Scenes from Fear-No-More Zoo

"If you're going to bring animals into your sphere and take them out of theirs, you have to make some sort of arrangement with them in which they have the potential through their contemplative life to be just as happy as you want them to be. But in that process of sensitizing yourself to non-humans and placing no barriers between yourself and them, you have to go beyond your previous mind about non-humans as sort of non-beings. And non-humans include the weather and soil and everything else too."
- Adi Da Samraj

At the heart of Fear-No-More Zoo there is a unique and extraordinary man. Avatar Adi Da Samraj founded Fear-No-More Zoo in November 1974. Through it He wishes to accomplish a brilliant and remarkable thing.

I am here to sensitize you to what all other beings experience, what other forms—like these curtains and that fan—experience, even though they may not even appear to be conscious.

You think there is no consciousness in these so-called objects. There is nothing but Consciousness Itself.
(Adi Da Samraj, November 26, 1984)

Fear-No-More Zoo expresses Adi Da Samraj's love and respect for all beings. One purpose of the Zoo is to give people the chance to experience and appreciate the spiritually contemplative nature of non-human beings. Fear-No-More Zoo also provides Adi Da with a tangible "focus point" through which He Blesses the entire non-human world.

While Fear-No-More Zoo is a physical place with animal habitats, it is also a disposition or a spiritual point of view for relating to all beings and things. Within the community of Adidam Fear-No-More Zoo is regarded as a sacred place and process. For this reason Adi Da Samraj asks everyone who visits the animals, plants and rocks of Fear-No-More Zoo do so with sensitivity and respect, being mindful of their contemplative disposition and, by association, to be likewise drawn into the natural state of communion.

Fear-No-More Zoo's existence and development rests within the context of an authentic human spiritual culture. As this culture matures, the vision of Fear-No-More Zoo will be increasingly realized.

The principles upon which Fear-No-More Zoo is founded (and which we aspire to):

1. Right relationship to the One Divine Being within Whom everything arises.
2. Embrace of, and participation within, an authentic human spiritual culture.
3. Acknowledgement of the spiritual nature of all beings, in both human and non-human form.
4. Proper care of the animals, taking into account their dietary needs, environmental needs, social needs, health, safety, individual care and cleaning, and their need for relational and spiritual health.
5. Intention to support, serve and encourage the Spiritual Happiness and Ultimate Freedom of all living beings, natural processes and places.

Non-humans exhibit a kind of natural predisposition to contemplate, to feel beyond, even beyond waking, dreaming and sleeping to a depth domain. They do this freely, voluntarily. They enter into this pleasurable, deep swoon into the Divine Source-Domain.
(Adi Da Samraj, 1996)