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 Three

"The Ashram" where Avatar Adi Da was Teaching was on Melrose Avenue, a busy Los Angeles street. It had a small bookstore in front and an office and meditation hall in the back. I walked through the back entrance and saw Avatar Adi Da seated in the office. He greeted with an open, loving feeling in His eyes.

He sat me down, took my hand in His, and held on. Confused by this gesture, I shook His hand in a business-like fashion and then tried to pull away. But He just kept holding my hand. I could feel His openness and love for me, a man He barely knew, and I felt uncomfortable in the face of this. I tried pulling my hand away again — and He continued to hold on! I was really uptight and self-conscious.

Then He did something with His face — a very subtle change of expression — that let me know everything was alright. Finally, I just relaxed. He continued to hold my hand while He asked me questions about the experience I'd had. After a few minutes, He told a devotee, "Frank can sit with Me in meditation." Then He let go of my hand.

Devotees were painting the Ashram. Someone handed me a paintbrush, assuming I would join in. I was dressed in expensive clothes and I thought it was bizarre for me to be painting in them. But everyone was painting, so I figured I would go along with the program. After all, I had come 3000 miles to be there.

As I began to paint, a strange feeling came over me. Within 5 minutes, my face was flushed and I felt a fever burning throughout my body. I had to lie down. I told one of the devotees I was feeling sick, and he drove me to his house. The residents fixed up the couch — and I lay there for 6 days with a burning fever! All I could do was sip water.

On the seventh day, alone in the house, I began to panic. "It feels like I'm going to die in Hollywood!" I thought. I crawled over to the phone and called the Ashram. Who should answer but Avatar Adi Da! I mumbled something about what was going on with me and He started laughing.

I was really offended — here I was, feeling very sick, and He was laughing. But then He said, "Don't worry about a thing, Frank. You're going to feel fine in the morning. It's just a little purification. Isn't that what you came here for?"

I hadn't connected my illness to my meeting with Avatar Adi Da. I didn't know anything about the tradition of a Spiritual Master transmitting His Spiritual Force to a devotee. Years later, I realized that Avatar Adi Da had Transmitted His Blessing-Power to me as He held my hand. My fever was a "classic" case of the purification of the body-mind that often follows such a potent initiation.

Avatar Adi Da's prediction proved true. The next morning, I felt great! I ate a little bit and then went down to the Ashram. And I went to the Ashram every day after that, for the following 30 days.

However, in spite of these remarkable events, I still didn't have a clear picture of the Divine Identity of Avatar Adi Da. I began testing Him, as I did with everyone, to find His weakness. To my surprise, I never succeeded in finding limits in Him. All I ever discovered were my own games. In my effort to find His faults, I would always be reflected back to myself.

During this time, whenever Avatar Adi Da saw me He would give me a big hug. I found this difficult — in my Latino culture, men just didn't hug each other. It was not acceptable.

Nevertheless, Avatar Adi Da would always make a point of embracing me in some way. He often would walk right across the meditation room to greet me and give me a hug. Sometimes He would hang onto me for a while; sometimes it was quick — but whenever I saw Him, He was always moving towards me to hold me!

As He would walk over to me, smiling, I would experience all kinds of feelings, but especially fear. Then, as He hugged me, I would tend to be uptight. But, eventually, I would open up, and He would always have me laughing and smiling within a few minutes.

Around the third week of my visit, I realized that I was looking forward to seeing Avatar Adi Da every day. More than that, I was actually looking forward to His hugs! I found ways to see Him as much as possible — I would cancel appointments, skip lunches, and do anything else that might allow an opportunity for contact.

One day at the Ashram, I gave Avatar Adi Da a big bear hug, raising Him off the floor a bit, in return for His hug. We both ended up laughing. In that moment, I realized that I had opened up to His Love.

That was the last time for a long time that He would engage me physically. It no longer seemed necessary. Instead, He began transmitting His Blessing through a glance or a word or a gesture — and I felt just as embraced.

My heart was opening. I had loving feelings not just in relationship to Avatar Adi Da, but also in relationship to His devotees and others. I felt a vulnerability that my hardened heart had never known. The anxiety that I had always felt, the paranoia that motivated all my "testing" of others, had dropped away.

I developed strong feelings for Avatar Adi Da — in fact, I fell in love with Him. Equally as unexpected, I trusted Him. I was struck with the intuitive knowledge that, whoever He was, He was not an ordinary man — because no ordinary man could possibly be like He was, all the time. I felt that He was an authentic Holy Man, even though I had yet to recognize the magnitude of His Spiritual Identity and Purpose.

Because I was so jaded and skeptical about human nature, if someone had told me that God was here, Incarnate in human form, and was transmitting His Realized condition to others, it would have been the same to me as if someone had said, "Santa Claus is really true. He's down at Macy's with all his reindeer." But I could not deny the uniqueness of Avatar Adi Da. In His Company, I always had a direct intuition of the Divine.

When my 30-day visit came to an end, I went to Avatar Adi Da and said, "I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I have to come back." He smiled at me and said, "Don't worry about it, it will be okay. I'll expect you back by My birthday."

His birthday was November 3, about a month away. It didn't seem possible to leave New York so abruptly, considering my involvements with my family and fiancé, my responsibilities at work, and my lifelong friendships. But I trusted that this transition should take place immediately.

Although my family, fiancé, business associates and friends were mystified by my decision, I was clear in my resolve. Consequently, my affairs were handled quickly, in ways I could never have imagined. I returned to Los Angeles by November 3.

Lessons in Avatar Adi Da's Company often unfold and become conscious over time. In 1986, Avatar Adi Da returned to California from Adidam Samrajashram, His Hermitage Sanctuary in the Fijian islands of the South Pacific. He was going to grant His Darshan — the sighting of His Divine Human Form — to about a thousand of His devotees. It had been years since I had seen Him and I was full of anticipation and longing.

That day, He began walking from His residence to the tent where He would grant Darshan, passing through a landscaped garden. I felt my love and gratitude for Him swell my heart, and my eyes filled with tears.

Suddenly, He turned from His course and, walking across the lawn to where I was standing, gave me a big hug. I felt my entire body-mind being filled with His Love and Happiness. I told Him I loved Him. He responded with "Tcha", His characteristic sound of Blessing.

He released me and continued walking towards the tent. In that moment, I had an intuitive revelation: I realized that it was Avatar Adi Da who had visited me in the extreme darkness of my prison cell, some 20 years earlier.

He was the "Bright" Presence I had felt and experienced there. I had no doubt about it — He and that Presence felt identical. Although I had received His Blessing many times in the preceding years, for some reason I had never made this connection.

But then I knew: His Blessing-Regard had been mysteriously coincident with my life before I had any direct knowledge about Him. And He had given me the strength and clarity to persist and to change my destiny — from a life of seeking and suffering, to a life in His Divine Company of heart-satisfying Love and Blessings.