Finally the time came for me to leave for the six-week. I was nervous and excited. I arrived at the airport a bit late and was told that I could not yet be allocated a seat. It turned out that the flight had been overbooked and the airline was offering money to anyone who was willing to delay and wait for the next flight. Eventually I was called forward and given a seat – which turned out to be in business class! This was a new experience! I had a thesis to read before the Intensive started and in the quiet comfort of business class it was easy to complete. The only drawback was that with all the free alcohol available I arrived in California slightly tipsy!
The next day I made my way from L.A. to St.Helena where the six week would take place. I was allocated a small cabin in what was Charles Berner’s ashram. A lot of the people walking around were in white robes and looking holy – I felt out of place. The next day, as I sat on a bench waiting for an interview with Satya I had a profound experience. I was overwhelmed by a feeling of rightness. I had a strong sense that it was my destiny to be here. Indeed, the sense was that the universe was cheering because, at last, I had gotten to where I was supposed to be. I felt very excited.
That evening Charles Berner, who now called himself Yogeshwar Muni, came to give an introductory talk. I was pleased to see him, but surprised at how nervous he seemed to be – and how off-hand he was about the Intensive. “This is all her idea”, he said, “she is doing this because she loves you this much. I’m not sure it’s a good idea.” There were 19 of us settling in for 42 days of meditation and communication. We had all done at least one two week Intensive, so we knew the score.
Well at least we thought we did. Frankly I don’t think any of us had the foggiest idea of what it would be like to undertake this process from 6am to 10pm every day for 42 days. Yes we knew that there was an unremitting process of self confrontation – but would it come to an end? Would we run out of stuff to report? How many of us would have an enlightenment experience? No one knew because this was the first 42 day enlightenment intensive. We were somewhat comforted knowing that other meditative traditions did have groups running for similar lengths of time.
The first day I was ill, really sick from too much alcohol and caffeine on the way to the Intensive. On the second day I really missed Eva. I realised how much I loved her and valued what we were creating together and didn’t want to risk losing it. On the third day I started to react to the ‘disciples’ in the group. They are the ones wearing robes and who looked like they were totally superior. When they described something they did not say “I think this” or “I feel that” instead it is always “My mind is feeling…”. Before the end of the day I blew my top yelling “If you cover shit with holy words you end up with foul smelling holy shit”. Day 4 I felt ashamed at the way that I take credit for things that are clearly not in my control – like growing vegetables in the garden or fostering a relationship with Eva. Day 5 was largely spent remembering times of being beaten and shaken as a kid. On day 6 I realised that I had bought my mother’s message that I was a ‘bad boy’. Ever since swallowing that message I had felt worthless – boy did I shout about that.
And so it went on. I was one of the very few people in the room who shouted, cried, swore and raged about things. Maybe the others were all so advanced that they did not need to do this anymore – but boy it did not look like that! There was one large, very large, lesbian woman there who clearly loved my outbursts. Her name was Kate and on the last two two-week Intensives she had not had an experience – and was terrified that this would happen to her again. Another woman who seemed at a loss, confessed that the only reason she was participating was because it was the cheapest place for her to stay whilst her home was being renovated. And another woman was so out of it she had to have the steps of the process written on a piece of paper so she could remember to do them in the right order. So quite a large fraction of the group were not inspiring. I made good contact with most people and soon had favourite partners that I would work with once or twice every day.
Satya had made the schedule lighter. We were finished with exercises by 9.30. She also said it was OK for us to talk during meal breaks. This did not sit well with me. I wanted more intensity. So I set my alarm to 5am and completed an hour’s meditation before the first exercise. I also refrained from talking in any of the breaks and had a final meditation before going to sleep. Because we had such a long time stretching ahead of us there was very little sense of urgency in the group. I disliked this and set myself the task of maintaining my contemplation all the time I was awake – apart from when listening to my partner’s communications. I kept a journal throughout the Intensive, but limited myself to writing in it only after lunch and before bed.
