What next for Adidam?

by Theo Cedar Jones


The greatest Avatar Who has ever lived in the cosmic domain has left His Body. What will become of the Way that He has established for the sake of all? What will become of Adidam, the world religion that He has founded?

Soon after I heard about Bhagavan Adi Da's Mahasamadhi (November 27, 2008), I felt intuitively that His Presence had somehow burst more intensely into all the worlds, and that He was somehow less constrained to do His Work of Blessing and Liberating all beings.

But how will Adi Da's Presence be effective in the world? How can the Way of Adidam be strong enough, and large enough in numbers, to truly serve His World Work?
You are the way to Me.
Adi Da Samraj

On the shoulders of Adi Da's devotees rests the protection of His Sanctuaries, the success of His Mission, and the co-creation of the Global Cooperative Forum with everybody-all-at-once. In this essay I offer solutions and ideas on how devotees and supporters of Adi Da can accomplish these things, in accordance with selected Notes and Instructions from Bhagavan.

Devotees of Adi Da inherit the responsibility to make Adi Da's Way available, authentic and effective for all future generations. The Way of the Heart depends on His devotees for its continuing existence, and this has the hugest conceivable consequences for the human race.

I write this letter to open a process of consideration with devotees and all people who love Adi Da, about the future of Adidam, and what Adidam's role is in the fate of humanity.

If it is true that Adi Da is the only means for the ultimate liberation of human beings, and if it is true that the Global Cooperative Forum that He has given is the only means for the survival of humanity (29), then it follows that the actions of His devotees in the coming years has direct bearing of ultimate consequence on all humanity. To restate - the liberation of humanity and the survival of humanity are directly contingent on the effectiveness of Adi Da's devotees in the coming years.

Given the seriousness of our collective responsibility for the Way of the Heart and the fate of the human race, I offer these proposals in the spirit of prior unity and cooperation.
Two principal goals for Adidam

I believe there are two goals that must be achieved in order for Adi Da's Way and the Global Cooperative Forum to be able to save humanity from mass self-destruction.

1. Devotees must achieve sustained growth in the Mission of Adidam, such that 10,000 new people become Beloved's devotees under vow in the next 5 years.

2. The self-rightening process must be allowed to take place within Adidam, according to the principles of Not-Two Is Peace, via the Adidam Cooperative Forum.

Why is sustained growth in Adidam a critical necessity? Because a global religion of only a thousand or so people is not sufficient to financially sustain the five global sanctuaries of Adidam, or mount a sufficienty robust global campaign to make Adi Da available to millions or billions of people. Adi Da's sanctuaries must continue to exist and be rightly served in order for Adi Da's restoration of human civilization to occur, and in order for His Blessings of Earth to be conducted through His Sanctuaries. And the critical mass of 10,000 devotees (or more) is the only way that the institution and means of Adidam will be strong enough to cut through the aggressive and competitive messages of the human media onslought, and make His Media Presence effective. (9,10,11)
Why is the self-rightening process of Adidam absolutely critical?

First, a brief "criticism" of Adidam, up til now.

As Adi Da has vociferously pointed out throughout His decades of Teaching and Instruction, devotees have tended to collapse and corrupt His Way. One of the principal symptoms of this collapse is the weakness and virtual non-existence of His Mission in the world. To undo what is broken in the Mission and Culture of Adidam will require a process of self-rightening among devotees. Only if devotees in sufficient numbers consent to a process of self-rightening, will the Mission be allowed to expand and be really effective.

What will this self-rightening look like? The Adidam Cooperative Forum (35) is the natural place where issues that devotees have with each other, or institutional representatives of Adidam, can be addressed in a formal manner, according to the principles of the Global Cooperative Forum (30, 31). The Adidam Cooperative Forum is the most effective means for unresolved issues to receive a sufficient hearing, within a context of prior unity.

My personal experience of Adidam is of a culture where honest and open talk about how the institution is run, and how devotee conflicts are addressed, is suppressed, discouraged and unsupported. This is one of the "staves in the wheels" of the natural self-rightening process within Adidam; but the stave will be removed through the full functioning of the Adidam Cooperative Forum. And this will allow the self-rightening to occur in Adidam, and will also function as a model for the Global Cooperative Forum that can be adopted by the rest of humanity.

