EuropeanMasters

Other books by PremanandaArunachala Shiva - Commentaries on Who Am I?

Blueprints for Awakening - Indian MastersPapaji Amazing Grace

Arunachala Talks

Forthcoming books by Premananda American + Australian Masters – Blueprints for Awakening

Planet EarthSongs of Silence

Forthcoming books by Open Sky PressFire of Freedom German Edition

Unique dialogues with fourteen European Masterson the Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi

Who Am I?

Premananda

OPEN SKY PRESSwww.openskypress.com

EuropeanMasters

BlueprintsforAwakening

European Masters

Published by Open Sky Press Ltd.483 Green Lanes, London N13 4BS

office@openskypress.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any part whatsoever without written permission.

For further information please contact Open Sky Press.

First edition

© Open Sky Press Ltd. 2010

ISBN 978-0-9566070-0-3

Cover design by Tara.Photographs from all the Masters

All other photographs from Open Sky House archive.Photographs from Sri Ramana Maharshi Ashram: cover, front flap.

Printed in Hong Kong

OPEN SKY PRESSwww.openskypress.com

Acknowledgements

I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to my two direct Masters, Osho and Papaji. Without my twenty years sitting at their feet this book could not exist. Sri Ramana Maharshi came into my life quietly and invisibly, gradually becoming my main inspiration and guide.

My gratitude also goes to all the exceptional Masters who gave their time to meet me and later to proofread their European Masters texts. Their availability to meet me more than once gave the opportunity to collect more film footage. Thank you for providing the additional photos and film.

An interview is a spontaneous and unique conversation. My thanks to Devi for her sensitive editing of the interview transcripts, accurately produced by Sathya, Dev Gogoi and Melissa from the original recordings. To Devi and Akash for patiently proofreading the manuscript over and over again! To Mahima and Prema who, while translating this book into German, added the final touches.

I should like to offer my thanks to Sri Ramana Ashram for permission to use the dedication picture of Sri Ramana Maharshi and to Devi and Tara who have taken the majority of the photos that have not been taken from the films as stills. My thanks also to Swamini Pramananda, who gave her expert advice on compiling the Sanskrit glossary.

Thanks go to Durga for creating the Interactive Video Website, allowing so many short video extracts from the interviews to be available, to Atma and Tara for the graphic design of the numerous art pages and to Shivananda for his fine graphic advice and support with the cover design.

Thank you to Tara for her sensitive editing of European Masters – Blueprints for Awakening, the book’s companion film, and the series of twelve films, Meeting the Master. In addition, for her translation and proofreading skills and for being always ready to give aesthetic advice.

European Masters

My heart-felt thanks to all the residents of the Open Sky House Community for giving such loving, energetic support, creating a space for all those working actively on the book and films.

Finally my deep thanks and appreciation to Devi for her careful work and consistent support in every facet of this project, in particular her help with formatting the book. She has truly been invaluable.

Premananda 2010

Ramana Maharshi

I dedicate this book to Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi,

the sage of Arunachala. He came into my life quietly, imperceptibly, through a photograph twenty years ago, and has become a central

inspiration in my life.

Thank you for the exemplary life you led and for the simplicity and clarity with which

you guide us. The question, ‘Who am I?’ has provided a golden key to all who wish to know

their essential nature.

Bhagavan Sri

Inter view QuestionsThese questions are designed to unfold and explain the teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi, as set out in his original booklet Who Am I? *. These teachings reflect the ancient Indian wisdom. * Original text Who Am I? at the end of this book.

1 Sri Ramana proposed the fundamental question, ‘Who am I?’* Who are you?

2 Many Western seekers come to India looking for enlightenment as if it is an experience. What is enlightenment?

3 Are there any qualifications for enlightenment? Is sadhana (spiritual practice) necessary? If yes, what form do you advise?

4 Sri Ramana said that Self-enquiry is the most direct route to realising the Self. What do you say about Self-enquiry? How to conduct Self-enquiry?

5 When Sri Ramana was asked, ‘When will the realisation of the Self be gained?’ he replied, ‘When the world which is what-is-seen has been removed, there will be realisation of the Self which is the seer.’* What is the true understanding of the world? How to remove the world?

6 It has been suggested that the mind must be destroyed for liberation to occur. Do you have a mind? Sri Ramana used the term manonasha to describe the state of liberation, meaning destroyed mind. How to destroy the mind?

7 What about vasanas, the tendencies of the mind? Must these be removed before Self-realisation can become permanent? Is it enough to achieve a sattvic (calm and peaceful) state of mind and to know one’s vasanas so that they no longer bind? How to remove the vasanas?

8 What about Destiny? Do you expect things to simply happen or are you expressing your free will and choosing?

9 It appears essential to meet a guru and stay with that guru. Who is the guru? What is the guru’s role? How to recognise a true guru?

10 Sri Ramana’s devotees had tremendous devotion to him, and he to Arunachala. Please say something about bhakti, devotion, in the pursuit of awakening.

11 Seekers often have curious ideas about the enlightened state. Please describe your typical day and how you perceive the world.

12 You have given us a profound discourse on awakening. When you meet someone with a passion for awakening, what would your short advice be?

Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Foreword Ken Wilber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Preface Jan Kersshot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Christopher Titmuss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13Deva Premal & Miten . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35Dolano . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61Francis Lucille . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89Karl Renz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111Michael Barnett . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137Mooji . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165OM C. Parkin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193Padma & Torsten . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219Premananda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247Rupert Spira . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273Tony Parsons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303

Who Am I? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343Book and DVD Information . . . . . . . . . . 349

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Introduction

European Masters – Blueprints for Awakening has arisen, without any personal intention, from the Blueprints for Awakening – Indian Masters project. Visiting Arunachala and Tiruvannamalai in South India each year, I naturally come in contact with many Western Masters coming to pay homage to Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi. Living close to Cologne in the Open Sky Satsang and Art Community in the centre of Western Europe I also have the opportunity to meet many Western Masters and to interview them.

The idea for the Blueprints for Awakening – Indian Masters project came to me in 1993 while living in Lucknow, North India, in the sangha (spiritual community) of my Master, Papaji. One day I received an inner message or vision telling me to go and catch the great Indian Masters on film before they were lost to the world. Ten years later, after five years living in Australia, I was on my way to Europe where I later settled down. In between I took a personal retreat of one year in Tiruvannamalai, at the holy mountain, Arunachala. During that year, after progressing with the Indian Masters interviews, it occurred to me to interview Western Masters. There is such a wealth of Western Masters that it has become necessary to make two books. This European Masters Book and Film will be followed by an American and Australian Masters project.

The Indian Masters book and film, have touched many people. Interestingly, the film has created the stronger reaction. Several people have told me they have watched it thirty plus times! Whenever I have shown the film in Italy, Spain, Denmark, India, Germany, Russia or the Ukraine a profound stillness has fallen over the room, leading to a deep silence at the end before the inevitable compliments. The original question about ‘dead mind’ was so convincingly dealt with by the Indian Masters it is no longer a focus of this European Masters project.

