One of the consistent themes in Frank's criticism of his devotees is their "failure to practice".

The curious thing is that almost all Daists think he is talking about the other guy -- not about themselves. In my experience many Daists secretly hold an idea of themselves as being very spiritually advanced. Once in awhile they will even admit -- as one of the community doctors did to me -- that they are in fact "7th stage" God-realizers. The folks who hold these thoughts usually believe that it is only a matter of time before Frank gives them his formal acknowledgment. Meanwhile, they serve him with a smile, safe in the assurance that they are the "hidden devotees", Frank's "own" whom he has come to release from the wheel of rebirth.

I believe that many are encouraged in these thoughts by the way he tends to appear in dreams and visions. I know that I once had a dream where he said to me "I have come to save you and a few others." In other dreams he seemed to be encouraging me to drop the body, so that I could be "completed" and absorbed into "the Divine Itself".

I took these dreams to be an effect of Frank's embrace of mythological ideas and archetypes. As for myself, I tended to relate "deconstructively" toward such ideas. Through Jung's influence, I had learned to suspect "psychopomps" -- personalities who have become inflated on achieving a level of insight beyond the ordinary. The inflation, which begins as a genuine intuition into non-ordinary realities, usually ends in identification with religious legends and symbols, and (as in Frank's case) with "yogic siddhis" or extraordinary powers.

In other words, instead of bringing the ego to an end in what Ramana called "the Heart", the so-called "realizer" simply gets a new and bigger-than-life identity. He loses his humanity and acquires the ego of an "avatar" or a "messiah". The clear demonstration of his divine status, to him, are his enhanced psychic powers and his ability to absorb and dominate others.

The paradox is that genuine Realization is subjective and self-authenticating. So there can be a very thin line between the genuine Realizer and the madman -- both are describing their own awareness...using the same words!

The Daist doctor who told me he was a "7th stage realizer" may have been right! Of course he didn't strike me as being any such thing. But there's the rub -- my judgment of him against his own.

Each of us has to live with our own inner workings, our own heart, and our own communion with God. Chances are the merely insane person who declares himself God-realized is harboring a terrible unhappiness. Such "avatars" may be abusive, or even burst out in acts of violence against others. Or they may simply content themselves with drawing others into the field of their psychosis.

Fortunately nobody is required to be in relationship with an abusive or psychotic teacher. People can simply go away -- as many have, in the case of Franklin Jones.

But no matter who your teacher, everyone is required to be in relationship with themselves. The yoga of real spiritual life begins on the meditation floor, or in the silence of the forest. No siddhis or pyrotechnics are required. A great guru would be nice -- if you can find one. And how will you know him (or her) when you find him? Consider these words of Nisargadatta:

The self-styled Gurus talk of ripeness and effort, of merits and achievements, of destiny and grace; all these are mere mental formations, projections of an addicted mind. Instead of helping, they obstruct.

Mistrust all, until you are convinced. The true Guru will never humiliate you, nor will he estrange you from yourself. He will constantly bring you back to the fact of your inherent perfection and encourage you to seek within. He knows you need nothing, not even him, and is never tired of reminding you. But the self-appointed Guru is more concerned with himself than with his disciples.

He who knows the mind as non-realized and realized, who knows ignorance and knowledge as states of mind, he is the real. When you are given diamonds mixed with gravel, you may either miss the diamonds or find them. It is the seeing that matters. Where is the grayness of the gravel and the beauty of the diamond, without the power to see?

[from I AM THAT, Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, pgs 422-23]

In other words, it is your own eyes that are the ultimate arbiter of spiritual life. And if your seeing is cloudy, or myopic; if you have lost your peripheral vision, if your insight is blocked by uninspected complexes, or even distorted to the point of madness -- then that is your vision, your awareness...and your fate. Hopefully somebody may come along and pull you out of your private hell by the scruff of the neck, but there is no guarantee.

On the other hand, if your eyes are clear, unclouded, seeing directly and truthfully -- then you will know the difference between the gurus who are diamonds and the gurus who are gravel.

In Frank's community, there was a war going on, between the intuitives and the soldiers, between the jnanis and the bhaktas, between the path of "radical understanding" and the path of "devotion". Sometimes it seemed that Frank fomented and encouraged these conflicts. In the end, though, he always abandoned the intuitives (whom he called "peculiars") in favor of the dependable obedience of the unconscious vitalists and devotional types.

I was assigned to a study group led by another community doctor, Charles Seage. (Charles was the author and editor of The Raw Gorilla, one of the books that I worked on as a typesetter.)

Our study group met in a house on a hill overlooking the sanctuary. As I recall, you could actually see the roof of Frank's house from the livingroom windows.

