The
Path of No-seeking, Working with Franklin Jones, Working
with Franklin Jones, by Morgan Zo-Callahan with the author’s
permission. The essay is from the forthcoming book, INTIMATE
MEANDERINGS, Conversations Close to our Hearts, by Morgan
Zo-Callahan and Friends. More information as well as other
articles may be found at the prepublication website.
Death is utterly acceptable to consciousness and life.
There has been endless time of numberless deaths, but
neither consciousness nor life has ceased to arise. The felt
quantity and cycle to death has not modified the fragility
of flowers, even the flowers within our human body.
Therefore, our understanding of consciousness and life must
be turned to the utter, inclusive quality, that clarity and
wisdom, that power and untouchable gracefulness this
evidence suggests. Franklin Jones, The Knee of
Listening Finally with impurities renounced, spewed out,
discharged, abandoned, and with the thought that one is
endowed with serene joy in the Enlightened Onein his
Teaching (Dhamma)in the Communityhe is touched
with a feeling for the Sense of the Truth, and he receives
the gladness associated with Truth; when one is glad, joy
arises; when the mind is joyful, the body becomes relaxed;
when relaxed, one feels content. The mind of the contented
man is concentrated. Majjhima-nikaya, Sutta No.
7 In 1972 I became aware of Franklin Jones, and by 1973, I
was his student. I was graced with, or maybe just lucked
into, an intense five-year relationship with Franklin as my
spiritual teacher. (Franklin was later known as Bubba Free
John, and, by the last time I saw him in 1979, Master Adi
Da). I was, and remain, truly grateful for this gift. This
is the story of my experience as his student, my
leave-taking and re-visiting, some reflections of what later
happened within Master Das community, and what my
experience taught me about the relationship of a spiritual
seeker to his or her teacher. I am certain the my life today
is quite different that it might have been because of my
experience with Da, and I will conclude by trying to say how
and why that is so. It was the late 60’s and early 70’s, and so many of us
were searching like crazy to be in touch with what our lives
were about and how we might bring our fullest life to the
world community. For me it was a time of great turmoil, both
personally and socially. All of us were being torn apart
over the war in Vietnam. The answers proclaimed by the
religions of our fathers and mothers no longer satisfied.
This was the age of Be Here Now, Black Power, Womens
Rights, Gay Rights, Brown Rights, and native American Spirit
based religion. Theologies of Preference for the
Poor, and Latin American Liberation Theology”
were emerging. Spiritual supermarkets were everywhere, lots of
pretenders and phonies, communes, and some genuine articles.
It was my most intense period of spiritual searching, with
the possible exception of my first two years as a Jesuit,
and I had egg all over my face listening to some incredibly
power-hungry spiritual teachers, super-star religious gurus.
In the middle of this sideshow, however, I was also catching
the wonderful grace of meeting and talking with truly
genuine, accomplished, spiritual geniuses such as Franklin.
Happily I took on a way of understanding and self-inquiry to
see if I could soften and resolve my own desperate
seeking. I had been in the Jesuits for 9 years, from 1962 to 1971,
mostly great years, meaningful, fruitful,
not-without-shadows, ever-continually-influencing-me. The
Jesuits had made my life fuller, offered me opportunities
and challenges to grow spiritually, to serve the poor, to
learn meditation, to receive a wonderful education, and to
enjoy the company of my fellow Jesuits, a very bright,
varied and dedicated group of men. During my last two years teaching as a Jesuit, I lost all
feeling that I was part of a communityeveryone was
“doing their own thing. And it was also then that Fr.
Jim Healy, S.J. connected me to Alan Watts and Suzuki Roshi.
He gave me a book, Christian Yoga, by Fr. Dechanet and I
started standing on my head! But more importantly, I was
being given a chance to deepen meditation practice, really
to renew myself. Jim loved reading Alan and Suzuki Roshi and
took me to visit Suzuki Roshi four or five times. Another Jesuit friend, Marcus Holladay visited the San
Francisco Zen Center with me where we meditated, and
listened to talks by Suzuki who was a very welcoming
teacher. Marcus also went with me to some talks and seminars
with Watts. Marcus and I also spent time going to learn some
of the “bodywork” therapies by day (after teaching until
around 3 o’clock, we’d go to talks or workshops in
body-movement therapies such as Feldenkrais, Alexander
Lowen, bio-energetics, Dr. Randolph Stone, Gestalt
Therapy). I’d never been entirely separated from the Jesuits since
I was an adolescent, yet by 1971, I didn’t want to be a
Jesuit any longer. They would have to find their way without
me. I felt that Catholic groups, including the Jesuits, were
falling apart, doubting themselves. I was very put off by
the body-sex negativity in the Catholic church, the teaching
that human beings are born in original sin, that we’re
naturally bad. (Of course, the church increases its power
through the rituals of forgiveness to erase that inherent
sinfulnessforgiveness for something we aren’t in the
first place). Some Jesuits lived double lives,” being
sexually intimate while putting on a celibate face. Others,
including myself, were suffering the “horny celibate”
syndrome. At age 26, I left the Jesuits, and I became a community
organizer with the Jesuit Volunteer Corp to Xalapa, Mexico.
Living with the American Jesuits there for a year allowed me
a healthy separation from the Order and showed me a way to
stay fully involved with activist projects without being a
Jesuit. After this year, I decided to slow down and respond
to the exploding echoes coming from the 60’s-70’s Eastern
infiltration. I decided to “drop out” for as long as it
took, be a hippie and spiritual seeker outside the Catholic
tradition. There were so many drums calling me. It was time for me
to tap into other resources for spiritual growth. I was
being pulled from the warring West to the blissed-out
East. In 1972, I was teaching a course at New College in
Sausalito, California, on Comparative Religion: The
Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, Buddhism and Indian
meditation. Alan Watt’s “rockin'” houseboat was also moored
in Sausalito, and, through a fortuitous series of
circumstances, I met Alan. We liked each other immediately.
