My First Retreat – Welcome to Adidam!

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Retreat – Webster: a period of group withdrawal for prayer, meditation, study, or instruction under a director.

 

I’m going to cut out a lot of detail about how Adidam is structured relative to how one participates. There are details about the levels of participation, vows and…. I’m going to have to talk about vows. In order to participate formally in Adidam you take a vow. This has implications. Vows are an integral part of many spiritual traditions and rituals like marriage. Taking a vow means you’re serious. It weeds out dilettantes, flakes that just flitter around with no commitment. 

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There is another special quality of a vow. It creates a psychic bridge between the aspirant and the Guru. A person feels a depth of commitment in their heart when a vow is taken for real. The heart itself is the seat of psychic connections. The Heart is also a word to describe God. This is The Way of the Heart. 

 

A couple of months into my formal participation retreats were offered at my level of participation. These retreats were being offered on an island in Fiji that is owned by the church of Adidam. I was in a circumstance where I could take time off work and I had the money. I knew that Adi Da was the Living Lightening, the Real Deal of Real Deals. I was raised God-fearing, yet, a treasured want to know, to experience Darshan made the proposition too enticing not to bite.

 

All I knew about Darshan was that it was supposed to be miraculous. It was supposed to be the source of the energy I’d been following, a unique energy that evoked wonder, and happiness and was what I’d always wanted. Let’s edit a few pages of details about getting ready, traveling to Fiji to the remote island of Naitauba. It makes for epic travelogue dialogue but…. Here’s another word, “Siddhi”. It’s about the specific spiritual energy and its effects…. Let’s jump to the first prostration… oh man, here’s another word, “prostration”, all manner of amplified inferences arises around that word, the implications, the action of it, and what it means and does – Got a minute? Not now? Good…. 

 

One plane ride to Fiji. Then another plane ride to an island. I meet other devotees. One, named Dean was a seasoned devotee. We arrived on Naitauba. We get off the boat. I follow Dean up the beach and do my first prostration on Naitauba. Oh, My My!! His Siddhi…. The power of it, unlike anything I’d ever felt. I’m like wanting to meld with it. All of a sudden I hear. “Beloved’s coming, Beloved’s coming. Quick, come for Darshan!!” Tom Lombardo says with radio in hand, looking all residently rustic. In my head - “Alright now, hang on a second!” is arguing with “OMG OMG what do I do??!!” the hysterical 12 year old first menstruation babe that wanders the village in my tribal head. All in all primal fear arose. But I can get in line and follow suit. We line up on along a grass drive named Love Ananda Chakra. A Range Rover turns the corner. Adi Da was glancing at us driven slowly down the grassy driveway. Then it happens. The first time our eyes meet… just a moment but OMG! What a moment! What I see is amazing to me. “It's You” total recognition in His Eyes was what I saw. He knew me completely! The moment passed followed by unmitigated mysterious seemingly uncaused total Happiness, Freedom, Satisfaction, and felt Understanding. This last, unmitigated and total feelings of Happiness, Freedom and Understanding were to become standard fare at the Pub of Holy called Adidam. Still is today, but I know more about it, how to do it.  

 

The guy in charge of retreats wasn’t sure of what a retreat in the case of someone so new like me should look like. This set the stage for what I experienced quite a bit in life, “what do we do with Bill?”

 

Retreatants were serving ('serving' is what doing ashram chores is called) miles away from where we were housed. Every morning we’d pack food and off we go. There was a small shop called the Emporium that was as close to (7-11) as there was on Naitauba, close to where we bunked. It had chocolate and soda and all the stuff that I was missing. It was never open when we were close to it. I asked the retreat assistant about this. He told me that the Emporium existed for retreatants to serve their worldly needs. I tell this person that the Emporium wasn’t ever open when retreatants were around it. He doesn’t really get the illogic of the situation saying “yes well that is a problem”. Welcome to Adidam! He was of the “we are holier than thou” ilk. He used to make big of how pure the residents of Naitauba were. More on this after a bit of setup.

 

After a couple of days of not smoking I was jonesing (withdrawal) like mad. Now, having come from a background of being raised in a town that someone wrote a book about called “Kids Cops and Kilos”, a haven of juvenile delinquents, I had some strategies. You have to know who to talk to about delicate things. Like, “I need a smoke!!” At my level of participation smoking was allowed but not allowed on the island. This makes for a Supreme Court case. So I ask this dude who must have been all of 20, that’s who I go to for advice, he wouldn't rat me out. He tells me that Beloved’s been gathering, whatever that meant. I could probably find a discrete place on the beach to fire up. That night I slide through the shadows of Joyful Submission, the place we hung our hats. I make my way through some jungle. It was scary. This place is alive with all sort of who knows what critters. I make it to the sand next to the water. I pull out a butt and fire it up. I’m sitting there going “smoking is OK, it relaxes me, makes me feel Beloved better” Then, I swear to God, I hear His Voice as clear as I can hear 'House of the Rising Sun' coming through my desktop speakers right now. “That’s egoic consolation!!” Oh no!! I was so busted!! All manner of punishment is on the horizon!! I make my way back to the retreat quarters. Guilt ridden trying to go to sleep. Finally I slept only to awake to this wonderful feeling of no guilt. My first experience of His Washing, another word unfamiliar in usual conversation, it means getting rid of negative stuff. Here’s the kicker. After being told how pure the residents were and how unwashed retreatants were I get to go to the village. Right next to the kitchen Tom Lombardo and Scott Morrow are puffing away like chimneys on the porch of bungalow called Avadhoota Mandir. And there are cigarette butts on the ground for Chrissake! "Welcome to Adidam. Things don't add up, so get used to it!"

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Darshan was once a week. I had been excited about this for days. This was the reason that I came. By the time Thursday night arrived my inner hysterical 12-year-old girl was on rampage to the highest degree, “what do I do?” Then the best devotee that I ever met tapped me on the shoulder. “After everyone gets done I’ll sit you in a better place” Saint Bob Delollis! He seats me in the front row directly in front of the Guru.

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Sitting facing forward comfortably can be a tough row to hoe. There are all sorts of mental machinations that can act as subterfuge. Darshan starts and…. Miracle upon miracle starts to unfold right before my eyes. The height of which was His Form changing especially His Face. His Face started to change into the faces of others past enlightened Masters not that I knew what any of them looked like, but it sure seemed to be. Every race from every continent. It had the feeling of it being an optical illusion. I would look away to see if I could shake it off. As soon as I look back it starts to happen more. Finally, there was a bright radiant golden form. Looking a bit like the aliens in Cocoon. I couldn’t believe it! I swear the next day I was in that space looking for some kind of holograph projector. Finally concluding that this really did happen as I saw it.

 

There was much more that happened, my first gathering, an informal get-together was amazing. I don’t have the juice to detail describe every amazing moment of Naitauba. I ended up living there for about 3 years as years passed. Every day was miraculous to me.

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