Love, Surrender and Awakening

Robert Adams tells of his awakening experience and what followed as below. After that I discuss what his story means to me based on my time with him and my own life since he left us.

Robert:

When I had my spiritual awakening I was fourteen years old. This body was sitting in a classroom taking a math test. And all of a sudden I felt myself expanding. I never left my body, which proves that the body never existed to begin with. I felt the body expanding, and a brilliant light began to come out of my heart. I happened to see this light in all directions. I had peripheral vision, and this light was really my Self. It was not my body and the light. There were not two. There was this light that became brighter, and brighter and brighter, the light of a thousand suns. I thought I would be burnt to a crisp, but alas, I wasn't.

This brilliant light, which I was the center and also the circumference, expanded throughout the universe, and I was able to feel the planets, the stars, the galaxies,

as myself. And this light shone so bright, yet it was beautiful, it was bliss, it was ineffable, indescribable.

After a while the light began to fade away, and there was no darkness. There was just a place between light and darkness, the place beyond the light. You can call it the void, but it wasn't just a void. It was this pure awareness I always talk about. I was aware that I am that I am. I was aware of the whole universe at the same time. There was no time, there was no space, there was just the I am.

Then everything began to return to normal, so-to-speak. And I was able to feel, and understand, that all of the planets, the galaxies, the people, the trees, the flowers on this earth, everything, were myriads of energy, and I was in everything. I was the flower. I was the sky. I was the people. The I was everything. Everything was the I. The word I encompassed the whole universe.

Now here's the point I'm trying to make. I felt a love, a compassion, a humility, all at the same time, that was truly indescribable. It wasn't a love that you're aware of.  

Think of something that you really love, of someone that you really love with all your heart. Multiply this by a jillion million trillion, and you'll understand what I'm talking about. This particular love is like no thing that ever existed on this earth, consciously. There is nothing you can compare it with. It is beyond duality, beyond concepts, beyond words and thoughts. And since the I, which I was, was all-pervading, there was no other place for anything else to be. 

There was no room for anything, because there was no space, and no time. There was just the I am, ever present, self-existent. The love of everything was the love of the self.

This is why, in scripture, it tells you to love your brother, and your sister, to love everyone and everything under all circumstances. This love couldn't differentiate. It couldn't say, "You're good, so I love you. You're bad, so I don't love you." Everything was going on as myself. I realized I am the murderer, I am the saint, I am the so-called evil on this earth, I am the so called goodness of this earth. Everything was the self. And it was all a game. All of the energy particles changed from one thing to another thing. But the love never changed.

Another word for this love was compassion.  There was this fabulous, fantastic compassion. For everything! For everything was the self, the I am. There was no differentiation. There was not me, what you call me, and those things. There was only one expression, and that was consciousness.

Of course, I didn't understand all these words at that time. 

There were no words like I'm talking about now. I'm trying my best to speak intelligently and try to use words to explain what happened, but you can't. All the games that people are playing, and all the planets, throughout the universe, is really the self. It was all the self, and I realized that nothing else existed but the self. Yet all of these things, the multiplicities of planets, of galaxies, of people, of animals, were really the self. Again, there are no words to describe this. I felt and knew that these multiplicities do not exist. Things do not exist. Only the self existed, only consciousness, pure awareness.

Yet, at the same time, creation came into existence. And there's no creation. We cannot understand this in human form. As long as we're thinking with our brains it's incomprehensible, for how can they both be simultaneously creating each other? There was creation going on, and yet there was no creation at all! There was no creation taking place, and creation was taking place. Sounds like the thoughts of a mad man. And it seemed normal. There's absolutely nothing strange about this at all, being nothing and everything at the same time.

So this great compassion was there. Since I was everything, the compassion was for everything. No thing was excluded, for the things were really the self.

And then there was this fantastic humility. The love, compassion, and humility are all synonymous. I'm trying to break it down to make you understand, to an extent, what was going on. The humility was there not to change anything. Everything was right just the way it was. Planets were exploding, new planets were being born. Suns were evaporating, new suns were being born. From the suns the planets came, and then life began on the planets. All this was taking place instantaneously, at the same time. And yet nothing was taking place at all.

Therefore the humility is that everything was alright. There was nothing I had to change. There was nothing I had to correct. The people dying of cancer were in their right place where nobody dies, and there is no cancer. Wars, man's inhumanity to man, was all part of it. There cannot be a creation if there is not an opposite to good. In order to have a creation there has to be opposites. There has to be the bad guy and the good guy. I was able to understand all these things.

The next thing I remember is my teacher was shaking me. I was the only one left in the class, everybody had gone, the bell rang, and I had not even started the mathematics test. Of course I got a great big zero.

But those feelings and the understanding never left me. From that time on my whole life changed. I was no longer interested in school. I was no longer interested in the friends I had. I won't go on any more than that for now, as far as that's concerned.

The point I'm trying to make is this. If the end result of realization is love, compassion, and humility, what if we were able to develop these qualities now? Do you see what I'm getting at? If we are able to develop this love, this beautiful joyous love, for everything, without exception, without being judgmental, and we had a great compassion, for everything, without being judgmental.    

Then of course, there's humility. Humility means we don't have to try to straighten things out, to get even, to stick up for our rights, for there is no one really left to do that. If some of us were to work on those aspects, it would lift us up and make us free.

This is something for you to think about. We have to learn to leave the world alone. We become so involved in politics, in family life, in work and the rest of these things we're involved in, that we forget that we only have so many years left on this earth in the body. And what are we doing with all of the time we have? We're spending the time on things that do not really exist, things that make no sense.

