Adi Da Archives

Adi Da Archives: Adi Da bans the use of the name John, since only God (i.e., him as Da Free John, which is his former name) is fit to have that name

Posted by anonymous to Lightmind webiste

I remember when Adi Da (then, Da Free John) decided that no one should be named John anymore, since that was his (Divine) name, and of course only he was God. Therefore, all mere slugs should not share that name. He demanded that all devotees immediately stop using the name John, so people like John Moyer and John Sutton changed their names to "Matthew" Moyer and "Eli" Sutton.

What a colossal ego that lunatic has, and what a need to control everyone and everything, even their names!

Adi Da was working his way through one more stage in his transition to Human Godhood, and started to have people use his name in a devotional way. He gave us the mantra "DA" (which just happened to be a part of the personal name “Da Free John” he had now started using) and loaded us up with a whole shitpile of other artifices of dualistic worship.

He tried to describe the inherently dualistic devotional practices he gave us in a way that made them sound non-dualistic, but it never made sense to me. How could it?

The same guy who said "I'd rather beat you over the head with a stick than give you a mantra," ended up doing just that. His early sales pitch that said "I saw that men were easily turned to Understanding" turned out to be a hollow pipe-dream, so he changed gears.

Well, back to your post, A. Your point about the duality between how Adi Da requires that everyone treat him (i.e. worship him and live their lives at his beck and call) vs. how he acts and treats everyone else (i.e. injure their egos in whatever manner he pleases "for their sake") just about sums it up for me.

Adi Da’s actions and master-slave relationship with devotees doesn't reflect anything like the non-dual, “there is only God” rap he spouts out. In many ways, everything he does is the antithesis of it.