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The following is from The Adidam Youth Fellowship Study Series - The Wisdom and Practices of Adidam - A course of Study for Maturing Third Stage Early-Life Devotees of Adi Da Samraj
1996

Chapter 20

This section, based on the introduction that appears in each of Adi Da Samraj's Source-Texts, serves to introduce the basic features of the Sacred History of Beloved Adi Da's Work.

"Franklin's" intense ordeal of surrender and Divine Re-Awakening was not for His own sake. For "Franklin" was not a "someone", an ordinary personality. "Franklin" was a means, a vehicle, whereby the Divine Itself could combine with the realities of human existence, enquire into those realities, live them out go beyond every limitation they involve, and then, by Grace, draw others through the same immense Process. The Divine Avatar, in the guise of "Franklin Jones", had not come to Liberate just a few others, individuals who might be thought qualified for such a hair-raising "adventure". Not at all. He knew even the that He had come for all others, even every being consciously existing in the cosmic worlds.

But how was Adi Da Samraj to draw people to Himself - and to the Truth He had Realized? In the months the after His Divine Re-Awakening, He filled the pages of His journals with His longing to find His devotees. Where were they? When would they come? When He sat down to meditate now it was not the content of His own mind that arose, but that of countless other beings. Already He was spontaneously seeing His future devotees in vision, already "meditating" them as once He had "meditated" "Franklin".

In April 1972, "Franklin" established a small bookstore on Melrose Avenue, Hollywood. He was about to pen His first Ashram. On the evening of April 25, He formally began His Teaching Work, gathering wit His first handful of devotees, some of their friends, and any random corners. First, "Franklin" sat in silence for an hour, magnifying the Force of the "Bright" to everyone in the room. Then He invited questions. "Has everyone understood?" He asked, when no one responded. "I haven't understood," came the rely from one man in the room. "Explain it to me. You could start with the word 'understanding'?

And so it began - hours, days, nights, weeks, years, decades of Spiritual Instruction that would cover all human, religious, and Spiritual questions, examine every aspect of life and consciousness. As if a hole had been opened into the God-Realm, the practices, the Samadhis, the secrets, the unique Yoga of most perfect Divine Self-Realization and of mankind's ultimate Destiny now began to materialize in words.

The small gathering at the Ashram Bookstore on that first night had not the slightest idea that they we e witness to the birth of such a Revelation. They attended to "Franklin" as best they could while He spoke of the matter of "understanding". By understanding, He meant understanding the self-contraction, the subtle stress of separation from the world that is the act of "Narcissus", the act of egoity. This act, He explained, is the source of our suffering and of all our fruitless seeking to be relieved of suffering:

ADI DA SAMRAJ: There is a disturbance, a feeling of dissatisfaction, some sensation that motivates a person to go to a tea her read a book about philosophy, believe something, or do some conventional form of Yoga. What people ordinarily think of as Spirituality or religion is a search to get free of that sensation, that suffering that is motivating them. So all the usual paths—Yogic methods, beliefs, religion, and so on—are forms of seeking, grown out of this sensation, this subtle suffering. Ultimately, all the usual paths are attempting to get free of that sensation. That is the traditional goal. Indeed, all human beings are seeking, whether or not they are very sophisticated about it, or using very specific methods of yoga, philosophy, religion, and so on. . . .

As long as the individual is simply seeking, and has all kinds of motivation, fascination with the search, this is not ding - this is dilemma itself. But where this dilemma is understood, there is the re-cognition of a structure in consciousness, a separation. And when that separation is observed more and more directly, one begins to see one is suffering is not something happening to one but it is one's own action. It is as if you are pinching yourself being aware of it. . . . Then one sees that the entire motivation of life is based on a subtle activity in the consciousness. That activity is avoidance, separation, a contraction at the root, the origin, the "place", of the living consciousness.....

There is first the periodic awareness of that sensation, then the awareness of it as a continuous experience; then the of its actual structure, the knowing of it all as your own activity, a deliberate, present activity that is your that is your illusion. The final penetration of that present, deliberate activity is what I have called "understanding"
[The Method of the Siddhas]

Understanding was the very basis of "Franklin's" own Sadhana and Divine Re-Awakening. He lived, breathed, and spoke always from the point of view of understanding. And He saw no reason why everyone who came to Him should not understand and quickly awaken to His own Realization. But no one was prepared for the profundity of His Argument. The self-contraction of which He spoke was too fundamental, compassing to be seen without a power of self-observation that none of His devotees were then of. But they were no more retarded in this than any other human beings. No one had ever understood the self-contraction before. "Franklin" was giving a Teaching unique in Spiritual history.