Imagine you're in a play in the theater, and you're playing a role, and you're playing a part. All the time you're aware that you're playing a part. You're not really that person. It's only a part you're playing. In the same way you are now playing a part, but you have forgotten you're playing a part. 

You think your body, the way it looks, the way it appears, what it does, what it acquires, is real, and you put all your energy into the game of playing the part. This is indeed a waste of energy. If you'd only put your energy in finding the self, that you really never lost. And you can do this by developing the qualities of love, compassion and humility.

This is another method you have to work on. As you're working on self-inquiry, work on the love, work on compassion, work on humility. Do not just practice self-inquiry for a while, and then react negatively to the world, and have your feelings hurt. Be yourself.

Awaken from the dream. Refuse to play any longer. Look at yourself all day long. See the things that you do, the thoughts that you have, the feelings that you have. It makes no difference what situation you're going through. It makes no difference what's going on in your life. The only thing that matters is what's going on inside of you.

Karmically you are put on this earth as a body, to go through karmic experiences. Therefore, the experience you're going through is part of the maya, the karma. Do not reflect on these things. This is important. You have to drop this. Leave it alone. If you only knew that nothing can ever happen to you. There never was a time when you were born.

There will never be a time when you die. You have always lived. You are consciousness. You have always existed. Identify with your existence. Merge into the existence of nothingness. I tell you this again and again. Leave the world alone. Remember what I mean when I say to leave the world alone. I'm not saying that you should voluntarily, consciously, make a plan of how you're going to leave the world alone. You'll not be able to live up to it. By leaving the world alone I mean, entertain in your mind higher thoughts.

Always have in back of your mind, "I am not the body. I am not the doer. I am not the mind." Feel this. Feel it deeply. 


Do not feel good or bad about it. Do not try to prolong your life. It's a waste of energy. What you call your life will take care of itself. It knows what to do better than you do. 

We're very limited in our understanding about the body, or the affairs of the body, what's going on in the body. Do not try to do anything with your body. Your body will do whatever it came here to do. It knows what to do. Separate your-self from that. Of course, you may do this by inquiring, "To whom does the body come? Who has this body?" and remain in the silence.

Many of us here this evening are making tremendous progress. I've been talking to many of you who are really getting there. Of course, I use all these terms loosely. 


There's nowhere to get. But I have to talk to you this way, to remind you to leave yourself alone. I know some of you may be in pain sometimes, and you say, "Well I want to live a life free of pain, therefore I have to do things to myself so I don't feel that pain." This is really a mistake. If you could only realize who has the pain. To whom does the pain come? I have the pain. Then who am I? If I have the pain, it means that the person who is thinking these things does not have the pain, for it is I that has the pain. You are free of pain, for you are not the I-thought. Remember the I we're talking about now is the thought, the I-thought, that has the pain and the experience of being born, the experience of dying, the experience of having problems. This is the I-thought that has these things. Not you.

You have to vehemently make up your mind that the only thing that matters to you is to become free, liberated, and let go of all the other things that keep you bound. This is why you have to work with love, compassion and humility. For if this is the end result of awakening, if you do this first, the awakening will come faster.

Even while I'm talking to you, some of you are thinking about your body, you're thinking about the mind, you're thinking about your work. This is what keeps you back.  

Destroy the thoughts through self-inquiry. Become free. Do not fight. Do not fear. Observe, watch, look, but have no opinions for or against. Some people think if they act this way they will not be able to function in the world. You will function. Always remember, there's an appearance of the body, and the body came here to do certain things, and it's going to do those things. It has absolutely nothing to do with you.

Many times when I talk to you I have to keep from laughing, (laughter) explaining all these things, talking about all these things, when you're already free, and you already know these things. Sometimes we're pulled into the illusion. For there's really no thing.

When I talk of God we're speaking of nothingness. God is nothing. And that nothing is you. We get more deeply involved when we constantly study, when we constantly read about so many spiritual topics, we get more deeply involved in maya which prevents us from waking up.

Why can't you be yourself and wake up? Why do you have to go through all these things, and make me sit here talking to you like this? Just think what I could be doing if I didn't have to talk to you. I could be watching Tales From The Crypt. (Laughter)

Be your self. When you are yourself the thoughts come slowly to you until they cease. When the thoughts become slower and slower into your mind, and the thoughts begin to disappear, you automatically become loving, compassionate and you'll have humility. In other words, the faster you get rid of your thoughts, the faster these other things come, these other qualities. So it's a matter of stopping your thoughts. It is the thoughts that see everything in this world as good and bad, right and wrong. As the thoughts begin to subside, love comes by itself, compassion, humility come by themselves. So again, we have to stop thinking.

DISCUSSION

So, what was Robert’s awakening experience? What was it all about?

It was a brief, time-limited transcendental experience wherein Robert perceived himself to be, the sense of I, his sense of I am, to be pure consciousness, and that everything in the universe also was pure consciousness, and was him. In addition, he felt that that an essential characteristic of the I am, of consciousness, was love, a great love far beyond what humans feel towards each other. Along with this, he felt compassion for all sentient beings, for everything that is alive, as well as a great sense of humility.

Then he returned to normal consciousness, but with the belief and conviction that he was consciousness itself, and the basic nature of that consciousness was love, compassion and humility, and a total acceptance of the world when it was.

At the same time, the recognition that he was consciousness itself, the totality, relieved him of the illusion that he was bound by an individual body and mind.

Then Robert proposed one more step and suggests a method.

First, he suggests practicing self-inquiry onto the sense of I, looking ever more deeply into one's own sense of I, or I am. This is the classic self-inquiry process which is the mainstay of both the Ramana tradition of which Robert is a part of, but also of Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Then he states, the feeling that never left him subsequent to his awakening experience, was his deep love for everything and everyone, and a profound sense of humility, and a compassion for all living things.

