Michael Wombacher: Conversations from the Heart - Honouring Andrew Cohen through our Stories

Welcome to conversations from the heart honoring Andrew Cohen through our stories. My name is Daniela Bomater. I was a student of Andrews for 17 years and for the past nine years I had the privilege of living and working alongside him. This service is a tribute to his life, his teaching, and the evolutionary fire he sparked in so many of us. Through these intimate conversations, we remember not only the man, but the depths of transformation he catalyzed in our lives. May these stories keep his legacy alive, honoring the sacred thread that connects us and allowing his voice to continue resonating through ours. [Music] So, welcome Mike. Hi. And thank you for agreeing to have this con conversation with me. Third one. Yeah. Well, thank you for, you know, for taking the time to put this together. I feel like what you're doing is very important for reasons we were just discussing before jumping on about about keeping Andrew's figuring out what Andrew's what it means to keep Andrew's legacy alive, you know. Yeah. Exactly. And to be honest, for me it's it seems to be part of the grieving pro process because it I feel like it it keeps me sane to to talk to people and and uh yeah connect with people that have benefited from from Andrew and from his teaching. And I was just listening to one of his last teachings online was a teaching called consciousness delights in its own self-recognition. And I I was kind of puzzled that this is exactly what I feel when I when I talk with people like you when when we kind of together enter that space that that we shared uh around Andrew and and that that is still available to all of us and I think that's that's a good jumping off point and I would I would like you to start probably to to tell me because I don't remember when did you meet Andrew and how did you meet Andrew and uh how did this all unfold? I met Andrew in 1995 um at the Cordom Madera Yoga Center. At the time I was in my early 30s. Um wow. So that makes this almost 30 years ago now. Um wow that's crazy. I was involved with another teacher at the time, very powerful American spiritual teacher. very different kind of teaching almost in many ways almost interestingly opposite of Andrew's teaching in many ways but and yet still an authentic enlightenment teaching which is interesting in and of itself but it's a different very different approach um and I at the time I had a little art gallery in San Francisco I just become a sort of an entrepreneur and I had a a woman who was selling me jewelry that I you know from India and it was Robera Anderson and I think a lot of people Um I I hope she's still with us. I don't know if she still is or not. She was older than me. Um she was very nice woman and she saw when she came into my shop I had a picture of my teacher at the time and his two teachers up there in a little mini shrine behind the behind like by the cash register that you know she noticed you know most people most others wouldn't notice it but she noticed and she goes oh who's that? So we talked a little bit and she started telling me about Andrew and then you know at the time I was so u into my relationship with my my teacher. I was I've never been spiritually promiscuous, you know. So I was with that teacher for 13 years. Um and I had kind of you know like you do a little bit especially when you're young had this arrogant presumption that I've met the beall and endall and I'm not really interested to go see other spiritual teachers. But the thing is, Robera was she had such a mature, deep understanding that I found uncommon about the student teacher relationship and all that stuff. And she didn't think what I was involved in was silly at all. And she wasn't trying to sell me anything other than jewelry, you know. So, um, so then she said, "Yeah, you know, this is Andrew Cohen. He's my teacher. I never heard of him." And but I always had this thing. It's like if there's an enlightened person that's supposed to be around the neighborhood somewhere, I'm going to go see him because I want to see everybody who is like that because I was young and I was still definitely seeking. And um and so I went one night she invited me said Andrew's teaching at the court of Madera Yoga Center where he used to get pretty regular teachings for while he had the center in Marin. And and the first night I went to see him, he just completely, you know, like everybody's story, you know, he just utterly blew my mind. And and when I walked out of there that night, I I was I I was quasi nonfunctional um for about three days. I was so blown out both by um by the just the the the sheer transmission of spiritual power and energy and consciousness of just sitting in that room, but also intellectually I was just completely floored by the I had never heard anybody speak with that kind of articulation about the most subtle aspects of spiritual experience and depth that could only be you know it's like only a person who's been to the North Pole can really tell you what it's like there, right? You can read things and this and that, but you know, there's a transmission from somebody who has been to the territory or who maybe lives, you know, and um but it was this this art and this is a sort of my nature also. I've always been more of an intellect, you know, and then yoga they talk about the devotional type and the this and the that and I've always been more the um the gani, you know, the uh Yeah. Yeah. the the the intellectual type. That's just me. And I and I got that that was Andrew also, you know, he really thought things through. And when he answered a question, it was the end of the question. It was the end of the question. You didn't have that question anymore. It's like, "Oh, that's interesting. That's what he said. I wonder what so- and so says." It just went right to the source of the question and it just snuffed it out with insight, you know, and I I I just was completely blown away. And it was that my wife at the time had gone with me and I we both looked at each other on our drive home. I never forget we were driving back home across the Golden Gate Bridge from into the city and I we just both looked at each other and just said, "Well, this is what's missing in the teaching we're currently involved in which was more um you know was kind of condundalini yoga energetic. Yeah. More it really focused more on the transmission than anything else not so much on understanding. Yeah. That teacher of mine, a former teacher of mine was one, you know, it's like you don't want to look for understanding in the mind. The mind is full of and and and and contradictions and you know it's intellectual analysis always falls short of just surrender. You know he was just very much is just you need to have spiritual experience and kundalini shocki over and over and over again and the energy itself will work through your system. There's truth to that but I also that's it's profoundly limited as well. Um yeah and isn't it interesting that in Andrew it it kind of came together because as you describe it it was not only the intellectual uh part it it came with the experience and we all experienced that and it was mind-blowing. Yeah. And that's that's that's absolutely it just knocked me off my feet. It just knocked me off my feet and it put me into a kind of crisis because I loved my teacher that I was with at the time. I loved him. um you know he had helped me in so many ways um you know so then I felt this kind of conflict but it's like and I went through this for a few so I also felt you know my my my my seeking and my relationship is with with with God right ultimately these different teachers come through your life as a as a kind of missive from beyond because you know something in you is seeking so it attracts these you know these um so I said I you know I'm I'm I'm I'm scared because I don't I really don't want to risk my current relationship. And you know, this is before I really knew too much about teachers egos, too, because I knew my teacher at the time, he was, you know, he he even though he'd never come out and say, you could tell he didn't like when somebody would go see another teacher. Yeah. Yeah. I I think almost almost all the really good teachers have that. No, it's it's interesting. may you know I you know maybe and I you know and it's just one of those things that would take a lot more years of maturing to really get a deeper understanding of but anyway so I didn't say anything to him but at one point in 1996 in January of 1996 oh I know what happened at the cordera yoga center Andrew and I were having some kind of exchange and he was letting me ask a lot of questions you know and like he does for people just starting out you know yeah yeah exactly the beginning he would just let you ask your questions and he wouldn't ever push back on you you know so I had gone to see him now five or six times And I just as I know I remember asking him a question about um do you think you know is is life made up of is is is it free will or is everything predetermined you know is free is it will or is it destiny and you know he just looked at me and again this is one of those moments where he just killed the question right with like a um you remember the Gordian knot you know like the complicated knot that you're supposed to try to figure out untangle Alexander the Great came along with his sword and cut it in half. That was like how Andrew answered questions. He said to me, he said to me, "Mike, what difference would it make to the next decision in your life if you knew the answer one way or the other? Is it fate or is it all freedom and choice? What difference would it make in the next decision in your life?" Right? And I was like, you're right. absolutely none because you still have to whatever the case is, you still have to act as if you're making choices. