|
 Introduction
When I was asked by David Lane to
write an account of my brief period as a member
of the community centered around Franklin Jones
(AKA Bubba Free John, Da Free John, Heart-Master
Da, Da Love Ananda, Da Kalki, Da Avabhasa), I
was initially reluctant, for several reasons.
I had been involved with the guru for only a few
months back in 1974, and since that time we had
followed widely different paths; I had taught
middle school and eventually gone back to university,
earning a Ph.D. in the History of Asian Religions,
with a special interest in Classical Chinese texts.
He had gone on to become a moderately notorious
“cult” leader, living on a secluded Fijian island
with nine “wives” and a small group of male disciples,
supported by the earnings of a community of followers,
mostly in the San Francisco Bay area, and the
income generated by a string of increasingly monomaniacal,
eccentrically written books, books that I had
occasionally glanced through but had not read.
Though I still regarded Da Free John as an intriguing
and fascinating teacher, I had not bothered to
keep up with his publications and exploits and
was hardly current on his end of the guru business.
It was not clear to me that I had any particularly
interesting insights to offer or that my academic
expertise gave me special qualifications to analyze
the life and oeuvre of this puzzling man. Though
my memories of my time in the community were colorful
and potentially entertaining, I was never especially
privy to dark secrets and my role in the ashram’s
history was utterly insignificant.
Furthermore, the methodological
problems underlying this enterprise struck me
as thorny, for while I am now a professional scholar
of religion, I most certainly was not one in 1974.
Back then I was a young university graduate embittered
by the hypocrisy shown by an America at war with
“communism” and its own children. I was not pleased
at the prospect of a middle-class existence (assuming
I survived long enough) and, like millions of
others, was desperately trying to discover new
ways of understanding that might make it possible
to actually live the idealistic values with which
I had been raised. The hopeful optimism of the
late sixties was long gone by the dark days of
1974; it was time to stop browsing in the spiritual
supermarket and get on with the serious work of
inner transformation, before it was too late.
The world was in dire straights and nothing short
of a revolution in human consciousness could hope
to save it, desperate times requiring desperate
measures. Like many of my apocalyptically anxious
fellow-travelers, I was fairly immature, reasonably
cynical in a generic way, but at the same time
quite naive and impressionable in specific instances.
I suppose I was reasonably representative of an
entire generation of individuals, who despite
their many differences shared similar attitudes
of frustration, despair, and longing. For many,
the answers were no longer to be found in the
failed theologies and empty religious practices
of the West. We looked East for the ecstatic awareness
that would halt the mad march of consumer “culture,”
heal the planet, and restore our souls. What made
sense to us then may seem very strange in the
1990s. In the process of mulling over my experiences,
I have been reminded again and again just how
subtly, but significantly, my current frame of
reference differs from that of twenty years ago;
the same must be true for nearly everyone, which
leads me to suspect that projecting oneself into
one’s own past is nearly as perilous an undertaking
as predicting the future.
What finally convinced me to write this essay
was the realization that my experiences of Da
Free John, though brief, occurred at a time of
unusual openness. Although the guru has been extraordinarily
reclusive for many years now, when I was in the
community he was relatively accessible, and his
activities were in plain view. With hindsight,
it is clear that in 1974 Da Free John was planting
the seeds of behaviors that would grow into luxuriant,
noxious weeds in the tropical isolation of his
Fijian hideaway. With luck, my narrative of the
early days of his community in northern California
might shed some light on the later developments
that were at least partially revealed in a series
of investigative articles published from 4 to
16 April, 1985 in the San Francisco Chronicle.
The most intractable methodological question may
be this: how does an academic in the 1990s reconstruct
the experiences had by an alienated, naive spiritual
seeker nearly two decades earlier, without taking
advantage of hindsight and the information and
understanding gained in later years? A secondary
question concerns the proper tone and style for
presenting this account. Should I pretend to be
a “serious” scholar and write in formal academic
prose? Would this not be absurdly pompous and
inappropriate, given the material? Should I simply
report on my memories, fighting down the urges
to editorialize, moralize, and analyze? (in that
priority!)
It seems to me that for this account to have any
value whatsoever I will have to be as open and
direct as possible. This will preclude any pretense
of academic distance or “objectivity,” especially
since pretending to be a disinterested observer,
when it is obvious I was not, will not fool anyone
and will give an eerily detached tone to the essay.
At the same time, I will not be satisfied merely
to report my experiences without comment or self-defense,
especially since I am bound to look pretty foolish
in these memoirs! As a compromise, I will present
a straightforward, albeit impressionistic, account
of my experiences in the Dawn Horse Communion
(as Da Free John’s community was then known),
trying to interpret and present events as they
appeared to me at the time, and follow with my
analysis. When I cannot refrain from commenting,
I will try to restrict myself to the notes, though
some in-text editorializing will be unavoidable.
Can this be justified on rigorous methodological
grounds? Probably not, but perhaps the tale will
prove entertaining and have some cautionary value.
As a final methodological concern, I should address
the issue of the ad hominem argument — not in
order to make deep theoretical points but simply
to clarify what my operating framework will be.
It is an unquestioned axiom in graduate school
that the ad hominem argument is invalid; you cannot
refute a person’s logic by attacking his or her
character, race, religious beliefs, etc. One can
think of many examples to illustrate this point.
The Nazis dismissed Einstein’s theories because
he was a Jew; while this turned out well for the
Allies, it was bad science and bad logic. We presumably
all agree that the sexual mores of a chemist will
not necessarily affect the results of her laboratory
experiments, and the truth of an astronomer’s
cosmological speculation is largely independent
of his personal hygiene; however, on entering
the arena of normative pronouncements, statements
of what is ultimately true, the questions get
stickier.
If a Belgian academic claims that texts have no
meaning other than that imputed to them by their
readers is it relevant to note that he wrote Nazi
propaganda during WWII? Does the ad hominem argument
have bearing on this academic’s truth claims?
Obviously, being a Nazi propagandist does not
invalidate one’s theories on texts and their meanings;
the logic of the claim is not refuted in any way
by the ad hominem arguments leveled against its
proponent, however is it improper to wonder about
the psychological motives that might lead this
particular academic to make the claims he does,
claims that appear to absolve authors from any
responsibility for what they write?
In the field of religion, especially when considering
the role of charismatic, authoritarian religious
leaders, the validity of the ad hominem argument
becomes an even more important consideration.
While character examination may never undermine
the logic of a spiritual leader’s positions, I
suspect it may well be the most appropriate means
to evaluate a guru, or any other teacher claiming
divine inspiration for his or her actions. In
other words, I believe that the ad hominem argument
is potentially the most useful (though perhaps
the most misused) means for evaluating religious
or spiritual claims. Why?
In all of the world’s major religions there are
sub-traditions that emphasize the paramount value
of the spiritual preceptor (guru, rebbe, murshid,
shih fu, roshi, etc.) These traditions claim that
the spiritual preceptor can greatly accelerate
the development of the disciple who submits completely
to the preceptor’s will. In addition, they
generally caution that the right preceptor is
necessary for growth; a fraudulent or deluded
preceptor is disastrous for the disciple and can
literally ruin his or her spiritual life. Since
the choice of preceptor is so important for the
disciple, the traditions have cautioned the spiritual
seeker to be highly critical when selecting the
man or woman to whom he/she will entrust his/her
life and have taught criteria by which true teachers
are to be recognized. Besides emphasizing the
importance of common sense and intuition, the
criteria usually include a critical examination
of the moral quality of the preceptor’s life.
