I am here to Complete the Great Tradition of mankind. I Am the all-Completing Adept, the First, Last, and Only Adept-Revealer (or Siddha) of the seventh stage of life. I Am the seventh stage Realizer, Revealer, and Revelation of God, Truth, and Reality, Given in this late-time (or would-be Complete and potentially Consummate era) and in this now dark epoch (as it must be described from the Realized Divine and Spiritual "Point of View", and with regard to the tendencies of the times), and Given for the sake of Completion (of the progressive Ordeal of Man) and for the sake of Unity (or the cooperative re-Union of mankind).

I Am the Ultimate Demonstration (and the Final, or Completing, Proof) of the Truth of the Great Tradition as a whole. Until I Appeared, there were no seventh stage Realizers within the Great Tradition of mankind. I Am the First and the Last seventh stage Adept to Appear in the human domain (and in the Cosmic Domain of all and All). It is neither possible nor necessary for another seventh stage Adept to Appear anywhere, because I have Accomplished My necessary Work everywhere. However, because I have Appeared and have Done My Completing Work, seventh stage Realizers (not with the Divine Adept-Function That Is Unique to Me, but Fully Realized, through their ego-transcending devotion to Me, and, Thus and Thereby, to the by Me Revealed Divine Person and Self-Domain) will Awaken, in all times and places.

--Franklin Jones (Adi Da)

FROM Elias:

Frank's self-apotheosis may be the most outlandish inflation in the history of Enlightenment. He is saying that the One Divine Person has never been born or completely Realized until now, in the person of himself, and "It is neither possible nor necessary for another seventh stage Adept to appear anywhere."

By this mad logic all previous "Realizations" and "Enlightenments" have been in some sense incomplete, and therefore dualistic. One Divine Person was never Realized! Therefore there must have remained a separation in Consciousness, in all previous Adepts and Teachers and Buddhas!

Further, it follows from the logic of Adi Da's statements that all previous Buddhas, and Realizers, including Shakyamuni, Krishna, and Jesus Christ were "mistaken" about their Realization and their Avatarhood. They were not correct in their statements about themselves. Most noticeably, according to the logic of Adi Da, Guatama Buddha was actually a bit befuddled and not truly Enlightened in an absolute non-dual sense.

It is interesting to view Adi Da's claims in this light, in terms of their whacky inner logic relative to the traditions and to other teachers. He really is "putting down" all previous dharmas, in his claim to have attained a higher or "seventh stage" Enlightenment.

But in fact, there is nothing in his descriptions of the "7th stage Adept function" that differ from what previous Adepts (even near contemporaries such as Meher Baba) have said about how they function.

They too said they were "the complete sacrifice", and that they were avatars of the One Divine Person, able to draw devotees into Perfect Realization. (Suggested reading, Meher Baba's God Speaks for a most detailed description of the guru-avatar function.)

The only difference is Adi Da's claim is that he says that no one before him has reached the Unity that he has reached, and that he expresses.

Well, you can believe that, but you cannot prove it.

And I assert that by a careful comparison of Buddhism with the teachings of Adi Da, it will be seen that Buddhism is the true non-dual teaching, the true teaching of Enlightenment, whereas Daism is at root a dualistic teaching which creates an idol of the Adept function.

Buddha the man teaches, blesses, and utterly vanishes. His teaching and transmission function is taken up by others -- not as some silly "murtis", but with full Responsibility of men and women who have Realized their Buddha nature.

But Adi Da's ambition is to never allow the functional responsibility of the Adept-Realizer to be surrendered to others. Adi Da asks -- yea demands -- to be worshipped forever as the Supreme Incarnation of God, the Supreme Realizer, and the Supreme Adept-Teacher.

c'est la vie

FROM Hepcat:

If Adi Da is a fully enlightened Spiritual Master and Visionary, then what if my potential is to be a fully enlightened Spiritual Master and visionary, and he takes this away from me by directing me to surrender it all to him!? Also, what if he claims all credit for my "enlightened" state/s...surely its something coming essentially from inside me (yes, yes, I know we are not separate, but bear with me just for arguments sake)...

