and I listened to the words of the speaker, his readings from the scriptures and instructions of the Master. What was conveyed in this lecture was more than astounding. The words were charged with so much power. The longer I listened the more I was overwhelmed with an attraction and a deep feeling of Truth and grandness which exceeded everything I had ever experienced in my life, in my endless search.
Then doubts began to encroach. What I was hearing couldn't possibly be true. This couldn’t be the place where the deepest Truth was revealed about our existence out of Nothingness. Not here in this very simple and ordinary little German town, so totally without any extravagance or adventure, far away from any holy place and, what’s more, without the actual presence of the Master himself.
But the power of the words of Adi Da resounded everywhere in my entire being as Truth and spread out to such an extent that it felt like the entire world existed in it. My mind couldn’t grab hold of it any more. It was so much bigger.
The lecture was coming to an end. Many of those present were very churned up inside. Some were angry, arguing heatedly, in the mood to fight. Others were silent and thoughtful. I just sat there not comprehending anything any more.
As a conclusion there was a video presentation in which Adi Da was giving Darshan (1). He was sitting in a chair, as he usually does, and the people present were gazing at him silently. The room was completely darkened, his image appeared on the screen. At this moment my perception of space and time disappeared. My body felt like a thunder went through it. Everything around me began to vibrate in a kind of fire. My heart shattered and was lost. A feeling of infinite and eternal love rushed into my body from above, yes, into my entire life, like a waterfall that had only been waiting for this moment and this opportunity.
In front of me sat God incarnate, the Truth, the eternal, limitless unconditional Love that I had been looking for incessantly and desperately in life after life. The prophesied figure of the God-man. My heart just knew it.
Could it be? Here in Freiburg? Now? It was unearthly! That which has no name sat in front of me in human form and shape.
At that moment I fell into this infinite love, I couldn’t grab hold of myself any more, I couldn’t think. It was as if lightening flashes of love were chasing through my body and each lightening flash confirmed that the Truth, the Reality as such had assumed a human form in front of my eyes.
The event came to an end. Without words and completely churned up inside I bought a brochure in German language, which contained translated excerpts of the Dawn Horse Testament (2). I immediately began to read it while slowly leaving the room. ‘Beloved, I Am Da.’ I had to read it again and again. It was just not comprehensible.
Outside, it had begun to rain. The city lights reflected off the wet cobblestone, everything shone and glittered a thousand times. My friend Julia was coming towards me on the sidewalk. I still couldn’t stop reading. She looked at me: ‘Your eyes look like fireballs! What happened?’ I could hardly speak: ‘It’s just too incredible! Too overwhelming! I can’t talk about it right now!’
Over the next days and weeks I dreamt of Adi Da every night.
Upon waking I felt His presence around me all the time. The whole room was full of His presence. He was with me now, literally, at all times. Every night I now wandered with him through different spaces and different times. In the dream Adi Da appeared younger. He laughed, continuously edged me on to go further. He asked questions and told me so many things about the peculiarity of these dream places. Very often these places were just mere stones and ruins, broken down temples, stone deserts, rocks, mountains, places that clearly have had a life in the past, or perhaps in the future? This way of being with Adi Da was very exhausting for me.
After about two weeks I knew that I shall never be without Him again, not even for one second of my life, and that I shall never forget His name again. He only laughed and made friendly jokes about me, who gave so much importance to all of this.
I kept going on as usual with my work in the health food store, but I continued thinking of Him at all times, about the Power, the overwhelming Love, the Truth that He exudes and that He represents with utter perfection. My life was totally taken by His presence. One day I was working alone in the store when the shelves began to gradually emanate a radiant light and there was a loud voice that suddenly manifested itself in the space out of nothing: ‘ How much longer do you actually want to spend your time like this?’
That was just too much. I was shaken to the bone, totally shocked and afraid. Now I saw with certainty that this encounter with Adi Da would ruin my entire life and all my cherished experiences. It was just too dangerous. I didn’t want to dream any more, or to feel, or to read any more. I panicked and shoved Adi Da away. Quiet. Distance.
One month later, in January, I traveled to Munich. The next stage of my education, Hakomi, a body-oriented psychotherapy, was on the schedule. In the group room of the seminar house my colleagues were already gathered. The head of the department had partially emptied her library and her books were piled up in stacks in the room. I walked down the two stairs into the room, stumbled on the last step and fell head first into the middle of the room and right into the stacks of the books. I lay there flat on my belly, under me the books, my face on the floor. Perplexed by the sudden fall I slowly got up. Under my chest was a book with young Adi Da on the cover. It was His autobiography ‘The Knee Of Listening’. I saw his picture and in that same instant I gave up. My resistance was broken.
I understood and accepted His gift. I wanted to be His devotee (3). I wanted to be with Him, never again be without Him. The search had lasted too long, life after life, one drama piled on top of the other, the truth nowhere to be found, the happiness never perfect, always a remnant of dissatisfaction hidden in a secret corner of the heart. Which then snowballed into new heroics and new adventures and into more despair and further searching.
I have never actively searched for Adi Da. I had always hoped for Him, but never really expected to find Him. His appearance and His revelation have not the slightest connection with space and time. Also, even against the background of the deepest spiritual and mystical experiences, He has nothing in common with our way of seeing the world. His Loka (4) and His Revelation of the Reality go far beyond any of that.
Happiness had finally found me, and everything that I had experienced and lived before was reduced to absurdity.
The Search for God – Or The Fear To be Human
‘There is no God on Shakespeare’s stage, but only human complications…’
Adi Da
The way our society looks at the meaning of life, as the global media generally represents it these days, and the set of conditions that have been created for political and interpersonal relationships is characterized by pure materialism. We use the so-called scientific knowledge in service of the urge to have total control over both the planet and the human being results in the latter being regarded as ‘the other’ in the best case and the enemy or adversary in the worst case.
The rational-materialistic thinking of the western world has taken over the entire mankind. Everything becomes an object for a business transaction and for an alleged scientific research. Each event gets converted into material values, becomes subject to selfishness and to greed in form of consumerism. The main motive is the total control over the masses of humanity and the ruthless exploitation of the earth’s resources, supposedly for the benefit of all, which is an utter deceit.
This absurd pursuit is utterly doomed to tragic failure. It is a complete illusion. The human mind and its creative power is not the absolute measure of all things. The mottos of ‘the independent individual’, or ‘having your own business’, the propaganda that each human being exists separately and has an inherent natural impulse to search for his own happiness and self-fulfillment is a fatal fallacy and a lie.
Neither the search for absolute control over the material world nor the ‘holy’ way, via the spiritual quest to find the absolute