
Chogyam
Trungpa, The Collected Works Series, Vol Four p.
198
Franklin
Jones (1971) Lately
I've been reading some of the bulletin boards and
web pages on the Internet that discuss Adi Da. Many
of these discussions (if I can be so generous)
center around the questions of Adi Da's sanity and
authenticity of realization. There seems to be an
inconsistence in Adi Da's questionable ethical
behaviors that date back to 1974. In spiritual life,
particularly in the east, the problem of ethics and
questionalble behavior from a Guru have long been a
question of legitimacy. How can individuals who
'claim' enlightenment do so many hurtful and nasty
things under the name of truth? Why would Upasani
Maharaja throw a rock and hit Meher Baba
(Meher
Baba devotees say about his
abuses) in the head
and cause it to bleed? If Adi Da is enlightened the
how could he do all the bad things people obviously
experienced in his company? How does this 'square'
with truth and enlightenment? It simply does not square
with anything! It doesn't and it can never be
'reconciled' with our notions of enlightnement or
what is good. But yet it still exists and it is a
paradox. Even if one were to inquire
in real spiritual terms as to the condition of an
enlightened being which is suppose to be all about
Bliss and Love, how can "wackin" someone around or
performing strange sexual behaviors be in any way
'consistent' with Bliss, Love and Awakening?
As unenlightened beings we
are left in our own questions and logical
inconsistencies, our own wanting and needing things
to be 'good' and 'right'. We don't want to be duped
and 'had' by some mad man or woman! The only 'explanation' is
it's a paradox. The word paradox is used to
describe something that seems
to be a contradiction
but is in both cases true. Something is both
GOOD and BAD at the same time. Unfortunately our minds
think in a logical and sequential manner and we
can never fully come to terms with a paradox.
We can never come up with final answers that will
'solve' these questions. We can come up with
'relative' answers, based on the laws of nature but
not absolute answers. If we poist a question and
try and solve it by using our minds we will
ultimately come to an unresolved 'pair of
opposites'. So when we look at Adi Da
or any
other 'realized' being,
there is no way to ultimately resolve these
outrageous and inappropriate behaviors, which are
by all logical and common sense accounts 'hurtful'
and wrong. We have ideas that enlightened masters
should be like holy saints. "Saints would never have
contradictory natures." They'd always be on one
side; they'd always be good, morally and
spiritually. It is exactly this 'not
wanting to be duped' that continually keep us in
the contradictions and impossible dilemma's of our
own mind. Somewhere along the line, the line to
infinity, we must let go of ALL ideas and
expectations and every speck of what we think
ourselves to be. We must ultimately lose ourselves
and that means lose all sense of what we think is
RIGHT, GOOD and SANE! There is no other way to do
it. Nargarjuna, the famous Buddhist philosopher of
the 2nd century postulated his 'four corner
negation', pointing to the most ultimate answer he
could give to this question of logic. He said that
you can't ultimately say (1) Yes (2) No (3) Both
Yes and No (4) Neither Yes and No. All
possibilities of Eternalism or Nilism are
confounded in the 'infinite realm of contradictory
opposites'. ADI DA SAMRAJ : ..... There is no answer. All of our
complication, all of our thinking, is
animated as if we have answered these
questions. We act as if we have answered
these questions, but we never answer these
questions. We have never answered these
questions, and yet we carry on in an
orderly fashion living, acting, eating,
shitting, sexing, as if we had already
answered everything. Human beings have
never answered anything ultimately. We
have merely adapted to the ordinary facts
of what appears to us. We have never
understood these ordinary facts. We cannot
account for these ordinary facts. We
cannot account for the ordinary fact that
we are here. Enlightenment does appear
to be a kind of madness. (see Crazy
Wisdom
article) (also see: Transcending
Madness, Chogyam Trungpa 'Crazy
Wisdom') To come up with a moral
certainty in this climate is .....forget it! It
can't be done. Reconciling Adi Da's behavior or
even the rationalizations of our own contractictory
nature is impossible. NO ONE can claim Absolute
Knowing. Adi Da, Meher Baba or whoever can claim
that the adept is That Which is Beyond All
Opposites and therefore WHATEVER that one does is
'purifying' and 'balancing' but the claim can't be
either proven or denied from 'this side of
infinity'. Our fears
(Fear and
revulsion account for most of the spiritual
adventure of mankind. Paradox p.
30) tell us that this
kind of stuff is 'crazy' and that kind of logic can
be used by manipulators to do evil and perform self
justifying actions. And that IS true. We have to be
aware of 'deception' and protect ourselves from
falling into the spell of someone's evil
intentions. But paradoxically the higher up one
goes up the scale of things the less and less the
things of this world can be brought with it, and
that includes logic and the concepts of good and
bad. "the question comes down
to, what it really is, is an expression of doubt.
If I Am you, there does not have to be any way it
works! There is not any difference between us to
need something to work. So I have completely
accounted for what you are asking about. It is just
that My answer is not satisfying to the egoic mind.
Only in the mode of Communion with Me, direct
Realization in My Company, would you be satisfied
by some of these descriptions. As long as there is
that knot in the heart, then What is Great is not
perceived, and so you look for signs, structures,
to open the heart, to relieve you of yourself so
you can see plainly." Introduction
to Dawn Horse Testament
- Saniel Bonder
"Whatever the model of
the universe in the context of which any Spiritual
Adept is conceived to arise in the human plane, the
teaching of the great Spiritual Adepts (whether
historical or legendary) always speaks in contrast
to the conventional wisdom (or popular
culture), and (therefore) in contrast to the way of
social morality for its own sake, or the
conventional way..."
(3:31
minutes)
Listen
to Bubba Free John (Adi Da) respond to a students question
about paradox and confusion - 1975
Our
Unfortunate Dilemma in the
The
Paradox of Instruction,
1977
The (Guru)
analogy is that of a snake in a bamboo tube. When
you put a snake in a bamboo tube, the snake has to
face either up or down. Relating with the guru is
very powerful, too powerful.
The
Man of understanding is a wild man, and one who
approaches him should be ready for anything. Even
so, all those who approach (him) will be turned by
numberless subetlities and tricks for which they
have no armour....No man is prepared for the
encounter with a man of understanding, and all who
meet such people must suffer kinds of craziness and
offense until they understand.
Realization of Ignorance
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