Why waste time with all this bullshit, Conrad? You had a Guru once who is as True as they come. That he was/is a difficult man of undeniable complexity and contradiction does not make his Realization less than True. All the condescending remarks you make about Adi Da-or anyone else who makes such remarks-are just a sign of immaturity and immersion in your own self-importance. Like Ken W, your are angry that some actual Great Realizer didn't coddle you along. You guys all work so hard to prove with words and books and websites just how smart you are and how wrong God was to not see it.[Whether that is Adi Da, Papaji, Sri Lakshmana or the God in your dreams at night.] I don't need a PhD to see the charade... it is visible for all to see via the interminable lengths to which you go to defend your personal beliefs and ideas. Not just you, Conrad, but all the middle-aged ex-devotees of someone or other, who seem to NEED to express themselves on the internet. It's tragic that you are not bored with it all yet. I remember when you first came to the Community...you were rather innocently self-possessed then...young and overly impressed with your own intellectual intelligence. [Like a lot of guys were at the time.] You aren't so young now, nor is there anything remotely innocent about your self-possession. These forums are just another form of porn, Conrad. It's like jerking off in public again and again. Because there is no shame and no recognition of the Beloved--just an endless driven search for release. All of you guys just wagging your dicks at one another, pretending to be tolerant and forgiving. I'd rather see a good fist-fight. It would be far more honest and real considering where you are really at. You failed. You failed to REALLY fall in Love with God. You failed to go beyond your own tendencies...all the ones that keep you painfully identified with a personal self. You still espouse them vociferously in your writings. No one is really going to understand you, Conrad. No one really cares. I don't say this to be mean...it is simply the truth. The One you seek is on the other side of everything you are now commited to doing to justify your life and existence. All of these words and endless diatribes are just a symptom of your illness...ALL OF YOU, who go on and on, living in your heads but blah-bla-blahing about your hearts. You are all angry and insulted that God did not somehow recognize little old you and give you The Great Gift. You pretend humility...bull-shit again. If life had truly made you a humble man, you would not be wasting your time writing all this crap and think that quoting some Realizer, whom you never met,legitimizes your dumb ideas. Instead, you would be giving everything you've got to stoking the fire of your love for God. Even if it was only a little bit...a baby-step as it were. You would not care that the fire burns your precious personal identity. You would see that it is not the world that humiliates you, but that the real humiliation comes from watching the years go by and still refusing to let go of all the endless thinking and posturing. It's your own pain that keeps you going here and this blog epitomizes evrything you do to keep from feeling that pain. IT IS NOT THE TRUTH. You can write yourself into the grave, IT WILL NEVER BE THE TRUTH!!! You cling mightily to the very tendencies that prevent you from seeing this machine of suffering from the other side of the fence. I have not been a formal devotee of Adi Da's for 15 yrs...and yet the spiritual relationship never ended. It only got stronger over the years. He gave me Everything...again and again and again...he showed me what love is. He showed me that even the greatest blisses must be sacrificed in love. He showed me the great secret of being ordinary. The Fire still burns...I ain't done cookin yet. But I can tell you, you must find the joy in the utter ruination of all that you identify with as Conrad. There is such a freedom in just that much. It is not the final Realization, but it is the beginning of real sadhana and Self-respect. It is also a release from all the spriritual romanticism that has grown out of the ready availability of esoteric teachings in our generation. Stop all the mental masturbation. Figure out why you gave up the real fight. Good luck.
Love from another Victoria
I don't know who this woman is. I recall a Victoria from times past in Adidam, but never knew her well, and never formed an opinion of her. (My wife is named Victoria, so she's aware of that much about me). There's not much to say in response, except that this is an example of how the experience of having been in Adidam can twist a person in knots that they can't get out of without lashing at others. What's interesting to me is that someone who had actually stayed in Adidam would be very unlikely to respond with such hostility to my blog writings. But someone who had left Adidam, and yet remained a devotee - in their own mind at least - is often carrying powerful internal tensions and contradictions within themselves that burst out when they come across criticism of Adi Da.