Then Robert proposes, “What if we work on developing this compassion, this love, this humility here and now before the awakening experience?”

This would be an additional practice to self in query, of looking into that sense of I am gradually becoming that sense of I am in meditation and in everyday self-witnessing, self-awareness.

He says awakening will come more quickly this way. In a sense, he saying "him Fake it till you make it." That is, grab onto the lasting after-effects of the awakening experience. 

Deliberately cultivate being kind, develop love for another, feel love for another very deeply and totally and lose ourselves in love. Every day we should cultivate increasing compassion for all living things, for hungry animals, starving babies, towards trees, insects and even rocks and a running river. And at the same time, we lose our arrogance, wanting constantly to bow in complete surrender to one's beloveds, whomever or whatever they may be. We drop our knees in humility. We touch the feet of our beloved. We become like dust in service to those we love. And by such deliberate cultivation of love, humility, compassion and surrender, we build in us a receptivity is for the transcendental awakening experiences, which in a sense, really are no longer necessary because we are already living the fruit of awakening.

For this reason I emphasize loving one another as deeply, as extensively compassionately as possible, until our love for another is so intense and deep that naturally we drop our knees in deep humility surrender.

That is why I recommend human relationships so much, to practice increasing loving this in the most personal and powerful way to open us to the deepest love for sentience, surrender to the unfolding of consciousness in its own way and time. It is a way that the limited becomes the infinite.  

By practicing love, compassion, surrender and humility, we take on the cloak of God, until, as Nisargadatta puts it, the I Am, God, Consciousness loves you back and releases you.

Nisargadatta’s experience was similar. His guru toldhim he was not his body and he immediately accepted that.  With that conviction he concentrated on his sense of I Am less than three years and had a great awakening, but which is never described. 

What I would note though, is that Maharaj grabbed onto one fruit of the awakening experience, that he was not his body.  That conviction, along with focus on and love of the I Am, released him from suffering and distress and created one of the great Jnanis of our time.

Lakshmi and I just after her feeding.  You can't hear her, but she is purring away. She feels no stress anymore.  No mouth pain, no cancer pain, and just constant gratitude.  

Lakshmi appears to be recovering nicely.   She is eating almost all her food on her own as opposed through the feeding tube.  Her gum inflammation appears way down.  Her feces are firming, and the irritable bowel disorder appears subsiding. Unfortunately her feeding tube is blocked, so I may have to take her in today.  We need to tube to administer all of her medications.  I'll try one more attempt this morning to unblock the tube.


She is back on my lap now purring just as before the surgery.

The spiritual processes around a guru and ashram

A year ago I was watching a video of my friend Shankarananda with two other swamis from the Muktananda tradition, who had run ashrams for a number of years.  It was moderated by Andrew Cohen. Mostly the program addressed the personal difficulties the three had encountered running ashrams with a combined experience of over 90 years.

The uniform theme was that it was quite difficult. People in the Sangha always came to the ashram with tons of preconceptions about what spirituality was about, what and who the guru was and should be in terms of who or what he or she was supposed to be, and what he or she was supposed to deliver. These ideas and preconceptions varied widely, and did their own preconceptions about their own obligations to the teacher and the ashram.

One swami discussed his loneliness as he really had no one to talk to “at his level,” which to me sounded rather arrogant at the time.  Another talked about daggers coming at him from all directions, as chaotic battles and backstabbing were or could be breaking out at any time.  Another talked about how careful he had to be in every statement, every word, every facial expression for fear of causing someone an offence and starting some sort of buried seething or overt angry confrontation.

Most new arrivals did seem to have a similar idea though regarding the ideal guru as Ramana Maharshi or someone similar, benevolent, aloof yet loving, undisturbed by anything in life, a constant smile on his face, exuding shakti power that turned the ashram into a Shangri-La of bliss and ecstasy where everyone felt loved and accepted. Others had no fixed notions, but I remember I did.  I had never contemplated a Zen master or guru to be an ordinary mortal being with faults, maybe some insecurities, or having romantic relationships. I figured they had all totally gone beyond, as the “Gone, gone, gone away, gone away to the other shore” of the Heart Sutra predicted.

Then for each newcomer, gradually came the recognition that once again, they were just in a new group of ordinary people with faults and preconceptions, led not by the Son of God, but by a human being with irritating faults, perhaps too aloof, perhaps too personal, perhaps even-handed or not, and perhaps playing favorites.  That is, each week that passed, preconceptions were shed, or else the person left in disappointment or disgust.

Very few were entirely happy with the ashram situation.  They had expected something different, perhaps an easy road to awakening, held in stasis by the ecstatic presence of a divine guru.  Later, that same guru might appear to the newcomer to be a horrible, uncaring, self-centered lout that only cared about himself or the ashram, and not about them as people.

Others thrived in the ashram situation.  Personally, I loved them, from the many Zen centers and monasteries I lived in to the three Muktananda ashrams, to the Hari Krishna temples and compounds I visited.  There was something different about ashramites. They were not much involved in the world. Instead they were involved in going into themselves, practicing meditation or ecstatic chanting.

Many of these ashrams were remarkably stable, some not.  If there was an ashram where people lived together, the Sangha appeared more stable.  The people living there had each made some sort of commitment to the ashram just by leaving their former life and living there. One notable example is Leonard Cohen who left his celebrity life behind for long periods and moved to Mt. Baldy Zen Center and became a monk. Leonard found peace there and found a deeper sense of himself.

