Adi Da

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article needs sources or references that appear in reliable, third-party publications. Primary sources and sources affiliated with the subject of the article are generally not sufficient for a Wikipedia article. Please include more appropriate citations from reliable sources, or discuss the issue on the talk page. This article has been tagged since September 2007.

The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page.(March 2008) Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved.

Adi Da Samraj
Adi Da Samraj
Born	November 3, 1939 (1939-11-03) (age 68) Jamaica, New York, United States

Adi Da Samraj, or to his devotees, the Ruchira Avatar Adi Da Samraj, literally meaning "the radiant avatar, primordial giver, universal ruler" (born Franklin Albert Jones, November 3, 1939, in Jamaica, New York), is a contemporary and controversial guru and founder of the new religious movement currently known as Adidam. He has also used names such as Bubba Free John, Da Free John, Dau Loloma, Da Love-Ananda, Da Avadhoota, Da Kalki, and Da Avabhasa. ^[1] Adi Da states that he is an "Avataric Incarnation", the "Da Avatar", a uniquely full and complete manifestation of the Divine Person unprecedented in human form, and that his life and teaching fulfills and transcends the limitations of what he terms the "Great Tradition" of human spirituality. ^{[2] [3] [4]}

Adi Da's teaching is summarized as follows: suffering is the result of the (false) presumption of separateness. This assumption forms the basis of all conventional human activity, and must be undone. The ego, which in various traditions is understood to be an entity, is identified by Adi Da as the activity of separativeness, which is enacted in every moment. Ultimately, there is only one divine consciousness, which is the state to be realized. This can be done by turning one's attention to the realizer of the divine in every moment, thereby receiving the grace of spiritual blessing and transmission. Adi Da describes himself as the most spiritually realized being to appear in human history, the "First, Last, and Only Seventh Stage Adept", "Promised God-Man", and "Divine World-Teacher"^[5]. He states that the ego cannot undo itself, which is why divinity in the form of the spiritual master appears in human life. He describes the ultimate condition (or prior condition) as love-bliss, self-radiant indivisible conscious light. More simply, he refers to it as the Bright. In this realization, all egoic tendency is "outshined", or made completely obsolete.^{[citation needed]}

Allegations by ex-members of what is now known as Adidam that Adi Da (then known as Da Free John) and some of his followers engaged in financial, sexual and emotional abuses were widely reported in American news media in 1985, ^{[6] [7]} including The Today Show. ^[8] Adidam said these public allegations were part of a conspiracy to extort large sums of money from the religious group and to discredit and destroy the group in a smear campaign.^[9] The claims were settled out of court by Adidam with payments and confidentiality agreements, per an attorney who handled three such cases.^[10]

Contents 1 Life 2 Name changes 3 Teaching and community 3.1 Hermitage Ashrams 4 Teaching literature 4.1 Books by Adi Da 4.2 Leelas (first hand accounts of spiritual life by devotees) 4.3 Other books about Adi Da by his devotees 5 Lawsuits and allegations of abuse 6 Criticisms 7 See also 8 Notes 9 References 10 Further reading 11 External links 11.1 Advocacy 11.2 Criticism 11.3 Other sites

[edit] Life

According to Adi Da's autobiography, The Knee of Listening, he was born Franklin Albert Jones and raised in the New York City borough of Queens. He attended Columbia College, where he received a degree in philosophy, and Stanford University, where he completed his M.A. in English literature with a thesis on Gertrude Stein. ^[11] In 1965, Adi Da became a disciple of Albert Rudolph, also known as Rudi or Swami Rudrananda. He describes that period as one of human maturation, extensive disciplining of the body, and his first acquaintance with "spiritual transmission" from a human teacher. Following Rudi's instruction, Adi Da married his girlfriend Nina Davis. (They later divorced; she was then and has remained his devotee.) Adi Da described how he reached a point where he had exhausted what he could learn from Rudi, and in 1968, became a disciple of Rudi's Indian teacher Swami Muktananda, whom he first visited in India in early April of 1968, and who, he wrote, gave him extraordinary spiritual experiences and realization. For approximately one year, in 1968-1969, Adi Da was involved with Scientology ^[12] (mention of which was omitted from subsequent versions of his autobiography, which say that during this period he did not meditate, but "simply listened" ^[13]). He returned to India in August of 1969 to see Muktananda, who subsequently gave Adi Da a letter acknowledging his yogic realization and authorizing him to initiate others. After a period Adi Da describes as including visionary experiences wherein he was guided by both Muktananda's teacher, Bhagawan Nityananda, and "the Goddess", Adi Da wrote that he re-awakened (as a divine incarnation) to his original divine state of full enlightenment, on September 10, 1970.

