| Adi Da Samraj is a distinctive spiritual teacher, | | | | are living, in which we are being born and in which we |
| philosopher, and artist. His divine teachings are a light to | | | | do return. |
| humanity. He is not an orthodox teacher who leads | | | | Adi Da in the essay "God as the 'Creator', God as |
| people through sheer superstition; rather he is one who | | | | 'Good', and God As the Real" in Religion and Reality |
| awakens. He is a contemporary Buddha; in him the | | | | writes, "Real (Acausal) God-or the Transcendental, |
| Divine manifests in its uttermost glory. In his individuality | | | | Inherently Spiritual, Inherently egoless, and Self-Evidently |
| one finds manifestation of spiritual, philosophical, literary, | | | | Divine Reality (Prior to conditional self, conditional world, |
| and artistic genius. When he asserts that he is the | | | | and the ego-bound conventions of religion and |
| One, that divine guru who awakens, then he speaks | | | | non-religions)-Is the One and Only Truth of Reality Itself, |
| the ultimate the truth of Vedanta. His writings throw | | | | and the One and Only Way of Right Life and Perfect |
| light on his wisdom and the truth he inaugurates. In the | | | | Realization." The way to realize this truth is the way of |
| very beginning of the essay, "I Am The One Who | | | | Adi Da, since in him the absolute is manifesting in its |
| Would Awaken You" in his book The Ancient | | | | uttermost glory. He teaches how to transcend the |
| Walk-About Way, he proclaims the truth that is also | | | | views or ideas that are by and large formed and |
| known in Vedanta, "The world itself is not Truth-nor is | | | | based on beliefs. One's belief in God and one's belief |
| life, nor psyche and body, nor death, nor experience. | | | | of God is based on some thought, some imaginary |
| No event is, in and of itself, Truth. Everything that | | | | notion. Therefore, the first step towards truth |
| arises is an appearance to Consciousness Itself, a | | | | realization is getting rid of all the hitherto notions of |
| modification of the Divine Conscious Light That Is | | | | God-Ideas. Adi Da says that, "true religion requires the |
| Always Already the Case." | | | | utter transcending of all views". He is very clear in his |
| In Brihadaranyaka Upanishad sage Yagyavalkya says | | | | approach to religion and it is very much akin to |
| to Maitreyee the same truth, "vacha rambhano vikaro | | | | Vedanta. His sole philosophy of the spiritual is in the |
| namdheyam" of which the intended meaning is "all this | | | | likeness of Vedanta, but by proclaiming himself an |
| manifestation of form and name is of truth only". Adi | | | | Avatar who has come on this earth to liberate beings, |
| Da identifies truth with consciousness that is always | | | | he offers another way of self-realization. |
| awake and is said to be the seer of everything, every | | | | Adi Da shatters false intellectualization and philosophies. |
| happening whether it is happening outwardly or | | | | By teaching devotion to the Realizer he reveals that |
| inwardly. "There is One Who is Wide Awake while He | | | | love is the highest and most far reaching divine |
| Appears in the dream," he says. Remember once | | | | principle. It is this divine principle that humanity is |
| again the Brihdaranyaka Upanishad Yagyavalkya - | | | | forgetting. Regarding this, Buddha said that the |
| King Janaka's discourse on truth, "(in dream state) | | | | fragrance of faith goes beyond all since it carries with |
| after enjoying himself and roaming, and merely seeing | | | | it not earth but divine intelligence. Adi Da Samraj's |
| (the result of) good and evil (in the dream), he stays in | | | | world is full of mystery. He is not only a spiritual |
| the state of profound sleep, and comes back in the | | | | teacher but a distinguished artist too. I have never |
| inverse order to his former condition, the dream state. | | | | known any artist in my life or read about any artist |
| He is untouched by whatever he sees in that state, for | | | | who unites philosophy and art. His works of art are not |
| this infinite being is unattached." This consciousness | | | | simply visuals but rather are truth statements; because |
| that is absolute, wide awake and already the case is | | | | of this truth-the visuals appear. |
| He. This is what is called realization in the sense of | | | | In his art spiritualization takes place because philosophy |
| absolute 'I'. This Uddalaka taught to Svetaketo 'thou art | | | | and art converse. This is contrary to Picasso who did |
| that' means that absolute consciousness which is | | | | not believe in philosophy. As for as modern art is |
| wide-awake albeit awareness 'itself' is 'thou'. | | | | concerned, only Kandinsky believed in the philosophy |
| In his teachings Adi Da employs two methods-first, | | | | of art and criticized Picasso saying, "He shrinks from |
| with his sharp philosophical truth he removes | | | | no innovation, and if color seems likely to balk him in his |
| superstitions, beliefs, and false ideas; second, he | | | | search for a pure artistic form, he threw it overboard |
| convinces one to embrace reality itself leaving behind | | | | and paints a picture in brown and white; and the |
| childish notions of God that are based on the principle | | | | problem of purely artistic form is the problem of his |
| of dependence. He writes in the essay "Moving | | | | life." Because Picasso did not believe in the spiritual, he |
| Beyond Childish and Adolescent Approaches to Life | | | | worked from reason. Therefore, one rarely finds visual |
| and Truth" in Religion and Reality: "Traditional Spirituality, | | | | purity in his work. Adi Da is very close to Kandinsky, he |
| in the forms in which it is most commonly proposed or | | | | too believes in the Kandinskian theory of purity of |
| presumed, is a characteristically adolescent creation | | | | color. In The World As Light: An Introduction to the Art |
| that represents an attempted balance between the | | | | of Adi Da Samraj by Mei-Ling Israel, he writes, "The |
| extremes. It is not a life of mere (or simple) absorption | | | | colors should be pure colors, not colors that are the |
| in the mysterious enclosure of existence. It is a life of | | | | product of mixing a particular color with colors other |
| strategic absorption. It raises the relatively non-strategic | | | | than itself. A pure color is a vibration. This can be |
| and unconscious life of childhood dependence to the | | | | measured on a spectral graph." |
| level of a fully strategic conscious life of achieved | | | | As both a distinguished artist and philosopher he |
| dependence (or absorption). Its goal is not merely | | | | asserts in his book Transcendental Realism that to |
| psychological re-union, but total psychic release into | | | | create spiritual art one must transcend "all perceptual |
| some (imagined or felt) 'Home' of being." Adi Da does | | | | and conceptual means themselves, through the Tacit |
| not propose being in an "imaginary" home or an | | | | Self-Recognition of the Intrinsically Self-Evident |
| historical one searched by many western philosophers. | | | | 'Non-chaos' (or the Always Prior Self-Unity, Indivisibility, |
| His concept of 'ousia', the house of being, is not any | | | | Indestructibility, and Inherent Egolessness) of Reality |
| imaginary category, but rather is the already existent, | | | | Itself. |
| unborn, given truth. This is the very truth in which we | | | | |