Separating Adi Da from Adidam Dharma is revisionism
Posted by Broken Yogi on Aug-9-03
You are right, but you can't pretend that the Adidam Dharma exists
outside of the personal relationship to Adi Da himself. That is the central
tenet of the Adidam Dharma. It is not a method, but a relationship. By his
making that the entire point of Adidam, you cannot then complain that critics of
the Adidam Dharma always link it up with his personal habits and relations with
devotees, unless you are also complaining about him. That's the catch, isn't it?
And that's where you go off the orthodox road. You want to ignore Adi Da
personally, ignore his actual relations with devotees, and somehow refer always
to some "Dharma" that is independent of all that. But that's exactly what the
Adidam Dharma criticizes: the tendency to abstract the Dharma from the person of
Adi Da. What is truly funny about this forum is that it's the only place where
people actually insist on keeping the person and the Dharma of Adidam together,
rather than abstracting the two.
I know you would like to get rid of this annoying Adi Da guy and just talk about
Dharma, but so long as you are using the Dharma to justify the guy's actions,
you can't do it. I think a fine Dharma discussion is a good thing, and can be
illuminating, so long as it is not an attempt to argue the circular
justification for Adi Da's legitimacy. I just don't see you as having any
interest in the Dharma itself, or discussions about it that could be genuinely
fruitful.
Posted by Broken Yogi on Aug-9-03
Adi Da's person is the Dharma. His actions are considered to be the
Dharma in action. Because there are no other "seventh stage realizers", the only
demonstration of the Dharma in existence is Adi Da's own life and action.
Dharma discussion as an abstract matter is interesting but pointless unless it
comes down to life and practice. So one must always link discussion of Dharma to
the life-level of action. And because there are no other "precedents" in life
for the Adidam Dharma other than the life of Adi Da himself, all such
discussions come right back to him. And that is of course the very intention of
the Adidam Dharma.
Critics of Adidam are right to examine his life and relations with devotees to
discern what the Adidam Dharma in action really amounts to, regardless of what
it claims to be in theory. Every religion should be critiqued in the same way.
On paper, one might say that the Catholic Christian Dogma is Divine, but in
practice little things like the Inquisition and priestly sexual abuse do matter.
Same with Adi Da's claim to be the FLO. How could one possibly divorce such a
Dharma from its creator’s own life and relations with devotees?