Archive for August, 2009

Early Books & Later Work a Schism?(1)

Monday, August 24th, 2009

(B.M) – A lot of readers and friends of Adi Da felt there is a real schism between the early works & writing and audio’s of Adi Da especially starting in the 1990’s, it seems to me that when he started to use phrases like “Only-By-Me-Revealed-Way” and an apparent claim to exclusive Avatar-hood and the massive use of “Me” in text, he lost his audience to a large degree, at least many who followed him through the changes of his remarkable life would have struggled mightily with all this. I often read and play media from early years and feel this is the Master whom I can relate to, and will always relate  to. His world view was one of him being an “Adept” or “Siddha” in an infinite lineage of other True Adepts and Siddhas appearing forever in the past and future. This was to me and many, a beautiful, cohesive cosmology and world view which made perfect sense in the light of the great tradition of religion and spirituality

(Response) Could write a lot about the demanding language, but from my point of view the constant “Me” ism and “Only-By-Me-Revealed-Way” style phrases is an ego prickling device, it is part of the necessary demand put on the serious reader to go passed “me” or “self”. This language also gives the reader a great opportunity for self understanding, in that here is the constant reflection of the action of self, or self-contraction, back to consciousness. As the egoic self in its ordinary enjoyment and reading capacity we just want to be entertained, gather information or whatever, but we are given the opportunity to do sadhana , just by reading these sacred texts. Yes its tough, demanding, hard work at times this is exactly how Adi Da Samraj wants it to be, then its as if we crack the code and briefly feel what he means by all of this.

Ultimately the ” Me” he champions so relentlessly, the “Reality” he pounds us with so harrowingly, when ego is fully dead, vanished, is our state, our Realization.In other words the ” Me” that is so offensive to “you” as that tiny ego being is the only “One” that is. In “The Boundless Self Confession” there is a chapter titled ” I am alone in My House” – you would understand the “My House” to be the “Divine Domain” used extensively in earlier works, therefore you could say there is only one being here called “Me” but it is not “me” now or ever, “me” is the one that prevents ” Reality” from currently being the case, thus you are forced to stand outside of “me” in order to enjoy “Reality” or “Me” ( our ultimate post egoic condition) That is why Adi Da also uses the phrase “Realize Me” you can’t Realize something (one) who is not already your ultimate condition.

So you start getting a lot more sympathy for this formerly troublesome “ Me” language, its coded, a seemingly endless “prickle” to the conventional self, yet for those that persist yielding a great and awesome Intuition.

Having said that, there is also the constant falling back into the conventional viewpoint and thus again a constant resistance emerging when ever the texts are read, recited or listened to, I don’t think there is any alternative to this engagement.

The other point you raise about Avatarhood  and the only 7th stage Realizer, seems to me to be something arrived at spontaneously by Adi Da, I don’t think there is any doubt that He assumed there were other 7th stage Realizers and over the years spoke of certain individuals and sometimes a whole tradition of such Realizers (Great Siddhas) but upon great testing he appeared to come to the certain knowledge that this is not the case, so no matter how much we would like it to be so, how symmetrical it could be, and even painful this may be to accept, according to Adi Da these concepts and possibilities fell short of “Reality” or how things actually are, but of course it would be far better for Adidam as a believable missionary offering if it had turned out otherwise (in my opinion) or again pehaps this is just a “santa claus” type of illusion.

Posted in Adept, Adi Da, Adi Da Samraj, Adidam, Ego Death, Enlightenment, Guru, Non duality | 2 Comments »

Early Books & Later Work a Schism?

Monday, August 24th, 2009

More conversation with B.M

(B.M) – A lot of readers and friends of Adi Da felt there is a real schism between the early works & writing and audio’s of Adi Da especially starting in the 1990’s, it seems to me that when he started to use phrases like “Only-By-Me-Revealed-Way” and an apparent claim to exclusive Avatar-hood and the massive use of “Me” in text, he lost his audience to a large degree, at least many who followed him through the changes of his remarkable life would have struggled mightily with all this. I often read and play media from early years and feel this is the Master whom I can relate to, and will always relate  to. His world view was one of him being an “Adept” or “Siddha” in an infinite lineage of other True Adepts and Siddhas appearing forever in the past and future. This was to me and many, a beautiful, cohesive cosmology and world view which made perfect sense in the light of the great tradition of religion and spirituality

The sudden refutation of this in the early 90’s was devastating to me and I had to put this all on hold for some time in order to deal with it and got quite narky about the whole thing and for a while posted along these lines at the other forum. However as you know I have never lost my great regard for Adi Da and consider him a true Buddha and the penultimate Enlightened Master of all time ( never doubted this)

I have had a read of some recent stuff mainly from short books and essays you have sent me and admit there is powerful stuff there, but it takes a huge amount to get into it, your post here points that out, now from my short readings of the recent work,  Adi Da is asking a huge amount of people, just looking at it from the average joe-seeker’s point of view, I would say too much is asked of him or her and outside of the cloisters of Adidam, my friend, it’s gob-smackingly-freaking-obvious, which is tragic, because this great wisdom should be available to all surely, as this was the point of this Incarnation of the Adept in my opinion - since it is what will always bring many people to the Master.

