Adi Da Causal

I met my first “Sadhana Murti”, literal meaning-the image of spiritual practice-on retreat at Naitauba Hermitage Sanctuary in 2006,  I will call him Ralph and on first meeting, he totally offended me, I mean everything offended me about him, I could never love this man even as a fellow devotee. I just wanted to get as far away from Ralph as possible. Ralph was everything I did not want to be, yet we were like the same poles of a magnet.

As it happened Ralph was to be my constant service companion 24/7, for several weeks. I described my predicament to another devotee and he laughed out loud  ” Friend” he said ”you have met your-sadhana murti-be grateful and use the opportunity” (the first time I had heard that term used)

It bothered me that I was so mean spirited to Ralph, clearly I was no saint in this circumstance, just a rather loveless character and that above all else was clear to me, over time my relationship with Ralph softened slightly but it could never become  a friendship.

Sadhana Murti described this relationship so well I wondered where the term came from, recently it came to light that the famed  Indian Poet Bhakta Tukaram used it to describe his shrewish wife who he prized mightily for testing him so -Adi Da (then Bubba Free John) and a devotee visited Tukaram’s tomb in 1973.

Tukaram with his Beloved-Sadhana Murti

This is a partial journal  from my last pilgrimage to Naitauba (Adi Da Samrajashram) in November 2008, just prior to the passing (Mahasamadhi) of The Great Sage, Adi Da Samraj

(Airport Taveuni)

I love arriving in Taveuni, the small Fijian island where we wait for the boat ride to Naitauba Hermitage Sanctuary, Adidam has a little cottage there used by devotees and guests as a simple sleep over while waiting for the boat to arrive.

The cottage is in an idyllic setting and nobody bothers guests, other than a shrewd Fijian Indian fruit farmer who may knock on the door to sell bananas or papaya but other than that it’s a place to enjoy the company of Gurubai and prepare for the journey to Naitauba. It’s a complete chill down, tempered with the  anticipation of the journey ahead

There is a simple yet powerful meditation room, set-apart in the cottage and that becomes a focal point of preparing oneself for the Spiritual Retreat that is Naitauba, a beautiful young Sri Lankan woman did the pujas in this tiny little room and the beauty and unexpected quality she brought to the occasions was spellbinding.

When I arrived there November 1, 2008 I had the company of Anthony, a long time devotee of Adi Da, Jacqueline a talented musician and vivacious personality, John another great musician and unstoppable comic, and his friend and guest Robert also with a musical background.

I particularly enjoyed the company of Anthony a man of natural humour and equanimity, we talked long and walked and swam in the little beach below the cottage. Anthony was happy to tell me great stories of his time with Adi Da Samraj, this form of oral communication is priceless and considered a personal gift from the teller of the Leela (spiritual story)

If I was asked to characterize devotees of Adi Da as certain type, I could not give an honest reply, if pressed I would have to say “varying from extremely quiet and inverted to courageously out there, vocal and extroverted! ” I could write all day about the marvelous, ordinary and extraordinary range of people who have turned up at the door of Adi Da Samraj (and that’s only the few I have met). On one level “everyone you have ever met, loved and unloved”, is there

There is a extremely good little restaurant on Taveuni, not far from the cottage, it is run by a friendly American woman who is very hospitable to devotees and caters for many unconventional food requests including green smoothies  using some local greens.

The stop over in Taveuni gives people time to adjust to a slower pace, but also the difficulties inherent in living in a developing country in the Tropics, including heat, bugs and bodily discomforts, there is also a deeper level of preparation to accommodate, a necessary shedding of both bodily and psychic accumulations, there is always a degree of purification to go through which begins as soon as the pilgrimage is undertaken and continues and intensifies when Adi Da Samrajashram is reached.

 It is fair to say that pilgrims to Naituaba who have been coming to this island since 1983 “tread lightly” and are hardly noticed by the local populace, there is no feeling of intrusion or cultural difference, many factors combine here, including a laid back and welcoming attitude by locals (it is normal to greet everyone you pass with the customary “Bulla”) cultural sensitivity by devotees and multi-faith tolerance due to Indian influences

On another level this is grand adventure, in the sense of stepping way outside of conventional living and entering into another world quite literally, all your normal ties and duties are vanished for a long or short period and even though Naitauba is always a very demanding situation, you feel liberated set free and entering into  a vortex of force and Grace never encountered in the tedium of everyday, a new pattern, becomes very tangible to you the closer you get to The Guru

The boat was to be delayed for some reason and we were overjoyed to hear that we were to get there by motor launch a fast and exhilarating 2 to 2.5 hour dash across the often wild ocean, which can at times be a horrendous ordeal of up to 7 hours of fighting (or yielding to) seasickness, if the seas are rough.

