Читать книгу Enlightenment Blues - Andre van der Braak - Страница 9

1

THE HONEYMOON

The foundation of spiritual life is clarity of intention.

Do I really want to be Free, here and now?

-Andrew Cohen

1.1. Meeting With Andrew

It is dead quiet in the small living room. I am in one of these squatting houses, small, decrepit but clean. The furniture has been removed from the living room—thirty people sit cross-legged on meditation cushions on the floor. Five people on chairs sit in the back watching. Nobody moves. Some have their eyes closed, others open. Everyone seems filled with a deep peace and rest. I’ve come here with my friend Harry who, fully engaged as usual, sits in one of the first rows while I sit on a chair in the back, checking things out from a distance.

The front door opens and closes. I hear coats rustling in the wardrobe, footsteps and then a disarming, friendly, smiling, young man steps into the room. He looks about thirty, six years older than me. A meditation cushion has been prepared for him in front of the room and he sits down cross-legged, facing everyone. Still smiling, he looks around the room, nodding hello to this person and the other. He has an open face, sensual mouth, a moustache, and black hair. His dark brown eyes possess something unusual, I don’t know what exactly. He appears completely at ease, seemingly unaware that thirty people have their attention fixated on him. It’s as if he’s alone in his own living room. I take a liking to him immediately—a man without pretense. I am curious as to what will follow.

Andrew has completed his wordless greeting and sits still with closed eyes on his cushion. I wait for the program to start. After ten minutes I get the niggling feeling that I’m the only one in the room who’s waiting for something. The others seem perfectly at ease, enjoying the silence. Then I realize there is no evening program! This is it! I sit up straight and close my eyes to meditate, which is not that difficult for me after five years of intensive Buddhist meditation practice. I scrupulously observe the rising and falling of the lower abdomen with each inhalation and exhalation. Thoughts that arise I put aside gently. I become quieter and quieter. A silence envelopes the room.

After two hours I hear rustling. When I open my eyes I see Andrew get up from his cushion and walk out of the room slowly. During the whole evening not a single word has been uttered. I am somewhat disappointed. So this was it? What about enlightenment? I did have a nice meditation though.

In the tram home Harry and I talk about the evening. Harry is enthusiastic. “Did you feel that energy?” he says. “Very strong. The energy of enlightenment.”

I hesitate. I wouldn’t go that far. But after all, I was sitting in the back row, not in the front.

“Yes, I did have a deep meditation,” I allow him.

“Tomorrow there’s satsang again,” he says. “We have to get there early so we can sit in the front.” Satsang is the Indian name for the public gatherings with Andrew. In Sanskrit it means “company with the wise”, and is the customary term for the meetings of a spiritual teacher with his followers.

The next evening we both sit on the floor. Andrew is talking to people. Many have already been here before, some coming from abroad to Amsterdam—an impressive display of loyalty. Someone is asking Andrew what enlightenment is. I perk up my ears.

“Enlightenment,” Andrew says with a smile, “is relief. It is cessation. It is the end of becoming. It’s the end of the struggle to become anyone or anything. It’s coming finally to rest, here and now, in this life.”

That’s not the kind of answer I expected. What is Andrew actually saying? Is he actually saying anything? My philosophically trained mind tries to extract some content from this proposition but doesn’t get very far. Coming to rest, yes, but why do you come to rest then? And is life really such a struggle? Do I experience it as a struggle? Am I looking for relief? Andrew himself looks very serene, as if that relief has taken place for him already. He looks perfectly at ease. He’s not holding some kind of lecture here; his words are based on what he is experiencing.

Andrew looks at the questioner with a faint smile, as if he wants to say, “Yes, it is that simple. I’m sorry I can’t make it any more complicated.” The questioner is looking into Andrew’s eyes, and Andrew is looking back as if to say, “What now?” Not a word is exchanged. You could hear a pin drop in the room. I look from the questioner to Andrew and back. What is going on here? Some kind of deep alchemistic process, a transmission or something? Several moments go by.

Then the questioner bursts out laughing.

“That’s it,” Andrew calls out, “you got it. You just got it. You can’t get enlightenment with the mind. What’s your experience right now?”

The questioner, still laughing, cheerfully shrugs his shoulders. Others in the room also begin to laugh.

Andrew asks, “Is there any struggle right now?” The questioner shakes no. “Do you feel the need to become anyone or anything?” Again no.

