[soc.religion.eastern] The Dreaded Gom-Boo

cyee@bruce.cs.monash.edu.au (Chut Ngeow YEE) (05/22/91)

I have been following the recent discussions by johnw et. al. with
great interest.  But it is getting a little bit too wordly and
intellectual for my lazy and lethargic brain.  I do not have any
great insight to add to the current discussions,  but I feel that
some of you might welcome a bit of humour and digression.

Below is a talk by Da Avabhasa (Da Free John), whom IMHO I considered
the most remarkable Adept living now. Not that I have read a lot or
have a wide encounter, but he does has the power of blowing my mind
away and cracking a smile in my heart.

SRI DA AVABHASA: If you want to "get religious" in our time, you must
first decide that you have the Dreaded Gom-Boo. Then you go to a
Doctor Pope, Doctor Church, Doctor Jesus, Doctor Mahatma, Doctor
Mahatmaboo, Doctor Gombooananda, Doctor Gomananda-Booharaj. As soon
as you get the feeling that you have the disease, you start looking
for religious answers...

In truth, the religious or spiritual process has nothing at all to do
with the disease you want to make the premise of the spiritual process.
The first thing you must do when you truly become involved in the
process associated with Truth is to understand, and, immediately,
directly, presently, to transcend the disease that you seek otherwise
to cure, The pursuit of the cure of the disease is the same activity
as the one whereby you first acquired the disease. It is a version of
the diesese, something you do because you are diseased. It is not
another process than disease. At most it involves a different
relationship to the disease. Whereas previously you unwittingly did
everything that compounded the disease, now you want to do everything
to get rid of it. The search for the cure is still another way of
being diseased. It is not the Way of Truth. It is not the Way that I
Teach. It is not true religion or true spirituality. True religion,
true spirituality, is the process that takes place when you are already
well, when you are in your Native position, when you are established in
Truth,  Happiness, or Reality...

The spirutial process is to understand how you contracted this disease,
understand the mechanics of your presuming it always in this present
moment so that in every present moment you will be established in the
Free Position, the Position of Happiness, Truth, or the presumption of
Being. The spiritual process, then, becomes the magnification of non-
disease, prior Happiness, the prior presumption.

												           DA AVABHASA
                                                  The Dreaded Gom-Boo,
                  or the Imaginary Disease That Religion Seeks to Cure


If there is any interest I will share with you some of my other
favouriate pieces of his, or perhaps I might even venture to write
something about the life and work of Da Avabhasa with my very imperfect
understanding.

Yee