I had chosen to work on the question ‘what am I?’ By focussing on my self a lot of the material I had been working through for the last two years arose in my meditation and needed to be communicated. I had one very powerful session on my sexual violence partnering Kate. I really expressed my sorrow for expressing violence sexually and also saw that the violence was a very distorted expression of my sexuality. After crying about it I explained how what I really wanted was for my sexuality to be expressed powerfully but gently, affectionately. I wanted it to be an expression of the love in my heart. What made the session powerful was that Kate had a very violent, abusive father and brother and had never heard a man expressing the desire to be gentle before.
By day 10 the group was settling into a routine and becoming serious. Satya gave a lecture each day after lunch and always started with a reminder of where we had reached in the process. So on day 10 she said “Today is day 10 of the Intensive, there are thirty two and a half days remaining”. As the days passed we were all steadily becoming more open to each other, more engrossed in our search for an experience and contemplating more deeply. This was all helped by a few direct experiences – they fired us up to exert ourselves a little more.
For me there was also a steady increase in my commitment to a spiritual life. At the beginning of my morning and evening meditations I used a prayer that has stayed with me to this day. “Lord give me the strength to face whatever I have to face in order to be an agent for Love in the world.” I also accepted that there was space for ‘God’ in my life. I did not subscribe to any religious dogma or religious description of the Divine, but as the Intensive progressed I noticed that I became more aware of a transcendent power that I chose to call ‘God’. These changes took place slowly and surprised me as much as the realisations and insights generated by my contemplation and communications.
It is amazing how much ‘stuff’ arose during the Intensive. I spent almost a whole day feeling pathetic and wanting to be loved. That only changed when I realised that I also wanted my love to be accepted – and was enraged all over again by women who rejected my affection and love. I frequently ran up against my lack of integrity, my willingness to cheat or be dishonest. I also started to notice how whenever some ghoul from my past arose I ceased being serious about wanting an experience; instead I elected to sit back and watch the movie of my childhood run some new disaster.
On day 14 Satya gave a lecture in which she said that we were just pussy-footing around, not being serious about wanting the Truth. As she spoke I could feel myself energised – she was saying what I was thinking about many of the other participants! In the exercise after lecture I let rip and realised that I had been holding myself back trying to be reasonable and understanding of everyone. Later I felt totally energised – so much so that I could not rest during the allocated period – I was on fire and wanted to make love with Eva. Later I moved into a very loving space but also felt disconnected and a bit out of touch and puzzled about why that was so.
The next morning, in my 5am meditation, I realised that in the working period after Satya’s lecture I had directly experienced myself as an indestructible spark of energy. I clearly remembered it and how it was that which set me on fire and energised me so much. And it also became clear that the sense of disconnection I felt later was because I had not connected to, or communicated, the experience. When I did communicate the experience in the first exercise of the day I was able to connect to it all more clearly – and it affected me all over again. I talked it through with Satya and she gave me advice on allowing myself to engage with the process less mechanically and more openly. In her lecture later that day Satya also added an extra exercise into the schedule, which was welcomed by everyone. She also said there would be sauna’s available on Wednesdays – to which I exclaimed “what’s a Wednesday?” Everyone laughed. We had been in the structure so long with days having only numbers that we had no idea what day of the week it was.
By the end of the day the glow of the experience had vanished and I was back facing my stuff. The first material that emerged was about how I am always so reasonable even though I am actually judgemental and wanting to change people. The next day was spent facing how judgemental I was almost all the time – including judging myself for being so judgemental. Day 17 was spent oscillating between feeling fear, hurt and defeat and then being cold, sadistic and wanting to hurt whoever had hurt me. Sometimes I experienced sheer terror, though it was never clear about exactly what – I felt very small, probably less than a year old, and completely terrified.
As the days wore on I found myself engaging with the process differently. Contemplating became more relaxed and flowing. Sometimes it felt as if I wasn’t trying hard enough – and then I realised that this was what was arising in my contemplation – and it was a regular theme in my life – thinking I am not trying hard enough! I sometimes broke into tears remembering Eva, missing being with her and telling her what was happening to me. Other times I was overwhelmed by doubts; doubts I was doing the process right; doubt that I was good enough. I understood that my rigidity was a way of avoiding feeling doubts; I wanted to know the right way to do something and then do it just like that!