“That’s it,” says Andrew. “Don’t forget this.” Then he continues to the rest of the room: “Did you see this? This man was trying to get a definition of enlightenment, something to take back home to chew on. But enlightenment goes beyond definition, goes beyond thought. You can only experience it directly, if you dare to let go of your thinking mind for a moment.”

Everyone nods in agreement, and looks at the questioner. I look at him too. He looks like he’s reborn. His eyes are radiant, and he has a permanent smile on his face. What just happened? Did Andrew stop his thinking mind with his unexpected answer? Did he transmit the essence of enlightenment to him?

Another fragment of a conversation touches me:

“Where is your passion for liberation? Without passion for liberation there is no hope for liberation. Passion for liberation is your liberation, and if you surrender to that passion, become a slave of that passion, your fate will be sealed.”

Andrew speaks with an amazing self-confidence. He radiates certainty and charisma. He doesn’t speak about enlightenment; he is enlightenment, that’s what his whole appearance expresses.

1.2. My Earlier Life

“Lord, I beseech Thee; give me strength and power to do what’s right, to remain faithful to Thee no matter what happens. Lord, I ask Thee, give that Carla is in love with me too and that we can marry each other later. Lord, I love Thee with all my heart. I will give Thee all that Thou would ask. Amen.”

This was one of the prayers that I sent up to God every night. I was eight years old. Being raised as a Roman Catholic, I solemnly promised Jesus that I would dedicate my life to him. At the same time I had firmly decided to marry my young love Carla, and I asked God for help in this matter. The inherent contradiction in this didn’t bother me. In church I sang my heart out, and I often experienced a sense of mystical awe. At eight-thirty in the morning, when the school Mass was over, I would walk from church to school feeling absolutely safe. God was my best friend who was watching over me.

I was the oldest of four children in a middle-class family. I spent my youth in a small town fifteen miles outside of Amsterdam. I was a bright boy, good at school and sports, but socially awkward and often isolated. My isolation was exacerbated by the fact that I stuttered, and was often ridiculed by my peers. From the age of eight, I was hopelessly in love with my classmate Carla. I was an incurable romantic, a daydreamer. My romantic infatuation with Carla (unrequited) would last until I was sixteen.

Because of my frequent stuttering I was sent to a speech therapist when I was fourteen. With her, I not only practiced breathing exercises and relaxation techniques, we also had long conversations. I was full of questions about God, about how we should live, about what was truly important in life. I didn’t want to lead what I felt was an ordinary life, where I would just decide on a career, then find a girl, marry, and have a family. I was looking for more. I wanted my life to mean something. I wanted to be immersed in higher matters.

At sixteen, a classmate introduced me to Transcendental Meditation (TM), a system of meditation designed by the Indian guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. TM consisted of sitting quietly for twenty minutes twice a day, repeating a mantra that would take you to a deeper level of consciousness. At seventeen, I came into contact with the writings of the Indian sage and freethinker Jiddu Krishnamurti. His teachings took away the last remainders of my Roman Catholic faith. I went to Saanen in Switzerland to hear him speak in person.

Krishnamurti spoke about the possibility of an inner freedom from conditioning, a life freed from illusion and ignorance by a transformation of consciousness. I was moved by his description of this ultimate possibility and decided that this was the only thing truly worth pursuing. Rather than studying mathematics, as I had planned, I decided to study psychology and philosophy at the University of Amsterdam.

After I had settled in Amsterdam, I went to a large spiritual center there and came into contact with various spiritual teachers, practices, and eastern ways of thinking. One of them was Advaita Vedanta, the Indian non-dualistic school of Hinduism, of which the Indian sage Ramana Maharshi is the best-known representative in the West. I was very fond of a Dutch teacher called Wolter Keers. He was a warm and unpretentious sixty-year-old man, who had held a high-ranking job in Brussels. He didn’t look like my idea of a spiritual teacher: he chain-smoked and looked like anyone else you would meet in the street. He had been to India, had studied with a guru there, and his identification with his ego had fallen away. His enlightenment had been confirmed by the famous Advaita Vedanta guru Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Wolter would teach me that,“Who you are can never be grasped by thought. Thought always functions in duality, in good and bad, high and low, real and unreal. It can never grasp that which is beyond all duality.”

Time and again he would encourage me to give up trying to grasp with my mind what cannot be grasped. He would tell me to “contemplate deeply on the most basic feeling of being alive, the sense of ‘I am’. Then take away ‘I’, and take away ‘am’, and you’ll be free.” My illusion of being a separate self who was experiencing all kinds of things was the only obstacle to freedom, he said. Just see through that illusion and drop it: that’s enlightenment.

