotees. There were no questions left in their hearts. He knew it, and they knew it. A new seriousness was in the air Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga was becoming a living reality for His devotees. They were proving to themselves that persistence in this devotion does grant Happiness, Freedom, and the ecstasy of direct heart – Communion with Adi Da. The preoccupations of the ego no longer carried the same addictive force. After His then twenty-two years of inexpressibly Compassionate service to them, devotees had understood a great deal, and the lives of many were changed beyond recognition.
The Past and the Future of the “Bright” in the World
The unending sacrificial Work of Adi Da Samraj is an expression of the “fierce mysterious Impulse” that has always burned in Him. This great Divine Impulse, unfathomable in its origin, did not come into being with the birth of “Franklin Jones”. It originated, as Adi Da Samraj has said “before the Big Bang”, before time or space itself, and unfolded even throughout the course of cosmic history through manifold visitations and partial revelations of the Divine, including all the great Spiritual Realizers. In nineteenth century India there were two such Realizers who not only served their own time and place but also had a unique role to play in preparing for Adi Da Samraj’s Incarnation as the Perfect Divine Liberator.
The Subtle Vehicle of Adi Da Samraj’s Appearance
In 1893, a young Indian swami came to America. At the Parliament of Religions held that year in Chicago, this imposing, forceful man addressed a crowd of western Christians with great passion. He impressed the colloquium with his extraordinary presence, his impeccable command of English, his pride in his own tradition, and his ability to inspire others beyond sectarian views. It was not only his words, however, but the profound Spiritual power behind them, that moved his audience. Swami Vivekananda was the most cherished disciple of the great Indian Adept Ramakrishna, and he had come to bring the ancient wisdom of India to the West. After the accolade he received at the Parliament, Swami Vivekananda spent years in constant traveling and lecturing all over America and in England.
Swami Vivekananda had the fervor of a man moved to save the world, but he was mightily frustrated in his intention. He knew that the future of humanity was largely being shaped by the West, which was already sliding into secularism. But his work could not be truly effective among Westerners. There was a line drawn beyond which he could not go, for he was a Hindu, a dark-skinned man, and a celibate swami. Thus, in spite of his best efforts, in spite of his profound Realization, Swami Vivekananda remained a foreigner, an outsider. But his great compassionate urge made another birth. Thirty-seven years after His early death in 1902, Swami Vivekananda entered into the bloodstream of the West through the birth of “Franklin Jones”.
Starting in the late 70s, Adi Da Samraj would occasionally speak to His devotees about the prehistory of His present birth, of the unique conjunction of forces it had required. He, the Da Avatar, the One come for all beings, could not appear until the mid-twentieth century – when the world had grown “smaller” through technological intercommunication, when East was approaching West, when modern physics was shifting the materialist view of existence, when Freud had demonstrated the bondage of unconscious “Oedipal” motivations. These were some of the realities and paradigms that had to be in place before the Divine Work in the world could be fully effective. But more than all else, a vehicle of unique Spiritual preparation had to be available.
Every human personality, Adi Da explained, is composed of a grosser part, derived from the parents, and a subtle core that is the “reincarnate”, the deeper mechanism of the ego that moves from life to life. In order to be born, Adi Da Samraj required a subtle vehicle attuned to the task of bringing true Spirituality to the modern West. Swami Vivekananda carried in his psyche thousands of years of Indian Spirituality and Realization, and ended His life in love with the West in its need for God. Thus, the subtle vehicle of Swami Vivekananda spontaneously conjoined with the gross, or elemental, vehicle of “Franklin Jones”, preparing a “place” for the Mysterious Descent of the “Bright” into the human world.
