Timothy Mansfield: 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 Tim. Good to see you. Good to see you. And thank you for agreeing to this conversation about so happy to receive to hear of the idea and um be able to participate. Yeah. And you're actually the first one I have this conversation with. So, it's uh Oh, okay. also very new to me. And uh but it's great. I I was thinking Tim is actually the perfect one to have this first conversation and I would probably want to start with just if you would want to share how you met Andrew and what struck you in this meeting if there was anything and and how your relationship then evolved over the over the I had this totally explosive kind of meeting with Andrew because um uh so I'd decided to uproot this is in 1991. I decided to uproot my life in London and um I'd gone as part of that sort of decision to pursue my spiritual interests I decided to go to work in the Krishna school in India and concurrently as I made that arrangement I heard I met Andrew in London just one evening at a teaching and um I heard that the teaching um holiday time I had at the school coincided with the retreat that Andrew was leading in Bodgaya, Bihar. And so I took that as a spiritual sign and went to the um I joined the retreat sort of midway through or a little way through. um went and came into the satsang in the tourist bungalow and Andrew asked me why I'd come to him um in the middle of the satsang and I was just this naive character at the time and I just I just said what I what I was thinking and what and so I said well I'm thinking of becoming your student just sort of straight up like this and he um he he he he literally exploded in He said, "Do you know how tough a teacher I am?" He said, "Do you have it? Do you have any idea how tough a teacher I am?" And it it was but it was a it was like a cos like this cosmic cannonball coming out of nowhere. But um you but and I I very tremulously replied um I I know I I need someone like that which is exactly what I thought and was true also for me because I knew I need I wanted a tough teacher at somebody. I felt so afraid of the spiritual dimension that I I wanted a tough teacher who would push me what I call push me over the edge, push me from one dimension to another. And so when that cannonball kind of came towards me, um you know, it was kind of what what in a way I was expecting although although of course it was like, you know, shocking in a way, but it was it was incredible. And um you know it went on in a way that my whole time during that retreat I was just oscillating between you know recognition of the enlightened dimension and personal um fear and terror really. So that was my meeting with him. Wasn't really a personal meeting. It was it was more this sort of naive naive boy meeting this sort of cosmic force. Um but you know it was definitely part of me knew that that's I was definitely because I' I'd you know my background was a little bit to do with Krishna Merti in that my sister went to his school and I was aware of um you I met a lot of the people who are interested in Krishna Merti. So I I knew the ambiance the sort of spiritual aura around Krishna Merti and I knew I didn't want it. I felt it was too mild and passive and and not not hands-on enough. Um, so and I knew I wanted what I called a yang teacher, a fiery teacher, a demanding teacher. And so, uh, I I simply felt I'd found what I wanted really inwardly while superficially feeling just terrified of, uh, terrified of Andrew, terrified of the whole community in Marin situation at the time. Um, you know, the my terror was um it was it was sort of the other side of the the recognition and the inspiration of meeting a timeless spiritual master and the and the whole the whole enlightened dimension of existence, you know, the Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I think what what you're describing is what what many of us experience that that while And it was always very clear that he was a radical teacher and that that he that he would crash the ego or try to crash the ego. Whatever we understand in terms of ego, Andrew, I think Andrew's teaching has evolved over time in in what he what ego means and and how important it also is to to cultivate a positive ego and and a good good integrated uh ego. But in the end, his pause was a a pause of going beyond ego. And while he pointed it out all the time, I think nobody at the beginning knew what what this actually meant and how demanding it it is. Not because he was a brutal teacher, but because the path is very demanding if we if we want to give ourselves fully to spirit. Yeah. Well, I definitely because later obviously in the teachings the whole evolutionary element tells us how strong those forces are within us that you you're just saying and ego obviously one of them. So that's I mean that that's why I appreciate the evolutionary element of the teachings is that you you can un you can feel evolution within yourself in the various forces sexual force ego force survival instinct etc. that um it makes it easy to identify you know a and understand that they're not going to go away also that that that's to me the critical bit that the evolutionary dimension what's what or evolution has put in us is not going to go away. We you know we have to we have to know it rather than hope that it's going to