The Pandit: Standing on the Shoulders of the Sat-Guru Pandit: Standing on the Shoulders of the...

The Pandit: Standing on the Shoulders of the Sat-Guru

The Influence of Adi Da Samraj on the First Books of Ken Wilber

By Brad Reynolds

he integral pandit Ken Wilber listed Sat-Guru Adi Da Samraj’s first three books

(published in 1972, 1973, 1974) in his first book The Spectrum of Consciousness

(published in 1977).1 Along with his second book, this phase is now what scholars and

students know as Wilber/Phase-1 or Phase-1 writings, so-named because they still make

the “pre/trans fallacy,” one of Wilber’s later great insights.2 In Wilber’s second book, No

Boundary: Eastern and Western Approaches to Personal Growth (published in 1979),

also a Phase-1 book, he referenced Adi Da’s Conscious Exercise and the Transcendental

Sun (first edition published in 1974), as well as the Sat-Guru’s magnum opus aptly titled

The Enlightenment of the Whole Body (published in 1978). On the last page of this

popular second book (still in print), a favorite among psychologists to give their patients,

the pandit simply declared: “The works of Bubba Free John [Adi Da] are unsurpassed….

May you be graced to find a spiritual master in this life and enlightenment in the

moment.”3 It’s a justified endorsement coming from the new voice (at that time) in

transpersonal psychology who had seamlessly integrated the types of psychologies and

1 Adi Da’s first three books were The Knee of Listening (1972), The Method of the Siddhas (1973), first published

as Franklin Jones, and then Garbage and the Goddess (1974), published as Bubba Free John; Ken Wilber’s first

two Phase-1 books were The Spectrum of Consciousness (1977) and No Boundary (1979). 2 See my book reviewing Wilber’s writings and “phases”: Embracing Reality: The Integral Vision of Ken Wilber: A

Historical Survey and Chapter-by-Chapter Guide to Wilber’s Major Works (2004, Tarcher/Penguin; 2012,

Paragon House e-book) by Brad Reynolds. 3 Ken Wilber, No Boundary (1979), p. 160 (last page).

T

The Pandit: Standing on the Shoulders of the Sat-Guru (2015) by Brad Reynolds

2

therapies from both Western and Eastern sources—from psychoanalysis to Zen, Gestalt

to TM, existentialism to tantra.

No Boundary culminated with a chapter titled “The Ultimate State of

Consciousness,” while The Spectrum of Consciousness ended with a chapter named “That

Which Is Always Already,” both being about Enlightenment or God-Realization as seen

from the Western (scientific, i.e., psychological) and Eastern (mystical) perspectives.

Author Year Books

Adi Da Samraj 1972, 1973,

1974,1978

Ken Wilber 1977, 1979

This clear recognition and sincere acknowledgement by the integral pandit of the

stature of the Sat-Guru as being “unsurpassed” is what I believe helps give Ken Wilber’s

early writings (including his following Phase-2 and Phase-3 books) some of their unique

enlightening power—and, in a certain sense, possibly makes them even more profound

and enlightened in their overall message than his later AQAL (Phase-4) writings. For the

pandit also, when reflecting back years later on his early books, has said, “That ‘always

already’ is so forcefully stated in this first work is still somewhat amazing to me; but


3

then, not really.”4 It’s not really so surprising since Wilber was deeply attracted to the

enlightening wisdom of Adi Da Samraj’s first books, which used the revelation and

phrase of “always already” or “always already the case” to refer to the Divine Reality (of

Real God); it is one of the Sat-Guru’s principle communications of the Enlightened State.

Adi Da wrote about his first clear recognition of this natural awareness (or Enlightened

State) while attending Columbia University in the early 1960s (importantly, this

awakening was not related to the drug use of the Sixties):

In that great moment of awakening I knew the truth was not a matter of

seeking. There were no “reasons” for joy and freedom…. In this state beyond

all contradiction I also saw that freedom and joy is not attained, that it is not

dependent on any form, object, idea, progress or experience. I saw that we are,

at any moment, always and already free. I knew that I was not lacking

anything I needed yet to find, nor had I ever been without such a thing. The

problem was seeking itself, which created and enforced contradiction, conflict

and absence within. Then the idea arose that I am always already free.5

For a human being to be “always already free,” contradicts the widespread but

mistaken spiritual idea that you need to seek for God, to submit to arduous tasks of

ascetic (and yogic) disciplines to know the truth of the Divine Reality (or the Godhead).