What if Muktananda had said to Adi Da that all Adi Da had to do all the time was to turn to him.......and deny his own Spiritual blessing force??? (Maybe he did!)...I need to discover my own power before I give it away to someone else!

As someone whose confidence has taken a great blow, for various reasons, I don't need to be told that I am a nobody with no potential for spiritual growth on my own, or as an individual part of the whole......I am not just finding myself in my middle age, to give it all away to a self-professed Guru! And why does Adi Da need to be adored so flamboyantly, 24 hours a day??!!

FROM JCB:

It is true that Realization is not about accumulating any kind of point of view. However, once conceits and wrong views are jettisoned, that into and as which one is liberated is inherently compassionate, as Jaguar said elsewhere. The Unconditional manifests itself according to certain patterns and rhythms in the case of realized beings, and this is something that one actually can observe prior to enlightenment (albeit informed with glimmers of same).

That the actions of Realizers are somehow (in a subtle and grand sense) "self-consistent" is not just a conceptual idea, but a living reality that can be observed in their lives. (Surprise, surprise ... so too is the Reality they realize "self-consistent" and inherently, how to say, "harmonious".) Adi Da, from what I see, does not conform to this pattern. Let's see....

Thus, we can look with discrimination at a Ramana, who is relatively detached from the world and acts quite indifferently toward its pleasures and torments.

Or a Zipruanna, who lives on the outskirts, and is just as wild with his own living situation as he is with others, and lives atop a pile of dung.

Or an Ammachi, who literally tries to embrace as many beings as possible, and leaves a trail of hospitals in her wake.

Or a Drukpa Kunley, who knows no boundaries in his sexual interactions, and just as easily embraces an old crone as a juicy young girl.

Or a Neem Karoli Baba, who takes and even demands all manner of gifts from devotees (with whose lives he is familiar enough to judge what to ask for) and promptly gives them away.

Or a Gurdjieff, who gets involved in all sorts of practical endeavors, but pays his own way by the fruits of his labors (at least for a large part of the time), and shows extreme canniness in helping his followers escape the turmoil of the Russian Revolution, rather than having to be sheltered by them.

Now consider Adi Da. Without doubt, here is a man with a profound thirst to discover the truth, and to share his discoveries. At some point, he finds this truth, and becomes a teacher, and writes what many see as some of the most kick-ass dharma around. His actions, though, are much more complex.

Like Ramana, he prefers a somewhat reclusive personal circumstance, yet at the same time shows a passion for worldly pleasures.

Wild and unpredictable like Zipruanna, he nonetheless shows a pattern of decidedly avoiding dung-heap-like living quarters, electing instead to go first-class (or at least live quite comfortably) at others' expense.

Despite affirming an Ammachi-like compassion for all and a desire to kiss every being on the lips, he remains inaccessible, and completely uninvolved in charitable projects (and this despite the importance of such endeavors in the traditions, which he claims to subsume).

Like Drukpa Kunley, Adi Da blows away the taboos on sexual conduct. However, rather than knowing no limits of age or attractiveness in his choice of partners, Da shows a distinct preference for young and beautiful female devotees, as if perhaps no genuinely God-oriented older or unattractive women have been involved in Adidam. (I mean, the Kanyas, i.e. Adi Da's "spiritual consorts", are quite attractive ... and a few years back Adi Da "auditioned" a number of potential other Kanyas ... and note also that, according to a devotee friend of mine, Adi Da has said having the Kanyas around keeps him "favorably disposed towards embodiment". That's detachment?)

Like Neem Karoli Baba, Adi Da requests large gifts from his devotees, but rather than redistributing them, lives off their largesse (and is generally ignorant of most devotee's situation, instead allowing the sangha to impose blanket requirements).

And like Gurdjieff, Adi Da has been involved in some business ventures and mixed it up in the world practically, but delegated much of the work to devotees from the start, and virtually never "paid the rent" on his own. Very quickly, he retired to live off the fruits of others even while living in anything but the lifestyle in which the typical "alms-gatherer" lives. At least as recently as a few years ago, he needed to be "sheltered" by devotees, even while exerting CEO-like, micro-managing control of all sorts of practical details of devotees' collective lives.

