The Case of Adi Da

[Guest guest]

Dear List,

 

It is interesting to read KW's recent remarks concerning

the latest (and only) Western (Kalki) Avatar - Adi Da.

Have fun.

 

~dave

 

 

The Case of Adi Da

The last positive statement I made about Da's work was in 1985, when I wrote

a very strong endorsement for his major book, The Dawn Horse Testament. This

is one of the very greatest spiritual treatises, comparable in scope and

depth to any of the truly classic religious texts. I still believe that, and

I challenge anybody to argue that specific assessment.

 

 

The teaching is one thing, the teacher, quite another. By this time (around

1985), things were starting to become very problematic for Da, his personal

life, his community, and his teaching in the world. In ways that we are just

beginning to understand, some types of spiritual development can run way

ahead of moral, social, interpersonal, and wisdom development in general. Da

is capable of some truly exquisite insights, but in other areas, he has

fared less well, and this has increasingly verged on the catastrophic.

 

 

It is always sad to see such promise run aground on the rocks of personality

problems. As this was becoming increasingly obvious to even his most

appreciative students, including me, I did an interview with Yoga Journal

(September/Octobers 1987). In that interview, I made my very last public

statement about Da. For the next decade, I would publicly say nothing about

him whatsoever (until now). Thus, for the last ten years, here has been my

official stance these are the last sentences of that statement:

 

 

" [Da] makes a lot of mistakes. These are immediately reinterpreted as great

teaching events, which is silly. And then he gets mad and frustrated and

goes into sort of a divine pout ..... Because of these and other

difficulties, he has holed up in Fiji, become very isolated and cut off,

which I think could be disastrous, for him and for the community. The entire

situation has become very problematic. It's real hard to get happy about

what's going on. "

 

 

" Problematic " was the euphemism that sociologists at that time were using

for Jonestown. Although few think Da will slide that far, nonetheless, his

entire teaching work has indeed become problematic. The great difficulty is

that, no matter how " enlightened " you might be, it take s a certain amount

of practical wisdom to gauge the effects of your teaching work on the world

at large. Crazy wisdom might (or might not) be fine for a few very close and

longtime devotees. But it is disastrous when done as a large scale social

experiment, which Da did, especially during the " Garbage and the Goddess "

period. Anybody who could not see how that experiment would be perceived by

the world is simply a damn fool. And an enlightened damn fool is even more

culpable.

 

 

Those events sealed Da's fate in today's world. His teaching work is

effectively ended for all but a small handful. And he will never be able to

teach in this country, or virtually anywhere else, either, because his past

will follow him. It is altogether sad, then, to see him continue to announce

that he is the World Teacher. He won't even venture out in to the world! He

hides in Fiji, away from the glare, away from the world, away from the truth

at large. And he calls us to his little island kingdom, there to save the

world. This verges on the grotesque.

 

 

Is there any chance that Da can rehabilitate himself? His claim, of course,

is that he is the most enlightened person in the history of the planet. Just

for argument, let us agree. But then what would the most enlightened World

Teacher in history actually do in the world? Hide? Avoid? Run? Or would that

teacher engage the world, step into the arena of dialogue, meet with other

religious teachers and adepts, attempt to start a universal dialogue that

would test his truths in the fire of the circle of those who could usefully

challenge him. At the very least, a person who claims to be the World

Teacher needs to get out in the world, no?

 

 

This doesn't mean Da would have to attend every conference, give hundreds of

lectures, hit the talk-show circuit, etc. It simply means he would at the

very least find ways to directly engage or at least meet!--some of the

prominent leaders in the fields of religion, politics, science, and

administration. As it is, he won't even meet with other leaders, such as the

Dalai Lama, unless they become practicing members of his church! Hello?

 

 

To step out in that fashion requires moral courage. It requires a

willingness to engage and respond. It demands a brave heart to stand forth

and shine, not just to a few hundred in Fiji, but to an unbelieving world.

 

 

Until this happens, I can recommend to no one that they take up the

isolationist practices of the Daist community.

 

 

At the same time, this should not prevent us from taking advantage of that

part of Da which isn't broken, namely, his clear (if isolated) spiritual

writings and insights. If nothing else, his written texts are still an

extraordinary source of material. Even if you do nothing but disagree with

them, you will at least see a stunning number of ideas and insights and

methods, which you can check for yourself and see if they actually work or

not. Nor should his personal problems negate these insights. Even if

Einstein was a complete psychotic, E still equals mc2. Let us not deny the

latter because of the former.

 

 

We await, then, the day that the World Teacher consents to enter the World.

Until that time, it is perhaps best to watch from a safe distance, while

availing yourself of those written texts that still manage to shine with a

light of their own.

 

Ken Wilber

Oct. 11, 1996