“I Make No Distinction Between Beings”

A story of Adi Da's compassionate intention to bring humankind (including me) to a right, sacred understanding of the non-humans.

By Stuart Camps

Naitauba Island

The island in the south Pacific stretches out in a wide arc to the northeast, forming a natural sanctuary for tropical lagoons and coral reefs. Along the craggy northern coast the ocean crashes against gray limestone cliffs. Three hundred feet above the surf, dense virgin forest runs back from the cliff-top into the rugged interior. To the west and south are sandy beaches and rolling greens hills. This is Naitauba (pronounced Nye-TUHM-bah)—one among more than 300 islands of the Fijian archipelago and one of the Hermitage abodes of the compassionate Maha-Siddha, the Divine Avatar, Adi Da Samraj.

It was here that I first physically met my Spiritual Master. And it was here that I received His first instructions to me about the vast and mysterious realm of non-humans.

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The year was 1989, and I was on “service retreat” at Naitauba, an extended period of service to and contemplation of Avatar Adi Da. Having been born and raised in the highlands of New Guinea, I greatly enjoyed the assignment I was given, which was to roam all over Naitauba to find significant natural features which Adi Da might like to visit and enjoy. I spent day after day exploring the hills, valleys, coves, beaches, and limestone caverns of the island. As the days went by, and I gradually became familiar with Naitauba, I developed a deep love for this extraordinary place. Often I went with several Fijian friends. Sometimes I went alone, with bush knife in hand to cut my way as needed.

On one particular day, amidst a tall, vine-tangled banyan tree grove, I came upon a grassy clearing where I sat to relax. As the sweat cooled from my skin, I began to feel from somewhere deep within the forest, from out of the red earth and white rock, a tangible communication from the very heart of the island. It was as profound as it was familiar; as familiar to me as my deepest heart-awareness of Adi Da Samraj and the mystery of life itself. I felt a sensation of energy gently emerging from the earth and embracing me as if it knew me; I felt deep calm. And I understood there and then, with my body and my heart, that Naitauba is alive and conscious; that the island itself is an actual being, along with all the creatures upon it. Laying back on the forest floor, feeling deeply connected to this ancient island, I was left to wonder at the unusual communication I had just received. I did not really know what to make of it. But days later (when I saw Adi Da Samraj for the first time) I would begin to better understand what had just now been shown to me.

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Adi Da Samraj, 1989

Adi Da Samraj is standing motionless on the sand. I immediately know in that moment, without any doubt, that I am seeing a man unlike any I have ever met, unlike any I have ever heard of. I find myself gazing upon a Being who is, simply, not other than me; and He is also not other than anything else. This Being is Reality; this Being is the Divine. It is obviously so. My heart instantly recognizes itself in the sight of Him. He is powerful and humble, resilient yet vulnerable, immense but human-sized. His eyes are moist with compassion and love. He is breathing me, living me. I feel Him as me, as my very and perfectly free Self. He embodies everything human, non-human, and utterly beyond the human. I have never felt as happy as this, so filled in love, and utterly relieved of all concern. In this moment it is heart-confirmed that there is no difference between forms, no distinction to be made between beings and things and places. Love is denied to no one and to no thing.

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A month later I was standing on the headlands above the small cove named Banyan Bay. Two hundred feet below me a pair of giant manta rays slid through the emerald-blue lagoon. A storm was building out to sea, and its forward winds began whipping across the bay and dragging on the stunted trees around the rocky headlands. The rays headed out to deeper water. I climbed higher until I could see right across the rugged island, which was now deluged in rain. The wind was heavy, pushing on me. I had to lean into it to stay upright. It was beautiful, pristine, and wild. My senses heightened. I felt immersed in the interplay and dependency between sky and sea, land and trees and animals, signing the mysterious unity between everything.

As I came to accept the island, the trees, the ocean, and the weather as conscious, living, beings, I also came to realize that Naitauba is one of the principle forms of Adi Da's manifestation in this world. Through His Spiritual Empowerment of Naitauba as His Hermitage Retreat, this island has come to serve as a potent vehicle and sign, a sacred place, from which Adi Da's presence blesses the entire world. I regard having seen and felt Naitauba's living nature as a gift, one which continues, even today, to guide my deepening understanding about this mostly non-human world in which we humans define ourselves.

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Stuart presenting an Aldabra torsoise to Adi Da Samraj, 1996

In 1993, after having lived in the Adidam community in Melbourne, Australia for a few years, I moved to California to serve an apprenticeship at Fear-No-More Zoo, under Adi Da's guidance.

In the mid-1970s, when Adi Da Samraj still lived at the Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary in California, He began revealing His vision of Fear-No-More as a holy place, to be created from a deep love and understanding of non-humans and their real nature. Adi Da Samraj named it “Fear-No-More” for three reasons; to remind us that captive non-humans must be granted their lives free from unnecessary fear; to point to the non-humans' inherently contemplative spiritual disposition; and lastly, to call all humanity to the very same communion with the Divine which the non-human beings enjoy.

