Not Two Is Peace (Adi Da)
Cooperation + Tolerance = Wrong Formula
[My 2-star review (NDA) of “Not Two Is Peace: The Ordinary People’s Way of Global Cooperative Order†by Adi Da.]
I hate to be the fly in the ointment, the bearer of bad news, but as “Not Two is Peace†makes clear to me, the late Adi Da Samraj (1939-2008) did not have the foggiest clue about sociopolitics. Now before Daists and Da supporters jump on me and impugn my motives for writing this review, I want to make one thing clear: I am neither a disaffected ex-devotee nor an angry Da basher. I am, in fact, a huge fan of Adi Da’s spiritual Dharma—I give “The Knee of Listening†and “The Method of the Siddhas†five stars in my Amazon.com reviews—and I freely admit that wouldn’t have the comprehensive understanding of spirituality that I do without having studied and practiced his teachings. Moreover, anyone familiar with Da’s teachings who reads my spiritual writings will doubtless see Da’s ‘stamp’ on them. In short, I love Da’s spiritual Dharma but take umbrage with his political one.
I am an expert in sociopolitics. I majored in sociology at the University of California, San Diego (1969-1973) and studied Marxism under the iconic neo-Marxist professor Herbert Marcuse (author of the acclaimed text “One-Dimensional Manâ€). But years after graduating from college, I read Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard, and these writings, along with my ‘real world’ experiences, transformed me into a quasi-libertarian, and a Ron Paul supporter when he ran for president. In short, over time, I morphed from a radical left-winger into what now is commonly referred to as a radical right-winger (really a ‘classical liberal’).
Because this is a book review and not a book, I’ll cut to the chase regarding Da’s politics. In short, his formula for peace--Cooperation + Tolerance = Peace—is not always a formula for peace; but it is sometimes one for war, and there are examples throughout history that prove it. A notable one is the Munich Agreement struck between British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler. Chamberlain cooperated with Hitler, tolerating his limited territorial demands, but as history proved, Chamberlain’s act of appeasement, his de facto implementation of the Cooperation + Tolerance = Peace formula, in the end cost the world millions of lives.
Ayn Rand’s sagacious statement--“In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profitâ€â€”summarizes the flaw in Da’s formula. It is great to cooperate with good, honest people, but do you really want to cooperate with evil, dishonest ones looking to do you or others harm? It’s great, as an expression of freedom and liberty, to tolerate individual differences in sex, race, religion, personal appearance, etc., but do you want to tolerate any individual or government that seeks to limit your constitutionally guaranteed individual rights? I surely don’t. In short, Da’s formula for peace is not the right universal one because it is only rationally applicable in certain, limited contexts, and in other contexts, as exemplified by the Neville Chamberlain-Adolf Hitler fiasco, it fails miserably.
To my mind, the universal “formula†for peace that makes the most sense is the libertarian credo: “Do no harm.†In other words, every individual is free to do as he or she pleases as long as he or she doesn’t interfere with anyone else’s right to the same. As soon as an individual or government initiates force against a person or his property, then the libertarian credo is violated. According to this credo, Statism (epitomized by government-en-FORCED anti-Constitutional denial of individual rights and theft via fascistic, neo-Marxist policies) is explicitly rejected. And when this anti-freedom, anti-liberty Statism escalates into New World Order Globalism, then the entire world becomes, in the words of Alex Jones, a “Prison Planet.â€Â And the ‘Warden’ running the ‘Prison’ is none other than the International Banking Cartel and the lackey ‘world leaders’ (politicians) doing its bidding.
According to Rand, the sociopolitical poles are clear: statism/socialism vs. individualism/capitalism. I’m firmly in the camp of the latter, but because this is just a review and not a sociopolitical treatise, I’ll refer you to some sources that expound upon my choice and might make you question Da’s formula: Watch Stefan Molyneux’s video The Story of Your Enslavement at Youtube; Google and read the essay The Anatomy of the State, by Murray Rothbard; get the book The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve, by G. Edward Griffin, and The True Story of the Bilderberg Group, by Daniel Estulin; and read my chapter on politics in the forthcoming text Electrical Christianity (available Spring 2013).