As Jesus is quoted as saying in a related context,
“By their fruits you shall know them." What
these traditions seem to understand (or perhaps
never had to consider) is that the distinctions
modern persons make between spheres of action
— physical vs. mental, spiritual vs. material,
academic vs. personal, intellectual vs. moral,
etc.— are both arbitrary and inappropriate when
considering spiritual teachers. As these teachers
usually claim, there is no spiritual world divorced
from everyday life. The preceptor, or guru, claims
the entire life of the disciple as his/her field
of action; there is no area of the disciple’s
life free from the scrutiny and correction of
the guru. Taking this claim at face value, it
only follows that every aspect of the guru’s life
is also open to the critical examination of the
disciple; there is no life of the spirit divorced
from everyday human interactions and mundane concerns.
The intellectual work of an English professor
may be separate from his sex life, but a
guru’s is not. Given the inseparability of spirit
and matter, the cosmic and mundane, what more
relevant way is there to evaluate a teacher than
by his or her relationships with persons, possessions,
and the environment? While I will do my best to
avoid all questionable, unsupported allegations,
I will not hesitate to discuss actions taken by
Da Free John that seem to bear directly on the
question of character.
It is my belief, or bias, that spiritual liberation
does not free one from all rules of conventional
morality. Though it is obvious that social mores
are made up, the creation of particular human
societies, and may well be hypocritical, inconsistent
and arbitrary, does it necessarily follow that
the individual who is “liberated” is free to indulge
in what appear to be egocentric, hurtful, and
damaging actions in the name of spiritual freedom?
I personally think not, while acknowledging the
subtlety and complexity of the ongoing debate.
The Community
In March of 1974 when I arrived in San Francisco,
the Dawn Horse Communion was in a period of rapid
change and growth. The community had recently
moved from Los Angeles, was acquiring a more formal
structure, and, on the strength of Franklin Jones’s
first two books, was beginning to attract new
members from areas outside California. (Even so,
the group was still quite small, numbering fewer
than two hundred, I would guess.) Within a day
or two of my arrival from Colorado, a Canadian
appeared, having hitched rides all the way from
Ottawa. As trivial as this may sound, the appearance
of new prospective members, coming from distant
cities, was interpreted by the rank and file members
of the Communion as a strongly confirmatory sign
and a harbinger of growth to come — their guru
was finally being recognized by the outside world
and spiritually receptive people were being drawn
across the continent.
The timing of my arrival was quite
fortuitous. Da Free John had recently begun the
process, apparently still evolving, of distancing
himself from the rank and file of his ashram.
New members were required to pass through a probationary
period of six weeks or more before being allowed
into the guru’s presence. For some reason, the
persons who arrived the week I did were immediately
accepted into the community and were allowed to
join full members on the weekend pilgrimage north
to “Persimmon,” formerly Seigler Springs, the
down-at-the heels hot springs resort that was
then the home of Da Free John and his select inner
circle. Individuals who arrived only several days
after I did were required to pass through a trial
period of several weeks or months before being
allowed to see the guru, and if I remember correctly
there were even several luckless souls who had
arrived before I had who were still held to the
requirement of a probationary period. To this
day I have no idea why the rules were relaxed
for several of us, unless it was the feeling of
exhilaration and unfolding destiny that gripped
the community when we arrived from thousands of
miles away. In any case, the rules were soon to
be reasserted; by the time a few months had passed,
all the “privileged” newcomers had either been
expelled or demoted to the level of probationary
members.
The contact point for spiritual seekers interested
in learning more about Da Free John was the Dawn
Horse Bookstore on Polk Street in San Francisco.
This was where the other new arrivals and I met
with more established members of the ashram and
found housing in the community. I do not think
that there was any master plan dictating this
role for the store, rather events unfolded in
an organic, ad hoc manner — the store was highly
visible, staffed by community members who were
friendly and desired to assist newcomers, new
housing arrangements were being made as members
moved up from L.A. to the Bay area, etc.
I was soon living in an apartment with an older
couple (both were approaching thirty!) who had
been students of Swami Satchidananda for most
of the previous decade, sharing a room with the
aforementioned Canadian, an ex-follower of Yogi
Bhajan. In this arrangement, the Canadian and
I were clearly junior partners; the older couple
had been around the spiritual scene far longer
than we had and knew the gossip on gurus and spiritual
teachers up and down both coasts. More importantly,
they were apparently fairly close to Da Free John.
While not quite members of his inner circle —
those privileged individuals who lived in his
house or at least got to stay full time at Persimmon
— they were still regulars at the guru’s parties
and seemed to have an inside track on the gossip
about the guru on which the community throve.
Besides tantalizing us with tidbits of information
we really should not have been told, the older
couple also helped us adjust to the rigorous diet
and hygiene requirements imposed by Da Free John
on the rank and file. Da Free John was apparently
fascinated and persuaded by the claims of various
health food enthusiasts, so much so that he often
stated that the neurotic symptoms of modern Americans,
rather than pointing to deep underlying existential
concerns, are merely trivial, the byproducts of
bad diet and its accompanying metabolic disturbances.
“Your deepest worries and spiritual traumas are
just ‘lunch’“ was his metaphoric way of phrasing
it. Furthermore the guru had no reservations about
experimenting on his followers.
When I arrived, Da Free John’s favorite diet authority
appeared to be Paavo Airola. All members of the
community were required to follow Airola’s prescriptive
routine of a strict vegetarian diet, complemented
by fasting one day a week, with a monthly three
day fast thrown in for good measure. Once a year,
the community was expected to fast for a week,
their only calories coming from watered fruit
juice. To accelerate the cleansing process, those
fasting were also expected to take daily enemas,
a novel experience for most of us. While this
strict diet and periodic fasting were being observed
in San Francisco, the guru and his fluctuating,
but small, inner circle appeared to be engaging
in increasingly riotous, drunken parties.
Members of the community were required to write
spiritual journals in which they recorded their
experiences in meditation, doubts, hopes, growing
love for the guru, feelings of surrender, etc.
These journals were collected weekly and read
by a “big brother” or “big sister,” assigned to
each member by someone higher up in the organization.
I do not remember, or perhaps never knew, how
these assignments were made, but do recall noticing
that that the men and women responsible for reading
the journals and socializing newer members seemed
to be selected from among the most loyal and unquestioning
members of the “old guard,” disciples from the
ashram’s Los Angeles days. It quickly became apparent
that honesty in our journals was not a virtue
to be rewarded; any expression of doubt, confusion,
or uncertainty led to long, unpleasant probing
from the higher-ups and the suggestion that perhaps
we were not “mature enough” as disciples to deserve
the experience of spending weekends in the master’s
presence. Our entries soon became formulaic and
unrelentingly enthusiastic, loaded with the jargon
of surrender and grace. It was also suspected
that really powerful journal entries, if sustained
long enough, might lead to improved standing within
the community and eventually lead to greater contact
with the guru, the goal of all good disciples.
In this manner we were encouraged to express our
love and devotion for the guru again and again,
in many different ways.
Meditation, practiced twice daily, posed another
demand on our time, though it was one of the more
enjoyable parts of our routine. We were instructed
to sit before a picture of Da Free John — a great
number of them were available for purchase — periodically
asking ourselves “avoiding relationship?” The
practice was not supposed to degenerate into mechanical
repetition, but, for me anyway, it did not lead
to ecstatic states of consciousness or even a
strong sense of connection to the guru. What it
did for others, I cannot say; when I earnestly
enquired what the point of this practice was supposed
to be, senior members of the community seemed
baffled and questioned my devotion, so I quit
asking before I had an answer. In any case, it
was pleasant enough to sit quietly for a stolen
half hour of rest.
