design for Adi Da's new palace in Hawaii

JCB: Round five! And each comes out of the corner, prepped, a bit worse for wear and tear, but with fire in their eyes ......

Pilgrim said: Dharma and the "walk" of Realization ...or, continuing in circles, Adi Da's consistent embrace of pleasure, rather than pain, is really not very mysterious.

JCB: You are right about that. But not in the way you seem to think. :-)

Pilgrim said: ...And the fact that you run it up the flag-pole as some kind of proof of His non-Realization is just laughable.

JCB: Only laughable in the same way that small children laugh when confronted by a really, really big number that they haven't learned to count up to yet.

The point that desire, as an obviously and consistently dramatized principle, is extinguished in Realization is really not all that complicated, especially if you look at other realizers' lives.

(Maybe to get to the 99.9% confidence interval you'd have to live with each one of them, but I'm quite comfortable with a lower interval and a large number of data points, so to speak, as a basis for making discriminative judgement calls.)

Pilgrim said: What's mysterious is how the spiritual traditions ever got to this absurd point where seemingly level-headed guys like you imagine the consistent enjoyment of a pleasurable life to be antithetical to spiritual Realization.

JCB: As usual, you're moving the whole meter over several notches, and making Da's life look like healthy, balanced sattva, and other Realizers lives look like total asceticism. Da's choices go way beyond balance, and way beyond dancing in both positive and negative to teach or to purify.

When he's not teaching, he is (very frequently) living a life of luxury and ease that is impossible to parallel in any Realizer I can think of. (Oh, Rajneesh had Rolls-Royces. Ah, but he cannot be judged unless one becomes an intimate devotee.) So when the excesses of "teaching and reflecting" are absent, Da still embraces the plus side ... gourmet meals, servants, all he wants.

Where is the compassionate, non-different service in all of this?

When Da is teaching, he'll "submit" to students as long his pleasure-criteria are met along the way. He will tend not to "tantra down" with unattractive females, for example. Can't keep the tithe going? Oh, sorry we can't process your trip to Fiji unless we have assurance your tithe will continue during your retreat. So even in teaching mode, rather than serve his students without regard to difference, Da processes things through his pleasure-filter.

Where is the compassionate, non-different service in all of this?

Well, at least he's humorous. Sometimes ... this seems to be absent in his recent stuff. Okay, at least he's happy, then. He may miss the mark in terms of that other arhat shit I mentioned. He may not be "right" in that real sense. But, hey, he's happy, and so are you, and who am I to fuck with that? I mean, I'm obviously not into spiritual intimacy 'n shit, so how would I know?

Pilgrim said: Adi Da's Teaching about true Spiritual Life is that it is a "Pleasure Dome" of inherent enjoyment completely compatible with a pleasurable human life.

JCB: If all Realized beings lived as he did, and one had a community of them, that community would self-destruct in no time. It's kind of amusing-sad to contemplate.

Pilgrim said (copping an Ati-tude): True Knowledge comes from intimacy with the Master, and Intimacy with an incarnate or disincarnate Master is all but impossible except in the case the most mature practitioners.

JCB: Not that I am claiming this, but this is a pretty arrogant statement to make. I suppose only one who had such intimacy would be qualified to judge this or any other matter, eh?

Pilgrim said: The Guru isn't a pointer to someone Else, separate from Him. He is That. And Realizing and intimately loving Him as That is the Way to Realize That yourself, to transcend the dichotomy of conditional and unconditional.

JCB: The way, Pilgrim? And how convenient that your guru is the Ati-guru. Look, Adidam does seem to include the possibility for real sadhana, but it's so permeated by this born-again Christianity mania about uniqueness that it's no wonder that making real progress is so hard.

Pilgrim, thank you for showing me the intricacies of your thought processes: you said earlier, and I quote, that I am not "personally or spiritually intimate with Da", so I am "lacking the very knowledge that (you) would deem necessary to draw really meaningful conclusions about Adi Da, or any spiritual Realizer??? That is just rich. 

Pilgrim said: Yeah, yeah, blow it off if you think you can get away with it in this crowd. But I've warned you enough. I'm not fooled by this bluff of yours.

