Awake

–
Conscious Pilgrimage

By A. Pilgrim

1
Copyright © Any Pilgrim 2021

This publication may be shared freely.

ISBN: 9781093116403 (paperback)

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Dedication
“From the One Source Through Many”

To those many who have blessed me with their lives and teachings.

“By their fruits ye shall know them.”

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 Contents
Dedication.....................................................................................................................................................
Acknowledgements.......................................................................................................................................
Introduction...................................................................................................................................................
Note about anonymity and the photos.................................................................................11
Core Message Synopsis...........................................................................................................................
Two identities...................................................................................................................... 12
The Journey Home..............................................................................................................13
Diagram of Reality and Material World................................................................................15
Maintaining and Living in Conscious Awareness.................................................................16
Dhyana, Beingness, Heart and............................................................................................16
‘Disappearance’ into Everything..........................................................................................16
1..................................................................................................................................................................
1950 ─ 1959 - Beginnings in Canada & Minnesota.................................................................................
Experiences of ‘home’ in another dimension.......................................................................18
Life in this world as awareness............................................................................................20
Realizing I am in the timeless..............................................................................................25
Increased awareness of threshold consciousness...............................................................27
2..................................................................................................................................................................
1959 ─ 1968 – In Venezuela and Montreal...............................................................................................
3..................................................................................................................................................................
1968 ─ 1971 – Mexico City and Vancouver – Mysterious Realms Beckon..........................................
Jose Silva – tuning in to brainwave frequencies..................................................................33
Colin Wilson – Introduction to Gurdjieff................................................................................34
4..................................................................................................................................................................
1971 ─ 1974 – Brantford and Mexico City – Mindful of Thoughts.........................................................
1972-3 – Eschatology – “Thinking Makes It So”..................................................................36
5..................................................................................................................................................................
1974 ─ 1980 – London, Mexico City and Toronto – I Remember Myself...............................................
1974 – Gurdjieff Group and ‘The Work’...............................................................................42
‘Remember Yourself’........................................................................................................43
Using Attention................................................................................................................. 44
Essence Vs Personality...................................................................................................45
Identifying, Considering and Justifying.............................................................................45
Our Different Centres.......................................................................................................46
Cosmology....................................................................................................................... 47
A, B and C Influences......................................................................................................47

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 What is Meaningful..........................................................................................................48
More Eschatology................................................................................................................49
Mexico City Gurdjieff Group – Eva Sulzer, Christopher Fremantle, Edgardo Vazquez........50
Hugh Harleston, Jr...............................................................................................................54
1978 – A Course in Miracles (ACIM) – the world as our dream...........................................59
6..................................................................................................................................................................
1980 ─ 1987 – Ruislip - Writing and Management Consulting...............................................................
1980 – Sogyal Rinpoche – chanting and a taste of Dzogchen.............................................62
7..................................................................................................................................................................
1987 ─ 2000 – Clapham, Hawaii, Japan - The Inner Journey Intensifies...............................................
1987 – Shaun de Warren – Growing awareness and publishing.........................................66
1988 – Swami Shyam – A taste of bliss...............................................................................75
Barry Long – I am Vs. me....................................................................................................78
1989 – Rebirthing – the body has a mind of its own............................................................82
Ram Dass – an unfolding karmic predicament....................................................................83
1990 – Chuck Spezzano – A map for personal evolution....................................................88
Anecdote – How to Let Go of a Vasana...........................................................................91
1991 – Dr Robert-Michael Kaplan – Transforming our doors of perception.........................93
Douglas Harding – Sudden Awakening...............................................................................98
1993 – Amma (Mata Amritanandamayi) – Blessed by Love..............................................103
Deepak Chopra – “the body is in the mind”........................................................................104
Volunteering and Trinity Hospice – opening my heart........................................................106
Anthony Robbins – Unleashing the Power Within..............................................................109
1994 – Christine Longaker – A Tibetan Buddhist approach to dying.................................110
Painting............................................................................................................................. 115
Arjuna Ardagh – ‘Circle of Being’.......................................................................................119
John Shodo Flatt – lessons from a Zen patriarch..............................................................121
1995 – Arkaji – Conscious Awareness..............................................................................126
1995 – Robert Aitken Roshi – the world as our ‘hologram’................................................132
THE BARRIER BEYOND THE GATELESS.......................................................................136
1997 – Ajahn Sumedho – the mind Vs. the Way...............................................................138
Others................................................................................................................................ 139
Hare Krishna.................................................................................................................. 140
1998.................................................................................................................................. 142
1999.................................................................................................................................. 143
8................................................................................................................................................................
2000 ─ 2009 – Rickmansworth, Dover and Japan –..............................................................................
Solo Explorations....................................................................................................................................

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 2000 - 2006....................................................................................................................... 145
Initiation into the Dao.........................................................................................................145
2007.................................................................................................................................. 146
Oneness Blessing..............................................................................................................150
2008.................................................................................................................................. 151
Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta.................................................................................152
Awareness Watching Awareness – Michael Langford.......................................................156
2009 – Rupert Spira..........................................................................................................158
2010.................................................................................................................................. 159
Robert Monroe and the Binaural Beat...............................................................................160
9................................................................................................................................................................
2010 – 2013 – Japan and Dover - Glimpse of the Primordial...............................................................
2010 January 16................................................................................................................162
2011.................................................................................................................................. 163
A Year of Watching the Transition between Sleep and Waking.........................................164
2012.................................................................................................................................. 164
June, 2012 – Notes re consciousness-being-awakening - Dhammajiva talks....................165
June 9 – Self as Vasanas (latent tendencies)....................................................................167
July – Draft map of self and mind......................................................................................168
2013.................................................................................................................................. 169
10..............................................................................................................................................................
2013 -2020 ─..............................................................................................................................................
Anadi – A Teaching with Insights and Practices................................................................171
Overview........................................................................................................................ 172
Summer 2016 diagram...................................................................................................175
The teaching - some key points.....................................................................................176
Personal evolution both confirmed and advanced through working with the teaching....179
10/2/2015 - View from Awareness Notes.......................................................................180
Further work with the teaching.......................................................................................183
End of July 2019 – The Absolute – An Old Friend..........................................................186
11..............................................................................................................................................................
2013 Forward – Other Studies, Practice and Notes..............................................................................
2015 – Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tai Chi and the Tan T’ien..............................................188
31/3/2015 - My Body Turns 65..............................................................................................190
2017................................................................................................................................... 191
2018................................................................................................................................... 191
Rasa International – Ramaji and Ananda Devi....................................................................192
2019.................................................................................................................................. 196

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 Session with Ramaji..........................................................................................................196
Arkaji reconnection............................................................................................................200
2020.................................................................................................................................. 202
Senses as the gates of the soul.........................................................................................202
Vasanas/Kleshas/Kilesas..................................................................................................202
12..............................................................................................................................................................
Taoism and ‘Immortality’........................................................................................................................
13..............................................................................................................................................................
Breaking Through the Gateless Barrier.................................................................................................
2021.................................................................................................................................. 225
14..............................................................................................................................................................
Reflections....................................................................................................................... 230
APPENDICES...........................................................................................................................................
Appendix 1 - Primordial Experience - later comments and excerpts from others.............................
Appendix 2 – Vedic Teachings.................................................................................................................
Appendix 3 – Arka Dhyana Overview and Practice..................................................................................
Appendix 4 – PoV’s Triangle Journey Model and Buddhism’s Five Skandhas and Wheel
of Life.......................................................................................................................................................
Psychology of Vision’s Triangle Journey Model.............................................................252
Buddhism’s 5 Skandhas.................................................................................................253
Buddhism’s 6 Realms....................................................................................................254
Beyond the Wheel and the Triangle...............................................................................257
APPENDIX 5 – Anadi Teaching – Personal Conclusions..........................................................................
Appendix 6 – A Light on the sayings of Jesus?...................................................................................
‘Created by the Divine’...................................................................................................268
The Living Light..............................................................................................................268
Heaven.......................................................................................................................... 269
The Lessons.................................................................................................................. 270
Select Bibliography...................................................................................................................................

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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to virtually all of the teachers and friends who are named and/or
alluded to here. It is to a large degree thanks to the mirror they provided that
this journey has been possible.
In some cases, short passages from the writings some of them have been
included. There is no point in rewriting something that has already been aptly
expressed. The value added here largely lies in the synthesis of parts of these
different teachings which made up this journey. As the intention of this effort
is to help others in their own journeying, such excerpts should result in those
sufficiently interested exploring these teachers and their writings further.
Many of the photos and other illustrations used were my own, and I have
minimised using a few others found online. Like those, this story will also be
freely available to any online and is free of copyright, so there is no material
motive in the use of either borrowed excerpts or such photos and other
illustrations. Excerpts from Robert Eaton’s (Brijendra’s) books are used with
kind permission.
Aside from names of teachers and authors whose profiles are publicly
available, most other names and identities, including my own, have been kept
anonymous.

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Introduction
This is both an outer and inner story.
The outer story, in addition to being historical facts, is the kind personality
usually likes to tell – what my teacher Shaun referred to as ‘puffery’. With
personality now largely having removed itself into what might at best be
described as a more backseat and transparent position, the outer story’s value
here is more that of a fictional type read. It does, however, serve a purpose as
something of a skeletal structure in the relative space-time continuum on
which to hang the gradual unfoldment of the inner journey and story.
The inner story, which is about an entry into this relative realm of manifested
creation and a continuing individual and personal awakening, contains any
potential real value this manuscript may have. Some of the explorations,
pitfalls and discoveries may provide the odd clue or pointer to help another on
his or her journey. While this is a narrative of seeking, it is also one about
finding and of the deepening and more permanent establishment of that. In
addition to its being a potential help to others, there seems a possibility that if
the writer does not complete his human journey this time around, he/she may
well come across these jottings in the next time and find them a great help in
retracing some of the steps taken so far. Although there is no expectation of
remembering a previous life’s personality and history, there should still be a
resonance with what the soul is ready to hear from its past evolution.
I am increasingly convinced that throughout an individual lifetime – including
the development in the womb – one duplicates human physical and
psychological evolution. On the physical side there is the extraordinary
growth and transformation of the embryo, culminating in the birth of a human
being. On the psycho-emotional side, one may well have brought in deep
impulses and unfinished business or karma and desires from an
unremembered past, but one starts with something of a blank slate in terms of
comprehension of the world one is born into. Understanding and adapting to
one’s worldly situation as an ego is a rollercoaster ride, starting with the
infant’s immaturity, suffering and needs, but then, hopefully, gradually
growing in awareness and consciousness to transcend the personality and its
suffering.
My awareness of, and fascination with, conscious states was with me as a
young child, but then later, although still present, took a secondary position to
outer life during boyhood and early to mid-teenage years. However, from
about my later teens, it re-emerged, along with a keen desire to find out who
or what I am, although without any clarity as to what this might mean. What
was abundantly clear was that it did not feel as if this world was my true
home.
Some of my key findings seem to have taken me back to states I knew (but
then forgot) as an infant. Accordingly, the narrative commences with
conception and early infancy, when one has only ‘essence’ (what one already
is when entering the physical realm), prior to the formulation of personality.

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Over the years, I have tried to share some of these findings with others.
Despite many of these others having been on spiritual paths, and often for
decades, there seems to have been on their parts surprisingly little real
comprehension of – or appreciation for – what I was trying to share. What to
me has been incredibly precious and of tremendous importance seemed either
incomprehensible or mistakenly considered as something conceptual – limited
to the mind or intellect – to others. Despite this, perhaps there will be some
who resonate with parts of the journey described here.
For many years, I have felt I have been living between two worlds – inner and
outer ones. The outer one has been made up of the mind and of the
psychological states one has oneself, including how one relates to the
psychologies of others and to the whole of the external world. It has largely
been taken up with looking after worldly responsibilities, including looking
after the physical body (more consciously latterly than formerly). A good part
of this outer world management has also been involved in clearing and
healing psychological and emotional issues (appreciating J. Krishnamurti’s
apt description of a person as ‘a psychological disturbance in space’ and Ram
Dass’s reference to himself as ‘an unfolding karmic predicament’.)
The inner world represented a ‘home’ which I had somehow become
separated from. Not being home and not understanding what it really was or
how to return to it was a source of great suffering and a feeling of being an
out-of-place alien in the outer world. Almost all the spiritual teachings and
teachers I’ve been drawn to have invariably pointed my attention inwards.
Some of these pointings have been to objective aspects of the inner world,
such as our psychological structures, thoughts, feelings and perceptions.
Other, deeper, ones have been to subjectivity itself and its subtle, even
etheric, energies, finding a new and truer identity aligned with the one who is
the ultimate source of consciousness and of perceiving, being and feeling at
the level of the spiritual heart.
While the outer journey has been one which can be shared to varying degrees
with different people, it has almost been impossible to share the inner one
with even the those I can share deepest with as respects the outer one. When I
have made attempts to share about this inner realm, I might as well have been
speaking a language foreign to my listeners.
It is so true that we each journey alone on the inner path. I have only found
inklings of the same language in very occasional and exceptional sharings . . .
and those mostly from ones who are no longer in their physical form.

Note about anonymity and the photos

As the whole point of this message is about a self which is before and beyond
a personality, it would be counterproductive to attach a name and personality
to it . . . or for what is a non-worldly aware consciousness to claim ownership
of it.
Photos of some of the teachers who have influenced or touched me are

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included, together with some photos of ‘myself’. The ones of myself are not
intended to be about me as an ego identifying with a particular physical form,
but to be viewed more as an unchanging awareness looking out and
perceiving through other physical senses which, on this journey, has been
associated with a mind and body while becoming more conscious of itself.
There is sufficient internal evidence that the human identity attached to this
awareness can be discovered. And, obviously, those who know me as a
personality or recognize ‘me’ in the photos will know who I am as a mind-
body with a name . . . but that is not relevant to the message here. The
primary challenge for any sincere reader is not to seek to identify the author,
but to discover their own essence and divinity within themselves and to
nurture its potential so it blossoms and bears its fruit.

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Core Message Synopsis
This book is about a long journey taken with many guides. Although it includes what
could be thought of as some detours, virtually every step of the journey added some
value, either minor or major, and helped this pilgrim move forward.
For those who do not have the time or inclination to wade through all or parts of this
story, this summary contains what could be considered its most important message.

Two identities
We all have two identities; an essential true one which accompanied us into the ma-
terial realm – but which we have forgotten – and one we acquired from external
sources after entry to the world – the one we have been led to believe is who we
are.
Our essence identity can be likened to the hub of a wheel. It is who we are at our
centre, our conscious intelligence, the source of our awareness and what ultimately
knows or recognizes our whole inner subjective and outer objective worlds. This
identity was with us before we even knew we had a body, name, gender, family,
race, culture or nationality. This ‘who we are’ also has the remarkable ability of be-
ing aware of itself, of its own pure subjectivity. It can be experienced as an alive and
unchanging peace.
“The most exciting phenomenon is that human consciousness can recognise itself
and distinguish itself from matter, energy, space and time.” – Srinivas Arka

The acquired identity is not authentically ours. It has gradually been constructed
from what we have learned and been taught since infancy – in other words, what
has filtered through the intellect part of the mind from our different senses. It be-
comes our personality and ego, together with all of the psycho-emotional beliefs,
likes, dislikes and other baggage we have accumulated from outside. It is extremely
fickle, changing to react accordingly with each different situation and relationship. It
can be likened to the rim or outer periphery of the wheel, attached to the hub by
many spokes. Each spoke is like a different ‘I’ through which our mind reflects some
external thought, emotion, person or situation and then rotates on to a new ‘I’ with
each change in circumstance. Such a fragmented mind can only look outward and
only exists through its reflections of such external situations and objects. The mind
as it is can never be aware of its own source of awareness – our original essential
identity. Its whole existence – while it is associated with a body which it identifies
with – is spent focused outwards and spent in reactions and in efforts to avoid or re-
duce its suffering or in vain attempts to attain more enduring happiness.
“Man has no individual I. But there are, instead, hundreds and thousands of separ-
ate small “I”s, very often entirely unknown to one another, never coming into con-
tact, or, on the contrary, hostile to each other, mutually exclusive and incompatible.
Each minute, each moment, man is saying or thinking, “I”. And each time his I is dif-
ferent. Just now it was a thought, now it is a desire, now a sensation, now another
thought, and so on, endlessly. Man is a plurality. Man’s name is legion.” – Gurdjieff

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The spiritual journey we take is one of returning home to our true identity, our pure
awareness that is not identified with or limited in any way by the temporal or mater-
ial.
In fact, this source and essence identity can even be thought of as extra-terrestrial,
being free of the world as we know it.

The Journey Home

The Vedas teach about turning inward – away from all objects and sensory percep-
tions – to find Brahman, or pure consciousness.
Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is within you.” (Luke 17:21) and “My kingdom is
not of this world.” (John 18:36) (KJV)

What could be more within or inner than the source of our very awareness?

This inner identity must also be the answer to Ramana Maharshi’s question, “Who
am I?”
Just a few of many relevant quotes from Ramana, taken from Muruganar’s Garland
of Guru’s Sayings:
‘The only true and full awareness is awareness of awareness. Till awareness is
awareness of itself, it knows no peace at all.’ (No. 418)
‘Is it not because you are yourself awareness, that you now perceive this universe?
If you observe awareness steadily, this awareness itself as Guru will reveal the
Truth.’ (No. 432)
‘Awareness is not a quality of the Self. The Self is without qualities. Awareness is
not an action of the Self. The Self does nothing. The Self, our Being, IS Aware-
ness.’ (No. 1038)

Coming back to this original awareness does not seem an easy matter. We have
grown used to doing everything with our minds, but the mind cannot see its own
source. There is also little we can do physically which can help take us there. The
Hindu goddess Kali wears a garland of severed heads and a belt of severed hands
to tell us these cannot help us. We need to train our awareness (which is before and
senior to the mind) to become aware of itself. In some traditions it has been symbol-
ized as a romance in which one is wooing the divine.
One means of bringing awareness to this is by being aware of the transition from
sleep to waking. There is a brief interval between deep dreamless sleeping and re-
membering who one is in the world. In that interval one experiences just pure
awareness without the presence of the mind and personality. But then, almost im-
mediately, the mind engages, and one remembers who one is in the world, where
one is, the date and time . . . and, suddenly, all one’s responsibilities and life circum-
stances take over again. By watching for that brief transitional interval that immedi-
ately follows waking, it is possible to use that awareness of awareness as a bench-
mark, establishing a foothold that can be extended for longer and longer periods.

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Meditation can do it through cutting off sensory input almost completely. For it to be
effective, one must become the meditation rather than be the meditator, which
means stepping out of the mind – becoming just awareness - and paying no atten-
tion to any thoughts which continue to arise and pass.
Another way is to use perceptions without thinking, perhaps as babies do, becoming
aware of the ‘who’ that is the ultimate awareness of such perceptions. Good ex-
amples of these are offered through exercises in the Headless Way website.
Douglas Harding’s books, such as Little Book of Life and Death offers simple exer-
cises, like: “. . . please turn the arrow of your attention round 180 degrees, looking in
at what you’re looking out of, and see what’s being pointed at by this pointing hand.
Don’t think about it. Just see! See what’s taking in these black marks on a white
ground, those blurred hands and shadowy vignetting sleeves, and go by what you
find.” (paraphrased from p. 76).

Perhaps you might point your finger back so that your attention steadies on your
True Nature — clearly free of patterns or plans. Two-way attention.
From an experiment by Richard Lang with illustration by Bryan Nuttall from http://
www.headless.org/experiments/creating-from-emptiness

A further practice is Gurdjieff’s self-remembering, being aware of oneself as much

as possible when active or inactive. This involves what he called two-way attention –
what one is attending to in the external, be it an activity or just thoughts or emotions,
while also being aware of one’s own awareness as source of the attention.

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Diagram of Reality and Material World

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Maintaining and Living in Conscious Awareness
Once one is established there, it is possible to practice awareness watching aware-
ness as noted in the quotes from Ramana Maharshi. Michael Langford describes
this in his book, The Most Direct and Rapid Means to Eternal Bliss:
Shut your eyes. Notice your awareness. Observe that awareness. Turn your atten-
tion away from the world, body and thought and towards awareness watching
awareness. If you notice you are thinking, turn your attention away from thought and
back towards awareness watching awareness.

The more one stays with this awareness, one’s source and essential self, the more
one realizes it is the truth of who one is and that one’s mind and personality had no
real substance in themselves, despite one being able to continue to use them. One
is now coming from an unchanging, peaceful – but ever so alive – self.
While new-born infants almost certainly live in a privileged state of this awareness,
they do not bring a conscious intelligence to it, which one is now doing in these
practices.
Thoughts may continue to bubble up from the unconscious, and one may or may
not pay attention to them. One finds oneself beyond the mind and personality now,
more alive than ever before, conscious of this awareness – whether one is thinking
and/or perceiving through the senses or not.

Dhyana, Beingness, Heart and

‘Disappearance’ into Everything
With more time and practice, a quality of beingness or IS-ness pervades one. The
duality of experiencing disappears, so that one IS one’s experience, IS one’s world.
Experience as something external has disappeared inside one and there is just one-
ness. Dhyana, unlike many meditation practices, is about being in such a state.
Dhyana is the root word for Chinese ‘Chan’ and Japanese ‘Zen’.
In this oneness with everyone and everything, one’s heart opens and compassion is
felt for all of one’s world and universe . . . which is one’s own expression and self.

One is now no longer identified with the mind-body complex as who one is. The
journey has first taken one to the rarefied atmosphere of ‘I am That’, and then even
further to simply ‘I am’ and finally to just ‘Am’ – a conscious ‘AM-ness’ without any I
whatsoever. One is living beyond the material and temporal world . . . beyond being
affected by birth and death.
“ . . . as Mahayana Buddhists are also fond of pointing out, the only difference in this
present life between realized immortals and ordinary men is that the former are
aware of their underlying identity with the Tao, whereas the latter have not directly
experienced that identity. Cultivation, then, is a matter of unveiling, of peeling off
successive layers of delusion, each more subtle than the one before. It is a process
of liberation. When the final delusion of personal separateness has been cast off,
only the physical body (soon to be discarded) remains to be mistaken by the spiritu-
ally blind for a personal possession. By then, death has no meaning, except as a
welcome release from bondage to an ageing carcass. The adept's real nature - the

16
nature of all being - cannot possibly be diminished by the loss of an identity that has
had no reality from the first. When clouds obscure the sun, its orb is not diminished;
when they are blown away, its brightness is not augmented; the sun is always as it
is, whether visible to the eye or not. Thus nothing starts with birth or ends with
death; the real is there all the time. However, to understand this intellectually is not
enough; it must become a direct perception.” – John Blofeld, Taoism – The Quest
for Immortality
“ . . . suddenly you recognise that nothing in the world can ever hurt you. Though
thunder roar and torrents boil, though serpents hiss and arrows rain – you meet
them laughing! You see your body as a flower born to bloom, to give forth fra-
grance, to wither and to die. Who would care for a peony that stayed as it was for a
lifetime, for a thousand or ten thousand years? A mere cabbage would be worthier
of attention. It is well that things die when worn out, and no loss at all, for life is im-
mortal and never grows with the birth of things or diminishes with their death. A
worn-out object is discarded, life having ample materials to supply the loss. Now do
you see? You cannot die, because you have never lived. Life cannot die, because it
has no beginning or end. Becoming an immortal just means ceasing to identify your-
self with shadows and recognising that the only "you" is everlasting life.” – words of
a Taoist hermit, John Blofeld, Gateway to Wisdom
“Rapt contemplation of nature’s beauties and varied aspects leads effortlessly to the
calming of turgid thoughts. The mind, rising above man’s petty concerns, grows
limpid. The leaping waves of thoughts, as though shamed by nature’s immensity,
subside. Sounds hitherto scarcely noticed, such as the soughing of the wind in the
pines, the creak of bamboo, the chirping of tiny insects, the patter of fine raindrops,
the lap of running water against ricks and pebbles, will be heard with new ears and
seem like soft echoes of the music of the spheres. Into the stillness, drop by drop,
will fall intimations of that wisdom beyond mere knowledge that is man’s greatest
and often most neglected treasure. The adept should sit quietly and so give himself
up to the sights and sounds around him that his own being scarcely enters the peri-
phery of his consciousness; the colours of the trees and the gurgling of the stream
seem to be there of themselves, to require no co-operation from his senses, of
which he is no longer aware. In time, these too may fade away until nothing remains
from horizon to horizon and beyond but the white snow of meditation. The essential
formlessness of the Tao is now directly apprehended. This is true stillness of mind,
the gateway to the wisdom of the teaching without words.” – John Blofeld, Gateway
to Wisdom, 1980, p. 45-6.

[N.B. The above largely reflects my own findings and increasing experience.
They should not necessarily be exactly what anyone else might expect to find.
They may best help as indicative pointers, especially on method rather than
on results.]

17
1
1950 ─ 1959 - Beginnings in Canada & Min-
nesota

The physical body is like a spacesuit we put on when we are born. We identify
with our own spacesuit, or physical body, so completely that we actually
believe that we are separate from each other and from the rest of the
Universe.
Paraphrased from Barry Long

My physical vehicle was conceived in the summer of 1949, when my parents

and 1-year old older brother were living in Calgary, Alberta. Dad was a Head
Miller trainee with a major North American flour milling company.
Very soon after this event, in September that year, my family moved to Port
Colborne, Ontario, on Lake Erie, where my father continued his Head Miller
training at the mill the company had there. My parents rented the top floor of
a home close to the lakeshore. Port Colborne did not have a hospital then so,
at the end of March 1950, My physical form was born at the one in nearby
Welland, a town on the canal of the same name. Both Port Colborne and
Welland are very close to the spectacular Niagara Falls, a place the family
visited at times when we lived near enough.
“When we are born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.”
Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 4, Scene 6


Experiences of ‘home’ in another dimension
Experiences and memories are of different categories and levels. Our waking
experiences, the ones we are most used to, are those that imprint themselves
on what we think of as our conscious mind. Another level of experience and
memory are those of dreams, in which the mind inwardly objectifies, or
projects out, stories with differing casts of characters, giving rise to a
kaleidoscope of emotions. This level of memory is a deeper one than that of
what we call our conscious mind, much more fleeting, and usually forgotten
by the time we have had breakfast. I recall having nightmares as an infant
which were incredibly vivid and terrifying at the time, but then evaporated
away in daytime’s waking world. It has later occurred to me that some of
what seemed like ‘nightmares’ could have been entering what might be
termed ‘source dimensions’ which are completely alien from the perspective
of this world and would have seemed shocking and threatening to my infant
personality.
Even deeper than the dreaming realm were experiences outside of the mind
which were literally not of this world, but of ‘returning’ to a completely
different reality and dimension, so different that words cannot pretend to do it

18
justice. It was to a reality of such difference and great wonder that the word
‘primordial’ carries the sense of it, an altered dimension of enormous power
which seems to underlie and precede the manifested reality of our waking
world. The experiences of this deeper reality were frequent ones as an infant,
but then decreased in frequency, perhaps as the power of – and identification
with – the mind/personality complex increased. When the experiences recur,
there is a sense of great familiarity about them, a familiarity dating back to the
earliest infancy – if not before – and perhaps even one of going home.
However, for these to emerge however briefly in our waking consciousness,
our usual memory fails us, even more than it does for our nightly dreams. To
remember them requires something of a conscious interface between a state of
the deepest sleep, when we leave our mind behind, and the awareness of our
waking mind returning. This interface is such a brief one, and the other-
worldly experience so astonishingly other-dimensional, that our normal mind
would usually pay it no attention, or perhaps consider it some brief aberration
best forgotten, as it almost instantly is.
If it is such a rare occurrence that the realm we enter in deep dreamless sleep
is ever recalled by the memory of our waking mind, it is no wonder that past
lives, if they are true, are not remembered either. (“The shades of the dead
were required to drink the waters of the Lethe in order to forget their earthly
life. In the Aeneid, Virgil writes that it is only when the dead have had their
memories erased by the Lethe that they may be reincarnated.” – Wikipedia)
As a baby and very young child, these experiences of a primordial realm at
times of going to sleep and letting go of the conscious mind did not seem
unusual and I would have imagined that, just like waking reality, they were
something everyone else also experienced. Even now, my sense is that they
could well be more commonly experienced than one would imagine, but the
barrier to them being shared and spoken of more is that it is extremely rare that
they interface with the conscious mind of our waking state and, even if they
do, the memory of them is almost instantly lost. There is also the difficulty
that, where there may be the memory of these experiences, they are so other-
dimensional that words are inadequate to describe them.
One conclusion was forced upon my mind at that time, and my impression of
its truth has ever since remained unshaken. It is that our normal waking
consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of
consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the flimsiest of screens,
there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go
through life without suspecting their existence, but apply the requisite
stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all their completeness . . . no account
of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of
consciousness quite disregarded. – William James, The Varieties of Religious
Experience, 1929

Life in this world as awareness
Internal perceptual memories – those detached from the mind, and its

19
thoughts and emotions - are different than the mind’s external ones, and some
of my own of the former kind go right back to times in a baby carriage – ones
of being just clear awareness looking out. In this looking, there was no
identification with being a personality with a name, or even as a mind of a
person with a head. It was just awareness with all of the perceptual sensations
alive. This clear state was later entirely forgotten ─ sacrificed at the altar of
the mind’s attachment to external attention ─ until my rediscovery of Douglas
Harding’s headlessness 40 years later.

Aged 3 months and 7 months with my older brother


My mother has told me that, unlike most babies, I did not wake with a smile
or happy look, and she has said this made her feel there must be something in

20
reincarnation which would explain my being this way.
She has told me that, as many babies do, I would drop some of my food on
the floor when eating in my highchair. However, she noticed that, after I was
let down, I would pick this food up after to keep for eating later, so my
dropping of it had been intentional and with a plan. I have wondered if this
may have been a sign of having suffered from hunger in a previous life.

Later in 1950, before my first birthday, the family moved again to Saskatoon,
Saskatchewan, where Dad became Assistant Head Miller at the company’s
local mill. My younger brother was born there in the summer of 1951.

Once I started identifying with being a mind-body person, there were times in
the night when I had terrifying nightmares and Mother would have me lie
next to her in bed to help calm me. She would tell me to think about
Christmas to take my mind of the fear. I would have been old enough to
remember what Christmas was, but had fear itself only begun when I became
identified with being a person?
According to mother, as a very young child, I baulked at being managed by
another, and said that each person is an individual having their own separate
rights and choices respecting their lives.
In July of 1952 we moved to New Prague, Minnesota, USA, where Dad had
his first stint as Head Miller. An early external memory is of having my US
visa photo taken when I was 2 and wearing my then favourite shirt depicting
animated Disney characters in cowboy scenes.

US Visa photo June 1952

A year later, in May 1953, we relocated to Montreal where Dad continued in
the same post for the company’s mill there. During this time, we lived at 3
different addresses: firstly, in Côte-Saint-Luc, then in nearby Notre-Dame-
De-Grâce and, finally, further out in the suburb of Dorval, where we stayed
until I was nearly 7.

21
The many moves we made had its challenges, especially for very young
children. There was the sudden loss of friends and familiar places, including
one’s home and the special personal space one had there. Being a stranger at a
new school, before having any new friends, was a time of being assessed ─
and not always favourably ─ by the other children.
As a very young child there was an importance in saying a feeling goodbye to
places and objects, as if they, too, were friends and had feelings. When my
father was upgrading to a new car when I was about 5, I made a visit on my
own to the old car in the drive and climbed into the back seat, where my
brothers and I had spent many hours on journeys in it, to thank it and tell it
good-bye.
I would occasionally sleepwalk as a child. This continued later into adult years
before it stopped. I have wondered if this ‘waking up’ outside of one’s normal
mind might be a sign of one’s realer eternal self, ‘coming to’ without realizing
it is now associated with a particular body. Where I went and what I did in
sleepwalking may have been triggered by subconscious thoughts and impulses
I had before going to sleep or even from dreams. At other times, the
sleepwalking seems to have occurred because of a full bladder and a need to
find the bathroom. The moves did not help in this, as my still asleep mind
would have imprinted in memory of the layout of the last or a previous home
we had lived in, and the sleepwalking would take me to the position of the
bathroom in the old home, sometimes with unfortunate consequences.

We would visit, and be visited by, relatives. My father’s father, who lived
with his only other child, my father’s sister, had been widowed when he was
50, so I did not remember my paternal grandmother – though I heard many
stories of what a wonderful and loving woman she had been. This paternal
grandfather was an important railway executive based in Winnipeg during
some of my early childhood, which was some distance from us, and it was
always special seeing him and my aunt. Our family spent Christmas 1957 at
his home in Winnipeg.
It was also a great treat to visit the farm this grandfather’s brother and wife
had on a lake in Prince Edward County, Ontario, where my father had spent
many of his boyhood summers. This is where I first rode a horse and rode on
a tractor and hay wagon. My 8 th birthday was spent at the sap house in the
farm’s maple sugar bush. The family on this paternal side mostly originated
from Devon, England, but also partly from Northern Ireland.
We would regularly visit my maternal grandparents at their home in Sarnia,
Ontario. With our constant moves, their home ─ like my paternal great
uncle’s farm ─ seemed to provide a constant and stable base we could always
return to. My brothers and I (and later our younger sister, too) greatly enjoyed
visiting them and seeing our maternal cousins. I developed a great love for
these grandparents, especially for my grandmother, who took care to treat
each of her grandchildren (eventually 18 in all) with equal love, respect and
understanding. This grandfather worked for the national Canadian railway

22
company and had the exciting job of driving the trains. The earlier family
backgrounds of these maternal grandparents were a mix of Scottish, French
and German.
While memory of external events and of thoughts and emotions seems
continuous when one is a child (much as it does when one is an adult), a great
deal of it, especially the detail, is forgotten in time. This period of living in
Montreal stands out as the one with my earliest external memories of
reasonable clarity. Some scenes from visits to relatives and an early birthday
party, perhaps beginning at about age 2, are still with me, as well as that of
my much anticipated first day of school in Dorval and early impressions of
mixing with other children at school.
A few of these early memories seem more meaningful than the usual
everyday ones.
One of these must have occurred sometime between the ages of 2 and 3. We
were visiting my paternal great uncle at his farm and I was listening to my
father and his uncle talking. I had heard them doing this on the previous visit,
too, but at that time had not reached the stage of knowing they were
communicating in a language. To me they were just taking turns making
noises to each other (much like I probably did as a baby, too). However, by
this visit I finally had grasped the basics of language and was struck by the
fact that they were actually using words to say things of some meaning to
each other and I realized this is what they had been doing on our previous
visit, too (rather than just taking turns to make noises).
Looking back, as a mature adult, I seem to have come full circle, as it is true
that most of the words people say to each other really do not mean as much as
the emotions and energy the expression of the words carry. Most
conversations are not too different than ducks quacking at each other. More
important than understanding the words is the pure act of listening and
allowing the other to release the energy and feeling which underlie the words.
Another memory relates to times being in a field near our home. Where we
lived in Dorval was a new development and there was still a lot of
undeveloped land nearby. My brothers and our friends would play together in
these fields, which were mostly flat open areas in which tall grasses and other
weeds grew. I do not remember many trees. This one time I was alone there. I
seem to recall being there to bury or hide a secret ‘treasure’ I had, which was
probably a few bits of broken costume jewellery I had found. There was
something instinctive in this behaviour, which seems almost like it may have
come from another lifetime.
However, the more meaningful part of this memory is of feeling utterly alone
there on this flat land and becoming simultaneously aware of both myself and
the immensity of the sky, self-awareness and the vastness of space. There was
an awesomeness about this perspective and relationship, which was entirely
foreign to normal everyday life. It was surprising, and simultaneously
frightening and terribly important. It did not seem to be something I could

23
share, as I did not feel it of being something others were aware of or gave any
importance to. And, if they were, they did not talk about it either.

Realizing I am in the timeless

Aged 4 with my uncle at the farm,

A third memory, which was more of a surprising insight, was seeing a
photograph which had been taken of myself and my uncle at his farm when I
was 4. This photo had been put into my photo album. At that age it was
terribly important to be older. Children view adults, and even older children,
as being more special and deserving of more privileges, independence and
respect. Several months after this photo of myself and my uncle had been
taken, I looked at it again and remembered myself posing for the camera and
the photo being taken when I was the younger 4-year old. I was astonished to
realize that the ‘me’ looking at the photo now was the same ‘me’ that had
looked out at the person with the camera taking the photo. This was perhaps
the first time I became conscious of being – and looking from – a timeless
awareness before the mind. Despite being physically older, and seemingly
different and ‘more important’ when seeing this photo later, the aware ‘me’
inside had not aged or changed at all!


24
 Aged 5, 1st day of school, Dorval
I found learning the alphabet difficult. It did not seem natural to associate
particular sounds with shapes. (The memory came back to me more than 40
years later when attempting the same with the Japanese Kana syllable
alphabets.) Once I did master it, I discovered the amazing worlds hidden
between the covers of books. This must have been in 1 st grade.
Before I could read, I was constantly sent to the ‘Turtle Desk’ at the back of
the classroom, as punishment for being slow or talking in class. Once I found
out I could read to my heart’s content if I finished my lessons quickly, I
stopped dragging my heels, and spent all my spare time with my head in
books. With reading and the fascinating world books presented, I had my first
desire to be a writer and become part of making that magic.
Also, having more contact with other children at school, there began a deep
fascination in and respect for the variety of their characters. Each child was a
new fascinating ‘package’ of their own individuality combined with their
collective psychology, based on their particular family and cultural
background. There was also a beginning appreciation for my own character
and psychology, including the mix of nationalities (Canadian and American,
but also earlier ones of English, Scottish, Northern Irish, French and German)
in my own family background.
It was while in Montreal that my brothers and I, encouraged by our parents,
began collecting stamps of the world. This introduced us to the
extraordinarily diverse panorama of countries and peoples all over the whole
of the inhabited globe. While the differences between cultures, costumes,
customs and languages were striking, it was clear to me that there were also
aspects people everywhere had in common.

25
In early 1957 we moved again, now back to Port Colborne, where Dad
continued as Head Miller, but now at one of the mills where he had
previously trained. The family bought a new house with a large garden plot.

Quite a bit of work, mostly on my father’s part, went into preparing the
garden, which had just been levelled soil ending in a ditch at the back.

Increased awareness of threshold consciousness
It was while we were in Port Colborne that my younger brother and I had our
tonsils taken out. The operation took place in a hospital and we were given
general anaesthesia first. While this might normally be seen as just another
event of little note, I was quite profoundly struck by the process of losing
consciousness through being anaesthetized. I seemed to enter a different
world or dimension in which I, or my awareness, was struggling to stay in
control. The image I had then was of myself on a sphere which was turning or
spinning. The sphere had large holes in its surface, and I was running on the
sphere and had to keep jumping over the holes when any approached me.
Eventually, as the anaesthesia increased its hold, I was unable to continue and
fell into one of the holes and lost consciousness.
I see this now as being taken to the very doorway between this world and the
unmanifested, staying conscious to a farther and deeper degree than normally
in falling asleep (when we also let go of the mind and consciousness and – in
deep sleep – enter the unmanifested), but then becoming unconscious for the
operation.
I’ve since learned the terms ‘threshold consciousness’ and ‘hypnogogia’ are
used to describe the changing state of moving from wakefulness to sleep or
the reverse. It would also apply to my experience with the anaesthesia and is
additionally used with reference to states encountered at times in meditation.
This inner world with its other dimensions has been something which was
familiar to me as an infant and has recurred with varying, but mostly
decreasing, frequency since. Despite being other dimensional, the states
seemed as real, if not more so, than what we call our waking life. These
experiences made it quite clear that our normal everyday waking
consciousness may only be part, and perhaps just the surface, of reality, and
very probably not even the real one.

26
It seems extraordinary that people do not talk to each other of their
experiences as they transition in and/or out of consciousness, especially as it
is something we do on a daily basis. When one does come across rare
references to it, there is more of it being a hallucination or as if it is a
problem, such as what is called ‘sleep paralysis’, something to be ‘fixed’.
I did come across references to the transition state in Edgar Allen Poe’s and
H. P. Lovecraft’s writings, and I mentioned it in an unpublished play written
in my late teens: “When one is falling asleep, one’s mind is the scene of the
most grotesque battle between the conscious and the unconscious. It is in this
hypnagogic state that the most fantastic dramas play upon the human
psyche.” – Scene Two, Contemporary Alienation into the Shadow.

Very early in 1958 Dad was promoted to Plant Superintendent at the
company’s mill in Buffalo, New York, just across the border from Ontario.
Although we continued to live in Port Colborne, while Dad commuted by car,
a move to Buffalo was planned and my parents started house hunting there.
However, early in 1959, my father was offered a transfer to the post of Plant
Manager of the company’s still to be built flour mill in Maracaibo,
Venezuela. Dad went down to Thunderbird School in Arizona for six weeks
to learn Spanish. He returned home briefly and then went on ahead. The rest
of the family, after a short stay with maternal grandparents, made the exciting
trip to Venezuela, flying via Toronto and New York.

27
2
1959 ─ 1968 – In Venezuela and Montreal

We arrived at Venezuela’s Maiquetia airport just north of the capital Caracas

in the summer of 1959. Our shipped goods, including the car, had already
arrived and we drove across the country from Caracas to Maracaibo with
stops in Valencia and Barquisimeto. The difference in culture, climate, food
and language impressed us deeply.
In Maracaibo we stayed for a while at what was probably the best hotel in the
area for some time while my mother looked for a home. The temperatures
outside, average daily highs of 35 and nightly lows of 26 C (79 – 95 F), were
too hot to be out in for long.
My father attended at the mill and advised in its construction and
equipment. Mother found a suitable home and we boys were enrolled in a
British school, as our parents felt it would have higher standards than the
local American one. It was called St. George’s and run from a large and
rather dilapidated house by an eccentric widow from British Guiana with
some help from her children. As had occurred to me with my first school
days, there was a fascination at the different characters in my classmates,
many of whom were either British, Venezuelan or from other South
American countries ─ all of whom were very different than previous
classmates in Canada. I had my first taste of British children’s books,
from the Secret Seven series, and Britain seemed a very different and
exotic place.
This time in Maracaibo is recalled as being a time when our family was
especially close. We were in a very different environment and culture and
were definitely strangers, without even having the local language. Despite
this, my brothers and I did make friends with neighbourhood boys. Some
vivid memories include the fish and shaved ice vendors coming with their
products on donkeys. Guajiro Indians in their pom-pom sandals would come
to the door begging. We had a maid and a Spanish tutor came to the house to
help my brothers and I learn the language. My father’s father came to visit,
bringing with him his new and second wife. This was the first time most of us
had met her.
We only stayed 9 months in Maracaibo before Dad was promoted to
General Production Manager for the whole of the company’s Venezuelan
subsidiary, based at their mill at Puerto Cabello, a port on the north coast in
about the centre of the country. Rather than live in Puerto Cabello, we found
a home in the more elevated and cooler city of Valencia, about an hour’s
drive south, which had an international American school and an all-
denomination Union Church for English speaking Protestant Christians.
We boys were enrolled in the American school. The teachers and a good

28
 number of the students were American, though there were also a fair
representation of students from different European countries and some from
other South American ones. It was a wonderful exposure to a variety of
cultures. In total, there were about 200 students covering all grades from
kindergarten to the last year of high school, so the classes for each year were
not very large and everybody knew everybody else.

Left: 1963 Right: Waiting for the school bus with my brothers
A major highlight of the years spent in Valencia were our annual holidays during which we would
visit different exotic places, as well as return to see family in Canada. These travels included very
memorable visits to Mexico, Trinidad, Barbados, California, Florida and Vancouver.
We rented a home in what had been an orange grove, and so had orange and other citrus trees in
our garden. Both sets of grandparents visited us in Valencia. We joined the local golf course, which
was very hilly and on which we boys learned to play with a set of children’s clubs our mother’s
parents gave us.
Our younger sister was born a little over a year after our arrival in Valencia and it was fascinating
to have a first inkling of how an infant begins to develop in terms of personality and language,
including referring to oneself in the third person.
We attended the local Union Church which, despite being a blend of Protestant Christian
worshippers, seemed to have a prominence of Baptists from the American south. I recall being
drawn to the Church and religion for part of this time. This must certainly have been emotional in
origin, as it would have made no sense on a rational basis.
After two years there, my older brother chose to attend a private boarding school in Ontario, which
he continued at for the next two years.
The time in Venezuela is probably when it became apparent that, in addition to my classmates (and
adults) having their own make-ups in senses of nationalities, ethnicities, religions and belief
systems (or limitations), they also had psychological, emotional and behavioural characteristics
which were not necessarily tied to the other aspects of their backgrounds. Some children were
leaders, others were shy, and they had varying positive and negative qualities. Some were needy

29
and others kind and helping. Somehow, these psychological and mental characteristics had become
present in them, seemingly independently of how they had ‘inherited’, or developed, in their other
– such as national, ethnic and religious – senses. The question arose as to whether the negative
elements of these characteristics could be transformed or not . . . and this would be something I
would spend many years studying and experimenting with.
This was a time when some of the books I read outside of school ones made profound impressions
on me. I read and re-read Michener’s historical novel Hawaii and was amazed to realise that the
history of a place is something of a ‘time-map’ and explains how its present is. Later, I would also
understand that this goes a long way to explaining how people are in their present, too.
Another book that fascinated me was a science fiction novel called Children of the Atom by Shirer
which was about children who had been born different because their parents had been exposed to
atomic radiation. There seemed a resonance for me in the sense of being different, though I could
not pinpoint it as relating to any particular quality, except perhaps in feeling I was more serious
(though not necessarily more studious) than most of my classmates.

After four and a half mostly really enjoyable years in Valencia, Dad was transferred to a new job
back at the Canadian company’s head office in Montreal as Production Manager for all of the
company’s mills in Canada. We moved in December 1964 and spent that Christmas at a high-rise
hotel in downtown Montreal, before moving into an apartment in an upmarket area of the city.
We boys (including my older brother) all attended a local high school, where we were required to
wear ties and jackets and found there were several classes for each grade, and that the individual
classes were much larger than those we had been used to in Valencia. Our younger sister started at
a primary school.
The school was a major comedown from what we had been used to at the private American school
in Valencia. My interest and studies suffered to the extent I usually attended summer school to
make up deficiencies from the normal school year, especially in French, which we were behind in
after years of studying Spanish instead. Also, in the summer, I found paid work (usually part-time)
during the time when I was not at summer school. One summer (1966), this work was with an
uncle by marriage in Ontario at a cold food storage company his family owned and ran.
We attended Anglican (Church of England) church services, which was the church my father had
been brought up in. I recall baulking inside at having to recite the Nicene Creed, as professing
beliefs, which are of the mind and personality, seemed alien to what true spirituality should be
about.
Outside of school time I continued reading and writing in almost every spare moment. Both
hobbies included a wide variety of subjects, including fiction, non-fiction, poetry and drama. I
arranged private publication of some poetry and plays which were then largely given to friends and
family.

30
 High school yearbook photo
I was very grateful to be able to graduate from high school at 17, as it was the last year before the
province instituted a new system requiring more time in high school. I enrolled at a local university
to study business. However, in 1968, after my first year, Dad was transferred again, this time to a
General Manager post for a Mexican subsidiary his company had bought a half share in. I was
delighted that we would be moving back to Latin America.

31
3
1968 ─ 1971 – Mexico City and Vancouver –
Mysterious Realms Beckon

We rented a walled and gated home in the southern Mexico City suburb of Pedregal, built on land
which was black volcanic lava rock. This suburb was adjacent to the main campus of Mexico’s
National Autonomous University.
My older brother and I continued our studies at a small American University which was then just
outside of Mexico City on the highway to Toluca. Our younger brother elected to do his university
studies in residence back in Montreal, while our much younger sister attended a local primary
school for foreign residents.

Jose Silva – tuning in to brainwave frequencies
In addition to having diverse creative talents, mother had also shared with us her keen interests in
the arts, culture, religions and spirituality. During our time in Mexico, mother took a course in the
then fairly new Silva Mind Control. She told us about the course and the practices and exercises
they had done.
I was struck with different aspects of the teachings of the Silva course. One of these was that there
are different levels of brain activity, or rhythms. The basic four and their approximate frequencies
are:
The fastest, beta, from about 16 to 31 (or higher) Hz cycles per second, is the one we use during
our normal waking life.
The slower alpha, from about 8 to 13 cycles per second, is what occurs during periods of rest, light
meditation or dreaming sleep.
Deeper meditation, trance states and hypnosis is at a theta level, ranging from about 4 to 7 cycles
per second. This is the level at which painless surgery and dentistry can take place.
Delta, at under 4 cycles per second (about 0.5 to 3 Hz), is experienced in deepest dreamless sleep
when we are effectively unconscious. Delta is also considered to be a doorway to the spiritual
dimension and higher intelligence – though it is one we are only rarely conscious in.
Another Silva practice was to use a tone and hand position together with counting down to achieve
an alpha state. While in the alpha state students found it was possible to perform remote physical
checks and diagnoses of others who were strangers to them. What seemed especially remarkable
was that there was virtually 100% success rate among the Silva course students in such remote
diagnoses.

One of the professors at our university, a Roman Catholic nun named Mother Michel, also spoke to
me about the benefits of the alpha and theta states, especially in a spiritual sense.
Silva, despite his modest background, was extraordinarily innovative in helping people access
deeper aspects of their inner selves and improve their own creativity and lives. Many other teachers

32
and systems piggy-backed on Silva’s work. Silva’s trainings had been especially inspired as a
means of helping his own children improve their potentials.

Transcendental Meditation had become popularized around this time, too. Our American family
doctor was a practitioner and he recommended it to me, but purely on grounds of lessening stress
and improving general health. I was still too outwardly oriented and did not try it.

1970
By taking a heavier than normal load of courses each trimester, I was able to graduate in Business
Administration in late 1969 and also, because of large number of literature and writing courses
having been taken, managed to achieve a further degree in Literature early in 1970. By this time the
main campus of the university was being relocated from the Mexico City area to the historic town
of Cholula in the state of Puebla.
As what seemed to be a next step toward my working life, I opted to study for a Master of Business
Administration degree back in Canada and went to Vancouver in June to commence doing this. I
lived in student residence there. Although my studies there did not last long and were not very
successful, I met a British student, J, who became a very close friend.


Colin Wilson – Introduction to Gurdjieff

I also continued to read voraciously. It was here that I first encountered the writings of Colin
Wilson and was captivated by his insights and syntheses of the writings of others (though never
could understand his fascination with the minds of murderers). His first book, The Outsider, and its
sequels speak of those who question and reject the usual collective mentalities of their societies. It
was through his writings I first heard of a teacher named Gurdjieff, who seemed to understand
more about humans, including their purpose and consciousness, than anyone else I had encountered
and whose teachings seemed entirely novel. I was not only fascinated, but also sensed a resonance
with his teachings, and wanted to find out more about this most mysterious man and his message.
Many years later I would hear Wilson speak in person at Alternatives in St. James, London, and it
would confirm to me my conclusion by then that, despite all his ‘spiritual’ writings, he had not
awoken to his own subjectivity and so his quest was never able to extend beyond seeking answers

33
for the mind.

While in Vancouver, I had one experience which struck me as mystical in nature. It was an
autumnal evening and, after dinner, I had fallen deeply asleep in my residence in Totem Park. I
woke up, with my mind full of a thought process which seemed to cover everything, and felt very
confined, and a need to get out and be one with the great expanse of the ocean and sky and
enormous fir trees out on the Marine Drive.
I walked through the trees down to the seashore. There was a sense of ghost beings in the night air,
perhaps from my not being fully awake yet, and somehow these ‘beings’ fit into my thoughts,
which were of an attempt to unite all into one great pattern. And, as each thought came to mind, it
fit into this very credible pattern of life in a beautiful continuum of time and space. My mind was
abnormally clear, with almost the feeling of having woken from my normal life which seemed like
living in a fever or sickness.
When I reached the beach, everything was so wonderful and interesting that I couldn’t possibly do
anything but just look at them and marvel. These included the trees, rocks and even memories of
people which came to mind. From my notes written at the time, ‘I saw how the quick and the dead
formed one magic tapestry in which my own life was interwoven with the life of everything on earth
– the ghosts in the mist and the water, in the trees and the stars . . . everything.’ I felt possessed by
something that transcended normal ‘reality’.

After a short 6 months in Vancouver, another friend and I drove back down to Mexico in December
1970. I returned to live with family in their newer home in Pedregal and re-enrolled at the Mexico
City evening school of my old university.
This time I was successful in the studies and completed the Masters degree in Business in
December 1971. Following this, I returned to Montreal, the part of Canada I was most familiar with
from high school days, to seek a career.

34
4
1971 ─ 1974 – Brantford and Mexico City – Mindful of
Thoughts

After a few months of job-seeking from Montreal, I was hired early in 1972 by Massey-Ferguson,
an agricultural equipment manufacturer, to work from their Brantford, Ontario, offices. The
position was that of Property Accountant for their Canadian operations and the beginning salary
was about Cdn$7,000 per year.
This was near where my older brother was working and, when he ended up being between jobs, he
came to stay with me. We moved from sharing a large room to our own flat, where we became
good friends with the German landlord. Soon after, though, my older brother found a new job in
Toronto and relocated there.
In working for a large company, I was, in some respects, following the models set by my father and
both grandparents. (While in Montreal, I had, in fact, even applied unsuccessfully at the companies
my father worked for and the railway one his father had worked for.) Family patterns leave
formative marks, and this did seem to be the expected course for me. However, fitting into a
company mould at that time, when they were extremely hierarchical and paternalistic, did not work
well for me. I felt much as the central character in Hesse’s novel, Beneath the Wheel. I did not
have much in common with fellow workers or others in that small-town mentality community.
Feeling unhappy and very lonely, I would spend weekends with my older brother in Toronto.

I did return to Mexico City for annual holidays with my parents and sister and it was always a relief
to be back in a culture I felt more at home in. I was also able to see a few friends from university
days. One of these friends introduced me to an American lady named P who had abandoned her
husband and young children to come to Mexico to train in and teach the Montessori method.
There seemed to be something magic about P, as if she were living from some special personal base
of profound and natural peace. I was entranced, especially as her state seemed diametrically opposite
to my own of profound unhappiness, and I wanted to be nearer to this source of what seemed a
better answer.

1972-3 – Eschatology – “Thinking Makes It So”

35
 P with pets Tricks and Gray Lady
P told me she had found her answer in studying a spiritual teaching called Eschatology. This was
an off-shoot of Mary Baker Eddy’s Christian Science, itself based on the teachings of Phineas
Parkhurst Quimby, an American clockmaker turned hypnotist and healer, who is considered the
father of the New Thought Movement, which includes the Religious Science and Unity Churches.
Eschatology had been started by William W. Walter, who had used Christian Science principles to
heal himself of a serious and long-standing illness.

P. P. Quimby (1802 – 1866) and Mary Baker Eddy (1821 – 1910)

I wrote to the then head of Eschatology, Genevieve Rader, to learn more and was advised there
were a couple in Toronto, Lillian and Bill Clayton, who taught it. I began taking lessons at their
home when I was in Toronto on weekends.

36
 (L) William W. Walter (1869 – 1941) and (R) Lillian and Bill Clayton in 1969

Somehow, I had already realized that belief is not really more than a mental decision, often having
little to do with one’s being or reality. Most traditional religions have beliefs as part of their
required package. Eschatology, on the other hand, asked its students not to believe anything it was
teaching, but to test it and experience for oneself. This appealed to me.
It spoke also of the steps through which the senses and mind work as perception, apprehension and
comprehension. We are not normally aware of these distinctions in our daily lives which are a
series of never-ending reactions to the sensory experiences we are having.
Probably the most valuable lesson which came to me from these studies was that of being aware of
my thoughts and the words I use. Both of these definitely program our experiences, contribute to
our feelings and can significantly impact our mental and physical wellbeing. Mary Baker Eddy, on
the frontispiece of her Science and Health, has a quote from Shakespeare’s Hamlet,
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
I developed a very keen awareness of my thinking and of the words I use, both spoken and written.
This aspect of mindfulness has continued as a constant and treasured companion and often (but not
always) helped in altering thinking which would have otherwise contributed to physical and
emotional anxiety/worry and even illness. What did not strike me at the time was not only to direct
the awareness outwards to thoughts and words but also to direct it back to the me in whom the
thoughts were arising and who has the awareness.
Part of the end result of being an Eschatology student was to reach a level of working as a healer
both on oneself and others, much in the sense that Christian Science has healers. We were warned
against trying this prematurely. While I did make efforts at changing negative thought patterns in
myself that I became aware of, I never attained a level of becoming a teacher or actively working at

37
healing within their system. That would have involved attending their annual Teachers Graduate
Course (TGC) in California.

My work at Massey-Ferguson and lonely personal life in Brantford went on. I continued to read
voraciously, including more about the fascinating Gurdjieff and, rather haphazardly, began keeping
a diary of my inner feelings. My British friend, J, from university in Vancouver came to stay one
summer on his way back to England from a long trip to Mexico and he invited me to come to
London for an extended visit.
I was promoted twice, latterly to the post of Cost Accountant for the Foundry Division. I had two
assistants who spent most of their days doing calculations with comptometers. I did enjoy visiting
the company’s single foundry operation, a grey iron one which was also in Brantford, and watching
the transformation of scrap iron into agricultural component pieces, and I learned a great deal about
using budgets and accounts for management information and decision-making. This was to stand
me in good stead when I began work as a management consultant and, much later, invest in my
own rental properties.
When I enquired if a transfer to their Mexican operations would be possible, I was told that could
not be possible for several years. I was offered a post at the North American headquarters in Des
Moines, Iowa, but I declined that due to the location. Finally, wanting my life to be about more
than company life in what seemed a rather back-water town, I resigned from my post in March
1974, so I could go to London and devote my time to studying, writing and what I could afford of
occasional short trips to the Continent.

5
1974 ─ 1980 – London, Mexico City and Toronto – I Remem-
ber Myself

“The change from being to becoming seems to be birth, and the change from becoming
to being seems to be death, but in reality no one is ever born, nor does one ever die.”
- attributed to Apollonius of Tyana (1st century CE)

I joined my friend J at his attic flat in Maida Vale in fairly central London. The flat was part of a
conversion of an older 5 story terraced house on a 99-year lease from the church. J’s flat was rented
and the landlady, who had the lease from the church, lived in her own flat in the lower ground floor
with a garden backing onto a playing field. J’s top flat had a bathroom, but no running water in the
kitchen.
Although I already had lived in large cities, London was a very different experience. Being my first
exposure away from the ‘New World’, London seemed to have a palpable sense (almost like an
energy and vibration, such as one might experience in at a sacred site in nature or an old church) of
its history embedded in its streets and buildings.
I spent time exploring the city, especially bookshops and some museums. The British Museum
became a favourite and I was particularly drawn to the Egyptian rooms. My favourite bookshop

38
was Watkins on Cecil Court. On my limited funds, I did a lot of browsing and my rarer purchases
were from their used shelves.
While based in London, I did make a few visits to Paris on cheap physically demanding one-day
return trips by train and ferry which gave me brief tastes of that quite different people and culture.
A couple of very memorable weekend trips were going with J down to his parents’ home in rural
Kent where I had my real first experience of English countryside and village life. It was
breathtakingly beautiful, especially in the spring with the new green of the countryside and the
lambs in the fields.
Much of my time was spent in some attempts at writing and huge amounts of reading. I was
finishing a short novel I had begun in Brantford called Ashtoreth Nascent, based on a variation on
the plot of Ingrid Berman’s film The Hour of the Wolf combined with one of its characters
modelled loosely on Aleister Crowley. It was about a solitary man going through a dark night of
the soul, though the plot faltered at the end in an attempt to show him finding some light at the end
of his tunnel (as I was hoping to find for myself).
Reading-wise, I covered a wide range of both fiction and non-fiction, including about Indian
spiritual teachers and more of Colin Wilson, but I especially focussed on Gurdjieff. I read widely
about his teachings and his remarkable life. The most helpful insights to the teaching came from
Ouspensky’s In Search of the Miraculous, the remarkable story of Ouspensky’s own time with
Gurdjieff.
These teachings were sometimes referred to as ‘esoteric Christianity’ and said that people go
through their lives in a state which can be likened to hypnotized ‘waking sleep’. It was noted that
the New Testament in the Bible refers to this sleep many times, but it is not understood. A man
cannot wake up until he accepts that he is asleep.
“Gurdjieff divided consciousness into four levels, ’sleep’, ‘waking’, the ‘self-
consciousness’ state and ‘objective consciousness’ – that is, a fully awakened state.
ordinary man lives only in the first two and may be compared, he said, to a man living in a
richly furnished house who lives in only two rooms in the basement. These two rooms are
sleep and the waking state in which we spend our lives, make war, commit crimes, and try
to solve the problems for which this state itself is responsible. The real awakening is
experienced in the upper rooms, the third and fourth states of consciousness.”
“Gurdjieff’s structured idea, comprising the four above-mentioned states of consciousness
and five functional centres – those of thought, emotion, movement, instinct and sex – with
two higher functions beyond the range of normal awareness, provides a framework which
allows the whole range of human experience, in all its complexity, to be connected together
in an orderly whole. Without such a framework, effective self-study proves almost
impossible. Even with its help, self-observation is inevitably subjective and needs careful
verification in group or “school” conditions to eliminate the rise of fantasy and to achieve
objectivity.”
“The source of attention, our means of contact and communication through the senses, is
very close to the mystery of life. Attention, like a magnet, draws impressions to us from
without and within, connecting us to the world around and protecting us from it.”
“When the attention is automatic, the impressions received are fragmentary and indistinct;
when it is conscious, they are sharp and vivid.”

39
“My attention, this power tool for communication, is not mine. It remains almost entirely at
the disposal of life’s imperative needs or whatever event comes along and forces an
impression on my senses and my mind. Yet it is mine; it springs from me, from my life; it is
a part of my life force which ceases to be mine in so far as it does not obey my conscious
being but is constantly enslaved by the outside world.”

“Self-study is the means of acquiring a special inner attention which participates in the
inner state of connectedness, and also serves for acquiring exact knowledge of conditions
leading to higher states of consciousness – those in which knowledge has a universality
and timelessness far beyond that of ordinary subjective knowledge. Examples exist in
sacred literature, architecture, art and music which testify to these qualities and to the
existence of such knowledge.”
“Gurdjieff emphasized that the key to changes of consciousness is in the attention. Only
through correctly understood and adequately developed powers of attention can self-
observation become deep enough to reveal the knowledge called, for this very reason, the
“secret” doctrine. All exercises of concentration, posture or breathing, as Sri Ramana
Maharshi once remarked, are for the sole purpose of gaining control of the attention; when
the attention is controlled such exercises are not necessary.”
“The particular forms of attention required – those in which the field of attention includes
both the “outer” sense perceptions and the “inner” awareness of movements of thought,
feeling and bodily energies – were known in all periods and described by such names as
recollection, contemplation, sativichare, and so on. Gurdjieff coined a word to renew the
concept of this practice in contemporary terms – “self-remembering” was the expression
he used.”
“This controlled attention never occurs automatically and is the very antithesis of the over-
involved attention characteristically found in everyday living, in which the attention is
hypnotically drawn to the outer world, so that almost no inner movements are experienced
and no objective knowledge of them can arise.”
“Unless the form of attention is changed and a special inner awareness is cultivated, exact
knowledge of the inner conditions which govern voluntary changes of state is impossible. It
is to create the possibility of acquiring and transmitting knowledge of this kind that
esoteric schools exist.”
– Christopher Fremantle, On Attention: Talks, Essays and Letters to His Pupils.



40
 Gurdjieff (? – 1949) and Ouspensky (1878 – 1947)
1974 – Gurdjieff Group and ‘The Work’

The greatest barrier to consciousness is the belief that one is already conscious.
- Ouspensky

The groups studying and practicing Gurdjieff’s teachings did not promote themselves but expected
those who were ready to find them to do so spontaneously. On 9 April 1974, I wrote to The
Gurdjieff Society c/o N. Saunders at an address on Edith Grove SW10 which I found in Alternative
London (Nicholas Saunders was the publisher). I had a response from Peter Gloster and met him
and his wife Betty in late April. They appeared to be about 60 years old, intelligent, sensitive, but
focused on the purpose of the interview. I had questions prepared for the meeting. One was how the
Gurdjieff system differed from other esoteric methods. They answered that they all lead to the same
thing. When asked if my intellectual center being the most highly developed might be an obstacle
to balancing it with other centers, they said it was not an insurmountable issue. They noted that
mental processes are also matter. After being asked if I found satisfaction in my current life, I put
the same question to Peter, who said he found it presently, but had not used to. Peter also
commented that he was not ecstatic about being on this planet but is making the best of it (which
follows from the Gurdjieffian cosmological scheme), so I asked him if he had the knowledge or
feeling that there is more than this planet. He answered that heaven and hell are within me. When I
told them I was trying to be a writer, they mentioned having been involved with a play in the group.
I asked if I could read the play but was told that the octave it had been concerned with had been
completed and the play had been destroyed.

Following this, I joined the Gurdjieff group they led which met weekly. No financial commitment
was required until after one had attended for six months. The meetings were held in their rather
luxury flat, 24 Chancellor House, 17 Hyde Park Gate in central London. (When I first met them,
they noted that Winston Churchill’s last London home – and where he had died – had been across
the street from them. Another student told me the Glosters’ car was a Rolls-Royce.) The Glosters
had been long-time students of Dr. Maurice Nicoll, who had himself studied directly with both
Gurdjieff and Ouspensky.

In these meetings, we sat in a group in silence facing the Glosters. They might give a small talk

41
illustrating an aspect of the teaching, often based on their own personal experience, or read a short
passage from a book on the teaching. Then there would be silence, during which the students could
voice some spontaneous words they felt important and the Glosters would comment on that. I held
back from speaking at first, largely from a great tension and self-consciousness I felt in sitting in a
group, and also from a concern that nothing I could say would be truly authentic.

I was very struck by different aspects of this teaching, which those involved in it called ‘The
Work’. Later, I learned that Michel de Salzmann defined ‘work’ as one’s active attention ( Notes on
the Next Attention, Fran Shaw).

