Cultic Fascination with Adi Da is criticized but then vigorously promoted
Posted by Bobby on Nov-23-99 3:33pm
I wrote:
He also criticizes cultic, dreamy-eyed fascination with his personality, but then does everything he can to encourage it.
To which Daist Poster said, "That's sloganeering pure and simple."
Thank you for the implied invitation to back up my assertion. Adi Da claims that no one can become enlightened unless they do it through his mediation. His recommendation for spiritual practice is to concentrate on his bodily form, since that is presumably the gateway to "his" "perfect state." (Thus importing the crudest kind of superstition, akin to Catholic worship of relics, into his religion. He learned this from Muktananda and Rudi.) Meditation to Daists means, at Adi Da' recommendation, staring at his photograph and repeating "Da." Large iconic representations of his "bodily, human form" are ritually worshipped by devotees. Access to his physical presence is treated as the plum in involved games of organizational one-up-manship. He is treated as a supreme royal personage, at his insistence.
That is the kind of evidence that leads me to say, "he does everything he can to encourage dreamy-eyed fascination with his personality."
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the crux of the matter
Posted by Bobby on Nov-23-99 3:22pm
Daist Poster wrote:
But consider the possibility that there is far more to Adi Da than you have bargained for, or that you are even aware a human being can be. Perhaps there is a type of individual who has not merely advanced from being unconsciously controlled by their shadow to knowing and “owning” it, but who has actually transcended, recognized, and embraced it as their very Self, in Divine Realization.
It seems to me that this is indeed the crux of the matter. IF that is true of Adi Da, THEN Daism and all its claims makes sense; but conversely, IF that is not true of Adi Da, THEN Daism and all its claims fall short of being the unimpeachable source of Truth which we are invited to believe it is.
I have considered this possibility, quite open-mindedly, and rejected it. To my mind, the evidence at hand does not fit the proposition. Of course, Daists would say that I am being egoic in my approach, and that's why I do not recognize Adi Da' divinity, but that is begging the question. All closed systems of belief, e.g. Freudianism, attribute any dissent from the doctrine as a function of defensiveness or some other defect. If you don't accept Freudianism, e.g., Freudians will say that is because you are threatened by the implications of their doctrine. If you don't accept Christ, Christians will say you are under the influence of the devil, or your heart is closed.
I think it is a good thing for us human beings to be alert to the possibility of snake oil being sold as the ambrosia of life, due to misguided but good intentions, or even cynical, exploitive nihilism on the part of the salesman, or anything in between. I think a person can trust his own intuitive judgment if he takes due care to be fair and open-minded and open to his best lights. To say that we can't is a self-defeating proposition, for otherwise how can one trust one's self-distrust? I think this is irreducible; you can't avoid trusting yourself, even if it means trusting yourself to abandon your own judgment for someone else's (e.g. Adi Da'); in that case, you're still trusting the part of you that says, "Trust Adi Da' self-evaluation as an avatar."
It's a big universe, and there is plenty of room in it for Adi Da and his disciples as well as anti-Daists and all of us in between.
Posted by Bobby on Dec-1-99
Dear Daists,
In my view, spiritual teaching which points to something in my experience, that I can see for myself, is good and usable teaching. I personally don't trust any teaching that demands that I "believe in" something I can't experience for myself. In other words, not only do I not believe in Franklin Jones as "Adi Da," or heaven and hell, or reincarnation; I don't believe in believing. The call to belief is, in my interpretation of my broad experience in investigating spiritual paths, always a ploy of priestcraft.
It is something like humor. Humor works when it points out something that I can see for myself; I see that something is funny when a comedian points it out to me, and I laugh. If I had to believe that the thing was funny when I didn't see it for myself, I wouldn't laugh.
The idea that one person is an avatar and others aren't, isn't credible to me. The idea that Adi Da "directly" incarnated from plane of uncreated light, while the rest of us are karmic entities working our way up from ignorance, doesn't make sense to me. It is based on a presumed separateness of individual persons--that one could be an avatar and another not--that I don't buy into.
The whole idea that someone else has it and you don't will, in my opinion, prevent a person from seeing what they need to see to be "enlightened." Of course, you can say that it is my ego speaking here, that I can't bear to think that someone else has something I don't. But it's actually a kind of humility rather than an egocentricity.
The idea that someone else is by nature one with God in a way that you are not is the impetus of the whole spiritual search that, in other points of Adi Da' teaching, he decries. It is the essence of trying to "get it" when you really have it all the time. To not be satisfied with that is spiritual pride, in my opinion.
I know you think I simply don't understand the true import of Adi Da' teaching on the guru-devotee relationship. But if you are as much one with God as the Guru, and if Adi Da is not really claiming to be God exclusively, then why identify his personal desires (for a glass of lemonade, for example) with a divine command? Why doesn't he try to anticipate your need for lemonade?
To me, spiritual "sight" is like the moment of seeing a joke.