Overall the mood was exciting, fraught with anticipation
of the profound spiritual revolution beginning
before our very eyes. There was a strong sense
that we were on the vanguard of a new spiritual
order, that personal transformation was occurring
all around us, by the grace of the guru. Since
Da Free John worked his transformative magic by
means of a mysterious process of osmosis, or transference
of enlightenment, the highest priority of everyone
was to gain access to the guru. This led to utterly
embarrassing attempts to ingratiate ourselves
with those in power. The greatest power lay with
those who controlled access to the master, so
nearly every member of the community vied to please
these sternly right-thinking individuals by appearing
to be the most surrendered, pious, obedient, hard-working,
etc., devotee of all time.
One result of this attitude was that a great deal
of work got done. In addition to holding full
time jobs, community members were expected to
spend every evening from Monday to Friday at the
bookstore, where work, talk, and inspiration went
hand in hand. We built and finished a warren of
offices and meeting rooms in the leased space
adjoining the bookstore in San Francisco and worked
weekend wonders on the decrepit buildings of Persimmon,
rebuilding them when possible, demolishing them
when not. Safety was never a concern since it
was understood that the guru’s grace was protecting
his disciples at all times. We ripped out asbestos
tiles and threw them into great dusty piles; we
stood on steeply sloping roofs, tearing shingles
loose like madmen. It worked out well for a while,
though I was saddened to hear that one of the
most ardent and surrendered disciples fell from
a ladder, to his death, soon after I left. Even
this tragic event held a strange salvational lesson
for the community; Da Free John placed his hands
on the dying boy and directed his soul through
the stages of the afterlife, presumably securing
liberation or at least a better rebirth for him.
At the end of a long day of work, meditation,
and lectures, there was still time for a bit of
fun; after all, Persimmon had been a resort in
several of its earlier incarnations. A favorite
amusement was to run off to the hot springs, actually
a series of pools, varying in temperature, in
separate dimly-lit rooms, housed under one roof.
Here my friends and I felt constrained by our
liminal standing in the community (and our aesthetic
sensibilities). Probationary members were expected
to maintain celibacy, while full members were
allowed to engage in “mature, responsible sexual
relations” (apparently a euphemism for exuberant
promiscuity). My cohorts and I fit neither category
and never clearly knew where we stood, though
it was obvious that remaining celibate was the
safest course. In any case, despite its sybaritic
possibilities, cavorting naked in the hot springs
proved to be no more erotic than same-sex bathing
at a seedy summer camp. Given the intense sexual/spiritual
charge permeating nearly all aspects of ashram
life, this seems almost inexplicable, but it is
true. In dozens of hours of nude bathing, I saw
nothing more sexual than occasional displays of
affection. Perhaps the decaying, vaguely unsanitary,
mildewed atmosphere of the baths kept things under
control, by reminding everyone of junior high
school swimming lessons. More important may have
been the fact that my friends and I were actually
repelled by most of the women in the community,
who despite being former hippies managed to project
a cloying, saccharin air of pious guru-devotion.
I felt like I was skinny-dipping with nuns. Late
at night, I was told, the guru and his senior
disciples occasionally staged drunken orgiastic
revels at the baths, but by then we worker bees
were safely tucked into bed and lost in dreamland.
Between jobs, commuting, housekeeping, hygiene
(remember the enemas!), meditation, and work on
the bookstore, our days were very full; most of
us had little time for sleep, and I recall that
I was hard pressed to do the reading and writing
demanded of a new community member. In fact, I
was hardly able to read at all during this period,
despite my own inclinations and the guru’s expectations.
Whether this was the intended result of our schedule,
I do not know. Perhaps the needs of a growing
community dictated our excessively long workdays;
possibly Da Free John wanted his followers to
be too busy to think. One can imagine motives,
both benign and nefarious, for encouraging our
frantic lifestyle; while the effect of all this
busyness was to forestall critical thinking, who
can say what the guru’s intentions might have
been?
The Inner Circle
The first fact I should state about the inner
circle is that I am not really qualified to speak
about it, or rather that I have no first-hand
observations to report about what went on inside
the guru’s home. What I can detail are my own
observations of the dynamics of the guru’s household,
as seen from outside, and my remembered conversations
with those who had direct access to the guru in
his less public role. As already mentioned, I
also had an earful of guru-centric gossip, a source
that is not to be disparaged in ashram settings.
Da Free John was in his mid-thirties in 1974,
tending towards obesity but still muscular and
fit. While not strikingly handsome, he was reasonably
attractive and dressed with a free-spirited flair.
His most intimate associates were roughly his
age or perhaps a bit older. He appeared to be
especially close to two men; the core of the inner
circle seemed to be formed by the three men and
their wives, though even members of this tiny
elite were not immune to periodic banishment into
the outer wilderness of the rank and file.
In addition to this core group, there were usually
several single men, notable mostly for their arrogance
and expensive sunglasses, who flanked the guru
like bodyguards when he went out, and a half dozen
or so attractive, ethereal younger women, collectively
known as the “gopis,” making up the inner circle.
The members of the inner circle did not appear
to work, at least not at the heavy demolition
and construction that occupied most weekend hours
for the rest of us, and were greatly envied by
everyone else. However, it appears that they paid
a heavy price for their relative ease.
Like many gurus, Da Free John worked to undermine
all attachments between individuals; ultimate
allegiance is to the guru alone, for other relationships
are driven by unhealthy desires, insecurities,
cravings, and the like, that must be transcended
before liberation can dawn. To this end, Da Free
John ruthlessly separated couples he deemed too
attached to one another, sometimes dissolving
marriages or dictating that new relationships
be formed. The guru also had sex with a large
number of attractive women. This was hardly a
secret, especially since many of the women so
favored had no qualms about telling others the
details. It was my distinct impression that
Da Free John was already physically abusive towards
women, pushing and slapping them around on occasion.
This is hard to document, of course, since the
apparent abuse was always interpreted and reported
in the context of shaktipat, the imparting of
divine energy or grace through physical contact,
among other ways. One woman in her first
trimester of pregnancy told me how Da Free John
had ordered her to down a drinking glass full
of Aquavit, a vile Scandinavian liquor; he subsequently
punched her swelling abdomen. She experienced
this as a blessing given to her unborn child.
Not surprisingly, the unusual sensations she felt
were interpreted as the working of the shakti,
or spiritual energy.
While the inner circle remained relatively constant
during my stay at the ashram, I did see two women
make the big leap into the limelight, in dramatically
different ways: one quite unintentionally; the
other through audacity and guile. The first instance
occurred several weeks after my arrival, when
the restrictions on visiting Persimmon and seeing
the guru were being tightened. A recently graduated
physician with a long-standing interest in meditation
and eastern spirituality brought his young blond
girlfriend into the bookstore one evening and
enquired about seeing Da Free John. Officially,
of course, this was now impossible; all new members
had to adopt the prescribed diet and lifestyle
changes, demonstrating their spiritual maturity
for many weeks, before they were deemed adequately
prepared to meet the guru. However, quite inexplicably,
someone thought to call Da Free John and consult
with him on the matter. After hearing the beauty
of the girlfriend described in glowing terms,
an exception to the new rules was suddenly granted,
and the couple joined the weekend caravan to the
hot springs. By this time I had had an opportunity
to converse with the young woman, discovering
that she had little or no background, or even
interest, in eastern spirituality, meditation,
and the like, and was only going along to humor
her boyfriend. The next time I saw her she was
wearing a sari and wandering glazed-eyed in the
garden fronting Da Free John’s house. As
it turned out, upon their arrival the visiting
couple had been ushered into the master’s home,
where a party was being held, apparently in their
honor. By Saturday morning, she had become one
of the resident “gopis,” and the young doctor
was gradually being eased out of the house. On
Monday he was back in San Francisco, presumably
contemplating the spiritual anguish that inevitably
arises from sexual attachments and failure to
surrender wholeheartedly to the guru.