As Adi Da realized, “You are what is always, already in relationship to whatever arises.”6

Therefore, he continued, “The man who understands, who is always already free, is never

4 Ken Wilber, “Introduction to Volume One,” The Collected Works of Ken Wilber, Volume One (1999), p. xi. 5 Adi Da Samraj, The Knee of Listening (1972), p. 15. 6 Adi Da Samraj, The Knee of Listening (1972), p. 200.


4

touched by the divisions of the mind.”7 It’s a perfect integration of the oneness or prior

unity of interiors and exteriors, of the mind and body, heart and truth, of Spirit and

reality, of God and the world, of Nirvana and samsara. From the start, Wilber recognized

this unique quality in Adi Da’s writings, for the root of his attraction (indeed, the root of

the Sat-Guru’s Teaching altogether) seemed to be in how effortlessly the young “Franklin

Jones” (Adi Da’s name at the time, and ten years Wilber’s senior) could express this

profound paradox. When someone realizes this Enlightened State, they usually end up

speaking in the language of mystics, as did Adi Da but with an eloquence and beauty

rarely equaled: “I am the one who always and already exists, enjoying his own form as all

conditions and states.”8 The young pandit was deeply impressed and immediately took

notice, as have many other people serious about genuine spirituality when they read the

remarkable writings of the Avataric Sage Adi Da Samraj.

However, it’s also important to note that by the time Wilber had written out The

Spectrum of Consciousness in the winter of 1973, the pandit’s reliance on the Teachings

of the Sat-Guru was still minimal, but nevertheless profound and enlightening. Mostly he

had gained his insights for his groundbreaking “spectrum psychology” from his extensive

research and reading across all the available literature of East and West. I’m suggesting,

therefore, that the works of the Sat-Guru helped bring together in a unifying fashion the

pandit’s entire enterprise with a focus he might not have otherwise attained, especially

with the important emphasis on Enlightenment as being “always already the case.” Yet,

without doubt, the “spectrum of consciousness” model was purely the innovation of Ken

7 Adi Da Samraj, The Knee of Listening (1972), p. 226. 8 Adi Da Samraj, The Knee of Listening (1972), p. 266.


5

Wilber alone, although many philosophical and psychological giants influenced him

along the way, from Western geniuses to Eastern mystics. By the time Wilber began

“writing” his first book in his head during the winter of ’72, it had only been a few

months since the Sat-Guru had published his first book, The Knee of Listening (in

August), so the pandit had yet to discover it and incorporate its teachings and radical

message. But it would not be long before Adi Da’s influence would make its mark.

Apparently, Wilber saw The Knee of Listening for the first time after he had

visited his first living Zen Master, Roshi Philip Kapleau (author of The Three Pillars of

Zen) at a health spa in Mexico in the early Seventies. Wilber tells the

humorous leela of “The Scorpion and the Zen Master” in his

Biography Project, Life Footnotes, Volume One, about how a

dangerous scorpion entered the room where several students were

sitting in zazen meditation, yet no one knew what to do as the

poisonous arthropod scooted across the floor. The Roshi, however, didn’t hesitate for a

moment when with one whack of his sandal he killed the scorpion dead in its tracks —

perfect Zen action of no-mind. However, what he doesn’t tell in the Biography Project

interview (but shared with me once during a phone conversation) is that on his way home

he swung through San Francisco to visit some friends in the Castro District. While sitting

in a hot tub with two gay friends, they told him about this amazing new teacher they had

discovered, and thus introduced him to The Knee of Listening. Accordingly, Ken told me,


6

he had “never read anything that spoke so true.”9 Forty years later, in an interview with

Terry Patten, Wilber conceded the same feeling-response:

When I read The Knee of Listening I just fell apart. It was stunning. Probably

had as big an impact on me as any single book… along with, of course,

everybody’s most influential beloved guy, Ramana Maharshi. But the original

version of The Knee of Listening was stunning, I mean, it changed me

profoundly.10

By the winter of 1973, when Wilber finally wrote out The Spectrum in longhand,

about half a year after Adi Da had released his second book, The Method of the Siddhas

(published in July), the pandit had already formulated his basic concepts for the “levels”

in “the spectrum of consciousness.” In other words, Adi Da’s Teaching had been a

minimal influence on Wilber’s overall spectrum psychological theories at that time, yet

he did emphasize the Sat-Guru’s radical message about the self-contraction. Although

buried in a footnote, recognizing the self-contraction has remained a fundamental premise

in all of Wilber’s subsequent writings (such as with his current “primordial avoidance”):