[My 2-star review (NDA) of “Not Two Is Peace: The Ordinary People’s Way of Global Cooperative Order†by Adi Da.]
I hate to be the fly in the ointment, the bearer of bad news, but as “Not Two is Peace†makes clear to me, the late Adi Da Samraj (1939-2008) did not have the foggiest clue about sociopolitics. Now before Daists and Da supporters jump on me and impugn my motives for writing this review, I want to make one thing clear: I am neither a disaffected ex-devotee nor an angry Da basher. I am, in fact, a huge fan of Adi Da’s spiritual Dharma—I give “The Knee of Listening†and “The Method of the Siddhas†five stars in my Amazon.com reviews—and I freely admit that wouldn’t have the comprehensive understanding of spirituality that I do without having studied and practiced his teachings. Moreover, anyone familiar with Da’s teachings who reads my spiritual writings will doubtless see Da’s ‘stamp’ on them. In short, I love Da’s spiritual Dharma but take umbrage with his political one.
I am an expert in sociopolitics. I majored in sociology at the University of California, San Diego (1969-1973) and studied Marxism under the iconic neo-Marxist professor Herbert Marcuse (author of the acclaimed text “One-Dimensional Manâ€). But years after graduating from college, I read Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard, and these writings, along with my ‘real world’ experiences, transformed me into a quasi-libertarian, and a Ron Paul supporter when he ran for president. In short, over time, I morphed from a radical left-winger into what now is commonly referred to as a radical right-winger (really a ‘classical liberal’).
Because this is a book review and not a book, I’ll cut to the chase regarding Da’s politics. In short, his formula for peace--Cooperation + Tolerance = Peace—is not always a formula for peace; but it is sometimes one for war, and there are examples throughout history that prove it. A notable one is the Munich Agreement struck between British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler. Chamberlain cooperated with Hitler, tolerating his limited territorial demands, but as history proved, Chamberlain’s act of appeasement, his de facto implementation of the Cooperation + Tolerance = Peace formula, in the end cost the world millions of lives.
Ayn Rand’s sagacious statement--“In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profitâ€â€”summarizes the flaw in Da’s formula. It is great to cooperate with good, honest people, but do you really want to cooperate with evil, dishonest ones looking to do you or others harm? It’s great, as an expression of freedom and liberty, to tolerate individual differences in sex, race, religion, personal appearance, etc., but do you want to tolerate any individual or government that seeks to limit your constitutionally guaranteed individual rights? I surely don’t. In short, Da’s formula for peace is not the right universal one because it is only rationally applicable in certain, limited contexts, and in other contexts, as exemplified by the Neville Chamberlain-Adolf Hitler fiasco, it fails miserably.
To my mind, the universal “formula†for peace that makes the most sense is the libertarian credo: “Do no harm.†In other words, every individual is free to do as he or she pleases as long as he or she doesn’t interfere with anyone else’s right to the same. As soon as an individual or government initiates force against a person or his property, then the libertarian credo is violated. According to this credo, Statism (epitomized by government-en-FORCED anti-Constitutional denial of individual rights and theft via fascistic, neo-Marxist policies) is explicitly rejected. And when this anti-freedom, anti-liberty Statism escalates into New World Order Globalism, then the entire world becomes, in the words of Alex Jones, a “Prison Planet.â€Â And the ‘Warden’ running the ‘Prison’ is none other than the International Banking Cartel and the lackey ‘world leaders’ (politicians) doing its bidding.
According to Rand, the sociopolitical poles are clear: statism/socialism vs. individualism/capitalism. I’m firmly in the camp of the latter, but because this is just a review and not a sociopolitical treatise, I’ll refer you to some sources that expound upon my choice and might make you question Da’s formula: Watch Stefan Molyneux’s video The Story of Your Enslavement at Youtube; Google and read the essay The Anatomy of the State, by Murray Rothbard; get the book The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve, by G. Edward Griffin, and The True Story of the Bilderberg Group, by Daniel Estulin; and read my chapter on politics in the forthcoming text Electrical Christianity (available Spring 2013).