The second case involved a rather nondescript,
but not unattractive, woman who came to the community
in the aftermath of a divorce. This woman quickly
realized where the power and status in the ashram
were concentrated and began plotting to become
one of the guru’s consorts. To those of us who
observed her pathetic maneuvering—new makeup,
flowing silk gowns and saris carefully selected
to mimic gopi-wear, rushing to sit in the front
row during meditation and talks by the guru, pushing
to be near the guru on his daily strolls, outrageously
fawning behavior, etc.—her apparent failure to
attract the guru’s attention was gratifying; perhaps
the guy really was omniscient, or at least had
good taste. Although posturing and positioning
are integral aspects of guru-based community life,
this woman brought a new level of transparent
desperation to the process. One week, back in
San Francisco, we noticed a change in her behavior;
everywhere she went she carried a pen and paper
and was observed writing and rewriting with great
intensity, working on a manuscript the length
of several term papers. It soon got out that she
was composing a letter to Da Free John, a letter
through which all the love and devotion in her
heart could flow directly to the guru, unimpeded
by the censoring tiers of ashram bureaucrats that
separated ordinary community members from their
lord and master. Somehow the letter was delivered—no
mean feat in itself, for Da Free John’s house
was strictly off-limits—and the guru was moved
by her great sincerity; the next weekend she was
wearing her own sari and had moved into the guru’s
house, the oldest of the gopis. By the time I
left the community it appeared that her blissful
smile was a bit forced and she was showing signs
of strain, though no one knew its cause.
The Guru
When discussing Da Free John there is strong temptation
to use that much debased word “charisma” to explain
his personal magnetism. To say that he has enormous
charisma tells us little, however, since the apparent
power and magnetism displayed by certain gifted
religious and political leaders cannot be scientifically
measured and will not be subjectively perceived
in the same manner by different observers. How
many of us would have come away from a face-to-face
meeting with Jim Jones convinced that he was God?
Yet for some individuals he had that level of
persuasive power, and even his critics reported
being swayed by his charm. In a similar fashion,
Da Free John projected an almost palpable aura
of certainty and self-confidence that seemed utterly
remarkable in one so young. Whereas everyone else
I knew was baffled by the big questions of human
existence — Who are we? Why are we here? What
does it all mean? — Da Free John was a man with
answers, all the answers, and he was not simply
a glib talker. His answers made perfect sense,
fitting together like the pieces of an exquisitely
crafted puzzle, once you accepted his basic underlying
suppositions. I suspect that for someone hostile
to Vedantic teachings and their assumption that
souls reincarnate for lifetime after lifetime,
until escape is won with the dawning of the supremely
ecstatic experience of enlightenment, Da Free
John’s talks would have little power or appeal.
For seekers already steeped in Indian spirituality,
Da Free John’s early talks are astonishingly well
reasoned, encyclopedic in their breadth, impeccable
in their logic, and, most importantly, clearly
grounded in deep personal experience. When he
gave his masterful lectures, without notes or
other signs of advanced preparation, I was absolutely
positive that he was speaking from his own experience,
not parroting memorized lines. To this day, I
remain convinced that Da Free John could have
spoken with the authority he displayed only because
he was discussing vivid personal realizations.
On a sweltering afternoon in late spring, Da Free
John might set out on a leisurely walk around
the grounds, surrounded as always by an adoring
crowd of dewy-eyed disciples. Despite being a
healthy young man, the guru usually carried one
of his collection of walking sticks, perhaps because
many Indian sadhus walk with staves. Besides his
designer sunglasses, he often wore nothing but
sandals and a shawl; in a more modest mood he
might wear colored bikini-style briefs, but nudity
was his norm in the heat. Sometimes, after strolling
a few hundred yards, he would sit down on a chair
or blanket and appear to enter an ecstatic state
of open-eyed trance, staring fixedly into the
eyes of his followers, one after another. Soon
others would enter altered states of consciousness,
apparently drawn by the force of the guru’s meditation.
On occasion, individuals would assume difficult
and contorted yoga postures, as the energy surging
through their bodies compelled them to move and
writhe. At other times the mood would grow incredibly
quiet and still. An hour might pass like this
before the guru would look up and ask, “Any questions?”
Someone would then ask a silly question (soon
forgotten) and the master would launch upon a
brilliant explication of some obscure technical
point in Kashmiri Shaivism, or western occult
theory, or his own superior understanding of Truth,
or whatever; it really did not matter. We all
loved to hear his spellbinding, illuminating,
and eminently sensible descriptions of the real
spiritual life that dawns with the end of seeking
and suffering, for that was the ultimate destination
of most of his talks. Da Free John’s best discourses
were reserved for formal meetings in the meditation
hall, where his words could be taped for eventual
publication, but even in the most impromptu settings
he never seemed to stumble, make mistakes, lose
a train of thought, or display ordinary human
weakness. In my opinion, his act would be almost
impossible to imitate.
When he was scheduled to speak in the ashram’s
lecture hall, we would assemble early, most people
struggling to get as close to the guru’s chair
as possible, several of us with attitude problems
sitting in the back row, as if still in school.
We would usually meditate quietly until Da Free
John made his dramatic entrance, encircled by
the fluttering gopis. The effect was often startlingly
electric. These were strange days, even by ashram
standards, and the shakti, or spiritual energy,
seemed wild, almost uncontrolled. Individuals
would writhe or cry out with eerie animal voices
as waves of delirious exultation swept through
the room. Suddenly, Da Free John would quiet the
crowd and, seating himself on his elevated throne,
begin his discourse. To get a sense of the structure
and content of these talks, one need only glance
through The Method of the Siddhas or Garbage and
the Goddess. So far as I can tell, Da Free John
is unique among gurus, in that his books present
his discourses in a completely unrevised, unedited
form. What you read is a word-for-word transcript
of his talks.
During his lectures, Da Free John repeatedly,
eloquently, and humorously attacked the narcissistic
self-absorption that he claims has overshadowed
our original enlightenment and become our habitual
state of consciousness. Only by understanding
and transcending our petty attachments, dropping
our egos, and free-falling mindlessly into the
sheltering arms of God can we recover the ecstatic,
unreasonable happiness that has been our true
condition all along. The way to reach this state
of supreme happiness is to surrender to the guru
at all times and in all situations.
As Da Free John spoke, his eyes would rake the
crowd. Curiously, he appeared to make extended
eye-contact with every member of his audience,
no matter how many individuals were present.
On occasions when the mood hit, he would enter
a silent state of meditation that would then flood
over the assembly. When he had finished speaking
and answering questions, he would abruptly rise
and walk out, followed by his scrambling entourage.
The rest of us would slowly collect our wits and
trickle out into the warm, dark night.
Although Da Free John was most impressive, he
was not at all approachable; he had no friends.
