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Success of the Adidam Mission


Question: What about this quote from Adi Da (published on another website)?:

You have not done anything in all these thirty years, and here I Am, almost sixty-one years of age, and I have seen that My Work has failed...I have been rejected. You have not accepted Me. This entire gathering has never come to a point of accepting Me. There is no response or recognition...You have wasted My Life — My actual human Life. You have made Me into a cult figure...You have made Adidam into a non-event with your reactivity. [September 30, 2000]

Is it false? If not, how is it that Adi Da's mission, apparently by His own admission, failed?

Brian O'MahonyBrian O’Mahony: His Mission is just beginning. Thirty-four years is nothing. Look at what He has Accomplished. The most extraordinary and profound Teaching ever to appear in human culture, perfect in its elaboration. A community that is small, but authentic, and only beginning. Magnificent Divine Reality Art. Great Retreat Ashrams. I could go on. Is the cup half-empty or half-full? As always, it depends on your position.

I think if you were to make a close examination, it would be apparent to you and anyone else that the deficiencies in Adidam are on the devotee side. We are a profoundly ordinary group of human beings who somehow happened on the greatest Revelation and Gift in the history of human culture. Were we prepared for It? Not a chance! I can honestly say that we are still coming to grips with the great and overwhelming responsibility that comes with Adi Da’s Gifts.

Adi Da has not Concluded that His Work has failed. Yes, He Speaks Freely about the failures of our service to Him. Why shouldn’t He? He is our Master, and He uses every skillful means to draw a greater seriousness and response out of His devotees. I can’t comment on the authenticity of this quote. How can there be a serious treatment and analysis and critique of Adi Da’s Work if it comes in the form of a quote cherry-picked from what He may or may not have said? The "quote" seem chosen to evoke a gossipy and judgmental response — as if Great Work and Great Teachings could be boiled down into sound bytes. They can’t. All I can say is that it requires great seriousness to examine Adi Da’s Work. Unfortunately, the Internet is full of everyman’s contribution to world culture. There is hardly a serious and fair evaluation of Adi Da’s Work to be found there. I do hope that this will change and the world will wake up to the Greatness of Adi Da.

James SteinbergJames Steinberg:
This quote may or may not be an actual quote of Adi Da’s, but it is taken out of context. When Adi Da Speaks, often He is tape recorded. And then the words are transcribed. But they are not formal communications. They are “of the moment”. What would it look like if any person's private conversation ended up on the internet? These words were transcribed only to be shown to those who needed to see them. But when they then get posted broadly, and out of context, it all gets skewed. There is no way to know what was the moment for this quote. And it was not intended to be said to everyone. These words were most likely spoken in intimacy with one of the renunciates around Adi Da and never intended to communicated more broadly. Adi Da can be very passionate, forceful, intense.

Adi Da’s Mission failing? Yes, on the one hand it has failed to date: Adi Da has come with the Avataric Impulse to serve all six billion. And He is not known or being used by all. So yes, from this perspective it has failed. But from the perspective of at least making it known enough to all those so far who know about Him, well it is working so far.

So if Adi Da said, “The entire gathering has never come to a point of accepting Me. There is no response or recognition”, He was speaking in very strong terms, making a specific point, not making a blanket statement. Obviously, for example, we accept Him in many ways. And there has been some recognition or response of course — enough so that hundreds of people now dedicate themselves to practice of the Way of Adidam and have vowed to practice as devotees of Adi Da Samraj. But He is “pushing us to the edges of our practice”. He is speaking now of extraordinary recognition, the kind that would make one drop everything else so one-pointedly that one would himself or herself become a much stronger practitioner, and would become a Swami Vivekananda. Look at all the good that has come so far. So many books published. Great Hermitages and Sanctuaries. Great Instruction Given. Incredible Divine Image Art. So all of this depends on the point of view of the moment. That is why the context is so important.

David SimonDavid Simon: I can't say for sure whether this particular quotation is accurate or not, but I can say that Adi Da Has made, and continues to make, extensive, comprehensive, and detailed criticisms of aspects of His community that are not founded in true conformity to His Teaching and full recognition of His Divine Revelation. To really understand the purpose and meaning of these kinds of criticisms requires understanding the depth and intensity of Adi Da's criticism of egoity and of everything that the ego tends to make out of conventional religion, society, and civilization. All of human history is filled with conventional assumptions about what a "successful" version of religion should and would look like, and what a "successful" religious community should and would look like. Likewise, people have all sorts of ideas about what "Enlightenment" is supposed to look like based on the PARTIAL Divine Revelations of other teachers throughout history. But one cannot truly understand the depth and purpose of Adi Da's criticisms without understanding the uniqueness of His Divine Revelation and His Intervention in human history. Adi Da's criticism of egoity is ABSOLUTE, and so are his criticisms of conventional religion, spirituality, and social institution. He describes the entire conventional world as a "mummery" or a mock show made up of "performers" who are not truly in Communion with the Non-dual Truth and Reality of Existence. This is not to say that people cannot grow and learn and love in the context of the world, but Adi Da is always working to point the way beyond EVERY trace of bondage, limitation, and separateness. The thing to understand when you read criticisms like those cited above, is that Adi Da constantly gives BOTH SIDES of His Revelation to His devotees. He constantly demonstrates His Extraordinary Love, Freedom, Divine Indifference, and Blissful Happiness. At the same time He also regularly Offers His criticism of the falseness of conventional religion and egoic self-effort. As He was fond of reminding His devotees in the early days of His Teaching, "Isn't this what you hired Me for?" or, as He also put it "Dead Gurus don't kick ass!"

Instead of trying to measure the "successfulness" of Adi Da's Teaching with some kind of conventional measure, such as how many enlightened devotees He has produced, or how much praise or criticism He Gives out to His devotees, I suggest simply (but seriously) looking at His Life, Work, and Teaching as a Unique Revelation of the Truth.

As for when Adi Da says, "You have made Me into a cult figure..." — Adi Da has addressed the cultic tendencies of the ego more fully and thoroughly than any teacher in the course of human history. Adi Da's summary communication about cultism, as well as the purpose and measure of true religion is printed in the beginning of all His source-literature in an essay that He has called His "First Word". His "First Word" essay contains His Radical Criticism of the ego and His Unique Divine Revelation that is totally beyond every trace of ego-"I".


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