“Today is day 21, there are 21 and a half days to go.” We are half way through! All Intensives become more intense in the later stages. How in hell is it going to be more intense than this! I have been facing arrogance, how I cut out in arguments, how I am cruel. I have felt a fucked up kid who would never really get it together. I’ll never be able to undo my past. I’ll always carry this burden of violence, neglect and pain around. I notice that I am being caught in the idea of trying to figure it out, trying to sense or feel or think what I am – when I’m after something completely different. I am critical of other people pushing ahead to get food and remember all the times I have been ruthless in getting what I want. I don’t believe anyone will ever give me what I want, so I always have to get it for myself. Day after day of anger, agony. It seems endless – a bottomless pit of despair.
Midway through day 22 my emotional state was flipping each five minute period. I would start in absolute despair, crying my eyes out. The bell went, I listened to my partner for 5 minutes, then when the bell went again I found myself in uncontrollable rage, total fury. The next time it was my turn I was back in despair or hurt. This continued for several dyads. It felt as if my emotions were swirling around faster and faster. Then
I was flipping from one extreme state to another each time I contemplated – several times in a five minute period – until finally something snapped. I felt I had broken an identification with my negative emotions – and suddenly I am feeling calm and loving towards others. I realised that I was the person projecting all the childhood movies in which I starred. It was my choice whether to run a horror story, a tragedy, a romance or whatever. Suddenly I found myself accepting responsibility for how I felt. I could not change what actually happened to me as a child, but I can choose how to perceive it- and perceiving things differently changes my emotional response. I remember seeing my mother beating me and realising that she was at the end of her tether, she couldn’t cope, and she was doing to me what had been done to her. So instead of feeling hurt and vengeful I was feeling compassion for her. Understanding that I can choose how to perceive events took the sting out of them. I am left free and crystal clear. My contemplation changes, I no longer need to search for what I am, I have always known it, I just have to wait for it to arise. Two hours later I crashed; I felt fake and lost. I am struggling with remembering what happened earlier. Was I exaggerating? I question myself about being truthful – and end the day very confused.
Part way through the next day I realised that once again I had had a direct experience of myself – and not clocked that that was what was happening. It didn’t have the fireworks, the release of energy or the blissful feelings. It didn’t fit with my preconceptions – so I missed it! I also remember saying to my partner “I feel in a different state of consciousness”. The previous paragraph was taken from my journal and it is now clear that I had a profound experience – but at the time, and when writing it up in the evening, I did not connect to it. It really taught me the power of preconceptions – and how I have them all the time about everything. Preconceptions, no matter how lovely or benign, keep me closed to what is actually happening.
I reflected on how I missed experiences on and off for a few days. I slowly realised that I was setting myself an impossible task. I wanted to be able to evaluate that I was having a direct experience of the Truth. However, in a direct experience the part of my mind/ego that evaluates is absent -I am literally in a different state of consciousness. When the experience passes, which is usually within a minute or so, my mind/ego is back working ‘normally’ – but by then it is too late to evaluate myself as being in an experience. So it was not just my preconceptions that were getting in my way, it was also the very powerful part of my mind that is constantly evaluating what is happening to me.
The next couple of days I struggled with seeing just how much my intellect, through working with and enjoying ideas and concepts, kept me closed from being open to my immediate experience. I loved figuring things out – I was very good at it – but it closed me to an important level of openness. I saw the roots of this in my childhood where I was constantly figuring out how to avoid being in trouble, how to avoid being hit again. This led me into facing arrogance – again. I noticed how I thought I was doing well by facing so much ‘stuff’ on the Intensive – and immediately each self-compliment puffed up arrogance again. The arrogance got me to look at how I was constantly putting myself above or below other people – including everyone on the Intensive. My mind was constantly judging, evaluating, comparing – doing everything except just being open to whatever was in front of my nose!
By day 26 I noticed that I was engaging with familiar material but in a deeper way. For example, although I was no longer plagued by worthlessness I noticed that I was more reticent about talking about my positive traits than the negative ones. I was far shyer about my spiritual journey than my psychological progression. My spiritual self, my direct experiences, my sense of holiness were all too precious to share. I felt more vulnerable talking about them than about times I was hit or violent or hurt. Another example was how I recalled the pain I experienced separating from Laura. I saw how I often gave myself away in order to try to keep her – a script I recognised as originating with my mother. Then I saw how I conflated my vulnerable soft man with my needy little boy – and understood why Laura was so castigating when I thought I was being vulnerable.