He invited me to his parties, and later, I became part of
the group that would gather on the houseboat or in his
forest retreat at the foot of Mount Tamalpais. It was a time
of incredible conversation, meandering all over the
spiritual landscape, plus lots of shenanigans. Alan was the greatest lecturer and most entertaining
speaker I ever encountered. I went to as many of his
lectures as I could. He told fantastic stories of leading
tours to Japanese Buddhist temples and monasteries. He was
fascinating, alive, and quick, with roaring humor and a
sharp mind and twinkling eyes; he was an artistic, sensual
person and popular scholar, conversant in so
many areas, including Tai Chi, architecture, music, art; but
it was Zen that he introduced to me, in a rudimentary though
very meaningful way. Alan introduced me to the concept of “non-effort” in
spiritual practice. He said that the release of all our
spiritual seeking is an experiential realization in the Zen
tradition. He would tell, with great pizzazz, stories of Zen
teachers who would frustrate students into giving up all
their effort and just surrender to the moment. They would
ask the student “to figure out who you are, before you were
somebody.” “Just get up and dance. Stop thinking so
much.” Alan insisted on some irreverence to counter-balance our
precious methods and teachers of the spiritual life. We can
appreciate our teachers, our rituals, our prayer and
meditation without getting so attached to them that we
forget to find our true selves. He had a quality of being a
wise rascal who sometimes enjoyed the bawdy aspects of life,
excessive, yet in the midst of that, still a teacher. There
was a time to celebrate and a time to be sober. In the few
years I knew him, Alan always seemed to be partying and
without any regrets. He had a very generous heart and also,
like all of us, his own “demons.” I loved being with
Alan. Alan taught that you can’t even try to let go, as we if
could decide, “OK, I’m going to completely surrender to
life.” He was like a pied piper trying to get us to see the
realty of our situation, to have a meditation practice. He
said meditation will lead to deep intuitions that we are not
separate from one another or from our world; that we don’t
need to go anywhere or achieve anything to attain what we
think we want or need to be enlightened. He taught us about
Vipassana insight meditation where we grasp the implications
of change and death, “nothing to attain.” No need for
seeking. Alan said that the opening of one’s heart and
intelligence, already experienced within an individual with
deep confidence, undermines the search from the beginning.
It’s all right, all of it; no need to chase spiritual snake
oil. Alan asked us to try different forms of meditation, but
he seemed most partial to Zen. It was a time, even more
seriously than when I was in the Jesuits, where I began
looking at the reality of my personal situation, my way of
living, my intentions, my deepest desires, even my
deep-rooted “hang ups.” He taught that with intuition,
understanding, with the opening of one’s heart, we would see
there’s no need to search beyond our personal situations. We
are presently living. We are full within ourselves,
ever-co-related with others. Alan quoted what Ramana
Maharshi said: that devotions to spiritual teachers or
traditions, practices, recitations, meditations, readings,
serve their purpose when you don’t need them anymore. As Wei Wu Wei says: Disciples and
devotees
What are most of them doing? Worshipping the
teapot instead of drinking the tea!” Alan was a great academic teacher, but I was looking for
a practical spiritual Master. I heard Alan speak of Franklin
Jones’ The Knee of Listening, as an excellent presentation
of the idea that all our seeking outside of ourselves is
unsatisfactory because “it’s already the case that you are
God.” Alan often said that we all tended to think we weren’t
already all right, already enlightened, and that it was our
seeking, our sometimes anguished, scattered effort, that
kept us separated from who we are, if we would just be
ourselves. Later I would hear Franklin quote Ramana
Maharshi, “Liberation is getting rid of non-existent misery
and attaining the Bliss which is always there…in the
Heart.” Alan wanted to check out Franklin Jones for himself,
which I think would have been mutually enriching for them,
but Alan died on November 16, 1973 and never had that
opportunity. I visited a bookstore on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood, run
by Franklins community, to buy the book that Alan had
recommended. There was a big picture of Franklin in the
front of the bookstore, which was a turn off, but I found
The Knee of Listening, Franklin ‘s autobiography and initial
teachings about meditation and Eastern and Western religious
wisdom, very compelling. Alan wrote in his introduction to a
later edition: “To say what Franklin Jones is trying to say
is like drawing an asymptotic curve, a curve which is always
getting nearer to a straight line, but only touches it at
infinity…he has simply realized that he himself as he is,
like a star, like a dolphin, like an iris, is a perfect and
authentic manifestation of the eternal energy of the
universe, and thus is not longer disposed to be in conflict
with himself.” From Franklin’s book, and from some of his unpublished
notes, I found out about Franklin’s background and his own
seeking for the “removal of internal contradictions or the
mutual alternatives that enforce kinds of experience, the
pattern of seeking and of conflict.” (The Knee of Listening,
p. 17). His personal journey fascinated me and called to me.