The other thing to consider is that the spiritual market, has changed mightily since we were new, young and fresh seekers of Truth, there may have been 30 or 40 present sources of spiritual influence available to westerners at that time, hanging around spiritual bookshops and reading posters on health food notice boards for sources of wisdom, was as good as it got for us. These days the numbers of such sources and influences is massive and they pander to individual taste, even. The waters are so muddied in present time, the guy looking for Truth in all of that, has so many more options than the dude reading “The Method of The Siddha’s” in the 70’s and even 80’s The questions may be exactly the same, but the potential answers by all the Guru’s of now, has become overwhelming, I pity the poor devil moving through all of this hype and possibility. We had it easy, in fact. I sometimes think if I was was a young person trying to make sense of it all, could I have found my way, even to “The Knee of Listening” and if I did would I have been able to recognize the Adept’s appearance or gone on from there to be lost in the miasma of all current possibilites in the spiritual marketplace, or more to the point, If I came across some of Adi Da’s more recent and demanding texts would I have the capacity to persist through them ? Hard to say, perhaps, but it was certainly more clear cut, then, than now. 

{Response Coming}

Posted in Adept, Adi Da, Adi Da Samraj, Adidam, Da Free John, Spiritual Books, Spiritual Teachers, knee of listening, personal views | No Comments »

Adi Da Samraj-All of his life or only the last years?

Friday, August 21st, 2009

With the forthcoming The Aletheon people will have the opportunity to review Adi Da’s final work which is relatively unknown compared to earlier writing. On this point a friend asked me this question, he has been a longtime student of Adi Da but never a formal devotee. It’s an ongoing discussion and perhaps will be much thrashed out over time with increasing clarity. I think it is an interesting consideration and perhaps on the mind of many

Q : (B.M) With the passing of Adi Da, would not his whole life as Avatar, Realizer, Guru, Teacher become the source of study by Adidam now, rather than the last years wherein the Master is sort of polarized or frozen in time as that exclusive form and teaching emphasis. I realize that this may be seen as a sort of heresy in Adidam, if it does not have the capacity to inspect its own dogmatism

A:(my answer) Adi Da is unique in the manner that He clearly wanted this period, even closer than this, perhaps the last 2 years of His life to be his legacy to All. His Enlightened Leela only came to Real Fullness or Completion- post 2000 after the Ruchira Dham Event. He made the point that only after this Event, His Teaching & The Reality Way of Adidam fully came into being.

Q: Yes I understand this, but surely if you inspect the life of anyone after they have left the body, their whole life, not just how they were at the end of their life becomes the Event, in other words Franklin Jones, Bubba Free John, Da Free John, Da Kalki, Da Avabhasa, Adi Da etc all represent distinct periods of wisdom study, all unique all with a specific emphasis, if you only emphasize the last few years, the greatness of each period is lost. I can go to YouTube and enjoy ( for instance) The humorous play of the Adept as Da Free John as a distinct and marvellous period of instruction and Leela and read books from the era with great joy.

A : No one in Adidam would deny you any of this and many may do the same thing, there is obviously no taboo against reading and listening and watching and enjoying any of the great media available from the past, however the ego being what it is, we may not see the earlier work as one in transition and a compromise, or submission to the approach of devotees and what they represented, at that time and place. In other words all of it can be an enjoyment and a study, but from what I can understand of Bhagavan Adi Da’s final instruction and that given to His Renunciate devotee’s whom He definitely personally instructed was that He clearly wanted His word and emphasis to be as it was at the end of His physical Incarnation. Again this was without a doubt Adi Da’s Blessing Intention, so Adidam is correct in trying to manifest the Masters Instruction. Others will naturally take whatever position they will on His lifetime, but Adidam will always represent what the Master Himself conveyed as His Demand.

Posted in Adept, Adi Da, Adi Da Samraj, Adidam, Bubba Free John, Da Free John, Guru, personal views | No Comments »