Following Adi Da’s absurd plans and directions is like pretending the emperor has clothes

Posted by Broken Yogi on Jul-16-04

Yeah, J, that example just about says it all. What's even funnier is the hundreds of thousands of dollars, that get spent publishing books and promoting the mission, using exactly that absurd message. And the thousands, maybe millions, of man-hours that have been wasted over the years in the process.

I know the attitudes that develop within Adidam that allow this to go on. It's all a variation on the "emperor has no clothes" theme, in which the emperor has a missionary message and plan that everyone knows is bullshit, but they have to pretend otherwise, because, after all, it's the emperor's plan, and no one can tell that to the emperor. People respond with varying degrees of hyped-up enthusiasm or cynicism, but bottom line, the emperor still has no clothes, and bottom line, the mission goes nowhere.

One of the more popular explanations for this is that it's either all a test, or it's all a joke, or a combination of the two. What the joke is, or what the lesson is, and why it needs to be repeated over and over for so many years, no one seems able to explain. The only explanation that seems to keep people even somewhat satisfied is the idea that none of it really matters, but what does matter is that one's attention remain with the Guru, and that one surrender to his instructions regardless of how absurd they are, because that is the process that actually liberates us. And yet, in the meantime, liberation seems very far away indeed, and exploitive absurdity very close at hand. Staying with the program requires that devotees believe that in some way they can't actually fathom, submitting to these absurditites is growing them spiritually in ways that no other practice could. Which is all very much like believing that pretending the emperor is wearing the most beautiful clothing in the world while "apparently" stark naked, is in fact the most profoundly powerful means in the history of mankind for achieving spiritual liberation and freedom.

After a certain point, you've got to wonder if that isn't the joke, and the lesson is that people can be fooled far more easily than they would ever like to admit, and for far longer.