Excerpted from EXPOSING CULTS: WHEN THE SKEPTICAL MIND CONFRONTS THE MYSTICAL David C. Lane Garland Publishing, Inc. (1994) Chapter One THE PARADOX OF DA FREE JOHN Distinguishing the Message from the Medium There are very few spiritual teachers in the 20th cen- tury who could be termed religious geniuses. Da Free John is one of them. Since the beginning of his formal ministry in 1972 in southern California, Da Free John has produced a body of work which is unparalleled amongst new religious thinkers for its radical insight, comparative depth, and force of expression. He has won wide critical acclaim for his writings, eliciting praises from sociologists, psycholo- gists, and theologians. However, though Da Free John's writings have deservedly merited respect, the person himself remains a paradox. To many readers, the guru image he portrays juxtaposes with the impact of his message. Though Da Free John repeatedly stresses the need for transcending self-centeredness, he projects an egotistical air. Hence, while many individuals are deeply attracted to the philosophy of Da Free John, they are not drawn to the man. This, naturally, has led to a predicament in some seekers' minds on how to properly assess Da Free John and his teachings. How does one distinguish a profound and viable spiri- tual message from the human medium who transmits it? This article, which is a generally positive overview of Da Free John's writings, is a response to that important question. Confusing the Message with the Medium In religious circles there is a tendency to confuse the message with the medium (and vice versa). If, for instance, an author writes convincingly, elegantly, and profoundly about spiritual realization the reader assumes that the writer must also be an enlightened being by virtue of his presentation. But, this is not always the case. Simply because one communicates the ultimate truths well does not mean by extension that he is an embodiment of that highest realization. Indeed, the person may be quite the opposite. A good example behind this fallacious equation of "the medium is the message" is found in the life and work of Alan Watts, the renowned philosopher of Zen Buddhism. Due to Watts' brilliant articulation of the perennial philosophy, some of his readers felt that he was a genuine Zen master, one who had transcended the ego and its limitations. How- ever, as those close to Watts can attest, he was not an enlightened guru, nor did he pretend to be. Watts, like the rest of us, suffered from a number of human frailties, including alcoholism and womanizing. Though Watts wrote exquisitely about Nirvana, his writings do not entirely reflect his own samsaric condition.[1] Personally, I have found this type of equative thinking among many of the followers in the new religious movements I have studied. Whereas the student may only be attracted to a particular element in the teachings, and not initially to the guru or the organization, he buys into the latter because he thinks they are inseparable. In other words, the would-be disciple presumes that he can't get "it" without all the accompanying paraphernalia.[2] Take M.S.I.A. as a classic object lesson. What attracts most people to M.S.I.A. is the intriguing possibil- ity of soul travel, not its lineage of "Mystical Trav- elers."[3] Yet, instead of selecting that kernel of the teaching, the neophyte swallows the whole philosophy believ- ing that it is an all or nothing proposition. Thus, following this contagious logic, the student accepts John-Roger Hinkins, the founder of M.S.I.A., as a genuine master solely by weight of his detailed account of the inner planes, since he has already accepted the validity of soul travel and tends to idolize the testimony of others who claim to be proficient at it. But, how is the unsuspecting seeker to know that John-Roger copied most of his material from other Eastern and New Age groups? Furth- ermore, how is he to realize that John-Roger's encounters with radiant beings--the hierarchy of inner masters--on the higher regions are literary fictions which he borrowed from another American offshoot of Ruhani Satsang? Fubbi Quantz, Rebazar Tarzs, and Jagat Ho do not exist, neither on this planet nor on "Tuza."[4] The devotee ends up duped, and in the process of uncov- ering his naivete he discards everything in the M.S.I.A. package (just like he bought it all in the beginning), even the one thing that was (and is) valid: out-of-body experi- ences. Fundamentally, the mistake inherent in this kind of approach is that it lacks a consistent discriminating edge. One need not accept everything a spiritual movement offers because it has a single gleam of authenticity. Nor, on the other hand, one doesn't have to dismiss the benefit of a sincere guru because he is functionally illiterate or a "naive bumpkin."[5] To illustrate this point even further (and I feel it is a crucial one for anybody involved in spirituality), think of Christianity. Now on the whole it is generally agreed that the Christian faith in its essential principles, as laid down by Jesus Christ, is a beneficial religion: moral, loving, self-sacrificing. However, this does not mean that we cannot make qualitative judgments on various parts of its organization and history. In fact, we do it all the time: Witness our criticisms of the Spanish Inquisition, the futility of the Crusades, the horrendous treatment of the Indians by the Missions of California, and so on. We make a series of appraisements on Christianity, often criticizing a number of hypocrisies that have occurred throughout the ages. It is not until we think of Christian- ity in its highest ideals and occasional heroic examples (Mother Teresa, etc.) that we label the religion as "great," "beautiful," "transcendent." Comparatively, this is exactly what we should do with all spiritual teachers and groups but for the most part don't. Instead of retaining a critical perspective throughout our quest we prematurely abdicate our discrim- inating minds and often judge situations in an "either/or" manner. I have seen this many times in devoted disciples of north Indian gurus. One day the student says his master is "God incarnated," and on another he even doubts if his teacher is a decent human being.