‘Remember Yourself’
Gurdjieff’s admonition to his students to ‘remember yourself’ was itself something of an inner
explosion - a major wake-up call - for me. I realized that I had spent virtually all of my life
focussed outwardly (including in thoughts and emotions), reacting to the objective, and had literally
forgotten to be also aware of my subjective self, the one who was experiencing everything external
to himself.
Ouspensky says this about it: “I saw that I really only remember those moments of the past in
which I remembered myself. Of the others I know only that they took place. I am not able
wholly to revive them, to experience them again. But the moments when I had remembered
myself were alive and were in no way different from the present. . . . Later, when I began to
learn to divide attention, I saw that self-remembering gave wonderful sensations which, in a
natural way, that is, by themselves, come to us only very seldom and in exceptional
conditions.” (In Search of the Miraculous, Chapter 7)
I began to practice two-way attention, being simultaneously aware of myself and whatever I was
focusing on externally. It seemed almost as if I had, up until this time, been living with myself
absent from the picture and now had suddenly become part of my own life. [Much later, I came
across an article which called two-way attention ‘Ouspensky’s tragic mistake, as the true
journey, as taught by Ramana Maharshi, is to remove the outward pointing arrow of attention
and have one’s attention focused inward only.]
Furthermore, the inward pointing arrow of attention is not pointing at the ‘I’ as in who we think
we are, but at a subjectivity most are not aware of.
“ . . . all real Self-Remembering is simply forgetting yourself, your ordinary self, your ordinary
negative “I’s”, your ordinary forms of internal considering, and all the rest of it, and feeling
certain that some further state of yourself exists above all this personal uproar that takes place all
day long in each one of you, with which you keep on identifying, and when the Work says that we
have Real “I” above us you must understand that this act, so to speak, of separating from False
Personality, deliberately at some moment every day, is designed to make it possible for us to come
in contact with the first traces of Real “I” which is already there and which is our real goal.”
Maurice Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, Vol.
3.
Most, if not virtually all, of Gurdjieff’s and Ouspensky’s students almost certainly only
understood this conceptually. They did not realize the experience of this Real ‘I’. It is evident in
the writings I’ve read of those who wrote. When A. R. Orage’s widow went to see Gurdjieff after
the end of the Second World War, he spoke to her about a man whom he did not name. The man

42
knew everything but lacked “the simple understanding. . . . He tried for such,” said Gurdjieff,
“and was too intelligent to grasp it.” (James Webb, The Harmonious Circle, 1980, p 372.) My take
on this is that the man referred to was Orage, who, like most, had not managed to be conscious of
his own simple awareness before the mind – the essence that is our birthright – which is with us
all the time, but which we have forgotten and pay no attention to.
The weekly sessions, as well as in homework assignments we were asked to do in our daily
activities, included practices focused on remembering ourselves and self-observation. One
exercise was to answer the telephone with the hand we usually did not use for that task, to be
aware of ourselves while using the phone with this difference, as well as to be aware of our
physical and emotional involvement in the call. Another was to note how we were when speaking
with our boss at work. I extended this to try to be conscious when writing my letters to family and
friends. The Gurdjieff process also requires one to be conscious when doing physical activity and
there was one day in which students met at the Glosters to participate ‘consciously’ in helping
redecorate part of their flat. I found doing this to be very different from doing similar work
mechanically.

Using Attention
The use of attention was also extremely important. We were asked to put our attention to different
parts of our bodies, and I found it a great eye-opener that I could go to any part of the body
(internally or on its surface) with my attention and become aware of sensations, muscular tensions
and even the pulse, in each of these parts. I could relax any muscular tensions I found. It was a
surprise to find how tension had rather unconsciously built up in different parts of my body
(notably – but not limited to – shoulders and back) without my having been aware of it.
I would practice moving my attention around to different parts of the body and feeling the aliveness
in each part of me. This ‘movement’ of attention from the awareness, or my me’s headquarters, in
my head to any part of the body was as instant as the intention to put it there (and reminded me of
how I had read that people in spirit – or in stories of genies – just had to wish to be at a certain
place and they would rather ‘magically’ instantly find themselves there).
I found that, not only could I have my attention at any single place in my body, but that this
attention-awareness could be expanded to different regions of the body, and even to encompass the
whole of the body simultaneously. This felt to me like a sense of being in the body, or ‘beingness’,
as opposed to having been used to living with energy and attention purely in thoughts and
emotions, largely centred in the head (or even outside of – disconnected from – the body). Life
became more of a holistic experience. This was a valuable additional practice to the two-way
attention for me, awareness of myself as subject and as my body, while continuing to be involved
in my daily life.
This use of attention for awareness of internal objects, either on particular parts of the body or
throughout, was especially powerful when in bed with eyes closed, either just before going to
sleep or just after coming back to waking consciousness. I ‘tuned in’ to the body and an
overall awareness of it, including using the awareness for added muscular relaxation.
Wherever there is tension, there is some discomfort, which is some level of suffering. I later
came to understand that just being present inevitably involves some level of tension, often that
we may well not even be conscious of. There is complete repose – no tension – in absence
(after all, we as we think of and experience ourselves are not there), which perhaps is why it is
equated with Samadhi.

43
Essence Vs Personality
Gurdjieff’s system makes what seemed to me a profound comment on humans having an
essence they are born with, which is their own and truly belongs to them, and then,
everything acquired after birth, which effectively makes up their personality, and which is
not their own or does not really belong to them. This made a great deal of sense to me, in
terms of our really possessing an identity of some sort (this ‘essence’) when we commence in
the world, because all of the rest we are taught or pick up from modelling, influences and
other experience (and this will vary according to the family, religion, and country culture one
is brought up in). This solved for me a little of the mystery of who we are before we become
who we think of ourselves as being, because, after all, we must have been ‘somebody’, had
some identity however conscious or unconscious, to begin with, too.

“Generally speaking, we are born sane, but become insane through the influence of
our elders, through the desire to do as others do, through education in the wide sense – that
enemy of the human race.” – C. S. Nott, Teachings of Gurdjieff, A Pupil’s Journal (from the
section Orage’s Commentary on Beelzebub)

Identifying, Considering and Justifying

Gurdjieff also spoke of the problem of identifying and of people’s normal thoughts largely being
made up of ‘considering’ and ‘justifying’. My understanding, or interpretation, is that, in
‘identifying’, we attach ourselves to whatever our attention is on, be it a thought, emotion or object,
and this (our identification, and hence our identity) is constantly changing as our attention shifts.
“Man has no individual I. But there are, instead, hundreds and thousands of separate small
“I”s, very often entirely unknown to one another, never coming into contact, or, on the
contrary, hostile to each other, mutually exclusive and incompatible. Each minute, each
moment, man is saying or thinking, “I”. And each time his I is different. Just now it was a
thought, now it is a desire, now a sensation, now another thought, and so on, endlessly.
Man is a plurality. Man’s name is legion.” – Gurdjieff
Considering can be internal or external. In internal considering, we are assessing our relationship
to everything that is around us and happening to us. We are deciding if it is good or bad for us and
what our reaction will be to it – either like, dislike or neutral. Internal considering is mechanical,
reactions. In external considering, we are stopping ourselves from expressing habitual negative
emotions and we are wondering about others, how they are feeling, etc. External considering is
conscious in that it takes an effort to come out of our mechanical habits.
‘Justifying’ has more emotion involved. A good example can be seen in our usual automatic
reaction to criticism, in which we find reasons to defend ourself against it and against being wrong.
As I was now usually conscious of my thoughts and mental and emotional reactions, I began to see
that this really was how my mental-emotional self was operating. It also became quite clear that
this mental process was what is going on in others around me, too. We are just reacting, rather than
acting, and changing identification – and hence our identity – as soon as our mind shifts to a new
thought or emotion. In this sense we are fragmented – with no continuous identity. Gurdjieff called
the normal person the ‘man-machine’, which is effectively going through life mechanically.
Accordingly, Gurdjieff said mechanics are more appropriate than psychology for people.

44
Our Different Centres
The system also spoke of people being made up of different centres. Our education and priorities in
society are such that these centres are undeveloped or develop out of balance. The Work is
designed to bring them back into harmony.

Gurdjieff talked of 3 key centres being the moving, emotional and intellectual ones. The traditional
3 means of working with them were the ways of the fakir, of the monk and of the yogi. He said his
approach was the way of the sly man, the fourth way, which works on all three centers at the same
time and brought one to harmonious completion much faster.

The lower centres are the moving (physical), emotional and intellectual. The moving centre is made
up of 3 separate sub-centres: instinctive, motor and sex. There are also two higher centres, the
higher emotional centre (with which one has a more evolved sense of self-awareness/self-
consciousness) and the higher intellectual centre (involving what is called ‘objective
consciousness’, in which our consciousness and awareness is beyond the normal one of the mind or
personality). This also made a good deal of sense to me in reflecting how the mental-emotional-
body complex is designed and works.
An illustration of these centres and what they require is called a ‘food diagram’. The moving centre
requires actual food, the emotional centre takes in air and the intellectual centre’s nourishment is
impressions. In order for the foods of the different centres to be transformed into higher substances for
our evolution, a series of shocks is required. A major initial shock for the intellectual centre is that of
self-remembering, which is not normal to man, but requires a conscious effort. Orage said self-
observation is the digestion of impressions. Certainly, self-remembering as awareness of our own
awareness aligns with practices specified in a number of key spiritual traditions. A second important
shock comes from intentional suffering. The system says that the external and internal worlds work
independent of each other and they will only come together through conscious effort and intentional
suffering.
At a private meeting with the Glosters, I shared with them a write-up of my mystical experience
from Vancouver and Betty said it was an example of the higher emotional centre. Peter later kindly
wrote me about it, saying,
“Thank you for letting me read the description of your very personal experience.
You will find more and more how difficult it is to put emotional experiences, such as yours,
into words. It is inevitable that one spoils the experience, unless one finds a medium such
as Richard Bach found in Jonathon Livingston Seagull.
You should now try to distinguish clearly between the experiences of the Emotional Center
and try to keep them quite separate from the part of the Intellectual Center, which we
normally use.
Inner stillness is needed for this and the outer manifestations which you will see, is the
stillness of the Group.
Also remember that Emotional Center works at a much faster speed than Intellectual
Center.”

45
Cosmology
The manifested universe of all planets and worlds was explained by Gurdjieff as a series of
transformation of energies starting from the highest level, the source, and descending to lower and
lower levels. This descent is a result of the transformation of three energies: active, passive and
neutralizing. Gurdjieff named these three energies after chemical elements: carbon, oxygen and
nitrogen. Each level had its own laws which resulted from where it is on the descending sequence.
The lower the level, the further from heaven and the more laws applied. The level of our earth (and
presumably all similar earths) is considered the second lowest level, while the moons to such earths
are considered to be the lowest level, the furthest from the source.
James Webb, in the section ‘Mystical Mathematics’ in the Sources of the System, claims
Gurdjieff’s cosmology was derived from the Pythagorean school and in particular from the work of
the occultist Nicomacus of Gerassa. (The Harmonious Circle, p. 503).
The aim of The Work is to help us transform ourselves and evolve to higher levels in the cosmic
scheme of things.

A, B and C Influences
Gurdjieff spoke of there being 3 types of influences on man.
‘A’ influences are created in life, within the world, and these are all that most people are open to.
These include our families, societies, cultures and all the things which make up a normal person’s
conditioning. Living solely under ‘A’ influences is being subject to the law of accident. One has no
control oneself over what happens to one in the world.
‘B’ influences are of a higher level and have conscious origins outside of life in the world but are
influenced or adapted to some extent by the world and are mixed in with ‘A’ influences in the
world. Much of religion and some philosophy and art could be considered ‘B’ influences. Their
origins may have been conscious, but they have been diluted by being transmitted by followers
who have not been conscious. A limited number of people are sensitive enough to recognize the
differences between ‘A’ and ‘B’ influences and will even resonate with and be drawn to ‘B’
influences. They may, over time, build up a heightened sensitivity, which Gurdjieff called a
‘magnetic centre’, which would make them seek more ‘B’, and even ‘C’, influences. Those without
such sensitivity, or the beginnings of such a magnetic centre, will not resonate with or give any
importance to ‘B’ influences. ‘C’ influences will similarly not be seen as having any value to such
people, even if they are told that these ‘C’ influences are of tremendous import.
‘C’ influences are conscious ones which come directly from outside of life in the world as we know
it and have not been modified by life. A man who has been sensitive enough to ‘B’ influences to
have strengthened his magnetic centre may have the good fortune to find or be drawn to a
conscious teacher, or ‘C’ influence. Now, he no longer needs his magnetic centre to guide him, but
can rely on his teacher and on his own understanding of the teachings he is given.
I felt that Gurdjieff’s own writings could be considered examples of ‘C’ influences and that this
was probably especially true of Beelzebub’s Tales. As I found that book quite a difficult one to
read, I later sought to understand it better through talks by others on it (including ones by J G
Bennett and A R Orage). When reading these talks, it dawned on me that they were made by
unawakened people and hence would be ‘A’ or, at best, ‘B’ sources and could never really speak of
the most important messages of the book.

46
In Beelzebub’s Tales there is mention of a great prophet, Ashiata Shiemash who, as a teenager,
decided to prepare himself for his mission of freeing the world from the illusions under which it
lives. (Webb, p 546) This is almost certainly Gurdjieff talking about himself. He unquestionably
attained a level of awakening which made it obvious the degree to which all people live their whole
lives in what amounts to a state of hypnosis. His work in Russia and later Institute for the
Harmonious Development of Man was intended to help bring people back into harmony and
awaken them from their dreams.

What is Meaningful
At one meeting Peter said that all over the world, church steeples point upwards, but people
everywhere walk around looking down and do not see this. He also commented on how revealing
watching oneself can be, noting an instance when he had dropped a butter dish and found himself
immediately reacting to this by raising his hand in anger at his wife.

At one of our weekly meetings, Betty commented on meeting someone she knew when out at the
shops in London. She spoke about this person as if she were someone intelligent and fairly upper
class (maybe even titled), and as probably being in late middle age, but noted how, when this lady
had spoken to her, it had been to impress Betty with how much she was ‘doing’, including starting
studies towards a professional degree. Betty then shook her head and said to us, ‘Her life is
meaningless.’ I felt some shock to hear her say this about someone who seemed to be intelligent,
respectable and reasonably responsible in the everyday world. It struck me as being a needlessly
cruel comment at the time but, much later, my conclusion is that the meaningless comment applies
to most lives in the sense of any meaning the mind and the acquired personality attempt to find.
Meaning must be found in the inner – and only then expressed out into the external relative reality
– or experienced in oneness with that ‘external’ reality. If we do not remember ourselves, there is
no awakening of the inner, and we remained identified with the outer, the mind and our personality.
Without the inner, the outer on its own has little if any meaning except in work to awaken the inner.
“What is of real value is in ourselves, in our own original state: this is our wealth. Until we
discover it, we are like the beggar, always seeking something from others but remaining in
poverty. That is why the most important thing is to discover our own state, what is called
the ‘essence of bodhicitta,’ the primordial nature of each individual, which is like the
center of the universe. If we turn outwards, nothing has any value.” Namkai Norbu, The
Mirror – Advice on the Presence of Awareness.

I discovered that a fellow student, Eduardo L, from my small university in Mexico was not only in
London, but also a student in another London Gurdjieff group (which was part of the same
association as mine). I had really only known him to see him at the university, as he was a year or
so ahead of me and had completed a Master of Economics degree when I was still an
undergraduate. He had a posting with the Mexican Institute for Foreign Trade office in London. We
met occasionally and enjoyed sharing our discoveries and experiences in the groups. He once made
a comment about the biggest material fortunes of individuals being of infinite less value than the
potential riches from our Gurdjieff and similar studies. This was a novel way of looking at our
studies, but one which made great sense to me. (I lost touch with Eduardo but have noted since that
someone with the exact same name – including mother’s maiden name – has spent many years at
Ramanasramam, Sri Ramana Ashram at Tiruvannamalai, and translated some of the key writings

47
and teachings of Ramana Maharshi into Spanish. I am delighted to learn our paths have continued
along such similar lines and have eventually brought us to what I feel amounts to the same
destination.)

After 5 months of living in London, I went back to Toronto for a short while before returning to
Mexico in the autumn of 1974 with the Canada-Mexico Exchange Programme. I had told my
Gurdjieff group leaders, Peter and Betty Gloster, I would be going to Mexico and they said there
were groups in Latin America, including Mexico, which had been started there in the early 1950s
by Christopher Fremantle, who now oversaw the group work throughout the Americas. Earlier
groups had also been started in Mexico in the late 1940s by Rodney Collin Smith (better known
just as ‘Rodney Collin’), some of whose books I was already familiar with. Peter and Betty told me
I could join a group there and continue in ‘The Work’. They gave me the contact details and wrote
an introductory letter to Eva Sulzer, the lady in charge of The Work in Mexico.

My exchange ‘work’ in Mexico City was with the national government development bank,
NAFINSA. I attended at their offices and was permitted to study some of what they did, but not
allowed to participate in any active sense.
At first, I stayed with my parents at their newer home, a condominium they had purchased in
Tecamachalco, but soon moved to an apartment on the Toluca highway near to my old campus of
the University of the Americas, and also near to where P was living.

More Eschatology
I had continued to do some Eschatology studies by correspondence with Lillian Clayton whilst in
England and, in November 1974, through P, I joined classes in it with her teacher, an engineer
named Mario Estrada Elizondo, at the gated company and office premises he had in Colonia Vista
Hermosa, Cuernavaca. His family owned land in the area and Mario was building and selling
homes on some of that. He gave lessons in this office. It had a large safe and he would open the
safe to put our lesson payments into it.
Mario had complete faith in this teaching. He had very senior teachers visit from California to
speak with us. He wanted to become the head of the teaching, but Genevieve Rader, who had been
a successor to Walter, held on to the reins until her own secretary, Evelyn Durling, took over in
1981. Not being able to lead the organization, Mario splintered off to head up his own group. He
also wrote and published books about the teaching in Spanish, calling it by the same name.
Although the books and teachings were supposed to be kept secret by the students, Mario’s books
were available to anyone in mainstream Mexican bookshops. Traditional Eschatology students’
copies of the teachings, which were expensive books and booklets for them to buy – especially the
more advanced texts by William W. Walter – were even supposed to be returned to the teaching
when one died. Much of the information was probably positive for the general public to find out
about, in the same way that New Thought and Christian Science concepts can benefit everyone.
However, feeling one could rely on them for healing before one really understood them, could have
unfortunate consequences.

48
 

Mexico City Gurdjieff Group – Eva Sulzer, Christopher Fremantle, Edgardo

Vazquez
In early April 1975, preparatory to starting with the Gurdjieff group, I met with the lady, Miss Eva
Sulzer, who oversaw the groups in the country. She lived at 4 Gral. Aureliano Rivera, in a 300-year
old house with thick walls and an interior courtyard right on San Angel’s Bazaar Sabado market
square. Some of the houses in that district dated back to the time of the Spanish conquistadores.
Eva had been in Mexico since before the 2nd World War started and had lived in Paris before that.
She appeared fairly elderly to me (I later learned she was Swiss, a violinist, photographer and art
patron, and in her early 70s at this time). My impression was that she had been involved with
Gurdjieff’s work for a very long time. As it happened, Christopher Fremantle (an English man who
had worked with both Ouspensky and Gurdjieff and was then based in New York and helping
guide the groups in the United States and Mexico) was visiting Mexico at that time and he was
there at her home, too, so I was interviewed by both of them. Christopher gave me the news that J.
G. Bennett, an author and long-time follower of Gurdjieff, had just died.

I learned that there were about 150 individuals split into 15 groups. Some of the students had been
involved in The Work in Mexico for years.
I told Christopher I had read some of Bennett’s books, and noted several of the other books on
Gurdjieff and his teaching I had read. He told me I had read more about the system than he had,
which astonished me, considering the very long time he had been in The Work . . . though it
occurred to me later that may have been a subtle message on how little value ‘information’ on its
own has. I subsequently discovered in a published letter to a student, Christopher said, “Some
reading, as you mention, is good, but do not read too much – you yourself are the book to study –
everything is there.” To another student, Christopher wrote that reading can detract from
observation and observation was much more important.
Christopher did recommend I read Katherine Hulmes’ Undiscovered Country – A Spiritual
Adventure, 1966, which describes her work with three other ladies under Gurdjieff’s guidance in
mid 1930s Paris.
I later learned that Christopher was an art teacher and a respected painter of abstract landscapes.
Some of his talks, essays and letters were published after his death as On Attention: Talks, Essays
and Letters to His Pupils.

(L) Eva Sulzer’s San Angel home where I met her and Christopher Fremantle (

49
Based on this first meeting, a breakfast meeting with a man, Edgardo Vazquez Gomez, supervisor
of some of the groups, was arranged for the next week for mutual appraisal. I was told Edgardo was
new to The Work but chosen because of how much he had already evolved in an inner sense
through other spiritual studies and practice.
I was taken with Edgardo when I met him. He had German and Spanish background. His
observations seemed extremely perceptive and he was quick in his responses. He spoke of the
disease of tomorrow and noted the preponderance of the intellectual center in me. Some of his
comments to me might normally have been felt as wounding, but he made them in such a pleasant
way and with a smile of such warmth that I found them to be more reassuring than disturbing. I had
a sense that he would be a good guide. I was surprised to hear him comment at the end of our 3-
hour breakfast that he had slept a total of only 3 hours over the prior 2 nights. He said it was a good
thing to know how to relax.
I was assigned to join a Spanish-speaking group which met once a week in the evenings in Mexico
City, as well as occasionally on weekends at an outdoor retreat center in the country. The rural
retreat center was intended to become a Gurdjieffian community and some of the members were
planning to build homes there.
In addition to Edgardo being the main leader for our group, there was another man who led the
movement sessions. I was fascinated just watching how this latter teacher walked, comported
himself and made any simple physical movement. He seemed to have a base in beingness and just
to flow in everything he did. There were also some younger assistant group leaders (my notes from
the time shows these included Carlos M., Beto O, Jorge R, and Eduardo P).
I was even more impressed with Edgardo when seeing him lead these meetings. He seemed more
like Gurdjieff himself than anyone I had come in contact with before. At all times, he exhibited
self-control, together with an awareness of self, perceptiveness, a sense of humour. I was told that
he had been with the work for some seven years but before that had studied for years in an Eastern
tradition under a Hindu.
The Mexican Gurdjieff group was very different to my experience of the one in London. It was
much more feeling and physical, which reflected the difference in the cultures and people. Whereas
people sat still in the meetings in London, here there was a fair amount of movement with some
people changing from chairs to the floor and vice-versa, smoking and people getting up and leaving
for toilet breaks. I commented on this to Edgardo and he said that, in dealing with Latins, it is
found that there is more emphasis on the body as opposed to the intellect and that, in this situation,
I would have to appreciate that I was the exception, not the rule. On the smoking, one of the
assistants told me that nothing is said about it, but that the smokers would naturally stop smoking
during the meetings once they had begun to take the meetings and their search seriously enough.
I told Edgardo that the Mexico group meetings were quite a surprise to me and, although in some
ways different from what I expected, I felt very comfortable. He replied with a smile that he was
not interested in my comfort and would surely find a way to disturb it! When another student
commented to Edgardo that a meeting had been a good one, Edgardo asked him to name in order
the people who had spoken during the evening, which the student could not do. With his usual
smile, Edgardo told the student it must have been sweet for him to have slept through the meeting.
One homework task was to try to find the moment when we lose ourselves through identification
with external stimuli, ideas, considering, or wandering thoughts. If we cannot remember in the first
place, we cannot remember how we forget. We were told to deepen our awareness of bodily

50
sensations.
We went to the country retreat on some weekends for outdoor activities. This was mostly doing
physical work, like sawing wood, as consciously as possible, while noting there were ways of
doing it which used our energy to different degrees. We also met as a group and shared
experiences, asked the leaders questions and even experimented with drumming a simple repetitive
beat and noting how our bodies resonated with some of the rhythms.
Practicing remembering oneself in the now was also referred to as ‘taking photographs’ of oneself,
shining the light of consciousness on a snapshot of oneself for an instant which, without the self-
remembering would have been unnoticed and have otherwise passed one by in the ‘unconscious’
state in which we usually live our lives. One senior student spoke of having discovered that there
was a witness watching his witness. The leader, Edgardo, said this was an important observation.
When asked what his work or pastime was, another new student said he taught the Bible. Edgardo
laughed and said one cannot teach the Bible because, each time a person reads it, they understand it
at a new and different level.
I noted in my diary at the time (1/5/75) that I felt I was fine in observing thoughts and ideas, but
there was no feeling involved. It seemed important there should be a balance between awareness in
the body and awareness in thought. Edgardo told me I had very high reasoning ability and
knowledge and would do well to let being grow and have these in balance.
As had been my experience in London, I still felt unsure about speaking, not sure if anything I said
was authentic. I felt much of my thoughts was not much more than imagination. I was told to make
the effort nevertheless. A breakthrough seems to have been experienced on 2 June 1975, as my
notes indicate more harmony between centers:
I woke up with relatively great feeling early this a.m. without use of alarm clock and was
aware of being where I was and of sensations in my body (such as an awareness one has in
a physical sense immediately before leaving one’s home for a long trip). It was as if my
vision had shifted and everything suddenly came into focus. It was like seeing everything in
three dimensions after having lived in a two-dimensional world. It was also as if I was
perceiving things for the first time in my apartment – the view out of the window, the
sounds and awareness of myself simultaneously), after having lived there for 8 months . . .
like awakening from a long, drugged fever.
And it was almost too much feeling. I wanted to go out for a walk and appreciate nature in
this state, but was unable to, because I felt I had to concentrate to try to see what I was
feeling, so I could understand it. Even though I was feeling so much, I also noted a great
deal of considering over my actions in relationships which had occurred while I was in my
normal ‘asleep-waking’ state. I tried to review in minute detail everything I had done in the
last few days. I felt strong apprehension, not because I was feeling so much, but because I
wanted to find out if I had done something while I was another ‘unconscious I’ that I would
regret now that I could see clearly. This feeling of apprehension only diminished over
passing time.
I was aware of this week’s homework task at this time, but could not sense from the
experience what had previously kept me from feeling bodily sensations in depth, although I
imagined many logical reasons which before I would have spoken about as authentic – but
in this state I was able to see that I was imagining them. The only barrier which still seems

51
 possible is that I have in the past had a habitual thought that I am unable to feel and I had
a wrong conviction from this ‘blind faith’ that I could not feel – though I have been able to
function intellectually with no problem, but I did so with something of a half-dead feeling,
never thinking I was really feeling my experiences.
I kept repeating to myself, ‘It works! It works! It works!” all the while having a sensation
of awareness that I may have only experienced three times in my recollection in many past
years. I kept having the impression that certain things had come into focus in space and
time (such as my attention and my body, or my thoughts and feelings, or my thoughts
catching up to my physical body).
I also noticed an incredible energy which I rarely have following the experience, although I
stayed in bed for about two and a half hours, trying to work out what was happening and
making these notes on the back of an envelope. During this time in bed, my mind was
leaping with great energy to all the projects I would do today, though my body was
disinclined to get up. Also, though I tried several times, I could not read with attention –
studying and watching this heightened feeling-sensation was so much more a priority. I
could not escape from it with my attention. Even after finally getting up, doing some
exercises and breakfasting, I still could not concentrate much on reading. A phrase from a
childhood prayer kept running through my head, ‘If I die before I wake’, and I felt I now
had a much clearer sense of what it is to be awake. I recalled a character from novel
shouting out to other people, ‘You out there – sleeping and dreaming . . .’ and I could see it
was true that in our normal state we are all sleeping and dreaming.
However, once I left home, driving in traffic and dealing with businessmen in the outside
world, the energy and vision diminished very quickly. Later, I reflected on the wonder of
seeing a three-dimensional tree but, of course, could not recapture the sensation.

I also had some introduction to trying the Gurdjieff movements for which various local groups
came together (such movements being performed by actual members of Gurdjieff groups can be
seen at the end of the film Meetings with Remarkable Men). We did this while Christopher
Fremantle was still visiting, and he helped to lead them. The movements (sometimes called sacred
dances) required remembering oneself while making a series of movements with different parts of
the body. It did strike me as being similar to learning to drive a car and having to co-ordinate
different parts of the body, which one ends up doing almost automatically. When I put this to
Christopher, he said the movements were not at all the same, and never became automatic.
At a group meeting on 17 July 1975, which Christopher Fremantle helped lead, he advised a young
lady there not to worry about being so changeable. He the key is to be able to observe how one is,
how one thinks, feels, etc. and that at this stage we cannot do more than that – such as control the
thoughts. However, he went on the stage will come when we can do more – decide what is best for
us, what mood we want, and use the energies instead of letting things happen to us. He said we
must make the effort, watch the thoughts and be aware of ourselves. We do not work for results –
the results come of themselves.

I had completed a first draft of my novelette and, as a thank you, sent a copy to the Glosters. Betty
read it and responded while they were on holiday in Zizers, Switzerland, saying, it “contains some

52
interesting ideas. But they are a bit mixed up, they do not organically grow out of each other in a
natural enough way (in my opinion!). It is a serious effort to say something difficult.
We are all on the path of searching for self-knowledge, and for me, I know I must be very wary of
not bringing to that search too many extraneous ideas. To be simple is the most difficult thing to
attempt.
If you could accept to discipline yourself not to attempt to bring in any esoteric ideas into your
writing until you have managed to follow the groups in Mexico for a year or so, it could bring a
much clearer pattern to your thoughts and ideas.”


Hugh Harleston, Jr.

One of the most memorable aspects of these meetings was the involvement of another English
speaker, Hugh ‘Hugo’ Harleston Jr., an American engineer and polymath. Hugh and his Mexican
wife lived in a modern style home at 237 Paseo Lomas Altas in one of the fashionable Lomas
districts in the hills above Mexico City. He had then recently ‘retired’ early to devote himself to
esoteric matters. He was a leading expert on the pyramids and ruins at Teotihuacan and had
contributed the dimensional drawings and scientific analysis in the technical part of Peter
Tompkins’ Mysteries of the Mexican Pyramids. In 1972, through countless measurements at
Teotihuacan and studies, he had re-discovered the standard unit of measurement (STU) the builders
of these monuments had used when doing their building and also found that selected monuments of
the greater site corresponded in scale to a model of the solar system, including some planets
discovered long after Teotihuacan had been built (though one of the ‘planets’, Pluto, was later
demoted from planet status and subsequent mapping of the city discounted this theory).
Hugh told me he had spent 45 minutes alone in the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid at Giza,
which he understood was the longest time anyone had been in it alone since Paul Brunton had spent
12 hours there one night in the 1930s (described in A Search in Secret Egypt). He said that while
he was in the King’s Chamber, he could hear each breath he took echo 7 times. He also said he felt
there may have been a shift in what we consider to be time and space since the pyramids’
construction.

53
 Pyramid of the Sun and boulevard at Teotihuacan
Hugh played the piano for some of the movement sessions. He interrupted Edgardo at one meeting
to correct him. Edgardo had made a comment about being in the moment and defined a moment as
a point. Hugh said a moment is a plane, not a point. Edgardo agreed with him, saying Hugh was
right, but that he had used the analogy of a point as it was easier for us to understand. After the
formal part of the meeting was over, Edgardo asked Hugh to define eternity, space, dimensions
(including the sense of movement as a dimension) and, finally, to touch lightly on recurrence. What
Hugh said went along with what Ouspensky had written in A New Model of the Universe and
Nicoll in Living Time. Despite being intellectually oriented and having read both these books, I
found it challenging to grasp all of Hugh’ explanations. Edgardo then reinterpreted what Hugh had
said for the group and told us we would come to know such things when we could observe a
relative harmonious working between the centers. I spoke to Hugh afterwards and he told me that,
in order to grasp the idea of eternity, he had to remove the time element completely from it.
After one meeting which Christopher Fremantle had attended, Hugh took me aside and told me that
Christopher was a ‘C’ influence (based on Gurdjieff’s A, B and C categorization of spiritual
influences).
As Hugh lived not far from where I was on the Toluca highway, we agreed that I would stop at his
house and he would give me a ride to and from the Mexico City group meetings, which were held
on Wednesday evenings at the home of one of the assistants (Carlos M) on Calle Morena in Del
Valle.
After the meetings Hugh would invite me into his home and down to the basement, where he had a
grand piano and a drinks trolley. On the wall of the stairway down was a huge original drawing he
had made showing the creation of the world according to an interpretation of Mesoamerican
mythology. It is reproduced in black and white in much smaller scale on page 270 of Mysteries of
the Mexican Pyramids.
Hugh was a student of all things esoteric and his enthusiasm was contagious. He introduced me to
plant sentience, which had been the subject of Peter Tompkins’ The Secret Life of Plants, and to
the work of Cleve Backster, who had had remarkable results in his experiments with plants using
lie detectors.
Hugh also told me he had been able to straighten his own nose by 2 millimetres through focusing
his attention on it daily – visualizing how it should be for 90 seconds - while he was shaving. He
said it took him 2 years to completely right itself but that in half or less of that time there was
significant evidence of the change taking place. His start was an extreme deviation of the nose with
recommendation of an operation to right it. Halfway through he saw another doctor who said from
the x-ray, ‘moderate deviation’. Then, after two years, he went back to the fist doctor who said
there was no deviation at all now. Hugh tried to explain to the doctor how he had corrected the
nose, but the doctor would not hear it and told him that was impossible. Hugh said the reason this
was possible was that all the body, including the bones, change all their cells every 14 – 16 weeks.
Hugh told me that one of the people in the work in Paris had advised him not to read Nicoll’s
Commentaries until after Hugh had been with the groups for five years. Hugh had duly waited and
then read them steadily over the space of a year. He said that, during that year, he had found that
every week, or even more frequently, he had had experiences which brought home the readings he
had done that same week. He said it was too much for it to be just coincidence and recommended I
read Arthur Koestler’s The Roots of Coincidence, which he said was like a heavily concentrated

54
dose of Jung’s theory of synchronicity.
On a later trip to Mexico I found and bought a subsequent work of Hugh’s at a local English
bookshop, The Keystone; A Search for Understanding – A New Guide to the Great Pyramids of
Mexico – Book 1: The First Dimension, which had been published in 1984. Its introduction shows
it was intended as the first of an ambitious 7 books in the series. He published A Mayan Treasure
– Space and Time Unified at Teotihuacan online in 2001 which lists some of his other
publications in its bibliography.

During this time in Mexico my mother shared with me some of her experiences of encounters with
Mexican healers (known as brujas, which literally translates as ‘witches’) and from a meditation
group she participated in at the Cuernavaca home of the well-known psychic and author Ruth
Montgomery. Mexican markets invariably had one or more stalls offering herbs, votive candles and
religious objects, as well as special candles and mixtures which could be used for healing, prayer or
casting spells.
My mother also belonged to a book club group and I felt a very strong resonance with one of their
books I borrowed, The Empty Mirror: Experiences in a Japanese Zen Monastery by Janwillem
van de Wetering. This began a decades-long interest in Buddhism, and in Zen in particular, as well
as a fascination with Japan. I subsequently read Janwillem’s other books about his Zen monastery
experiences. He did, latterly, seem to have some important insights to what Zen teachings were
pointing to.
A school friend from Venezuelan days, Bill A, made a brief visit and told me about being at a
meeting with an American spiritual teacher who called himself Ram Dass. He had been a professor
at Harvard, experimented with LSD in its early days and had been kicked out. He went to India to
find someone who could reveal to him what the LSD experience meant and did find a very evolved
holy man, known as Neem Karoli Baba, who was able to do so. Once back in America, Bill sent me
4 of Ram Dass’s books, which I found good reads and helpful. Ram Dass’s own search and
journey, written in Be Here Now, was for me the most illuminating of these.
Another book which impressed me deeply at this time was G.R.S. Mead’s Apollonius of Tyana, a
summary of the life and writings of this first century philosopher and wonderworker who has
sometimes been compared to Jesus of Nazareth. I was especially struck by this passage:
“There is no death of anyone, but only in appearance, even as there is no birth of any,
save only in seeming. The change from being to becoming seems to be birth, and the
change from becoming to being seems to be death, but in reality no one is ever born,
nor does one ever die. It is simply a being visible and then invisible; the former through
the density of matter, and the latter because of the subtlety of being - being which is ever
the same, its only change being motion and rest. For being has this necessary
peculiarity that its change is brought about by nothing external to itself; but whole
becomes parts and parts become whole in the oneness of the all. And if it be asked: What
is this which sometimes is seen and sometimes not seen, now in the same, now in the
different?—it might be answered: It is the way of everything here in the world below
that when it is filled out with matter it is visible, owing to the resistance of its density,
but is invisible, owing to its subtlety, when it is rid of matter, though matter still
surround it and flow through it in that immensity of space which hems it in but knows no
birth or death.”

55
 - words attributed to Apollonius of Tyana (1st century CE):
http://gnosis.org/library/grs-mead/apollonius/apollonius_mead_16.htm
I was doing occasional visits to a women’s prison in Mexico City with the Salvation Army to help
some of the American inmates there, who were mostly there because of drug offenses, complete
their high school math studies, but we usually ended up just conversing. I gave my copy of Mead’s
book on Apollonius to one of them.
A dear friend, J. Z., who was studying with a spiritual teacher who had Indian and other occult
background, met with me regularly and we both shared about our spiritual searches. This friend
told me that one of man’s big problems is that he is always focussed out in front, in the direction
his eyes point, rather than being more holistically focussed. This comment has grown in importance
to me since then. He also told me that when Marx spoke of different types of countries economic
states in Das Kapital, what was really being referred to were psychological states. How true! Each
country indeed has its own unique collective psychology – and each of which is evolving over time.
It was also during this time that I first heard of Ramana Maharshi through reading Paul Brunton’s
A Search in Secret India. I felt a resonance and have continued to study him since.

A dramatic change to my life and activities was meeting a lady, S, who was training in the
Montessori teaching method in Mexico City. She was from Texas, had a Protestant Christian
religious background and was drawn to service to others as well as to some of the more progressive
aspects, such as the charismatic movement, of that religion. She was to become my wife. She was
four years my senior and had already been married and divorced twice. While she joined me with
more of an intellectual and emotional interest in some of my studies, she did not share with me the
same keen interest in finding out who we essentially are, what consciousness and awakening are,
and how those can be attained. This was despite (or perhaps because of) her having previously
experimented with a variety of mind-altering substances.
I felt at home in Mexico and preferred life there to that in Canada, but my father recommended we
return to Canada and that I find work there. I felt quite a bit of stress from trying to earn funds
(from temporary jobs without a proper work visa) to support S and myself and from getting around
from our remote home off the highway above Mexico City. We were without a car most of the
time, after I had an unfortunate collision. I developed some strange red nodules on my feet which
became so sensitive I could barely walk. I reluctantly discontinued attending the Gurdjieff group
meetings, as life itself was presenting me with more than sufficient ‘Work’ to focus on. Although I
did receive a job offer with an international American company in its Mexican subsidiary, Mexico
had just significantly devalued its currency and the country’s foreseeable outlook did not appear a
rosy one.
We returned to Toronto in the autumn of 1976 and married soon after, as marriage was a
requirement to obtain Canadian residency status for my wife. I managed to obtain coverage under
the provincial health system and had been admitted to hospital for observation of my feet issue,
where it finally disappeared on its own accord. My older brother was most supportive, allowing us
to stay in his apartment for free for a month and S, of her own accord, went out and obtained a job
as a teller in a downtown bank. We soon rented a flat and I found work as a management consultant
with the consulting arm of a largely Jewish international accountancy firm, mostly attending to
manufacturing clients, many of whom were in clothing and textiles.
As we were now living in the same city as my Eschatology teacher, Lillian Clayton (her husband

56
Bill had died while I was in London), I recommenced my studies with her and my wife joined me
in this. In addition to studying many of Walter’s Common Sense pamphlet series, we completed
studies of the two key volumes by Walter, The Sickle and The Sharp Sickle, as well as the
Primary Course workbook material which had been put together by Genevieve Rader later. [After
almost 100 years of The Sickle and The Sharp Sickle only being permitted to be bought by
students who were deemed ready for them, these two advanced teaching books of Walter’s were
finally republished in editions available to the general public in 2017.]

Lillian Clayton with photo of Bill up high, Holly St., Toronto

Other than reading and the continuing studies in Eschatology’s metaphysics, my consulting job
took up most of my time. On vacations, we visited one set of parents (in Texas) or the other (in
Mexico) or spent time with them when they came to visit us. My wife completed her Montessori
training and did a year of teaching at a school using that method.
In 1978, my father was transferred back to the Venezuelan subsidiary of his company and my
parents moved from Mexico to Caracas, where the national headquarters was then located.

1978 – A Course in Miracles (ACIM) – the world as our dream
Just before this move to Caracas, my mother had discovered a newly published channelled work, A
Course in Miracles, or ACIM, which she bought to take with her to study at her new home. She
shared with me how much this new book was teaching her.
Here are a few summary quotes from The Complete Story of The Course, by P. Miller (1997):
“Fundamentally, the Course says that only spirit is real and that there ’s nothing else.
It also says that God is not involved in the world of matter. Where it really goes beyond
other traditions is in saying that we made up the world - as well as time and space - in
an attempt to attack God”
In the words of the Course itself:
“The world was made as an attack on God. It symbolizes fear. And what is fear except

57
 love`s absence... Thus the world was meant as a place where God could not enter and
where His Son could be apart from him” (ACIM W-pII.3.2:1-4)
This message is so disturbing to some Course students, says Ken Wapnick, that “they
alter the message, deciding that the Course means God did not create the horrors of the
world. But the Course is quite clear that the entire physical universe is not of God`s
making, but our own.”
Adds Gloria (Wapnick), “This is the one concept to which people have always had
tremendous resistance. People find it very difficult to deal with because the direct
implication of God not being responsible for the world is that we are. This means that
you have to take responsibility for your existence and everything about it – and who
wants to do that...” (pp. 112-113)
Buddhism and the Course are very similar in their suggestions that our way of
thinking literally creates the world we see, says Walsh, “because a lot of the deeper
meaning of the great traditions is hidden unless you get the implications of this message:
that what we take to be a fully wakened state is actually a dream.” Walsh feels that the
Course`s explanation of our waking hallucinations is among the best available in the
world`s traditions:
“Dreams show you that you have the power to make a world as you would have it be, and
that because you want it you see it. And while you see it you do not doubt it is real. Yet
here is a world, clearly within your mind, that seems to be outside ... You seem to waken,
and the dream is gone. ... and what you seem to waken to is but another form of this
same world you see in dreams. All your time is spent in dreaming. Your waking and your
sleeping dreams have different forms, and that is all.” (ACIM: T-18.II.5:1-3 ... 8 ... 11-
13) (pp.131-2)
Per the Course, the discipline of accepting and extending forgiveness is what everyone
must undertake in order to awaken from the dream, in which evil (not to mention
time, space and matter) - seems so real. It should also be noted that in the view of the
Course, the only hell is the one the unforgiving ego constantly creates for itself: a
nightmare separation from God, albeit a nightmare spiced with just enough pleasure
and temporal love to keep most people addicted to it. (pp. 148-9)
I got my own copy of ACIM and have never stopped learning from it (though have found it easier
to read commentaries on it than the work itself!).

While I enjoyed the challenge, travel and variety of the Toronto-based consulting work much more
than I had liked working for a single company as I had done before, it still did not feel right for me
and we dreamed of going back to the land and living simply. We were exploring doing this with my
older brother, but he was killed suddenly when the motorcycle he was a passenger on went off the
road. His sudden death at the age of 29 in July 1977 was a great shock to me and to all the family.
It increased the importance to me of using my time to seek out and focus on the most important
purposes in life. I became determined to stop working as soon as I could do so to pursue this end
further.
After much reflection, together with some savings and a very modest inheritance from my late
brother’s estate, my wife and I decided we would leave our jobs and spend an indefinite period of

58
time based at my friend J’s home in Ruislip, a suburb of northwest London, where I would be free
to do further studies and some writing, and from where we would be able to do some travelling.
(This move to England turned out to be a more or less permanent one for me – and my later sense
has been that there is less of our own free will about decisions like this than we normally like to
think we have. It has seemed to me that deeper impulses, or what might be considered a soul’s
choice, had already been made, and that my ‘conscious’ decision was just aligning with pre-
established tendencies. As I was later to learn, it is more likely we generally make our choices and
preferences, possibly according to the soul’s homework and programming we brought in with us
(i.e., they are almost made by themselves, and we only afterwards rationalize the reasons to support
them.)

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6
1980 ─ 1987 – Ruislip - Writing and Management Consulting

We arrived in London in April 1980 and settled at my friend J’s flat in the northwest suburb of
Ruislip. The relief and sense of freedom I felt at not having to work in a formal sense was palpable.
It was wonderful to explore the local libraries and spend time writing, which I then planned to be
my future profession.
Our budget was limited, as I wished our savings to last for as long as possible. We did some modest
travelling to the Continent, including to Bruges and Paris, in a low budget style. Our main trips
were driving ones with J, mostly staying at youth hostels, on extensive holiday trips throughout
England, Wales, Scotland and the Republic of Ireland.
Having dropped out of the Gurdjieff groups before leaving Mexico, I did not feel drawn to
resuming group attendance back in London. It seemed not as convenient to do so – now as a
married man – from our new base in London’s outer suburbs.

1980 – Sogyal Rinpoche – chanting and a taste of Dzogchen
My spiritual studies were mostly restricted to reading, though, on October 16, 1980, I did attend an
evening group meeting held by Sogyal Rinpoche at his then centre in Kilburn. Sogyal had chosen
Rigpa, meaning the essential nature of mind, as the name for his work. The meeting included
accompanying some deep-throated ‘Daily Practice’ chanting on a tape. We were given 8 pages of
the words to chant in Tibetan with English translation. It was a combination of compassion, praise
and prayers for current and previous masters, promises of the fruits of practice and reasons for
practice:
“Joyful to have such a human birth,
Difficult to find, free and well-favoured;
But death is real, comes without warning
This body will be a corpse.
Unalterable are the laws of Karma
Cause and effect cannot be escaped;
Samsara is an ocean of suffering,
Unendurable and unbearably intense.
Recognizing this, may my mind turn toward practice.”
Towards the end it noted that Dzogchen, the tradition of Padmasambhava, is the only short path of
all the Buddhas.
There was a talk and each attendee was given some rice for ceremonial use. Sogyal was an
animated speaker and announced a retreat in the country at which he would share some important
practice secrets. A number of the audience, which was Western and of both genders– with several
dressed in what looked like Tibetan colours and style of clothing – seemed quite excited by this and
keen to attend. Although I had been curious about Tibetan Buddhism, nothing really clicked for me
from the meeting, the deep throated chanting, or from Sogyal’s energy, despite my later acquiring a
great respect for the core teaching of Tibetan Buddhism – especially for the Dzogchen tradition and
the Nyingma school – and can also see the attraction of the ritual and practices for some.

60
As I was leaving the meeting, I bought a booklet by Sogyal called “View, Meditation and Action”.
It seemed something of an introduction to the teaching and practice. Some of its message:
“There is nothing to grasp, nothing to attain. We are already enlightened, but do not
recognize it. We are clouded Buddhas.”
“Meditation is the complete relaxation of body speech and mind. There is a simplicity,
humour, and an ordinariness which is almost magical.”
“Our first deception is that there is an effort in meditation. Meditation is not a special state
of sanity, but just letting go, letting be, and giving up trying. It is not not doing, not not
speaking, not not having thoughts. Just suchness. Just thatness.”
“View in meditation is the natural intelligence which sees our Buddha nature and ordinary
mind on one level. Compassion is the working of this intelligence.”
“In this awakened stateless state everything is of one taste. There is no bad to put down, no
good to elevate. All contradictions, confusions and ironies are harmonized.”
There was also a summary of the qualities required for applying meditation in everyday life, ‘view
in action’. The observations on meditation had some passing resemblances to Zen’s shikantaza
(‘just sitting’, or ‘just mind sitting’) practice and the outcome like what I understood as meant by
the ‘dhyana state’ in Hinduism and ‘jhana states’ in Buddhism. The challenge is progressing from
practice to such states.

At the time I was working on a time-travel novel I had titled Ashtoreth Nascent. It was intended to
be a creative work which would reveal and teach me about myself as I wrote it. However, I soon
met a friend of J’s who was a publisher and suggested I write a book on English calendar customs
as a coffee table style one which might be a popular Christmas item.
I started on this, with each month becoming a chapter in the book. It was designed as a narrative of
the year, with the calendar customs which had their origins in the natural year, together with their
histories, set within descriptions of the seasonal changes and the annual round of farming and
pastoral activities. My style of doing it required extensive and meticulous research, and the whole
project turned out to take about half of my time for two years. My publishing friend had lost
interest in it by this time. I offered the book to several other publishers, but was turned down, and I
finally just reproduced a few copies as gifts to family. (Many years later, in 2012, in beginning to
address and complete unfinished business in my life, and as a means of not throwing away all the
work that had gone into it, I slightly revised and retyped the manuscript to have it in an electronic
format and published it myself online.)
As I was nearing the last few chapters in the English customs book, our savings were running out
and I began applying for management consulting jobs with firms in London. My wife and I were
still on visitor visas, which we had kept renewing by travelling out of the country and then
returning to obtain a new ‘extension’. This method of staying in the country longer (after we had
been doing it for 3 years) began to be questioned on our re-entries and a work visa would be the
answer to being able to stay longer as well as give us much-needed funds.
After quite an extensive period of job-hunting, I was finally offered a position by an American
management consulting firm’s London office, which would provide the important work visa. At the
time they were considered the US industry leaders in strategy consulting. The work I did with them

61
was mostly manufacturing based – largely in supply chain management –, and most of the clients I
worked for were in the automotive industry, either as major component makers or actual vehicle
assemblers and manufacturers. As this part of the firm operated a Europe-wide practice, I was
travelling constantly, often away all week, and managed to work in most of the major countries in
Western Europe, as well as in the USA and on projects involving Mexico and Japan. My five-year
passport of this period has more than 300 stamps in it, almost all related to business trips, most of
which entailed my being away from home for all the work-week.
The work for them was the most demanding I have ever done, requiring being very fast on the
learning curve about each new client and industry and working to extremely tight deadlines. The
use of personal computers was still in an embryonic stage and an enormous amount of time was
spent doing manual tables using calculators. An extraordinary amount of research had to be done
very quickly, and I often worked very late, sacrificing sleep to do this. There was one assignment in
which I was required to work in French after a two-week cram course in the language in Paris (I
had had a couple of years of high school French in Montreal and having Spanish helped).
The firm had an ‘up or out’ policy, meaning that if one did not move up one was ‘counselled out’ of the
firm (let go). Although my work as a junior and senior consultant was considered exceptional, I did not
have the makings of, or interest in, working at the higher levels of principal or partner. I was,
accordingly, told I had to leave the firm, but I managed to secure an agreement whereby I could stay
long enough to complete 4 years of the working visa with the same firm, which allowed me to attain
permanent residency status in the UK.
When I first realized I was to be let go, I was terribly upset. I remembered earlier times of being
without funds and the job was the financial lifeline for myself and my wife. While extremely
demanding, it was also both fascinating and exciting work, with the travel on expense accounts and
exposure to so many different companies, industries and people.
Looking back, that kind of work was a form of madness. With few exceptions, the upper echelons
of the firm were comprised of individuals motivated by personal gain, the trappings of wealth, and
the admiration of others for being visionary and innovative in their niche areas of work – in other
words, driven by possessions and self-image, caught up in the external and the psychological. One
of the partners in our office was an exception and particularly considerate in treatment of staff. I
was puzzled and asked a senior colleague why such a nice man would stay in the firm. He
answered, ‘His wife needs the money.’
When another colleague’s wife had a miscarriage and asked for time off to be with her, he was told
he was being disloyal to the firm. A further colleague was told he could not have time off the day
after his house had burnt down in the night. The travel and dedication required was such that many
relationships foundered because of it. My own marriage also suffered. I later heard the phrase that
many people confuse adrenaline with happiness, and that could also be said to be true of many in
this industry. In hindsight, losing that job was a major blessing, but it took me quite a long time to
appreciate this more fully.

During the late 1980’s the BBC featured a series covering Japanese sumo tournaments with
commentaries in English. I was fascinated by the history, rules and etiquette involved. It seemed to
be something of a sport in which one needed to be as conscious or ‘present’ (remembering oneself
while engaged in it) as possible.
One of the aspects I heard at the time was that the two wrestlers need to be breathing together,

62
which is to say that their in and out breaths would be at the same time, just before commencing the
match. While I have never confirmed this actually to be true, it caused me to reflect on breathing
as it relates to resting and activity. I realised that, generally, it is natural for us to commence
activities (such as the sumo wrestlers starting their match) on the in breath, and the out breath
reflects a relaxation and surrender.
I began to use the awareness of this (together with the awareness of any muscular tension) in my
quiet times of inner exploration with attention, particularly when working at relaxing to the
maximum degree.

As I knew I was on my way out of the consulting firm, I hunted for a new job and was hired to a
very unusual post as manager of the personal fortune of the previous Minister of Taxation for Saudi
Arabia. His fortune ran into several tens of millions of dollars and was invested in land, building
projects and stock markets in both the Middle East and the west. It was doing disastrously
performance-wise because of a mix of the slump the world was in at the time and appalling
management. I found offices for the new company set up to manage this in the City of London, and
travelled to the Continent to meet some of the people involved in the projects, so I could assemble a
summary of the state of the whole of the investments for an upcoming management meeting at
which a new head of the company was to be chosen and introduced to everything.
Although I had only been on this job for about three months by the early autumn of 1987, the new
head, an American banker, paid me off and put his own man, an ex-colleague, in my place (at
double my salary), and I found myself suddenly without a job again. I went through with the
purchase (which had been started before the loss of this job) of a semi-detached house in Ruislip
about a block away from J’s house. The house was an estate sale and required a lot of updating. We
managed to do some of this, including putting in central heating and a new kitchen, but never
moved in as, without work, there was no way I could manage to keep up the mortgage payments.
We managed to sell it for the amount we had paid, plus the investments we had made in it, and
continued sharing J’s flat with him.
After the tense period in the consulting firm and landing the new job at a significant salary, I had
breathed something of a sigh of relief, as I felt our financial future was secured. Suddenly, this was
no longer true, which triggered a combination of depression and apathy. I felt, at 37, somewhat
over the hill and also knew many companies were not keen to hire ex-management consultants. I
went through a period of such very low energy that I spent much of each day in bed and thought I
might be suffering from a chronic fatigue syndrome. Things appeared quite black. I could not see a
way forward, but, like the loss of the consulting job, this apparent setback became a turning point
back to spirituality and higher priorities for me.

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7
1987 ─ 2000 – Clapham, Hawaii, Japan - The Inner Journey
Intensifies
1987 – Shaun de Warren – Growing awareness and publishing
While I was going through this low period, my wife began attending some evening gatherings and
talks at the Battersea home of a teacher/counsellor named Shaun de Warren. One person, a
conductor (Denis V) whom Shaun had counselled, typed up notes of the talks, copies of which
could be freely taken away. When I read some of these, I found a striking consistency in them, in
the sense of it being clear the writer was coming from a non-personal base in the writings, as if they
were intuitive or inspired and bypassed a personal ego. They reminded me of the transcriptions of
talks by J. Krishnamurti, in which there also seems to be no ego, personal preferences, or
judgements.

Shaun de Warren (1941 – 2012), about 1988

I arranged to meet Shaun and did so at his home in Cyril Mansions on Battersea Park on the 19th of
September 1987, just one day after his son Daniel had been born. I told Shaun about losing my jobs
and how I found myself without energy or motivation for finding my next step. He suggested I
come for a personal 10-session counselling course he had designed which he called PEP, short for
Personal Empowerment Program. Part of my severance package from the last company had
included a generous £5,000 which was to be used for helping me find another job. I had had these
funds placed in the care of an outplacement firm, where I had had a little counselling, but they
concluded it was best for me to take a year off. I proposed they put a good part of these funds
towards the counselling work with Shaun and they agreed to do this.
Shaun had had a curious background for this kind of spiritual counselling. He was from a British
military family which had been based in India. Shaun had gone into the military and had been a
cavalry officer before leaving that and training to be a barrister. He found himself being able to see
the dynamics underlying the problems his legal clients thought they would have to solve through the
court and then would often give them counselling insights so they could resolve the matter without
really requiring his legal skills. He was doing himself out of work and left the profession. Shaun was
subsequently given a position as a leader for the European arm of the Eckankar spiritual church.

64
However, after some time of playing this role, he found himself at odds with the hierarchical system
it had with its Living ECK Master at its head. He then began counselling people privately and
helping them become sovereign in their own lives.
It turned out that Shaun and I had read and studied many of the same spiritual authors, though his
experience and understanding of the Hindu tradition was much deeper than mine, and he had already
made the leap to being able to step out of his mind and into awareness. When he spoke in public,
including at the gatherings at his home, the messages largely came through him rather than being by
him. Once, just before Shaun was to give a talk, one of his students told him it was a privilege to be
conversing with who would be speaking on the stage in a few minutes. He replied, “You are not
speaking to who will be talking up there.”
Even when Shaun was counselling or responding to questions, he would pause before answering,
waiting for an intuitive response, rather than one from his mind. He also told me that a key
principle in counselling work is that the counsellor never has the answer for his client. Before
signing many of his letters, Shaun would write ‘In love’, rather than ‘Sincerely’ or ‘Best wishes’.
When I queried what he meant by this, he said it was acknowledging that he and the recipient are in
what could be thought of as a swimming pool of love (the swimming pool of the Self – together
with everyone else).
For my PEP program with Shaun I chose my vision to be self-sufficiency and he helped me express
this as ‘Each person (including myself) recognizes the One Source expressing IT responsibly for
the benefit of myself and mankind’. Together we drew a diagram of my ‘Self-Sufficiency
mansion’ with the following ‘rooms’ or aspects to focus on:
- Money (this was to be seen as not limited to a single source),
- Work (it was important one’s work be fulfilling and not done solely for financial support),
- Body,
- Life partner/Relationships,
- Self-Expression,
- Relaxation/Fun/Pleasure,
- Travel/Adventure,
- Life Goals,
- Home + Car (relax, nourishment, peace),
- Sanctuary (spiritual and mental).
For each room, I had to see what was already present in it, what was not wanted (including limiting
and negative thoughts about any of these aspects) and what was wanted. The content for each room
was to be created from my self-sufficiency mindset which required turning around any negatives
and making goals.
Shaun taught me to listen to intuition when making decisions and to move in the directions where I
felt the most energy. If I still had to accomplish chores for which I did not feel much energy, I was
just to commit to doing a comfortable set amount on each per day. I was to focus attention on the
solutions (visualize goals as already achieved), rather than on the problems. I was first to discover
the way of my purpose. Shaun promised me that when my purpose landed, energy, health and other

65
things would naturally fall into place. He said that we are all naturally energetic and enthusiastic.
I had been keen to attain a conscious theta brainwave state. But Shaun noted this is more of a
being/awareness state in which one does not control, create or manipulate in the world. He said, ‘to
dwell in the presence that contains all things while in daily life, come from the alpha state and let
my actions be a result of referring to that presence’. He said the alpha state is the creative one and
the one we are usually in during meditation. He also noted the delta was a slow brainwave used for
the way in and way out (birth and death).

Shaun wanted to reach and help more people through different means. He named his work ‘The
Centre in Battersea’. Later, Shaun’s meetings were rebranded as ‘The Prosperity Club’ of which
one became a member, committing to a purpose of exploring money/supply as a spiritual substance
and to a goal of prosperity for all. It was clear – or became so – to members that prosperity for this
club was not limited to the material sense of it.
- He held open evenings once a week at his home which included a talk and then opened to
questions and sharings. Because of room size, these were limited in terms of the numbers
who could come. Later these weekly meetings would be held at a downstairs room at The
Remembrance Hall on Flood Street in Chelsea. Those attending were asked to contribute
£5, though concessions were available, and – when at the home venue – tea and biscuits
were provided at the end of the evening. These weekly evenings became known as ‘The
Prosperity Club’.
- Lectures were given often once a month (costing £5, then £7.50). These were given at a
bigger venue, initially at the Institute for Complementary Medicine on Portland Place, then
later at The Columbia Hotel, Lancaster Gate, and even later at the main upstairs room at
The Remembrance Hall.
- Workshops were held at Shaun’s home. These could sometimes be for a single day (costing
£45) or for the two days of a weekend (costing £70), but often for one evening a week over
four or five weeks. Attendees brought their own lunches which could be enjoyed over a
break in Battersea Park.
- Private counselling was available for those who wished it. A stated cost at this time (about
1988) was £50 per hour, but I am not aware of Shaun turning anyone away. He would
accept what could be paid (including paintings in one case).
- Shaun also went to Germany where he co-hosted seminars with Dr Rudolf Mann and
offered private counselling.
- Cassette tapes of some of the talks were made available to purchase, and – in the early days
– some transcripts were offered free. Later, book publications were added.

Together with a few others, I became involved in helping plan Shaun’s quarterly lectures,
workshops and other meetings. I found it beneficial just to be near, and in, his energy, as well as to
be able to learn and ask questions. Despite working so closely with Shaun and knowing I was a part
of the oneness of love in which Shaun lived, I never felt our relationship was the easy-going one of
friends who treat each other as equals. While I could join Shaun at a deep level, and there were
times when he joked and confided in me, he always remained my teacher at a personal level.

66
Shaun seemed to live in the dimension of inspiration, understanding what others who came to him
most sought to reduce their suffering and worries and achieve an increased level of peace and
happiness.
Examples of workshop topics:
- Where Your Attention is Increases – The Healing Workshop
- You Can Have What You Want or Your Reasons – The Prosperity Workshop
- Who’s the Matter With You – The Relationships Workshop
- Meditation and Intuition
- Living in the Mirror of Life
- Awakening Your Genius
- Celebrating the Body
- Dream Workshop – Using Your Dreams for Creativity and Personal Transformation
- Healing the Family Health Patterns (and Healing the Family Karma)
- Getting into Our Feelings to Find Our Power and Love
- Meditation for Health, Love and Creativity
- Lifescripting – Making Your Life as Exciting as You Want It
- Financial Freedom Workshop

And some lecture titles:

- Finding the Gift
- Healing the Mind, Healing the Body
- Creating Heaven on Earth
- It’s OK to Have Your Heart’s Desires
- Intimacy – To Open Someone’s Heart Is to Set Them Free
- Open Yourself to Receiving
- Living Beyond the Mind
- Celebrating Abundance – We are Far Richer Than We Could Ever Imagine
- Creating the Year You Want
- Happy and Loving Relationships
- The Law of Attraction
- Loving Yourself
- Tapping into Your Inexhaustible Well of Plenty
- It’s Time to Live Your Dreams

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 - Taking the Next Step by Regaining Our Self-Esteem
- The Magic of Gratitude
- Intuition – Our Golden Key to the Treasures Within
- Discovering Our Natural Sexuality
- Happiness – Suffering Is a State of Mind. Happiness is Who We Are.
- Discovering the Inner Architect
- Transforming Relationships
- Living in Harmony
In a talk on the cell, he noted each single one has its own consciousness and he also said we should
see death as just another stage of life.
Before an evening meeting of the Prosperity Club, Shaun would take some time to himself,
strolling around the streets near the Remembrance Hall, being open to inspiration for the evening’s
speaking topic.
Before a workshop, Shaun would sit quietly while the participants chattered among themselves. He
told me this light banter among the attendees was revealing what was foremost in their deeper
minds, which is the group’s deeper mind, at that particular time and that he would use this to help
shape the course of the workshop which followed.
As a 38th birthday gift my wife commissioned Shaun to fill in his own handwriting a small blank
hardcover book with sayings compiled specifically for me. Shaun did not take credit for having
originated many of these sayings, but my experience of him is that they were part of his being and
he himself lived by them. A selection of these gems:
- No one can give you the world; It is already yours and it is a gift.
- Gaze into your own heart; There you will see him; He is no-where else.
- What I put my attention on increases. That is the law.
- Ultimately you must be Master in your own universe. Why not now?
- The end object of spiritual healing is to bring people back to a realisation of their Divine
self.
- I find nothing externally that I have not already found internally.
- Transcendence is not enough. We must work for transformation.
- There is but one illness – unconsciousness.
- Do not try to wash off one by one the stains on the robe. Change it altogether.
- The head can mislead you, but the heart does not lie.
- The three wise men are Intuition, Inspiration and Imagination.
- Surrender to your own Self, of which everything is an expression.
- The Quality of my life is entirely dependent on what I hold in my consciousness.
- Silence is the basis of mental transformation.

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 - God expresses as me and is senior to any law of nature or any other law or belief or
condition.
- Relationship is a space not a form. If I am complete with myself, I am complete with
everyone.
- Guru is not a person. You cannot have interaction with Guru. That is twoness. It is the
belief in twoness that creates the problem.
- I belong to no nation, no civilization, no society, no race, but to the Divine.
- Business must serve mankind – not take from it.
- Pain is the effort it takes to resist the Love of God at some level.
- It is simply a matter of letting go of every concept and belief that is not useful and dwelling
in Divine Reality.
- The only real sin is denying your own Divinity.
- The one thing I can never imagine is that I am dead. Thus who I am is immortal.
- Attention is God looking.
- Why is it so difficult to find God? It is because you are looking for something You never
lost.
- Do unto others as you would if you were the Source of life itself.
- There is nothing that enough love cannot heal.
- Everyone and everything in your life is for your benefit. Relax and look for the gift.
- Who I am has no beginning or ending; nor have I a past or future; I live in the eternity of
this moment and I am known as Love.

Shaun also noted the way we live can be categorized into three progressive levels:
- You or me.
- You and me.
- You are me.
I was taken with the wisdom which came through Shaun and, when I recommended it be put into a
book, he asked me if I would help him do that. I agreed to this, partly for the great benefit of
working with him and with the material. We put together a first book, with Shaun speaking it and I
writing and then editing. Shaun wanted to call it I Am the Key, but some of us around him
recommended it be You Are the Key, so that readers would not feel the title referred to the author.
Its subtitle was A Guide to Self-Discovery.
In it, Shaun acknowledged those whose teachings had influenced and helped him the most, one of
whom was Nisargadatta. This was the first time I’d heard of him. Not long after, one of Shaun’s
circle and a close friend of mine (SJ) gave me a copy of I Am That.
You Are the Key covered the main topics which concern most individuals – relationships, vocation,
prosperity, attitude, dreams, health and healing, and the importance of the alpha, beta and theta

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levels of the mind, but also ventured into more spiritual topics like awareness, meditation and
consciousness. It included a chapter on the mirror principle, which was new to me, but basically
explained the concept that the world each of us experiences is our own projection and is mirroring
ourselves back to us.
Shaun’s teaching on awareness and meditation was basically about reconnecting with our alert and
aware centre of oneness inside, before the mind-body complex, and living from that centre. Shaun once
said to me, “Meditation is awareness”, a comment of great importance which I did not really appreciate
until much later (I then thought awareness meant the mind being aware).
Meditation was important for Shaun and more as a living state than a practice. He once spoke of having
been invited to join some tribal elders in a sweat lodge ceremony when he was visiting America. He
said the heat and the closeness in the tent it was held in were so intense he was certain it would kill him,
and the only option he had to survive was to enter a meditative state until the ceremony finished and he
could leave. The impression I had from Shaun was that the sweat lodge atmosphere was designed to
force all successful participants to go into such deep meditative states. For younger tribal members new
to the ceremony, it would then be something of a rite of passage.

