Love, Opera, and a Lesson in Ecstatic Praise

May 9, 2012

The author and Adi Da

“The true artist is a sacred performer. He or she must do the magic that causes others to participate in reality in the sacred sense, or the sense of love, in the sense of self-transcendence, of ecstasy.”

– Adi Da Samraj

By Crane Kirkbride

When I first came to Adi Da in 1975, I’d long abandoned my interest in classical voice. I’d taken on a monastic career in a Hindu tradition, and for sixteen years I’d put my love of music into a tightly shut drawer. When I told my guru that I’d given singing away for spiritual pursuits, he did not pat me on the back. His rejoinder was that his form of renunciation was not about “cutting away” anything from life, but about incarnating all one’s talents and interests to the ultimate degree of possible expression, until self was transcended in the process.

With his encouragement, I began to sing again in his company, but I was tentative, concerned about technique, intonation, projection. Over time, my guru began uprooting my would-be performer’s ego. And over the next several years I was asked to sing under some rather amusing conditions – or tests, according to the traditions.

My first ‘recital’ was in a room of several hundred people, all of whom were drinking, smoking, and generating a lot more noise than I. And since then, I’ve been asked to sing with no preparation time; while ill with the flu; in the middle of dinner while my guru ran simultaneous commentary on my art; at 4 AM with no sleep the previous night; on a windswept island beach in Fiji at the end of a 10-hour celebratory gathering with him. I have sung operatic arias for years with Adi Da accompanying me, none of them in my voice range, and usually with at least several tone-deaf fellow devotee friends providing full-voiced choral support within inches of my ear.

Continue reading →

Discussion 32 Comments Category Confessions of Life with a Guru Tags , , , ,

Truth Forum: Intimacy Comes Before Transparency

April 24, 2012

(Image: Bethan)

By J.L. Forrester

“A renunciate’s primary responsibility is to refuse to support all illusions in others. And to renounce and refuse all speech that is illusion, and to speak truth to power in all circumstances. They stand in a set apart position, even in relation to their own traditions.”

– Adi Da Samraj

I keep this quote from Adi Da posted on my bedroom wall, because it so plainly expresses the way he related to life and culture, and how deep his commitment was to reality, above all else. It’s one of the aspects of his nature I’ve always most admired.

This quote also beautifully articulates the essence of what it means to be a renunciate – to renounce all illusions, in oneself and even in one’s own tradition. Each of my gurus in this life did exactly that, forging a new and authentic esoteric way in the midst of a stagnant religious culture. All realizers in all times have done this, and perhaps they will always have to, in order to continuously challenge the ego-laden ways of life we make.

My own feeling is that this quote’s mandate extends to all serious practitioners in all esoteric traditions. If esoteric sanghas have anything at all to offer this world, it must be a commitment to truth. If the commitment to truth is lost, our esoteric root is lost. When an esoteric sangha’s commitment to religious culture, or to its own egoic narratives and taboos, becomes senior to its commitment to truth, then that sangha has become exoteric.

In the last installment of this column, I wrote about the ways in which an esoteric sangha falls short of its mandate to preserve the body, heart, mind, and breath of the realizer at its source. Put another way, we were asking: How do we continue to protect and advocate truth, or satya, in our communities after the bodily death of the realizer?

In The Four Departures, I referred both to historical esoteric cultures and contemporary ones. To traditions that have clearly suffered these ‘departures’ or losses of integrity, even to the point of annihilation, and also to traditions that exist today, including my own tradition – one that is very much ‘underway’, or in a real-time process of discovery and evolution. I’ve been happy to see that my own tradition is still very much alive in its impulse toward truth, as the voluminous testimony in the comments section attests.

We received two major criticisms of the last post from a close friend whose wisdom we trust, and I’d like to address those comments here, as both are relevant. Continue reading →

Discussion 107 Comments Category A Book of Common Errors, Cooperative Culture and Society Tags , , , ,

Water and Catharsis: The Making of Ogee Sugar Prune

April 10, 2012

Hollywood Hills (image: Lynn Coulombe)

By Toni Vidor

We have almost no context in the West anymore for requesting and receiving the wisdom of our elders. My neighbor here in Kaua’i, Toni Vidor, has lived a long and unusual life, and she’s recently finished a book that chronicles her eighty-three turns around the sun. It’s a remarkable story, and one I think will be of interest to our readers. We call Toni Ogee here on the island (pron. ‘oh-jee’; story on her nickname is below) and so I’ll do so when I talk about her. 

