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