September 3, 1998
Since I posted notice of a letter Ken wrote the Adi Da community two weeks ago much attention has been drawn to his relationship with the Adidam community and Adi Da himself. I therefore think it only proper that I post this letter as a response to ‘The Strange Case of Adi Da‘. This letter is from a friend of the community who has spent many years in the personal company of Adi Da. This letter (along with Beezone) has no relationship with the Adi Da Community itself.
I first met Ken at the Mountain of Attention just after sitting with Adi Da, then later at parties for him in Marin County. We have the same birthday.
I have always appreciated Ken’s books and praise his work as “the greatest words on earth by a living mortal”.
We all owe Ken great great praise. He is one of my heroes, razor sharp and holographic. But Ken is not fully enlightened and so we must understand his limitations and delusions as well as his brilliance. With regards to his latest letter (August) addressing the ‘Strange Case of Adi Da”, Ken’s limitations and projections upon Adi Da are only that, his projections. I can understand how someone involved in self-creation could make these mistakes. I have lived in a small room with Adi Da for months and I have seen and experienced His Brutal Simplicity and Service and shared many of the same projections myself.
What is Ken’s actual experience of Adi Da aside from a few darshan occasions? He’s read Adi Da’s books and acknowledge his word to be the most enlightened. But the person? What does he know of him from actual experience? Does he know of him only through the negative reactions and negative stories he’s heard from individuals who could not tolerate the heat of his company? Maybe he’s read Georg Fuersteins book “Madness and Holy Men” or other such books that speak of these things.
Ken states repetitively that no one cannot afford to be AT LEAST a student of the written teaching the of Adi Da, (see https://www.beezone.com for all of Ken’s endorsements). He bought with this praise a reaction most people do to the God-Man Adi Da. It is a COMMON mistake for those who stand far away from the fire of “Truth”. Ken speaks of Adi Da in breathtaking superlatives, acknowledging him as The Sat Guru of Today and then talks of his dangerous behavior. He tries to reconciling this contradiction with illogical paradox to bridge this “gap”.
This is a very common and traditional misunderstanding when trying to make some sanity out of a seemingly insane situation. I understand this reaction, Adi Da is not nice, not a gentleman, as the title of the book states. He is as ruthless as He is gracious.
Let me share with you a little of my experience with this Ruthless and Loving Master. I lived in a small room with Adi Da for many months and I saw and EXPERIENCED His Brutal Simplicity and Service. It took me months and years to begin to understand His Fire and Ferocity. The time between my initial, immature reaction and the wave of unending gratitude, a thousand points of view could be seized upon. Only afterwards were the lessons understood. What had been seen as so horrible was transform into freedom and radiant joy.
Days with Him would begin with the consideration of Truth and Practice, then with brilliant humor or passionate consideration He revealed those present to themselves, like a Priest in a Puja, setting a fire upon each altar. Then He would reveal Himself and baptize all in waves of joy and Love-Bliss. Consideration–self-understanding–Baptism. He would let your withdrawal from love be seen is His Sweet Fire of Love. His ruthless pursuance of your obstructions to joy could take milliseconds or years to comprehend, He didn’t really care if it took you years or even lifetimes.
He gave everyone everything. But my observation was that Heart-Servant Adi Da always was only gracious, even at His most forceful bluntness. I never saw Him unloving, I never saw Him unfree. I spent twelve hours a day most days in His House, I never saw Him in any way that was not absolute and complete service, not a fraction of anything outside of loving brilliance.
Unhappy with His Force, a thousand logics may riddle you and me. I tried to resolve the conflict between enlightenment and unenlightenment, Crazy Wisdom and the crazy behavior of an Adept. The logic of the mind will come up with all kinds of hairbrained schemes to deny the Liberator in Person. It has been my experience and observation that dissatisfaction with Adi Da is the same as the refusal to love and to understand ourselves. This is what he shows us, ourselves. I have never experienced Him as anything but a Heart Servant, Fierce and Sweetness Himself.
This is what people complain about and struggle with. Some people got fried or burned by the fire and reacted to the intensity in logics of power. I have seen this in myself and in all others, and it has been my observation that those who understood themselves the least are the ones with the most complaints. Brilliance too bright for self possessed individuals, this is true. Ken is correct on this point, the Way of the Divine Person is the most difficult understanding, where misunderstanding surrounds it in lesser satisfactions. Do not casually approach the God-Man Adi Da, and do not put down an acclaimed living god-man because you don’t fully understand who he is. The need to be right and safe in the logic of your own mind is a delusion we all share. This logic will exactly be the act that keeps us from The Truth.