He had spoken out in the 50’s and 60’s against the injustice
towards African Americans in America. In 1962, he had been a
volunteer for psychedelic drug experiment at the Veteran’s
Administration Hospital in Mountain View, California. During
a six-week period, he ingested mescaline, psilocybin, and
LSD, separately for 3 sessions and one session combining the
3 hallucinogens. Alan Watts similarly in the late 50’s
experienced LSD*; when asked about LSD, Alan said: “When
you’ve got the message, hang up the phone.” After ingesting
the drugs, Franklin had various kundalini experiences which
made him feel more conscious, alive and loving. The force of
energies moved upwards from the base of his spine through
the “centers” (chakras), exactly as described in ancient
Kundalini Yoga texts. When Franklin felt this intensely
tangible energy in his heart, he was overcome with emotion
and wept. Franklin said he also re-connected with some
experiences he had in childhood seizures resulting from
illness. As Alan, Franklin would leave hallucinogens. “Like any
other stage in my life, it came to the end of its
serviceable use, and at that point I abandoned it.” (The
Knee of Listening, p. 22) Later, he would be convinced by
Jung that a part of our consciousness is free from death, an
awareness, a spirit, free from the limitations of body, a
disembodied, yet aware soul that was immortal. He was struck
by Jung’s reports of out-of-body, conscious experiences that
happened to some of his patients. Such patients reported
looking down on their bodies and being aware of what was
happening in the room. Franklin would write: “This passage
from Jung signified in me a liberation from mortal
philosophy and all bondage to the form of death” (The Knee
of Listening, p. 34). [Recent scientific research has
shown that “out of body” experiences can be induced by
running a current through a part of the brain, as well as
arising from other conditions, and doesn’t imply a spirit
apart from the body.] In 1964, Franklin started a three and a half year
practice of Sidda Yoga with Rudi, Swami Rudrananda, who
taught Kundalini Yoga out of his Asian antique store in New
Yorks Greenwich Village as well as a retreat center in
the Catskills. Rudy had worked with both Swami Nityananda
and Swami Muktananda, and continued their practice of
discipline and self-surrender by concentrating on the form
of the guru (a method Franklin would give his own students,
but one I didn’t always find helpful). Rudi encouraged
Franklin to enter a Christian seminary where he studied
theology and biblical languages. Franklin also worked with
the methodology of Scientology before going to India to be
Swami Muktananda’s disciple. After reading The Knee of Listening, I started to think
that I wanted to become Franklin’s student later on, if the
conditions were right. I continued the rest of ’72 learning
from Alan and also from the seminars of Ram Dass. I would
sometimes visit the Zen Center in San Francisco, but I
missed Suzuki Roshi, and no longer felt that it was my
practice place. * Alan was initially introduced to mescaline by Dr. Oscar
Janiger. He experimented with hallucinogens several times
with Drs. Keith Ditman, Sterling Bunnell, and Michael
Agron. Franklin Jones accepted me as his student in 1973, and I
began a five-year period of work and study with him. I felt
a natural connection with Franklin, yet it was with some
fear and trepidation that I immersed myself in a
student-teacher relationship and in living communally. There
was some sense of struggle on this quest for “no struggle”
and “no seeking,” but the early years with Franklin were,
for me, a spectacular time of learning, observing myself,
becoming aware of my own distracting mind and clenched
heart, and being able to touch “inner goodness. When I say being accepted as Franklin’s
student, I mean I accepted him as a spiritual master
in a most human sense, one who is psychologically mature as
well as spiritually adept. I can say I was never Franklin’s
devotee, though I was a serious student, in what I
considered an adult though vulnerable relationship. I
refused to become subservient to a spiritual master who
makes himself or herself a god and whose followers say,
“We’re the only ones who know the answer,” and I never felt
that Franklin demanded that of me in order to be his
student. My time with Franklin was a long spiritual retreat, not
completely calm, also a chaotic whirlwind of trying out new
ways of thinking and living in a community. I was fully and
happily involved during my time with Franklin, and yet I
felt Franklin’s community was “nothing special. He
taught hatha, pranayama and Sidda yoga, and communicated
this Eastern wisdom in Western terms. He stimulated the
light within us. I accepted his authority to teach, passed
to him through Swami Nityananda and Swami Muktananda, and I
felt fortunate to work in an authentic Siddha Yoga
tradition. He revered and respected his teachers, but didn’t
make them an object of worship. There were long hours in the meditation hall, many
spontaneous periods of meditation, both in the company of
Franklin and alone. It was a time for late night spiritual
conversations about God, about health, diet, sex, community
living, children, education, and learning from the various
great religious traditions. We as a community allowed
ourselves grow into an intimate relationship. There were
sumptuous meals, but also fasts, times for detoxifying. And
there were times when we mingled in the baths and pools,
fooled around in the water, singing, listening to Stevie
Wonder music, smoking cigarettes and drinking beer. But I
also remember many more times during this period of
meditating in the steaming mineral waters, giving each other
massages, doing various yoga practices, including tantric
yoga; being naked, both physically and psychologically, with
intimate friends. Even if at times we were all, including Franklin, drunken
fools, Franklin always taught. He was having a ball,
laughing and joking, but also engaging individuals very
directly, stimulating our intelligence as well as our
hearts, intensifying the student’s native ability to conduct
the life-force and to rest the mind in the heart, as
Pantanjali taught: “Let your mind fall into your heart,”
breathing that realization, breathing the deepest peace
within us, bringing life and love to oneself, extending that
outwards to all others and to our environment. Most important to me were my conversations with Franklin.
They were direct and personal. I’d enjoy their free flow.
Eventually I’d come to know and call Franklin “Bubba” or
brother. It was a very engaging friendship, with lots of
give and take. He had an ability to inquire in conversation,
in a non-dogmatic way, and was adept at getting to the
questions behind the questions, addressing my real
needs. In the beginning, Franklin would say, no beads, no
bowing, no incense
just relationship. He asked
his students to be free of drugs, to work, to study and
meditate, and to live responsibly in their relationships.
For my part I focused on staying in relationship to him. I
was also very fond of him and enjoyed his company which made
that very easy. Franklin was always open to answer my real
questions at the time. Since I had a physiotherapy license,
Franklin invited me to be with him many times, to give him
massages or to do some “body work” techniques with him, such
as from the Alexander technique, or movements from Dr.
Rudolph Stone and Dr. Robert Hall. I feel so fortunate Franklin allowed me to learn with
him. I felt Franklin’s whole agenda was to wake me up, to
push me to pay attention to my heart, to be intelligent and
actively find out what’s important to me, as I live my
tiny-timed life. He was a Mr. Gurdjieff who shook up my
“programmed” way of living. Bubba would sit in meditation with us, much as in the
Indian-guru tradition of sitting with a teacher whose
presence is felt-in-the-heart and who
communicates directlywith grace, not effortto
the student. Bubba’s meditation hall was spiritually and
tangibly charged, and I could easily enter into deep states
and spontaneously relax in graceful conductivity generated
in the company of the teacher. Some people had kriyas
(spontaneous shaking, movements of the body), blisses,
crying, screaming, moaning, talking in tongues; some had
“out of body” experiences and visions. (Yoga describes these
as manifestations of descending and ascending life force
within and permeating us). He might consciously regard those sitting
with him, looking into our eyes, and, it seemed,
communicating unconditional love. If asked to contemplate
the human guru, I rather felt more comfortable just sitting
in meditation with Bubba, “being with the teacher.” He might
ask us to examine how we were contracting,
tightening ourselveshed make a fist to show how
we unconsciously do this ourselves, inquiring “avoiding
relationship?”. Tight throats, heads, chests, hearts,
stomachs just seemed to loosen and fill in the intensified,
expansive field of energy that he generated. For me, I found
that meditation is where the life force is energized and an
understanding of the self begins. Franklin would listen carefully to our questions, upsets,
doubts. He would try to help the questioner directly, as
Ramana Maharshi suggested: first question; observe yourself,
the questioner; ask Who am I? Inquire into
the avoidance of relationship in our lives, as
reflected in stiff body and contracted feeling. As in
Buddhist meditation, we wouldn’t avoid what we were feeling
but allow expansiveness around whatever was occurring in
us. He tired to communicate his own realizations to us. He
said his spiritual influences were Jesus, Buddha, Krishna,
Ramakrishna, Shirdi Sai Baba, and Ramana Maharshi. He wrote
after a time of meditation at the Vedanta Temple in 1970:
“All paths pursue some special state or goal as spiritual
truth. But in fact reality is not identical to such things.
