Avatar Adi Da Samraj has a great voice. It always resounds with Love, whether it is soft as a whisper or booming loud with force. He sings beautifully and He can imitate many different accents so perfectly that you just have to laugh. One day at a gathering with devotees, Adi Da Samraj began to speak in a scary “Dracula” voice. Some devotees laughed with delight and some playfully pretended to be scared. But three-year-old Neem, who could sometimes be withdrawn or afraid, got scared for real. He shrank back.

Adi Da Samrajnoticed that Neem was having a hard time. He turned to Neem, still speaking in His Dracula voice, and started coaxing him beyond his fear, telling Neem how great and fun and wonderful it was to make scary voices. Then Adi Da Samraj invited Neem to make some scary noises himself. But Neem was too afraid. Adi Da Samraj started to roar like a lion, inviting young Neem to roar with Him. Now, Adi Da Samraj’s roar sounded just as thunderous and awesome as a lion in the jungle, so this was truly a scary noise and quite a test for Neem. But, at the same time, Adi Da Samraj was Radiating His Love and Help to Neem—you could see it on His face and feel it in the room. Neem bravely started to roar back. At first, Neem’s “roars” sounded more like a squeaky kitten. But, as he persisted, his roars got bigger and better. Finally, he was strong enough to really roar with his Heart-Master.

After this, whenever Neem would seem too shy or withdrawn or afraid of life, his parents and friends would ask him to roar like a lion. All of Neem’s friends noticed how hard this was for him at first, but they also noticed how Neem was getting stronger and less afraid. He began to feel free to go right up to people and not hold back his energy. He was only two, but Neem had received a Blessing and learned a lesson that would help him for the rest of his life.

Remember the Mystery in Which You Live

In October of 1978, in Land Bridge Pavilion at the Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary in Northern California, devotees of Adi Da Samraj were gathered with Him for an occasion in which He would respond to questions. At one point, a young boy stood up to ask a question. With quiet determination, he asked Avatar Adi Da if He could help him find a way to stop being self-righteous with other people. Avatar Adi Da Gave the boy a radiant smile and began to speak to him with great gentleness and love. This talk later became the following essay:

If only you will always Remember Who and What you must Remember to be Happy, you will forget to be fearful, sorrowful, and angry.

You are all the time tending to remember what you have to remember in order to be fearful, sorrowful, and angry. Instead, you must Remember Me.

You must, by Remembering Me, “Locate” the Mystery of Love-Bliss-Radiance in Which you exist. And, Thus—by constantly re-“Locating” the True Mystery of My Always Already Love-Bliss-Being—you must remember to love. You must do love. You must practice ego-transcending love of one and all and All.

As my devotee, you must not merely wait for love to “happen” from you. You must practice loving one and all and All. You must communicate love to one and all and All. You must say and do “I love you” to one and all and All. You must do the things that are full of the feeling of love for one and all and All. You see?

And, as My devotee, you may sometimes have to say something to somebody about something that he or she is doing that is not very good—but what you say to that person will not be the same as self-righteousness. You will say what you must say to that person—because you love that one (and all, and All). And, when you tell that person what you must say, you will even look and sound your love for that person.

There are even very bad people, sometimes. You probably have not met any really bad people lately. But even the really bad ones are alive in the same world as you. They are happening in Reality and in the real world—just like you. They have some things to learn—but you cannot teach them without loving them. You cannot teach anybody anything without being Happy with that very one. And you cannot be Happy with anybody else unless you are Happy.

As my devotee, you must not merely wait for others to do something to make you Happy. If you choose to wait for Happiness, you will only wait forever—in your always already and self-appointed un-Happiness (at wait). Instead, you must be Happy—in Me. Then you are living in My Open Field of Heart, That Breathes other people into Happiness, too.

Pandas, Woodpeckers, and Renunciation

The following conversation between Avatar Adi Da Samraj and three young devotees—which took place on March 21, 1983—reveals His genius in adapting His teaching on ego-transcendence to seven-year-olds.

Avatar Adi Da Samraj asked one girl, “What is it that you really like?”

She thought for a moment and then answered, “Pandas!”

Avatar Adi Da said, “What if you had an infinite number of pandas, as many as you wanted—would that make you Happy?”

“Yes!” said the girl, smiling a big smile.

“But what if you could only have pandas?”, said Avatar Adi Da. “Nothing else! No people, no toys, no books, nothing else around you except pandas.”

She began shaking her head and firmly changed her answer to, “No.”

Adi Da Samraj then asked, “Well, what would it be that you could have—and have nothing else at all forever but only that one thing—that would make you Happy?”

The girl looked at her Heart-Master quietly for a time and then she said, “You.”

“You mean me—this body here?” Asked Avatar Adi Da.

“No,” she said, “my Divine Heart-Master.”

“Who is that?” Avatar Adi Da Asked. “Do you mean Happiness?”

“Yes,” replied the girl.

“Where is the Happiness then?” Asked Avatar Adi Da.

She touched her heart and said, “Right here!”

“That’s right,” Said Avatar Adi Da. “And when you feel that Happiness, you forget about everything else.” He opened His arms to the room. “You forget about all of this.” He slapped His knee. “You even forget about the body. That’s the Big Place—the Happiness Place. And It’s very Big! You don’t need anything else when you are There. You don’t need toys, or books, or TV, or sweets. You don’t even need a panda!” Avatar Adi Da looked around at all the children. “Or a polar bear! Or a Woody Woodpecker! Or an E.T.!” He said, listing their favorite stuffed toys. He smiled at the girl. “There are no pandas in the Happiness Place.”

Adi Da Samraj continued, “A lot of grown-ups are in trouble because of thinking they are un-Happy and thinking that they need things to make them Happy. They have the ‘I-gotta-getties’ and the ‘I-need-it-nowies’. But these people are only thinking they are un-Happy. So, what you must do is realize that you are only thinking you are un-Happy. And, instead of doing that, just remember that before you started thinking you were un-Happy, you are already Happy. Already!” Said Adi Da loudly. Then He looked around at the children. “You can feel that right now, can’t you? That you are already Happy?”

“Yes!” they said.

“Well, then,” said Avatar Adi Da Samraj with a smile, “that is the practice!”