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European Masters – Blueprints for Awakening is for everyone who has an inner passion to know who they are and what they are doing here as a human being. It is for all who ask the question ‘Who am I?’ and for those who are looking for guidance on the teaching of Sri Ramana to ‘be as you are’. It covers the main issues that arise on a spiritual seeker’s journey to awakening to their essential nature, to Truth. It presents the fascinating depths of the Indian spiritual tradition through the eyes of European Masters who have gone to drink at that ancient well of knowledge.

We have included the complete text of Nan Yar – Who Am I? Originally, these answers were written by Sri Ramana in the sand of Arunachala in 1901, when he would have been twenty-one years old. Sri Ramana rewrote the original work in the 1920s and it is one of the few texts edited and approved by him. This is the Source text from which Self-enquiry can be understood and from which some of my questions have been taken.

Twelve questions have been asked to fourteen European Masters who have crossed my path in the last five years. There was no attempt at a special selection. These are Masters who have come into my life and who I appreciate. I did not approach them as a seeker, but rather as a teacher wishing to clarify my own understanding. I wanted to offer a platform for each Master to give his or her blueprint to be put out into the world, a world in great need, and, hopefully, a world where these teachings will find a receptive audience. The questions are referenced to Sri Ramana’s teachings, even though the intention is for each Master to express his or her own teaching blueprint. Naturally, there is no actual blueprint as each person’s spiritual journey is unique.

My own Master was Papaji, who met his Master, Sri Ramana, in the 1940s. Sri Ramana came into my life through an original Welling portrait that I found in a pile of debris in a room I had rented in Pune while I was with Osho in the years before I met Papaji. During my five years with Papaji he greeted a photograph of Sri Ramana every morning and on occasion said that he spoke as a channel for him. In the last fifteen years many Western Advaita (nonduality) teachers have begun teaching in the world. Sri Ramana is the spiritual inspiration for

Introduction

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most of them. During the last years of Sri Ramana’s life, in the 1940s, a small number of Westerners made it to his ashram and were touched by his presence. Wolter Keers came from the Netherlands and taught in Europe in the 1970s and 80s:

The mere sight of him made me tremble all over because I had come face to face with the Divine. This recognition affected me so much that my body shook involuntarily. As I gazed at Sri Ramana, I felt I saw God Himself sitting there.

S.S. Cohen from Iraq lived in the ashram and is buried there:

I was alone in the hall with him. Joy and peace suffused my being, never before had I such a delightful feeling of purity and well being at the mere proximity of a man. To the serious minded, Bhagwan was a beacon light in an otherwise impenetrable darkness.

The basic structure of each interview uses the same twelve questions [see Interview Questions in the front of the book]. The questions are the same as the ones asked of the Indian Masters, with a few variations to more clearly reflect the Western experience. Further questions were asked spontaneously to illuminate an answer, leading to many exceptions to the basic twelve-question structure. In each interview there was the vital element and strong energy of the Master’s presence, and I searched for a way to include this presence in the book. Hence you will find a DVD Sampler in the back of this book. It contains a Trailer for European Masters – Blueprints for Awakening, which is the companion film to this book, a set of the Masters’ Portraits and an excerpt from the Video Website: www.blueprintsforawakening.org with one hundred and fifty small videos of the Masters.

The film includes selections from all twelve interviews and sets out important aspects of the teachings presented in this book. A series of separate films, Blueprints for Awakening – Meeting the Master, showing each Master’s complete interview as well as material filmed during

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subsequent visits, will also be available later. This set of films and the Video Website create a unique archive for those wishing to taste the simple wisdom of Truth through the Grace of these Masters.

It was profound to experience the many different facets to sharing Truth in my meetings with these men and women. Tony Parsons, who had spent time with Osho but does not acknowledge a Master figure, and Karl Renz, for whom Arunachala mountain played the role of Master, would not see themselves in the lineage of Sri Ramana. They speak Truth from the absolute, without any compromise towards an illusionary somebody. In contrast to this absolute position, Dolano, Mooji, OM C. Parkin, Padma and Torsten and myself are firmly in the lineage of Papaji and Sri Ramana, exalting the benefits of conducting Self-enquiry according to the ancient tradition for all those still identifying as a separate somebody. The practice is for the false somebody. Francis Lucille, whose Master was Jean Klein, and Rupert Spira, who has Francis as his Master, also encourage Self-enquiry, though with a slightly different approach.

I am so happy for the inspiration to include Deva Premal and Miten who bring the way of the Heart into the book and particularly into the film. They have touched so many by their mantra singing and their devotion to their master Osho, to each other and to their audiences. This devotion can be felt in every moment of their concerts. These are not performances but accepting what is, daring to stop. The concerts are another form of Satsang. Mooji, with his sunny Jamaican personality and warm heart, also personifies the devotional approach.

I would have liked to include more female teachers in particular, as this moment in history seems to demand the female touch for us to recover from centuries of male domination. So I am happy to include Dolano, a disciple of Osho. Dolano also has a great love for Papaji and Gangaji, both of whom she spent time with. Padma is a young woman who has been in relationship with Torsten for some ten years. They make no compromise, always keeping Truth as their priority. Padma’s teachers are from Sri Ramana’s lineage, in particular Papaji, Isaac, Gangaji and Eli Jaxon-Bear. Then, of course, Deva Premal, whose master is Osho. All these women are German, which seems right. Perhaps German women

Introduction

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in particular have emancipated themselves more than any others in a balanced manner from male domination. Neeru, another German woman, based in Goa, India, and Kalika, an Italian woman, both have cameo appearances in the film.

Michael Barnett, now eighty, originally a close disciple of Osho, has developed a transmission of Truth through subtle energy work. Francis Lucille had a close association with his Master Jean Klein and was friends with other Masters notably Wolter Keers, Douglas Harding and Robert Adams. Rupert Spira, a successful and talented potter, has been inspired by his Master, Francis Lucille, to include Beauty in addition to Peace and Love as an attribute of Truth. Christopher Titmuss has come from the Buddhist tradition having two Thai Buddhist Masters but is something of a maverick, not following any particular linage and expressing Truth in his very own characteristic English fashion. As I formulated the questions they are of particular interest to me, and so I was happy to respond to the challenge of answering them myself.

Some of the Masters use Sanskrit terms. Sanskrit, the ancient language of Vedic philosophy, with its unparalleled richness of expression, has been considered the language of the Gods. You will find an English explanation with each Sanskrit word the first time it appears in each chapter. The comprehensive glossary gives a more detailed explanation of the italicised Sanskrit words.

While writing this introduction I recognise the depth of the spiritual wisdom contained in this Book, the Film and the Video Website. It is a valuable archive, now encompassing thirty Indian and European Masters. I am pleased that I have been able to manifest the original vision that came to me seventeen years ago. I had initially some concern whether the European Masters could match their Indian colleagues but in fact they offer something different and valuable. This is the ancient wisdom of humanity passed down through generations of Masters and their disciples to all who wish to know who they are.

It has been a total delight to experience the profundity of the European Masters, many of whom have taken their knowledge of the Indian traditional teachings and combined it with their knowledge of Western psychology to offer a unique transmission most suitable for the

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Western seeker. Until perhaps thirty years ago it was necessary to go to the East to access these teachings. Now they are available down the road or through the Internet. In short, this book is a treasure for all on the path of Truth.

