"Avatar" is originally a Sanskrit word meaning “One who has crossed down”. A unique Divine Intervention is indicated—not merely an individual who has attained some degree of enlightenment by Spiritual effort, or even a reincarnating Master, but a direct appearance, in physical form, of the Transcendental or Divine Reality.

Author and philosopher Aldous Huxley wrote of this, referring to the Transcendental Reality by the Greek term "Logos" (or "Word"):

“The Logos passes out of eternity into time for no other purpose than to assist the beings, whose bodily form he takes, to pass out of time into eternity. If the Avatar's appearance upon the stage of history is enormously important, this is due to the fact that by his teaching he points out, and by his being a channel of grace and divine power he actually is, the means by which human beings may transcend the limitations of history. . . .”

—Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy

In his book The Aletheon, Avatar Adi Da described the mysterious appearance of the Avatar in this way:

“Something in the Super-Physics of the universe makes it possible for the Divine Conscious Light to Avatarically Incarnate as an apparent human individual, for the Purpose of Bringing others into the Sphere of Divinely Enlightened Existence....

“No abstract Divine Principle can serve you in that manner, because the physics of this Process must be directly Present, and the bodily (human) Demonstration of the Process must be Present in a Form that can Do Its Work in your case. That Work is My Purpose. My Divine Avataric Incarnation Fully Manifests the State of the Ultimate Physics of things — Which is your Potential, but not your actuality at the present time.”

There are numerous prophetic references to the appearance of an Avatar in the Spiritual traditions of the world. Nine months before Avatar Adi Da’s birth, the great Indian sage Upasani Baba prophesied that an Avatar would "soon be born in a European [i.e., Western, rather than Eastern] country". "He will be all-powerful," Upasani declared, "and bear down everything before him.” Upasani Baba’s prophecy was not premeditated—according to records, it was a spontaneous outburst. He was foretelling the appearance of One who would bring a unique clarification and completeness to all the cultures of the past, both East and West. Similar prophecies of the liberating appearance of a final or completing Prophet, God-Man, Buddha, or Avatar, exist from ancient times.

The life and work of Avatar Adi Da Samraj in the world is a consummate manifestation of the Transcendental Spiritual Reality Itself via a human form—a form capable of communicating, speaking, acting, writing, and relating to human beings of this day and age in ways that can be understood and responded to by everyone.

“My Appearance in this "world" is a Divine Avataric Intervention. The Purpose of My bodily (human) Appearance here is the Divine Liberation of all of humankind—not merely the human beings of the East or the human beings of the West, but all human beings (and, indeed, all beings and things altogether).”

—Avatar Adi Da Samraj, The Aletheon