JCB: An initial comment: In your post, you complain about my focusing on sex and then spend nearly the entire post discussing it, while ignoring the overall point that it is Adi Da's entire life that I am contrasting to other realizers' lives. You essentially acknowledged this point in your response to my original post on this subject, and then began to pursue what to me were much more interesting lines of consideration, like the issue you raised about chaos to which Glenn and I responded. Although I've somewhat fallen off the fence re Da since then, the points I raised in my response to yours stand (as, of course, does my respect for you).

Where necessary, though, and since we've both got some pitta, I'll be happy to respond to fire with fire, if that's what you're into. It's an unnecessary distraction, though.

Pilgrim said: Please, don't hide behind the old "sex is just one of the facets that disturbs me about Adi Da" thing. I'm not picking on you, and you don't need to be so defensive. Sheesh.

JCB: Sex is just one of the facets that disturbs me about Adi Da, Pilgrim. This should be obvious from my initial post along these lines. I mean, you should hear what I have to say about his relationship to money (all of which, I am sure, is utterly rooted in my own limitations, and has nothing to do with the negative contrast between Da and non-dual Realizers).

Pilgrim said: It should be pretty obvious why sex is such a charged topic for us all, if we are the least bit honest about ourselves, and why it is almost always the focus of complaints about Adi Da.

JCB: So I have two choices here: (a) focus on sex, cop to all my hangs, and then have to sit through Emotional-Sexual 101, or (b) be broad-minded enough to focus on the whole gestalt, get accused of being sexually repressed, and again have to sit through the same lecture. And you accuse me of being a dualist! ;-)

Pilgrim said: Yes, sex is more personal than art or music, but people's preferential desires are just as harmless in sexual matters as in any other area of bodily life and pleasure.

JCB: Radically speaking, yes; from the POV of path (and conduct even after enlightenment), no. Owing to the subtle difference between sentient beings and works of art. Compassion, 'n shit.

Pilgrim said: You seem somehow to imagine that sexual desire is a problem that the enlightened individual would have "transcended" by no longer having such desires.

JCB: A klesha is not exactly the same thing as a problem, though it can be seen that way. That's an impediment to practice though, as you know.

Pilgrim said: Very Buddhistic of you, I suppose. But is it actually true?

JCB: I don't truly know, nor do you, but I suppose we'll find out if we make it all the way in this lifetime. Till then, we can use our minds and hearts to the best of our ability to judge demonstrations of living realizers, partial and complete, over time.

Pilgrim said: Is desire in itself a problem?

JCB: No, unless a anything to be transcended is a problem. Making it a problem or a solution perpetuates the duality on which desire is based.

Pilgrim said: Is it the source of suffering, or the sign of it?

JCB: Kinda Yin-Yang, probably, depending on how "deeply" you want to define desire. But you know, the talk is less useful, at some point, than the walk. Da's talk exceeds his walk.

Pilgrim said: Does desire need to be solved or annihilated in Realization?

JCB: It needs to be transcended, at the very least. Maybe we should refine our terms here. What I am saying, and it is not that hard to grasp (so to speak), is that the root-motivation of desire--the idea that little Shivaic "I" am separate from any manifestation of Shakti and thus "need" it --is what has to go. Preferences may remain --there is a lot of theory about karmas continuing to fructify, in some sense after full realization (I mean, the body doesn't just die) -- but dig that they are not acted upon IN A CONSISTENT DIRECTION because the Realizer is full, poorna, and doesn't need a damned thing, and in fact doesn't give a damn if the One Taste is coming from a positive or negative pole.

Pilgrim said: I would suggest that because sexual desire is problematic to most of us, in one way or another, some of us might presume that Divine Happiness is a state in which no desire arises, or if it does arise, it is immediately snuffed out by the power of enlightenment itself. I would also suggest that this presumption is patently false. Desire is not the problem, nor is the cessation of desire either the solution or the sign of someone who has "solved" the problem.

JCB: Yes, the problem is the problem itself. Funny thing, though, that in its non-solution, or dis-solution, what remains among truly great realizers is a net walk of compassionate non-difference, enacted in whatever arenas the Realizer is moved to engage.