Finally I express my love and gratitude to Sri Ramana and Papaji, who I consider to be my Masters and constant guides and who inspired me to create this project.

Premananda 2010

7

ForewordKen Wilber

The Sage of the Century

That Nondual vision – in the form of Vedanta, Shaivism, Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism – is the precious gift of India to the world, and it found its purest, most elegant, most brilliant expression in the simple sage of Arunachala.

I am often asked, ‘If you were stranded on a desert island and had only one book, what would it be?’ Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi is one of the two or three I always mention. The Talks tops the list in this regard: they are the living voice of the greatest sage of the 20th century and, arguably, the greatest spiritual realisation of this or any time.

One of the many astonishing things about these Talks is how remarkably unwavering is the tone and style, the voice itself – not in the sense that it is fixed and rigid, but rather that it speaks with a full-blown maturity from the first word to the last. It is as if – no, it is certainly the case that – Sri Ramana’s realisation came to him fully formed – or perhaps we should say, fully formless – and therefore it needed no further growth. He simply speaks from and as the absolute, the Self, the purest Emptiness that is the goal and ground of the entire manifest world, and is not other to that world. Sri Ramana, echoing Shankara, used to say:

The world is illusory;Brahman alone is real;Brahman is the world.

This profound realisation is what separates Sri Ramana’s genuine enlightenment from today’s many pretenders to the throne – deep ecology, ecofeminism, Gaia revivals, Goddess worship, ecopsychology, systems theory, web-of-life notions – none of which have grasped the

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first two lines, and therefore, contrary to their sweet pronouncements, do not really understand the third. And it is exactly for all of those who are thus in love merely with the manifest world – from capitalists to socialists, from green polluters to green peacers, from egocentrics to ecocentrists – that Sri Ramana’s message needs so desperately to be heard.

What and where is this Self? How do I abide as That? There is no doubt how Sri Ramana would answer those – and virtually all other – questions: Who wants to know? What in you, right now, is aware of this page? Who is the Knower that knows the world but cannot itself be known? Who is the Hearer that hears the birds but cannot itself be heard? Who is the Seer that sees the clouds but cannot itself be seen?

And so arises Self-enquiry, Sri Ramana’s special gift to the world. I have feelings, but I am not those feelings. Who am I? I have thoughts, but I am not those thoughts. Who am I? I have desires, but I am not those desires. Who am I?

So you push back into the Source of your own awareness – what Sri Ramana often called the ‘I-I’, since it is aware of the normal I or ego. You push back into the Witness, the I-I, and you rest as That. I am not objects, not feelings, not desires, not thoughts.

But then people usually make a rather unfortunate mistake in this Self-enquiry. They think that if they rest in the Self, or Witness, they are going to see something, or feel something, something really amazing, special, spiritual. But you won’t see anything. If you see something, that is just another object – another feeling, another thought, another sensation, another image. But those are all objects; those are what you are not.

No, as you rest in the Witness – realising I am not objects, I am not feelings, I am not thoughts – all you will notice is a sense of Freedom, a sense of Liberation, a sense of Release – release from the terrible constriction of identifying with these little finite objects, the little body and little mind and little ego, all of which are objects that can be seen, and thus are not the true Seer, the real Self, the pure Witness, which is what you really are.

So you won’t see anything in particular. Whatever is arising is fine.

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Clouds float by in the sky, feelings float by in the body, thoughts float by in the mind – and you can effortlessly witness all of them. They all spontaneously arise in your own present, easy, effortless awareness. And this witnessing awareness is not itself anything specific you can see. It is just a vast, background sense of Freedom – or pure Emptiness – and in that pure Emptiness, which you are, the entire manifest world arises. You are that Freedom, Openness, Emptiness – and not any little finite thing that arises in it.

Resting in that empty, free, easy, effortless witnessing, notice that the clouds are arising in the vast space of your awareness. The clouds are arising within you – so much so you can taste the clouds, you are one with the clouds, it is as if they are on this side of your skin, they are so close. The sky and your awareness have become one, and all things in the sky are floating effortlessly through your own awareness. You can kiss the sun, swallow the mountain, they are that close. Zen says ‘Swallow the Pacific Ocean in a single gulp,’ and that’s the easiest thing in the world when inside and outside are no longer two, when subject and object are nondual, when the looker and looked at are One Taste.

And so: The world is illusory, which means you are not any object at all – nothing that can be seen is ultimately real. You are neti-neti, not this, not that. And under no circumstances should you base your salvation on that which is finite, temporal, passing, illusory, suffering-enhancing and agony-inducing.

Brahman alone is real, the Self (unqualifiable Brahman-Atman) alone is real – the pure Witness, the timeless Unborn, the formless Seer, the radical I-I, radiant Emptiness – is what is real and all that is real. It is your condition, your nature, your essence, your present and your future, your desire and your destiny, and yet it is always ever-present as pure Presence, the alone that is Alone.

Brahman is the world, Emptiness and Form are not-two. After you realise that the manifest world is illusory, and after you realise that Brahman alone is real, then you can see that the absolute and the relative are not-two or nondual, then you can see that nirvana and samsara are not-two, then you can realise that the Seer and everything seen are not-two, Brahman and the world are not-two – all of which really means, the

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sound of those birds singing! The entire world of Form exists nowhere but in your own present Formless Awareness: You can drink the Pacific in a single gulp, because the entire world literally exists in your pure Self, the ever-present great I-I.

Finally, and most important, Sri Ramana would remind us that the pure Self – and therefore the great Liberation – cannot be attained, any more than you can attain your feet or acquire your lungs. You are already aware of the sky, you already hear the sounds around you, you already witness this world. One hundred percent of the enlightened mind or pure Self is present right now – not ninety-nine percent, but one hundred percent.

As Sri Ramana constantly pointed out, if the Self (or knowledge of the Self ) is something that comes into existence – if your realisation has a beginning in time – then that is merely another object, another passing, finite, temporal state. There is no reaching the Self – the Self is reading this page. There is no looking for the Self – it is looking out of your eyes right now. There is no attaining the Self – it is reading these words. You simply, absolutely, cannot attain that which you have never lost. And if you do attain something, Sri Ramana would say, that’s very nice, but that’s not the Self.

So, if I may suggest, as you read the following words from the world’s greatest sage: If you think you don’t understand Self or Spirit, then rest in that which doesn’t understand, and just that is Spirit. If you think you don’t quite ‘get’ the Self or Spirit, then rest in that which doesn’t quite get it, and just that is Spirit. Thus, if you think you understand Spirit, that is Spirit. If you think you don’t, that is Spirit. And so we can leave with Sri Ramana’s greatest and most secret message: The enlightened mind is not hard to attain but impossible to avoid. In the dear Master’s words:

There is neither creation nor destruction,Neither destiny nor free-will;

Neither path nor achievement;This is the final Truth.

Ken Wilber

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PrefaceJan Kersschot

There is no reaching the Self. If Self were to be reached, it would mean that the Self is not here and now but that it is yet to be obtained. What is got afresh will also be lost. So it will be impermanent. What is not permanent is not worth striving for. So I say that the Self is not reached. You are the Self; you are already That.