It is this recognition of non-humans as contemplative spiritual beings that is the central sacred and humane principle upon which Fear-No-More has been created by Adi Da.

On January 6, 1996, Avatar Adi Da Samraj spoke at length about the contemplative nature of non-humans:

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 Source-Domain.

Through Adi Da's insistence on our recognition of this one point, and His ongoing guidance to the animal care-givers and His devotees at large, Fear-No-More Zoo has gradually grown into a place where one can go today and be drawn into that real contemplative disposition which the non-humans enjoy.

Adi Da Samraj gave the following guidance about how Fear-No-More Zoo can be rightly used:

Stuart with two Aldabra tortoises

Feel what its particular components are. The more I get to do what I intend there, the more you will observe it. But even as it is, as simple as it is, it immediately awakens a certain congenial disposition in you, if you go down there sensitively, of course. It's another place of worship, a kind of walking, petting worship. It awakens compassion for all living beings, just being down there. And a feeling of non-"difference", of unity.

I spend a lot of time around nonhumans—keep pets and so forth. To Me, they are the same as human beings—in the ultimate sense, the same. I do not imagine them being lowly or separate, or different in any sense whatsoever. And that's what you should realize when you go there. That's how you should use it, to support your sadhana. All the places of the ashram are sacred, have a special meaning, purpose, and significance, a special purpose. And the zoo is one of them. It's about "fearing no more", about going beyond the knot of separate self, being in the condition of the samadhi of communion with Me, and (at the level of form) feeling structured in a great unity.

When I arrived at the Mountain Of Attention I had a basic knowledge of animal husbandry, but that was all—no formal training in zoology or veterinary sciences, no real working experience in a zoo. And so, during the first two years of my training at Fear-No-More Zoo, I was frequently in despair. I constantly felt that I lacked the needed knowledge and sensitivity to help create and manage such a place. I worked hard to learn all that I could about each respective animal's care. In retrospect, this rapid (and, to me, frightening) learning curve deepened my sensitivity to the animals more than any formal training would have.

Still, I struggled with this service to Adi Da and Fear-No-More. In part, I simply did not want the lives of these animals as my responsibility. And the more I came to know them, the more this responsibility weighed on me.

Cinnabar

Then, one summer afternoon, Cinnabar, a beautiful and very relational red panther chameleon, died in my hands from overheating. I had miscalculated my handling of him on this very hot afternoon, and before I knew it, Cinnabar was gagging, his dark, cone-shaped eyes beckoning me for help. I rushed him to a bucket of cool water and held him in it, hoping he would cool and be all right. Finally, though, his body went limp and he expired in my hands. I was distraught. I wept over losing this close friend. I communicated Cinnabar's death to Adi Da Samraj, who was in Fiji at the time. He was, understandably, very upset that this chameleon devotee of His had been lost through my lack of knowledge.

I wanted to quit the zoo. I could not take it anymore. After several days of struggling with myself I resolved to stay. I decided I had no real choice but to embrace the zoo and all its animals as fully as I could. And with that, I moved into the zoo into a small cleaned and painted shed right inside the emus' enclosure. I was determined to stay there, living alongside the animals, until I felt a significant change in the developing quality of the zoo and in my sensitivity to the animals. As I set about doing whatever needed to be done to make things right, my own life was changed, deepened, and simplified. I began to learn how to "feel" the animals better, to sense their needs, and to communicate with them. Funding and support began to flow from many people within the community of Adidam, and myself and some friends began to further develop and beautify Fear-No-More Zoo so that it could be an even fuller embodiment and demonstration of Avatar Adi Da Samraj's Vision.

My own continuing trial by fire, Adi Da Samraj's ongoing instruction about non-humans, and the progressive incarnation of this zoo of Fear-No-More, all stem from my Spiritual Master's blessing-intention to sensitize and re-align the human community of Adidam (and ultimately, all humans) to a wholly respectful, loving regard and responsibility toward all non-humans. It is my intuition that, in time, the effects of this will be far-reaching for non-humans, and humans, everywhere.

In His own words, Adi Da Samraj explains His profoundly simple understanding of the essence of all beings.

Adi Da Samraj, 1993

At heart, all are One. At heart, a human being is not the slightest bit different from the reptiles, the birds, the former dinosaurs, the elephants, the plants, the trees, the wind, the sky, the microbes. Apart from their function in conditionality, all beings are the same. Human beings are not uniquely to be saved. All beings, even all of conditional manifestation, is the sphere of My work.

I do not make the slightest jot of distinction between a human being and any other form or appearance. There is none to be made. Appearing before you in human form, I play with you in human terms. But My Work, moment by moment, altogether, encompasses All, not only all human beings, not only all beings, but everything. I am in conversation with all beings and things. -November 4, 1993