Insights like these were arising two or three times every day. Sometimes I was thrown into despair not knowing how I could ever forgive myself for being so unaware of what I was doing – to myself and to other people. I particularly hated remembering times when I had shouted at my sons, frightening them to control them. Even worse was remembering hitting them a few times. Other times I was thrown into fear and terror – often without knowing exactly what I was afraid of. I found I was very bad at communicating fear – I had become a master at hiding my fear and not letting anyone see it.
Day 28 was my birthday – I had figured that out before we started the Intensive – I was 38 years old! It was much the same as any other day except that I had several excruciating memories of never getting presents or having a birthday party as a child. I also started to face up to the ways in which I was always trying to control things.
Part of the design of the Intensive is to remove as many choices as possible so as to free the individual to focus entirely on their contemplation. But a few things remain as choices – the most important being who to partner in the communication exercises. And boy was I exercising that choice. I was always one of the first into the room so I could control where I sat and whom to partner. On day 29 I decided to let go and just sat waiting for someone to sit opposite me. The woman who did so was someone I avoided most of the time. And then when the exercise started she up and left to go to the toilet – and was away for all her turn and my turn. I was furious! I had let go a little control and see what happens! I wasn’t getting what I was entitled to! I wasn’t getting what I needed. And on it went – showing me that I was constantly trying to control my environment in order to avoid these feelings. And the deepest of all was the fear that I would not be loved. I was not loved as a child and so believed I would not be loved unless I make it happen. I see I am taking this Intensive to try to make myself loveable! I don’t believe I will be loved unless I perfect myself in some way. I am only carrying on because I am hoping that the Truth is that I am loveable. As the day wore on I felt totally deflated and defeated – I think I want love more than I want the Truth.
One of the principles exploited in Intensives is that once something has been communicated and received by someone else then it is temporarily set aside and the next layer of material in the psyche emerges. When I was facing the anguish of wanting to be loved more than the Truth I felt this was the deepest I could go – but it wasn’t! In the next exercise I realised that what was involved was my idea of being loved. To cut a long story short I was striving to make other people into the perfect mother that I never had. Letting go of that idea – that the only way I could be loved was by a nice mummy – was an enormous relief. And during the next exercise I felt as if I was having a rest. And then the next layer emerged, one in which I was really critical of other people. I became aware of an enormous contempt and arrogance within me. Apparently once I gave up wanting something from others then my attitude shifted to one where I regarded everyone as worthless lumps of shit. For two more exercises I ranted about how other people were so despicable. I was into a total fascist power number – and not trying to hide or excuse it. My partners were often shocked at what I was saying – as was I! Toward the end of the day I realised that I had completed a classic flip – from being a needy child to being a tyrannical parent.
Day 30 started with feeling sad that I do not know when I am loved. It feels like a sense that is missing for me, and I have no idea how to resolve it. During the early morning exercise period, when I always ran up the hill and back, I made some simple corrections to how I was contemplating myself. I allowed the sense of myself to be more fluid and immediately was aware of being the one who lived in my body. My contemplation became deeper and easier; I sensed I was close to an experience. In the next exercise I found myself facing the same partner I had eight days ago when I ‘missed’ a direct experience. I contemplated, touched on the experience again and presented it. ‘This is what I am!’ and kapow! It was like a giant orgasm through my whole body; it went on and on for the full five minute period. I was speechless, there was nothing to say. I knew what I was. I was the one who chose everything. I choose it all – it’s all me! It’s almost a joke. Nothing matters really because we all choose what we want to feel and experience, what situations to put ourselves in. I saw that this is what I had been learning over and over again for the last 30 days. I know that what I am has nothing to do with value or worth, nothing whatsoever. What I am goes on forever.