However, if the Sangha just met for Satsang once or twice a week at someone’s house or at a center of some sort, it tended to be unstable with a rapid turnover.  There is something about having made the commitment to live together that stabilizes the Sangha.

I was with Robert for 8 years, about 7 in Los Angeles.   Over those 8 years, maybe thousands of people came to sit in Satsang or have lunch with him and thousands more met him on the phone or had letter contact. Robert never had an ashram, we always met at someone else’s house.

Like clockwork, every year the Sangha would be torn apart by some inner conflict and entirely break up.  Every year we were forced to meet in a new house of a new student, because of an explosion of rampant jealousies, arguments, perceived slights and humiliations and perceived failures of Robert to be the perfect Ramana-guru; the Sangha would break up and half would leave without ever explaining why and we would start all over again somewhere else.

The central problem in Robert’s Sangha was Robert’s behaviors contrasted to his words in Satsang, and access and/or control over Robert and the direction of the Sangha. 

It seemed everyone wanted more access to Robert than they had, and there were many small cliques that wanted to control every aspect of the Sangha, from who was to transcribe Satsangs, who was to compose and edit Robert’s books, who was to tape record, who was to coordinate bringing food and deserts for Satsang and our bi-monthly parties, who was going to be spokesperson, what chants were to be played at Satsang, advertising, writing magazine articles, etc.  Everyone wanted to help and everyone had their own ideas of how something should be done.  There was not a lot of surrender to the way things were, nor was there much surrender to the totality of the ideal of the greater good of the community or Robert as a person.  Everyone just wanted to be closer to Robert, having his Darshan, his remarkable presence of peace, emptiness and utter acceptance, but is the larger sense, they did not want to pay the price of inner work, supporting the guru, and of surrender, which is the crux of the teacher/student relationship---at least for me.

But getting close to Robert was difficult.  His time was limited and he had a few close students he met with for lunch every week, which limited access to him except at Satsang. In such situation, cliques almost always form, although his closest students all really got along with him: Mary, Lee, Dana and I.

Unfortunately, many came to Robert, and attempting to get close, would try to “poison” Robert’s mind against one or another of us, or even set up a clique within the Sangha and approach Robert with some project or another in order to gain more access.

People would tell Robert that I was doing this or that, which was ruining Satsang and the Sangha, or that there was a new person who was to be carefully watched because they had a bad “vibe” or some other problem. Mary, lee and I were always targets of being bad-mouthed by each other, or by them telling Robert all about our faults in an attempt to get closer to him by pointing out how faulty we were compared to how “loyal,” “honest,” or loving they were.

Robert’s Sangha was often like the Vatican under the Borgias, with constant intrigue and behind the back bloodletting.  Generally, it ended up with many blaming Robert for being who he was and doing what he did.  Students never took responsibility for their own actions and emotions, and projected the whole mess onto Robert, or me, or Mary or someone else.

Over the 8 years I was with him, only four stayed with him to the end, Mary, Lee, and Dana.  Out of thousands, only 4 stayed.  Robert was always looking for the ones who stayed despite all the turmoil in the Sangha.

The same is true of all gurus.  Very few students stay long, and the closer you get to the teacher, the less likely you are to stay because others in the Sangha begin “disinformation” campaigns to advance their own agendas by disempowering someone else.

Strangely, I saw much less of this attitude in any Zen center or monastery.  With the zen masters, and in the 70s and 80s, we knew who was in charge.  The problem arose more with the Robert-led Sanghas of few rules, no shared living quarters and no set responsibilities.  Robert was not a disciplinarian, nor did he care much for the direction that the Sangha went.  That meant a very lose management style, leaving openings for people to come and go making suggestions or doing whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted.

A lot of people become like love-starved little children, looking for recognition, a kind word or approval or from the Sangha itself, and more and more access to the teacher.

You see, often a new person comes with infinitely good intent, filled with a strong desire to know his or her self and truth, filled with devotion, and loyal to the entire process, but their own deep and personal needs got activated.  Then instead of using this as a perfect opportunity for self-inquiry, instead they get blown away by the intensity of their own needs as well as by whatever is the guru’s response, whether giving or withholding.  

This happens to every student at some point, and usually a multiple number of times, as happened to me with regard to Robert. While a few ask themselves these self-investigative questions, most remain focused on what they didn’t get from Robert or the Sangha.  Few went within themselves and ask what it was about Robert that pushed them to expect or demand this or that from the guru.  They did not ask, “What is it IN ME that needs to be stripped from ME, so I can feel open and loving toward my guru?” 

This is the sort of personal self-inquiry that every student needs to address at moments of a separation crisis.  “What is it in me that makes me feel Robert or Ed are failures as teachers? Why is it I do not trust the spiritual unfolding process?  What are/were my expectation and are they realistic, or are they childhood remnants that interfere with all my relations now?”

In many cases these are purely psychological questions pertaining to a perceived failure in a student’s relationship with the teacher, but they need to be resolved so that they can become empty enough to get emotionally close enough to the teacher to experience repeated glimpses of the infinite, of complete emptiness, of the divine being.

This is how the bond with the guru is cultivated and nourished.  This is the hard work.  It is easy to love the guru while we have an idealized image of him or her.  But when we get close to the guru, his clay feet are seen, and our many idealized projections of what the guru is, or should be, are shattered, and then the really hard work begins. 

This is the crux of the self-inquiry process.  The more we strip away our own resistances, the more open and accepting of ourselves and the guru we are.  And then the intimacy we so seek with our teacher and ultimately with our own Self is slowly revealed.  We can now taste the pure sense of I-AM.

