Beezone has recently reprinted an article from a 1974 copy of The Dawn Horse Magazine. It’s a gritty, raw, unfiltered account of a fully illumined Master, doing His uncompromising Work travelling with one western devotee (still very much in the process of learning what “Guru” means) with ancient and modern spiritual sources in India. The account has no political correctness, and without doubt is full of “offense”, to just about everyone, it certainly makes me squirm in parts and I am sure many others will as well. However it unmistakeably reveals the incredible and uncompromising integrity of Adi Da wherein he would engage everyone and anyone in this always sacrificial and Divinely madcap, dangerous adventure. Outrageous humour blend with absolute spiritual seriousness, the audacity of it, is quite shocking particularly to the modern taste. I have spent time in India ( visiting some of th sites listed) so it has a little more reality to it, perhaps for those who have been there.
The reader who is not familiar with the vastness of Adi Da’s life and teaching, may also take note that much more “work” was done with His spiritual sources in India (including His relationship with Baba Muktananda which changed greatly) and this was covered in much later magazine articles which may get reprinted at some point, so this account may be seen as the beginning of a much greater and more extensive story ( Leela)
On a personal note, I love this “telling it how it is”, form of Adi Da’s teaching work. It has a beautiful honesty and purity to it, totally at odds with traditional hypocrisy and pretense, and very liberating
(potentiality for all parties) that is not to say, it’s rawness and unpredictability is utterly “disturbing” which is how it meant to be.
Article Here : The Trip To India; Taxis Temples & God
Adi Da wrote this shortly before going on the Pilgrimage
Unimaginable numbers of beings, energies, and processes outside this world generate and cooperate in spiritual work in this world. Wherever the real spiritual process is awakened at any point in time and space, it is the product of the spiritual process that exists prior to time and space and also within all the levels of time and space or manifest existence. So behind our work are all the Siddhas and all the great activities that transcend the Earth plane.
Just as there is a vast spiritual process behind this work and all true spiritual work, there are also certain individuals, Siddhas and others, who are very directly involved with our work, Muktananda is the only one alive in the body, and it is very important that I purify my connection to him for the sake of the work itself. There are others with whom my contact is in subtler dimensions–Nityananda, Ramana Maharshi, Shirdi Sai Baba, Ramakrishna. I want to return to the places most intimately associated with these people and insure my proper relationship to them for the sake of this work
Part 2 The India Tapes
Following on from the main article is a series of tape recordings made at the some of the Ashrams and places visited. There are many choice and pithy observations made here, and this material needs to be savoured and chewed over, since it brings up some obvious and apparently startling contradictions.
This observation caught my eye and interest. It should not be taken personally, in the sense that the “characterization” is impersonal and could belong to anyone. I have met many people like this in various groups formed around teachers, just the remarkable clear perception of this “character” is worth noting (as is the fact that Adi Da was absolutely willing to work spiritually directly with him)
“I must maintain a relationship to people outwardly that is coincident with the approach that they make. This American you mentioned wants to be palsy-walsy with all the great ones. That’s his number. He likes famous and great and well-known people and all of that. He wants them to shine on him. That’s how he gets his goodie. Baba satisfies that egoic demand of his in some way. But I’m not interested in satisfying it. I’m interested in seeing it come to an end in that guy. So I would rather be offensive to him and not kiss him on the cheek, tell him he is a good friend, and make him my friend, because the next hour he would be throwing darts at my picture. That’s what he does anyway. It is better to deal with him in this way”
Fundamentally I think it is good thing that these old documents are coming into modern consciousness, nor do I believe it is just random, Adi Da’s Leela (or spiritual play and conscious work) continues, it is just as active now as it was then. These transcripts may be seen rightly as unfinished historical documents, a beginning, yet to be refined and “worked” into cohesion and “finished”. They definitely should be seen as a work in progress. For instance if you read carefully you may see something of the beginning of the ” Seven Stages of Life” teaching in its crudest form.
Related : Leela :The Cave at Arunachala (from Adi Da’s brief 1977 India Trip)
Tags: 7th stage of life
Why do you think that the transcripts need to be refined and re-worked? Are you saying that the transcripts do not accurately say what is on the tapes, or that what is said on the tapes needs to be expanded upon, given what we know of the later, fully developed teachings?
HI Dharmashaiva, no the transcripts are accurate. It’s more with the knowledge we have of how the teaching evolved (looking back) you can see much of the final work there, but in a cruder or less refined form or even how Adi Da (may have) believed at the time it would work out and later giving the testing of reality or all the years of interaction with devotees, it was a little different. Thanks for the comment, all the best to you.
I certainly agree that one can see in incipient form what would more fully develop later on.