Sunday, November 30, 2008

Adi Da Samraj has Transcended Manifest Existence

Adi Da, AKA Da Free John, AKA Da Love Ananda. He was my Guru for many years. I was a formal student for some of that time, but not all. Near or far, apparently connected or apparently not, he has been one of the most powerful influences in my life. He has died, but not really. Not for me and I know not for many. He is in my bones. Here is the Press Release on the Adidam website:

In the early evening of Thursday, November 27, His Divine Presence, Avatar Adi Da Samraj, Departed from the Body. He was in His Fijian Hermitage, Adi Da Samrajashram (the Island of Naitauba).

His Passing was entirely peaceful and free of any struggle. He Passed of natural causes. At the time of His Passing, He was Working in His Art Studio, surrounded by devotees who were engaged in serving His Artwork.

His Body will be interred in the most sacred Place of Adidam — the secluded Temple which Avatar Adi Da established in 1993 (at Adi Da Samrajashram) as His burial place.

On the morning of His Passing, He had completed His Writing of The Aletheon, the book which He designated as "first and foremost" among all of His Writings. Avatar Adi Da worked on The Aletheon intensively for the last two years, bringing all of His most essential Spiritual and philosophical communications into a final form. The Aletheon is scheduled for publication by The Dawn Horse Press in 2009.

His Divine Presence Bequeathed to humankind a Legacy of Inexhaustible Profundity and Limitless Blessing-Power.

Spiritual Way

Avatar Adi Da's Primary Gift is His own Eternal Transcendental Spiritual Being. The Primary Purpose of His human Lifetime was to Establish the means by which any and all beings could be truly connected to Him and in devotional Communion with Him. Thus, He Worked with utmost intensity, throughout His entire Life, to develop and establish His Transcendental Spiritual Way-Adidam, or (more fully) the "Radical" (or Always "At-the-Root") Reality-Way of Adidam Ruchiradam.

Most fundamentally, the Reality-Way of Adidam is the devotional relationship to Avatar Adi Da Samraj as one's Divine Avataric Master. That Way was established and elaborated by Avatar Adi Da in the greatest possible detail, during His human Lifetime. Thus, His precise Instruction relative to all aspects of His Way will always guide and align practitioners of His Way, in the process of always deepening Communion with Him.

Teaching Literature

Avatar Adi Da's literary, philosophical, and practical writings consist of over sixty published books — including The Knee of Listening, His Spiritual Autobiography, and The Dawn Horse Testament, His magisterial Revelation of the entire Spiritual Process from beginning to end.

His Divine Presence did a tremendous amount of Writing in the years 2005-2008. Just two weeks before His Passing, He designated the five books that He Wrote during that three-year period as "the Five Principal Books of My Forever Comprehensive Seventh-Stage Address to all-and-All":

The Aletheon: The Divine Avataric Self-Revelation of His Divine Presence, Avatar Adi Da Samraj

The Gnosticon: The "Perfect Knowledge" Reality-Teachings of His Divine Presence, Avatar Adi Da Samraj

The Pneumaton: The Transcendental Spiritual Reality-Teachings of His Divine Presence, Avatar Adi Da Samraj

Not-Two Is Peace: The Ordinary People's Way of Global Cooperative Order

Transcendental Realism: The Image-Art of egoless Coincidence With Reality Itself

Prepublication editions of The Aletheon, The Gnosticon, and The Pneumaton — as well as the second edition of Not-Two Is Peace and the first edition of Transcendental Realism — are currently available from The Dawn Horse Press.

Examination of world religions

Over a period of many decades, His Divine Presence undertook a massive examination of the world's religious traditions, culminating in an annotated bibliography of approximately 10,000 items, entitled The Basket of Tolerance. A briefer "epitome" version of The Basket of Tolerance is scheduled for publication by The Dawn Horse Press in 2009.

Avatar Adi Da also created original translations of traditional Spiritual texts, translations in which He brings out the deepest meaning of the original texts. The recent publication Reality Is All the God There Is (published by Inner Traditions) presents His translations of texts from the traditions of Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta.