Everyone was his student and everyone needed to
be prodded, poked, cajoled, tricked, and even
tortured into surrendering the attachments that
prevented them from living the blissful enlightenment
that was their true, already existing state. At
the time I wondered what it would be like to have
no peers, to be beyond correction, to admonish
others but never to be admonished oneself, and
concluded that one could only remain sane if one
were “fully enlightened.” Anyone less than a “perfect
master” would be certain, I reasoned, to end up
like one of those loony, sadistic pedophile emperors
from the declining years of Rome. In retrospect,
I suppose that Da Free John was already losing
his balance; he certainly seemed to enjoy stripping
persons of their “attachments” with an enthusiasm
that might seem cruel. Soon after my arrival,
a middle-aged woman, one of the oldest members
of the community, related how she had been liberated
from her sense of bodily shame by the guru. While
she had apparently recovered from the experience,
which had taken place several months earlier,
it definitely seemed more traumatic than therapeutic
to me. On one of the first nights when Da Free
John was allowing his followers to drink alcohol,
smoke, and dance, Da decided that this overweight,
insecure woman was too uptight about her body.
As her guru, he ordered her to strip. As a devotee
she could either defy her guru and leave the community
or take off her clothes. She obeyed the guru and
then spent the next half hour dancing naked to
acid rock music on top of a table, watched and
cheered by the entire community. Was this an example
of skillful, compassionate teaching, an exploitative
act of sadistic voyeurism, or something else entirely?
I honestly do not know, though I am certainly
glad I did not have to witness the incident and
even happier that I was not placed in her situation.
Another troublesome point concerns Da Free John’s
sources of legitimacy. On the one hand, he claimed
that his insight was unique; others in the past
had shared his profound understanding, but no
living gurus and masters had reached his level
of realization. Therefore no one now living could
judge, evaluate, or criticize his radical insights
and actions. In his formal talks Da Free John
would often discuss various famous teachers and
explain where their evolution had stopped. (Almost
every potential competitor had become trapped
by yogic experiences of bliss, thereby falling
short and failing to realize the prior enlightenment
beyond all changing, temporary yogic illuminations.)
Yet Da Free John had also been the student of
several powerful practitioners of shaktipat yoga
and spoke freely and fondly of his relationship
with these teachers. Swami Rudrananda (usually
simply called Rudi), an American yogi who had
studied the Gurdjieff work, practiced Subud, and
spent time in Ganeshpuri with Swami Muktananda
and Muktananda’s guru, Nityananda, still commanded
Da Free John’s admiration, even though the two
had broken contact before Rudi’s recent death.
Da Free John especially admired Rudi’s wild energy
and lust for experience. In a sentimental mood,
Da Free John once mused “Rudi loved men and I
love women. Together we could have fucked the
world.”
Da Free John’s relationship with Swami Muktananda
is more problematic. A close reading of Da Free
John’s autobiography, The Knee of Listening, suggests
that Da Free John fully expected his final teacher,
Swami Muktananda, to endorse Da’s enlightenment
and role as guru. When this did not ensue, the
two began a feud that was in full swing when Muktananda
visited the Bay area in 1974. Da Free John claimed
to have a letter, written in Hindi, that confirmed
him as a successor to Muktananda. Whether this
is true or not, it reveals clearly that Da Free
John felt the need to have his spiritual qualifications
confirmed by a recognized authority and suggests
that his claims to be beyond the evaluation of
others were at least partly defensive in origin.
In his evening talks, Da Free John frequently
referred to Muktananda as a “black magician.”
Muktananda spoke of his former student in similar
terms. During our weekdays in San Francisco,
several of us clandestinely visited Muktananda
at his ashram in Oakland. His “presence” was quite
similar to Da Free John’s, if not more powerful;
when he entered a room behind your back, you would
involuntarily swivel to see him, as if alerted
by a tingling sixth sense; yet his lectures lacked
the depth and comprehensive understanding we saw
in our guru’s. Towards the end of my stay I began
to realize that Da Free John was gradually asserting
a claim to be an avatar, an incarnation of God
on earth. He actually sets it out in his first
book, The Knee of Listening, when he describes
his childhood experience of basking in “the Bright,”
his childhood term for the divine light that he
experienced from birth. The claim is not that
all children are naturally enlightened before
they are socialized into our deadened daily awareness;
the claim is that little Franklin Jones was uniquely
enlightened from birth and is, in fact, God in
human form. An avatar does not need the imprimatur
of a mere swami or a western yogi.
While establishing his status as an avatar, Da
Free John claimed to produce a number of miracles.
Most of these “miracles” slipped right by me,
unnoticed, but one in particular was especially
baffling; since it may have led to my expulsion,
I will explain it as best I can.
One Saturday, after an exuberant night of partying
and laughter, we passed the day in some sort of
celebration, at least I do not remember doing
my usual work. The entire community enjoyed the
well-earned break, wandering around outdoors,
talking and lolling about. Several days later,
the community was buzzing with increasingly dramatic
tales of the astronomical marvels Da Free John
had wrought on that lazy afternoon. Apparently,
among other things, the guru had caused the sun
to be ringed by a bright purple corona that had
been clearly visible for many hours. Devotees
vied to describe the miracle in increasingly dramatic
terms. Now here is where things get truly puzzling.
I had been outdoors all that afternoon. Not only
had I seen nothing out of the ordinary, but no
one within my earshot had mentioned anything at
all about the miracle at the very time it was
supposedly happening! I was not trying to be difficult
or obtuse, but this proved too much for me. If
a great miracle had occurred, why was it not mentioned
at the time? I asked a number of devotees what
they had seen and why they had not called everyone’s
attention to it, but received no satisfactory
answers. It slowly emerged that I was not alone
in missing this miracle; my skeptical cohorts
on the community’s fringe were similarly in the
dark.
Within several days, we were drawn aside, individually,
for somber meetings with the ashram authorities
in which we were told that it had been a mistake
to accept us into the community without testing;
we were welcome to remain as probationary members
of the Dawn Horse Communion, but it was unclear
when, if ever, we would merit another visit to
Persimmon. Several of the skeptics blamed themselves
for their lack of spirituality and accepted their
punishment. My Canadian roommate and I said farewell
to the West Coast and were soon sharing a delirious
thirty hour nonstop drive across the U.S. with
two Native Americans we had met through a Haight-Ashbury
ride-board. This was the end of my brief involvement
with Da Free John, though I kept up with his writings
until his word use and capitalization became intolerably
idiosyncratic.
Conclusions
There will be no great summing up of my experiences;
the pieces cannot be made to fall neatly into
place. To be honest, I do not really have any
conclusions, in a scholarly sense, to offer. Rather
I would like to present several hypotheses that
have helped me get some grip on an otherwise baffling
and elusive man whose words and actions I find
too fascinating to ignore.
In retrospect, the “miracles” and, most importantly,
individuals’ reactions to them may provide a key
to interpreting the group consciousness that Da
Free John was constructing in his community. It
seems most likely that no one actually saw the
marvels the guru claimed to have produced, but
the erstwhile devotees’ responses to Da Free John’s
claims provided a litmus test to determine who
had or had not fully surrendered to the guru’s
version of reality, thereby giving a reliable
criterion for weeding the ranks of the rapidly
growing community. One is reminded, of course,
of the story “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” with
the significant twist that the bratty kid who
notices that the Emperor is naked gets punished,
and the compliant, self-deceiving officials are
rewarded. The motive for purging the community
at that particular time seems clear; the following
weekend an independent film crew was scheduled
to visit Persimmon to film Da Free John and his
ashram. It must have seemed imperative to
remove all potential dissidents from the set.