JCB: Wow, you really have lost it here. I can't believe you stand by this patently absurd and cultic statement, in any crowd, or solo.

I mean, do you understand what you're saying here? That the "intimacy" with Da that you claim is necessary to draw meaningful conclusions not only about him, but also any other realizer?

It is hilarious, Pilgrim, that you go on to tell me how you've met actual devotees of other realizers, read some books, and copped a few vibes from them, and then claim all of that as valid for yourself but dismiss it for others. Oh, I forgot, you have that special secret ingredient that makes it all gel.

Pilgrim said: Well good, but I'm not just talking about a momentary sniff of heart-feeling. I'm talking about the kind of intimacy which can only develop within a long-term, committed relationship that has gone through a goodly number of ups and downs. ...It doesn't seem like you've ever done that in your spiritual touring.

JCB: Your criteria for spiritual intimacy, all the stuff about mutual trust, would exclude most Adidams as well as most of Da's own guru-devotion during his spiritual tour, except maybe with Rudi.

Pilgrim said: Yes, and I have had dreams of making love to women other than my wife. But when I wake up, I put away such fantasies, and return to the intimacy I have with her. When you wake up from your arhat-dreams, what spiritual intimacy do you return to?

JCB: What I return to are my own relationships, Pilgrim, to God and my loved ones, about which I am sufficiently secure that I don't have to crow about them, or take potshots at yours.

Hey, that'll play real well with this "forum crowd", probably because unlike most Adidams they're a broad-minded enough bunch to acknowledge 83,999 other ways.

JCB: Here I'm going to have to show several layers of the thread, to eliminate the potential for misunderstanding via the subtle distortions you are so wont to introduce.

Pilgrim said: Being a devotee automatically disqualifies me from rendering a "true" judgement of my Guru, in most people's eyes, including yours.

JCB: I never said this, of course.

Pilgrim said: What you said was, "Anyone who has anything to do with Adi Da's intimate life is inherently acclimatized to act as an apologist for the same." It amounts to the same thing. So I stand by my statement.

JCB: Being "acclimatized to act as an apologist" does not "automatically disqualify you from rendering a 'true' judgement", it just makes it harder. You really do have that spin cycle set on high, don't you.

Pilgrim said: I happen to disagree, naturally. I think the only true insight into a Guru comes from His intimate devotees, who have stuck through the ordeals of testing and practice that gives them real insight into the Divine Realization of their Guru.

JCB: This of course cuts both ways, Pilgrim. I'll relax my non-dual-o-meter criteria as soon as I see you AND Da renounce the entire Basket of Tolerance.

Pilgrim said: Not sure what you mean by this. Do you mean renounce the traditions themselves, or the structure of the seven stages, or His criticism of the traditions, or what? Makes no sense to me, even within context.

JCB: If true insight into a guru includes commenting on his or her realization, then I think all those comments in the Basket of Tolerance about pigeonholing stages of life should be expunged, as Da hasn't been an intimate devotee of any of them except a couple, during his spiritual tour. These are your proposed criteria, not mine.

Of course, it is possible to exercise discrimination based on observable features, without having been an intimate devotee. Your criteria about having to be an intimate devotee are, of course, specious, in that they include only practitioners of guru-bhakti who meet your personal preferences.

What is actually necessary is to be a serious practitioner, to have had some genuine intuition of Reality, and to exercise discrimination. I have my shortcomings, but I feel qualified to comment on that basis, at least to some degree. You are also qualified, once you get your discrimination up to speed and expunge that pervasive and specious provincialism. (Hey, the bathwater pervades the baby. I have been there, and it is hard for a Da-ster to do this.)

JCB: I submit that your logic is specious because you have been poisoned by Da, my friend. Really.

Pilgrim said: Interesting choice of words. Poison. Some kind of "contamination" that has seeped into my brain from without. But why make excuses for me? Why not call me evil, plain and simple, and have me burnt at the stake? After all, if you don't the poison might spread. I might sprinkle it in the wells, or pass it on to the children in our day care. Innocent minds could be at stake here.

JCB: Lighten up, my friend. "Poison" is, I believe, used frequently in traditions other than the Salem Witch Trials.