(devotees waiting for boat , image compliments of www.adidaupclose.com)

 

Quote from B.M

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 possibilities 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)
Well, agree on some points, but things are not necessarily how they seem. Grace has to be there, right. No matter what the circumstance, now, in the future, after death, in another state, we depend utterly on Grace that is fundamental to the Way and has always been the case.

Anyway take heart brother, this young hero proves it is currently possible to Recognize- The spiritual Master, and will continue to be in any time and space  and his quote (below) is really pertinent to our conversation

I found The Knee Of Listening to be an amazing book and was fascinated by Adi Da’s life story. I enjoyed reading His Writing and reading about His childhood and His time in India, and everything else. I found it very humbling. And His Writing was so sophisticated, intelligent, and creative. I was fascinated with the technical precision in His use of language. I remember reading the first essay “Do Not Misunderstand Me“; it was full of capitalization, underlining, and parentheticals. I did not feel intimidated, but immediately felt that whoever Adi Da Is, He is very serious.

I never felt offended by His claims of Divinity or Avatarhood, but was more struck by the way He said it. His Written-Word was absolutely confident, firm, and unshakable. I felt that there was no trace of uncertainty in Adi Da about anything. His Writing was so strong, with the underlining, the capitalization, everything. I did not care if He was the Divine Avatar or not, I could at least respect His utter seriousness and confidence about it. He did not feel weak at all, as if He was someone who needed to make claims about himself for the sake of identity, or self-esteem, or megalomania. His strength was overpowering to me. I did not even question Him, nor did I believe Him, but I just kept reading. I was fascinated and attracted to Him and His claims, that someone would even say something like that was startling and amazing to me. I couldn’t get enough. I continued to read passages where Adi Da would say that He was the Divine, and sometimes would even seek for these passages, just marveling that someone would say such a thing! Why would a man say that? And with such Force?

(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.

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}

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.

Adi Da Samraj introduced the use of raw green smoothies to Adidam some time ago, it is a suggested dietary supplement to practicing students, here is His words on it from the recently published Wisdom On Raw Foods guide, “Green Gorrilla”

Blended Green Drinks
A Principal element of the raw fructo-vegetarian dietary practice I have Given is the regular (daily) use of “blended green drinks”, made (most commonly) of green leafy vegetables and sweet fruits

“Green drinks” provide a highly concentrated form of the nutrients found in green leafy vegetables–generally in much greater quantity than could be ingested by eating the greens whole. The sweet fruits are added to “green drinks” in order to make the concentrated greens palatable, and also to provide additional nutrients and calories.

Blended “green drinks” are prepared using one or more varieties of green leafy vegetables–using whatever edible greens are available In temperate climates, appropriate edible greens include such plants as kale, chard, spinach, lettuce, collard greens, bok choy, and so on. Edible weeds (including, in temperate zones, such plants as dandelion, lambsquarters, plantain, and so on), herbs (such as dill, basil, cilantro, mint, parsley, and so on), sprouts (such as alfalfa, clover, buckwheat, sunflower, and so on), other vegetables (such as celery, cucumber, and so on), and medicinal plants (such as aloe vera) may also be added to a “green drink”.

I will add my own favorite recipe and comment on the utility and changes noted from using green smoothies over the next week or so.

True Equanimity is a rare condition, I have met perhaps 3 or 4 people who may live  this condition on a daily basis. It has certainly become the deepest aspiration of my life, it is one thing that always makes perfect sense to me

On a really good, blessed day, I awake in the morning and notice there is no fundamental problem at the root or base of life. The navel center just naturally hangs open, as it should when there is no knot cramping the living being. There is a deep pleasurable sense of life moving through the body, but more than this there is a deep rooted ease I articulate this Equanimity as “no dilemma” (first coined by Adi Da in  “The Knee Of Listening”)

This is not however a self-attained state, its a blessing given in the company of my Guru, Adi Da Samraj via my daily life of practice. When I notice this marvel, it seems very natural, very embodied, cetainly not an other worldly condition

It certainly feels potentially to be the next step in the evolution (?) of mankind but that may be just a peculiar notion of mine

It certainly beats the crap out of what (from this position) looks like a driven, compulsive and addicted life (conventional living)

To be honest Equanimity just described, is very fragile, the tests of each day almost invariably rob me of it by days end, or often much sooner It has however grown stronger over time, more tangible, but it remains a practice rather than something always available.