In the next exercise I sat out; someone had to sit out in each exercise because we were an odd number. As I sat there reflecting on what I had experienced I started to watch the other participants. It was amazing. I could literally see them choosing what to experience. They were all doing it, moment by moment, and were totally unaware. Sometimes it struck me as very funny – especially when people were choosing a graphic victim story. And as I watch I am aware of the choice I have about how to receive what I am perceiving. It’s like having the key to making a new life for myself, the power to correct my ignorance. I feel very grateful to everyone on the Intensive and all that they have given me – the attention they have given me when I’ve been contemplating and communicating, their tolerance of my outbursts – and the ways they have reminded me of stuff about myself. And suddenly I feel really tired.
That night I went to sleep immediately and had trouble waking the next morning. I was basically blissed out for the next day and a half, drifting in and out of beautiful states, re-examining my trips from my new perspective. I allowed myself to glow, even though quite a few of the participants are clearly pissed off that I should have had an experience. I surmise that many of them had me labelled as a fucked up idiot who would never get anywhere because I had so often freaked out crying, shouting, swearing and being intemperate. But for me seeking Truth meant being as real as I am able – and that’s what I had done consistently all the way through.
This was reinforced on day 33 when one of the women I didn’t like partnering made a very negative comment about me. I was furious. When it was my turn to communicate I shouted so loudly that everyone else stopped talking and sat in stunned silence for a few minutes. This episode lead me off into all the people I hated; old fucked up people, upper class people, working class idiots, people who think themselves superior, people who are always victims. I completely lost sight of any choice I had about how to perceive anyone.
By day 34 I was resisting going on, I wanted to give up. Kate had complained about a bad back for several days and finally allowed me to give her a massage during the work period. It seemed to help. In the next exercise I partnered her and discovered that she had had a very deep experience of another. All she could say was “I am so sorry, I never knew. I never knew!” I was in tears as well, the awe that she had for what she discovered was infectious. In fact I found myself being sexually excited. I was shocked. As much as I loved Kate she was not in any way a sexually attractive woman. She must have weighed 20 stone, had hair all over her face, big jowls, dank lifeless hair and arms that wobbled whenever she laughed or cried. But I was profoundly affected by her at all levels; she had worked hard and was enjoying a fabulous experience of what another is. She made it clear that my back-rub had been instrumental in her making a breakthrough: I was the first man who had touched her for many years.
The next day I noticed a strange tingling in my anus. It was like having an itch, but not something I wanted to scratch. After having a shit I was in agony, it felt as if my rectum and colon were on fire. The pain was extremely intense. It made it hard to sit, let alone contemplate. I talked to Satya about it and she concluded that all the sitting had given me a bout of haemorrhoids. I accepted this, never having had anything like it before. When I could contemplate I found myself in despair at having lost the glow of the experience and recognising that I was back in my stuff as if nothing had happened. I realised that I had a hope that having a profound experience would change me in some way – it was disappointing to find that it had not – my mind and all its trips seemed intact.
The anal pain became even more intense on day 36. I found it impossible to sit comfortably. I often found myself sweating with pain. Every bowel movement was like torture; I involuntarily screamed a few times. Part way through the day I sat opposite one of my favourite partners, Joe. When it was his turn to communicate he beamed, leant across and said in a confidential tone of voice “you don’t have to worry, it’s all going to be all right. I had this amazing experience that everything is just as it should be and will be absolutely fine. None of us have to worry about the future, it’s all going to be just perfect.” I was delighted. Joe was working on “what is life” and his experience was as infectious as Kate’s the day before. It seemed that quite a few people were having amazing deep experiences.
By now everyone in the group knew about the intense pain I was experiencing. Several people were telling Satya about remedies that had worked when they had haemorrhoids, several of which she set about obtaining for me. Much of the time I was sweating with pain, especially after each bowel movement. During one of the work periods I made a foam cushion with a hole in the middle; this helped a lot and enabled me to sit more comfortably. Nevertheless much of days 37 and 38 were spent facing intense pain. I had never done this before. I would run a mile from pains like headaches and tooth aches – using the strongest pain killers I could find. Now that escape route was not available to me – I just had to face the pain head on. It was actually easier than I feared. It was really awful, but I found that by facing it and going into the pain – not holding against it in any way – it became more tolerable. I did obtain relief from some of the remedies that Satya obtained – suppositories, using witch hazel, having hot baths. So by day 40 I had a routine that meant I could focus most of my attention on my contemplation rather than on the hot poker up my arse.