Adi Da founded his own group in April of 1972, operating out of a bookstore in Los Angeles, California. Initially known as the Dawn Horse Communion, the movement founded by Adi Da has been through several name changes: previous names have included The Free Primitive Church of Divine Communion, The Johannine Daist Communion, and Free Daism. It is now known as Adidam, or The Way of the Heart. Adi Da permanently broke with Muktananda after a meeting in India in 1973 in which Adi Da and Muktananda engaged in a discussion wherein it became clear they each had very different notions of what the highest, or most enlightened, spiritual state is, and that Muktananda would not acknowledge his enlightenment. ^[14] Adi Da would later say, however, that he still regularly "connected with" Muktananda (and Rudi) in subtle planes, and that he always held a great love for his former gurus. ^[15]

Since the early 1970s, Adi Da has written numerous books on religion and related matters (see below).

[edit] Name changes

Adi Da is noted for his frequent name changes, which devotees believe are associated with changes to his teaching work. ^{[16] [17]} As a student of Muktananda, he was given the name Dhyanananda. Shortly after becoming an independent teacher, during the 1973 visit to India where he broke with Muktananda, he took the name Bubba Free John, "Bubba" being a colloquialism for "brother" and "Free John" a loose translation of "Franklin Jones". In 1978, he began calling himself Da Free John, "Da" meaning in Sanskrit, "the giver". From 1986 to 1990, he was known primarily as Da Love-Ananda, "Ananda" meaning, in Sanskrit, "bliss". From 1990 to 1991, he was known as Da Kalki, in reference to the Hindu avatar Kalki, the 10th and final incarnation of Vishnu, and from 1991 to 1994 as Da Avabhasa, "Avabhasa" meaning "brightness". The title his devotees currently use for him is the Ruchira Avatar, Adi Da Samraj, literally "the radiant avatar, primordial giver, universal ruler" and since 2007 Sapta Na Adi Da Samraj. They also frequently refer to him simply as "Beloved".

[edit] Teaching and community

Adi Da states that he is an "Avataric Incarnation", ^[18] a uniquely full and complete manifestation of the "Divine" in human form, and that his life and teaching fulfills what he terms the "Great Tradition" of human spirituality. He describes his teaching as a "radical" (or most direct), original, and uniquely complete offering that, for the first time in history, has made the total way and wisdom of the "precosmic Divine Light", or the "Bright", available to human beings.

Adi Da has described human life as unfolding in seven potential stages. While other religious teachers, such as Jesus and the Buddha, are said by Adi Da to have attained the status of "fifth" (or "sixth") "Stage Realizer" ^[19], he maintains that he is the "first, last, and only seventh stage Adept-Realizer" ^[20] (cf. The Basket of Tolerance, 1991 ^{[21] [22] [23]}). Adi Da says his divine incarnation is the unique means for sentient beings to attain seventh stage realization now and for all future time. In 1984, Adi Da said "I am here in my lifetime to change the course of human history, and I want to see some evidence of it. No one on Earth compares to me...I believe that before this body dies, all mankind will acknowledge me." ^[24]

Adi Da teaches that, in reality, there is only God. ^[25] That is, that there is only a single, indivisible, all-pervading, self-existing and self-radiant "Source-Condition", "Nature" and "Substance" that is reality, in and of which everything and everyone arises as a spontaneous and unnecessary modification. Adi Da teaches the "One Divine Reality" is "always already" the human condition, and therefore the task is not to seek for God or realization but to become responsible for the action whereby one forgets, obscures and obstructs the prior state; which activity he generally describes as "self-contraction", "Narcissus", or the "avoidance of relationship" ^[26]. But Adi Da also teaches that one cannot realize the divine through one's own efforts, because all ego-based action cannot but fail to overcome its own original presumption of egoity itself. One must be awakened out of this "dream" by spiritual grace, appearing through the "Agency of the God-Realized Human Guru". ^[27] Adi Da teaches that his grace must be accessed by devotional submission and obedience to him as Satguru via joining and taking up the formal practices of Adidam.