The first time we met was a few days after Da Free John had delivered a particularly fiery talk about stepping up our practice and our commitment to spiritual life. I personally was looking forward to a good discussion on the points he had raised, about "radical understanding" being the simplest most direct path of spiritual life, and that there was no reason on earth that anyone couldn't do this practice with intensity, considering that the living embodiment of "radical understanding" was in our midst!

So I was much surprised when Charles Seage opened the meeting by saying "I haven't had time to prepare anything, so let's just say a prayer and call it a night."

Everybody kind of shrugged and looked disappointed. Maybe a few people looked relieved. I found myself getting angry.

I held in my feelings for a minute, while Charles led us in a Daist prayer, and then, just as he was about to break up the meeting I raised my hand and asked if I could speak. He said "Sure, but make it quick. The meeting is over."

I told him how much I had looked forward to this study group, and that it didn't seem right to me to call it off, considering that Da Free John had just given us a talk about increasing the intensity of our practice.

Seage could hardly disagree. However, he repeated what he had said earlier, that he hadn't had time to prepare anything, so really there couldn't be a meeting.

At this point a most curious thing happened. Suddenly, out of the corner of my left eye, I saw a column of light coming out of Frank's house. This light rose rapidly through the air toward us until it penetrated the very walls of the house where we were sitting! A second later it entered my body and filled me with energy and power.

I stood up and began speaking, and it was a speech full of criticism of the lack of seriousness and commitment of so many followers of Da Free John. I said I had had the opportunity to observe the community close up for a couple of years now, and it seemed to me like a country club religion -- a bunch of nice people who wanted to be comfortable and live a charmed existence at the foot of the idol they had made of Da Free John.

Seage's ears pricked up and he immediately went on the attack, telling me to sit down and shut up, that it wasn't my place to say such things.

But I couldn't shut up, because I was inspired with the spirit of Frank's own frustration with his devotees. (Indeed, I sometimes wonder if I was channeling Frank in that moment.)

I went on about how spiritual life is a life-and-death matter, literally. If you can't take it seriously, if you can't treat your guru's words about practice with honor and respect, you have no business calling yourself a spiritual practitioner and you should just get out of it and go be a doctor somewhere.

I had clearly crossed a line. Some of the other people were nodding in agreement, but others were groaning and shaking their heads in disbelief. Seage himself was completely flustered. Finally he interrupted me in a shrill voice: "This is all a matter of authority. I am in charge here, and you are challenging my authority. I said this meeting is over, and it is."

With that he turned on his heel and left the room and the building. We all sat there a little stunned as we heard his car drive off. Then we had a lively discussion that lasted for about an hour!

The following day I was called away from my work to a meeting with Angelo Druda, David Todd, and Bill Stranger. This meeting -- actually an interrogation -- is something I have described a number of times.

I was told to sit in a chair, and the three men positioned themselves around me. One of them would ask me a question, such as "Tell us what happened last night with Charles Seage?" And when I started to answer, the next person would immediately interrupt me with another question. If I turned to answer him, I would get a question from behind me, or a declarative accusation about my attitude and behavior.

I quickly realized this wasn't to be a dialogue, and they weren't really interested in hearing what I had to say. So I tried the tactic of choosing one question and answering it straight on, not listening to the interruptions. When they saw that I intended to actually say my piece, they raised their voices and all started verbally attacking me at once!

This went on for ten or fifteen minutes, maybe longer. Finally I just shut up and said nothing.

At that point each of the men gave me a little lecture, ripping me up and down for speaking out of turn at the study group. None of them had been there, so whatever they knew of it was secondhand, and probably from Charles. Clearly they thought I was a reprobate of major proportions who needed to be taught a good lesson in community protocol.

I think the whole meeting was no more than 30 minutes long. At the end of it Angelo Druda got very friendly and said, "Don't worry. Charles Seage is getting his ass ripped too, for cancelling the study group."

Angelo said "You did really well. Most people crack under the pressure and end up crying or worse." Meaning, I suppose, that these kinds of attack-sessions were a regular thing in Daism.

Somebody then asked me if I had learned something from this meeting. I said "Yes, I have learned quite a bit."

I didn't tell them what I had learned, but I think they understood what I was thinking: "Now I know for certain -- Daism really is a cult."

The next day Charles Seage came into Dawn Horse Press and made in scene in front me. "I want him out of here," he told Bill Krenz. "He's fired."

Bill stood up for me and tried to get Seage to forgive and forget. But apparently Seage had a position of power that allowed him to call the shots.

With fond hugs and handshakes, I bit goodbye to my friends at Dawn Horse Press. Bill was apologetic and a little tearful. He knew my heart and I knew his. He was a good man, a very good man. But we were to go our separate ways.

(to be concluded)