Another principle facet of self-rightening in Adidam is accountability. How is accountability to be allowed and generated? Firstly, there needs to be a communication sent out to every participating devotee that gives them the tools of accountability, which include the following:

1. An organizational chart of Adidam which includes the name, picture, job title, job description, and contact information for every person with a job in Adidam, including all the required positions for which there are no current employees.

2. Quarterly reports of all of the vital statistics of Adidam, including all financial information of every aspect of Adidam, how much money is coming in, how much is being spent, and how much needs to be spent on specific projects.

3. A Quarterly accounting of all of the gifts going to Heart Master Adi Da, all of the new devotees who have come under vow, the total number of devotees participating, and the number of devotees falling out of participation, altogether, worldwide.

The Adidam Cooperative Forum will be a place for all devotees in Adidam to directly address and handle all of the issues we have in common as devotees, including accountability, self-rightening and sustained growth in Adidam. This will put the responsibility for the success of Adidam directly into the hands of all devotees, enable us to phase out the failed-case methods, and bring in new ideas, methods and strategies that are based on prior unity, measurable results, and the presumption of success. (33)

This process, of course, will "stir up the shit", and necessarily be messy. It may cause the losing of face. But this process must be engaged, in continuing surrender to and faith in Bhagavan Adi Da, for the sake of all beings, so that Adidam can be allowed to outgrow its weak and suppressed pattern.

Assuming an ongoing self-rightening process within Adidam, it will then be possible for the collective of devotees to conduct sustained expansion in numbers, which will satisfy the first goal. Self-rightening will tend to counter the collapsed and weak pattern that has been imposed by devotees in Adidam's first few decades, and self-rightening is therefore a prerequisite to any sustained expansion of Adidam.

The self-rightening of Adidam will also help to usher in the era of professionally mounted large, multi-media rich and Guild-driven Mission events (34). The types of events done at the Bright movie premier in L.A., or at the Cipriani Hotel in Venice, or in San Francisco on October 13th, 2007, will become commonplace and consistent occurrences all over the world, and it is a Bright House function to help create the expectation and inspiration for this to happen.
One problem - what if the self-rightening process within Adidam takes longer than our "window of opportunity" for collective survival? (27, 28) In this case, we must develop "parallel strategies", strategies that are parallel to and cooperative with the formal Mission of Adidam, but that do not necessarily originate from within Adidam, and are therefore not subject to the particular cultural limitations of Adidam at any given time. These parallel strategies have the capacity to make Adi Da directly available to sufficient millions of people for His 10,000 new devotees to find Him, as well as to help incarnate the Global Cooperative Forum.

What are "parallel strategies"?

Parallel strategies are meant to work in cooperation with the Samrajya, the Adi Da Mission, the Dawn Horse Press, Da Plastique and Da Orpheum, and yet function with strategic autonomy, as devotee-owned businesses, and influential individuals and groups.

Ex. 1 - "is da world" - a sacred celebration and traveling festival. "is da world" is a large event (1,2,3), that travels the world, and brings artists and performers together who share "sacred" artistic expressions and offerings in a "sacred space". Artist and performer devotees of Adi Da, as well as Adi Da's Guilds, would always be present and included, along with many, many other artists and performers from the world's faiths and traditions. "is da world" is also an outlet for the book Not-Two Is Peace, and the many people who affirm prior unity as the basis of their lives. As such, "is da world" is an educative and recruiting arm of the Global Cooperative Forum. (To see a history of some of the first "is da world" events, go to
http://www.orangesky.org/isdaworld)

Ex. 2  A bevy of devotee-driven sacred arts performing projects including the following (proposed):

a) Prasad - A dance band along the lines of Jaya, lots of devotional lyrical content about Adi Da.

b) The Da Chorale - A singing ensemble dedicated to sacred performances of vocal music from many styles and traditions, including Indian chanting, Qawalli, Eurpopean classical, jazz, ambient, new age, the Beach Boys, the Mamas and the Papas, the Fifth Dimension, etc.; this would be a truly exalted vocal group singing and chanting Adi Da's Word, and material from the Great Tradition.

c) The Da Orchestra - The instrumental analog to the Da Chorale; world class musicians making original compositions for performance to support the Da Chorale and other singers, and to play great instrumental pieces suitable for accompaniment to Adi Da's video Discourses, Darshans and Image Art.