There are a number of Adidam communities around the world ^[28]. According to Adidam, formal devotees of Adi Da should choose to perform disciplines including meditation, sacramental worship, financial contributions, mission, study, service, diet, yoga and formal exercise, cooperative living, regular work, sexuality, and spiritual retreats. Adidam states degree to which the disciplines are engaged depends on the devotee's level of participation, and their careful consideration of the disciplines. ^[29]

[edit] Hermitage Ashrams

Adi Da and his devotees have established five Hermitage Ashrams or places empowered by him as guru or spiritual teacher to be used principally for spiritual practice and meditation retreats and in Adidam philosophy to function as spiritual blessing points of influence.

The main Hermitage Ashram is called Adi Da Samrajashram and covers the Fijian Island of Naitauba. Others are The Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary, Love's Point Hermitage and Tat Sundaram Hermitage, all in Northern California and Da Love-Ananda Mahal in Kauai, Hawaii. ^[30]

[edit] Teaching literature

Adi Da has authored over 70 books on spirituality and the process of God-Realization. Since the late 1990s, he has been working on a series of definitive volumes commonly referred to as the "23 Source Texts." Not all of the 23 source texts have appeared as of mid-2006. The culmination of these "Source Texts" is a massive volume entitled "The Dawn Horse Testament," which summarizes his teachings. ^[31]

The texts comprising this body of work—the Dharma (or Scripture) of the Way of the Heart—are distinct from other general or introductory Adidam books. It should be noted that over the decades the books in the canon have changed, with many receiving editorial changes making them into new books, while older books that were once in the canon have been removed or incorporated into later books. The current structure of this canon is listed at adidam.org.^[32]

The essay "First Word"^[33] appears at the beginning of each Source Text, according to Adi Da, as a way of orienting the reader to the "right understanding" of the "point of view" expressed in the text, and to counter what Adi Da says is the inevitable cultic mind-set that most "unenlightened seekers" bring to their approach.

Adi Da's written work has been at times praised by scholars on textual and conceptual grounds. For example, Jeffrey J. Kripal describes "this English idiom has been enriched by a kind of hybridized English-Sanskrit, and that a new type of mystical grammar has been created, embodied most dramatically (and, to the ego, jarringly) in Adi Da’s anti-ego capitalization practice, in which just about every grammatical move is nondualistically endowed with the status once imperially preserved in English for the non-existent “I”. Such a reading experience constantly calls upon one’s ability to think and feel beyond the socially constructed ego " ^[34]

Adi Da's teaching about his avataric function has evolved over time. In a 1971 preface to the original version of his autobiography, Adi Da wrote: "It has taken me at least thirty-one years to produce this book. If I were an Avatar or one of the eternal Siddhas I would have made it for you as soon as my faculties were fit to write. But I had to learn it all instead according to the condition of our usual birth...I promise that none of this will lead to me but always to reality, which is conscious and unqualified joy." ^[35] Many years later as he evolved further in his realization and his understanding he wrote: "I Am the Da Avatar, the all-Completing Adept, the First, Last, and Only Adept-Revealer (or Siddha) of the seventh stage of life" ^[36], and "I Am The Perfectly Subjective Divine Person, Self-Manifested As The Ruchira Avatar—Who Is The First, The Last, and The Only Adept-Realizer, Adept-Revealer, and Adept-Revelation of The Seventh Stage of Life". ^[37].