Post Ruchiradam Event ,The Reality Way of Adidam emerges as completely uncompromising to “I”, no room for, or allowance of cries of “what about me” ?

No little “self” surfing in the Great Self here. No breaking it to “you” gently, no slow, stage by stage evolution into the Great One.

Plainly put– no separate “self” exists, never did, never will, always was fiction.

There are no egos in Reality Itself — none. It is not that Adidam is a Way in which you overcome egoity by a process of “wearing it down” — as if emptying water from a boat with a bucket, such that you eventually succeed in getting all of the water out of the boat.

There is no water in the boat. There is no ego in the body-mind. There is no ego in Reality Itself. The ego does not, in Reality, exist. There is no separate entity — and the preliminary “Perfect Knowledge” practice points to the non-existence of the presumed-to-be-separate self.

Adi Da Samraj

This is where Adidam (practice) post 2000 begins, it does not end there, it merely begins there.

It ends in absolute translation into unbroken light, Only Love Bliss itself, no forms or difference at all.

There need be no evolution of self, since “self” is literally (not metaphorically) fiction, does not exist.

Even many friends and readers of Adi Da Samraj have not yet had a chance to absorb this, He pulled the rug from under all of us. All that is necessary is a touch of equanimity, a little discipline, a serious approach, quite within the capacity of anyone, then Reality (both the who and the what of) itself does the rest.

The Atheleon Volumes (forthcoming next few month) will spell it out.
What is relevant now:

• The Preliminary Perfect Knowledge Practice
• Study of post 2000 texts
• Darshan & Recognition Responsive Practice
• Practice Retreats on Empowered Sanctuaries
• Company of devotees involved in the above

The common state we all share is survival stress, or a very tangible form of what Adi Da calls the self contraction (in its most basic gritty form). It is the ordinary driven compulsive life. Any one who has at any time experienced real poverty will appreciate just how strong everything connected with basic survival is

There is not much room for airy philosophy then. You need to eat, be clothed and have a roof over your head and provide for your family, absolute basic needs. In that situation you may justifiably cry out to a creator God for better fortune. I once saw a man on a religious documentary praying for a new stove, or to get his current one miraculously fixed. Watching it, it seemed absurd to me, but it was because I was not in his desperate condition. I had also forgotten that I have been in that same state and I have done similar things to this man and much more, so there is no self-righteousness about it, when you are in that sort of space, you have very limited means, very little room to move, any solution real or imaginary may seem worth trying.

My friend is unable to leave an intolerable living arrangement because of his survival stress (he needs a roof over his head and cannot pick and choose), so he constantly makes bad choices because the choices that are available are very limited, he is trying to practice Adidam Student Life without any real freedom to do so, the tension he endures makes real equanimity unrealistic (at least)

For these and many more reasons Adi Da Samraj suggests cooperative living as a fundamental solution to the comon survival stress we all endure to different degrees.

Cooperative Living may create a “buffer” for all who share in the project. However it is not just a survival buffer wherein people cooperate together in order to make their conventional lives easier (though that must be an aspect) It should also be a means to support “The life of equanimity”, which is basic student practice in Adidam It should simplify, clarify and promote the conditions for a life of consistent well being and conscious choice, rather than one of unconscious compulsion, driven by survival stress.

Imagine how much stress you could release from your life if you agreed to live simply, to reduce the costs of life, and to cooperate with one another. This cooperation is the true politics to which I call My devotees. When will you abandon your castle and live in common with others? All of a sudden, you will have excess money, excess time, excess energy, more time for Spiritual practice, less money wasted in consoling yourself with the ordinary life. You can use your resources to develop your cooperative life and the circumstances and the facilities you share with others. That is what I actually Call you to do! Live on the basis of truly right principles of living, and live very happily, very productively, and have full time for all the practices of the Way of Adidam. Just give up your diversions and stop trying to blend in with the herd of the common world. Embrace the principles that enable you to handle all your life-business while living in this world of stress.

Adi Da Samraj