Although Da Free John was vociferous
in condemning “cultic” behaviors and blamed his
ashram members for repeatedly falling into the
trap of blind guru worship, the entire organization
of the community was designed to inculcate and
enforce the very behaviors the guru ostensibly
despised. Our “spiritual journals” provided an
efficient means for monitoring individuals’ attitudes
and spotting ideological or behavioral deviations
as soon as they arose, in addition to their previously
discussed value as tools of self-imposed indoctrination.
While it is possible that a controlling, totalistic
ideology, with an accompanying “brain police,”
is almost certain to develop at some point in
the life of any tight, committed religious community,
it is my opinion that Da Free John was fully conscious
of the intense, self-regulating socialization
taking place in his community and was most likely
the principal author of the systems of control.
It seems that there were few areas in the management
of the ashram that fell outside the guru’s scrutiny.
No matter what he said about the spiritual pitfalls
of the “cultic mentality,” Da Free John insisted
upon a community that embraced the most slavish
and unquestioning traditions of Indian guru worship.
Any discussion of “cults” or new religious movements
soon turns to the titillating topic of “brainwashing.”
Enquiring minds everywhere love stories of mysterious
Rasputin-like gurus whose dark, hypnotic eyes
can reduce big-men-on-campus into mindless zombies
who annoy people at airports and turn Sunday school-teaching
valedictorians into groveling sex-slaves. Even
the currently respectable Jesus once commanded
a group of fishermen to “cast down your nets and
follow me”— and they did it. This is pretty exciting
stuff, and we can understand why the popular press
exploits a topic that excites such strong reader
response. Unfortunately, the reality is often
more prosaic.
First off, we should consider the term most often
used to describe the process of conversion to
non-mainstream religious beliefs. “Brainwashing”
is not a descriptive term for a recognized, systematic
process that can be performed on demand; it is
a metaphor. Even those scholars who believe
that individuals can be transformed against their
will through coercive mind control concede that
physical isolation is a necessary part of the
process; without imprisonment it cannot be done.
In California, Da Free John could not imprison
anyone; rather than holding individuals against
their will, he made them plead for admission.
Given the constant scrutiny directed upon new
members, it is fair to suggest that we were intensively
socialized, but the pressure to conform came from
within at least as much as without. The guru claimed
to offer access to profoundly ecstatic spiritual
realization, and the only way to gain access to
that experience was by playing his game. The better
you played the game, by showing your devotion
and obedience, the greater your contact with the
guru and the more frequent your opportunities
for grace. We were all willing, ardent competitors
in this game, though some of us came to resent
the rules. In the case of new religious movements
that use deception and high-pressure manipulation
in recruiting, we may be observing a different
process, but the Dawn Horse Communion was always
clear about what was required to remain in good
standing. The Dawn Horse Communion was, and probably
still is, far more interested in the commitment
of its members than the size of its following.
In fact, so far as I know, the community has never
gone in for active recruiting, preferring to let
people be drawn by Da Free John’s writings.
The other “techniques of manipulation” to which
new and prospective members were subjected were
really quite mild. The restricted vegetarian diet
and accompanying fasting can hardly overpower
anyone who has a will to begin with, as witnessed
by the hundreds of millions of vegetarians worldwide
who appear to have control over their decision
making. Similar arguments can be made for the
practice of daily meditation on the guru’s picture.
Obviously, the community had an absolute focus
on the person of Da Free John, and he figured
in nearly every conversation; members became saturated
with an atmosphere of devotion and idol-worship,
but there was little more coercion in this than
one would find among a group of Elvis worshippers
on a charter bus pilgrimage to Graceland. The
bottom line is that I feel that most of the socialization
I experienced was the product of my own will and
desires; Da Free John was a splendid salesman,
to be sure, convincing hundreds of us that he
was the only true master of our time and the only
route to liberation, but we coaxed, enticed, and
cajoled ourselves and each other into accepting
his claims. We are responsible for that choice;
no irresistible outside force ran off with our
intellects. However, the guru also bears responsibility
for his skillful, well-orchestrated processes
of manipulation, especially since he presumably
knows what his real motives and purposes are.
I still do not.
The portrait that emerges from the San Francisco
Chronicle articles is disturbing and plausible.
Da Free John appears to have become a reclusive,
binge-drinking misogynist, still brilliant and
charismatic, but violent and sadistic towards
his most committed and dependent followers. That
one of the two men closest to him in 1974 was,
in 1985, contemplating a lawsuit for “seventeen
years of emotional stress” does not bode well.
At the very least, it suggests that Da Free John
is an ineffective teacher, since seventeen years
of discipleship ought to be long enough for a
follower to achieve some of the positive results
of meditation, like stress reduction. It is even
more alarming to realize that the guru’s closest
long-term followers felt that they had been manipulated
and abused. After all, these are the persons who
have been most intimately involved in Da Free
John’s work of transformation over the course
of several decades. If in this time they have
not benefited spiritually, could anyone else have?
Yet there is the problem of Da Free John’s teachings:
they are almost flawlessly constructed, seemingly
too brilliant to be the product of an egotistical
sociopath. And although most post-modern thinkers
must suspect that extraordinary verbal skills
are not necessarily associated with spiritual
insight and responsible behavior, this gives one
pause.
Furthermore, I still cannot dismiss Da Free John’s
aura of absolute certainty. What is the source
of Da Free John’s powerful insights and personal
confidence, if not an experience of “enlightenment”?
Is it indeed possible that Da Free John is what
he claims to be: a “fully enlightened” adept?
(Leaving aside for the moment what this might
possibly mean.) If we provisionally assume that
this is true, what are the implications? One would
be that an “enlightened being” is not particularly
benign. Enlightened sages are not necessarily
kind, compassionate, altruistic, courteous, concerned,
environmentally aware, politically correct, or
any of the wonderful things their publicists proclaim
them to be. They are definitely not saints. Would
the world be a better place in any conceivable
way if everyone experienced this sort of “enlightenment”?
(Probably not.) What positive value does enlightenment
hold? (Apparently none other than the bliss enjoyed
by the enlightened being.)
This brings us to a main point made by Agehananda
Bharati in his polemical book on mystical experience,
The Light at the Center. Bharati claims that the
point of mystical experience is the enjoyment
of the experience itself. Though the experience
of being “One with the universe” seems pregnant
with meaning, in fact, the experience does not
necessarily confer any particularly deep insight
into ontological questions nor does it transform
the ethical, intellectual, academic, interpersonal,
or spiritual dimensions of the experiencers’
lives no matter what mystics may subjectively
experience, ardently believe, and publicly assert.
Enlightenment may be a wonderful experience, it
may provide an intense subjective sensation of
understanding the meaning and purpose of life,
but in the final logical analysis it is simply
an overwhelming experience; claims that the experience
reveals truth just cannot be proven. Therefore
those who imagine that the insights of their mystical
experiences are objectively “true” may be deluding
themselves. My best guess is that Da Free John
might have had one, or a dozen mystical experiences
of being one with the divine. He may even be,
as he claims, in a continuous state of “god-intoxication.”
(Sahaja Samadhi is his term for this state.) If
this is true, it seems unavoidable to conclude
that the subjective experience of being one with
the divine does not, in and of itself, elevate
the ethical level of the mystic’s interpersonal
relationships; if one is abusive, manipulative,
and self-centered before the experience, one may
well remain that way during and after it.