[edit] Books by Adi Da

Title	Description or subtitle	Subject
The Knee Of Listening	The Divine Ordeal of the Avataric Incarnation of Conscious Light	Autobiography
Not-Two Is Peace	The Ordinary People's Way of Global Cooperative Order	Peace
Easy Death	Spiritual Wisdom on the Ultimate Transcending of Death and Everything Else	Death and Dying
The Dawn Horse Testament	The Testament of Secrets of the Divine World-Teacher and True Heart-Master, Da Avabhasa (The Bright)	Teaching Summary
"Radical" Transcendentalism	The Non-Religious, Post-"Scientific", and No-Seeking Reality Way of Adidam	Seventh Stage Dharma
Reality Itself Is The Way	Essays from The Aletheon	Seventh Stage Dharma
Surrender self By Sighting Me	Essays from The Aletheon on Right and True Devotion	Devotion
Perfect Philosophy	The "Radical" Way of No-Ideas
My "Bright" Word	Discourses from The Divine Siddha-Method of the Ruchira Avatar
The Ancient Walk-About Way	The Core Esoteric Process of Real Spirituality and Its Perfect Fulfillment in the Way of Adidam	Core Adidam
Up?	Beyond the Beginner's Spiritual Way of Saint Jesus and the Traditions of Mystical Cosmic Ascent via Spirit-Breath	Jesus and Beyond
Is
Aham Da Asmi	Beloved, I Am Da
Ruchira Avatara Gita	The Way Of The Divine Heart-Master
Da Love-Ananda Gita
Hridaya Rosary	Four Thorns Of Heart-Instruction
The Liberator (formerly Eleutherios)	The Only Truth That Sets The Heart Free	Truth as Liberator
My Final Work of Divine Indifference	Wherein I Constantly Abide Only As I Am, in Divine and Avatarically Responsive Transcendental Spiritual Regard of all-and-All
The Truly Human New World-Culture Of Unbroken Real-God-Man
The Only Complete Way To Realize The Unbroken Light Of Real God
The Divine Siddha-Method Of The Ruchira Avatar
He-and-She Is Me
Ruchira Shaktipat Yoga		Spiritual Transmission
Ruchira Tantra Yoga	The Physical-Spiritual (and Truly Religious) Method Of Mental, Emotional, Sexual, and Whole Bodily Health and Enlightenment In The Divine Way Of Adidam	Spiritual Discipline
The Seven Stages Of Life	Transcending the Six Stages of egoic Life, and Realizing The ego-Transcending Seventh Stage of Life, In The Divine Way Of Adidam	Understanding the Traditions
The All-Completing and Final Divine Revelation To Mankind
What, Where, When, How, Why, and Who To Remember To Be Happy		Happiness
No Seeking—Mere Beholding
Santosha Adidam
The Lion Sutra
The Overnight Revelation Of Conscious Light
The Basket Of Tolerance		Bibliography of Traditional Texts
The Transmission of Doubt
Love of The Two Armed Form
Drifted in the Deeper Land	Talks on Relinquishing the Superficiality of Mortal Existence and Falling by Grace into the Divine Depth That Is Reality Itself	A Collection of Talks
The Enlightenment of The Whole Body
The Mummery Book	A Parable Of The Divine True Love, Told By A Self-Illuminated Illustration Of The Totality Of Mind	Fiction, The Orpheus Trilogy
The Scapegoat Book		Fiction, The Orpheus Trilogy
The Happenine Book		Fiction, The Orpheus Trilogy

[edit] Leelas (first hand accounts of spiritual life by devotees)

Leela (or Lila) is a Sanskrit term for the divine play of the cosmos. In Adidam and other religious movements, a spiritual master's or guru's life is considered the enactment of divinity in human form. Adi Da's devotees share their own experiences with him in stories that are also called Leelas. Several of the books by his devotees (listed above) include such accounts. The Beezone ^[38], a site maintained by an Adi Da admirer, includes several such accounts. Of these, A Monkey's Tale^[39] chronicles living with Adi Da over several months.

[edit] Other books about Adi Da by his devotees

• The Divine Emergence of The World Teacher - Bonder, Saniel 1989
• Drifted in a Deeper Land - James Steinberg
• The Promised God-Man is Here- Carolyn Lee 1998
• The Innocence of Her Form: The Divine Revelation of She Is - Santosha Tantra 1996

The neutrality of this section is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page.(April 2008) Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved.