There is another level of His deeper personality, or subtle vehicle, which Adi Da was silent about until 1993. Then, one day, He began to speak about Ramakrishna, the Spiritual Master of Swami Vivekananda, who had always been aware of the extraordinary Spiritual stature and destiny of his disciple. At the end of his life, certain of the great work that lay ahead for his beloved Vivekananda, Ramakrishna poured his own Spiritual virtue into Swami Vivekananda in a formal act of Transmission, becoming, in his own words, “only an empty fakir”. Thus, Ramakrishna, through his total Spiritual investment of himself in Swami Vivekananda, is also part of the deeper personality vehicle of Adi Da Samraj.
Ramakrishna was renowned for his ecstatic devotion to the Divine Goddess (in the form of Kali), and for his intuitive sympathy with other religions through his own contemplation of their icons and revelations. Indeed, Adi Da Samraj has acknowledged Ramakrishna as a Master of the devotional path whose greatness is unsurpassed in all of human history. In a unique way, the subtle vehicle of Ramakrishna Vivekananda brought to the Birth of the Da Avatar the essence of humanity’s long quest for God, and it was even part of the preparation for “Franklin’s” initial submission to the Goddess and Adi Da Samraj’s subsequent Great Husbanding of Her in the Vedanta Temple. It is no accident that this temple is jointly dedicated to Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. Through His own Re-Awakening there, Adi Da Samraj most perfectly Enlightened His great Spiritual forerunners. They became One with Him in the “Bright”.
I Am the One Who Awakened (and, thereafter; Worked through) Ramakrishna. He Recapitulated the past, in order (by a Spiritual Sacrifice) to Serve the future. I Am the One Who Worked through (and has now Most Perfectly Awakened) Swami Vivekananda. He Served the future, in order (even by physical death and physical rebirth) to Transcend the past (and, Thus, and by Means of a Great and Spiritual Awakening, to Bless and to Liberate the future).
Now and Forever, Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda are One, at the Heart. And I Am the One They have Realized There. [The Basket of Tolerance]
The All-Completing Avataric Incarnation
Not only Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda, but also several other Realizers of the past one hundred and fifty years, uniquely contribute, in their own ways, to the preparation for the Appearance of Adi Da Samraj. He speaks of the Gurus of His own Lineage-Swami Nityananda and Swami Muktananda-as the greatest of all Realizers in the field of Yogic mysticism. And He honors Ramana Maharshi (whose writings about his Transcendental Realization came into the hands of Adi Da after His own Re-Awakening) as the greatest Realizer in the domain of Transcendental Consciousness – one who had distinct premonitions of the Divinely Enlightened State.
Truly, all the practices and Spiritual work of all the Realizers of the Great Tradition culminate in the Appearance of Adi Da Samraj. He, as the Emerging Divine Person, “Lived” all those great Spiritual figures, in all times and places, participating in all the multifarious aspects of mankind’s great Spiritual search, Realizing and Transmitting all the various practices, Yogas, and Samadhis. That immense process of Revelation has now become single in His All-Completing Incarnation as the Da Avatar. Adi Da Samraj is the Adept of uniquely most perfect God-Realization, the Realization that accounts for, transcends, and perfects all that went before. And the unmistakable signs of all that previous Spiritual practice and Adeptship are to be seen in His astonishingly complete and rapid Sadhana in this lifetime, in the unique genius and Freedom of His Teaching Work, and in the great summation and clarification of all Spiritual Wisdom in His Source-Literature.
Adi Da Samraj is the God-Man for the West and the East alike. His very birth came about through the conjunction of the Western body of “Franklin Jones” with the Eastern subtle vehicle of Ramakrishna Vivekananda. He manifests the qualities that Western religion traditionally associates with an Incarnation of God-profound love and sacrifice, a total identification with the suffering human condition. And He is the consummation of all that the East looks for in an Avatar – a Radiant Being descended from the God Realm to Awaken beings with the Perfect Teaching and the Liberating Power of Divine Self-Realization. There is a striking difference between the Western and the Eastern view of what a true God-Man should be. Adi Da Samraj has commented on this and pointed out how the difference between the Western and the Eastern ideas of a God-Man correspond with the cultural and religious differences that mark the West and the East as a whole. Western culture is wedded to this world and to the “conquering” of the world, subduing and exploiting the powers of nature. And Western religion is essentially about trying to perfect the world and overcome evil with the help of God. This, in Adi Da’s language, is the “Omega” point of view. The traditional East, on the other hand, regards the world as inherently imperfect and, therefore, tries to escape from the world and go to God right from the beginning. Thus, Eastern religion, typically, is the effort of turning within, in order to seek mystical experience and states presumed to be “enlightenment”. This is the “Alpha” point of view.
