Bodily Worship of the Living God: The Esoteric Practice of Prayer Taught by Da Free John: The Devotional Way of Life Practiced by Members of the Free

by Adi Da Samraj and Da Free John

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0913922528
• ISBN13: 9780913922521
• Release Date: January 1980
• Publisher: Dawn Horse Press
• Length: 182 Pages
• Weight: 0.15 lbs.

Customer Reviews

How to Worship from a Mind/Body Unity

I went through a period of time studying the teachings of Da Free John (he has since changed his presentation name a few times) and found that he has been simple, direct, and clear about an essential spiritual path and has a seven stage vision of the whole spiritual life that honors all the spiritual traditions of this world. He mainly started with Rudi who was a shaktipat master. These kinds of masters are able to transmit a palpable energy to receptive students and activate their kundalini energy. This energy is usually dormant at the base of the spine and when quickened travels up the spine through the soft spot at the top of the head (the crown chakra). When it completes this path, a person experiences enlightenment. While there are different kinds of darshan (energy transmission between teacher and student) that are not quite the same as this kundalini process, when you work with energy it generally follows similar laws. From this perspective, a deeper kind of spirituality is based on activating a living feeling of this energy inside the mind and body of the student. Da Free John, in this book, shows how you can do this through the bhakti or devotional path. Unlike certain kinds of meditation, the body is meant to be included in the devotion. Our openness, gratitude, and devotion receives divine grace, baraka, blessing energy, or divine love. The book is designed to be a manual for specific devotional processes that devotees of Da Free John practice as a commitment to their teacher. Since I have not been involved as a devotee, I find that I need to translate those practices into my own more solo path. It is not hard to do so. There is an intuitive understanding of the whole process that one can get from reading the book. Or you can imagine yourself as a devotee and try this on like a hat to see how it feels. The manual details several liturgies to chant as well as how to set up an altar. This book is an okay book for someone new to his teachings. It is probably a little better to start with his more autobiographical KNEE OF LISTENING which is still my favorite. I like this one a little better, because it shows Da as a very human seeker, rather than as a full fledged guru. Da has a writing style and form of reasoning that is similar in all his writings, so that if you like one of them you will probably like most of what he writes.