Buddhist<\/a> \u2014 a not unheard of mix in this congregation. She first discovered the church four years ago when she gave a talk there and then lingered \u2014 out of politeness \u2014 to hear Ahlburn speak. When it comes to spinning a yarn, Garrison Keillor has nothing on Ahlburn. His talks \u2014 he dislikes the word \u201csermons\u201d \u2014 are full of cinematic detail and humor. Like his newspaper columns, they hang on certain themes: the beauty and indifference of nature, the fact that \u201cthe ultimate\u201d is beyond all our categorizing, the importance of kindness and of seeing the world from other points of view.<\/p>\n \u201cI was pretty amazed to hear anything like that in, basically, a house of worship,\u201d says Lieberman. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t preach at you. It was challenging.\u201d Whether Lieberman will remain a church member now that Ahlburn is gone depends on who succeeds him, she says. She can\u2019t imagine that the leadership would choose an \u201coverly religious\u201d type \u2014 by which she means, the sort who prays.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people don\u2019t understand how you can have a spiritual kind of meeting without prayers,\u201d she says, \u201cbut you can, you can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ahlburn did not invent this irreligious approach to churchgoing. The term \u201cUnitarian\u201d was born during the Reformation to refer to those who did not believe in the Trinity. The denomination put its roots down in America in 1825, then linked up with Universalism in 1961. It is a liberal religion, one that encourages individuals to keep questioning as they develop their own philosophy of life. It contends that one cannot know absolute truth, that one\u2019s understanding of the truth changes with time and experience.<\/p>\n
Each local church is democratically run, answering to no denominational authority. At services, it\u2019s common to hear readings from such secular sources as poetry, drama and fiction, as well as from a range of sacred writings.<\/p>\n
Ahlburn\u2019s particular approach to religion has a pronounced Eastern tilt. He is a Tibetan Buddhist. \u201cHe\u2019s so fascinated by Buddha, and Buddha keeps coming into his sermons,\u201d says one of Ahlburn\u2019s oldest friends, Harold Talbott, who relates a favorite story about it. \u201cHe was standing at the door at the end of a Sunday sermon, saying farewell, shaking hands, and a person stops and says to him, \u2018You know, Tom, I haven\u2019t heard the name Jesus in quite a few Sundays.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n
Politically, too, Ahlburn veers off the usual roads. In the 1960s, he helped women obtain abortions. During the Vietnam War, he counseled draft dodgers. He has joined with the American Civil Liberties Union in asserting that Christmas creches on public property and tax-exempt Bibles violate the separation of church and state.<\/p>\n
Ahlburn feels sure he is the first Unitarian minister in the country to have performed a commitment ceremony for a gay couple. That was in 1971. Since then, he has performed hundreds of such ceremonies, raising nary an eyebrow in his congregation.<\/p>\n
Which is not to say that Ahlburn\u2019s tenure has been wrinkle-free. Three years ago, a small group of congregants tried to oust him over what they said was his shabby treatment, then firing, of a female assistant pastor. But they could not muster enough support from the rest of the congregation. The group, along with some others, have since left the church. \u201cI feel sorry for them. I wish them nothing but the best,\u201d says Ahlburn, who sees the coup attempt as mere \u201crevenge\u201d for the firing. He adds, in the style of a favorite Buddhist blessing, \u201cI want all beings to be happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is here, somewhere along the Buddhist path, that Ahlburn dwells. What appeals to him about the philosophy, he says, is that it is more focused on experience, and requires no belief in God. \u201cIt\u2019s not getting stuck in concepts. It\u2019s more to do with direct experience of life here and now.\u201d And yet, even Buddhism must take its lumps.<\/p>\n
Just as, in Ahlburn\u2019s view, Catholicism is about \u201ccontrol,\u201d and Protestantism, being so focused on the words of Bible, is \u201cspiritually dead,\u201d so, too, are some aspects of Buddhism \u201cjust stupid.\u201d In fact, he says, except for the way organized religion galvanizes strangers into a community of people who care for one another, it\u2019s pretty much a useless exercise \u2014 just so much \u201cclaptrap.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you don\u2019t really make the kind of spiritual progress that is possible in your life,\u201d he says, \u201cunless at a certain point, you\u2019re willing to let go of what is an impediment.\u201d Belief is the biggest impediment of all, he contends. It is \u201cthe problem.\u201d It drains all the wonder out of life.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you can believe something, then you\u2019ve settled the issue and it\u2019s dead. It\u2019s dead. It\u2019s gone. . .