We elected to self-publish You Are the Key and distribute it ourselves. It was a pleasure to visit all
the new age bookshops in London and some of those further afield to sell or encourage them to
take Wellspring publications. When I told Shaun that one of them insisted on keeping his books
with those on a shelf for channelled works, he found that to be most appropriate. He knew inspired
messages come through one and are not owned by a personality. In the aphorism books, he made it
clear the saying were compiled by him and noted in the front of each, ‘From the one source through
many’.
You Are the Key was followed by The Mirror of Life – Your Adventure in Self-Discovery, Your

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Wellspring of Plenty and three booklets of aphorisms, The Prosperity Handbook, The Relationships
Handbook, and The Health Handbook.
In addition to what came through for publication, I learned much from Shaun, the most valuable of
which was not information, but through observing how Shaun was in his being and deducing from
that the foundation from which he expressed himself in words and actions. When we are with
others we pick up on their energies and this was a particularly strong experience when being
around Shaun. The energy of the group meetings was also very powerful, much like that which I
have experienced during retreats with a group of regular meditators.
Shaun taught me concepts which helped me understand myself and my own make-up. Shaun
introduced me to the term vasanas, an Advaita word describing the sub-conscious or unconscious
tendencies we have. In Hindu terms, they speak of the impulses or drivers which we bring into this
life at birth, before even becoming rational or acquiring a personality. This concept made great
sense to me and explained why people (including myself) often make choices and live lives which
seem irrational. It is as if our soul has made decisions, even before its next physical body has been
conceived, about what is important for it to do in its next lifetime and these become the hidden
drivers for the individual who is born as that soul’s vehicle for its next level of training in the
school of the manifested world.
Two other valuable terms from the Hindu tradition which Shaun introduced me to were vrittis and
samskaras. Our samskaras are results of past actions and experiences that have left an imprint on
our mind. Their expression give rise to vrittis (‘waves’ or disturbances in one’s psychological-
emotional self, which disturb the otherwise calm of consciousness – also referred to as thoughts,
which Patanjali describes as being of 5 types). Collectively vrittis represent the behaviour that
makes each of us unique: our desires and repulsions, our predispositions and complexes. Part of the
Yoga Sutras teaches that one’s practice is to calm the waves and return, or reunite (yoga = union),
one’s mind to its calm state, or samadhi.
In one workshop we were given the task of defining who we are to another participant. Having
studied and worked with Shaun for a few years by this time, it was clear to me that I am not who I
had habitually thought I was. While I was able to describe a list of who I had thought I was until
recently (including name, racial and cultural group, nationality, education and experiences), I was
left with nothing in the realm of names and forms which could answer who I truly am.
Shaun also told me that, when he was in the military, he would know someone was ready for
promotion when they were already effectively doing the job they would be promoted to. Later, on
more reflection, I realized there is a deep principle involved in this which has since helped me
make choices in my own life. If I ever wish to know what it is I should be doing (notably as an
occupation or even as a pastime with meaning for me), I just need to see what it is that I already do
without being prompted, which tells me about the skills and talents I have which I love exercising.
(I used this principle some years later to choose working as a legal representative for asylum
seekers. This combined the talents of working with people on a one-to-one basis, hearing and
writing their stories down and then researching their stories and the countries they came from to
support their applications to the Home Office.)
Shaun said that feelings underlie people’s motivations. People do things and want things for the
feelings they associate with such activities or objects. The desire for a luxury car, like a Rolls-
Royce, are not so much for the vehicle, but for the feeling owning it would give one (such as the
feeling that having a Rolls would make one more loved by others).

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At some meetings he would speak about writing a Book of Reasons for people to use when they
were asked ‘why’ questions. (‘Why did you choose this job or this partner?’, ‘Why is this colour
your favourite one?’ ‘Why do you prefer apples to bananas?’) This was to underline the message
that people make their decisions first and only afterwards make up the reasons to explain the ‘why’.
The Book of Reasons was to save them the trouble of making up a reason, because they could just
dowse in it to find one which would make as much sense as the one they made up by themselves.
Despite already being established in an awareness beyond the mind, Shaun continued an interest in
other teachers and teachings, both past and present. He was drawn to Sri Aurobinodo and the work
The Mother (Mirra Alfassa) of Auroville had done on the ‘mind of the cell’ – written about in a
book of that title by her disciple Satprem – and delved into the voluminous Notebooks compiled by
Paul Brunton in his later years. He attended meetings and workshops by other teachers, though was
discriminating in his choices, and was a long-time member of The Hunger Project, which had the
objective of ending hunger in the world. He acknowledged the pioneering work of Jose Silva and
Werner Erhardt. He studied NLP practices. Following financial contributions from his students,
Shaun managed to attend Tony Robbins’ Mastery University, held in Switzerland and the USA
(including Hawaii) at which world leaders in their fields, notably that of finances, gave
presentations. He would use any useful new techniques or understanding in his talks, writings and
workshops, so that his students would have the full benefit of them . . . and this benefit was one of
being seen and presented through Shaun’s own viewpoint established in awareness, so it usually
had an added value over and above its original presentation. He stayed at Swami Shyam’s centre,
the International Meditation Institute, in Kullu, the Himalayas twice in the 1980s and found that
teaching helped advance him and he acknowledged that source as a fundamental part of his own
message.
Shaun often quoted Russell Conway’s Acres of Diamonds parable, about the man who sold his
farm and left his family and country to search for diamonds far away. He was unsuccessful and,
when finally impoverished, drowned himself in a river. Meanwhile the man who had bought his
farm discovered diamonds on it. The moral is that our real treasures are right here within us.
Unlike some ‘spiritual’ teachers who resent students moving on, Shaun was very open to students
leaving him and he felt it most appropriate when they returned to whatever their practice and
teaching had been before coming to him – though they would probably now be doing so at a clearer
and higher level than before. Shaun was also open to students who had left him returning to him at
any time, sometimes just for a one-off counselling session.
A brochure speaking about Shaun was given out at a meeting celebrating his life in 2012. Its last
page had these lines written by Shaun when he was in Kullu in 1985:

“I realise that Shaun is just a mental construct.

He doesn’t really exist.
What exists is the Christ, God, Being, Love.
Shaun is a holographic illusion and must die as a reality.
He isn’t.
I see this and am shocked that for so long
I have attached importance to him.
I am willing to let him go and to let God be.
When Shaun disappears, God is present.”

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 With Shaun in Battersea, 1999

My work with Shaun was not restricted just to him, but grew to encompass other teachers he either
knew or was interested in.



1988 – Swami Shyam – A taste of bliss

One of the teachers I learned about through Shaun was Swami Shyam (1924 – 2017), who
had established an ashram or meditation centre ( International Meditation Institute) in
Kullu, Himachal Pradesh, north India. According to Shaun, Swami Shyam had had some
association with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi of TM fame, but the Maharishi discouraged
Shyam being in North America because of the latter’s popularity with students. The Swami,
on his own, had a deepening awakening experience when in British Columbia. He began
speaking to people there and some of his first followers joined him. Later more would come
from the Montreal area.
The phrase or mantra, “Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum” was revealed to him. Repeating it aloud in
time with one’s breathing has a powerful vibrational effect on one’s body right down to the cellular
level. Repeating it silently within with eyes closed and with attention withdrawn from the senses
and mind can lead to the liberation of oneness. It means, “I am eternal, I am blissful.” This became
the mantra he recommended to his followers.
Shaun had learned about Shyam from students of the Swami who were friends and had been to
Kullu on a visit in 1984. The Swami invited Shaun to visit him in Kullu again in late 1987. Shaun
was deeply touched and excited, though at first reluctant to go because of his responsibilities in
London. However, after his students took up a collection to help fund the trip, Shaun went for a few
weeks with the feeling it would be an auspicious time for him. While he appreciated his time in
Kullu, he found some of the Swami’s satsang talks could go on for long periods. Much of Shyam’s
teachings were already familiar ground to Shaun – notably having an established identity in an

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awareness beyond the mind. He told me that a number of the followers behaved in one way when
with Shyam but followed the usual worldly temptations when not. He noted many of the Western
followers who lived in Kullu attained quite highly evolved states while there, but he was also aware
of cases who lost this when they had to return to UK city life, jobs and family dynamics. One
actually told Shaun he felt he had got more from a weekend workshop with Shaun than from the 3
months he had spent at the guru’s ashram in the Himalayas – though this undoubtedly reflects more
on the student than the teachers. Also, Shaun helped people with any kind of issue, notably
psychological ones such as clearing negative patterns so that worldly life improved, rather than
mainly focussing on awakening awareness. Shaun said the real test of being the space and living
the ‘vision of Oneness’ is to be able to do so in one’s everyday normal life circumstances. This
echoes the Swami’s own teaching that we must find a union/yoga or balance between spiritual life
and life in the mind/external world.
The Swami made a short visit to London with some of his followers from July 5-13, 1988, and I
attended the single evening meeting I was aware of that he held, which was at the Lauderdale Hall,
Waterloo Park, Highgate Hill at 8 pm on Thursday 7 July. His wife and children had come with
him and were also in the audience.
His talk was introduced with these words, ‘He is the founder of the mantra Amaram Hum
Madhuram Hum, the message to the whole of mankind that it doesn’t have to fear death, that it is
immortal, it is blissful and that everyone can attain that. He is committed to making masters, not
just followers among everyone he meets, so that they will be independent, totally knowing their
own self and can radiate that message to others.’
The Swami followed with an animated talk, conveying the message that we share a oneness at
source, all our senses, actions and the life that animates us are all from this one source, which is
also the source of joy and love.
I was deeply impressed when he noted that we think we separated from our mothers when we were
born, but the truth is that we have never separated from them. And nor are we separate from others.
He said that prior to entering physical life we already existed as life and, although we don’t want to
die, we are already undying. He said our true nature was one thing and our artificial nature was
something else. He said people feel they are born with one or more aspects which define and limit
them, such as male, female, unintelligent, poor, etc.
He told the story of attachment about a man who was happy and free until he got a cat . . . and
began to worry over it, especially when it was out of the house roaming in the nearby woods and
late in returning – simply because it had now become his cat.
This meditation period ended with the Biblical words that the kingdom of heaven is within us and
that we are one with the Father.
The striking aspect of the meeting was that I had a rare and overwhelming feeling of happiness
being there (which presumably was influenced by Shyam’s presence, and perhaps transmission,
and by the energy of the whole group – many of those in attendance being his family and
dedicated long-time students). Years later, I realized the feeling I had could be better expressed
as the immense blessing and relief at NOT feeling suffering or unhappiness.
While I was not introduced to him formally, I felt such relief and love for Shyam and for
myself that, after the talk, as he was walking down the aisle to leave, his eyes met mine and he
‘saw’ what I was feeling and took my hands in his. I felt deeply touched. It was like the Swami

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had waved a magic wand … and suddenly happiness (or an end to suffering) was possible.
One of the long-time students, Ayesha, talked to me afterwards about how wonderful life was
at the centre in Kullu.
I have since come to realize the feeling I experienced must be what people mean by the words
samadhi and ‘bliss’, that I had experienced a deep level of union. It was so powerful I wanted
to find some way to go to Kullu and be nearer to the source of such a wonderful feeling. I told
Shaun about this desire and Shaun said he accepted that he would lose my assistance if I went.
However, when I wrote to the centre in Kullu expressing my interest, I was informed I should
study at a centre nearer me for at least a couple of years, as they were at capacity and wished to
have students who were advanced to some degree. Moreover, it did not seem financially
feasible to go and Shaun advised me that what would be available to me in terms of personal
evolution in Kullu was also available through my work with him in London.
Many years later, when I shared this experience of amazing happiness with someone (M/PJ)
who had been in Kullu for many years, she said, “That's the Space which Swamiji lived and
radiated  for sure and satsang was his whole life. He was determined that everyone could come
to know the Self, and anyone who meditates on the Knower, with Amaram hum, that has
become their truth and reality. Which to me is the dimension in which you also live.” She also
reported that a visitor had asked Swami when the latter was in his 80s what would happen to
his centre when he was no longer here and Swami replied, ‘I am not here now.’
Another person, drawn to Shyam from his early teaching time in Vancouver, describes the
power he had, “When I was with him, I felt both that he knew me completely, more than I knew
myself, and that he accepted me without reservation and loved me more than a human being
could love. A human being might love me for this or that quality, but Swamiji quite simply loved
me because we were one. It was not that he had to tell me this, I knew it, could see it and feel it.
It was an acceptance and love far, far beyond even that of a mother for her child. It was
complete and eternal, for it had no beginning and no end; and it existed independently of all
qualities and happenings because it was the self-luminous being of the Self itself.” Brijendra
(Robert Eaton), Genesis Dawn – I Meet Myself, 2006 and 2017.
What Brijendra describes and the feeling I had from a single meeting of Shyam’s helped me
understand how quite a few students travelled extraordinary distances to be near Shyam in
Kullu, a good number of whom stayed many years (even decades!).
Shaun told of seeing Shyam meet a Jewish religious leader. Shyam reached out, removed his
yarmulke or kippah (the religious cap the man was wearing) and, putting it on his own head, said
to him, ‘We come from the same source.’
I learned that some of Shyam’s followers in Kullu had composed their own songs and music
which also described some of the teaching and conveyed a sense of the states they had attained.
After hearing some of the songs that Shaun had brought back from Kullu, I arranged to obtain
cassettes from some of those involved (including Brijendra – Your Self Me -, Shakti Kumar –
Peace, Harmony and Love and Solo from Kullu -, Premila and Maalaa) so that I could make them
available along with the books of Shaun’s writings I was distributing. Although some of these
songs contained important teaching messages and did indeed transport me back to a sense of
what I had felt in the meeting of Swami Shyam’s, just a few of the cassettes found buyers. Aside
from myself, I knew of only 2 or 3 others who really appreciated them.

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 
Barry Long – I am Vs. me
The purpose of evolution at any time is to make life on earth more conscious.
Barry Long, The Origins of Man and the Universe – The Myth that Came to Life
Also, in 1988, as I was distributing You Are the Key to London’s bookshops with a new age
presence, I noted flyers posted in them speaking about the visit of an Australian spiritual teacher
named Barry Long. The most prominent of these featured a photograph of him over some text
which had a headline along the lines of, ‘I am the Master of the Western World’. There were also
postcards with his photo and the words ‘The earth has few living masters – Barry Long is one of
them’. These could clearly be heard as provocative and controversial statements and, when I asked
Shaun what his sense of Barry Long was, he said, ‘He’s very full of himself.’ [Barry Long himself
said that he had studied J. Krishnamurti and that, if he had read Krishnamurti’s last book right, the
latter had said that, after 60 years of teaching, he was lucky if 5 people had heard him. Barry then
added, “Well, I am one of them.”]
Nevertheless, I was curious enough to attend a talk he gave on August 24 th at the Friends Big
Meeting House on Euston Road.
Barry Long makes a distinction between ‘I am’ and ‘me’. He speaks of ‘me’ as our ego and ‘I am’
as the living master of the here and now. This ‘I am’, which was also the one in the flyers, he told
us, refers to each of our ‘I ams’, not just rather exclusively to his own. The ego, as ‘me’, is ok once
it has surrendered to ‘I am’ as its master. He also referred to our false personality as ‘the tenant’.
Some of what he said resonated with me. From my notes:
“Insanity is defending the right to be unhappy in this body.”
“Will you be I or will you be unhappy? Ego is me. It is ok when the ego surrenders to the
master, resulting in oneness. Then I can enjoy the beauty of life through the senses.”
“A master is responsible for being free of unhappiness.”
“You will never find the truth while you believe in anything.”
I had such a better feeling of well-being in the focus on ‘I am’ coming away from this meeting that I
stopped the use of nicotine chewing gum, which I had been on for 16 months following 15 years of
smoking.
I also attended a weekend workshop of his on sexuality and another 3-day seminar on self-
transcendence at Regents College London (now Regents University London). During the lunch
break at one of them, Barry saw me as he walked into the cafeteria and came over to greet me and
ask me a little about myself. At another meeting, I met Clive Tempest, a long-time student of
Barry’s who did most of the organizing of the publications and activities in the UK, and I was able
to obtain some pointers from him about these, especially on publishing and distributing books and
tapes (which I was then involved in for Shaun de Warren’s work).
There was a requirement that one had to have listened to Barry’s audio cassettes on the same
subject as a prerequisite to attending the sexuality workshop. The workshop itself turned out to be
surprisingly powerful – more of him talking and then responding to questions than an interactive
workshop. As part of it, he had those in the audience put their attention into their stomach/digestive
areas and spoke about this as something akin to a hot cauldron, an area used for processing and

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transformation, and not just for nutrition, but also for doing so on an energetic level.
There was a focus on staying anchored in the body and listening to the solar plexus area (rather
than to the mind) to get a sense of our real reaction to externals and our feelings about our state of
being. He said many people spend much of their lives about a foot higher than their corresponding
body parts.
“Be aware of the good (God) In you and coming from you and know it can be nowhere
else. You will lose all except the good you find in yourself.”
“Until we are ready to lose all – which we will lose anyway – we are still not ready to embrace
life fully.”
“I am with you at death.”
At one point he told us that he had been met by some journalists who wanted to ask him questions
for a write-up about him. Barry said he told them he only answered conscious questions. When
they asked what a conscious question was, Barry told them it is one which has ‘I’ in it. This was an
important message for me to always be present to our I, our subjectivity. Otherwise, so much of our
life is wasted by being fully involved in – and identified with – the objective (which is what
focusing on the purely intellectual is).
He elevated the sexual aspect of our lives to being one of worship of the sacred, and most
especially of the male worshiping woman as God. My then wife, who was attending with me, said
afterwards that she had been waiting all her life to hear this message. One middle-aged man
attending this workshop actually left his wife of years to start a new ‘truer’ relationship with a
talented middle-aged single lady, who happened to be a friend of ours. We had dinner with them on
the middle evening of the two-day workshop and listened to his story. He had been extremely
dependent on his wife and very much controlled by her. His leaving her sounded to me like
something of a schoolboy’s rebellion against authority. He had told Barry what he had done (giving
credit to Barry’s teaching as the impetus) and, in the next day’s talk, Barry cited his case as an
example (perhaps of following truth). However, as I knew the new lady in his life, I learned later
that this man soon left her – she was heartbroken, upset and angry – to return to his previous
relationship with his wife.
The meditation Barry led had us being conscious of the inner and outer simultaneously. “Normally,
we are in without only or, through traditional meditation, in within only.”
My wife and I wrote to Barry in Australia to thank him for how his messages had helped us and
he replied with this curious response: “I thank you both . . . each [of our messages]
communicates in its own way precisely what you intended for all real communication is beyond
words. Barry, 24 December 1988”
Barry Long came across to me as not being fully at peace in himself at that time. Although I was
in no doubt that he had experienced some kind of awakening beyond the mind people normally
identify with, and I resonated with quite a bit of what he said, I was not drawn to follow him as
‘my teacher’. His teachings did point me further inwards, included the crucial use of ‘I am’ and
‘being’, and indicated the direction of attention into and throughout the body while
simultaneously also being on the externals. He was, too, adamant that we must sooner or later
relinquish all attachments, including all relationships, outside of the ‘I’, as it is inevitable that
they will all be lost anyway. Another very gifted friend of mine, Roslyn H, left her life in the UK
and moved to Australia to follow Barry and his teaching more closely.

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After these workshops, I did listen to some of Barry’s later ‘Talks from Tambourine Mountain”.
My friend who had gone to Australia to follow him wrote me that, after a year of his teaching there,
she had found joy and beauty through a lasting stillness in her body, “A lasting stillness created by
the truth. And in the stillness there is love as a tangible feeling sensation within my physical body,
my true body if you like. . . .That is my learning of the teaching …be vulnerable to love? Yes,
through the pain of losing all that I loved my resistance was broken, I had to go to Australia. A
year later I realised the truth of the master’s words – be vulnerable . . . but only to love . . . Roslyn”
Of those I knew whom had experienced this teaching, some did seem to have reconnected with
their physical bodies and to have found some more answers and an increased experience of peace
which, in themselves, are remarkable achievements. Perhaps this might be described as having
stepped back from the mind, but while still using the mind as one’s identity base, rather than having
stepped out of the mind altogether.
I attended a further talk of Barry’s on 6 January 1990. From my notes:
“Take some deep breaths. Be easy. Smile. The smile on the face reconnects with the smile
in the solar plexus area.”
“Me is in darkness, unhappy and rebellious when ignored. When I is with me, we are
being. Being is the only place we know love/good. Thinking does not know love.”
Definitions:
The unconscious starts where we note the good feelings.
The subconscious is where I retreats to in dreams.
The conscious is aware.
Thinking is outside of who we are.
In a closed eye practice, he spoke of grounding ourselves “through returning awareness/being
to the ‘bottom of the bottle’, the bottom of the trunk, bladder, bowels, genitals. Me is happy
when I of senses am aware of experience of external world simultaneous to being with internal
‘me’ bodily feelings.”
“Pain/fear in me tells me about areas of my life that need changing/clearing.”
Barry’s The Origins of Man and the Universe- The Myth that Came to Life, which is a work of
insight and introspection, makes the important point that the external evolution theory espoused by
Darwin and science make valuable points, but completely ignores man’s inner evolution, from
psychic principle, to sense perception, to intelligence and emotion and, finally, to self-
consciousness. He points out that myths of creation, as in the Biblical Genesis, speak of this inner
evolution, while Darwin and science are limited to speaking about the evolution of the physical.
Years later, I read the posthumously published autobiography of his life to 1982, My Life of Love
and Truth. It was very interesting and extremely frank, but also disturbing in parts. He made
decisions on his relationships (including ending them and abandoning his first wife and children)
as if they were divinely guided, though admitted later to having made mistakes in some of his
conclusions about them. He and his 2 nd wife were dramatically affected by a black energy which
seems to have come from another dimension and a friend/student he called ‘the Blessed John’
(who became his teacher for a brief period) was involved in a very unconventional healing of
them. This John lived very spontaneously and was in and out of mental institutions. Barry credits
Blessed John with taking him from his previous immanent (inside us) realization of the divine to a
transcendent (outside this dimension) realization of the divine.

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Barry notes he heard this teaching as a voice in the top of his head towards the front and was told,
‘This is a part of the seat of consciousness. I am in your consciousness.’
“ . . . the voice giving instructions in my consciousness was intelligent beyond my
own conscious powers. One could, of course, say it was my higher self. . . . What it is
called is really irrelevant when one experiences this wonderful inner integrity. For
there is no doubt it is intelligent and vastly wise. The important thing it is there,
within each of us, the individual.”
...
“At the end of two weeks I noticed that a different voice was now instructing me. Also that
the voice had moved to the top of my head, the centre of my consciousness. This voice was
John’s.” (p. 155 and 162, My Life of Love and Truth)
He says: “In the spiritual life when you go deep enough into the unconscious within
your body you eventually enter the reality of external space – what we call outer
space, or the space between the stars (astral space from the Latin astrum, star). This
is another world of supreme stillness and nothingness. Conversely, if a man is ever
able to travel deep enough into outer space (far beyond the influence of the solar
system), he will end up in his own unconscious, the same other world of sublime
stillness and nothingness. But unless he has been spiritually prepared, which is most
unlikely, he won’t perceive any difference and will fill this space - as he fills his inner
space – with the mundanity of his thinking and rationality. For finally ‘out there’ or
‘in there’ – the outer and the inner – merge to become the one consciousness.”
...
“The cosmos – the deep unconscious where inner and outer space merge – is filled with
such extraterrestrial beings or intelligences. But they are too deep within or without – too
spiritual or refined – to ordinarily be perceived by the human mind.” (pp. 160 – 161, My
Life of Love and Truth)
Soon after, the evolved aspect of Blessed John is carried away from this planet by highly
intelligent visitors from outer space – which John names Archons –, leaving just a shell of
the man behind. Barry did seem to have become vulnerable to dark forces, which he
implies may have caused his second wife’s illness and which must have been the source of
the black energy.

Had I been aware of some of these things in Barry Long’s history at the time, I might not
have attended his talks and workshops, but I am glad I did, as he imparted some very
valuable pointers to me. I would have been concerned about the dark forces, but not what
Barry said about outer space and extra-terrestrial life. After all, anyone who has woken to
being an identity beyond the mind-body realizes that we are not really earthlings after all,
but more conscious spirit or intelligent energy temporarily associated with a material self.
This gives a new sense to the term ‘life sentence’.
A filmed interview of Barry not long before his death, called Scenes from an Enlightened Life,
released in 2014, gives a sense of him having mellowed and as being more at peace than what I had
felt from him at the meetings I had attended 15 years earlier.


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1989 – Rebirthing – the body has a mind of its own
In 1989, I explored rebirthing breath therapy which had been discovered and developed by
Leonard Orr. It is meant to help one re-experience one’s birth and heal the trauma one may have
had from that and is used to help heal other aspects of one’s life. Breathing is done circularly
(without gaps) through the mouth or nose while one is lying down with a trained rebirther beside
one. The rebirther I chose, Hilary T., only did this practice as a very occasional sideline. Her
main work was in shiatsu massage.
I found the sessions powerful and continued them for about half a year. Although I did not have
any particular traumas surfacing, the sessions may have resulted in some healing and the breathing
helped anchor my awareness in my body.
Toward the end of some of the sessions I experienced a combination of an extremely strong
involuntary locking of my body’s muscles, called tetany, together with involuntary breath
suspension for a few minutes and a loss of consciousness. When I ‘came to’ it felt as if I had been
in another world, somewhere very familiar, but a place I could not remember once back to the
waking consciousness of this world. My facilitator, Hilary, was watching over me at these times
and said I had not started turning blue, so she knew I was ok.

Hilary in the room where I had the rebirthing sessions

These experiences underlined for me how little we know about our own bodies, when our muscles
have such shocking power to lock up. It was also a reminder that our waking consciousness must
be viewed as only a part of a much fuller reality we are virtually never aware of.

Ram Dass – an unfolding karmic predicament
During the prior summer (1988), Shaun had attended a 10-day retreat in France led by the
American Ram Dass, some of whose books I had read and been impressed with when I had been in
Mexico in the mid-1970s. Although Shaun came back with the feeling that it had not been a very
worthwhile trip for him, I still felt drawn to Ram Dass and arranged to attend the same retreat in the
summer of 1989. The retreat was held at the Chateau des Celestins, which had originally been a
monastery, at Colombier-le-Cardinal near Lyon. I borrowed a tent and sleeping bag from friends,
Shanti and Ian, who were also there, but who wanted to sleep in the Chateau, so I could be on my
own out in the grounds.

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 Ram Dass (1931-2019) and his guru, Neem Karoli Baba (d. 1973)
At the retreat Ram Dass announced from the outset that he was not enlightened. However, he had a
sense of awareness and, like Shaun, spoke after pauses, waiting for intuitive wisdom to provide the
words. He was also a marvellous raconteur. The retreat was a mixture of talks, question and answer
sessions, meditation and chanting bhajans. The bhajans were led by another American named Jai,
who had come with Ram Dass, and who was reported to have visits from the spirit of the now late
Neem Karoli Baba (Ram Dass’s guru).

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 Left: Chateau des Celestins – view of rear from my tent. Right: Painting my friend Shanti Cole
did of the rear of the Chateau and beings of light she saw in the starry night sky above it

In the meeting room with words to Hanuman Chalisa chant

This was my real introduction to chanting and to participating in it with the whole of the group,
which consisted of about 100+ attendees (many of whom were ex-Rajneesh – Osho – sannyasins). I
was entranced by it. Usually we used the standard call and response in the chants. They included,
- Sri Ram, Jai Ram, Jai Jai Ram
- Sri Krishna Govinda Hare Murare, Hey Nata Narayana Vasudeva

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 - Hare Krishna, Hare Rama
- Nama Shivaya
- Rama, Rama, Rama
We also did the long Hanuman Chalisa at different times, using printed handout sheets of it so we
could follow.
I found the sitting meditation challenging, but also enjoyable and rewarding. However, we
committed to two or three days of having no eye contact with others, no reading (except for the 6 th
Patriarch’s Zen Poem) and no speaking. We were advised to spend this time mostly in sitting or
walking meditation. It was difficult – and bordering on painful – not to speak with others nor even
to have eye contact. I suffered the most with the walking meditation. I could see that the movement
I had been used to making all of my life had some intentional destination or purpose, but this
meditation had none, except in the now of the walking itself. I found this ‘going nowhere’ so
difficult that I more or less gave up on the walking and instead spent 5 – 7 hours a day in sitting
meditation.

Ram Dass and Jai on stage in the meeting room with the puja table to the right under Neem
Karoli Baba’s photo and Hanuman’s picture.
All of the participants were offered a short private meeting with Ram Dass. In my meeting with him,
he was wearing a yellow t-shirt and yellow shorts, reflecting the hot weather there then. I told him I
had really enjoyed his books over the years and thanked him for making Eastern ideas more
palatable to Westerners. I presented him with a copy of You Are the Key, saying it was from the
author as well. He remembered Shaun from his photo on the back cover (Shaun having attended the
same retreat the previous year).
I also had some questions in mind. My main question was, “How can I open my heart?” Ram Dass
reflected and responded that I could take a certain amount of a specific drug (he named the drug,
MDMA, and the amount, noting a low dosage) when with a guide in a safe environment – and that
this would give me a taste of it. He said one or two times would suffice. He paused and then added
“. . . another good way is that of service. Work with the dying, for example, really opens the heart
and compassion.” (I became a volunteer at Trinity Hospice for 2 years in the early 1990s, and it
was very much a heart opening experience.)
He signed copies of his books How Can I Help? And Miracle of Love for me. When I asked if I

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could do something for him, he smiled and said, ‘You’re doing it. Each of us who works on himself
works for everyone.’ When I thanked him and got up to leave, he stopped me and said, ‘I need a
hug’. He held the hug for about 10 seconds before letting me go.
Ram Dass covered many topics during the retreat, the talks of which were made available on
cassette later. He found he preferred responding to questions that speaking spontaneously and the
participants came up with questions they most wanted answers to. These were then grouped into
subjects with each being addressed through questions and answers on the same morning or
afternoon session. The subject groups were:
- Spiritual Practices/Strategies and Psychedelics
- Emotions/Desire/Energy/Fatigue
- Marriage/Relationships/Love
- Sex and spirituality
- Service/Helping/Changing Others
- Beingness (this was extensive enough to take 2 sessions)
- Fear/Judgment/Mind Traps
- Death/Illness/Healing
- Letting Go/Trust/Doubt
- Cosmology
- Unique manifestation, which covered unique purpose, dharma and karma, spirituality and
wealth, ego trips, and retreat consciousness Vs daily life.
- Children’s questions
Ram Dass also spent one session telling us the story of the Ramayana.
My own question had been in the area of being. I offered to tidy up the recordings of these sessions
and publish them through our small press, but Ram Dass declined the offer as requiring too much
editorial work on his part (he had several other projects ongoing at the time). Some of the things he
said gave me insights and deeply impressed me, such as (paraphrased),
He used an apt phrase, ‘connoisseurs of clay feet’, to describe seekers who would look for and find
a new teacher, but then drop that one and move on as soon as they discovered what they considered
a failing in them.
“You can’t go straight into being a nobody. It’s important to become somebody before you
go into nobody training.” (This view is an important message for those who access
different mystical – or drug induced – states or even Buddhism’s emptiness before having
established a subjective identity beyond the mind.)
“The problem is the Queen thinks she’s the Queen and the Pope thinks he’s the Pope.”
(Several years later it came home to me that this is a common problem – believing our
primary identity is who we think we are – the personalities we have acquired from outside
of whom we are essentially – and living our whole lives in what is effectively a deluded
state of self-hypnosis or trance.)

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Ram Dass humorously referred to himself as ‘an unfolding karmic predicament.’

My father retired on his 65th birthday while I was on this retreat, after 41 years in different of the divisions
and subsidiaries of the same company. His career with the company had involved working for about 10
years each in four different countries. My parents hosted something of a family reunion at their lakeside
cottage in Prince Edward County, Ontario afterwards and I elected to attend that rather than the retirement
event in Minneapolis.
Later in 1989 I was able to purchase a two-bedroom lower ground flat with a garden in Clapham
for about £112,000 on one of the roads running from the Common to Wandsworth Road/Lavender
Hill. The mortgage on it was most of the price and, with very high interest rates of the time, the
monthly payments were challenging to make.

1990 – Chuck Spezzano – A map for personal evolution
It was through Shaun that I met Chuck Spezzano, a doctor of psychology who calls his teaching the
Psychology of Vision (PoV). Chuck is a charismatic speaker and workshop leader – he is also
gifted with inspired messages, which he told me he literally hears. His teaching is substantially
guided by the principles of A Course in Miracles (or ACIM), which purports to be a work
channelled by Christ, expressing his teaching for today’s world. Chuck’s wife, Lency, who is also
gifted in different and rather complimentary ways, teaches with him.

Left: taken immediately after an intense PoV workshop.

Right: With Chuck and Lency Spezzano 1996/7
A major part of PoV’s teaching is about one’s relationships – spouse or partner, family, friends,
colleagues and community. Understanding and healing one’s relationship issues can dramatically
improve one’s life, as well as the lives of those affected. This often involves the forgiveness
principle ACIM teaches. In the end, what one realizes is that one is just forgiving oneself and that
our ultimate relationship is the one we have with ourself, which is – at a deepest level – the one we
have with our source, the divine.
An early talk I heard of Chuck’s in London spoke of how, in our primary relationship, with a spouse
or partner, one person assumes an independent role and the other a dependent role. As people

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evolve, so does the relationship dynamics and the independent-dependent relationship may be
swapped between the two involved. My wife and I could see how these dynamics had been at work
throughout our own relationship, though it had not been obvious to us before.
A powerful prayer Chuck has quoted from ACIM invites us to turn seeming adversity into a
blessing, paraphrased as, ‘I will not see this as an obstacle to peace but as a means to peace’.
Another part of Chuck’s teaching, his triangle of spiritual evolution, especially fascinated me. It
was a like a map guiding one to enlightenment. I felt that a deeper understanding of it would help
one progress out of suffering and into awakening. The outside of the triangle describes the negative
states we find ourselves stuck in and, opposite them in the inside of the triangle, are shown the
means to get through them and move forward, which is to evolve further around the triangle’s path
to enlightenment and oneness. The first two sides of the triangle, dependence and independence,
helped me understand the real meaning of Buddha’s teaching about desiring nothing and resisting
nothing. We are dependent on (slaves to) whatever we desire and, as the other side of this coin,
resist what we try to be independent of.
The third side of the triangle is Interdependence where we realize everyone is equally valuable and
we live honouring the interdependence of all. The last, fourth side of the triangle parallels the first
side, but inside the triangle now, and it is called Radical Dependence where we are dependent on
the divine. Here, we surrender, listen and obey. It is no longer our mind running the show. When
we obey, we do and say what we are inspired to do and say.
As respects Chuck’s ‘hearing’ voice messages, when someone else he knew started receiving
channelled messages, Chuck told me it was important that person understood that the source of
such channelling is not separate from the channeler.
As a way of understanding the map more deeply, I helped to put this triangle on paper and make it
available to PoV students. Later, in 1994, we printed a small booklet, illustrating the triangle with
sayings about it, which was made available for students to purchase. This was revised, expanded
somewhat and re-issued in 2001 for sale via the various PoV country websites. Finally, as part of
the editing work I did with Chuck, a manuscript, called Steps to Oneness, was written, but this was
only made available to advanced students.

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 Cover of the revised September 2001 version of the Triangle booklet
Much later I wrote an article which described the journey around the triangle and drew parallels to
the journey spoken of in Buddhism’s wheel of life. (Reprinted here in an appendix.)
Chuck is a detective of the mind and his insights and teaching were often a revelation to me
about the mechanisms of our psychologies which we are normally unaware of. He told me he
had a flash once telling him no one can break another’s heart. He knew immediately this had to
be true. Only the person whose heart is involved can make the decision to feel heartbroken – no
matter what another person does to them. (This further reinforced the ‘thinking makes it so’
teaching I had had from Eschatology.)
In one workshop, there was a young lady who was the focus person. She was very soft-spoken.
Chuck interrupted her to ask, ‘Did your parents fight a lot?’ She confirmed that they had. Chuck
had realized that her tone of voice resulted from a decision to be a peacemaker she had made as a
child. To those with acute discerning perception, everything about us, our expressions, body
language, the words we choose and tone of voice, speaks volumes about our inner selves.
Our relationships with others is also revealing. If we had reacted against our fathers, it invariably

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shows up in similar feelings we carry with us to all figures of authority (including our superiors at
work, bank manager, and police).
There were also deeper insights about the Oedipus complex. This complex reflects a competitive
dynamic between a son and his father over the mother/wife. If the son ‘won’ this competition, such
as through the parents being separated so the son would ‘win’ the mother’s attention exclusively, it
would also be understood by him at a deep level to have broken the societal taboo concerning
mother son love (whether actual incest was part of the relationship or not). The son, realizing at
some unconscious level that he could never really be successful in this prohibited relationship,
would carry that same dynamic into his everyday external life, including work and business, and
would feel he could not be successful there either.
I learned that, when we feel drawn to someone, it is like a hidden message from our deeper self,
telling us that the other we feel drawn to has some lesson or gift which would help us. Very often
such an attraction to another is reciprocated in that they feel a similar draw to us. Somehow, we can
help each other, so it is usually alright to follow such attraction. However, it is important not to
confuse every such attraction to another as being sexual or necessarily meaning there should be a
relationship.
Chuck had had a Hawaiian Kahuna teacher. The Kahunas were the spiritual ‘wise people’ of the
native Hawaiians. They often had a usually benevolent alignment with nature, including what we
would call powers to influence it. Most used these for the good. Those who did not would find
negative influences sent out boomeranging back onto them. One of the most insightful teachings
Chuck shared which he had learned from the Kahunas was that they could listen to someone and
hear what was said on seven levels. There was the everyday level of communication which the
person speaking thought they intended, but other levels were also being revealed sub- or
unconsciously. These other levels included the emotional, the sexual and even the spiritual. This is
partly what has become known in western circles as ‘Freudian slips’, or ‘slips of the tongue’ in
which the speaker unintentionally reveals more than he had wanted to.
Anecdote – How to Let Go of a Vasana
In one of my first workshops of his, Chuck asked, “If you were to know, what would it be that is
holding you back from moving forward in your life?” The immediate intuitive answer I got then
was that I had not forgiven my parents or a person I had been in an early relationship with. That
my parents came up was a surprise, but I realized such a decision (if it actually happened) would
have been made when I was pre-rational and it would have been completely repressed. My
rational mind knows my parents had always done the best they could for me and I had just
misinterpreted things and come to a wrong conclusion as an infant – through emotional feelings
rather than reason – and I had carried this with me since then. It could be considered a vasana,
or a subconscious/unconscious driver in my make-up. It was very easy now to let it go and
doing so brought a sense of relief and feeling of more freedom. Vasanas, like darkness,
disappear when brought to the light.
Roughly a similar pattern related to the early relationship ... the lady involved simply had been
incapable of behaving any better, so I let that go, too.
Curiously enough, very soon after, I was invited to visit the city (Vancouver) where the lady
lived and we met again after 20 years and even renewed a friendship. It seemed like a
miracle and felt like a great healing. On my way back home to England, I stopped to visit
my parents in Ontario and went through some papers I had stored there. Some of these were

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letters dating from the time of that relationship break-up. I had never read them since but
thought that, because of the recent healing, it would now not be a problem. However, when I
did so, there was an immediate resurfacing of the intense raw pain I had felt at the time of
the break-up. I was amazed to find it was seemingly still with me. However, by re-feeling it,
there was a sense of it largely being released. It stopped being in the background of my
mind/emotions and no longer had the same power over me.
What I deduced from this
a.)
some of our stored pain still with us in the now may be from pre-rational decisions we made as
infants.
b.)
The process of forgiveness here not only benefited my relationship with my parents but seemed to
alter the possibilities and experience in the external world by opening up the opportunity to meet
the lady from the early relationship and heal that situation further.
c.)
The experience of stored pain was incredibly real (and in the now) and feeling it helped its release.

Once, when stepping over a cat lying in a doorway at Chuck’s home, I commented on what a dumb
place that was to lie down. Chuck heard me and responded in a high voice, as if he were the animal
speaking, “I’m not a very intelligent cat.” I was struck with how little compassion I’d shown and,
ever since, and often recall this when in situations where animals – but mostly people – do
unintelligent thoughtless things. It’s no good becoming upset at behaviours when those responsible
are simply incapable of anything else.
Also, when attacked by another, Chuck advised to ask ourselves, ‘What must they be feeling to be
acting that way?’ Asking this stops the knee-jerk reaction of attacking back and opens the door for
compassion. Taking this a step deeper, Chuck noted that if someone attacks us it is a cry for help
and, at some level, the person feels we are the ones who can help them.

I helped make tape records of Chuck’s workshops (which allowed me to attend the London ones as
something of a staff member without paying the normal charges) and edit a number of Chuck’s
manuscripts. In 1991, the small press I ran with Shaun and his partner Gill, published Chuck’s first
book, one of sayings called Awaken the Gods.

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 Front cover and Title Page of Awaken the Gods 1st edition 1991
Latterly, during the time I spent with him, Chuck noted that grace was far more powerful and
effective than however much psychology one learned and applied.

1991 – Dr Robert-Michael Kaplan – Transforming our doors of perception
I attended a talk given by Dr Robert-Michael Kaplan in May 1991 on vision training and healing.
Dr Kaplan is a Doctor of Optometry, author of the book Seeing Beyond 20-20 and an international
authority in vision training healing.
Robert is no ordinary optician. He assists people in balancing their perceptions and in healing both
their vision and purpose for living. As he notes in a training flyer of the time: “Your eyes and the
way you use them reveal a lot more about yourself-expression, attitudes and behaviour than you
might imagine. Your relationships with your parents and your life experiences are indelibly
sketched like a blueprint on your eyes and vision. These memories reflect your current perceptions
in your daily living.”

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 From one of Robert’s 1996 London Workshop announcements
Robert shows his clients how their eyes and vision speak about how they see themselves and
project that inner knowing externally in their eyesight and in how their two eyes either compete or
unite into a unified focussed view.
Our eyesight reflects how we wish to see the world. As an example, Robert told me that
nearsightedness is a defensive strategy which pushes the world away from oneself.
At the time I was meeting him, there was a trial going on in England of a young lady accused of
murdering her ex-boyfriend. After being put on trial, the lady had gone blind. I asked Robert if she
could have caused this – though perhaps unconsciously – as a way of not seeing and facing what
was happening. Robert not only confirmed that she could definitely have done this and that our
minds have this power, but he added that, in cases of people with multiple personalities, their vision
and glasses prescription requirement instantly change when they shift from one personality to
another.
I learned from Robert that real correction of vision includes understanding the hidden dynamics
underlying one’s way of perceiving the world, that holistic vision is seeing from a healed inner self
and that standard optician practice just treats the external symptoms, rather than root causes.
Since I met with Robert, he has gone on to author further books, including, Seeing Without Glasses,
The Power Behind Your Eyes, and Conscious Seeing – Transforming Your Life Through Your
Eyes.

It was about this same time, in 1991, that I met John Woodhall, known as ‘Dr John’, who had a

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reputation as a chi gong, or energy, master. Chuck’s London organizer knew him and invited him
to a 3-day workshop so that he could massage Chuck during the breaks. When my wife and J
attended the closing ceremony of the workshop, my wife felt very drawn to Dr John and said she
wanted to be treated by him. I invited him to come to our home to treat her. However, on the first
occasion, he put all his attention on me and said he would give me a massage. He told me I had the
potential to be like him, which I felt was a great compliment. His massage was VERY powerful
and his fingers pressed quite deep. My natural reaction was to resist, which added to the pain I felt.
He told me he was not giving me that pain, but that I was making it. This sounded unlikely to me,
but when I relaxed (as he asked me to do), I found the pain disappeared entirely – despite him
continuing to massage just as deeply as he had before. This was an amazing lesson about pain
being our own resistance and the power of surrender. [As will be noted later, I learned surrender
and transcendence are virtually interchangeable.]

Dr John

After this John would come over to chat, sometimes with an assistant/student, Nina P, whom he

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was training. There were occasions when he would stay talking all night. He spoke of how he
accumulated energy from what was around him – that batteries would go flat because of him
drawing their energy – and he would use this as his ‘chi’ energy in his healing work. He spoke of
attending international healer conferences and said he visited a small hospital in Sri Lanka after one
of these where he cleared the hospital by healing all the patients. He said it was in the interest of the
doctors running the hospital to keep the patients ill – despite their job being to heal. John also made
trips to China, sponsored by chi gong students who wanted to learn from him. He spoke of the
healings he did there and of demonstrations of his energies, such as influencing fish swimming in a
pond.

John showed us photos he had taken which showed a glowing Madonna floating in the sky and
other paranormal objects normally invisible to the eye. He told us he had been an orphan and was
very grateful to have been brought up in an orphanage, because he had no parental influences
which would have limited him. Despite his seemingly disadvantaged upbringing, John had
exceptional insights and intuitive wisdom. He said that each of us has a spark of the divine in us
and real love we have for another is the love of the divine in them. He told us different times he
could walk away from everything, all possessions, including his wife and daughter, and start over
with nothing. He would say he could do his healing even if he possessed nothing and was just
standing in a ploughed field.
He did give my wife her treatments. The first one was in front of me, asking her to undress completely
for it, which she did and then lay on a blanket on our living room floor for him to treat her. He stopped
by at other times, including sometimes when I was not there, and I understand further treatments of my
wife took place. These must have been powerful, because she started having unusual other-
dimensional dreams in which he figured. [This, in itself, seemed a strange effect of ‘healing’, but –
more weirdly – had seeming parallels to the ‘healing’ Barry Long’s teacher, the ‘Blessed’ John, had on
Barry’s second wife in 1970s London, which had been partly sexual in nature.]
I later heard that Dr John had left his London family and everything else behind to start a new life
in Spain. Perhaps he had put his relinquishment of all possessions to the test and found there that
‘ploughed field’ he so often talked of.
[Afternote: I learned much later that John had died in 2006 while still living in Spain with a
Spanish partner and two children by her. He would not have been quite 70 at the time. I was told
John had died of a lymphoma and that he had had a healer’s ‘fault’ of focusing on his patients
while paying little attention to his own health.]



Later in 1991 I met Dr Chet Snow at a talk he gave in a private home. Chet’s unusual book, called
Dreams of the Future: A Preview of the Futures that Lie Before Us (also issued as Mass Dreams
of the Future), had just been published. In it, he described carrying on the earlier work of Dr Helen
Wambach in hypnotic progression, taking people into their future lives. He had accumulated
sufficient of these future life progressions to find common future scenarios in many of them. Using
only ones which were in times beyond our present possible lifetimes, he narrowed these future
scenarios down to five common ones, which effectively indicates how humanity will be living in
the next centuries. The scenarios ranged from lives of hardship on rather bleak and isolated ranches

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to lives in simple natural jungle paradises to people living on spaceships.

Chet Snow’s ground breaking book

This was fascinating, but it also raised questions about what hypnosis is and, in particular,
questions about the real meaning of past and future life hypnosis. To what degree is it just our
conditioned mind which is imagining or fantasizing a different time? Is there a deeper and more
permanent subjective self, or soul, who is seeing and experiencing such time travel? Or are present
and other lifetimes both just waking dreams?
Sometime later, I attended a talk Chet gave at Alternatives at St. James. He spoke about his
previous findings again and noted some changes in the world. I especially recall him featuring the
‘hugging saint’ Amma [see later] and speaking of influences like hers on the world. After the talk I
spoke to Chet and asked him if people have healings and evolve spiritually, would that affect and
change the futures they would see in their hypnotic progressions. Without any hesitation, he replied
that it absolutely would.
This seemed to me a reasonably informed view that, when we change ourselves, we change our
futures. Of course, this is still largely limited to being about a self which believes it is a mind-body.
Once one identifies oneself as being beyond the physical and mental, one steps out of time and
space.

At the end of 1991, my first wife left me. Soon after, in early 1992, she asked for a divorce, so she
would be free to remarry. I agreed to the divorce and went through with that. While this end to our
marriage seemed to trigger a deep depression in me, it is likely it just revealed what had already
been there but hidden and not really appreciated – and it commenced a lengthy period of profound
healing. (When suffering from some depression himself, my friend J told me that everybody is
depressed, but that most people are just too stupid to realize it.) It became clear to me later that
some marriages, like some friendships, are best for only certain periods of time and can actually be
damaging to both parties if continued too long. It also became clear that she (and perhaps I, too)
had changed since the early days of our relationship OR that I had never really known – in her
depths – this lady I had been married to – but had more loved an ideal of my own making. How
much do we ever really know another when we see them through our psychologies, vasanas and
samskaras?
I became involved in volunteering and found that helped, especially when assisting at the day

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centre at Trinity hospice on Clapham Common, which I did for two years. Although I was
supposed to be helping the hospice patients there, I felt they were giving me much more than I was
giving them. It was at the hospice that I met Zen Master John Shodo Flatt.
Working at the hospice also helped me see that there are states of heightened sensitivity for those
who are near death. Arkaji [see below] had told me that it is the newly born and those near death
who are closest to the Divine.

Douglas Harding – Sudden Awakening
1991 – Shaun had been a long-time friend of Douglas Harding and introduced me to his writings. I
had a profound ‘headless’ awakening experience on reading Douglas Harding’s Little Book of Life
and Death with the first exercise (see 1995 article below) I tried from it. It was something quite
simple, like: “. . . please turn the arrow of your attention round 180 degrees, looking in at what
you’re looking out of, and see what’s being pointed at by this pointing hand [illustration of a hand
with forefinger pointing back at where the reader is looking from]. Don’t think about it. Just see!
See what’s taking in these black marks on a white ground, those blurred hands and shadowy
vignetting sleeves, and go by what you find.” (paraphrased from p. 76).

Perhaps you might point your finger back so that your attention steadies on your True Nature —
clearly free of patterns or plans. Two-way attention.
From an experiment by Richard Lang with illustration by Bryan Nuttall from
http://www.headless.org/experiments/creating-from-emptiness
It was an explosion of re-awakening for me, because it took me right back to the experience of life
as an infant – looking from a beingness in empty but aware space. How could I have forgotten
something so important?! I spoke to Shaun about it, as Shaun was a long-time friend of Douglas.
Shaun did not attach too much importance to this headlessness, saying he just grasped Douglas’
teaching immediately. Perhaps Shaun’s centre of identity did not shift for him as it had for me . . .
or maybe he had never shifted out of it . . .
I found another book or newsletter for the Headless Way which had a telephone number for
enquiries. It was the number for Ann S., a long-time student. I called Ann, wanting to connect to
someone else who must be as excited about this as I was. She sounded quite normal and was

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cooking Sunday lunch for her family. I shared with her my feelings and she suggested I attend their
annual summer gathering at Douglas’ home, Sholland Hill at Nacton, near Ipswich. However, prior
to that I attended a workshop of his and Richard Lang’s at the Friends Meeting House in
Hampstead. I had purchased a first edition of The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth – A New
Diagram of Man and the Universe, published in 1952 with a preface by C.S. Lewis, which
Douglas signed for me. Later, I went to the summer workshop in Nacton where I stayed at Ann’s
home (in a sleeping bag on her utility room floor) and also met Douglas’ 2 nd wife Catherine. One of
the long-time students told me that Douglas had said his discovery of being headless happened
when he was in the Himalayas to add credibility to it, but in fact, Douglas had already been aware
of his ‘headlessness’ for a long time before that.

Sholland Hill in 2003 – the site of many summer gatherings. Designed by Douglas in
the 1950s. It was sold and demolished after his death. (Photo shared by C. Fox on fb.)

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 With Catherine and Douglas Harding, Sholland Hill, Headless Summer Gathering 1995
Here is a paraphrased extract from an article I wrote about this sudden awakening experience,
which was titled ‘Re-discovery of Self’ and published in 1995:
I still remember when and how it happened. It was in 1991 and I was in my flat in Clapham
reading a copy of Douglas Harding’s The Little Book of Life and Death. Immediately on trying
the ever-so-simple experiments in it, I was astonished to find I was not learning something new at
all, but rather being reminded of long-forgotten memories of how the experience of life had been
for me during infancy and early childhood. It was so obvious . . . and definitely – from where I am
looking – plainer than the nose on my face! What still amazes me is how I could have forgotten so
completely that this is the way things are!
With this remembering, I had immediate and first-hand experiential insights into mysterious
phrases I’d been stumbling over for years, such as
that nothingness spoken of in Buddhism,
much of what is said in Nisargadatta’s dialogues,
Shaun de Warren’s ‘become the space’, and
Krishnamurti’s reported definition of a person as a ‘psychological disturbance in space’.
This new way of seeing also gave me a genuine insight into what Sufi Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri
meant when, not much later (after overhearing me speaking of the importance of service to his
Hawaiian wife), he said to me, “Who are you serving? And who is doing the serving? You don’t
even exist!”
At first, coming from this new perspective had something of the air of a marvellous game about it. I
could choose to step into this way of being at almost any moment and would stay in it until I had
forgotten myself and re-identified again with what I could call my ‘not-self’. Some obvious clues I
was back in this ‘not-self’ would be feelings of worry, fear, guilt, ‘not-self’ consciousness, or any
less than constructive emotional identification stemming from personality since, for me, this
experience is not only stepping back from having a head, but also back from having the negative
emotional entanglements personality/ies involve.

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As a consequence, an enormous benefit of coming from this perspective is that virtually all of my
old phobias disappear . . . and it is my experience that they are now very significantly, and
increasingly, diminished – even when I am not in this state. This makes something like, for
example, public speaking no longer a potential terror. Whereas I used to be nervous, or afraid I
would not know what to say, now – from this space – there is no one to be nervous, no one to be
afraid. I still may not know what to say; it just does not bother me.
Today, nearly five years since the initial re-discovery, there has been an important shift. I now no
longer have to make a conscious choice to come from this truer perspective. It has become my
increasingly continuous reality – and so much so that I sometimes wonder when others look
towards and address this space. I have to pretend I am here as a person, when the reality is that
that person is not who is here.
But there are also other times when I find myself surprised to remember that I have forgotten,
having resumed my ‘personhood’ again . . . and such times tend to be my best reminders of where
my ‘not self’s’ (the personality’s) deepest tentacles are rooted. It even seems there are times when
this awareness of coming from whom I am, so evidently not limited to – or confined in – a body, is
also beginning to be conscious/present through some of the ‘sleeping’ hours (reminding me of that
eye which ‘never sleeps’ referred to in the 6 th century ‘Hsin Hsin Ming’ poem by the Third
Patriarch).
One curious feature of this new way of being is that, with the shift, nothing actually changes . . .
and, yet, everything is irrevocably different. I no longer need so much that used to seem
indispensable and, yet, the potential for a more natural enjoyment of everything is immeasurably
enhanced. The touch of another, the taste of a meal, a glass of water or cup of tea and other
sensory impressions from experiences like travelling are an endless wonder from the ease of
‘here’, whereas what I might otherwise have striven for from a dysfunctional sense (such as more
knowledge, more possessions, or more power from feelings of inadequacy, guilt, worry, etc.) has
no meaning.
And it is from that ease of ‘here’ that I find I am able to come from peace, from love, or from
whatever else is important for me, rather than seek such value anywhere else. The title of a book of
talks by Gurdjieff, Views from the Real World, suddenly makes sense. In this place it is looking
from a realer world, rather than at or to one.
Enjoyment from this space is without attachment and can only happen in a ‘now’, which is not
the difficult to grasp ephemeral instant I’d always imagined it to be, but such an all-
pervading sense of presence that any limit to it – or that anything other than this ‘now’ could
even exist – is inconceivable. From ‘here’, I don’t have to worry about being in the ‘now’;
there is simply nowhere else to be.
Time, then, is just a concept which can only be imagined, and which has nothing to do with the
reality whom I am is coming from. This becomes especially evident when I am asked my date of
birth or age. The awareness which answers has neither and can only respond using a socially
agreed fiction of a point set in an artificial timeline or in so-called years the body has seen. I am
convinced I would fail a lie detector test with a response of ‘I am (so many) years old’. It is
inconceivable that death, birth, or anything which happens in a sequential way could ever affect –
or have anything to do with – this space. It is just as patently true that that which comes from this
space cannot have a name or possess a gender in a human sense.
Another interesting feature of this ‘other’ country is that no one can tell me about how it is for me.

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They might, at most, point to interesting aspects, but I have to check them out for myself. There is
nothing I can learn by rote, or in the usual intellectual way we normally associate with learning,
concerning this state. It is a place of being, or simple ‘isness’ before thought, for which any
substitute for actual experience is impossible.
While I have shared the experiments and experience with friends and others, I am always amazed
how little they seem affected in comparison to the profound impact it has had on my own life. In
most cases, there seems to be not much more than the novelty of a new perspective at a purely
intellectual level, rather than the more important shift in being it brings to me.
As mentioned above, there has been an evolution in this state since its re-discovery, and I
can’t help sometimes wondering where it is leading . . . and what may be next. The idea, for
example, that we are not separate is infinitely more conceivable when viewed from this
perspective. Indeed, just over a year ago, I had a perceptual experience (which seemed
entirely natural at the time) of having an entire roomful of people happening inside ‘my’
space. When I recounted this to a teacher-friend, I asked him if this ever happened to him., he
responded that it was a frequent occurrence but, rather than just being perceptual, it was also
at a feeling level, in that he was connected with and felt what others inside his space were
feeling (doubtless much like I’ve heard some healers experience).
Will there be a further new re-discovery to an even earlier remembering at a feeling level which
will be as profound as this has been at an awareness and perceptual level? Will I feel who I really
am, in addition to seeing who I really am? Will I achieve through this that place of being able to
unite with what’s ‘out there’ to the degree spoken of by a Zen monk who said he didn’t have to
worry about dangers such as a bomb dropping on him or of being engulfed by fire, since he would
just become the bomb or become the fire?
Coincident with the growing evolution of the experience of this space, there have also been
periods of deep insights in which I find that what is and has been problematical for me ‘out
there’ actually reflects deeper patterns ‘in here’, although the ‘in here’ referred to is still at a
hitherto buried level of personality, rather than back to the neutral space. What I do find is a
tendency, or yearning, for more of the empty freedom of this space. To attain this means
clearing more of Krishnamurti’s ‘psychological disturbances’ that I have in the forms of, for
example, resentments, grudges, incomplete relationships or nagging unfinished commitments,
each of which seems to reflect in feelings of unease, or energy blocks, I have in my body. This
tendency to freedom seems, willy-nilly, to be leading me back to a naturally conscious way of
living, which I suspect is also at the root of genuine spiritual teachings.
One thing I can be sure about this ‘other’ land, it is always new!
A notable exception to this new way of seeing occurred later, in 1993, when I had an experience
(which seemed entirely natural until my everyday mind realised what was happening, of being
aware of an entire roomful of people happening inside me.
This exception was repeated in a deeper and longer way in mid-July 1995 during a PoV workshop
session which involved a silent open-eyed ‘meditation’ looking into another’s eyes while rather
emotive music was played in the background. During the time I was doing this (with a single
partner for about one hour), I also tried to do an exercise of heightened inner and outer focus,
combined with deepened breathing while continuing to gaze into the other’s eyes. I additionally put
my attention on hearing the music as if there were no disconnect or separation between its source
and its perception . . . being one with it.

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Very soon after this, a rather magical shift occurred. Not only was the music and the rest of what
was going on in the room happening ‘in me’, but they were also quite clearly aspects of ‘my’ own
mind., in that they were being directed by a deeper mind to which my awareness is usually asleep.
‘I’ was responsible for what was going on around ‘me’. (Mandala-like, from the void or space that I
am, egocentric, yet with no ego in the usual sense of one.)
Unlike my previous experience, this one was sustained for a while. During it, it was quite clear that
parts of this mind (mostly buried, in the sense of being sub- or unconscious) also engineers ‘my’
experiences in the physical world, even when those are seemingly accidents or tragedies. And, as
soon as I had this realization, there was also a longing for an interruption/accident which would
give me a break from holding the interminable gaze attention on the other’s eyes. Almost
immediately, like the granting of a genie’s wish, another workshop participant – one I had not even
met before – came up behind me and began massaging my shoulders . . . breaking the spell.
It was very clear that this was not just an isolated experience but, rather, the way things are, and
that the opportunity to shift to this awareness is available at all times. (For what it’s worth, the lady
whose eyes I had been looking into had had a very different deep/heightened experience to mine;
hers was at a feeling/heart level of beauty and wonder, not available to our usual
eyes/mind/consciousness, which she became aware of in me.
Zen teachings speak of moving from opening one eye (the awakening into initial ‘seeing’) to
embodying the void.

1993 – Amma (Mata Amritanandamayi) – Blessed by Love
I was at the Battersea Arts Centre on Lavender Hill and saw a friend, Dominique d H, from
Shaun’s evening group waiting with some others. I found out there was to be an evening meeting
with a visiting Indian spiritual lady, considered by many to be a saint, named Amma (short for
Mata Amritanandamayi).
Amma was born in 1953 to a poor family in the south Indian state of Kerala. She composed
devotional songs from a very young age and was also drawn to serve others. She had to leave
school after only a few years so she could work to help her family, but they found her spiritual
behaviour so unusual, they locked her out of the house. She meditated and slept outdoors. Animals
brought food to her. She had a vision of the Divine Mother and a message to serve humanity by
showing them the way back to Her. People began calling her ‘Mother’ and she started guiding and
teaching those who came to her. An ashram was established for her and the work gradually spread
out to be international.
I stayed for what turned out to be an entrancing evening of Indian music, chanting, sacred dances
and blessings. It was a charged atmosphere and I felt as if I had found a home of sacred love. Those
in the audience could queue to receive a hug and some murmured words from Amma. Hence, she is
known as the ‘hugging saint’. She will remain seated giving these hugs until everyone has received
one – a process that can take several hours.
I continued to attend Amma’s meetings at Battersea Town Hall and at other later venues whenever
I was in the UK and able to, which was most subsequent years until 2008, taking friends when they
expressed interest, including Lency Spezzano in 1997. Shaun himself attended at times, too.
I loved being in the meetings, listening to the music and chanting, watching the dancing and just
absorbing the love energy which permeated the atmosphere. When I could, I would attend each

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evening of each visit. It was so special that I wished to capture the happiness of being there in
some way to have with me and I recorded songs being sung by devotees. Just listening to those
brings back the magic of being there. Also, on another occasion, I took a photo from high up in
a gallery of Amma giving her blessing hugs to the queue of people, although taking photos at
these events was frowned upon.

Ca 1997 - Amma under the parasol giving her blessing hugs

There was one visit when I attended on an evening which preceded a 2-day consulting trip to
Milan. The job was an assignment seeking new technology partnerships for a major UK company
in the metal industry. I had, during this trip, two days of the most powerful experience of bliss I can
remember. Sacred chants from Amma’s meeting were running through my mind the whole of the
time. It must be what is meant when it is said the Jesus Prayer, notably used by ascetics in the
Eastern Church, moves into the heart and now repeats itself automatically. Not only did I feel like I
was floating in a bubble of happiness, but my feeling seems to have radiated to those I contacted
for business. I was invited to join these business people for meals at Milan’s best restaurants, and
doors were opened for me which were totally unexpected. As a result, I came back with new
potential partnerships (a surprise one was in thixoforming – a semi-solid metal forming process I’d
never even heard of before) which significantly contributed to resolving what had been a very
challenging consulting project.

Deepak Chopra – “the body is in the mind”
I had read about Deepak Chopra and knew he combined Western medical training with extensive
meditation experience and an understanding of the Indian ayurvedic approach to healing. He had
had a lengthy association with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi of the TM (Transcendental Meditation)
movement, though this had come to an end. I mentioned my interest in Deepak’s view on
consciousness and ‘quantum healing’ to a friend, CC, a London-based new age/spiritual workshop
organizer and she told me she was having him come to give a talk in the living room of a London
home on 12 September 1993. She invited me to attend and asked me to record and transcribe it for
publication.
The talk had the same title as his seventh book, Ageless Body, Timeless Mind – A Practical
Alternative to Growing Old, which had only just been published.
The talk noted that people do not really die from old age, but from preventable diseases. It cited

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examples of trials which had shown, contrary to traditional belief that it is a one-way street, human
aging actually can be reversed through a variety of interventions. This had been proven through
measurement of people’s biological ageing markers (such as bone density, body temperature
regulation, muscle mass, hearing threshold, vision, sex hormones in the blood, etc.) before and after
such interventions.
The two trials Deepak cited were, firstly, one which was just using exercise with a group in
their eighties and nineties and a second one which put elderly people in an environment
similar to the one they had known 30 years previously. In the latter one, it seems the memories
themselves had evoked physiological responses which reversed their physical ages. Deepak
gave examples to show this, such as closing our eyes and imagine licking a lemon causes the
secretion of salivary enzymes, or imagining holding a hot coal (or ice) causes the temperature
of our hand to go up (or down).
When the elderly people in the second experiment were returned to their present-day environments,
their biomarkers started going back in the usual ageing direction again. “So, what we call
‘everyday reality’ in our society is possibly a socially programmed hypnosis, which we have
collectively agreed to participate in. A motley group of sages, psychotics and geniuses are some of
the people who break out of that socially programmed hypnosis.”
He quoted Nietzsche, “We live under the presumption that we think, when most of the time we are
being thought.”
Deepak said we must move beyond working with mechanisms of disease to understanding origins
of disease and then go even beyond that to understanding the essence of life.
“In less than one year you replace 98% of all the atoms in your body. . . . So, if you think
you are your physical body, you have a bit of a dilemma: which one are you talking
about? . . . Perhaps what we call our physical body is just the place our memories call
home for the time being.”
“Seen through the eyes of a physicist, the human body is proportionally as void as
intergalactic space. . . . What people have to realize is not only that the essential stuff of the
universe is non-stuff, but it may be THINKING non-stuff, because it generates the impulses
of energy and information which ultimately transform themselves into material events.”
“ . . . the first major breakthrough in mind-body medicine is that you cannot imprison the
mind in the brain, since it expresses itself through every cell in the body. The body is the
objective experience of consciousness, while the mind is the subjective experience of
consciousness, and the two are inseparably one in every aspect of our physiology.”
“The second major breakthrough is even more significant in that . . . our minds are not
confined to our bodies either. If anything, the mind is not in the body at all. It’s the other
way around: the body is in the mind and the mind is in something else . . .” And, if our
mind extends outside of our bodies, then – along with mind, body and spirit – the
environment also has to be taken into account in healing.
Ouspensky had a similar insight or vision when he visited the Taj Mahal. He felt its message was
that the magnificent white building represents the soul, which contained the entombed body and
this soul was stretching out and blending with the cosmos. The material and temporal body is in an
omnipresent and timeless soul.
Deepak cited Wilder Penfield’s findings that the brain executes choices, such as moving one’s arm

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when a probe stimulates it, but the brain is not the ‘me’ making the choice. “Where is the
intention generator? . . . It is spaceless, timeless and dimensionless . . . and, yet, it could be the
thinker of the thought.”
“The ego . . . [and] all experiences are timebound. . . . But the experiencer is the timeless
factor in every experience. . . . When one can see all space-time events against the
background of the timeless. Then one wakes up to a new reality.”
At one point, Deepak said that giving a patient a spiritual experience is an important part of the
healing process. I asked him afterwards how one gives another a spiritual experience and he
clarified by saying that you create an atmosphere for a patient which is conducive to them having a
spiritual experience.
Deepak signed a copy of Ageless Body, Timeless Mind for me. He spoke a day or two later at
Alternatives at St. James Church, Piccadilly, giving virtually the same talk again, which seems an
overview summary of the book.
Deepak was, and is, an impressive and charismatic speaker. I felt he had reached some extremely
important conclusions, particularly about what he called ‘consciousness’ coming before – and
being the creator of – body, mind, and the material realm. However, there was nothing in his talk
which indicated to me that he himself had awakened beyond an identification with his own mind
and personality, though later writings of his certainly show he is aware of such higher states.