There's a small but significant number of people like Victoria, who have left Adidam for all kinds of reasons that they may not be able to face up to, but who persist in thinking of Adi Da as their Guru, and they often react more strongly to criticism of Adi Da than actual members of Adidam. Why is this? My guess is that they have simply suppressed their own reactions to Adi Da, and Adidam, and cannot face up to why they left, but compensated for those reactions by becoming, in their own minds at least, the strongest advocates of Adidam. Joe Blanchete over at the Daism forum is a good example of this type. These people simply cannot face up to the fact that they left their Guru, they cannot face their own feelings of betrayal, their own negative response to Adi Da and Adidam, and so it all comes rushing out when someone criticizes Adi Da in any way.
Victoria's reaction is strange. Her primary motive seems to be to get me to shut up, to stop saying anything about Adi Da. Why the suppressive response? It's fairly obvious that she has been suppressing her own feelings about Adidam for a very long time, and she wants to enforce that on others as well. It's natural that she wouldn't much like my blog, but the intense reaction suggests that it hit a nerve in her, in her own negative feelings about Adidam that she's somehow been keeping beneath the surface all these years. She doesn't say why she left Adidam, but clearly there must have been something negative about the experience. What else could explain why she stays away from someone she loves and considers her Guru? Obviously she is deeply conflicted about Adidam, because everyone who's been in Adidam knows that Adi Da does not give permission for people to leave, and does not acknowledge anyone who leaves as his devotee. He only acknowledges formally practicing members of Adidam as his devotees. So Victoria is not his devotee, even if she likes to think of herself as one. She has to cope every day with the knowledge that her Guru feels that she has betrayed him, more deeply than I have even, since I no longer consider him my Guru. It's one thing for someone like me to leave and criticize, it's quite another for a loyal devotee like Victoria to do the same. And that creates a terrible tension in a person that can't abide encountering anything which might bring the conflict to the surface. Hence, massive suppression, not just of oneself, but of others as well.
What this kind of conflict does to a person is not pretty. Victoria thinks my tolerance and compassion are false and studied, so I won't try to offer my sympathies to her. But clearly she is in need of help and a place to open up and talk freely about her experience in Adidam, why she left, why she stays gone, and what her conflict with Adi Da is all about. This probably isn't the right place for that, but if she wants to give it a try, I'm open to it.
This is an example of the kind of harm many people who have been involved with Adidam suffer from. Much of it is unnecessary and can be resolved fairly easily by simply talking openly about it all, rather than suppressing these feelings. People do, even 15 years after leaving, suffer guilt, pain, hostility, and all sorts of suppressed emotions which they don't feel free to confess, so they project them onto convenient targets such as this blog. I know her criticism of me isn't personal, it's not even about me actually, it's about her own relationship to Adi Da. She's not got things right with him, or with herself. She has an idea of Adi Da in her mind that doesn't match up to the Adi Da who is actually alive and whom she once had a relationship with. Something about the Adi Da in her mind is very precious to her, and represents her own "God" as it were. She needs to know that I am not criticizing the God in her mind, but the man and the life she left long ago for reasons of her own choosing. The God in her mind is not Adi Da, though she continues to make that association. The God in her mind may be a much better God than Adi Da has been in life even, I don't criticize the God she has made Adi Da out to be. I simply criticize the man who has tried to make a God of himself, and used that God to gain a hold on people's minds. Obviously he gained a hold on Victoria's mind that even 15 years later still retains its grip. She should free herself from that grip on her mind, and let her mind be free of it all - for her own sake, not for me or any other "hostile" ex-devotees.
Unless Victoria chooses to return to Adidam, she really ought to just let go of Adi Da and let herself be free of his imposition on her mind. At least I think she'd be better off that way. Obviously she has tried to develop a spiritual life on her own, and the image of Adi Da is only an obstruction at this point, one she could be free of simply by recognizing it as a relic of her past, not a reality of her present. As Da himself once said, once you recognize something as garbage, you have no choice by to throw it away, and everything the Guru gives you is garbage. So Victoria's problem is simply that she doesn't recognize her attachment to this image of Adi Da as garbage, but continues to hold onto it even 15 years after the fact. What a heavy burden to carry around. Wouldn't she feel so much lighter without that load on her shoulders? People do become attached to their suffering, however, and it's not always so easy to let it go. It's understandable that she needs to vent, even at me. But it's even more important that she recognize that it's not me she's angry at. It's someone much closer to her heart.
25 comments:
Wow. That's some rant.
Keep up the good work.
Mike J.
Good to see you back!
Just sitting here, waving my dick about, and contemplating the divine.