Pilgrim said: As far as I can see, the real problem with sexuality is not the presence of desire, but the absence of love, and the complications that are brought to love by the apparent threats of betrayal and death that are inherent in the conditional point of view.

JCB: This all sounds fine, and may be theoretically reconcilable with what I'm saying about desire. Again, practice is more important than theory, especially over the course of nearly 30 years of putative enlightenment.

Pilgrim said: And while I have seen Adi Da Demonstrate the full range of desires and aversions that we all feel and animate, I have never observed Him to lack love or compassion. You and the crowds will undoubtedly howl with protest, but that's my actual experience and observation.

JCB: That's your interpretation, and you have every right to it. Understand, though, that to make a "difference" is a limit on compassion. Da himself says this better than I but does not walk it nearly as exquisitely as he talks it. He would not be the first to exhibit such a gap, of course.  Remember the leela about Neem Karoli Baba and the poor woman with nothing in her house except crude sugar cane juice?

Pilgrim said: I don't know that leela, but I do know that Neem Karoli Baba had sex with his female devotees, and showed a clear preferential desire for the pretty ones. Where does that put him on your scale of enlightened beings now?

JCB: A bit lower, if it's true. What is your source? Besides, Neem Karoli Baba respected the world in the morning, and was deeply involved in all sorts of little details of devotees' lives, lived pretty humbly a lot of the time, and also was big-time into all sorts of charitable projects. That's a whole lotta non-different compassion right there.

It is the NET demonstration that is important, Pilgrim. That is precisely why I focus not only on sex, your protestations here to the contrary. Preferences don't = desires. Some of the most remarkable demonstrations of non-difference, and its obvious connection to compassion, have occurred when a Realizer shows "preference" for a gift brought in love, rather than opulence.

Pilgrim said: Quite so. And what about Adi Da? Do you have any idea of what actually goes on when Adi Da considers entering into a sexual relationship to a devotee?

JCB: Do you? Really? I have a pretty good idea of the outcome. 

Pilgrim said: The primary matter considered is not their sexual appeal to Him, although that is certainly part of the basic requirements.... 

JCB: Bingo. Sorry, but the game is up right there, my friend. But I won't require that you convert to my path -- such is my compassion. 

Pilgrim said: ...but their spiritual practice and devotional response to Him. 

JCB: If sexual appeal is ANY part of the requirement at all, then Da remains dual in my book. I didn't say he was totally given over to desire, did I. Still, any ignorance is still ignorance. 

Pilgrim said: Of course, you are probably basing your conclusions on His early sexual play with devotees, when "devotion" was pretty much an unknown quantity in the community, and He submitted Himself to the sexual life that we brought to Him, rather than vice-versa.

JCB: Right, and the sexual life that was brought to him was that only foxy babes were worth fucking, so he just reflected that back. Right.

Pilgrim said: But even then the lessons He made about sexuality were about this devotional response, and some women got it, while others didn't.

JCB: Usually the cute ones tended to get it faster, funny. Sorry I'm so obsessed with this topic you keep talking about, Pilgrim.

Pilgrim said: That pretty much changed after His Divine Emergence in 1986, and much of it even before that, when the necessity for a true devotional relationship to Him became more clearly apparent in every area of His Work.

JCB: A near-death experience might make me lose my wood too.

Seriously, the stuff in the '70's was still after his supposed enlightenment, so it suffices to prove my point. He's not a total sybarite, plus he's getting older.

Pilgrim said: Anyone who has anything to do with Adi Da's intimate life knows that He is pretty much at the mercy of the devotion of His devotees, and is moved or not moved based upon the devotional response that is given Him.

JCB: Anyone who has anything to do with Adi Da's intimate life is inherently acclimatized to act as an apologist for the same.

Pilgrim said: And that applies just as much to His sexual life as to anything else. So I don't really know what your complaints here are based on except lack of real knowledge or experience of His actual sexual life.

JCB: I have enough data and you have only confirmed it. You just interpret the data differently than I.

Pilgrim said: Your conclusions are about as informed as the "celebrity psycho-analysis" you sometimes find in tabloids.

JCB: Stoke that liver fire, Pilgrim's angry and gettin' windy!