Sri Ramana Maharshi

Referring to Sri Ramana Maharshi is a great challenge, especially if you never met him in person. When relying on what was written about him, it is clear that this man was capable of throwing his followers back into themselves, just by being his True Self in a simple, straightforward way. Many seekers at the time were overwhelmed by the power and depth of his presence.

But what sometimes happened was that his words were (afterwards) interpreted as if enlightenment was something he attained as a person. People started to believe that he had attained ‘It’ – some special state which his followers hadn’t reached (yet).

That presumption may be confusing because the True Self is limitless, and as a result It cannot be owned by anyone. Believing one can actually reach or attain enlightenment (as a person) only encourages the seeker to believe that he or she can find That as well. When one understands that the ‘seeker’ is just a mind construct, any recommendation that the seeker could attain Oneness through Self-enquiry is a contradiction in terms.

I believe that basically, all Sri Ramana pointed to was that everybody ‘is’ already This. That automatically means that there is no need for any purification or any spiritual search whatsoever. How can one find the

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Self if This is what we really are? How can one attain That which has no limits whatsoever? So in a way, Sri Ramana’s Self-enquiry is like a Zen koan, as there is no answer to the question, ‘Who am I?’ But seeing that indeed there is no answer to this question, that there is no seeker, can bring an end to the spiritual search.

Jan Kersschot M.D.Coming Home and The Myth of Self-Enquiry

Christopher Titmuss

CH

RIS

TO

PH

ER

TIT

MU

SS

The world just comes and it goes. I don’t have to destroy the world; I don’t have to end the world. It’s quietly, easily ending from one moment to the next without me. I don’t have this incredible task and responsibility of trying to end this world in order for realisation to happen. World is ending itself every moment.

Freedom of being lets love and wisdom manifest itself.Christopher Titmuss

15

While with Papaji in Lucknow in 1993 I heard about Christopher giving talks in Bodhigaya, India, and at Bodhi Farm, Australia. I had wanted to meet him and my chance came in Tiruvannamalai in 2009. He immediately agreed to an interview and although busy with his retreat he met me the next day. He is very English, funny, playful and profound. We just had that delightful, joyful interview time together.

Sri Ramana Maharshi proposed the fundamental question, ‘Who am I?’ Who are you?

A small extra in the scheme of things.

Would you like to unfold that a bit?

‘I’ is a phenomenon of appearance. Who am ‘I’? There is a movement. I talk to you and the feeling, the sense of ‘I’, rather easily lands somewhere.

Christopher Titmuss

Christopher Titmuss, a former Buddhist monk in Thailand and India, now teaches Awakening and Insight Meditation around the world. He is the founder and director of the Dharma Facilitators Programme and the Living Dharma Programme. He gives retreats, participates in pilgrimages and leads Dharma gatherings. A senior Dharma teacher in the West, a campaigner for peace and other global issues, Christopher is a member of the international advisory council of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. Poet and writer, he is the co-founder of Gaia House, an international retreat centre in Devon, England. He lives in Totnes, Devon.

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I say it’s a little extra, not of any great, profound significance. At the moment, it lands in the voice. I am talking to you. I am responding as best I can to your profound question. It lands in the sense of the form of the body sitting here on the chair. The ‘I’ makes a little shift in the moment and then ‘I’ lands with the body.

In the context of Sri Ramana’s teachings, and more importantly, from the place of awareness and exploration, the voice doesn’t claim the ‘I’. The voice doesn’t say, ‘“I” am speaking.’ The ‘I’ lands. The body doesn’t say, ‘“I” am sitting here.’ It is the ‘I’ that says, ‘I am sitting here.’ So this extraordinary phenomenon of the ‘I’ likes to land in feelings, thought, body, speech, activity, etc. What’s interesting is when it has nowhere to land. This gives the whisper of the best.

Many seekers are looking for enlightenment as if it is an experience. What is enlightenment?

I’ll take the response in three parts. Forgive me for some analysis. Firstly, the word; secondly, its application for the seeker; and thirdly, how this poor guy understands it.

The word ‘enlightenment’ is not found in Indian Sanskrit Pali texts. Mistranslation – big time. The word ‘enlightenment’ is a Western concept. It refers to a shift in Western thought around two to three centuries ago. Gradually, through the development of science and the questioning of belief, the shift began to take place. The view of the world changed from a belief in God the creator who dispensed reward and punishment for human behaviour and human beliefs, to belief in science and application of thought, of reason, as the vehicle to know reality. The intensification of scientific enquiry, industrialisation and the supremacy of the belief in reason and thought came to be called ‘the period of enlightenment’.

The English colonialists came to India with the usual English arrogance and, armed either with the Bible (therefore the old belief system: God the creator and the punisher) or with scientific knowledge and the ideas of progress, tried to implant that view in India. Vichara (enquiry) had gone on for five thousand years of exploration here in

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India. Nineteenth century translators of Sanskrit, Pali, Chinese and Tibetan used the Western concept ‘enlightenment’.

A view was established. Buddha’s ‘enlightenment’, Sri Ramana Maharshi’s ‘enlightenment’, showed that human beings can have (and I would agree with this) a once-and-for-all, life-changing experience. The old, the problematic, the karma (cause and effect), the dispositions, are irrevocably finished, silenced, gone, and something absolutely, utterly new emerges. The Western word ‘enlightenment’ was applied to this change. It feeds the idea of a single, once-in-a-lifetime event. We do not need such an event for liberation.

To come to the second point, it gives the seeker the idea that if I keep on seeking, at some point some mind-blowing enlightenment will happen to me, and it will be a night-and-day change. Sri Ramana had enlightenment in which the self never landed with the body and so there was no death, and the Buddha had his night of enlightenment. The seeker may think this is what I should work towards. This is called ‘practice’. Or I shouldn’t work towards it but I should wait for ‘Grace’. (I’ve never met her.) Grace will come and then I will become enlightened. I prefer we drop the word ‘enlightenment’. It’s a heavily charged buzzword. There is much to awaken to throughout our life – endless discoveries and realisations.

I have had the privilege of teaching in India since 1975. I base my views on first-hand experiences and understanding derived from listening to experiences of many thousands of others worldwide. Some people have told me they are enlightened. They say they have had a great enlightenment experience. This was during a retreat or an enquiry with me or other teachers. I’ve listened to the person. Very occasionally the person has come to make an arrogant claim about themselves, perhaps ego tripping and setting themselves up as a guru or master very quickly. Later, I’ve said, ‘Pity you ever had this experience.’

Others will say, ‘Christopher, I never had such an experience at all,’ yet her or his life generates what I would call a realised and awakened life. It manifests and shows itself, never perfectly (I think the idea of perfection is nuts), with a great sense of real, authentic freedom of being, a deep, natural and rather inexhaustible happiness, bucket loads of love

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and a lot of clarity about this so-called world that we live in. There is moderation in lifestyle, dedication to a way of life of non-harming and non-exploitation and a willingness to learn from any errors of judgment.