[edit] Lawsuits and allegations of abuse

In 1985 Adi Da and his church were sued by a former member for (among other things) fraud, intentional infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment, and assault and battery; the suit sought $5 million in damages. ^{[40] [41]}) The church then filed its own suit naming the former member and 5 others for abuse of process, extortion, breach of fiduciary duty and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The suit further charged that the 6 former members tried to deprive the church of its "constitutionally protected rights to freedom of religion. The church sought $20 million in damages. ^[42]

Around the time of these lawsuits, Adi Da and Adidam (then known as Da Free John and The Johannine Daist Communion) were subjects of a report on The Today Show. ^[8] There, and in other media reports, ex-members were quoted as saying that Adi Da exhibited a pattern of abusive, and self-serving behavior. Adidam charged that these public allegations were part of a conspiracy to extort large sums of money from the church.^[43] They said that the former members "met several times to discuss, conspire and scheme to obtain extraordinary sums of money from Adidam under the threat of destroying the church." ^[44] Adidam also said that the former members unfairly discredited the church in the eyes of the public through a media smear campaign.^[45] Adidam stated that they received a letter several months prior to the public allegations that were made on the Today Show and in other local media. In that letter the former followers of Adi Da demanded $5,200,000 and said that they might undertake to destroy the church if their demands were not met.^[46]

Examples of allegations made public on The Today Show were that Adi Da forced one woman to participate in a pornographic movie and also gave her herpes. Also, one woman in her 20’s who claimed that her first encounter with Adi Da was at the age of 10, when she met him at a naked party and he told her to take off her clothes. She stated: "And I said, no, and I ran out of the room. Somebody had to go get me, and I had to take off my clothes". ^[8] Other former followers of Adi Da made the following statements also on the Today Show: "There was only a handful of the women he hadn't taken sexually. And this involved getting them drunk, having them stand up and strip, and then taking them in the bedroom."^[8] "He could do whatever he wanted with his women that way. He lined a bunch of us up, and took off all our clothes and cut all our pubic hair. You know, if he wanted to cut their hair, he cut their hair. He owned them. I mean we were owned."^[8] "I ended up giving up my own personal morality and adopting his morality."^[8]

Local media also reported that a church spokesman disclosed that despite previous denials, controversial sexual practices involving the guru had continued after 1976, but had been hidden from some members and the general public. ^[47] A church official said that no illegal acts took place and the church had a right to continue experiments in lifestyles.^[48]

In 2005, the Washington Post reported: '"The lawsuits and threatened suits that dogged the group in the mid-1980s were settled with payments and confidentiality agreements", says a California lawyer, Ford Greene, who handled three such cases.' ^[49] No negative reports have appeared in the news media since the mid-1980s.^{[citation needed]}

In his 1989 book, Saniel Bonder (at the time a leading spokesman for Adidam) wrote "Much of which was alleged in the media was sheerly preposterous and much of the rest was twisted and distorted...the representatives of our institution learned the hard way there is no way to achieve a fair hearing in the sensation-mongering elements of public reporting." ^[50]

Georg Feuerstein suggests ^[51] that the following quote from Adi Da's original 1974 talk "Garbage and the Goddess" ^[52] may shed light on Adi Da's unorthodox teaching and conduct:

"No one agrees with me. I've never met anyone who agreed with me. I've talked to many people. I've talked to many teachers, and none of them agrees with me. They all tell me that I'm mad, that I'm undeveloped. So that must be so. If you consult the usual books they won't tell you such a thing. I've read them all myself. Rudi used to tell me to surrender, but that is not the principle. Muktananda used to say, "Yield to the Goddess," and that is not the principle. The Goddess used to say, "Yield to me," and I fucked her brains loose. I've never listened to anyone. Perhaps I should have!"

