(Preface: encountering the divine in the ordinary)
PREFACE By Lee Ann B. Marino, D.D., Ph.D.
It is God’s desire that we discover Him in a way that helps us to discover ourselves, and that it will change us. That change is not to be without impact. As we change, we change our decisions, our choices, and ultimately, our lives. This leads us to bring about change to those around us, as well.
When we deal with spirituality, many people think our walk with God must be something complicated and difficult, filled with endlessly profound moments. The truth is that
God desires us to see and sense His presence in everything we do, not just in things we deem to be sacred or profound.
Once one sees the beautiful diamond there is still the task of setting it. The hurdles are not over yet. In spirituality this process is often called something like a divine purging fire, i.e. the steps that prepare the devotee to be closer to the guru. This purging is as mysterious and wondrous as the guru him/herself. Its a wonder anyone lives through the fire, given it often is scorching.
(Missing the light that was always there: the teacher taken for granted)
Sometimes its easy to be blind to the fact that what we are seeking is already there, if we’d just stop seeking for it and not be afraid of commitment. I didn’t see the light, or one might say the Bright, until it was gone. He was like the lover you took for granted until they are gone, and you realize how much better they made your life and how your fear of commitment blinded you to what you had all along.
But, the shock was more like as if a friend of my own had passed and I knew I had failed to take advantage of or respect our friendship. Let alone, he probably wondered where I went. It wasn’t personal, I say to him, and I didn’t leave out of animosity. I didn’t know you considered us friends in the first place.
I like to say in hindsight I had to focus on just living life a bit before coming to him. I needed to clean up my life and find happiness on my own first. He always said come to him when you are happy, and I generally was happy at the time I returned.
After first meeting Adi Da Samraj I was inspired to write a novella, Da Eyes: The Striptease, which I believe was done through automatic writing by him. It was one of the spiritual gifts he granted me as a way to show his divine nature, though it wasn’t enough to keep me tied to him in the difficult years ahead.
These poems are trying not to mimic, but instead step inside like an actor studies for a role with nearly torturous research.
(Adidam’s claims: Adi Da as God-substitute, and the limits of that framing)
One turns to Adi Da Samraj. One doesn’t turn to God and ignore Adi Da Samraj. According to devotees this is like ignoring God as they have substituted Adi Da Samraj for God.
Anyone can realize God and anyone can be a guru, as all gurus and all students are part of the same divine entity. But, if that’s the case, than there’s nothing particularly special about the boy known as Franklin Jones.
Devotees are almost insulted to be told, as I once made the mistakes of doing before one gathering, that we are all already God and there are many avatars equal to Adi Da Samraj, and we can all be realized like
Adi Da Samraj did not teach being safe and did not support staying comfy, but breaking everything one knew.
honest. I have no friends I’ll lose and no community I’ll be blocked from, and have no investment in the community.
I think he lost his way and a lot of honest God seekers have followed down this new dark path to their spiritual detriment.
Many scholars of Hinduism do not see Adidam as something as new as it is promoted, but more a mix of Hinduism and Buddhism through an post-hippie American lense.
So far, only the quick draw complaints of the devotees have come, but I don’t believe these are messages from him as he would think through things better.
1 Where I Usually Fall
Each step taken by everyone a step of self-contraction. It is necessary to persist, in the way I’ve always lived and always known, no matter how much I feel haunted by these shadow lives around me.
as essentially important as an expensive meal at a fancy restaurant I happen not to like or enjoy but still prefer it over mom’s home cooked meals, because its fancy and expensive and thus represents something abstract I feel I need and therefore means something greater than me.