Satsang with Everyone II

Jerry:
If I had more of the vagabond in me, I'd be right there with
you, Scientology and all, just for the tour of it. Some of
you might remember, when I first started my
Realizers/Confessors list it was called the Rider's List. I
described a rider as one who is neither a follower nor a
leader, though sometimes the rider is a leader, sometimes a
follower. The rider rides along with a pack for awhile, then
splits off and goes on his own, then perhaps collects a
gathering around him, then rides off alone again, then
serves as a follower for awhile, then rides off, and so on.

Petros:
I rather like that analogy! Most apt.

Jerry:
The Rider is not desparate. He or she is not seeking, not
jumping from one teaching to another, because no teaching is
ever 'left' if it is a genuine teaching. The Rider is a
rider in and out and through and alongside all the spiritual
goings-on in the world, visiting friends, as you say, and
there are riders in every endeavor, not only spirituality.

I look forward to more reports from you, Petros, and other
riders.

Petros:
It's been a long, strange trip for this one indeed. I have spent years
"riding" other people's hobby horses and am at a point in life (as we near
Anno Petros XXXIV) to fully "incarnate" as myself. What that's going to
look like, even I don't know yet.

Much has been learned in ten years of playing the field. In terms of
spirituality and organizations, I've always been more attracted to the
quirky characters that attract attention. I went through a teenage rebellion
against the lukewarm Catholicism of my youth and entered into devotion to
the cult of "reason" and materialism -- Ayn Rand and Madalyn Murray O'Hair
were my idols (I met Madalyn once in Austin and knew her son Jon Garth and
daughter Robin.) I edited a newsletter for American Atheists of Connecticut
for two years and even won an award at a convention for my work. (It was
many years before I learned how much of a bitter, dictatorial con-artist
Madalyn was, and discovered the strongly mystical underpinnings of Ayn
Rand's "rational" philosophy. I went away from both, taking with me only
their staunch comittment to free thought and individualism.)

I discovered that Catholicism had left more of a mark in me than I had
imagined; that I loved the ritual and drama of ceremony despite being
180-degrees opposed to the theology. Looking for a way to combine Catholic
ritual and mystery with atheistic rationalism and stark Nietzschean
individualism moved me to the Church of Satan. I sent my obligatory
questionnaire in to San Francisco and, with my $50 donation, received a red
cardboard membership card designating me a "Lifestime Citizen of the
Infernal Empire." I still have that card, too. And a Temple of Set card
that came at a later phase of my life. (Sadly, I never had a chance to meet
LaVey in person though I have met Michael Aquino.)

A search for greater profundity and mystery moved me to seek out LaVey's
influences (Ayn Rand being one of them), thus began a long interest in
Crowley, the O.T.O. and ceremonial magick. Crowley and acid, of course,
brought me to Buddhism and Hinduism. Still caught up in the "mystery" meme,
loving all things secret and vaguely masonic, yet trying very hard to be
"American," I found myself being baptized into the Mormon (LDS) church where
I stayed for six years. I found their mysteries lacking somewhat in
profundity, though I remain a fan of Joseph Smith. (At the same time I
managed to maintain handshake-level relationships with groups like Baha'i,
Christian Science, and others.)

My latent subversive streak, coupled with leftover teenage rebellion, led me
to some ill-advised flirtations with various loony fundamentalist groups and
unsavory right-wing "movements" located in places like Mississippi and
Idaho. I realized quickly that I could end up with an extra hole in my head
by asking too many profound questions in these groups, so that ended my
interest.

I owe a debt to LSD which has been discussed on this forum in the past, so
no need to go into it again. Suffice it to say that _that_, and
"association with truth" (satsang) brings me up to the present time. To
think that a handful of little brown guys from India -- Ramana,
Nisargadatta, U.G., et al -- could wipe out all of this balderdash, as they
have for me, is astonishing.

Check out Byron Katie's website at http://www.thework.org
first for some background on this, then you'll get more out
of my report.

Katie's teaching is more psychological in nature than
metaphysical. It's referred to simply as "the Work" (tm),
and she has "intensives" and two-week "certification"
courses rather than satsangs. The intensives are free or
for donation only, but the longer courses may be expensive.