It sounds as though someone is miffed. As far as I see it, this (blogging) is just good fun, even if we do vent a bit of bile.
There is a paper by Alan Kazlev over at Integral World that offers an intriguing perspective on why so very many people feel conflicted after leaving spiritually power and abusive gurus.
http://www.integralworld.net/index.html?kazlev2.html
Go to the two sections on 'abusive gurus' and (especially) 'the intermediate zone'
Victoria, you say Adi Da gave you Everything. And in caps you shout at Conrad that all he writes WILL NEVER BE THE TRUTH!!!
Is it the truth that Adi Da gave you Everything?
You say Conrad got mad because Adi Da did not recognize his specialness and give him the Great Gift. I am assuming by the Great Gift you mean Liberation. But what about you? These are not sarcastic questions. I am sincerely interested. I am going to make the assumption that he did not Liberate you because if he had, you would not be percieving Conrad as "other" (and a dick-wagging, cowardly, porny "other" at that, who won't even do the manly (daist?) thing and hit someone in the face ... though hitting MEN in the face was never encouraged in Adidam ...). So why did you leave before Adi Da gave you the Great Gift?
What do all the little gifts add up to if they fall short of Liberation? The gifts of being allowed to serve the Guru, of blissful Darshans, of little packets of ash, of having glimpses of what love is ... what is the point of it all if the ego is left in tact?
I understand people leaving Adi Da when they come to the point that they truly feel he does not have the capacity to Liberate them, no matter how long they stay, (whether that is after 3 years, or 30 years), and that he might possibly, in fact, be interfering with the process. But what I have never understood (and beg you to explain) is why devotees abandon their sadhana with him when they say they are completely convinced that he is "as True as they come," "the Greatest Realizer," etc. If you understand what must be sacrificed, and consider him the perfect One for the job of serving you in this sacrifice, (and know you "ain't cooked yet"), why ditch him? I am baffled by this. Why are you not finding the joy in the utter ruination of all that you identify as Victoria at the feet of your Beloved?
I hope you will shed some light on this!
WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP. NO ONE CAN GIVE YOU ANYTHING. WAKE THE FUCK UP
Not sure who "me" was addressing, but just to clarify ... I was not trying to suggest that Adi Da really COULD Liberate Victoria (or anyone else). As far as I know, no devotee in all these decades has ever made such a claim, and Adi Da has never made such as claim about one of his devotees. My question was: why would a devotee leave if she still wanted to practice and still believed Adi Da was a Great Realizer?
Wow, just what I needed to hear. Thank you Victoria.
I have the same kind of romantic and self-important mind, and obsessive need to share my ideas with others, that you speak of and I am not happy being stuck in this pattern. Thanks for writing this, and thank you Conrad, for sharing it with others.
Wagging our dicks at each other. Yep, that about sums it up. Please look at my dick and admire it, someone. That's me.
Anon,
Take it as you will, but I think it's a mistake to take seriously the kind of critique that Victoria offers. She wants you to be ashamed of having a dick, a mind that can think for itself, and the willingness to speak openly without reserve or remorse. Don't buy into that negative self-image. She's just trying to impose guilt and shame on those she can't otherwise relate to. There is no spiritual benefit to guilt and shame whatsoever. Let her be frustrated with you for having a dick - that's her problem, not yours. Don't let mean-spirited people like this get you down, or drag you into their pit of shame. If they want to live there, let them, by all means. Just don't join them. You have nothing to be ashamed of, nor do I.
Another Victoria has implanted naughty man/man
love (i.e. porn) images in
my mind which I can't seem
to control. HELP!
I now suspect an evil
psychotronic remote influencing operation.
Something I'm sure she
learned from a stint with
the Adidam Space Migration
Project.
On a serious note: One
of the things I clearly
remember from the 70s, in
the Dawn Horse Communion
community, was the women
there disparaging the male
intellect. "Time to put
the books away, boys. It's
dinner time."
Mike J
Conrad,
When you called yourself an astrologer, sometime in the late 90's, I went to you for a reading and you said then about yourself, that your mind was your problem/limitation in this lifetime. It is unfortunate that you did not, and do not, take this piece of self-knowledge seriously.
Anon,
That makes you think I don't take these things seriously?
Anon,
(typo correction)
What makes you think I don't take these things seriously?