Practical literature

Avatar Adi Da's writings on fundamental practical areas of human life, examined from the Spiritual perspective, include Green Gorilla (published by The Dawn Horse Press), relative to raw diet, and The Complete Yoga of Emotional-Sexual Life (published by Inner Traditions).

Literary Works

Avatar Adi Da's principal literary work is His trilogy entitled The Orpheum. In the late 1990s, poet Robert Lax said of The Mummery Book (the opening volume of the Orpheum trilogy), "Living and working as a writer for many decades, I have not encountered a book like this, that mysteriously and unselfconsciously conveys so much of the Unspeakable Reality." The Orpheum is also presented in the form of cutting-edge theatre — as shown online at www.mummerybook.org.

Spoken Discourses

In addition to His Writings, Avatar Adi Da gave thousands of hours of recorded Discourse. Many key Discourses have already been published by The Dawn Horse Press on CD and DVD. And many more will be published on an ongoing basis.

Artistic Works

Avatar Adi Da was an extraordinarily prolific artist, producing over 100,000 works, primarily in the years since 2000. He was invited to show His work in a solo exhibition at the 2007 Venice Biennale, and also as part of the 2008 Winter in Florence Festival. Noted art critic Donald Kuspit has written, "It is Adi Da Samraj's imaginative triumph to have conveyed the illusions created by discrepant points of view and the emotionally liberating effect when they aesthetically unite . . ." Among the publications of Avatar Adi Da's art are The World As Light, Transcendental Realism, and The Spectra Suites. His artistic work can be viewed online at www.adidabiennale.org and www.daplastique.com.

Work with non-humans

As an expression of His Deep Love for and Constant Blessing of all beings and things in the entirety of the natural world, Avatar Adi Da founded and developed Fear-No-More Zoo (www.FearNoMoreZoo.org). His Divine Presence created an extensive body of Wisdom about the Spiritual nature of non-human beings, and of the non-human world altogether, for the sake of humans' ongoing understanding, respect, and stewardship of all life. Avatar Adi Da's Vision of Fear-No-More is one wherein human and non-human exist equally, at heart, within one diverse sacred culture.

Call for World Peace

Another dimension to Avatar Adi Da's far-reaching Legacy is the social wisdom embodied in His book Not-Two Is Peace (published by The Dawn Horse Press). In it He Calls for the establishment of a Global Cooperative Forum that mobilizes "everybody-all-at-once" on the basis of recognizing the prior (or inherent) unity of the entire human family. He proposes that such a forum is the necessary and effective means for addressing the world's most pressing issues. Information about this initiative is available online at www.globalcooperationproject.org

"I Will Not Be Gone"

Many times during His Lifetime, His Divine Presence, Avatar Adi Da Samraj, prepared people to rightly understand the significance of His Bodily Lifetime and the fact that His Bodily Lifetime would inevitably come to an end at some point.

In the following passages from His Essay "I Am The One Who Has Always Been Here", written in 1995, Avatar Adi Da Speaks of His Eternal Transcendental Spiritual Existence, His Everlasting Regard for all beings, and His Constant Blessing-Grace.

I Will Be here Forever.
I Will Be every "where" Forever.

I Cannot Leave, For My Transcendentally Spiritually "Bright" Divine Spherical Self-Domain Is Not Some "Where" To "Go To".
My Divine Self-Domain Is Eternal.
I Am Eternal, and I Am Always Already Merely Present-here, and every "where" In The Cosmic Domain.

By Means Of My Divine Avataric Incarnation here, I Have Given you My Divine Secret.
My Divine Secret Is This: I Am Eternally Present, and I Am Omni-Present.

My Bodily (Human) Avataric-Incarnation-Form Has Its time, Whereby I connect (or Freedom-"Bind") you (and every one, and all, and All) To Me.
When The Time Of My Divine Avataric Incarnation is Fulfilled, Then I Am "Retired" To My Eternal Form-The Divine-Body-Power Of My Divine Self-State Made Infinitely Intact In The Cosmic Domain (Forever).

As he would say, "Tcha". Om Sri Da Hridayam.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

"Religion is Killing the Republican Party"

Gee, ya think??

Kathleen Parker wrote a piece for Washington Post where she does a post-mortem on the bleached out, bloated cadaver that is the current GOP. I couldn't agree more....

