The Method of the Siddhas (Franklin Jones/Da Free John/Adi Da)
A Mind-Blowing Text
[My 5-star Amazon review (March 14, 2013) of “The Method of the Siddhas: Spiritual Talks on the Saviors of Mankind” by Franklin Jones/Bubba Free John/Da Free John/Adi Da.]
When I first read "The Method of the Siddhas" in 1973, I knew it was a great spiritual book; but until a few years later when I actually began to practice the "method," the Way of Radical Understanding and Relational Enquiry, as described by author-guru Franklin Jones (later to become Bubba Free John, Da Free John, and finally Adi Da), I didn't know how great. Eventually, I realized that the first chapter of the book, "Understanding," was the single greatest chapter ever written on the gnostic practice of directly and immediately living Truth (and obviating the self-contraction).
Adi Da initially, and naively, believed that the ordinary people who came to him could easily learn and practice the Way of Radical Understanding. But in a few years, it became apparent that none of his disciples really "understood" (to the point of Heart-realization). And not long before his death (in 2008), he bemoaned the fact that no one had "understood." I was never a Daist (a devotee of his and member of his community), but I do "understand" and still practice the Way of Radical Understanding, regularly abiding in, and as, the Heart--even though I have not cut the Heart-knot and therefore am not fully, unbrokenly, en-Light-ened.
The "Method of the Siddhas" is a mind-blowing spiritual text--so profound that the renowned Zen scholar Alan Watts, after reading it, declared (with regard to Adi Da): "I have been waiting for an Avatar all my life, and now he has come." Watts died not long after his statement, so we don't know what his take would have been had he lived to see, years later, the heavy criticism directed at Da's Crazy Wisdom" behavior and spiritual cult. Ken Wilber, the acclaimed Integral philosopher, also raved about Da, upholding him as the most enlightened guru on the planet. But once Da and Daism began to come under assault from disaffected devotees claiming personal abuse, Wilber effectively disassociated himself the religion.
My take regarding Da and Daism is: don't throw the baby out with the bath water. With this in mind, I cannot recommend "The Method of the Siddhas" highly enough--and for two cents (the cost for a used copy of this out-of-print classic at the moment), plus shipping, you can find out why many consider Adi Da a spiritual genius, and why, as Da put it, "only radical (or gone-to-the-root) understanding avails."
[My 5-star Amazon review (March 14, 2013) of “The Method of the Siddhas: Spiritual Talks on the Saviors of Mankind” by Franklin Jones/Bubba Free John/Da Free John/Adi Da.]
When I first read "The Method of the Siddhas" in 1973, I knew it was a great spiritual book; but until a few years later when I actually began to practice the "method," the Way of Radical Understanding and Relational Enquiry, as described by author-guru Franklin Jones (later to become Bubba Free John, Da Free John, and finally Adi Da), I didn't know how great. Eventually, I realized that the first chapter of the book, "Understanding," was the single greatest chapter ever written on the gnostic practice of directly and immediately living Truth (and obviating the self-contraction).
Adi Da initially, and naively, believed that the ordinary people who came to him could easily learn and practice the Way of Radical Understanding. But in a few years, it became apparent that none of his disciples really "understood" (to the point of Heart-realization). And not long before his death (in 2008), he bemoaned the fact that no one had "understood." I was never a Daist (a devotee of his and member of his community), but I do "understand" and still practice the Way of Radical Understanding, regularly abiding in, and as, the Heart--even though I have not cut the Heart-knot and therefore am not fully, unbrokenly, en-Light-ened.
The "Method of the Siddhas" is a mind-blowing spiritual text--so profound that the renowned Zen scholar Alan Watts, after reading it, declared (with regard to Adi Da): "I have been waiting for an Avatar all my life, and now he has come." Watts died not long after his statement, so we don't know what his take would have been had he lived to see, years later, the heavy criticism directed at Da's Crazy Wisdom" behavior and spiritual cult. Ken Wilber, the acclaimed Integral philosopher, also raved about Da, upholding him as the most enlightened guru on the planet. But once Da and Daism began to come under assault from disaffected devotees claiming personal abuse, Wilber effectively disassociated himself the religion.
My take regarding Da and Daism is: don't throw the baby out with the bath water. With this in mind, I cannot recommend "The Method of the Siddhas" highly enough--and for two cents (the cost for a used copy of this out-of-print classic at the moment), plus shipping, you can find out why many consider Adi Da a spiritual genius, and why, as Da put it, "only radical (or gone-to-the-root) understanding avails."