This weekend's (Oct. 9 & 10, 1999) intensive was held in a hotel ballroom in El
Segundo, adjacent to LAX for convenience I suppose. It was
set up like a satsang, with about a hundred chairs facing a
wide dais with a comfy couch upon which Katie sat. She has
a very professional organization, with video monitors
arranged about the room and several wireless microphones
that volunteer assistants could pass around to people who
had questions and comments. Katie herself wore a headset
mike, which meant you didn't have to strain to hear what was
being said.

Essentially she asked who was taking "the Work" for the
first time, and picked someone from the group of raised
hands to come up and sit beside her on the couch. Prior to
the start of the meeting everyone who registered was handed
a piece of paper on which to write down the basic
self-inquiry questions in the Work which could then be
discussed on the platform.

Katie has a soft but very confident and intelligent manner.
Her whole work consists of encouraging people to "turn
around" their judgments of others, bring them back to
themselves, so that they can see clearly how their judgments
of others merely reflect self-judgment. She says it's best
to begin by judging others, because we're so good at it!

After working with one man's particular problem for about
ten or fifteen minutes, Katie turned to the audience and
encouraged people to provide feedback; then used this
feedback itself as a means of showing each person how they
are really addressing themselves. The exciting part is that
eventually people "get it," and actually *listen* to
themselves before saying anything that they wouldn't be able
to "turn around" and put back on themselves.

When you register at the desk you are handed the "little
blue book" which contains the written portion of The Work
(tm.) In a nutshell, this is:
"Judge your neighbor, write it down, ask four questions,
turn it around!"

Also one is handed a clipboard and a printed form which
contains the same questions, and one is "invited" to fill
this out prior to the beginning of the intensive. The
inquiry is as follows:

1. Who or what don't you like? Who or what irritates you?
Who or what saddens or disappoints you? (I don't like or am
angry at ________________, because ___________________.)

(When one of Katie's volunteers greeted me at the
registration desk and helped me find a seat I was already a
little annoyed, as I tend to get very hostile and
hyper-cynical before anything of this sort. When she asked
me without any preface, "Who are you angry at?" I thought
she was reading the expression on my face and was a little
taken aback until I realized she was just showing me how to
do the inquiry. I considered saying something like, "People
who ask stupid questions" but my brain wasn't working fast
enough.

Maybe I'm coming down with a bug or something, but I felt
rather under-the-weather this morning and the sight of all
those tanned Californians hugging and kissing each other and
getting all slimy just made me a little queasy.)

2. How do you want them to change? What do you want them
to do? (I want __________ (name) to ____________.)

3. What is it they should or shouldn't do, be, think or
feel? What advice could you offer?

4. Do you need anything from them? What do they need to
give you or do for you to be happy?

(Katie says, "Personalities don't love, they want
something.")

5. What do you think of them? Make a list.

6. What is it that you don't want to experience with that
person, thing or situation again?


The "four questions" part is:
a. Is it true?
b. Can I really know that it's true?
c. How do I react when I think this thought?
d. Who would I be without this thought?

And the big "shift" comes at the Turn Around portion of the
Work, which follows in my next post.

After dialoging with someone form the audience, going
through the person's six questions and four inquiries, Katie
works to get the person to turn the judgment around, back
onto oneself. This is the most important part of the whole
process, and is where the real shift of awareness comes in.
This is also why Katie wants us to start work with *others*
rather than ourselves, since we have so much more practice
judging others (this is also a good example of her subtle
humor.) It also creates more of a shift when the turn-around
takes place.

For instance. The first person up on the couch with Katie
was an Australian man who decided to write about a Rajneesh
therapist he knew by the name of Tirtha. He read from his
notes that he felt this man was continually bullying him,
disrespecting him, and had prejudice against him. Katie
said "turn it around." Thus: "I am continually bullying
myself, disrespecting myself, and have prejudice against
myself." The point is *not* to try to get rid of these
negative attitudes, but to go deeply within and experience
them.

Quotes from Katie:
"You cannot fail to be whole. Whatever name you are given,
you can find within yourself if you go deeply enough. I am
always discovering new names for myself to make myself more
whole. For instance, if my husband says I'm an asshole, I
can go deeply enough inside to find that in me. When he
says I'm wonderful, if I go deeply enough inside I can find
that there too."

"It's not other people's job to acknowledge you or like you;
that's your job."

"Thoughts appear. It's not personal. You're not doing it."


Though the intensive was scheduled from 9:30-4:30 today and
Sunday, I left after just an hour because I felt I had
"gotten" what she was saying. I was feeling a lot better
about everyone there, no more hostility or irritation, so I
figured that was a good time to leave.

