Adi Da describes the “spiritual practice” of masturbation as a way of “bonding” and devotion to Adi Da Samraj. It is said to be a form of Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga, and supposedly helps devotees drop out of the bondage of conventional, ego-based pair-bonding with a partner, which Adi Da is always criticizing and working to undermine. 

Editor:  This is an edited excerpt from a post at Lightmind.com by Elias. (Adi Da's instructions here are in colored, "regular" font, Elias' comments are in italics)

YOGIC MASTURBATION IN ADIDAM

posted by Elias 12/29/02

One of the curiosities of Daist sexual practice is the teaching of "solitary shaktichalana mudra", or yogic masturbation.

The written instruction for this practice can be found in a book titled The Practice Of Solitary Shaktichalana Mudra, published in 1994 and 1995.

Practicing Yogic Masturbation in the Way of the Heart

Adi Da:  The Typical Procedure For genital self-Stimulation (In [Shaktichalana Mudra] in The Way Of The Heart) Is, In The Case Of male individuals, genital self-Stimulation By Means Of full hand contact with the penis (and rhythmic hand-friction on the penis). In The Case Of female individuals, The Typical Procedure Is genital self-Stimulation By Means Of single or multiple finger contact with the clitoris (and rhythmic finger-friction on the clitoris), and, Perhaps (Whether Simultaneously Or Alternately), Deep vaginal Stimulation By Means Of a Suitable (and Comfortable) dildo (or penis substitute). However, Generally, In Neither The male Case nor the female Case Should "vibrators" (or other Similar devices) Be Used (Except, Perhaps, Very Rarely), As they May Initiate Uncontrollable degenerative orgasm, and, Otherwise, Because they May Tend To (At Least Eventually) Desensitize the genital organs.

Elias:  The introduction of dildos (or "penis substitutes") into "sacred" sexual practice may well be unique to Daism. Frank has had a curious fascination with these "sex toys" at least since the 1970s, when it was common knowledge that "the community dildo collection" was sold to raise funds during an emergency.

Adi Da :  In the case of men it is usually manual stimulation of the penis, using not just a finger, or a couple of fingers, but the whole hand, and typically the right hand. The right hand is prescribed in the traditions [sic], because the right hand is the yang side, the positive side. The left hand, associated with the left side of the body, is sex-diminishing relative to the polarities in the body. One must understand the polarities of left and right, front and back, and top and bottom. What if a man is left-handed? In that case, the left hand, and the left side, is in some sense the positive side and the dominant side...

The woman uses the fingers in stimulating the clitoris and the exterior of the vagina. A woman can also use a penis substitute, or dildo, because only through such an extension can the area of the cervix and the interior of the vagina be stimulated, which is the purpose of the exercise as it is done women...

Elias:  Medical studies have shown that there are almost no nerves in the cervix. A woman may, for instance, undergo the medical procedure of cervical cauterization without anesthesia. (However, the idea of the cervix being massaged by and even opening to receive the penis may have erotic effect.)

Adi Da describes the practice of "Solitary Shaktichalana Mudra" as one that should be followed by a full "cultural consideration":

Adi Da:  During this period of adaptation, you should remain fully culturally confessed after each occasion of practicing solitary Shaktichalana Mudra. During this period (of a week or so) of adaptation, you should remain fully culturally confessed after each occasion of practicing solitary Shaktichalana Mudra and should continue to study My Instruction on that practice.

Elias:   Finally, he seems to view yogic masturbation as a principle method of transcending his most fearsome opponent, "the cult of pairs" -- and of achieving guru-union, or "Realizing Me":

Adi Da:  Yoga, the Process of Divine Self-Realization, is the Process wherein the inherent integrity of the "own-body" is realized and submitted to the Divine Self-Condition, ultimately. For all My devotees, this realization of own-body integrity is a matter of dropping out of the bondage of pair-"bonding" in its conventional, or ego-based and ego-reinforcing, form...Yoga is about the inherent bi-polar integrity of the own-body.

If you are a male, plus or positive or yang, instead of looking for the female, the minus or negative or yin Force--or if you are a female, instead of looking for the male opposite--and just playing out the game of polar opposites in the world, or the samsaric context, or the circumstance of ego-bondage, practice in the own-body context and become a sacrifice to That Which is ultimately Single, through the process of "Bonding" to Me. It is a process of Realizing Me...the process of Realization is submission to Me in the context of the bi-polar integrity of the own-body.

This is the unique secret, then, of Yogic practice, the cherished ancient secret, never communicated before in its fullest terms, or in its seventh stage terms, but, nonetheless, in the traditions there is this very lore in essential terms, actually practiced and engineered into the sphere of esoteric Yogi practice, in one form or another--without fullest consciousness of what is all about, certainly, but it is there, reaching toward Me, reaching toward the seventh stage Realization.

