Mahasamadhi???

[...oneLove]

Mahasamadhi is the state of consciously leaving one's body. A realised yogi who has attained the state of Nirvikalpa Samadhi, will when timely, consciously exit from the body. This is known as Mahasamadhi.

From what I've read Frank never saw it coming! How does that qualify him? Falling over on his side suffering a massive heart attack does not sound like a conscious decision to leave the body.

The picture taken the day before his death (posted on Beezone) shows him looking a little rough...



...oneLove

[kornellred]

Uh - oh.....looks like it's YOU who has to show the world how to die properly. Your own Mahasamadhi is the only one that counts.

[...oneLove]

Uh - oh.....looks like it's YOU who has to show the world how to die properly. Your own Mahasamadhi is the only one that counts.

I no longer have the impulse to "show the world" any part of my spiritual ripening, it should be apparent to anyone sensitive enough to explore their own "being", but thanks for the reminder that my own Mahasamadhi is the only one that counts. Now if you could only convince Frank's devotees of the same.

...oneLove

[RandomStu]

thanks for the reminder that my own Mahasamadhi is the only one that counts.

Right. Also...

Is it more proper to eat with a spoon, with chopsticks, or with hands? I can't see why it matters, since you fill your stomach in any case. Similarly, I'm not sure why it's a big deal whether you die intentionally or it just happens when it happens. It appears that either way leads to the same result; we've got no evidence otherwise.

Stuart
http://stuart-randomthoughts.blogspot.com/

[...oneLove]

From Adi Da and Adidam: Personal Perspectives...After a long winded rationalization to this question:

Use of the term, "Mahasamadhi" (click to read lame answer) — You describe how Adi Da passed away due to natural causes, but you refer to it as His "Mahasamadhi". I thought the term, "Mahasamadhi", was reserved for when Spiritual Realizers, in a moment of their own choosing, intentionally leave the body. But what you describe could just as well fit Joe Smith down the street, dying of a heart attack, no?

The last (and closing) statement is "And so it is perfectly fitting — even Divinely humorous — that His very last words, as the heart attack began and He put His hand to His heart, were: "What is this?"

...oneLove

[Broken Yogi]

To be fair, the term "Mahasamadhi" is not reserved only for instances where there was a clear, intentional death of some great spiritual realizer. It is generally used in spiritual circles to refer to any spiritual figure's death, and they don't even have to be a realizer. In fact, in India it is common to refer to virtually anyone's death as their Mahasamadhi, even ordinary people of no particular spiritual achievement. It's just a polite way of pointing to the spiritual nature of death, and it doesn't much mean anything. But even where it does mean something, in the cases of great realizers, it is not reserved only for some kind of intentional leaving of the body. Chris' quote of Da in the link makes a great point, that the higher realizers don't necessarily leave the body at all, and they may not make any effort to do so. The body simply dies, and the same Presence remains as always.

In other words, it's not quite fair to criticize Da's death for being sudden and not intentional. Many great realizers have died like this before. And many ordinary people have also. It really isn't particuarly meaningful one way or another. It's not how they die that matters, it's how they lived. That poses a much bigger problem for Da's appologists.

[~E~]

...In other words, it's not quite fair to criticize Da's death for being sudden and not intentional. Many great realizers have died like this before. And many ordinary people have also. It really isn't particuarly meaningful one way or another. It's now how they die that matters, it's how they lived. That poses a much bigger problem for Da's appologists.

I agree. Actually, Adi's death is a pretty good one, as dying goes. No cancer, no long suffering, no Dr. House working his try-everything magic...

We should all be so lucky -- "What's all this then--?" ....Whoops, I'm outta here!

~E

PS -- I have had a couple Da dreams since he mounted the black horse (i.e., maha-croaked). The dreams are interesting, but I am still waiting for the definitive one before posting them as a set. In my experience it takes about two weeks for the connection to "an apparent person" to fully reform after they depart. However, based on one of the dreams so far, this case might be something quite different...

[...oneLove]

In other words, it's not quite fair to criticize Da's death for being sudden and not intentional. Many great realizers have died like this before. And many ordinary people have also. It really isn't particuarly meaningful one way or another. It's not how they die that matters, it's how they lived. That poses a much bigger problem for Da's appologists.

I believe my criticism is mostly directed at the existing community of devotees and all the ado they are making relating to his death as Mahasamadhi in order to indicate a final (and definite) sign of his enlightened (?) nature.

...oneLove

[Broken Yogi]

Actually, Adi's death is a pretty good one, as dying goes. No cancer, no long suffering, no Dr. House working his try-everything magic...

I agree. My father died in exactly the same way. He had just turned seventy (only a year older than Da), and had just a week earlier had turned in his resignation from the VA hospital he worked as, as head of Medicine. I had been talking with him for months about what he was going to do during his retirement, and he just couldn't really think of anything that interested him. His medical career had been his whole life, and I got the sense that he just wasn't interested in sticking around for the usual boring retirement scene. So a week later he did his morning rounds as usual, sat down at the computer to enter the data in the charts, and suddenly got hit with a massive heart attack. He took one step out of his chair, collapsed on the floor, and was instantly dead. I thought it was a great way to go, actually, especially for someone who had seen so many lingering and painful deaths in his lifetime. It was also an odd coincidence in relation to Da, in that during my personal relationship with Da, a frequent point of discussion was the karmic possibility that he had been my father in past lives. So it's interesting to see him go in exactly the same manner as my own father. Very Oedipal, you might say.

But it also brings up for me the general notion that a lot of people die when they have nothing more to do in this lifetime. I've had the sense for many years now that the whole Adidam scene is actually over, and has been for some time, even though they still go through the motions. It's been pretty clear that Adidam isn't going to be the great and wonderful community of realizers he had hoped, and that there aren't even going to be any serious mature practitioners, nor is it going to grow in numbers and attract a new generation of hopefuls, so there's really not much more to do than putter around with his art things, which I don't think is really Adi Da's style. One thing I'll say for Adi Da is that he lived it to the hilt, and once it became clear that things were over, he was outta here. You can't blame him for that, really.

PS - and yeah, I'd love to hear about your dream impressions. Can't discount any angles or POVs.

[Broken Yogi]

I believe my criticism is mostly directed at the existing community of devotees and all the ado they are making relating to his death as Mahasamadhi in order to indicate a final (and definite) sign of his enlightened (?) nature.

In that you're quite right. After Da's death I had a long conversation with another old ex-devotee, and he predicted that very soon devotees would be declaring that Da had in fact died at precisely the right moment, and that he had known about this all along, but had not said anything in order not to make devotees self-conscious about it, and to spare them, and that over time all kinds of secret signs would be uncovered that showed all this to be self-evident, if only devotees had taken time to notice, and eventually it would be accepted that it was actually the most auspicious of possible times for him to die, and the most auspicious of all possible ways of dying, and it was all further proof of his unique and perfect status among all realizers. And whaddyaknow? We are already seeing precisely this attitude on display over at nonduality.com, fueled I'm sure by numerous presentations by Steinberg, Conduit, the RSO, and the rumor mill. The mythic deification of his mahasamadhi is well in progress. How fitting, of course. The Mummery show must go on.