Once when I was visiting Wolter at his home, he had to go out to the doctor for a back treatment. I stayed behind in his garden, reading a book of Nisargadatta. It was hot outside and I felt tired because I hadn’t slept much. Suddenly, while reading, everything fell away and I experienced a vastness I had never known before. My consciousness seemed to expand to embrace the entire universe, and I felt a deep peace. Nothing mattered anymore, everything was all right. I don’t know for how long I sat there. When Wolter returned home I went back into the house with him. As I walked up the stairs I suddenly felt dizzy and everything went dark. When I woke up I was in a hospital bed. I felt happy and at peace. Wolter and my parents were standing next to my bed, looking worried. They told me I had had an epileptic attack. Further examination in the hospital found nothing unusual, and I have never had an epileptic attack since. Wolter told me that such an attack can sometimes be an attempt of the brain to wipe itself clean. Whatever it was, it scared me to death, and for several months I didn’t dare close my eyes in meditation.

But soon my longing for enlightenment was stronger than my fears. When a year later Wolter suddenly died of a heart attack, I continued my spiritual search in other directions. Buddhism was speaking about enlightenment as well, that it was the way out of suffering. The Buddha had spoken about the Eightfold Path, a system of ethics and meditation that culminated in insight and wisdom. I became an ardent practitioner of Buddhist insight meditation, or vipassana. This type of meditation is training in mindfulness, being completely attentive to what is happening in the present moment. By continued mindfulness we attain the three most important insights into the nature of reality: that everything is inherently unsatisfactory, that everything is impermanent, and that any idea of a self, or a fixed essence, is an illusion. These insights free us from craving and ignorance, and we come to rest in enlightenment.

I became very involved. I lived in a student flat and at 6 a.m., when my housemates came home from a night of carousing, I got up to meditate. I practiced sitting and walking meditation for several hours a day and participated in meditation retreats of up to ten days. My Buddhist teacher gave me the Pali name of Suddhatta (purity).

One of my meditation buddies was Harry, a 28-year-old Dutchman. He had also been a spiritual seeker since he was 18. He had been involved with the Hare Krishna-movement, had traveled in India for years, almost died from liver disease in the process, and had discovered Buddhist meditation practice while in India. He was also following gestalt therapy training, and we spoke a lot together about psychology and enlightenment. In my studies of psychology and philosophy I was looking for a synthesis between East and West. In 1986, I wrote my psychology thesis comparing psychoanalysis and Buddhist insight meditation, based on the ideas of the American thinker Ken Wilber. For my philosophy thesis I compared Nietzsche and Buddhism. But after graduation I yearned for a job in the real world, out of these high-minded theoretical realms. Since it was difficult to find a job as a philosopher or a psychologist, I started working as a computer consultant with NCR. I had worked with computers quite a bit at the university, and knew a lot about the Unix operating system.

Slowly both Harry and I were becoming disillusioned with our Buddhist meditation practice. Did all this meditation lead to anything? What was enlightenment actually? Did it even exist? Our teacher seemed none too eager to get into all these questions. He just wanted us to continue the practice. When we heard stories about the dubious ways he related to his female students we lost faith in him as a teacher. Harry then heard about an unknown young American who was rumored to be enlightened by an Indian guru. He was teaching Advaita Vedanta and would be holding public gatherings in the Staatsliedenbuurt in Amsterdam. Maybe this would be the answer to our questions.

1.3. Existential Crisis in Dayton: What Do I Really Want?

For two weeks, I sit night after night in the living room in the Staatsliedenbuurt, mostly on a chair in the back. I’m still checking things out. I enjoy the silence; it feels as if my brain is being burnt away.

Andrew is giving teachings largely through dialogue with others, about the Self, about the experience of knowing nothing and being no one. He talks about letting go of the ego so that we can become part of this deeper consciousness. The words seem to come straight from Emptiness itself. There is an atmosphere of silence, without pretense. Halfway through the evening, herb tea with a cookie is served. The very Dutch word “cozy” would almost be right here. I cherish this atmosphere like a warm bath.