We should note here that the Existential Level, as the embodiment of the

Primary and Secondary dualisms, is very much a cramp or perturbation, the

cramp or perturbation, lying at the root of man’s “self”-identity. Further, it is

this cramp, which Benoit calls a spasm and Franklin Jones [Adi Da] calls a

contraction, that is the fundamental motor of all man’s activities. And the fuel

9 Ken Wilber, personal communication to author, August 30, 1995. 10 Ken Wilber recorded interview, Bay Area Integral (BAI) with Terry Patten and Dustin DiPerna, January

2015, 19:53.


7

for this motor is one type only: the desire to return to the Garden, to reunite

with God, which is, of course, God’s desire to find himself.11

The self-contraction, the image of egoic activity that

the Sat-Guru calls “Narcissus” (symbolically represented by

the clinched fist), became embedded in all of the pandit’s

work from then on. This gives Wilber’s work a radical

profundity that exceeds all other psychological models

(which themselves don’t understand they too are seeking for

wholeness instead of realizing it). Attempting to express the level of nondual

Enlightenment (symbolically represented by an open hand), the last chapter of The

Spectrum of Consciousness is titled “That Which Is Always Already” (after Adi Da’s

phrase). This clearly shows that the Sat-Guru offered an enlightened confirmation to what

Wilber’s initial approach in integrating Eastern mysticism and Western science was

bringing to fruition. In his first groundbreaking book, the pandit simply referenced The

Knee of Listening by explaining, “‘It is always already the

case’ is a phrase used extensively by Franklin Jones [Adi

Da Samraj].”12 The pandit, in other words, from the very

beginning always noted that Adi Da was already

Enlightened and was one of the spiritual giants upon

whom his own work would stand.

11 Ken Wilber, The Spectrum of Consciousness (1977), p. 157, 37n. 12 Ken Wilber, The Spectrum of Consciousness (1977), p. 343, 36n.


8

Therefore, it seems irrefutable that Wilber relied on the radical clarification being

provided by Adi Da’s Realization and Teaching to buttress his final chapters in both of

his first two books. These concluding chapters were intended to be transcendental

summaries of the preceding ones that covered the “lower” levels of human development

(that of psychology and the mind). This is because in many of Wilber’s books he tends to

address the lower conscious and subconscious/unconscious levels of human development

first, covered so well by Western psychology, and then “adds on” the “higher”

transpersonal levels so adeptly covered by Eastern mysticism (and esoteric spirituality in

general, East or West, North or South).

Wilber took this approach in his later phases as well. For instance, both books

Sex, Ecology, Spirituality and A Brief History of Everything (published in 1995 and 1996,

respectively) ended with a nondual reminder eloquently rendered as beautiful mystical

musings. The Eye of Spirit (published in 1997), a wonderful collection of integral essays,

would close with a chapter again titled “Always Already: The Brilliant Clarity of Ever-

Present Awareness.” Thus, beginning with Phase-1 of his career,

the Western-educated pandit set a template where he first cleverly

integrates the potentials of human development along a unified

“spectrum of consciousness” (or AQAL Matrix) with each

bandwidth (or “altitude”) addressing a different “level” or

“structure” or stage (or state) of human possibility. But then he

usually ends his books with a free expression of the enlightened state of awareness that

“transcends but includes” all previous levels as the nondual expression of One


9

Consciousness. It’s a powerful approach, grounded in the pandit’s own spiritual

awakening and intellectual brilliance.

But what is “It” that is “always already the case”? It is Reality Itself — which for

Adi Da is “the Heart” taking the form of “Amrita Nadi,” the immortal current of Divine

Love-Bliss that is the ineffable Absolute Light (or the “Bright”) of all existence (and all

possible universes), circulating from the heart (on the right side) to the Light above the

head. It is an esoteric matter of the highest yoga, the secret essence of all religions and

the deepest insight of all Spiritual Sages; it’s ineffable but can be realized as “the Feeling

of Being” (another phrase of Adi Da’s used by Ken Wilber). But it is also a truth that

everyone intuits in his or her own heart, for, after all, it is always already the case, it is

the Truth of God, it is Reality. Thus it cannot be gained or acquired, but only realized, for

it’s always already true, always already real. This tacit understanding — knowing your