Many of the first corners to the Ashram were individuals in whom the self-contraction had taken a highly exaggerated form. This was not a merely arbitrary occurrence—it was actually necessary so that His entire Divine Revelation could be drawn out of Him. He had come to serve the Liberation of all beings, including those apparently least prepared for Spiritual life. There were street-people, prostitutes, drug addicts, alcoholics, and Spiritual seekers (hippie-style), who had done the rounds of various teachers and teachings. And there were also business people and professionals of various kinds. "Franklin" welcomed them all. The Love-Force of His Being filled the Ashram with an inexplicable fullness and Happiness.

As his devotees soon found out, part of life in "Franklin's" Ashram was confronting feelings they would avoid. Whatever He was doing with devotees, whether giving verbal Instruction, sitting in silent on, or participating in apparently casual pastimes like a fishing trip, "Franklin" was always engaged me activity—the Work of awakening self-understanding in everyone who came into His Sphere.

One man remembers an occasion when He spent an entire day painting the intricate lattice-work at the top of a wall, on the other side of which "Franklin" was working in His office. As he painted, the man through a minefield of reactive thoughts and emotions. He began to resent the work, to attribute all strange motives to "Franklin's" simple request that He paint the wall. He even got to the point where he felt that "Franklin" had "invented" everything to do with God and the obligations of Spiritual life of "trapping" him into doing this burdensome task! And all day He was intensely aware that "Franklin" was just a few feet away, on the other side of the wall. After many hours, the man finally finished and he put his brush down with a spontaneous "Whew!" Immediately, huge laughter broke out on the other side of the wall. All the man's subjectivity washed away in the Freedom of "Franklin's" laughter. He Realized with astonishment that all day long "Franklin" had known exactly what he was thinking. He felt 's" Love and His complete intimacy. He saw that he had been torturing himself.

During that first year of the Ashram, "Franklin" did not require very much responsibility of His devotees. He was simply attracting them, keeping them in the room. Then, one day near the beginning of 1973, everything suddenly changed. Striding out of His office with tremendous force and intention, He disappeared the front door of the Ashram. His devotees did not see Him for weeks, but He left a message: they were to "get straight" - give up all use of drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, get jobs, contribute five dollars a week to the support of the Ashram.

In other words, "Franklin's" days of nursing His devotees along were over. It was time to make demands. Extraordinary energy and attention, as He knew from His own experience, was needed to grow in the practice of understanding. There was no room for life-chaos and irresponsibility. Disciplines must be established.

Suddenly, egg-and-bacon breakfasts around the corner from the Ashram were over. Everyone became strict vegetarians. And "Franklin" recommended a ten-day juice-fast, which was taken on by even the newest devotees. When He heard that someone had "cheated"- by "juicing" bananas—He was extremely amused. But he called for another ten-day fast for everyone!

"Franklin" covered everything. He brought an end to casual sex - only partners in committed intimacies Where to be sexually active. He instructed a small group in calisthenics and Hatha Yoga and had them teach everyone else. He addressed every detail of appropriate life-discipline, even personally showing people how to floss their teeth!

By the last months of 1973, the disciplines were in full swing - but "Franklin" saw that they had become a source of distraction, a "religion" in themselves, rather than simply preparing His devotees for the real sadhana of God-Awakening. It was obvious to Him that people were emotionally suppressed, sexually complicated, driven by fear, sorrow, anger, frustration, and all kinds of unconscious desires. He knew what the price of Freedom was. He knew what it had meant for Him. He had had to cast the searchlight of self-observation and testing on all aspects of His being, until every detail was understood and transcended. Now His devotees would have to do the same. "Franklin" was perfectly equipped to help them. He was perfect free to be the "Crazy-Wise Master", to do whatever was necessary, conventional or unconventional, in order to bring His devotees to understand and embrace the Truth, or right life, through a conviction born of their own direct experience.