You haven't got it as bad as Pilgrim 2, you're fighting it, but you've been da-maged. Frank's elaborate rationalizations of his own behavior, his conflation of non-difference and what difference does it make, have fucked with your circuitry. This is an example of how he is dangerous.

Pilgrim said: Listen, Jim, I know this is going to be hard for you to understand, but Adi Da has literally saved my life, just as my wife has in her own way, and my kids have in their way, by giving me a real intimacy to practice spiritual life through, and love through, and suffer through also. How the fuck you think you are qualified to pass judgement on this intimacy, and my experience of it, is totally freaking beyond me.

JCB: I don't comment on the intimacy in your life, Pilgrim, which is an exercise of restraint that you might want to consider emulating. Yes?

I do submit, from personal experience, that the poison gets in there alongside the intimacy and engenders certain delusions. Like spin-thinking, the acceptability of behavior that is crazy but not wise, a misunderstanding of the "non-dual walk", and a conflation of devotion to the guru with the Ati-ness (ultimacy) of the guru and one's own path.

None of that takes away from the reality of the intimacy, it just seems to make Adidams overestimate their intimacies at the expense of others'. Okay? Why such insecur-Ati about this point?

Pilgrim said: You are like some kind of local gossip-monger trying to imply that my wife is a whore and that my kids are scheming against me. That's not what I experience when I go home to them, and it's not what I experience in my intimacy with Adi Da. If you weren't such a burned out case I'd take you out back and knock some sense into you, but I think it's just futile. All I can say is, "Get a life."

JCB: I think that this little outburst might disqualify you, here in round five, for ear-biting. :-) But as you're a valuable member of the sport, you will be allowed to play again. ...Sorry, Pilgrim, I probably shouldn't sink to the level of attacking you, but I do mean it as a wake-up call.

Pilgrim said: Yes, I understand that, but you are plain old deluded both in your motives and content. Stop being an old maid, and mind the business for which you have come.

JCB: I do, in the appropriate time and place, though there is always room to do it better.

Pilgrim said: Fair enough under most circumstances, but Jim himself admitted in a previous post over a month ago to having serious regrets that he never developed an intimate relationship with Adi Da during his time here.

JCB: My words describing my dream: "And Pilgrim 2 sort of said, was it that kind of (intense, renunciate) practice that you're bummed about missing out on? And I answered honestly and said, no, what I really miss is the heart-intimacy. I.e., with the Guru."

That is not exactly the same as saying I regretted never developing an intimate relationship, Mr. Spin-Cycle. Again, not that I have anything invested in how someone might categorize my Adidam experience. It's too close to home to be subject to that sort of thing.

I then go on in that post (baring my soul, thank you to all) to mention that I have been blessed by many sources Grace, the underlying foundation of heart-intimacy. Of course, not being a Guru-Bhakta these days in your sense of the term, what do I know about heart-intimacy (not my chosen term, but good enough) with God?

I understand, Pilgrim, that you may be trying to soften me up into saying, oh, but I did have this beautiful heart-intimate relationship with Da. However, re-read that post -- it's a good one if I do say so -- and see how in it I am still critical of Da, just more affectionately. The only changes I've undergone since then, for whatever it matters, are (a) I've refined those criticisms into the hypothesis that Da is not non-dual, and (b) have given up on Da as a source of grace, owing to difficulties in trying to separate baby and bathwater. Same debate then as now, except we were all in a better mood.

As I've said all along, Adi Da obviously has vast yogic experience and so on, and is probably somewhere in what he himself would call the 5th stage. That leaves an awful lot of room for being "high" in many peoples' books.

IOW, my contention has been and is that he is "realized but screwed up" (to use the former term in an inclusive, stage-wise sense).

Pilgrim said: Oh, Jim's not as bad as Ken Starr, but there's definitely an interesting parallel between the two great debates about sexuality in high places.

JCB: You're right there, even though comparing me to Ken Starr may be the lowest blow you've landed yet.

This is a good chance to compare patterns of behavior and see what emerges. Going by sexual preference alone, if Clinton's taste in women is compared to Da's, I'd say the nod for non-duality definitely would go to the former Bubba. Much more diversity in his choices .. I mean, he did do a Miss Universe, but any movement he had toward some of those others must have been pure non-dual compassion on his part. :-)