“own true nature” (as Zen says) — is realized by what Adi Da calls the Man or Woman

of Radical Understanding. The Sat-Guru brilliantly affirmed these revelations in less than

three hundred pages in his first published work, The Knee of Listening (1972, 2004),

which also confirmed what Sri Ramana Maharishi had been teaching earlier in the

twentieth-century about Amrita Nadi, as these several passages show:

The Heart is the Guru. The Amrita Nadi [or Atma Nadi] is his Form. The bliss of

unqualified enjoyment is his Teaching. The knowledge of all this is liberation and

freedom. The enjoyment of all this is Reality. The existence of all this is Truth. The

activity of all of this is Understanding, And understanding is real life.13

13 Adi Da Samraj, The Knee of Listening (1972), p. 197.


10

To know what arises in truth is simply to be in relationship to what arises. To

be in relationship to what arises is the simple, unqualified action and nature of the

Heart. Thus, Understanding is simply to be in relationship to what arises, and not

to be confused in what arises by process of identification, differentiation, or

desire.14

There is only unqualified relationship realized in enquiry to be already the

case. This realization is simply consciousness as the Amrita Nadi, the form of

reality, and it is experienced as the “Bright,” the unconditional bliss of presence,

of Perfect Knowledge, whose source is the heart, reality itself. Therefore, the

“Bright” is the form of that reality which is consciousness. It is true and real, the

birthright of all existence.15

This is the Heart-Master’s Call, the Sat-Guru’s Declaration, which has touched

tens of thousands (or more) so far, including the famous integral pandit. As a

consequence, Wilber titled his first book’s last chapter as a deep bow of respect to the

radical clarification given by Adi Da at the beginning of both their publishing careers. In

this concluding chapter, the twenty-something Wilber summarized with a scholarly

acumen rarely matched in reviewing the Enlightenment Tradition of humankind, arising

from both Eastern and Western sources, as these several passage demonstrate:

Now precisely because Mind [i.e., Consciousness] is everywhere and

everywhen, because it is always already the case, there is no possibility or even

meaning in “trying to find It” or in “trying to reach It,” for that would imply a

14 Adi Da Samraj, The Knee of Listening (1972), p. 204. 15 Adi Da Samraj, The Knee of Listening (1972), p. 193 [italics added].


11

movement from a place where [Consciousness] is absent to a place where it is

present—but there is no place where is it absent.16

Brahman [Real God] is not a particular experience, level of consciousness or

state of soul—rather it is precisely whatever level you happen to have now, and

realizing this confers upon one a profound center of peace that underlies and

persists throughout the worst depressions, anxieties, and fears.17

Put simply, that in you right now which knows, which sees, which reads this

page—that is the Godhead, Mind, Brahman, and it cannot be seen or known as an

object, just as an eye cannot see it itself.18

In other words, it is the [nondual] mode of knowing, knowing all without

separation from any. And one instant of this pure awareness is itself

[Consciousness]. Whether we realize it or not, it is always already the case [here

Wilber footnotes The Knee of Listening].19

Both men were pointing to Divine Enlightenment, to nondual awareness, to God-

Realization, by whatever name. But one of them was to become a channel of

psychological philosophy laced with more adequate (and integral) translations, the other

set out to transform the world, one devotee at a time. Together they became like-minded

souls sent by God to bring light into the staggering darkness of an unenlightened

humanity by first recognizing that understanding the ego-I as an activity of self-

16 Ken Wilber, The Spectrum of Consciousness (1977), last chapter “That Which Is Always Already,” p. 299

[italics added]; Wilber uses “Mind,” which is really Consciousness, in the context of Buddhist translations

from that period in history. 17 Ken Wilber, The Spectrum of Consciousness (1977), last chapter “That Which Is Always Already,” p. 298. 18 Ken Wilber, The Spectrum of Consciousness (1977), last chapter “That Which Is Always Already,” p. 305. 19 Ken Wilber, The Spectrum of Consciousness (1977), last chapter “That Which Is Always Already,” p. 315

[italics added].