I don’t want to spoil that feeling by arguing with Andrew about his message, or losing myself in philosophical nitpicking. Actually I’m very shy for a reason unknown to me. Usually I have no problems finding words when it comes to philosophical and spiritual discussions. I feel somehow naked in this place, as if my deepest feelings are laid bare, at last unprotected by my intellect. There is something sacred about this atmosphere, something awe-inspiring, and I feel myself back in the church of my youth, absorbing the sacred full of awe.

Slowly I hear more about Andrew’s background. Born in New York City in 1955, he had spent nearly his entire youth in psychoanalysis, which was followed by a spontaneous spiritual experience at 16. Over time, he became a restless spiritual seeker, practicing martial arts, Kundalini, Vipassana, but he couldn’t find what he was after. Then he traveled to Lucknow, India, to meet a then little known 80-year-old Advaita Vedanta teacher Harilal Poonja. On the third day of their meeting Andrew had a powerful experience of awakening. Within three weeks of their initial meeting Poonja told Andrew “their work was over,” so the story went. He sent Andrew out to go teach enlightenment in the West, to “create a revolution among the young,” telling him that he was the son he had been waiting for all his life.

Almost immediately Andrew attracted students. His Indian girlfriend Alka, whom he would marry a year later, accepted him as her master early on. Andrew traveled on to Rishikesh, in northern India where he was met by several young Westerners who also became early students. They would hang out all day, sometimes staying up all night, talking about the miracle of enlightenment. Andrew then went to Devon, England, where he was invited to teach by a Buddhist friend. Many long term Buddhists in Devon, several of whom were meditation teachers, became students. They were very devoted and traveled far and wide to be with Andrew in satsang.

“What do you think is the most important thing to reach enlightenment?”

The young man is looking intently at Andrew.

“Well,” Andrew says with a smile, “in the spiritual life it’s most important to have clarity of intention. You have to ask yourself, ‘What do I really want? What is really, when it comes down to it, the most important thing for me in my life?’ Many people say they’re interested in this thing called enlightenment, but do you really feel a passion for enlightenment?”

The young man shows some hesitation. Andrew continues, “Do you really want to be free more than anything else? Are you willing to give up anything for it? If that’s really true for you, you won’t have any trouble reaching enlightenment. Enlightenment will be right here and now for you.” He speaks these last words with passion, and the room suddenly sparks with electricity.

The young man sits as if struck. He seems to be considering this possibility for the first time in his life. Give everything to enlightenment and sacrifice everything else. His eyes start to glow.

I sit as if transfixed on my cushion. I think back on all those years of meditation practice, striving for enlightenment as if it were some far away goal in the future. I consider myself a devoted and serious seeker, but how much have I been willing to give for enlightenment up until now? Hasn’t my spiritual search been more of a convenient life style, a pleasant dressing up? What about my own passion for enlightenment? Then it comes like a thunderbolt: enlightenment has nothing to do with strategizing or some linear path of self-improvement. It is always here, now, this moment, this choice, this fire burning in my guts. This is where I have to act from, not my mind. My mind is only interested in enlightenment as some kind of self protection, to prevent me from actually ever encountering the real thing!

I witness many more conversations with Andrew. I see many seekers who’ve been on the path for many years, who’ve visited the ashrams in India, who’ve done the meditation practices—and still their hearts are longing for fulfillment. Now they see Andrew radiating the very thing they’ve been looking for all these years. And they hear Andrew say, “It can happen to you too! You don’t need any special qualifications. You only have to want it badly enough.” And then, when someone “gets it,” Andrew points to him and shouts, “This is it, you’ve got it!”

I would love to continue sitting here night after night. But the world is still calling me. In two days, the plane awaits me. My employer is sending me to their education center in Dayton, Ohio for three months. There I will be saturated with courses on Unix, C, and data communication. At this point in time it might as well have been Swahili, it feels so removed from me as I am floating in this pool of silence.

Then Andrew suddenly speaks to me, “That man there in the back row, yes, with the glasses. You’ve been here before, right?”

I confirm that I have come every night for the past two weeks.

“Do you have any questions?”

I shake my head no.

“I think it’s time that you and I break the sound barrier. Can you tell me a bit about yourself?”

I tell him that I work with computers and that I have to leave in two days for three months in Dayton. Andrew laughs and says Dayton is the most boring city in America, something like Liverpool. I laugh too, and the ice is broken between us. I’ve gotten past my shyness. I have gone from observer to participant.