Volunteering and Trinity Hospice – opening my heart
During these years of having no regular job, I got involved in voluntary work. I became a director
of Wandsworth Voluntary Bureau and of the Wandsworth Bereavement Society. I also did short-
term self-employed consulting jobs through different firms, notably Autopolis and Reliance. On a
very part-time basis, I continued the small press publishing.
Perhaps the most meaningful ‘work’ I did at the time was volunteering at Trinity Hospice, which
was on Clapham Common at the top of the block I lived on. Trinity Hospice, with its hospice
proper, day centre, training facilities, centre for MacMillan nurses and a large beautiful garden,
then had about 300 regular volunteers, including some who would bring pets to visit the inpatients
and even an artist who would paint people’s happiest memories for them. Trinity was then
considered the longest established hospice in the country, as it had been taking in the dying for
more than 100 years, from when it was run by an order of religious nuns. Those admitted to the
hospice proper during my time there had, on average, less than two weeks of their physical life left.

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 Royal Trinity Hospice, Clapham Common South Side

Trinity Hospice gardens to the rear with the Mulberry Room Day Care Centre
being the rounded windowed extension on the right
My volunteering was in the day centre, to which patients were brought from their homes. This was
a break not only for those coming, but also gave some respite to their family carers. To be eligible
to attend the day centre, a patient had to have been medically diagnosed as having less than a year
of life left. My ‘work’ consisted of joining the ‘ambulance’ van to make the rounds of collecting
patients from their homes in the mornings, bringing them back to the day centre, being with them
for about half a day there, including for lunch, and then joining them for the trip back home. My
job on the rides and at the centre was almost exclusively what could be called ‘active listening’,
being very attentive to whomever I was with. The patients shared their life stories with me, and I
helped the process by prompting them with occasional questions. Patients could also have their hair
done and there were volunteers who came to give them different treatments, like massages. I was
continuing to feel quite low during this period and, although I was volunteering to help these
patients, I generally found I felt I was being ‘helped’ much more from the great love I received
from them. And this was ‘real’ love, in that they sought nothing in return. They were just giving. I
did this volunteering for a day a week for about two years and it was probably the most rewarding
and heart-opening ‘job’ I have ever had.
The rare occasions I attended inpatients at the hospice helped it become clear to me that there are
states of heightened sensitivity for those who are near death. One example was of a patient being
aware of – and commenting on – what was happening around her, despite her eyes being closed.
Arkaji told me that the newly born and those near death are the ones closest to the Divine.
Here are some words I wrote in Sept. 1994 about a hospice experience:
Just a month ago, I began having some involvement on the hospice wards. It is so different and so
rewarding. Part of this is because, when you are with people on the wards, there are no more
masks, no more social pretending, and nothing to prove. Also, in being with someone there, I can’t
have an answer for them in what they are facing, as we traditionally try to do in our everyday life.
I met another volunteer who said that when she told a friend she was working at a hospice, the
friend said, “But you are so FULL of life! Why would you choose that place to volunteer?” When
the volunteer coordinator heard this, she responded, “You won’t find any MORE life anywhere
else.”

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While I was at lunch, after having been on my ward for the morning, a minister who comes to the
hospice sat down across from me. I told him how rewarding just being with people on the wards
has been for me, sometimes when it didn’t even involve words being spoken, and that it more often
seemed as if just the opposite interaction was happening – the people I was seeing were serving
me, rather than my serving them. I was getting so much from it that it was absolutely not a doing in
any sacrificial sense.
He said, “Yes. You know, I’ve discovered this, too. If I feel duty-bound to go and help someone,
especially when I am tired and it’s being done in sacrifice, it absolutely burns me out. But, if I just
get out of the way and, even though I feel I have no energy, yet somehow still go out and be there
for someone – but not in sacrifice – the strange thing is, I find THEY give to me.” I thought, later
that these words actually restate the principle that you can’t really be giving without also be
receiving, that true giving-receiving has to be a cycle.
I’ve been discovering so much about myself through this work. There was one day in particular – I
think it was my first time on the wards – when I became aware of my own neediness, in feeling the
need to be needed. It requires some sensitivity, especially with total strangers in these
circumstances, to judge when you are being intrusive and when you are being appreciated for
being helpful. In one case that day, it was more my needs which seemed to surface. It was with a
man the nurses had asked me to feed some ice cream to. He only seemed to want a couple of
spoonfuls. I fed him these and then just sat and held his hand, waiting to see if he would have any
more. He was so poorly, he could hardly move. One was mostly aware of his very laboured
breathing. I didn’t think he could talk, but he then tried to say something. It was barely a croak and
the whistling of the breath of intention through his throat. I could just hear the words, “I want . . .”
and then I could not make out the rest. He tried to say it again, but I still could not understand. I
bent down so my ear was right next to his mouth and he tried again twice, but both times all I got
were the words, “I want . . .” and “I want . . .” again.
In an attempt to be helpful, I started suggesting things he might be asking – Did he want me to turn
the television off? Did he want some water? Did he want more ice cream? Did he want the curtains
drawn? Did he want a nurse? He just stared at me with no sign that anything I had suggested was
what he was wanting. Finally, he began making one more, now very strenuous, effort to tell me
what he wanted, and I bent my ear close to his mouth again. This time, I could just barely make out
what he was saying, which was, “I want you to go.” But it came out in such a beautiful way
because, at the same time he was saying this, he was squeezing my hand just slightly, and the
message I got was that he wanted some privacy, but that it wasn’t in any way a rejection. He just
wanted to be alone. It was a wonderful awareness lesson for me about my need to be needed, and
that it could also be perfectly fine to be a volunteer/helper and not be needed.

Anthony Robbins – Unleashing the Power Within
In October 1993 I was invited to staff at Anthony Robbins’ 1 st UK event (which was the only way I
could have gone, as I had no funds). It was a weekend workshop called ‘Unleash the Power Within’
(UPW) held at the NEC Forum in Birmingham. Robbins was well known in the UK because of his
books on personal development. I had also heard of NLP as a means of programming our minds
and understood that Robbins’ approach was largely based on that.
Tony was an impressive presenter, extremely tall and loving the limelight. His then wife had come
with him and helped in some of the sessions when we broke up into groups.

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The Friday evening of the weekend included the famous barefoot firewalk on burning coals. While
the evening presentation went on, we could see the wood fires outside in which the coals were
being prepared and Tony helped prepare us psychologically. The coals were finally ready for us at
1:30 am. Virtually everyone in the very large audience did the walk over one of the several lines of
hot coals, being guided by staff, with just a handful experiencing minor blistering. Tony was
guiding my line and, when it was my turn, he told me I was not ready and instructed me in
preparing myself further. There were lines he gave us to repeat to ourselves to ‘psych’ ourselves
up. The next time I came to the head of my line he told me to go ahead and I was able to walk
across the coals. Another staff member was waiting at the end of the line to hose my feet down.
The firewalk was intended to show us we could break through our greatest fears and go beyond
what had previously been our accepted limits.
Some of the training given to us that weekend has stayed with me. Tony told us that only 7% of
communication is in words, 38% in voice quality and 55% from physiology. So, if you mirror the
voice quality, posture and movement of someone you are with, you will easily develop a rapport
with them.
Another part was on the unconscious physical movements we make, particularly with our eye
behaviour, which tell an astute observer about our thinking and intentions and can also be used as
an aid in memorizing. A further important point was using questions to ourself (self-
communication) to trigger an inner resolve and motivation. On that Friday evening, the question he
asked us to ask ourselves was, “How can I make this the most valuable weekend of my life?” This
required us participating in the process of making the weekend and its training valuable.
There were also techniques for manifesting or making something happen in one’s life, which
included reviewing in one’s mind the steps one would take for this and then visualizing some
physical evidence which would show it had happened (like seeing one’s bank balance had
increased). These techniques could be remarkably effective, and I used them off and on afterwards,
sometimes with close friends.

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Notwithstanding how impressive Robbins and the training were, the methods seemed to be (at that
time, anyway) directed to the level of the ego and personality, so one could influence others,
achieve business success or gain other material objects. So, for example, if one wanted to get a
Rolls-Royce to impress others and as a means of making oneself lovable, Robbins’ techniques
would indeed help one get the Rolls-Royce. What it would not do is help one understand why one
felt unloved and remedy that without the need for the Rolls-Royce. One of the flyers had his
saying, “I know no matter where you are in life, you want more.” Helping others get more clearly
sells books and seminar seats. The problem with a belief like this, though, is that one will still not
have enough when on one’s deathbed. It could be a valuable statement if the ‘wanting more’ refers
to experiencing peace, freedom, and more of one’s personal spiritual evolution, but that is not
likely what was intended by the flyer.

1994 – Christine Longaker – A Tibetan Buddhist approach to dying
In September 1994, to add depth to the work with the dying at the hospice, I attended a three-day
seminar called ‘New Dimensions in Spiritual Care for the Dying’ given by Christine Longaker at
London’s Rigpa Centre. Christine was a student of Sogyal Rinpoche and I understood her

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considerable experience of working with the dying had been drawn on by Sogyal to help him write
his acclaimed classic, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. Christine had been led to this work
through the early death of her husband.
The seminar was deeply moving and helpful in different ways. One was a better understanding of
what the dying were going through, such as not knowing what was happening, physical pain and
the pain of the loss of everything, including the loss of control over one’s own care and
environment.
“What we are frightened of at death is facing ourselves and facing how little we know
ourselves.”
“One’s presence in a visit [to someone dying] is 90% of its value – words, ‘answers’, and
doing is 10%.”
“Communication is important, even if the patient is in a coma or has just died. Hearing is
not the last to go. It’s awareness - awareness is always there . . . . Their awareness is so
alive!”
“A dying person’s mind agrees to expand into the whole room and therefore absorbs in the
feelings of those who come into the room.”
Christine recounted an experience of visiting a dying person and noting how the dying was used by
both the dying lady and her family to forgive and heal old wounds among them. When she returned
again just after the young lady had died, she was told the death had been a ‘happy’ one. She was
not sure she understood, but when she sat alone in meditation with the lady’s body, she felt the
latter’s happy awareness, now expanded throughout the room, and she realized it was in a higher
state than her own meditative one.
Another way the seminar was helpful was its Tibetan Buddhist perspective on dying, including
discussion of the Bardos, which are largely about intermediate states, in particular those between
death and rebirth, but can also include Bardos of other states within this life and after it. The
Tibetan teaching is that one goes into a high level of the light at the time of death, but that one then
descends down to whatever level one is evolved to or ready for, which might be quite a low one
indeed. Christine said that her teacher Sogyal illustrated how quickly one descends from this high
level down to the level one is at: Sogyal said that when we are obsessed about a problem – one
which is present to us in every waking moment – the brief lapse of time between waking in the
morning and then remembering this problem is the equivalent time it takes to fall from the high
level to the lower one we are ready for.
“The extraordinary opportunity at death is the loss of personality.”
“Awareness of death can be our biggest gift. It helps us to live more fully.”
“Who we think we are wasn’t before birth and won’t be after death – it’s not our original
nature.”
“The darkness at death is the loss of our cloudy nature, and our real self dawns – fully
awake to our [real] nature.”
“The karmic seeds of our actions, words and thoughts – our habits and conditioning – will
go on after death unless purified. The point of practice is to change our habits. Develop
good habits, so they naturally come to us at the moment of death . . . and we can
consciously direct ourselves towards the realization of our absolute nature.”

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 “Our state of mind or last thought at the moment of death becomes our next reality.”
“The moment of death is the crossroads of eternity. The crossroads is now. Waiting until
the moment of death is too late.”
“The teaching for all the Bardos are: how do you use that particular Bardo, whether it’s
this life, dying or the after-death state, to obtain enlightenment. . . . use that time to create
an atmosphere of love, or peace, of non-grasping . . . use that time of the moment of death
to practice to obtain enlightenment.”
Essential advice for the dying person: “Be free of attachment and aversion, keep your mind
pure and unite your mind with Buddha.”
“In Buddhism, healing is purification, not necessarily getting well.”
Compassion is an integral part of working with suffering, and tonglen is the term for the Tibetan
practice of compassion. Tonglen is giving and receiving and includes the use of the breath. Through
it, we joyfully give out love and take on the suffering of others. And, as we help alleviate the
suffering of others, so is our own suffering alleviated.
The beautiful Metta, or Loving Kindness, Meditation is used, in which one wishes happiness and
ease to all beings. It was easy to fall in love with the love and presence which expressed itself
through Christine as she shared these meditations with us.
I was so touched by Christine’s teaching about working with the dying that I wanted to absorb it
more deeply. I volunteered to transcribe some of the tapes from the workshop, so that Christine
could use suitable parts of them in a book on this she was putting together (and I did so again for
the tapes of the 1995 workshop). Her book, Facing Death and Finding Hope: A Guide to the
Emotional and Spiritual Care of the Dying, was published in 1998. It has been translated into
several languages and is used by hospices around the world.

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 Original edition of Christine Longaker’s guide
A passage from Christine’s June 1995 workshop at Rigpa in London:
“ . . . you start to get a new passport and a new set of credit cards and, before long you’ve
constructed this whole new sense of self. But, is it your real self? No. You didn’t know who
you were, so you took on this new identity. And it’s temporary. It will go away. It wasn’t
who you really were. So, at the time of death this temporary identity that we’ve taken on
disintegrates. All the passports go back. The credit cards go back. The family history goes
back. It literally disintegrates at the time of death, at the time that the body dies. Because of
that, there is the extraordinary opportunity to attain enlightenment because, when the
clouds are finally blown apart after a big storm, the vastness and the radiance of the sky
and sun are naturally and fully revealed. In that state, we get a glimpse of our enlightened
essence of our being. It’s easier to attain enlightenment if we recognize it. And this is the
key to the teachings . . . if we recognize it, or if we’ve ‘died’ already through spiritual
practice in a very inspired state of devotion, compassion, or just heartfelt prayer – if we die
with our mind and heart in a very good or positive state – there’s more possibility that we
can use that moment of death to attain liberation, because the clouds are gone, the
suffering, the sense of self, all that I normally thought was me, is – for a moment – gone.”
I wondered how I could feel so moved by Christine and her seminar when I had not really felt any
attraction to her teacher, Sogyal. My sense is that the draw I felt to Christine was because of the
depths to which her heart had opened through her compassionate work with the dying, while
Sogyal wisdom had more to do with the Buddhist focus on consciousness. If so, the draw for
Christine to Sogyal must have had more to do with the Nyingma/Dzogchen tradition and teaching
themselves, rather than with the specific teacher (‘the song, not the singer’).

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111
Painting
For a few years at this time I joined a group of friends who would get together to paint once a week
in the evenings. I was surprised at what pleasure this brought me. We would paint for a couple of
hours and then put what we had painted together on a sheet on the floor and share comments about
them over tea and biscuits. All of us were amateurs, but some of those who participated had
remarkable artistic talents. I did not feel I was talented artistically, but I was pleased at the chance
to express concepts – some of them intuitive – of spiritual subjects.
Here are a few.

A soul choosing who he will be born as

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 A new baby emerging from the light of the divine

A seeker suffering, living in the world with a mask (personality) and an

unawakened/broken heart being guided by spirit/intuition towards the light. He
does not see that he is himself holding the ‘pearl of great price’ in his own hand.

Further guidance from spirit

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 The soul awakened with integration of (white) spirit,
Mask (worldly façade) falling away and heart becoming whole

Awakened soul and heart with mask removed

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 ‘That space in which we are one flame’
Although we seem to live in our personas, we are really interacting as beings of light


Arjuna Ardagh – ‘Circle of Being’
I met Arjuna Ardagh in 1994 through a mutual friend at a time when he was passing through London and
offering a few meetings. This was not long after he had completed a long stay with Poonjaji and the latter
had told him to go out and lead satsangs. I attended one of these meetings. At it, Arjuna had placed
photos of his ‘lineage’ at the front. These were of Poonjaji and of Poonjaji’s teacher, Ramana Maharshi. I
had been very drawn to Ramana Maharshi for years and told Arjuna this and that I had been born within
two weeks of Ramana’s death. Arjuna immediately asked me if it was before or after the death, perhaps
wondering if I were a reincarnation. I told him it was before. He told me later that he felt a ‘Ramana
Maharshi’-type energy about me. I took this as a very high compliment, though I wondered how he
could know what Ramana’s energy was like.
The meetings were called ‘Circle of Being’. We sat in a circle and started by observing 45 minutes
of silence, after which people could speak from their truth. Subsequently, for Arjuna’s next visit to
London in May-June 1995, I helped publicise and organize these meetings.
When I told Arjuna I was involved in editing and publishing, he asked me if I would help him on a
book he was writing. Because he soon left London to return to America, I only had a modest input
on the first part of it, though subsequently did some further transcription and editing of audio
material Arjuna sent me. This book, with the marvellous title Relaxing into Clear Seeing, was
published in 1998. My favourite part of it is in the preamble, in which Arjuna describes an
awakening experience as not only being outside the ego, but realizing that the ego is just an
illusion, which occurred during his first visit to Poonjaji in Lucknow in 1991. His decision that he
wanted to kill the ego, resulted in the realization and experience of a self beyond the ego. The book

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shares an enormous amount of wisdom garnered from Arjuna’s decades of spiritual exploration and
research together with guided meditations and other practices based on Arjuna’s deep relaxation
therapy work.
It was from Arjuna, during a workshop at Regents College he gave called ‘Dissolving the Myth of
Personal ID’, that I learned the story of Padmasambhava, who brought and gave much of the
highest Buddhist teachings, including Tantra and Dzogchen, to Tibet in the 8 th century. As Tibetans
were not ready for some of these teachings at that time, Padmasambhava wrote those down and had
them hidden in temples, caves and other places in the country and the Himalayas to be discovered
later by the reincarnations of his students. These writings are called Termas, meaning hidden
treasures. [As an aside, this has something of a Judeo-Christian parallel in the discovery of the
Dead Sea Scrolls about 2000 years after they were hidden.]

Arjuna recommended a key one of these Termas, the John Reynolds translation with commentary
of Self-Liberation Through Seeing with Naked Awareness, which was discovered six centuries
after Padmasambhava. It is a central text in what is known as The Tibetan Book of the Great
Liberation, teachings on the Bardos, or intermediate states of existence (a part of which is better

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known in the West as The Tibetan book of the Dead). The intrinsic awareness the Self-Liberation
… book speaks of struck me as being very similar to my own experience of Douglas Harding’s
headlessness.
I had experience of other individuals, besides Arjuna, who were reported to have been given
permission to lead satsangs by Poonjaji:
I attended an evening with Catherine Ingram at Friends Meeting House in Hampstead. There
seemed a love about her presence that was wonderful to be near, though it is unlikely that
what touched me about her was something she received from Poonjaji. I later purchased her
book, Passionate Presence – Experiencing the Seven Qualities of Awakened Awareness .
The seven qualities are: silence, tenderness, discernment, embodiment, genuineness, delight,
and wonder.
When I visited Maui, I attended one of Gangaji’s meetings, including a short private time with her
after, although both her presence and what she said did not especially resonate with me.
In London, I went to a meeting held by Andrew Cohen, but was so unimpressed with him that I left
during his talk, which was – up to that point – one mostly criticizing other teachers.
I reconnected with Arjuna for a brief period several years later because of his association with
the Oneness University in India. By this time, he had become a fairly well-known author in the
new age field.

John Shodo Flatt – lessons from a Zen patriarch

John Shodo Flatt at his shiho ceremony (recognizing him as a Zen patriarch – 82 nd in lineage from
Buddha), Amaravati Buddhist Retreat Center, Sept. 1993.

I sent this message to the Quaker Community who were preparing a testimony to John Flatt’s life:
30 January 1995
I met John Flatt only in the last months of his life through my involvement as a volunteer at Trinity
Hospice’s Day Centre. I only remember him coming there once while I was also in attendance, but

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I was immediately drawn to him, because I had been told of his Quaker background and Buddhist
interests.
Although I did not see him at the Day Centre again, I learned soon after that he had been admitted
temporarily to the hospice as an in-patient, and I was able to visit him two or three times before a
work assignment called me away. On these visits I was mostly interested in asking him about Zen
and he would tell me of retreats he had been on and of trips to Zen centres in the U.S.A.
He also recommended a few books. He had only two books with him (which I believe were Suzuki’s
Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind and the thirteenth century’s Dogen’s From the Zen Kitchen to
Enlightenment: Refining Your Life). He wasn’t interested in my offer to bring him any other
books along similar lines, as these two were enough for him. When I expressed interest in one of
his books, he loaned it to me. Soon after, when I returned it, I was surprised at how grateful he
was. It obviously meant a lot to him and, yet, in loaning it to me, it seemed he had been prepared
never to see it again.
I was reading Philip Kapleau’s The Three Pillars of Zen then and, although John very strongly
approved of Kapleau’s own teachers, he disagreed with the amount of emphasis this book had on
enlightenment. He told me a few classic Zen stories and I especially remember his emphasizing
how the Bodhidharma’s response of ‘I don’t know’ to the Chinese Emperor’s question ‘Who are
you?’ was a very valid one.
At the time I was quite worried over whether or not I was capable of performing a new
management consulting project which I was about to start, and I always came away from these
meetings with John feeling he was being a far more reassuring presence for me than I, as a
hospice volunteer, must have been for him – even though the issues he was facing were far
greater than my own. I never remember him complaining or even of showing signs of feeling
pain from his illness except, perhaps, when there would be a very slight wincing when he
periodically adjusted the position his legs were in.
After that, over the Christmas holiday period, I visited family abroad and then was away on the
work assignment. Although I wanted to see him again, I wasn’t able to until I was back home on
the first Saturday after my project had finished. As it turned out, I arrived at the hospice with the
express purpose of visiting him just three hours after John had died. One of the nurses I knew there
broke the news to me and then very kindly let me have a few moments of silence alone with him.
Unlike my experience with some others, there was no sense of tragedy about this ‘death’, and it
was clear that the real regrets I had about it were not for him, but for me.
Later, I was very touched when his daughter Debbie invited me to attend the Memorial Meeting
held at the Wandsworth Meeting House to give thanks for the Grace of God in John’s life. It was a
simple service with an added contribution from those he knew from his Zen membership. This
included a brief talk from his teacher, Dennis Genpo Merzel (whose book, The Eye Never Sleeps,
John had recommended to me). John had mentioned in passing, without making much of it, of
having been honoured in a ceremony by the Buddhist Community but, until Merzel’s talk, I had had
no idea of the degree of acknowledgement that honour was, or that John had been the first
Englishman to receive it. In some ways, this honour did not gel with how very easy and ‘ordinary’
it always felt to be around John. The things he had spoken of with the most interest to me had never
been conceptual (I even remember him looking at me rather blankly on our first meeting when I
asked him if he thought meditators suffered less from illnesses like colds). Instead, his interests
seemed to be more in things like the enjoyment of the meal rituals on his intensive meditation Zen

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sesshin retreats (he relished describing the details of these meal rituals to me), the depth of
impressions from an American trip (and a wry grin when he commented on being too low on funds
to extend some aspects of the trip), working in the sunshine, and the taste (and religious
associations) of the herb basil he had had on a trip to Italy.
Even though he could be emotional (when, for example, speaking of his late wife and of how
valuable the support of the Quaker Community had been for him following her death), there was a
sense of him being very present, and yet without it being the presence of an ego. This
‘ordinariness’ only began to fit for me with the honour he had been acknowledged with when I
read about one becoming an ordinary person in the third and last stage of Self-nature (as
described in The Hazy Moon of Enlightenment, of which one of the co-ordinators, Maezumi
Roshi, was teacher to John’s own teacher). On learning of the honour, I wondered at John not
having had more of the ‘air of a teacher’, and yet, in retrospect, realized an important teaching
was just in the example he was continually setting, particularly considering his own physical
condition and circumstances at that time.
John Flatt’s presence seemed to have had a similar benign influence on many whose lives he came
into contact with, and hospice staff (one of whom I didn’t even meet until months afterwards)
would often later mention him to me.
I received this response:

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John’s daughter told me he had said to her that Quaker’s ‘meditation’ and experience of silence in
their meetings is in no way comparable to the practice and experience of meditation in Zen.

1995 – Arkaji – Conscious Awareness

In 1995, I met a teacher who was then mostly known as Mahaguru Yogi Arka. It had come about
through my local post office lady, Priya Y, who recommended I meet her guru when I went to visit
family in Toronto. Following considerable transport arrangements requiring an overnight stay at a
friend’s in north Toronto, I did go to attend a meeting which was held on August 29 in the suburbs
at his then Toronto ashram, the house at 25 Shadlock Street, Markham. As part of the talk at that
meeting, he said, “If you do not look in a mirror or wash your face for a week, you will forget you
have a face.” This struck me as essentially being the same as Douglas Harding’s message.

The next year, in May 1996, when I attended a meeting of his at a church hall in Tooting, London,
he seemed to recognize me when I went for his blessing and invited me to make the announcement
about the blessing of water. When I said I would not know what to say, he said not to worry and
that he would inspire me with the right words.
Arkaji is from Karnataka state in south India, where he has an ashram centre, Arka Dhama near
Mysore. His travels have resulted in followers and centres in several countries. He calls them
‘Centres for Conscious Awareness’, a striking name which suggests self-remembrance and
awareness of one’s own subjectivity, and also underlines a distinction between consciousness and
awareness. As Arka puts it, ‘Awareness is the effect of consciousness. If consciousness were a
flower, awareness would be its fragrance and the brain would be the stem.’  He notes that people
can be conscious without awareness or conscious with just shallow or intermittent awareness.
I saw more of Arka in London, and he asked me to help with the organization of the meetings.
Almost all of those drawn to him in the area were from the Indian community, though
everyone was welcomed to his meeting and teachings. I ended up staying at the homes he
would be in when he visited London (memorable ones were on Vista Way, Kenton, Gloucester
Road and 17 Mintern Ave. Southall)) and acted as something of a part-time assistant to him.
We would go for walks in the deserted streets around these homes at night conversing about
different subjects. He spoke of how we are much more expansive when we are out at night
because the people all around us had contracted themselves in to sleep.
I developed a closeness to many of the other members of the circle of individuals around him,
through whom I had a most wonderful introduction to their homes, the best of Indian
vegetarian foods, shops and vegetarian restaurants favoured by Indians living in London.

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During a solitary seclusion he undertook at one of the homes he was staying at in London, he
sent this rough and draft handwritten message to me: “When all physical resources are
exhausted, inner resources rise to the surface of one’s being, when all kinds of tangible
commotions become distant, and then thoughts from the depth of one’s mind are (kept
just . . . ?) and they travel multidimensionally, making the communication mystical and
clearer. Hence you might have received my love thoughts with the flow of (empathy?).”
On a later occasion, Arka told me we had known each other in a past life in what is now north India
(though he normally avoids speaking of prior life matters). He said I had been a Brahman priest
then. Much later, another student of his told me Arkaji had said that he and I had meditated
together in that previous life. [I could see a key reason not to give importance to possible previous
incarnations: we must focus on the here and now, the only time and place where evolution and
realization is possible. Much later, it also came to me that all of ‘our’ lives, past, present and future
do not amount to much more than something akin to passing clouds – transient mirages – for what
an eternal soul is. Giving undue importance to any life can be a distraction to what our true identity
is. Hence Arkaji’s parting comment at the end of some meetings, ‘May you enjoy a beautiful stay
on earth’, suggesting he has realized to a degree above the worldly material dimension. Arkaji was
also reported to have told another than this realm of the world is not our final destination.]

Arkaji at a meeting (ca 1996)

With Arka at celebration (ca 1996)

Arka had developed an intuitive meditation system called Arka Dhyana. It combines using breath, a

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sacred sound and touching 19 points of the body. The process brings together body, mind and spirit
(each of which are in their own distinct levels and invariably not in harmony). After going through
the whole process, unifying oneself, one lies back, surrendering totally. One has reached quite a
deep state of simply being by this point and this surrender into doing nothing allows natural higher
forces to come into play. (A summary of the practice can be seen in an Appendix.)
Arka asked me to ‘lead’ Arka Dhyana meditation meetings for his circle and we hired the Sindhi
Hall for this purpose when the meetings convened. Arkaji would send instructions for these and
guide the sessions ‘remotely’ from wherever he was in the world. In this sense I was acting more as
a channel for him than as the leader of the sessions myself.
I helped organize and assisted at a meeting at the Wandsworth Town Hall in 1996, which friends
of mine filmed professionally. The film was accompanied by Arka’s own music. The audience
was not large, because I was told it was also the day many were celebrating Sai Baba’s birthday.
We sat on the floor in Asian style. The inspired talk Arka gave was on ‘Sound and Silence’ and
the film included interviews with some of his followers. As Arka was giving blessings at the end,
a family group came up to him. The son, a young man who may have been in his late teens was
on crutches. Arka blessed him and, reaching out, the young man gave his crutches over to Arka.
Arka then led him so that he walked down the stairs from the stage into the audience and was
even able to squat down and then stand up again – all without his crutches. It seemed miraculous
and the young man’s mother was crying. Later, this part of the film was shown on Canadian
television and Arka’s centre in Toronto was inundated with calls from people who wanted
healing. Arka asked that the film be withdrawn, saying his purpose is not that of being a physical
healer. A short while later, I saw the young man and his parents with the group who had come to
the airport to see Arka off. The young man was using his crutches again. At first, I thought,
“What has happened about the ‘healing’?” But, then, I noticed that the young man was smiling
and radiant, a dramatic change from the sadness he had had when he went up on the stage for
Arka’s blessing. For me, the change to happiness seemed a more important ‘healing’ and even a
‘miracle’.
Arkaji sent this fax to me in Hawaii from White’s Hotel, Lancaster Gate, London on April 9 th,
1997:
Truth always follows everybody in the world. Reminding them to turn back and return to their
‘home of homes’. Most are so severely involved in the tempting world before them and the
tempting future ahead, they are deaf and inert to the call of truth coming from just behind them.
Only a few in the world are attentive and sensitive to the sounds of footsteps of truth following
them, and turn back and begin to follow the truth, though externally they seem to be going
forward, orbiting in the world.
Such conscious humans safely return to their origin where truth leads them and they simply
follow.
This turn of consciousness is called ‘self-realisation’. If they could gain glimpses of experience
of their origin it is an advanced experience. This is called ‘enlightenment’. These individuals
stand out as an exceptional example to others who are in this process.
They sing songs of bliss and truth in their journey on the way home. For others they are words of
inspiration.

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Latterly, along with several others, I assisted in editing Arka’s book Adventures in Self-Discovery
– The Journey from Mind to Heart to Consciousness, composed of transcripts of a selection of his
inspired talks. It was first published in 1998. These talks addressed different subjects of interest to
seekers, including the physical self, the emotional self, personal expression, the quest and
spirituality.

Cover of 1998 Edition of Adventures in Self-Discovery

When I was seeing him off at the airport, Arkaji signed the revised edition of his Adventures book
to me with these words:
One who has raised consciousness, explored the depths of the sea of self-knowledge and
awareness, one who has mastered the art of tuning with nature, one who has tasted the nectar of
love, one who has answered all the questions of mind about the self, one who has an extra-ordinary
mystical ability to bring experiences in the hearts of people about their spiritual presence, he or
she is a guru, a source of reflection, reminder and inspiration. (signed) Srinivas Arka at the airport
Heathrow 31-7-2000
I continued to see Arkaji and attend meetings when I could for some years. He stopped in Oahu,
Hawaii, on a return journey from visiting followers in New Zealand, when I was there doing
editing work and I was able to show him around the island and enjoy some vegetarian meals with
him. I prepared a Mexican vegetarian dinner for him at the Spezzano home. Chuck had met him
before but was away at this time. Lency appreciated meeting him and was able to ask him different
questions. She noted the inability to reach some of the PoV students and Arkaji advised her not to
waste love on those who are wearing raincoats against it.
When I was driving Arkaji back to his hotel on Waikiki Beach, I suggested that the link to the
Spezzano’s international PoV network of students could be a valuable one allowing Arkaji’s own
teaching to reach many more. Arkaji’s response was an important indicator of his own state and
level, ‘We want nothing from them.’

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Soon after, when M joined me in the UK in 1999, we went to Madrid to be there for Arkaji’s first
visit and meetings in Spain.

I went to other meetings some of Arkaji’s circle attended at times, including one for a Sai Baba
group. A blind young lady in a wheelchair was there who had had over 30 operations, mostly
because of falls. It was her birthday and a birthday cake had been prepared for her. She spoke of
how blessed her life was and how happy and grateful she was. Her joy was so great, genuine, and
palpable that I actually envied her (or her state). The lights were turned down and we meditated.
When they came back on there was vibhuti, the sacred ash, formed in holy symbols on framed
pictures on the altar, on a chair and stool (which were under glass), on the cake and on other pieces
of furniture in the room. To my knowledge no one had moved during the meditation and this ash
had simply manifested out of thin air. The blind lady and other Indians present took this for granted
and it seemed to be a usual experience at these meetings.

Sai Baba meeting - Vibhuti on pictures on the altar and vibhuti writing and symbols on a chair
and stool
I understood that some students received quite important spiritual experiences through Arkaji,
though am not sure if these were awakening ones or more like passing experiences of bliss, and I
asked him once why that had not been the case with me. He did not seem to have a clear answer but
said that perhaps it was because I had not committed to him as my main teacher. I did not say this
to him then, but my view of many who had committed to him in this way had done so as mental
decisions, meaning their personalities had committed. Any real transmission of awakening from a
teacher would help us realize our essential self before and beyond our mind and personality and
any such commitment of value would have to come from that realer self.
I reflected afterwards that I really had experienced further awakening and personal evolution since
meeting Arkaji. While I associated these with contact and work with other teachers and teachings,
it may well be that these came, at least in part, from the time and work I did with Arkaji as well as
what I had done with other previous teachers and/or from previous lifetimes, or some combination
of these. I am aware of instances of Arkaji not wanting to take credit for some of the things which

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happened around him – and of not wishing to be associated with having special powers.
Grace and transmission work in mysterious ways!
In 2003 another book, Becoming Inspired, based on further inspired talks Arkaji had given was
published. It covered topics including fulfilment, essence, light and energy, consciousness, space,
time and the heart. These topics touched on some of the relationships between physics and
spirituality and the book itself presented more evolved steps for readers.


I travelled to Vancouver and Hawaii at different times while I did some of the editing work with
Chuck (and to a lesser extent with Lency). These trips were enormously valuable experiences for
me and something of a ‘homecoming’, too, as I had deeply loved Michener’s book Hawaii as a
teenager and had a real sense of the history and confluence of cultures underlying the state. It
helped further heal some of the depression I had been experiencing following the end of my first
marriage. The work obviously gave me very clear understanding of the Psychology of Vision’s
teachings.
During this time, I had a private session with Chuck using his intuitive method. Chuck asked me
for my intuition about why I felt having a partner was a betrayal of my parents (an issue I had
mentioned to him). The immediate intuition came to me about a long-ago past life in a place like
Egypt during a time when there was some kind of natural disaster, such as a flood. At that time in
that life, I had had to make and act on a quick decision of either being able to save my wife or my
parents, but I could not save both. I saved my wife and my parents perished, and I had been feeling
guilty about that ever since.
Whether this intuition over an incident in a past life was imaginary or had really happened did not
seem to matter. Just being able to have the understanding from that possible explanation was quite
effective in releasing the negative betrayal feeling (making it a more comfortable and enjoyable
experience of having both a partner and my parents, rather than it seeming to be an either-or
choice). What matters is that the healing – psychological and emotional – happens in my inner
reality now, not the past.
Separately, I had a ‘gazing’ session with Lency, who is able to feel others’ emotions. This involved
us each looking into the other’s eyes with as little blinking as possible. This session went on for
some considerable time and Lency told me later that she felt she was drawing an enormous issue
from me, which she described as being a ‘big dragon’. I felt uncomfortable for some time after,
though cannot say for sure if it was because of this session. An interesting sequel was that,
following my return to London, a spiritually sensitive couple, S and T, informed me that my heart
had finally opened.
I also had other very deep insights during this time in Hawaii. I met Aitken Roshi, participated at
his Diamond Sangha Zen group at times, including my first sesshin, and was able to attend an
Insight meditation weekend.

1995 – Robert Aitken Roshi – the world as our ‘hologram’
I made my first trip to Hawaii in 1995 to work as editor with Chuck Spezzano and also attended a
1995-6 New Year’s Vipassana (Insight Meditation) weekend at the Honolulu Diamond Sangha Zen
centre there. It was led by Michele McDonald, a co-founder of Vipassana Hawaii in 1984. I also

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went to Zen meetings at both the original Koko An centre in Manoa Valley near the University of
Hawaii and the later more substantial main Honolulu Diamond Sangha in the forested Palolo
Valley hills above Honolulu. It was at the Diamond Sangha that I participated in a week’s sesshin
and was able to experience the strict ritual of the Zen retreat’s mealtime that Zen Master John Flatt
had described to me in such detail from his bed at the hospice in London.

Koko An meditation hall and statue of Bodhidharma Nakagawa Roshi helped Robert choose in
Japan in 1951 to use at a new Hawaii Zen centre.
A big highlight of this visit to Hawaii was meeting Robert Aitken (one of the earliest American Zen
Masters) near the end of that year. My first meeting with Aitken Roshi was in a traditional dokusan
student-Master interview during a meditation session. I knew Douglas Harding had visited his
centre years before to demonstrate his headless exercises to the Zen students, so I told him I had
discovered I was an aware emptiness, rather than being an ego and personality. He replied that,
notwithstanding this, something would get out of my chair at the end of the meeting and walk out
of the door.

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 With Aitken Roshi
Aitken Roshi’s beloved wife had died recently and he was apparently feeling very low emotionally
(which I have since discovered still happens to many ‘enlightened’ individuals). I heard he was
open to being taken out to dinner (vegetarian ones) by visitors, so I happily volunteered to do this.
We went to a Chinese restaurant he knew where vegetarian imitation seafood and meat was served.
I was reading a biography of him at the time and was in awe of being with this living legend. I told
him I had met Douglas Harding and he commented that Douglas was probably dead by now. I said
that, on the contrary, Douglas was thriving and had just remarried. I also asked him if he had met
Joseph Goldsmith, a Christian Science/New Thought-style teacher famous for his Infinite Way
books, as Goldsmith had also been based on Oahu. Robert said they had not met, but that he knew
of Joseph and had occasionally referred students to him when that teaching seemed more suited to
the student.

Honolulu Diamond Sangha from the road

I told Robert I was in awe of the great Zen teachers he had met and worked with, including the
famed Haku’un Yasutani. Years previously, a friend of mine, Peter S, had had a private interview
and tea with Yasutani. After drinking his tea, Yasutani had thrown his teacup at the wall, smashing

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it. He had then asked Peter, ‘Is the cup whole, or is it broken?’
Robert had been a founding member of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, and I attended some of
their local meetings while in Hawaii.

Diamond Sangha meditation hall

Aitken Roshi and sesshin group, Honolulu Diamond Sangha, 1996



THE BARRIER BEYOND THE GATELESS...

(published in Share It – The Journal of The Headless Way in 1996)

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By the last week of January, I had been in Hawaii for nearly four months on a project editing
psychological books and card deck manuals aimed at clarifying our journey home, or what could be
called that shift from becoming to Being. My last contact with the “headless way” conference,
which often especially reminds me of my own personal journey, had been during a brief break back
to Vancouver in October, when I had stayed with a friend who had email facilities. But now, I was
just opening an internet subscription for the Hawaiian office I was working at, and so, after a three-
month gap, able to reconnect again.
When I finally began going through some of the backlog over the next week, a feeling of
frustration hit me. Here I was seeking a next key forward and the conference material just seemed
to be going over and over the same ground again and again. Here was Richard speaking of the
constant centre of nothingness, steady with him through a time of moving house and outer
turbulence. And there was Alan echoing a connection to the emptiness on a trip he was making on
the other side of the world. And here I was, feeling that - some years back by now - I had made a
huge step (through Douglas Harding’s “headless/seeing” exercises) in returning to an awareness of
a (pre-personality and neutral) emptiness as a truer reality, but now increasingly having a sense of
being stuck in this ... and yet knowing from many accounts that much more is available,
particularly on a feeling level.
Reading on, there was a further message from Richard speaking about the experiences of being his
neighbour, being other species and being his planet, as well as being his body. It is one thing to be
clear about the emptiness, the space, but, except for rare, and seemingly unaccountable,
experiences, I had no sense of a union with others or with my world ... in spite of this being the
main focus of my meditation practice. How did Richard know about this experience of being the
other, his world, etc., as well as his body? What trick or technique was I missing? How could I
move on from a sense of being a separate “See-er” to an actual feeling awareness of a greater self?
What point is there to having a heart if one is stuck in a neutral emptiness?
When I mentioned this to Chuck Spezzano, the author whose books I was editing, he said that this
neutral emptiness must actually be something of a counterfeit peace, good for a break now and
then, but not the real thing, since reality is very connected and alive (and added that, although my
experience of emptiness seemed timeless, it is more likely time slowed to something of a “soul-
level time”, since the experience of true eternity is full of love and joy).
During this time in Hawaii I had also been attending some of the meditation evenings and
weekends at the local Diamond Sangha Zen Buddhist group. I spoke of my predicament to the
master, Robert Aitken (whom Douglas had visited at his zendo on Maui a quarter of a century
before). Aitken Roshi said there were a number of cases in classic Zen literature of individuals
being caught in emptiness. I asked him for an example and he recommended Case 46 from The
Gateless Barrier (his translation with commentary of the thirteenth century koan collection The
Mumonkan), a copy of which he had inscribed to me with the words, “To [ . . . ], clear about the
gateless ... now about the barrier...”.
Case 46 poses the question: “How do you step from the top of a hundred-foot pole?” About 1,100
years ago, as part of this riddle the Chinese master Ch’ang-sha had said,
“You who sit at the top of a hundred-foot pole;
although you have entered the Way, it is not yet genuine.
Take a step from the top of the pole
and worlds of the ten directions are your total body.”

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In his commentary on this koan, Aitken Roshi quotes (via Miura and Sasaki’s Zen Dust) Ch’ang-
sha as also saying, “The entire universe is in your eye; the entire universe is your total body; the
entire universe is your own luminance, the entire universe is within your own luminance. In the
entire universe there is no one who is not your own self.”
Now, I thought, “How do I know my body, including physical, emotional and mental
sensations, isn’t the world (or, at least, isn’t my world)?” “What proof do I have, have I
ever had, that there is any separation between what I call my experience of my body and
the world?” (Just as, what proof did I ever have that where I come from is locked into a
head . . . And yet, for decades - if not lifetimes! -, I fell into the belief that that was the way
things were). Aitken Roshi has written of the world existing (from our perspective) as
something of a hologram on our senses. This has to be true. For each of us there is no world
except for our own perception and experience of it. And, as Douglas Harding so clearly
points out, as far as our (notably visual and auditory) sensory evidence is concerned, there
is no place we can find where the world stops and our senses begin.
Further along in the conference backlog, I noticed Richard’s query: “Where is sensation? Where is
breathing?”
Is it in us ... or in the world?
What if my whole experience is always just about this connection, in which I and everyone else are
inextricably one with our worlds, joined at every sensory level -- and we just thought we were
separate? What if there is actually nothing to do, except to remove the thought, to come home to
union and oneness? Suddenly, many things began to fall into place for me...
If my (sensory) body is the world, I would obviously care for this body just as much as I would
care for the world, and vice-versa. It would be impossible to play a win-lose or lose-win game
between the world and my body if the latter is the former. Any damage to the world would
simultaneously be self-destructive (hence the expression “live by the sword, die by the sword”),
making it impossible for me to take in any way I could truly gain, whenever it is at the expense of a
world which is actually myself (this would be analogous to trying to enlarge myself while reducing
my shadow). Clearly, I can also never give in a way that others would truly win whenever it is at
my expense (or, enlarge my shadow while reducing myself). An awareness of this union would be
the end of feeling dependent on my world, the end of rebelling against it and the end of being a
martyr to, or for, it.
Furthermore, it must also follow that, not only are we born with our body, but our whole world
(including our culture, nationality, race and family) is the spacesuit which is born with us; our
fuller, truer, body from which we are never separate. Only later conditioning shrinks us to the belief
we have a physical body separate from our world.
I mentioned this to Chuck and he said that, not only is this true, but it is also true that we continue
to project our world ‘out there’, adding, somewhat wryly, that what we most want, we project ‘out
there’, too.
And, since our world is our body, as we heal and transform personally, so does our world.
How could I ever be unworthy of being in a world which is me?
How could I not forgive a world I projected out there in the first place? This means the problems I
see in the world - or have with the world - are absolutely my problems ... although not necessarily
ones I may be aware of at a conscious level of my mind. If I am a victim, it is not of the world, but

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of part of myself ... victims would perforce be victims of their own creation.
From a feeling perspective, my life (aliveness) is the/my world’s ... and vice versa. When I feel
nothing is special, then so does the world I projected out there seem. On the other hand, when I feel
joy, so does the world become a joyful place.
All we need do to be in touch with our world, and to come home to the truth of who we are, is to
stay aware of what is arising in our mind and body. These include physical sensations, emotions
connected to bodily feelings and similar roots which are the source and trigger of mental reactions.
Really, really, practicing this awareness, must inevitably be the true experience of this non-
separation, or oneness -- an experience of here and now (in the sense of being the here and now)
as a continuous process ... with no separate enduring self as the “see-er”, doer or experiencer.
Here’s a rough paraphrase of a recent summary of this shared with the conference:
“For me, and there may be others whose experience is similar, headlessness, or ‘Seeing’,
was a marvelous escape into the space/void from the chains of the old personality. But
there also seemed to be something lacking, because it seemed so neutral. Not only did it
mean an end to painful feelings; it also tended to imply operating at some ‘remove’ from
the body and ALL feeling . . . a dispassionate way of seemingly being in the world but not
of it.
With these new insights, my own more recent focus and evolution has been one of coming
BACK to this body, and yet NOT in the old way; for the ‘headless’ awareness now forms
part of the ‘package’. Now, there is an awareness of physical sensations and emotions
(especially in, though not limited to, the heart region), but invariably without the
identification of ‘my’ illusory old self as the experiencer. And what a difference it makes in
terms of connecting with others, of coming alive, and of being and enjoying the experience
of each conscious moment ...”


I spent the 1995-6 New Year’s Eve weekend on a Vipassana retreat at the Diamond Sangha Zen
Center in the hills above Honolulu. The meditation session included sitting through the turning of
one year to the next, which was memorable for the sound of New Year fireworks coming up to us
from Honolulu.

1997 – Ajahn Sumedho – the mind Vs. the Way
On Easter Day, 1997, when visiting the Amaravati Buddhist temple and monastic centre
Amaravati, near Hemel Hempstead with a friend, we encountered Ajahn Sumedho seated on a
cushion and having tea in the dining hall. His tea included some small cakes or sweets, which I
wondered about, as this monastic tradition prohibits eating after their mid-day meal.
Ajahn Sumedho was originally from America. He had served as a navy medic during the Korean
war and then, following a degree in South Asian studies, worked with the Peace Corps in SE Asia.
When he was 32, he became a novice monk of the Thai Forest Monk tradition under the guidance
of Ajahn Chah. Ajahn Sumedho went on to found two monasteries in England and was
instrumental in helping to set up centres throughout the world which follow the teaching and
lineage of his teacher Ajahn Chah.
It was mid-afternoon and there were monks and visitors there, too. Ajahn Sumedho warmly

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welcomed us to join him. He had a genuine smile and I felt very at ease in his presence. He asked
us questions about ourselves and shared comments and insights. Others, who were students of his,
gathered round. I asked him if our presence was preventing them from approaching and speaking
with him, but he said they just wanted to listen.
I noted my interest in Zen Buddhism and in Advaita, especially the teachings of Ramana Maharshi
and Nisargadatta. He said he had read much of the latter two and very much valued their teachings.
He especially liked the wisdom which is in Nisargadatta’s I Am That.
He asked me what my two greatest lessons or teachings had been, which may have been a standard
question he used with visitors and new monks. I told him the first was probably Gurdjieff’s
admonition to remember myself, as that had been a wake-up call for me to turn my attention
inward, and the second had to have been Douglas Harding’s headless exercises, which had one
become aware of oneself before the mind (at least, it had done so for me). It turned out that Ajahn
Sumedo was himself an admirer of Douglas Harding. Two of his novice monks had attended the
Headless Retreat I was on in June, 1995, and then two more of his senior monks were at Douglas’s
funeral in 2007, and the latter told me Ajahn Sumedo himself would have come had he not been out
of the country at the time.
I then returned the question to him, asking what his greatest teachings had been. He responded that
it was his own Master’s favourite, from Buddha’s Four Noble Truths, that any suffering brings a
teaching with it and will cease when the attachment causing it ends.
Ajahn Sumedho said he was destined to be a monk and that the life suited him very well. He noted
he would soon have to travel to Thailand and said that, as he aged, he grew less and less fond of
travel (he was 62 at this time). Thirteen years later, in 2010, he retired to Thailand, where he is
known as Luang Por Sumedho – Luang Por meaning ‘venerable father’.
My own sense of awareness deepened considerably in the years that followed this meeting and I
have often wished I could meet with Ajahn Sumedho again to share at a more evolved level than I
felt at the time I met him. When I was seeking writings which spoke of having awoken to
awareness, I found one of his books, The Mind and the Way, helpful.

Others
During this period, I attended at talks and meetings of a number of other teachers and authors and
met a few of them independently. Just a couple of these were:
Marianne Williamson – in May 1994, I attended a talk and a two-day workshop on A Course in
Miracles with her. I was drawn to this as she had been a major influence in popularizing ACIM
through her best-selling A Return to Love. The impression I was left with was that she was
interpreting ACIM for mental and psychological levels (rather than coming from the living gnostic
experience of it) which is all that most can hear. At the end of the workshop, the head of the
London ACIM group, Patrick, presented Marianne with transcriptions the group had done of her
prayers, thoughts and words used at different ceremonies. She was very moved by this and these
were later published as Illuminata. Marianne has since published several more books.
John de Ruiter – Shaun had suggested I might like to hear this man – possibly because he is a
Canadian. I went to a single London meeting of John’s. He is a striking looking, but controversial,
individual. The ‘meeting’ was unusual in that John would speak pointedly to the questioners,
rather than to all the others in the room and then, only invariably, after a very long uncomfortable

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silence. I had the impression that what he was saying was coming through him and that he was
acting as more of a messenger than a teacher in his own right. And, to me, the messages coming
through seemed to have an Old Testament type flavour about them, as if not yet including New
Testament aspects of love and forgiveness.

Hare Krishna
I’d encountered followers of this movement from about 1970 forward, beginning in Vancouver and
Mexico City. Rather than viewing their dress and behaviour as deranged and at odds with the ‘real
world’, I’d been impressed that the members I had spoken to came across as genuinely happier than
otherwise ‘normal’ responsible members of society. Members were given targets for chanting and
used a string of japa mala beads somewhat like a rosary to count the number of repetitions.
Conditioning oneself to do this continuously seem to have parallels to the prayer of the heart of the
Eastern Christian church. Their chanting music and dance movements always moved – and even
transported – me when I was able to watch and hear it.

During some of my darkest and poorest periods, I contemplated different lifestyles that could be
acceptable options for someone with a spiritual bent and no money, and joining the Hare Krishna
movement was on the list. While it did seem a happier possibility than joining a traditional
monastery, I baulked at dedicating myself to worshipping an external Krishna.

When I was in Hawaii, I found a Krishna group ran a major vegetarian store and restaurant in
Honolulu, there was a large separate Krishna temple and residence, as well as morning chanting
meetings of Krishnas on the beach. However, I was surprised to find out that the Krishna
movement had splintered and these ones in Hawaii were members of two separate factions. I had a
conversation with one of the members at the residence. When I commented on my interest in Zen,
he said the problem with Buddhism was that there is no one to worship.

When back in London, I occasionally visited Bhaktivedanta Manor in Aldenham, near Watford,
which had been given to the movement by the Beatle George Harrison (who had recorded the Hare
Krishna chant as a devotional song). They offered free vegetarian food as a service to all visitors on
a Sunday, had a sacred ceremony unveiling the normally covered statue of Krishna and also had
lively chanting and dancing performances which everyone could participate in.

When convenient I also went to their Radha Krishna temple on Soho street just off Soho Square in
central London, ate at its vegetarian restaurant and watched the chanting and dance ceremony in the
upstairs temple room. The chanting and music seemed to call down ‘chi’ energy from heaven and it
was clear some of the participants entered trance states while they were moving.

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In 1999, with two friends I attended a Hare Krishna festival in Trafalgar Square which was very
animated.

A little later, I learned an elder who was considered a very evolved Hare Krishna member was
visiting London (I think from a main center in India) and staying in a borrowed flat near me. Not
wishing to miss the opportunity, I went to see him. We spoke for a while, each of us asking the
other some questions. I recall little of the conversation, but when I admitted to still occasionally
eating some chicken or fish (having dramatically reduced my consumption of meat over the prior
ten years), he made a motion of mock-biting a piece of his arm to tell me what his sense of eating
meat was. Life is sacred for them. Although, at the time, it did not strike me as necessarily a
stronger argument than other rational ones in favour of vegetarianism, I rather ‘naturally’ decided
soon after to stop eating meat – including fish and fowl.

Since then, being much clearer about the divine – or what Krishna represents – being that light
within ourselves, the idea of celebrating that as the Hare Krishna members do is eminently more
appealing, though not sure the members themselves would fully concur with that same
interpretation.


Later in 1997, I put my Clapham flat in the hands of an agent to let out and returned to Hawaii,
where I continued working with Chuck and Lency Spezzano. I remember closing and locking the
door to my old flat with the thought that I was going to a new birth and leaving my old life, the last
home I had lived in with my first wife and the years of depression, behind. I would never live in it
again.
Almost immediately after my arrival in Hawaii I went for a swim on my own, locking my wallet
with money and credit cards, Nikon camera, tape recorder and other key possessions in Chuck’s
pickup truck. While I was swimming, the truck was broken into and these possessions, which I had
valued highly, were all stolen. When Chuck learned of this, he said, “I hear you’ve had a visit from
Kali.” And so it had been. I took this incident to mean my old identity had been taken and I was at
the point of a new birth.

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I thought my new life was to be in Hawaii, sought out possible places to live there and was open to
work or business opportunities (despite not having a visa to be there as more than a visitor). Things,
however, were to turn out very differently.
While staying in the ‘barn’, an outbuilding at Chuck and Lency’s home on Oahu, I participated in a
short workshop run for Psychology of Vision’s international organizers. These included people
from the UK, Continental Europe, Canada, Taiwan and Japan. In one session on this workshop, I
was paired with a lady named Hiromi, the key Japanese PoV organizer for Japan. The ‘exercise’
involved each of us staring into the other’s eyes for a protracted period. At the end of the exercise,
Hiromi, who was noted for having intuitive – or even psychic – powers, told me that she had seen
an old and dying man inside me (which, in a way, was a rather good description of how I had felt
after my last years in London). Hiromi went on to tell me she saw this old man rejuvenated and
returned to life through riding a horse in green countryside. This latter part did not make sense to
me. I had only been on a horse once as a child, and then when it was led, rather than me riding it. I
did not feel any particular affinity for horses. I thanked Hiromi and, soon after, some of us departed
Oahu for the Big Island of Hawaii, where Chuck was leading an all-Japanese workshop at the
Waikaloa Village hotel and conference centre to be followed by a longer more international
Trainers’ Training workshop.
It was during the Japanese training that I met a lady, M, on that course who would become my
second wife. (Ironically, the Japanese symbols for her surname, 関口, translate as ‘gateless barrier’.
Her first name means ‘gift from Heaven’.) We had our first ‘date’ on the last night of the
workshop. It included an interpreter for the first part of it, as we neither could speak the other’s
language. M left with the group to return to Japan the next day. M and I corresponded afterwards
(she, rather than me, using a translator), and she invited me to Japan. I was pretty much broke, but
M said that, if I paid the airfare, she would take care of all my costs in Japan. It made sense to go,
as I no longer had a home to return to in London (it was let, and the rent was largely going towards
the mortgage payments and the agents’ fees).

1998
I arrived at Narita airport north of Tokyo on Valentine’s Day, 1998, where M was waiting for me.
We took the train back to her home area, in Gunma, a landlocked state in the middle of the biggest
island, Honshu, and M drove me in her car, which was a British Mini) to her apartment home in a
small town called Komagata just outside the state capital. Once I was there, I learned that M had
been born in the year of the horse (by the Chinese horoscope – my own birth year is that of the tiger
by that system), her apartment building was called ‘Pony Heights’, and both the town and state we
lived in had the word, or symbol for, ‘horse’ as part of their names. The countryside around was
covered in green fields with mountains in the background. Hiromi’s prophecy seemed to be coming
true.
I stayed in Japan for about a year and a half in total with occasional breaks abroad to renew my
visa. While there, I did some workshops for Japanese attendees in Gunma and Niigata states using
translators. The workshops which meant the most to me were ones in which I presented
headlessness to those attending, which included a series of participative experiments. Douglas’s On
Having No Head had been translated into Japanese some years before and he himself had visited
Japan and given talks and workshops at that time – some in Zen monasteries. My workshops were
modelled on those which Douglas and Richard Lang also gave in the UK and elsewhere, and
Richard was kind enough to send me some of the structure and material I used. Those attending

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seemed appreciative enough, but none seemed to be affected to the degree I had been.

With M and friend R and attendees at one of my Japanese workshops

During 1998, while I was in Japan, my father was diagnosed with cardiovascular problems and had
a quadruple bypass, from which he recovered quite well. The check on his heart had also revealed
an aortic aneurysm which was also corrected by operation once he had recovered sufficiently from
the bypass surgery.

1999
In the spring of 1999, I returned to London and put the Clapham flat up for sale. It sold in June for
about £155,000. It had been in joint names with my ex-wife and in negative equity when she left
me. I had offered it to her for nothing shortly after the separation, but she declined and eventually
transferred her share of ownership to me. I had only been able to manage the large mortgage
payments for it through its rental income. The proceeds from the sale were almost entirely used in
paying off the mortgage and clearing the debts I had built up over the last few years of either no
work or editing work on just a living allowance.
I stayed briefly with friend J back in Ruislip but then, as M was joining me, rented an apartment
over a shop on the Uxbridge Road in Rickmansworth, in London’s NW outskirts, but with
underground and rail links to central London.
It was important I find work now to make ends meet. My father had admonished me that I had to be
responsible now that I had a partner. After quite a few unsuccessful applications, I finally landed a
job as Acting Manager for a Volunteer Bureau in south London. The job was just for a year and
paid less than I was used to getting in my consulting work, but it was full-time and steady for a
year. I celebrated my 50th birthday with M and my parents, who were visiting from their home in
Florida, at a London restaurant on a Friday and then started my new job on the Monday following.
M attended English school part time and found some part-time work in a residential care home for
the elderly.

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8
2000 ─ 2009 – Rickmansworth, Dover and Japan –
Solo Explorations
2000 - 2006

Initiation into the Dao

In late January and early February 2000, we had friends visiting from Japan. Three of them had
been interpreters for me in some of my Japanese workshops, which was how we knew them. They
were all Taoists and had come together to add support for their teacher, an older Taiwanese man
called Kyo-sensei (‘sensei’ literally means teacher, but is also an honorific term denoting respect),
who was paying a visit to Taoists in the UK. M and I were invited to attend an initiation ceremony
at a Taoist temple in London. The temple turned out to be in an extension built on to a private home
in West Hendon, northwest London near the M1. There were no signs on the exterior noting the
presence of the temple and we understood attendance was by invitation. Taoists are known to keep
a low profile.

We met Kyo-sensei. He was a slim white-haired man who appeared to be in his 70s. He gave the
impression of taking very responsibly his duties of passing on the teaching as much as possible and
said it was most important for young people to be trained. Because he was of an age to have been
educated in what had been Japanese occupied Taiwan, he was fluent in Japanese. The initiation
itself was very ritualistic with chants and bowing we could follow with papers given to us. As part
of the ceremony we were given a secret phrase and were admonished not to write it down. We were
told that we would have to remember it on our deathbed, as if it were meant as a kind of password
into the next life. There were other ritualistic things to learn and/or remember. This struck me as
perhaps being a branch of Taoism focused on the mind, rather than the focus on being which I
associated more with historic Taoism. Taoism, as it is traditionally practiced by some today, seems
to have diverged from the essential teachings of its founder Lao Tzu two and a half thousand years
ago.

Residence with Taoist Temple near Mount Myogi, Gunma, Japan

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Much later, when in Japan, we attended a couple of other Taoist meetings at a temple residence
near the Myogi mountain shrine in Gunma. We were only permitted to attend because we had
undergone prior initiation at the London meeting. Kyo-sensei was at one of these and we spoke
with him. The meetings were again largely ritualistic. One of our friends was translating a Taoist
document into Japanese and rather guardedly let me read only a few pages of it. What I read
reminded me of the Upanishads in that it was telling people to go within to the self. I felt this was
the most valuable part of this teaching I had encountered so far and yet I had no impression that
those attending the meeting understood the importance of it. Needless to say, I soon forgot the
secret phrase I am supposed to recall on my deathbed.

As it turned out, the work at the Volunteer Bureau was only to be for a year. A permanent manager
was advertised for, but I found the chairman of the Bureau’s committee too temperamental and
interfering to wish to work under him any longer (despite having benefited from learning an
enormous amount about the charity sector, which was a new one for me to work full-time in, from
him). This meant I was out of a job again . . . and had now just turned 51.
I applied for different jobs focussing on the charity sector, including jobs at other volunteer
bureaux, which seemed to have more heart than the businesses I had worked for before.
I was hired as a Legal Representative for a national asylum seekers’ charity at their new Dover
office in Kent, near to Stowting village where J’s widowed father lived. After rooming in Dover for
about 5 months (following staying at J’s father’s bungalow for about 5 weeks) and weekends back
in our Rickmansworth flat, I bought a house with £5,000 deposit in Dover in November, married M
(allowing her to obtain a spousal visa) and we moved to our new home. My sister and her husband
visited us at both Rickmansworth and Dover on the week of our move.
Realizing that I could not count on my job or employer to provide for my financial future, in
2002 I bought my first rental flats with minimum down payments (£5,000 deposit on the first and
the rest was borrowed on credit cards) and, as prices rose, continued re-mortgaging properties
and buying more until 2007.
In 2004 we moved to a bungalow in the nearby village of Lydden, after deciding not to move to a
previous 2nd home we had bought for ourselves. We sold that previous 2 nd home and rented out our
1st home in Dover.
Just after my 55th birthday, in 2005, while M was on a long visit to family in Japan, I was diagnosed
with diabetes. I had experienced fluctuating vision for several months, which required changes to
my prescription glasses. One change followed another until I was tested to check if diabetes was
the cause. My doctor’s office told me I now had a progressive incurable illness and I would be on
medication for the rest of my life. I had been vegetarian for some years and thought I had been
eating reasonably carefully, but this new situation caused me to become much more conscious of
my food and lifestyle.

2007
By 2007, I had bought a total of 12 properties over 6 years, though had resold a few. At the peak
during this period I had owned 9 properties at the same time (with an estimated market value of
over £1 million, but with mortgages totalling over 80% of that). It was challenging having a full-
time job, managing the cashflow, rentals and tenants and also important to spend spare time with

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M. We also both needed to visit families in Japan and North America, usually each year.

Douglas Harding died in January, 2007, aged 97, and M and I drove up to attend his funeral
at the church in Nacton, near Ipswich, Suffolk. The church was full, but we managed to find
space at the back. The service included moving music. There was a reception at the village
hall and I was able to speak with different of the attendees, including two monks from
Amaravati. Those who had followed his headless way were invited back to his home where
his widow Catherine and Richard Lang and other senior students lead some headless group
exercises and we were able to visit and reminisce.

Douglas Harding’s headstone, at St. Martin’s, Nacton, depicting his model of the view out from
the headless mystery at the centre – the paradox of subjectivity as the aware void or emptiness
where we perceive from which simultaneously contains all objectivity. On the headstone above his
name is "The Kingdom of Heaven is within You" quoted from the gospel of Luke in the New
Testament "Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you."
Douglas’s headstone was custom-designed and expensive to make, so an appeal went to his
students to raise the funds for it.
Later this year, I attended the Headless Way gathering in Salisbury, the first without Douglas being
there in person. I enjoyed the many practice sessions and seeing friends from the one I had attended
in 1995, including Catherine Harding, Richard Lang and Anne S. Richard has been an indefatigable
worker in sharing Douglas’s work and exercises through managing the internet website, publishing
books and running workshops around the world.

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 With Richard Lang and Catherine Harding, Headless Gathering, Salisbury, 2007

Early in 2007 M returned to live in Japan so she could help family through illnesses. Over the next
few months she established herself in Japan asked me to join her there, where she would start full-
time work and support us. This sounded ideal to me.
At Easter, my closest friend J had an emergency operation at Hillingdon Hospital which
discovered he had advanced colon cancer and required the removal of his large intestine. I
stayed at his flat and visited him in hospital as often as I could, though managed to take a
break to visit my parents and have a family reunion celebration of their 60 th wedding
anniversary at Disneyworld Florida.
During J’s illness, I decided to resign from my work at the charity. In my six years there, I had
represented about 500 asylum seekers (sometimes with family members) at initial applications to
the Home Office and latterly in initial appeals at courts in London for those who had sufficient
merit. My cases had achieved well over a 50% success rate in being allowed to stay.
Now that I had stopped working, I was able to spend some days with Arkaji in Birmingham and, at

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his request, wrote a draft towards the spiritual side of his Intuitive Intelligence Programme (IIP). It
was largely focussed on helping people turn their attention around and back at themselves. Arkaji
felt what I had produced might serve just as an introduction to the spiritual side of the programme
he had in mind (rather than work as the spiritual part of the programme itself). However, to my
knowledge, it was never used. Arkaji asked me if I would help use material from his transcribed
talks to put towards this IIP work. I did take a copy of that voluminous material but, despite going
through much of it over the next few years, was unable to turn it into a product which would satisfy
the requirements for such a teaching.
I was also able to practice the Arka Dhyana method in groups and with Arka himself with a view
that I might be able to introduce it to individuals and groups in Japan. Based on Arkaji’s own
material, I prepared a summary of it for future translation into Japanese. That can be seen in an
Appendix, though a fuller version is available from Coppersun Books:
http://www.coppersunbooks.com/product/arka-dhyana-intuitive-meditation/

I decided to sell the Lydden bungalow, as the mortgage payments on it were higher than rents it
could achieve. This would reduce the portfolio to 8 modest properties; 7 of which would be rented
and one kept for our own use.
I visited M for 6 weeks in the autumn, staying at her parents’ old traditional-style home in the
foothills of the Japanese Alps, where I had most of the tatami-matted upstairs as my study.