Yet there is stuff arising for most awakened beings, which dissolves the idea of perfection. Clouds wander across the light of the sun, and a characteristic of an awakened human being who knows love, joy, intimacy and freedom of being is that she or he can’t help themselves but attend to that within themselves that needs attention. Unresolved problematic areas such as wanting, confusion, conceit and fear cannot be rationalised or justified on the grounds that the mukti (one who is liberated) can do whatever he or she likes. What is this issue about? What needs attention here to resolve? This is an expression of one’s freedom to look at oneself.

You used the expression ‘freedom of being’. I like it very much. Could you say something more about freedom of being?

One has awoken from the sleep of old habits, tendencies and misplaced belief in self. Today we’re on a large rooftop here in Tiruvannamalai, where I am conducting our Dharma (path of Truth) gathering. We engage in dharma vichara, enquiry into Truth. The exploration of my group today was on the theme of ‘how real is the world?’ It’s vitally important that in our communication with the world we keep out of philosophising. When the world – sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touch – has a big impact on us, a drama in life, the world seems very, very real.

Show me the evidence that there is only one world. Sometimes we live in a world and there’s some drama going on, and the self, the I, can feel imprisoned in the drama. This is an absence of freedom of being. Sometimes the world can seem rather unreal due to a meditative shift of consciousness, taking hallucinatory plants or the smoking of marijuana. These experiences can make the world appear unreal. ‘What’s my projection? What is actually out there?’ The idea of the world, real and unreal, somewhere in between or neither, goes on for all of us.

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You and I inhabit our own little world in a bigger world. There is the world of Satsang (meeting in Truth), the world of the group, the world of the two lovers and the world of our species. The world has no capacity to define or limit freedom of being. Freedom of being is immeasurable. It’s not stuck in any of the worlds that we move in and out of in the flow of our life. That’s what I’m referring to.

Could words such as spontaneous, innocent, present, childlike, describe it?

I have a sense and appreciation of those words, but they feel restrictive. Certainly, spontaneity can happen. As a human being sometimes I’m not spontaneous, innocent, present or childlike. Sometimes I find it necessary to give application of thought to an activity to make an event happen, with the cooperation of others. There is nothing spontaneous about it. This thatched roof didn’t arise spontaneously.

‘Presence’ has become a buzzword in spiritual circles. ‘There is only the now.’ ‘The Eternal Now.’ ‘This is it.’ ‘The past is unreal.’ ‘The future is unreal.’ It sounds to me like complete imprisonment. It’s a contemporary New Age ideology. I’m interested in freedom of being, not imprisoning myself into the moment and giving the now power and substance. Freedom, with clarity and wisdom, acknowledges the past without entering into a state of denial and acknowledges the future – organisation and planning – but does not idolise past, present or future.

In its great generosity, freedom of being allows the natural unfoldment of time. When we look deeply into time, we realise the timeless. So anything that has the slight stink or the sweet perfume of spontaneity, innocence or presence feels a little tight. Nicely tight, but tight. We are free to be spontaneous and we are free to prepare.

Very beautiful. Thank you. Are there any qualifications for enlightenment? Is practice necessary, and if yes, what form do you advise?

There are two questions in two different fields here. Can I reverse the question?

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Absolutely. Is practice necessary?

Is practice necessary? There is freedom to practise and practice for freedom. Some reject practice. A pity. They are not free to practise.

I’ll put the teacher’s hat on firmly here. A little bit of background: I made the overland journey to India in 1967 and have delightful and fond memories of that journey – buses and trains and rickshaws and hitching and walking, you name it. I still have enormous love of Islamic culture and Arab people. They were always able to distinguish between the English citizen and the English government. Thank God! Allah is merciful. (Laughter)

I spent the next ten years in the East, six of those years in Thailand as a Buddhist monk, with the privilege of two wonderful and remarkable teachers. In a way, both teachers and their impact upon my poor self reflect the questions a little bit.

The first teacher was Ajahn Dhammadharo, vipassana (insight meditation) teacher, old school. Practise! In his monastery there were probably eighty to a hundred huts for monks, more or less in a semicircle with the nuns on the other side of the dharma hall. He discouraged us from practising inside our huts because he didn’t trust us, so we practised on the hut’s verandah or under the trees.

The day started at 4 am. Every afternoon we did slow circle-walking meditation and he would come in and give the evening dharma talk. It was practise, look at life, look at your existence, look at impermanence, look at non-self and practise this, to see through it all. Practise, practise, practise.

Incidentally, here we have all these middle-class, bourgeois comforts, like cushions to sit on. In the monastery, monks would say this was for wimps, not for practitioners. We just had a mat on the floor. Here we’re rather polite. A rare Western teacher will speak for more than an hour, usually forty minutes to an hour. There’s no concept of that in Thailand. The teacher would come into the dharma hall, every evening, three hundred and sixty-five days a year, to give the evening talk.

I’m a typical Englishman, far too lazy to learn another language, but I would have to attend. We were not allowed to stretch the feet out

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in front. If the teacher sees the soles of the feet the tradition regards this as rather rude, a little like a man wearing a hat inside a Catholic church. We never knew how long the teacher would talk. Three minutes or three hours. Hard-school practice. One learnt a little bit about letting go, about pain and discomfort in the body and about watching one’s own mind.

There are those who identify with practice. The self is wrapped around practice. The ‘I’, the ‘me’, ‘my’, is caught up in practice. Instead of being a force for liberation, the practice becomes a new imprisonment. Better to drop being trapped in practice, practice, practice. Practice is a two edged sword, a very vulnerable edge in the Buddhist tradition.

Those against practice are equally foolish. They will say, ‘Practice is the doer, is effort, is trying to get somewhere. If you’re sitting on the cushion you’re trying to get somewhere, to get something. You can’t get to that which you already are.’ These one-liners are regularly spouted out around Arunachala and elsewhere with an alarming frequency. People memorise these statements. They’ve learnt these one-liners from others. They believe them. They hold to a set of mental constructs. Clinging to practice is severely problematic. Rejection of practice is equally problematic.

My other teacher, Ajahn Buddhadasa, a legend in Thailand, never mentioned the word ‘practice’ to me in my year in the forest with him. He taught emptiness. We engaged together in dialogue. I wasn’t in the world of practice like I was in the other monastery. In our meetings, the teacher cast aside the metaphor of the path, of progress, of development from here to there.

We have to be true to our experience. If the voice inside says, ‘I really need some real good practice,’ follow it. If the voice says, ‘I’m so familiar with practice. I’ve done so much,’ drop the idea. Drop completely the metaphorical language of the path, the way, the goal. Drop the idea of being the seeker pursuing the sought. Just empty oneself out of it. Out of that, natural authority emerges. Freedom of being lets love and wisdom manifest itself. Let others decide if there is authority. Let others decide if one is qualified to speak from one’s experience. We don’t have to decide ourselves.

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Sri Ramana said Self-enquiry is the most direct route to realising the Self. What do you say about Self-enquiry and how to conduct Self-enquiry?