I’m lying in the swimming pool of the Dayton Holiday Inn, a cool drink by my side. It is a hundred degrees outside but a soft cool breeze flows past my skin. I’m depressed. What am I doing here? Where is my life going? Am I going to pursue a career in computers, spend the rest of my life among squares and nerds? I can’t see a path for myself in ‘the world’. I’m not interested in getting rich, becoming famous, becoming a scholar. More often than not, my thoughts float back to those evenings with Andrew, the wonderful silence, the passion for enlightenment in that room. Yes, that’s what I’m interested in. That’s the only thing that gives me a thrill.

“This is Harry.”

“Hi Harry, this is Andre. I’m calling from the States. I just wanted to say hello.”

“Hi Andre. Good to hear you! Are you having a good time with your classes there?”

“Well, it’s okay. I’m learning a lot.”

“Well, you’re also missing a lot! It’s fantastic here. You won’t believe what is happening around Andrew. It’s a revolution. Every day more people are coming. And Andrew is so great, so natural, so spontaneous. I feel that all my questions are answered. We really wasted our time with Buddhism! We were so stupid. Only now do I see what enlightenment really means: total revolution, leaving everything behind, going into the unknown; very different from meditating an hour a day. I wish you were here to see it, Andre.”

“Well, er, that sounds really good Harry.”

“Sounds really good? It’s revolution, Andre; it’s the end of the known, living in the unknown. And you know what? Andrew’s invited me to come with him to Jerusalem, he’s going there for six weeks to give satsang, but I have to hang up Andre, Andrew can come and visit any moment. Are you doing all right there? Come back soon! How long are you still there?”

“Three more weeks.”

“Oh, then we’ll still be gone when you come back to Holland. But I’ll see you as soon as I come back from Jerusalem. Bye, lots of love.”

With the receiver still in my hand I continue to stand for a while, overwhelmed by a torrent of emotions. The intensity of Harry’s excitement and enthusiasm is in complete contrast with my own depressive state of decomposition. Is this the way out of my crisis? Harry is now with Andrew; he’s not a Buddhist anymore. Am I still one? I try to sit down in the familiar posture, eyes closed, watching the breath. But it is as if the trick doesn’t work anymore. I remain as restless and haunted as before. I feel the knot in my belly contract.

I am glad when I’m back on Dutch territory, but I can’t find my rhythm. The crisis that I suffered in Dayton is not resolved. I find that I can’t just step back into my old life, like putting on a suit that has hung in the closet for three months. It is as if the moths have been eating away at my life. I stay busy every day at my job, and my brain is absorbing all the newly received knowledge and putting it into practice. But in the back of my mind, I’m counting the days until Andrew and Harry are back.

One evening I’m sitting on the couch watching a Batman rerun when the doorbell rings. I open the door, and Harry storms into the room full of enthusiasm. Happily, we fall into each other’s arms. The knot in my stomach recedes into the background. Harry’s looking so good, he’s radiant and self-assured. Not like the old Harry that I knew. Even before he sits down on the couch, he has already plunged into the first of a long collection of stories about Jerusalem, about Andrew, and about the revolution. He is completely thrilled about Andrew and his message, and in fact he can’t imagine what else in life could possibly be worthwhile. Harry clearly has found his destination in life.

Sitting opposite him on the couch, I reflect on the image that I have of Harry. He grew up in Schiedam, had a distant and dominant father and a sweet but submissive mother. He was supposed to take over his father’s business, a chain of optical stores. He rebelled by becoming a macho biker, and then at twenty-one by travel to India, looking for peace, love and happiness. While there he meditated a lot but became very ill, nearly dying. In 1983, he had come back to Holland a wreck, and that’s when I met him, when he joined our meditation group. A wreck is the last thing that Harry looks like now.

“Do you remember Sariputra and Mogallana, Andre?” Harry suddenly asks. I know what he means. Harry and I have grown to be Buddhist companions over the past years, and we always liked to compare ourselves to the famous Buddhist monks from the Pali scriptures, the intellectual Sariputra and the power person Mogallana. They were two friends looking for enlightenment, and went from one teacher to the other. They had an agreement that if one would discover the true teacher, he would warn the other right away. In this way they both joined the Buddha, and grew into the most venerated monks of the Buddhist Sangha (community). This is the story that Harry reminds me of now. As Mogallana Harry it is his spiritual duty to inform me, Sariputra Andre that the true teacher has no doubt come into our life. His name is Andrew Cohen.