12

contraction is the true “method” to undo the search for God, to release the dilemma of

seeking and avoiding the always already God-in-the-Moment that humankind incessantly

suffers from. As the pandit perfectly ended his first book:

To completely awaken to the Now, to awaken from the nightmare of history,

is to suffer the death of the future-less Present… this Great Death, this total

dying to the future by seeing Now-only… Yet every moment is this moment,

for there is no other, and hence in this moment we are always already

suffering “instant death” and thus we are always already awakening to that

which has no future… and hence to that which is Unborn, and therefore to that

which is Undying. Always already suffering death Now, we are always

already living eternally. The search is always already over.20

This seems, in essence, to echo the brilliance found on the last pages of the Sat-Guru’s

first book as well:

The Man of Understanding is not entranced. He is not elsewhere. He is not

having an experience. He is not passionless and inoffensive. He is awake. He

is present. He knows no obstruction in the form of mind, identity,

differentiation and desire. He is passionate. His quality is an offense to those

who are entranced, elsewhere, contained in the mechanics of experience,

asleep, living as various forms of identity, separation and dependence. He is

acceptable only to those who understand.

Thus, the Man of Understanding is constantly happy with you. He is

overwhelmed with happiness. He says to you: See how there is only this world

of perfect enjoyment, where everyone is happy, and everything is blissful. His

20 Ken Wilber, The Spectrum of Consciousness (1977), p. 339.


13

heart is always tearful with the endless happiness of the world.... He smiles at

you. You notice it. Everything has already died. This is the other world.21

My reading-scholarship suggests it is the middle section

in The Knee of Listening called “The Wisdom of Understanding”

that must have reinforced the last chapter of Wilber’s first book,

for this is where Adi Da extensively used the phrase “always

already” in relation to radical understanding. Wilber would take

this message to heart, and within a few more years his own satori

or awakening in the late 1970s (at a Zen meditation retreat) proved its profound

authenticity and helped resolve an intellectually unsolvable paradox for the pandit (that

became known as the “pre-trans fallacy”). In this section of his first book, the Sat-Guru

beautifully describes the wisdom he gained from a radical understanding of the

contracting activity of the separate self, the avoidance of relationship and the self’s

refusal to love. This radical (meaning “root” or “most fundamental”) understanding, in

turn, allows for the transcendence of all forms of seeking (or the common dilemma in all

people). This is the principle “Argument” of the Sat-Guru:

We are never at any moment in the dilemma we fear ourselves to be. Only this

radical understanding in the heart of life is the ground of real peace and joy.

All else is seeking and strife and fear. Therefore, it is not a matter that

concerns us exclusively, apart from anything else. It is not an alternative to

any experience. It is always already the case. This radical understanding is the

only real liberation, and it alone is the truth and realization of this moment.22

21 Adi Da Samraj, The Knee of Listening (1972), “The Epilogue,” p. 271. 22 Adi Da Samraj, The Knee of Listening (1972), pp. 224-225.


14

In Wilber’s second book, as another example, the last chapter of No Boundary

(1979) titled “The Ultimate State of Consciousness” credits both Roshi Suzuki’s popular

book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (1970) and The Knee of

Listening (1972) as being its basic inspiration.23 On the last page

of No Boundary, the pandit recommends (along with other

spiritual teachers) the Sat-Guru’s book The Enlightenment of the

Whole Body (1978), where he, as already mentioned, concedes

without qualification: “The works of Bubba Free John [Adi Da

Samraj] are unsurpassed.”24 By the time of EWB, this had become practically irrefutable

(among those familiar with Adi Da’s literature), leading the pandit to pen several strong

endorsements over the coming years. Indeed, in the last sentence of his second book, the

pandit prayerfully confesses: “May you be graced to find a

spiritual master in this life and enlightenment in the

moment.”25 Wilber was always from the very beginning of his

career, in other words, motivated to move from theoria

(theory) to praxis (practice), as he summarizes: “Spiritual

practice is not one activity among other human activities; it is

the ground of all human activities, their source and their

23 Ken Wilber, No Boundary (1979, Boulder, CO: Shambhala Publications), Preface, p. iii. 24 Ken Wilber, No Boundary (1979, Boulder, CO: Shambhala Publications), p. 160. 25 Ken Wilber, No Boundary (1979, Boulder, CO: Shambhala Publications), p. 160.


15

validation.”26 This clear understanding was, no doubt, stimulated in part by the Sat-

Guru’s insistence on sadhana or genuine spiritual life and devotion in order to engage the

transcendence of the self-contraction (or the ego-I), in addition to the pandit’s own Zen

training and deep appreciation of the world’s wisdom traditions.