Both points of view – the utopian “Omega” attitude of the West and the ascetical “Alpha” disposition of the East-are based, as Adi Da points out, in a problem. They originate in the feeling that God, or Happiness, is absent and must be sought. Thus, they are both founded in self-contraction. Adi Da Samraj, by His own confession, was born in “a terrible moment of necessity”, when humanity’s need to go beyond the partial and opposing philosophies of Alpha and Omega has become acute. He is the “Avataric Incarnation”, the universal God-Man, whose Life and Work and Teaching are a Call to people everywhere to transcend the limitations of both Alpha and Omega. His Sign of Divine “Brightness” makes possible a new response to existence, the choice of always present Happiness, or the release of self-contraction under all conditions, in Communion with the Divine Person, Adi Da.
Adi Da Samraj’s Divine Work had to begin in the West, because the future of the world now lies in the hands of the West. But His single intention has always been to Bless and liberate everyone, regardless of race or culture. Even the location of His Hermitage in Fiji reflects this intention, for Fiji, located in the Pacific Ocean, lies between East and West, identified with neither. Adi Da Samraj’s establishment in Fiji was guaranteed in 1993, when He was granted Fijian citizenship (a privilege rarely bestowed on non-Fijians). He celebrated this event as a most auspicious Spiritual sign-His specific Work with the West was now complete, and He was free to devote Himself entirely to His Work of universal Blessing.
Divine Completeness
In order to ensure that His universal Blessing Work will continue throughout all future generations, Adi Da Samraj has always worked tirelessly to Spiritually Awaken devotees who will serve as His human Instruments, Empowered to carry His liberating Grace to people everywhere, both during and after His human lifetime. By the summer of 1994, Adi Da Samraj had reached the point where He could wait no longer for this profound depth of response to manifest. Without it, He felt He could not even remain in His own Hermitage. As a sign and Calling to all, Adi Da Samraj suddenly left Naitauba for an undetermined destination and shortly thereafter began a period of wandering in Viti Levu, the largest island in Fiji.
On September 7, 1994, at His temporary residence in Pacific Harbor on Viti Levu, Adi Da Samraj spent the entire day secluded in His room. At dusk, He called one of His devotees to His quarters. The house was totally still. The curtains of His room were drawn, and the room itself was dark. He was not doing any of the Work on the manuscripts of His Source-Texts which had been His custom each day in recent weeks. He was simply sitting motionless in a large chair. The Energy of the space was intense. The Power of His Spiritual Transmission was so focused and concentrated in the room that the devotee hardly felt able to approach Him. His Divine Force was pushing her back like the heat from a blast furnace. She served Him simply and left.
When she entered again in the evening, answering His call, the same overwhelming Transmission Force was Radiating from Him. Adi Da Samraj was seated at His desk with the lights turned on. He did not look at her. But then, after a few moments, He slowly turned His head. In His face she saw only the same heartbreaking Love for the billions of humanity that had overwhelmed Him more than eight years before, when His Divine Emergence was initiated on January 11, 1986. She felt intuitively certain that some extraordinary process was taking place in Him. He later confirmed that this was true. A great turning point in His Work had occurred:
On September 7, 1994 … I Knew I had forever Said and Done Enough (Such that there was not even any Motion in Me to Say or Do any More). My Revelation Work had Suddenly become Complete, for all time, and I (Spontaneously, and Finally) Came To Rest in My Eternal Hermitage of Heart-Seclusion (only, from then, and forever, to Awaken all beings by Mere and Constant Blessing, “Bright”).