Ex. 3  Artists and performers who are devotees and advocates of Adi Da. For example: rock bands who invoke Adi Da's Divine Presence. Godsend (Daniel Joseph and band) have performed their original rock songs for audiences in North America. Swaybone (Theo Cedar Jones and band: http://www.myspace.com/swaybone) has released 3 albums of devotionally inspired rock songs praising Adi Da and Prior Unity. Bunnybunns Cedar Jones is working on a new album of devotional hip hop.

There is a pool of talented devotees who could become famous. What if Naamleela Free Jones became more famous? Or Tamarind Free Jones, or Jacqueline Clemons, or Aura Bakker, or Steve Brown, or Daniel Hebert, or Justin Griffiths? What if Wax (Ed Kowalczyk) re-approached and put his art into direct service to Adi Da? What if famous devotees made key connections to influential people, like Bono, Oprah or Obama, and those powerful individuals had a "conversion" or heart-response to Beloved Adi Da?

Ex 4. The continuing success of Adi Da's Art and Da Plastique. Stanley Hastings and the efforts of Da Plastique are a shining example of one "outward looking" part of Adidam which has been successful, and will always be one of the means of Adi Da's Emergence into the world.

Ex 5. Independent media campaigns. The mechanisms of global media, including everything from massive web marketing campaigns to outdoor billboards, are available for a price. There may arise a consortium of advocates and patrons, who recognize the ethical and public-health necessity of broadcasting Adi Da and the Global Cooperative Forum to millions, and may pursue this strategy in a spirit of "cooperative autonomy" vis-a-vis Adidam, and thereby, sufficiently free of the particular cultural constraints of Adidam to engage large-scale media strategies successfully (until such time as Adidam is prepared to engage worldwide media campaigns of its own.)

Ex 6. The Orpheus Guild will continue to develop new ways to bring Adi Da's Sacred Theatre to the public.

Ex 7. Bunnybunns Cedar Jones and Theo Cedar Jones have created a devotee-owned company called ego death productions (www.orangesky.org/egodeath), which is a portal to the various events, media campaigns and online merchandise outlets that are meant to help people find Beloved Adi Da and Not-Two Is Peace through the leela-art of His devotees. Ego death tithes 10% of its profits to Adi Da's Sacred Treasures.

Ex. 8 The 723 Temple: a refuge for everybody-all-at-once, prior unity, and tolerance for all forms of sacred expression. (http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?aid=78642&id=1268870236&fbid=1581951029881&ref=nf)
An "internal" strategy for Adidam

I believe that it is now essential for a new generation of public spokespeople to arise from within Adidam. These spokespersons would balance older (whiter) faces, with younger faces (6), and multi-hued faces. These would be "pure-warrior" and "heroic" types, who are capable of making their transparent confessions of devotion to Adi Da boldly and directly and artfully to the public, and even to very large numbers of people.

There will always be large numbers of people who will respond to charismatic spokespeople, and therefore, strong spokespeople are a critical part of Bhagavan's Means, including the audio, video, literary and pictorial Forms of Beloved Adi Da. These spokespersons are not necessarily "experts" in Adi Da's Dharma, or even particularly great Realizers of Adi Da, (though they can and should be), but they are sufficiently transparent and submitted to Heart Master Adi Da, that their unique talents will allow Him to ring through to large numbers of people.

The "power of the leela" (the stories of devotees' lives with Adi Da) is of unprecedented importance to the human race. But to unleash it, we will have to shatter the oedipal deathlock that grips Adidam, where authority remains in the hands of a small group of insider/old-timers, who have refused to cultivate and mentor oncoming generations of younger leaders within Adidam. Positive mentoring and cultivation of leadership will be a natural function of formally established Guilds and a robust Bright House culture within Adidam.

