Five Suggestions for Adi Da and Adidam, Including "Stop Justifying Psychological Disorders as Crazy Wisdom"
Posted by Broken Yogi
Thanks Daist
Poster,
I appreciate your concern and offer of help. No problem talking with friends in
Adidam at all.
But, if you really want to help, here's five things you and your friends could
do:
1. Tell the full factual truth about Adi Da's life and teachings, up and down
the line, no holds barred. Hide nothing (well, next to nothing, allowing for
some human level of privacy where it doesn't involve abuse).
2. End compulsory financial contributions, i.e. the tithe and related charges.
The tithe is an unlawful imposition of a form of religious taxation on what
should be a free and completely voluntary gift. Adidam says it relies on gifts,
so it should do just that. Other religious institutions survive on voluntary
gifts, and Adidam should be no different. If people wish to tithe as a matter of
principle, fine, but never make it mandatory. Minor fees for services are
acceptable, but not massive, compulsory transfers of cash from strapped devotees
to Swiss bank accounts.
3. End the levels of practice. The levels of practice are a crude imposition of
idealized criteria upon people for whom they never actually fit. The result, as
in all such systems, is a massive political nightmare of fake hierarchies and
separation between top and bottom. It is all artificial and unnecessary. There
is some value in the general descriptions of the progression of spiritual
maturity, but essentially there is only one practice and one form of discipline
that must be allowed its expression in a unique way with everyone. Traditional
esotericism survives without levels of practice. People get to know who is
mature and who is not simply by the life-evidence. Codifying that into a
hierarchy utterly corrupts the process. Practical differences, such as that
between householders and renunciates are fine, but that is just a choice of
lifestyle.
4. Admit that Adi Da has deep psychological problems that need to be addressed,
and actually address them. Among the privately admitted ones are panic disorder
and depression, for which he has received treatment. Among the unacknowledged
ones are Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), and related characteriological
neuroses. Stop justifying these disorders by calling them Crazy Wisdom. They
follow almost precisely the diagnostic criteria and represent severe human
limitations to his spiritual relationships with devotees and teachings.
5. Begin a massive education program among devotee about cults and how they
operate, using Adidam itself as the prime example, and truly break the pattern
of cultic thinking and indoctrination that is used in Adidam to control and
manipulate people, and which prevents their human and spiritual maturation.
If you could please do these five things I would feel greatly relieved. :)