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The Knee Of Listening
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July 7, 2025
This is the original 1972 edition of The Knee of Listening by Franklin Jones (later Adi Da Samaraj).
NOTE: I read this to compare and contrast it to the highly amended and expanded final 2004 edition. The two are so different as to be best nearly altogether different texts.
Critics have argued that the later revisions constitute egregious self deification on the part of the author and the various other contributors who provide their testimonies.
This (plus the emergence of numerous accounts of sexual, psychological, financial and authoritarian abuses from former members of his community) lead many of Jones original champions, including Ken Wilber to distance themselves from Jones (Adi Da).
Given these and other obvious reasons for concern regarding Jones’s (Adi Da) fitness as a trusted/trustworthy guru type teacher or community leader. Very few of even Jones’s (Adi Da) harshest critics denied the awesome force and clarity of his writing. It’s hard to deny.
I myself have been a very strident and vocal critic of Adi Da Samaraj based the abuse allegations and the authoritarian aspects of his persona. And I remain highly circumspect and cautious about adopting his views and praxis, despite the undeniable value of his writing.
Given these concerns.
I am profoundly moved by his writing.
I can’t cite anything in this category that equals or surpasses his early work. At least nothing written in the last 40 years.
Obviously, there are lots of other, very profound works in this area. But in a very hard to define. He seems kind of peerless (at least from my perspective).
He’s kind of his own thing. One of a kind.
The Knee of Listening is a spiritual auto cbiography describing Jones’s early life, spiritual search, enlightenment, and the teachings that emerged from it.
I’m very hesitant to identify and summarize the key themes of the book. Mostly because extracting them in this way, and pulling them out of the context of the writing necessarily reduces their impact and greater meaning/effect.
But at least part of the function of these (and my other) reviews, is to facilitate recall when I need a quick refresher.
So here goes.
Key Themes:
The Bright:
Jones (Da) refers to a state of innate, radiant, non-dual awareness that he refers to as “the Bright”. A condition of pure consciousness, prior to ego or separation characterized by pure joy, luminosity, freedom and connection.
According to Jones (Da), the Bright is not a special state to be attained, but rather the “original state of Being”.
Perfect Relationship
Jones (Da) describes “perfect relationship” as the state of non-separation from self, others, the world and the Divine. According to Jones (Da), we have become conditioned by life (karma, trauma whatever) to contract/withdrawal from relationship out of implicit fear, shame, grasping, desire etc.
Jones (Da) describes Perfect relationship as the spontaneous condition that remains when self-contraction ceases. According to Jones (Da) “perfect knowledge is perfect relationship… the radical absence of separation.”
No Seeking
According to Jones (Da), there is always suffering and futility in seeking. Jones (Da) asserts that seeking is the in essence, the avoidance of relationship.
The Way of Understanding
According to Jones (Da), the true spiritual path is not one of seeking or effort, but of radical understanding directly recognizing and releasing the ego’s “self-contraction,” the core mechanism of suffering.
Jones (Da) asserts that true realization can’t arise through spiritual techniques, or through any kind of seeking, but rather by seeing the futility of seeking and abiding in relationship.
Anyway.
For me, this text really hit home.
I may read it a 3rd time.
5/5 ⭐️
NOTE: I read this to compare and contrast it to the highly amended and expanded final 2004 edition. The two are so different as to be best nearly altogether different texts.
Critics have argued that the later revisions constitute egregious self deification on the part of the author and the various other contributors who provide their testimonies.
This (plus the emergence of numerous accounts of sexual, psychological, financial and authoritarian abuses from former members of his community) lead many of Jones original champions, including Ken Wilber to distance themselves from Jones (Adi Da).
Given these and other obvious reasons for concern regarding Jones’s (Adi Da) fitness as a trusted/trustworthy guru type teacher or community leader. Very few of even Jones’s (Adi Da) harshest critics denied the awesome force and clarity of his writing. It’s hard to deny.
I myself have been a very strident and vocal critic of Adi Da Samaraj based the abuse allegations and the authoritarian aspects of his persona. And I remain highly circumspect and cautious about adopting his views and praxis, despite the undeniable value of his writing.
Given these concerns.
I am profoundly moved by his writing.
I can’t cite anything in this category that equals or surpasses his early work. At least nothing written in the last 40 years.
Obviously, there are lots of other, very profound works in this area. But in a very hard to define. He seems kind of peerless (at least from my perspective).
He’s kind of his own thing. One of a kind.
The Knee of Listening is a spiritual auto cbiography describing Jones’s early life, spiritual search, enlightenment, and the teachings that emerged from it.
I’m very hesitant to identify and summarize the key themes of the book. Mostly because extracting them in this way, and pulling them out of the context of the writing necessarily reduces their impact and greater meaning/effect.
But at least part of the function of these (and my other) reviews, is to facilitate recall when I need a quick refresher.
So here goes.
Key Themes:
The Bright:
Jones (Da) refers to a state of innate, radiant, non-dual awareness that he refers to as “the Bright”. A condition of pure consciousness, prior to ego or separation characterized by pure joy, luminosity, freedom and connection.
According to Jones (Da), the Bright is not a special state to be attained, but rather the “original state of Being”.
Perfect Relationship
Jones (Da) describes “perfect relationship” as the state of non-separation from self, others, the world and the Divine. According to Jones (Da), we have become conditioned by life (karma, trauma whatever) to contract/withdrawal from relationship out of implicit fear, shame, grasping, desire etc.
Jones (Da) describes Perfect relationship as the spontaneous condition that remains when self-contraction ceases. According to Jones (Da) “perfect knowledge is perfect relationship… the radical absence of separation.”
No Seeking
According to Jones (Da), there is always suffering and futility in seeking. Jones (Da) asserts that seeking is the in essence, the avoidance of relationship.
The Way of Understanding
According to Jones (Da), the true spiritual path is not one of seeking or effort, but of radical understanding directly recognizing and releasing the ego’s “self-contraction,” the core mechanism of suffering.
Jones (Da) asserts that true realization can’t arise through spiritual techniques, or through any kind of seeking, but rather by seeing the futility of seeking and abiding in relationship.
Anyway.
For me, this text really hit home.
I may read it a 3rd time.
5/5 ⭐️
Displaying 1 of 1 review