M’s parents’ home in Asabara, Gunma, and my upstairs study

While here, I was able to reunite with good friend R, who lent me different books of his. These
included Gary Renard’s The Disappearance of the Universe and Your Immortal Reality. These
books recount teaching conversations Gary had with two visitors from another dimension, both

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of whom had had lives on earth at the time of Christ. The books came across as helpful adjuncts
to A Course in Miracles. It was especially interesting that the visitors shared with Gary a fuller
version of the Gospel of Thomas, which are comprised of sayings of Jesus (part of which were
found in the Dead Sea Scrolls).
R also loaned me Roshi Genpo Merzel’s Big Mind Big Heart – Finding Your Way book with CD.
The book shows one a process by which one can step out of limiting self-beliefs and into an
awakening of a ‘big mind and big heart’ awareness. It offers what is, in effect, an accelerated
means of awakening. Later, when back in the UK, I met a man who had attended retreats with
Merzel (and John Flatt) and who later attended a Big Mind workshop in London and was amazed to
watch a participant ‘solve’ the Mu koan quite quickly using this process. This Big Mind process is
an important discovery and teaching which, in my sense of it, has one achieve a state simply by
‘imagining’, sensing and believing one is already in that state. I could see some similarities to the
NLP ‘manifesting’ practice and also to Jesus’s admonition, ‘…whatever you ask for in prayer,
believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.’ Mark 11:24 (NIV).

Meanwhile my friend J had had some initial recovery. He was discharged into the care of a friend
at her home. However, after a couple of months there he decided to return to his own home where,
aside from visits from friends, he was on his own. His condition deteriorated, and he died in mid-
November, two weeks after my return from the visit to Japan.

Oneness Blessing
In 2007, friend R in Japan writes me about Oneness Blessing and, because he knew I had known
Arjuna Ardagh, tells me about the latter’s book on it, Awakening into Oneness – The Power of
Blessing in the Evolution of Consciousness. I bought and read the book, which told quite an
incredible story about a couple running a school for children in India. The students received
mystical experiences and blessings and they, in turn, were able to pass on blessings, also called
deekshas, to others.
The couple, now known as Sri Bhagavan and Amma, together with select of their students bought
land in southern Andhra Pradesh state where they built a huge Oneness Temple and established the
main base of their Oneness University. The purpose of this university is to help people awaken,
become enlightened and return to the state of oneness. Subsequently they have spread out through
an international program.
I located oneness blessing givers in my area and in London and attended several of these blessing
meetings, and when I went to Japan I did one there as well. Most of a meeting was in meditative
silence with background Moola Mantra music and chants and a 15-minute guided meditation
helping put attention on our hearts. There was a mini-deeksha/blessing near the beginning,
involving a short placing of hands on the top of each participant’s head from one of the Blessers
and, later, full Deeksha blessings – with both of their hands placed on top of our heads for a longer
period and then at the sides of the head/temple - from each of them separately, all during closed-
eyed meditation. I did experience a reconnection with a ‘love energy’ I feel when meditating –
especially in a group – which often lasted some days, together with improved well-being.
Later, I attended a workshop on this theme run by Arjuna and the blessing givers in London. I
noted that Arjuna had definitely matured, honed his style and acquired great familiarity with many
techniques (some from his own inspiration, which I have never encountered before) – largely for

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helping people step out of their minds and be present with who is experiencing now …and to
distinguish what is an ok use of the tool the mind is without letting it continue to run us.
After this, I did the weekend Oneness Blessing training which was then required if one wished to
attend the course at the Oneness University (the latter costing about US$5,000 at that time), but
never went on to do the training in India. I kept a journal of my experiences with the oneness
blessing and note from it that I received a total of 55 blessings.
The movement generated some controversy through how much was being charged for people to
take the course training for being able to give the blessing themselves and also because there had
been an initial impression that everyone who received the blessings would become enlightened.
There was also disagreement over whether this movement had a monopoly of this kind of deeksha,
or blessing.
I asked an Indian spiritual teacher I knew if he knew about Bhagavan and Amma and Oneness
University. He referred to Bhagavan as Kalki Bhagavan and knew of them and where they are
based. He said that he had been asked to go there to speak to the students, but had declined, saying
he had his own purpose to follow. He had been told that all other spiritual teachers who had been
invited, had gone and that he was the exception to this. He clearly did not want to be critical of
them but did comment on their being known to be offering enlightenment for money (an issue
addressed in Arjuna’s book). He said it could be possible that any beneficial spiritual effect might
actually come from the land they are on having been associated with powerful spiritual beings in
the past – and that such things are not unknown in India. I also asked him if he knew about the
buildings there, including the big temple for 8,000 people to be in at the same time. He said he did,
calling it ‘the building with the big room with no pillars’. He said it would be easier to meet in an
open field where 80,000 could gather and agreed with me that it is also preferable to be open to the
sky and touching the ground – and I remembered Jesus having his meetings and talks to gatherings
in such open spaces. He said there was nothing wrong in going to the Oneness University if one
wanted to spend money on a spiritual holiday. He agreed with me that such teachers and places do
not have a monopoly on Divine energy and blessings and also added that teachers who charge for
spiritual work often end up suffering depression.

2008
In January-February 2008 I visited my parents in Florida and attended a weekend reunion in Miami
of the school I had been to in Valencia, Venezuela (and had left 43 years prior at the age of 14!). It
had been my favourite school and place to live, perhaps until going to Mexico. Seeing friends one
had known intimately after such a long separation made me aware that, although we change
psychologically and physically over time, much of our essential selves remains the same. After I
stopped overnight with friend K at her home in Pompano Beach.
In May, the sale of the bungalow in Lydden went through and I moved into the previously let
studio flat to use as a UK base while expecting to be in Japan most of the time.
On 5 July, a friend J.H. encouraged me to join him at a meeting and talk at the Quaker Meeting
House in Hampstead given by Tony Parsons, a speaker and author on nonduality. Tony’s website
and best-known work are both called The Open Secret. The meeting was an enjoyable one and
Tony brought his message home with illustrations from his own life. He noted that no matter how
awake he was, if his wife, a passionate gardener, wanted him to do some work in the garden, that
became his top priority. I spoke with him during the break, commenting on the parallels between

145
his message and that of Douglas Harding. He knew of Douglas but seemed to feel there were too
many exercises involved in the Headless Way – probably from the number which are presented in
the website. He did not seem to appreciate that different exercises are meant to speak to different
people and that Douglas himself said the point of spiritual work is to get beyond it. Being a slave to
one’s practice is like living in the lobby of a great mansion, when one has the whole mansion at
one’s disposal.
Tony kindly signed a copy of his latest book, Nothing Being Everything (Dialogues of European
Talks 2006/7), to me with the words, ‘To [ . . . ], who is love, Tony’. The message in the book is
the realization that emptiness is fullness. Tony also told me that, once one has the ‘open secret’,
books like this are no longer necessary.
And, finally, in August, I went to Japan to rejoin M at an apartment she had rented in Ogo,
Maebashi, Gunma, where I stayed for 11 months. We helped her daughter and son with purchases
of their new cars and her daughter began a 2-year course in hairdressing.

Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta
“Renunciation is always in the mind, not in going to forests or solitary places or giving up
one’s duties. The main thing is to see that the mind does not turn outward but inward. It
does not really rest with a man whether he goes to this place or that or whether he gives up
his duties or not. All that happens according to destiny. ... The only freedom you have is to
turn your mind inward and renounce activities there.” - Ramana, Padamalai
“To be free in the world you must be free of the world. Otherwise your past decides for you
and your future. Between what had happened and what must happen you are caught. Call it
destiny or karma, but never—freedom. First return to your true being and then act from the
heart of love.” - Nisargadatta
Friend R in Japan has been a long-time student of the teachings of Ramana Maharshi and
Nisargadatta. He had visited Ramana’s ashram at Arunachala several times, meeting Lakshmana
Swami, Annamalai Swami and David Godman. Through R, I intensified further studies of the talks
and writings of these two teachers.
While I had, rather indiscriminately, read almost any of the writings and transcribed talks of these
two, it seemed difficult to find specific instructions for one’s practice. I learned that much of what
was reported of their talks was actually intended to speak to the level of the audience they were
with. Talks with different audiences accordingly had different messages, with some messages
seemingly conflicting with others. I therefore focused on what they had said to their inner circle of
more advanced followers.
Nisargadatta’s I Am That seemed a good source of his message, probably partly because Maurice
Frydmann had helped edit and produce it.
Nisargadatta’s instructions in I Am That are: For meditation you should sit with identification
with the knowledge "I am" only and have confirmed to yourself that you are not the body. 
You must dwell only in that knowledge "I am"--not merely the words "I am."  The design of
your body does not signify your identification.  And also, the name which is given to you or to
the body is not your correct identity.  The name which is imposed on you, or the name which
you have heard about you--you have accepted that name as yourself.  Similarly, since you
have seen your body, you think you are the body.  So you have to give up both these

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identities.  And the indwelling knowledge that you are, without words, that itself you are.  In
that identity, you must stabilize yourself.  And then, whatever doubts you have, will be
cleared by that very knowledge, and everything will be opened up in you. 
My teacher told me to hold on to the sense 'I am' tenaciously and not to swerve from it even
for a moment. I did my best to follow his advice and in a comparatively short time I realized
within myself the truth of his teaching. All I did was to remember his teaching, his face, his
words constantly. This brought an end to the mind; in the stillness of the mind I saw myself as
I am -- unbound.

I simply followed (my teacher's) instruction which was to focus the mind on pure being 'I
am', and stay in it. I used to sit for hours together, with nothing but the 'I am' in my mind
and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all
disappeared -- myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only peace remained
and unfathomable silence.

My Guru ordered me to attend to the sense 'I am' and to give attention to nothing else. I just
obeyed. I did not follow any particular course of breathing, or meditation, or study of
scriptures. Whatever happened, I would turn away my attention from it and remain with the
sense 'I am', it may look too simple, even crude. My only reason for doing it was that my
Guru told me so. Yet it worked! Obedience is a powerful solvent of all desires and fears.

Later I would also appreciate Nisargadatta’s teacher’s, Siddharameshwar’s, book, Master Key to
Self-Realization. There are five levels spoken of it in it: the physical gross body, the subtle
causal body, causal body, great causal body (turya), and brahman. He uses the term
‘witness’ in level four, the great causal body. The attributes of this witness include being
with subjectivity:  
-       ‘Self-knowledge – the knowledge of the Self’,
-       ‘This Knowledge is self-sufficient – the eye can see all objects, but no object can see
the eye. This knowledge witnesses everything other than itself. …but when we look at the
objective, we forget the subjective’,
-       ‘Inward renunciation [surrender] leading to self-knowledge’,
-       ‘Consciousness without body and without conditions’.
 The highest level, brahman, might be equated with the realization of I and, in fact, ‘I’ is
used to portray this level. Some of its other attributes are:
-       ‘Ultimate truth (Paramartha)’,
-       ‘Siddha’,
-       ‘Supreme knowledge’,
-       ‘Resides in thoughtless reality’,
-       ‘Witnessing knowledge left behind and knowledge sees only itself (which is Supreme
Knowledge or Absolute)’,
-       ‘True nature’,

147
-       ‘The nature of pure knowledge and bliss’,
-       ‘No remembrance or forgetfulness (whatever is remembered or forgotten is not ‘I’)’,
-       ‘Just being one’s self (= self-illumination)’.

In the highest level (level 5) Siddharameshwar speaks of, that of Brahman, he refers to it
as 'I', where ‘Witnessing knowledge left behind and knowledge sees only itself . . .'
A few other relevant quotes:
 By gaining knowledge all the way from the Gross [level 1] to the Great-Causal
Body [level 4], one has to bring this gift of Self-Knowledge back to the lower body
in the same way.
 The Vedas and scriptures talk up to the point of the Great-Causal body [level 4].
 A person cannot be called a Siddha even if he gains self-knowledge by becoming
identified with the Great-Causal Body (SatChitAnanda) [level 4] and has realized
that state.
 Observation of oneself cannot be called 'witnessing'. The seer is called a witness
when he forgets the self and sees something objective or different from the self.
 Whatever is seen is unreal. Only the seer is real.
 There is definite duality when experience takes place. Where there is only One,
there is no experience. For experience to take pace, so other object is necessary.
Brahman [level 5] is non-dual.
 What can be noticed is Maya, and whatever cannot be seen is 'Brahman'. . . . To
separately look at one's own nature is Space, and when the looking is abandoned,
it is 'Pure Knowledge'.
 When all phenomena is destroyed or annihilated, whatever remains is your 'Real
Nature'.
 Where and how can He [Brahman, 'I', level 5] find Himself? His exact position is
such that He is the one who knows everyone but is not known by anyone. . . . How
amazing this is! How can He, the one who is known only after 'the capacity of
knowing' has been transcended, be known? Unless one becomes steady within
oneself, leaving behind having the desire to know, one cannot have the Knowledge
of Brahman.
 When a man has full conviction that the true 'I' is the one who is the innermost
dweller of all beings, this itself becomes the great accomplishment, or Siddhi.
 Meditate that 'I am that subtle self-luminant Brahman, which is of the nature of con-
sciousness, the state of knowing itself.' . . . it is the Self who is God (Atmadev) who
is the seer behind the eye, the listener in the ear, the smeller in the nose, and the
taster in the tongue.
 For any devotee whomever he may be that worships any God, that worship is the
worship of this 'One Inner-Self'. The obeisance made to any other gods go to this
One God (Our Own Self Nature) alone.

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  The following of any religion other than that of the Self is what is called sin. How
can the Supreme Self, which you are, follow the religion of 'others'?

Siddharameshwar does not give much in the way of practice advice.

...
In the case of Ramana Maharshi, his sayings as recorded by Muruganar in his Guru Vachaka
Kovai (Garland of Guru’s Sayings), later re-edited and published in Padamalai by David
Godman, and Sadhu Om’s The Path of Sri Ramana Maharshi – Part 1, are very distilled and
valuable material.
A conversation with Ramana Maharshi:
THE REALITY OF THE WORLD:
"How can the mind which has itself created the world accept it as unreal?"
D: I cannot say it is all clear to me. Is the world that is seen, felt and sensed by us in so many ways
something like a dream, an illusion?
M: There is no alternative for you but to accept the world as unreal if you are seeking the Truth
and the Truth alone.
D: Why so?
M: For the simple reason that unless you give up the idea that the world is real, your mind will
always be after it. If you take the appearance to be real you will never know the Real itself,
although it is the Real alone that exists. This point is illustrated by the analogy of the ‘snake in the
rope’. As long as you see the snake you cannot see the rope as such. The non-existent snake
becomes real to you, while the real rope seems wholly non-existent as such.
D: It is easy to accept tentatively that the world is not ultimately real, but it is hard to have the
conviction that it is really unreal.
M: Even so is your dream world real while you are dreaming. So long as the dream lasts,
everything you see, feel, etc., therein is real.
D: Is then the world nothing better than a dream?
M: What is wrong with the sense of reality you have while you are dreaming? You may be
dreaming of something quite impossible, for instance, of having a happy chat with a dead person.
Just for a moment, you may doubt in the dream saying to yourself, ‘Was he not dead?’, but
somehow your mind reconciles itself to the dream vision, and the person is as good as alive for the
purposes of the dream.
In other words, the dream as a dream does not permit you to doubt its reality. Even so, you are
unable to doubt the reality of the world of your wakeful experience. How can the mind which has
itself created the world accept it as unreal?
That is the significance of the comparison made between the world of wakeful experience and the
dream world. Both are but creations of the mind and so long as the mind is engrossed in either, it
finds itself unable to deny the reality of the dream world while dreaming and of the waking world

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while awake.
If, on the contrary, you withdraw your mind completely from the world and turn it within and abide
thus, that is, if you keep awake always to the Self, which is the substratum of all experience, you
will find the world, of which alone you are now aware, just as unreal as the world in which you
lived in your dream.
- Maharshi’s Gospel


Awareness Watching Awareness – Michael Langford
Of the many valuable and appreciated books my friend R loaned me, there was an unusual one
called The Most Direct and Rapid Means to Eternal Bliss. It was written with each of its
statements numbered and intended to be read (and re-read) as a teaching book. There was no
author’s name in the book, but through research I found the writer was Michael Langford.
Immediately on commencing it, I was aware of it having a very important message for me. It
speaks of how to identify the ego, which it calls ‘the imposter’, and goes on to describe seven
methods of reaching eternal bliss. The first, and key one for me, is called ‘awareness watching
awareness’. As soon as I saw this, I knew this added a BIG step forward in my practice.

The Awareness Watching Awareness Method

Practice Instructions
Awareness is you, your awareness, just your awareness that is looking through your eyes right
now.
The words awareness, consciousness, attention, observation, watching, looking, seeing and
concentrating all have the same meaning in the practice instructions.
Awareness is not thought.
Awareness is that which is aware of thought.
...
Shut your eyes. Notice your awareness. Observe that awareness. Turn your attention away from
the world, body and thought and towards awareness watching awareness. If you notice you are
thinking, turn your attention away from thought and back towards awareness watching awareness.
Look at the room. Notice your awareness looking through your eyes. Shut your eyes and turn your
attention around to look at itself. Attention attending to attention. Remain with that. Don't move
from that. Don't attend to anything else. Don't attend to thought. Attend only to attention itself.
- Michael Langford

I HAD awoken to awareness, a state outside of the mind and thought, as my realer identity. I could
be that awareness and live from it for awareness of thoughts and perceptions. But what I had been
missing was turning the awareness back on itself, rather than looking outwards with it. Staying with
the awareness is abidance in oneself and truer meditation than watching the mind or breath.

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Michael recommends staying with the awareness, to the exclusion of everything else, for several
hours every day until you find yourself established in that eternal bliss.
The problem for virtually all people is that they have NOT awoken to an awareness before their
mind. This means they will read this book with their mind and will not understand what awareness
is, never mind how to turn awareness back on itself.
In a separate writing, How I Discovered the Awareness Watching Awareness Practice, Michael
spoke of working for many years with Ramana Maharshi instructions to ask oneself ‘Who am I?’,
but without success. He then explored what this question could really mean in the way that Ramana
intended it. He determined that I am must be a feeling and that this feeling was actually his own
present awareness.
He then went on to show how he found in numerous sayings of Ramana to his key followers which
clearly says the same thing.
‘The only true and full awareness is awareness of awareness. Till awareness is awareness
of itself, it knows no peace at all.’ (Garland of Guru’s Sayings No. 418, Muruganar)
‘Is it not because you are yourself awareness, that you now perceive this universe? If you
observe awareness steadily, this awareness itself as Guru will reveal the Truth.’ (Garland
of Guru’s Sayings No. 432, Muruganar)
Michael went on to confirm his conclusions with Sri Ganesan, the then head of Sri Ramana’s
Ashram.
My practice was deeply affected through Michael Langford’s Awareness Watching Awareness
practice and further focused study of the key sayings of Ramana Maharshi to his closest followers.

I spent July to December 2009 back in the UK with a visit to my parents in Florida in October.

2009 – Rupert Spira
Rupert describes his awakening experience as occurring when he was with his teacher, Francis
Lucille. He heard a dog barking in another place in the valley where they were, and he noted this as
being separate to him. Francis asked him to place his hands on the carpet and tell him where the
feeling was. Rupert immediately became aware that it was in his awareness, which is also what he
is. It was equally true for him that all perceptions occur in that same awareness. This struck me as
being the experiential answer to The Gateless Barrier’s Case 46 – that Rupert had stepped in the
10 directions from the 100-foot pole.
In November 2009, I attended one of Rupert Spira’s meetings at the Study Society’s Colet House
on Talgarth Road in London. I arrived early and was able to have a good long chat with Rupert
prior to the meeting. He is very pleasant and quite clear and focussed on the experience of what is
really happening now, rather than the hypnotised illusion virtually all people walk around
believing. He admits it is fine to use one’s mind and concepts such as time for doing one’s work
and daily activities but has found – with practice and continually testing what the real experience is
– to increasingly come from being the ‘knowing presence’ - the aware colourless, formless subject
that cannot be found in any location. He referred to the rapidity of Ramana Maharshi’s early death
fear and experience of finding this, saying that others are not usually so quick in its discovery.

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He also has found that the substance of our physical bodies and all of the world in our experience is
made out of the same knowing presence or conscious awareness. Hence, it is both the emptiness
and the fullness. Nothing in our experience is separate from that which is aware of them (the
waking dream is analogous to a sleeping dream). When we identify with being this awareness,
there is an end to identifying with being a physical body and personality. We can be in
relationships without coming from need or fear. There can really be love for and empathy with
others, whom we experience as no longer separate from us. True friendship can be discovered for
the first time. Having this as a more or less continuous living experience does not mean that there is
no more suffering or that challenging and problem situations do not arise, but it does mean that we
no longer need to be lost in them and feel helpless or victimised. Rather, it allows us to deal with
them with intelligence and love. We are much more effective in living our lives. (As an example,
he noted that on the previous weekend he had seen his ex-wife and 10-year old son, who is with her
in Oxford, and that he had to deal with his son who was extremely troubled, angry and upset.)
He says that every night we gladly surrender our personality ‘selves’ to sleep and are regenerated
by it. Why not just do it all the time - while still behaving appropriately (playing the ‘we are
somebody’ game) in our daily lives and relationships?
I asked him about awareness watching awareness, to the exclusion of watching/witnessing objects.
He had heard about Michael Langford’s book, but not read it. As far as I understand his response,
since the knowing presence is inseparable from its objective experiences, one cannot divorce
subject from object. Being the witness is only a step towards being everything. (I did not feel this
fully answered my question, or explained what very evolved masters have described, but it was
helpful in understanding his perspective.) He noted to me privately that some try to be the witness
only as a means of escaping from/distancing themselves from the world’s reality, and that this can
be really more of a resistance than an enlightenment. I noted Ramana’s reported two
enlightenments - the first took him away from the world, while the 2nd brought him more back into
it and into interaction with others.
However, when I asked him about the difference between consciousness and awareness, he said
they were the same thing. My own sense (and concurring with what Arkaji has told me) is that they
are different, in that one is more source and the other the activity of that source. It has occurred to
me since that one’s degree of awakening will definitely affect one’s understanding and views on
these terms. Rupert’s teachings are known as being of the non-dual sort, which includes a broad
range of teachers who have themselves experienced a broad range of degrees of awakening.
I was very glad to have attended the evening and feel more deeply grounded from it – also more
prepared to offer similar meetings in Japan or elsewhere. It was much like the Douglas Harding
workshops, but I feel clearer about what Rupert means by the unity experience. He signed a copy of
his book, The Transparency of Things – Contemplating the Nature of Experience, to me. I told
Rupert I had read it in Japan and invited him to visit us there. He told me he had done a touring
exhibition of his pottery in Japan in the past and loved Japan’s traditional crafts and culture.

I returned to Japan in December of 2009, so I would be able to see my father-in-law, who was in
hospital with incurable multiple myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow. M had quit her job to
nurse him. Almost immediately after my arrival, we moved from our apartment in Ogo to a low
costing older pre-fab house in Omama, in the same compound where one of her brothers lived and
nearer M’s family and the hospital her father was in.

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 Our pre-fab home, Watanabe Jutaku, in Omama, where I
re-experienced the primordial – so familiar to me during infancy

2010
In January 2010, M’s sister-in-law, who had been in hospital for several years with a lupus-type
condition died, and I experienced my first elaborate Japanese funeral.

Aspects of a Japanese funeral – focal point for the Buddhist ceremony at the Memorial Hall and
an elaborate hearse
M’s father died just 3 weeks later, and we went through the ritual again. Despite his death affecting
her very strongly, M found new work. Her mother, now unable to manage on her own, was moved
into a nursing home.

Robert Monroe and the Binaural Beat
From my very early days of exploration I had been interested in out of the body experiences. I had
bought and read some of the early classic books on it, including Sylvan Muldoon and Hereward
Carrington’s The Projection of the Astral Body (1929), but any experimentation I tried had not
been successful in terms of being able to do it consciously. (I had been similarly fascinated with
past life exploration, especially after reading Morey Bernstein’s The Search for Bridey Murphy
and had had more success in experimenting with hypnotic regression with my first wife – though
only managed to take her to re-experiencing infancy of her present life, not to past lives.)
The book which had impressed me most on the astral projection topic was Robert Monroe’s
Journeys Out of the Body (1971), which I had read soon after its publication. He had seemingly

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had spontaneous success in such experiences, which came about through his experiments using
audio material to assist sleep learning. It was only while in Japan in 2008-9, that I learned Monroe
had written two sequels, Far Journeys (1985) and Ultimate Journey (1994), which described his
further adventures and discoveries on these journeys. Perhaps more importantly, he founded what
became The Monroe Institute to help others use audio material for various beneficial purposes.
In addition to offering retreat courses for people, Monroe’s organizations also produce audio
material people can buy to use at home. He coined the term ‘Hemi-Sync’ to describe this material,
because it produces audio patterns with binaural beats which one listens to with both ears. These
binaural beats synchronize the brainwaves of the two hemispheres of the brain. This brain
synchronization has been likened to rapidly reaching deep levels of meditation that would
otherwise require years of practice.
I had first come across brainwaves when studying Jose Silva’s work and then reviewed that again
when working with Shaun on a chapter on that subject. Our normal waking consciousness is at a
frequency called the beta brainwave. The alpha one is a more relaxed one. Deeper ones are theta
and delta brainwaves, the latter of which is normally associated with the deep dreamless sleep state.
Long practice of meditation is normally required to be able to relax one’s brainwaves to the lower
frequencies, but the Monroe Institute Hemi-Sync products can often help one reach such relaxed
states very quickly. In fact, there was a published report in which the head of a Zen Buddhist centre
said that the Hemi-Sync material could take one to the state he had only achieved after 30 years of
sitting.
I managed to obtain a copy of the full course of the Monroe Institute’s Gateway Experience (6
Waves), as well as the Going Home series, which had been developed together with Elizabeth
Kubler-Ross for use with dying patients and their families. I listened to most of these many times.
While they did help me enter a deeper relaxed state, there was never any conscious sense of astral
travel. There were, however, many times that I fell asleep while listening to them and very possible
some of the dreams I then had may have been such out of body experiences.
There were some occasions when listening to this material, which I always did lying down with my
eyes closed, that I would become aware of ‘physically’ seeing patterns, such as one finds on a
wallpaper – despite my eyes being closed. In these experiences, there was a feeling that I was
looking and seeing from a different place – and to a different place/dimension - than when I used
my physical eyes in the world.
Similar binaural beat audio material has become available through many others, some of which I
have tried, including Holosync. In some of these cases, there are claims the material takes one to
even deeper levels of frequency than theta and delta, such as the gamma one.
I discovered there were also numerous new books about astral travelling, some by individuals
whom had benefited from the work of the Monroe Institute. I bought a few of these and found some
of the descriptions and interpretations of the experiences helpful – though the how-to ones did not
make much difference to me.
I realized the ‘problem’ with astral travelling, as described by the writers of these books and,
indeed, almost certainly by Monroe himself, is that it is the who one thinks one is (one’s
collective personality) who is doing such travelling, NOT who one is in one’s essential
subjectivity. If who we think we are is not much more than a hypnotized collective self living a
waking dream, it would just be the same relatively unconscious self doing the astral travelling.
While this insight took the ‘shine’ off the idea of such out of body experiences for me, the audio

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material is still helpful for reaching deeper states of relaxation.
There may be very evolved individuals who do such ‘travels’ as their subjective selves, but they
would be extremely rare. A possible example might be of the ‘travelling’ during sleep that
Yogananda describes doing when training with his teacher, Sri Yukteswar, in his Autobiography of
a Yogi.
However, truly being with one’s subjectivity already implies being out of this material dimension
and with no motivation for any travels in what is objective, whatever the dimension.


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9
2010 – 2013 – Japan and Dover - Glimpse of the Primordial
2010 January 16
This morning, during a waking/dozing period, following taking a Melatonin tablet to help sleeping
at 1 this am, had an other-dimensional instant of beingness which was not related to ‘me’, but an
expanded live vibrating pulsating and not limited awareness - being both here and out there with no
separation between the two ... and except for the awareness base there was nothing in it to do with
anything I have ever personally, or even humanly, identified myself as being.
This being/awareness seemed to be an alive and extremely powerful vibrant mass, with an
‘image’ much like a large tangle of spaghetti, which, although darkish in colour was glowing
throughout and giving out a yellow light (the word ‘image’ is used in the sense of an image or
impression which comes to one in a dream – not a sense of any physical form whatsoever). I
knew it to be immensely powerful, yet entirely benevolent, and the beingness of which was one
of happiness, fascination and wonder simply with itself. It was also clear that nothing else
existed outside of it and yet, although alone, it was not lonely. It was realer than what we term
our waking material world, and so primordial and powerful that it seemed ‘before the world’
and perhaps not inconceivably what all that is material emerges from.
Importantly, this was not a new experience, but one which I had forgotten, and at the time of the
experience I knew it as a very familiar state, or ‘place’ I have been to many times through my life
– especially from infancy while entering or coming out of the deep sleep state, but one I have not
remembered consciously afterwards until this time (unless I had remembered it as an infant and
very young child and have since forgotten that). It is a bit similar to the state that can happen in that
instant when one surrenders to sleep and all the defences are let down - though usually we have lost
conscious awareness when this point comes, so there is usually no memory of it. However, it may
also occur during the transition from sleep to waking.
There seemed an other-worldly almost magical power about it (from a person perspective), as if a
sleeping giant, who had forgotten who s/he really is and of his/her natural aliveness - not identified
with any physical body presence and not limited to just here, but here and out there - a no limited
‘everywhere’ about it, though there was nothing it identified with as being part of its ‘out there’ ...
it was just not limited to here - it is a beingness with no here or there - an expanded and alive
unlimited ‘here’ ... AND SO alive and pulsating/vibrating. There was also nothing else ‘out there’,
just this here expanded presence to which no limit was evident.
(added later: The ‘unlimited here’ had nothing to do with this world as we know it, either in an
outer or inner sense – it was just alive and not limited to any point in space awareness ... but aware
it WAS/is!)
The above experience was one of only about 1 to 2 seconds, which I was conscious of and
then either fell back to sleep or next came back into my usual conscious mind. My sense is
that the seeming brevity of the experience was not because it was short, but because the
waking mind has only brief memory connections to the dreaming mind …and presumably
even briefer ones (if ever!) to the deeper dreamless sleep mind. What has become clearer is
that that very deep mind is always present and active, but not accessible when we are in
waking or dreaming states.

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For me, re-experiencing this – even so briefly – is even more profound than the Douglas Harding
awakening experience and the experiences spoken of in many other advaita teachings I normally
read about. While it encompasses their messages as part of it, my sense of it being primordial
means it is a FAR higher sense of living and being it.
[Added later: When I say this was a familiar experience, it is one I remembered – while in the
state - having had for very brief conscious periods off and on through my life, from earliest
infancy – and possibly from even before birth in the womb. I have an intuition that this is the
‘magic’ state infants in a womb may well be in constantly, and perhaps which they re-enter in sleep
after birth for the first while, which might explain the profusion of their joyous smiles – for many –
on awakening ... or perhaps they are smiling because they are still based in that state when awake.)
How could I have forgotten such an important state – even though it seems to be of a dimension not
of this world?
NOTE: Further thoughts on this experience and some excerpts from others which seem to
allude to similar experiences are included as an appendix,

I spent a further 11 months in Japan, until November 2010.
Both Christmas 2010 and 2010-11 New Year were spent with my parents in Florida. My sister and
brother with his wife visited separately – the latter couple staying separately in a rented apartment
there for Christmas.

2011
After New Year, I went on to Ontario for 10ish days staying at aunt and uncle’s company
apartment, to clear out long-stored letters and papers, so I would not have to continue paying the
storage costs. These were mostly my archives from my earliest days until I had moved to England
in 1980, so it was roughly covering the first 30 years of my life, the most recent of which was now
30 years old. The culling and sorting brought up a lot of emotions and memories. A fair number of
the correspondents were now deceased and several others I had long lost contact with. I kept my
correspondence with my parents (their letters and copies of mine to them), as it is a continuous and
reasonably detailed record of our lives and activities through the years. I discarded almost all the
rest.
Despite being in the hands of an agent, our rental business was not doing too well. A couple of the
properties had acquired difficult tenants who did not look after the properties and were seriously in
arrears in rental payments. My state pension would not start for another four years, so this
jeopardised a significant part of the income we depended on. M’s salary from her job in Japan was
entirely used up for day to day living there.
As a result of the above, I stayed the whole year in the Dover studio flat dealing with problem
tenants (including taking steps to commence court proceedings, if necessary, which my letting
agent would not do) and refurbishing the properties when they were finally vacated.



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A Year of Watching the Transition between Sleep and Waking
However, there was a major silver lining to staying on my own for this period. Aside from dealing
with the minimum required externally, I lived what was virtually a monastic retreat type lifestyle,
only going out when necessary, largely in a non-doing mode, staying with the subjectivity of
awareness and watching consciousness – especially as it transited from sleep to waking states. I
maintained states of fairly conscious drowsiness as much as possible to make it possible to fall
asleep and wake again a number of times each day. I also ‘worked’ extensively with the Monroe
Institute’s binaural beat audio material. This resulted in some interesting states, though not any
conscious astral travel.
My key motivation in staying as aware as possible in transiting between sleep and waking states,
especially moving from the deep sleep to waking, but only just to the awareness state rather than to
full (beta level) awakening, was in an attempt to consciously experience the primordial again. For
me, this also tied in with the Indian teachings on turiya, the fourth state. They speak of human’s
normal life being made up of just three states, waking, dreaming sleep and deep sleep and note that
there is a fourth spiritually awakened state, which is equated to being conscious during the deep
sleep state. Such a state would, of course, be outside of our normal mind and personality.
I kept a dream journal for some of this time, partly to see how lucid the dreams were (to what
extent I could influence the directions they took) and partly to see it any turned out to be prophetic
(a la J. W. Dunne’s An Experiment with Time).
I had reasonable success in influencing dreams – meaning I retained some level of aware
consciousness during them. I noted this: One sign to me that what I am experiencing are lucid
dreams is that I am able to make decisions in them to influence in at least a limited way the
direction of the dream. And yet, I do not consciously choose the dream setting, subject or
participants. Also, my influence on the dream seems to be able to avert major problems in the
dream, but my control – especially of my physical self in the dream – is often strangely limited,
as if my body is sluggish and unable to follow my somewhat conscious commands. (04/18/2011)
I did not note any of them being prophetic but did not keep the experiment up very long.
While this period of sleep-to-waking transition practice did not result in a further conscious
experience of the primordial, it was only much later that I came to appreciate how valuable this
practice had actually been for me. Through it I reached quite profound states of surrender and
deepening and further stabilizing the state of awareness outside of the mind that was already an
important breakthrough I’d had.

.

2012
After a short visit with my parents in January, I finally returned to Japan in February.
I had just been started on low (20mg) daily dosage of simvastatin more as a precaution for diabetics
to keep cholesterol at good levels. This medicine had various side-effects, including fatigue,
peripheral neuropathy and, worst of all, profound depression. I felt a hugely negative sense of
meaninglessness of this world and all that happens in it (with the exception of love – and found the

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best relief when in nature and by a flowing river – which can be felt as expressions of natural love).
The chemical depression was so powerful it seemed difficult, if not impossible, to manage to
continue living. I actually thought I would need to find some means of being looked after by M in
almost a nursing type environment. There was some relief from being in nature, especially among
trees and other plants by the running water of a river. Later, after having stopped the statins, and
once the depression had largely lifted, it was pretty clear that the meaninglessness of all but love
had not changed, though is just not felt with such powerful negativity.
Also, in 2012, it became shockingly clear that our true essential self forgets itself in our
mind/ego/intellect/personality. I had an image of advertisements, television, shop displays and
people and things we are drawn to being like fishing hooks catching us and pulling us away from
ourselves towards them. We are constantly being bombarded with temptations from around us
triggering desires (and aversions/worries) which continually draw us out from who we really are to
be lost in/hypnotised by our minds being entranced by these externals. These may be equated to the
Hindu concept of vasanas (unconscious tendencies) which cause our rebirth.
I had some of my deepest insights during this period of profound depression. One was that the
meaning we as humans usually give to how we live our lives and what we may accomplish in the
world really means nothing. It seemed to me that only the love we share has any meaning, as well
as doing whatever we can to increase our relationship with the divine. I had the feeling that life
might just barely be liveable when spent in prayer and meditation in a monk’s cell or a hermitage in
nature.
In mid-March, I saw the Japanese GP, and he agreed that I stop the statins, but keep a careful check
on my cholesterol levels. All of the symptoms noted above almost immediately disappeared. The
insights did not, however, lose their meaning. I could see they were entirely valid but now without
the depression the painfulness of them being part of the picture.

My father was hospitalized in April with congestive heart failure due to a leaky heart valve. I spoke
to him by phone in hospital in what I felt could be our last conversation. I was able to share how
much I loved and appreciated him and I thanked him for having always stood by me during my
toughest times.
He was, however, later able to return home with new medications, though it was recommended he
not have surgery because of his age and frailty. His energy and ability to be out and about was
significantly curtailed.

June, 2012 – Notes re consciousness-being-awakening - Dhammajiva talks
A Mind Revealed (a short free book of some talks in Holybooks website) contains a collection for
discourses of the Dutiyadvayam sutta given by Dhammajiva to the monks and yogis at the
Meetirigala Nissarana Vanaya Buddhist monastery in Sri Lanka.
It notes that
- consciousness is the discerning ability of the mind, enabling us to identify separate sense objects,
and is a primordial form of our being giving us aliveness even in absence of thought and feelings.
The other skandhas are body, feeling perception, mind. All are impermanent.

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- the 6 consciousnesses
eye consciousness
ear consciousness
body (sensation) consciousness
nose consciousness
taste consciousness
mind consciousness
- (senses and mind ... and feeling/emotions?) are happening with continual shifts from one to
another without separation between the object and consciousnessacton that they are all projections
from
- The operation of our mind is far more intriguing than what we see. The attributes we see are
projections of our mind. We project the qualities our mind attributes to the objects experienced.
This is the reality of projection and external perception. A beautiful mind projects qualities of
beauty and vice-versa.
- an enlightened mind observes the external object as separate from the sense faculty receiving it
and knows the operation of sensory consciousness as seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, etc. and is
aware of impermanence, suffering and non-self underpinning them. So its reaction is equanimity –
choiceless awareness and detachment.
- an unenlightened mind indulges in sensory consciousnesses – the experiences created by the
operation of consciousness – attaching to them or rejecting them. Consciousness connects subject
and object.
- in practice we note ‘object, object’ when we see something (or ‘thought, thought’ when we think
something), rather than project qualities to it. More advanced is to note ‘seeing, seeing’ (or
‘thinking’ thinking’), so that we are aware it is a process, leaving less opportunity for the
interaction between perception and memory, which would reinforce our identity with identifying
with the object.
- there is the awareness of shifts between senses, such as from body to eye. Later it is just
awareness as ‘knowing’ – one remains in a state of knowing about sense impressions without
having to note continual shifts from one to another. You are at home in an impartial state of
knowing, rather than shifting from a being in one and then in another sensory state.
- consciousness is dependent on impermanent objects and so is also impermanent. Contact activates
the sense consciousness.
- consciousness connects us to our world and creates the world in which we operate. When we
impart a self and self-view to what we experience, we create a conceptual reality around our
existence.
- It is our reaction which gives rise to defilements. Otherwise, sensory contact is just a neutral
occurrence. It is perception which makes us grasp or reject sensory experience.
- The mind gives priority to one sensory experience at a time and experiences the associated
sensations. Generally, we seem to switch from one sensory consciousness to another in a constant
mind chatter all day. With practice we can stay focussed on one, though there can be times when
another one, such as pain (in body) or sound (in ear) can come to the foreground temporarily and
our primary focus, such as breath, may fall to the background. Gradually you begin to understand

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the nature of sensory experience without reacting to it.
- For there to be sound there must be hearing. (No clapping without both hands and tree falling in
the rainforest has no sound if not heard.)
- Sense faculties and sense impingements exist separately and independently. We react to incidents
of the world from morning to night and personalise them through greed, conceit and self-view.
However, observing without an ‘I’ gives a taste of the truth underpinning our existence.
- for sensory contact there must be mind and object. When perception and thought come in (e.g.
egoic attributes) there will be good/bad, pleasant/unpleasant, etc. causing tension in the world.
When one reaches a stage of no mental reaction, one has transcended the personalisation and one
may not perceive the qualities of the object sensed, as no usual mental attributes have arisen.
-With practice we gradually dispose of our attachments and cleanse our consciousness of the five
hindrances, but to drop the 5 skandhas, we must transcend sensory indulgence and be virtually
free of sensory contact and experience. At this point one can get beyond space and time and
experience great joy and there is opportunity to free ourselves of the greed which keeps attachment
to the five skandhas.
- we realise sensory contact has largely fuelled our samsaric experience. Without it there is no
‘I’ and we awaken from the dream.

June 9 – Self as Vasanas (latent tendencies)
Last night had started rereading my notes to Padamalai, and this morning, when waking from vivid
dreams, recalled it (and other sources) –note the mind does not exist, except as thoughts, which are
impermanent and ever-changing. Others, such as Krishnamurti, say we are driven by memory
(associations) reacting to perceived external situations.
I wondered, then, who are we? Who is running the show behind what we call our personality (or
ego)?
Ramana, on p. 35 of the Padamalai, says 19 ff Vasanas are the habits or tendencies of the mind,
such as likes and dislikes, that makes it behave the way it does. The term is usually translated as
‘latent tendencies’.
The personality operates largely through the Lower mind, which is concerned with the intellect and
logical thinking. However, much of what we call logical is merely our response to pleasure and
pain stimuli. In fact, it is our conditioned subconscious repressed urges that dictate most of our
actions. - H. Benjamin on Gurdjieff
8. The first three realizations that we may experience may be that:
a) we never think - only recall;
b) we never make any conscious decision - some part of memory decides for us;
c) we are all automatic - obliged to meet the present with the past.
- H. Benjamin on Krishnamurti
But all say there is a real essence or Self underlying this – our true self we are not usually in touch
with or operating from
Sri Ranjit Maharaj’s Illusion Vs Reality reviewer comment:
When a person clears his own mind, he finds that the outer world is a powerless

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illusion. It doesn’t exist. It feeds on his thoughts. Freedom is only a matter of
dropping the thoughts. The nonsense out there continues in pictures, but he is no
longer affected by it. It has nothing to do with him. The amazing thing is, everybody
is free all the time, but they must remember this truth instead of getting caught up in
their own thoughts about the illusion!

July – Draft map of self and mind
Map of Self and mind/Ego – based various sources, but these seemed to come together when
reading Premananda’s Blueprints on Indian Masters 12/7/2012
Self
Source
Witness
Awareness

“I”
Mind
(Mind includes ego, intellect, memory, volitionary)
(Above influenced or run by vasanas and karma)
(I or mind is always the subject in the world of duality)
Key is to turn attention back to Source or Self or Awareness or Witness, which return to oneness,
including with the world, with no mind in the way.

5 Skandas: Form, Feeling, Perception, Intellect (discriminating ability) and consciousness

(combining emotions and thought patterns)
(Consciousness projects and attributes qualities from memory - defiling perceptions with likes and
dislikes – attaching and rejecting)

What is experienced or cognised including:

external object(s), thoughts and emotion
(above three apply both to everyday waking life and dreams)

Notes:
Triad:- Experiencer – Means of experience – Experienced
- Cogniser – Means of cognition – Cognised world
The ego is always found with the other two, but if the ego becomes introverted, the other two go
out of existence.
The ego is just a bundle of desires (and resistances).
The mind is a mirror and cannot see itself as empty of reflections (as on its own) because it is a
reflection itself. You cannot have mind without an object.
This is why we do not notice emptiness or no mind - there is nothing there, not even sense or

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thought (despite awareness actually being there).
ACIM – Mind plays God in the external world analogy.

In September, I moved from the studio apartment to a two bedroom one on the hill under the castle and
overlooking Dover, as M was now returning to join me. After getting it ready, I went for a visit with
my parents.
Despite his frailty, my father insisted he and my mother go on a cruise in the Caribbean. It seems
he caught pneumonia before boarding the ship. His health worsened and he was airlifted from the
boat at Gran Turks and taken to intensive care at a hospital in Miami. Despite seeming to rally for a
time, he died of heart failure on 8 December, aged 88.

2013
In February 2013, M’s mother died fairly suddenly after re-admission to hospital for leg bone
surgery and M returned to Japan for about 6 weeks for ceremonies, including interment of the
ashes. I visit my mother in Florida for about 2 weeks of this time.

Subtle changes noticed in me - developing over last year or so
(2013 – 4/22 Recorded over past few weeks, but noticed for some months now)
17/3/2013 Notes made as coming in to land on flight Orlando – Gatwick
Lessening of ‘I’ sense identification
Less desire, but much more aware of hooks of desire pulling the mind out from awareness to the
world of objects – often seems just simple curiosity about something or how something (such as a
TV program) will turn out or being struck by the sight of a pretty lady – much less having to do
with being drawn to food or drink.
All in world meaningless except for love (including through authentic service) and one’s soul
homework.
Awareness of vasanas (incomplete business) we are born with and how these connect to one’s
purpose – and how one’s purpose very critically limits what one will be able to do on earth - severe
limits to physical/external free will, if there is any at all! …seemingly more true that ‘free will’ is
largely (or completely) limited to the inner choice to be consciously aware …or not (as Ramana
says).
increasing sense that, just as great acts – such as healing – are done through rather than by us,
everything we do is done through, rather than by, us. This has to be true if there is no real ego or
mind, but just a varying collection of attractions, repulsions and associated thoughts just passing
through as our constant experience.
Noted last couple of days:
drastic reduced interest in personal ambition or in acquisitions, other than the daily requirements
and looking after basic future physical (and still some emotional?) needs
reduction in use of ‘I’ and ‘my’ …in other words in sense of ‘me’ and ownership.

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On awaking, increased enjoyment of AWA (awareness watching awareness practice) – almost
trancelike sense which is pleasant like that of just falling asleep (when we let go of the mind) –
though usually retaining a sense of consciousness through it (but sometimes falling back to sleep).
VERY aware of inner (nada) sound especially during this prolonged awakening state time.
Much more aware in dreams, especially those of the morning or which come after falling back to
sleep in the morning, and also of more lucid dreaming potential during these dreams (that is
awareness of being in a dream and able to influence how it develops – but not to switch in the
dream state to AWA)
Very reduced interest in non-spiritual social interaction (though interaction involving love/service
is still of value).
Increased enjoyment of and valuing simple sensory pleasures – more of transitory experiencing in
the now without a sense of ownership of them.
5/6/2013 Wonderings
If there is no real individual (ego’s) free will in external activities, is there any free will in the
dream state (which is mind projected internally instead of externally as in waking state …but
externally we are channels for divine and working out of karma and vasanas)
Explore more of free will at the internal or awareness level as noted by Ramana.
Note real shift from witness state to being state.

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10
2013 -2020 ─
Anadi – A Teaching with Insights and Practices

SEARCH FOR A TEACHING WITH PRACTICAL ADVICE

I had a theory that the kind of teachings with practices I sought would not be hidden but free and in
plain sight, except they could only be found and recognized by a sincere enough student suffi -
ciently ready for them. In a sense, although seemingly freely available to anyone, they would be in -
comprehensible, and so ‘hidden’ to those not ripe enough. When the student is ready . . .

Anadi – portrait by Russell Ashi

In my continuing search, among what is now an abundance of teachers and teachings on -

line, I had come across a portrait photo of a teacher named Aziz Kristof but, initially, had
not explored his teaching further at that time. The appearance in that particular photo did
not strike me as being of someone who could help me further. He looked very young and
his shaven head, simple T-shirt dress and expression seemed to me the appearance of
someone trying to impress others as being a teacher . . . rather than being someone who ac -
tually ‘knew’ and had no need to impress anyone.
However, in mid-to late spring 2013, I found Freddie Yam’s website, which included quotes from
different teachers, including Aziz Kristof, who now used the name Anadi. Some of these teachers
were ones I had the highest respect for, including Ramana Maharshi, several of Ramana’s leading
students, Nisargadatta, Paul Brunton and a few others.
With this ‘endorsement’ of Anadi’s/Aziz’s message, I read these quotes on Freddie’s site and was
immediately struck by them. They were (at that time) largely a selection from his earlier books,
which had been published under the name Aziz Kristof. It was clear from them that this Anadi had
awakened to a level of subjectivity, understood the meaning and importance of it and wanted to
help others attain similar awakening. Anadi’s summary biography was impressive, showing what
appeared to be a relentless dedication to the spiritual path with particular focus on Zen Buddhism

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and Advaita.

Orienting Myself to the teaching

I explored his website, which included a map of awakening, writings, recordings from meditation
talks, practices and his own precise terminology, defining and describing the inner world and the
tools one can use to evolve on the inner journey.
There was so much material on the site that I felt overwhelmed. I started listening to some of the record-
ings. They spanned several years, so there were hundreds of hours of them. The glossary, which was a
living and evolving one, was a major challenge. I had to do my best to equate the terms used (the ones I
had some sense of) to my own inner experiences, which I had never tried to label with such precision.
In addition to continuing to explore the website, I decided it might be easiest to follow Anadi’s own
journey by reading his books in the chronological order they had been written, even though he made
it clear that he no longer used the earlier ones in his teaching – which also meant the terminology
used in them had changed since. My theory was that it might be easiest to follow his evolution using
his own footsteps and the words he had used as his journey unfolded . . . and it continued to be help -
ful to refer back to the early writings, while maintaining an awareness of the changes in terminology
and further evolutionary steps.
I mostly found copies of the earlier books online, though was also able to order a copy of The Hu-
man Buddha from the Indian publisher.

Overview
The teaching speaks of a path involving an initial awakening into an awareness of oneself as bey-
ond the mind. This awareness (formerly called the internal knower) is our internal centre of intel-
ligence, intention, and recognition. It looks inwards and is the steppingstone to awakening con-
scious me, the pure subjectivity of the inner knower, which can activate pure attention, the ability
to feel self, including self in the different centres of the soul. When pure attention is directed to any
centre, it brings awareness and intelligence to it. (The primary centre of intelligence is the person,
who we are as individuals, despite the person not being conscious – in the sense of being aware of
himself – in most people. Awareness/the internal knower is, accordingly, a secondary centre of in-
telligence.)

Then, using a spiritual, or pure, attention, coming from the inner knower, one goes on to establish
centres of the soul in consciousness, being, and heart (pure me of consciousness, pure me of be-
ing and pure me of heart) which, when fully developed, unite in samadhi with the universal I am
and absolute I am, states of transcendence and absence. Awakening any one of these three centres
constitutes a significant step, but it requires the awakening of all three for one’s soul to have a more
complete balanced presence. The teaching says that many spiritual teachers stop evolving after
awakening a single centre (usually consciousness), and the shortcoming of that becomes evident in
both their teachings and lives.
Consciousness, being and heart are considered secondary centres of the soul which are physically
located along what is called one’s central channel. The primary soul is one’s essence-me (whose
subjectivity is called conscious me), which evolves along what has been called the essential chan-

166
nel. Essence-me surrenders and evolves through pure essence-me and then fundamental me (into
the inner knower) to unite in transcendence/absence with absolute I am. The further evolution of
this primary centre of the soul is into the immanent I am and the primordial I am with a culmina-
tion through being joined by our individual self, the person as the supreme person.

Rather than the terms used being something like learning a foreign language, I discovered Anadi
takes great care in finding words which convey the closest meaning to what the term is intended to
convey (he does a remarkable job of this for someone working in what is not his first language,
which was Polish). So, for example, my understanding deepened when I heard the word ‘sur-
render’ being equated with the word ‘transcendence’. The more we relax. let go and get out of our
way, the more the divine becomes available to us and the less suffering there is.
‘Me’ in any combination, such as conscious me or pure me, is always referring to one’s subjectiv-
ity (beyond the identification of oneself as the mind-body), particularly when it has been embodied
(established as part of one’s identity). Me is one’s soul which, according to Anadi, is not given
through birth but must be formed through one’s spiritual efforts (which is something Gurdjieff also
said).
The ‘I am’s’ (such as in universal, absolute, immanent and primordial) are all states of ‘being’.
They are other-dimensional in the sense of being in absence, or not in the presence of our usual
reality of manifested creation. Such absence, or being, is where great repose – or state of samadhi –
is experienced. [Note: Another apt definition of samadhi is ‘the state of oneness, in which the indi-
vidualized consciousness is united with the whole.’ (Genesis Dawn, Robert Eaton)] Samadhi is felt
as blissful at first, when there is still great novelty about them, but later – when more established as
part of one’s identity base – experienced as simply neutral and wonderfully peaceful – meaning the
suffering, or just tension or discomfort, which is usually part of normal life, is no longer with one.
Universal I am and absolute I am are transcendent in the sense of being beyond where we normally
experience ourselves (until we transcend and become them), while immanent I am and primordial I
am are in immanence, profoundly deep within us, and are the source of the manifested.
‘Conscious me’ is just what it says; who we are in our essential dimension, normally not conscious
of itself, is now conscious. This is also at times referred to as ‘essence-me’, denoting it as the very
core of our individual pure subjectivity.
‘Pure’ is of the inner, notably of the soul, and not having to do with the external world (external
also includes our thoughts and emotions as they are separate to our subjectivity).
Pure intelligence, or intelligence of the soul, is equated to light, which one shines, together with
recognition, wherever it is directed. (An aside not from this teaching: The halos around saints’
heads in religious paintings are intended to convey this internal spiritual light they are connected
to.)
Bringing intelligence to any pure centre, and especially to the inner knower, is critical in order for
them to become conscious. This is especially true of the primordial, our source. There are times
when we are out of our usual waking minds, effectively in absence, such as deep dreamless sleep,
but these are usually ones in which we are not conscious. We can only own such other dimensional
states when we bring conscious awareness – requiring intelligence and recognition – to them.

The recordings proved very helpful to me. At first, I focussed on the topics which seemed to me

167
most relevant for my own development but, gradually, ended up listening to them almost indiscrim -
inately, always with headphones, so the sound came through binaurally – and usually when lying
down or during the night when I could not sleep. This meant I was in an extremely relaxed and re-
ceptive state while listening, but also that I fell asleep many times. It took me two years to listen to
(or sleep through!) all the ones which were on the website, as well as those being added to it during
that time.
I experienced what could be called a very heightened ‘pure sensitivity’ when listening to the re -
cordings, in that when they spoke of a centre I had not identified or named in myself previously
(such as external observer or internal knower) and described how to locate it, I would often feel I
could pinpoint and experience the centre in myself. Occasionally, it would be an aspect of myself I
had previously known about but had not troubled to call by a name. More often, it would be a new
experience and I would wonder that I had not been aware of it before. While the experience was
real, I sometimes wondered if it was being created through suggestion from the talks and my own
visualization.
There were other occasions when I located a centre being described but found it as a more general -
ized sense or in a slightly different location to where Anadi put it. For example, beingness as a state
– as I understand it – has been an important long-time friend but is more of an other-dimensional
rootedness in profound peace, rather than localized through a lower tan t’ien. In situations like that,
I was willing to explore Anadi’s experience and recommendations, in case I’d not yet attained the
full degree of absence and samadhi for that aspect of the soul. Our sign that we have not attained
such absence is some continuing degree of suffering, but I do not feel any suffering or even dis-
comfort with my sense of beingness.
[Another example of such differences might be Ramana’s location of the spiritual heart on the right
side of the chest, which is a different place to Anadi’s finding it lower than the physical heart and
in the centre of the chest. Ramana notes pinpointing this physical location is just an aid for some
seekers but is not a necessity or the ultimate reality of the situation.]
I also wondered how much of my kind of experience of these centres was real and how much might
be a product of imagining and visualizing – but did it matter if the experience was a felt one which
could be repeated and even strengthened through establishing a more permanent presence in the
centre? However, a possible explanation is that one may well be open to the energy from the re -
treats themselves carried by the recordings making one more than usually open to grace . . . or to
suggestion. Such energy will, undoubtedly, not be anywhere near as strong as what is transmitted
live when attending the retreat in person and being in the atmosphere of the hall, but my own ex -
perience suggests a fair amount of its power may still come to one through the recordings if one is
ready and one’s own inner self is sufficiently receptive to the grace available from one’s own di-
vine source.
This was an intense period of ‘listening and assimilation practice’ and it resulted in a marked deep -
ening into the subjectivity I had already been aware of.

Summer 2016 diagram

prepared in my room at Hofgut-Rineck during the retreat for my first student meeting with Anadi
on 22 August 2016, so I could show him where I felt I was and to clarify my next steps

168
2013
28/7/2013 Note to friend K
A note to friend K dated 28/7/13 on the effect this was having on me:
I seem to have had more gradual experiences - especially as respects awareness separate from the
mind - which really have deepened over time. I went through a rather strange recluse stage when I
stayed on my own in the studio flat here the year before last - really only surfacing to deal with the
minimum necessary. Had reached a feeling that most usual human interaction is meaningless (ex -
cept for the love it might contain) and was focused on inner awareness. This dramatically altered
dealings with others (notably in minimizing them!).
The awareness part of Anadi’s teaching is clearest to me - and the terminology is becoming clearer
with listening to the retreat talks. It is also increasingly clear that there has been a relatively un-
conscious ‘me’ operating for most of this physical life and any ‘doing’ from a more conscious/
aware self works on another level entirely - largely without ulterior motives apart from looking

169
after basic daily requirements ... and with love/compassion underlying interactions.
Realizing that others one deals with (including family) may also be living primarily identifying
themselves as their relatively unconscious ‘me’s seemed a stumbling block (how best to relate with
them?), but brings out some compassion, too, with the feeling that each has their own stage and
‘soul’s homework’ in evolution to go through, just as I am going through mine (and, hopefully, oth -
ers far more awake than I have similar compassion towards me ... certainly most spiritual teachers
have such to be able to do their teachings ... even in silence). . . . Despite our (you and I) living as
‘fakes’ (to use your term) - we still seem to gravitate to the essence of kindred spirits... (-: ... and
am grateful for your friendship.
Silent time of course is extremely precious and feel very blessed to be able to manage without
formal working for now.
The relationships aspect you speak of also surfaced for me in the sense of wondering if it would
reach a stage where they would not work anymore - and felt pretty down earlier this year when
that seemed imminent. My sense is that if such a point comes a solution will present itself (i.e., will
require my surrendering to it).
Watching friend J go through his illness and death (nearly 6 years ago now), brought VERY strong
motivation to 1.) work towards maintaining reasonably good quality of health (minimizing chances
of going through such an illness) and 2.) focus on ‘waking up’ (whatever is required for my per-
sonal evolution) while I have the use of this current mind/body.
... And these last 5+ years have brought such dramatic changes and shifts that it seems the person
back in 2007 when I made those intentions was another person or another lifetime. A wonderful as -
pect is that it keeps becoming more and more focused and really exciting with the newness and dis -
coveries, rather than stuck in the depressingly hopeless belief I am not more than the body and
mind.
Am not interested in more knowledge (in spiritual/religious matters), except those pointers which
help the practice and experiential evolution towards crystalizing the more permanence of being -
ness, and that is what I am looking to in Anadi’s (and any others’) teachings. Am esp. drawn to his
messages on being/presence at the moment.

The teaching - some key points

As noted above, the teaching does not limit itself to consciousness (as some others seem to) but
brings in being and heart as important dimensions in their own right, each of which can be
awakened as aspects of the soul. These three facets of the soul resonated deeply with me and con-
firmed my best sense of my own experiences and studies of many teachings.
The teaching recognizes consciousness as being in more than one centre. Pure me of conscious-
ness is a secondary centre (as are the pure me centres of being and heart) and, as such, could be
considered more as one’s impersonal self. Its physical position is roughly in the back half of the
head and it links to the transcendent subjectivity of universal consciousness of the source, or uni-
versal I am.
One’s essential self is one’s more individual personal self which, when awakened, becomes con -
scious. This awakened self is normally called conscious me but has been referred to as essence-

170
me. Physically, it is situated in the prefrontal cortex and it is this inner self which makes the con -
tinuing journey of evolution, eventually culminating in a conscious return to the source, primor -
dial I am.
The already existing personal self, which everyone has – but usually are not conscious of – is the
person. Our person is the one who thinks. I did not just mentally accept about the location of my
personal self, or person/thinker, in the upper outer edge of the prefrontal cortex as being true, but
observed inside and was able to confirm it for myself, and also confirmed there is a slightly
deeper separate observer or watcher. Part of my sense of these centres may have been the result
of visualization, but it is abundantly clear to me that our thinker, or person, is separate to our
identity as aware consciousness.
The person has been divided into 3 quite distinct centres – the external person, which is our
thinker and personality; the internal person, which monitors thoughts and the degree to which
we identify with our mind and emotions; and the innermost person, which gazes inwards and
activates the internal knower. When we are evolved enough to have realized, and be based in,
the inner knower, these three become the supreme person, etheric person and sublime external
person.

Anadi is quite emphatic about a shortcoming in traditional teachings is that our me is negated. My
own view already was that the concept of one’s me, or individual self, being an integral part of a
full awakening or holistic enlightenment is an obvious truth. After the sudden awakening experi-
enced in the early 90s, it was clear to me that one shifts into a truer ‘individual’ identity, and I un -
derstood the saying that the drop (oneself) does not disappear into the ocean, but that the ocean dis -
appears into the drop. One’s awareness remains as a greater self without boundaries that includes
the whole of one’s experience. As I learned in Eschatology, the deeper meaning of the word ‘indi-
vidual’ should be understood as ‘indivisible’.

A part of the teaching which, for me, responded to a gap in many other traditions, is that enlighten -
ment to one or more facets of the soul does not bring wholeness, because one’s realization has also
to be felt in – and transform – one’s personality and even one’s subconscious mind/emotions. The
mind becomes transparent and then translucent, meaning one is anchored in and living from the
soul, so there is no longer a conflict between one’s enlightenment and one’s psycho-emotional life.
Not making this transformation to our everyday worldly selves is evident in spiritual teachers who
have definitely achieved varying degrees of awakening but whose personal lives are still at odds
with their spiritual side.
The path to the realization of one’s soul in a holistic sense, and especially including the evolution
of the inner knower, one’s core identity, is a journey to less and less suffering and more and more
bliss – or just peace. This means that anyone with sufficient sensitivity to their own suffering or
discomfort, however subtle, will naturally do whatever possible to evolve towards reducing that.

I was especially pleased to find a veritable gold mine of practice instructions in the many talks, art -
icles and books. Moreover, some of the practices were ones I already had been tentatively trying,
just because they made sense to the level I had reached, such as being based in and looking from
the different centres of one’s subjectivity in the horizontal channel of consciousness.

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Some points from the teaching which resonated with me and helped/help me progress further:

Attention

Attention carries intelligence with it and the intelligence brings recognition of what one’s attention
is on. In normal waking life we focus on external attention, the world of perception of objects and
thoughts/emotions.
Internal, or pure, attention, originates from our awakened conscious me/essence-me. It can be dir-
ected towards one’s subjectivity, and then be established in one or more centres of subjectivity as
bare attention (embodied attention which is intrinsically aware of itself). Such an established centre
then becomes one’s identity – or part of one’s wholer identity if more than one centre has acquired
such intrinsic recognition and intelligence. The shift in identity requires a shift in intelligence, as
there cannot be recognition of oneself, or conscious self-awareness, without intelligence.
Bare attention is the intrinsic attention of a centre which has been established – so it is the attention
of being aware of itself, rather than it being aware via pure attention from another of one’s centres
of intelligence.
The teaching notes that external attention is of various kinds, including relaxed (such as walking in
nature), focused (e.g., having a conversation), extra focused (when crossing a street in traffic),
double focused (in computer work) or even double relaxed (watching tv or reading).
The importance of being aware of these different kinds of attention, which we shift between
throughout our waking day, is so that we do not lose our connection with our identity in pure con-
sciousness when different types of external attention are activated. This allows us to practice stay-
ing in our surrendered subjectivity until seeing and living from our conscious self (whereby the
watcher and person are transparent and then translucent) becomes our second nature.

A further important realization is that one’s attention can also be equated to one’s inner and real en-
ergy. One effectively is where one is devoting one’s attention, or energy. This is similarly true
about external attention for those who have not awakened to their subjectivity. They will be caught
up on – and identified with – where their attention is, be it on perceptions, thoughts or emotions.

Sleep Transition

It has been important to me for years to watch my transition into and out of sleep as much as pos -
sible, and especially to try to be conscious of the point at which the mind disconnects (falling
asleep) and then reconnects (waking from sleep).


Personal evolution both confirmed and advanced through working with the teaching
The teaching confirmed to me that the other-dimensional experiences I knew as a child and had ex-
perienced consciously again at rare intervals as an adult were ones of the primordial and had likely
been brought from a previous life.
Anadi commented about this to me:

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 - As to the experience you mention, this is type of samadhi, similar to primordial state.
And he said this about the awakening I had with Douglas Harding’s headless exercise, triggering
infancy memories
- The shift into awareness that you refer to is very interesting.   It is as if awareness
gravitated towards I am but needed an additional push.  If you had this experience as
a child, this means that your brought it with yourself to this lifetime. 

