White and Orange Books – Working with Adi Da’s Writings

“You had better understand the difference between getting to know or learning in the sacred manner, in the Guru-devotee relationship, and getting knowledge in the abstracted, self-contracted ego-based manner of ordinary schooling.

If you understand something of that difference, then you understand, or are further sensitized to, what you must go beyond in every moment in My Company. You will tend to use the pattern of ego-learning in your approach to Me. You will tend to use it, therefore, when you approach My Word, or when you approach Me in My bodily (human) Form, or listen to Me speak. You will approach Me in the ordinary, secular manner, the worldly manner, and it will not serve your Realization… even though you might find something interesting or entertaining about it. But it won’t serve the process of your Realization… unless you understand the nature of Guru-devotion, Guru-bhakti, Guru-bhava.”

‘The Law That Grants Heart-Strength’ – Adi Da Samraj – 1996

 ***

 

Beezone White and Orange Project is term used to describe Beezone’s method of studying, assimilating and disseminating (mostly) the teachings of Adi Da Samraj. The term was taken as a play-off of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Blue and Brown Books. The ‘Blue and Brown Books’ is a set of notes dictated to Witgenstein’s Cambridge students in 1933-1934. In 1933, shortly after he returned to philosophy, Ludwig Wittgenstein began to dictate to his students at Cambridge a series of notes on his revolutionary new ideas “so that they might have something to carry home with them, in their hands if not in their brains.” They were never published during his lifetime but were circulated privately, eventually becoming known as The Blue Book.

Beezone uses a number of formats for assembling a project. One method is called “Notes”. In this approach, Beezone presents an essay or talk directly from Adi Da and then will write down the highlighted points from the talk or essay (see example).

A second format is in ‘thematic’ style. Beezone will take a ‘theme’ of Adi Da’s teaching and go through various talks and essays and write down a sentence or two related to that theme or topic (see example).

Another form or style Beezone uses is a ‘compilation or remix’. This is a blend of the two other methods. In this style, Beezone will take some talks and essays based on a theme (see example). Beezone will then use the ‘cut-up’ method. The cut-up technique is an aleatory literary technique in which a text is cut up and rearranged to create a new version. This method can be traced to at least the Dadaists of the 1920s, but was popularized in the late 1950s and early 1960s by writer William S. Burroughs, and has since been used in a wide variety of contexts (see example).

Still, yet another form is a ‘derivative’ work which in some cases provided exceptions to Copyright Protection. Copyright doesn’t protect against all use of the work or use of derivative works. There are a few exceptions that fall under what’s commonly known as the fair use doctrine:

Reviews – Someone writing a book review may quote small segments from the book being reviewed. Similarly, a review of a musical album may quote song titles and small segments of their lyrics.

Scholarly Works – The author of a scholarly work may use small portions of a copyrighted work. (see example)

For those not familiar with Adi Da’s specific writing style, please read further here, Adi Da’s Writing Style. Beezone believes Adi Da’s style is very difficult for many of its readers to read and understand. Therefore, as an educational tool Beezone will change and modify his sentence structure to make it more comprehensible and therefore accessible for the ordinary reader.

***