[6] The disciple oscil- lates between absolute verdicts, never realizing that his observations are but partial reflections of his own evolu- tionary growth.[7] This now leads us to the main topic of this chapter: Da Free John. A number of individuals have rejected Da Free John's sweeping and dynamic message on the grounds that he is just another cult leader out to gain followers, fame, and wealth.[8] Moreover, some readers just cannot countenance Da Free John's "Crazy Adept" image. Across the years I have heard reactions that vary from: "He walks around half naked most of the time, wearing skimpy underwear." "I dislike his writing style; it's self aggrandizing." "Why does he keep changing the name of his organization?" "He is a poser, the epitome of the guru hype of the late 1960's. . . long hair, beard, walking staff, necklaces, then he shaves it all and goes for the egghead look. . . I don't buy it." "He has a hat/cap fetish." "Doesn't he drink his own urine?"[9] Nevertheless, these same critics who disapprove of Da Free John's demeanor also reject his writings in their entirety since a "cult leader cannot possibly have any true or substantial insights on the nature of reality."[10] This, I believe, is a tragic mistake. The underlying spiri- tual message and the transmitting medium who conveys it, though related, are two distinct entities. To confuse the two betrays the fact that a corrupt religious group can present genuine teachings, or, that an authentic spiritual discourse can have an illegitimate expression. I remember an incident in the spring of 1984 at the school where I was teaching which typifies this issue. I suggested to one of my brightest students that he read Da Free John's The Paradox of Instruction in order to get a better grasp of the varying yoga systems and their desired aims. The student took up my suggestion and casually men- tioned the author and the book to his political science teacher, who, without a moment's reflection, called Da Free John "pop," implying that the guru had nothing really good to offer. When I heard of my colleague's reaction I asked the student to query his teacher further and find out if he had ever seriously read Da Free John's books. The answer, surprisingly, was no.[11] Obviously, my colleague didn't appreciate Da Free John's guru portrayal, at least as it was depicted on the cover of his books. Yet, instead of stopping there and mak- ing a judgment call on Da Free John's pictures, my teacher associate carried his opinion even further and applied it to his writings as well--though he himself had never studied them. The sad part about this sort of prejudice is that it reinforces the very thing that teachers of all backgrounds (including those from secondary schools) argue against: "Don't judge a book by its cover." "Let the facts speak for themselves." Etc. Quite simply, regardless of how we may view his "Crazy Adept" image, Da Free John is one of the best writers on the perennial wisdom (non-dualist philosophy) in North America. As Donald Evans, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto, comments: I regard Da Free John as the most significant contem- porary writer concerning the core of religion, more profound than Paul Tillich, Gabriel Marcel, and Martin Buber. Intimately acquainted with a vast range of spiritual experience, he peels off all externals and challenges us to join with him in surrender of our whole selves, shattering the egoism which contracts and separates us from participation in the loving, radiant life of God.[12] Now that we have seen how people can confuse the medium with the message (castrating the latter merely on Da Free John's appearance), let us turn our attention to how the reverse can also happen. Several prominent thinkers have hailed Da Free John as a God realized Adept, a Divine Incar- nation, the Avatar for the Western world, primarily on the strength of his numerous written texts. The problem in some of these ecstatic eulogies, though, is that they have been made without any direct personal observation of Da Free John, nor any experiential involvement with his methodol- ogy.[13] What is occurring in many of these instances is a mere verbal assessment of Da Free John as a master based not upon intimate contact with him but on discursive reading. "He writes so well on the ultimate truths he must be a genuine guru." The danger in this approach is that we often end up measuring the competence of spiritual teachers exclusively on their ability to write or communicate well. Such a pro- cedure is at best haphazard and inappropriately favors a left-brain inclination to religious leaders. If we judge masters in this way, and, no doubt, it should be an element in our appraisements, we leave ourselves open to an intel- lectual class of gurus versus a truly transformed group of enlightened men or women. A situation which, I would add, that has led to the erroneous claims about Alan Watts' greatness. This, of course, is not to say that enlighten- ment and literacy are incompatible, but that the former should be adjudicated on evidence more than just the written word. There is no substitute for personal observation, involvement, or parallel experimentation. It is readily apparent that some of the gracious praises for Da Free John's mastership are really for his writings. Yet, because certain writers confuse the message with the medium, they automatically link the two presuming that if one speaks eloquently about the transcendental real- ity he must also be a Seventh Stage Sage. This is not necessarily so.