What emerges is a "disconnect" among Adi Da's actions that is not present among the Realizers to whom he is compared above. It is pervasive, sometimes subtle, and always profound. And, at least to me, it quite clearly errs on the side of a lower common denominator, a laziness of a kind, and a lack of demonstration of the true renunciation of non-difference. It is the sort of paradox that does not, to me, imply greatness, but rather purity and impurity side-by-side.

One doesn't even have to dip into the orgiastic rumors and sensationalistic headlines for this stuff, but just data that's acknowledged by anyone. That's why this approach is useful. Elaborating, there is an enjoyment of the traditional yogi's privacy and lack of having to earn, but not a comparable embrace of the yogic tapas of privation and penury. There is an embrace of many of the extreme enjoyments of tantra, but not an proportionate embrace of the extremes of pain.

Note that the examples I gave were of people expressing, rather than seeking, Realization. It's not as though history shows that every "means" of sadhana is discarded. Some are natural expressions of Realization, and are appropriately, inherently, spontaneously retained, and in a rather consistent way. Yet not in Adi Da's case.

Humility, in the sense of respect for karma and a willingness not to live (at a practical level, apart from receiving devotion) at a higher level than devotees, does indeed seem to be a hallmark of Realization. Adi Da's amusing statement that "humble is about a small squirter" is about the two-sided lower-chakra coin of inferiority/superiority, not about the naked, compassionate (suffering-with) vulnerability of Realization itself. I wonder, has he confused these impulses? Far more than "one in a zillion" have done so.

We have to be balanced here. I've taken a pretty strong stand on this forum that Adi Da is not to be dismissed as some evil, cult-leading sybarite. He is extremely bright and articulate, possessed of a deep understanding of many spiritual matters, has shakti to burn, and has (at least to some degree) very good intentions.

In other words, he is a Realizer of some degree. He is also able to function as Guru for some.

Big deal. Actually, it IS a big deal, as these qualities are rare and often laudable. However, none of them is the sine qua non for Realization of the highest order. (Let alone of a hitherto-unseen level of greatness.)

So what is?

I think that all one can do is, as here, really look at the lives of those who have gone before, and pick out the patterns. What emerges, to me, is a sort of "meta-pattern" of: compassion, lack of concern for personal comfort, and a manifestation of no-difference in one's interactions with the world, to the degree, and in the arena, in which one interacts with the world. That meta-pattern I see as lacking in Frank, especially the latter two aspects.

There is also the not-so-minor issue of sanghic limitations, which are profound, and enough to keep someone like me away even if he WERE who he says he is. These, of course, are quite related to limitations in the guru and dharma, and the pitfalls of assuming "crazy wisdom". I won't add any more than that for now.

Finally, there is also the not-so-small matter of transmission, or "vibe" or the Realizer. I'm sort of leaving this aside for now since that is in part a subjective matter. I'm trying just to use group-consensus data, and even that is dicey. But what better topic, besides observable action, in a thread that's all about "crazy-wise" action?

Anyway, from that perspective, I do not see in Adi Da the greatness of a Realizer of the highest order, and I draw this conclusion not so much from his words (which could arguably Talk the Talk), but from his walk.

If Adi Da has attained a never-before-expressed Realization, then why does this manifest itself in ways that deviate negatively from the previous demonstrations of (supposedly, per Adi Da, lesser) Realizers?

Hmmm. One can conclude one of two things.

Either Adi Da's revelation, of Amrita Nadi and (this time and REALLY) being the Ultimate Cosmic Savior-Sacrifice, is true ... and somehow CARRIES WITH IT some sort of mandate or capacity to act in the strangely un-harmonious manner described above.

OR, Adi Da is Realized at some level less than the Highest that the planet has thus far seen.

In other words, I have to choose between (A) some asserted yogic phenomena (along with a cosmology that's looking more and more like Jesus redux), and (B) the louder-than-words "revelation" of how the sum of Da's actions contrasts with the great ones who have gone before.