Exerpt:

As Republicans sort out the reasons for their defeat, they likely will overlook or dismiss the gorilla in the pulpit.


Three little letters, great big problem: G-O-D.

I'm bathing in holy water as I type.

To be more specific, the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn't soon cometh.

Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth -- as long as we're setting ourselves free -- is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among the party intelligentsia, one would hear precisely that.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Prop 8 Allows Religion to Dictate to State

Here are the latest stats:

Roughly 85% of Christians of all denominations voted FOR it, roughly 85% of non-Christians voted AGAINST it. What does that tell you? I'm tired of people arguing about the 'vast majority of religions' think blah blah blah.... My answer to that is this:

Even if the case is, that "the vast majority of people across a wide spectrum of religions share a viewpoint", it doesn't give them the right to impose that viewpoint on others via the law, if it violates Civil Rights.

Case in point: In 1967 the Supreme Court finally recognized the Civil right of white people to marry black people: Inter-racial marriage. (It had been illegal prior to that). Even THOUGH the SCOTUS declared it legal and Constitutional, a full 80% of people across a wide spectrum, as you say, shared the viewpoint of DISAPPROVAL. Had they the ability to vote on the matter, they would have voted to ban it. Exactly the same thing is at play here, only the ban is on gay marriage.
The same arguments were heard then that God intended the races to marry only each other, blah blah blah.....just as they now say "God's" intention (as if anyone could adequately know) is that only heterosexuals may marry.

The REAL question is this: Are gays and lesbians full fledged citizens of the USA, or not? In California: Are they full fledged citizens of CA or not? That is the fundamental matter in question and it IS one to be handled by the SCOTUS ultimately.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Mormon Church Should Lose Its Tax Exempt Status

The Mormon Church contributed roughly HALF of the funding for the Yes on Proposition 8 Campaign to ban gay marriage in California. Volunteers poured in from Utah as the church felt this was a "moral imperative". The Church basically gave marching orders to members to flood into our state and involve themselves in our political process, which they did. The $5 MILLION influx of cash in the last two weeks of the campaign enabled all of those deceptive, fear-mongering TV ads featuring little kids being "taught" gay marriage in school.

Where is the separation of Church and State?? The Yes Campaign says that they were very careful NOT to distribute leaflets or talking points on church property to avoid the APPEARANCE of church involvement in politics, but come on......that is the slimmest of slim technicalities. We all know this was a church based initiative; we're not willing to let them off the hook with an "oh, okay then..." Now the Mormon Church is upset that people are well..upset. After all of the fear and deception, lies, mean-spirited bigotry they are crying "foul" when gays, lesbians and their supporters are protesting on behalf of Civil Rights. It boggles the mind!

From today's NYT article (linked below) :

Mr. Otterson said it was too early to tell what the long-term implications might be for the church, but in any case, he added, none of that factored into the decision by church leaders to order a march into battle. “They felt there was only one way we could stand on such a fundamental moral issue, and they took that stand,” he said. “It was a matter of standing up for what the church believes is right.”

That said, the extent of the protests has taken many Mormons by surprise. On Friday, the church’s leadership took the unusual step of issuing a statement calling for “respect” and “civility” in the aftermath of the vote.

“Attacks on churches and intimidation of people of faith have no place in civil discourse over controversial issues,” the statement said. “People of faith have a democratic right to express their views in the public square without fear of reprisal.”

Except that you didn't just EXPRESS YOUR VIEWS, you pulled out all the stops and placed your church members and their ideologies smack in the middle of our political process. Your missionaries, flush with cash, proselytized our electorate with your religious dogma and doctrine to directly influence the outcome of the vote. Now you want people, whose Civil Rights have been abridged by YOUR efforts, to simply "play nice" and walk away saying "oh okay, guess we lost then....bye bye now..." ????

I hope there is such a brouhaha following this smackdown of Civil and HUMAN rights that there will be AT LAST a serious reexamination of the Tax status of many of the religious organizations (AND cults, let's get real) who are entwining themselves like Poison Ivy into so many of our public and secular institutions.

LINK to NYT article:

Friday, November 14, 2008