They only amount to identification with some body, realm or
experience, high or low, subtle or gross. But the knowledge
that is reality, which is consciousness itself, which is not
separate from anything, is always already the case.” I was totally taken by Ramana Maharshihis teaching
to be just as you are. “Give up the notion, ‘I am impure’.
The Self you are, authentic self is ever pure…If you get
at the basis of the mind, all these wrong notions
disappear.” Studying Maharshi began to open up the path of
no seeking; that realization is already here echoed the
Buddhist Heart Sutra, “there is nothing to attain.” We only
have to give up seeking for an authentic self and just
realize for ourselves that we don’t need to seek so
desperately or to suppress what’s manifesting in our own
particular lives. This process wasn’t some kind of killing
the personality and individuality of the student. As
Franklin said, “You are not invited to annihilation, but
rather to the fullness of God that is happy and free. There
is no murder involved in such an event.” For the most part, I found that community life
complemented my intimate relationships. It didn’t mean
loving and liking everyone the same even though we decided
that we could expand sharing of our energies beyond our
wives, lovers, and friends. I had a circle of friends who
were extremely close, Wendy, Marcus Holladay, Andrew
Johnson, William Tsiknas, to name some. I’m still friends
with William and his wife, Patricia, who live in Master Da’s
community. Wendy became my first wife. We met in 1973 when we were
both Franklin’s students. I fell in love with her the first
time I saw hershe was sweet, energetic, sharp and a
wonderful listener. Three months later, I asked her to marry
me. She accepted and asked me to go with her to Maumee,
Ohio, to meet her parents and ask for their blessing, which
we did. Her parents and I hit it off right away. Bubba later
officiated at our religious wedding ceremony on the land,
witnessed by the community, friends, and a few relatives. It
was a memorable, fun day. I had the feeling: “The world is
charged with the splendor of God” (G.M. Hopkins). My only sadness was that my mother would not attend the
ceremony. I tried to understand her. She had been upset and
distant for a few years by this time, because I had stopped
going to the Catholic Church; I had left the Jesuits; and
now I was involved with hippies and gurus and
leftists. She would have been so much happier if I had
gone to law school. Wendy and I felt no demand “from on high” to conform to
any particular social norms. We wanted to be “as free as the
wind.” The fact that Wendy and I agreed to experiment
sexually was very important to the authenticity of our
experience together. As difficult as it was at times, as
even dangerous as it could be, Wendy and I agreed not to
lock each other up psychologically, letting each other be
free to engage with other people. It was a form of
discipline to get along in a happy and mature way with
others and to live and sleep together as a couple. While Wendy and I were living on the land, one night,
March 23, 1974, Franklin discussed our responsibility to
live more communally, without clinging to our own
relationships, to our wives or husbands or lovers or our
“few friends.” This would test our intention. Bubba said don’t let fear of losing what we think is
“ours” (even if nothing is just “ours”) keep us trapped in
our conventional arrangements. If we had agreed to an open
marriage, then don’t be afraid to let your spouse enjoy
others, including sexually. “Be a community of free
persons…touch one another, love one another, deal with one
another as intimately as you please, not like gangsters,
rapists, and whores, but in that radical freedom…approach
each other directly, the more you understand, the less you
feel the form of inner suffering necessarily created when
you feel your contracts are violated…so allow this
self-purifying responsibility and privilege to love and be
free and happy.” When Wendy slept with a friend, Sal, Wendy had wanted to
see what it was like to make love with another man; she
wanted to allow herself the experience of being seduced and
to learn and grow from that experience as several in the
community had already done. What’s it like to have more than
one lover? Sometimes, my meditation and yoga helped me be more aware
that all movements were the life-force of my
breathing-flexing-stretching body. At other times, if I was
boiling with jealousy, anger, or self-doubt, I spent my
meditation time just feeling rotten, just breathing. But
that night how I screamed and howled in grief, pounding the
walls of the wooden cabins on the grounds until I exhausted
myself. I had occasionally made love with other women, but I
wanted Wendy only for myself. Somehow the whole incident
combined with practicing meditation allowed me to let go of
holding onto Wendy in that way. The next day I spoke with
Sal and, after some words, some forgiveness, some sorrow, I
spontaneously hugged him and Wendy. I realized that I had
changed. Both Wendy and I had changed; we discovered our
playing around was hurtful to the other and we were
naturally faithful to each other for as long as we were
married. At some point in 1976, Wendy became uncomfortable and
doubtful about continuing to live in the commune. She said
to me “I don’t know whether Bubba is God or the Devil, or
maybe both.” We had a long of conversation and in the end,
both of us felt all right about leaving each other, grateful
for the three years we were together. There’s nothing worse
than pretending to do spiritual practice or uphold a false
allegiance. It was time for Wendy to go, and she felt
totally free to leave. I was in tears; Wendy was crying too;
we held each other for a long time. I told Wendy that I
wanted to continue studying with Bubba, even though I knew I
would also be leaving soon. Then Wendy and I made love one
last time. I feel gratitude and appreciation of the incredible time
we had together. And I also regret that I wasn’t more
mature, that sometimes my bad temper surfaced, fueled by
jealousy. Wendy taught me how to love someone without being
possessive, angry when not “being loved”. She taught me love
is a very sudden giftnot to be taken for granted or
clung to. A love relationship suffers many changes, and
doesn’t have to be “forever.” Wendy was so sweet and wisehow can I ever forget
her? We have never spoken or seen each other since though I
still feel her. After we spit up, she returned to her
relationship with a man who had never forgotten her or given
up on getting her back. She asked me not to contact her, and
I have respected that, but a clean break doesn’t mean you no
longer love someone. Like many of the first generation of western gurus,
Master Da would make all too human mistakes around the
perennial issues of power, sex, money, relationships,
organizational politics, marketing, and excessive spiritual
claims. Certainly not a fraud, not an exploiter, and, in my
opinion, truly genuine without any ill will, yet still
Master Da is subject to human frailty. I realize Franklin
may have had an entirely different public image than what I
experienced as his student in the early years of his
teaching. But I knew even then that Franklin Jones is
not for everyone, as Dass would say to me. He
does have a lot of personal charisma and power.