[14] The authenticity of a religious teacher, though par- tially open to rational appraisements, is determined by the personal engagement of the student in day to day practice, sadhana, abhyas, or zazen. To secure judgements on anything less must be viewed as possible indicators of the teacher's status, not as final verdicts or endorsements.[15] On the other hand of the scale, the legitimacy of a master's presentation can, for the most part, be adjudicated on the rational-verbal plane, as such an appraisement is chiefly concerned with the manifestation of the teachings on this level.[16] Hence, while one may disagree with Da Free John's guru image (the presentation of his message on this plane), perhaps claiming that it has a low degree of legitimacy, no final judgement can be made on his authenticity until actual contact with him and/or his teachings is undertaken.[17] This important distinction between authenticity and legitimacy, and the medium and the message, I believe, has not been made by many of those familiar, albeit slightly, with Da Free John's life and work. Either they dismiss Da Free John entirely because of his photographs or over hype him on the basis of his writings. Interestingly, Da Free John's teachings or insight are not the controversial subject. Who, for instance, with any spiritual inclination, would deny that there is some greater power than ourselves? That we have two fundamental options in the face of this Great Mystery: surrender or recoil? Or, finally, that God is Love and demands by His very existence that we participate via sacrifice of the ego in His Being? No, Da Free John's message isn't the cause for the debate surrounding him, it is his method of presentation, the legi- timacy of his expression, which has turned admirers of his written word to harsh critics of his actions.[18] Though there are really no good reasons to overlook Da Free John's vast contribution to spiritual philosophy and practice, there are some very pertinent questions to pose with regard to the validity of his organizational approach. Some viable criticisms that I have read or heard include: "His church charges money for membership; this automatically disqualifies it as a genuine spiritual movement by some standards. Do true gurus ask for money as a prerequisite for having audiences with them? Would Jesus request a dona- tion?" "Da Free John has virtually no public ministry, save his contact with intimate disciples. This constitutes a cultic ring, a vicious circle wherein the legitimacy of the guru's actions goes unquestioned. Every blunder is ration- alized, justified, or clarified as a "lesson for the devo- tee." "To be frank with you, though I am a follower of Da, I do get upset with how he is portrayed. Do we really need so many pictures of him?" "Personally, I find the Da to be more egotistical than causal. His constant use of `I,' though employed transcendentally, is quite condescending, especially if we are all `already happy/enlightened' anyway. Moreover, Da Free John makes absolute claims about his enlightenment and his unique way of presenting the essen- tial truths. In a sense, if you take his argument to its full consequences, there is only one truly enlightened guru on the planet: himself! Everyone, according to Da, has their fifth and sixth stage limitations, except of course, himself. I find this not only presumptious, but also an indication that it is not healthy to follow gurus who allege that they have attained something no other saint or yogi has."[19] As for myself, though I am also critical of Da Free John's guru image and presentation (I have a resistance to any guru who charges money or makes personal claims about his own spiritual attainments.),[20] it does seem obvious to me that he is purposely invoking a parody of himself and all human teachers so that his reader/students may awaken from a purely intellectual persual of his teachings and be confronted with the power of radical transcendentalism. I must admit that I never know what quite to expect from a Da Free John publication. One year he is Franklin Jones, one-time disciple of Swami Muktananda, apparently extending the message of Advaita Vedanta for the western world; the next year he is Bubba Free John, the Spiritual Master, wearing Jewish styled caps; and in another year he is Da, with long hair, staff, living in seclusion, bald like a Zen monk, apparently much heavier, and preaching from a new island in the South Pacific."[21] Da Free John is, without question, the most iconoclas- tic teacher I have encountered. Not that his fundamental teachings change (they haven't), but that he continually upsets every model/label that he assumes. Da Free John is literally like a Cracker Jack surprise in the religious world. Just when you think that he has run out of new guises, Da Free John comes up with some bizarre clothing to startle you. [Check out the cover of his book, The Bodily Location of Happiness (2nd Edition), the picture of him on page 79 of The Laughing Man, Volume 4, Number 4, and the photograph of him in the book, Nirvanasara.] No wonder Da Free John has detractors calling him a cult weirdo; he invites such strong reactions by his selection of photo- graphs.[22] When Da Free John calls Seventh Stage Adepts crazy, he isn't playing semantic words games. He means it structur- ally: bodily, mentally and spiritually in contrast to the "norm" of our society and unenlightened man.