You know, I felt after I left the meeting this morning that
something really important was going on there. There is
this sense one receives from Byron that there is almost no
"person" left inside her. Just a precise responsiveness to
others. Yet I was too asleep or dull to appreciate it until
hours later.

Quotes from _Losing the Moon: Byron Katie Dialogues on
Non-Duality, Truth and Other Illusions_.


"As God, I'm watching my image. It's called you. It's
called the books over there. It's called the wall.
Fireplace. Everything. Okay? So I'm watching it, and I
thought I was that. I thought I was God. Here's how I came
in as a reversal: I wasn't born this woman for 43 years and
then awakened -- I was BORN. I was born at what you would
call age 43. I came from nowhere and nothing. It was wiped
out. I looked at my hand for the first time. I came in
through a back door."

"I'm too beautiful to be nothing and no-one. Give me a
mirror. Why would I deny my very self?"

"To wake up forever implies time. To wake up is just a past
history apparently arising. It's old. It's to keep you
from the experience now. . .
. The stories go on, but without attachment to the story.
And that's what the inquiry leaves us with. The freedom of
non-attachment. Internal. Detachment from the movie."

"When you look at, 'What do I get for holding the belief, I
want to be enlightened,' you see you get to stay stuck in
what you quote Ramana as saying is the problem ["The only
obstacle to your enlightenment is the belief that you are
not enlightened." Ramana Maharshi]. And the inquiry shows
that beyond a doubt. . . . And who would you be without
it? That's when you go into that space. And you can
continue to hold the same concept after investigation, but
without attachment, which is mostly what I experience you do
anyway. You can't long for what you don't know. The
concept is what you say it is."

"And I could honestly say, 'Nothing is God.' It doesn't even
exist, it's just one more concept. But when a person has
'God is good, everything is God,' then everything has to
fall into that pocket. It's a one-mindedness. .
. . And it's infinite. So, it's that symbol that I
suggest to people.
Everything will fall into it, beautifully. And on the other
side of it, when all falls into it, you come to see that it
is nothing."

"For some of us, to go back to the Self is to ignore what's
out there -- it's a direction that would exclude. And I
say, love where you are, because that's my experience."

"I'm pretending not to be non-duality. Ramana holds the
place where people can understand that truth. And I pretend
I don't. And there's no 'I' doing it. It's just an
appearance."

I returned to the Byron Katie intensive this afternoon for a
couple of hours. I was feeling a lot better. I definitely
confirmed the sense I got yesterday about the quality of
BK's method of approach and understanding.

She invited a 12-year old boy up to her couch to dialogue
about some abuse he had experienced from a stepfather, and
time he spent in a shelter for single women and their
children. Katie listened as he read from his "Work sheet"
the six questions (see my earlier post) and helped him
through the process of "turning it around." (This process
of writing it down, going through each inquiry, and "turning
it around" is called "doing the work.")

Judgments of other people in our lives are thus clarified
and turned around, so that we can easily see how we are
really only ever judging ourselves.

Negative judgments are inquired into.

Crucial Katie-isms:
"Who would I be without this thought? Who would I be
without this story?"

"Can you see a reason for keeping this thought? Don't *try*
to get rid of it! But can you see a reason for keeping it?
Who would you be without this thought?"

"Is this judgment true? Can you know that _____________ is
true?"

"Judge your neighbor, write it down, ask four questions,
turn it around."

"If you're over in someone else's mind dealing with their
business, and they're in there dealing with it anyway,
that's two of you over there, and there's nobody where YOU
are. No wonder you feel lonely!"

"Except for the story, there's no reality to it. Ever."

This process took about half an hour, after which Katie
opened the dialogue up to the audience for comments,
questions and general feedback. Most people in the audience
offerred their support and encouragement to the boy. He
really did fantastically well. Afterward everyone was
invited up to the couch to give him a big hug. (His mom
too.)