[edit] Criticisms

Indologist Georg Feuerstein, a former student of Adi Da, has become critical of Adi Da's wisdom and his alleged extravagant lifestyle, as is clear from the second edition of Feuerstein's book Holy Madness. Feuerstein speculates: "For a period of time, (Adi Da) was a member of Scientology; this fact was mentioned in early editions of The Knee of Listening but was later on downplayed or dropped altogether. In the course of several decades, this autobiography and other biographical accounts of Adi Da have been cleaned up and to a growing degree even mythologized, undoubtedly under his instigation. This "revisionist" trend became obvious by 1985, with the publication of the "biblical" Dawn Horse Testament.^[53] Feuerstein continues: "In any case, later autobiographical presentations regrettably tend toward mytholization, as does indeed Adi Da's entire self-portrayal certainly since the mid-1980s... Unless we dismiss Adi Da's claims to avatarhood as the whimsical playfulness of a crazy-wisdom adept, we are left with a rather unsavory alternative explanation: that of a less-than-enlightened adept with a God-complex."^[54]

Regarding Adi Da's name changes, Feuerstein writes^[55]:

...critics would undoubtedly proffer a different analysis, namely that the name change is yet another indication of an inflated personality and perhaps a symptom of growing self-delusion. If the latter is the case, his disciples are truly imperiled. Adi Da tells them that he can do no wrong, and they, in all seriousness, see in him God incarnate. History is replete with instances of such claims and the dire consequences when these claims are taken literally by a sufficient number of people. The self-delusion of a charismatic leader tends to infect his or her following with the same disease, leading to a closed worldview that regards the surrounding world as inimical to the purposes of the charismatic leader, and hence as enemy. From there to active aggression, as we have witnessed in the case of the Rajneesh movement, is a dangerously small step. Or, as in the case of the People's Temple of Jim Jones, the aggressive instinct is turned inward, leading to enforced mass suicide.

Author Ken Wilber has commented on Adi Da, both positively and negatively.^[56] In 1998, in his last written comment on the subject, he wrote: "...I affirm all of the extremes of my statements about Da: he is one of the greatest spiritual Realizers of all time, in my opinion, and yet other aspects of his personality lag far behind those extraordinary heights. By all means look to him for utterly profound revelations, unequalled in many ways; yet step into his community at your own risk."^[57] Wilber has never been actively involved as a formal member of Adidam.

[edit] See also

• Shawnee Free Jones, a daughter

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Georg Feuerstein, Holy Madness: The Shock Tactics and Radical Teachings of Crazy-Wise Adepts, Holy Fools, and Rascal Gurus, Paragon House, 1991, ISBN 1-55778-250-4; Hohm Press; Rev & Expand edition Holy Madness: Spirituality, Crazy-Wise Teachers, And Enlightenment, (June 15, 2006) ISBN 1-890772-54-2

[edit] Further reading

• David C. Lane and Scott Lowe, Da: The Strange Case of Franklin Jones, Mt. San Antonio College Philosophy group, 1996, ISBN 1-56543-054-9. online:
  • Part One: The Paradox of Da Free John: Distinguishing the Message from the Medium by David C. Lane
  • Part Two: The Strange Case of Franklin Jones by Scott Lowe
• Edward Plotkin, The Four Yogas Of Enlightenment: Guide To Don Juan's Nagualism & Esoteric Buddhism (2002) ISBN 0-9720879-0-7.

[edit] External links

[edit] Advocacy

• Adidam.org: official website of Adidam
• The Dawn Horse Press: publisher of the literature of Adidam
• DaPlastique: Adi Da's "Transcendental Realism" Art
• Fear no more zoo Zoo established by Adi Da
• DAbase: unofficial advocacy site (includes mirrored Adidam publications)
• Beezone: unofficial advocacy site (includes mirrored Adidam publications)
• Adidaupclose: Personal accounts of current devotees of Adi Da Samraj

[edit] Criticism

• The Daism Seminar, a critical site (includes mirrored news articles)
• Holy Madness: The Dangerous and Disillusioning Example of Da Free John, by Georg Feuerstein, 1996 (follower in early 1980s)
• The Case of Adi Da by Ken Wilber
• Rick Ross Institute page on Adi Da/Adidam: material compiled by anti-cult activist Rick Ross (includes mirrored news articles)
• A Room With A Guru, by Dennis Trunk, 1999 (follower in early 1970s)

[edit] Other sites

• Profile of Adidam from the Religious Movements Homepage Project
• Adi Da/Adidam from the Kheper Site by M. Alan Kazlev