I do a fair amount of correspondence and phone consultation with people who are in various kinds of spiritual crisis. Here are some excerpts from a note in which I replied to a woman who, it seems to me, is having difficulties in her awakening process and in her relationship that stem in part from an association with Adi Da. I am not against Adi Da, nor do I disrepect him or his sacred work. But I do have big disagreements with his way to working with aspirants, and I feel the need to begin to share some of those feelings. I hope you are not offended by any of this, but if you are, please feel free to contact me by email and let me know.

Dear L.,

Hi, my name is Ted. I have been working with Saniel for three years, I've gone through the transition Saniel terms the second birth, and I work as a Senior Teacher of this Waking Down process. I greatly appreciate your note, and your vulnerability in opening to whoever might read it.

I will have an info packet sent to you, so you can get an idea of who we are and what we are offering. But first, let me reply to some of the things you said in your note…

Without speaking with you directly, it's hard to get a feeling for the kinds of changes you're experiencing bodily, but I have some intuitions. Adi Da appears to feel that because he has realized himself to be the Divine Person, that gives him the right to energetically and psychically invade others for their own good. I vehemently disagree. I'm not saying that there may not be something very good in what's going on for you, but I've had my own long-distance dream-time interactions with him, and I feel that he is quite a dangerous paradox. On one hand, he has certainly realized his divinity and he carries a potent transmission force. On the other hand, he does not make himself vulnerably available in relationship with other human beings, which makes him, in my book, exceedingly dangerous. He seems to have ended up unwittingly transmitting two forces simultaneously: one that clearly communicates his own realization, and another that clearly communicates the impossibility of YOUR realization. The combination tends to send the aspirant reeling.

If even a single one of Adi Da's devotees had actually realized their whole Being integrity, Saniel and I would probably be singing a slightly different tune about him. But I have never heard evidence of Adi Da having acknowledged the awakening of any of his students (although a number of his students have claimed awakenings after leaving that school). This is apparently because he believes he is the ONLY truly awakened incarnation of God for all Beings for all times (which means he has not yet awakened to The Paradox of Mutual Onlyness). In fact, it's no longer about realization—it's really about serving Him. Which is fine if you're looking for a master to serve, but not at all fine if you're looking to actually awaken yourself.

I suspect that some of these dynamics are at least a good part of what you are giving voice to when you say "I go in and out of wariness." The demand for absolute obedience in relation to Adi Da is coming from a stance that does not in my opinion actually empower you to realize and integrate All of Who and What YOU are.

But I'm not writing this to rag on Adi Da. I'm hoping that some of what I am saying may be helpful for you in clarifying what you are feeling. Regarding your relationship with the Da devotee, I could say a lot more if we spoke in person. In our work here, relationship is treasured and nurtured as a vital and integral aspect of the awakening process. We are not interested in creating crises; we have found that life as it is holds quite enough surprises on the path to catalyze change. We do our best not to superimpose any extra demands whatsoever. In this work, it's a lot about relaxing all efforts toward realization. Within the field and context of our transmission, you tend to fall quite directly into realization, and what is most needed is OUR devotion to YOU. We are here to do our best to get who you are uniquely, and to give you the liberating transmission and support in Being that You need to land here as the divinely human being who you are...

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