"It takes an absolute love of God. Is it 'I love God,' or is it 'I love God
sometimes when he's giving me the reality I want?' War is what is. It's
nature. It's what is sometimes. It's not personal. If someone (God, 'what
is') pulls my baby from me -- if that's what it takes, I'm there. Take the
baby. Tear my baby from me. Throw it in the fire. What does it take for me
to get this thing? What does it take for me to understand that I am a lover
of 'What is, God?' My discomfort *is* my war with God. It's my war with
reality the way it is, and not the 'loss' of my baby. You see, there are no
choices. What is, is. When you know that, it's over. And it's beyond full
acceptance, it's the love of itself, the love of God. There is nothing
terrible. Shall I say it again? There is nothing terrible. There has never
been anything terrible. There will never be anything terrible. But when we
get to the baby thing, we're getting down to our sacred little concepts now.
. . . Me, me, me, me in the name of the baby. I'm the one in hell. It's all
about you're destroying my dream. That's all. You take my baby from me,
you're messing with the illusion of I'm the mommy, this is the baby, there's
the daddy, we're going to raise it, happy-ever-after fairy tale. But tearing
the baby away -- that's the higher. Because it snatches your story from you
and makes it apparent in your face -- nothing's real short of reality. The
baby's gone and you're left with you and your thinking."

"I want you to have what you want. Because that's what is. But if you come
to me, and you present yourself in such a way that is asking, or is
interpreted as an asking, then I am going to take that. I'm going to get
your baby and I'm going to throw it in the fire, your baby love. It will
give you, beyond a concept, that which you wanted really. It will leave you
as That."

"And I'm not speaking of not holding onto your baby with your arms and your
cries. I'm speaking only of how you hold onto the baby internally -- how
loud is the screaming there?"

by Greg Goode

==================================
Wakefield is a village about 40 miles north of Ottowa, Canada. It is held
in a country lodge (called "The Barn"). This one-week retreat is held
there every October and April since 1996.

Attendees are 45 in number.

PROGRAM
=======
The daily program is as follows:

11am-11:45am....guided meditation
12noon-12:45....body awareness (yoga)
5-7pm...........dialogues
9:30pm-until....more satsang, which can include impromptu
entertainment, skits, drumming circles,
musical events, comedy, or more
dialogues.

FRANCIS
=======
Francis Lucille has been travelling since 1995 or so, after having taught
in France and spent about 15 years with his teacher, Jean Klein. Francis'
emphasis is on Consciousness, which he defines as "That which is reading
these words now." He teaches that lasting happiness cannot be found in
physical or subtle objects, which are temporary and intermittent. Instead,
happiness is the ground of all being, and when this is realized at every
level, it is Self-Realization.

"Every level" means not just intellectually, but also in the heart and
through the body. Intellectual understanding is not enough. Non-doership
is not enough. The body and the world are to be experienced as sensations
and feelings arising from Silence (=Happiness or Consciousness or
sweetness) and therefore not different from Silence.

The guided meditations are to allow a chance to experience the mind and
body as feelings and sensations aising in consciousness - instead of as how
they normally appear, as concretized entities, or as conduits through which
experiences happen. Instead, the mind and body themselves are experienced.

The yoga is physically very easy and can be practiced in a chair. Based
loosely on Kasmir Shaivism, it is a continuation of the guided meditations,
and allows the opportunity to continue the experience in the midst of
gentle movement.

The dialogues are ideally to answer questions about these other processes,
or any other metaphysical questions.

Francis has a very quiet, kind, humble and compassionate manner. Unlike
many other satsang teachers, he does not encourage bhakti devotion
towards himself as the object. It is not about a Francis, but about
people being among loving friendships. He teaches that the purpose of life
is to discover our true nature, then to celebrate it. He talks a lot about
beauty, music and art, sweetness that is the background from which objects
arise. He doesn't draw any distinction between realized or unrealized
people, because freedom os freedom FROM such distinctions. He also doesn't
say that you must stop being with a teacher or a spiritual friend once you
have understood the point of these teachings (he was with Jean Klein for 15
years "after"). He emphasizes being happy, enjoying life. He treats
everyone with respect, like an adult who has already graduated - not like a
kid who will never get out of school. He is also very accessible for
private interviews.

THE ATTENDEES
=============
45 in number. Average age, 50. From all parts of the U.S. and Canada, as
well as the U.K., Holland, Spain, and France. It is a seasoned bunch of
folks, usually people who have spent 10 or 15 years studying advaita, Zen,
or Krishnamurti. Other large contingents are former Osho sannyasins,
members of the School of Practical Philosophy, contemplative Christianity,
and the Sedona Method. This particular retreat, there were lots of people
who arrived with copies of Ramesh Balsekar's CONSCIOUSNESS SPEAKS to read
during the week.