Pilgrim said: I know at least two women offhand who have had a sexual attraction to Adi Da for a very long time, who love Him and are devoted to Him and serve Him very intimately, who are not, to put it kindly, very sexually attractive characters. Both of them have told me about the many times in which they confessed to Adi Da personally their sexual attraction, and their desire to enter into a sexual relationship to Him. And they also told me of the very personal, compassionate, loving, and extremely sensitive consideration He had with them about this, in which He explained that this just wasn't the form of their relationship to Him, and that it had absolutely nothing to do with any lack of love for them personally. And they explained how He made explicitly sure that they knew He loved them just as much as any women with whom He had a sexual relationship, and not just in some phony way, but really, truly, and deeply. So I don't really see how this charge has any real basis to it.

JCB: What?!?! You just confirmed my point again! There was devotion, which ought to be sufficient if he is truly established in non-different compassionate service to devotees, but he doesn't enter in sexual relations with them. And oh yeah, they just happen to be unattractive.

Pilgrim said: Two can play that game, though. For instance, seeing as how you have admitted to being dualistic in your own life and perspective, including sexually, how do you know what a non-dualistic walk actually looks like?

JCB: You're lapsing, Pilgrim. As you acknowledge your own lack of enlightenment, you wouldn't know, either.

Pilgrim said: Aren't you inevitably condemned to impose your own dualistic imagery of "non-dualism" on top of the true non-dualistic "walk", and miss the boat both port and starboard?

JCB: Aren't you condemned to impose your own dualistic imagery upon a human guru, and presume that the finger is identical to the moon it points at? And that the guru's enlightenment is ever separate from the machinery of maya that is the Adidam sangha?

Pilgrim said: [re 7th stage realization supposedly subsuming and embracing duality] What in blazes is new about this?

JCB: Since 1970 is relatively young for a revelation that's supposedly never been on this planet, or anywhere, previously.

Pilgrim said: Haven't you read anything of the literature of Adidam? This is about as new as the Knee of Listening! From the very beginning Adi Da has roundly criticized the traditional "non-dualistic" asceticism of the eastern paths as excluding the conditional reality, and explained very clearly that His Realization included both what is traditionally known as non-dualism and what is traditionally known as dualism in a single Realization.

JCB: Conveniently justifying an embrace of comfort and ease at the expense of others, and by verbal sleight-of-hand directing attention away from the fact that he's neglected the scruffier sides of duality, like living simply. Funny how as a "demonstration" of non-duality he hasn't a fraction as much time living ascetically as hedonistically. Funny how his teaching, which is supposed to subsume and include the entire history of religion and spiritually, eso- and exoteric, prominently disincludes charity as a means of "exoterically" demonstrating compassion. Money, food, and sex, though, are fair exoteric game.

Pilgrim said: In the first place, your expectations are based on a dualistic mind - no put down there, because so are my expectations, or anyone's for that matter.

JCB: Right, so we have no way of knowing, right? Other than, say, our response to blasts of his shakti (classically considered a conditional and dualistic phenomenon, as I recall).

Pilgrim said: Knowing that, however, implies that we have to take a different tack to discover the truth than playing the expectations game. You can't build up dualistic expectations, and then dualistically try to apply them to a potential non-dual Realizer, and see how he matches up to them. ....Something more immediate is required.

JCB: Like what? A dualistic blast of shakti? A sudden verbal-mind meets limbic system satori that HE IS THE WORLD-TEACHER? Or perhaps a transmission of the baby of non-dual intuition mixed with the bathwater of First, Last, and Only?

I don't mean to be an asshole, Pilgrim, but how is a person gonna judge except by the "yang" discriminative intelligence to balance the "yin" of "he's so much bigger than me"? And how could the "Yang" here possibly exclude no-bullshit, no-rationalization comparisons with other supposed Realizers' walks?

In matters of sex (upon which I am so obviously fixated) I would expect the guiding paradigm for attractiveness to be based on devotion and not a nice ass. Sort of an extension of why sex with my wife beats sex with a prostitute.

Pilgrim said: Exactly. And guess what? Adi Da's two Kanyas are not the sexiest babes in the community - in fact, very far from it. ...Your remark about prostitutes is pretty insulting, but you probably don't mean it the way it sounds.