disappear. Yeah. Exactly. Would you would you say that because I I I grapple a lot with this question and and I also talk a lot with people about this question that I always felt Andrew was able to awaken in us an awakening to being and an awakening to becoming or the evolutionary part as two distinct awakenings. It was not one thing. And some people had more access espec I I understand especially at the beginning to the awakening to to timeless being to the the adon style of awakening which is real and beautiful and and yeah wonderful and and then there is another kind of awakening to becoming that is distinct but it's also a liberation. It's it's it's as much a liberation as as the awakening to being. Would you would you agree with that? Was there a point when you felt the awakening to becoming was a was Well, I you know I'm I'm at heart I'm a kind of unorthodox Christian so I'm all for the becoming engaged gritty gutsy kind of spirituality hands-on effective engaged in the world not so and I see a clear distinction as you're describing between the eastern kind of being melting way, detachment, um bliss, nonduality, that side of things and the and the what I would call the Christian engaged um making something happen, becoming yourself side of it. So, um I I think certainly as I contemplated this interview with you, I thought that's one of the the massive contributions that Andrew made is is bringing these two things together. Um synthes sort of synthesis of eastern spirituality and and western um and then I think each of us has to find you know where where we lean and what we want um that that's my I mean didn't necessarily talk about that as far as I'm aware but I I feel some people lean more towards engagement and others leads lean more towards detachment and they're beautiful polarities of spiritual polarities Um, and the the fascinating thing about Andrew was that he could speak about both with equal equal re equal passion and reverence. I mean, I always remember him saying because we used to have the retreats that were divine literally divided into the being 10 days and the becoming 10 days I think or seven days. And um he he was equally competent in both Mhm. both fields. And he would say about the being dimension, it's you know when you're in it, you don't want to come out of it. Um I mean I I personally wouldn't I just don't really get don't really want the being side of it too much. But um but he he knew it inside out. And I I mean I I have thought about how Because one of the things I absolutely love about Andrew that he was never um flumxed or [Music] um he he could go anywhere with the spiritual questions. He was never intimidated by the intellectual side of it and he wasn't intimidated by the non-jew kind of melting away side of it. So he could traverse his scale and actually that's one of the things when I very very first met him and how I recognized that he was an enlightened man that in that he could move from he could move so easily between different um he wasn't fixed in one position he could move across across those those those dimensions and also in his manner in his expression he he was all things you know he could be angry and tender and thing and that was you know to me a hallmark of his freedom. Um but yeah I I mean I do think the whole I think the human species is confused about this matter that you brought up that you know the being and the becoming. I I really do think, you know, people are so adamant that freedom means one thing, but Yeah. Yeah. But in fact, we're different people who um have our leanings and our preferences. And um yeah, you you know that in the last years uh he he taught the becoming liberation a little bit different and he he taught the authentic self much more as a state that that uh falls on a hopefully positive developed ego structure or individual structure. So so that it can come with full force through through through a beautiful personality a beautifully developed positive ego as he called it. So I I felt that this was very exciting. He didn't make this extreme distinctions between uh ego and the authentic self that it's either or but much more it the liberation was falling through a beautifully uh developed autonomous uh individual that then can shine in the world and express as as the best you the best me. And another thing that that really from what you just said what came together in the last years he his teaching developed towards something that was able to hold being becoming much less as a balance as a either or. Let's let's go being let's go becoming and much more as a as a non-dual reality of of liberated existence and Yeah, that sounds like big words and I'm aware of that. But the the felt sense was that it was coming together more and more as one teaching, holding both the being and the becoming in the same profound depths as it always was, but much less as a let's dive into being. And now let's go, baby, go. but as as a a one single embrace of of how a liberating life could look like which was absolutely amazing and beautiful. Well, I do remember the pretty much the last question I ever asked him in a teaching se situation was um it was just like can you can lose yourself in becoming you can you know just as you can lose yourself in being melt away you can also lose yourself in engagement you can sort of in other words forget your sense of you