:confused: in the case(s) of any spiritual master or specifically in the case of self proclaimed god-man adi da, what happens when they die. since adi da claims that true "enlightenment" can ONLY be achieved through complete devotion to him, who takes over when he kicks? does he just pass the godship to someone else? how does that work?

First you get various factions forming as the guru gets feeble.

The guru will delay naming a successor for as long as possible, because it keeps everyone on tenterhooks and increases his power.

Either the guru does designate a successor before he dies, or fails to do so.

In either case, rival successors often step forward and there's a big fight over disciples, book publication rights, and the bank accounts.

Lets not forget the bank accounts.

Adi Da gives me the CREEPS!
I somehow got on their mailing list, and i often get these catalouges of stuff to buy.
All i can see is his big fat gut hanging out, and him sitting there faking being a fakir.

That guy is scary!

Sometimes these guru's followers sort of "fake" things around their death too. They say they consciously CHOSE to leave their body, and come up with some phony story.

I am waiting for a cult to make YEARS worth of videos of a Leader, and then they can keep him alive for decades after he has actually died. They could say he is "eternally young", and then keep the fake image alive for decades, while selling info on how to stay young forever and Ascend unto the Heavens, like the Christ Consciousness schtick, etc.

Who knows, maybe it is being done even now.

Coz

Good articles:

'The Strange Case of Franklin Jones'

[www.american-buddha.com]

'Lotus Feet of Clay: A Reluctant Mystic Looks at Spiritual Movements' by John Wren-Lewis

[www.google.com]

The author, a scientist named John Wren-Lewis, experienced enlightenment not as a result of virtue, or spiritual practice, but as a result of nearly dying from a dose of poison by someone who tried to rob him in Thailand.

Wren-Lewis found that this state took time to adjust to, and that he was a calmer, happier person--but only as long as he did not drift away from the experience. If he did so, he became subject to all the human frailties and ego fixations. He had no ambition to set up as a guru, and remained a scientist. And, as he wryly put it, he could not hold himself up as an example for others to follow, because he could not in conscience recommend that people endanger themselves by taking a near lethal dose of poison!

His insights about enlightenment and the social consequences of proclaiming oneself enlightened & attracting followers are highly valuable.

According the Wren-Lewis, the social problem with becoming an enlightened guru is it is a role that traps the person in an assymmetrical, dehumazing position.

When you're squatting on a pedestal, you are not free to make mistakes, own up to those mistakes, you cannot be questioned or challenged by others. ALl this means you stop growing, become flash frozen in the position you took when you 'became enlightened'.

Finally, an infallible enlightened guru surrounded by obsequious disciples is a prison-inmate of the enlightenment industry. His followers (rarely its a her), sacrifice so much on the guru's behalf, that they lack any incentive to question whether the guru, or by extension, their sacrifice, is worthwhile.

Dont be content to read just the excerpts below. The entire article is worth close attention.

Wren-Lewis writes: 'I know about this from personal experience; some of my worst lapses into impatience come when I'm wanting to get on with writing about God-consciousness! But because I'm not claiming to be a Master, no-one gets sucked in and I'm soon forced to come off it.

'When the Master-disciple relationship has been established,
disciples have to go along with the Master's rationalizations or
abandon the hope they've placed in him.

'My own reason for regarding the Master-concept as pernicious is that it imposes an almost irresistable temptation on guru and disciples alike to keep quiet about and/or rationalize away any experience that might detract from the guru's claim to infallible authority justifying surrender.

'The trouble is that once such a system is swallowed, the guru cannot admit to lapses without completely discrediting his claim to have any enlightenment to pass on. So from the highest possible motive, a sincere desire to share his God-consciousness, he is tempted to rationalize, probably even to himself.

Sexual advances toward attractive disciples become tantric exercises or studies of the chakras, a beer-belly (vide. Adi Dam) is due to the descent of shakti-power, outbursts of temper are to weaken disciples egos or to test their devotion, collection of money is needed for spreading the Word, gifts are accepted because the disciples wish to show their devotion, and so on through the whole hackneyed catalog.


'The classic illustration of this is the pathetic spectacle of spiritual movements insisting that reports of less-than-perfect behavior on the Master's part are either wicked lies put about by enemies or, if evidence cannot be denied, are explainable as the Master's deliberate attempts to shock followers out of uptightness with outrageous behavior, or test their capacity for total surrender. Before my near death experience I used to seize eagerly upon such scandel-stories as evidence that gurus were either frauds or madmen or both. Now I know the explanation is more complicated; a few frauds and madmen there may be, but I'm quite sure now that some of the teachers who've been involved in scandals do have firsthand experience of God-consciousness. Things they say or write, often some of their little stories, carry the ring of a truth that couldn't have been culled from secondhand sources.

'And for me as an outsider there is no conflict here. In the first place, I know from my own firsthand experience that God- consciousness doesn't abolish human appetites. When I'm in it I don't lose my taste for meat or wine or good company or humor or detective fiction--I actually enjoy them more than ever before. I don't cease to enjoy sexual feelings, nor do I see anything inherently dirty about money.'

Even though Wren-Lewis was convinced that he did nothing to become enlightened, I suggest that his entire career as a conscientious scientist, good citizen/subject of the UK, friend and spouse, prepared him, not for enlightenment, but to become a sane, humane and responsible custodian of such an experience.

Significantly, Wren-Lewis, had not been a 'seeker'. He had been an investigator, and his role models had been other scientists, and he was accustomed to asking and being asked hard questions, and submitted to the painful discipline of abandoning cherished hypotheses if they did not stand up to testing.

So enlightenment was not an object of craving or wish-fulfillment fantasy for Professor Wren-Lewis. It was a phenomenon that turned up in his life, affected him, and that he decided needed investigation, not veneration.

The best thing to do when investigating enlightenment is not prayer or fasting, but to read and master Carl Sagan's Baloney Detector

[www.xenu.net]

and resolve that, whether you're enlightened or not, you are determined to remain a human being, shoulder to shoulder with all human beings--not aspire to lord it over anyone or demand special priviliges at the expense of others.

Aghenanda Bharati's book The Light at the Center, cited by the authors of both articles is highly valuable. It was published in 1976 and went out of print very quickly, probably because it kicked and barbecued too many sacred cows.

If you are at all interested in 'enlightenment', yoga and especially if you think you want to go to India and find a guru, you would do very well to get a copy of Bharati's book. He may upset you and anger you, but his information will help you avoid many pitfalls.

A guru I followed for years, "Sri Mataji Nirmala Devi," is reputed to have mouth Cancer. She is about 80 years old now, and in probably not going to be around much longer.

Ironically, she would tell us (duped cult members) that anyone who spoke falsely or uttered words against the divine would get terrible diseases associated with that chakra (Visshudi).

Now here she is with mouth Cancer.

And I understand she has asked a world council to convene in order to plan the direction in which her cult, Sahaja Yoga, will go upon her death. Word has it one of her daughters will take over the empire.

Send your gold bullion to the next of kin. Enlightenment will be yours.

Or not.