Guess which makes more sense to me.

Your mileage may vary, of course.

FROM Elias:

How much more definite can words of the great teachers of the great spiritual traditions be? Buddhism has the merit of having invented some of the best language for describing the transcendent states of awareness. But Vedanta, Taoism, Sufism, Cabbala, and early Christianity also are expressions of the highest order.

I have read Frank and I have read the traditions. They use the same words, words which were given us by realizers and enlightened adepts thousands of years ago to describe their transcendent states of awareness. They are the SELF-EXPRESSION of the One Divine Person.

God has spoken, many times. Buddha's voice rings down through the ages. That Voice is instantly recognizable in the Heart, as Truth. (As Christ said, "I know my own and my own know me.") And Truth recognized and known as one's own innermost Nature, is the "person" in which Buddha, Christ, Krishna, and all the adept-realizers meet. That is, they meet and come alive to us in Self-Realization, not as objects of worship.

In the SELF-EXPRESSION of the One Divine Person, which we have in abundance (thankfully) in the traditions of enlightenment (or realization), we find the profound teaching that all human beings are in fact not other than the O.D.P., joined in the Spirit, joined in the Light, joined in One Self, joined in Tao, joined in Emptiness of qualities, joined at last in Realization...and joined in expressing that Realization in an infinitely free spectrum of possibility and (dare I say the word) "function".

There is no difference. There is no separation. There is Only God. Just so (to quote Frank and Sri Bob).

And the single telling difference is that Frank, unlike all adept-realizers who came before, has gone on to hoist his trademark as the sole adept-realizer, past, present, and all time to come.

There is a river of pure water and there is a madman standing by the river selling glasses of water. He tells you he is the only one who has ever really sold this water and the only one who ever will sell this water and if you want this water you must bow down to him and give him all your money.

This is not just ridiculous and mad...it is an impossibility by the very teaching of the truth that there is One Divine Person!

We already have, in Christianity, the concept of an "exclusive" Son of God, an historical Teacher who is utterly unique and the only door to eternal salvation. Do we need yet another? Perhaps God the Father Himself -- "Da"?

In our time, with our meeting and merging of spiritual thought from all traditions, we are able to understand the religious metaphor of "God's only-begotten Son", just as we are able to understand Christ's use of the term "Father" as meaning something more than a white-bearded old man on a throne. We also understand the specific historical reasons that Christ taught Spiritual Realization in the way he did -- as a counter to the terrible grip of Imperial Rome and its "divine" Emperor.

(When I taught at Naropa, in the late 1970s, Allen Ginsberg once grilled me on the Christian idea of "God the Father". After lengthy discussion we came to the conclusion that the term is probably equivalent to the Hindu idea of the Divine Self, in its most transcendent. As Christ said, "I and the Father are One." He was always speaking in metaphors that picked up the ordinary mind and merged it with profound Truths.)

In any case, Franks's statement as to his timeless exclusiveness is not meant to be metaphorical. It in fact is meant to either "own" or exclude all the great teachers and adept-realizers who will, without a doubt, arise in the aeons to come. It is a clear statement of exclusivity and primacy of the body-mind of Franklin Jones, born 1939, died 2003. It is the knot of spiritual ego upon which the entire bizarre psycho-drama of "Da" turns, in reality a perfect expression of a man who physically and sexually abuses others, who indulges his bodily desires to the point of damaging his health, and who sucks endlessly upon the financial tit of his followers until they are left impoverished and desperate.

Frank's claim of exclusivity is enough to demonstrate to anyone who has a grasp of what realization is all about, that he is a "befuddled" spiritual teacher who, for reasons we may never fathom, is driven to impose himself as an idol between his followers and the One Divine Reality. He takes the words of the Buddhas (steals them, really) and uses them to preach that all the Buddhas past present and to come must worship him and the supreme conditional expression of the One Divine Reality.

I have never had the slightest urge in me to worship Frank or honor him as other than equal to all other men and women. Can I help it if he makes himself less than others by placing himself so high?

Peace to you (no anger felt). I'm outta here.

Elias