The "Bright" in the Darkness

How Adi Da Found Me

by Frank Marrero, Sr.

Frank ("Cheech") Marrero, Sr. first encountered Avatar Adi Da Samraj in 1971, before the initiation of His formal Teaching-Work, in April 1972.

Frank has been a devotee for more than 30 years. Currently, he lives and serves at the Mountain Of Attention Retreat Sanctuary, in northern California.

Part Two

The ten months following that first meeting with Avatar Adi Da were oddly unsettling. By conventional standards, and especially in contrast to my early life, I had every reason to be happy: I was successful in my profession; I was engaged to a beautiful, successful woman; I had more money than I needed; and I was respected by friends and family. Inwardly, however, I was discontent.

All my life I had been aware of a fundamental disturbance that was always present, regardless of whether times were good or bad. Why did I feel like I was suffering, in spite of all my success? It didn't make sense.

During this period, I was stuck in quiet despair. All the ordinary enjoyments to which I was accustomed — spending time with my fiancé or friends, watching TV, going out to dinner — were no longer really enjoyable.

It became apparent to me that the field of psychology was not going to bring relief from my unhappiness. I had been in therapy for years, but my fundamental sense of disturbance remained untouched.

My professional mentors, some of the most respected analysts in the field, seemed no more illumined by their knowledge than I was. They could not address my fundamental questions about life and death. Because I was the clinical director, I started to feel like a blind man leading the blind.

Around this time, my colleague sent me the manuscript of The Knee Of Listening, Avatar Adi Da's Spiritual Autobiography. I remember thumbing through it briefly and making a mental note: "I have to read this. After all, I have met him." But I left it on my desk at home.

One evening, about 6 weeks later, I was feeling agitated and noticed the manuscript. I read it intently — for several hours.

I was still reading at around two o'clock in the morning — and an unusual feeling started coming over me. I looked up from the book. The room had become bright and every color stood out distinctly.

My first thought was, "Damn, one of the residents put some LSD in my coffee!" Then I noticed that I felt attracted to this brightness. A feeling of calmness moved throughout my body, and I was attentive to everything around me, rather than to myself — an unusual state. I enjoyed that feeling of attraction and, after awhile, allowed it to engulf me.

Then my mind kicked in and a rush of fear overtook me. The fear wasn't about anything in particular — it was raw terror, without content. My heart pounded as if it was going to leap out of my chest.

My body pulled into a fetal position and I lay there with my knees pressed up against my chest, sweating profusely. Then, in an instant, everything became perfectly calm. An immense bliss washed over me and my body opened like a flower.

Having spent countless hours in Avatar Adi Da's Company since that night, I have come to recognize this "Bright" Presence and its effects as His direct Blessing, His Transmission of Grace and Divine Love, which illuminates and purifies the being.

One can receive His Transmission while in His physical Company, but His Divine Blessing is available with equal force when one is distant from His Body, as I was on this occasion. In other words, Avatar Adi Da's Blessing-Force is not limited by time and space.

And, as seen in my case, once a person receives Avatar Adi Da's Blessing Transmission, all the so-called "darker" elements of the body-mind can be stirred up and reflected back to oneself with great intensity.

This, I realized later, was the terror I experienced. It was my own, deep, primal feeling of separateness — my sense of being a separate self, an ego-"I", as Avatar Adi Da calls it, an entity threatened by everything that is "not I".

Back then, none of this was clear to me. My mind had no way to explain these experiences. I phoned a psychiatrist who worked at our program. After apologizing for waking him up, I told him what had happened.

"It sounds like you're having an anxiety attack," he said. He told me he would call in a prescription that I should pick up right away. But I knew this was not an anxiety attack. I felt calmer and clearer than I ever had before. I knew without question that my experience was related to something else. But what?

Next, I called my fiancé. Her solution was, "Come on over. I have some good wine we can share together." This seemed equally inappropriate as a response to my experience.

Then I remembered that there was a phone number in the back of The Knee Of Listening. I thought, "Why not call this number, since this happened while I was reading the book?" It didn't even occur to me that it was 11:00 pm in Los Angeles. I called and explained to the man who answered what had just happened to me.

As I spoke, I could hear Avatar Adi Da's deep, expansive laughter in the background. I thought, "What kind of 'Spiritual' place is this? I'm going through this heavy turmoil and they're having a party!" The devotee who answered left the phone for a couple of minutes.

When he returned, he said, "I spoke to the Spiritual Master and He said you should come right away." I said, "Right away? It's two in the morning!" I explained all my responsibilities. The man left the phone and came back again, and said, "He says to come as soon as you can."

It seemed impossible, but somehow I worked out all the details and was on a plane to Los Angeles the next day. In my 38 years of life, I had never been west of the Hudson River.

Next: Part Three