The main material that arose on day 40 was about how much I loved and missed Eva. I remembered an amazing moment between us after seeing the movie Reds when Eva turned to me and said that she would go through hell to be with me. At the time I felt she reached right into me. Remembering the experience, I felt as if I was in a moment of union with her and knew that I could access the Truth by being completely open to her. I knew that the bond between us was solid; I felt safe and secure and I recognise that with her I can go a long way on my journey to God. Later I spent a whole exercise feeling very loving and wanting to express this physically, by stroking and touching.
In her lecture Satya challenged us all by saying that if we were serious about going for the Truth we had to be willing to give up everything; the good the bad and the ugly. I cried at the thought of giving up Eva and was thrown into another bout of rapidly changing emotions. I was a tyrant, then helpless, then controlling, then powerless. I felt helpless in the spin and realised that I could not, in truth, control anything – so the sooner I just accepted how everything was the better.
Day 41 saw me cutting myself down to size, removing puffed up ideas about myself, discarding both hopes of glory and fears of worthlessness. I am neither a demon (my shadow) nor the holy man – I am simply a spiritual novice. I have found what it is to be humble, to feel the same as others, to feel small in the face of God. I am at the beginning of a long path. I am ready and content to be starting out. Although my anus is giving me a lot less difficulty it is still agony going to the toilet and takes me a few hours to be able to return to full contemplation.
Towards the end of the day I recognised that I was only really open when on my own; when other people are around I am afraid of rejection – especially of having my love rejected. I recalled a message from my wise man: “You are what you’ve always wanted to be, you’ve just forgotten”. I cried remembering it and realised that over and over I just need to accept myself as I am. I saw that I was still absorbing the experience I had ten days ago. I also saw that Truth is not at the top of some mountain or out of reach – it is around me and accessible all the time. All that is required is being more open and accepting the way things actually are – that’s all!
The last day has arrived. I felt sad about the group coming to an end. There is a lot of love in the group and I found myself pleased to be me. I’m pleased to be a man and to have access to so much aggressive, outward going energy. I was pissed off at women who were afraid of it and tried to castrate me. I like real women who like real men! Early in the evening I recognised the miracle that had been in front of me for 42 days; all these people steadily consistently going for more Truth, facing themselves and not giving up. I realised that I do not really admit positive things about myself to my Self. On the last walk I realise again that it is easier for me to be hurt, angry and violent than to own my loving self who will go through hell to experience more Truth. I calmed down and stood under the redwood trees in the dark and I knew that I was a seeker of Truth. I am in tears again, mostly of gratitude, but also with the relief of finding myself to be so positive. It was a small direct experience, a fitting end to this amazing journey.
We all stayed at the venue for a further two days. Talking together normally was often strange, but it was also nice to socialise with people known so deeply. The most difficult time was when a group of us went to a local cafe for dinner. We all had a really hard time choosing from the menu; for the last 6 weeks we had no choice about the food we ate and suddenly being confronted by choice was really odd. One person finally made up their mind about what they wanted and almost everyone said “I’ll have the same”!
My journey home was slightly fraught. My flight had been cancelled and I was transferred to a short haul trip to Boston and then on to London. When I finally emerged from the arrivals hall at Heathrow I was delighted to see Eva who was amazed at how I looked, and it wasn’t just that I had a six week beard! It is very difficult to communicate the significance of the enlightenment experiences I had on Intensives. When someone reads about how we are all free to choose how to respond to events it seems straightforward. But when one experiences it directly it completely changes how one perceives and makes sense of the world. The three Intensives I took within a space of three years completely transformed my inner world. I no longer felt worthless. I knew other states of consciousness existed and were accessible. I was starting to see other people as they actually were instead as some version of the people in my childhood. And now I knew that I was entirely responsible for everything I felt, how I took meaning from the world and how I acted and responded to whatever happens. Knowing these things directly means that they cannot be denied or erased. But knowing didn’t mean that I could suddenly change how I lived and related – that was what I now had to pay attention to.
Next.
A Master's Path 