JCB: I don't mean it insultingly at all, Pilgrim, though I feel like it's a little obvious that love partly triumphs over biology in reasonably mature folk like you and I, and in terms of enactment utterly does so in fully Realized beings.

Pilgrim said: Are you implying that anyone who chooses a wife based even in part on their sexual attractiveness is in effect hiring a prostitute?

JCB: Come on, Pilgrim.

Pilgrim said: You seem to imply that all Adi Da is doing with His female intimates is having loveless sex, like one might with a prostitute.

JCB: Come on, again.

Pilgrim said: Either that, or you are implying that your wife doesn't have a nice ass.

JCB: Let it be known that she does, though not as nice as a number of prostitutes.

Pilgrim said: I'm not sure which. Either way, you're heading for trouble. What are you trying to say here?

JCB: Sheesh, I hope I clarified this. Don't you think the above was just a little projection, Pilgrim? Or are only people who challenge Da worthy of psychoanalysis? ;-)

Pilgrim said: And that is a walk He walks very adroitly, without a misstep that I have ever seen.

JCB: He is intimately familiar with his own talk and walks that very well.

Pilgrim said: Well, at least we have an admission that Adi Da is not a hypocrite here. The argument, then, is with the "talk" itself - the Dharma on Realization of the Unity of non-dual and dual, and whether that is a genuine description of Realization.

JCB: Nice try, Pilgrim, but you're either not reading me, or being disingenuous. Besides, if the debate shifts to his talk then you get to use that in all sorts of ways to justify Da's actions (which is why I started this whole walk-based thread). And you are welcome exercise such justifications, but don't expect me to accept any of it.

The aspect of his talk that I was referring to is his "Man of Understanding" talk, wherein he says he will do all sorts of things (and then of course proceeds, in his life, to favor particular patterns of comfort). To the extent that he affirms the non-dual talk, I don't accept that he is walking that.

Pilgrim said: Maybe it's that underlying sexual jealousy thing? Or some Judeo-Christian artifact?

JCB: Blah, blah, blah.

Pilgrim said: Oh come on JCB, don't be so disingenuous. Everyone with half a brain and an operating testicle knows that no one is free of these kinds of prejudices, and most certainly not around here. I hope you are not imagining yourself to be a "pure" puritan, with no personal or cultural prejudices influencing your judgement?

JCB: How far are you going to take this, Pilgrim? I'm not just focusing on sex, anyway. You don't have to be enlightened to grok a lot of stuff, including issues of spiritual integrity.

Just because I think Da is deluded about his claims of non-duality and Ati-ness, I don't discount his yogic understanding right up through the causal level.

And, again, how are you qualified to know Da is not operating from a level of sexual desire? IOW, this "qualifications" thing is specious in that it neutralizes the whole debate, yet you would snuff only the opposition. Pretty dualistic of you. ;-)

Pilgrim said: In my book, I don't mind people with personal prejudices as long as they are aware of them and admit to them. It's when they pretend not to have them that the trouble begins.

JCB: Well, I can't disagree there, but you probably didn't mean that about the person I'm thinking of. :-)

Pilgrim said: Sure. Then why don't you have the same problem with those great images from Hindu and sources of Shiva-Shakti, or Buddha-Dakini, etc., with the Divine Being depicted in ecstatic sexual embrace of the Goddess, where the Goddess is almost always depicted as a beautiful and voluptuous woman. Of course, maybe you do have a problem with those images.

JCB: Let me see, are those images meant to convey something about the truth behind the universe, or are they a coded tour of how an Arhat should conduct himself? If so, the Arhats around the Khajuraho temples must have been into some pretty funky stuff, e.g. bestiality.

Pilgrim said: In any case, Adi Da has repeatedly pointed to such images as being among the most "true" depictions of the Nature of Reality, and of Realization, and that His own life reflects that same Truth, even in the dimension of His intimate sexual life.

JCB: Of course he has. He's done a lot to try to justify his behavior in all kinds of ways.

Pilgrim said: Again, Adi Da embraces and loves all His female devotees equally. That doesn't mean He has sex with all of them equally, however. Why some very few make the "cut" and others don't is only peripherally related to His bodily preferences.

