The “Dawn Horse”

Avatar Adi Da gave the Dawn Horse Press its name at its inception in 1972. The phrase “Dawn Horse” signifies Avatar Adi Da's Divine Incarnation and Work in the world, and comes from a Vision that Avatar Adi Da had shortly before His Divine Re-Awakening.

In 1970, Avatar Adi Da experienced a waking Vision. He found Himself in a subtle realm, observing a Spiritual Master demonstrating to his disciples the Yogic power of manifesting objects spontaneously. Avatar Adi Da watched as the Master began the process of manifestation. After a time, although nothing had yet materialized, the Master's disciples departed, apparently satisfied that the work was done. Avatar Adi Da was left alone, standing before the Master. Then gradually a vaporous shape arose before His eyes. As it became more clearly defined, He saw that it was a perfectly formed, living and breathing horse, perhaps three feet high. Later, when He saw a documentary on "eohippus" (meaning "dawn horse" in Greek), the smaller ancestor of today's horse, He decided to name the horse of His Vision the “Dawn Horse”.

In 1984, Avatar Adi Da spoke about His Vision:

I was at once the Adept who performed the miracle of manifesting the horse, and I was the one who was party to the observation of it and its result. And I did not have any feeling of being different from the horse itself. I was making the horse, I was observing the horse, and I was being the horse.

Avatar Adi Da has explained that this Vision was a sign of the future manifestation of His own Work in the world. The Dawn Horse was also a sign of Avatar Adi Da's own Person, taking form in and as the conditional universe. And so the Dawn Horse became a symbol for His Life and Work, and for the Coinciding of the Divine Reality and the conditional worlds. It is in this context, then, that the Dawn Horse Press was given its name.