It’s one of the great aspects of Sri Ramana’s teachings, and to his everlasting credit he is a master of self-enquiry. I never use a capital ‘S’ for self. It doesn’t need such a status. Dharma vichara and atma vichara are the enquiry into ahamkara, which means essentially the ‘I’-making activity. ‘I’ am really thinking about this. ‘I’ am wondering who I am. ‘I’ am wondering what this bundle of mind-body processes is all about. When I start questioning the emotional and psychological processes, personal history, the therapeutic approach, it is atma vichara, self-enquiry.

Then there’s the self-enquiry that has no ‘personal’ story to it. Sri Ramana emphasises looking at the ‘I’-making activity. What do ‘I’ get involved in? What do ‘I’ get caught up in? As I said earlier, what do ‘I’ land on? Do I land on body, feelings, perceptions, thoughts, ideas, states of mind, seeking? Where does the ‘I’ go? The enquiry and the path of enquiry are to see that wherever the ‘I’ lands, that which it lands upon (and this is the key) is not me, not myself, not who I am.

So the ajnani, the one who is in ignorance, the one who is not realising, not knowing, lands, and that which it lands upon becomes one’s self. If I land upon the body, then ‘I’ am sitting here. The ‘I’ can’t sit. But it identifies with this, the body, and it says ‘I’ am sitting here. ‘I’ am growing old. ‘My’ hair was a different colour twenty or thirty years ago. ‘My’ beard is getting a little grey; the salt will be overtaking the pepper soon. The ‘I’ can land and say ‘I’ am growing older.

Dharma enquiry, dharma vichara, is to see that that which the self lands on is not ‘I’. That beard is not you. This form is not me. I can look at feelings, emotions and thoughts. I’m talking to you about my experiences, about how I feel, my perceptions of things, or the memory. So that which the ‘I’ lands on is not ‘I’. Where it’s not landing in a grasping way, there liberation starts to open up.

Sri Ramana points out that it’s not necessary to enquire into the self. It takes care of itself. When I know that which I am not, immediately I know who I am. And when I don’t know, then I will be caught up in imagining and believing that who I am is this body, feelings, thoughts

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and views. When I know what I am not, then in the same moment I know who I am. This is the ultimate dharma vichara.

So are you suggesting that to enquire who you are does not reveal who you really are?

Yes. This is where meditations, reflections and dialogue come in. If the sensitivity and the quiet interest are there, it gets clearer. If it has a tone of rejection in it, it will be detachment: I am not the body; I am not the mind; I am not my thoughts. That could show aggression. One then has to look at the reactor, the detached. This would lose the sensitivity to heart, mind and body. We’re close to it, unbelievably! We can be respectful and supportive to the mind-body process and at the same time know this is not myself, not who I am – knowing with love and awareness, not aversion. Therefore, I say it’s a ‘sensitive’ enquiry.

When Sri Ramana was asked, ‘When will the realisation of the Self be gained?’ he replied, ‘When the world which is what-is-seen has been removed, there will be realisation of the Self which is the seer.’ What is the true understanding of the world and how to remove the world?

Oh Ramana, you do come out with some one-liners! Sri Ramana died in 1950. This is 2009. It would be sweet happiness if I could walk down from this rooftop, take the few minutes walk over to the ashram and say, ‘Hey, Ramana! What do you mean by that?’ I can’t. It would be rather foolish of me to endeavour to give some commentary. There is an impression given that there is a world that is some ‘thing’. It has substance to it, and somehow or other it’s immediately in front of us: ‘This is the world!’ I say ‘No it’s not! That’s the view!’

Rather than looking at it in that substantial, almost eternal way, which is a common enough view, the movement of change is precious and rather liberating. I’ll explain what I mean by that. The moment that just preceded this moment, of you and me communicating, that moment with that world arose. It stayed rather briefly and now it’s gone. In its departure it gave rise, like the wave and the ocean, to this current

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world of you and me talking with your lovely film crew. And the next world will be made up of and brought together by things that you and I can’t even see or hear. Think of everything that made it possible for this little world that you and I have together today.

So the world just comes and it goes. I don’t have to destroy the world; I don’t have to end the world. It’s quietly, easily ending from one moment to the next without me. So if I know that, in the sense of the knowing of a jnani (one who has realised liberation), the world is no problem. It’s just unfolding itself. I don’t have this incredible task and responsibility of trying to end this world in order for realisation to happen. World is ending itself every moment. That’s the view that I take.

And this next question follows on from that. It has been suggested that the mind must be destroyed for liberation to occur. Do you have a mind? How to destroy the mind?

The only place that suggestion could come from is the mind. (Laughs) It doesn’t come from a tree. It doesn’t come from this leg. It comes from a mind! Human beings are marvelous at the most eccentric form of thinking. We’re really strange creatures.

We’ve made the mind the problem. The mind doesn’t have an idea it is the problem. We’ve made the mind the problem. So naturally enough, when there is a problem the view arises out of the problem to destroy it, to get rid of it. Thought is the problem so all thought is corrupt. A strange thought.

‘Your mind gets in your way.’ ‘Your mind stops you knowing who you are.’ ‘Your mind inhibits you from liberation.’ The mind manufactures these views left, right and center. This is a rather strange position to be in! Then we have the audacity to say, ‘The mind is the problem.’

Is it? Is it? We have an hour or so together; we might discuss lunch, or something about yesterday. Is the arising of a thought such a problem? Where is all this anti-thought ideology coming from, other than from a mind talking about the mind? I’m not going to give the mind authority.

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If I’m not going to give the mind that kind of authority, I’m hardly going to say, ‘Destroy your mind. Get rid of your mind.’ I’m not giving that authority to the mind.

The mind is no problem. Thought is not a problem. Freedom of being allows the arising of thought to express as freedom of being. It allows for the arising of ideas, feelings and change. One is a free human being, not a free human being who should destroy the mind. If the mind is a problem for some, they have to look at it. Others of us, who have a very easy, relaxed, comfortable relationship with the mind, do not see it as anything substantial. Mind confirms something extraordinary. It does not have the power to block realisation.

You were telling us that you spent quite a few years in substantial practice while you were in the East. Was this perhaps with the intention of doing something with your mind, to reduce the activity of your mind, to come to no-mind?

A little bit of background. Before ordination I’d been on the road for three years. Prior to that I’d travelled around Europe, so I’d probably hitched around thirty countries. I’ve had the delight and the challenge of travelling around parts of Europe, Asia and Australia and now I want to travel around the inner world. What’s the inner world? Is it as big a world as the outer one? What’s going to help facilitate that, make that happen? I had already read a lot, especially Buddhist books. I loved the Buddhist teachings on change, on liberation, on letting go and working with the inner life.

I can’t recall any deliberate intentionality to reduce the activity of my mind. I didn’t ordain because I was confused. I didn’t ordain because I was unhappy. I didn’t ordain because I felt I had problems to work out. I was a guy in my mid-twenties, pretty free and easy, and loved life. I didn’t have any complaints about myself or others but just knew there was a lot more to the exploration of life than getting out of the narrowly defined English culture and opening up my cultural horizons. If there was any intentionality it was looking into the inner field of experience and exploring that as a kind of statement of freedom. We are free to

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explore what ‘this’ is. That was certainly an influential factor over the years, and it still goes on. It hasn’t suddenly stopped. There is no limit to inner and outer exploration.

