being driven, the compulsive urge to want the world to be different than it was, the desire to run away from the challenges of daily life - all of this seemed to have exhausted itself. Deeply sobered and deflated I was staring blankly at the Bertoldsbrunnen, the central fountain of the university city of Freiburg.
In one corner near the cobbled square that surrounded the fountain there was an electrical box that, as always, was covered with a myriad of event posters and announcements of all kinds, colors and sizes. On one of those posters I read the name Adi Da, introducing a talk about the teachings of wisdom of the Master. Topic: Death and Dying. A voice inside me said: ‘Petrus, don’t be intolerant, a spiritual Master, you are going to check this out.’ I read the name Adi Da again and again. Adi Da. Adi Da. His name just wouldn’t leave me during the remaining days leading up to the event.
The evening of 22nd November I found myself in a lecture hall of the old university. The room was filled with the thirty to forty people in the audience. At the very front was a large image of Adi Da. There was a smell of incense and flowers decorated the table on which his picture was standing. The lecture started 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