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Is that kind of the end of the story? Uh uh you know, even if you think it's all predetermined, nothing I can do, you still have to make a choice. Do I go on a date with this one or don't I? You know. Yeah. Yeah. Um and then after that, he said, "So, Mike, I've been answering your questions for some weeks now. So, when are we going to get down to the man-to-man part of this? Why are you asking me all these questions? Is this just some kind of spiritual entertainment for you? And you know at that point and you know this is a skillful teacher, right? So he'd let me be there long enough to get that transmission again and again and again and I'd had some interviews with him privately too. So there was a little connection forming between us, right? And so he got sense of me. He knew there was a connection. I could feel I could feel the connection with him. I just wasn't I didn't have enough in me yet to really respond to it. at that moment changed that you know and he said um when are we gonna get to the man-to-man part of this and then he said we're having a retreat in India in January why don't you come but he kind of threw it down as a challenge like if if you don't then you know I'm not going to I'm not going to keep entertain then I don't take you seriously yeah right I've been entertaining you because that's the stage we're at right but now it's like when are we going to get to the man-to-man part of this and that changed everything again that was like okay you got to just ask yourself this guy's not playing games are you know, are you? And I felt like it was kind of God putting that question to me or the absolute. I mean, I use that word God not in it sort of a theistic necessarily but just because it's a placeholder for the big idea, right? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Um and so I went to that retreat in Bgaya and that was you know it was three weeks so these were long intensives. There was no evolutionary dimension really to the teaching at that point. It was all about just the experience of enlightenment and and reframing your perspectives in the wake of the experience of of that kind of knowledge, you know, of the absol of this inversion of perspective that that everybody basically had when um they spent any kind of time with Andrew. And that's what happened when I was in Bodgaya after 3 days into the retreat. I had like the biggest kind of enlightenment experience, episode, opening, whatever you want to call it, of my life and more so and more s sustained and it was it was fueled by insight, not just by energy. Yep. And um and uh you know and that started a pretty major crisis in my life because that forced me to confront my relationship with my other teacher. And at some point a couple of more years went by and um I was growing frustrated with what I thought were the limiting nature of the teachings of my previous teacher and I was talking to Andrew about it and then again you know once in a while he poses these questions just face you with a direct challenge that and he just said well perhaps perhaps your teacher is not meeting you and your interest and that and that really just hit me like a hammer blow because I you know because I had talked to my teacher I said look I want more I want to pushed more. I want I want to go deeper. I don't want to be just come to meditation classes and hear the lectures. I want something more. And um and I want, you know, and then your teacher pushed you. I I I want I'm ready for that from you. And he goes, I don't do that with people anymore. I've been burned too many times when I tried to do that with people. And he didn't want to do that. And I could I you know now seeing what Andrew went through good and bad you know you could you could understand why because for the most part he might have been a wise man saved himself a lot of trouble he's still teaching just looked him up he's still teaching in New York um but that really hit me and then I went to a a retreat in lay cornets in France and um and after that I decided and things came to that was the one that you wrote the book about. Yeah. No, that was in Monserat. Oh, that was in Monzerat. That was 2005 Monzerat. Okay. Ray Cormet was probably I don't know 2001 2002 something like that. And that's when I decided I need to make a break and it was extremely painful for me to to leave my other teacher. It was extremely difficult and painful but but it was the right move and um again and I was like okay my you know ultimately I'm I'm not looking for just a relationship with a human being. I'm looking to deepen my own pursuit of this mystery and it doesn't and I and I think Andrew is right that teacher is not meeting me in the interest. it's I need to go I want to go further and Andrew shows the way and then so you know we talked a little about that and then he said that thing to me about it's great I'd love to have you part of the teaching but you know at that point in time it was all in or nothing and he said prepare to have your whole life taken away from you know and I think I said this in in that other podcast that I did you know it's like he wasn't joking and I knew it and it scared the crap out he was not joking I mean there's these few moments you know there's a lot of times where he would engage with you and it would be light and you know he he would answer your questions but it would be playful and light and there's other times when you know okay this is the real moment between the guru and the teacher it's like this is you have to drop all the all the facads and you just have to answer the existential question straight up because he's meeting you he's bringing you exactly who he is so you owe it to him to bring him exactly who you are so you got to drop it all at least in this moment here and then you got to reckon with the consequences you know And um and that I did that and then I you know on the one hand I left my teacher on the other hand I didn't move I didn't leave my wife I didn't leave my business I stayed in California but Andrew was this was before there was practitioners or anything like that there was either you were a core student or you weren't any student. Yeah. But he kept in touch with me. He never dropped I always would go see him at public teachings. I always um uh my to introduce my sister to him. She had an outrageously powerful spiritual experience that lasted about 3 months and he really you know he called her up at her house to see how she was doing after the big enlightenment opening that that she that stage she basically lived where he lived for about three months you know and um and then you know and then it kind of dissipated and then I asked her once what happened she said pride it's all pride I thought I had attained something and um Anyway, and then so you know, a few years went by. Andrew always kept the thread with me. That's why I know he always knew we had a thing, but that wasn't a I couldn't engage at that level, but he didn't throw me away. Yeah. You know, like, no, I I think he I I think he loved and respected you deeply from from all I heard him say about you, it was very clear that he thought very highly of you and the feeling was always mutual. And I didn't never turned on him, you know. Mhm. Um, so anyway, that's how I that's kind of how I met Andrew. Yeah. But then you you became a core student. Yeah. You were. Yeah. So then the teaching developed I think after July 31st. Was it 2001? The July 2001. Were you part there of the of the big eruption? No. Um but I had I think at that point some practitioner groups had started to form. Yeah, I know there has. There's some overlap there. I think they had started to, you know, I think because of people like me, I think there was more and more people like me who really wanted what Andrew had to give, but weren't going to just, you know, we're not the monk types. And and um I remember not long after that on a retreat, they started to create discussion groups and I saw how, you know, and that was my first taste of the of the uh of the collective dimension of the enlightenment that we were doing. And and I was blown away cuz then it because it to to know that it started with six months of intense work of de only the most committed people and many of those guys flamed out because it was too much understandably. Um six month silent retreat with no end date. You know if you've ever been on a 10day silent retreat you know how intense those things are. six. Yeah, we we we probably have to explain that a little bit uh clear for people that that hear this for the first time because Andrew literally took people students of his and pulled them out of their workplace, out of of their normal daily lives and put them in indefinite meditation retreat in Fox Hollow. And they were just meditating all day long and then they had discussion groups. Yeah. The only instruction for the discussion groups as I understood was make something happen. Yes. Exactly. Make something happen. And that went on for months and months and months until it erupted on 30th July 2001. In all this this gets left out. You know this is something we talked about in our previous discussion. This gets left out. The commitment of those people. I you know just just anybody who's listening to this think for a minute about what that takes that your teacher calls you you're living I don't know in Australia people were all over the world some of them had some of them had maybe not families per se but a girlfriend or a boyfriend and a job you know all the things we have and it's the message comes from your teacher give it up right now and get over here and if you don't want to if you can't do it then you know you're you then I don't know where you're at in the teaching because this is where my serious his students are, you know, and it's like and and then they six months. I can I still to this day I cannot get my head around that they did that, you know. Um yeah, it's absolutely amazing. And and and then it happened and it wasn't just an imaginary fantastical thing because then once that flame erupted, it's like it's like a little match lit on fire, but you can use a match to start a forest fire. Andrew always used that metaphor, right? But that match needed to get started. And that's what that six months was. It was like it was like striking the match again and again and again until it finally you know um and then and and it feels like something was created in consciousness at that point that then later on was accessible not I wouldn't say easy even today it's not easy but it is accessible with much less effort you don't need six months of meditation correct it is right there right now and I I have had experiences with groups of relatively new people spiritually on the past people but but that hadn't done the the interubjective dialogue work and it exploded between them like like like this. So for me it's pretty clear that something has