Crazy Spirituality

by Karal Ayn Barnett
©1998

All through history there have been so-called religious fanatics, people who have marched to the beat of a very different drummer, who acted as if they had lost all sense of reason when teaching their version of the gospel. The cartoon character of the shabby preacher standing on the street corner year after year, holding an "End of the World" sign comes to mind.


All of these people were not necessarily mentally ill. At least some of these folks were Crazy Adepts -- spiritual teachers who act in an incredibly bizarre fashion in order to teach us the Crazy Wisdom of spiritual truths.


Crazy Adepts often seem irreligious or unspiritual, but they do so in order to shock us awake -- a kind of spiritual shock therapy, according to Georg Feuerstein, an expert in esoteric wisdom. In YOGA: THE TECHNOLOGY OF ECSTASY, Feuerstein explains that Crazy Adepts are "enlightened iconoclasts."


Their "mad" behavior serves to reflect the false worldview that people are separate from each other. Crazy Wisdom says in truth, we are all connected.


The separations in the physical world such as human bodies, houses, communities are merely illusions. Crazy Wisdom seeks to unearth and heal all the false beliefs that people have about themselves, and the world.


Crazy Wisdom antics are often at the core of spirituality though they usually offend secular and traditional religious organizations. Not so in Tibet and India where the Divine Madman is a venerated teacher. In Tibet, the "saintly madman" (lama myonpa) has been recognized as a legitimate spiritual teacher all through history. In India, the holy "avadhuta" has also cast off all concerns to teach in a highly unconventional manner. But crazy teachers are not just found in the East. There have been Crazy Adepts in other lands.


Europe in the sixth century seemed to be big on Crazy Adepts. For instance, there was St. Simeon who liked to pretend insanity for effect. Once he found a dead dog on a dung heap. He tied the animal to his belt and dragged the corpse through town. People were so full of outrage they couldn't see St. Simeon's message. He was trying to show the useless "dead weight" of excess emotional baggage that people drag through their lives.


The town's uproar didn't seem to phase the Crazy Adept, though. The very next day, St. Simeon entered a church and just as the liturgy began, he threw nuts at the congregation.


St Simeon confessed on his deathbed that his life's mission was to denounce hypocrisy and hubris.


Another example of sixth-century spiritual silliness was Mark the Mad, a desert monk who was thought insane when he came into town to atone for his sins. Only Abba Daniel saw the method in the monk's madness, and declared the monk the only reasonable man in the city.


Little-known figures like St. Isaac Zatvornik and St. Basil were the designated holy fools of history who spoke of the wisdom of God. There was even a female Crazy Adept -- St. Isadora. But the messages of these crazy teachers unfortunately seemed insane to most the world.


Crazy Adepts live to turn convention on its ear by challenging and confronting established dictates. They bring a sense of chaos to shake up the status quo.


Feuerstein says that Crazy Adepts, "…are a perpetual reminder that our whole human civilization is an attempt to deny the inevitability of death, which makes nonsense out of even the noblest efforts to create a symbolic order out of the infinite plastic that is life." Feuerstein adds that the Crazy Adepts' bizarre teachings ultimately smash through the false beliefs of the egocentric universe and its feeling of separateness.


So the next time you see a very strange person acting in a very strange way, trying to give you a message from God, don't immediately assume insanity.


Perhaps he or she is a Crazy Adept trying to do you a favor by helping you pull the little-ego back in line with your Higher Self, even if they have to get in your face to do it.



About The Author
Karal Ayn Barnett, A woman on the edge…of the Mojave Desert. :) Karal is a free lance journalist and does tape transcriptions. http://www.jinglesweb.com/karal  karalayn@aol.com