Chris Tong, Ph.D. is the founder of The Practical Spirituality Press, the director of The Institute for Real God, The COTEDA Institute for Global Accord, and FIRM (The Foundation against Intolerance of Religious Minorities), and an advisor to the Global Cooperation Project. He received his BA summa cum laude from Columbia University in 1978, and his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1988. From 1984 to 1994, Chris was an award-winning professor of computer science at Rutgers University, a world-renowned researcher in Artificial Intelligence, recipient of major government research grants, co-editor of a state-of-the-art series of books about his field, and a visiting researcher at MIT, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, and IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center. After leaving academia in 1994, his successful entrepreneurship (including the creation of several web service companies) led to his receiving the NRCC's 2002 National Leadership Award and being appointed special advisor to the NRCC's Business Advisory Council. Chris has been a devotee of Adi Da Samraj since 1989. He accompanied Adi Da in His world travels during 1995-96, and has served in many positions within Adidam, including co-director of the Adidam Word and Mission Division, production manager of the Dawn Horse Press, head of the Lay Renunciate Order, co-chair of the Samrajya Board, creator of Adidam's original, award-winning website in 1994, and composer and musical director for the performance of Adi Da Samraj's Mummery Book in Fiji, 1995.

Chris writes:

I have spent a lifetime studying and experimenting with the traditional and contemporary "solutions" to the basic Spiritual problems with which humankind has struggled for eons. And so I can say without a doubt (not merely as a scholar, but as a practitioner) that Avatar Adi Da Samraj offers to all beings the greatest Spiritual Realization ever made available on this planet. Strong words! And ones that both affront an egalitarian society, and require much to back up. But I've dedicated much of my recent life and writing — including the creation and development of this site — to doing just that with the passionate intent that many others become aware of, and drink from, this Unlimited Fountain of Perfect Knowledge and Perfect Happiness, particularly while He is still present in human form.

The viewpoint of materialism so fiercely dominates today's world that the appearance of a genuinely great and true Spiritual Master may be greeted with either a yawn (amidst switching cable TV channels) or a smirk ("must be yet another megolomanical cult leader"). I believe this site has the potential to help cut into that materialistic view, to the point where the most serious of our readers will consider the extraordinary import of a Being who offers Perfect and Eternal Happiness — for real.