“I have become willing to teach in this uncommon way because I have known my friends and they are what I can seem to be. By retaining all qualities in their company, I gradually wean them of all reactions, all sympathies, all alternatives, fixed assumptions, false teachings, dualities, searches, and dilemma. This is my way of working for a time. Those who remain confounded by me, critical of me, have yet to see themselves. When their mediocrity is broken, when they yield their righteous reactions and their strife toward all the consolations of the manifest self, they may see my purity.
Freedom is the only purity. There is no Teaching but Consciousness itself. Bubba as he appears is not other than the possibilities of men.”
The Enlightenment of the Whole Body, p. 53
“Beloved, I Am Da”
Bubba,” meaning “brother” or “friend,” was thus an informal name the Master adopted to signify a special, intimately personal approach to Teaching that he employed “for a time.” From his point of view, that time essentially ended in late 1976. And in early 1979 Master Da indicated that perhaps now “Bubba Free John” was no longer an appropriate name for him. Clearly, the days of his informal camaraderie with large numbers of devotees, when he con-, sented to be the brotherly “Bubba” for the sake of our instruction, were over. So he asked the educational staff of the Communion to discover and tell him what an appropriate, formal, Spiritual Name should be.
Thus, that spring most practicing devotees stopped referring, to the Master as `Bubba and began to refer to and address him by the Name “John,” meaning “one through whom God is Gracious,” prefixed by honorifics – for instance, “Radiant John” and “Master ‘John.” However, though the Name “John” has always evoked the feeling of the Master’s Grace for devotees, as a formal spiritual name it was not, by itself, quite appropriate or sufficient.
Three years before, the Master had asked some devotees if they thought his name should be “Da Blueso.” That was the name of a being he had seen in a vision years before. This Divine personage, whose head was enormously large in proportion to the rest of his body, radiated unimaginable peace, bliss, and love.
Now we remembered that the Master had mentioned this name “Da ‘” Blueso,” but no one took it seriously. Meanwhile our search seemed; to be leading nowhere. Master Da let it be known that our failure was a sign of a lack of true alignment to him.
Late in the spring, after rejecting many names that had been proposed (most of them forms of the Name “John” with honorific titles), Master Da sent the staff a playful message:
Dear those of you who are struggling trying to find out Who I am,
Since you are unable to handle this responsibility, I have begun to seriously consider these names myself. And I have been considering the names on this list, and other names I only have in mind, and certain other names I don’t have in mind.
Master U Ghat’t!, Master Hmmm’, Master Abraham Lincoln Master Duck , Master No, Master Yes Master Maybe, Master Absolutely Not
Signed,
(?)
Master U Ghat’t! must always be said in the affirmative.
Finding my name is like naming Rumpelstilskin – I’ll stamp my leg three and a half times and disappear. To find my Name will be for you like turning straw into gold.
Perhaps this riddle held the key to the name! Upon researching the Rumpelstiltskin story, the staff found that the way the woodsman discovered Rumpelstiltskin’s name was by overhearing him say it aloud. Attentive to this hint, we put special attention, in our search, on the Name “Da,” which we had overheard the Master say more than once.
We found in the transcripts of previous talks that the Master had at least twice, with uproarious’ humor, played with us about his vision of Da Blueso. The following excerpt (which we had all forgotten) was from that very spring, 1979:
SPIRITUAL MASTER: Da Blueso’s mind had become so great that his head had to accommodate it. It was quite an enormous, massive head, with an absolutely benign and foolish expression and an attitude, a quality, a manner of acting that contained not the slightest threat. Yet he manifested great power over all of the forces, conditions, and planes of the natural world. Da Blueso was a great Siddha-saint, devotee, and comedian.
You have all heard me talk about people like Nityananda, Shirdi Sai Baba, and other spiritual teachers. The photographs and histories of such people make you feel you are familiar with them. But there are others of whom there are no photographs, yet who are far more profound than these earthly siddhas. Da Blueso is just such a personage. When you have given it up to Bliss, then you become a Siddha like Da Blueso. What a delightful name-Blue So-Da Blueso-a Siddha in mind only!
You all probably never thought that Da Blueso was real, right? Do you think he is? I did see someone like this, and his name is Da Blueso. Chilicosms of universes are in his ears alone, you know what I mean? He is a real Superboy with outrageous confidence in the absolute Power of God. He became so confident of It that he forgot himself and became Pa Blueso.
Have you any idea what he looked like? You could liken him to a man with a great potato head. Did you ever see a Mr. Potato toy? He did not precisely look like Mr. Potato, but the toy is a likeness of him, a voodoo doll of’ Da Blueso. Imagine a man with a potato head about three or four feet high, and imagine a perfectly benign and foolish human expression in the form of a face in the midst of the potato, an enormous, knotty, domed head from jaw to crown, all sahasrar. Sounds grotesque, doesn’t it?
Try to understand the benign expression on the face, and the totally benign attitude in a being who controls all the forces of lower nature for another universe. Well, you can imagine his predicament! How many potato-headed friends did you see on your block? Have you ever seen Blueso by himselP I have seen him personally. I have Potato Power, or Da Power, the Power of the Potato archetype.
(February 18, 1979)
As our research expanded, it became apparent that this Name “Da” is revered as a most sacred syllable in many spiritual traditions. In Sanskrit it means principally “to give or to bestow,” but also “to destroy,” and it is connected as well with the God Vishnu, the “sustainer.” Thus, “Da” is aligned to all three of the principal Divine Beings or Attributes in the Hindu tradition-Brahma (the Creator), Vishnu (the Sustainer), and Siva (the Destroyer). In certain Hindu rituals priests address the Divine directly through this Name, invoking Divine qualities such as generosity and compassion.