Ogee grew up in L.A. during old Hollywood’s Golden Era. She was the eldest child of film director King Vidor and actress Eleanor Boardman. I knew nothing about King Vidor until I researched a film he made for this post, and I found out he was a remarkable man – not just a filmmaker, but a person who cared deeply about human community and the future of our culture. He used film as a vehicle for ideas, and something of this strength of purpose permeates Ogee, although she put it to quite a different life.

When Ogee got out of college in the late 1940s, she left the glamour of Hollywood and spent the next three decades as an equestrian and alternative healer, becoming a pioneer of alternative living and opening one of the only health food stores that existed at the time, in Malibu in 1962. When my family moved to Malibu twelve years later, there was still only one health food store, and even then it was considered a place mostly for hippies and oddballs. Ogee has a pattern of being ahead of her time, not only in the area of healing and the body, but also in her gestures towards spirituality.

She was exploring vast psychological, spiritual, and even psychic terrain long before it became popular or culturally legitimate to do so. By 1974, when the engine really began to turn on this in California, Ogee’s kids had already grown up, and she was taking the final step in her search for a spiritual home. It landed her at the feet of the guru we share, Adi Da Samraj. Ogee spent the next thirty-five years as his devotee, and I can tell you that that in itself is a testament to her seriousness, her willingness to swim in uncharted waters, and her tenacity as a practitioner. Ogee is a force to be reckoned with, and I’ve come to walk rather lightly around her myself.

Her just published spiritual autobiography, “Beyond the Illusion”, is a series of forty-two short vignettes, two of which are excerpted here. Ogee’s book is easy to read, yet it’s also full of monumental confrontations, revelations, humor, and surprise, and it’s penned with a brutal honesty you’re unlikely to encounter in much other contemporary writing in this genre. The stories also offer a transparent window into the life and person of Adi Da, and they function as a historical record that carries a feeling of personal relationship and discovery.

Please feel free to ask Ogee anything under the sun in the comments below. I think you’ll appreciate her generosity of spirit and way of talking – often so unselfconsciously blunt as to be humorous, or frightening if it’s directed at your flaws. But don’t let that scare you. She’s an elder. I feel this is what we should expect, and also cherish about her.

Ogee and actor Harry Crocker at San Simeon (All images courtesy the author, unless otherwise stated. Cover image Taschen)

Meeting Adi Da Samraj

Coming into the presence of a true master typically does not happen as one might expect. In the esoteric traditions, the seriousness of aspiring devotees was usually tested before they were allowed into the rarified space of the ashram, which, in the traditional meaning of the word is the abode of the realizer or spiritual master, where he or she lived among devotees. When I finally did get invited to Adi Da’s California sanctuary for the first time, in 1974, I found myself tested as well. Continue reading →

Discussion 27 Comments Category Confessions of Life with a Guru, Uncommon Experiences Tags , , , , , ,

Truth Forum: The Four Departures

March 25, 2012

(Image: schorlipaolo)

By J.L. Forrester

Note to reader: This post has generated a fair amount of healthy controversy. I wrote it very much with the intention to bring unspoken conversations to the surface, but also with the aim to resolve them over the course of many posts in the series that will follow — all of which will be constructive, positive, generative and full of the optimism I myself feel about this very subject. Anyway, please keep in mind that my blog writing tends to be dialectical and not very linear — I start with ideas I myself may not even fully condone, and then seek to explore and resolve them by the end of the post, or in this case, the series. Thanks for your patience.

“In any tradition, as soon as a local Realizer dies, the tradition tends to systematically redefine that Realizer or source-individual as a mere institutional and tribally objectified symbol and icon. In that case, the collective force of social egoity controls and redefines the Realizer as a subordinate extension of the collective ego-culture and as a kind of magical source of consolation and identity reinforcement for the personal and collective ego-I itself.”

– Adi Da Samraj

Truth Forum is a new regular column on our site.

What is it about?

This column will host an ongoing conversation about the mission of this website, as applied in the most concrete way possible.

We’ll consider how an at-its-source esoteric (or authentically spiritual) community and way of life, either succeeds, or fails, to remain esoteric – as opposed to becoming exoteric (or merely ritualistic, ideological, cultic, and spiritually preliminary).

What is a Truth Forum? My guru talked about a process that humanity as a collective should engage in order to set itself on a course of unity and leave behind our history of limited and provincial views.

He called this process a ‘truth forum’ – a gathering among people where truth was the only subject, and also the only measure of discourse. This ‘truth forum’ would oblige people to not only abandon their cherished illusions, but also help them to embrace difficult, but empirically and perceptually evident truths, or facts about reality, on every level in which reality can be understood.

