Adi Da (Da Free John): No Supernatural Spiritual Transmission, Shaktipat Initiation or Shakti Force
Posted by AZ in 2004 (revised version)
Former member
states:
“I think there's a number of obvious benefits to gurus… The first and most
important is that gurus can provide the initiatory force and blessing which
definitely helps awaken consciousness to the reality of spiritual practice, and
can keep that process alive with occasional contact and help”. He goes on to add
that this is “the sheer, undeniable reality that such “figures” do in fact
appear.”
At the heart of Daist indoctrination, as in many guru traditions is the concept
that the guru is a source of some kind of extraordinary agency and initiatory
influence that can awaken and quicken the spiritual development of the devotee.
But now days I see this type of teaching as just one more way for a powerful and
charismatic figure to assert influence and control over others while inflating
his or her own ego.
Like you, former member, I was also involved with Adi Da for a number of years,
and it wasn't just a philosophical experiment for me. I, along with others in
the community, had experiences of what some would describe as Adi Da’s
initiatory force and blessing transmission. There have also been a number of
times in my own life, apart from my relationship to Adi Da, when I had powerful
spiritual experiences that I clearly did not fabricate. These have had an impact
on my life.
During the time when I was a devotee, I would have made the same statements about the guru as a source of spiritual transmission as were made by former member above. I would have described it in precisely the same way former member describes it because that is exactly how Adi Da describes it. That's the script.
"Leelas" or stories about Adi Da's supposed abilities to wield influence in the super-physical dimensions are gathered and recounted by devotees in his books, magazines, and orally to support his extraordinary claims. Testamonials are given. People want to believe that something profound and magical is happening to them and around them. The idea that the spiritual insights, processes and experiences were awakened through "transmission" by Adi Da was such a basic assumption and expectation in our reality that I never questioned it. It was beyond doubt, simply obvious to me and everyone.
For many years when
I was a devotee, whenever I heard that someone who had left Adi Da and didn’t
think much of him anymore, like most Daists I simply wrote them off as either
someone who had never really experienced the Guru’s initiatory force and
blessing, or someone who couldn’t take the heat of that force, didn’t understand
or appreciate it, and had become “reactive.” Now, of course, I regret having
written off so many of my friends in this fashion.
After several years, I have come to understand the spiritual experiences I have
had in my life, with or without Adi Da, and spiritual practice itself in a much
different way. As a result, the idea that Adi Da is or was the source of my
practice seems absurd. The spiritual process and my growth and development as a
person have not stopped after I left Adi Da and his community behind. However,
it did take awhile for me to transition to a form of practice that was free of
authoritarian dogma and dependence on another person as a proxy for the Reality
that is everywhere present.
Many of the former Daists I have talked to have moved on to other teachers. They
have tried to seek out more benign sources of spiritual influence or
transmission, having become disillusioned with Adi Da. I don’t blame them for
avoiding another abusive Guru like him. However, what these people are missing
is that we are all already living in direct connection to everything else, call
it consciousness, buddha-nature, whatever. The concept that one can benefit by
subjugating oneself to another person (guru, lama, or whatever) for the sake of
contacting or realizing what he or she already IS, and what he or she always
inherently exists in, is simply an ancient form of authoritarian manipulation.
Once you accept the premise that you have this need in relation to an authority
figure, and that they have a form of Divine access or realization that you do
not, there is virtually no end to the level of manipulation, delusions, and
abuse that can follow.
I have observed that my friends who’ve gone right off and found a new path with
a new Guru or a new organization seem to have bypassed the process of deep
inspection and examination of themselves and Adi Da’s indoctrination that they
really need. They are unwilling to let go of the core beliefs and premises that
brought them into an abusive relationship with Adi Da to start with. One reason
for this is that most of these people are fundamentally uncomfortable with
“ordinary life.” They continue to believe that there is a difference between
ordinary life and spiritual practice, and more importantly they are
unconsciously dependent upon a relationship with a Guru or spiritual community
to insulate and buffer them from a secular culture they are reluctant to
participate in.
I think that people
who leave Adi Da need to understand that the life he had them live served to
break down their ability to discriminate and think independently in many ways,
particularly when it came to their beliefs about him personally. The mechanisms
for this are well described in many of the books on religious cults that are
available now days. It is necessary to rebuild one's discrimination to avoid
falling into similar mistakes after leaving Adi Da, and one component of this
has to do with examining the spiritual and religious ideas, beliefs and
suppositions that helped one get into the mess with him to begin with.