Franklin and Dass knew each other and knew each other as
human beings, with some of the particular
shortcomings we all share. I had been away from Da for several years when I when
read charges in the newspapers that some of his former
students felt manipulated, “traumatized,” by the excesses
and the sexual experimentation. I know some of those close
to Franklin in the period 1973-76 who were angry and upset
with teaching theater. They felt that Franklin
was intimidating his students. One has to find for oneself
what is genuine and what is the play in teaching
theater. I also know that some serious allegations against
Adi Da would later surface in 1985-6, and some of his
students would harshly, perhaps justifiably, criticize him.
In my experience, however, I never saw any imprisonment,
sexual abuse, assault, brainwashing or involuntary servitude
with Da, as he would later be accused of and then sued in
1985 and 1986. If Da did really abuse sex, money, power, or
whenever there are legitimate legal grievances against any
spiritual teacher, of course, I support anyone who was
intentionally, illegally abused to take appropriate action
and judged in a court of law. There were of course unwholesome aspects to
our life in community. Sometimes we’d party for 2 weeks at a
time, and some of us quickly learned the pitfalls of
addiction and excessive self-indulgence. However, I never
felt forced to drink, or party, or engage pranks, or make
jokes, and I felt that I benefited from my relationship with
Bubba, only because I wanted to be involved. I engaged in
the play between the teacher-student wholeheartedly even
when I felt some fear. I felt enthusiastic, not shoved,
humiliated, never traumatized. Some former community members felt hurt in their
relationship with Franklin, and their response was criticism
and cynicism. Many years after I left Franklins
community, I was told there was a negative attack web site
about Franklin where a Morgan was writing. I
said I wasnt the Morgan, but that Id take a
look. I found a letter by another writer full of sarcasm and
disrespect. Menacing, threatening taunts seem unjustified to
me. I wondered if that person had ever felt the important,
genuine part of Franklin. Apparently he or she felt that
Franklin was supposed to live up to expectations. Were
people hurt? Yes. Was I hurt at times? Yes, there’s some
hurt in my relationship to Bubba and his community. There’s
criticism of the “hierarchy,” of “the cult.” But stronger
than that for me is a loving communication and force from
Franklin that informs my life: we are all already all right,
now, just the way we are. The heart of the student-teacher relationship is engaging
in a process with the teacher that he or she has mastered.
Whether living in healthy human community or alone, it
requires direct face-to-face encounter with the teacher.
When someone comes as a sincere, curious, questioning
student, it’s a very down-to-earth sacred relationship. This
relationship can never be beneficial, however, if there
isn’t a chance for the student to challenge the teacher and
vice-versathat “clicking” can’t be forced. A
relationship with a spiritual teacher is then exquisite
play, a kind of art, and entrance into an understanding of
ways to pray and meditate that is potentially more powerful
than pure academic study. But this power can also be
dangerous. There is always a possibility of indoctrination,
brainwashing, religious sloganeering, or being manipulated
by a remote authority. Franklin possessed a genuine yogic power which was
tangible to me. He taught that all yogic and meditative
experiences, absorptions, mystical visions just happen.
Benefit and learn from them, but let them come and go. The
Buddha taught that there’s a profound peace beyond even the
greatest of the jhanas (absorptions), however useful they
may be and integrated to the meditative path. Although I
never had any dramatic spiritual experiences in the
meditation hall, many around me did. I found also some
people exaggerated their experiences, seeking public
approval from Franklin. That is another instance of the
darker side of a spiritual community, based in the fear that
we need to kiss the teacher’s ass. The teacher, if he or she
is worth his salt, wants to see who you really are and what
you’re really about. False ingratiating faces are really a
hindrance. The spiritual Master is sometimes tough, but he or she
will never intentionally harm any one. I found Franklin
Jones a loving human being, a spiritual teacher of integrity
andmost importantlya teacher who embodied a
priceless teaching. At one of Franklin’s first public talks,
a young man became angry and said that Franklin was full of
it, that he wasn’t making any important communication, that
he wasn’t answering his questions. After some interchange,
the man left the room pissed off. Franklin said, “I
appreciate the challenging questions, the
confrontation.” It was fine that the man walked out of Franklin’s talk
and in the future many would do the same. Everyone in the
community had the opportunity (sometimes it did take some
courage to speak up and reveal yourself) to get his or her
most vital questions and communications across. Franklin
appreciated the passion in the man, and Franklin had just
wanted the chance to get the man to see for himself why he
was so angry. Franklin wanted to engage the individual on a
sincere and deep level, mutually respectful, but no
bullshit; let’s deeply enter a consideration of divine
worlds, beckoning us to its realization, in kind and wise
actions, while we’re all breathing the world together.
Through our work with one another, I, the community, many of
us came to see how some of our questions have deep emotions
behind them, hidden in anger and self-centeredness. No spiritual teacher ever has the right to abuse his or
her student; such abuse violates the mutual condition of
love which is the basis of the master-student relationship.
I understand how vulnerable a person can be who is in a
concentrated teacher-student relationship. However, I always
felt free to express what I wanted to say to Franklin and I
also felt free to ignore institutional dictates. Franklin
didnt give me the feeling he wanted anything from me.
He loved Indian scripture: “Whenever there is an
other, there is fear.” The true teacher always
communicateseven if being tough on the
studentthat what a spiritual master has realized is
exactly the same as what the student already is. I never
slowed down as much during this time and at the same time,
never ran so fast, “accelerated,” enthused to try a new life
style. I never had so much leisure to study and meditate,
listening to talks by a Spiritual Master and occasionally,
being with other teachers such as Krishnamurti, Chogyam
Trungpa, and Ram Dass. Teachers such as Chogyam Trungpa were also accused of
being of abusive, sexually inappropriate and addicted to
alcohol and power. Id met with Trungpa a few times
when I was studying with Master Da and learned a bit about
his Tibetan Buddhism. Trungpa was a heavy drinker and, as
was Da, sexually very liberated. I didnt particularly
like the organizational-cultural setting around Trungpa and
the attitude of kingly and elegant circumstance.
