It has always been a "paradox" that Franklin Jones criticizes Muktananda's realization and yet relies heavily on Muktananda's naming-letter (KOL, page 97) for his own claim of legitimacy as a "guru".

In fact, according to Frank's current "7-stage" system, Muktananda isn't even a realizer -- he's at best a 5th stage yogi, an ego suffering self-limitation and contraction from the Divine Self. The famous letter, by this logic, isn't even worth the paper it is printed on, no matter how you semantically parse it or mistranslate it.

Regarding the "permanent" return to India (KOL, page 123ff), there are a number of ways to see this besides the statements in The Knee of Listening about "leaving the world behind". As Frank's correspondence shows, he was taking a somewhat romantic view of Muktananda as his spiritual father at that point:

As I think about the Ashram, I realize that you are the Guru who liberates his children by leading them to experience their identity with the Self.

This truth, even though my deep resistance makes it impossible for me to experience it very frequently with any depth, is and will be extremely liberating for me. It is the very basis of sadhana and its goal. And it makes it very clear just how I must manage myself in relation to my daily experience. This truth is my joy, and you, Baba, are my joy because you are leading me to a full realization of this truth. Please bless me with gratitude and surrender so that the obstacles in me will be overcome.

Nina and I long to be with you again. We send our love to all of your children.

Your child,
Franklin Jones

[letter of April 10, 1968]

Later came rebellion, when he didn't receive the support that he wanted and expected from Muktananda. All it took was being "disappointed" by his guru on that "final journey home" to India to trigger the inevitable adolescent reaction of separation -- the Oedipal Complex in action. As he rationalized it in KOL, "Now I was to surrender the external forms of the Guru to others, and live free, without separation, in that very Form".

The form of the "spiritual father" was no longer needed, nor would Muktananda's murti find a place of honor in Frank's ashram. [For more see The Confrontation and Break with Muktananda.]

As Frank has so often reminded us since that time, disappointment and "non-support" are but two of the many ways the guru teaches his lessons. From Frank's own teaching, the thought that he could have put any kind of expectation on Muktananda is utterly bizarre. And yet, his idea that there was going to be some kind of father-son love-feast when he got to India is also that -- a bizarre fantasy that was guaranteed to collapse.

More and more it is becoming clear that Frank's chief psychological hangups all relate to his relationship to parent-figures, upon whom he places an infant son's demand for love, and against whom he angrily rebels when they do not fulfill his command for "Gifts".

Rudi and Muktananda Were Men He Felt He Could Manipulate

My personal view -- not having been much attracted to either Rudi or Muktananda -- has long been that Frank purposely chose relatively weak men as teachers. He always knew he was "smarter" than they were, and unconsciously (and maybe consciously) he always intended to get what he wanted from them and then discard them like used dixie-cups.

That view may appear cynical, but I wonder if the cynicism wasn't in Frank's willingness to seek out such a quick-and-easy "career path"? There is something so tacky and bogus about the drive-up realization he claims to have gotten from Muktananda.

If he had been serious about enlightenment, he could have gone to the Buddhists, done serious long-term sadhana, and really gotten his butt kicked!

As for Muktananda, he never viewed his response to Frank the way Frank did. The letter was primarily about spreading the word to America, through a promising disciple of siddha yoga. Secondarily, I think, Muktananda understood that Frank was the type who needed a merit badge of some kind, in order to be motivated to stay around for the real work ahead.

As I indicated above, my personal view of Rudi and Muktananda, based on reading their writings and meeting their followers, is that they were essentially good men, men you could love and who would love you back. But neither of them had the strength of a jnani, and neither was even close to true Realization. Both of them were curiously unfinished men, wrapped in the goddess-love that falls on India like a gentle rain.

And these are the teachers Frank chose, because of their perceived weaknesses, because they were "pushovers" from whom he felt he could easily obtain the authority to teach a form of the Hindu religion.

The result -- Daism -- is a teaching without a real foundation in tradition, and a teacher -- Franklin Jones -- whose central "heroic-myth" is that of supplanting the father. In fact, there's the nub of Frank's psyche -- he "kills" the father and "marries" the mother.

Da Oedipus They Call Him

Frank has always been in a Oedipal rivalry, not only with his teachers, but with his own devotees. As many have testified, he is in competition with every male member of his community. He sleeps with their wives, strips their sense of self-worth, and systematically castrates them, both psychologically and spiritually.

Most importantly, he is at war with every apparent masculine manifestation of the Divine, from Buddha to Ramana. In this ultimate Oedipal statement of having supplanted the father, he devalues all gurus except himself -- there is not one ounce of devotion or respect in him for those who came before.

He is, quite simply, Oedipus the father-slayer.

At the same moment, he admits freely to "having sex" with the mother-goddess, "until her teeth rattled". (This is how he has described his moment of "ultimate realization" in the Vedanta Temple.)

It is interesting to note that in Frank's teachings on sexuality, a major theme is the claim that his devotees all have unresolved Oedipus complexes. As always, he projects his own neurotic psychology upon everybody around him.