That’s very easy to understand. However, is it not true that a lot of Buddhists, who perhaps don’t understand as widely as you understand, are looking to achieve no-mind, whatever that means?

The actual construct ‘no-mind’ is almost exclusively Zen. I don’t recall hearing it from my teachers, as such. So the Zen tradition has this lovely cutting edge. The no-mind statement is such an insult to the carefully educated, cultivated, Western mind. I think it is brilliant usage. I was speaking at Oxford University some years ago. It was only a quip, with a little seriousness, and I said something like, ‘The university is essentially an ego-making factory.’ I got a very irate letter from a professor at Oxford who wrote, ‘Who the hell do you think you are? I came to listen to a public talk on Buddhism. I didn’t come here to be told I was in an ego-making factory!’

I don’t call myself a Buddhist. I have no appetite for labels, so I didn’t want to get rid of one called ‘Roman Catholic’ and then take up another. I keep away from labels. I know plenty of Buddhists, Buddhist monks and nuns. I have a certain intimacy and connection with the tradition. I would say that the path, the goal and the language of the goal do vary quite a lot.

For some, it might be the endeavour to realise no-mind. The koan is an attempt to blow the mind away. It just can’t be answered; it shows the limitation of the mind. You know the very famous koan of ‘What is the sound of one hand clapping?’ A friend emailed an amusing response. ‘Very quiet.’ Sometimes the koan is used to realise no-mind. The mind just can’t answer the deepest of questions. Realising no-mind is then liberating.

Buddhists might want to realise the unconditioned, to realise nirvana, to discover the ultimate Truth, to realise one’s Buddha-nature. Such concepts are valuable for some because they give a little sense of direction.

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Not all will use a large concept in their practice. As the Buddha pointed out, if one engages in practice, including enquiry and exploration, just like a log in the river, if it isn’t washed up on the bank of self and other, one side of the bank or the other, it naturally will flow to the ocean. The ocean, for some, does not have to be named.

Plenty of practitioners are not goal-orientated. They do their practice, like the log on the river moving into the ocean. They experience naturally the benefits and the fruits emerging. They realise the immeasurable, the vastness of things, that which is not of self, no-mind, whatever. As the Buddha said, it gets as clear as colour is to a person with good eyesight.

Some people practise with a real, clear, named goal. Others practise with no named goal. The practice liberates them. Others get stuck in the practice. What about the tendencies of the mind? Must these be removed before Self-realisation can become permanent, and if so, how to remove these tendencies?

If we fall into the imprisonment of cause and effect, watch out! One could say ‘The cause that stops me from realisation is the tendencies. If I remove the tendencies, the liberation will come.’ So the cause is the tendencies. Get rid of the tendencies and the liberation will come. It could take one hell of a long time. Supposing one says, ‘Wow! Look at all the tendencies I’ve exhibited in this very lifetime.’ One might then say, ‘And maybe, maybe, maybe, there could possibly be past lives.’ Oh my God! Have I got to work that bloody lot out before realisation? It’s a nightmare, thinking like that.

I prefer the middle way. I don’t know any human being who, every moment, all the day, all the time, is under the influence of their tendencies – good, bad and the indifferent. When you and I are not under the pressure of the past, the tendencies, we just experience calmness and clarity. There is energy and a natural sense of well being. There’s a certain absence of the tendencies. Maybe at those times, when we’re not in the shadow of our tendencies, there might be an opportunity for some discoveries and realisations. In that way I’m not putting myself under

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the pressure of trying to get rid of my tendencies so I can get purified to become realised. I don’t think we are under their shadow all the time.

I look at where the self lands. I say, ‘I’ve got a tendency to be judgmental about other people. I have a real tendency to keep putting myself down. I feel I’m no good. I’m worthless.’ If I notice this coming up daily and I don’t seem to get a lot of space around it, then I want to address that. I want to look at that tendency and hopefully come to clarity and understanding so that there is space in my heart, in my consciousness.

It’s not that I’ve said to myself, ‘Wow! I’ve really got rid of that tendency. I’ll never have any more self-doubt. I’ve worked it out!’ We’re not trying to make ourselves perfect. A lot of that tendency just seems like a daydream, and one wonders, ‘What happened to that tendency? The things that used to make me mad or give me sleepless nights just seem to have gone!’ And sometimes people will say, ‘I had the tendency. Can’t find it!’ Nice. (Laughs) Precious!

What about destiny? Do you expect things to simply happen or are you expressing your free will and choosing?

(Laughs) Neither. Unmistakably neither. I’ve engaged in years of reflection on this. It is an important question. In the East, destiny often carries a certain fatalism: ‘Oh, it’s your destiny.’ It’s a given. It has a whiff of imprisonment. It doesn’t, for me, speak of the indefinable. It doesn’t speak to me of the uncertainty, of change. It gives me the scent of some absolute fixed certainty. I don’t see any evidence. We could be going along and thinking, ‘This is my destiny in life.’ Something strong happens, and then what happened to this idea of destiny? Suddenly you are blown away and something else unfolds.

The other reaction is free will, choice, so beloved in the West. I think the movement of choice, the manifestation of choice, even in the most generous moments, is in the small details of life. You said, ‘Oh Christopher! I’m writing a book and I’d like to interview you, I’d like to film you. Could we meet?’ This was your choice to meet me, and I said to you, ‘Oh, yes. I’ll come.’ This was my choice.

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If there is choice a lot of it is small time, small scale. The bigger challenges of life are not quite in the field of choice. Like taking birth. (Laughter) I don’t remember choosing to be born in England with my parents, choosing to go to a Catholic school, choosing to be male and other odd attributes. I don’t remember choosing to have various events happen in my life, which impacted on me, beautiful and difficult.

I don’t remember saying, ‘Oh, I think I’ll choose today that my loving partner leaves me,’ or ‘Oh, I think I’ll choose today a big heart opening. I think that’s my choice for today.’

I would say we exaggerate the importance of choice. ‘Shall I buy a fawn shirt or shall I buy a darker shirt?’ Choices are often trivial, small. When we build up: ‘Oh, I’ve really got to make a decision!’ Choice again. ‘Shall I stay in India or shall I go elsewhere? Shall I continue doing this or not?’ We build it up, but choices are going away from us. We are in a dilemma, conflict, turmoil. We don’t know what to do! We’re calling it choice, but actually it’s inner chaos. Who would choose that?

I think we need to take care with the ideology of choice. Choice is one extreme. Destiny is the other extreme, such as the view, ‘It’s just meant to be.’ Nothing is meant to be. An unfolding process reveals itself due to conditions. Between the two extremes there is a middle way.

It appears essential to meet a master and surrender to that master. Who is the master, what is the master’s role and how to recognise a true master?