On a parallel thread, there are those who by personality are “doers,” and gain recognition and gratification through doing and controlling, while others want to have nothing to do with this aspect of Satsang.  These others just want to work on themselves and have nothing to do with organizing Satsang.  They just want to come in peace, sit near the teacher, love the teacher, listen to his or her words, internalize them, feel ecstasy with the chanting and in meditation. It is these quiet people, these more shy and introverted people who really “progress” and work their way towards going free.

I am not saying the doers do not progress, for I was a chief doer with Robert and such activities stood me well over time, but the greatest progress happens after you surrender the doing to God, to Consciousness.  After three years with Robert, I stopped initiating anything on my own and just waited for Robert to direct me.  When Robert left Los Angeles, I stopped doing altogether and just rested in myself.

It is with some of these non-doing people that a teacher tends to spend more time, because he and they feel rapid changes taking place within them, away from the noise of the group. It is also with them that the teacher can be more of him or herself, in his own emptiness, acceptance and love, all held in silence. When some people discover how much time the teacher spends with these people compared with them, they again feel jealous.  This is especially the case for the type A doers who are making Satsang healthy and happening.  They feel cheated in a sense, they are doing so much for the teacher and the Sangha, but their teacher is spending more time for whatever reason, with someone else who is doing so little in comparison, in their minds and judgment.

You see, it is not a matter of how much time one spends in spiritual activities, but how much time one spends with the guru and within one’s own self, and you cannot trade activities to support the sangha with closeness to the teacher.  The openness of true surrender is felt by the teacher and automatically attracts him or her. True surrender lights a fire of devotion both in the student and the guru.

What I learned subsequently, but did not know at the time, I needed to better contain my relationships with students so that less was known generally about my relationship with each student.  However, the students themselves were always talking to each other about their own relationships with me and with others, so there was no real containing or isolation.

Relevant to this container concept, we need to be aware that none of us ever functions in isolation. If I feel anxious or depressed, just my bearing and presence causes those states to be communicated to others who are sensitive to me. This then “contaminates” their own state, which again becomes communicated to others in a ripple down effect.

Some spiritual people are very empathic. They become energy workers or Reikian therapists.  Some are almost telepathic. They can feel even well-hidden emotional states in others, and feel the incongruity of the hidden emotional state, such as hatred, as opposed to how a person expresses himself. The more meditation one does on one’s own sense of presence, on the I Am, the more sensitive some people get to these non-expressed emotional states and the energy-presence of others.

I am aggression avoidant.  I try to avoid conflict if possible and to smooth over buried conflicts with an attitude of “out of sight, out of mind.”  However, in such a situation, it will appear to empaths that their concerns and worries are not being addressed and that me, the blind teacher, is ignoring their very urgent intuition, while I appear to side with the person hiding hatred or ill-intent towards the others. In these situations, the empathic person feels unsafe and unprotected because the teacher has not even acknowledged the truth of what their intuition of danger tells them. In this capacity of ignoring their true intuitions, I failed many, many times.

Thus “reading” the minds and hearts of the Sangha members, above and beyond what they say and do becomes of utmost importance for a teacher, while learning how to deal with these situations becomes increasingly important in an ashram or Satsang setting. 

I must admit I have failed many times in my stumbling approach to running a benevolent Sangha, and often have relied on the advice of those I should have ignored.  It has been an intense learning experience.

I have since learned more about empathy as this ability has slowly increased in me during the past year.  In  fact, this talent can be honed and become a Siddhi, a power to be used for good or ill.

  When we are really closely attached and bonded, we can even feel the emotional states and energy states of those we love and are close to, over distances even when direct conversations or any communications for that matter, are not taking place. If a loved one is feeling sad, despairing, or radiantly happy, we can feel it.  If he or she is in a raging argument with their husband, wife or child, we can feel it, and sometimes feel these emotions as our own and wonder what brought these states on.  It can become really confusing for some—the origin or their mental and emotional states. 

One can actually “feel” on a deep, intuitive level, which some call the “astral level,” the ebbing and flowing of consciousness itself, as well as how that flow is affecting those we are close to, or the Satsang as a whole.  Becoming aware of these energies, flows, and impacts on those we love is really an incredibly interesting and exciting process taking place on the plane of the manifest. 

Robert certainly did not deny these levels existed, but only emphasized they should be ignored as irrelevant to one’s own liberation from the manifest world, and all these empathic events are related to the manifest world.

This increased empathy and awareness makes ashram living both easier and more difficult, because life is more subtle and nuanced, and we are more open and influenced by “invisible and unexpressed” affects and flows within consciousness.

The more personal the teacher is, the closer to his or her heart that he allows his students to come, the more intense will be the needs, jealousies and angers, as well as the intensity of love, that these relationships will ignite and sustain.  

When the guru is more distant and not so open, all the infighting goes on in the background, if it goes on at all, and few have any sense it is even happening except for a felt sense that a certain situation is odd.

The spiritual process is one of constant deconstructing of one’s ego and belief systems and a progressive surrender to the teacher, once you realize that you and the teacher are not separate from the overall process of consciousness “evolving” in and through you.  In fact, spiritual “progress” is surrendering to the process of losing what inhibits your awakening, and this is extremely painful and frightening, for example, to let go of your concept of the perfect guru, or how the spiritual process should look.

Many students want the teacher to create a situation where it is easy to wake up, but in fact, it is up to the student to do the work, to practice self-inquiry on why the feelings of wanting to run away are coming up.  “Why do they come to me,” one should ask.  Why am I so angry with the teacher? Why do I feel hatred towards X, Y and Z?  What is my part in all this?  Why do I believe X but not the teacher, or why do I believe the teacher and not X?

The source of the need to run away is in you, why do you run?  Can you just stay with the feelings and not run or not create stories to justify the urge to run or strike out?

