Franklin Jones: Devote Your Life to God-Realization

All of the videos with Franklin Jones lectures which I posted in the Spirituality category have unfortunately been removed from YouTube. When I discover that a video posted here has disappeared in this way (as is often the case in the Music categories), I try, when possible, to replace it as soon as possible with the same video posted by someone else on YouTube, which means the date of the posting on YouTube will often be later than that of my original post. But I haven’t yet found my Jones videos reposted. Except, possibly, the one below, which is now available on the channel Adi Da Videos. In this version a darshan – or what in the Adidam community is called a “silent sacred sighting” – of Jones towards the end of his life is added:

People in Adidam, Jones’s organization, complained that I didn’t mention him only under that last and definitive name he used, Adi Da Samraj, but also under his earlier ones, or some of them: Franklin Jones, Bubba Free John, Da Free John, Avadhoota Da Love-Ananda, and Da Avabhasa. The succession of names reflected his developing understanding of himself and of the nature of his teaching and mission. In the title of my essay on him, which is partly critical but explains the nature of my interest in him, I used the name Franklin Jones since that was his first name, the name under which he was born, and the one under which the first edition of his first and best known book, The Knee of Listening, was published.

Some of his followers in the Adidam community (which seems to have gone through quite as many name changes as Jones himself, took this to signify a lack of respect. That is not at all correct. I don’t see anything wrong in using also his earlier names; indeed, it seems to me wholly appropriate, interesting, and perhaps even important to use the names that indicate his self-understanding at the time that he gave a particular lecture or wrote a certain book. But also, in general, and for other purposes, it appears reasonable to use only one name in order to avoid confusion.