For our spokespersons to be properly "ready for the public", they must be equipped with the right training to respond to three of the principal foils of the Adi Da missionary, which are:

1. Reactive and "culturally superior" Christians.

2. The "scandalous" sexual history of Adi Da with His devotees.

3. The materialist and anti-Guru bias of the West.

Using Adi Da's Instruction specific to these three areas, along with roll playing, experimentation and self-rightening, spokespeople, advocates and missionaries will be better prepared for the "heavy lifting" required by their service.

We will also need to develop a clear-eyed strategy to deal with the "culture of resistance and suppression" within Adidam. This is something that has to be dealt with head-on. I believe there is no way to overcome patterns of resistance without utilizing a method of "matching energy". That is to say, a critical mass of devotees have to be willing to exert the energy required to overcome patterns of resistance in Adidam, without resorting to "unnecessary force". Patterns of resistance and suppression have a collective force, and an energy sufficient to match and overcome that force is absolutely required in order to break or bypass these destructive patterns of resistance and suppression. This also means that certain individuals who refuse to change patterns of suppression or resistance may need to be diverted into more benign areas of service, so that self-rightening can be allowed.

The culture and pattern of weakness, collapse and suppression within Adidam must be actively replaced with a culture that is based on measurable results of service, gifts and practice. There is a clear formula that Heart Master Adi Da gave us to measure quantifiably the effectiveness and authenticity of our practice, and that is:

1. The numbers of people seeing Adi Da, and

2. The numbers of people becoming devotees, and

3. The numbers of those retained among the ranks of participating devotees (i.e. retention).

If there is no sustained growth in all of these numbers, then it probably follows that the depth of our practice and service is not effective.
Bringing gifts to Adi Da is never-ending

Although Avatar Adi Da has left His physical body, it is still possible, and as urgent as ever, to bring gifts to His Feet. Some of the principal forms of gifting to Beloved Adi Da include the protection of and right service to His Sanctuaries and the Ruchira Sanyassin Order, as well as bringing new people to Adi Da through the Mission and the "parallel strategies".
How do we get started?

I offer these ideas and proposals for consideration within the Adidam Cooperative Forum, and with anybody who wishes to accomplish the two goals of sustained growth and self-rightening for Adidam, as well as to support and magnify all of Adi Da's Means and Agency in the world. These ideas and proposals are also offered to further the dissemination of the book Not-Two Is Peace (http://www.ispeace723.org), and Prior Unity throughout the world, as well as to help bring the Global Cooperative Forum into reality .

I invite you to join with me in this process at the soonest possible opportunity, for the sake of all beings on planet Earth, and in loving service and devotion to Adi Da Samraj.

November 11, 2011
"Super Communication"


Select notes on the Mission and the Global Cooperative Forum
by Adi Da Samraj

1. It has to be an event. It has to really get across, and has to use, in the highest professional terms, the technologies of communication that exist today. It has to get to people all over the world, and not just this little miniature domain of things as they have been in the gathering.

2. It's got to be done in this grand and most professional and profound sense, and get to everybody all over the world.

3. It is a theatrical event. And it is still extending Me into the world, but it is done through art.

4. This is the moment of opportunity. It’s about doing it through action. That is what is required of My devotees.

5. When My devotees show the sign of a no-growth Mission, it is proof that they do not recognize Who I Am.

6. The whole world is at ground zero now. This is the time for the new to be animated. Great energy for what needs to be accomplished reside in the generation now coming to adult maturity, whose vitality and mutual connectedness and impulse toward rightness need to be brought to bear in the big picture happening all over the world.

There must be an asctivist embrace of Prior Unity at every level of human life.

7. I must not fail, which means humankind must not fail.

8. Do not accept the status quo – only a few people coming to your events, only a few people responding.

9. The real missionary work touches vast numbers of people.

10. You have to sell the Way of the Heart by addressing and breaking through people’s resistance.

11. You are to sell the Way of the Heart, and the only way to know if you are doing that is to look at the statistics. This organization must train its missionaries and advocates to sell this Way of life to people in general and to patrons and communicators.