know of being a defined person you you give because you give yourself completely to your passion or your Yeah. And uh and he I remember him replying, "Well, of course." Yeah. Yeah. That sounds like him. Yeah. Yeah. So, how was it to to be in in his community in in the times when when when you were there? Can you describe a little bit what what you experienced how it was to to live the teachings together with other people? Well, when you asked the question, so I think of Fox Hollow and I think of you know the I think I was there for 97 to 2003, six years and and um well you you think of two pictures really. you think of the radiant beauty of Fox Hollow and the the joy of living with other people um with um you know the qual the quality of our life um in all dimensions was off the scale in just the you know the the food the place the teachings the um travel the interior design you know the grounds of Fox Hollow Andrew dressed you know the quality of life the quality of our life and how we interacted with one another um was you know just high quality. And then of course you can also think of the crunch moments and the um the periods of feeling totally divorced from oneself others Andrew and just wanted you know I never actually felt that strongly that I wanted to get out of there but one could drop into this kind of um or end up in a in a very very isolated place isolated from everything that He uh valued obviously sort of just just resistant to participating, resistant to andrew would be an enemy. You'd feel you wouldn't want to see him on the path because you'd feel within yourself this sort of shying this kind of hiding away, shame. Um so and then of course everything in between. Um but uh uh yeah, so radiant ra rad radiant uh times including the utter beauty of Fox Hollow and um these very very sort of tough taxing episodes that could last for weeks and for some people sort of months months years even you know. Um so um but you know to me the defining overarching question is is to do with grat you know I'm just grateful basically you know I think with the current situation it's like the question is are you more grateful than critical and I I I I'm just entirely grateful. I don't really give a about the critical side of things. I mean, I just feel having met somebody like Andrew who took me where I wanted to go, um, uh, nothing could touch the gratitude I feel for that. So, uh, I look at back on Fox Hollow, but also I mean I do now look at it as a training ground, you know, it was a training ground and, um, yeah. Um, I mean, personally, I feel in in this in our species, we don't really have a mechanism by which people graduate from from their teacher. And in in a way, although that wasn't at Fox Hollow, it wasn't really pertinent to to the time that I was there. Um I do feel that anyway, maybe this is a whole different thing, but I mean it was a training ground. The point is it was a it was a training ground and it was it performed that function for me. Um so I'm deeply grateful for it. Yeah. Yeah. And what you're saying is what what was uh missing and I have heard that from other people and I think Andrew would have agreed with that at the end too that there was no graduation where people could have f found their own path and and taken what what they got from Andrew and and uh run with it into their own life. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's that's a a valid a valid point and and andrew was thinking about that a lot. Well, that to me that's not a that's not a personal fault of Andrews so much. I mean a little bit probably but the thing was that this you know obviously we were creating this group enlightenment the the the you know the faculty of group enlightenment and the structure required to forge that faculty couldn't adapt to anything else. It was one faculty. It was one structure. And so, so that's when I think of being at Fox Hollow in those late 90s, that's the structure I think of. You know, we we were held in this, you know, this fusion, this point at this point of fusion. And I I just think the structure of it couldn't it couldn't become a different structure. It was just so strong. And and but it it produced the result we got. We we got we we we um achieved achieved what we were aiming to achieve. Um were you there uh at the breakthrough time in 200? Well, I was I was on the periphery at that time. Um I don't know exactly why, but um the the guys were doing their retreat for a month prior to um July 30th. And um but some of us uh Lori and I were working on the property. I mean, we had these 30 apartments had to be managed for holiday holiday people and um so I was doing that. So I was on the periphery. I was reading the letters that went up at the time and I was kind of in the vicinity slightly if I'm honest about it. Glad not to not to have been in those meetings. Um I mean it's a sort of shameful thing to say but I was I was quite happy to be it was a beautiful time of year. That was the It was utterly a fantastic summer and the sun was out and the guys were meditating during the day, you know, as a group in the gardens and and I'd see them moving around the property going to their meditations and I was just glad I wasn't there. But um and then I sort of sort of was there because then then I started reading the letters that came through about the event that were posted. Um