“Especially in the last four or five years, My Struggle has progressed to the point of completeness. And so when people refer to My “Crazy Wise” Work, they must understand that it has essentially come to an end.”
Adi Da Samraj, September 28, 1998
In my own life of Teaching I have been moved to submit myself to ordinary people in a time of great confusion and doubt relative to life in general as well as to the Way of Truth. There have been no superior individuals for me to address. Therefore, I have often taught in the “Crazy Wisdom” manner, exaggerating and satirizing the usual man, mocking the conventions of social and religious behavior and belief, and in general taking on and transforming all of the tendencies of humankind that are abroad in my time and place. This Crazy Wisdom method of teaching is one of the traditional options used by Adepts, and it does not involve a “fall” or an embrace of un-Enlighened views. Indeed, it is a means for expressing and maintaining the difference between the conventional point of view and the Enlightened or Transcendental “point” of view. therefore through all of the ‘theater” of my Teaching Work, I have always maintained an absolute commitment to the Way Itself, and it is to this most profound and radical Way that I have brought all of those who have found me and held on to me in these Teaching years.
How To Communicate about the “Crazy Wise” Submission Work of Beloved Adi Da
Adi Da has referred a number of times recently to the period of media attacks in 1985 and called devotees to be very strong and clear in criticizing and countering that kind of abuse and misunderstanding of His “Crazy Wise” Submission Work during The Teaching years. His decision to make His Language about the Divine consistently refer to Him Personally is a very positive sign and an act of trust in the maturity of devotees to advocate Him rightly as the Avataric Incarnation of the Divine Person.
When Adi Da was receiving reports on Sunday morning, September 27, He was told that there are some in the public who say that his “Crazy Wise” method of Teaching is dangerous, and that Westerners are not ready for the intensity of sadhana required in relationship to Him. Beloved’s response was very strong:
AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: It should be explained to people that the Struggle I have been involved in since the Initiation of My Divine “Emergence” was one in which I was moving everything to the point where I would have a sufficient core gathering of renunciate devotees to make Adidam into an effective mission and a true culture of response to Me. And so, since 1986 (the period I have described as My Revelation Years), my struggle was in some respects like that of My Teaching Year. I had to endure and instruct immature people. Even so, this process has become fruitful.
Especially in the last four or five years, My Struggle has progressed to the point of completeness. And so when people refer to My “Crazy Wise” Work, they must understand that it has essentially come to an end.
I am the same Master here, but My “Crazy Wise” Work in terms of My Submission to Teach and making My Revelation has achieved completeness in these last several years. And one of the fundamental signs that that way of Working has come to an end after a quarter century is that I have Communicated The Way fully in the form of My Twenty-three Source Texts, which will be progressivly published. And the gathering of devotees will be likewise publishing supportive texts and The Promised God-Man Is Here, which will tell the Divine Leela of My Life and Work.
Access to Me has always been based on practice, and I have Worked with people based on their response to Me. I have never done public work. At most, I have done contact work with those who can be a contact for My Blessing. In other words, I do not have any social relations. Nor do I play the organization man. I don’t even normally have conversations with people. My Work for the entire world is My Divine Blessing Work, which do principally in Seclusion. But sometimes I wander about the world and have contact with all kinds of people through spontaneous association. Thus, I do not live a merely secluded life shut off from the world and its realities. But, now, and forever, access to me is based on people’s heart recognition of Me and heart response to Me based on the signs in their practice. My “Crazy Wise” Submission Work is complete, access to Me is simply and fundamentally based on peoples’ vow, congregation and signs of practice.
Everyone should understand that I am a Ruchira Sannyasin. I live in perpetual retreat in a Hermitage mode, and sometimes I roam in the public circumstances not identified there to have contact with ordinary people. And otherwise I have formal contact with people with significance and influence in order to Bless them. But, fundamentally, I remain in Hermitage Retreat and especially My Principal Hermitage Retreat in Fiji. And I function in the Atiashrami Blessing manner, but not otherwise in the “Crazy Wise” Submission manner, as in the past. I Worked in that way for a time in order to make My Divine Self-Revelation.
Now, after all these years, I am firmly Established in My Divine “Emergence” Work, and My devotees, generally speaking, relate to Me in a formal manner. Rather than struggling to communicate the Way of Adidam and move them beyond their imitations, I have given them their practice and an Institution, Culture, Community and Mission for the application of that practice. (September 30, 1998)
In this great Statement, Beloved has Given enormous help and guidance to all devotees in our Missionary and Advocacy work. Quandra Sukha Mai pointed out when she was passing on these Notes, that this Statement, together with Beloved’s Writings”First Word” and “Last Word” are a full and comprehensive answer to any doubts or confusion that may arise relative to how and why Beloved Worked as He did in the past, and how He Works now.” It is important, however, to understand that, while Beloved’s Crazy Wise Submission Work is over, He is always, Inherently, Divinely “Crazy”, in the sense that His Being Transcends all egoic limitations and points of view. He makes this clear right at the beginning of The Dawn Horse Testament.
How a Guru Works
The following is from The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa (vol 4)
Abhisheka is a Sanskrit term that is usually translated “initiation.” But initiation here is not just the idea of being accepted into a tribe by going through a certain ceremony. Here there is a sense of complete and total surrender. Surendering in this way is very unreasonable from the ordinary point of view; but this sacrifice and the bond that arises from it have to be established before we can trust the universe as a potentially enlighted situation…..enormous surrendering and enormous trust are involved.
Trust on this level means one cannot maintain one’s ego. One cannot maintain one’s basic existence as “myself”. This self has become completely dedicated, it has completely opened up in surrendering to the world created by the guru. The world that the guru creates is not particularly a pleasant one. It might be very unpleasant, horrific. It might also be beautiful at the same time. The reason the world created by the guru tends to be an irritating one is that the guru goes beyond the role of spiritual friend at this point and begins to act as a dictator. He minds your business completely; he mind every inch of your life.
Your guru has the ability to do such a thing, because he knows every inch of your life, of your state of consciousness. He knows the tiniest fragments of your subconscious gossip,he knows all the littel freckles in your mental functions. The guru has complete understanding of all this. Therefore you are highly exposed, full exposed.
For this reason, the tantric tradition is considered very dangerous. The tradional format is that you can either make love to your guru as a divine being or kill him. The analogy is that of a snake in a bamboo tube. When you put a snake in a bamboo tube, the snake has to face either up or down. Relating with the guru is very powerful, too powerful.
Tantic transmission cannot take place with a guru………that is the basic point that we should be very clear about…..it’s very hellish. When the guru begins to manifest himself as somebody minding your business two hundred percent, you are bound to feel extraordinarily claustrophobic. He sees you inside out, outside in. This is a very powerful and very paranoid situation.
also see: Transcending Madness, Chogyam Trungpa ‘Crazy Wisdom’