been created at that moment that yeah that was a real creation that was an emergence that is now available. That's correct and it's still available and I and I and that's when I realized like okay here I can participate now because and also Andrew was starting to create structures to accommodate people like me more and also he knew that somehow this can't just be some little experiment at Fox Hollow. It's got to you got to bring people who have you know I had a serious interest. I just didn't have that level. And also I don't know if it was my karma. I don't know what factors are that work into these decisions. But it didn't feel like the right it would have been felt like a completely inauthentic move to me to move over there at the time and I would have flamed out like so many other people because it would just would have been too much you know. Yeah. But now it wasn't. And also that's that's the thing that I saw this whole hundth monkey effect where um um where all of a sudden these people who just nearly killed themselves to bring this into being um now was available to the rest of us. You know uh again like you said not without effort. I mean we all made a big effort and we all got burned up in the effort sometimes you know when when you know it was our ego that was creating a problem in the room you know. Um but that's when I said that's what I want to participate in. I want to be a link in that chain. I want to be you know um the lit the match is lit but now other people have to burn you know. Yeah. Yeah. Can you describe a little bit how you how you experienced this group so that that people can understand what what the practice actually is which was a real practice in community and still is. I mean we we practice it uh intensively now in in his second coming up to up to his death three weeks ago. Well, you know, it was a developmental thing. We I didn't have any idea what the hell we were trying to do when we first time we started these discussion groups, you know. Yeah. Um so a lot of it was just experimentation and again you know people like myself and and others who like you know if we go for example on a weekend retreat at Fox Hollow there might be two 300 people there right and um yeah yeah none of us had any experience with this so and also I think the people who were guiding the groups also had very little experience I mean they had experience with each other which was a group of intensely committed like again Navy Seals you know they're all intensely committed to each other and they know what they got to do and they you No hesitation, right? But I don't, you know, they needed to figure out how to work with us and Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. But I mean the basics was and is that you want to come together beyond ego. Yeah. If you want to simplify it really really it's a practice beyond ego. people meet practice beyond ego and that was the really hard part because there was people always uh you know who had a lot of experience of practice beyond ego and there was a lot of us in the group who had pretty much none. Yeah. And and and also who were so who still didn't realize and I definitely include myself in this category how much of your spiritual seeking was just another expression of your own ego. Yeah. Yeah. Know I mean it was mixed up. There's always an authentic uh uh uh impulse to seek, but you know, you know how the ego wraps itself around everything, right? And yeah. And so I remember when we first started like just simple things like just learning to feel in the group when what somebody said was coming from ego as opposed to something else, this other dimension that we were all trying to and it wasn't about intellectually analyzing as they said, but feeling where it came from. Mhm. And um that was just so new. And um you know at the end of the day you know I thought about the instructions that we developed over time over a year or two there was a list of instructions that started to develop like what kind of attitudes and postures um facilitate this kind of thing you know and the first one was listening. Duh. These are like basic you know and you you could see how lost we all are in our own egos when we just have everyday conversations with people. How often are we actually listening? You know, was right. He pointed this out over and over and over again. So did his senior teachers. You know, most of the time we're listening for an opening to throw our thing in. So, and then in the groups, it was pointed out when you do that, that's why it falls flat in the group because it's not in the flow. It's coming from your own brain. So, I remember Jeff who was like a master at facilitating these things. Yeah. Yeah. He was, you know, I remember when, you know, when outside, you know, he he said one thing. It just for some reason struck me in terms of the kind of the renunciate discipline you had to do with your own mind in these groups where you could, you know, you have to have the training to see your own ego and feel it arising and then just disregard it. The meditative practice, that's where it all came together, right? And um he said if there's something in a conversation and you feel an opinion come up that you've said before, drop it. Forget it. Forget it. Exactly. That's not it. that's old and dead and it's just coming from the, you know, from the from the attic where all you store all your your opinions that you're just waiting to trot out at an appropriate moment in a conversation, you know. So, just drop it. And of course, that brings you into a vulnerability like you want to know and it took me a long time. It took everybody a long time, I think. You want to you want to it's got to be more spontaneous where you can't kind of plan it and you and it's a direct response to something somebody's saying not to Yeah. Because in the end it's not your small self that that that is in conversation but the the idea is that that the authentic self the big self that is the same in each and every one of us is having a conversation with itself. And when you achieve that then then the beauty when that happens when that happens it's oh my god it just blows the lid off because the most blown up enlightened state that you ever had by sitting in front of the teacher is now you're you're having with the group and this in this incredible sense of like you all know you're in it together. You all know you know and everybody knows there's a precious field and that we all got to because it you know and this is what we discovered again and again and again. One person comes from a little bit of their own ego and it crashes the whole thing immediately because it's so delicate still. It's such a new emergence. It's so delicate and at you know at different times it was any of us could would do that you know and then you'd have to then the the person facilitating the group would just you know have to look at the group and like say can you feel what just happened and of course you were the one the last one who spoke you're like oh you know but this is where like that's when serious that's when spiritual maturity humility seriousness all this stuff come together because at that point you're always you know, and so many people couldn't deal with it. Um, where you're challenged, it's like, okay, this is a person who's telling you this, who you've acknowledged in the past has more insight than you do. So, you need to just take it on board. And yeah, and and just and just at least start from the presumption. This is something I learned from my first teacher. Always start from the presumption you're wrong. Yeah. And that they know something you don't. You might not be but but but start there because then you have room to explore. So that was always the challenge the existential and not lose your mind emotionally in the moment when you feel maybe you've been humiliated crash everybody's looking at you and then you know all the defenses go up and that's the egoic training right because then you got to in that moment you have to have the wherewithal through your meditation practice your celibate practice and all this stuff that's these things weren't ends in themselves they were to facilitate this yeah yeah the dropping of all that in an instant and then and then when you do that then it wouldn't take very long for the whole thing to rise up again. Exactly. And so and and most of these groups were like an up and down of that but the up and down was important because you can feel the difference. You could start feeling into it. You could start feeling when things and when things when things popped oh my god then you're just like we talked the other day you know this experience of this whatever the self-absolute authentic self of that power in capital letters. Yeah. Yeah. in the room, not just talking to itself through a bunch, but also discovering more about its own nature, about its own reality, and about these new potentials that were new to even that power in this reality. And that's that's when you felt like you were just completely on the creative edge of the universe. You're literally with the power that created the universe exploring potentials even it isn't yet aware of that it's intuiting just as you're intuiting them. it's intuiting them and you're pushing together towards that and you know in terms of a mission for life I mean there just was never anything greater that I experienced than that that you got oh because then it was also not very difficult to see how this finally made the link for me philosophically about the connection between per you know your own freedom enlightenment non whatever however you want to frame it yeah yeah and the evolution of the world uh because you know pretty much enlightenment, spiritual practice. It's been an individual endeavor, you know, pretty much forever. Um, the individual gets enlightened. It's amazing. The individual is liberated from this world, you know, to to be free from it forever, not to participate in it fully. Exactly. Right. Um, and that's when you just saw all of these philosophical threads, all of it just came together right there in these radically clear, radically transcendent uh uh uh moments. And this experience of being with people where on the one hand, you know, you and I be sitting here talking just like we are and I can see where your body is and you can see where my body is and I can see that, you know, your mind is like this, mine is like