and uh but that was as close as I was to it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting for me that the whole the whole interubjective work and and the breakthrough 2001, but also the the the following years of cultivating the inter subjective is still one of the the biggest achievements I think Andrew and his uh SA absolutely had because in Ukraine. For myself, when when I found Andrew only in 2008, reading about the potential of creating a new culture beyond ego, people meeting beyond ego was was kind of the hook that that uh pulled me in and pulled me towards Andrew. And I still think it's it's the the biggest potential that there is for for humanity. And I totally agree. I totally agree. Yeah. And I'm very humbled by everything that happened in Andrew's community and and also in the last years when we we started here we started teaching we restart we started the collective work how challenging it is to to to create this structure beyond ego as a as a stable structure. Yeah. But I but my my take on this is that it's there. It's there. It's been created and it exists in the fabric of existence this faculty and and that's why when you say it's the greatest potential. I just feel that you know what a group of people could do. It's ready. The thing is ready and so all the work has been done. And um I mean personally I I love the the perspective on Andrew's life and our life in the community whereby in which rather it it was it was all from the very beginning organized by a greater creative force. It was all organized by evolution. Right from Andrew's early childhood all the way through his his his you know his um his enlightenment, the formation of the community, his vision of this group group um enlightenment and then everything we went through. It was all it's all it's all it was it's all in a way designed and um pushed forward by evolution itself and some supra sort of level of intelligence and it does it does fit together as a perspective um that I I I find um intriguing well I I find it intriguing and and believable also which means which means that the group faculty exists. It's the point being that it it's it uh you could say who owns the group faculty. Well, the creator of it owns it and the process of life itself I feel owns that faculty and therefore will or might use it in the future. it's sort of not ours. And in a way, I feel that's that's true to the context and the um the context we were living in with Andrew. We're in a process greater than ourselves. That was our little refrain. We're in a process greater than ourselves. Well, you know, see, one can see everything that we did and Andrew did through that lens. And it and it does make sense. Yeah. Yeah. That that makes total sense. And yeah taking taking the teaching as they are that makes total sense. It's all one single process. We are part of of this one single process and everything that is created is is uh public and available from now on or from then on. I agree. And at the same time, I also feel like our leaning towards it and and reinvigorating it and keeping it alive is an important faculty of that process too. Yeah. I don't take it for granted that it's just there and like in 7,000 years somebody will find it again and re reviving it again. I I like to think that it needs our contribution and our our conscious picking up on it and and making it real again and again. Yeah. Yeah. Because we we have we're responsible for being conduits, aren't we? For being o open andive and and because the whole thing about the group enlightenment is it's a bigger pipeline, isn't it? It's like a single individual enlightened person is one pipeline and a and a group of people is a bigger pipeline. So more power can come through it. That to me is is the point of it and we're respons and and and all the work that went in at Fox Hollow and elsewhere was all about sitting in those meetings empty-handed. It was all about that and all about our unwillingness to do that was was was all the friction and the difficulty. So, and it's such a massive thing to sit with other people and be w and be and be willing to be yourself and to receive and not to have anything ready and prepared prepared or um not to have a strategy of how you're going to be in that group or how how you're going to look. It's such a massive attainment and um the meetings I mean the meetings whatever seven years of meetings were all about getting us to the point of sitting um responsible for our own minds in a group of people and being willing to receive a greater kind of a greater intelligence. And it's really, I must say, it's really funny to think about our protestations and the weird the weird ways in which we would resist doing that. Um, I mean, it does make sense, of course, but it it's also I mean, the challenge the challenge of it anyway, I mean, it took what it took, didn't it? It did. And I totally agree with you that it's it's right there. The structures are there now. And my experience over the last years with with the people in manifesting where we did the holonic work is that accessing that space of pure listening and and responding and being more interested in what we don't know yet was much easier than 15 years ago. There was much less ego resistance and people could do it with some experience but but not years and years and and no pushing needed and everybody