Without question, as we’ll continue to see, the Sat-Guru Adi Da Samraj has been

a major influence on the pandit Ken Wilber from the start of his career, although they

both had different agendas regarding the purpose of their work. One was a Sat-Guru, the

other a pandit. This means, for one, the Sat-Guru is more concerned with a

transformation that radically transcends evolution in the spectrum of consciousness,

while the pandit is more concerned with an integral or authentic translation or

stabilization in a particular stage or “altitude” along the spectrum (e.g., the integral-

centaur stage or “turquoise” level). This difference in approach has occurred for justified

reasons, as I hope to show in this book. Most simply (and obviously), one is a brilliant

intellectual pandit, the other a radiantly bright Sat-Guru.

Showing that his own wisdom (and integral model) went beyond the goals of

modern psychology, Wilber long ago recognized that “we need to understand the process

which gives rise to conceptualization so we can cut it off at its root source.”27 But how do

“we” or “I” actually do that? How do we get there (enlightenment) from here (ego)? The

answer is clear: we need to understand or re-cognize (or “know again”) our own activity

of self-contraction, our narcissistic tendency to be self-involved, to have our identity with

the ego-I dominate our experience of the world. In Adi Da’s terms, this is “Hearing” his

26 Ken Wilber, No Boundary (1979, Boulder, CO: Shambhala Publications), p. 160. 27 Ken Wilber, The Spectrum of Consciousness (1977), p. 310.


16

Teaching Argument in the Way of Radical Understanding. Thus, as the pandit too

realizes: “Strictly speaking, we cannot enter Eternity, since Eternity is ever-present,” or

that “we will find It Now, or we will find It not at all.”28 But how do “we” actually do

that (i.e., “find It”) since “we” (or “I”) is what is always obstructing this Realization (of

Eternity) in the first place by the activity of self-contraction? As the Sat-Guru already

explained, “freedom and joy is not attained” — so then how is it realized? The pandit, in

his first book, does offer some suggestions, such as with Benoit’s “inner gesture of

vigilant awareness,” or advice from Krishnamurti; today Wilber proposes an “integral life

practice.”29

Now, of course, in the opening decades of the 21st-century the pandit has created

an entire integral movement addressing this concern. However, none of these methods

will really work, even with the sophisticated versions of AQAL, for, in the end, they’re

still methods of seeking, techniques of self-improvement (or egoic-enhancement), not

self-surrender (or egoic-transcendence). Hence, Wilber noted this paradoxical difficulty

from his first book: “We must disperse (or rather see through) the fictitious primary

dualism [Narcissus] and thus awaken the second mode of knowing, our nondual and non-

conceptual awareness, for that and that alone will reveal Reality, which is always already

the case.”30 Absolutely correct; according to both Sat-Guru and pandit.

Although he never committed himself to Satsang in the Sat-Guru’s Company, the

pandit had undoubtedly “heard” the radical truth and teaching of Adi Da Samraj.

28 Ken Wilber, The Spectrum of Consciousness (1977), p. 307 [italic added]. 29 See: Ken Wilber, Terry Patten, et al, Integral Life Practice: A 21st-Century Blueprint for Physical Health,

Emotional Balance, Mental Clarity, and Spiritual Awakening (2008, Boston & London: Integral Books). 30 Ken Wilber, The Spectrum of Consciousness (1977), p. 317.


17

Throughout his entire career Wilber would continue to justify and explain the process of

Radical Understanding with his own intellectual acumen and integral terms, the proper

profession for any genuine pandit. He has not wavered in his dedication to build a bridge

to enlightened understanding for the world of unenlightened humanity, which itself

operates on lesser levels (or stages and states) of consciousness development. “Integral”

has become the pandit’s method, while the Sat-Guru remains true to Satsang and

Enlightenment Only (or the “seventh stage of life”). Nonetheless, both men are among

the world’s most brilliant expositors of esoteric spirituality based on an awakened heart

founded within a direct and personal Realization of God (or Ultimate Reality). To them

both we, as spiritual practitioners, shall remain eternally grateful, while also recognizing

they each offer different approaches. Yet, in many ways, they are both intimately

intertwined and philosophically linked since both their teachings emerged during the last

decades of the recent millennium and the opening years of the new one.