You see, in our Sangha, like with Robert’s, or Ramana’s, or with Nisargadatta, most people are just passing through.  So don’t worry about what is wrong with the teacher or with the Sangha, because Consciousness is directing everything. You, Robert and I are just small cogs in an unlimited, infinite unfolding of consciousness, and all of our “huge” problems are not even pimples to God.

Yet, because of the apparent hugeness of our problems, we do not trust the unfolding process, and when our problems are not solved, we often fixate on the teacher’s failures that has caused us not to progress and go free. It becomes his fault, not ours or that of Consciousness itself; it becomes the Sangha’s fault, not ours or that of Consciousness itself, and the role assigned to us by the grand unfolding. We make up stories that block our own self-inquiry and deepening, then we run away from the cooking we ourselves are creating in association with God and guru.

The chaos and cooking people experienced at Robert’s Sangha had little to do with Robert. He was just the apparent figurehead. 

Only four stayed for the entire 8 years with Robert, and Robert was always looking for those who stayed by him, mostly the quiet ones, who spent much time looking into themselves, reading the transcripts, meditating, or wanting to spend time with the teacher, and surrendering to the process of the unfolding of consciousness through him or her, which the mind cannot see, but the heart can directly intuit, minute by minute.

Feeling a bit overwhelmed.

Seems like I have a new, full-time job as Lakshmi's chef and home health care worker.

In addition to my usual duties of trudging to work each day on website, blog and Facebook, Lakshmi’s care requires a lot of work. 

There were three 50 mile round trip travel to her vet, including going back because they gave me the wrong syringes, but 4 X day feeding, including preparation of her medication cocktails which include an antibiotic, chemotherapy meds (Leukeran), Bumorphine 3 X daily, steroid cocktail, Alpha Interferon, and soon Palladium.   All have to be combined into one syringe and administered through an injection port in her PEG feeding tube.

It is a relatively complex procedure of flushing the tube with water, inserting the meds, administering a gradually increasing amout of food as her stomach stretches, as well as processing the food so it can pass through the tube.

Then I had to get topic antibiotics for the tube wound, gauze, a new cage for her initially to limit her movements and to have easy access to her for feeding, a new bed, etc.

I feel really nervous doing this, because even administering the food is not that easy, as I have to first aspirate her stomach contents to make sure the food is being absorbed, so as to not overfill her stomach.

Adding to this, the psychiatrist I do some work for has doubled the amount of reports he needs done recently. 

Add to this, some of the people I know well recently have been making remarkable progress but also are under a lot of strain, and I feel every inch of their stress.

I have found recently that those close to me are all interconnected.  What A feels, I feel, and so does B, C, etc.  The closer we are the more we feel in terms of the other’s emotional condition, clarity or confusion.  We are all tied together and some of the anxiety I feel is due to others, while some of the love I feel, is also a “preconscious” awareness of their existence.

We “feel” each other, not only when in contact, but always.  All in all, it is “interesting times.”

Email sent to me; a wonderful breakthrough! 


I am feeling so lazy and uninterested in the external world.  I want to lie down and simply be. I can't begin to describe the total despair I feel at not being able to just be, and the effort it feels to actually go out and be with my family.  I feel like crying and my family labels it as depression.  They don't know the joy I feel at simply being in myself, alone, lost in my beingness.  It is effortless to be happy for me now. I simply redirect my attention inwardly and I can access my bliss.  I simply am happy to be, to exist in a effortless being, simply being.  Nothing out there is of interest to me now.


Ed: So, so magnificent!  I hope this state sticks around for a while!  But at least you now can access the bliss states so easily and it will happen even more easily in the future.

A tough two days.


Lakshmi is starving herself to death because of pain in her mouth and is even vomiting up pain medications and her Ciproheptidine which makes her feel hungry.  I was supposed to take her in yesterday for the surgery, but my "mother-in-law" suffered from an apparent stroke yesterday morning and was in a Kaiser ER for 10 hours before she was admitted.  


It turns out it was not a stroke, but pneumonia, and she is feeling better.  She is on two antibiotics. In the meantime, Lakshmi is getting worse, and the vet cannot do the surgery today or tomorrow so I have to take her to another for similar treatment.


Worse, I had "words" with someone for whom I care very much, leading to the worst blow to my heart.  Sometimes being open is very difficult, and the vulnerability cuts deep, as much as it fills you with joy a few days before or later.

Bad news.  Lakshmi's stomatitis symptoms are progressing even while her cancer is fully under control.  Despite taking Alpha Interferon, an antibiotic, and a steroid combo, her gums are increasingly inflamed and bleeding.  She is also taking Leukeran for her cancer. She is not eating despite trying baby food and various meat and fish combos using a food processor.  She is receiving fluids every other day which make her feel better, as well as a morphine derivative for intense pain, and ciproheptidine to increase her appetite.


Her oncologist, John Chretine, now recommends surgically installing a feeding tube through her abdomenal wall, so that nothing has to pass through her mouth: food, medications, water, giving her mouth a chance to rest.


Then we can try all kinds of medications that she can not now tolerate through her mouth.


Given her state of health and of near starvation, and a mild heart murmur, there is some added risk.


This is Lakshmi's only hope.  Without the surgery, she'll die in a few weeks of starvation.


Dustin, who had an identical cancer and also stomatitis, also had a feeding tube installed 5 years ago.  In six months he went from 5.5 pounds to 11 pounds, and Chretin said he was getting too fat.  Dustin loved the tube.  Four times a day I'd bring the feeding syringe to the huge cage he was in, and give him breakfast, lunch or supper.  He would see me coming and turn his left side to me, for easy access to the tube, and he'd purr and purr.  No more pain for him.  He lived almost three years on his own after the tube was removed.