Also, since you know me, it'd be nice to know who you are. Or are you afraid of something?
This thread is just killing me!!!!
BY, you'd mentioned being offered a full scholarship to Columbia U, and turning it down to follow Da Free John.
Please consider going back to school, if your heart is calling you in that direction. It would mean something that you were offered that kind of scholarship.
Meanwhile you have acquired some remarkable life experiences.
Consider contacting Columbia again, and even places like Yale and Harvard Divinity school. One of my old mentors told me that the ancient, ivy league divinity schools tend to have excellent scholarship assistance because people have been leaving them legacies and donating financial support to these places for 200 plus years.
If you want to do undergraduate work, consider contacting a place like Reed in Oregon and George Washington University in Saint Louis and University of Washington in Washington State.
Reed has a great faculty student ratio and the last two universities have strong departments in Asian studies.
Last anon,
THanks for your personal concerns. I don't have any desire to return to college for now. It's a little late, you know? I'm nearly 49, and I have kids of my own I'm putting through college. I just don't think it's part of my future. You never know though. Maybe someday the impulse will return. But probably not. More likely I would simply use that time and energy to write in a more directed manner, rather than these occasional blog and forum postings. The past is past. I'm happy with my current life. It certainly could have been different, but it is what it is.
I am instantly suspicious of anybody who break from a 30 years marriage, full of bitterness over his/her spouse as if all the faults lie with the other partner. Conrad unfortunately falls in this category. There are 2 possibilities that I see:
1) Adi Da is a super NPD, and he is surrounded by co-narcissist. Conrad has got to be co- narcissist for him to stay in such a company for that long. By some miracle - his is now no longer an NPD.
2) Adi Da is aing I've just heard is that the whole RGIS management staff is going to Disneyworld for a 4-day meeting to boost field manager morale. There we go...does mondo really deserve to go to Disneyworld. The money has got to come from somewhere. ere.
I am instantly suspicious of anybody who break from a 30 years marriage, full of bitterness over his/her spouse as if all the faults lie with the other partner. Conrad unfortunately falls in this category. There are 2 possibilities that I see:
1) Adi Da is a super NPD, and he is surrounded by co-narcissist. Conrad has got to be co- narcissist for him to stay in such a company for that long. By some miracle - his is now no longer an NPD.
2) Adi Da is a realizer, Conrad is a mediocre practitioners and he couldn't handle with his ego being dealt with.
Both are extremely unlikely. Someone being a realizer is extremely unlikely. Someone recovering from NPD – is probably equally unlikely (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_Personality_Disorder if you have any doubts).
But how do one judge? Is Conrad still a narcissist now playing his narcissistic games in another forum? The blog entries tell little; only the few people that have intimate contact with him can truly tell.
Is Adi Da a realizer or a deluded narcissist? That is probably even harder to tell. If he is indeed a true realizer, then even if all the allegations against him are true, he is still at least two notches below the craziness of some Realizers that I revered the most.
Either way would not matter for most onlookers. For those who are taking sides - bear in mind that whatever one fight aganst with bitterness – that very same thing is rooted deep on one’s psyche. There is no course for any form of negative actions. My humble opinion is to forget and forgive, learn the lesson and move on with life.
Last anon,
I think you are right about a lot there, including your criticism of me. When I was in the process of falling away from Adidam, I benefitted from reading a lot of literature about narcissism, and I have to say it was quite shocking to see myself described very well there. Was I a co-narcissist for 30 years? I think that's a fair enough assessment.
On the other hand, the ability to see one's narcissism and acknowledge it is the sign of not being a true narcissist, or at least of being a recovering one. True, full-blown NPD people rarely if ever can acknowledge their narcissism. They are in full and complete denial. Adi Da is an example of this - he will never, even when confronted with the similarities in his behavior with NPD criteria, acknowledge any validity to the assessment. Nor will his co-narcissists. That's the sign of a full blown cultist.
So I can't really classify myself as an NPD or even a co-NPD, if only because I'm aware of it in myself. Self-awareness is the best vaccine against such things, in my view. But just because I'm aware of it doesn't mean I'm free of it either. Of course, that goes for everyone else also. Are you aware of your own narcisistic tendencies? Maybe, maybe not. Being in Adidam isn't the only way to be a narcissist, or a co-narcissist. It's possible in almost any edeavor, spiritual or otherwise. My story is far form unique.