But the question for the Ages still remains: how do “we” or “I” actually awaken

to our ever-present awareness that is always already the case? Since Wilber is wise

enough to know that philosophical “maps” alone will not do this (including his current

AQAL model) — for “the map is not the territory” — we can only agree. But where

Wilber fails to provide adequate methods other than years of integral life practice and

meditation, I would like to assert that only an authentic relationship with an Enlightened

Siddha-Guru freely offers this Awakening Grace. Just by coming into the Company of

the Avatar-Adept or Sat-Guru you can connect with Adi Da’s Enlightened Transmission

so you may know God directly, for real. But first you must give him your attention; listen

to his teaching; look into what he has to offer you. This is the “method” of Satsang or


18

that which awakens a person to the Truth that is always already the case via the energy

transmission of an Awakened Adept (even now after his death this is possible). Then

sadhana or spiritual practice becomes a possibility in response to this awakening, yet

done without seeking and as a living relationship with the Divine Love-Bliss (or

“Conscious Light”) that is indeed “always already the case.”

This is how Truth is revealed without seeking: being in the Company of the Sat-

Guru, the Awakened Adept, and this has always been the esoteric “secret” hidden in all

the world’s religious traditions (for they too all originate with a primary Spiritual

Master). It’s not realized by reading books, making sophisticated maps and models,

becoming integral (or a “centaur” or “turquoise”), or by becoming more evolved or

knowledgeable, or even becoming “Superhuman” (a recent promotion of Wilber’s).

Simply being an enlightened human being, happy and awake, will do perfectly well. Thus

it’s by coming into the company of the wise, sitting at the feet of an Enlightened Sage,

that we help ourselves the most, as all the scriptures universally declare. Only Satsang as

God-Realization Here-Now is always already Free to reveal the truth of our Divine

Condition. It’s available for everybody-all-at-once, if we turn to our Divine Help given in

the form of Sat-Guru Adi Da Samraj (or another appropriate Enlightened Master).

As stated, Adi Da’s influence helped give Wilber’s integral work some of its

incredible enlightening power and potency, from the very beginning, providing radical

insight into the activity of the self and its “self-contraction,” as I just explained. Many

have indeed wondered how such a young man (who was less than thirty years old) could

be so adequate to such an all-encompassing enlightened understanding. But Ken Wilber

was being served by all the enlightened Masters of the planet’s past through translations


19

and sacred texts, as well as by those living in his day, such as with his Zen roshis and via

Adi Da Samraj, in particular. Thus, truly, both geniuses — the Sat Guru and the Pandit —

were shining brightly in their own fields of expertise at the end of the second millennium

opening into a new era of enlightened understanding. We owe them both a great debt of

gratitude and praise for their enlightening insights beyond the modern mind of scientific

materialism and philosophical reductionism.

Nevertheless, I suggest it’s no mere coincidence that by the mid-1970s, before his

first book was even published, Ken Wilber had already read each of Adi Da’s

unprecedented first three books, some of the most powerful spiritual treatises ever

written. He even took correspondence classes with the Sat-Guru’s Ashram, already

showing an adequate adeptness in his understanding beyond the ordinary student.31 Thus

the American Adept’s Teachings radiated an underlying and unifying force behind the

integrity of Wilber’s written work when he debuted his spectrum of consciousness model

in the mid-1970s (and into the future). Yet, since Wilber does not quote Adi Da directly,

but only mentions him and lists his books in the bibliography, it’s better to see the Sat-

Guru’s influence as an enlightening force of support, not the sole guiding light.

As explained, I freely acknowledge that Ken Wilber did not exclusively rely on

the Sat-Guru’s Teachings to generate his integral East-West synthesis. Far from it;

Wilber’s integral model was a natural product of his own genius based upon the

integration of hundreds of researchers, East and West, all of whom he read extensively

and quoted with a savant-like memory (Wilber’s IQ is supposedly off the scales). Wilber,

31 See: Ken Wilber recorded interview, Bay Area Integral (BAI) with Terry Patten and Dustin DiPerna,

January 2015, where they speak about Wilber’s correspondence classes with instructor William Tsiknas

(one of Adi Da’s senior devotees).


20

like any genuine genius, was standing on the shoulders of many previous giants in

humanity’s wisdom tradition. In his first few books (and articles published in esteemed

professional psychology journals), the pandit mostly addressed the integration of the

Western schools of psychology embraced by his own intuitive insight into the underlying

“Unity Consciousness” (in his words), which was revealed to him by his own experiential

practices of meditation, and specifically, by his Zen training. Yet, the free heart of

expression given by Adi Da’s brilliant writings, from the very beginning, inspired and

informed Wilber’s own genius. That seems irrefutable, especially when considering the

unmitigated praise Wilber lavishes upon Adi Da and his published works during the next

decade. (His later modified recants are the subject for another essay).