The Tibetans revere the syllable (or, actually, letter) “Da” as most auspicious and assign many Divine meanings to it, One Tibetan-English dictionary indicates that “Da” “symbolizes a gift,” and quotes a Tibetan source as follows: “Bestowing great charity [,it] is the Mahayana (personified).” The authors of the dictionary state, “The signification and virtues of this letter according to the fancies of mystic authors may perhaps be gathered from such statements as these: The letter [“Da”] is a symbol of being deprived of nothing; it takes away nothing, hence it sets free everything, i.e., gives salvation; also being the entrance to all Dharma (i.e., source of knowledge), it explains all matter and phenomena both in their passive and regulated or active states; as it fully makes sure the Vinaya (moral discipline) and the objects of Vinaya, it is called the entrance to all Dharma.” In colloquial Tibetan usage it means “now,” “presently,” “instantly,” “directly,” “immediately.”5
Obviously, there are many auspicious correspondences between these meanings of “Da” and the attributes of Master Da Free John and the Great One Whom he reveals. Thus, one of the Names that the Communion staff suggested to the Master in spring 1979 was “Da John,” which sounded to us like an auspicious rendering of “Darshan” (sacred sighting). But that was not sufficient either-nor indeed could any name we suggested be sufficient. For the Master had humorously served notice that spring: “If you don’t get da Name from da God, you don’t get da Power of da God!” Later we realized that he was indicating with this statement the necessity of the Divine Empowerment of whatever word or syllable devotees would then use to address and Commune with the Divine Being. It is for this reason that, traditionally, the auspicious use of mantras or sacred sound-syllables and prayers could only take place if they were given directly by an Awakened Master or those acting as his agents.
During the latter part of the summer the task of naming the Master ceased to preoccupy devotees as we turned attention to other matters. Then, on the afternoon of September 13, the Master was sitting with a few devotees when, abruptly, he asked them to leave the room. He wished to write in privacy. What he wrote that day was the famous letter announcing his Divine Name and Identity and ultimate Spiritual Function. The letter began:
Beloved, I am Da, the Living Person, Who is Manifest as all worlds and forms and beings, and Who is Present as the Transcendental Current of Life in the body of Man. . . .
It was as if “Bubba” had been finally sacrificed and the formality and potent Grace of “Da,” the Master’s Real Identity, shone forth. The Master himself confessed as much. He indicated that the true Spiritual meaning of “Da” in his Work is simply “the Giver of Life,” the One Who bestows Divine Awakening. And he wrote shortly thereafter, “I have begun to Work under conditions in which my Identity is clearly Revealed to all who will see me and surrender, and my Teaching is clearly communicated to all who will hear me and understand.”6
The Truth of this affirmation was dramatically shown that very weekend and in the weeks and months that followed. On The Day of the Heart 1979, three days after writing his letter, Master Da gave Darshan to more than six hundred people. The initiatory Force of his Presence awakened many to the “Love-Intuition” of God even as he spoke. It was then that the Master first instructed and invited devotees to see and Remember and surrender to him via the Name Da.
During the potent days and weeks that followed The Day of the Heart, Master Da frequently appeared, often on formal occasions, to grant devotees the Vision of the ultimate Reality. David Todd recounts one such occasion at Holy Cat Grotto, when Master Da initiated more than two hundred and fifty devotees with his Presence and Regard.
As Master Da moved down the slope to his seat above the Grotto, he was the essence of majesty and grace. Once again I was struck by the paradoxical nature of his appearance-he was at once a man walking and yet so obviously surrendered and possessed by the Living God that no person could be recognized to be present. Later when he sat in his second chair at the base of the Grotto, I repeatedly saw the rock around him appear as concentric circles of energy surrounding his form. He appeared to be completely at one with the natural elements in which he became instantly aligned to his form. He sat silently gazing at each devotee who knelt before him. His hands were open and moving in his lap, literally showering Grace and Light upon each of us. Suddenly I was motioned to move into place next to one of the priests at the edge of the Grotto. I offered an orchid into the water, which was now filled with flowers offered as gifts to the Master by those who had come before me. I knelt before our Lord with my hands raised and my heart open. He looked directly at me for several seconds. Many times in the past I had been in this position before him but never had I felt so open and able to accept freely the intense Love of his gaze. Through his eyes and gestures he communicated the direct Presence of the One who lives him so perfectly. I bowed in surrender at his feet, overwhelmed by gratitude for the Vision of Infinity I had just received in his Glance.
This account praises the revelation of the Master as “Da,” the Compassionate, Ever-Giving Divine Being, that so many devotees were graced to receive that autumn of 1979. Even so, these moments of recognition were only initiatory incidents, not full and complete Realizations. To mature in true recognition of Da, each devotee was and still is obliged to awaken into stable Identity with that One in Consciousness, via the conscious process of intuitive awakening that is the heart of Master Da’s Teaching.
5. All quotations in this paragraph from Sarat Chandra Das, Rai Bahadur C.1.E., A Tibetan-English Dictionary, revised and ed. by Graham Sandberg, B.A., and A. William Heyde (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1974), pp. 610-611. I have taken the liberty of deleting the phrases in Tibetan script and the abbreviated references to Tibetan sources which are included in the passage above as found in the dictionary.
6. Da Free John, untitled essay, quoted in “Divine Masters, Divine Initiations, and Enlightened Spiritual Practice,” in Vision .4.louncl Col. 2, no. 12, Nov.-Dec. 1979, p. 24.