this and everybody else, but at a felt emotional level, you really couldn't tell where you ended and the other one began. Um, and at the same time and at the same time, you you still could feel the micness or the danielness coming through this oneness. And that for me is so so puzzling and so amazing because you are not losing who you are as a manifest person. You're affirming the duality of your own existence. You know the existence as an individual separate unique individual and the primary existence of that asource is the source and and the binder between all of us and everything and all and that that power is going somewhere that it wants to go. This is always a thing and it wants to go somewhere but it can't you know God's not you might God might be omnipresent but not omnipotent he needs he she it conscious co-articipants to make this happen and that was like I mean I could never think of a greater mission to have in life than to to to somehow facilitate that. I mean to me it just and I think all of us that were there felt that way that you know when you really got that hit with what I'm describing it would leave you changed forever it would change your entire moral ethical orientation to life to your not to life capital L all of it your personal life and your spiritual life was just completely transformed and that's what I remember the most about Andrew and that's this is again in the narrative that this is what gets left out and all of those people who look at us and go well you guys were in a crazy cult man what's wrong with you did you not you know did your daddy not love or something. Um, and you know, this is what gets left out. Yeah, totally. In terms of a lot of the bitter students who left before all this happened, I think Andrew said this a lot, they went through all the difficulty and pain and trauma of attempting to manufacture this kind of transformation and they didn't get any of the benefit of it. Yeah, that's the tragedy. The hell world. They only experience the hell world. And nobody who goes to hell and comes back says it was a fantastic place. Yeah. So true. Wow. Yeah. It is an amazing practice. I'm I'm very curious also to hear a little bit about how how it came that you wrote the book about that retreat that you attended because I was I remember that I read the book. I was a very young student. I came to Andrew 2008. When you when did you write your book? 2000 I I started the retreat was in 2005. Yeah. So um so it took me three years to write. So I started after the retreat and um I remember when the retreat was over and just in the last session and Andrew was walking up a staircase to back to his room or whatever in the hotel we were in and you know and there was a lot of hubbub and swore. You know how it is the end of a 10-day retreat. It's just back and forth. Everybody wants a piece of Andrew. he's sort of protected by his senior students so no you know so that he doesn't get mobbed and ask you know he can actually and I just I wasn't up near the front there and I I you know I I was trying to kind of get his attention and it just wasn't happening so I just you know I just because I had this idea and then he saw me and then this is this is the thing with Andrews like a lot of his people never took me that seriously but he did so he saw me in the back of the crowd there and he goes, you know, he he goes, you know, just like come on, waved me up and said to somebody who was standing next to him, maybe it was maybe Rob or somebody said, "Go get him. Bring him in." I want to see what he wants. So a few minutes later I was up talking to him and you know I brought up the books like because I had always loved spiritual autobiographies and I wanted to write one for a long time like in a modern context you know that really took that student teacher relationship and represented it in the streets of Manhattan which where my first teacher lived you know California and all these places. Um, so I said that to him, you know, one was called the what was it? Um, the way of the peaceful warrior. I mean, now I look at that book and go, you know, a little newagy, you know, it wouldn't necessarily be my cup of tea, but it had a big impact on me at the time. And then I read Daughter of Fire and then I read Yeah. Um, Daughter of Fire, 900 pages, every one of them blew my mind. So, yeah. Yeah. Um, I am that, Naradata's book, I am that. And I told Andra, I said, "Look, I always wanted to write this kind of a spiritual autobiography that really and I and your teachings are so, you know, and I said a lot of things. I said, I really would love to be able to write about my experience of this retreat, but it would and also in a way that really puts your teachings out there front and center. Could I have all the transcripts from this retreat because they record everything and then there somebody transcribes them, right? So there's just reams of this stuff and he's he I I don't remember if he said yes. He he pretty much said yes right then and there. He said I think it's you know how Andy was something hit him. He didn't have to think things through that much. Not like this. You just got a spontaneous hit that this felt like the right thing to do. And he gave me the okay. And I know that there were people around him who saying why you're going to give all the transcripts from this retreat to that guy in California that lightweight. I mean, he's a nice guy and everything, but um you know that that and he and he did it anyway. And so, you know, that felt to me like, you know, like I feel about the book that I'm working on that felt like a kind of a spiritual mission for me. So I spent the next years working on that and um amazing and then put it together and then managed and then this is nobody's going to publish this and then I got a publisher and then you know and this is just maybe this is just my own ego just still griping a little about back in those days but um it it was a relatively solid it put Andrew on the map in a way it it brought a lot of the next couple of retreats about 50% of the people when they were surveyed what brought you know mentioned the book. Yeah. Yeah. I can believe that because the book had a big impact on me too because it was so well written and had so much transmission of of of what really what you went through during the retreat. It was also very very uh vulnerable and authentically expressing what you what you felt, what you went through, what was difficult, what was wonderful. It was just Yeah, it's a great book still, I guess. Well, you know, I I hope that um somehow as we put together, you know, kind of a central place where, you know, at least the best of Andrew's teachings is available digitally. You know, like I said, I I I want you guys to have my book. I want it up. It can be a free PDF download. I can get you all that stuff because I have a feeling in future generations when the when all the things around Andrew that are that are negative that you know and then the people who are you know saying all those things when that's all gone and all the challenge of Andrew as a personality isn't there anymore and other people like you know I said this to you the other day other young people who discover spiritual longing like we all did early on um and and start perusing the net the web at that point for teachers will have a chance to come across this and I think my you know Andrew's teachings sorry Andrew's books I always thought they were underwritten um and he was always into the sort of the clean zen kind of you know all his books they're just like these you know like enlightenment is a secret it's just one little paragraph of insight on a page you know but there was nothing out there that actually expressed and it was a lot of his books freedom has no history there all these little things were just power teachings. Um, but there was nothing out there at all that described what it was like to be with him as a as a you know in these things. True. And that that living part of the whole student teacher relationship, you know, and and that's something I always wanted to represent was like what's the student teacher relationship look like in today's world, you know? I'm not going to India to go pretend I'm Indian and wrap myself in orange robes and sit out at the temple and tiamalai as a white guy and with a begging bowl pretending, you know, to have a spiritual life, you know, is what does this look like for people like us here in our world? Yeah. And and how how does it look like when you look back this student teacher student teacher relationship? What what what are the Well, you know, most important ingredients, I would say. I think the most important ingredient is sincerity. Yeah. On both parts, really. Yeah. It's astonishingly hard to find. Yeah. Um Um I think uh Yeah. I I mean I What are the most important parts? What are the most important parts as a student approaching a teacher? Is that is that what you're what was the question? Yeah. Or or no, just what is the most important ingredient for a student teacher relationship to actually work as it is meant to work that that it's developmental for the student and probably also fulfilling for the teacher. We I I sometimes think we forget that the teachers the gurus are also human beings. And being so close to Andrew, what I realized was more and more so many people objectified him in a way. You know what I mean? whereas they didn't really see the human being that wi with his own needs also and and his that's right emotions and his emotional reaction and everything and uh so I find it an interesting question what how does the student teacher relationship actually work so that it's it's good for both sides I think you know these you could come up with long intellectual explanations But I think it's really simple. Trust and surrender. Yeah. Trust and surrender. Ultimately, you know, there's all kinds of little litmus tests, you know, like when you know, it's like say, you know, it's like in the beginning when a student and a teacher first meet that the responsibility is on the teacher to prove himself to the student. I'm sure you've heard this before. The responsibility is on the teacher. And that's, you know, and he used to say, you know, and this was also my experience with other I went to see lots of teachers. I only had relationships with two, but I went to see tons of them. But um he said, you know, if something doesn't, and this was