A person experiencing divine union can be filled
with certainty, but this divinely-inspired confidence
may have few points of contact with daily life,
leaving the mystic “divinely deluded.” This is
my best explanation of how Da Free John can project
his atmosphere of absolute knowledge, without
being insane or a self-conscious fraud. (I should
stress that he was not insane in any obvious clinical
sense in 1974, and I do not believe him to be
a charlatan, as the term is commonly understood.)
Though this hypothesis could be developed further,
I have already exceeded the bounds of my expertise.
I will end with the overused, but veracious, platitude
that “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts
absolutely.” In 1974, Da Free John appeared to
be experimenting with his power over his community
of devotees. Though he may well have thought that
he was leading his following to a state of liberation,
he was also removing every potential challenge
to his absolute control over the flock. His motives
are inscrutable and may never be known, but his
behavior is relatively well documented. On the
basis of his actions, I suspect that Da Free John
has become a grotesque parody of the supremely
selfless enlightened being he imagines himself
to be. Believing that the liberated being is free
from all social rules and religious regulations,
he has become a fat, boozy tyrant, abusing his
nine “wives” and his inner circle, who interpret
Da’s every action as a lesson from the divine
(as channeled through the guru’s human form.)
The only individuals who could possibly curb Da
Free John’s excesses are those who most believe
in his divinity, and they blame themselves for
their lack of understanding when his behavior
seems unreasonable. Ironically, the self-obsession
that he has diagnosed as the basic human predicament
is reflected in everything he now writes; he has
become the Narcissus he so forcefully critiques.
Of course, I might be wrong.
Postscript
In the nearly two years since “The
Strange Case of Franklin Jones” was written, I
have had occasion to reflect on some of the tentative
conclusions reached during the week I spent composing
the essay. Working rapidly, I had allowed the
essay to pour out; it basically wrote itself.
Once it was done, I did not spend much time reworking
the ad hoc, spontaneous analysis, largely because
further pondering did not seem to bring greater
clarity to the initial observations. However,
recent correspondence, particularly with Dr. Georg
Feuerstein and John White, has led to the correction
and modification of some of my earlier positions.
Now that the essay is being republished, I have
decided to take advantage of this opportunity
to update the manuscript, by attempting a reappraisal
and correction of several of my initial assertions.
There have been a few new developments on the
Da-watching front in the last few years, ranging
from the predictable (a new name, Adi Da, “the
Primal Da”?) to the unlikely (Saniel Bonder, one
of the most ardent of the guru’s devotees and
publicists, has set himself up as an enlightened
successor to Da, apparently without the approval
of the Master). The community continues to exalt
Da as the “World Teacher”; his “Emergence” is
now being touted as the greatest event in the
history of our galaxy, perhaps even the most spiritually
significant occurrence since the Big Bang. In
video presentations, the Guru rarely speaks —
officially this is because he is now devoted to
his “blessing work” and presumably is engrossed
in radiating enlightened energy throughout the
universe — but looks brooding and obese. The Guru’s
lifestyle has put some serious miles on his odometer.
Healthy or not, Da Free John is continuing his
ambitious publishing agenda. The current venture
is the publication of repackaged, edited, expanded,
and sanitized versions of his entire corpus. His
first book, The Knee of Listening, has grown from
an original two-hundred seventy-one pages to a
mammoth six-hundred five page text. Not only have
new prefaces, appreciations and appendices been
added, but the descriptions of early phases in
the Guru’s life and spiritual search have been
significantly rewritten. One suspects that a serious
study of the alterations might reveal a great
deal about the ways in which Da is reshaping his
image for posterity. Ironically, the altered,
revisionist texts are being labeled the “New Standard
Editions.” In addition to the biblical associations
evoked by the name, there are delightful Orwellian
overtones, for it is one thing for classicists
and biblical scholars to examine the oldest extant
texts of the Bible, compare the variant readings,
consult the commentaries, and then produce authoritative
translations of the foundational texts of Judaism
and Christianity, and quite another to issue heavily
revised versions of books one recently wrote oneself.
It is hard not to get the strong feeling that,
even more than before, Da is busily creating his
own hagiography and working with dogged energy
to establish a teaching and community that will
carry on after his death.
While on the topic of editing, I should retract
my earlier claim that Da Free John’s talks were
published as originally given. Georg Feuerstein,
writer, yogi, and former editor for the Dawn Horse
Press, has informed me that all of Da’s talks
were edited to some degree before publication.
In the early days, the editing was done largely
by Nina, Da’s wife; in later periods, a group
of editors reworked the lectures. The extent of
editorial emendation varied greatly from talk
to talk. With some, the corrections were limited
to the deletion of occasional obscenities and
impolitic asides. Other talks were thoroughly
restructured and revised. The talks that I heard
in person were among the least altered, but then
most were published in Garbage and the Goddess,
a book that has been “recalled” and expunged from
the Guru’s bibliography. Apparently, Garbage and
the Goddess was the result of a failed experiment
in open communication, one soon repudiated. In
any case, even the lectures presented in that
frank book were not wholly unexpurgated, since
especially outrageous remarks were excised. Given
the great emphasis most gurus seem to place on
controlling their public image, I should have
known better.
Recruitment is another issue. Based on my experience,
I concluded that Da Free John was not especially
interested in dragging new members off the streets
or out of the shopping malls. Certainly he was
a man with a message and a mission, and both human
effort and cash were needed to spread the word,
but I saw no big push to convert the masses, unless
we consider the movie “A Difficult Man” to be
a marketing tool. According to Dr. Feuerstein,
this is correct as far as it goes. What the new
members did not see was the Master’s interest
in enlisting the assistance and allegiance of
the rich and famous. Though Georg is always discreet
in his remarks, he implies that the attempts to
recruit highly placed persons of influence were
often awkward and clumsy, resulting in embarrassment
far more often than success.
For the record, I should note that
Georg feels that I was too hard on the “miracles”
so prized by the community, though he does not
explain what he thinks actually took place. His
feeling seems to be that devotees desperate for
confirmation of their Master’s divinity exaggerated
the significance of minor synchronisms, atmospheric
irregularities, and the like. Rather than making
much ado about nothing, as I imply, they were
apparently making mountains out of molehills.
Caveat lector.
In an excellent unpublished paper on Da Free John,
the well known author, editor, and consciousness
researcher John White makes a simple, obvious
point about “service” that struck me with great
force. What White notes is that our planet is
in desperate straits, largely due to the insensitivity
and blundering of human beings. Despite what the
“feel good” scientific illiterates of the New
Right seem to believe, there is a tremendous amount
of work to be done if we are simply going to survive
through the next century, much less thrive on
a healthy, biologically diverse planet. Even if
the earth should prove more resilient than we
have any right to expect, there are still vast
numbers of vexing social and economic problems
that need to be addressed, the sooner the better.
What then is the focus of the selfless service
promulgated by Da, a man supposedly in profound
harmony with the entire spectrum of suffering
life forms? The answer is straightforward and
simple-minded: all service, from beginning to
end, is to be dedicated to satisfying the personal
needs of the Guru. Few students of religion would
take issue with the necessity, found in any new
religious movement, for building an infrastructure
and setting up a reasonably permanent and enduring
base. All new movements can seem self-absorbed
in their initial days. What White objects to is
the insistence that Da is essentially the only
living being who should be served. Forget the
blue whales, the blind Nepalese, and the losers
eating out of garbage cans in any American city,
serving Da with heart, mind, and soul is the highest,
and perhaps the only, good.
Strangely enough, there may be some truth in the
Master’s claim: devoted service really is liberating.