1.4. Clarity of Intention Resolved: I Want to be Free

The satsangs start up again. I speak with Andrew about my experience in Dayton, the hotels and restaurants that were meaningless to me, the loneliness. He seems to understand it all.

“When you have a longing for liberation,” he says, “you won’t feel at home in the world of materialism. When everyone only thinks about chasing their own advantage, and is trying to become someone in the world, it’s understandable that you don’t feel at home there. Maybe it’s a good idea to spend more time with like-minded people.”

He asks me whether I’ve ever just “hung out” in my life. No, I haven’t. He encourages me to consider that idea.

There’s so much I have to ask Andrew about: enlightenment, Buddhism, spiritual practice. And what about having to make an effort to become enlightened? In answering this last question, Andrew looks at me directly with his penetrating brown eyes. After a few seconds of silence, he repeats to me what his own teacher told him, slowly stressing every word and the spaces between, “You – do – not – have – to – make – any – effort – to – be—free.” He almost whispers. We continue to look into each other’s eyes. My mind is racing. Can this be true? Suddenly all movement stops, and the moment seems to Suddenly all movement stops, and the moment seems to expand into eternity. In this vast space that has suddenly opened up a thought presents itself: enlightenment is not an object. You can’t strive after it or attain it. It is the very source of being itself, the source of my own existence. It’s actually impossible not to be enlightened. It’s only the stubborn arrogance of my mind that prevents me from seeing this simple truth. Andrew smiles at me then moves on to the next questioner. I sit as if in a daze. My mind stays empty for what seems like an eternity.

When the evening ends I ride home quietly on my bicycle. I feel a very new emotion arising within me. I am falling in love with Andrew. I have always respected my teachers, even to the point of veneration, but it was never love. When I look into Andrew’s eyes I feel myself melt. My resistances are fading away, and I feel the way people usually feel about lovers – I want to be with him all the time.

When I’m with Andrew in satsang, I feel myself melt in a pool of absolute bliss, a place beyond good and evil, beyond conception itself. I feel he is in direct contact with the source of all being, the source prior to thought and feeling. It is the source in which I recognize myself, my own true face. Andrew takes me to this place where I no longer experience any separation or boundary between myself and others, between past, present or future, between pain and ecstasy. Andrew seems to radiate something that can counter all that is evil; that can put the mind to rest. To sit still together with Andrew brings a spontaneous meditation, no fight with thoughts and feelings; just a slow, irreversible absorption into the depths of consciousness. It all seems so spontaneous, so easy, and yet there is something powerful emanating from Andrew. I feel that higher forces are at work here.

Is this enlightenment that I’m experiencing? I hardly dare think so. Me, enlightened? But I can’t deny that my whole being is shouting, “This is it.” I feel completely at home with myself and with life. I feel an unbearable intimacy with the people around me in this room, an intimacy that I can only call love. I am not worried, deep inside in my guts I know that life is good, that there is no problem, there is peace. What more could I want? What else could there be to strive after? I only see perfection wherever I look. All the questions that I had in Dayton have been answered.

I tell Andrew that I’m considering following him to Devon. Does he think that’s a good idea? “If that’s what you want to do, that’s fine,” he says. “I’m not stopping you.” I tell him about the fear that I’m also experiencing, the fear of leaving behind my house and my job, the fear of losing my life basically. “Don’t expect the fear to go away” he says, laughing, “It will get a lot worse”.

The next few days are agonizing. I keep asking, “Why would I give up my whole life in Amsterdam? What do I have to gain?” But the answer wells up in my heart with increasing clarity: “Happiness, peace, deep contentment; the answer to all my questions. Everything I’ve always looked for in my search for enlightenment.

I write Andrew a note:

“After all my years of spiritual practice I feel that enlightenment was never the number one priority in my life. Thank you for helping me to finally get my priorities straight. I have resolved my clarity of intention. I am looking forward to seeing you in Devon in September.”

With the note I put a hundred guilders as a gift to help cover Andrew’s expenses in Amsterdam. The next evening in satsang, on his way out, Andrew stops next to me, and shakes my hand, without saying anything. Then he walks on. We see eye to eye now. A few days later I invite Andrew to have dinner together, and he accepts. We go to an Indian restaurant and talk freely together. I tell him about my background in psychology and philosophy, he tells me about how he never got good grades in school and had always envied people that had those intellectual capacities. We have a lot of fun; there is a tangible intimacy, no trace of pretense or any hierarchical difference between us. It is like a date between two lovers. I am over the moon. If Andrew is truly the Buddha of our time, then I am now having a bowl of rice with the Buddha! What good fortune that I’ve met Andrew. What good fortune that he and I can be such good friends. What good fortune that the secret of enlightenment has finally been revealed to me.