It was too much of a separation from the world Id seen
in our inner cities and in Mexico. Though it appeared
elitist to me, it was not without benefit. Trungpa was
certainly a good teacher and I enjoyed hearing him speak and
engaging in conversation. Both Trungpa and Da were able to teach because of their
realizations, positive intentions and the giving of
themselves to the student. I felt both had respect for the
freedom and intelligence and desires of the students. Their
students, however, were in an adult relationship with a
spiritual teacher, and had to be aware of what that entails.
As far as I was concerned, we fully agreed to submit
ourselves to an experimental way of life in a community. But
I always felt free to leave, free to engage or not, even in
the crazy wild times with the guru. I never was comfortable with guru-worship even though
Franklin’s approach later emulated much of his
teachers, Swami Muktananda’s, Hindu rituals, bowing,
pujas, incense. I looked at these ritualsthough
focusing and engagingin the same way as we burn
incense at the Buddhist monastery and Catholic church. They
are not worth getting hung up about. Leave all rafts on the
other side of seeking. It is mass mind that
makes gurus and monks into gods. No matter how gifted, the
teacher is in a mutually respectful relationship with the
student. A student is free to leave a teacher, to criticize,
to put light on the “shadows.” (I include Franklin’s
community and Franklin himself). It’s only foolish cultism
that wants to make a teacher into the only font of wisdom,
to make dogma which stifles the ability to think for oneself
or to come and go following the stream of one’s most
authentic life. Ken Wilber was one of the first important writers (Watts
was the first) to appreciated Das spiritual writing.
Wilber, along with Georg Fuerstein, Ph.D., would praise the
wisdom of Das teaching, but criticize his dealing with
the perennial problems of power, control, sex, and money.
Wilber said that Da was fully developed spiritually, but
morally and socially immature. As a teacher, Wilber thought
that Da should be willing to meet with other teachers and
adepts; that he should enter the public forum of spiritual
conversation, and be challenged in the world. The
great difficulty is that, no matter how enlightened you
might be, it takes a certain amount of practical wisdom to
gauge the effects of your teaching work on the world at
large. Master Da is not the public personality that Watts was,
and so be it, if he wants to teach privately, leaving
religious inquiry to others, such as Wilber. Da is both an
able theoretician and keen thinker as well as an avid reader
of spiritual literature. He is interested in serious and
enlightened conversations, but he apparently doesn’t want a
very public life which is his right. If he chooses to live
and teach privately with a few students, free to explore
with them the particular fruits of his own realization, does
this limit his ability as a religious teacher? Of course
not. It might be healthy and mutually beneficial for Da and
his community to have a more public conversation, but not
necessarily so. However his emerging voice might soften the
nasty attitude that “we’re the only ones with any Truth”
that seems prevalent in religious practice. I think his contributions lie in other areas which will
inevitably find their way in the more public conversation.
They already have. Why should Da have to be like the
wonderful Dalai Lama or Thich Nhat Hahn? But who knows?
Master Da may show up at an important public forum in the
future. Realize its what we already are, said
Ramana Maharshi. The purpose of sitting with the spiritual
Master is to enjoy ones own enlightenment, not adore
an individual teacher. The spiritual Master is a teacher and
a servant. Franklin encouraged me to find the Divine within
myself. “We’re supposed to be cool and hip and straight,
oriented toward our survival, worldly and wise. But to be
simply alive in God and happy, and to speak about it and act
that way and think that way, is absolutely unwanted and not
allowed. A cult object is allowed to be Divine in this
world, a conventional guru is allowed to be Divine, a God in
a book is allowed to be Divine, all kinds of fetishes are
allowed to be Divine, but you are not allowed to be Divine.
It is taboo to be already happy. You must seek
happiness.” In 1973 when I was first Franklin’s student, I lived a
short while in L.A. with my friend, Billy Tsiknas, who
amazed me by being able to sit in the full lotus position.
We painted the exteriors of houses while we did interior
work with our teacher. This was a beautiful time, full of
joy, and also a strict time of doing deep personal
examination (which for me included the Ignatian examen).
Besides our strict vegetarian diet, we followed a steady
schedule of study and service, learning and acknowledging
through meditation and conversation, where our hearts were
closed, and changing some destructive habits. When two old Jesuit friends dropped by to visit, and saw
that I had a photo of Franklin in my meditation corner,
along with images of Jesus, and Buddha, I felt embarrassed.
I worried that they might have felt that I was worshipping
and bowing to a man in a weird cult. My friends
reactions were understandable. They did not share my
relationship with Franklin. (My mistake was not to keep my
meditation area private. Jesus says: Close the door
and then meditate and pray. To this day, I keep a few
photos of Master Da. Most of my Jesuit friends didnt take my involvement
with Franklin seriously. Yet during most of the time I was
in Franklin’s community, I continued to have a Jesuit
spiritual director, Father Francis Rouleau. “Let’s talk from
my heart to yours, yours to mine,” Francis would say. He was
a very skilled and mature spiritual directorhe
recognized that there were very powerful practices that I
was learning and he took me seriously. He was never
judgmental about me; he really did understand. Despite his strong theological and moral convictions
which were contrary to those I was developing for myself,
our personal relationship and his commitment to my spiritual
growth was what really mattered to him. He was very human
and down to earth, not at all “condescending” as so many
priests and teachers and I loved him for that. For example
when I discussed the sexual ethos of Franklin’s community
with him, and my no guilt sexual exploration outside
traditional Catholic morality, he was genuinely interested,
speaking himself about those still living in the Society
falling in love, some having sex. He also asked my feelings
about homosexuality as my best friend Marcus Holladay was
openly bi-sexual. (Sometimes Marcus and I would visit
Francis together). We talked about the ideas of “no seeking” and the
Buddhist practice of meditation as self-observation without
any negative judgment. I was practicing meditation as laid
out in The Knee of Listening. Perhaps, after my
conversations with Francis, it would be more accurate to say
that I was integrating my Buddhist mediation, the Spiritual
Exercises Examination of Conscience, and
self-observation, observation of our lives, in conversation
with Franklin Jones and in the company of community.
