Have I Said It?
Note to reader:
As a member of Adi Da’s (then Bubba Free John’s) community from about 1973-1975, during which time I lived for nine months in Persimmon, the sanctuary where he lived. My service was to create an index of his early books. I found these writings to be compelling, along with some of the outrageous talks that have not found their way into print. Around his birthday in 1975 (to the best of my recollection), Adi Da was planning on moving with a small group to Hawaii. For that occasion, I arranged a selection of his compelling words by topic (mostly selected from his books) and hand-wrote them in a blank book for his enjoyment. As far as I know, nothing ever came of that compilation. That became Book One of two parts, the second of which I completed some time thereafter. Now through the Internet, I make both parts available to interested readers. These blank books (I made a copy for myself) have been sitting on my bookshelves all this time, and after Adi Da’s passing, it occurred to me that this compilation would be very useful to many readers.
Enjoy,
Ed Hirsch
presenceofone@yahoo.com
Ashland, Oregon
Chapter 12
Bubba Free John
The Life
Franklin Jones is a Fictional
Character.
On November 3, 1939, at 11:23
a.m.
In Jamaica, New York,
I was born
Franklin Albert Jones.
The sign of my birth
Is Scorpio,
Marked by the images
Of spirit and of sex,
The eagle and the crab.
It is the sign of internal
warfare,
The problem and perfection.
I have played in the dilemma
Of my natural alternatives,
But from my earliest experience of
life,
I have enjoyed a condition
I would call “the Bright.”
My life has been an adventure
Of the knowledge and
unfoldment
Of the “bright,”
Which I have known to be
The form of reality.
Very early in life
I conceived a purpose
In the “Bright.”
It was to restore humor.
My purpose has been
To make this realization
possible
As the real foundation
Of conscious life.
Franklin jones
Is a fictional character,
A series of lessons
Consciously manifested
For my devotees.
Franklin jones is essentially
A series of lessons.
I have always been
Bubba free john.
I had never been taught
My path from without.
The “Bright,”
With its foundation in the
heart,
Had been my teacher
Under the form
Of all my teachers
And experiences.
The Heart
Had been my only teacher.
There has been only one Guru
In my case.
That Guru has used
Many instruments
All throughout my life,
But that Guru is not separate
From my own state.
That Guru is my own state, my own
nature.
That Guru is the perfect Guru,
The very Divine.
It was perfectly obvious to me
That there was nothing to do
But sadhana.
There was nothing else in life
That was worth the suffering.
We are all going to die.
We are all going to lose
This awareness, this
enjoyment.
I can’t endure that dilemma
From day to day.
From the moment I was born
That upset me.
I wasn’t the least interested
In tolerating moment to moment
existence
As that kind of suffering.
Life wasn’t worth the
involvement
If its summation had to be death,
zero.
What difference does it make
How turned on I can get
If I must fall out the bottom,
arbitrarily.
Everything is wonderful today.
But you wake up tomorrow
And the world of lovely
friends
Is delivered to you dead,
The insane parcels
Of everything disappearing.
I could tolerate
No mediocrity.
I sought an utterly
Radical reversal
And transformation
Of my existence.
I sought reality,
To be reality,
What is,
Not what is asserted
In the face of what is.
I had exhausted my seeking.
I had seen the futility of
effort.
I knew reality
As no-seeking,
A motiveless awareness
In the heart.
I felt the Shakti
Appear against my own form.
She embraced me,
And we grasped one another
In sexual union.
We clasped one another
In a fire of cosmic desire,
As if to give birth
To the universes.
The sensations of the embrace
Were overwhelmingly blissful.
It exceeded any kind of
pleasure
That a man could acquire.
I accepted her as my consort,
My loved one,
And I held her forever
To my heart.
There was no separation at
all.
Not separation,
Not even union,
But unqualified relationship
Or non-separation
Arose in me
As the radical
Sense of existence.
There was no meditation.
There was no need for
meditation.
I sat with my eyes open.
Have I Said It?
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