One of these beliefs is that Adi Da represents a unique and special source of
Agency or initiatory force, and indeed this is perhaps the most fundamental and
basic tenet of all his teachings. This is a claim that on its face would strike
the average person as absurdly egotistical, yet Adi Da manages to put a
complicated spin and rationalization on it that satisfies his devotees. He has
also taught people that the ultimate taboo and unforgiveable sin was to consider
the him to be an “ordinary man.” Yet now it is perfectly obvious to me that this
is exactly what he is, just another person like the rest of us, albeit more
ambitious, narcissistic, and delusional.
I find it interesting that many of the former devotees I’ve stayed in touch with
continue to believe that Adi Da is come kind of superman or powerful being, for
better or worse. Some ex-students still believe they are spiritually connected
to him, but just couldn't stay within the community because the community was so
messed up. (Yes the community was messed up, but that was because it was a bunch
of people who were taking direction from Franklin Jones, and were allowing him
to mess up their lives!)
Some people think Adi Da is some kind of a black shaman, or spiritually powerful
but flawed super-being that is worthy of their fear. Some still consider him
still to be “enlightened”, whatever that means to them, but they also have come
to understand that he is either crazy, or abusive, or delusional, or incomplete,
or a combination of those things. Still others seem to simply try to get their
more ordinary and practical life together, and simply try to remember their
involvement with Frank and the community as a positive memory in their life, and
try to forget (or ignore) the negative, and just keep their distance on the
whole thing.
For some people who are the
types that feel internal energies or have so-called spiritual experiences, Adi
Da is able to capitalize on these if he can help them accelerate or intensify
these through practices he gives them or special events and formal occasions of
meditation he has with them. People identify profoundly with their internal
emotional and sensory perceptions, and are reluctant to apply much
discrimination or skepticism to those phenomena. They are also generally
willing to attribute the experiences to his influence, if there is any way at
all to associate him with them.
There is no doubt that some people feel, see, and sense all kinds of things in meditation with Adi Da, depending on their mental and psychological makeup. These unusual experiences can affect them deeply. The presumption, however, that these things are caused by a supernatural influence emanating from Adi Da, or that they put people in touch with some kind of hidden spiritual reality that exists outside their own brain is far too easily made by hopeful and naive spiritual seekers.
Some people would say that their unusual experiences coincided with occasions of meditating formally with Adi Da. But I never heard anyone talk about all of the other things that were going on, like orchestrated rituals in settings designed to evoke a “spiritual” response, and the excitement created by group enthusiasm or the rare opportunity to meditate with the God Man, etc.
My point of view has now become that there is nothing happening in meditation with Adi Da that can't be explained by looking at ordinary (non-supernatural) influences.
Unusual internal phenomena can and do occur in meditation, so I’m not saying these are fake. But the question is, what are they and who or what generates them?
Here are a few factors to consider along these lines:
(1) People come to Adi Da with
extraordinary expectations and an overwhelming desire for something profound and
"spiritual" happen when they see him. This heightens their motivation and
capacity to generate internal sensations, images, and mental states.
(2) There is a powerful dynamic that occurs when a group of people focuses
attention and adoration on one person. They charge up and enliven themselves
while at the same time they pump up the object of their attention. Some leaders
and entertainers are especially adept at both basking in all this attention and
in using their own pumped up state to further evoke a response from the
audience. The performance can be spiritual or secular. In the settings when I
sat with Adi Da, I believe that there was a lot of primitive and subliminal
communication at almost an animal level that occurred when I stared into his
eyes and saw his mudras and the kriyas of others, etc. These drew out an
automatic response in me because I was very relaxed and sensitive to what was
going on, and pulled me into unusual states of mind and feeling.
(3) Some individuals have a neurological and biochemical makeup that gives them
a predisposition towards types of mental or sensory experience that are
interpreted by them and everyone in Adi Da's group as spiritual. They trigger
these in meditation with Adi Da and elsewhere, and may be able to do so more
strongly around Adi Da than away from him because of items (1) and (2) above.
If we consider that influences such as those described above come into play with people whose motivation or capacity to exercise discriminatory powers (as much emotional as mental) is impaired by their belief system and expectations, we are left with all kinds of questionable claims. This is not to say that some of these experiences and the moments of release from one's typical awareness and relationship to things don't occur, or that they can't be meaningful or pleasurable. At issue is whether or not these "awakenings" are supernaturally generated by Adi Da, rather than just facilitated by him due to the interplay of the situation and environment as a whole, and his own ability to let the “asana” of conventional interaction with others just drop, spurring a like response in others.