If you are inclined to help, the surgery and immediate subsequent medications will cost a bit over $1,000.  You can donate towards covering her surgery and care by using the Paypal donation button on the right, or go to wearesentience.com, and use the buttons there.  Thank you. 

Dear Sangha,

On January 1, 2012, Jo Ann and Alan Chinn  left our Sangha with no warning, sending one or more emails to all Sangha members they were leaving due to personal reasons which were unstated.  

I have heard this has had a ripple effect throughout our Sangha, as people wondered what has happened and have only heard from Jo Ann for her reasons if she is asked.

So, I want to set the record straight.

Jo Ann and Alan joined our Sangha during the middle of 2010, and rapidly took over the task of building an online Satsang from Janet Beier and Chris (Harrison).  

Both felt pushed aside because Jo Ann had the time and energy and technological experience to make it happen immediately, and I let her do it.  Also, Matthew Brown, who was working on other projects, found she had taken those over too.  Again, Jo Ann’s dedication, energy, and full-time focus allowed her to accomplish miracles in a short time.

However, I then learned that Jo Ann was spending many hours every week “working” with our Sangha members as a quasi therapist using Byron Katies’ “The Work,” as well as Levinson’s “The Release Technique,” to help people overcome whatever problems they had, while Alan was doing “energy” work with those who had illness or pain.

I did not know this.  Apparently many people in our Sangha thought these were my teachings as Jo Ann was at the center of everything done on the Internet.  In fact, our Sangha was as much hers as mine, since she built it and maintained complete control over every aspect.

Then during approximately early January of 2011, I confronted her on her teaching The Work and the Release Technique to our membership as these methods are completely alien to the teachings of Robert Adams and Jean Dunn (Nisargadatta), my two teachers.

Ultimately there was a rupture, which involved another Sangha member, and they left.

I am not organized and I am lazy.  I let people run the show who get things done, which alienates the people closest to me, who really come for the teachings.  This is my personality defect.  I like to let things unfold rather than take charge, therefore it appears others are in charge, and those others are always take-charge personalities who have their own separate agendas from that of spreading Robert’s and Nisargadatta’s teachings.

On December 31, 2011, I heard that Jo Ann was widely touting a book by Peter Dziubian called Consciousness is Everything, telling me and others than in reading it she had made more progress than in many months with me. 

          In fact, during this time, both Alan and Jo Ann were warning some of my students not to get too close to me for unstated reasons. I heard about this, and thought it was because they did not want others to get close to me who were not also close to them.  In fact, Alan stated directly to me that I was too much favoring certain students and he felt left out.

As Joan Burtner said:

“This also explains why Alan turned more and more against me as I got closer to you.  He began to make nasty comments to me in front of others.  As this was happening I began to feel a sense of coldness from Jo-Ann as well.  I wasn't their 'project', couldn't be controlled so it all began to turn nasty. 

“Which also explains the often subtle warnings they would give to me about 'not getting too close' to you.  This happened often.  If they couldn't control whoever got close to you, they found a reason to turn them away or chase them away.

“So, when you began to give them less and less attention and they found out how much time you were spending with me they almost immediately turned me away.  But their turning me away didn't make me leave and this was threatening to their need for 'control'.  OMG, this is exactly what happened. ”

Joan was not the only person they chased away. They chased away Chris, calling him insane and exuding “dark energies,” Janet, who they deemed as a dangerous  manipulator, and even they tried with Mathew Brown, who refused to budge.  They also attacked Ruby as having “dark energies,” as well as others.  When both Rajiv and I said no one should be excluded from Satsang because of “dark energies,” the Chinns gave in.

I also found out that for months prior to her leaving, Jo Ann had been spending a lot of time with John Grenafege on skype, as well as with many other people in our Sangha discussing Peter’s book.  Jo Ann represented John as a “deeply enlightened dear friend,” who had been in hibernation after an awakening he had 3 years ago, and now wanted to come out into the world and teach.  Jo Ann never told me why she thought John was deeply enlightened, except that he appeared to favor this book by Dziubian. This I heard from another three other Sangha members just before January 1, and since.

This book they were recommending by Dziubian is pure neo-Advaita, exactly the kind of teaching and philosophy that I had been talking against for over two years, as it presents a totally conceptual view about consciousness, just words and concepts and definitions, such that after people read it, they feel as if they really understand the nature of Consciousness and their own true nature, but they really lack an experience of awakening.

Categorically, you cannot “get” awakening from a book.  You get concepts that convince your mind that you know that which cannot be known.  As Hui Neng said, “The only truth is that there is no truth; beware even of this truth.”  In other words, concepts can never provide an awakening. U.G. Krishnamurti said all concepts have to be shrugged off, and Robert said much the same to me.  For Robert, one goes in surrender to the guru to receive teachings, not with a book of concepts about consciousness.

Despite my constant warnings against such teachings, Jo Ann was pushing this book and these teachings within our Sahgha.

I sent an email to Jo Ann on January 1, 2012 stating these kinds of teachings were dangerous because they put concepts before experience, and can delay one’s awakening for a long time.  I stated that because of her high visibility in the Sangha, people assume that much of what she is saying is authorized by me, or that she has an elevated understanding because she is at the center of everything in our Sangha.

To which she replied she was not going to stop reading the book, nor stop talking to whomever she wants, when she wants about anything she wants.

Jo Ann writes:

You are reading from the Tiger's Cave, which makes absolutely no sense to me, and telling me how good it is.  

But when I find a book that does make a great deal sense to me and is having a profound impact, you quickly discount it as neo-advaitan???