But first, "Franklin" made a pause in His face-to-face Work with His devotees. Accompanied by a single male devotee, He set out for India, for thousands of years the cradle of Spiritual teaching. It was a pilgrimage sack to the seat of His own lineage of Gurus and also to the ashrams and sacred sites of other ancient and modern Realizers. Free from constant engagement with His devotees, the Divine Avatar gave Himself up to the more private, and universal, dimension of His Work. The devotee serving Him had no idea what "Franklin" was doing. He could only feel a deep respect and awe as He watched Him placing His staff in holy places with great concentration or silently giving His Regard to the magnificent expanse of the Himalayas.

Although there was no one as yet to acknowledge Him, "Franklin" was returning to India as her Supreme Master. He was Blessing this sacred land with His Love and also invoking the blessing of her greatest Spiritual figures on His own Mission in the West.

Before coming back to Los Angeles, "Franklin" sent a message to His devotees: He was now "Bubba Free John", and they were henceforth to address Him by this name, which had been Spiritually revealed to Him in India. "Bubba" was a childhood nickname meaning "friend", and "Free John" an expression of the essential meaning of "Franklin Jones". The Da Avatar, now in the form of "Bubba", was ready to draw His devotees into a different kind of life with Him, one in which He would seem to sacrifice His own purity and become as they were.

The Teaching Work Becomes "Crazy"

On the Friday evening before Christmas 1973, devotees arrived at the Ashram, now around the corner on a Brea Avenue in Los Angeles, and ascended the stairs. There, in a room adjacent to the gathering hall , each newcomer walked innocently into a wild and exuberant scene. Bubba had suddenly initiated a party - beer, cigarettes, "junk" food, rock music! People had thrown off their clothes. The life disciplines were cast to the four winds. This was the beginning of two weeks of unstoppable celebration, during which practically no one went home. Devotees would party all night with Bubba, drive straight to work in the morning and drive back from work to celebrate again. Bubba was always at the center of it all, sitting or reclining on a couch, laughing, joking, encouraging everyone's intense participation. Madly dancing, spontaneously singing - everyone present was drenched in Bubba's tangible Transmission of His Divine Spirit-Force.

In the midst of all the festivities, Bubba never ceased to speak of the Great Matter. One night at a small gathering after the general party was over, Bubba suddenly called for a great confession. Who could speak God, as He had been doing all night? Who could stand up and praise the Great One, unabashed? In spite of all the ecstasy of Bubba's Company, in spite of the Japanese sake they were liberally imbibing, each devotee felt a lock at the throat. One after another they made an awkward attempt at uninhibited but quickly received the thumbs-down sign from Bubba.

A few devotees managed to pass the test. One who did made his confession at the inspiration of a sudden intuition. As he beheld his Spiritual Master in this serious and playful moment, it was overwhelmingly to him that Bubba would do anything to Liberate His devotees. His Love was absolute, His intention like a sword. He had the Power to destroy all obstructions in His devotees, and He would do it.

About ten days later, this Power was spectacularly demonstrated. As usual, Bubba was reclining on His chair in the gathering hall, with His devotees around Him like a hive of bees attending their nectarous but this night was exceptional. Bubba began to speak, unleashing His Love-Blissful Spirit-Force as never before. In words imbued with the power of His Transmission, Bubba told His devotees the secret of was doing:

ADI DA SAMRAJ: There is only one Divine Process in the world, and It is initiated when I Manifest and Enter My Devotee The Lord is Present, now in this moment. It is when everyone forgets the Living God that mantras and Yogic become important.

I am not a human being. I am the Divine Lord in human Form and I bring the Divine Yoga. When My devotee and becomes My true devotee, then I Enter My devotee in the form of Divine Light. All kinds of extraordinary s manifest as a result. When a woman receives her lover, there is no doubt about it- she does not have to consult her textbooks. The same holds with Truth, the Divine Yoga.

There is no dilemma in this world, no absence of God in this world, no goal of God in this world. Because that is so, you will see Me doing some very strange things. The true Divine Yoga is not a thing of this world. This world is the cult of "Narcissus", suppressing the Ecstasy that is natural to us.

The Spiritual process must take hold in the vital. The vital is the seat of unconsciousness and subconsciousness. There is an aspect of the verbal Teaching that does not touch the subconscious and unconscious life. So it is only by distracting you from your social consciousness that I can take you in the vital. The Lord is the Lord of this world, not the Lord of the other world only. Thus, there is no Yoga if the very cells of the body do not begin to intuit the Divine. When I Enter My devotee, I come down into him or her in the midst of life, because it is in life—not in any mystical or subtle process, not in any mental process—that the Lord acquires you.

