Anne Faraday's(JWL'S companion) Mellow Dramas

[Guest guest]

Mellow Dramas in Paradise – Ann Faraday

 

It is

relevant to our recent discussions about Gangaji and some other

current Dialogue matters. It also

provides a link with john david who will be at our February (or some

future) Greville Street meeting

and who spent time at Lucknow with Papaji. Ed.)

The central character is an 86-year-old grandfather living in

Lucknow, North India. Largely

unknown and unsung until the early 1990s, this " teacher of

EnIightenment " and erstwhile disciple of

Ramana Maharshi found himself propelled onto the international

spiritual scene after the 1989

publication of Andrew Cohen's book My Master is Myself. It tells the

story of Andrew's meeting with

H.W.L. Poonja and their subsequent extraordinary relationship.

Poonjaji's simple message is grounded in the ancient Hindu philosophy

of Advaita (nonduality)

which, in a nutshell, teaches that there is no God, no you, no me,

but ONLY Impersonal

Consciousness masquerading as you, me and everyone through our unique

individual body-minds.

This Consciousness is and always has been closer than our jugular

veins, and we can never be

separated from it - hence the well-known Hindu saying I AM THAT.

Ignorance of our true identity

gives rise to an illusory sense of separate selfhood, and liberation

from this ignorance is

Enlightenment.

According to Andrew, then a young American seeker, it was love at

first sitting. As Poonjaji

spoke of the possibility of instant Enlightenment irrespective of

prior effort or merit, Andrew

experienced a deep Awakening in which he realized he had always been

Free and that any notion

of bondage was completely illusory. He soon became Poonjaji's star

pupil, and was sent home, with

the mantle of Ramana over his shoulders, to spread the teaching in

the West.

The result was a steady trickle of pilgrims to Poonjaji's modest home

in Lucknow. Many were

" divorcees and widows " of Rajneesh and Muktananda (as the mischievous

anti-guru U.G.

Krishnamurti likes to call them), others long-term Vipassana

meditators hoping for a quicker fix.

Some were Andrew's own students, in particular a glamorous Texan

acupuncturist named

Antoinette Varner - none other than the silver-haired one who smiles

at me from the covers of the

two books on my desk. Apparently her meeting and subsequent

relationship with the Master was as

dramatic as Andrew's. In a small, dilapidated shelter on the banks of

the Ganges, she too

experienced a deep Awakening after being assured that she was already

Enlightened and simply

needed confirmation. Poonjaji later named her Ganga after the goddess

of the river, sending her

home to teach, saying " The Ganga must also flow in the West " .

Andrew's second book, Autobiography of an Awakening, tells the story

of betrayal by his

beloved Master. Not only was Poonjaji regularly appointing new

teachers, giving them Indian names

and pronouncing them " finished " - he was also criticizing Andrew

behind his back for " corrupting the

Dharma. " The crux of his disapproval seemed to be Andrew's

expectation that any true

Englightenment experience should, at the very least, result in non-

exploitative and honest

behaviour, since the " do-er " is no longer the illusory ego but

Consciousness It-Self. Not so, said

Poonjaji, explaining to students that liberation from Ignorance means

freedom from all human

restrictions, including ethical social codes imposed by Religion. But

when Andrew approached him

directly, he denied any misunderstanding and reassured his beloved

Son of his continuing support.

Andrew spells out his concerns in his latest book, An Unconditional

Relationship to Life, and

explores the whole issue further in his aptly-named journal What is

Enlightenment? with

contributions from many other spiritual leaders. Time and again in

his teaching work, he came up

against people misusing Advaita for their own egotistical ends,

either as an excuse for apathy

( " Nothing matters because it's all the Self anyway " ) or for downright

bad behaviour ( " It's not real; it's

just my illusory personality " .) Communication and discussion dried

up, with difficulties quickly

" Advaited " away with quips like " Who is asking the question? " or " Who

is unhappy? " Andrew calls

this " The Advaita shuffle " and sees it as a strategy for avoiding the

uncomfortable dualistic facts of

practical human life.

 

Most seekers, he concludes, tend to get lost in the Absolute view,

and seem to need a teaching that

not only emphasizes the inherent unity of all life, but also

encourages them to explore the mind's

infinite capacity for creating new false notions of self. As for most

teachers, he was reluctantly

forced to accept that only those who were pure-in-heart before

Realization would be pure inconduct

afterwards. As the Western scholar Agehananda Bharati was so fond of

pointing out, " If

you're a stinker before Enlightenment, you'll be an Enlightened

stinker afterwards! "

So what are we to make of Poonjaji? (Who is asking the question?)

Many of our friends who visited

him in Lucknow describe him as a kindly old grandpa who enjoys

talking about himself. One

assured us that he is " the full quid " - spiritually, of course! None

returned " Enlightened. " His two

volumes of tape-recorded Satsang (sittings with a guru), entitled

Wake Up and Roar, are

entertaining illustrations of the way he teaches, with frequent use

of the " Advaita Shuffle. " His message

is quite clear - True Freedom is possible right here and now, no

postponement or practice

necessary! His humour comes across as always kindly. ( " Master, I have

been with you for four days

now and I'm still not enlightened " Poonjaji, laughing: " Yes, I'm

surprised, a smart boy like you " .) And

the value of meditation? No value - other than discovering that the

mind, like a dog's curly tail pulled

out straight, snaps right back to crookedness when you let it go!

Could he be teasing Andrew, do

you think?

Indeed, Gangaji (as she is respectfully known) still refers to her

teacher as " Absolute Love, " and

continues to spread his (Lazy Man's?) version of Advaita far and

wide. She is visiting Australia for

the first time in October/November (1996), holding public Satsang in

Byron Bay and Melbourne, and

we hope to drop in to at least one of them. When I suggested to

Andrew that she might be avoiding

Sydney on account of his newly formed community there, he was quick

to point out that the drama

had mellowed considerably over the years and that animosity was now a

thing of the past!

From her audio-tapes and books, Gangaji comes over as a nice lady,

her teaching intended to lead

you to the space of Absolute Silence below all the comings and goings

of life - a space where you

do not find peace, but know your-Self to be that Peace in which every-

thing rises. In her two

volumes entitled You Are That! Satsang with Gangaji, she urges us not

to explore anything else -

not thoughts, emotions, sensations or circumstances, which have

already received too much attention

- but only " That which is before, during and after all objects of

awareness. THAT! " Her tapes

of Satsang recorded live from boats on the Ganges, temple courtyards

and gardens, along with all

the natural sounds of surrounding life - birds, bells, chanting,

children playing - communicate this

sense of Samsara in Nirvana. What more can be said?

Quite a lot more, actually, if you peruse the long list of books on

Consciousness by Ramesh

Balsekar, a retired bank president and former disciple and translator

of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj of

Bombay. Considered by many to be the most erudite and authentic

mouthpiece for Advaita

teachings today, he doesn't merely parrot his teacher's words, but

interprets them according to his

own deep intuitive understanding " Don't worry about what Maharaj

said " , he tells a pernickety student,

" I'll tell you what he meant! "

While his early books, written before Maharaj's death in the early

1980s, are attempts to present the

teachings directly, Balsekar's later books such as Consciousness

Speaks; Conversations with

Ramesh S. Balsekar take the form of transcripts from his own more

informal question-and-answer

seminars. He comes over in both books and tapes as a kindly, generous

and humorous person with

a great gift for sensing hidden needs and agendas. When asked if he

himself was Enlightened, his

reply was: " For your purposes, yes. " Highly recommend.

Ann Faraday