Elias:   Students of Adi Da are taught to engage in the practice of solitary masturbation while sitting or lying before the Master's photograph, in their private meditation spaces. One masturbates nearly to the point of orgasm, and then

Adi Da:  In any moment when orgasm is impending there must be this intense upward drawing so that the degenerative down-the-spine-and-out flow of energy does not occur. Rather, this in-and-up turn toward the crown and above must be emphasized, periodically, rhythmically, and obviously, especially in any moment of impending degenerative orgasm. This upward tensing and right submission to Me all the while, right breath, exhalation shooting up the spine, inhalation down the front or through the bodily base up to the top of the head, right use of breath, just a feeling of the upward motion through the spinal line--all these devices, just as in sexual "conscious exercise" or "sexual communion", must be used throughout the process, as in sex with another, Yogically, and also in the impending crisis of degenerative orgasm most intensively. This is the essential exercise.

...There is a relaxation from the heart that is the devotional disposition, Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga. Such devotional relaxation invades the body-mind and attracts you to be responsible for the entire body-mind. It is not exactly a relaxation into passivity, or a kind of emotionless and energyless condition of placidity. It is a heart-disposition, shown through responsibility for the body-mind.

You are to be turned to Me. Conform the body-mind to devotion to Me. In the Way of the Heart, solitary Shaktichalana Mudra is not a self-based or stress-based practice. It is a Yoga of "conductivity" with the "conscious process" of Ishta-Guru-Bhakti Yoga.

Elias COMMENTARY: What does sex have to do with it?

The fixation on sexuality, in Daism, has been justified as "necessary" because of the devotee's "adolescent immaturity" in that area.

Frank has said, many times, that everybody is "hung up on money, food, and sex", and therefore it is his job to show you the way to growth and maturity in these areas, so that you may progress onward to real spiritual practice.

Fair enough. But as one investigates what exactly he teaches, one discovers that he himself is possessed by mythological ideas in all of those areas of vitality and nature.

For instance, for many years he has advocated a series of bizarre "regenerative" diets, which have periodically left his inner circle of devotees looking like emaciated cadavers. To relieve the stress of malnutrition, he and his followers then indulge in binge-eating and "using accessories" (alcohol and tobacco).

His problems in the area of money are well-documented: he likes to get it and he likes to spend it on himself. Unlike the real Spiritual Masters of the East, he has never been known to use money for acts of charity.

In the area of sexuality he long been involved in "picking off" the young and beautiful members of his community -- including the wives of his male devotees.

His "sexual teachings", have included forcing devotees to engage in intercourse while he watches and "critiques" their performance. In at least two reported cases, his violent use of dildos has resulted in the tearing of a woman's uterus, so that she needed surgery.

And here we have his instruction on "the ancient and traditional practice of yogic masturbation."

Yogic masturbation, he makes clear, is not "ordinary old masturbation" in which the sexual fluids are "exhausted" and released towards an object. Rather, it is a practice based on the Hindu and Oriental idea that the sexual emissions may be redirected up the spine, thus preserving their "spirit-energy" and bringing about higher consciousness.

There is no scientific basis for this idea -- it is entirely imaginary and mythological. In the case of a man, if one uses "yogic" methods of closing the passage to pervent the outward flow of the seminal fluid at the moment of orgasm, it simply backs up in the genital-urinary system, and is eventually flushed out in the urine. If anything, simply not having sex of any kind would be a more effective method of preserving the "precious bodily fluids" (shades of Doctor Strangelove!), since they will gradually be reabsorbed by the body. (One assumes something similar would occur in a celibate woman.)

But myth and science aside, what does "yogic masturbation" have to do with insight, higher consciousness, and God-Realization or enlightenment?

Adi Da claims that the process of masturbating regularly before his murti, and internalizing the sexual fluids at the moment of "regenerative orgasm", will assist in "conforming the body-mind to Me". In other words, it is a practice of bhakti-yoga, or putting oneself in resonance with the (presumed) exalted spiritual state of the Master.

My own personal view would be that no greater nonsense has been foisted upon the ignorant and the innocent since the days when "tantric" cults held sexual orgies on charnel grounds amidst rotting corpses in order to "liberate" themselves!

Indeed, "The Practice Of Solitary Shaktichalana Mudra" has the effect of binding consciousness to the body and its reproductive mechanism, while breaking the arc of male-female love-awareness which usually (and naturally) encompasses and includes the processes of bodily union.

It's another example of Frank intruding himself between that sacred mystery he likes to call "the cult of pairs".

Since he can't physically have intercourse (or sodomy) with every devotee, then let them do it for themselves with "own-body" sexuality, while meditating on him!

And, he assures them, if they do this regularly, they will advance to the highest levels of enlightenment -- for this is a "seventh stage practice", given by "the First, Last, and Only Seventh Stage Adept Realizer."

My dears, whatever happened to "self-inquiry" (Ramana)? Whatever happened to becoming "unsustained, neither fabricating nor willing for the sake of becoming or un-becoming" (Buddha)?

Whatever happened to "Radical Understanding" (Franklin Jones)?

Spanking the monkey while thanking Frank seems to be the New Revelation of God.

Elias