I think it's fine to be suspicious of me. I even recommend it. But keep in mind that leaving a long term spiritual involvement isn't the same as leaving a marriage. It's more, and less, than an intimate personal relationship. There are all kinds of religious and philosophical issues involved which are not often the case in a marriage. I agree with your idea of forgiveness, but not of your idea of forgetting. it's important to remember the mistakes we have made so as not to repeat them. It's important to recognize what the problems were in one's spiritual involvements, in one's past teachers, in order not to repeat that. And it's important to talk about these things openly, rather than suppress them and pretend they never happened. Other people may benefit from knowing about these things also. So it's really not so simple as just moving on from a failed marriage. Of course, I don't think there's anything simple about moving on from a failed 30-year marriage either. I think you are treating this a little too glibly.
THe two possibilities you cite are both a bit extreme. There are many more than two possibilities here. In my experience, there are people in Adidam who are essentially full-blown NPDs, and there are plenty of people who are simply drawn into the influence of NPD without being seriously deformed by it. Charismatic narcissists are all over this world, you know, they are part of the human experience. Elvis was one, and just because one likes Elvis' music doesn't make one a co-narcissist in any serious way. But people do become obsessed with Elvis in a full blown narcissistic way, and then there is a wide range in between.
Point is, don't paint everyone with the same brush. Look at the individuals involved and treat them as individuals. That's all I'd ask of you - treat me as an individual with his own particular problems and virtues. Many of them are fairly obvious. Clearly I have had some serious issues with narcissism and with religious cultism. I plead guilty on all counts. If you want to condemn me for that, go right ahead. I've dealt with much worse! But, if you are really serious about forgiveness, why shouldn't I be forgiven also, especially if I am making serious efforts to make amends for past errors?
It's apparent that "Victoria" is really angry at herself, and in denial about her true feelings about Adi Da. It would be good if she'd actually discuss her assumptions. But most likely from the tone of her criticism and the pattern of cultic thinking, it is too painful and she'll just run.
Interesting how "Victoria" and those like her can't inspect the twisted thinking, cultic blindness, adopted programming, and the tone of fear and anger that pervades this silly rant. Hanging around the outside of the Daist "beehive" instead of serving the queen bee as Da requires, while proclaiming the value of the hive, is the height of hypocrisy. But to those like her, it sure beats self inspection! Having to come to the inevitable realization you've spent most of your life on a false path and you aren't going to be saved by hanging around can be painful, but it is necessary for growth. Some just can't bring themselves to do it. That's why we're only going to see assertions of belief and anger that beliefs are challeged from her, and aversion to openly examing the reality instead.
The basic assumption she makes, that Adi Da is a "Great Realizer" because he says it and because she thinks so, is simply that, her assumption. (As if she was in a position to definitely confirm Adi Da is a Realizer). Yet, the fact is no recognized Realizers living since Adi Da made his claims have agreed with his claims. And, his peers and his own teachers explicitly rejected his claims. Once that assumption is shown to be suspect, and Adi Da has been shown to be wrong in critical areas, her entire position collapses. If Adi Da is no Realizer, then what?
Adi Da, the pretenious persona assumed by Franklin Jones, Great Realizer, as True as they come? Rather instead, the great, self absorbed Pretender who distorts the Truth for his own purposes! Simple, objective comparison with known Realizers makes that abundantly clear to the non-cultic observer. There is no comparison between the proven "power of the presence" of the Ramana lineage or any genuine Realizer or lineage, and that of the corrupted shakti of Adi Da, which has not facilitated and is incapable of facilitating Realization. That he was/is a difficult man of undeniable complexity and contradiction whose hypocrisy and failures are obvious DOES make his "realization" less than True. A well deserved dismissal of Adi Da based on flaws in both his person and teaching, and instead turning to genuine Realizers is to be commended, not damned. Surrendering to a false and demanding guru and then refusing to see what is going on instead of living in fantasy as she does is THE real sign of immaturity and immersion in self-importance.
It's easy to speak about those who came the Community innocently self-possessed then, young and overly impressed with their intellectual intelligence. Daism drew more than its share of them. Most of them at some point saw the light about Adi Da and moved on, such as Conrad has done, while some few still parrot the same old line.