In the teaching’s description of the levels of reality there is the universal, absolute, immanent and
primordial. This led me to a hypothesis that if I have had experience, however fleeting, of the deep-
est level, I must also have some experience of the stages leading up to it. If this were true, it meant
I already knew them intuitively (if not consciously), but probably did not equate the experience it-
self with the name which Anadi’s teaching gave it. I was continually on the lookout for clues which
would help me identify my own experience and understanding with these realms Anadi was de-
scribing, and also looked out for practice pointers on how to enter and deepen the different states of
inner evolution.
Sure enough, as I gained better understanding of the teaching, I very slowly began to find that I
already had some familiarity – albeit often just intuitively – with different of the levels and states.
Not only was I able to learn (via living experience, rather than more knowledge) through the teach-
ing that I already had made important progress on the path, but what underlined the further great
value of my work with this material was the very tangible deepening of my personal state and ex-
perience. Whereas, previously, I had had clarity about being able to step out of the mind and come
from a state of just awareness, this now became my permanent identity and home. And, energetic-
ally, a strong base for this home seemed to be felt where the teaching notes the home of pure con -
sciousness is. For me, there was also a strong base spatially situated in the lower part of the brain,
just above the back of the mouth.
This shift to a realer self seemed to me to be an important part of the answer to Ramana Maharshi’s
‘who am I’ self-inquiry. Living from this unwavering awareness also made very clear how insub -
stantial and fragmented living from the mind as an ego or personality is. It now became abundantly
clear that, when living as a mind or ego, we always require an object, be it perception, thought or
emotion, as a reflection back to us to relate to. In other words, we are not conscious of our own
subjectivity, but always living outside of it through the ’reflection’ of objects. When living from
awareness or consciousness, we are based back with the subject and, when with this subject, the
mind is quiet. However, it is also possible to engage the mind, but still remain centred in our realer
and more stable identity.
As Anadi points out, being conscious, or who we are who is relating to the world, is more import -
ant than doing in the world performed when primarily identified with being a personality
One soon learns that living from subject in this way is, by definition, a very lonely existence. One
only has oneself as one’s subject and the further inner work and explorations can only be done on
one’s own. As one of the teaching’s long-time students, L., phrased it to me, ‘I do enjoy connecting
with those on our path, and find it very supportive to know others, too, are ploughing a parallel sol-
itary furrow.’
It is virtually impossible to explain this state to others or to try to help them shift into it. It seems
only rare individuals – even within so-called ‘spiritual’ communities – are fertile enough ground
for this seed to land and sprout. In considering the order of magnitude of how rare this is, my guess
is it may be one in a million people might really be able to understand this in an experiential sense

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– meaning they no longer primarily identify with being a person in a mind-body sense and clearly
live in a deeper subjectivity which is not really of this world, though one remains in it in a physical
and mental sense.
Of course, even though one is living from subject, one still must have one’s daily interactions with
others who are unconscious of their own subjectivity, unaware – except perhaps for brief intervals
– of who they are at their centre. They are identifying with being their names, personal histories
and physical bodies, limited by the collective beliefs they have been conditioned with.

10/2/2015 - View from Awareness Notes
There has been a gradual subtle shift over the last year and a half, during which time I’ve been
quite deeply focusing on Anadi’s teaching, including increased ‘practice’ in terms of staying with
the subject (recognition, abidance and increasing surrender – especially with closed eyes when ly -
ing in bed, but also throughout the day - when remembered! - in almost any activity).
What has become especially clearer is hugely greater separation from identifying with being my old
personality. This is especially evident when I note how seriously others take who they think they
are. I’ve come to liken my earlier identifying with being the mind/body state as living in ‘the twi -
light zone’.
Some time back it became apparent to me that one’s psychological self in normal life is actually
usually not really more than a state of hypnosis (the same as if one were literally hypnotized on
stage to be someone else with resultant dramatic transformation – which is how it works, as it is
just a shift from one state of hypnosis to another). Krishnamurti referred to a person from a ‘who
they think they are’ point of view as ‘a psychological disturbance in space’. Gurdjieff used the term
‘waking sleep’ to describe the state in which virtually all humans spend their whole lives and he
said that our personality is not really ours and proof of this is that a person’s convictions (which be -
long to personality) can be changed in half an hour or less, such as through hypnosis.
When we step out of this ‘who we think we are’ and strengthen our centre of identity as pure
awareness, most (if not all) old attachments, ambitions and even fears drop away, though some per -
sonal preferences and enjoyable pastimes remain. While there are memories of the past one identi-
fied with as personality/ego in the earlier sense, one’s centre of identity has shifted to more of a
non-personal identification with – and enjoyment of – being associated with a mind-body complex.
However, have noticed (in my case, so far) there is still some suffering and even some depression
at times, though it is diminished.
Family and other relationships are still there and treated as if unchanged but actually are experi-
enced from a very different perspective.
It is also apparent that simplified life seems most appealing – having sufficient in a material sense
so that the body is kept healthy and one is able to do what one enjoys/finds purpose in (which in -
cludes opportunities to focus on subjectivity to a much greater extent).
Accumulating much more in terms of possessions, money or personal power over what is a com -
fortable level has less meaning, and it seems insane to see others (still in the twilight zone) focusing
right up until their death on accumulating more materially that they can never fully use. In some
cases, it is even worse, where accumulating riches takes a priority over health. In such instances,
quality of life, even just for the mental self, can be appallingly diminished.
The ego’s need to show off with past accomplishments or abilities has virtually disappeared.

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Being near and in nature has become more of a must, rather than a preference, along with a corres-
ponding much stronger dislike of being in highly populated urban settings.
Focusing on subjectivity has become more of a pleasure, rather than a chore. And now there is the
relaxation of surrender included.
Most fiction, movies and radio and tv programs have no appeal, especially if they are contrived –
made up by people lost in the twilight zone of their own psychologies.
It is so clear how others seem to be living in dream worlds in which all of their priorities relate to a
lower identity – who they have come to think they are, which runs their lives. The advertising hooks,
family and relationship hooks, work hooks are so clear and so less important. Even the dramas
people have over the idea they will die seems irrelevant, as it is clear from this deeper perspective
that it is only the mind/ego and body that die. One’s higher identity cannot have any possessions or
ambitions, as it is outside of the whole worldly realm. While it is not (yet) clear what will happen to
this alive boundless awareness after the body dies, there is little if anything to lose, except what one
enjoys through the body and mind (including emotions).
Great compassion is felt for others who are less awake, especially loved ones, who have not shifted
their centre of identities from their personalities/who they think they are and who are either not
open to the idea of there being a possible more spacious reality or incapable of grasping it (no mat -
ter how many explanations and experiments are tried with them). One also feels deeply for genera -
tions of past ancestors who lived very hard lives, probably often having suffered terribly, never ap-
preciating there was anything more than who they thought they were.

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Further work with the teaching
I wrote to Anadi’s website to request the more recent Book of Enlightenment, noting I had had in-
volvement in editing and publishing. I had a response from a team member, L, asking if I could
help find an external publisher for this title.
Although it took several months, we were finally able to have this previously internally published
book published externally by Mantra Books. I was cautious (I thought) in forecasting it might sell a
couple of thousand in a couple of years, because I knew they would publicise it widely, but it
turned out to appeal to a much smaller market than I would have thought, despite Anadi adding
several youtube videos and articles to his website during this time and doing a long Buddha at the
Gas Pump interview which had then wide coverage in ‘spiritual’ circles online.
Anadi was, at this time, embarking on a series of writing projects. The editorial and publication
work was performed by a team of volunteers co-ordinated and supervised by G, a long-term student
deeply committed to making the teaching available in both electronic and conventional book forms.
A number of other dedicated students also assist in different aspects of the teaching and these pub -
lications – the latter part including transcribing, other editing, proof reading, as well as continuous
updating and maintenance of the extensive website.
Of these writings, the one from which I learned the most was comprised of the many articles which
made up Beyond Traditions, a very comprehensive survey of the most prominent enlightenment
teaching traditions and teachers, describing where they had made important contributions and also
pointing out their shortfalls in comprehensiveness from the perspective of Anadi’s own teaching. I
gained a panoramic overview of spiritual traditions from this. Among other things, I felt it gave me
a better sense of the importance of self-remembrance in Gurdjieff’s teachings.
About Gurdjieff, Anadi commented to me,
- “ . . . based on my readings and meeting people who did some work in Gurdjieff’s groups, I
am inclined to think that most of his work with consciousness was done on the level of the
observer. What he calls self-awareness appears to be self-conscious and solidified ob-
server. On the other hand, what he calls ‘objective consciousness’, appears to be not pure
consciousness but conscious me experienced in a spacious way, or what some people call
‘awareness’.”
- “Frankly speaking, I do not feel that he [Gurdjieff] was in the state of surrender to I am.
His evolution was different. He was genius in many areas, but he did not seem to penetrate
states of pure subjectivity that well. His state is more on the level of conscious me or ex-
panded awareness. Pure consciousness is not that common.”
- As to Gurdjieff, of course I would not base my conclusions on his followers.  It is more
the techniques he used.  These techniques are not geared towards awakening of the
conscious me.  The develop more a solidified observer, similar like those more spir-
itual martial arts. Of course, the observer can also be considered as a type of 'witness'
behind the mental self.  Self-aware observer is the one that is able to separate its
sense of me from thinking.  Frankly speaking, by just thinking of Gurdjeff techniques I
get a headache - too much observer oriented. 
- The term 'soul' can be translated according to one's personal interpretation.   Gurdjieff
used this word very differently than we do.  The conscious me can be just as well re-
garded as a soul.  Obviously, people are not born with the conscious me either.
- “As to the double-arrow attention or two ways looking of Gurdjieff, there are some dif-
ferences here.  Among others, one, as you mentioned, is more depth of self that is be-
ing remembered.  Second, one is not merely aware of the inner subjectivity, but there
is the element of horizontal surrender to I am and embodying it through pure me.”
Beyond Traditions also covered the key branches of Advaita and Buddhism, including a clarifica-
tion of the meanings and shortcomings of koans used in Zen. An online review of it:

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“This sharing by Anadi is a panoramic review of the major eastern enlightenment traditions, as
well as of some of the more widely known and respected modern spiritual masters and teachers.
Coverage includes Buddhism (Theravada, Zen, Mahayana, and Tibetan Mahamudra and Dzo-
gchen), Advaita Vedanta (with a separate chapter on Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maha-
raj), Yoga Sutras, Shaivism, Sufism, Taoism, Gurdjieff, Krishnamurti, and Osho, as well as a
seven-chapter section at the end on Human Spirituality commenting on contemporary spiritual
paths and religion.
The treatment of these is from the perspective of Anadi’s own unique map of awakening based on
his personal experience and evolution. It focuses on their value to the seeker from the awakening
point of view of Anadi’s teaching.
As a long-time student of Gurdjieff, Buddhism (notably Zen) and Advaita (especially of Ramana
Maharshi and Nisargadatta), I found this book to offer refreshing insights - though it also emphas -
izes the preservation of one’s me in preference to embracing non-duality.
One need not be familiar with Anadi’s teaching and map of awakening to be able to benefit from
this title, because it offers a survey and summary of these traditions and teachers, giving an intro-
duction and background from which one can then explore any of them further on one’s own. Any
one of the chapters on Buddhism (Why Buddha was Discontent with the Eighth Jhana, and the Zen
ones – The Ten Ox-herding Pictures, Koans and Shikantaza), Advaita and the modern teachers
made this book worthwhile reading for further contemplation – so one might then move on to one’s
own conclusions following the various introductions and explanations.”
Beyond Traditions was followed by Secrets of the Inner Universe, which noted how the advances
in physics had some parallels to what Anadi had found in the inner world. Ensuing titles included
the Book of Being and a draft of the Book of Heart.


Meditation Hall Hofgut-Rineck, Germany

I finally attended one of the retreats in Germany in August 2016, arriving a couple of days early.
This gave me an opportunity to meet Anadi and speak with him in person. We had dinner together
at the retreat centre on the evening of my arrival and discussed a broad range of subjects.
Once the retreat formally started, silence was maintained and there was to be no eye contact with

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others. One was advised not even to observe others, including Anadi himself. The exception to this
were the meditation talks Anadi gave in the hall, where only he would speak and one listened in
meditation with closed eyes, and during possible private meetings with Anadi (if one had those).
Such meetings were by invitation which came as a note to one left on one’s cushion in the medita -
tion hall. All first timers would have such a meeting. Meetings for other more regular attendees
were sporadic and seemed especially practice focused.
My meetings with Anadi on this first retreat were largely about my practice. As I felt quite clear
about having awoken consciousness, it was recommended I concentrate on being, which meant es-
tablishing pure me of being and breaking through the tan t’ien portal in the lower belly into the ab -
solute. Anadi felt that Nisargadatta’s absolute was actually what he (Anadi) calls the universal I
am, which is something of an absolute of consciousness, rather than more that of being, which can
be thought of as the source of manifested reality.
It puzzled me that this experience of being described by Anadi had eluded me and also that I had
not seen it described in other teachings.


When on the retreat with Ram Dass back in 1989, I found the few days of silence and no eye
contact painful. Later, when on the Anadi retreats, it became a pleasure – there was a deep respect
for others who were similarly honouring the silence and no eye contact – and the meditations in the
group were profound energetically. I missed it immediately when I came away afterwards and there
seemed something of an unwelcome disturbance in having to communicate verbally with others. I
find when in everyday life, when possible and acceptable, my preference is not to meet others’ eyes
if it is not necessary when out in the streets and shops and to keep as much silence as possible. An
interesting aspect of this is that before I cared what others thought of me – even seeking approval
from strangers -, now it does not matter to me when I am out what others who are around me think
of me – in the sense that it is fine if I am ignored or if others wish to think poorly of me. The shift
is in me and in how less important my worldly self-image is. Communications are often best
limited to practical matters. Other communications are, more often than not, simply, as Gurdjieff
put it, pouring from the empty into the void.


In my last two meetings with Anadi (May 2017 and May 2019), he asked about my practice. I
noted that, while feeling great peace, I had not had a sense of a great breakthrough to the absolute,
as he had experienced in Kerala in the late 90s (despite having worked on this for more than 2 years
and having been a principal editor for his Book of Being). He encouraged me to continue working
on this, as establishing oneself on the absolute is critical for the rest of one’s evolution. All the
centres of the soul follow through to the absolute. It puzzled me that it was somehow eluding me.

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 Meditation Hall in the evening, Karuna Center, Portugal

End of July 2019 – The Absolute – An Old Friend

Because of the task Anadi gave me in our Skype meeting, I focused increasingly on find-
ing the absolute. It was the same task I had been given in Germany in 2016. I could not
understand why it eluded me and was sure I must at least have had tastes of it. I had,
after all, clear experiences of both universal I am and even of the primordial.
I checked Nisargadatta’s talks to see what he meant by the absolute and asked friends K
and R. R said he had condensed the most important of Nisargadatta’s teachings into a
small document. R spoke of the absolute as being beyond concepts. While true, this did
not seem a complete enough description for me.
The next day, while working with a talk clarifying the meaning of absence, it came to me in
a flash that the precious state which virtually always follows waking for me is what Anadi
refers to as the absolute. It is a state in which I am naturally surrendered and at deep rest,
because it is still linked to the no mind deep sleep state. I had known this was very, very
important and, so much so, that I had spoken of it with Anadi on at least three occasions.
However, we both had talked of it as if it were more akin to the normal sleep to waking
transition, which is different, as it is still connected to the mind and waking dimension.
However, a state of true absence is that of dreamless sleep, which is where my own just
waking experience originates. Part of what had confused me about this was that I did not
relate it to the tan t’ien portal in the lower belly.
Further, I was anticipating entry into the absolute would bring the same clear dramatic sa-
madhi and relief Anadi describes when he first experienced it in Kerala in the late 1990s.
My seeking, even of an inner experience, may partly have been in the way, when letting
go and surrender offered a natural solution. Also, someone who may not be suffering as
much spiritually (as Anadi may have been) will not have that same level of initial bliss. My
own sense of it does bring the relief of freedom from personality/mind and body but is
more of a very pleasant and neutral peace. It has been a decades-long ‘refuge’ on waking,
which is so pleasant I’ve endeavoured to prolong and explore it for as long as my daily
routine permits . . . though it has come to be with me throughout the day and even in the
background when engaging the mind in daily activities.
I also do not have a particular sense of me as where the pure me of being is meant to be.
I have, however, for years had a sense of me being in general, especially as relates to an
aware consciousness, and perhaps it could be said to be rooted in the lower trunk region
from a physical point of view. Also, this sense of waking to absence – in the sense of be-

179
ing outside both mind and body – is one which has been with me since infancy. Perhaps
that’s when I first entered it . . . or could I have gravitated to it naturally and intuitively . . .
or was it already established from a previous incarnation?
On checking, it is not of the body, so awareness of it is not through use of external atten-
tion on the physical. My sense of its strongest physical localization of the awareness of it,
rather than of it itself, is at the base of the brain between the centre and the back which, in
Anadi’s teaching, is where pure me of consciousness would access the absolute. For me,
this awareness of it is more towards the centre and base of the brain, which could mean it
has to do with the essential channel and inner knower (although this is lower and further
back than the base of the prefrontal cortex).
Also, I find I am best able to maintain it if I am surrendered and non-active. It seems in
such a state grace itself enters and natural evolution proceeds. When in activity, it is also
possible to be with this state, though not with the depth that comes just after waking from
deep sleep.
When in this state, I am out of the mind and body, and with no doubt that this conscious
awareness I find myself to be is so much more my true me than my everyday personality.
To use analogies, it feels a little like I am floating without any external material support
and without even a body, mind or personality . . . and floating on a lake seemingly without
boundaries within that state. However exiting can be through two opposite different
shoreline states. One shoreline is that of falling back to sleep with the loss of conscious-
ness and the other is waking more to the mind-body complex. If I am well-rested, the vital
force seems to urge me to move to the latter, waking, shoreline, though this would reduce
the depth of the floating state. I am aware, too, that there is a further shoreline ‘state’ my
consciousness will encounter one day is that shoreline of physical death – though that is
likely to be like the deep sleep one unless it is entered consciously.
An opening of the heart I experienced in the mid-90s now also makes sense in light of the
flexible linear approach of the teaching, as that would have followed the absolute having
already been opened.
Once again, this teaching has proved invaluable in its careful mapping and terminology.
Inner states I had already some appreciation for, but had not been clear about, have been
shown to be important parts of the inner landscape. Anadi’s example has allowed me to
be more confident of having realized these states. It is also true that such important states
I had come to know before commencing with this teaching have also deepened in the
years I have worked so closely on both the teaching and my own practice.
The important thing is that the teaching has fallen into place to a much greater extent with
this crucial missing piece now found. However, rather than following the flexible linear
path of the teaching, some of my own evolution seems to have occurred naturally, partly
no doubt thanks to prior evolution brought into this incarnation and a degree of surrender I
have been doing intuitively.
While this could be said to open the door to further work on the essential channel and the
inner knower’s journey into immanence, it also suggests it is worth checking the teachings
and writings of key advanced spiritual individuals, ones both new to me and others I have
studied before, as I will be seeing all such material from my now newer understanding.
[My personal conclusions on the teaching is included in an appendix.]

180
11
2013 Forward – Other Studies, Practice and Notes
2015 – Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tai Chi and the Tan T’ien
In 2012, I had my first introduction to a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Practitioner, an im-
pressive 89-year old Japanese man, Fujii Sensei, who lived alone and continued to run his own herb
and treatment shop in Takasaki. When he had been much younger, he had been very ill and TCM
had healed him. He studied to become a practitioner after that and began practicing when in his
forties.

Fujii Sensei continued practicing until well into his 90s

In January, 2015, M and I met with a man who may well be the leading Chinese herbalist in Eng -
land, Dr Zanyu Chen, to see if he could help M over a skin complaint that 6 NHS doctors had suc -
cessively misdiagnosed and failed to resolve – largely addressing symptoms only through steroids.

181
Dr Chen had studied and taught at Beijing University, written and published books on herbal medi-
cine and is editor of the Traditional Chinese Medicine magazine for England. He diagnosed the
cause of M’s illness being a weakened immune system (which he said was at the root of many ail-
ments) and prescribed a specific blend of herbs. Within two weeks, M’s conditioned had substan-
tially improved. I was so impressed I also started taking a herbal blend for my own health and
began having acupuncture, mostly from Dr Chen and sometimes from his wife, Yu Li, who also
trained at Beijing University specializing in acupuncture.

When explaining how a particular cream, which was partly made of a special variety of early
blossoming plum blossoms, worked, Dr Chen said it is used because if flowers very early in
the year in adverse temperature conditions – denoting the special energy it has. He went on to
say that Western medicine may agree to use some traditional Chinese herbal ingredients for
their nutrient/chemical content, but that is different to the reason TCM uses them, which is
for their energy. TCM seeks to optimize our energy (Qi/Chi) and bring us into harmony with
nature. This includes addressing imbalances in our yin and yang (opposite forces at work)
which result in disharmony/illness.

Dr Chen and Yu Li. March 2015

Prior to beginning to learn about TCM, I had explored some avenues of healing, though had
largely relied on Western medical remedies which, while often very helpful, addresses fixing

182
individual symptoms rather than root causes. This had led me to something of a resigned feel -
ing at the infinite number of things that can go wrong with the human body. Western medical
specialists are restricted to specific regions or organs of the body instead of seeing people as
wholistic entities in which energy balance must be brought into harmony. A basic introduc -
tion to TCM gave me a whole new perspective in the awareness that it, if we live in harmony
with nature, it is natural for the body to be healthy.
M and I also participated in some Tai Chi classes, which were very therapeutic. Dr Chen told
us he practiced Tai Chi daily and had come across some very advanced practitioners in
China. I was fascinated by the importance of the tan t’ien, or dantian, in Tai Chi. The lower
tan t’ien is the centre of qi, or life force energy. There is also a middle tan t’ien at the level of
the heart, having to do with internal organs and where qi is refined into spirit, and an upper
tan t’ien in the middle of the forehead, having to do with the pineal gland and where qi is re -
fined into emptiness. Dr Chen did confirm that the principal motivations for developing the
lower tan t’ien in Tai Chi and Taoism is for longevity and powers. The powers largely come
from evolving a ‘little man’ in the tan t’ien area who can do one’s bidding – such as travel
astrally to find out things for one. The longevity is considered by many to be a physical one,
but others, including some early Taoist literature suggest is the immortality of consciously
realizing one is not one’s mind/body and rather becomes the whole of one’s experience –
something of a deathless absolute and its expression as the universe.

31/3/2015 - My Body Turns 65

“In this phase, in a spiritually mature society, both men and women devote themselves to the
completion of their inner Work in order that, at death, they may be able to blend consciously
with the force that gave them life. Needless to say, our society is anything but spiritually mature
and the lives of most elderly people are wasted in futility.” - on the Sannyasin – the fourth and
last – phase of life, Robert S. de Ropp, Self-Completion – Keys to the Meaningful Life, 1988

Very grateful still to have a body in fairly good health. Since being diagnosed with diabetes 10
years ago and J’s illness and death 8 years ago, key priorities have been consolidating and further
progressing awakening/self-realization and maintaining quality of life so as better to enjoy each
day and effect the further work on personal evolution.
The last 8 years have been especially important in understanding the importance of awareness and
of turning attention back on the source/subject itself. This has been underlined by further research
into what appear to have been the key teachings of both Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta.
While Michael Langford’s Awareness Watching Awareness method was a big eye-opener about 5
years ago and a main focus for practice since, the discovery of Anadi’s teaching – which describes
practices and offers his map of awakening in great detail – has clarified and enhanced the under -
standing of my inner states and practice opportunities further than others have been able to.
It has been an especial privilege and education to help manage to publish his Book of Enlighten-
ment with a mainstream publisher and then to assist in editing some of his new material.

2017
Spent the first three months in Japan during which time I experienced high glucose problems, only

183
resolved when I consulted a specialist doctor at the state university who prescribed new medication.
My plans to visit my mother for her birthday were cancelled by her at the last minute, as she felt
unable to see visitors for long.
In May, tests showed a 95% blockage in the main artery feeding the heart and further blockages in
at least two of the heart’s arterial branches. My own best sense of the cause of this was that previ -
ous higher than very strict optimal glucose levels had resulted in the retention of ‘bad’ cholesterol
in the cardiovascular system. My understanding is that, once cholesterol is attached to the lining of
the blood vessels, it is not picked up in blood tests, which only measures what is flowing in the
blood. My cholesterol readings and blood pressure had invariably been ok, so there had been no
alarm about a possible problem.
Following this, I experienced daily angina and was in and out of hospital in UK until I was finally
transferred to a London hospital where I was given a triple heart bypass at end of August.
During this period M gave up her life in Japan to re-join me in the UK. She returned to Japan for a
short period to finalize the termination of our house rental and the disposal of contents, including
shipping some things back to the UK.
Personal evolution also continues.

2018
After 13 years, finding I was unable to maintain satisfactory blood glucose levels through medica-
tion and lifestyle, I finally started using insulin in April. There was an immediate improvement. I
was able to monitor this and adjust the dosage when required and soon changed from long to inter-
mediate acting insulin.
In October, I started using the FreeStyle Libre continuous glucose monitoring sensor with reader
which finally, together with the insulin, diet and exercise, gave me the ongoing control I had sought
for so long. What a relief!
As a result of experiencing further pains which seem to be angina, I was able to have a second an-
giogram, resulting in the insertion of a stent on 2 November. It seems one of the 3 bypasses had not
grafted well, allowing only a partial flow. The stent is meant to improve the passage of blood in
that particular coronary arterial branch.
My best hypothesis as to the cause of the heart issues were the fluctuating glucose levels together
with levels which were too high at times (glucose bonds with cholesterol in the blood stream and
builds up on the walls) – though my cardiologist said vulnerability to heart issues came just from
being a diabetic male over 50. I asked her if my cardiovascular system would now be fine, assum-
ing I could control my glucose levels going forward, and she said I could still be vulnerable to is -
sues just from a time point of view, adding that there would be an increased probability I could
have more issues if I lived to 100.

Rasa International – Ramaji and Ananda Devi
Friend R advised me he was trying sessions with a teacher called Ramaji. I looked him up on the
internet and found he had written a number of books, one of which was called 1000. In 1000 he had
rated the spiritual LOCs (Level of Consciousness) of two hundred contemporary Western teachers
of non-duality and advaita using o-ring biokinesiology (also known as “muscle testing”) to grade

184
them on a scale - one which seemed to me to have parallels to the one David Hawkins used in his
books, but have some interesting divergences, as well.

The LOC ratings I felt could well be indicative and used as a guide for having a rough idea where
one was on one’s journey and what one’s next steps and stages were. However, on the level of the
primordial experiences I have had as something of a base and ‘home’ since infancy, the relevance
of such stages in what is just the dream of this dimension evaporates.
Ramaji had had a kundalini experience when he was 16. After decades of further spiritual practice
his kundalini journey completed, including an awakening of the causal heart on the right side of the
chest (where Ramana Maharshi also referred to it being . . . for those who wished to have a phys -

185
ical region to focus on). With this experience the world became the Universal Self.
Ramaji had also developed a method of transmitting grace to students, called RASA, which helps
them evolve upwards towards or to the 1000 level. This was the top of the scale he uses and
seemed to me to be one of having a clear and established awakening but is by no means the end of
one’s spiritual evolution.
In his words: “RASA (Ramaji Advaita Shaktipat Attunement) delivers the Grace of Divine Mother
for accelerated spiritual awakening. Even though this Grace or Blessing has the power to quickly
raise your level of consciousness, it is very gentle. Some people have shifted into enlightenment
(stabilization in a non-dual LOC above well above 600) immediately after receiving RASA.” (You
Are Everything, 2013)
Rasa does not work indiscriminately on just anyone. Three factors are required for success: a strong
desire to awaken in the recipient, an openness to the rasa energy, and the grace of Kali Ma.
I read about the experiences of different of his students who had themselves become rasa givers.
Time after time they said their search and the suffering which had motivated it, had ended. More
importantly, I was clear that this same was true of my friend R. I was deeply impressed, as helping
others awaken, even if just to a level of awareness beyond the mind is a remarkable achievement.
My friend R did give me a couple of rasa sessions and I joined a couple of group rasa sessions with
friend R and some of the other rasa givers, which I found to be pleasant. I had no doubt these rasa
givers understood what they were doing and had definitely attained some degree of awakening.
Subsequently I joined group rasa sessions given by Ramaji and Ananda. They knew what
they were talking about. Some aspects of this teaching remain unclear to me. Kundalini
seems to be a factor in it, which I am not totally comfortable with. They also speak of the
crown chakra and that is an area on which views are divided. However, the heart plays a
big role for them, so it is not all consciousness oriented.
As self-inquiry and one’s beingness play key roles, immanence is important, but am not
clear how the transcendent and primordial are treated, or what the view is of what survives
death, unless it is what was never truly born in the first place.
A revised edition of 1000: The Levels of Consciousness and a Map of the Stages of
Awakening for Spiritual Seekers and Teachers was published in 2019 which included
the LOCs of a new total of 400 modern teachers. Some of the LOCs of the modern teach -
ers which had been in the previous edition had changed – some increasing and some de-
creasing (the one for Anadi dropping from 1000 to the 700s). During a group RASA ses-
sion, I checked with Ramaji and Ananda the reason for these changes. I was told that
some teachers had progressed since the first edition but was also told that new informa-
tion about some teachers had influenced the LOC ratings they were given. This suggested
to me that the LOC ratings could not be considered to have been arrived at with complete
impartiality, which would be more the case with ‘blind’ o-ring type testing (blind in the
sense that the one doing the testing does not know who he/she is testing).
However, a closer reading of the revised 1000 helped my understanding of the big differ-
ences in the various levels. When I checked the state of those in the 700s, it clarified
many of the questions I had had about parts of Anadi’s teaching and a number of his re -
sponses to questions I’d put to him. 700 is a level of a cosmic self which has become the
universe and reached the ultimate in knowledge – so a level of quite incredible realization.

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However, it is not until the 800s that the surrender to not knowing and love of divine union
enters, where one is not only everything, but everything is loved as the divine. If Anadi is
seeing things from the 700s level, then his conclusions will be restricted to what is realized
from that level. Ramaji points out that his experience from checking spiritual teachers at
the various levels is that they tend to crystalize at the level they are at when they begin
teaching.
The 900s level is called the Natural State, which is one of ‘no self’ and at 1000 one attains
the Absolute as the Supreme self.
Above the 700s are levels in realms of non-duality requiring both surrender and grace.
Despite the seeming loss of ‘me’, one is still ‘in’ these levels, but now merged or in union
with them and then as all.
Ramaji makes clear that what Nisargadatta meant as one’s being was the feeling of one’s
subjective self, which is what has always resonated with me as an important part of an
awake state outside of the mental and physical. He speaks of Ramana Maharshi referring
to this as the ‘I-feeling’. Moreover, Ramaji recounts the spiritual journeys of many of those
he has tested the LOCs of and one of these, Mandi Solk, author of The Joy of No Self,
admonishes us to forget the advice of so many teachers that there is nothing you can do.
She used self-inquiry to be with her consciousness, independent of the state of thought, to
go beyond our normal identity to the deeper sense of being, which advanced her evolu-
tion. You become free once you have lost this sense of personal identification.
The book 1000 describes Ramaji’s own evolution through these different levels. Some of
the descriptions seemed to be mystical and other-worldly but others were ones I could
identify with in full or in part, such as periods of my life which involved great suffering/de-
pression or a sudden change in state for a period of time. One passage especially reson -
ated, which referred to the ‘stateless state’ in which there is simply awareness with no at -
tention or activity. From this I could see the shortcoming in the awareness watching
awareness method. The awareness that is watching is the activity or attention part of this,
while the awareness which is being watched is passive. They are not the same. The latter
is at peace while the former is active . . . and tiring to use.
Ramaji also better clarified Nisargadatta’s absolute for me. Using his LOC levels, he notes
the 600s are ‘I Am My Self’, the 700s ‘I Am All’; the 800s ‘I Am’, and 1000 ‘Reality Alone
Is’. Reaching 1000 is a forgetting, a divine ignorance, and even a forgetting you forgot,
which is also an illumination and transfiguration. No ‘I’ exists and no other exists either. It
is in Buddhist terms, as Ramaji describes it, naked reality, pure awareness, and simple ‘Is-
ness’. These descriptions are along the lines of my experiences of the primordial, such
other-dimensional oneness in which there not only is no ‘I-thought’, but there is also no ‘I’.
However, one has not disappeared and is not unconscious – complete awareness re-
mains. For me it is a state of being unborn and the material world and universe, including
myself in it are so unreal they are not even a dream.
While my own journey has not had the striking experiences Ramaji recounts going
through, I do resonate strongly with the levels he quotes from Rajiv Kipur:

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Rajiv Kapur's Four Stages of Self-Inquiry Meditation
- (1) Recognize Now Presence or Now Space [LOC 600s].
- (2) Recognize Void and become one with it [LOC 700s].
- (3) Open Heart, drop Void and be pure I AM [LOC 800s].
- (4) Integrating love and transcending fear, let go of spiritual methods and
embrace Being itself by "bringing the Unknown, Timeless stateless state into
all states" [LOC 900 to 1000].
o Ramaji. 1000: The Levels of Consciousness and a Map of the Stages of
Awakening for Spiritual Seekers and Teachers (p. 636). Rasa Transmis-
sion International Books. Kindle Edition.
Ananda Devi’s own book, Intimacy with the Infinite, speaks of her own unique journey
and awakenings. It’s a fascinating read and has given me further insights. The title of one
of the chapters resonated strongly with me: You Can’t Become What You Already Are. I
had been trying to replicate Anadi’s experience of entering the absolute through the lower
tan t’ien, but finally found I was already in the absolute and had been for years without
having realized that is what my experience was.

Ramaji and Ananda Devi have blessed me incredibly, as their writings and teachings have
answered the concerns I have long had about Anadi’s teaching and shone a light on the
path beyond it through their own examples.

2019

Session with Ramaji

In late December I had a session, concluding with a rasa transmission, with Ramaji. Here
are what I feel were the key points of what he said:
About his LOC 1000 measurement system: Just picture a human brain and human
conditioning – I’m optimistic that it’s 85-90% correct, maybe 95%, but it’s not correct with
everybody. Impossible. It’s just the nature of human beings.
About having students: We tell people who are sincere and ready, it usually takes a
year or less. If they are in the 600s then just 3 months. We’ve slowed the context down so
they have a perspective on the entire path. A year for brains and nervous systems to
adapt. I don’t even like to call people students.

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Other comments in the sequence they were made:
Just talk about your experience in terms of daily life, thoughts emotions, actions experi-
ence of yourself, identity, fundamentals in your terms . . . where you are at in terms of the
human stuff.
...
if the I thought is gone then you wake to clarity. It’s obvious. You don’t start building any
kind of body-based identity. You remain aware and go about your day. Even in an argu-
ment you may focus on that, but you have not lost awareness, the awareness never
changes – everything is the awareness. If you have a sense it diminishes, then that’s not
1000. At 1000 everything is ‘that’, even the house across the street is you. Every-
thing is god. It does not change after you awake. ‘I am that’ is everything. The
awareness is the context for everything to arise. If you are talking to another per-
son, you are talking to you. The world is the self. That’s the bottom line.
...
You have all this knowledge – Ananda Devi and I would love to remove students’ past, so
they are fresh and open with no preconceived ideas. Like a child. Your concepts are basi-
cally toilet paper for the poop in the mind. It’s all about this moment here. There is
nothing else. There is only this moment – no concepts What’s your experience right
now? What’s your relationship with what you are drinking? That’s yourself. What you feel
with your body and your being – no need for any word from any teacher.
...
You’d think spiritual teachers would tell you this rather than encourage concepts. Why talk
about this crap when you can get to the real thing. I realize you have this background. The
concepts serve the purpose like a ladder to get to the 2 nd floor. [You kick away the ladder
once you are there.] Are your actions spontaneous – are you established in non-do-
ership? A self-realized person is in complete spontaneity.
...
What is your experience moment to moment? Is your action completely spontaneous –
completely established in non-doership? When you are with people, at least one to one,
do you feel they are over there or you are talking to yourself?
...
If you are at 1000 spirituality is useless to you. It was an antidote to your disease of seek-
ing.
...
Peace and silence is always right where you are. At 900s stage it’s ok to go off for isola-
tion, but at 1000 there is no other world to separate yourself from. At 1000 the world
is gone as a concept – it is yourself. The world is sensation. There is nothing else
going on, except thought going on above it. Thoughts are saying, ‘Listen to me. I’m
right.’ The mind is crazy. The world is an expression or projection of the self. As Ramana
said, if you have realized the Self, there will not be a world for you. But yet he still read the
newspapers, so there is still an experience of the world, but you don’t interpret it that way.
At 900 you experience the purity of the self. The 900s are critical. Then, as you are self-

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realized, so no more this and that, as everything is ‘that’. There is no more spirituality -
though if you are a monk you will probably stay a monk. Spirituality is another thought.
...
Don’t look back. I am talking about right now. Don’t compare yourself to anyone else.
...
If you cannot be yourself under ordinary circumstances, then you are not being yourself.
What’s going on at a football game with everyone going nuts is different from being in a
Zen monastery. But that does not change the reality of what’s going on. I would seek to
enjoy whatever the experience is. One experience is not better or more peaceful than an-
other. Everything is ‘that’. Everything is this. Right now. If not, I am not finished. Finished
means seeking is toast. This is a miracle right now, whatever it is. You can’t get away
from it, no matter what you do, no matter the situation, It’s not the world anymore. It’s all
the self. A neighbour’s dog pooping on my garden is a miracle, god in action. And I still
may get mad at the neighbor, because I am god in action too.
...
I studied with a teacher (Shinzen Young), a Buddhist meditation master who said enlight-
enment is living in a state of unblocked feeling with the whole body. Chaung Tzu and Lao
Tzu say the same. You are spontaneous all the time. You are emotional. You are not con-
sistent. You are not above things despite what many teachers say. That’s spiritual by-
passing. D T Suzuki and Nisargadatta were very human. Teachers who are less awak-
ened pretend otherwise.
...
If you are really at peace you are free to do anything without fear. You are free to live.
...
Teachers who say they are above feeling, I want to slap them and ask them if they feel
anything yet.
...
There is nothing you can hold on to. This is it right now. [snaps fingers] This is all we
have.
...
When you are in a natural state you are in a state of not knowing. Knowledge is a trap we
get attached to. The knowledge is not real. Our true self is awareness. It is everything. I
would categorize knowledge as part of the world. It is from outside you. As a baby you did
not need that. Identity is not a learned thing. Identity is the foundation for everything. You
are fasting from everything that is telling you that you don’t know and still need to seek.
Anything saying you are not there yet is the world, is a lie. My advice is to let it all go.
Choose now this experience without knowing what it is.
...
You can’t do anything else than what you do in any given moment. So, where did that
come from, because thought does not come in. Thought and action arise from the same
place – the nameless absolute, the isness, the self. If you are in this moment all this be-

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comes crystal clear. You don’t try to experience something because a teacher says it is
the right way . . . This is it. No concepts. Nobody is here with you. No teacher can pene-
trate your experience.
...
Speaks of Ramana Maharshi’s using space of a room as an analogy. Anything can hap-
pen in the room, strippers or sacred rites, but the space does not change. You are the
space. Awareness is benign. You live from your heart and there are no obstructions in
your being. It is simple.
...
If I am in a grocery store, you are still on two levels. At a mundane level acting like every-
body else. At another level it would be nice to say, ‘Did you know that you are the bud-
dha?’, but our culture does not allow this. I would love for everyone to break into dance
and for bhajans to be played over the speakers.
...
You’ve been immersed in teachings that focused on spirituality as an end in itself versus
spirituality as a means to an end. This don’t go on forever. This is a bus ride. Get off the
freaking bus. You are virtually at the destination, but don’t realize it. Get off the bus!
...
People say I can’t be there because I am not at peace. fundamental flaw. See through
the seeking as flawed as an attempt to escape the reality of this moment. People spend
decades studying at ashrams and have tons of concepts but are actually quite confused.
They’ve been taught they need some extraordinary experience. If this is it, it has to be ev-
erything. Even in the most ordinary thing in the world. You don’t have to be in a special
state to access the natural state.
...
Speaks of his 7 years in vipassana and success at it. But realized it is like a skill to get
into samadhi. But after a while knew it was more like a vacation, not enlightenment.
...
Enlightenment is awareness all the time You are no longer fooled by special states. Like
drugs. In the end you are left with what you’ve had all along.
...
[It is] just a unity never really divided. There’s no outside and no inside. I can shut my
eyes and it does not change my state. The natural state is often described as non-medita-
tion meditation. You are in it all the time. You can’t get out of it. There’s no in and out, up
and down. Because of its sublime purity, you can’t get out of it.

Even without the rasa transmission, which followed the above points, I felt the words
themselves had had a noticeable power of shifting me towards that unity consciousness
he was speaking of. I had known of it conceptually for decades, but there had seemed a
barrier to attaining it, that ‘gateless barrier’ Zen speaks of. Suddenly, it felt much closer, no
longer just a lovely idea, but almost a living experience. The barrier is clearly just our own

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idea that we are separate, indeed that there is a ‘we’ at all, rather than just the reality of
perception and sensation.
I felt tired and drained after the session and for the next day, too.
Ramaji had felt my own LOC level was probably about 940-950, largely because I still felt
there was a world I liked to be isolated from. (This was despite confirming it to friend R as
1000 some months earlier.) He said it was likely I might well edge toward the 1000 level
naturally on my own but said that 3 or 4 more mini (half) sessions was probably all that
would be needed. Following that there would be no reason to have more unless I wished
any post 1000 ones and, if so, he suggested they be done with Ananda Devi. I have since
enjoyed some rasas via the monthly group sessions and have noted more of a realization
of embodying my world . . . though not sure the latter is a consequence of the former.

Arkaji reconnection
Following a house move, I found I had quite a bit of Arkaji material (files of transcripts,
photos, posters, CDs, cassettes, DVDs and videos) from the 90s and forwarded those to
his centre in the UK. They let him know and he sent the following message about me:
[ …’s] meticulousness, sincerity and honesty in whatever he undertakes quite im-
pressive to anyone who crosses his path.
[ … ] was the first among a very few who recognised my potential, work, purpose
and message to humanity.
He has witnessed spending time so closely how yogis live, think, serve and reflect.
[ …’s] inner strength, love in his heart, his openness and a meaningful positive atti-
tude as well spiritual cultivation have brought him treasures of fulfilment.
If it is not inconvenient to him in anyway I would like to visit him briefly on my re-
turn to UK this year soon.
Convey my regards to his wife [ M…].
Love
Yogi Arka
Auckland New Zealand
This message touched me deeply. So many ‘spiritual’ teachers only have time for students
who are supporting them financially or in other ways. Arka now dresses in western cloth-
ing, often informal or in a jacket or suit, presenting himself in a style which welcomes
people of any culture, ethnic background and economic standing. His meetings have al-
ways been open to people from any faith or religion.

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 Srinivas Arka at the end of his birthday talk 27 Sept. 2020
Aside from his Dhyana process, I did not find other practice examples in his teaching, and
so I asked one of his key students, T, to ask him about this, including wondering if he also
relied quite a bit on personal transmission/grace as a key vehicle for worthy followers.
However, I never received a response from T. On reflection, I now feel the Dhyana prac-
tice, on one’s own and/or in a group setting, can be powerful and as effective as Taoist
methods and Zen shikantaza (just sitting).
It has long been clear that Arka’s Dhyana is not a meditation practice using the mind, but
about first coming into union with the body and then becoming one with a state beyond the
mind. Arkaji says Dhyana is transcending the thinking mind, going within, expanding
awareness and becoming united. There a connection with heart and soul and a real magic
of the special energy within being released.
Arkaji said at a talk, “Before I entered this room, I stopped and looked down at a plant. I
entered Dhyana and looked up to the sky. Infinite compassionate space.” (Taylor Road
Centre, Mitcham – 12/8/07) This seems to have remarkable parallels with the nonduality
experience of embodying one’s world, the ‘I am that’ spoken of in Hinduism, Buddhism,
Taoism and the Bible.
From Wikipedia on Dhyana:
- It is, in Hinduism, a part of a self-directed awareness and unifying Yoga process by
which the yogi realizes Self (Atman, soul), one's relationship with other living be-
ings, and Ultimate Reality.
- In Hinduism, dhyāna is considered to be an instrument to gain self-knowledge. It is a
part of a self-directed awareness and unifying Yoga process by which a world that by
default is experienced as disjointed, comes to be experienced as Self, and an inte-
grated oneness with Brahman. [Brahman here intended as meaning non-theistic non-
dualistic Ultimate Reality or supreme soul.]

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 - With further practice, the yogi "ceases being detachedly vigilant" and enters "a state of
fusion with the meditation object" which is Samadhi.
- Both object-centered and objectless-centered meditative practice, in Hindu texts, leads
to progressively more bright, pellucid and poised state of "powerful, pure, Sattvic" state
of blissful Self, ultimately leading to the knowledge of purusha or Atman-Brahman
(soul) . . . This is the state, in Hindu tradition, where . . . the yogi or yogini realizes "the
Atman in you is the Atman in everyone", and leading to the realization of Self.

Realizing now that it is unlikely most people will awaken in their current lifetimes, I had
also wondered if Arka’s work, which welcomes all to his teaching, would have benefit for
such people. My conclusion is that it certainly helps make the world a better place and, if
there is reincarnation of non-personal souls, then his work would certainly advance those
for further spiritual work in the next incarnation.

2020


Senses as the gates of the soul
In mid-March, I underwent private outpatient cataract surgery for both eyes in which tailor-
made multi-lenses were inserted to replace my old lenses which had the worsening cataracts.
The old ones I had been born with were removed and the new artificial ones acted in the same
way as multifocal glasses do, allowing one to see correctly at any distance without the need
for external glasses at all.
As a result I was able to see much better at all distances and colours became much sharper
and more vivid. It was like entering a new world, and especially appropriate that this occurred
in the spring, when so many flowers were coming into bloom and new green appearing in the
plant life.
A special aspect of this for me was that it underlined where I was looking from . . . where my
identity has become established which is where the intelligent recognition of the seeing takes
place. I look from beyond the mind-body complex and the physical eyes, now with the artificial
lenses, are truly experienced as ‘windows of the soul’. The soul is established and experien-
cing through all the windows and other gates of perception.
I tried to explain the above to the specialist eye doctor who did the procedure – and who had
been through 13 years of university studies – when I returned a week later for a follow up
check. He seemed to listen politely and then completed our meeting telling me I had nothing to
worry about as respects the success of the operation. Despite being someone of great intelli-
gence and sensitivity in dealing with his patients, he did not attach any importance to what I
was telling him about this great wonder of living outside of the mind. Similarly, in a follow up
meeting with my cardiologist after having a stent, I told her I had just finished editing work on a
book on opening the spiritual heart and she expressed no interest in that at all.

Vasanas/Kleshas/Kilesas
Vasanas is an Advaita, term describing the sub-conscious or unconscious tendencies
we have which need to be cleared to escape from the cycle of rebirth. They speak of

194
the impulses or drivers which we bring into this life at birth, before even becoming ra-
tional or acquiring a personality. In Buddhism they are known as kleshas or kilesas.
Ramana (on p. 35 of the Padamalai, 19 ff) says vasanas are the habits or tendencies
of the mind, such as likes and dislikes, that makes it behave the way it does. The term
is usually translated as ‘latent tendencies’.
Vasanas help make clear why people (including myself) often make choices and live
lives which seem irrational. It is as if our soul has made decisions, even before its next
physical body has been conceived, about what is important for it to do in its next life-
time and these become the hidden drivers for the individual who is born as that soul’s
vehicle for its next level of training in the school of the manifested world.
When vasanas clear, we are realized/free. Ramana says vasanas are in subtle forms
in the spiritual heart and then are magnified by the mind and projected out to make our
world. As we clear them, so does our world clear. One spiritual teacher speaks of the
process of clearing them as being like walking down a hall darkened by vasanas and
clearing them by simply switching lights on as one walks along.
My sense is that one could clear vasanas one at a time OR clear everything at once
by stepping out of the mind (awakening) altogether. When we are between thoughts,
or out of the mind tapping into intuition, we are free. We could just hold on to that and
keep extending it, so it becomes permanent. We would still be able to use the mind
and our personality, but they would no longer be our primary identity.
Vasanas – like personal faults and shortcomings – that hold us prisoners in our cycle
of rebirths are often not so obvious to ourselves but may be clear to others around us,
just as we may be more aware than they are of the ones they have. However, I real-
ized we can become more conscious of the deeper ones we have through awareness
of patterns we have in our dreams. In the same way that the world we experience is
largely our own projection (and even if it may not literally be our projection, the way we
experience it is a result of our own unique ‘filters’), most dreams are definitely our own
individual mental projections. Accordingly, dreams can be a window to our deeper
subconscious – and even unconscious – patterns.
Very deep limiting beliefs and attitudes we have can be revealed in dreams, even
when they are not evident in our waking life. For example, I was able to stop working
in a formal sense a number of years ago and so also stopped having any manager or
other authority figure in my life (although I still work interdependently with others, but in
the sense of us all being equals, helping each other with our different talents and
strengths). However, in my earlier years, I definitely felt dependent on a number of au-
thority-type figures for both happiness and well-being. These others were figures like
parents, teachers (including spiritual ones), employers – and, at times, I even felt my
emotional well-being was dependent on some romantic relationships. I realize now the
degree of dependence I felt was actually a limitation I had applied to all these situ-
ations – it had never really been true. However, while I am seemingly beyond this pre-
vious needy dependent pattern in my waking life, it continues to be a different matter
in my dreams. I have repeating dreams of seeking work from earlier employers and, in
the dreams, feel my well-being is entirely dependent on their whims. Being an em-

195
ployee with work authority figures was a family pattern I came into and feeling depend-
ent on such figures seemed a reality of my life for many years.
This particular pattern/vasana can be seen as a mix of desire, resistance/fear and de-
lusion in that I desperately wanted the job as a means to well-being, I feared not being
approved of and hired by the authority figures, and I was suffering from the illusion that
I was inferior to those in authority – when the truth is that employers need employees
as much as the reverse applies.
Letting go of vasanas can be an easy process, too - just becoming aware of them may
be enough. So, awareness of these dream patterns may be enough for them to dimin-
ish and disappear over time.
Zen has the term 'sudden awakening'. With such sudden awakenings, hundreds, if not
thousands, of vasanas are vanquished. My sense is that much of who we identify with
being as personalities/egos are actually our vasanas. Our whole facade we spend
most of our lives trying to be – and the name on our gravestone (if we get one) –, in
addition to being about our personal characters, is also about a pile of vasanas (indi-
vidualized through samskaras and vrittis). Things become so clear when such long-in-
grained habits are dropped, and we no longer have to carry all that 'masquerade I'
around anymore. All 'our' karma disappears with them, as well. We have not vanished
- just our false, illusory identifications. Then we realize we are the timeless and can
enjoy the passing scene and do just what we are inspired to do. Our external self be-
comes transparent to our awakened self – now outside of the mind.
The contemplation of vasanas led me to the Bhagavad Gita, in which it says that when
you clear vasanas the last to go is your 'I'. This means self-realization, in which you
leave who you thought you were, your old identity as the mind-body-ego, behind and
realize yourself as something hugely better. But this is something most people, even
seekers, are afraid to do, as is said in the title of an old popular song, 'Everybody
wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.'
In Buddhism, the three basic types of kleshas are known as the three poisons, attach-
ment, aversion and ignorance (which can also be seen as desire/clinging, anger/resist-
ance and delusion). All the other vasanas grow out of these three fundamental ones.
They are represented by the bird, snake and pig in the hub of the Tibetan wheel of life.
The three basic ones are often shown biting each other’s tails, indicative of the repeat-
ing cycle of rebirths and lives. It is from these three poisons that the whole cycle of ex-
istence is born and continues to revolve, as is represented by the wheel of life. These
are the root causes of karma, which is represented in the next circle, ascending on
one side from positive deeds and descending on the other from negative ones.

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Outside of that are shown the six realms of existence, the larger circle of samsara,
driven by the inner circles, the root causes of all vasanas and our individual karma.
These six realms represent the types of suffering we continue to experience in each of
our incarnations. Three of them are quite negative (animal, hungry ghost and hell
realms) and three are less so (human, demi-god/jealous god/demon and heavenly/
peaceful gods), but all still involve suffering in varying degrees.

While we may be mostly based in one of the realms in an incarnation, it is likely we

shift between realms during a single life as we find ourselves in different situations, re-
lationships, psychological states and emotions. How we are feeling is a good gauge
for where we are. Some examples:
- Ignorance puts us into the animal realm.
- If we are feeling shame, guilt or victimized, we are in a hell.

197
 - If we are feeling deprived or not having enough of anything we deem important
for our happiness or well-being, we have become a hungry ghost.
- The human realm is one in which our lives are run by collective social mentality,
and one where we are constantly seeking more permanent happiness.
Buddhists consider it to be the best realm from which to work and evolve spir-
itually.
- Being attached to wealth or power(s) in a lifetime with envy and distrust of oth-
ers with the same or more is about the demi-god/jealous god/demon realm.
- Being satisfied with limited degrees of spiritual attainments puts one into a
peaceful god/heavenly realm, but we are still identified with how wonderful we
are, and we have not escaped impermanence.
The very outer circle shows the twelve progressive stages of dependent origination –
the sequence we go through in forming into a new separate self to be born, to age and
to die again.
Buddhist teachings and parts of this outer circle explain how we evolved from a pre-
personality ‘being’ into this seemingly separate ‘becoming’ ego, packaged with
whatever past karma needs we must still deal with in order to free ourselves to step
back into the state of ‘being’ again.
These teachings tell us that, in the beginning, there is no relationship, just self-con-
tained open space. If we have doubts that we exist, our uncertainty causes us to pro-
ject a reference point outside ourselves to be separate from and to relate to. This reas-
sures us of our existence, and we identify with what is ‘here.’ Then we create more
and more outside reference points to reinforce our feeling of a ‘me’ existing from our
particular ‘here’ foundation point.
Buddhist psychology uses the concepts of the 5 skandhas to speak about how we set
our ‘me’ up, form our territory and use our projections to affirm our individual exist-
ence. The first step is that of form and comes from a discovery of selflessness and an
ignorance and fear that there is no self, or solid ‘me,’ here in the open space. So we
create a solidity and a separation barrier between ‘here/self’ and ‘there/other.’ The
next step is that of feeling, as a means of further confirming our existing ‘here,’
through feeling ‘here’ as separate to what we project as ‘out there.’ The third step is
perception, or more awareness ‘here’ of, and how we relate to and manipulate, what
is ‘out there.’
The three styles of this relating are passion/desire (wanting something we perceive as
pleasurable), aggression/hatred (resisting or running way from something we see as
threatening) and indifference/stupidity (where we decide something either doesn’t mat-
ter or become numb and stop letting ourselves feel anything about it).
These first three skandhas are instinctive. The fourth one is about intellect, or con-
ceptual discrimination, which allows us to categorise and name the many things now
happening around and to us, and to decide how threatening they might be, including a
new level of reasoning about others’ motives.
The last skandha is consciousness, where we combine the use of emotions and
thought patterns to construct the dream worlds we live in and from which we defend
ourselves against the ‘out there.’ As Chogyam Trungpa put it, “…whole fantasy worlds

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are created to shield and entertain the ego. Emotions are the highlights of the fantas-
ies while discursive thoughts, images and memories sustain the story line. A story of
the ego’s hopes and fears, victories and defeats, virtues and vices is developed. In
highly neurotic people, elaborate subplots or ‘problems’ then develop from the initial
drama. In psychotic people, the subplots completely overshadow the main drama.”
(‘Space Therapy’, The Middle Way, London, Nov. 1975)
The irony and tragedy of all of this separation and ‘projection creation’ is that we totally
forget we have created these and believe they are real and have always been there.

The whole wheel is held by Yama, the god of death. The potential for liberation is de-
picted by the Buddha outside the wheel on the upper right, who is pointing to the
white circle of the moon, representing freedom from all vasanas/kleshas.

Tibetan Wheel of Life – Onmark productions

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12
Taoism and ‘Immortality’

John Blofeld’s book on Taoism

I found a copy of John Blofeld’s Taoism – The Quest for Immortality which appears to me to
give a different perspective on the usual presentation of Taoist teachings. Blofeld was an Eng-
lishman who lived much of his life in China and quite a few years of that before the revolution
there. He was especially drawn to spiritual masters and remote hermits and was a long-time
student of them. I had found his autobiography, The Wheel of Life – The Autobiography of
a Western Buddhist and My Journey in Mystic China exceptional pleasures to read. Blofeld
had also done the first complete translation into English of The Zen Teaching of Huang Po.
Blofeld explains why this book on Taoism is different:
My earlier book of Taoism, The Secret and Sublime, was in most respects very different from
this one; for when I wrote it I had little more to draw upon than recollections of my visits to her-
mitages tucked deep among the mountains and imperfectly remembered conversations with
the lovable recluses dwelling there. I could speak only in very general terms about Taoist yoga
and other matters pertaining to the spiritual path known as cultivation of the Way, for my
primary interest in Buddhism had led me to neglect some unique opportunities of studying liv-
ing Taoism thoroughly. This defect has since been repaired thanks to an invaluable gift sent to
me by one of my former Chinese students - a book published by the Chung Hwa Book Com-
pany, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China, entitled Tao-Chia Yu Shen-Hsien (Taoist Philo-
sophers and Immortals) by Chou Shao-hsien. The Tao Tsang or Taoist Canon, consisting of
5,485 volumes, is so vast that an Englishman with an imperfect knowledge of Chinese like
myself could be excused for not even dreaming of plumbing its mysteries. Mr Chou Shao-
hsien, however, has obviously spent many decades on that task, for his book contains the
quintessence of what is to be found there. For various reasons it is not suitable for translation,
unless for a very select English-reading public with a thorough knowledge of Chinese history
and much else besides, but as source material it is invaluable, the more so as it contains care-
fully documented quotations from all the great Taoist masters through the ages. With that and

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some other works to fall back on and my own memories to lend colour to the scene, I have
been able to write much more authentically of Taoism than before. To the best of my know-
ledge, the present work is the first attempt ever made to give a comprehensive sketch in Eng-
lish of Huang Lao Taoism as a whole. - Foreword
From quotes he has in the book, I suddenly had an intuition and insight to what this immortality
actually meant. Part of this comes hard on the heels of the words from Ramaji, in which he
says realization means we become one with our experience and surroundings. He went on to
say his teacher Shinzen Young told him ‘enlightenment is living in a state of unblocked feeling
with the whole body’, and Ramaji added, ‘Chaung Tzu and Lao Tzu say the same’. My sense
of this ‘immortality’ is that it is not a physical one (after all, how many ancient Taoists are still
with us physically?), but rather one of realizing our real identity has never been limited to a
physical body, but that we are something deeper and greater which is not bound by time.
Here are some of Blofeld’s quotes and comments:
An immortal is one who, during his lifetime, has achieved the certainty of undergoing a glori-
ous apotheosis unattainable by those who are overtaken by death while still lost in delusion.
Some light on this difficult subject is shed by those professors of the internal alchemy who in-
sist upon the absolute necessity of creating within themselves spirit-bodies into which to enter
at the time of death. Stated thus baldly, this notion may strike us as only a degree less crude
than belief in flesh-and-blood immortality. I mention it only because it presents immortality in
the li'ght of a choice. Alchemists of this kind hold that, should one fail to create a spirit-embryo
prior to death, then his hun and p' o souls will linger in the upper and nether regions for some
time, but finally disintegrate, the opportunity for winning immortality having been lost forever.
Whereas, should he successfully create a spirit-embryo out of shen so refined as to be
identical with cosmic shen, he will be able to reap the bliss of uniting with the Tao! - Chapter
1. The Nameless (The Tao and its Activity)

A characteristically Taoist description of the ideal man runs: 'The most exalted Spiritual Man is
one who rides on light, forgetful of forms. This is known as shining, as attaining to [the prin-
ciple of] life [itself], all [sensuous] feeling vanquished. Sharing the joy of heaven and earth, he
forgets that he was ever ensnared by the myriad objects.' These are the words of a true mys-
tic who perceives that wisdom and virtue arise not from a mastery of externals, but by turning
the mind inwards to contemplate the light. Another delightful definition runs: 'Thus the True
Man [lives] in heaven above while remaining on earth below. He has "left" the world and yet
remains within it. . .. Wherever he goes, he never comes to a place that fails to fulfil his utmost
wishes.' In other words, the Sage neither separates himself from humanity nor indulges in
worldly pleasures. Lowly in appearance, exalted in spirit, he is so blissfully independent of en-
vironment that there is nowhere in heaven or earth where he does not feel entirely happy and
at ease. Thanks to his inner tranquillity, he is invulnerable to fate's arrows, but this in no way
interferes with his usefulness and helpfulness to those around him. - Chapter 2. Huang Lao,
The Yellow and the Ancient

Taoists exalt nature and living beings, perceiving in them the holiness conferred by their
underlying unity with the creative Tao. They recognise that, by allowing itself to be borne
along on the tide of creative activity, a creature rids itself of obstacles to direct communion
with the Source of life. The sage, according with nature's rhythms, lives tranquilly in the
knowledge that there is neither conflict nor division between himself, the universe and the
Source which is also the Being and the Goal. For him attainment means relinquishing the
thought of anything to be attained. He is satisfied to be! - Chapter 2. Huang Lao, The
Yellow and the Ancient

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True immortality is described thus by Professor Chou Shao-hsien:
His spirit wise, his essence holy, he illumines the mysterious and subtle, comprehending the
workings of the Real. While still at a distance, he perceives himself and the entire universe as
one, as partaking of the same eternal nature. Nothing in earth or heaven hinders his goings
and comings. Swimming through the blue vault of the sky, he gazes down upon the yellow
springs [portal of death]. Though he wanders through the universe from end to end, neither his
spirit nor his essence will undergo further change. For him there is no birth and death, nor joy·
or sorrow worth mentioning. Such is the true condition of an immortal, to which even the most
gifted cannot easily attain, for it is not to be found through knowledge, whether human or
divine. Neither virtue nor vice, nor yet perfect understanding of nature's workings leads to its
attainment. The one way to reach it is to master the subtle laws set forth in the Tao Te Ching,
the Nan Hua Scn"pture [Chuangtzil] and that called Merging with the Void [Lieh-tzil]; even
then the guidance of a teacher, wise and virtuous like the ancients, must be sought. –
Chapter 5. The Mysterious Portal (Legends of Immortals)

This next is from the story of a scholar, Fan, who (in about 1600) became a recluse in the
mountains seeking to find the way. After long meditation and solitude, still unsuccessful, he is
visited by a genie from the nearby stream. The genie gives him some advice. After further
contemplation, Fan joyfully goes to the stream to speak to the genie.

'No need to tell me!' boomed the genie in a voice like muted thunder. 'You have found the
Way! May I venture to inquire how you did so?'
'Ha-ha-ha!' laughed Fan. 'Why did you not tell me sooner? I did not find but suddenly
realised that I had never lost the Way. Those crimson dawn clouds, that shining noonday light,
the procession of the seasons, the waxing and waning of the moon - these are not majestic
functions or auspicious symbols of what lies behind. They are the Tao. To be born, to breathe,
to eat, to drink, to walk, to sit, to wake, to sleep, to live, to die- to do this is to tread the Way.
When you know how to take what comes along, not bothering with thoughts of joy and sorrow,
wearing a quilted or unlined robe not because it is the fashion but because nature prompts the
change, gathering pine seeds or mushrooms not for the taste but because hunger must be
stayed, never stirring hand or foot to do more than passing need requires, letting yourself be
borne along without a thought of wishing something to be other than it is- then you are one
with the valley mists, the floating clouds. You have attained the Way, taking birth as an
immortal. Wasting years on seeking what was never lost really is a joke.' – Chapter 5. The
Mysterious Portal (Legends of Immortals)

What these Tao masters have discovered has remarkable parallels to what is described in Zen
koans and stories, as well as in what the end stage of the ten ox-herding pictures is said to
mean. Realizing immortality in the Taoist sense must be coming to that advanced experience
of not only no longer primarily identifying with being a mind-body but of living in each moment
as the totality of one’s experience.

Now I experiment with this through each of my senses and the question, ‘Is this sensory
experience within or without?’ With eyes closed, it becomes very clear that the experience of a
sound (i.e., the sound itself) is inside me, the subject aware of it. My experience of taste, smell
and touch (feeling) also only exist inside me as recognized by the aware subject.

The conclusion for these 4 senses has also to be true for sight. It seems objects seen are
separate, but the experience is only one of the experiencer.

Some teachings speak of thought as a further sense – but thought, like the rest, is only
experienced by the one aware of it. Even being conscious of consciousness itself comes back
to the subject – the one beyond the mind.

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Here is the subject, one with his whole world, all he sees, hears, smells, tastes and touches –
soaring up to the clouds and stars, one with the myriad of creatures and other people
encountered, one with a refreshing dip in a stream, and one with the light and warmth of the
sun . . . and, open-hearted, one with the love expressed through all life itself.

Blofeld, as best as was possible, translated some Taoist poems from the Chinese:

You ask me why I dwell

Amidst these jade-green hills?
I smile. No words can tell
The stillness in my heart.
The peach-bloom on the water,
How enchantingly it drifts!
I live in another realm here
Beyond the world of men.
- Li T’ai-po refusing an invitation to the Emperor’s court

Blofeld comments: Knowing how greatly this poet was influenced by Taoistic thought, can we
perhaps take the concluding words to suggest that his peaceful contemplation of nature had
given him an inkling of what it is to attain more than human state? 'Stillness' is, in any case,
the keyword of the poem; it often signifies the state of mind essential to intuitive perception of
the Way. The fallen petals drifting on the water are, perhaps, just a random example of the
manifold beauties of nature around him, beauties compared with which the glittering
splendours of the court seem tawdry. Who knows whether the poet really had all this in mind
when he dashed off the poem? Yet one may surmise this, for Li was so deeply imbued with
the spirit of Taoism that many of his poems read like charming adornments to sermons on the
Way.

“Another of Li F'eng's poems, entitled 'The Willow Immortal', speaks of the tranquility that
follows upon meditation during which the mind soars above the world.

Over range upon range he wanders,

Insubstantial as a summer cloud.
Returned to his body, he lies gazing
At the mistily veiled moon.
A breeze, pine-scented, whispering softly,
Pervades him with its blissful chill.

This poem is full of Taoist symbolism. The spirit wandering away from the body during
meditation may be taken either metaphorically or literally, for many Taoists believe that it is
possible to create a spirit-body that can leave its mortal frame at will. The mistily veiled moon
symbolizes the Tao which, perceived in all its shining clarity during meditation, is once more
veiled now that the meditation is over, but the memory of it still lingers. The breeze is ch'i
(cosmic vitality).”

In a case like this, where Li F’eng is described as wandering, could the literal wandering
maybe not be referring to the spirit-body Taoists believe it is possible to create, but to having
embodied one’s experience, one’s world – in this case the surrounding sky and nature.
Perhaps the Taoist spirit-body actually refers to one who has graduated to being liberated
from the confines of identifying with a physical body.

Li P’eng “ describes the very moment of attaining the 'sacred elixir', here used as a synonym
for the supreme mystical experience that sets the adept free for ever from bondage to
egotism, passion and desire.

The sacred elixir Is his for ever!