Oh God! The master! I’ve written quite a lot about this question. It interests me because I have to sit on the throne. In England, the throne is what the queen sits on, and it also refers to the toilet. The blessed master! I issue a caution. If one’s going to have a master, then may he or she be dead. They don’t disappoint. Nobody remembers the limits of the dead ones. Long dead ones. Better, better. But if one’s going to go for the living master, tread carefully, with any of us. (Chuckles) Where there is the master, a very powerful archetype, there is the follower, the disciple, the devotee. The master sits with his or her privileges to establish ‘I’m the master.’ Between the devotee and the object of devotion, called the master, there is a gap. It’s one hell of a gap. In that gap, the devotee may

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wish to surrender to the master, to sacrifice their authority. ‘Authority’ comes from the French and Greek, ‘author’, to create, to make happen. One sacrifices one’s capacity as a human to ‘make happen’ and transfers it to the master.

It could be religious fascism. The master may identify with her or his role. ‘I am the master who knows.’ It doesn’t have to be that way. It really is a question in the dynamic of the relationship. What is the wisdom of the master? Where is the love? Is the intention ego-feeding? Is the intention power and control? Is the intention creating wealth? Is the intention the use of charisma in order to gain attention?

Or is the task to set free as many human beings as possible, including freedom from the duality of the master and the disciple, two primary constructions lacking true reality? Surrender can be a powerful, wonderful, liberating, awakening resource, or surrender can become the new imprisonment. That’s the question. It’s an open question.

And who is the master?

Who is the master? It’s certainly not the ‘I’. A liberating Truth is the master. The Truth is the master, and Truth is that which engages. It enters into a situation and it has a transformative impact. The Truth engages and enters into a situation and it has a transformative impact. In a sense, Truth frees up the being to the extent that ‘being’ is another construct. The catalyst could genuinely be the dialogue of the so-called master with the so-called disciple.

The Buddha uses the concept kalayanamitta. It literally means ‘good friend’. What that means for me is that I have the privilege of the authority of the teacher. I have the privilege of exploring, practising. I have the privilege of engaging with life, making mistakes, learning from experiences amidst dependently arising events. That’s a great freedom.

I have the delight and the joy of friendship. I don’t feel comfortable with the idea of followers, disciples and devotees. I love the informality of friendship, hanging out in the chai (tea) shops, talking and meeting with people in a range of environments and situations that are outside of the structure of formal teachings. People tend to be very candid and

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straightforward about their perceptions of myself, as well as themselves, in the informal environment. If we teachers stay inside the structure we can easily absorb many projections. The master is the Truth. If that’s really remembered I’ll never confuse the person who is the master with the Truth. We’re interested in the Truth.

And what is the master’s role?

Get out of the way! Some will say, ‘I am the Truth.’ Wait a minute! Others will say, ‘Oh, it’s not me, but it’s the Truth coming through me. I am just a vehicle, but it’s coming through “me”, not coming through “you”, through “me”.’ (Laughs) Wait a minute! Ego will always want to make claims. What is the conventional agreement called ‘master’? Christopher is saying a few words. Is that the master? Sitting up here, is that the master? Other people come and sit up here with me as well for an enquiry. Are they the master? So it’s a convention. It’s a construct. Truth doesn’t travel through the master. Truth is not the master and the master does not have Truth. These are just conventions and we’re interested in the unconventional, that’s all.

How to recognise a true master? You said at one point the master is Truth. How to recognise that?

Yes, the master is Truth. Don’t confuse Truth with the person. Nobody has Truth. Very simple. Three criteria for knowing a ‘true master’. Firstly, one has to spend a long time directly with that person in a variety of environments. Secondly, how does that person handle a very difficult situation? Any idiot can be a captain on a calm sea. Thirdly, the master or the teacher may expose their humanness – errors of judgment, foolishness, the triple horror associated with many spiritual teachers: power, money and sex. (Laughter) When desire, irresponsibility and errors of judgment arise, feedback comes from within and without. Does the master or the teacher take notice and say, ‘This is something I have to look at in my life’? Then you know a master because he or she is free to engage in vichara, enquiry.

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Traditionally, devotees have tremendous devotion to the master. Please say something about devotion in the pursuit of awakening.

Very good question. Be devoted to enquiry. Be devoted to meditation, to silence and expressions of love and compassion. I don’t consider myself a devotional person in the conventional sense. Here’s an example, it’s a little unfair but it’s an example. I went to Ramana Ashram one evening. Lots of visitors there, and in one of the main halls the shastras (scriptures) were being chanted. It was a very sweet atmosphere. Did I go inside? My immediate response was ‘church’ – not Christopher’s cup of tea at all!

When I meet with people I like the sense of adult-to-adult communication, not master to disciple. I don’t particularly feel devotional. I don’t feel any devotion to Buddhism, to religion, to church. I go to Midnight Mass every Christmas; religiously I go. My daughter thinks I’m mad even to go to church once a year.

Devotion has got its beauty and its shadow. The beauty is something of the heart. When tens of thousands of people walk the pradakshina, the circle around the mountain Arunachala, it shows devotion. The world would be poorer without devotion.

It comes from the heart, and religion mostly offers and cultivates it. But it sustains the gap. A separation is created between the devotee and the object of devotion, and that’s the shadow. The excess of devotion will be projected upon the symbol, the figure or the words. In the London underground, as one gets off the train, a voice often comes on the loudspeaker, ‘Mind the gap.’ This is my message to all devotees. Mind the gap.

But I think you would agree that this devotion opens the heart. It makes somebody available.

It does. There is something precious about it. That’s where that unwavering voice of Ramana is so important. Vichara. Enquiry. Don’t just rest in the loving devotion. When one of those sitting next to Ramana would have said, ‘I have surrendered myself out of devotion to you Ramana. Your will is my will. I’ve surrendered to you. You are

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the Bhagavan. You are the master.’ Ramana would have said, ‘Oh stop talking a load of rubbish! (Laughter) The self of one is the self of all.’

I remember talking with a much-respected swami in the 1970s. I was a Buddhist monk. The swami was giving a public Satsang. We got to know each other and we had a good exchange. He invited me to come back for the evening to where he was staying in Amritsar with his devotees for further discussion. As we got into the car one devotee said, ‘Swamiji! I’m so devoted to you. I love you so dearly. In my whole life, Swamiji, I’ve never drunk alcohol, Swamiji. I’ve never eaten any meat, Swamiji, my whole life. I’ve never gambled.’ The Swamiji replied, ‘A pity!’ (Laughter) Purity can be an ego trip.

Seekers often have curious ideas about the enlightened state. Please describe your typical day and how you perceive the world.

The seekers may not be the best to describe the enlightened state. Let’s keep to what we know. In the past thirty-six years the longest I’ve been in one place is two months, and that was at home in Totnes, Devon, in England. I usually have a home, but it’s a homeless and wandering way of life as well. The usual day would be not so different from anybody else. I’m a small servant of the dharma and a have strong commitment to it. I love it. I love people. I really like people. I’m sixty-five in a couple of months. My energy level might change tomorrow, but so far it’s much the same as when I was twenty-five years old. The unfoldment of each day offers time for some silence and solitude, quiet renewal and acts of service to others, all in the spirit of freedom of being.

You’ve given us a profound discourse on awakening. When you would meet someone with a passion for awakening, what would your short advice be?

Your passion is an expression of your awakening. They are not two separate events. Love the passion. Om! (Laughs) And meditate, meditate, meditate. May all beings wake up. Thank you for the excellent questions.