bold, if something doesn't happen in the first meeting pretty quickly, that's not the one for you because the real teacher something's going to happen pretty quickly that's going to prove to you beyond a doubt about where this person is coming from, you know, and so the teacher may have to do that even a handful of times because there's all kinds of reasons not to trust people, you you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And um and so but at a certain point and I think that was that moment when he said to me, you know, at at Corttomadero Yoga Center, so when do we get to the man-to-man part of this or am I just some kind of spiritual entertainment? You know, that's when like he had he had it's been five or six times he had now proven himself. He knew I wrote him and told him what I experiencing after meeting him. And so then it's the next and then it comes the other way, you know. So then it's but I think trust and surrender at the end of the day and sincerity. Trust, surrender, sincerity and and some courage, willingness to be burned. Yeah. Yeah. And funny enough, I I resonate the most with with trust of all the terms that you mentioned because in my own experience, because this is all about ego transcendence, the one ingredient you need when it comes to to kind of the endg game, whatever that means, but or or to a real breakthrough. Then when the ego really doesn't want to listen and really doesn't want to agree and really doesn't want to do what what what it should do, surrender to God, not to the guru, to God, to spirit, to the absolute then only when trust is strong enough. That that was at least my experience that in the end at at that time there were a few days that were crucial in my development with Andrew. I could only hold on to trust in him. That was the only thing that still was there and everything reveled but the trust was there and that that in the end led to a breakthrough and love you know I always as much as was hard you know he was hard there was something you know when you met him in those moments when it was just you and him and you were in you were both in that state together um the foundation of there was there was a kind of love there and it was it was Yeah, it was that kind of big impersonal love, but it was also personal. Yeah, it was both. And I felt I always felt that from Andrew, even when I didn't feel it from others. Um Yeah. Um so it's a love I think love is it's like, you know, you feel seen and loved in a way that is very uncommon as at the foundation, you know, then all that is that all all that is tested later. You know, how much love and trust is there? Yeah. And and also, you know, I guess this and this is the really hard tricky thing, an an ability to and this is where the sincerity comes in, I think, the ability to take critical feedback and and and analyze. I mean, you can't just say, "Oh, he said, you know, I'm this way, I'm that way, so it must be true." But to actually, you know, go looking inside yourself to see where that's true, why, when, how, you know, um it takes a lot, you know, we I think most of us are so conditioned to just automatically defend. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Um especially when it comes to these deeper sensitive things, you know, that has to do with your self-image, right? Um very true. trust, surrender, love, love and trust, love and trust. I I always felt like and even even towards the last couple years when I thought he did some things that didn't really line up with all that um I under I always felt like no underneath all of that whatever else is on this sort of intermediate or you know more superficial levels happen underneath all there's love there's real love none of this is malicious ever. Yeah. Um it it's it's it's Yeah. So I think that's trust, surrender, sincerity. Trust, surrender, sincerity, love. Those would be the words. [Music] Um vulnerability, courage, because you can be burned. You make yourself vulnerable, you drop your defenses, you you can be burned. And even when the burning is like a burning up of stuff that needs to be burned up, it's still painful. It's still painful. It doesn't feel good because you can you know it you know it I mean I know it anyway and and I somehow I always had this knowledge that when you open yourself to the trust and the love it's also because you're going to burn and burning is painful and in the pain are you going to are you going to you know I mean that's where that you know there's so many beautiful things in Christianity about in the symbolism you know was on the cross father why hast thou forsaken me you know He um he could have renounced God. Maybe they would have taken him down off the cross, whatever. I don't know. But he did. Yeah. Yeah. You know, he didn't. And so this is a kind of a relationship that is not understood in the modern world except, you know, by those few of us who've been lucky enough to be in it and be burned by it. I think all of us, I mean, I know I've been burned. I know a lot of people have been burned. So, you know, it's like you get close to the fire. Yeah. you're going to burn and some of the stuff is going, you know, burning is painful. Even if the stuff that's being burned up is the stuff that needs to be burned up and turned to ashes in you, burning hurts. Yeah. And um which is why I always had a really big problem with all this kind of blue what my first teacher used to call blue angels with pink wings spirituality. Yeah. Exactly. You know, where it's all loving. I mean, people who talk like that really have no idea what they're talking about. Yeah. There's that dimension. of of love absolute of a kind of overwhelming love that you can that you can be uh devastated by periodically, you know, but it's not it's often, you know, love burns too. And yeah, absolutely. You know, um well, anybody who I mean, even in human relationships, you know, you you know, love burns too. Um, it's interesting and and Andrew Andrew didn't like the word love so much. He he often talked in the last years about that he that he loves the word trust much better than the word love because he feels like love is is coming and going and people speak about the big love and then they forget about fall in love and fall out of love and it's so nonreliable in in in a way well as an emotion as an emotion but when you realize it as a state of being you know as a as the deeper state of being of the of of that out of which you arose. Yeah, that's true. Uh that's different. But yeah, but it's very and especially in in in the new age circles, you know, it's all it's very wishy-washy and soft and gooey and it makes people and also people like the word God and some other words, people already think they know what it means. And so the second you mention the word then all these associations come up and then and then suddenly you feel unloved because something harsh was said to you about your you know that's probably true. Yep. And you say what do with spirit I I thought it was unconditional love and I always this is one of the things I love with many things that Andrew said you know he always poo pooed this notion of unconditional love and and he differentiated it from absolute love. Yes. Right. Um, but you know, I think the most pathy thing he said is like unconditional love. What good is it? I love you. You know, you're you're a serial killer and a and a and a financial fraudster and um sociopath, but I love you anyway, which is the motivation to change. If love isn't a force for change, then um what's the point? Yeah. Just a good feeling. No, no. His he his way of showing love was to to want you to evolve, to want you to grow, to want you to develop. And and that was also his attitude to himself. The Yeah. It's an evolutionary teaching. We want we want to grow. We want to as a maturing spiritual seeker, you have to learn that. If you don't learn that, you're never going to get far. you you'll end up in some place where everybody tells you you're fine and just meditate and if you're too stressed out, you know, let's bring your blood pressure down and you know, let's let's everybody give you a big hug and um and that's what most of these spiritual communities are like. So, and that's that's one of the reasons I was attracted to this because this this guy was not playing games and he you know and and and and then you start to understand a different dimension of what love is. Yeah. the love of a, you know, in some way the closest thing might be the love of a parent who sees that their child is doing really bad things in their life. They're going to have lifelong consequences and might do something drastic like if they're 14 and 15 and running with the wrong crew, pull them out of school and send them to a military academy or something, you know, it's harsh. Yeah. But it's because because the parent understands though this is where this is going right now. it's going to end really badly, you know, and they'd have to do some interventions. So, I think that's what the guru is supposed to do. You know, where you're going right now is more ignorance. Yeah. Because everything in the world reinforces your ignorance. Yeah. Um, you know, and no, and and it's also that Andrew's Andrew's teaching always was was focused on on how you live your life that that how you live your life should be an expression of the teaching. So it it it never was a an escaping the world. It was always about showing up in the world as a as a better person. Yeah. Yeah. Well, which is which should be and I think it is actually the aspiration of most spiritual paths is to make us into better people. But um but there was a way you know when you're involved with the it's like the difference between playing paintball, you know what paintball is, you know, with the uh with the little Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. difference between playing paintball and joining the US the Navy Seals. Yeah. I mean that that's the you know um Yeah. Yeah. A lot of stuff that I saw out here is playing at spiritual. You know what? You know, Andrew had the great had the great phrase. They were living the spiritual lifestyle. Um and Andrew was teaching the spiritual life. And um and that was really very different. And yeah, once you read some of these books like Daughter of Fire, if your own sincerity is there, I mean, that is what you're looking for. That's what I was looking for. And it scared the out of me simultaneously. And I'm sure there's endless numbers of people involved that had exactly the same experience. It's the most exhilarating and the most frightening thing you ever undertook. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe like climbing Everest or something. I don't know. I don't know what a good analogy is, but that was I think that's you asked about, you know, what's my understanding of the essence of the student teacher thing. Yeah. And I mean it was also like the utopian aspiration like that Andrew was a utopian idealist and and he all he set us all on fire with this utopian ideal and and a utopian ideal is dangerous in itself and and one has to to see how to navigate it. But I still feel like it's it's worth to have an ideal a utopian ideal to strive for. It's all risky business you know. This is the other stuff you So because Andrew, we talked about this a lot during the day, you know, because because the Muslim terrorist also has a utopian ideal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so we ought to be, you know, this is it's all tricky territory. It's all treacherous terrain, you know, we're we're we're um having to navigate the deeper spiritual forces in us as they intersect with the animal forces of our of our animal body and mind and and you know, millions of years of evolution, you know. I mean, Orobindo really nails all that. You know, the animal looking to, you know, what is it? Maybe I said this the other day. There's again, I'll paraphrase this. Uh, but it was Oroindo. It's one of the most beautiful things he ever said, which is um what is it for you? What is man? Man is an axis upon which the world turns in whom nature looks with animal eyes to her divine ideal. Wow. Yeah, man is an axis. I mean, I'm I'm paraphrasing it. I'm using this quote in my book, right? There's some dialogue, but um man is an axis upon which the world turns in which nature looks through animal eyes to her divine ideal. I think I I have never come across a phrase that in those few little words sums the whole thing up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we're looking with animal eyes. Look all the lust, murder, all the petty impulses, all the little egoic self-protective structures. Yeah. That got us to this point in evolution. What people forget we are the apex killers on the planet. That is why we're here being able to talk about goodness, truth, and beauty and things like that. Only the apex killers get to do that. Now look at the irony of that cosmologically, right? Yeah. Yeah. the the world is full of pain and suffering. It's the overwhelming quality of the experience of almost everything that lives is pain and suffering first. That's the Buddha pointed that out. It's the big underbelly and then on top of that you can have a glaze of something, you know, of something better. Yeah. What you're pointing to is also that it's us that is creating the values and the moral and the ethical uh guidelines that we want to live by. It's it's it's not inherent in in the illusia impulse or the impulse that has created the universe. This this moral and ethics. I think it's it's a a combination between this force and and us actually create the appropriate values and morals as we go. Right. And but but they but they're based on and this is like goes back to the enlightened communication thing, but they're based on it's a vision towards unity. It's always a spiritual drive. There's always a vision towards unity. Yeah. You know, so how do we get to through all this? And that's, you know, spirit had to, you know, and this is traditional, I think, Hindu teaching probably that spirit involved itself in matter and became lost in it for a while and then had to create sufficient complexity in the world of matter to create creatures like us, human beings, strive towards the light again. Exactly. you to have a sufficient cognitive wiring to start to be able to transcend all of our base impulses that got it here and then start to respond to this vision in a way that my dog lovely as he is cannot do you know um um and again that's what we were all involved in that's what we were trying to that's what was pointing to um you know I think teard shardan also to some degree although he wasn't I he couched things in different in in different ways Orindo was really the more mystic. Um yeah, you know what is very interesting Andrew and I talked a lot about that here we live here in Turban Mallaya where Raanamar she was uh residing and Shirroindo was only two and a half hours away and they lived at the same time. So they were they are contemporaries. Yeah. Did they ever meet? No, they didn't. And they didn't like each other's philosophy. They did, you know, now you have the the two two of the most enlightened people living at the same time, but they didn't agree with each other's interpretation of that. Isn't that it's very interesting? You know, the similar thing happened when Andrew and interviewed Echarolei. Yeah. Yeah. So, nobody denied ever Echart's extraordinary attainment and enlightenment. I met him several times at at teachings he gave and he was he was the only other one where that I mean my first teacher had a very powerful transmission but but it but it all pale in comparison to Andrew and the only other person I ever felt that kind of power from immediately just by being in the basically literally within 10 feet of this person. Yeah. Yeah. Was Echart and the kind of and he had a kind of purity. I mean I really think that whatever ego is and pride and all that stuff it's in some people it just gets burnt out you know Ramana was like that right exactly uh I'm sure there's others I I don't know I don't know enough about Oroindo to say one way or the other but you fill that at Echart and um and they had a couple of interviews andrew always had a huge regard for him as as a in his attainment but they couldn't have had a more different philosophy. Exactly. And it was very interesting, you know, once Andrew kind of speculated, you know, if you know a little about Echart, the way he came to his awakening was through attempted suicide. Through Yeah. Yeah. through suffering. Through enormous suffering. He struggled with pain and depression and suicide. You know, he was going to he was on the edge of blowing his brains out sitting on the side of his bed and and um and then he started to feel something come over him and a voice said just said, "Resist nothing." And then he blacked out. And then he woke up the next morning the way he is now. Amazing. But he was always he's always much more aligned with the traditional eastern teaching. This is Maya and this is your pain body and you want to be free from it. And it was always exactly later he started writing a little about the sort of more universal dimensions of it but it was never it was always ultimately still personal enlightenment. But I think nowadays he is also talking which I find surprising about manifestation and visualization and manifestation like that you manifest with your thoughts and this kind of things. So his teaching I think has developed. Yeah. Uh and Andrew was very diff but Andrew was very different and it just Andrew's experience he was a you know I mean yeah he had rough parts in the background but more or less he grew up as a optimistic upper middle class Jewish kid in New York you know energy and I you know I spent lots of time in New York and I know a lot of those New York Jewish types you know like just smart driven intelligent ambitious you know you know energy energy energy right and so that was Andrew it was just amazing to how the two different worldviews like Orurobbindo and Ramana. Yeah, it's literal. It's almost a literal comparison. You could have the same kind of grounded realization and then your humanity however you know it it it interprets and understands it in different directions. Yeah, that's fascinating to me. We had this idea like a year ago, no, nine months ago to uh create a conference in Oruroville where we would where we wanted to bring together uh Oruroindo and Ramana scholars and teachers and practitioners and try to kind of bridge that gap in a conference. And uh I I find it still a very very interesting idea because for me this is also the bringing together of being and becoming. No and andrew did did in in the last years he the development of his teaching was nothing else than bringing being and becoming closer and closer together as one embrace. And for me like Ramana and Orindo is is kind of the being and becoming that that could could merge Well, sure. I just started reading Life Divine um by Oroindo, you know, his big sort of master work. It's very difficult to read. I mean, his language is extremely dense and and convoluted that old English Oxford sort of a that's where he was educated, you know. Um but um but this whole idea of that the two need to come the the the relative and absolute need to come together in one singular expression of both. Yeah. Exactly. Is is is is is shot through every page basically. You know he had that insight uh early and he really you know he criticizes like the section I'm in right now. You know, he talks about the materialist denial of spirit and then and but then also the spirit denial of material, you know, of material. It's all an illusion. It's all a dream, you know. Um and and and his whole point is they're both denials based on a prejudice. Yeah. And until you until those two denials are resolved in a deeper integration, you're not seeing the whole picture. Because in in the world is Maya, you the world is still pointless. You can still be an annihilist about the world. You can still not care if we blow each other blow ourselves up in a nuclear holocaust, you know, because and many are and many are here in Kiranomalai like the the adenon or neo aditan that that uh speak all about there is no doer and nothing that can be done. Then then you you just pull back and there is no doer. That's it. And that's kind of the end of of any attempt of of wanting to to bring something good into the world. It's it just you surrender and that's it. It's a kind of nihilism. You know, they close it. It's it's spiritual nihilism. Yeah. There is no purpose. So, you know, all life and it lets you off the hook. It lets you off the hook. No responsibility. No responsibility. You don't have to really deal with your humanity at all because it's all a dream. That's the body mind doing things, you