Adi Da’s Attempt to Pigeon-hole and Degrade Ramana Maharshi by Misrepresenting Him
Posted by Elias to his blog in 2001
"After 1991, when he demoted Ramana Maharshi from 7th stage to 6th stage, Franklin Jones began promoting the idea that Ramana's realization was an 'exclusive inversion' upon the witness consciousness, and a 'developmental phase' in the life of the ego.... Daist apologists, who previously looked to Ramana as the very pinnacle of spiritual realization, now began pointing to Ramana's periods of silence and apparent inactivity as a sign of this 'exclusive inversion.'
Adi Da, they pointed out, has fully expressed the Divine through his insatiable appetites for sex, drug use, and hard drinking. Adi Da is immersed in life, they said, his body radiating the Divine in a way that no previous master ever did. According to Daists, Ramana Maharshi represents the weak, the ineffectual, and the castrated state of withdrawal from life. Ramana 'hides in the cave of the heart,' dissociating himself from all others in egoic identification with the samadhi of [mere] 'witness consciousness.' In their statements about Ramana, Frank and his minions demonstrate that they do not yet understand that the Heart-Realization Ramana described is truly all-inclusive....
In living contradiction to many of the great teachings he has mimicked, Frank's 'realization' is in fact not realization at all, but the self-apotheosis of an egoic 'doer' --an exaggerated fifth stage yogic answer to the 'problem' of getting by in this world as an isolated genius in a crowd. [Da's strategy is this:] You spend a weekend with a well-known guru like Muktananda, letting him possess you with his 'shakti force' until you are 'God-Realized.' He gives you a name and an official letter granting you permission to hang out your shingle in his lineage.
A week or so later you go into business as a 'Spiritual Adept,' and this is how you will make yourself rich, acquire properties and expensive toys, and take coup on thousands of young women.
From the point of view of Maharshi's realization, no such self-apotheosis or yogic siddhis or worldly ambitions are needed. Simply find out 'who' you are, as Being Itself, and then you will completely understand the world from the position of Being, in which no separate subject exists, and in which the 'problem of the doer' has utterly vanished. Contrary to how Ramana is painted by Daists and others who have seen a few photographs of him lounging about, Maharshi was fully engaged in the life of his ashram. According to reports he was the first one up every morning, going immediately to work in the kitchen, directing the kitchen workers and cutting up vegetables for the day's meals. He was the most unpretentious of men, i.e, a true realizer, who made himself constantly available to everyone. He had no illusions that you can 'teach' people anything by parodying (or 'reflecting') their sins [as Da has done so abusively].
And whereas Frank has always claimed that people 'can't see' his real purity due to their egos, Maharshi made his purity visible to all.... He was a powerfully attractive being, who drew thousands upon thousands of people to him, year after year. He sat in the communion hall and conversed with visitors day after day, right up until he died.... If Frank had anything even close to Ramana's power he wouldn't need to carry on like a clown the way he does, endlessly mind-gaming, endlessly changing his appearance, endlessly trying to distract people from noticing 'the man behind the curtain' [like the impotent "wizard of Oz"].
He also would not be such a whiner and a scold.
Frank is a clear example of 'the ego standing apart' -- the mad subject that thinks it can swallow God whole. Put the writing of this [so-called] spiritual genius' aside for a moment and see how he runs: he wants all of existence to revolve upon his physical needs and desires, exactly like a baby whose primary adaptation is to impulsively demand all the food and attention it can get. If it is fed, if it gets 'Big Gifts,' then the infant is 'happy' (or at least satisfied) for today.
If gifts are not forthcoming, he throws a tantrum. The honest fact is that Frank is a prime example of the very worst trait of Americans who go the East seeking the ultimate: he literally believes that 'God realization' can be owned by the ego and amplify the ego to cosmic proportions. The proof of this statement is the unfolding of his life since his possession by 'the goddess' in the Vedanta Temple in 1970 [in Hollywood, CA]. From that day forward he embarked on a megalomaniacal (yet sophisticated) program of transforming himself from a human being into 'The First Last and Only 7th Stage Adept Realizer,' the one man in all of history who could claim to be wiser and more compassionate and spiritually fruitful than Buddha, Krishna, Jesus...and Ramana Maharshi."