1.5. Revolution in Devon, Amsterdam and Rome

In September 1987, Andrew leaves Amsterdam to go back to Devon. I take an unpaid leave from my job and go with him. Andrew teaches in the small town of Totnes, the center of a local new age scene. He lives in a small cottage belonging to a larger farmhouse called Beenleigh. Because the living room of the cottage is too small, a neighboring barn has been built into a satsang hall. There Andrew gives satsang six times a week. Soon, upwards of one hundred and fifty people are coming to hear him teach. We have to line up every night to get a good seat.

Life around Andrew in Devon is exciting. We feel like spiritual revolutionaries, shaking up the fossilized spiritual scene, especially the western Buddhist scene. Andrew challenges its complacency and corruption, speaking out against a certain status quo that has set in. It’s as if the western meditation teachers no longer consider enlightenment an attainable goal. Some of them are now advocating psychotherapy in combination with meditation. Others are teaching relationship or parenting as a spiritual path. Andrew doesn’t buy any of all this. He insists that enlightenment is beyond the mind and the ego, and that psychotherapy can only make the mind and ego stronger, more integrated, and healthier. He considers this a watering down of the spiritual teaching of enlightenment. He says spiritual life is not a hobby you can practice on the weekends or add to your life as a bonus. The spiritual life is a life of renunciation, and not compatible with a worldly view.

He challenges his former Buddhist meditation teacher to a dharma debate—and we feel he clearly wins. The new has won out over the old. Quite a few of the long-term Buddhist practitioners and even a few of the teachers become followers of Andrew. There’s controversy in the air. Buddhist students are discouraged from going to Andrew’s teachings. He is accused of hypnotizing his followers.

In his satsangs Andrew tries to inspire us to dedicate our life to the ecstatic reality of enlightenment, to surrender to our longing for liberation. The satsang room is often buzzing with excitement. After years of spiritual practice leading us nowhere, suddenly everything seems possible.

To stay in touch with Andrew, we write notes to him to tell him about our experiences, about how satsang has struck us. Often Andrew reads our notes aloud in satsang. If it happens to be our own letter we’re ecstatic. We’re a close-knit group. We see each other every night in satsang, and the rest of the time we do everything together: eating, talking, discussing Andrew’s teachings, blissing out, watching videos, listening to music. There’s an indescribable sense of intimacy between us. We’re family.

Before long we’re all writing ecstatic love letters full of mystical experiences and profound gratitude. We address Andrew as “beloved Master,” just like Andrew did with his own teacher, Poonjaji. In our houses we have pictures of Andrew, so we never have to be without his disarming, boyish smile, and his beautiful eyes that radiate goodness. His gaze seems to come straight from the Beyond. There’s none of us, man or woman, who isn’t profoundly in love with Andrew. We can stare at his picture for long stretches of time, feel ourselves melt and become one with him. In such a state of surrender, life flows by effortlessly. There’s no problem, nor has there ever been one, or could there ever be one. We’re just letting go and relaxing into this state of surrender, again and again and again.

In the evening satsangs we’re amazed by the profound clarity in each of Andrew’s responses. He always hits the nail right on the head, puts his finger on some fixed idea that the questioner has unknowingly been carrying around, dissolves some emotional resistance in another, and sends us all into deep bliss through long and powerful silences, where we can feel the reality of No Separation tangibly penetrating the room.

During the day we walk around with this precious secret firmly established in our consciousness. We can see it in each other’s eyes; we can hear it in any word we utter, whether in profound conversation or idle chitchat. Everything becomes sacred, whether it’s having tea with scones in the local tearoom, listening to a Van Morrison tape, or watching a Marilyn Monroe comedy. It’s the secret of enlightenment that we share, unbeknownst to the other inhabitants of Totnes, who to us seem to merely continue in their dreary, daily plodding existence, with no eyes to see and no ears to hear.

We’ve rented a house in Dittisham, a few kilometers from Dartmouth. It’s a semi-detached. Ten of us live in the left house, seven of us in the right. Because Andrew comes to visit often, and shows an active interest in the affairs of the house, others consider us as a kind of inner circle. We ourselves feel that too.

