Apart from all spiritual virtue, my Guru was a consummate artist and intellectual who elevated the sacred tradition of ego-threatening inquiry to magnificent new heights, much to the dismay of those around Him who were unprepared, and I count myself one among those constantly. He called himself a "subversive", and any serious study of His art and writing proves that amply. Hardly a week passed in His lifetime in which He did not level some manner of powerful critique at what He called "our little cult". And into His last days of life, He never stopped undermining our own arrogance when it came to matters of human liberty. You could regard His entire life as a struggle against non-liberty, against suppression of His lighted person, and against the subtle aggression we, as egos, threw in His direction with almost every move He made in order to free us from ourselves. Such is the drama of an Avatar in the human domain.
This section of my work is a direct response to my Guru's request for "derivative art and critical writing" to be made by devotees out of His Orpheum Trilogy and other works. The Trilogy itself stands as one of the most depthful and trenchant critiques of cultism penned in the history of literature. Carrying on this tradition of internal critique is a matter of love, and it must never die out in succeeding generations. To bring awareness is to stand in judgment of no one.
I see my sangha in its birthing process, something like what Buddhism was going through around the year 487 B.C. As we move toward incarnating a culture free of exoteric faults, we will also have to move away from patterns of the world in its modes of superficiality, control, and presumption of knowledge. This is necessary growth.
With a feeling of humor and generosity of heart, I offer these words as baroque wood thrown into the Holy Fire. May they provoke reflection, more sensitive attendance to the Source of wisdom, and may they help to create a freer air in which we may openly consider Reality, while the days are still light and calm.
The worst day of your life will be
the day you can no longer hear My Shout.
— Adi Da Samraj, Verbal Notes, March 2007