I'll not bother you any more about this book, but I sure as hell am going to keep reading it!

Jo Ann’s inability to understand the teachings in the Tiger’s Cave indicates she had not yet gone deep.  Those teachings require a subtle and nuanced understanding, living from the heart and not the head.

In other words, Jo Ann had found teachings she could understand and with which she felt “progress,” as opposed to the teachings I was presenting, which took concepts away, making one more open, vulnerable, and in one’s heart. Jo Ann did not want vulnerability, she wanted something her mind could grasp and which she could teach.

The next day I, and several others, received an email from her saying she was leaving, calling me a liar several times, as well as a manipulator. 

After that, a whole bunch of people left without even a note, and I assume either because Jo Ann spread negativity gossip about me, or just because they suffered shock from the sudden break up.

Subsequent to their leaving, I have had people from all over the world tell me Jo Ann had been promoting these teachings, and her “Dear enlightened friend, John Grenafege” in intense Skype sessions lasting many hours, and had been doing so for months. I knew nothing of this.

I have recently heard from three different sources, one in Australia, another on the East Coast of the US, and another in Great Brtiain that the Chinns plan on starting a new satsang with John Grenafege.  My speculation, if this is true, is that John will be easier to control.  He has no nearby family or loved ones as opposed to many dedicated students who have opposed the Chinns grip on Satsang.

I had let the Chinns become the center of our Sangha rather than the teachings or my own contribution.  They interacted with everyone on an intense basis, with far more contact than I had with you. They had their own Satsang within our larger Sangha, and they were even warning people not to get too close to me.

This is my failure in every way.  I failed to take more direct control of day to day operations.  I failed to spend as much time with my students as the Chinns did.  I failed to present the teachings better, and I failed to warn people more about the dangers of reading too many books, especially neo advaita books.

Online Satsangs will return soon if the demand is there for them. Few have contacted me directly that they are wanted or needed. Usually fewer than 15 or 20 people ever showed up for online Satsangs.

I am continuing to work with Rajiv and some other students to establish an ashram.  An ashram setting provides for the kind of constant contact an ashram affords, that the synergistic energy for breakthroughs develops.

If anyone is interested in starting something in Los Angeles, please contact me.

Please contact me directly at satsang.online@gmail.com.

With Great Love,

 Edji

Below is a review of Dziubian’s book by Joan Burtner.  This is included as a warning.  This book can convince you that you are awakened and slow real progress of opening your heart; so read it at your own risk. I am taking this step as it appears that the Chinns have told many people in our Sangha about it, and this cannot go unopposed.

Joan:

About a year ago I read a book by Peter Francis Dziuban, titled Consciousness Is All.  The purpose of this writing is not to make a critique of this particular book in any detailed way, but to simply point out the overall conceptual nature of the book; conceptual, meaning that it is heavily laden with definitions and meanings of words and meanings about those words ad Infinitum.   It is a theoretical, conceptual masterpiece to be sure.

The purpose of the book, at least from my perspective, is not to invite the reader to ‘look within’ to discover their own nature, experientially, but rather to inform or rather precondition the reader’s mind as to what he or she would find if and when they did look. Even when the reader is directed to notice his or her own experience, the author goes on to postulate the outcome of that investigation.   Thus the investigation is already polluted by the mind.  And mind, through the power of words has the potential to create certain experiences.   

In Silence of the Heart, Robert Adams said this about Consciousness.  “Everything is Consciousness – everything.  When you ask, ‘What is Consciousness?’ there is no valid answer.  When someone asks me to write a book or give a lecture, then I have to explainConsciousness in about fifty different words, and each word has another fifty words to explain that, then those words have another fifty words.  So your volume of the book is written.  What does it say?  “Everything is Consciousness.”  I could have written one page.  And in the middle of that page I would say, “Everything is Consciousness,’ and the rest would be blank.  This is the reason I do not write books, because there is nothing to say.  See how confusing it is?  You read so many books during the week.  Usually you do not remember what you read, and if you do, it’s intellectual.  You are using somebody else’s words and not having your own experience.”

And yet, Peter manages to write a 327 page book about what Consciousness is.  It’s mental madness, but this is just my opinion. Here is but one tiny example of this mental madness. “If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound?  Hint:  “Answer not a fool according to his folly.”  The real issue is not whether or not such an event occurs.  The issue isentirely a matter of identification.  The issue is whether the one to whom the question is asked, identifies as Present Consciousness, Infinite Being’s pure Isness – or with finite senses and time, is-not-ness.  In Truth, there is no choice; the Absolute Present One being All, leaves no finite time-sense to identify with or as.  Who is the only One present, existent, aware, alive?  Changelessly Present Consciousness.  It completely precludes such a finite time-event of a tree falling, and any questions being asked about it in Reality. To attempt to answer the question on its terms would imply there is time.  There isn’t.  That’s the answer.”  

For a few months after reading this book, there was a sort of intellectual bliss as my mind reveled in its ability to give an explanation about what someone else said about the nature of Consciousness, at least what I could mentally grasp.   I took great delight in being able to hold my own amongst my peers as we mentally masturbated as a group.  But the intellectual bliss wore off and the deep longing that had been numbed by it resurfaced.  There were no life changing experiences to speak of.   

I often hear New Agers and Neo-Advaitans speak of how it is easier to awaken now than it ever has been.  I cannot say.  Maybe it’s easier than ever to ‘imagine’ that one is awakened due to the abundance of material in the spiritual market place that makes such hype out of initial experiences.  These initial awakening experiences seem to be redefining freedom as a whole.  Robert Adams said, that there was probably never more than a handful of truly liberated beings on the earth at any one time.