The Offering of Perfect Happiness: The Divine Incarnation, Life, and Work of Avatar Adi Da Samraj Chris Tong, Ph.D.

Every human heart longs to be perfectly and eternally happy. But, in a time dominated by the materialistic viewpoint, few of us even aspire to Perfect Happiness. An honest appraisal of where we spend our time (despite toying with ideas of "spirituality") reveals what we generally settle for: a dinner out with a bottle of "fine" wine; a good movie; a little "peace of mind" through meditation.

Adi Da as Spiritual Transmitter. Throughout history, the great Spiritual Masters appear on occasion, to re-Awaken human beings to their highest destiny of Perfect and Eternal Happiness. By "great Spiritual Masters", I mean something quite specific. Search the web and you may get the sense that "spiritual teachers" are everywhere: this one teaches Tibetan Buddhism; that one offers shamanic drumming; etc. But the truly great Spiritual Masters are rare. They have never been merely intellectual teachers, charismatic (but otherwise ordinary) human beings, or providers of piecemeal techniques or rituals. They are always Spiritual Transmission Masters, tangibly transmitting their own Spiritual Realization to their devotees:

Different kinds of Spiritual Realization. Different Spiritual Masters transmit different Spiritual Realizations, corresponding to different human destinies. God-Realization — Realization of Perfect, Eternal Happiness — is the greatest human destiny. And those rarest Masters ("Divine Incarnations") who appear here by "crossing down" (the literal meaning of "Avatar") from the Divine Domain spontaneously transmit that Divine Reality to others:

Adi Da as Divine Incarnation alive in our time. The world's traditions are replete with spiritually significant stories about great Masters like Jesus, Krishna, and Guatama. Sorting out the historical fact from the mythical embellishment is a formidable challenge. Even if we could discover what occurred thousands of years ago, is it still of spiritual use now? Are these Masters still "Spiritually Transmitting" in the twenty-first century?

Adi Da Samraj is a Divine Incarnation alive now. Often, Westerners react to the notion of a "Divine Incarnation" — our skepticism is born out of both the traditional Judeo-Christian notion of "God" ("How can the all-powerful God appear in limited human form?"), and our broader, materialistic doubt in the existence of anything spiritual.

Adi Da strongly critiques both God-less materialism and the notion that God is "all-powerful", the "Creator", "in charge of the universe", etc. He instead describes God as the Source: the "Dreamer" in Whose Consciousness all beings and things are appearing. It is possible for God to appear in the "dream" (as a "Divine Incarnation"), and for us to Awaken out of it (as God, the only ultimately Real Being): such "God Realization" is our greatest destiny. "Divine Incarnation" does not occur through a Divine act of will alone; it depends on a rare and mysterious conjunction of circumstances that creates a "gateway" for the Divine to appear here as a character in Its Own "dream".

The human life of a Divine Incarnation. Adi Da Samraj describes how the Divine Being seized upon just such a rare opportunity to incarnate in 1939 as an American named "Franklin Jones" in Long Island, New York. Adi Da's first thirty years are the extraordinary story of the Divine progressively Enlightening "Franklin Jones", and preparing that human vehicle for the Divine Work of Enlightening all beings.

Because it is a story of Divine Descent, Adi Da's early life is a radical reversal of the lives of traditional saints and yogis, whose spiritual attainments reach up to God in vision and mystical union, and may even ultimately attain Identification with the Transcendental Consciousness (see the left column of Figure 1), over many lifetimes of spiritual effort.

In contrast, Adi Da's early life reflects the Divine descending into the human vessel of "Franklin Jones", and awakening the various higher centers (and their corresponding Realizations) in the reverse order from the familiar spiritual traditions (see the right column of Figure 1), at the "God Speed" of a few years.

Adi Da's Work of Divine Emergence. In September 1970, the process of Divine Acquisition reached the point where "Franklin Jones" consciously Awakened as the Divine. Almost immediately, the same Divine Process began extending Itself to all other beings:

It was as though the Divine had established a "beachhead" on earth through "Franklin Jones", from which was launched a "campaign" ultimately capable of Awakening all beings to the Divine Identity through this same means of Divinely Emerging as them:

Over the past three decades, Adi Da has fully developed the Spiritual Way of Adidam, in which devotees "link up" with this Process of Divine Emergence. That Divine Process distinguishes Adidam from other traditions. Conventional meditation, astral projection, and other aspects of "New Age spirituality" work by stimulating specific "higher" centers of human anatomy. The Way of Adidam places no ultimate value on such "higher" experiences; the same limited ego experiences them, and is not set eternally free by them. Instead, the Way of Adidam is about surrendering the whole body to the Divine, to the degree of complete Awakening.

Implications of a Divine Incarnation. A Divine Incarnation alive today provides immense opportunities: most significantly, for Divine Enlightenment. God Realization depends upon the Divine appearing in human form; the Divine Being and State are not otherwise accessible to humankind. (Figure 1 illustrates how the traditional processes of Realization stop short of the Divine State. One can't Awaken "oneself" from the "dream"; the Divine Person must initiate the process by "crossing over" into the "dream".)

Short of our own Divine Enlightenment, Adi Da's appearance here is also extraordinarily clarifying. He demonstrates what Divine Realization looks like in factual, not mythical terms. And He provides the unadulterated details of how Spiritual Realization works, comprehensively addressing the questions of spiritual beginners in the twenty-first century, including:

• Will "Realizing God" require giving up my ordinary life and viewpoint? Will it "ruin" my life?

  Yes! There can be no Realization of God — the Great Identity — without complete transcendence of "self" — the lesser identity. At some point, we realize our "precious" ordinary lives are pretty "low" on the scale of possibility, as we start to really suffer their limitations (often as we age). Such "positive disillusionment" opens us to being Awakened out of this mediocre destiny, which otherwise keeps repeating mechanically, lifetime after lifetime.

• Is the Guru-devotee relationship an archaism? Wouldn't a "do it yourself" approach work?

  The "psycho-physics" of Spiritual Realization does not change with social trends; the Guru-devotee relationship remains its very core. The "self" preferring the "do it yourself" approach is the very identity needing to be transcended.

• How can we know Adi Da is a Divine Incarnation?

  By the unique characteristics of the Divine State He transmits — the complete dissolution of all sense of "separate self", the Revelation of Consciousness and Energy as a Unity, etc. — relative to which each of His devotees is a "reporter" (not a "believer"). Talk to Adi Da's devotees around the world, who are "tuning in" to His Transmission. Then place yourself in a position where you too can receive His Transmission: study His Teaching; view pictures and videos of Him; view His "Image Art"; visit Adidam's Sacred Sanctuaries — all of these means have been Spiritually Empowered by Adi Da to channel His Transmission. And when you are rightly prepared, enter into His physical company.

Conclusion. In a world ruled by human egoity and the "bad news" egoity creates worldwide, the amazingly good news is this: beyond all materialistic expectations, Perfect, Eternal Happiness is possible; and the means for Awakening to that Divine State is presently available through the devotional and Spiritual relationship with Adi Da Samraj:

To find out more about Avatar Adi Da Samraj and the Spiritual Way of Adidam, visit the About Adidam website and the Adi Da Up Close website.