Franklin writes: “I do not recommend that you meditate.
There is only understandingtherefore, understand. When
understanding becomes observation, reflection, insight and
radical cognition, then the state of consciousness itself is
meditation.” What is radically cognized? One experiences an
inclusive connection with all, a joy of being alive,
to consider, as St. Ignatius encourages, “all
blessings, all life, as descending from above, from the
supreme and infinite power…descending as the rays of light
descend form the sun, and as the waters flow from their
fountains.” Franklin continues: “Understanding arises when
there are true hearing and self-observation in
relationship…Observe yourself in life. Observe yourself
when you suffer to any degree. Observe your motives. Observe
the activity of identification. Observe the activity of
differentiation. Observe the activity of desire. Observe the
patterns of your existence.” (The Knee of Listening,
p.171) Francis understood that this was authentic spiritual
practice. I felt the energy and love in Father Francis
presence much like in the presence of Franklin, though
Francis was not as demanding as Franklin nor was
his teaching complicated by a community of followers. Both
he and Franklin embraced mysticism, though in their own
particular way. Francis said: We are never God, only
Gods servants. Bubba would agree we are truly
all Gods servants, while declaring himselfin his
Eastern religious vocabularyto have been enlightened,
to have realized the Self, as understood in genuine
Eastern thought and practice. I am That. Bubba, like Francis, was personally charismatic, an
intense teacher. Unlike Francis, Franklin was not always
gentlemanly. Sometimes he was just a drunken laughing fool.
He might have been, as the Jesuits say, finding God in all
things. Francis was self-effacing whereas Franklin
wasnt given to humble expressions, saying I am
God; you are God, which was very eastern, and later,
accepting the bows of his disciples, just as he had bowed
before his teacher Swami Muktananda. Neither men were perfect. I thought that Father Francis
was a saint; Franklin didn’t pretend to be a saint, and he
isn’t. And I always tended to distrust some of the religious
trappings around him. I did experience Franklin as a loving
person, a tremendous hugger, a person with a remarkable
sense of humor and an insightful, penetrating teacher who
could be shy and withdrawn. Francis was pleased when I left Master Da, but he still
considered it an extremely important learning time for me,
as do I. Da is still a great teacher to me, initiating me in
his tradition from his teachers, still helping me now, just
practicing at the Rosemead Buddhist Monastery, my daily
meditation, and my practice of service at the Jesuit Dolores
Mission. Just living my life. When I fall in love with someone, I say its
forever. I dont mean just the sexual falling in love,
but the love that can happen between friends, or even
between a student and teacher or a teacher with his or her
student. This kind of love has a natural componenta
very human, warm appreciative reverence that can last beyond
any interaction with the person. Love doesn’t always mean
life-long contact, as in the case of Da and of my first
wife, Wendy, but its influence is for life. As a university,
adult school, high school and junior high school teacher, I
continue to recall some students with great feeling and
clear recall, even if I don’t know where they are now or
what they are doing. May we all be well and happy! For the most part, I loved living in Free Bubba Free
Johns community, and when I realized that I had
finished my work with him, in 1977, I left without a
backwards glance. I knew in my heart that I could never be
totally apart from my friends, people with whom Id had
strong contact while I was with Bubba. The interval after
leaving the community and integrating back into ordinary
life was awkward. I had somewhat the same confusing time as when I left the
Jesuits. I was for a while a fish out of water on both
occasions. Because my family was ashamed of my leaving the
Jesuits, there was a feeling of failure. And the Jesuits,
without conscious intent, made leaving a matter of disgrace.
When I left the Jesuits, I had asked my uncle in New York
for a small loan to get started in a career as a teacher. He
told me I should be ashamed to ask for money and to work
harder. He said I was a quitter and that my father, his
brother, who had long passed away, would not be proud of me.
My mom was angry with me; but later, because we liked
talking with each other, we were able to reconcile. Only my
sister Mary seemed to accept my changing conditions without
harsh judgment. However, despite my own lingering doubts and
the confusion about my family’s reactions, I was confident
in wanting a different kind of life for myself apart from
the Jesuits. Just as clearly when I knew for certain that a
life of celibacy wasn’t for me as a Jesuit, I knew when
living in Bubba Free John’s community wasn’t right for me
any longer. From 1977 to 1979, I worked at a special education junior
high school on the corner of Geary and Franklin, called
Fairfield School around the corner from the Unitarian
Church. I stayed in touch with some of the community
members, some of whom chastised me for leaving the community
and for criticizing Bubba, even though my criticism was
respectful and sincere. Marcus Holladay and I went to
workshops on therapeutic body/movement work, as well as
going to parties or volunteering for campaigns with Cesar
Chavez and Dolores Huerta. Marcus and I would also visit Fr.