know. Exactly. And that is that's and that's, you know, and it's interesting to me that in the 40s or wrote so strongly about that. as a partial view. Yeah, it it by definition and you don't have to be especially smart to see the partial view because you're denying Yeah, I was going to say half a reality. I don't know what percent reality the physical reality is, but whatever it is, you know, you're splitting the you're split you're once again splitting the one into two. Yeah. And it's supposed to be non-duality. Yeah. you know, and so Oruro Bindo had that and Andrew had that in spades and Echart doesn't. Not really. I mean, I think he later on he kind of I think and maybe it was exposure to some of Andrew's, you know, more cosmic teachings, evolutionary teachings he still fundamentally it's a personal enlightenment teaching and the message to escape from the suffering and pain of the world. But he came at it from a person who was committing suicide. Andrew came at it with a young man, young man's attitude of curiosity about life. Yeah. and liking life, liking being in life and being alive, all the things that life brings with it, friendships, relationships, all of it, ups and downs, you know, and I think that's a much I well, I think two things. A, it's much more reflective what reality actually is as we can see because we can exp, you know, we're these unique creatures unlike my dog here. Uh, we're these unique creatures who can experience both. Yeah. Uh and so then to just you know you know pre you know preference one or the other it's not there's nothing non-dual about it. You can't call that neoadita stuff non-dual. No, it's not. Exactly. It's not. Yeah. By definition, I mean, look, you don't need any mystical insight to see that. You No, no, no. It's obvious. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Do you have any kind of anecdotes that you would want to share that you had with Andrew? just if something comes spontaneously to your mind. I think the one and I may have said this to you the other day. I mean there's so many you know I'm sure if I asked you that question you'd wow you'd okay let me go through my journals and see well the ones that really stick with you. You don't have to look to your journals. Um I think I mean there are many but the one I'll never forget is um I had been involved with him for some years. I was on a retreat in Fox Hollow. I had been involved with him probably seven, eight years now. So, you know, pretty deep in um as you know, at the level that I was at sort of practitioner what you know, I don't remember what the categories were, but I was being taken very seriously. I'd gone on long retreats. You know, I had lots of, you know, friendships and relationships in the community and and was running centers out here and stuff like that. Uh I was on a retreat with him and you know, Andrew always encouraged people to go see other spiritual teachers and you know, because he was always curious and interested what other people were teaching. And so I had gone to see somebody out here and um had a very powerful experience with this person and uh and at that retreat you know Andrew always wanted to hear what your experience his spiritual experiences he's always very interested in everybody's spiritual experiences you know take time to listen in front of 300 people at a retreat and so I was telling him about what had happened and he listened very patiently and then and then he just looked at me at one point and I was sitting right up front and he just looked at me in one point and you just and again he had known me for some time he knew kind of experiences I had had and so forth goes but Mike haven't you had enough grace in your life and I literally didn't understand the question because you know my understanding was that you know you want to have as many spir experiences of spirit as possible because that's going to fuel your ongoing transformation whatever you know and um I so I just said I don't know what you mean and he just looked at me and again it was one of those moments where it was no longer banter Yeah, it was just direct like eye to eye. You know what I'm talking about, man? That that that conduit is his eyes are in your eyes and it's just a dead serious question. And he just looked at me and he goes, "But Mike, do you know what the truth is?" Yeah. And I and I was just like I I felt like like a butterfly that got pinned to a board. It's like, okay, you cannot escape from this question with clever postmodern workarounds. What do you mean by truth? What is truth? Da da da da da. No, no. No, it was just a no man-to-man question, right? Do you know what the truth is? And he knew the experiences I had. So, I had to say, "Yes, I do." That was a that was a weird thing to say because, you know, you're not supposed to ever admit that you know something in the spiritual world, right? Um Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um so, but I you know, I had to say, "Yes, I do." He goes, "Then when are you going to stop seeking and get process purification?" Yeah. And in that moment, something just completely flipped in me. And the whole idea of seeking more spiritual experience literally it just died right there to this day. Yeah. And now I don't seek I I sit to meditate because I want to deepen my experience of already what I already know is under all the turbulence, right? Um but I but it just ended something in me and I was like, "Wow, he's telling me I'm a finder and I need to own it." And I'm sure you've heard that many times. Own it. Oh yeah. Own it. Yeah. Own it then live up to it. Do something with the thing. Get on with the process of purification. Get on with the process of purification. Yeah. You know why keep coming to God like a beggar with a with your hands open like this? You know, when I feel you, I'll stand for you. When I don't feel you, well, you never know, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I I think that's one of his this one of the strongest parts of his teachings. this encouragement that we become experience independent that enough is enough. You need experiences but then you want to become experience independent. You know the truth, you want to live up to the truth if you feel it or not. I I find that so encouraging. And the other thing that kind of goes with that now that I'm thinking back about it is the whole teaching about um the experience of enlightenment and the perspective of enlightenment. And uh you know the and he always said you know the experiences are going to come and go. That's what experiences do. So if spirit for you is an experience it's going to come and go. But but when but but and then he went you know on some of these retreats he went to great lengths but what is when you're in the experience what is the perspective that holding naturally that you're in that you it's not even you're holding it it was thrust on you because you're having an experience at that moment you want to be free more than anything else y right at that moment you want to really know and face everything right all those things at that moment you see the the radical impersonality of everything at that moment. You want to live for the sake of the whole that you just recognize you are. Beautiful. Uh exactly. And so I was just like, "Oh wow, that was a complete reconfiguration for me because it's like in those many moments when I don't feel especially enlightened, that's where the teaching was so powerful." Then you can adopt this perspective. Yeah. And and then he always would point us really what's the difference between the person who's acting enlightened in the world, whatever that means, and the one who actually is. Yeah, that's a very interesting question. Is it all feeling dependent or is there something is there a deeper substratum and a scaffolding? So I always saw the teaching as like building a scaffolding around yourself. Yeah. That allows you to hold the perspective. And if you're holding the perspective, that experience is going to come visit you more often because the structures are there. You know, it's just like having No, no. Exactly. And it's subtle because you need deep experiences and you can feel it in other people if the experience have been there at one point because then you you you you feel the grounding of the person. But you don't need the constant repetition of the experiences. At one point you are just grounded in in this knowing in this deep trust and in the perspective as you say and that gives you the guidelines to Yeah. And then and then you know then then then you find out all the areas where you got to change where you're not holding that perspective you know and then it's it's so that was the the radical coherence of Andrew's teaching that the brought together like every aspect you know obviously the whole shadow bit was not in the picture at all because it's a shadow and then you know we discovered with painful consequences about all that but that's not really what this is all about but you know and then even like after after everything fell apart and you know I was involved my my my marriage fell apart and I now got involved in a new relationship and that person who I'm still involved with now she just has zero interest in any of this and she would kind of look at me times and she kind of pushed me you know in a way that I found annoying at times but she wasn't wrong which is like if I would you know that we would be out together and I would do something like act impatiently or be angry or just you know the usual kind of irritated things that we all do in life right yeah she goes what what you know what what did you learn all that because I don't see it I just see he was just and she was you know she was right and funny thing that a friend of mine said I was out with him and and he's this he's like a you know he's this brother from the hood as we say over here he's this black guy who lives near me and you know he's different very different background than me and we became very good friends especially during the pandemic we always worked out together I told him about all this stuff and one I don't know one day we were driving along and I you know I got a little bit temper in traffic or something. He goes, "Man, I thought you did all that meditation and all that stuff, man. What's up with you?" I said, "Well, you know," he goes, "I think," he says, "I think you ought to get your money back because it didn't