Therefore, now that I have Done (or Suffered) all that was necessary for Me to Do (or Suffer) as Teacher and Revealer in a Struggle with would-be devotees and the world, I will not hereafter Associate with that Struggle, but I have Retired from that Struggle, Satisfied that all My Teaching Work, and even all My Revelation Work, Is Full and Complete (and that, by Fullest Submission, I have, Most Fully and Most Finally, Said and Done and Firmly Established all that I could possibly have Said and Done and Firmly Established, and all that was necessary for Me to Say and Do and Firmly Establish, in order, now, and for all time to come, to Most Fully and Most Finally, and Firmly, Introduce the Great Opportunity to the total human world, in all the stages of life, and in order, now, and for all time to come, to Most Fully and Most Finally, and Firmly, Provide the True, and Most Perfect, and Utterly Complete Way Of God,
Truth, and Reality to the total human world, in all the stages of life, and in order, now, and for all time to come, to Most Fully and Most Finally, and Firmly, Establish the True, and Most Perfect, and Utterly Complete Way of God, Truth, and Reality for the Liberating Sake of the total human world, in all the stages of life). [The Order of My Free Names]
On September 12, Adi Da returned to His Hermitage as swiftly as He had left it. And He returned wearing orange clothing. For the first time since 1986, Adi Da had begun, in Suva, to make this outward sign of His Sannyas, reminding all His devotees of His own Perfect Renunciation and His Call to them to understand and utterly renounce the self-contraction in devotion to Him.
Soon after the Event of September 7, many devotees noticed that the positive changes they had begun to observe in their practice, since the gatherings of 1993 and 1994, were now obviously and concretely in evidence. They began to speak and write to Adi Da, telling Him that they felt the stride of their seeking to be broken at the heart, that they were stably understanding and transcending the self-contraction by His Grace. Some confessed that they were Awakening to His All-Pervading Spirit-Presence, feeling the great Gift of His Spirit-Baptism. The signs of human Instrumentality were beginning to appear.
Since September 7, Adi Da Samraj has gradually ceased to struggle with egos or the world. More and more He simply rests in His Completeness, allowing the profound change in the Siddhi of His Being to do its Work. As a sign of this great change, He has assumed “Santosha” (“Completeness”, “Contentedness”, “Satisfaction”, “No-Seeking”) as one of His Names. He is Santosha Da, the Divine Giver Who Is “Inherently and Perfectly Satisfied and Contented, Inherently and Perfectly Free of all seeking, Inherently and Perfectly Free of all separateness, and Inherently and Perfectly Complete”.
One month after the event of September 7, the Divine Avatar began to have psychic intimations of the further Name that belongs to His Completeness. He began to hear and see the Name “Adi Da”, recognizing it to be a reference to Himself. “Adi” in Sanskrit is “first”, “primordial”, the “source”. Thus, on October 11,1994, He indicated that He would henceforth be known principally as “Adi Da” – the “First Giver”, the “Giving Source”.
The letters of the Name “Adi Da” read the same in both directions, from left to right and from right to left. In addition, “I” stands at the center of the Name, and on either side of “I” is the syllable “Da”, first backwards, then forwards. Thus, the Name “Adi Da” reads “I-Da”, signifying “I Am Da”, in both directions from the center. The spontaneous appearing of the Name “Adi Da”, therefore, is the bringing to completion of the momentous Revelation of 1979, when Adi Da Samraj first Offered His Divine Confession, “I Am Da”. Through the perfectly symmetrical structure and letters of His principal Name, “Adi Da”, the Divine Avatar makes the Great Statement that He is the First and the Last, the Complete Manifestation of God, Truth, or Reality in the conditional realms.