This column will attempt to unravel and address the many issues that confront an esoteric school in its attempt to survive in the global West. I’d like to start by painting a picture of the history of esoteric schools, particularly of how they decline, and we can explore to what degree it is true or not in our experience. Continue reading →

Discussion 235 Comments Category A Book of Common Errors, Confessions of Life with a Guru Tags , , , , ,

Prior Unity is Known at Heart

March 13, 2012

(Image: Janrito Karamazov. Front page image: tarop)

By Luca McIntosh

Try and imagine how the world would look without these ideas:

vaccination
human rights
theory of relativity
evolution
women’s suffrage
the Internet

Most of us would struggle to imagine life without them. I know I wouldn’t be having this conversation with you right now if they didn’t exist.

In the future, I believe it will be impossible to imagine life without another idea: prior unity.

What is ‘prior unity’?

Prior unity is a concept so radical in its implications, that should it enter our global collective consciousness, it would turn the world on its head – changing every aspect of our lives.

“Reality Itself Is a Prior Unity. Therefore, everything that is arising is part of a prior unity. It is not just that things are connected to one another in a unified sense. Everything is arising in That Which Is Indivisible and Self-Evidently Divine.”

If you’re a non-religious person and find that last word questionable, don’t worry. It doesn’t mean anything we tend to ascribe to the word ‘divine’. Continue reading →

Discussion 27 Comments Category Cooperative Culture and Society Tags , , , ,

Bhakti: The Great Western Spiritual Taboo

February 27, 2012

(Image: Kevin Dooley. Front page image: mugley)

By J.L. Forrester

Every morning for the last 10,585 days I’ve bowed my head and offered my life to another human being. Not to an abstract God, not to a spiritual idea, not to an imaginary ‘presence’, not to a statue, but to a man.

I am a bhakta – or a devotee – of a guru, and have been for all of my adult life. The heart of my spiritual practice is this relationship. It is not fictitious or self-generated. It is a real relationship, with its own inherent boundaries, demands and gifts. It’s my primary relationship – not more important than all others, but prior to them. And it is an esoteric relationship – meaning, broadly, it is not what it appears to be on the surface. It is more analogous to breathing or sight than it is to marriage.

Guru-bhakti, the relationship to an authentic master, is taboo in the West, for a number of reasons, some rational, most not. Bhakti is the only spiritual practice I’ve ever known to be fruitful, or compatible with reality. That is why I was initially drawn to it, even from a materialist/atheist background, and why I’ve always stayed within its channels.

What is interesting about the taboo against bhakti, or devotion, is that true guru-bhakti has no religious component. None. It is also non-technical. Over the last three decades, at one time or another, I’ve practiced every spiritual ‘technique’ that’s commonly known, and some which are totally unknown to the general public. If I were to add up all the fruits of those technical efforts, they would not amount to even a fraction of what I’ve been given in any single instance of relationship, or direct moment of communion, with my spiritual masters in this life – of which there have been four.

Since the day I came into contact with my first guru, I accepted that I was moving into an arena of cultural taboo. But I felt I had no choice. First at an intuitive level, then by practiced discrimination, I came to a certainty that I was in no position to liberate myself in any yogic or spiritual way. Continue reading →

Discussion 35 Comments Category Confessions of Life with a Guru, Uncommon Experiences Tags , , , ,

Open Letter from the People of Earth, 2111

February 12, 2012

(Image: Gilderic)

By J.L. Forrester

(NOTE: This is a piece of satire and conceit… intended to cause reflection. The views represented are an amalgam of at least four authors.)

Dear friends of primitive history,

We write from your future time, to tell you that your secret hopes were not dashed. Our world is bright with energy and promise, now cleansed of your errors.

As you might imagine, in a hundred years your skeletons will be dust on a moonscraper’s windowpane, marring our pristine view.

The sanest philosopher of your day will have been reborn as an eloquent cab driver. And the Singularity Event you thought would morph you all into spiritual-machines failed when confronted with the deathless soul.

Religion? There is none here. At least not in the way you imagine it. We’ve outgrown the church. Reality alone is our daily bread.

If this makes you nervous, you may have good reason to be. There is but one culture that can outrun a Mayan death in your current race for global legitimacy.

You can’t imagine what culture that might be, but to help you along, here are some survival tips.

1. Be Transparent

You can’t run, you can’t hide, and you can’t lie anymore. Your society is hurtling toward near total transparency. Clouds contain more data on you than water.

