Among the "ex-Daists" who actively critique Adi Da and his dharma, I see most as being completely faithful to the practice of relationship without separation or contraction. That is to say, we do not separate ourselves from Frank -- rather we bring all our spiritual feeling and insight to bear upon whatever reality (or lack thereof) that he represents.

Speaking personally, I have NEVER closed my heart to the guy. My sense of the mutual dynamics is that over time he has continually run away, hidden, and walled himself off from myself and others -- even all others -- and he does this on many levels.

He appears to have made an overwhelming commitment to the neurotic mechanism -- common to those who suffer from a deap-seated self-loathing -- of acting aloof and pompous and domineering. Such behavior is an attempt to control relationship by making others feel small, dominated, and even guilty. The net effect is usually that the pompous person -- even when incredibly talented -- simply looks ridiculous. (Somebody recently told me he had talked to a friend who attended music classes with Frank's daughters at Ali Akbar Khan school. This person reported that Frank's daughters "acted ridiculously pompous" towards everyone at the school.)

The whole psyche that Frank animates is the mind-game of pomp and power. After "the seduction phase" (using half-truths and false promises) he moves rapidly into "the domination phase", in which the person whom he seeks to control is pushed toward a contracted state by every means possible. (He even asks them to sign a "contract"!)

Separation is enforced in Adidam, not melted. Purported "Oneness" is claimed for the ornamented facade of the "guru" -- but any testimonies of full and unobstructed relatedness by the student or devotee are invariably criticized as egoic, unlawful, "targeting", delusional, and so forth.

That said, I have no qualms about making the claim that ex-devotees are still holding up their end of the original promise. We are not avoiding relationship -- Frank is avoiding relationship. In fact, as his increasingly bitter rants reveal, he just can't hack relationship! (He has said it makes him physically ill to sit with "beginners", i.e. the entire human race.)

I expect a Daist rejoinder might be that Frank is not what you think he is, he is a totally expanded field of awareness and thus more in relationship with you than you are with yourself. And (they say) that's why it makes him sick to be with you.

The great Indian guru Ammachi has hugged twenty million people world-wide, all the while remaining in the pink of health, and Franklin Jones gets sick just sitting in a room with a few dozen Americans who have taken vows to worship him!

Part of the Daist defense of Frank's "sensitivity" is dependent upon the assertion that no one can move into the wider field (or awaken to reality) without Frank's blessing followed by his formal acknowledgement. According to Daism, all other "purported realizers" are "self-contracted" until Frank makes a judgement that they are not. (And who knows, he may get into one of his famous snits and decide to NEVER admit ANYONE to the privileged class of 7th stage God-Realizers, not to mention the already sealed off turf of the "fully functional Adept-Realizer".)

If you've ever tasted the real wine of enlightenment, or met a real Spiritual Master, then you already know that this Daist rap is pure shuck and jive. At the end of the day, IMHO, Daism is really all about the politics of falsely claiming an "ultimate" position of spiritual authority and then "selling" that authority to the unintelligent and the weak-minded -- and that's all it is.

There are more realizers and near-realizers to be found "outside" of Adidam than there are inside of Adidam -- because, as Frank himself says, Adidam consists almost entirely of "beginners".

Furthermore, there are more true spiritual intuitives, near-realizers, and perhaps genuine God-realizers among ex-devotees of Frank than will ever be found powdering his pampered ass.

Have I said it? Was that over the top or what?

--thanks for listening!