MISC
====
There are breakfast, lunch and dinner, where the residents prepare and
serve the food. (I am usually head of the breakfast team.) There is lots
of freedom in between the events, and even during - there is no pressure or
compulsion to do any of the events at all.

In addition to the planned events there are lots of nice opportunities to
walk in the woods, go canoeing, go for a great latte at the nearby village
cafe. On Wednesday we had a classical music evening, where Francis Lucille
played the flute, joined by with local musicians (who were not attending
the retreat). One of the attendees is a professional clown and mime
artist, a friend from New York named David Ellzey. He did several mime
acts, plus some non-dualist comedy as "Swami Hagen Daz" and "Reverend Billy
Bob."

Another evening we had a drumming circle for about 90 minutes, accompanied
by people dancing.

I had a very nice time and will go again!

I saw Leonard Jacobson about 3 years ago. He teaches a sort of
conglomeration of psychological freedom, encounter-group methodology,
delicately peppered with Christian terminology. He also teaches with the
assistance of his wife, a clairvoyant. Jimmy, a friend of mine, was
actually helped to release an aversion to using and hearing the word
"God." In the session that I saw, Jimmy laughed and cried, getting angry
at God until Leonard's wife said that Jimmy was actually an Old Testament
prophet who was martyred for God, but became resentful of the fact that God
let him die. When the present (1996) Jimmy heard this, he said, "Yes, yes,
yes!!!" And from then on has had no problem with the God-concept or the
God word.

Greetings all.

This is my report from a 7-day silent retreat with Gangaji.

For those who are not acquainted with Gangaji, she is an American woman in the lineage of Ramana Maharshi and Poonjaji - Papaji. As a personality she is a powerful presence, beautiful and gracious with incisive intelligence and a playful wit, all used in service to truth.

Arriving and leaving on two Saturdays, we were in silence from Sunday morning to Friday evening except for two satsangs meetings each day and some singing.

Being with her and the group of about 200 this time was yet another excursion into self-honesty and through that into deepening awareness of/as Self. Self-inquiry for her leaves no thought, emotion or identity fragment unturned. She said again, "Never forget the mind's capacity for self- deception, as long as you are in the body."

During the first satsang she laid out a framework for inquiring through and past the veiling mind. In duality, all the "doing" that the mind does is toward or away from forms and situations which are believed to produce experiences one either wants or does not want.

We reach *toward* by desiring, hoping, acquiring, achieving, clinging, grasping. We move *away from* by avoiding, rejecting, judging, defending, denying, resisting. I observe these in myself as a sensation of pushing or trying.

Seeing these movements of the mind, one can stop in the neutral wholeness of the present moment where nothing is sought or avoided.

One way that self-inquiry can be practiced is by observing oneself down through the layers of these movements which comprise the stories of our daily lives. First notice the Story then move awareness down below that to Body Sensations under those to Emotions beneath these to Energies sinking through that to ..............

I find that recognizing the activity of my mind as simply energy continues to depersonalize and free it.

I was also reminded that underneath anger, fear,and all negative emotions is helplessness - the one experience that humans avoid the most. Over this we layer all sorts of stories and "doings" and distortions of power. Attack occurs when one feels s/he has failed in trying to get or get rid of and covers the underlying sense of helplessness.

The self-inquiry of feeling directly into helplessness and down through that can be a straight route into essential effortlessness.

I came home gracefully discombulated and expanded.

In a message dated 4/20/02 6:56:00 PM, I was at Neelam's
meetings this past week here and am happy to report that
hers have been among the least woo-woo of all the
Ramana-lineage satsangs I've been to here. I liked Su's
"rowboat on the river" analogy; it does seem intimate
when N. works with you, and not at all formal, despite
Papaji photos and her position in and the obligatory bow
to the seat. And in my experience she is sensitive to
where the individual's at. She does not, in the words of
my main-teacha-squeeze BK, push one beyond one's
evolution, unlike some other satsang-givers who
aggressively go for the close whether or not the student
is ready.

What I find fascinating about Neelam is that there's not
much to attach to -- she's a very "nobody's home" kind
of teacher, not a big personality, decidedly
un-charismatic, no strong opinions apparently. She
doesn't make huge, memorable pronouncements, no
"mahavakyas." So there is a "realness" to her meetings
in that one is left with onesself.

In short, I appreciate her.

Love, Carol