Likewise, one can speak about those who came to the Community innocently self possessed, young, anxious to be loved and to be saved, and overly confident in their ability to recognize a Realizer. It drew those who couldn't tell the difference between shakti effects and immature bhakti, and the real thing. While many of those saw the light at some point and moved on, others became entrapped in dependence, deluding themselves into thinking they had recognized the Divine as the Beloved, instead of just another fantasy.
It is easy to condemn others for failing as she does. But it is not failure that one should fear, to err is human, but the inability to recognize and learn from failure, rather than endlessly repeating it as the Daists have done. Daism itself is and always will be a failure from a spiritual perspective, because Adi Da is a failure, because his alleged sadhana was a failure, and because he surrounds himself with a hive to hide the truth. She simply doesn't see that while Conrad may have had his share of human failures, he HAS been given a Great Gift. He's reawakened the latent relationship he had with the eternal Ramana prior to even meeting Da, and become connected with the living words and teaching of the lineage of Truth. He's now taken up a real practice, human failings and all, not some claimed short cut that is in fact a dead end. The fruits of this practice are readily evident if one compares the Conrad of 2000 with the one today. It makes all the difference in the world whether or not you are headed the wrong way on a two way road. If you are headed in the right direction and have a goal in mind, you'll get there sooner or later. If you are headed in the wrong direction and don't realize it, you are going to face an unpleasant collision with reality.
Meanwhile, the fruits of Victoria's deluded, uninspected and failed practice, and addition to her illusions about Adi Da. She proudly states that although her Daist practice is a failure, she still has a relationship with Adi Da. Of course her relationship with Adi Da hasn't ended, she hangs on to the propaganda and the illusion, and can't face the truth of it. She's still afraid of "going back to zero" without Adi Da, and thus bound to the wheel of Daist illusion. That you won't "go back to zero" by seeing through Adi Da can be a hard illusion to penetrate, because it is the unispected core of the Daists mindset and everything that binds them to Adi Da. But, once you humble yourself enough to penetrate the fear based illusion of "going back to zero" and hear the Truth, you can be free of all that. One must leave the swamp of salvation and belief based spirituality which Daism represents. Only then can the real work on the ego, and deeper spiritual practice, begin.
All I can say to the Daist critics projecting their own issues onto others is that whether one's state of practice is like that of gunpowder, dry wood, or wet wood like most of us, as Ramana teaches by analogy, it's far better anyway than being like that of a water-soaked log sunk into a Daist swamp!
Thank you seer, anonymous, hatley, and BY for some great comments. Thanks, too, to BY for posting Victoria's piece.
The main thing that struck me was Victoria's shameful, angry, and accusational tone. Her bodymind is poisoned, with little hope for bearing fruit. Victoria's attempt to demean/
"castrate" BY is, hmm, not a postive sign of what lessons she actually learned in while in Adidam. It sounds like anger and regret projected onto a convenient "other." [BTW, thank you BY for providing such a wide target for us to work out our issues. Your karmas are lightened through this sacrifice... :-) ]
As well, imo, no one is a "failure," not BY, not frank, and not even Victoria. Everyone has something to offer, something by which others may learn. But our appearance here is a limited time event, and what can be gained from each "teacher" varies greatly. If a seeker's goal is Realization, I would hope they would inspect frank's scene from a distance and determine that the lessons he has to offer are not needed in their own case. Spending time with Ramana and other more selfless and helpful masters would be wiser and more efficacious. One's karma, whether developed in childhood or inherited from past lives, is not a fixed thing. With work and inspection one can avoid the blind lunge that lands you at the feet of such an abusive and charismatic figure as franklin jones.
dcb
Victoria may have something to learn, but what does tearing her apart with pseudo psychology followed by a long string of senseless onslaughts accomplished? Is she not worthy of compassion because of whatever perceived errors that she made? If anything at all it is more likely to strengthen her resolves to be a true devotee and rejoins Adidam one day. I find this whole episode utterly disgusting.
I actually question the motive of Conrad in creating these blog entries. Apart from gaining votes of sympathy and approval from anti-Guru and anti-Daists, what else do they accomplish? If Conrad has truly made the near impossible conversion from being a co-narcissist, that would be a monumental event in the collective human consciousness. He would be endowed with the unique understanding and capability to help others that is still stuck in the narcissist land. He would know it all and would have the natural compassion and drive to do so. Is there any sign of any of this happening?