JCB: If related at all, there are seeds of delusion in the guy. Sorry.

Pilgrim said: It is not a rejection that separate one from the Source of Love. You really have way too little information even to render an intelligent judgement about it, IMO, although it does raise interesting topics for debate that I wouldn't want to exclude anyone from.

JCB: Thank you for including me, Pilgrim, you're such a mensch. And the information I have is enough. I don't know much about Zen Master Rama, but I know enough to know he was fake. Da is much subtler, and there is some genuineness there, but I have much more information about him than Zen Master Rama. More than enough, and you've confirmed it.

Pilgrim said: IMO you are mostly exploring not matters of Realization, but your own personal reactions and presumptions about sexuality and spirituality.

JCB: You could be said to be doing the same. I'm not nearly as fixated on his sexuality as you seem to be.

Pilgrim said: Which is fine, but I think it gets clouded over with this rather pseudo-talk about "great realizers" that you also really know very little about.

JCB: I get it, you have nothing to fall back on except shooting the messenger who bears news you'd rather not hear. Well, no matter what my delusions and projections, you have done nothing to show me that Adi Da does not exercise consistent preferences in all kinds of directions, and little to show me that the real McCoy's are impartial. What makes your take so superior, anyway?

Pilgrim said: The "certainty" with which you speak does not seem to me to be based on any intimate knowledge or experience with great realizers, but just with your own personal take on sex and realization, and how it seems to you it ought to be.

JCB: I'm just going to let you say this stuff and go back to it later when you cool off, and see how little it advances your point, Pilgrim.

Pilgrim said: Which is a far cry from actually personally knowing any Realizer's sexual life and practices.

JCB: Like you know any more than I do, except a few details about Da that just confirm my position.

Pilgrim said: You even seem pretty clueless about Neem Keroli Baba for that matter.

JCB: Blah, blah, blah.

Pilgrim said: Of course your naiveté doesn't establish anything positive about Adi Da, but it does mean that your own arguments are really not very valuable, except as statements of personal opinion - which valuable only if you make your arguments on a personal level.

JCB: How could they be anything but? He doesn't pass my non-dual truth-o-meter. Yours isn't hooked into the big objective one in the sky.

Pilgrim said: You gain more credibility in my book by admitting to this and talking about your own personal take, rather than hiding behind traditions and Realizers that you really know very little about. In fact, not many people know much about the traditional Realizer's actual sexual lives, including myself. I do know about Adi Da, however, and find it silly to be comparing his apples to your imaginary traditional fruit.

JCB: Then continue down your garden path, and may your fruit be free from rot.

Pilgrim said: I'd like to know what God you have seen that gives you this particular myopia towards the obvious sexual attractiveness of beautiful women, and why you imagine God in His bodily sexual life would not be naturally drawn towards them?

JCB: Something about Realization eliminating conditional distinctions. Perhaps you've read about this?

Pilgrim said: I guess you're not very big on Krishna or the Shiva-Shakti traditions, or Vajrayana Buddhism. What images of the Divine are you drawn to, or recognize as True, and what do they "tell" you about the Divine Yoga of sex?

JCB: Drukpa Kunley, for example, fucked ugly women. Look, I've laid out my position in my earlier post. And it isn't just about sex. You made some good points in a much more friendly way. I'm willing to return to that vibe, but not unilaterally just yet.

Pilgrim said: I don't really know what "favorably" means, except as being in line with the particular preferential desires an individual might have for the "look" in a Realizer that suits him.

JCB: Like your preferences, for example. I was very clear about this in my initial post: non-different compassion to the degree, and in the arenas, in which one interacts with the world.

We're just going in circles, my friend.

Pilgrim said: Kind of like the "look" we each prefer in our sexual partners. Aren't you actually committing the same "sin" in this very discussion that you accuse Adi Da of?

JCB: Again, I suggest his walk differs from that of non-dual realizers and even cool dual ones--using evidence that you basically don't dispute--and now I'm making a duality error. No, my friend, you are making a category error. One your guru encourages with his Catch-22 self-justifications.

I still will respect you in the morning, Pilgrim. No enmity felt.