\u201d \u201cI\u2019m not against God,\u201d Ahlburn goes on. \u201cIn a very deep way, I think maybe I would say I\u2019m probably a lot closer to God than the Pope, frankly.\u201d Throwaway lines like that are what prompted so many Journal readers to write the newspaper in outrage in response to many of his columns. But Ahlburn\u2019s friends say he really is a gentle, shy, and rather vulnerable sort \u2014 it\u2019s just, he knows not what he does.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know whether he realizes the power he has in provoking things,\u201d says the Rev. Fred Gillis, pastor of Westminster Unitarian Church in East Greenwich. \u201cBut he does that \u2014 in the best sense of \u2018provocative.\u2019 He gets people thinking, he gets people reacting. It sometimes surprises him that people react so strongly to him. To him, those things are important to be able to challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t do it the way he did it,\u201d he adds. \u201cI think that he sometimes asks for it.\u201d Sister Angela Daniels pities her friend, searching so \u201cfeverishly\u201d at age 60. \u201cI wish him peace,\u201d she says. Her take on Ahlburn is that he has two sides, public and private. She predicts that when the public man retires, the real Ahlburn will be released.<\/p>\n
As it is now, she says, \u201cIf Tom were to admit belief in God, or get too close to that area, it would belie his public ministry. He would no longer be who he said he was, a free man.\u201d The nun has put this theory to Ahlburn and finds it significant that \u201che doesn\u2019t argue with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI say, \u2018Listen, Tom, God has you by the nape of the neck. And you\u2019re not turning around to see him. He\u2019s got you.\u2019 I say, \u2018Tom, did you ever hear of the poem by Francis Thompson called The Hound of Heaven?\u2019 I say, \u2018Read it, Tom, read it again.\u2019 \u201d The Hound of Heaven, a 1947 spiritual classic, is about a man who, though he flees a relentlessly pursuing God \u201cdown the nights and down the days,\u201d is ultimately no match for Him. That\u2019s Ahlburn, says Sister Angela.<\/p>\n
\u201cI say to him, \u2018When you go to Greensboro, Tom, you will be free to go out and sit with the geese and really think and not be afraid of the thoughts you may have.\u2019 \u201d Just what they do up here, Tom and Ruth Ahlburn, in this tiny burg in the mountains, which is even more remote than their former home, in Pascoag, and which is so high, your ears pop as you drive there?<\/p>\n
They don\u2019t do much \u2014 but then, that\u2019s the point. They live in a sun-flooded hexagonal house, which was built by artists and which looks onto a purple and blue vista of mountains and sky that\u2019s enough to make anyone \u2014 practically anyone \u2014 believe in God. They watch the weather. Listen to music. Tend their many pets, including a noisy flock of geese. Pick up provisions at the general store a short stretch down the road. Then at night, greet Orion, who hovers very near.<\/p>\n
\u201cI find myself beginning to pay attention again in ways that maybe I\u2019d let slip for some years,\u201d says the reverend, relaxing at the kitchen table in a plaid, flannel shirt and cap. His burgundy minister\u2019s robe hangs from a peg in the vestibule, as ordinary as the winter coats, collecting dog hairs. A Greensboro minister has asked him at least 10 times, he says, to speak at the small church \u2014 a Church of Christ \u2014 down the road.<\/p>\n
\u201d \u2018We could do away with the Christ \u2014 for you,\u2019 \u201d Ahlburn says the man told him. \u201cBut I don\u2019t care if they have Buddha or Mohammed or Rumi. I\u2019m not doing it anymore, no how.\u201d He was happy being a minister, but \u201cthe church was never my primary life. It\u2019s an occupation.\u201d He knows ministers who say they\u2019ve been \u201ccalled by God,\u201d but that never happened to him. He figures the line must be out.<\/p>\n
One of the first things he will do in the new year, he says, is embark on a yearlong solo retreat at home, which will put him out of touch with everyone but Ruth \u2014 who, by the way, he says, is his real teacher. Just watching her go about her day, he says, \u201cI\u2019ll say to myself, \u2018That\u2019s it. Whatever it is, that\u2019s it,\u2019 because there\u2019s an easy, yet focused attention on what is happening, and an investment in that, but also there\u2019s a feedback of grace in the activity, and it\u2019s palpable and luminous, and I see it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mrs. Ahlburn\u2019s eyes widen at this rich compliment, one she\u2019s never heard before.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s true,\u201d he tells her.<\/p>\n
They step outside into the cold mountain air to pose for photographs. Ahlburn won\u2019t let his guest go without pressing on her a copy of his latest musical find, a CD by a band called Jump Little Children. There\u2019s a song on it, he says, that makes him \u201cshudder.\u201d<\/p>\n