Francis sometimes. I felt some emotional raggedness after leaving Free John
and the community. Working and being with these children,
many of them tough kids with deep emotional challenges, was
a kind of therapy for the “fallout.” I look at some of their
pictures even today with profound tenderness. Joyce Roberts
was the amazing principal who encouraged me be creative and
make San Francisco part of my classroom: the wharf, the
museums, fire and police stations, the sea. Various
businesses opened their doors to us. The students set up a
small business where they sold jewelry and art they made or
was donated. Our business profits paid for lunch, and I
began to feel totally connected to the ordinary world
again. Joyce and I became lovers and were intimate for about a
year. I lived with Joyce and her young son, Art, who was a
beautiful boy. Our house was always full of people. We both
didn’t want to marry, but Joyce wanted the same sort of
sexual freedom that I had tasted in Franklins
community. Not judging that life-style, I realized that it
was no longer for me. The last time I saw Bubba Free John, by then known as
Master Da, was September 16, 1979 on the land in Northern
California. I had been away from the community for two
years, but we were together again to celebrate his spiritual
“awakening” at the Vedanta Temple in Hollywood nine years
earlier (September 10, 1970), the same place I had visited
when I was in high school. He had included many of us from
early years who were no longer involved with the community
on the guest list. Dressed in white, wearing a tall white
hat and using a cane with an ornate metal handle, Da seemed
very peaceful and full. He said: “This is the most beautiful
occasion that has ever taken place here.” I’m not sure
exactly what he meant, but, as I watched him walk back to
his home, I too felt that it was a beautiful occasion. I
bowed and said my final good-bye. Celebrating Master Da’s realization at the Hollywood
Vedanta Temple, I felt I had come full circle. In 61
when I was a junior at Loyola High School, I had visited the
Vedanta Templethe gardens, rooms, and bookstore with
Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim literaturejust
above the frenetic Holladaywood freeway. Inside I had been
attracted to the serene images of Buddhas round face
and the tender face of Jesus from the Shroud of Turin. At
first, repelled by the shrine with a picture of Sri
Ramakrishna, I hurried away feeling that real altars and
shrines and rituals were for Jesus alone. But soon I found
myself drawn back, just to sit in the temple and explore
books or sometimes to have lunch with the Indian swamis who
would invite me to talks. I was totally confused in 1961,
but interested. By 1979, having studied with Master Da for
almost 5 years, I had a real taste of an ancient and
powerful spiritual tradition. The understanding that my study and work with Franklin
began in me 35 years ago continues to this day. I have a way
of pursuing my own religious quest that Franklin taught me
in the deepest part of my being: No one can give us
happiness or freedomwe have to realize it for
ourselves. That’s the current in his teaching that most
touched me and the one that I most explored and continue to
explore. My experience with Master Da, in what was at root a Hindu
tradition, would be my only experience of Siddha Yoga, the
relationship of teacher to student as the centerpiece of
spiritual practice. Yoga is a general term for practices
from India which tune body-mind abilities to be in union
with the Divine Source. A Siddha is someone who has “fallen
into the Heart,” a “completed one.” The Siddha comes from a
living tradition, having been initiated, going through a
process of understanding her or his life through the
practice of yoga and meditation, finally completely
surrendering to Life itself and being recognized by that
accomplishment. In my case, that relationship was also a
friendship. Many joyful experiences and insights arose
spontaneously, without effort. It was a rare opportunity for
me to learn some ancient wisdom from a wild, loving, Siddha
Yoga teacher Master Da taught that we must bravely allow our “hanging
on” to loosen. He said that our natural state of being happy
and peaceful becomes obvious when we can observe how our
mind and heart work; when we pay attention to how we
separate ourselves, how our bodies and hearts become hard or
weak. My most “prior” being is whole, creative, and not
contained only in my ego. We are all continually changing,
and yet the “I” wants to attach to feeling good, even to
mystical experiences, all of which just come and go. Da
taught me to embrace all of life, including parts of myself
that I have disowned, whether I am honest about the
disowning or not. I learned to be sensitive to when I’m
being self-indulgent, as well as when I’m refusing the
invitation to drink deeply from life’s gifts. The person of understanding is someone filled with joy
and pleasure, of love and knowledge, the ability to help, as
well as detachment, calm, energy, clarity and force. To this
day, Da inspires me to meditate and pay attention to the
heart of no-seekingthat it is already
enough to be living from the heart, in wonder
and not-knowing-it-all, being fully alive. I continue a
daily meditation practice with both Buddhist and Ignatian
flavors. After Suzuki Roshi introduced me to Zen meditation,
my practice with Da gave the experience of meditation, not
suppressing feelings, whether “self-loving” or
“self-hating,” to observe my breath and feel the tightness
in my belly, around my heart and in my throat, and allow
myself to be present to what’s going on, now in this
moment. Once I quoted Ramana Maharshi at a meeting of activists
who were bickering at the time: “Trying to help the world
without knowing yourself will be just like a blind man
trying to treat the diseases in the eyes of others. First,
clear your own eyes. If you do this you will see the eyes of
all others as your own. Then, if you see the eyes of all
others as your own, how can you exist without helping them?”
(Ramana Maharshi Answers Hundred Questions, p.6) Several of
the activists got this message enthusiastically. Master Da was iconoclastic, even regarding his own
teachers. I have learned that we as humans want to create an
exclusive God, an idol. Today as a teacher and
sometimes organizer, I discover that I have a sixth sense
for this “us against them” attitude. Our organizations lose
the human touch, get stuck in power, money, and they become
cults, whether Da’s community, the Catholic Church, or a
Buddhist Monastery. No religious organization is off the
hook! There are organizational abuses of power which I’ve
seen in most spiritual communities and churches with which
I’ve had varying degrees of contact. True spiritual
communitiesI’m discounting the ones that are out and
out hoaxesare growing up, evolving positively and
encouraging mature relationships, including being critical
of each other in a loving, supportive way. There is wisdom
in the Buddha’s promoting consensus and the sharing of power
and responsibilities within a community. Alan Watts spoke about the possibility of doing one’s
spiritual practice in relationship to a teacher. He told
stories of Marpa and Milarepa in Tibet, where the guru
seemed to be absolutely demanding and the disciple had to be
completely dedicated. And yet there was a feeling of love
between them. True spiritual relationships of teacher to
student can happen and do happen, even if there are
limitations. First and foremost it’s important to remember
both the spiritual director and spiritual master are human
beings, perhaps very evolved in different aspects of their
being, with varying levels of capacity and maturity, but
human beings. Anyone who lives or works with a master or
spiritual teacher should be free from any fear to speak up,
to have personal and intimate boundaries while living in
community, and always to refer to one’s own heart and mind
and conscience rather than any kind of organization
“group-think” or “group-pressure” that force conformity with
the self-appointed authorities. I also learned from both Alan and Franklin that the
spiritual life is not a dreary matter. There is no need to
walk around with lowered head and serious frown. We have not
been assembled to witness an execution. Life is joyous. The
raucous parties, both with Alan and Franklinstill
remarkable and appreciatedare long past. Alans
extravagance may have shortened his life; Franklin used
intoxicants, partied like crazy, but for both men spiritual
life was always the focus. And the joy I experienced with
both stays with me. All true gurus, both Alan and Master Da insisted, have
submitted to the Eternal Siddha-Guru who is God. I still
hear Da telling me to be awake, the Heart, just be what I
am. I hear Fr. Francis saying: “Touch the Eternal Heart of
God in our every day life.” What a way to live! by Morgan Zo-Callahan with permission – original
posted on Morgan’s Website
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“The perfect
among the sages is identical with Me. There is absolutely no
difference between us”
Tripura
Rahasya,
Chap XX,
128-133
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