Overall, to be clear, Adi Da’s free expression of God-Realization mostly appears

to have confirmed Wilber’s integral synthesis from the perspective of an Enlightened

Realizer, an accomplishment that exceeds even Wilber’s own high level of development.

Plus, as Wilber has always said, he himself is merely “a pandit, not a guru,” whereas Adi

Da Samraj is only a guru, a Sat-Guru, a Mahasiddha, an Enlightened Realizer who not

only transforms individuals but who has also begun to change the course of religious

history on this planet.

Nevertheless, as inspired as the pandit seemed to be by the Sat-Guru’s radical

truth that we’re always already free, he still did not seem to fully “hear” the message that

to undermine the tendency to seek for truth a person must establish a living relationship

with a Sat-Guru (or Awakened Adept) in Satsang. This is an important requirement long-

held by the world’s wisdom traditions, and one that should not be overlooked, even in the

modern (and postmodern) era. Since for Adi Da the Way of Radical Understanding “is


21

not a synthesis of the ways of seeking,”32 but a way of living the truth of ever-present

God-Realization by transcending the self-contraction and fulfilling one’s divine destiny.

Adi Da is quite clear this intellectual tendency to make maps or models, to generate

philosophy and methods of salvation (even evolutionary and progressive ones), must be

thoroughly transcended in the heart of Real God-Realization. He has made this clear from

his very first book:

The trend to “synthesis” is only a synthesis of the kinds of seeking. It

adapts the various separate activities of the great search to an inclusive

philosophy and technique. But it remains a form of seeking….

The Way of Understanding, as it developed in my case, is not a synthesis

of the ways of seeking. It is a single, direct and radical approach to life. And

that approach is itself, from the beginning, entirely free from dilemma and

search. It has nothing to do with the various motivations of the great search.

From the beginning, it rests in the primary enjoyment and truth that all

seeking pursues.33

This is not surprising. The pandit is obviously a brilliant philosopher, an integral

synthesizer, and this is an important function, but Wilber is not an enlightened Guru

calling people into a transformative relationship of spiritual awakening. The pandit’s

work will not set you free — for you are always already free — thus it too creates its own

set of illusions and complexities by being less than Divine Enlightenment. The Integral

Vision, in other words, for all it has to recommend it (which is much) is still just another

form of seeking, one of map-making and “figuring it all out” that still needs to be

32 Adi Da Samraj, The Knee of Listening (1972), p. 166. 33 Adi Da Samraj, The Knee of Listening (1972), p. 166.


22

transcended (and included) in the all-embracing wisdom of Divine Communion. It’s fine

to have “maps” and “methods” to better understand the relative facts of the universe

(such as with science), and even to use “myths” and religions to give us moral support in

proper social behavior, for instance. But to know the truth of Absolute Reality, Real God,

the Supreme Self (or Divine Person) is the only true way to liberation and Enlightenment,

to real love practiced as an all-embracing compassion. We must begin there, for it’s

always already here.

The scholar-pandit, in other words, is just the finger pointing to the moon; the

Guru is the moon, or better, the light reflected on the moon. One (the pandit) transmits

education; the other (the Sat-Guru) transmits Holy Spirit. One pursues the immanent; the

other embodies the transcendent. Thus, this is where the two part company: one

translates, the other transforms; the pandit encourages better horizontal adaptation and

integration; the Sat-Guru initiates vertical transcendence as ever-present God-

Communion in Satsang, respectively. While we can embrace both for their specific

function and service to humankind, for both men are unmatched in human history, it’s

still up to each of us to recognize their differences in order to decide what path or

“method” offers us the richer opportunity for actually discovering, waking up to, and then

growing up within That Divine Reality which is in fact “always already the case.” I

suspect both men will be extremely useful for anyone and everyone for a long time to

come. But Grace leans in the direction of Enlightenment pointing us towards the original

source of the always already Enlightened Teaching and Transmission of the Heart.

The Pandit: Standing on the Shoulders of the Sat-Guru Pandit: Standing on the Shoulders of the...

Documents

Transcript of The Pandit: Standing on the Shoulders of the Sat-Guru Pandit: Standing on the Shoulders of the...