Archive for the ‘Spiritual Teachers’ Category

Q : Are there any modern teachers of value?

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

That’s a tough one to answer without coming across as elitist and exclusive, tends to be something of a paradox, as well.

Fundamentally I would say if you find Adi Da  to be  your Guru, you don’t need any other external sources ( that’s the paradox)

However when I look back I see I have had teachers, some were more useful than others, some seemed to add nothing to my education in Truth, and others were even detrimental, wasted my time, taught me bad habits and even deluded me futher. Even so I look back with fondness on them all.

For example I spent over 2 years with an Indian Yogi of the Bengali Tantric school, Swami K. in hindsight he appeared to teach me nothing of lasting value, yet at the time, every day seemed to hold great promise. He was something of a lovable  rogue, but he did have a great heart, not to mention exceptional siddhis (spirit power).

So yes, there have always been spiritual teachers of some caliber around, varying from men and women of useful wisdom to Realizers of a tradition, and this is currently the case and I assume will always be the case. there are also many teachers of little or no use, “professionals”, bullshitters and literally “time wasters” (thats your precious time, life is short) hopefully you won’t spend too long in their company, and  lessons can be learned even  there.

So I could not recommend any, because from my point of view, none are necessary or even complete, I would say make your way to Adi Da Samraj by whatever road that requires, either directly or indirectly as Grace would have it.

Part of the paradox of answering this question rests in the unique nature of Adi Da’s work and appearance here and how muddied the waters are around modern spirituality or what passes for it.  If there were in truth a whole lot of Realized beings out there, then it would be different but it’s not the case.

One for those who enjoy the Esoteric possibility

Sunday, September 6th, 2009

There are a whole series of YouTube Videos similar to this here

Part 2

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}

Neo-Advaita Nonduality and Modern No Practice Teachings

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

There is plenty of critical view on the phenomenon of neo-advaita or philosophical enlightenment wherein mental propositions, independent of any need for preparation or practice, are taken as the means to enlightenment, awakening, liberation, moksha however it is perceived. A hedge of mind-dharma is constructed around proponents and then defended via  mental constructs, this is further strengthened by forming a group dynamic based on the same reinforcements of  enlightenment ideology.

A teacher will set him or herself up, as a “realizer” in some shape or form, then attempt to transmit their realization to others by some means of argument, it can be very creative, often with good motive apparently, and most often with no conscious harm intended. The teacher may then allow students to do likewise build their own hedge and propagate the same delusion.

It does tend to suggest a deeper flaw-a sort of house of cards mentality peculiar to modern western spirituality in general. This also includes many who are critical of neo-advaita as such, but still remain within its wider framework

Who owns “nonduality” ? Do a google search and it will show a small, very influential group of personalities associated with websites and books. By “owns”, I mean it in the sense of being a limiting center of influence and directing viewpoints to “specific” possibilities, you have “specific” teachers, teachings and books, rated, ranked and recommended to seekers.

Is there any value to such things ? Yes there is–the knowledge of humanity’s inherent freedom should be freely communicated via education of some form, to all who are interested.

It should also be taught that no one “owns” non-duality, it is the inherent condition of all, this is primary knowledge.

Causal influences via the Internet in particular allow “enlightened egos” to exploit others, since they are “selling water by the river”, in this case.

Give it the Talking School Test :

‘Talking’ school” is a phrase used by Avatar Adi Da to refer to those in any tradition of sacred life whose approach is characterized by talking, thinking, reading, and philosophical analysis and debate, or even meditative enquiry or reflection, without a concomitant and foundation discipline of body, emotion, mind, and breath. He contrasts the “talking” school with the “practicing” school approach—“practicing” schools involving those who are committed to the ordeal of real ego-transcending discipline, under the guidance of a true Guru.

Further Reading :

Adi Da on J. Krishnamurti from an early magazine “Krishnamurti is himself an essentially honorable and serious man. He is attractive, even fascinating, by virtue of a certain intellectual purity and a superiority founded in a profound sense of separate, subjective, and personal freedom”

What is the conscious process

“It is because of the absence of profound practice of supportive disciplines involving total psycho-physical submission into the Life-Current that the Way of the conscious process gets reduced to a kind of “talking school” obsession with “consciousness.” Many people read and even write books and give lectures about the primacy and freedom of consciousness, as if they could, merely by analyzing consciousness out from the mass of thinking, knowing, and experiencing, achieve the incomparable State of “Jnana,” Enlightenment, or Transcendental Realization. But all such talk is the mediocre chat of the waking mind. In order to Realize the Transcendental Truth that Is Consciousness, the entire process of attention must be liberated from functional bondage to the states and functions and emotions and thoughts and relations of the egoic or self-contracted body-mind”- Adi Da Samraj

some internal babble.

Friday, May 29th, 2009

Sometimes people like to see the mind of a person writing, rather than constant impersonal rhetoric, here is a glimpse

Can never exhaust the subject matter of this journal, could write 40 posts a day and only touch the outer layers

The fact that very few are writing about this vast subject, more detractors than friends at present, is also how it could only be, in some sense (The egoic self will always defend itself, how could it be otherwise?).

In an ideal world, you would have perhaps 20 writers blasting away 24/7, because what is out there in real spiritual and sustenance terms is not much, it often seems to hold great promise, but poke it with a stick and it gets boring real fast, I have shaken that tree with some vigour and only bird droppings fell on my head!

Where is Alan Watts when you need him ?

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God threw a party and very few came, which has always been the case (The lifetime of the Spiritual Master)

Here is an apt quote from 1970’s

“The Spiritual Master is a casual meal, eaten by lovers, who only notice each other”

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Quick thoughts on a couple of spiritual teachers who appeared in consciousness recently via the internet

Eckhart Tolle: Seems to be teaching an almost Vipassana method, the “Now”, as a focus of attention is a method via Buddhism originally, and then made popular by Osho in his 80’s books. In an early edition of the Dawn Horse Testament, Adi Da mentions perceptual mind (Now) versus conceptual mind(past/future) Tolle may be doing good work in expanding the possibility of an indepth awareness to people in general, plus his environmental philosophy, he seems at last to point to consciousness.

U.G. Krishnamurti: “An odd man”, could be a fair phrase to reference him, he seems to move from an extreme independence and denial of all Help ( God, Guru, Tradition) his life seems to be based on absolute disillusionment, kundalini weirdness and aberration (he mentioned spiritual experience in his life). He may be more like a mast, though in a mild form, where the life force in its movement through the esoteric anatomy gets bent or aberrated  somewhat, that is not to deny him as a source of insight and wisdom and a pointer to the spontaneous Self-Nature.