take." So, you know, so then all our in real life, all our deeper experiences are always faced with that part of oursel. Yeah. Yeah. you know and I had to take that very serious like what impacted all of this really and that is the ongoing grappling you know uh to this day with um you know the absolute realizations you certainly have had and um and the relative life that you're still living and then and then you know the intersection of all that with the ego that you need to function in the world and all your little neurosis and everything else and that's you know work in progress and you know what I found out later both through Andrew is it's probably kind of a work of progress for everybody including the enlightened person unless you're a Ramana type who just sits back and as people feed him and radiates the power that he's kind of merged into to those around him without any further doing you know. Yeah. Yeah. And he had a temper too when you when you hear the stories here he seemed to have had a temper too. So my conclusion of all of this is that it's probably really the really rare person that that can completely dissolve the ego and doesn't have all this. Well, and I even wonder even if your ego is completely dissolved, does that mean you're never going to get angry? You know, good question. I don't know. Why would it? You know, life is full of things that should make you angry. Yeah, that's true. I read something I read something recently, you know, and this is some about Echart actually. It was apparently he was, you know, he was preparing to give a talk somewhere, big venue. I don't know, something got screwed up in terms of some of the logistics of of the event got up and he lost his temper with somebody, you know, then somebody had to write an article. Oh, he claims to be enlightened, but look, he, you know, he he lost his temper. This kind of insane spiritual idea that you're a spiritual person, you're always going to speak in a soft voice. You always want to give people a long hug. you know, nothing is gonna ruffle you because it is just such a it's just such a fairy tale and people like that are pretenders. You shouldn't trust people like that. Yeah. Yeah. Um but you know, that was uh Oh, yeah. And then then that Echart story, apparently he went back afterwards and apologized to the person and just said, "Look, you know, just because I do this doesn't mean I don't have all these other human things, too, you know, and Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So that's just an open interesting but the point being the the the in terms of the spiritual path practice that that p that thing about it's a perspective as much as it is an experience gave you something real that you could hang on to without have ever having to wait for a perspective for for an experience to come along again. That was so powerful you know that just gave me a framework and still does. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. um for dealing with the parts of myself that are, you know, quote unquote less enlightened. Um and I'm not claiming anything about enlightenment anyway. I'm just claim I'm just sharing how um my perspective. No, no, I I I totally understand what you're saying. I I don't hear you claim anything, but that's exactly that's how Andrew taught and and we want to Yeah. We want to live up to the experience that we had and and the insights and the and the openings and take it from there. And there is no end to that. The development goes on and on and on. That's right. And and we we we can just become bigger and bigger and bigger in the embrace of of the totality of reality, whatever that means in in the complexity of the world today. And if if it's true that it's all infinite, which it seems to be, then infinite by definition means no end. That is what it means. Exactly. So, um, absolutely. And you know, our finite minds just you can't it's infinite is a is an inconceivable concept in the mind and and if you when you feel it, you know, when you feel it opening up in yourself also, it can be terrifying because you just no boundaries. You don't really know how to locate yourself in that anymore other than just letting go. That is the location. That is definitely Exactly. And you know everything in our upbringing and training and culture doesn't support that. So um so um so these kind of refined rarified opportunities to be with people like Andrew, like yourself and others, you know, uh it's it's precious, you know, and that's why at the end it's also heartbreaking. It's all so devastatingly heartbreaking how it all ended. But even that is just filled with lessons about the nature of all this of enlightenment of of development and um and and I find it so interesting Mike like after Andrew's passing away quite a few people reconnect with me with Alco and what seems to be obvious is that that the deep connection the soul connection or the the deep love connection as you described it so beautifully is it's just still there. It it's it's a bond that that is there and if we don't neglect it, if we don't push it away, but just open ourselves up, it's right there and and that's the that's where we connect. Well, I feel and we know it. We know it when we feel it. No, it's like it's obvious. the truth of that, you know, I like I said to you in the conversation the other day or somebody um I feel like with Andrew passing, you know, I that thing that you said about um you know, him passing on his 39th anniversary of his enlightenment and and you know, and then also when you said, you know, I didn't know he had a heart attack and a stroke. I mean, it's so devastating that it was just what what happened to him. It was just it was almost like his body made sure there was no coming back. Yeah. Yeah. No, it looks like this. You know, it was just like Gordian knot. Bam. Yeah. So now all the anger that was directed at Andrew, he's not here anymore. Yeah. And whatever karma he's got as an individual with all the stuff, all the bad things that happened, you know, he that's on him. He's going to have to, you know, you know, I don't know what I have no idea what's next, but um if there's karma and all that stuff, then um then that's that's on him. He's gonna have to deal with that. But we're left with the jewel now. And we don't have to deal anymore with the difficulty of Andrew at his worst moments. You know, we talk about his best moments. Definitely had his worst moments, too. Yeah. Yeah. Uh like like all of us. His had a bigger impact because he was playing on a bigger level, much bigger. Um but I but Yeah. And we can allow oursel to just connect in on in the deepest place and in the most beautiful place. That's that is always there. No. Yeah. But I literally within that week I literally felt and this is something that's with me every day. I felt like he's sitting you know that little image of a the Buddha sitting in the lotus of your heart. I mean I feel like that's where Andrew is sitting right now. He died out here and he came to life again in here. Yeah. In the in the in the purest part of what he was trying to transmit and not all the other stuff. And I think that must be happening for other people too because the the psycho emotional difficulty of having to deal with him as a personality is no longer here once and for all and forever. It's gone. He's cremated. He's gone. But that is left. And us who carries some us who carry some of that, you know? Yeah, like there's there's an opportunity for a kind of a a a rebirth that could be smooth and organic and non-dramatic and um not as exp not so much like even explosive as evolutionary. You know, evolution often doesn't happen in it's, you know, it's these Yeah. Yeah. You know, um I hear what you're saying. Yeah. That feels good. It's kind of an organic unfolding that could happen now that probably wasn't possible when not as long as Andrew was around. He was just too much too much of a hot button. What did I read somewhere? There was, you know, there was some people talking about maybe bringing him back to the interal world, but they still thought it was too soon. Needed a way to No, Layman said that in the conversation with with me. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So, you know, he was still radioactive as a brand, right? I mean, absolutely radioactive, but that that's gone. It's gone. No. Now, the only thing left is those of us who were touched by him. And there's an enormous body of work that he left. And it's enormous. That's why I feel very passionate about finding a way to enshrine some at least as much of that as possible to leave a a significant body of work for future generations. Just like I can go read Oroindo now. I'm sure back in Oruroindo's day, they'd had all the digital recording technologies and everything. We have we'd have a huge archive of Oruroindo or Ramakrishna or or Brahmana or any of these people, you know, but this is the generation where we have that and Andrew's attainment in my opinion was no different in terms of magnitude than any of those guys. You know, and again, that all gets washed out. Now, maybe now through conversations like this one, you know, that can be brought back up. Yeah. Without the Yeah, I'm I'm all up for that. You know, is there anything else you would like to add? It feels like we've probably come to a natural end here. Yeah, an hour and a half. It's a long time. Uh, oh, I could I could just go on, but um but um but yeah, I just think it's, you know, like I said before, I feel I feel extraordinarily blessed to have been part of his drama, you know, uh and for him to be part of mine, you know, um and you know, presuming I live a few more years, um I I would really like to be part of whatever the postandrew evolutionary enlightenment scene might be. Um, yeah, let's find out, you know, let's find out. Exactly. I like what you said the other day instead of jumping so quickly to do do right now, you know, I mean, and I've thought about it since our last conversation. I mean, for me, it's that novel. That would be my offering to the world. And and if there's Yeah. When there's three that I have in mind, I'm working on the first one. three that I it's a trilogy I have in mind. Yeah. But um that that's why I'm selling my business and retiring so I can just do this. This is my spiritual practice right now. Um wonderful. So I'm very curious about that book. Yeah. Thank you so much. So I'm so impatient to get it done.