Respond and
Cooperate
from Crazy Wisdom Magazine – March/April 1987, Vol 6. No2
The Free Daist Communion turns
fifteen years old this month. Compared to most sacred
institutions and religious movements, it is still in its
infancy. Yet one would be hard-pressed to find a more
dramatic and dynamic decade and a half in the history of any
organization, Spiritual or secular. Heart-Master Da
Love-Ananda’s Teaching Work was passionate, radical, and
unprecedented. As a result, the Way of the Heart has been
fully Revealed and Demonstrated in our time, and genuine
Spiritual Agency has been established for the sake of
mankind.
Now, however, Heart-Master Da
has Retired from that great Effort. He is moving more and
more into the Indifference phase of the seventh stage of
life. Although He has been in the process of Retiring for
many years, His Demonstration of Indifference intensified
after His Death Experience on January 11, 1986.1
That date marked such a profound change in the Life and Work
of Heart-Master Da that its import is only now being fully
Revealed.
1. In early 1986 the
unanimous refusal of devotees to receive Heart~Master Da
Love~ Ananda’s Gift of Realization brought Him to a crisis
of despair, and on January 11, 1986, Heart-Master Da gave up
His Teaching Work and abandoned the body. This dramatic
Event and the Sacrifice of His return to the body for the
sake of all beings are documented in the]June-August,
1986, issue of Crazy Wisdom and in the introduction to the
Love-Ananda Gita.
On March 20,1987, Heart-Master
Da Love-Ananda briefly described the significance of the
event of the past year, and He indicated that during the
period following the Death Event all His relations have
changed – His relation to the Institution, the world, groups
of devotees, and individual devotees who serve Him. His
relationship to all has changed. As devotees living and
serving in Hermitage attest, His relationship to having
contact with anyone has changed. His response has changed.
We have been called to a new way
of relating to Heart Master Da since His Death Experience.
We too are obliged to change; because of what is occurring
in Him. In effect the Death Event continues as a progressive
process that is becoming more and more profound. The Death
Experience was not an event, but it was the beginning of a
process that was set in motion then. Heart-Master Da cannot
maintain certain qualities He has manifested in the past,
and this is evidence of a Spiritual Process occurring in
Him.
Heart-Master Da used to submit
to others and take on their likeness. This is a basic way to
describe how He Taught in the past. Since the Death
Experience that mechanism in Him is receding now. His
ability to duplicate the human condition exists at some
level, but the mechanism that is the Teacher is dying. He no
longer has the instrument to assume our likeness or to live
in the worldly context of life in order to Teach and relate
to others as He did. And all this is a specific Spiritual
Demonstration of what Heart-Master Da calls Indifference.
The Vedanta Temple Event was the
death of Franklin Jones.
The Death Event in 1986 was the
death of Da Free John, the death of the Teacher.
Heart-Master Da Love-Ananda is now called by a different
Name. He is still here, but not as Da Free John, the
Teacher. Before the Vedanta Temple Event He was Franklin
Jones, and after that Event the body was still there, but
the structure of the individual appearance had profoundly
changed, and Siddhis appeared then that served the process
of His Teaching Work. The Vedanta Temple Event was the birth
of Da Free John. The Death Event in 1986 was the death of Da
Free John and the birth of Da Love-Ananda.
He said recently:
HEART-MASTER DA: My Death
Experience was a Divine Event of the Siddhi of the release
of my Teaching Work. My Teaching Work began spontaneously,
as a Siddhi following the Vedanta Temple event. Therefore,
to bring my Teaching Work to an end required a Siddhi, or
Divine event, and that event was the Death Experience. A
different Siddhi arose after the Death Event, the Siddhi of
my Blessing Work. One sign of this Siddhi was the tapas, or
penance, I did for others, but fundamentally it is a Siddhi
of Indifference, or the Ultimate demonstration of the
seventh stage of life. This Siddhi is still producing signs.
Devotees must understand it and value what is going on in
me. They must not resist my relinquishment of my Teaching
mode and my taking on an Indifferent mode, or being Present
simply for the sake of their contemplation, or for a
Spiritual purpose.
The significance of the Death Event
is the ongoing demonstration of Indifference and the Siddhis
associated with the end of my Teaching Work and the
beginning of my Blessing Work. It is not necessarily
associated with absolute asceticism, but it may be, since I
no longer have the instruments to participate in the
conventional habit with people. (March 20, I987)
Heart-Master Da Love-Ananda acts
spontaneously, but dearly the God-Realized stage of
Indifference is being Demonstrated in how He lives. And
while this Indifference mayor may not be expressed as
asceticism, its principal expression is always Freedom and
Happiness, regardless of what arises. As He says in The Dawn
Horse Testament:
Observe The Manner Of My Human
Life. When I Am Alive In Human Bodily Form, I Simply Observe
and Allow and Relate To whatever arises and whatever Is
Brought To Me. I Act and Serve Spontaneously and In Freedom.
I Do Whatever Is Necessary To Preserve or Promote Harmony,
Naturalness, Humor, and Enlightenment. I Do Not Abandon The
Heart-Force Of Inherent Happiness. I See There Is Only
Inherent Happiness, Love-Bliss, or Self-Radiance (Rather
Than self-Contraction, Un-Happiness, Un-Love, and
Non-Bliss). Therefore, I Do Not Seek. I Am Certain That
whatever arises conditionally Is Merely and Only A Chaos Of
Limits, Changes, and Endings. Therefore, I Simply Persist,
Without Illusions. Happiness, or Love-Bliss, Is My
Indifference. Happiness, or Love-Bliss, Is The Only Real
Freedom In This Midst. Therefore, I Let all conditions
arise, stay awhile, and pass. I Play My Given and Expected
Roles. So What? 2
The Free Daist Communion is now at
a crossroads. In order for the institution and the Community
to remain authentic while continuing to grow, devotees must
step forward to assume responsibility both for their
individual practice and for the culture of practice as a
whole. We can no longer afford to be irresponsible or
unresponsive. Like the sons in the biblical parable, we have
been given a Great Inheritance. Now we must discover the
lawful way to accept it, to share it, and to preserve it.
The opportunity represented by the
Way of the Heart in the face of the suffering of the world
is immeasurably great and real. Each person whose heart has
been touched by the Teaching Revelation of the True
Heart-Master must make a choice in life as a result of this
encounter with Truth. Let us not take for granted the great
Gifts offered by Heart-Master Da. Let us not indulge in
doubt of what has been Revealed to our hearts. Let us not
fail to recognize the descent of Divine Grace occurring
through the Incarnation of the Adept. Let us not turn from
the Divine Lover who longs only for our embrace. May the
Great Work continue through the Agency of devotees. May it
flourish and prosper for all time.
2. Heart-Master Da
Love-Ananda, The Dawn Horse Testament, 2d ed . revised
and enlarged, New Standard Edition, forthcoming.
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