As mountains and fields roll by on the left and right, the song plays, and it\u2019s obvious why it would speak to Ahlburn. A sad, earnest voice offers up a critique of the old forms of religion \u2014 all \u201cmarble statues\u201d and \u201cpeeling\u201d architecture \u2014 and celebrates Ahlburn\u2019s approach to life: In the cathedrals of New York and Rome. There is a feeling that you should just go home. And spend a lifetime finding out just where that is.<\/p>\n
GOING TO MEET ADI DA<\/span><\/span>
Thomas Ahlburn<\/p>\n(Apparently from a sermon, circa 1996)<\/p>\n
The invitation to meet Adi Da came at the best possible time. It would be an understatement to say that I was going through a rotten patch in my life. Frankly, I don\u2019t ever remember feeling quite so low and lonely. Full of self-pity, and lacking in confidence in myself and others generally, I was razor close to throwing in the towel. Indeed, I think maybe I hit bottom that very day. Sitting alone in my bedroom on the edge of the bed, eyes downcast, hands folded diffidently in my lap, the sun having just set and the darkness gathering around me, I\u2019m sure I looked the way I felt, pathetic. I remember thinking then that I had some big decisions to make, and I was very much dreading the hard days ahead. That\u2019s when the phone rang, exactly then.<\/p>\n
The caller was an old friend from the Free Daist Communion, a religious organization that had formed around the teachings of Adi Da Sataraj, a famous guru who used to call himself Da Free John. People who have listened to me over the years know that Da\u2019s teachings have had a decisive influence on me. It\u2019s no secret that I think of Da Free John as one of my primary teachers. I often quote him, but more than this, I frequently make use of Da\u2019s root metaphors and highly idiosyncratic ways of putting things in my talks and writings. If you have ever liked one of my spiritual talks, it\u2019s fair to say that you have Adi Da to thank. I surely do.<\/p>\n
Not that I ever seriously considered becoming a Free Daist, I haven\u2019t. If I don\u2019t make it with the safe, mostly plain and sane Unitarian Universalists, I am not going to make it anywhere, surely not in some outlandish cult. Still, I am well known among Da\u2019s faithful. My endorsements appear on the Master\u2019s books (along with distinguished souls like Ken Wilber, Alan Watts, and Elizabeth Kubler-Ross). I have even contributed a forward for a book, and I am good friends with some of Da\u2019s chief disciples. But that\u2019s as far as it goes \u2013 or ever will.<\/p>\n
Several years ago, Adi Da moved to Fiji. More precisely, one of his wealthier devotees bought him a nice Fijian island, complete with stately palm trees, quaint thatched huts, thriving coral reefs, long sandy beaches, and sheltered lagoons (the island used to belong to the late Raymond Burr). These days, Da meets with serious students there, and usually only there. Indeed, he doesn\u2019t ever meet with individuals unless they have already shown themselves to be serious practitioners, dedicated Free Daists.<\/p>\n
This is one of the places where the cultish side of Adi Da\u2019s group shows up. If you like what Da says, and maybe want to meet him, you have to walk the walk and talk the talk before you get to sit with the guru. What\u2019s more, he gets treated almost like a god on his Fijian island; people more than defer to him.<\/p>\n
Adi Da didn\u2019t start out this way. He started out as Franklin Jones, a bright young lad from Long Island, a graduate of both Columbia and Stanford, who became interested in eastern spirituality, had a powerful awakening experience, developed a remarkable teaching and writing ability, and, then, a close following. But shortly after this, Da\u2019s teaching style began to shift, more and more, toward dogmatic pronouncements and absolute demands. Which is to say, he seems to have gone the way of almost all gurus, thinking of himself as providing a privileged path to the divine.<\/p>\n
Sadly, this is pretty much where things stand today, and though Da is not at all a Rajneesh or Jim Jones, his is not a spiritual practice that I can easily recommend. Nonetheless, his original teachings were incredibly important to me, and I still think that they were right on target. I discovered them at a turning point in my life, and they played a decisive role in changing me and my ministry for the better. As such, I owe Da Free John a forever unpayable debt. But since I would never play his cultish games, I never got to meet him \u2014 until two weeks or so ago, that is.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you free tonight?\u201d my friend asked. \u201cSure, but why?\u201d I replied. \u201cDa\u2019s here on the Cape, and he would like you to come out and sit with him.\u201d \u201cJust give me directions,\u201d I said excitedly, \u201cand I\u2019m as good as on my way.\u201d<\/p>\n
In truth, our conversation and the ensuing arrangements were much more involved than I have indicated, but this is pretty much what it all came down to: Da was visiting New England; he was staying on Cape Cod for a few nights with his family and entourage; and he was going to sit and meet with rank outsiders like me; people who weren\u2019t officially approved practitioners. He hadn\u2019t been doing this for years, and, of course, such a unique spiritual opportunity was much too fascinating for me to pass up. Not only this, but my wife was invited to come along.<\/p>\n