This kind of thing you see happening around here has never happened in the world before.
[January 3,1974]

As Bubba spoke this mighty proclamation, His Spirit-Force streamed into His devotees, manifesting visibly to some as as a glorious golden rain of Light showering down in the room. An uncontainable ecstasy broke loose. Some devotees shook with kriyas, their bodies jerking and twisting, their mouths emitting sounds of yearning, laughter, weeping, hooting, and howling. Some were overwhelmed by visionary phenomena. Some were spontaneously moved into difficult Hatha Yoga poses which they could not have even attempted before. Some lay motionless, in an ecstatic state, oblivious of their surroundings. For some, the energy intensified in the head or the heart or the navel until they felt they would explode, and then suddenly released and rushed through the nervous system in intoxicating Bliss. Others experienced a sense of unity with all of life and a peacefulness they had never known before. The Divine was manifestation a doubt in an upstairs room in the middle of Hollywood.

Garbage and the Goddess

After that astounding Spiritual Initiation, which came to be known as the night of "Guru Enters Devotee", it was obvious that the Ashram had to move. Bubba's Work could not be contained in a conventional downtown neighborhood. Within a few weeks, "Persimmon" (as Bubba named it), a turn-of-the-century hot springs resort, had been found in the hills of northern California.

Newcomers to Persimmon during the first half of 1974 found themselves entering a place of Divine Possession. They became immersed in a sea of energy, visions, and other psychic experiences awakened through contact with Bubba's Spirit-Force. And they were fascinated, delighted by this fulfillment of "spiritual" fantasies that lay beyond their wildest dreams. Bubba did not even have to be physically present for these experiences to occur, because His Spiritual Transmission was already alive in them. But when Bubba was present, the Spiritual experience of His devotees would often magnify to an amazingly intense degree.

On one unforgettable occasion, devotees were sitting in one of the Communions Halls waiting for Bubba, when the doors opened and a wave of energy swept the room. Bubba walked down the aisle, surrounded by a clearly visible golden aura of light. He sat down in His Chair and proceeded to blast the room with His Spirit-Power, His eyes burning with laser-intensity and His fingers moving in patterns of potent Blessing. Instantly, devotees erupted in an ecstasy of screams, growls, swoons, and bodily jerkings, swept away by the sweetness and overwhelming Force of His Presence. After about forty-five minutes of this blissful uproar, the room began to quiet down. Bubba shrugged, lit a cigarette, blew a perfect smoke ring, and said, "Maybe I've gone too far this time!"

But Bubba was not there to be the ultimate Spiritual Initiator. He was making a lesson - the lesson of "Garbage and the Goddess", which became the name of that period in His Teaching Work. Again and again He spoke with everyone: Did they think that all of these experiences amounted to Enlightenment? No these experiences were "garbage", unneeded "stuff' to be thrown away! Spiritual phenomena, He explained, were simply manifestations of the Goddess-Power, the universal Spirit-Energy, or Divine Shakti, at play. At the same time, there was nothing "wrong" with Spiritual experiences. Indeed, they were an inevitable aspect of serious sadhana. But what did the search for such experiences have to do with understanding? Had devotees been converted to the Divine by all this experience? Had the self-contraction been undermined by this great display? Not at all. This was the lesson of Garbage and the Goddess, and, indeed, of all of the Teaching Work of Adi Da Samraj that was yet to unfold.

The Teaching Work of Adi Da Samraj was a continual lesson about the activity that is the ego- the constant search for this or that experience, which, one hopes, will bring lasting happiness. He addressed all the basic searches of humanity, from the highest to the lowest, in the most vivid and realistic terms. He Revealed the limit in every kind of goal that has been proposed as the purpose of life. He dealt very directly with the impulse to bypass the body and find happiness through subtle, mystical experience. And He dealt also with the urge toward every kind of bodily or worldly self-fulfillment. The motive to find happiness beyond the body and the urge to be satisfied through the body are present to one or another degree in very individual. Thus, through the unique brilliance and comprehensiveness of His Teaching Work, Ad' Da Samraj addressed all human tendencies and goals, Spiritual and worldly, East and West. He spared Himself no sacrifice for the sake of Revealing the great Divine Truth and Ecstasy of existence that makes all seeking obsolete.