If you haven’t yet gotten at least half-naked in the pews together, now may be a good time, because chances are you’re soon going to find yourself publicly undressed, whether you’re comfortable in your own skin or not. That’s the nature of the time. Continue reading →

Discussion 36 Comments Category All of This Is Beautiful, Cooperative Culture and Society Tags , , , , , ,

Fear-No-More: In Service to the Non-Humans

January 23, 2012

New Guinea Hornbill, also known as a 'Kokomo' (Front page image Tarotastic. All other images courtesy the author)

By Stuart Camps

“We need another and wiser concept of animals. In a world older than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not our brethren, they are not underlings. They are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.”      

– Henry Beston

I was born into a highland valley on the island of Papua New Guinea. It was 1963. I grew up on a coffee plantation. We lived on the tribal lands of the Jiga people. Around the valley and over the hills lived more tribes: the Moge, Yamaga, Kukukuku and others. As a kid, I used to wander far and wide. My father was well liked, which meant I was safe to go anywhere – except the traditional burial grounds. Sometimes I’d climb the 9,000 foot ridges around the green valley. From there I could glimpse the 15–16,000 foot equatorial snow-caps and look down on the raging highland rivers and great valley plains.

The Waghi Valley, where we lived, was rich – jungled valleys and mountain sides teeming with native birds, mammals, reptiles and insects. My father was a naturalist and under his guidance I developed a love and understanding for animals. I had a happy family life and everything a kid like me could want.

Then came the crushing blow of conditional reality we all face. My older brother died. And a family that was close and always facing each other now turned out in pain. We always loved each other, but after my brother died, things were never the same. I felt the loss – mostly unspoken, seldom discussed – as a silent, creeping distance between us. My father was broken. Everything I trusted was falling apart. Previously outgoing, I gradually withdrew, becoming introspective, and spending much of my time caring for my animal friends. Then, one day, my beloved cockatoo died. After this, I had little to do with animals, beyond family dogs and cats, for a long time.

Continue reading →

Discussion 86 Comments Category Confessions of Life with a Guru, Uncommon Experiences Tags , , , , ,

Hell: 23 Verses of Thanks

January 4, 2012

(Image: Kevin Dooley)

By Dre White

Reader: if you’ve never read the author Dre White before, read this first.

I asked Dre to write 23 lines of gratitude for the beginning of 2012, similar to my own. This is what he offered.

Life has a way throwing things in our direction that make us stumble and fall flat on our faces, or take us off course in another direction. And before we realize we’re heading down the wrong highway, it’s too late for some of us.

After almost eight years of incarceration, if I‘ve learned anything at all, I‘ve learned that you cannot change a decision that was put into an action. You can’t realize down the line that the choice you made was a bad choice. You now own it, good or bad.

I hope you remember this, reader, as you travel through this life.

As the year turns inside this dark place where I exist, here is what I am grateful for. I am sorry for the length of this post, but I have much to say.

1.

I thank the grand mal seizures I had from the age of eighteen months to eight years old. My deadly medical condition taught me to be strong and so I was. I was teased beyond belief by other kids because of my condition. I fought the school bully, Phillip Thompson, for three years. I lost to him every time, until something he did to a friend sent me over the edge. The tyrant of the school was defeated by a nine year old with a deadly medical condition. I am thankful for my seizures. They taught me to fear nothing in life. Continue reading →

Discussion 18 Comments Category All of This Is Beautiful, Uncommon Experiences Tags , , , , ,

Paradise: 23 Lines of Gratitude

January 4, 2012

(Image: Joost J. Bakker)

By J.L. Forrester

I wrote this from a hospital gurney not long ago. I’d undergone a routine treatment of injections under x-ray to my spine. Not enough numbing agent was used. Needles to the bone is a brand of torture, and as I was processing it all behind curtains afterwards, I took out a pen. Later, I asked my brother in prison to do the same.

1. Opened your eyes to sun again this morning; you’re a riddle in a shaft of light.

2. You walk the earth in the day of greatest peace – in all of human history. (So say those who watch our species.)

3. It’s true: you’ve stopped going through at least a few of the motions.

4. You see in Kodachrome; the memory of youth in black and white.

5. All the information that can’t solve your problem now sleeps in a convenient plastic box – mute as a cloud.

6. Miracle of time, you may be learning to love.

7. God’s a word you’ve forgotten, now that he’s become visible.

8. The hell of body-pain has left its mark – a tattoo on the wrist, warning away utopias. Continue reading →

Discussion 7 Comments Category All of This Is Beautiful, Uncommon Experiences Tags , , , , ,