We were finally going to meet Adi Da! Amazing how fast you can forget even your worse troubles, isn\u2019t it? Most of you probably don\u2019t need to hear that I haven\u2019t quite been myself for some time. I\u2019ve been \u2014 what shall I say? \u2014 a bit preoccupied of late. But this going to meet Da thing certainly got my attention. All sorts of questions raced through my mind. I wondered what it would be like? I wondered if I might be disappointed? I hoped that I wouldn\u2019t be, though I thought that I might. I was even a little afraid of Da himself (you know, cults and all that stuff). But mostly, I thought how wonderfully serendipitous this whole adventure was, coming when and as it did.<\/p>\n
This quality made the adventure seem almost supernaturally purposed; as if intended by the guru somehow just for me. \u201cIt sure is strange that after all these years he should turn up right now,\u201d my wife said. \u201cIt sure as hell is,\u201d I replied. But soon we drove on to the Cape, and made the final turn toward the little village where Master Da awaited us. \u201cNeato!\u201d I thought to myself. I was feeling much better now.<\/p>\n
But unfortunately, my newly found good mood didn\u2019t last very long. It was meeting Adi Da\u2019s disciples that spoiled it. Not that they were cold or inhospitable. To the contrary, they couldn\u2019t have been friendlier or happier to see us. And I mean this quite literally. They were certainly very, very nice people. The problem was they were much too friendly, much too happy, and far too nice. More plainly put, they were all busy breathlessly following their own bliss. Not only this, but unless my eyes were deceiving me, they all looked like maybe they came from the same neighborhood or the same college. It was uncanny really. And very disquieting, as well. I mean, they all looked and sounded almost exactly alike.<\/p>\n
My God, they\u2019re pod people, I thought. Alas, serious doubts about our upcoming encounter with Da began to grow in me again. I looked over at my wife, and I could tell by her posture that she had already charted the fastest exit through the nearest door. I had, too. But we didn\u2019t have to escape, because, before we knew it, it was time to go meet Da.<\/p>\n
It turned out that Da was in another house, ten minutes or so away by car. So we all climbed into our respective automobiles and drove off through the darkness to a huge, brightly lit mansion by the ocean that a rich supporter had loaned the guru for the week. This in itself was a weird experience. Or at least being part of that long line of deathly quiet cars passing ever so slowly through the sleepy little Cape Cod village seemed spooky to me. It was like being in a secret funeral procession on a very dark night in, say, Transylvania.<\/p>\n
Admittedly, I\u2019m pretty impressionable, but things sure did seem to be getting stranger and stranger. We were ushered into the big mansion, instructed in the complicated sacred protocols as to how best to meditate with the sat-guru, and told that he would be with us very soon. Because of my past service to their cause, I was regarded as a bit of a luminary by the Daists, so my wife and I would get to sit right in front of Da in the main meditation hall. Whereas I might have deemed this a great honor in the past, just now I wasn\u2019t so sure.<\/p>\n
I could feel something like a rising tide of group hysteria building around me, I could see it on people\u2019s flushed faces and read it in their goggling eyes, and I began to think that it might be better to catch the coming proceedings from the back of another hall, if not on close circuit television. But it was clearly too late to move to another room or get away now, as I sensed that Da\u2019s best buddies all had their eyes on me, undoubtedly expecting the God-man to hit me with his best cosmic zonker and then whisk me right off to Fiji. I wondered if my wife would get to go, too.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know how long we sat there waiting for Da, but a long time, maybe even as long as an hour. But that\u2019s when the worst thing happened. People began to twitch and moan. Though I had read about this sort of thing, and had seen it on video tapes, I wasn\u2019t at all prepared for it in the flesh. \u201cOh Da!\u201d someone might wail. And five or six others would answer the devotee, their bodies shaking wildly with ecstasy. Then \u201cDa, Da, Da, Da, Da, Da, Da!\u201d \u201cOh my God!\u201d I thought to myself. \u201cWhere\u2019s the Dalai Lama now that I need him.\u201d<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know how long this twitching and moaning thing went on before Adi Da strode purposefully and quickly into the hall, and took his seat in front of me. I had often wondered what it might be like to sit with someone like Da Free John, but nothing prepared me for the look coming from his eyes. On this level, he was everything people claimed he was. He was a very impressive being, no doubt about it. All I can say is that you had to be there to sense his considerable spiritual presence and power. I know full well that my more skeptical humanist friends might not have seen what I thought I saw and felt radiating from him, but I was very much convinced that Da had seen something profoundly radical or spiritually primordial that the rest of us could only guess might exist.<\/p>\n