I am utterly happy here. I have found my destiny, like water that reaches its true level. The past and the future have fallen away from me, and I’m living in an eternal now. It feels as if my personal biography is at an end, like a book that after a certain page only contains blank pages.

One of my housemates is a woman from Denmark named Sarah. She is 26. She has left her college studies to follow Andrew to England. She is attractive, intelligent and lively but also insecure. We spend a lot of time together, going for walks, having long conversations. I give her table tennis lessons during which we rave together about the fantastic turn that our lives have taken. Slowly we begin to feel attracted to each other. One day Sarah brings up the topic of being in a relationship together. I am not sure how this fits in with our new life. If my life is a book that contains only empty pages, how can I start to fill it up with other things? How would Andrew feel about this?

During the earlier days of Andrew’s teaching, there had been touchy-feely stuff going on between people, something not that uncommon around certain kinds of gurus. People would stare into each other’s eyes for a long time, titillating themselves and each other with feelings of bliss and intimacy. In such a state it would seem the most natural thing in the world to sleep with each other. But Andrew spoke out against such things. Promiscuity would only distract from the jewel of enlightenment. He wanted people to be either in a relationship or otherwise to behave themselves.

I decide to talk about it with Andrew. He listens to my story and then advises me to let it go for now. “You’re just getting established in this new realization,” he says, “and getting into a relationship would only distract you at this point.”

I tell Sarah what Andrew has counseled and we decide to cool it, and just be friends.

In January 1988, Andrew goes back to Amsterdam to teach. From there it will be to Rome. A firm community member by now, I give him my apartment in Amsterdam for the month, while I live with five others in a one-bedroom apartment. Sarah is also there. And again Sarah and I become attracted to each other. Each night I give her a goodnight kiss, and this little ritual becomes a little more extended every night. Then one evening as the others are out and Sarah and I are home alone, our overheated nervous systems can contain themselves no longer, and we start kissing and making out on the couch. We are definitely in love, what to do? I write a letter to Andrew, telling him about our renewed attraction, and asking him for permission to get together in a relationship. His answer is something to the extent that we are free to do what we like. After Andrew has finished teaching in Amsterdam he moves on to Rome for a month, and Sarah and I move into my apartment.

Andrew’s teachings in Rome are a true European gathering. Students flock from England, Holland, Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, and of course Italy itself, enjoying the city, the fashion shops, and the coffee shops. It’s one huge vacation for everyone. After two weeks in Amsterdam with Sarah, I go for two weeks to Rome, to be with everyone. I live in a large apartment with twenty others. Every evening there is satsang, and during the day we hang out in Rome. It is just like our life style in Devon, only the scenery has changed. We invite Andrew to have a coffee with us and he accepts. He asks me to pick him up. So, dressed up in my best clothes, I go over to his flat. Alka, now his wife, lets me in and says that Andrew is almost ready. Then Andrew steps into the room, fresh out of the shower, and starts dressing. We chat about all kinds of things, and when he’s ready, we take a bus to the restaurant. On the bus I talk to him about my relationship with Sarah. In some kind of way I am trying to get his blessing for our relationship, but he is neutral and noncommittal. I am relieved that Andrew at least doesn’t disapprove. And I am thrilled to be spending this private time with him. Like always, it’s wonderful to be with him.

Satsang in Rome is a big success. The living room there is a lot bigger than the one in Amsterdam, but is still much too small for the hundred and fifty people who try to squeeze themselves into eighty square meters. We sit locked in shoulder to shoulder on the floor, listening attentively to Andrew. The temperature in the room reaches tropical heights. This, for now, is the last chance to come to satsang in Europe. Andrew has announced that he will move to Amherst, Massachusetts, next month. As soon as Andrew starts giving satsang in the U.S. he will draw thousands of people in no time. We’re all convinced of that. Then we might all be sitting anonymously in the back row. So now is the time to take advantage of the attention we can still get from Andrew.

I sit cross-legged on the floor. I am in bliss. Andrew speaks about his own story with Poonjaji. In front of a large audience that is awed with admiration, he says that Poonjaji has told him he will create a revolution amongst the young in the West! “I pass my mantle on to you,” Poonjaji had said. Andrew says that whoever wants can follow him to America where he will be teaching. From the first of May onwards, everyone is welcome in Amherst. A wave of excitement goes through the room. This will be the next chapter in the revolution! We will leave our lives in Europe behind and jump into the unknown in Amherst, burning up together in the fire of enlightenment.