12. If you are not getting results, you must either provide further training or have someone else do it.

(from "Tell Everyone That I Am Here")


13. Humanity must accept its responsibility to manage itself as a globally interconnected total community – and (in the disposition of cooperation and tolerance) that total (or truly global) community must deal with the immense practical problems confronting the living world today (including overpopulation, disease, ecological and environmental problems, economic problems, and so forth).

14. The leaders who serve the cooperative global community must (without fail) preserve and protect the well-being of humankind (and of even all of Earthkind) as a whole, by really and consistently abandoning the self-centered, non-cooperative, and intolerant (or loveless) manner of life and the policies and activities that flow from it.

15. Let every one act on his or her heart-desire to preserve this world of Earth and its kinds of life.

16. Let every one act on his or her heart-yearning to serve the rightening of the world-civilization of human beings.

17. Do not allow this precious gift of human existence to be reduced, degraded, and annihilated.

18. Do not allow this precious world of Earth and Earthkind to be destroyed.

19. Preserve these gifts – by doing, and demanding, what is Right Life and Peace.

20. I offer you these Words as a Thorn of Warning and a Breath of New Life.

21. I Say all of this in Certain Love – for you, and for every one.

(from Eleutherios - 2001 Edition)


22. You must, yourself, become involved in intimate, cooperative community, with other human beings.

23. You can and must create your own politics – in intimate, cooperative association with your fellow human beings.

24. Without a community of responsible relationships and advanced cultural agreements, there can be no right politics.

25. True cooperative politics is a great human adventure, in which human beings are inherently obliged to realize their humanity as an ego-transcending discipline.

26. That is what Sacred Domain activity is about. It is a time of playing with one another responsively.


27. This is the moment when it will be decided what the future is going to be.

28. This next handful of years is the period in which this choice has to be animated, one way or the other.

29. The only power that can deal with these powers that are on the verge of destroying the world is everybody-all-at-once... a new cooperative system for dealing with issues.

30. On the basis of the "working-presumption" of prior unity, such a Global Cooperative Forum would deal with all the urgent issues that humankind hsa in common.

(From The Principles of the Global Cooperative Forum)


31. Each one who agrees with this Call of Mine to humankind must – from now, and forever hereafter – simply, actually, and consistently do what is necessary to communicate and serve this Call and to directly, practically, and positively address all the grave issues that humanity now faces.

32. You are the way to Me.

33. If the collective is failing, it is your business. Whatever is lacking in the institution, the culture, the community, and the mission, is your business, the business of every one of you. It is your obligation to make it work, because these are among the gifts you must bring to Me.

34. Stop being small.

(From "Tell everyone that I Am Here")

35. The Adidam Cooperative Forum is an everybody-all-at-once responsibility that covers all aspects of the "Bright"-House—the Global Ashram of all devotees, as individuals and collectively, and all the responsibilities they have been given to maintain.

Key Functions of the Adidam Cooperative Forum

1. Bringing tangible gifts to His Divine Presence, Avatar Adi Da Samraj

2. Mutual accountability between leadership and the gathering within Adidam (that is, between the leadership of the AdiDaSala, the Holy Domains, and The "Bright"-House Adidam and the gathering—the Adidam Samrajya is a separate entity that is under accountability via the Ruchira Sannyasin Order).

(From LMI #225)


What is there that must survive?
It is the Pleasure Dome context of life that must survive.
The core of life must be preserved as a Pleasure Dome of everything sacred
everything most profound
everything most intimate.
The entire environment of the heart is the Pleasure Dome.
That which Woman is
that which she incarnates
that which her pattern is about
requires mankind to be integrated with it as the core of life.
This fundamental transformation is something I am Calling for -
the restoration of the Pleasure Dome as the context of human life
the complete restoration of it
the liberation of the human disposition from the opposition to Woman
to Shakti
to feeling
to the art of all the senses
glorifying and turned toward the Divine condition of existence.
Done in temple done in bed done at meals done in human community.
The Pleasure Dome must be restored. You must have the Pleasure Dome, temple and all.
And then you will know what to do when you go to do business, when you go to the Parliament. You will go there to make sure the Pleasure Dome is preserved, because you all want to go back there tonite!

Adi Da Samraj

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