[23] His "transmission" or "portrayal," depending on our estimation of his genuineness, upsets many of us, because true to his message Da Free John cannot adequately be pigeon-holed. Now this doesn't mean that we have to call him an enlightened being, or God-realized (can we really know if anyone is unless we ourselves are?),[24] but we shouldn't dismiss him in light of his teachings, as his writings do have an important spiritual import. True, Da Free John is a paradox, but he is at least a contradiction who elicits further examination of our own relationship with Real- ity.[25] A Capsule Overview of Da Free John's Life Unlike a number of his contemporaries in the guru world, who wish to conceal their past (e.g., L. Ron Hubbard), Da Free John is more open about his life.[26] Born on November 3, 1939, at Jamaica, Long Island, New York, with the given name of Franklin Albert Jones, Da Free John recalls that his infancy was marked with the "Bright," an a priori condition of enlightenment about the true nature of reality. However, because his family and the society to which he was born into did not enjoy that same "vision," Da Free John claims that he was forced by his circumstances to relinquish his Divine Communion. Elaborates Da Free John: When I was born there were no complications, there was no failure to understand, there was no lack of illumi- nation. But in my relations with family and friends it soon became apparent to me what kind of life is allowed in this world. It was obvious that my parents and their friends were unwilling to live as if they were in God and be happy. That was not permissible. So, obvi- ously, I could not live that way either. I had to become their son and do the usual things that a child does, and, while doing that, continue to make the point of God-knowing."[27] In the published accounts of Da Free John's life very little is mentioned about his childhood and early adolescent years. We pick up the narrative when he enters Columbia College in New York City at the age of seventeen. It was here that the "process of descending into ordinary life was complete--as a conventional human personality, Bubba [Da] was in a desperate condition."[28] Like ordinary men, Da Free John had to regain his prior understanding, where God (and not the ego) is the center and the circumference. He accomplished this by trying to "experience" whatever came his way. His quest had no limits; nothing was too baneful or too sacred. Yet, "neither his experiences nor his learn- ing brought him closer to Truth."[29] It was in the midst of this internal struggle that Da Free John allegedly experienced a spontaneous re-occurrence of "the Heart-Consciousness he had enjoyed at birth."[30] This regeneration, as it has been described, convinced Da Free John that freedom was native to man and not external to him. But, since this awakening was not stabilized, it too fell away and Da Free John persisted in his quest for per- manent realization. What was this hidden impulse which detained man from his already enlightened state? What force allowed man to persist in his egoic and suffering mood? The answers to these questions, which apparently haunted Da Free John for some time, became apparent to him in the early 1960's when he was attending Stanford University in California. As one "official" biographer puts it: He felt certain that there must be some hidden logic or force at the core of life that makes us abandon our native Divine Freedom for all the insane ways we suffer. To discover that logic, he had begun to observe and note in writing every single phenomenon that arose in body, mind, and environment. . . Finally it became apparent to him: The logic or principle of all birth, living, suffering, seeking, and death is hidden in the myth of Narcissus, the self lover of Greek mythology, who rejected relationship. or love, in order to contemplate his own image, until he died. All human beings, he saw, live as Narcissus, locked into contemplation of their own selves, their own bodies and minds and destinies. . . .[31] After this breakthrough Da Free John returned to New York in June of 1964, where he subsequently met his first human guru, Albert Rudolph (more popularly known as Swami Rudrananda or "Rudi"). Along with his eventual wife, Nina, Da Free John sought tutelage under Rudi, who taught a physi- cal version of Kundalini Yoga. [Rudi, it should be pointed out, was a follower of Swami Nityananda and his successor Swami Muktananda, both of whom resided in Ganeshpuri, India.] [32] Rudi's effect on Da Free John was perhaps more "prelim- inary" than transcendental, as he emphasized work and com- mitment, a grounding, so to say, for future spiritual development. At Rudi's insistence, Da Free John entered the ministry of the Lutheran Church. Though having no particu- lar interest per se with Christianity Da Free John acquiesced and studied in the seminary for two years. But, as Da Free John recounts, while studying at the school he underwent a "death" experience, which culminated in the dis- solution of his ego. Da Free John maintains that his experience was similar in content to Ramana Maharshi's, the famed Advaita Vedanta sage of south India.[33] Propelled by his new insight, Da Free John shifted his discipleship away from Rudi to Swami Muktananda, and, in 1968, made his first trip to India to see the Siddha Yoga master. During his stay Da Free John became absorbed with the ascending currents of the higher radiant mind, which is "infinitely above the body, the mind, and the world."[34] For over a year, we are informed, Da Free John lived in a "distracted state, at times moved toward worldly experi- ences, and at other times moved toward the internal w