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 His tranquil mind Gleams like a hidden mirror
Dispersing the phantom shapes
Of the world of dust.
His body, freed from bondage,
Idles like a floating cloud. “

Lu Yen’ Stanzas make it clearer:

To those who know the secret,

'Theres not a single thing' .
They learn to give things up
And simply practise stillness.
Closing their gates at dawn,
They read till evening falls,
Then sweep the floor and light
A stick of fragrant incense.
All day they battle with
Six robbers called the senses
Until they recognise that shapes
And forms are wholly void,
Then awaken to the truth
That 'there's not a single thing',
That the 'magic mirror stand'
Exists only in the mind.
When sense reaction's cut,
Self-transformation follows.
Then stillness dawns, and form
Is recognised as void.
'The Buddha is your mind;
Your mind is just the Buddha',
Green mountains are white clouds
In a passing transformation.
Discard your jade and gold;
You'd best forget such dross.
Spring blossom, autumn frost
Are worthier of attention.
Disciples like to boast
Of immense longevity,
Yet ten thousand years of life
Pass like a lightning flash I

Blofeld comments on Lu Yen’s words:

“He perceives that the higher forms of Taoist cultivation are, if the yogic alchemy is
discarded, identical with the Ch'an (Zen) methods which resulted from what has often
been called a marriage between Taoism and Buddhism. Both systems stress the essential
voidness of objective things, meaning that none of them is permanent nor can exist
independently of other objective things, all of them being analogous to waves which,
appearing on the surface of the ocean, have but a transient identity that is soon merged in
the ocean that gave them birth. Just as there is no real and lasting difference between two
sea waves, so is there no real difference between objects, since all arise from and revert
to the universal 'non-substance' variously known as mind or spirit.”

" . . . it is possible to understand what is really involved in cultivation of the Way. Man's
true nature (Mind as it is called in Ch'an (Zen) terminology) is not the personal possession

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of the individual; rather, individual existence is the prime illusion to be discarded. Belong-
ing to none, the Tao is present in all. Therefore, as Mahayana Buddhists are also fond of
pointing out, the only difference in this present life between realised immortals and ordi-
nary men is that the former are aware of their underlying identity with the Tao, whereas
the latter have not directly experienced that identity. Cultivation, then, is a matter of unveil-
ing, of peeling off successive layers of delusion, each more subtle than the one before. It
is a process of liberation. When the final delusion of personal separateness has been cast
off, only the physical body (soon to be discarded) remains to be mistaken by the spiritually
blind for a personal possession. By then, death has no meaning, except as a welcome re-
lease from bondage to an ageing carcass. The adept's real nature - the nature of all being
- cannot possibly be diminished by the loss of an identity that has had no reality from the
first. When clouds obscure the sun, its orb is not diminished; when they are blown away,
its brightness is not augmented; the sun is always as it is, whether visible to the eye or
not. Thus nothing starts with birth or ends with death; the real is there all the time. How-
ever, to understand this intellectually is not enough; it must become a direct perception.
To this end, the would-be immortal (goal-winner) follows a regime set forth very simply
some two thousand years ago in a work of the Han dynasty:
Taking good care of his human body, perfecting within himself his endowment of the Real,
cleansing will and thought, not straying into the paths of ordinary mortals, his mind and
senses utterly serene, impervious to the effects of every sort of ill, welcoming life and
death as parts of a seemless unity and therefore not clinging to the one or anxious about
the other, free from every kind of anxiety and fear, roaming the world imperturbably at
ease, he attains the Way.
How marvellous to wander through the world 'imperturbably at ease, no matter where one
goes or what circumstances arise! No wonder the poems of the mountain-dwelling
recluses are full of joy! With this philosophy they were able to welcome life's lovely scents
and colours as gifts to be enjoyed from moment to moment, never regretting their tran-
sience or their passing, and with never a twinge of anxiety or fear. Where even the
prospect of sudden, imminent death has no power to disturb, much less appal, one's feel-
ing of security is as absolute as that of a child in its mother's arms"
“Since Taoists, for the most part, do not accept the Buddhist doctrine of reincarnation, it is
apparent that one must either attain immortality in this life or not at all, and that the penalty
of failure is disintegration leading to extinction, which of course gives added significance to
the term 'immortality' as a synonym for achievement of the goal. As to the nature of that
goal, I cannot do better than repeat in slightly abridged form the words of the Taoist Mas-
ter Tseng, which appear in full in my earlier book on Taoism, The Secret and Sublime.
This wonderful old man came nearer than anyone I have ever known, whether Buddhist,
Taoist or otherwise, to expressing in words the exalted character of the apotheosis which
those who have completed the necessary preparations may look for after death. Having
heard from me of Sir Edwin Arnold's lovely expression for entering Nirvana, 'the dew-drop
slips into the shining sea'' he exclaimed with delight, but added: 'And yet it does not cap-
ture the whole. Since the Tao is all and nothing lies outside it, since its multiplicity and
unity are identical, when a finite being sheds the illusion of separate existence, he is not
lost in the Tao. By casting off his imaginary limitations, he becomes immeasurable. Plunge
the finite into the infinite and, though only one remains, the finite, far from being dimin-
ished, takes on the stature of infinity. Such perception will bring you face to face with the
true secret cherished by all the accomplished sages. The mind of one who returns to the
Source thereby BECOMES the Source. Your own mind is DESTINED TO BECOME THE
UNIVERSE ITSELF!'

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Ah, in these words lay a splendour beyond all previous imaginings! To be a sage and live
joyously drinking in the beauty of the sunshine and the rain, of thunder and lightning, of life
and death, is a fine thing in itself. To know that at death nothing worthwhile is lost, since
the only reality exists independently of your own existence is a satisfying philosophical re-
flection. But what are these in comparison to the knowledge that, since mind (spirit) is in-
distinguishable from Mind (Spirit), when wisdom has dissolved the shadowy barrier, the
one is found to be coextensive with the other! In the light of this knowledge, you perceive
yourself as a genie still confined within a sealed bottle, but now you have the power to
melt the seal! Suddenly it is dissolved and your consciousness rushingly expands to the
stature of a hundred feet, a thousand feet, a million- nay, a billion billion billion. You are
now identical with the Tao, container and sole substance of the universe! Stars and suns
innumerable are the atoms of your being; their whirling is the pulsing of your blood, their
fiery brilliance the radiance of your person, the music of the spheres your voice!
This then is the secret! For years I had sat at the feet of Buddhist and Taoist masters,
read the works of mystics of other faiths, and sometimes in my meditations made little ad-
vances towards intuitive perception of the Real. But it was Master Tseng, or Tseng Lao
Weng (Grandfather Tseng) as he liked to be called, who opened my eyes, more than any
other sage encountered earlier or later, to what 'attainment', 'immortality', 'Enlightenment'
really signify. Of course what his words conveyed, though he spoke from direct intuitive
perception of the Nameless, can have been no more than a poor, poor shadow of the stu-
pendous reality itself, so far is the Way beyond description. Even so, they endued life with
a meaning far beyond what I have heard or seen expressed in other ways. In the light of
those words, I have often beheld in my mind's eye those ancient mountain-dwellers-im-
mortals perhaps – living close to nature like the flowers, the winter-braving pines and the
birds, poor in possessions yet richer in beauty than the Son of Heaven upon his Dragon
Throne, so inexhaustible and pregnant with meaning are the splendours of mountains,
clouds and sky for them. Knowing themselves to be of the very substance of the rocks and
streams, the windblown grasses and the wind itself- a substance infinitely holy, they had
no fear. What enemies could blot existence out? In their piety they burnt fragrant herbs to
the stellar divinities and made offerings to the genie of rocks and pools, seeing in
everything the universal spirit that underlies and permeates the world of form. To them the
entire universe was holy, awesome on account of its majesty and vastness, but never
fearsome. On such unnatural notions as virtue and sin, they had turned their backs as be-
ing childish and sometimes mischievous delusions pertaining to the world of dust. Children
of nature, what could tempt them to do harm? Who, having thrown away possessions as
burdens too tiresome to be borne, prizing serenity and knowing passion for a foe, taking
joy and seeing holiness in all that lives, would wish to steal or rape or kill? Above all, who,
having through their yogas and contemplation attained to understanding of the secret I
had heard, not by hearing it but by direct intuitive perception in a way beyond my power to
emulate, would care to do more than live from day to day free from plans and specula-
tions, just turning a hand to whatever needed doing, doing it well and putting it out of
mind?”
Words on immortality said to Blofeld by an elderly recluse at a tiny Taoist hermitage on
Mount Hua in the Hua Shan region in 1935,
“Becoming immortal has little to do with physical changes, like the greying of a once
glossy black beard; it means coming to know something, realising something – an experi-
ence that can happen in a flash! Ah, how precious is that knowledge! When it first strikes
you, you want to sing and dance, or you nearly die of laughing! For suddenly you recog-

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nise that nothing in the world can ever hurt you. Though thunder roar and torrents boil,
though serpents hiss and arrows rain – you meet them laughing! You see your body as a
flower born to bloom, to give forth fragrance, to wither and to die. Who would care for a
peony that stayed as it was for a lifetime, for a thousand or ten thousand years? A mere
cabbage would be worthier of attention. It is well that things die when worn out, and no
loss at all, for life is immortal and never grows with the birth of things or diminishes with
their death. A worn-out object is discarded, life having ample materials to supply the loss.
Now do you see? You cannot die, because you have never lived. Life cannot die, because
it has no beginning or end. Becoming an immortal just means ceasing to identify yourself
with shadows and recognising that the only "you" is everlasting life.”
Blofeld comments, “For the first time in my life I realised that a man may have no faith in
personal survival and yet recognise that, in losing himself, he loses nothing. I saw that, to
a man in his blissful state of mind, the loss of his spectacles would seem a greater incon-
venience than merely dying! He had used the Chinese equivalent of 'want to sing and
dance' with reference to a sudden perception of death's real nature! . . . Is there anything
more, anywhere further to go than the direct intuitive perception that life holds no terrors,
that death - like Cinderella's fairy godmother - holds out to us a new and shining garment,
that the 'red slayer' never slays because there is no one to slay and no such thing as slay-
ing? Clearly the old gentleman had long ago reached a point at which the word 'I' had no
more than a convenient functional meaning like the word 'home' in a game of ludo. Yet, far
from passing his days in a trancelike state waiting for death's liberation, far from being
lethargic and withdrawn, as though his present life were of no importance, he was keenly
alert, sipping his tea with evident enjoyment, revelling in the brazier's warmth, but also
quick to see to practical matters, as when the charcoal embers needed stirring. Though
clearly a holy man in the best sense, he had not a touch of the solemnity we in the West
are apt to associate with the saintly. The strongest lines in his face were those that come
from ready smiles and laughter. Even his little weakness, an innocent vanity in having
made himself into something of a scholar and a painter, was lovable. His qualities, I was
to discover, were typical of cultivators of the Way.”
A practice:
“Rapt contemplation of nature’s beauties and varied aspects leads effortlessly to the calm-
ing of turgid thoughts. The mind, rising above man’s petty concerns, grows limpid. The
leaping waves of thoughts, as though shamed by nature’s immensity, subside. Sounds
hitherto scarcely noticed, such as the soughing of the wind in the pines, the creak of bam-
boo, the chirping of tiny insects, the patter of fine raindrops, the lap of running water
against ricks and pebbles, will be heard with new ears and seem like soft echoes of the
music of the spheres. Into the stillness, drop by drop, will fall intimations of that wisdom
beyond mere knowledge that is man’s greatest and often most neglected treasure. The
adept should sit quietly and so give himself up to the sights and sounds around him that
his own being scarcely enters the periphery of his consciousness; the colours of the trees
and the gurgling of the stream seem to be there of themselves, to require no co-operation
from his senses, of which he is no longer aware. In time, these too may fade away until
nothing remains from horizon to horizon and beyond but the white snow of meditation. The
essential formlessness of the Tao is now directly apprehended. This is true stillness of
mind, the gateway to the wisdom of the teaching without words.” – John Blofeld, Gateway
to Wisdom, 1980, p. 45-6.

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― Layman Pang (740–808) was a celebrated lay Buddhist in the Chinese Chán (Zen) tra-
dition.

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13
Breaking Through the Gateless Barrier

I felt Shyam’s teachings might help me break through the veil that still seemed to remain
between me and the experience of unity I have known about for so long. This time I asked
inside for help from Arkaji, Shaun and Shyam himself (the latter two of whom are no
longer with us physically).
I went through Brijendra’s, Genesis Dawn Part 1 (3rd ed.), the story of his first period with
Shyam in British Columbia back in 1971. Parts, especially Shyam’s teachings, were illu-
minative.
- “It is all one Sat Chit Aananda everywhere. When your eyes are closed, it is the
formless Absolute and when your eyes are open, it is the same Absolute with form
– and it is all You – the Absolute.” (p. 131)

- “Watch the space behind your eyes and know that it is one space everywhere.” (p.
154)

- When meditating in a dark room, Brijendra thought, ‘There is no difference between

inside and outside. Only the perception of forms makes the apparent difference.’
(p. 192)

- “When your eyes are closed in meditation, there is no light. You call that darkness,
but it is not darkness. It is the source of all light and it is neither light nor dark. You
call it darkness because your mind perceives that there is no light; but really it con-
tains light and dark. Light and dark are its manifestations. It is beyond light and
dark and all the pairs of opposites. So in this state you are left alone. There is only
You – with capital ‘Y’. You have only to be and watch that Absolute You, knowing
that You are the underlying reality of all the forms and phenomena in existence.
The forms arise from You and they return to You. You are not changed when they
arise and You are not changed when they return to You. You as the Absolute are
never affected by any of your manifestations. Your body appears and disappears –
you call it birth and death – but You are unchanged. When thoughts come at this
time, know they come from You. . . . Just be . . . infinite Consciousness, Existence
and Bliss.” (pp. 193-4)

- “ . . . You alone are Pure Consciousness everywhere. Everyone is You, but every-
one is different on the mind level. You keep thinking that you should be the same
on the mind level. That will never happen. You are experiencing the state of the
Self alone by itself. That is true. But the experience is mixed with your mind. It is
your mind which is confused, not you.” (p. 209)

- “The state of the Witness Self is not really happiness because happiness changes
into unhappiness, and the Witness Self is unchanging. The Witness Self is a kind
of neutrality, beyond happiness and unhappiness. That is why we call it bliss.

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 Rather than happiness, because happiness will always change into unhappiness at
some point., but bliss is unchanging.” (p. 210)

- “Everything that a man does, he is wanting to be with his own Self; and until he
reaches that oneness, he can never be at peace . . . never. He keeps trying this
and that, but he will always be dissatisfied until he reaches the knowledge that he
alone is the one Self everywhere. Then he will know that all the forms of the world
are his forms. All the people are forms of his own Self. He does not have to try to
be one with them by creating some relationship. He is One. That knowledge is the
only liberation.” (pp. 211-2)

- “I am always acting, but I know it. I never regret my acting because I know that in
the relative field, there is no absolute truth. Therefore, at that level everyone is act-
ing – whether they know it or not.” (p. 213)

- “When you reach the height of consciousness, you realize there is no one who un-
derstands you as you are. Everyone is wrapped up in the illusion of the world,
thinking they are small human beings. And you have become vast, the whole uni-
verse. So, once you reach that point, you start to teach others what you have come
to know. Why? Because you then want to create others of your own kind who can
also come to know that height and be there with you.” (p. 214)

- “He [Shyam] told us there was something we had to understand if we were to go

further along the path of meditation. . . . We had to know that the ways in which
we had understood the world so far could not take us further. We had to change
our whole way of perceiving what life is. It is not the world of forms we have
grasped it to be. Our senses tell us that the world is a dependable, stable, fixed ex-
istence of solid objects and creatures; and we think and act on this basis. But it is
not that at all. It is an inferno, a raging infinite fire of energy. Nothing, not for even a
fraction of a second, is stable or still or normal. Nothing is solid, as we think. The
entire universe is nothing but energy, infinite energy. Never still but moving at infin-
ite speed, it is like a vast shifting ocean of fire – and its real nature is conscious-
ness . . . this infinite fire of the Self is so vast that man cannot grasp it through his
usual human means of the senses. He can only be it. But then he cannot do it if he
remains a man. Therefore, he must be transformed into a divine being.” (pp. 233-4)

- “. . . the world is not really solid, but is an infinite ocean of energy. There is no sep-
arate form anywhere in it, for it is one unbroken eternal ocean of the Self.
Everything that man tries to make stable and fixed exists in a relative field that
never stays still. Only the Self itself is unchanging.” (p. 249)

- “As the Witness Self, we are one Self. Through all the winding ways I was to travel
over the next few years, this awareness was the thread that ran through
everything, giving meaning and cohesion to the most disparate events, and peace
through all my journey.” (p. 251)
The above small selection of quotes from Shyam’s teaching and Brijendra’s understanding
acted as valuable pointers to me. I followed up with purchasing Brijendra’s sequel, Gen-
esis Dawn II – Getting to Know Myself, from the transformationmeditation.com website,

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which told about his continuing life after that first half year with Shyam up until he goes to
live in India at Shyam’s center in 1977.
The story continued to be most interesting. There were peaks and valleys, and many of
the latter seemed to be of Brijendra’s own making – much as the ups and downs of my
own life had been. In trying to be the doer I had resisted surrendering to – and flowing with
– the inevitable. I could identify with his suffering and search, his attempt to be in relation-
ship and be part of a family and to work in a meaningful way, as well as his unwillingness
to settle for half-measures . . . and so never finding fulfilment and peace through a normal
worldly life.

Here are a few of the passages which clarified Shyam’s ‘vision of Oneness’ for me
(though it is recommended others interested review the whole of Brijendra’s Genesis
Dawns, as the particular pointers which might be their own keys could well be different
ones). Note: these quotes are from the electronic version, so without page number refer-
ences.
- “I just sat in the darkness watching. Inside, outside—there was no difference. The I,
the Self alone, existed. I could think the I was the body or thoughts, but I did not have
to think that. If I did not, then I simply was. The I was indivisible, all that is.”

- “When the attention is fixed upon an internal or external object and held there for
some time, that is called dhaaranaa. At some point, you become aware of who is
watching that object. You become aware of the Space that watches, and then you
fix the attention on that Space. This is called dhyaan. Eventually, as the attention
remains fixed upon that Space, you become no longer aware of anything particular.
You have merged. This is called samaadhi. The three together are called sanyam.
When you have sanyam, everything is possible to you. Whatever you think after
sanyam becomes reality. You are Pure Space at that time so the thought is coming
from that Space and is actualized from there, as everything is.
“From there, only those thoughts will come which are in harmony with what is be-
neficial for life. You will not be figuring out what you want. Your thought and action
will be automatic as there will be no individual ego involved. You will simply act or
simply think. You may be sitting somewhere and suddenly there will come the im-
pulse to do a certain thing and it will be the right thing, the right action. Your will
and the will of the Creative Intelligence are then the same. You are dissolved in
That.
“The attainment of sanyam is the result of practice. Each time you meditate, you
come a little closer to mastery.”

- “So, remember this and be free: omnipotence means the same power is every-
where. It does not mean that the individual awareness is everywhere. That power
sees through the individual awareness. It is the same with omniscience. This
means that seeing is everywhere. It does not mean the individual is seeing every-
where. You see, it is persistent identification with the separate awareness which
leads us to these mistakes. It is very tenacious.”

- “Like the Self, even when it goes unnoticed, it does not cease. It flows always, and
whenever we want to place our attention on it, it is there as though waiting. To say
it is waiting is to confuse things though. It just is. It waits for no one, nor does it

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 deny anyone its song. If you want to hear it, you have only to listen; and if you want
to train yourself to hear it always, no matter what you do, whether going to town or
making tea or simply sitting quietly and listening, that, too, can be done. The way to
begin is to sit quietly and let its sound enter every pore, becoming so familiar with it
that it becomes second nature, so that you are always aware of it. Little by little,
that exclusive practice will carry over into all phases of your life, so that wherever
you may go, there will the river flow. . . . it’s so basic, so pervading, so intrinsically
a part of everything that you have gradually taken it for granted.

- “ . . . the purpose of life is not to do hath yog or poojaa; it is to be connected, and

whatever we do should be a connection to That. We should not lose that connec-
tion.” . . . “It is the connection with infinite awareness that is important, and no mat-
ter what is done, that is to be held. This is saadhanaa.”

- “I am once again perceiving the play of awareness as it reflects in everything:

religion, philosophy, science, literature, mythology, cups and saucers. Everything
really is One, from every perspective.”

- “Some ideas, aklisht, lead to awareness of the Self, and some, klisht, lead into the
maze of duality. Until realization comes, one should adopt aklisht ideas. Until you
are free, you are bound to have ideas and be under their sway.”

- “ . . . that unspeaking space, just behind our lives, that we become when we stop
and watch our being.”

- “I assume God knows what He is up to, and it is up to me only to make myself

available to Him.”

- “The formless One begins as a word—One—and I think about what it means,

reaching out, sensing within me all that it is. It is all things. It is all the things around
me in the room or in the field. It is the whole universe of things and all the things
beyond our knowledge—stars and universes undreamed of and minuscule spaces
that burst into galaxies. In that awareness, I know them all without knowing them
one by one. I know that which they are, and in the smallness of my vision I know
the universe. I sense its presence within me, knowing it is also outside of the me
who appears as this body self.” . . . “I am also this formless One, and knowing this,
the tension of myself as a separate self drops away. . . . Then there is nothing I am
not. All is me. Even me is me.”

- “Swami-ji once said that realization is a vehicle that runs upon two wheels. One
wheel is the awareness of the Absolute everywhere, and the other is the practical
awareness of the changing, relative aspect of existence. The realized one holds
both of these in his awareness and travels through life on this vehicle.”

- “Man must be non-doer, then God can work freely. . . . we have to go to that place
where our daana-paani, food and water, is provided. We are drawn to those
places. Yet we insist that we are doing, as if we create that food and water. He
mentioned the bible passage in which Jesus had said the lilies of the field, they toil
not, neither do they want, and that the birds are provided for.”

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- “Everything is Me. There nothing that is apart from Me, neither you nor your ene-
mies. If you think you are killing or you think you are killed, you are under illusion. It
is all my doing. Remain identified with Me and act in whatever way your duty re-
quires of you. Play life’s game, but know all the time it is My game. In this way, you
will remain free. In other words, remain established in the Vision of Oneness even
while acting in the relative world. This is the mark of the realized man.”

- “My acknowledgement of this life as divine, of truth as a living reality, has triggered
that divine energy in myself. By seeing God everywhere, I become God; by seeing
myself as God, I see God everywhere.”

- “When you know, then you know that life is everywhere. You don’t try to escape
anymore. Everything is your own Self. You are no longer the small ego self at that
time, even though you act in this body. You must be with life and grow in it!”

- “Leela cannot be separated from God, and God cannot be separated from the
leela. The sun cannot be separate from the light and the light cannot be separate
from the sun. But man forgets this. What comes in his head? The things are sepa-
rate, man is separate, woman is separate. So, the person thinks, ‘I have to get
united with the things to get that person in my power or pocket.’ Why? Because the
sense is of ignorance.”
“Man has forgotten that everything is Me; so, wherever I am, I am acting. The hand
is me, its action is me, and the flower is me. What is attachment in it? The flower
and hands have a gap. To whom? To a fool. If there is a gap between your ear and
my voice, how could you listen to my voice? But you see the gap. If there is a gap,
how can I see? It means there is no gap! There is no duality. Then it is all one ac-
tion, one field of action. So, there will be no subject and no object, and no separate
power that joins the subject and object.”

- “The sugar should jump into the water and get dissolved. Getting dissolved does
not mean it has lost its personality, as all of you would think: ‘My God, if I get
merged into the ocean, I’ll lose my personality.’ No, you become the Whole!”

- “ . . . the reality towards which I grow is not a personal reality, though the personal
is not apart from it. Stepping out of my small parcel of flesh and mind, I step into
omnipresence, into Being.”

- “If you are to be free, then you must be needless. You cannot be dependent on
anything. This means: your mind must be needless. The body must have food and
drink and rest, but the mind must be free.”

- “Through saadhanaa, the nervous system and the whole body reach such a state
that harsh action of any kind is an abomination. With God flowing in your veins, if
you have to do anything in this world, it will be to spread love. You are love, and
you see love everywhere. You can manifest nothing but love.”

- “. . . if you are the personality, you have made yourself crystallized, a part, a piece,
a separation. And if you dissolve the personality, you are the Whole. When you be-

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 come the Whole, then there is no forgetfulness, no remembering. You are the
Whole. The words ‘forgetfulness and remembering’ are two words that came out of
the spurious being or parasite which is called mind. That is you.”

- “If you are the mind alone, . . . your desire will not be over. Seeking will not be over,
wanting will not be over, and the unfulfilled state or halfness will not be over. But if
you are pure being, then there is no seeking, wanting, and desiring.”

- “ . . . to live in a cave really means to live in the awareness of the Self.”

- “ . . . the Self is neither woman nor man nor mind nor intellect. It is the ultimate sub-
stance, the reality, the underlying material out of which all these bodies are
formed.”

- “When you remember the Self and meditate on the Self, you become tuned in with
the Self, and you become the Self, you know the Self, you become aware of the
Self—then the love, the devotion, and the happiness is guaranteed. It is without
any question, without any doubt, that when you are putting your attention on the
Self, which is Pure Space—you call it Shyam Awareness, Consciousness, and
Space, and sometimes you give to that totality, the Whole, only one name and that
is Shyam, because of the vibrations of the word and because of the colorless color
of the Space, and because of the consciousness being without any consciousness
of the forms . . .” [The word ‘shyam’ means dark or blue and is another name for
Krishna. It also is used to describe the space one sees behind closed eyes.]

- “When you meditate on the unchanging being which is immortal, you are bound to be-
come immortal, which means totally freed from birth or death. That is called
immortal. . . . The technique is so simple . . .”

- “your mind will get transformed into the non-wavering state, the unwavering state,
undesiring state, and unchanging state. Unwavering, unbecoming means unchang-
ing. And unchanging means immortality.”

- “Here, we have only one object, the Self, just Self, that Aatma, that Pure Self (high-
est and lowest, we have got nothing to do with that)—just the Self and formless
form where there is no object . . . all the time it is the Self which is to be meditated
upon . . . So, our attention is: “Jay Jay Shyam!.”

Towards the end of the story, which I was reading in August 2020, a passage resulted in
the sense of my no longer being just ‘here’, but everywhere within my perceptual fields. It
was not that I lost ‘me’, but that the base of my identity was not limited to me and it defin-
itely was not anchored in a personality at all – though I could make use of my old person-
ality when that was important to do.
It seems strange not stepping into this until having reached a physical age of 70, after un-
derstanding it so clearly conceptually for some decades now. However, I had already
entered the state a good part of the way through years of establishing myself in subjectiv-
ity outside of the mind and free of identifying with thoughts. I was already thus freed from
the old spiritual suffering and pretty much usually in a state of neutral peace. The remain-

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ing barrier was simply an illusory mental one. This was what Aitken Roshi meant when
said about me, ‘Clear about the gateless, now about the barrier.’ Becoming this greater
space and unity with all my experience was actually much like relaxing out of tension and
resistance – which is what the sense of a separate me is.
In a rather strange way, it was almost like becoming inside out in that I now realize myself
as the outside (too). This brings to mind Muktananda’s experience of enlightenment when
using the so-ham breath meditation. He suddenly found he was being breathed, rather
than breathing – his body’s exhalation became his in breath and his body’s inhalation his
out breath.
I had been pondering why people, especially children, so delight in being outside in
nature, and I suspected that understanding this would be important. Now I realize that we
– and especially children – instinctively know we ARE our perceptual and sensory experi-
ence and choose to be our greater natural self whenever possible, rather than a self which
is confined to a smaller interior man-made space.
In reviewing more of Shyam’s teachings, further shifts concerning this oneness became
more apparent. There is an increasing sense of not being others and the external physical
which I perceive but (with eyes open) being the space which contains whatever is per-
ceived (or even imagined) which is in it. I am the space which contains my perceived
world. Shyam takes us further to note that we are the creators of what we perceive. He
uses the term ‘concentration’ in the sense that everything we perceive in the physical
began concentrated – like a seed – in our minds and manifests out into our world where
we think we are perceiving things and scenes external to us.
Shyam says in different places that there is no more seeing, act of seeing or object being
seen and no doer, act of doing or object of the doing. And I could see this is true. They are
not separate. We are no longer separate agents in the world as we used to think of
ourselves, and so what is being done is done through us, not by us. At most, we are being
inspired to act. If we are established in the ‘Self’, we are established in the eternal and un-
changing. Action requires motion and time.
In the glossary of Science of Raj-Yog, Shyam speaks of
- Pure awareness as reality, one space without form or movement. Both ‘I’ and ‘that’
have been removed, as in ‘I am that’, but both of these are manifestations of pure
awareness.
- Pure consciousness as knowingness without subject or object.
- Unity consciousness is the understanding that there is just one Self everywhere
and one experiences one’s unity with the whole.
All of this was not new to me conceptually, but the shift WAS new experientially. There
was no sense of great happiness . . . but there was an increased sense of ease. Shaun
had said, ‘Become the space.’ This must be what he meant – not just the space inside, but
the whole of our perceptual experience – all of awareness, inside and out. Ramaji said,
‘the house across the street is you’ and ‘who you are talking with is you’, and now I could
appreciate how that is the case. It has always been the case. Reality had not changed,
only my conscious experience of it.
And while we are others (and they are us), we are not their minds and psychologies, as
Shyam said. We are not even our own mind and psychology (though we still possess
those and can tap into them when we wish to).

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In one of his later talks, Shyam made the point that in the choice between being ‘I am
nothing’ and ‘I am everything’, the essential truth of ‘I’ is always present.

Somehow, this new unity beingness reminded me of Rupert Spira’s The Transparency of
Things and I referred to it. Just the first parts alone brought home how all actually really
is consciousness – the consciousness we are experiencing right now and always. Just as
there is no gap between our perceptions and our awareness (which I consider the active
aspect of my consciousness, and most especially its active awareness of itself), there is
also no gap between that awareness and consciousness itself. In other words, conscious-
ness not only embraces but comprises the whole of experience.

An important part of this oneness in the manifested world is that it is a place of change – a
world where everything in it has a birth, a period of growth followed by decline and a dis-
solution. This means it is a subsidiary ‘reality’.
True reality is unchanging, the reality where there is no birth or death. This is the reality I
discovered when the sudden awakening was experienced. It is easier to be with when
eyes are closed (as when meditating or in a state of dhyana), but it also has become nor-
mal when eyes are open. I have discovered it to be rare for it to be attained, despite it be-
ing everyone’s basic reality. Virtually all people are captivated by their mind and intellect
and what they perceive with their senses.
True reality is indescribable. It is unchanging, so has no movement and is outside of time
(which marks change). It is colourless and formless. It has no taste, scent or physical feel-
ing. And yet it can be experienced as one’s vividly alive identity . . . though no longer the
identity as a person of any gender or even as a human being.
Being timeless/eternal, it is unborn and undying and is with each of us through all three of
the states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep. Sometimes it is spoken of as the absolute
or unmanifested, as it is before and before creation. It is unknowable by human beings,
though they can be taught and begin to approach it through their minds. But such teachers
or gurus must take human form to be able to teach them.

2021
Following taking 2 courses on selected Gita passages from a student of Shyam’s in Kullu,
I was invited to subscribe to the online satsangs held by Shyam’s students. These were
made available on a facebook page and were held almost daily (6 days a week). Each
was 2 to 2.5 hours in length and included videos of Swami Shyam’s talks, readings from
his writings and comments by participating students.
These were very enjoyable for me and responded to an inner query I had about under-
standing more profoundly what I had already awoken to – which ties in with what Shyam
and Shaun had meant by ‘space’. Also, Shyam continually speaks of our being unborn
and undying. This means that the ‘Me’ which is both Reality and our essential self is
present with us here and now.
It became clearer and clearer that who we are is not just aware of the space or in the
space but IS the space.

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My friend R in Japan referred me to the Vijñāna Bhairava Tantra, an amazing teaching.
Here is verse 20 as per this version  https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/article/vij-
nana-bhairava-tantra-2
The emptiness of space permeates the body
and all directions simultaneously.
Space is always there,
already there before your noticing of it.
What we call space is a presence that is a more solid foundation than the firmest
granite. Space is permission to exist and worlds within which to express.
Without thinking about it,
without forming mental images of it,
rest in this vast expanse
and become friends with infinity.
My sense is this space is reality that we have forgotten and fully awakening is to realize it
as what one is without any subject-objects any more (though also without denying one has
a temporary relative physical presence which must be honoured, too - the intelligence of
which one uses to come home).
I had also been wondering if Ramaji had realized this space and am left undecided, as he
does not seem to take it to the level of the Shiva teachings. He told me that when one
speaks to another one is speaking to oneself and that you are the house across the street.
The understanding (and experience) I am getting more and more is that one realizes one
is that pure aware space and has always been that, including before birth. That space has
never been born but is the source of and contains the relative manifested creation, includ-
ing humans. In identifying with being human, we have forgotten our origin - the space
which is always present - and live our whole lives in a state of amnesia.
We can re-access this space when in meditation and the senses are closed and notice is
not paid to the mind (arising thoughts and personality reactions to them). I am also partic-
ularly aware of it when waking from sleep and find the state can be prolonged for quite a
while.
In one video satsang of Shyam's he spoke of each of the senses requiring a reflection to
function . . . and this stimulated the following contemplation. If you are on a hill under a
clear sky and, looking up, you see nothing until a cloud passes. After the cloud passes
you see nothing again, assuming the eye is not noticing space and feeling it is looking at
air/atmosphere. They eye stops functioning while it sees nothing. Similarly, if there is si-
lence, the ears stop functioning . . . and so on with the other senses. Finally, you let go of
the mind, letting any thoughts arise and pass as they will, but paying no attention to them.
You are able to stay with pure awareness which is now free of any objects, any duality. Al-
though you are still in the waking state, you must now be in the timeless, formless and
nameless. There is nothing to recognize except the awareness - which is all there is.
This must approximate the state of being unborn and is pretty close to my state on most
mornings when I awake from sleep. It is probably achievable by many in meditation. How-
ever, to be in it one has to have awakened to awareness beyond/before the mind. Al-
though such awareness is in everyone, most seem to have blocks to recognizing it - even
though it is the awareness underlying all their experiences.

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Over the past decade especially, it has become clear - as a direct experience - that who I
really am is not a human being/personality . . . and that I have never been one. This, in
turn, now seems so obvious that it has often caused me to be puzzled when seeing others
caught up in believing they are still who they think they are - their bodies and personalities
(i.e., humans). It seems shocking that even otherwise VERY intelligent people have no
idea (have forgotten) who they really are . . . and haven't the least interest in finding out!

I guess what I thought I had awoken to was more the Buddhist emptiness, though this
'emptiness' is a very alive and aware one to me. It did not occur to me to consider it as un-
born and being that pure awareness in eternity.

So, I am focusing on exploring/experiencing what being unborn must be right now - not
from before this body came into manifestation and not what it will be after the body ends.
'Experiencing' is not the correct word, as that suggests duality. Being this unborn aware
space might better describe it.
The vedas and Siddharameshwar speak of a causal state/mind which equates to the
vasanas and 3 gunas and which results in the subtle mind (mind-intellect-ego). It is a state
of forgetting everything and can be equated to what we go through when we drop the
mind to enter sleep. This must also mean dissolving Buddhism's 5 skandas/aggregates -
or disappearing to ourselves as separate beings. We need to traverse the causal state to
enter the great causal state (reality/Self/pure awareness).

It is important to BE this space, rather than just grasp it as an abstract concept. The im-
plications of what the reality of it must be are staggering:
- Relinquishing the duality of all relationships, including giving up subject and objects alto-
gether, including one’s very self as the subject and all of manifested reality . . . the world,
the solar system and the universe.
- Becoming such a state before creation means giving up all mental constructs (including
who one thinks one is) and even consciousness itself – which underlies the three states of
waking dreaming and deep sleep . . . as well as giving up unconsciousness.
- All that is left is what might be considered an eternal unbounded space of pure aware-
ness.
Although these descriptions cannot be grasped by the mind, just hearing them may stimu-
late the contemplation which could lead to the opening.

Subsequently, I found that what Ramana Maharshi spoke of as the nature of the Self, or
real ‘I’, as what appears to be the same as this ‘space’:
- It is ‘contrary to perceptible experience’
- ‘a non-personal, all-inclusive awareness’,
- ‘the real Self is always present and always experienced but … one is only con-
sciously aware of it as it really is when the self-limiting tendencies of the mind have
ceased.’

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 - ‘The Self is pure being, a subjective awareness of ‘I am’ which is completely devoid
of the feeling ‘I am this’ or ‘I am that’.
- ‘There are no subjects of objects in the Self, there is only an awareness of being.
Because this awareness is conscious it is also known as consciousness.’
- God ‘is a formless being which sustains the universe.’
- The Self is ‘the source from which all appearances manifested.’
- ‘True knowledge, or jnana, … is a direct and knowing awareness of the one reality
in which subjects and objects have ceased to exist. One who is established in this
state is known as a jnani.’
- ‘. . . there are not really four states but only one real transcendental state.’
- ‘Reality must be always real. It is not with forms and names.’
- ‘Reality which shines fully, without misery and without a body, not only when the
world is known but also when the world is not known, is your real form [nija-
swarupa].’
- ‘You are awareness. Awareness is another name for you. Since you are aware-
ness, there is no need to attain or cultivate it. All that you have to do is to give up
being aware of other things that is of the not-Self. If one gives up being aware of
them then pure awareness alone remains, and that is the Self.’
- David Godman, The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi, Part One, 1

An email to friend H in Kullu Dec 2021

I was really impressed that R describes deep sleep as a state in which perception is still
present, but without any thought or object. This is a conclusion I'd also reached, but
have almost never encountered elsewhere. This is awareness without the mind, a state
which we can learn to bring into the waking state as well (as turiya) . . . even when not
meditating.
If the deep sleep state could be likened to being in the depths of the ocean, arising im-
pulses of the vritti waves of thought must be what lead us out of those depths and into
the dreaming state, much like a train of thought beguiles us away from a meditative
state.
I am considering getting R's autobio, too. He is a rare spirit.

I'm mostly writing just now to share what has been to me to be an exciting insight
which came from one of Swamiji's satsangs this week. Swami was speaking about
name and form and used the examples of sugar cane and flowers. He said we can see
the cane and watch the juice being made, but unless we use the sense of taste, we
would never know the sweetness of it. Similarly, without the sense of smell, using just
name and form we would never know the fragrance of a flower.
Swami spoke of these sensory experiences as being 'existence' (as opposed to name
and form of the mind/division) and I suddenly realised these are what Life/pure aware-
ness is and that there is a oneness with each of these sensory 'experiences' - which is
also going on all the time - though it is obscured when we experience them as human
beings having the sensory experience. 
Even more important, it became evident that this existence/Life/pure awareness IS the
divine oneness of everything everywhere - both the other-dimensional source and its

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expression (Brahma and creation - or 'Nothing' being everything). I guess I had - per-
haps subconsciously - still considered awareness beyond the mind an individual attain-
ment, when it is becoming/being oneness itself.

This conclusion seems so obvious now - and conceptually it is, though it is paradoxical
- but it is now more of a direct experience, and one I'd not quite been getting for a long
long time.

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14
Reflections

I experienced a re-awakening through Douglas Harding’s simple exercise. During the intense
involvement with Anadi’s teachings, the sense of my identity beyond the mind, my subjectivity,
deepened to a degree that there was a feeling of being a stranger, or even something of an alien, in
the world. The inward focus and practice took precedence, even when in outward activities.
It seemed impossible to speak to others about what had become of highest value and priority for
me, my new ‘reality’ – despite my wishing to share this great treasure. Others who still identify
themselves as being their personalities and bodies would not normally be able to understand. I have
since come to the conclusion that it is ok to share with discretion. Those shared with might just
follow conceptually – though there could be some who are open to hearing experientially. ‘Let
those who have ears hear.’
Over the years, I’ve come across analogies which try to illustrate the difficulty (impossibility) of
trying to convey the experience of awakening to one who is not awake.
The simplest is describing the taste or smell of something to someone who has not experienced it.
No verbal description can come close to the experience itself.
Plato’s cave is another brilliant illustration, describing people who are chained inside at the back of
a cave so they can only face the rear of it. Behind them figures pass in front of the cave entrance,
but those chained can only see the shadows of these on the back wall of the cave, so that is their
reality. They will have no concept of these figures actually being 3 dimensional and having colours
other than the black/grey one of shadows.
Nicoll suggested the analogy of two-dimensional creatures living on a plane, such as a sheet of
paper. If one stuck a three-dimensional object, like the tines of a fork, through the sheet, the two-
dimensional creatures would just see two dimensional (flat) circles on their plane. They would have
no inkling of the rest of the three-dimensional fork.

What children have of their parents, aside from material gifts, are physical dna and personality
influences, including whatever atmosphere and depth of love they have been brought up in. Since
parents are invariably unconscious of who they are and of their own subjectivity, personality
influences transmitted to their children just end up in similarly unconscious vehicles, as are
collective mentality traits picked up in one’s upbringing from outside of one’s family. Nothing of
who one really is, nothing of one’s soul, can be consciously transmitted from an unconscious
person to their physical offspring.
Despite knowing others cannot comprehend how such an awakening changes one, it still seems
astonishing how others
are so totally hypnotized and lost in identifying with who they think they are,
are preoccupied with continuing to follow their tendencies, obsessions and the collective
mindset priorities even when these make no rational sense,
do everything they can to prolong lives identified solely with their minds and physical
selves . . . even when remarkable suffering is involved.

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Right up until the edge of death, instead of focussing on finding out who they essentially are,
people still value cleverness and the learning of subjects which are of no importance to the
soul whatsoever. They
Have forgotten the purpose of money and try to accumulate more and more material wealth,
cling on to worldly power for themselves and their descendants, or
follow their religious and ‘spiritual’ practices or teachers/gurus with a heightened devotion that
suggests desperation.
Efforts are made so that, even after death, the ‘false’ self or personality one has identified with,
is immortalised in some way. This can be through a legacy with one’s name attached to it, a
gravestone or physical descendants.
Virtually all people live the whole of their ‘rational’ lives in a state of amnesia, under mistaken
identities, either never knowing who they really are or having forgotten their essential identity.
Even their gravestones, if they have one, does its best to immortalize the mistaken identity.
Shaun commented, ‘What we hold on to, we hold out of our lives.’ To rephrase this, the attachment
‘need’ actually separates us from the object of desire.

Everything learned about ourselves after being born takes us away from that original self we entered
as. We are taught we have a head and body, a gender, a specific name and that we belong to a
particular family, culture, race and country. We accept and construct a personality which we attach
to our mind-body and believe that to be our sole identity. We believe that who we are is time-bound
in a material world.
. . . Despite all this mental, physical and worldly identification, who we originally came in as has
been forgotten, but remains with us, as our inner, essential self – nameless, faceless, genderless and
unbound by time or other laws of the material dimension.

It is stressful to be just in the personality’s mind. By itself, the mind works spontaneously – the
conscious personality part in a constant dialogue with the subconscious part -, making decisions for
doing things which is meant to create a better and more lasting future in the relative world, and yet
the end result of such effort is hopeless, because the whole of the relative world is impermanent.
There is such a relief when shifting back to the reality of consciousness before the mind, where it is
timeless and there is no need for thinking, doing or any kind of striving – and where one has let go
and surrendered. There is a wholistic constancy including beingness in that state and, when based
there, one does what is required to maintain the relative and, for anything above that, what one is
inspired to do.

For some time, I have had a feeling that there is still an immense revelation pending which will
show more clearly that we are really principally in another dimension, while our presence in
the physical reality of this world is both temporary and ephemeral, as is the whole of our per-
sonality. This would make clear that this world is a dream we can wake up from once we have
established our soul at its deepest level, but this waking requires a conscious soul. Such a
revelation will not discount the importance of our individual self which will be/is the one who is

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conscious in that higher reality (brings our intelligent awareness to it), consciousness of our
true self as not of this world.
This insight seems to have been confirmed by Ramana Maharshi’s comment to a disciple wor-
ried about his death who said, ‘Don’t leave us.’ Ramana replied, ‘Where can I go?’ suggesting
he was already established somewhere other than what humans have agreed to be our col-
lective reality.
If we are looking from ‘space’, such as from a base in absence/the absolute, through the trans-
parent seer and are active in the world via our person, our identification is outside of this di-
mension.
This made me wonder if what is really ‘beyond’ is that which is removed from our true ultimate
home as the supreme person and primordial I am (though the journey into deeper immanency
continues). Thus, secondary centres of pure me would be one removed from our ‘core’, the
conscious person would be removed further and the unconscious person (and subconscious
me) would be the farthest out – in an exile of suffering away from the source and home . . . un-
til they become the transparent windows through which the realized soul lives in creation.
. . . And yet, paradoxically, that which is being looked out upon is also that which is looking –
absence in constant wonder and enjoying itself in presence.

_______________________________________________

When you sit in the silence it will come to you. You will see how the body came to be, and
how the body goes, and a new body comes to be, and a new body goes. But you are alive.
The real you persists. Nothing can ever destroy it. Water cannot drown it. Fire cannot burn it.
Whatever happens to the body in this world cannot eliminate the I am. It has nothing to do
with your age, or whether your well or sick, or rich or poor. It is the Self. It has always been
and it will always be. It is you.
You never were a human being. You just have forgotten your real nature and you're living the
mortal dream. I ask you to awaken. I ask you to awaken now. Feel yourself awakening. Feel
your body melting, dissolving. Yet no real change is taking place, for there's nothing to
change. You see, there's no real body that has to be transformed. We're not speaking of
transformation. You're not transforming your body into a body of light, or into consciousness,
or into absolute reality. What appears to be your body is the Self, pure awareness....
Your body, like the world, the universe, what we call God, has no real existence by itself. It is
the Self which permeates the universe. Everything is the Self. That is why everything is
sacred. That's what Moses meant when he said, "The ground upon which I stand is holy
ground." There is no thing that has any life by itself.
Now can you see why, in your illusory state, you should be kind to animals, to the vegetable
kingdom, to the mineral kingdom, to the human kingdom, why you must reconcile yourself with
those kingdoms? Because they're all God, and what you do to the world of appearances
you're doing to yourself.
Wake up!
Robert Adams

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Fundamentally, this great light is there with each and every person right where they stand –
empty clear through, spiritually aware, all-pervasive, it is called the scenery of the fundamental
ground.
Sentient beings and buddhas are both inherently equipped with it. It is perfectly fluid and
boundless, fusing everything within it. It is within your own heart and is the basis of your
physical body and of the five clusters of form, sensation, conception, motivational synthesis,
and consciousness. It has never been defiled or stained, and its fundamental nature is still and
silent.
False thoughts suddenly arise and cover it over and block it off and confine it within the six
sense faculties and sense objects. Sense faculties and sense objects are paired off, and you
get stuck and begin clinging and getting attached. You grasp at all the various objects and
scenes, and produce all sorts of false thoughts, and sink down into the toils of birth and death,
unable to gain liberation.
All the buddhas and ancestral teachers awakened to this true source and penetrated clear
through to the fundamental basis. They took pity on all the sentient beings sunk in the cycle of
birth and death and were inspired by great compassion, so they appeared in the world
precisely for this reason. It was also for this reason that Bodhidharma came from the West
with the special practice outside of doctrine.
The most important thing is for people of great faculties and sharp wisdom to turn the light of
mind around and shine back and clearly awaken to this mind before a single thought is born.
This mind can produce all world-transcending and worldly phenomena. When it is forever
stamped with enlightenment, your inner heart is independent and transcendent and brimming
over with life. As soon as you rouse your conditioned mind and set errant thoughts moving,
then you have obscured this fundamental clarity.
Zen (Chan) master Yuan Wu – compiler of The Blue Cliff Record

Finally it happens. Thought is extinguished like a snuffed candle. The intellect withdraws into
its real ground, that is, consciousness working unhindered by thoughts. I perceive, what I have
suspected for some time and what the Maharishee has confidently affirmed, that the mind
takes its rise in a transcendental source. The brain has passed into a state of complete sus-
pension, as it does in deep sleep, yet there is not the slightest loss of consciousness. I remain
perfectly calm and fully aware of who I am and what is occurring. Yet my sense of awareness
has been drawn out of the narrow confines of the separate personality; it has turned into
something sublimely all-embracing. Self still exists, but it is a changed, radiant self. For some-
thing that is far superior to the unimportant personality which was I, some deeper, diviner be-
ing rises into consciousness and becomes me. With it arrives an amazing new sense of abso-
lute freedom, for thought is like a loom-shuttle which is always going to and fro, and to be
freed from its tyrannical motion is to step out of prison into the open air. - Paul Brunton

Extract from email to friend FY/RS 20/10/21:

Your descriptions of visualizing as an infant sound very like a form of conscious imag-
ining and the world is really not more than the maya/illusion of what we have imagined.
However, invariably we are not aware of doing this and fall under the spell of what we
have imagined . . . the outward pulls of the mind and senses.

What we do in meditation (or what we are meant to 'do') is close down the senses and
not notice the mind/thoughts. This brings us 'home'. Without anything to see, hear,
smell, taste or touch, the senses are no longer noticed. There is only awareness of

225
them when they perceive something. Similarly, the mind does not really exist if it does
not have perceptions, thoughts or emotions to connect with/reflect back to it to make it
'real'. Without these we are 'home' in just pure awareness - but there is nothing there
except awareness, not even an 'I' . . . and certainly no human being. We feel the aware-
ness is not present when there is nothing for it to be aware of - no subject or object -
but it is still there.  I am beginning to understand this is the deep sleep state. Aware-
ness without any mind present and no subject or object to be aware of. Just divine
peace.
That eternal divine peace underlies the waking and dreaming states, too.
My sense is this is what Langford is trying to describe, but not sure if he really gets out
of his own way when he is in that awareness or his teaching.
What has become clearer and clearer to me is that we have all been mistakenly taught
that who we are was born. A body with a mind was born, but the awareness we are was
never born, never came from a union between two parents. It is eternal, and so is also
undying. It is the divine atma. When we come home to it, we realize we never were a hu-
man being. However, a precious human birth gives us the tools required, like the dis-
criminating intellect, to find our way to awakening from the ignorance and forgetfulness
of names and forms.
A long time Canadian student of Shyam's in India was visiting family in Canada and
was asked where he considered home to be - meaning India or Canada.  The student
asked Shyam what would be the best answer. Shyam said, 'Tell them you are home
when you close your eyes.'
When we are in that pure awareness, there is nothing - not even ourselves - yet it is the
place from which inspiration and love arises. It is that 'place' we are unconsciously
drawn to and devoted to, the place the suffering of being away from points us back to. 
As in Buddha's 4 noble truths, the suffering both you and I have/have had are our BIG
motivators to return 'home', because suffering tells us where we are making mistakes,
misidentifying, not letting go, not surrendering, etc. But I mostly noted the above -
about inspiration coming from that sacred awareness we are at our Source - to tell you
that it is the pure awareness you ALREADY are which was the unconscious driver/cre-
ator behind your spiritual website. You speak of the bhakti energy, the loving devotion
with which you forged the pages of the site.  What you have been seeking is what has
been channeling through you all these years. It was the sacred pure awareness that
built the wonderful edifice of that website. It may have drawn on knowledge and exper-
tise from the mind of F/R, but F/R on his own could never have created such a master-
piece of love and divine wisdom. This is what the Bhagavad Gita means when Krishna
tells Arjuna to relinquish being the doer. Our personalities are really non-doers and
what is done happens through us - and it happens/flows better the more we get out of
our own way and surrender to that Divine within.

7/11/21 to friend R
When the passages of the Ribhu Gita repeatedly speak of being free from all traces of
thought, my understanding is that it does not mean thoughts must necessarily stop,
but one is outside of them, free of them, even though they may be arising, passing and
disappearing. One is in a place of not noticing or identifying with them - as far as one is
concerned the mind has been silenced.

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You seem to appreciate my state more than anyone else (perhaps even better than I
do!).
Of course, virtually all others have no real understanding of these matters.

It is curious that, when I had that awakening from the Douglas Harding headless exer-
cise, I was immediately reconnected with having experienced life as that same aware-
ness when an infant, suggesting the strong possibility whomever I was in a last life had
been that already. The Indian teacher I know has said we knew each other in our past
lives in north India and we used to meditate together. He said I was a Brahmin priest
then (when I asked him what he was, he said he was a king).  Who knows?

The other interesting aspect is that this re-awakening to awareness has taken decades
to stabilize and to understand more fully. Although I cannot say it is the same, I could
empathise with what Suzanne Segal went through - though she had a further major
breakthrough later just before she died. It certainly did not solve my emotional and
even psychological issues, though those are pretty much put to rest now. And rather
than bliss, the result is peace (usually).

The Shyam studies/satsangs have really helped me be clearer about what it really
means. You do not feel oneness with others in the world, but the oneness is with the
source of who they always are and with the source of everything.  Just as one's body
and mind are only relative - not who one really is - so are the minds and bodies of ev-
eryone else.  But who they are in essence as source is still always present - though
they are 'asleep' to it.

Also, there is no object in the awareness - it is outside of time, space and any action
and any other. It is like trying to understand the nothingness we are at essence with the
mind - impossible. So, in a way, it seems like nothing special - nothing that means any-
thing in a worldly sense - and yet one knows the pure awareness is the most precious
treasure and wants to help others wake to it. I thought it would be simple to do this by
giving the headless workshops we did in Japan in the late 90s, but I doubt the atten-
dees got it in the way it was intended . . . though just appreciating headlessness is a
step in the right direction.

We all touch in to it (turiya) when we go into deep sleep each night and step out of it
(turiya) when we wake from deep sleep. There is an instant on awakening when this
pure awareness might be grasped but almost immediately that initial 'I', the conscious-
ness we identify with, rises and creates our mind, personality and our worlds. Shyam
says that turiya state in deep sleep is our source and it is still there when we are in the
dreaming and awake states, but the mind has taken over in those, effectively covering it
up. 

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In sanskrit mauna means silence - silence of the mind. Such silence is like a foundation
which is still present even when sounds are occuring, just as space or sky is always
there even though forms appear and disappear in it.

You mention Anadi who has great inner awareness and his writings are about that. He
associates much of his findings with the body or body locations and maintains a per-
sonal I.  I endeavored to find some of what he spoke of (like the center of being in the
hara region), but never did. I know Anadi experimented with drugs when he was
younger and reached states from them that gave him important insights for his teach-
ing. I have wondered if some of his openings, like the being center he found when he
was alone in Kerala, had a similar origin.

The Shyam satsangs, which I find very helpful - though often repeating the same mes-
sage in innumerable ways - are videos of his talks, so it is a bit like attending. They are
about an hour of him speaking and the rest is students commenting on it and/or Shyam
interpreting a Vedic teaching or singing a hymn he wrote. I was told the suggested cost
for someone like me to hear them via the facebook page (not live) is £50 to £70 per
month, so I pay £60 each month and I can stop any time.  If I could not afford that I feel
they would make it available for less. It would be possible to listen to them live when
presented, but that is too early for me in UK time.

Levels of sleep (7/1/2022)

We normally divide sleep into dreaming and deep sleep states, though other levels are
known to be available.

- One is lucid dreaming in which one is conscious of being the one dreaming and
able to influence the dream’s direction.
- Another is what Robert Monroe called ‘mind awake-body asleep’ in which one
not only continues to be conscious while the body is asleep, but out of body – or
astral – travel is possible (some dreams may also involve astral travel, though
not as consciously).
- A further state seems rarely written of: that of both mind and body asleep, but
awareness (which is separate and senior to mind) remains self-aware. I’ve won-
dered if this has been a recent experience to me. I’ve increasingly felt I have
been ‘awake’ in the night, but it has not been the fuller mind awake sense. Also,
being familiar with the aware state outside of the mind during both normal wak-
ing times and in meditation/dhyana state, it seems this has become more
present with me during deep sleep as well. A possible confirmation of this is that
after such aware times while sleeping, I have not felt as tired as I would have if I
had really been awake and missed the usual restful night’s sleep.

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APPENDICES
Appendix 1 - Primordial Experience - later comments and
excerpts from others

Below are some later comments and some seemingly similar or parallel experiences related by
some others
(Sent to friend RK subsequently)
2010 Feb 2
Do you remember this map which we corresponded about and which I had on my wall above my
desk in Ogo?
Have a look at it again to follow the below.
I just came across it again, as wanted to relate my experience to it. Examining it more closely,
knew I had previously been unable to relate experientially (from conscious memory) to anything
above the OBJECT circle - Self Awareness/Beingness/Individual Witness.

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However, this new experience had no witness and nothing to witness. As in the 2nd from top
AWARENESS circle, it was fairly like what is called ‘THE SUPREME” and described as ‘No time
and space, no size and shape, no movement, peace’. However, my experience was not of no
movement, but alive, and seems to better fit the state above called
ABSENCE/AVYAKTA/UNMANIFESTED and NONBEING, because it is described as
‘UNKNOWN, PURE BEING, PURE AWARENESS’. There was nothing except this alive being
and awareness in a totally unknown state, which included no time or space or anything else of an
objective nature. The alive being/awareness was totally alone, but simultaneously extended beyond
any sense of a limited ‘here’.
Moreover, it was a place of immense fascination and pleasure, MANY times more so than dealing

230
with the world in our everyday minds, or even in usual silence and even what is experienced as
normal meditation.
The weird thing is that, when it happened, I recognised it and knew it as a familiar extremely
profound experience I could remember having had consciously at different times during my life -
but I had repressed or forgotten them. I am sure this state is actually one we all have experienced,
but do not bring back from that deep state to normal memory. Perhaps just as well, as I cannot at
present connect how it might be of any use in surviving in the physical world.
However, I am also sure that such a profound state is always present and underlying our lives, both
waking and sleeping. We are just not in touch with it because of our focus on
egos/minds/identification with who we think we are/fear of surrendering/need for control. There is
nothing I would like more than to return to that state to enjoy and explore it further, yet I am aware
of no way to do so in normal life, except to further cultivate conscious waking sleep transition
experiences, which is difficult even in my daily relatively laid-back life with M and her complex
and ever-changing family situation.
The other best options seem to me to be the Michael Langford approach or what is recommended in
the website we recently spoke of: http://itisnotreal.com/Overview%20of%20Self-Inquiry.htm
This experience suggested to me that the intensive Zen practices, especially on the retreats, which
allow relatively few hours sleep, and rigidly defined postures and attention for many hours, actually
force one to be on the edge of exhaustion and readiness to nod off – into the unconscious Samadhi
of sleep. However, the exhausted and sleepy Zen practitioner, seated in the half or full lotus posture
cannot do this with eyes kept partially open, but lowered, through the long hours of required
practice, meaning that they are in this way invited to approach the state of sleep, but not enter into
it. Staying at the edge of sleep in this way, which could not be possible if one is well rested and not
sleepy, may allow one to enter that in-between conscious deep theta, and even conscious delta
experience ... and with practice become more at home with it, allowing more regular access and,
eventually, to retain a foothold there and be in the world.
2010 Feb 21
Ramana Maharshi
Becoming aware of the deep sleep state while in the waking state is Samadhi. P.95
The present is only the ‘I’ -thought, whereas the sleeping ‘I’ is the real ‘I’. That subsists
throughout. That is Consciousness. If that is known you will see that it is beyond thoughts.
P.100
At the time of waking up from sleep and before becoming aware of the world, there is that
pure ‘I-I’. p. 100
Deep sleep is always present even in the waking state. What we have to do is to bring deep
sleep into the waking state to get ‘conscious sleep’. Realization can only take place in the
waking state. Deep sleep is relative to the waking state. P. 104
Above quotes from: Conscious Immortality, Sri Ramanasramam, 1998.
Ramana Maharshi says for someone to achieve samadhi it must be conscious, and that we all
enter it when we sleep, swoon and have other deep emotions, when the mind goes back to the
Heart, however we are unconscious of it at these times.
My extremely brief experience, if a taste of Samadhi, was not new, but the first time I

231
consciously was aware of it. I have been consciously aware of something very magic available
for some years now - perhaps the last 20 or so, but also had this sense in childhood - however I
had never been aware of how transformative it is of reality and the material world of subject
and object where we normally ‘live’.
Message to friend RK - Feb 18
It is becoming increasingly clear that consciously cultivating very deep slow levels of brainwaves,
traditionally achieved through meditation, may well be the key to further waking up and
consciously re-joining reality, which we are most certainly already unconsciously in – and which
we also probably re-join every time we are deeply asleep). However, this does not discount the
reality of so-called worldly experiences in awareness.
Here are a few interesting quotes from a website by Suzanne Lie PhD (which I do not know enough
about to recommend – but I resonate with much of what is said in the quotes):
http://www.suzanneliephd.com/solarpl/whatiscon2.html
Theta brainwaves are conducive to profound inner peace, “knowing,” feelings of oneness, mystical
truths, transformation of unconsciously held, limiting beliefs, creating a better quality of life,
physical and emotional healing, and finding our purpose. Theta Consciousness provides the
“peak” in the peak experience.
Delta brainwaves are conducive to miracle healing, divine knowledge, inner being and personal
growth, rebirth, trauma recovery, oneness with the universe, samadhi, and near-death experiences.
Delta brainwaves provide profound intuition, empathic attunement, and instinctual insight.

TRAVELING IN OUR CONSCIOUSNESS

We travel in our consciousness via our different brainwaves. When we calibrate our
consciousness to the different brainwaves, we set our expectation to filter in the perceptions
within the frequency range of that filter/expectation. We then experience the reality that
vibrates at that wavelength/brainwave.
When we dial the Beta Brainwave Channel, we calibrate our consciousness to filter out the
perceptions that do not pertain to our external third dimensional world. On this channel, our
Multidimensional SELF gives us information regarding our conscious ego self in our physical
world. Our “beta reality,” which is our individual consciousness, is filled with myriad stimuli. It is
directed towards survival, thoughts, decisions, and actions. Our individual consciousness directs
our attention, and hence our perceptions, toward our individual assessment of reality.
When we dial the Alpha Brainwave Channel, we calibrate our consciousness to filter-out any
extraneous, third-dimensional perceptions that do not pertain to creative activity. On this channel,
our Multidimensional SELF gives us information about our physical world from the perspective of
our superconscious, fourth-dimensional self, as well as forgotten memories and stimuli regarding
our true potential, which we have formerly filtered out. Our “alpha reality,” which is our
collective consciousness, is one of creativity, artistic focus, relaxation, and imagination. Our
collective consciousness directs our attention, and hence our perceptions, to an assessment of
reality based on the consciousness of all humanity.
When we dial the Theta Brainwave Channel, we calibrate our consciousness to filter-out all third-
dimensional frequencies except maintenance of our physical body. On this channel, our

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Multidimensional SELF relays information from our superconscious self regarding our fifth-
dimensional world, our fourth- and fifth-dimensional extra-sensory perceptions, moments of
illumination from the past, and new ideas regarding attaining our present goals. We can also
experience euphoric feelings and moments of illumination on this channel. Our “theta reality,”
which is our planetary consciousness, is deeply spiritual and introspective. Our planetary
consciousness directs our attention, and hence our perceptions, to an assessment of reality based
on the multidimensional consciousness of all planetary life forms.
When we dial the Delta Brainwave Channel, we calibrate our consciousness to filter-out all
external, third-dimensional frequencies. On this channel, our Multidimensional SELF gives us
information from our superconscious mind regarding our fifth-dimensional self and beyond, as
well as information from our unconscious mind regarding our first- and second-dimensional earth
vessel. Our “delta reality,” which is our galactic consciousness, is focused on our cellular and
subatomic reality and our inter-dimensional self. Our galactic consciousness directs our attention,
and hence our perceptions, to an assessment of reality based on the multidimensional
consciousness of our planet, our solar system, and our galaxy.
When we dial the Gamma Brainwave Channel, we calibrate our consciousness to filter-out
individual stimuli and move beyond all time, space, and dimension to integrate the information we
have received on the other channels so that we may be conscious of our process. Our “gamma
reality” is truly multidimensional, as it is ALL in ALL. This cosmic consciousness directs our
attention, and hence our perceptions, to an assessment of reality based on the multidimensional
consciousness of our universe.
Added later to RK:
Some quotes found later which seem parallel or similar in describing the above experience,
these by Edward Salim Michael
In the description of his own awakening experience, it says he moved on to more later, but what he
writes here seems a remarkably close match to the brief deep experience I had in January. Edward
Salim Michael also wrote about the value of Nada Yoga, the inner sound of silence (Ajahn Sumedo
has noted Michael’s teaching on this as being a great influence on, and aid to, him).
This extra-ordinary state can only be experienced from deep within, and is perceived as a vast
and transparent Self without form, spreading out in all directions beyond the physical frame into
infinity, a mysterious and formless ‘Spectator’ plunged in silent self-contemplation. Like a
limitless ocean of consciousness without beginning or end, this invisible Self, although formless,
has a reality about it which is immeasurably greater than one’s tangible earthly body. Indeed,
compared to this unusual state of being, the physical form loses all reality.
In this sacred state, the contemplator, the contemplated, and the contemplation are all three
united in one. It is a very mysterious and inexplicable act where paradoxically there is
contemplation of the Self at the same time as being the Self which is contemplated. While
merged in it, one has the strange feeling of going back into eternity to one’s Supreme Source.
One is pervaded with a sensation of indescribable purity as well as a blissful feeling of vast
‘cosmic aloneness’ and profound inner peace surpassing anything one can know of in one’s
habitual outer existence.
From: http://testimoniesawakening.free.fr/index.htm

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The seeker must descend into his innermost being in order to manage to create in himself an intense
silence solely from which will it be possible for him to comprehend, in a manner which will
disconcert him, that attention, within him as well as every other human being, is a treasure which
does not belong to him—it is only on loan to him—and that whatever the thing or person to which
he agrees to give his attention, it is there that he will inevitably find himself!
Therefore, should he not be extremely careful in regard to that on which he may afford to use this
treasure, his “attention”?
- Edward Salim Michael

From another author:

MYSTICAL LEVEL

I have entered this level on only a few rare occasions, always from within a deep
meditative state. I do not know how to initiate this intentionally. This is almost
indescribable.
This is a beautiful, warm, abstract level, filled with infinite peace and love. Soul-deep
patience and understanding permeate the atmosphere. This is totally different from any
other level. It has the visual appearance of a beautifully textured fluffy-white cloud. There
are no sights or sounds here – only the all-pervading white-fluffy cloud, and an almost
inaudible soft humming. Here, you quickly relinquish conscious thoughts of individuality
and begin melting into non-dual oneness. An irresistible urge draws you deeper into the
bliss of silence and in finite love. Being here is like returning to the womb. You are
immersed in something like warm and cuddly cotton-wool. Just before you lose track of this
experience, you will realize your higher self, but you will not be able to put this into words
afterwards. Time has no meaning here. If you enter this world you will never want to leave.
But your body will call you back when it awakes.
Astral Dynamics - Revised Edition, Robert Bruce,
Hampton Roads Publishing Company, 2009, pp. 309-310
Deepak Chopra
My sense and experience tell me that these are important comments from Deepak Chopra,
whom I met in the early 90s. He either went deeper to say these things or was holding back
in his earlier writings.
Adapted from Power, Freedom, and Grace,
by Deepak Chopra (Amber Allen, 2006).
Every day we normally experience three states of consciousness: Waking, dreaming and sleeping.
But only by spending time in silence, stillness, or meditation do we experience a fourth state of
consciousness where we start to glimpse our soul. When we glimpse our soul, we become a little
more intuitive. We start to feel that things are not just what they seem to be; there is something
more behind the scenes.
The physical world we normally experience is a shadow of the real world. The real world, the

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world of spirit, exists behind a veil, and the veil is our own conditioning. In truth, we are not bound
by the world of space, time, matter, and causation, but the veil prevents us from seeing this truth. It
also prevents us from living in power, freedom, and grace.
In the fourth state of consciousness, we begin to sense the deeper reality that is orchestrating the
physical world, and there is a tearing in the veil that separates the physical and spiritual realms.
Just as we have to wake up from the dream state to experience waking consciousness, we have to
wake up from what we call waking consciousness to glimpse our spirit, our inner self. This is
called glimpsing the soul, and it’s the fourth state of consciousness. It’s simply to be in touch with
our soul.
This leads to the fifth state of consciousness, or cosmic consciousness, when our soul fully wakes
up in waking, dreaming, and sleeping. Our body can be fast asleep, but our soul, the silent witness,
is watching the body in deep sleep. Our body can be walking, and the silent witness is watching the
body walk. Our awareness is localized in space time, and it’s non-local, or transcendent, at the
same time.
If we don’t interfere with nature’s intelligence, then we start to awaken into the sixth state of
consciousness, divine consciousness. In divine consciousness, we see and feel the presence of spirit
in everything. When we wake up in divine consciousness, we don’t just see a leaf, or a table, or a
cloud, or a rainbow; we see the whole universe being all these things.
Next, we waken to the seventh state of consciousness, which is unity consciousness. This is when
the spirit inside us, which is now fully awake, merges with the spirit inside objects, which are also
now fully awake.
The universe is conscious, and because it is conscious, it is conscious of itself. So the eighth state of
consciousness, infinite consciousness, is its own observer. The observer is the discontinuity, the gap, the
off.
From: https://www.care2.com/greenliving/the-8-states-of-consciousness.html?x=36&y=11
Note from RK: Deepak was a student of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi until he decided to leave him.
What he is writing here is what Maharishi called cosmic, God and Unity consciousness which was
taught to all teachers of TM. Please check out Maharishi’s teachings on states of consciousness
which you should be able to find online.
2010 December 2 Added
My sense is that there may well be many levels of the fourth state, the shallowest perhaps being the
egoless aware space which contains everything in its experience (hence no separation or advaita),
but also much deeper levels like the oneness alternate reality experience I remember which must
have been a memory of a several times previously experienced conscious delta.
The deeper state(s) would be more of the nirvana/bliss or sat chit ananda experience.
I feel Douglas Harding, Richard Lang and many of the so called neo-advaita folk have
unquestionably achieved the shallower state, but not profound other-dimensional ones. Ramana,
Nisargadatta and possibly Langford seem to me to be coming from much deeper states.
I am more able to be in the shallower states described above, though there are still matters to look
after in worldly terms, in which the ego and worry come more to the front . . . though this seems to
be less and less, and that there are simply things to deal with.