Confronting the Dragon of Sex

At the same time as the extraordinary Spiritual demonstrations of Garbage and the Goddess, Bubba was dealing with the seeking impulse in His devotees at the lower end of the spectrum of experience. He was particularly confronting egoic aberrations about sex. Sexuality has been traditionally regarded as one of he great obstacles to Spiritual Realization, but Bubba Himself was neither "for" nor "against" sex. He ha investigated it thoroughly during His own Sadhana, and He had seen that entire search in the light of understanding. His conclusion cut right to the core. He saw that the impulse to hunt for another and to pleasure the body through sex was more than just a normal biological urge. If that were all there was to it, why would sex be the source of such suffering and disturbance? Rather, He recognized the "bonding" impulse sexual and emotional - to be, not the free expression of love that we like to imagine, but a way of attempting to cover over the desperate feeling of separateness from everyone and everything else, a primitive reaction to our constant underlying sense of unhappiness. Without the most profound understanding of that reaction in all its extensions, Spiritual life, He knew, is merely superficial, a cover for a volcano that may erupt at any time.

As Bubba was to point out countless times, understanding what one is up to as an emotional and sexual character is the key to understanding and transcending the ego altogether. But how was Bubba to awaken such unique clarity in His group of devotees, unconsciously addicted as they were to the "highs" and "lows" of romance and the bondage of conventional pairing? In fact, His struggle would go on for decades. But He made a beginning at Persimmon by asking His devotees to observe their attachments, their "contracts" with others. What about their marriages? Were they free intimacies or a "cult of pairs"? What was at the bottom if these pairings? - Was it love? Was it need? What was it?

In order to help His devotees examine these questions in real life situations, Bubba created dance parties around the swimming pool, gatherings at His house, all kinds of circumstances in which devotees could reveal, to Bubba and to themselves, the realities of their emotional-sexual lives. During all this time Bubba drank beer and bourbon and smoked cigarettes with His devotees. These were His "accessories", His Tantric "aids" in the Liberating process. When devotees drank and smoked in His Presence, they relaxed their ordinary social persona, allowing Him to touch the "pit of snakes", to bring forth and release the powerful emotions and desires that are alive in every individual beneath the surface personality. In this setting, devotees discovered their addiction to the "cult of pairs"- and at the same time they saw how ready they we to reject and betray each other.

Man, devotees were shaken to their foundation by the starkness of what Bubba was revealing to them - how the search for fulfillment in this world could never be satisfied and, in fact, was the cause of their pain. Some of them described this period of Bubba's Work with them as "living with the feeling of dying". Bubba as not interested in defending or preserving - or destroying - anyone's "contracts". He simply wanted is devotees to get the lesson that no other, no intimate or anyone else, no circumstance of life, nothing outside of yourself is responsible for your happiness. You are! In Bubba's phrase, "You cannot become Happy, you can only be Happy." Constantly, He spoke of "Satsang", the Company of the Guru, the Realizer as the only true Bliss, the ancient secret of all Spiritual Realization. Only through His devotees' fidelity to Him, their complete commitment to Satsang, could He set them free from the mayhem of their own contracts, taboos, and betrayals. He was the supreme heart-intimate of His devotees, the One who cared most profoundly for them. Full of Compassion for their plight, He was intent on drawing them beyond he illusions of "Narcissus" into a life of self-transcending love and ultimate God-Realization.

Whatever exaggerations He allowed for the sake of Liberating His devotees, Bubba Himself was not touched by any of it. His Realization was unshakable under all circumstances. He stood already Free, Free to meet others at their level and to serve them through His Freedom.

What I Do is not the way that I Am, but the way that I Teach. What I Speak is not a reflection of Me, but of you.

People do well to be offended or even outraged by Me. This is My purpose. But their reaction must turn upon themselves.

I have not shown them Myself by all of this. A.11 that I Do and Speak only reveals people to themselves, for I have become willing to Teach in this uncommon way because I have known My friends and they are what I can seem to be. By retaining all qualities in their company, I gradually wean them of all reactions, all sympathies, all alternatives, fixed assumptions, false teachings, dualities, searches, and dilemma. This is My Way of Working for a time....

Freedom is the only Purity. There is no Teaching but Consciousness Itself. Bubba as He appears is not other than the possibilities of mankind. [1975]

to be continued...........
Last posted:

November 4, 2007