If Adi Da were really in fact some great powerhouse of shakti force and more importantly a transmitter of the intensified force of Consciousness Itself whatever that might mean, where are the results of 30 years of pumping this stuff out? Where is the evidence for lasting effects from the meditative experiences and influences claimed by devotees? Where are the truckloads of transformed people who show the clear and obvious (or even subtle but profound) signs and evidence of some unusual process intruding itself into their lives and being? Nowhere to be found.
And why have a significant majority of those who have been committed devotees over the years eventually left Adi Da, if there were something truly remarkable going on? Does anyone really believe that if Adi Da were generating a tangible and profound spiritual influence that had a real impact on people he wouldn’t be absolutely flooded with people in a short time? The answer for me is that there's nothing extraordinary or supernatural being transmitted by Adi Da -- and that's the bottom line.
By the way, I don’t trivialize or discount those special moments we have when we are released from our usual perceptions of, or relationship to things. Yes, our “mystical” or “peak” experiences teach us that consensus reality is just a convention to help us function, and can remind us that our place in the world is very mysterious and fluid. Consciousness itself drives our experience and interpretation of the world. This understanding can come to us at any time, under any circumstances, in or out of formal meditation. People can awaken from their habit of confinement to the consensus perception of reality with or without Adi Da, while listening to Bach or while climbing a mountain and feeling connected to all of nature. When we are drawn into a sense of relatedness of all things, or we fall into stark wonder at our mysterious existence, bliss and clarity awaken. It is wonderful.
I think that to begin to understand Adi Da’s delusions for what they are, it is necessary to understand your own delusions and how they played into his. Our own delusions and false beliefs don’t necessarily just go away over time, they need to be inspected and worked through. For many people, this includes their fantasies about Adi Da as a source of spiritual power, in the sense of awakening consciousness to its true condition, or in the sense of a shaktipat initiator who can create internal changes in others using his influences in the super-physical dimensions.
I now see him more as someone who knows how to control people, using a belief system, lifestyle, devotional practices, and mythology about his god-like status to convince them that they are doing something that will result in spiritual advancement, and that some of them will have unusual internal experiences. He was good at finding peoples’ neuroses and weak spots, especially in the area of sexuality and relationships, and using these to manipulate and dominate them.
I have concluded that my time with Adi Da was mostly a lesson about the delusions others and I were capable of believing because we were naïve and sought an alternative to lives that were not working out for us in one way or another. It was also a lesson about how authoritarian figures can exploit the needs and delusions of others, and can perhaps do this best if they share some of those delusions themselves. My time in the community was also largely a distraction from dealing with the issues that were at the core of why I became a devotee to begin with.
Yet leaving Adi Da in itself is no magic bullet for growth either. We only grow at the rate we are ready to grow, and at the rate we are able to make positive use of our experiences, whether those experiences happen to be in relation to Adi Da or as ordinary members of secular society. There is no special thing that Adi Da or anyone else can do to instill that capacity in another person.
So, as for former member’s assertion that gurus benefit us by transmitting initiatory force, I do not accept this in either the sense of passing some type of special force that creates an internal experience in another, or in the general sense of awakening us to our true consciousness in both meditation and ordinary activities.
I do not accept that Adi Da was the initiator of any “spiritual blessing force” in relationship to me, and I found the testimony of my peers along these lines to be very unconvincing. Yes, people during meditation with Adi Da whipped themselves into hysteria and bodily twitching or withdrew internally to play games with internal sensations, etc. I had endless conversations with people in sadhana groups and elsewhere about what happened for them and for me. As I described earlier, I think there are also unusual things that can spontaneously happen when we still the mind and drop our superficial social persona, apart from self conscious efforts to either relax or to produce internal phenomena. But my final conclusion is that most of the experiences people described were self-generated and the ones that were spontaneous do not require a supernatural explanation. There is a lot more information available these days about how the brain and nervous system can produce the illusion of spiritual experiences without actually reflecting anything going on outside of the person having the experience. There is absolutely no evidence from my point of view that Adi Da did something in the spiritual dimensions or in “consciousness itself” to cause any of this.
Still, we all believed he did because he told us this was true, and because there are historical traditions where others claimed the same thing. I now see this kind of activity as nothing more than an effective method or tool for establishing an authoritarian relationship over devotees. I would urge anyone involved in this kind of relationship with a guru to consider this point of view.
As one person I know put it, Adi Da’s spiritual transmission was a “parlor trick”. But for anyone who spent a significant number of years as a devotee, it was a very complex and convincing parlor trick, involving all of our hopes, beliefs, and fantasies about what it meant to advance spiritually. In the final analysis, I think we all aspired to the kinds of extraordinary experiences and exciting transformation in consciousness that Adi Da described in the Knee of Listening.
Nonetheless, it didn’t happen for anyone I was close to, and I doubt it did for Adi Da either.