Response To Ken Wilber's "The Case of Adi Da:" Reflections of a former Adi Da Devotee on Ken's Waffling and "Re-Evaluation"
Posted by Brad to Shambhala Ken Wilber Forum
Late in 1996, Ken Wilber wrote an essay, "The Case of Adi Da", in which Ken reevaluates his position on Adi Da, whom he had given glaring praise in the past. As a former devotee of Da's, I feel compelled to comment on Ken's statement, and offer a different point of view. After reading Da's books as a naive and impressionable young man, I eventually came to know him personally and for years was a very committed devotee of his.
I, like Ken, was impressed by the extraordinary claims and keen insights Da set forth in his books. However, I eventually discovered Da to be a very ordinary, disturbed, and abusive person in real life. It took me a long time to do this because once I had accepted that Da was enlightened, I interpreted everything he did from that perspective, believing that everything he did was a teaching demonstration for the sake of his devotees. This was how he was able to justify behavior that was clearly contrary to what was recommended in his books, and which was also contrary to any reasonable standard for human decency.
Ken criticizes Da in a few areas -- his personal life and behavior, his "teaching style," and his isolation from society at large, yet he fails to examine certain fundamental assumptions which are key to the entire illusion and deception Da has managed to create in his life and the lives of his followers. Ken unfortunately appears to be stuck in some illusions about Da to this day. Ken appears to still be under the illusion that: (1) Da is in some sense spiritually developed or enlightened, and (2) Da's actions are a type of spiritual teaching or "Crazy Wisdom," rather than just a reflection of his own desires and tendencies, which are sometimes perverse or abusive.
Ken Wilber comes up with a kind of twisted mentality which allows Da to be both spiritually developed and involved in teaching on one hand, yet dangerously abusive on the other. When one's point of view becomes as complicated as Ken's is in order to preserve conflicting assumptions, it is time to reexamine the assumptions. Why should we believe that Da has anything to do with some sort of spiritual process or transformation of consciousness ("enlightenment") that differentiates him from any ordinary man on the street, especially when he behaves the way he does? And even if he has experienced some sorts of unusual internal processes, how useful or important are these, and what is their relationship to authentic spirituality, human maturity, or enlightenment?
Is there something wrong with Ken's view of spiritual development? Certainly, only the most naive would accept Da's writings as any kind of reliable evidence of spiritual development on his part. In his books and talks, Da presents a clever and insightful analysis and presentation of the processes and practices described elsewhere in the spiritual traditions, and makes claims about certain subjective events and realizations which are purported to have occurred in his own life (but which are inherently unverifiable). These claims and analysis could be duplicated by anyone sufficiently intelligent, educated, and bold.
Are they reasonable grounds for accepting that someone has actually realized anything? I think not. Why shouldn't Da be scrutinized in the same way as any salesman or politician? Certainly, he has had a HUGE amount to gain by claiming his own enlightenment, and continues to have ample motivation to perpetuate his deceptions and delusions.
Ken's position allows him to avoid admitting that he was altogether taken for a ride and fooled by an outright charlatan, just like the rest of us. It also leaves intact and unchallenged some very fundamental assumptions about who Da is and what he has done, and about the reality of the "spiritual" processes and traditions which Ken has spent most of his life studying. Ken appears to have lived a good deal of his life in books and in his head, which leaves him vulnerable to believing that intellectual or subjective mystical understanding somehow equates to or evidences realization or enlightenment. It also insulates him from experiences and influences which would change the context in which he views the world and might lead him to question the assumptions he now takes for granted.
If the kind of spirituality and spiritual writings Ken values are altogether bereft of any connection to the human, moral dimension, than of what value and substance are they? I find it absurd that Wilber seems to attach more importance to criticizing Da's failure to appear in public forums than he does to examining the very serious abuses of trust and misuse of power that have been perpetrated by Da under the guise of spiritual teaching. In light of the well-documented problems that Da has created in his own life and his followers' lives, it is completely irrelevant to any evaluation of Da whether or not he accepts Ken's challenge to go out into the world at large. Who cares! Why would anyone want to see Da broaden his influence by speaking to a larger audience? How would this change the reality of who he is and what he has done?
Da has already proven himself to be a destructive, self-deluded menace to society and no change of lifestyle can change what has happened or prove his legitimacy. In a way, the whole subject of Da is almost hilarious to me at this point in my life, until I remember that he took away years of my life, broke up the marriages and families of my friends, and created immense harm in the lives of many. The mind set and world view that are required to take Da seriously at all, or to see him as anything but a very sick person, are now quite foreign to me.
I think that if people were aware of the specific demented and self-glorifying things that Da has done, only those who are most seriously trapped in a convoluted belief system where Da is a priori presumed to be "enlightened" or "spiritually developed" would have the slightest question about whether this guy was "teaching" people, or just exploiting them for his own personal gain, entertainment, and enjoyment. That's why Da learned to keep his personal, private indulgences (e.g. his use of amyl nitrate during sex, when he claims to have transcended orgasm) and perversions which couldn't possibly be interpreted as teaching hidden from all but those of us who were most deeply under his spell.
Yours,
Brad