At a more human level – after 30 years of being in Adidam, is there no relationships that is worth treasuring? Is Conrad reaching out to these old pals – for whatever fools that they are/were? Are there no Daists that are trying to reach out to him? What has Conrad done to them?
These blog entries – as Conrad himself puts it – “shouting at windmills, full of sound and fury” – any angry adolescence fool can do. But maintaining relationships take a lot more efforts, a lot more time, a lot more heart, a lot more sacrifice, and heaps more maturity. It is a journey of mutual transformation. If Conrad is able to transform ONE single hard core narcissist, that would be worth a thousand times more than the sum total of what he has written. It would create a nucleus, a movement that serves it own purpose. I don't see any reason for open, angry shouting; it prevents that from happening.
Sorry Conrad, but I simply cannot take you seriously as yet. I just got hold of a series of DVD of Adi Da dialog with devotees dated 2004. I have to say, I need to see a lot more maturity before I can take the anti-Adi Da voices seriously.
And special regards to Victoria. Hope you learn well from this episode and find/follow whatever that is true to your heart.
yzy
Dear yzy,
You caught me at a free moment. Haven't been writing here much, but your comment came to my email.
Not sure how to respond. You seem a little theatrical, know what I mean? I don't really agree with you, but I don't have any argument with you either. Do you just stop by to lay an opinion on me, or do you actually want to talk about these things?
My general experience with people who say the kind sof things you say is that they aren't really interested in talking these things over. They just want to rant, like Victoria, then run away and claim that I'm not relational or compassionate or something like that. Are you any different? If you are, let's talk. If not, I guess I won't hear from you again.
I think you are greatly exagerating these issues. People leave cults all the time, and there's nothing world-historical about it. I don't think it's any big deal for me to have left Adidam, nor for others to. Narcissism is far more common that you think, and getting over narcissism isn't that big a deal. It just means getting over yourself. In fact, pretending that it's such a big deal is kind of narcissistic in itself. I could help you get over that if you like, but don't imagine it will be anything more than just letting go of a bunch of dumb ideas and self-aggrandizement.
Now, you don't have to take me seriously. But you could at least talk to me like I was a human being with thoughts and feelings not unlike your own.
As for my old friends in Adidam, sure, I keep in touch with a few. Sometimes we talk about this kind of thing, but I don't make any efforts to "de-program" them, and they don't make any efforts to re-convert me. Why should we? Why are you so concerned about my saving souls? Is that what you think Adidam does, save souls? Well, watch the DVDs and then join Adidam, and see if you find any souls being saved.
For what its worth, I saw some of those 2004 internet Q&A's, but uncensored and unedited, and they weren't nearly as impressive. When Da was good, I admit he was very good, but much of the time he wasn't, and the community was mostly just awful. Just my opinion, of course, but I wonder what kind of maturity you are looking for in Da's critics. You should be looking for signs of maturity in Da's devotees, which means people who will be honest and open with you, not just putting on a show of that, but actually giving you the straight uncensored story of Adidam. Any sign of that?
Anyway, I repeat my offer of conversational dialog. You up to it?
Dear Conrad,
Sorry for not responding sooner as I have been very busy. I also refrain from making instant responses. Please give me sometime to consider a few things throughly. I will write again when I am less overwhelmed.
yxy
So basicly the point being made, by
a couple of folks, is this: shut up, Conrad, you pompous, know it all, angry little adolescent!!
Re: anti-Adi Da voices. I wonder how many of us former associates/friends/devotees, who stop by to read this blog, actually
even give Mr. Beloved or his scene
any thought or emotional energy at all?
yzy, you are merely speculating, and pontificating on what you think the truth is, not listening. Get on with it then.
Nothing much can be said to someone who after all this time is so naive about the interactions within cults and who can't understand the words of those who also thought so once only to find they were wrong.
One like you who is impressed with the [apparent] stillness and equanimity in which he sits and conducts himself, which you [naively] think portrays someone who has mastered the body rather than someone who leads a life of gross indulgences, despite all evidence to the contrary needs to learn the hard way. It does no good to tell you that Adi Da has been fooling those better than you for a long time, you are convinced you know, so go for it!
You say there is much to investigate, now go for it! You know what you want to hear anyway. Don't let what you don't want to hear get in the way.
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