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Am staying in awareness as much as possible, which I feel may bear fruit. Conscious awareness at
any time is effort well invested.


MUSINGS ON MEMORY LEVELS

Memory is at a different level in each of the states (waking, dreaming, deep sleep and turiya),
except for when there is a brief – almost instantaneous – interface between one state and another,
such as when waking from the dream state, the waking state memory will not retain (with rare
exceptions) the dream state memory, but the dream state memory will remember previous dreams,
as when one has recurring ones or finds oneself in familiar dream settings.
It is extremely exceptional that the normal waking state ever gives credence to or remembers
memory level of deep sleep or of turiya. My own experience of this is of alternate reality
experience – but a very familiar one, meaning that the deep sleep memory remembers itself. My
own sense of this is that it could resemble some drug inspired altered state – but more of being,
rather than of experience (as experience would suggest separation of experiencer from the
experience).
Waking mind and memory are not reality if turiya state is reality, as all waking memory (from
books, teachings and experiences) is not long term and (usually) does not survive death.
The above point raises the question of how an impermanent waking self (ego/personality/mind) can
take us to reality?
Do we use learning/mind/memory to evolve to reality or is pure awareness the only door/means?
A further most important point on memory has to do with the kind of memory which
accompanies us into our present life from prior ones. This is not a conscious memory having to
do with mundane things having to do with mental knowledge from before, like name, occupation,
families, but something of a ‘resonance memory’. When we first encounter something critically
important for our soul’s journey in our new life, we will feel a strong resonance and draw to it. It
could be a particular teaching, such as Buddhism. It can also be to a person, such as a teacher or
someone we had a very close relationship with before. Often, such individuals we are drawn to
will find they have a resonance with us, too, but neither of us will have a conscious memory of
the past relationship. This kind of soul, or resonance, memory is what is used in Tibet to identify
infants who are reincarnations of previously highly evolved teachers, including finding the next
Dalai Lama. The infants are offered a selection of toys and sacred objects. Being drawn to the
sacred objects is an indication of having been associated with them in a previous life.

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Appendix 2 – Vedic Teachings
As a result of working with Arkaji’s material again, and especially with his message in a
talk he gave on the Bhagavad Gita in Watford, near London in 2017, I was drawn to ex-
plore the Gita, the Upanishads and other Vedic works, including those attributed to Patan-
jali and Sankara.
I found, of the half a dozen versions of the Gita I have access to, the interpretation by
Swami Shyam to be the most revealing and helpful for my purposes. Its introduction alone
gave me a feeling that Shyam’s message could well help me break through the veil that
seemed to stand between me as an aware emptiness and all of the world.
I summarized my sense of the Gita, largely based on paraphrasing parts from Shyam’s in-
troduction:

The Bhagavad Gita is a teaching from the Knower of Truth designed to take away suf-
fering resulting from ignorant consciousness.
It begins with the words, ‘The blind man spoke.” The blind man is Dhristarashtra, the
king of the Kauravs. His blindness reflects being blind to the reality of truth. Individual
consciousness is aware of separate physical forms which, in this case, are intent on
fighting against and killing each other, even though they are related.
Dhristarashtra refused the offer to have his sight restored, because he could not bear
the pain of watching loved ones fighting and being killed. Instead, his Counsellor, San-
jay, who has clairvoyance and clairaudience, is able to watch and hear the progress
on the battleground and relate this to him.
The battle is over half Dhristarashtra’s kingdom which his sons have unjustly taken
from Dhristarashtra’s brother’s family, the Paandavs. There are five sons in the Paan-
dav family, of which Arjuna is one. Dhristarashtra himself has 100 sons.
Both sides ask the divine Krishna to help their side in the struggle. Krishna says one
side can have his army of millions and the other can have just himself unarmed. Dury-
odhan, the evil leader of the Kauravs, chooses the army of millions, while the good

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and well-intentioned Arjuna – not realizing he is already one with Krishna – is happy to
have Krishna alone on his side to be his adviser.
Krishna, representing the enlightened mind, takes the role of Arjuna’s charioteer, from
which position he is able to answer Arjuna’s questions and impart the teaching of
truth.
The ‘battle’ can be seen as the perennial struggle within each consciousness between
the downwards negative movement away from heaven’s oneness and formlessness
towards the world of manifestation, separation and mortality (Duryodhan and his large
army) and the upwards positive movement back to the Absolute and immortality (Ar-
juna and Krishna). When Arjuna is caught by the draw of his cousin’s Duryodhan’s
negative pull, he has doubts, loses his confidence and forgets the reality of oneness.
This battle is the one going on in each person’s mind, between being identified with
the conditioned mind and always being ‘hypnotized’ and drawn out to the myriad
thoughts, attractions and objects of the world Vs identifying with the divine awareness
before mind and thought.
In the various chapters of the Gita, Krishna gives Arjuna lesson after lesson according
to the different types of Yoga which are effective according to a person’s nature.
Three principal ones are Karma Yoga (the yoga of Action), Bhakti Yoga (the yoga of
devotion) and Jnana Yoga (the yoga of knowledge, meditation, raising consciousness
and self-realization).
A key message in the text is about acting without creating negative karma, which can
be done when one acts justly with best intentions without any attachment to what the
results or outcome will be.
One would think that Krishna might give Arjuna a recommendation to run away from
the battle and avoid having to kill any of his cousins or friends, but this would result in
an unjust victory. Arjuna takes the advice to act justly and not only is successful in the
battle, but also discovers – as Krishna has told him – that there never was any death
after all – though the outcome is not in the Gita, but later in the epic Mahabharata of
which the Gita is a small part.
It is not enough just to read and understand Krishna’s teachings conceptually. They
must be practiced for the yoga, or union, to be realized and experienced directly.

In more careful detail, Shyam says,

- “The message of the Gita is its final teaching: ‘Arjun, surrender all your doings to
Me. Give up the idea that you are the doer.’”

- “The gap is the sense of duality which divides the one Self into three: a doer, an
object being acted upon, and a power by which the action is attempted.”

- “When one becomes united with the truth of one’s nature, identifying with it as the
one Krishn Consciousness, the individual separative consciousness finds its climax
in final expansion into unity with the Whole. This is Raaj Yog.”

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Appendix 3 – Arka Dhyana Overview and Practice
Based on talks and written summaries by Srinivas Arka

The full version may be obtained from Coppersun Books:

http://www.coppersunbooks.com/product/arka-dhyana-intuitive-meditation/

Dhyana is about experiencing our deeper essential self. It is a withdrawal from focus-
sing attention outward through the mind and senses and looking and being within.

Like the word ‘dhyana’, ‘arka’ comes from Sanskrit and means sun, in this case sym-
bolizing our essential nature. Arka is added to dhyana to distinguish the practice and
intended state from other meditation-type practices which are focussed more on the
objective (thoughts, breath, senses) than the subjective (source self).

Arka dhyana bring together the uses of breath, touch and sound. These take us out of
our minds and deepen body energy awareness. When one touches the different points
in this practice it is done with conscious awareness and the energies within each phys-
ical point is experienced. Such a touch is naturally beneficial and can have a healing
effect.

Morning and evening are the best times to do this practice, though it can be beneficial
when done at any time. It is best to wear loose clothes and sit on a cushion with legs
crossed.

Breathing is done with deep breaths, expanding the belly, three times at each position.

The sound used, a mystic sound with no associated worldly meaning, is SA ROO GO
VAUM. It can be said in full or with one syllable at each point. It can also be said si-

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lently inside oneself. (Before this sound was revealed, the traditional ‘OM’ or ‘AUM’
sound was used.)

The 19 hand positions

Start with the hands on the knees with index finger and thumbs meeting in a circle
(chinmudra) and take 5 deep breaths. Then with three breaths and the sound, place
your hands on the following sequential points:

1. Both feet (one hand on each)

2. Both shins
3. Both knees
4. Both thighs
5. Waist/spine - On each side of the waist with fingers in front and thumb
behind pointing towards the spine from each side
6. Navel – both hands on the lower belly with fingers meeting and touching
the navel
7. Diaphragm – one hand on each side of the diaphragm with the upper
part on the lower ribcage and the lower part resting on the upper stom-
ach.
8. Chest – one hand on each side
9. Shoulders – cross arms so that right hand is on left shoulder and left
hand on right one
10. Elbows – one hand holding each elbow
11. Heart – here the palms are held together in the namaste position over
the heart area.
12. Throat – the middle and ring fingers of both hands touch the upper throat
area.
13. Mouth – put the middle and ring fingers of each hand over the lips
14. Nose – the middle and ring fingers are touching each side of the nose
15. Cheeks – forearms are crossed so the right palm is on the left cheek and
the left palm on the right one
16. Ears – the palm of each hand covers the ear of the same side (right palm
over right ear and left over let one)
17. Eyes – the index, middle and ring finger cover of each hand touch the
eye of the same side.
18. Forehead – the middle and ring fingers of each hand are placed on the
forehead.
19. Top of head – the middle and ring fingers are placed on the crown.

After completing the 19 positions any of the following alternatives can be done

- The same positions can be touched in the descending order, after which hands
are rested on the thighs.
- One could do just 8 positions to shorten the time, such as (1) Feet, (5) Waist/
spine, (11) Heart, (12) Throat, (13) Mouth, (16) Ears, (17) Eyes and (19) Top
Crown

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 - One could simply complete with a single position. If there is not a position one
is inspired to use, the heart one is recommended.

After the practice, remove the cushion and lie on your back with eyes closed. Relax
completely and be a witness to your self. This is known as the yoga nidra position.
Stay in this relaxed position for at least 10 minutes. Then you can sit up and remain for
about 3 minutes in the seated position, putting your palms on each of your eyes to
warm them before gently opening them.

This dhyana practice can result in multiple benefits, both spiritual and physical. There
should be reduced stress and a refreshed feeling of well-being. More importantly,
there will be heightened awareness, both during the touching practice through the 19
positions and also while lying down afterwards. During this relaxed lying down, or yoga
nidra, position, one may transcend the thinking mind and experience pure conscious-
ness.

After doing this practice using physical touch for a while (a minimum 48 days is sug -
gested), one may proceed to an intermediate stage of the practice which is going
through the positions internally with one’s attention. The steps are the same, but in-
ternalized, as is the sound.

Dhyana is intended to bring one to one’s inner self, resulting in an awakened heart, in -
ner peace and heightened consciousness.

The full version may be obtained from Coppersun Books:

http://www.coppersunbooks.com/product/arka-dhyana-intuitive-meditation/

241
Appendix 4 – PoV’s Triangle Journey Model and
Buddhism’s Five Skandhas and Wheel of Life

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PSYCHOLOGY OF VISION’S TRIANGLE JOURNEY MODEL*
AND BUDDHISM’S FIVE SKANDHAS AND WHEEL OF LIFE

October 2001
The views in this article are the author’s. They are not endorsed by and may not represent
either those of the Psychology of Vision or those of traditional Buddhist teachings.
Psychology of Vision’s Triangle Journey Model
Students of Psychology of Vision (POV) are well aware of the seemingly torturous psychological
journey mapped out through the dependent and independent stages of the triangle’s journey model.
Some of the more fortunate feeling among us may think we have graduated to the interdependent
side, but the fact of the matter is that, with the many reactive mood changes and personalities each
of us have, we are continually changing from one side and position on this model to another, often
to parts of it which may be shockingly different to where we think we deserve to be.

As an example of this, let’s say you start your day out reading your post and one of the letters you
received praises you for some brilliant piece of work you did. You feel really good, confident and
have a sense that you are acting in interdependence with others who appreciate your contribution,
as you appreciate theirs. You next open the newspaper and find your major stock investments have
tumbled. You are immediately put in touch with feelings of fear and of having been victimised.
You go to work and a colleague you are very attracted to greets you warmly and you feel good
about your natural charisma. You next learn your company has lost a contract that you were a key
member for servicing and, as a result, have a meeting with your boss who criticises your
performance. You shift to an independent defensive feeling, justifying your work actions to
yourself, and react by criticising and attacking the boss back, or blaming other people and
circumstances. Later in the day, your partner calls and says they want to split up with you. You are
instantly put in touch with your emotional needs and devastated by how much you realise you
depend on them. In a matter of a few hours you have been through a roller coaster moving up and
down from the lofty peace and powerful feeling of interdependence to the murky swamp of needy
dependence. We find that where we are on the triangle is MORE changeable than the weather!
Gurdjieff spoke about this long ago: “Man such as we know him, the ‘man-machine,’ …
cannot have a permanent and single I. His I changes as quickly as his thoughts, feelings and
moods, and he makes a profound mistake in considering himself always one and the same
person… Every thought, every mood, every desire, every sensation, says ‘I.’ …There is
nothing in man able to control this change of I’s, chiefly because man does not notice, or
know of it; he lives always in his last I.” ( In Search of the Miraculous, P.D. Ouspensky, pp.

243
59-60, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1950.)
So long as we identify with the myriad of personalities (identities feeling separate from their world,
and whom of which each want something, resist something or are less than fully receptive to their
experiences), we will find ourselves at different places on the triangle with each person we relate to
differently in our lives – our partners, parents, siblings, children, bosses, colleagues, bank managers
and even strangers. (As a simple check on this, is how you are – your feelings and state of being -
the same when you are with a stranger you are physically attracted to as when you are with one
you aren’t? If it isn’t, you are on a different place on the triangle with each.)
Being lost in the neurosis and fantasy of thinking we exist as separate individuals and egos means
we are not yet free from being a moveable pawn on the triangle’s chessboard.
The POV model moves from the beginning of neediness in dependence towards a point on the edge
of enlightenment where we are reduced to having just one personality …and then, with
enlightenment, even that disappears. (Or, as Trungpa Rinpoche commented, ‘Enlightenment is the
ego’s ultimate disappointment.’)

Buddhism’s 5 Skandhas
Like the Triangle, Buddhist experience and teachings tell us how to evolve. However, in contrast,
they also talk about how we moved the other way – from a pre-personality ‘being’ into this
seemingly separate ‘becoming’ ego, packaged with whatever past karma needs we must still deal
with in order to free ourselves to step back into the state of ‘being’ again.
These teachings tell us that, in the beginning, there is no relationship, just self-contained open
space. If we have doubts that we exist, our uncertainty causes us to project a reference point outside
ourselves to be separate from and to relate to. This reassures us of our existence, and we identify
with what is ‘here.’ Then we create more and more outside reference points to reinforce our feeling
of a ‘me’ existing from our particular ‘here’ foundation point.
Buddhist psychology uses the concepts of the 5 skandhas to speak about how we set our ‘me’ up,
form our territory and use our projections to affirm our individual existence. The first step is that of
form and comes from a discovery of selflessness and an ignorance and fear that there is no self, or
solid ‘me,’ here in the open space. So we create a solidity and a separation barrier between
‘here/self’ and ‘there/other.’ The next step is that of feeling, as a means of further confirming our
existing ‘here,’ through feeling ‘here’ as separate to what we project as ‘out there.’ The third step is
perception, or more awareness ‘here’ of, and how we relate to and manipulate, what is ‘out there.’
The three styles of this relating are passion/desire (wanting something we perceive as pleasurable),
aggression/hatred (resisting or running way from something we see as threatening) and
indifference/stupidity (where we decide something either doesn’t matter or become numb and stop
letting ourselves feel anything about it). (These styles correspond to descriptions of traps on the
first two sides of the triangle…)
These first three skandhas are instinctive. The fourth one is about intellect, or conceptual
discrimination, which allows us to categorise and name the many things now happening around and
to us (shades of Adam in the Garden!), and to decide how threatening they might be, including a
new level of reasoning about others’ motives.
The last skandha is consciousness, where we combine the use of emotions and thought patterns to
construct the dream worlds we live in and from which we defend ourselves against the ‘out there.’

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As Chogyam Trungpa put it, “…whole fantasy worlds are created to shield and entertain the ego.
Emotions are the highlights of the fantasies while discursive thoughts, images and memories
sustain the story line. A story of the ego’s hopes and fears, victories and defeats, virtues and vices
is developed. In highly neurotic people, elaborate subplots or ‘problems’ then develop from the
initial drama. In psychotic people, the subplots completely overshadow the main drama.” (‘ Space
Therapy’, The Middle Way, London, Nov. 1975)
The irony and tragedy of all of this separation and ‘projection creation’ is that we totally forget we
have created these and believe they are real and have always been there.

Buddhism’s 6 Realms
Buddhists call the different dream, or fantasy, worlds, formed by a combination of our thoughts and
emotions, the six realms.
These realms are illustrated on depictions of their Wheel of Life. They are the hell realm, the
realm of the hungry ghosts, the animal realm, the human realm, the realm of the jealous gods
and the realm of the happy, or peaceful, gods. Most understand these realms to represent planes
of existence we are born into according to the karma we are born with. In fact, we are continually
moving up and down through the different realms in the same life.
The triangle model speaks of a journey through similar emotional and psychological territories.
Those familiar with it will see the parallels and can draw their own conclusions.

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Wheel of Life – Found in monastery murals. The hub shows the “three poisons”: greed, hate and
delusion (pig, snake, cock). The six big sections show the realms of existence: that of the happy, or
peaceful, gods (top); the jealous gods (upper right); humans (upper left); hell (bottom); the
hungry ghosts with big bellies but tiny necks (lower left); and animals (lower right).
The demon of impermanence holds the whole wheel.
Being in the hell realm is feeling anger, a victim and intense fear and paranoia. Both the hot and
cold hells are here. In this realm we feel attacked by the outside world and we lash out back at it,
not realising we are creating the situation in the first place. Our viewing the world as hostile is what
makes it become hostile. As usual, the world reflects ourselves back at us.
The realm of the hungry ghost comes out of being in a cold hell. We freeze ourselves into a cold
hell to stop the vicious circle of hot hells becoming increasingly hotter. Staying frozen seems safe.
In this state, in addition to the continual hell realm threats that we are aware of, there are also
opportunities of moving forward which flash through to us. When we taste these, we become
hungry for more of them. This is a place of obsessive greed and hoarding. Hungry ghosts are
depicted with big mouths and stomachs, but very thin long necks. This means that, even though
they are starving, hungry ghosts can never consume enough to sate the hunger required to fill their
big stomachs. This is a state of compassionless and self-obsessed needing to devour, but never
getting enough.

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There comes a point when we feel exhausted from trying to stuff ourselves and realise it’s
never going to work. This is the point of stopping struggling and relaxing, which allows us to
enter the animal realm. This is the best of the three lower realms, but it is a place of
suffering, dullness, stupidity and ignorance. To be in the animal realm is like being an
animal, subject to being killed and eaten by other animals, fed or not fed if owned by people.
This realm is a state of dependency on what comes from outside and fear of it, too. To placate
this fear, it becomes a place of keeping busy, workaholism, rituals and persistence. However,
it is here that we gradually are able to learn that we can make some choices; that there are
some things we can choose that we prefer over other things.
Deciding to make a choice for the better is the step that allows us to move up to the human
realm. This realm is a place of something of a balance of enjoyment and suffering. So it still can
be a place where we continue to search for pleasure, for something out there that will bring a
lasting happiness and sense of well-being. When we use it this way, we keep trying to make life
work better and better for ourselves, making more and more sophisticated constructs which are
meant gradually to achieve an ideal and pleasurable life for ourselves. However, this is
impossible, since we are continually manipulating the ‘out there’ in an attempt to make our life
perfect. This becomes exhausting work, even when we are ‘successful’. We can see that,
somehow, at least some other people have ‘made it’ and become ‘gods’, and that life can
somehow be effortless, but we are not at that place.
Buddhists experience the human realm as the place to practice Dharma and make true evolution
towards achieving the non-dual state. The pleasures of the human realm can be enjoyed without
identification with them, and the sufferings similarly used for growth but, likewise, without
identification.
The realm of the jealous gods is a place of both distrust and lust. We still want things, but are
plagued by doubt. However, it is a place where we can take charge and work as a ‘leader’, but as a
leader who is always eyeing the competition and ready to do battle.
The realm of the gods is a place of blissful self-absorption and intoxication with the senses. There
is a feeling of being on the verge of breaking through to a full awakening and enlightenment.
However, it is not quite there and the state is still one of impermanence. The wonderfulness we are
feeling is just a reflection back of the wonderfulness we are projecting. We need and depend on this
reflection for our intoxicated feeling. There is still the neurosis of an, ‘Aren’t I wonderful! Aren’t I
deserving of being worshipped by everyone!’ Whenever that diminishes in any degree, doubt
creeps in and we are vulnerable to falling back down to a lower realm.

The Wheel of Life picture actually usually has three other illustrated concentric circles on it besides
the six realms it mainly depicts. These other circles describe the never-ending cycles we go through
when we are caught on this wheel, just as we might go around and around the POV triangle for an
eternity without ever breaking free into the centre. In all of these realms we are still caught in the
trap of our own projection …the trap of the addiction to becoming, or being, a god.

Beyond the Wheel and the Triangle

Some Wheel of Life depictions also have a picture of a saffron-robed Buddha in a top corner
outside of the wheel pointing with the fingers of his right hand. This pointing is indicating the Way
or the Path forward. The cyclical wheel reflects the reactive mind, just like the words and journey

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around the outside of the triangle speak of our mechanical psychological reactions.
The Path, on the other hand, is un-directional and speaks of the creative mind, the mind that is not
lost in reacting. In order to have any chance of getting onto the Path, we have to become aware of
how unconscious, or asleep, we have been to the way we have created ourselves, our world and the
repeating patterns that dominate our life. Buddhism puts a lot of emphasis on remembering
ourselves, usually through meditation and growing awareness. We gradually become aware of our
physical body; our sensations, feelings and more complex emotions; and our thoughts. Once this is
achieved, there is the potential for a leap up to the awareness of how our life has been and the
potential we have to change it. This includes changing the limited beliefs we have had about who
we are.
In the triangle this creative path is largely reflected in the words on the journey inside around the
triangle, starting with the perspective we have on our earliest condition through understanding.
Each of these words on the inside of the triangle become conscious choices we can make to move
our lives towards qualitative change, in a movement towards an eventual goal of ultimate
liberation. These choices can only come about through awareness of the mechanical reactive traps
on the outside of the triangle that would, otherwise, continue driving us in an endless evermore
vicious circle. This is why, in POV, choice is sometimes referred to as the highest power we have
on earth.
Ultimate liberation, however, takes us into the realm of pure being-consciousness which, as the
saffron-robed Buddha points out to us, is a stepping beyond the triangle, beyond the wheel of life,
and beyond any personal mind and its ego and psychology.
Note:
* Psychology of Vision (POV) is a visionary healing model developed by Chuck and Lency
Spezzano. Its triangle journey model is copyrighted. Psychology of Vision is a registered trademark
owned by Charles Lee Spezzano (AKA Chuck Spezzano).

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APPENDIX 5 – Anadi Teaching – Personal Conclusions

The teaching has helped me in a number of ways:

- It added further confirmation to my sense that the path is wholistic and, in addition
to consciousness, heart and being are important aspects of it.
- The clarity of the terminology helped me put names to the awakening I had had be-
fore coming to the teaching and to the states that awakening opened for me.
- I was able to be with my subjectivity in a more than usual sustained way including
in working with some of the teaching’s many practices.
- There has been a major benefit from an experiential understanding of the different
types of attention and increased awareness of parts of the body, as well as of the
thought process.
- The sustained being out of the mind deepened an abidance in subjectivity (self-
aware awareness), including surrendering from it, and allowed an expressing out
into the world from that subjective identity.
- Attending the seclusions/retreats in person where one is able to be in silence and
alone with oneself without worldly distractions was heavenly.

However, I continued to have some reservations and questions, such as,

1. Does this teaching really surpass all other ones to be the most advanced teaching
ever?
2. Do all previous and other current teachers fall short of what this teaching claims to
offer?
3. Is the linear path recommended by the teaching a valid one . . . or even
relevant . . . and, as part of that path, is it necessary that aspects of the soul corre-
spond to particular regions and portals of the physical body? Moreover, could trying
to follow such a linear path actually sidetrack or delay seekers on their journey?
4. Given that there is an absolute, which is in absence (rather than presence), is it re-
ally true that it is found for one’s being through the tan t’ien portal and that Nisarga-
datta never entered it?
5. Is one’s ‘me’ really lost in non-duality traditions?
6. Does retaining duality actually put a barrier on the path?

My own conclusions
1. The teaching itself falls short of completing the path in terms of my own experi-
ence. This is at least because duality is a requisite in it and, despite claims to the
contrary, the teaching has not been shown to free one from karma by either fully in-
tegrating, dissolving or transcending the personality (with its emotions).

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 2. Certain other teachings and teachers – notably some Buddhist, Advaita and Taoist
ones, though there have been exceptional cases in other traditions, too – do go be-
yond what is offered here.
3. There are different facets to a more holistic inner self, or soul, but it is not neces-
sarily important to relate them to specific regions and portals of the physical body.
4. Beingness as part of one’s pure presence in absence/the absolute can be attained
without needing to focus on any particular region of the body – and Nisargadatta’s
absolute was a feeling one, not restricted to consciousness.
5. ‘Me’, in the sense of being one’s continuing awakened conscious awareness, has
never been missing from the highest realizations.
6. Duality in experience and in concepts (holding on to polarities) hold one back.

Elaborating on these conclusions further:

1. Is the teaching really a complete one?
- Being a teaching based on his own personal experience and revelatory guidance
Anadi has received means that anything not experienced by him nor revealed to
him will necessarily be excluded.
- Anadi says teachings which speak of 'higher' levels are missing what he experi-
ences as real in his own understanding – especially a ‘me’ in relationship with real-
ity. He rejects the comprehensiveness and stated goals of traditional teachings as
less complete than what is shown on his own map and is genuinely surprised when
students want to leave the teaching as, in his view, there is nothing better or more
advanced.
- Anadi says that his students have to attend retreats, including seeing him in private
meetings, to benefit from the teaching. Despite claiming students need a teacher,
he admits to not having had any principle one himself, other than through grace
from the divine within, which only came after he had made great efforts on his own.
- While the teaching does speak about extremely profound levels, like immanent I
am and primordial I am (the source and the unmanifest), there seems little, if any-
thing, in a descriptive way that indicates Anadi’s actual conscious experience of
these or how being based in such evolved states has impacted his everyday life in
the world.
- Anadi talks of religions and traditional spiritual teachings as obstructing students
because they claim to have the complete truth and thereby mislead seekers. One
may well conclude that this has been true of his teaching, too, not only from the
early days, but still today, despite his claim that it is now fundamentally complete.

2. Are all other current and past teachers and teachings really inferior to this teach-
ing?
- The number of modern and past teachers Anadi has either studied or even met
with is impressive and demonstrates a profound and genuine devotion to spiritual

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 seeking. This is evidenced in Beyond Traditions, where there is also some ac-
knowledgement of the limited contributions others have made to Anadi’s own jour-
ney and teaching.
- Anadi has noted his highest appreciation for Ramana Maharshi, whom he has ac-
knowledged reached being and was established in the earlier stages of the essen-
tial channel but he claims Ramana did not understand where he was because
these aspects of the teaching’s map are not dealt with in Hindu’s Advaitic scrip-
tures. Notwithstanding this, Anadi has answered Ramana’s ‘Who am I?’ practice
with different answers over time according to the evolution of his own teaching.
These answers are all about an awakened state and identity beyond the normal
mind – from simple awareness to conscious me/inner knower to a person who be-
comes one’s ultimate identity in the primordial.
- He had previously honored Nisargadatta as having attained the absolute of pure
consciousness in the universal I am but has more recently demoted him to having
just been in a shallow state of awareness behind the watcher.
Buddhism
- Concerning some of the masters/teachers he has met, Anadi has criticized the Ko-
rean Zen master Seungsahn and the Japanese Zen master Harada Roshi, partly
because they did not ask him about his state. He has not made clear that Se-
ungsahn calls his school ‘Don’t know Zen’, a state of not knowing emptiness and
yet being conscious, similar to what the Bodhidharma taught – which is the surren-
der of knowledge and an abidance in a state of conscious being spoken of by nu-
merous advanced teachers through history.
- Anadi dismisses the whole of the Rinzai’s school’s koan system as being solely
consciousness focused and actually obstructing students’ progress in many cases.
This includes rejecting Hakuin, who emphasized post-satori practice for purifying
one’s karma and who had deep compassion for all sentient beings.
- Anadi has shown more respect to Dogen’s Soto school which encourages silent il-
lumination from shikantaza, ‘just sitting’, meditation. But this, too, was noted to
have its limitations, ostensibly because of not having any being or heart.
- There has been some limited respect for the Tibetan Dzogchen and Mahamudra
schools.
Taoism
- Anadi also has some praise for Taoism’s focus on the being aspect, though feels it
falls short on the other parts of the soul. However, it seems a mistake to suggest
Taoism is pretty much limited to being, as their word ‘shen’ means cosmic spirit
and is one of their three treasures and a goal of their path. The word ‘shen’ and the
Buddhist ‘hsin’ have become almost interchangeable and can be translated as
‘spirit’, ‘mind’ and ‘heart’, which would imply their paths are quite comprehensive in-
deed.
Modern Teachers
- Anadi dismisses virtually all modern teachers as not having fully attained pure con-
sciousness. The rare exceptions who may have touched in to this – such as Krish-

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 namurti, who is noted to have become aware of universal I am – are said to be un-
conscious of and in their person, which the teaching says is our main center of in-
telligence.
Have some reached higher levels, including that of true non-duality?
- As Anadi himself has said, when one is ready enough and includes use of the do-
ing nothing ‘practice’, one can be helped to evolve naturally. Accordingly, it may
well be that there have been highly evolved individuals who have also achieved
similar advanced states - or even MORE advanced ones – naturally and may well
have found such natural evolution takes them into the non-duality Anadi’s teaching
speaks of as spiritual suicide of our me, the self . . . a non-duality realm in which
virtually all of the structure of Anadi teaching’s edifice no longer has any relevance.
Such highly evolved individuals will have ‘arrived’, gone beyond the need of teach-
ings. They will have surrendered to the state of not-knowing, a Taoist state of being
in the flow, where answers arise spontaneously when required.
- Once an evolved soul has entered other-dimensional realms, like transcendence
and immanence – and especially the primordial –, it can be very difficult, and even
impossible, to find words which do justice to describing the experience . . . so we
may not have heard from many of the masters who have ventured to such heights.

3. Do different facets of the soul really correspond to different regions of the body
and is consciousness really composed of such detailed aspects and levels?
- It may also be true that other evolved individuals have not correlated aspects of
their awakening to physical parts of their body as Anadi has done or may have
found their awakenings to correspond to somewhat different bodily locations, or to
none at all. (“. . . what we generally consider to be our ‘I’ cannot be identified with
our body, neither as a whole nor with any of its parts.” Namkai Norbu [Dzogchen
Master], The Mirror – Advice on the Presence of Awareness.
- Is the heart really a secondary centre of the soul, unconnected to the higher evolu-
tion of the essence me’s inner knower and the supreme person? Some significant
teachings (like Ramana Maharshi’s) speak of our origin coming from the spiritual
heart and consciousness returning there in its evolution.
- Anadi has suggested Ramana may have had an extraterrestrial origin to explain
why the latter claimed the spiritual heart is on the right side – compared to Anadi’s
teaching saying it is in the center. However, Ramana used this location for those
who required somewhere physically to focus, as he also said the ‘Heart’ is not
really in the body, but it is the immanent self which is the source of the mind and
the world.
- Anadi speaks of thoughts arising from the subconscious mind, though without loc-
ating it physically, except to say it is below the conscious person/mind. Ramana
Maharshi speaks of thoughts, and especially of the original ‘I-thought’, as arising
from the spiritual heart.
- Consciousness seems to have a clear meaning. It is about the light of both pure, or
spiritual, intelligence and recognition once one has awoken to one’s subjectivity.
Bringing attention and intelligence to these centers is what awakens and estab-

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 lishes them. In Anadi’s teaching there are categories and degrees to the experi-
ence of consciousness. An initial stage is that of awareness, outside of the mind
and with intelligence from the person, but not yet awakened to either the pure me
of consciousness of the central channel or to conscious me, the pure subjectivity of
the inner knower in the essential channel. More evolved levels of consciousness in-
clude pure consciousness, the unity of pure me of consciousness and universal I
am, and the inner knower, the awakened conscious me or evolving core of our
soul. If all these centres and levels are valid, it may well be true that many other
‘enlightened’ individuals have either awakened only partially or incompletely de-
scribed what a more comprehensive awakening includes.

4. Is Nisargadatta’s absolute as restricted as the teaching suggests?

- Absolute I am, like universal I am, is beyond to us until we unite with it. These are
both transcendental, or not of this world. Joining them gives us an experience of
profound repose, or samadhi. Anadi says he was trying to find the absolute which
Nisargadatta spoke of but instead found the absolute which has to do with being.
He had been saying that Nisargadatta’s absolute referred to the universal I am but
has since altered this to saying Nisargadatta’s attainment was just deep aware-
ness, not absence at all. Anadi has said that Nisargadatta’s photos and videos con-
firm that he is largely confined to the head and consciousness, while Ramana Ma-
harshi’s photos indicate the latter had a different, deeper attainment.
- Nisargadatta’s own comments about this suggest that his absolute is a subjective
feeling sense of beingness beyond the mind, so much more profound than that
which is just linked with pure consciousness as a secondary centre of the soul.
- Despite there being similar patterns, behaviours and descriptions among teachers,
each individual’s enlightenment is unique and will also reflect their own personal
character and preferences. For example, many have had no desire to teach, but
are quite happy just to enjoy their conscious-being state. Others cannot wait to
start teaching and, too often, do so before they have fully matured.

1. Has me, in the sense of one’s identity as an individual evolved soul, really
been absent from past authentic awakenings?
- Why does the teaching claim other advanced teachings lead to ‘spiritual suicide’
and disappearance when it has always been clear that their conscious awareness
is part of their realization? Any negation of their ‘me’ seems more about ending a
primary identification with the ego. It does seem sadly true that, in many cases, an
awakened person’s ego (psychology and emotions) is not similarly evolved or
made transparent to their higher primary centre, so it does not become an expres-
sion of the awakened identity.
- A sudden awakening experience can give an instant insight into what is meant by
the drop (the individual) not disappearing into the ocean (the all/universe/god), but
rather finds that the ocean disappears into the drop. What this implies is that, if god
has ‘disappeared’ into our awakened self, we have truly transcended to become
the divine, not just a part of the divine. We would, accordingly, become part of

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 everything the divine is part of, including all other life in the manifested realm. But
this would happen without our losing our own conscious awareness, rather than
being a spiritual suicide. The seeming paradox here is that this same right to being
the divine belongs to all others, either in potential, if they have not awakened, or
consciously, if they have. It is a oneness which is within one's conscious self. And it
is this conscious 'self' which would be the reality in the primordial as well as in the
realm of manifestation.

2. Is retaining duality actually putting a block on the path?

The problem of duality – conflict of identity, self as separate and self-image
- The teaching often speaks about the conflict of identity being a barrier to establish-
ing oneself fully in one’s pure me but, once one has awakened to one’s subjectivity,
that identity, too, can conflict with embodying our world, including others in it. Hold-
ing on to a separate me, necessarily means being separate from one’s world. Me is
the experiencer and the world is the experience. ‘I’, as the conscious person, am in
relationship with myself (my other centers) and with the world. In the view of a
number of other advanced teachings, a further step of surrender is called for, one
which may seem like the end of our me, but one in which the whole of our experi-
ence disappears into me. As the Taoists say, one embodies the universe.
- In addition to talking about seeing from the fourth – or even sixth – dimension,
which necessarily separates the seer from the seen, the teaching speaks of the
personality becoming transparent and translucent. Also, it is the person which be-
comes the ultimate soul, and the teaching reminds its students that no other
teacher in history has ever discovered or spoken about the person. As our principle
center of intelligence, intention and recognition, the person has to be the one who
travels the path to the end, as he is the one who has to be able to realize he has
arrived. Other traditions speak of reaching the end of their paths, too, which means
there has been conscious recognition of it – though they’ve used terms other than
‘person’ to describe what they are in that state.
- Awakening beyond identifying as being one's personality and body is quite extraor-
dinary and wonderful. It must be the reason many are given or choose spiritual
names as a way of 'christening' this new 'birth'. Anadi has been through at least a
couple of name changes now and yet seems to have fallen into maintaining a self-
image, identifying personally with who he is, but now as Anadi, the source of a
claimed more comprehensive and deeper truth than has been provided by previous
traditions.
- There is also a duality of concepts, which is a pitfall. It is a duality numerous reli-
gious sects and cults fall into when they claim to be right, guardians of the truth and
of salvation and that anyone opposed to them or in disagreement are wrong or evil
and will not be saved. The duality of such distinctions is separation keeping us from
oneness.

Relevance of structure, transmission and ‘me’ . . .

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 - So much of the teaching has evolved through Anadi’s experiential sensitivity to-
gether with ‘intuitive guidance’ he receives. It has resulted in the construction of a
quite detailed edifice comprising a central and essential channel, a number of sec-
ondary centers of the soul, an evolving inner knower/primary center of the soul
which in the end unites with a primary center of intelligence, the person.
- Aside from awareness and pure consciousness, actually establishing and becom-
ing aware of the other centers as being in specific parts of my body seemed more
like something imagined rather than truly and vividly experienced. Perhaps Anadi
has really experienced what his structure speaks of, but one wonders how many of
his students truly have. One also wonders if much of it is actually a distraction from
the natural path of many of the students . . . and of the path(s) trodden by spiritual
giants through the ages.
- ‘Systems’ describing spiritual evolution and reality from other teachers are gener-
ally dismissed by Anadi as intellectual. His standard for assessing all teachers is
his own evolving map of awakening, and each of the teachers and teachings he
speaks of falls short to differing degrees. His request that students check out other
spiritual teachers and pinpoint where they are on his map has the drawback of
misdiagnosing or excluding genuine teachers who are in spiritual states not shown
on the map.
- Students of the teaching speak of receiving real experiences through transmissions
from Anadi. Some say they are awakenings which correspond to parts of his map,
such as to universal I am. However, these experiences can be temporary ones and
may not actually be necessary ones for one’s path. Also, there are a number of
students who have not been able to awaken to any degree, despite attending re-
treats and having private meetings with Anadi. This is not necessarily a criticism,
as such students may not have been ripe enough. (Many who were with Ramana
Maharshi also did not awaken.)
- How important is the physical presence of a teacher and their personal transmis-
sion? Is not grace available from anywhere (including from within) when the seeker
is ready (as has been the case with Anadi)? There were a number of seekers who
were blessed when they were in the presence of Ramana Maharshi, but he always
said it was not necessary to leave one’s home and family and come to him to
progress on the path.
- One’s essential self, the conscious person, who eventually merges into one’s inner
knower in the depths of immanence must be no different than the intelligent and
conscious realized self which accompanied those spiritual giants of the past to their
journey’s end. Most likely these masters realized, or became conscious of what
had always been there, but had been lost in the amnesia of aligning ourselves with
the conditioning of being separate psychosomatic individuals.

When Emperor Wu asked Bodhidharma 'Who are you?' the response was 'Don't know' -
no ownership of an identity, separate or otherwise, despite a conscious awareness re-
sponding.

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'How do you step from the top of a hundred-foot pole?’
- Case 46 from the Mumonkan (Gateless Barrier) is a koan telling partly enlight-
ened Zen students that they are not finished - that there is more path to follow.

“You who sit on the top of a 100-foot pole,

Although you have entered the Way, it is not yet genuine
Take a step from the top of the pole
And the entire world becomes your body”

- The answer points one to a living experience of 'unity consciousness' (I am that) or,
better, the step beyond it, which is just 'I am' (a oneness in which there is no longer
any 'that' or duality).
- Anadi HAS attained remarkable awakening to subjectivity, which DOES mean he is
in a position to help others who are not yet awakened to that. However, where he is
seems similar to this one who is at the top of the 100-foot pole, feeling he is com-
plete, but not realizing there is an important further step.

Sri Aurobindo wrote in a letter to a student about people becoming stuck in what he
called an intermediate zone, which has been summarized as:
“ . . . spiritual aspirants may pass through an intermediate zone where experiences of
force, inspiration, illumination, light, joy, expansion, power, and freedom from normal limits
are possible. These can become associated with personal aspirations, ambitions, notions
of spiritual fulfilment and yogic siddhi, and even be falsely interpreted as full spiritual real-
ization. One can pass through this zone, and the associated spiritual dangers, without
harm by perceiving its real nature, and seeing through the misleading experiences. Those
who go astray in it may end in a spiritual disaster or may remain stuck there and adopt
some half-truth as the whole truth or become more an instrument of less.
(the original letter can be seen here: http://www.kheper.net/topics/Aurobindo/intermedi-
ate_zone.htm)

Confirmation from the 1000 book

- Further personal clarity came from a book on levels of consciousness, 1000 by
Ramaji, based on a survey of hundreds of modern spiritual teachers and giants
from the past, about what seemed to have been missing in Anadi’s teaching. What
is absent has a direct connection to the level of consciousness the teaching comes
from.
- The description which matches the teaching and teacher in Ramaji’s book is that of
the 700s. It seems especially evident when the third of the five ranks of Tozan were
being described (in the section ‘Seven Maps of Non-dual Awakening’) as well as in
the section specifically on the 700s stage (‘The Cosmic Vision’). This is not to say
that what that particular book says is necessarily accurate but, without referring di-
rectly to Anadi, it describes this level as a very high one of realization called cosmic

256
 consciousness, a mastery of knowledge. Hence, it acknowledges that someone at
this 700 level is deeply enlightened and can certainly be a valuable teacher for
many. However, it notes teachers at this level are often still dealing with emotional
healing and psychological blind spots . . . implying their own suffering has not yet
ended. For me the parallels between what was described in these sections and
Anadi’s teaching (and Anadi himself) seemed remarkable.
- The level above this 700 one, the 800s, is the one of divine love and worship. Ex-
amples of some at this level could be St. Teresa of Avila, St John of the Cross and
Padre Pio. Above that is a level of union with all, the 900s, and then simple one-
ness, or 1000. In these higher levels, the importance of structure and knowledge
disappears. To progress beyond the level typified by the 700s into the 800s, one
has to surrender everything, including knowledge, and embrace a radical not-know-
ing. One is still there as one’s conscious ‘self’, but now consumed by love and sur-
rendered to the worship of the divine. This relationship of love is still one of duality.
- Many then go directly through the 900s almost without noticing it. It is a place of
becoming ‘I am that’, which includes the open-hearted compassion for everything
and everyone that one is. But there is still the flimsiest of veils separating one from
‘that’, from the world – including from others. But at 1000, this veil is gone and only
‘I am’ remains. There was still some duality in being ‘that’. At 1000 duality has dis-
appeared and there is only the oneness that one is.
- After surveying so many present and past teachers, the author of the book found
that teachers tended to crystalize at the level they were at when they commenced
teaching. Basic realization occurs from the 600s and many spiritual teachers work
from that level. Others teach from the awakened 700s level. Anadi himself has spo-
ken of current spiritual teachers whom he considers have awakened only to a lim-
ited degree and noted their teachings are accordingly necessarily limited.

While appreciating and acknowledging the teaching’s positive aspects, there is a

sense of relief in having it more in perspective now
- Coming to my own conclusions about the teaching and then having them confirmed
from the 1000 book was a great relief. This improved clarity freed me from a sense
that all traditional teachings were missing crucial parts and allowed me to go back
to continue enjoying and exploring them.
- Anadi warns students not to speak of the teaching/subjectivity to 'normal' people as
it threatens their world view and can result in the students being judged and at-
tacked by these ‘unconscious’ people. The teaching has, accordingly, fostered
something of a sense of exclusivity for its followers as being in an advanced place
on the path of spiritual evolution. It recommends maintaining an aloofness with re-
spect to others . . . but aloofness separates. Living in more of a unity conscious-
ness (an ‘I am that’ realization), there is an automatic love and compassion for all
others who are, after all, parts of oneself.
- Having the teaching in what I feel is a better perspective, everyday living and inter-
actions with others can be more relaxed. Now, the spiritual path is not such a pro-
hibited area of discussion with others, just a question of exercising some discretion
and care in choice of words depending on what one discusses with whom.

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- Another aspect of daily reality and experience which the teaching limits is valuing
senses other than sight. It seems to dismiss the others as being more physical in
what is perceived (a required material interface between the sense and what is ex-
perienced), and also that these other senses are shared by lesser creatures for
whom consciousness is not possible. However, the fact is that perception through
all the senses is recognized by one’s same subjective self, or who one is, and a
large part of being alive to oneself is being the subject of all of one’s perceptions.
Moreover, one constantly embodies and becomes one’s world, which is comprised
of one’s perceptions in each ‘now’ through every facet of oneself.
- Furthermore, all of the complicated structure, felt to be necessary to follow the
teaching, falls away, allowing one to be in one’s natural state – still one of con-
scious awareness – and also alive through all of one’s senses and perceptions . . .
with the heart naturally open or opening . . . while resting in being (as that word has
a personal feeling depth of presence and meaning).
- My own evolution confirms the stages and experience(s) of awakening can differ
from others’ evolution. We each come into this world with whatever (if anything) we
may have accomplished before at a soul level and with our individual incompletions
and blueprints to follow through with. Roadmaps provided by other awakened
teachers, based on their personal experience, can act as precious and important
pointers. However, trying to fit the steps and experience of one’s own soul’s jour-
ney too closely into another’s template can result in obstacles or detours to one’s
progress. Honour one’s teachers and the valuable help they give but honour one’s
own truth as one’s highest and ultimate guide.
- I had a crucial awakening many years before coming to Anadi’s teaching. The
teaching did help me understand what I had awoken to – my subjective self – bet-
ter and deepened my experience, particularly of what is called ‘pure conscious-
ness’. However, my awakening had already previously taken my conscious identi-
fication into a space beyond the mind and body, so my base has been in an ab-
sence which did not require a physical portal to enter. The proof of the pudding, for
me, is that I do now feel at peace, free of the spiritual suffering and seeking which
had driven me for decades. Being present and aware without an identification
based in a mind or body is a very alive state, which includes non-doership in which
doing has pretty much become spontaneous.
- I continue to have gratitude for the benefits I’ve experienced from parts of the
teaching, as well as for the teacher who developed it and made those parts of it
available. However, I have realized that much of the elaborate structure required to
follow the teaching was actually holding me back from enjoying an ever-unfolding
state of ‘conscious being’, in which the motivation for external spiritual seeking has
largely ceased.

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Appendix 6 – A Light on the sayings of Jesus?

“All sacred writings contain an inner and an outer meaning. . . . The idea behind all sacred
writing is to convey a higher meaning than the literal words contain, the truth of which
must be seen by Man internally.” Maurice Nicoll, The New Man
Any attempt to understand the words attributed to Jesus can only be done based on what survives
of what he said and stories about his life and actions. The versions available of these are almost
exclusively ones written well after his death and so based on oral tradition, rewritings, probable
reinterpretations of earlier compositions and even out-and-out fabrications. This means that
accuracy will have suffered and, more importantly, that the writings may have been misinterpreted
or purposely enhanced (turned into propaganda for the early church) by those writing them. Based
on the assumption that Jesus had awoken to – and was firmly established in – a higher
subjectivity, such writers are almost certainly only have been able to see his life and words from
an unawakened and lower perspective than his own.
However, the internal evidence of what is available can be checked against what is known from the
experience of pure subjectivity and inferences can be drawn.

‘Created by the Divine’
It was noted earlier that in Origins of Man and the Universe that the story of Adam and Eve in
Genesis was not about the creation of the first physical humans, which had taken place much earlier
in evolution, but about a higher level of consciousness entering humanity. Humanity had then
experienced a fall with the consumption of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil.
In a similar way, being conceived by God through an immaculate conception may also have partly
been a parable speaking of the higher consciousness once more being bestowed by true grace on
humanity through a single individual who was to help others achieve awakening to their own
subjectivity. Such an individual would indeed be a true teacher who, although being in this world
would not be of it. It could also refer to a conscious soul coming to the earth and being associated
with a physical body. Such a soul would remain ‘unborn’ in a physical sense and it follows that it
would be undying as far as the material world is concerned. Other people also have souls, which
come in, too, but they forget them in infancy when the mind takes over and do not become
conscious of the soul again without spiritual work and the assistance of exceptional awakened
teachers.

The Living Light
I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
What else but our I am – subjectively within – could be the way back to our source and divinity?

Follow me and leave the dead to bury their dead. [response to a disciple who wanted leave to
bury his father.] (Matthew ii:20, The Original New Testament, Schonfield)
The implication of this is that burying dead bodies is best left to those who are also ‘dead’, or

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unconscious, in the sense of not having awakened to their own living light of subjectivity.

Heaven
Jesus says, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say,
‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you” Luke 17:20–
21, (NKJV)
If those who lead you say, ‘See, the Kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will
precede you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather,
the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know
yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the
sons of the living Father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it
is you who are that poverty.’ (Gospel of Thomas, 3)
Observation is always of the objective, be it of what is outside of us or even of our thoughts,
emotions and feelings. It is only within where one finds one’s subjectivity, one’s soul, that which is
part of the divine . . . that which is heaven.

Matthew 22:1-14 - The Parable of the Wedding Feast

22 And Jesus answered and spoke to them again by parables and said: 2  “The kingdom of
heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son, 3  and sent out his servants to
call those who were invited to the wedding; and they were not willing to come. 4  Again, he sent
out other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner; my
oxen and fatted cattle are killed, and all things are ready. Come to the wedding.” ’ 5  But they
made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his business. 6  And the rest
seized his servants, treated them spitefully, and killed them. 7  But when the king heard about it,
he was furious. And he sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.
8 
Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not
worthy. 9  Therefore go into the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding.’ 10  So
those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both bad
and good. And the wedding hall was filled with guests.
“But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a
11 

wedding garment. 12  So he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding
garment?’ And he was speechless. 13  Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and
foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of
teeth.’
14 
“For many are called, but few are chosen.” - New King James Version
Entering the kingdom of heaven is here likened to a royal marriage or union. Many are invited but
prove unworthy and fall victim to the belief in mortality. Others are invited in their place. One of
these who comes does so without a wedding garment. A wedding garment suggests a level of purity
required for this union, such as being so completely established in subjectivity (one’s soul) that one
is fully and finally beyond identification with the personality and ego. The outer darkness such a
one is cast into is that darkness that the light of the spirit does not reach, where suffering continues.
Such a casting out is not dissimilar to Adam and Eve being cast out of the Garden of Eden.

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From the Lord’s Prayer:
. . . may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:10, Good News Bible)
When we are centred in our subjectivity, which is our soul and not based in the world of creation,
and live and act from there, it is the will of the divine, the will of heaven, which is being done
through us on earth.

The Lessons
“The Kingdom of God is near! Repent of your sins and believe the Good News!”
(Mark 1:15, New Living Translation)
The word ‘near’ could refer to near in time or near in distance. What could be nearer than our own
subjectivity, instantly available? The meaning of ‘repent’ is literally to turn around. To find our
subjectivity we turn our attention from the outer 190 degrees around to the inner – from external
attention to pure attention. ‘Sin’ was a term used in archery meaning to miss the mark. We sin, or
miss the mark, when we focus on and identify with the external. The ‘good news’ when we turn
back is then no longer just one to believe, but one to experience.

“Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are
ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. O men gather grapes of thorns or
figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree
bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt
tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth forth good fruit is hewn down and
cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.” (Matthew 7:15-20, KJV)

The world has an abundance of spiritual teachers and those who either are awakened or claim to be
so. Some offer knowledge for the mind. Others offer healing for the body. A few demonstrate with
so-called miracles, siddhas or psychic powers. The true ‘fruit’ that is the test of a genuine teacher
can only be of the inner variety, not of this world.

Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not
have, even what they have will be taken from them. (Matthew 13:12, NIV)
Just having desire and sincerity for spiritual evolution is not enough, one must already have access
to subjectivity and, only then, more and more is available and can be attained. One already has the
key to the kingdom of heaven once one has opened one’s own pure subjectivity.

…do not be concerned in advance with what you are going to say (when brought for
examination by the governors). Say what comes to you at the time; for it will not be you
who speak but the Holy Spirit. (Mark 13:10-14, The Original New Testament,
Schonfield)
When our identity is with our light, our soul, our person becomes as if transparent, and a vehicle for
that light to express itself in the world.

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 Be watchful! Be vigilant! For you do not know when the time will be. . . . What I say to
you, I say to you all. Be alert! (Mark 13: 30-37, The Original New Testament,
Schonfield)
We are here warned not to fall into the waking sleep of the common human life on earth, but to stay
awake to our inner subjectivity, keeping our base of identity there.

In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Stay here and keep
watch.’ . . . When he came back he found them sleeping, and said to Peter, ‘Are
you asleep, Simon? Could you not manage to stay awake a single hour? Be
vigilant and prayerful, or you may find yourself tempted.’ (Mark 39:30-39, The
Original New Testament, Schonfield)
Here, again sleep can be heard to be the waking sleep of normal life, forgetting to remember and
stay in our subjectivity, being tempted back into our habitual personality.

When asked which is the greatest commandment, Jesus answered, “ ‘Love the Lord your
God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the
greatest and the most important commandment. The second most important
commandment is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as you love yourself.’ The whole Law
of Moses and the teachings of the prophets depend on these two commandments.”
(Matthew 22:37)
If our subjectivity is our soul and connection with our divine source, then putting our attention and
love towards that must be our highest priority, coming before all other objective distractions,
including thoughts, perceptions and worldly desires. It follows that one would then respect the
divine in others as being similarly precious.

The parable of the prodigal son. (Luke 15:16)

Returning to the father can be seen to be analogous to returning to our source, returning from the
lure and distractions of external attention (and worship) to focusing back inwardly to our own
subjectivity.

“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to
destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and
difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Mathew 7:13-
14, KJV)
How very few cross that portal of threshold personality, transiting from the unconscious to the
conscious. There are many who achieve the empty success of the material world and others who
strive for spiritual success through mental effort or belief and through the worship and following of
teachers who have not gone through that narrow gate themselves. It is only by dint of absolute
dedication coupled with grace that the narrow gate can be found and passed through.

“ . . . when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who

262
 is unseen.” (Matthew 6:6)
Here, the reference to ‘your room’ can be seen to be one’s inner temple of subjectivity, with the
closed door meaning to have closed one’s door to one’s everyday personality and mind. Although,
the Father is unseen (or ‘in secret’ in other versions), it is felt as one’s true light.

“
. . . unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a
second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” . . .
“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot
enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is
born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’
The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it
comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:3,5-8,
KJV)

Nothing could describe the awakening experience better than likening it to a new birth, but one
which is of spirit rather than of flesh. One awakens to realize one’s real self as no longer identified
as being limited to a mind and body. One has stepped outside of time, even. Comparing it to an
invisible wind must have been the closest physical analogy one could have found in Biblical times.

For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his
soul? (Mark 8:36, KJV)
The world is a relative reality, dominated by impermanence and suffering, whereas the soul, once
awakened and established, is a realm of peace and timelessness. No wonder Jesus was able to resist
the temptations offered him during his time in the wilderness.

Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest
they trample them. under their feet and turn again and rend you. (Matthew 7:6, KJV)
Connecting consciously with one’s subjectivity, one’s inner awareness and light of the soul, is
indeed a treasure beyond value. It is so wonderful one wishes to share it with others, especially
loved ones, so they, too, can wake to it. However, those whose existence is restricted to the mind
will only be able to see it with the mind and can therefore never understand it. The collective mind
will feel threatened. Often resentment and judgements about one who claims to be experiencing
this other ‘dimension’ will follow.

Which of you by mental effort can add a span to his height? (Matthew 6:25-29, The
Original New Testament, Schonfield)
Thinking on its own, effort on the level of the mind, can take us no further in our spiritual
evolution.
Lay up for yourselves no store on earth, where locust-grub and moth destroy, and
where thieves break in and steal. Rather lay up for yourselves store in heaven, where
neither locust-grub nor moth destroys, and where no thieves break in and steal. For
‘where your hoard is your heart is’. (Matthew 6:20-24, The Original New Testament,

263
 Schonfield)
So make God’s Kingdom and your duty to him your first concern, and all these things
will be added onto you. (Matthew 6:30-34, The Original New Testament, Schonfield)
Our highest priority on earth is focusing on our divine source, our inner subjectivity and light.

I and the Father are one. (John 10:30, The Original New Testament, Schonfield)
When established in pure awareness
This verse reiterates the message of realization being union with the Divine – the meaning of
the term yoga.

264
Select Bibliography
(Books and audio material listed here are a combination of key ones which feature in the narrative
and have influenced the author’s own journey as well as those rare ones which the author has
personally found to have the most helpful practice pointers.)
A Course in Miracles (The Text, Workbook for Students, and Manual for Teachers), 1976
Adams, Robert
The Silence of the Heart
Aitken, Roshi Robert,
The Gateless Barrier: The Wu-Men Kuan (Mumonkan), 1996
Anadi,
Beyond Traditions, 2016
Book of Wholeness, 2015
Book of Enlightenment, 2014
Anadi (as Aziz Kristof),
Enlightenment Beyond Traditions (with Houmam Emami), 1999
Transmission of Awakening, 1999
The Human Buddha, 2000
Ananda Devi,
Intimacy with the Infinite, 2019
Ardagh, Arjuna,
Relaxing into Clear Seeing: Interactive Tools in the Service of Self-Awakening, 1998
Arka, Srinivas
Adventures in Self-Discovery – The Journey from Mind to Heart to Consciousness,
2000
Becoming Inspired, 2003
Bennett, John G.
Talks on Beelzebub’s Tales, 1990
Blofeld, John
Gateway to Wisdom – Taoist and Buddhist Contemplative Healing Yogas Adapted for
Western Students of the Way, 1980
My Journey in Mystic China – Old Pu’s Travel Diary, 2008
Taoism – The Road to/Quest for Immortality, 1979
The Wheel of Life – The Autobiography of a Western Buddhist, 1959
Brijendra (Robert Eaton)
Genesis Dawn – I Meet Myself, 3rd ed., 2006

265
 Genesis Dawn II – Getting to Know Myself, 2017
Genesis Dawn III – Deepening Knowledge of Self, 2020
Bruce, Robert,
Astral Dynamics – The Complete Book of Out-of-Body Experiences, 2009
Chopra, Deepak,
Ageless Body, Timeless Mind – A Practical Alternative to Growing Old, 1993
Power, Freedom and Grace: Living from the Source of Lasting Happiness, 2006
Dogen,
From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment: Refining Your Life, 1983
Fremantle, Christopher,
On Attention: Talks, Essays and Letters to His Pupils, 1993
Godman, David (Editor and part translator),
The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi, 1985
Padamalai: Teachings of Ramana Maharshi Recorded by Muruganar, 2004
Gurdjieff, G. I.,
Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson
Meetings with Remarkable Men
Life is Real Only Then, When ‘I Am’
Views from the Real World
Harding, D. E.,
On Having No Head
The Little Book of Life and Death
Kaplan, Robert-Michael,
Seeing Beyond 20/20, 1987
Conscious Seeing: Transforming Your Life with Integrated Vision Therapy, 2008
Kapleau, Roshi Philip,
The Three Pillars of Zen – Teaching, Practice and Enlightenment, 1989
Langford, Michael,
The Most Direct and Rapid Means to Eternal Bliss, 2007
The Seven Steps to Awakening, 2015
Long, Barry,
My Life of Love and Truth: A Spiritual Autobiography, 2013
Origins of Man and the Universe – The Myth that Came to Life (with Clive Tempest),
1997
Longaker, Christine,
Facing Death and Finding Hope: A Guide to the Emotional and Spiritual Care of the
Dying, 1998
Mayne, B. E.,
Who Am I? An Exploration of Our Essential Nature, 2022
Mead, G. R. S.,

266
 Apollonius of Tyana – The Philosopher-Reformer of the First Century A.D., 1901
Merzel, Dennis Genpo,
The Eye Never Sleeps: Striking to the Heart of Zen, 1991
Big Mind Big Heart – Finding Your Way, 2007
Michael, Edward Salim,
The Law of Attention: Nada Yoga and the Way of Inner Vigilance, 2010
Monroe Institute,
Gateway Experience - 6 Waves (Audio)
Going Home Series (Audio)
Monroe, Robert,
Journeys Out of the Body, 1972
Far Journeys, 1996
Ultimate Journey, 1996
Muktananda, Swami,
In the Company of a Siddha, 1978
Meditate, 1980
I Am That, The Science of Hamsa from the Vijnana Bhairava, 1992
Muruganar, Shri
The Garland of Guru’s Sayings - Guru Vachaka Kovai, 2007
Nicoll, Maurice,
Living Time and the Integration of Life, 1952
Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, 6 volumes,
1976
The Mark, 1981
The New Man – An Interpretation of Some Parables and Miracles of Christ, 1972
Nisargadatta, Maharaj,
I Am That - Conversations with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, 1981
The Experience of Nothingness, 1996
The Ultimate Medicine, 2008
Norbu, Namkai
The Mirror – Advice on the Presence of Awareness, 1983
The Crystal and the Way of Light – Sutra, Tantra and Dzogchen – The Teachings of
Namkai Norbu, Compiled and edited by John Shane, 1986
Nott, C. S.
Teachings of Gurdjieff, Journal of a Pupil, 1961
Orage, A. R.
Psychological Exercises and Essays, Revised edition, 1963
On Love and Other Essays with some Aphorisms, 1974

267
Ouspensky, P. D.,
In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching, 1949
The Fourth Way – A Record of Talks and Answers to Questions based on the Teaching
of G. I. Gurdjieff, 1957
A New Model of the Universe – Principles of the Psychological Method in its
Application to Problems of Science, Religion, and Art, 1934
Ram Dass,
Be Here Now, 1971
Miracle of Love – Stories About Neem Karoli Baba, 1979
Ramaji,
1000: The Levels of Consciousness and a Map of the Stages of Awakening for Spiritual
Seekers and Teachers, 2014 and revised edition 2019
Ramana Maharshi,
The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi (Self-Inquiry, Who Am I, Spiritual
Instruction and Poetry), 2006
Ranjit Maharaj, Shri
Illusion Vs Reality, 2010
Ribhu Gita, The Essence of,
Selection and Translation by Prof. N. R. Krishnamoorthi Aiyer, 2001
Ropp, Robert S. de
The Master Game: Beyond the Drug Experience, 1968
Warrior’s Way: The Challenging Life Games, 1979
Self-Completion: Keys to the Meaningful Life, 1988
Reynolds, John Myrdhyn (translator and editor),
Self Liberation Through Seeing with Naked Awareness, 1989
Sadhu Om,
The Path of Sri Ramana Maharshi – Part 1, 2002
Shyam, Swami,
Science of Raj Yog, 1977
Bhagavad Gita – The Most Precise Rendering, 1985
Patanjali Yog Darshan, 1980
The Principal Upanishads
Siddharameshwar Maharaj,
Master of Self-Realization – An Ultimate Understanding (including Master Key to Self-
Realization), 2006
Silva, Jose,
The Silva Mind Control Method, 1977
Snow, Chet,

268
 Dreams of the Future, A Preview of the Futures that Lie Before Us, 1991
Solk, Mandi, The Joy of No Self, 2008
Spezzano, Chuck,
Awaken the Gods, Aphorisms to Remember the Way Home, 1991
Spira, Rupert,
The Transparency of Things – Contemplating the Nature of Experience, 2008
Sumedho, Ajahn,
The Mind and the Way: Buddhist Reflections on Life, 1995
Suzuki, Shunryu
Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, 1970
The Vedas (selected, including the Upanishads)
Warren, Shaun de,
You Are the Key – A Guide to Self-Discovery, 1988
The Mirror of Life – Your Adventure in Self-Discovery, 1991
Waite, Dennis
The Book of One -The Spiritual Path of Advaita, 2003
Back to the Truth – 5000 Years of Advaita, 2007
Walker, Kenneth,
A Study of Gurdjieff’s teaching, 1965
Walter, William W.,
The Sickle, 1918
The Sharp Sickle, 1938
Webb, James, The Harmonious Circle, 1980
Wilson, Colin,
The Occult, 1971
The War Against Sleep – The Philosophy of G. I. Gurdjieff, 1980

Yogananda, Paramahansa
Autobiography of a Yogi, 2006
The Second Coming of Christ – The Resurrection of the Christ Within You (2 vols)
2008

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