Once again, my worry is with the motives of the
Guru. Can’t the devotees serve Da Free John through
serving the needy, much as Mother Theresa serves
Jesus by helping the poor? How do the devotees
serving Da differ from those Evangelical Christians
who pay lip service to Jesus while doing absolutely
nothing to alleviate the suffering of those around
them? In fact, the Evangelicals are responsible
only for their slanted interpretation of the Christian
message, whereas Da, by laying claim to the hearts,
souls, and energies of his flock, seems guilty
of the most monstrous egotism, unless of course
he is truly an avatar, and it turns out that catering
to the sexual, financial, and emotional needs
of an avatar is of greater cosmic significance
than helping the homeless and hungry.
This brings us to the last unanswerable question
to be considered in this short piece: what is
enlightenment? In my original essay, I entertained
the suggestion of Agehananda Bharati that enlightenment,
or the “zero experience” as he calls it, is by
definition temporary. It cannot be clung to, and
anyone experiencing it is basically incapable
of normal functioning, for as long as it lasts.
Doesn’t this go against nearly everything “enlightened”
masters have claimed? Not exactly, at least not
as Bharati explains it. Bharati’s most effective
argument hinges on the distinction between emic
and etic modes of speech. Though the nuances of
these technical terms drawn from anthropology
are not always clear in Bharati’s work, basically
emic refers to the encoded private language of
“in-groups,” while etic refers to the language
of the “objective” outside observer. Bharati contends
that the emic speech of Indian sadhus is governed
by complex, unspoken codes, codes that are rarely
noticed, much less understood, by outsiders, no
matter how clever or perceptive. One of the unwritten
rules is that gurus must never acknowledge being
in any state other than that of full realization.
“Master, how often do you enter that state of
highest bliss and realization?”
“My child, I am in that state even now.”
Bharati’s claim is that because of the rules governing
the speech of Indian mystics, the guru has no
choice but to assert that he is always enjoying
satchitananda, even when he knows perfectly well
that he is not. Further, according to Bharati’s
understanding, the very fact that the guru is
exerting himself by speaking in public proves
that he is not, in that moment, enjoying the state
of enlightenment. If he were, there would be no
motive to speak. Most importantly, from the emic
perspective of insiders, there is no dishonesty
in this claim to permanent enlightenment, despite
the undeniable fact that it is objectively false.
Bharati asserts that a dispassionate look at the
evidence will suggest, though not prove, that
enlightened states are by their very nature temporary.
The great mystics are those who frequently enter
transcendent states and make the cultivation of
the zero experience the dominant focus of their
lives, but no one is permanently in the state
of highest illumination. The very idea that one
can experience enlightenment twenty-four hours
a day is the product of a too literal etic understanding
of the emic speech of professional mystics, who
not incidentally benefit from this linguistic
confusion.
If, and this is a very big if, Bharati is right,
then one must wonder if the search for ultimate
bliss, cosmic closure, and the end to all effort
might not be part of the problem, not the solution.
If all living creatures are engaged in an ongoing
process of growth and change, then no one being
can ever have all the answers, no one can possibly
have reached the end of the path. In traditions
where the belief in, and search for, a final realization
is a dominant motif, there seem to be marked tendencies
towards self-deception, grandiose ego-inflation,
and antinomian excess — in short, all the problems
that appear to be manifested by Da Free John.
My fear is that “permanent enlightenment” is too
close to the most private (and selfish?) dreams
of most of us to be anything more than a particularly
transparent instance of “spiritual” wishful thinking.
Of course, the preceding argument relies heavily
on reductio ad absurdum. In fact, one cannot assail
the logic of a position by pointing to the evil
consequences attendant upon acting out its most
extreme implications. While it may be true that
the spiritual traditions that strive for a final
enlightened state, a state that obviates the need
for all further work, growth, and morality, tend
to produce deluded individuals, this doesn’t necessarily
give us cause to doubt the existence of the enlightened
state. Perhaps a state of “permanent” liberation
is, in fact, possible. I don’t know. As I read
the New Standard Edition of The Knee of Listening,
I get the overwhelming impression that Franklin
Jones was desperate for some sort of final, ultimate
realization, a realization that would provide
closure to the search, end the need for any further
work, and eliminate the necessity for the struggle
and growth that seem to characterize all biological
life. Da claims to have reached some sort of supremely
enlightened state — despite his own continuing
phases of transformation and “emergence,” each
of which, in turn, has been touted as a final,
ultimate, and permanent development. I suspect
that Da Free John’s insistence on the eternal,
unchanging, and incomparable nature of his realization
stems more from the personal and all-too-human
psychological needs of Franklin Jones than from
the uniquely deep illumination of a “World Teacher”;
however, even if I am right on this account, it
does not prove that Da Free John is not a highly
evolved individual.
From the time of the Upanishads to the present
day, spiritual teachers have warned that the path
to liberation is narrow and precarious, with many
alluring side tracks, byways, and dead ends. The
farther one progresses, the easier it becomes
to fall off the path, which is, by all accounts,
“narrow as a razor’s edge.” Despite Da’s many
attempts to bolster and augment his “spiritual
genealogy,” it is clear that his later, most powerful
realizations, the ones that have convinced him
of his unique status and destiny, have never been
publicly confirmed by any other living master.
This leads me to suspect that Da may not have
transcended his “small self” as completely as
he thinks and, having dropped his guard, has slipped
off unaware into some kind of high-level ego-trip,
albeit one that most of us cannot completely fathom.
Nonetheless, it seems likely that Da does, in
fact, speak from compelling personal experience,
even if the content of his teaching is sometimes
questionable. His message now is more clear than
ever: despite the fact that we are all one and
all equally enlightened in our true nature, we
should worship only Da, think only of Da, and
serve only Da.
Again, in theory, this devotion should be liberating.
Yogi Bhajan once said that if anyone could surrender
fully and truly to a rock, they would be liberated.
If the way to liberation is through shedding one’s
limited identification with the mind and body,
this may well be true, but then what is the significance
of Da and his self-proclaimed exemplary realization?
How is an avatar more helpful to a spiritual seeker
than a lump of granite?
One answer might be that an avatar, by his or
her very presence and example, provides disciples
with a living embodiment of full realization,
a perfect model for their own transfiguration.
Another answer might be that avatars can instruct
through personal interactions with disciples,
leading each to discover her or his own unique
path to Truth. Finally, the avatar might serve
as a beacon of enlightened energy, transmuting
the gross material of this world into its finer,
more spiritual essence. No doubt many other exalted
roles can be described for the perfect master.
How well does Da fit just these three?
Here I find myself feeling more critical than
I did a few years ago. So far as I can tell, Adi
Da spends most of his time being worshipped by
a handful of especially devoted followers, while
he lolls about half-naked in a tropical paradise.
This gives the impression that the Guru is pursuing
a rather oblique approach to enlightening the
planet. The video footage of devotees bowing at
his feet provides images more appropriately associated
with medieval royalty than selfless saints. One
can imagine Da in a previous lifetime as a minor
European nobleman, exploiting his impoverished
serfs, sleeping with their wives and daughters,
and living a splendidly dissipated life of luxury,
all in the name of the divine right of kings.
As a model for proper behavior in the twilight
of the twentieth century, Da seems neither better
nor worse than, say, Marlon Brando or Keith Richards.
How does Da measure up as a teacher? Who knows?
He appears to be at least semi-retired and relying
on his books to carry most of his teaching load,
having abdicated the role of personal teacher
for all but the select few.
The third function of an avatar
is less tangible and inherently unmeasurable.
Readers will undoubtedly rely on their own intuition
and experiences to |