Adi Da Causal

Stories of devotee’s bringing the Master into life, communicating Him directly to others seem more prevalent in the 1970’s to early 1980’s, I can’t account for this, it is fundamentally mysterious, as are many things connected with the Adept’s Work, I don’t think it is either possible or necessary to try an explain this If you do want to speculate about it, here is my own addition, the 60-70’s were a completely energetically and psychically different time–weird stuff happened a lot more often

Some examples:

A man was standing in the Darshan line waiting to see UG Krishnamurti, a man in front of him turned and either spoke to him or others and said (paraphrasing) “If you want to see God, go to the Ashram Bookstore in L.A (at the time Adi Da was using this facility) He is there”. The man listening later became a devotee.

I met a devotee on Naitauba in November 2008, he had been so since 1974, both formal and informal, in that year he met a man named Bill C., who told him that Franklin Jones, a man in California was the “Living Siddha Master, without a shadow of doubt, the Real Thing”. Merely on the say so, of Bill, he went to California and became a devotee.

In the mid-late 70’s I went into a bookstore and found this incredible stack of books right down the back of the store in Melbourne, Australia (which was a conventional bookstore) It was truly mind blowing, they seemed to have tangible almost glowing, energetic quality, as if I had suddenly been thrust into another realm, the titles included : “Garbage And The Goddess” and “No Remedy” by someone called Bubba Free John, and some other books about Ramana Maharshi The humorous thing was I had previously read “The Knee of Listening” and did not know the author was the same, I bought a copy of “Garbage and Goddess” Talking to the sales assistant he seemed to be perplexed by the mysterious books as well, almost whispering about them. Later I learned that a very close devotee of Bubba Free John, had come to Town and distributed the books directly to that store.

I recently spoke to a lady H. who told me of seeing a friend called Terry (circa 1981-2) who had been practicing as a Tibetan Buddhist Monk, on his return to the West, he spoke of an amazing being called Da Free John and a book called “Garbage And The Goddess”, these 2 impresssions stayed in her mind.

Some time later in a 2nd hand bookshop, she saw GG and bought it, H. was a very poor english reader, being a native of Poland and expected to struggle with reading it, on the contrary the book came alive to her, she understood it completely, she told me of her profound experience merely by reading this book and feeling her connection to Adi Da via the photos’s inside, which stays with her to the present (2009)

There are dozens of true accounts recorded and unrecorded, just like these, another good example has recently been added to adidaupclose.org here, apart from being very well written it also clearly demonstrates the necessary influence of Adi Da’s devotees in making the Way available to others.

What seems missing from modern life or any life is that which is Great, Wonderful, Ecstatic. Even these possibilities are denied to exist at all, by modern cultural attitudes. If you did find what is Truly Great you would want to Incarnate it, correct ? (the word ‘incarnate’ as used here & as used by Adi Da means to bring down into life, make manifest) so this has been the work of  devotees and continues to be.

The truth is we have despaired of  Spiritual Greatness, and with good reason, our faith in such ideas has been shown over and over to be misplaced, so the only solution is first find what is  Truly Great and  then Incarnate it down into life. Let it first Brighten the mind, then Irradiate the emotion, Invigorate our life force and change the world– since the world is plastic, psycho-physical , capable of change by superior force

What is Truly Great is the Divine Adept, The True Master, The Great One, The Heaven Born, The Siddha. He (or She) can always be remembered, enjoyed, incarnated, brought into the life vehicle. Without that incarnation into the life vehicle He remains “unknown” to the world, only available potentially. The Master’s devotees bring Him into the world, into the life vehicle they make the Way “real” and available to others.

Contemplation of what is Truly Great, is the meditative practice of Adidam, the devotee having discovered that very thing in the form of his or her Guru–the intuition of the Glorious Divine Nature–then merely and naturally and with great enthusiasm just enjoys that contemplation. That contemplation sometimes feels like a process of expansion and purification and even a sense of The Guru descending into his or her life vehicle. This intuition of Guru as the Divine Being and Nature, rather than a man or “other” is natural and imperative to practice, what Adi Da calls Recognition Response, nothing to do with worshipping the form of a man or separate other. 

Listen to this early talk “Meditation on The Guru”

There is a lot in the 1971 version that is not in the latest edition of the Knee of Listening ( 2004) on the other hand there is also a huge amount added to the later version. Adi Da ( then Franklin Jones)briefly associated with Baba Ram Dass (Richard Alpert) -a quite famous instigator and inspirer of Western Youth to go “Eastward”, after he abandoned the limitations of drug induced consciousness expansion, this sympathetic and prophetic quote from Adi Da proved to be accurate

“When I met him he was animated and storied at Kesey’s, but, like myself, about to enter on a long adventure into the kinds of spiritual consciousness promoted in the East. We were to meet again in 1970, in the company of the same Guru. But he seems ready to pass forever into the habit of Indian devotion, whereas, for me, the paths of yoga, of occultism, of mysticism and all of the tradition of that remarkable consciousness I was about to experience would only be another brief stage in the simplicity of understanding”

Another famed but passing association of his time “on the Beach” was Ken Kesey, described here

“There was Ken Kesey, a novelist who had written at the Stanford workshop and who has since gained notoriety as an exponent of drug culture.”

When Adi Da stated “We were to meet again in 1970, in the company of the same Guru ..” in relation to Baba Ram Dass, he was referring to the 1970 visit of Baba Muktananda to the US described here

Baba and Rudi arrived in the company of “Baba Ram Dass.” Ram Dass was previously known as Richard Alpert, the man who, along with Timothy Leary and others, had done much to create the current “drug-culture” among younger people. I had met him several years before at the home of Ken Kesey in northern California. Since then, like myself, he had been led into the experience of Indian spirituality.

Ram Dass was now trying to reverse the karma of those who had become devoted to drug culture. He wanted to turn them to the devotional path of Indian spirituality. He had met Baba in New York and subsequently volunteered to engineer Baba’s California visit, as Rudi had done in New York.

I met them all quite openly, but without any desire or motivation to become involved in the whole drama of Baba’s American tour. They stayed for several days in Pacific Palisades, then on for two weeks in northern California and Utah. They returned again at the end of October, and flew on to Hawaii November 3rd, my birthday.

I was interested in seeing how Baba’s Presence would affect me and how he would respond to my own discovery. I sat with him while large groups of people chanted devotions and gazed at the Guru. I held his foot, I chanted, and I meditated.

In the first hours of his visit he blessed me with his peculiar form of the Shakti. And I moved with the experience, abandoning myself utterly to the familiar physical movements and the merging in the mind. I shook and fell on the floor. I watched Baba. I enjoyed the communication of his Shakti. I listened to him advise people to turn within and seek the “blue pearl” and the “blue person” in the sahasrar, the seat of consciousness in the head. I listened to him detail the various forms of vision, internal sounds and experiences, and I experienced them along with him.

In my own case as a young man reading this remarkable book in the early 70’s, in the remote cloisters of Hobart Library, perhaps the one description that had the most impact on me ( Adi Da was writing about the various effects of the Shakti) was this, a literal undeniable miraculous physical effect, witnessed by another. There was no mistaking it, flowers cannot move from a nailed position.

“These manifestations were not simply internal. Frequently my perceptions coincided with certain external events. Thus, a friend once came to see me after a long stay at the Ashram. We bowed to Baba’s picture and felt the Shakti fill the room. Just then, the flowers that were nailed about the portrait flew off and landed at our feet.”