Though I didn\u2019t twitch or moan, something like a shock of recognition passed all the way through me, and I gasped inwardly when he looked deeply into my eyes. I waited for what might happen next. But nothing did. Nothing else happened to me, nothing at all. I just sat there for a long time with Da and his twitchers and moaners (who never seemed to shut up), all sorts of strange thoughts going through my mind. I just sat there and waited for it all to be over.<\/p>\n
Was I disappointed? I suppose I was. But not a lot. I guess I had always expected things to play out this way. In my heart of hearts, I always knew that this guru thing wasn\u2019t really something that could ever work for me. Then again, I have always been much more of a woods walker than a guru follower. \u201cPoor old Da,\u201d I thought to myself suddenly. And with this, another feeling came over me. Sadness. I began to feel a great sadness for Adi Da. In fact, I almost cried. I was so fond of Da, so very grateful for all that I had learned from him, that my heart began to ache terribly for him. Why? Because I began to sense that poor Da, and all his people were stuck. They were prisoners caught in a deadly spiritual trap of their own devising.<\/p>\n
Adi Da may very well have experienced an incredibly high awakening, a profound spiritual experience at some point in his life, at least I believed that he had, but I sensed that he had lost his way, and absolutely so, afterwards. Da had seen a great spiritual light, about this I had few doubts, but my guess was that he had tried to capture this light, take its brightness into himself in some way, and then hold fast to it. Tragically, wanting not just to see God, but to be God, Da had tried to own the one thing that can never be owned. As a result, he had gone spiritually blind.<\/p>\n
Adi Da was a fallen angel who, long ago, had perhaps been graced with a brief glimpse of the divine, but who had sadly mistaken its meaning, thought that it was somehow his to use or control, and exclusively so. Others, perhaps sensing the afterglow of this bright light coming so wonderfully from his eyes and speech, had been drawn to him (just as I had), like moths to a flame, and they were caught in the same sad trap or dead end.<\/p>\n
\u201cPoor old Da,\u201d I thought again, \u201cHe\u2019s stuck. He\u2019s stuck just like all the rest of us, only much worse. Like just about everyone I know, I\u2019m stuck in anger, fear, and resentment. But poor Da\u2019s got it much worse. He\u2019s stuck in the very thing that could free him, spirituality itself, the divine, and he doesn\u2019t have a clue. None of them do.\u201d<\/p>\n
And I quietly began a Buddhist practice in his behalf, in behalf of us all really. It\u2019s called the practice of exchanging oneself for others; and is a simple way of taking on as much of another\u2019s suffering in one\u2019s own being as one can, and placing all sentient beings and their happiness ahead of your own. It is the basic Buddhist meditational practice of loving-kindness. \u201cOm mani padme hum,\u201d I chanted inwardly, praying that my old friend and all sentient beings might find freedom and peace.<\/p>\n
And as I did so, I noticed that Da had finally closed his terrible eyes, and had gone into a very deep, very peaceful repose. For the first time that evening, I felt warm inside, and close to him. Continuing my prayer, I closed my eyes, too, and I began to sense something like a shared peace. Which was rather remarkable really, considering that through all of this the twitching and moaning around us never subsided, never let up.<\/p>\n
Then, just as quickly as he had entered, Da got up, and, without a word, he was gone. \u201cSo there it is,\u201d I said aloud, though very, very quietly. Leaving wasn\u2019t easy. Da\u2019s people were hot to know what I thought. Taking a cue from Clinton and Dole, I crossed my fingers and vaguely told them what I thought they needed to hear. And why not? After all, I might need to see Da again.<\/p>\n
It was almost three in the morning before my dear wife and I were back in our car and finally alone. \u201cWell, what do you think?\u201d she asked. \u201cWhat happened to you?\u201d \u201cYou tell me first,\u201d I replied cagily. \u201cNothing,\u201d she said. \u201cAbsolutely nothing at all.\u201d \u201cYes, me too,\u201d I said. \u201cBut his eyes sure were something else, weren\u2019t they?\u201d \u201cOh yes, they sure were,\u201d she agreed. \u201cPoor old Da,\u201d I said sadly. \u201cHe\u2019s trapped, isn\u2019t he? Trapped in the very thing that should have freed him. And he doesn\u2019t have a clue. None of them do. It\u2019s so sad. But you know, I still love him.\u201d And I do.<\/p>\n
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