had great experiences. What I felt what what is the edge now in in this time that that we were with Andrew in our smaller SA was more like how does it this translate then into responding to life like like for real how how can we go ahead by not making it just a one hour a week whole on call where we come together but what does it mean for all of our lives and and what we can create together and where where we can go together to because it it felt like this cannot just be an experience then it's it's like a higher state experience but but this has to have an effect no in in the real life and and how we show up in our lives and and I I feel like that that is the next step how to translate it into but not to water it down not like we want to have the same experience with everybody that we meet on this in the street. That's not how it works. It's more like how do we who are in this teaching and in this part translate it so that it has much more impact on culture and on Yeah. on everything around us. Yeah. And that's a big um Danielle um the book I'm writing is all about it's half of it is about what you're saying is it's about I'm proposing an organization which I'm calling R2 stands for reformation 2 which is which is about tackling basically it's about um I think there are there are these constructs there like the messiah is a construct that then there are various constructs that need to um dissolved um that they they're they're like lids over over humanity. P powerful ideas that are false and that are kind of inhibiting people's freedoms. Um the idea of the Messiah is one of them. And I think you know um because what you're what you're we need a catalyst for the um goodwill and the spiritual learning that has that that exists. And I think that's what you're describing that you something has to come of it and how does you know what is that going to be that's over and above just talking about how great it is you know what work can it do in the world so um so I' I've you know in this book which is kind of almost written I'm I'm sort of I've actually come up with a what I call a scope of works which is a list of of um these lids that are that are inhibiting people's um liberation, freedom, and how a group of people could um dissolve them. And uh yeah, so I I I'm all for the idea of um tangible um exhibition and um material kind of um representation of uh everything that's been learned and all the work that's been done. Yeah, exactly. And it's tricky because we also want to be very careful not to allow the ambition of the ego to take over and have ideas about how this could look like. Yeah. Like the the same thing that that is true for for our holonic work or the group work of of the deep listening and and the being available for spirit and and and be willing to respond to spirit is true for for this too. There is a fine line between surrendering to what life wants from us and actively participate in life. And that that I found always so fascinating in Andrew's teaching that we that we walk that line all the time between being active participant and being surrendered and it's subtle. Yeah. But I sort of feel what you know basic one of the things I loved about Andrew is the risk element. I mean it's high risk. His whole life was high risk. Um well that's not about his whole life but we you know I I think you know there is a relationship between risk and reward basically and [Music] um yeah so in terms of what you're saying I I am I sort of I sort of feel well let life sort it out you know I don't know that a hesitant relationship to that dilemma that you described is the right relationship to have to you know why why not sort of be bold find out um yeah yeah I hear you yeah sure and I I wouldn't describe my position as hesitant more more like humbled by by the enormity of how quickly ego takes over let's put it like this and I think I think Daniel if because in terms of you know the collapse to the community. It it to me it's just a lesson in that if you actually make contact with God and you you you know you are going to I because of course it accords with Jesus's crucifixion he made contact with God and it came to a disastrous apparently end seemingly but actually not you know what looked like a disaster at the time turned into the actual sort of fulcrum the the the nucleus of western spirit western spiritual um narrative. Um and so yes, so the whole thing about the community's collapse looks like a and a disaster and as if Andrew sort of was at fault, but actually you can see it as the as evolution just playing its hand and just smashing the whole thing to pieces. And and I think it's a far better interpretation. It makes a lot more sense of all the goodwill and the intelligence and the commitment that went into it. It just makes more sense. You know, you make contact with God, God knows what's going to happen, literally, you know. So, it's it's to me it's proof of of touching, you know, of the of the two of the hand of God and the hand of man kind of touching. Um, and that's why going back in the conversation a little bit, it's so exciting what you're saying of, well, what's going to come of this next, you know, because we if we're minions in in in, you know, what's the phrase? Um, uh, we're pawns in a greater game, you know, well, you know, was not necessarily our decision what happens next. That that's that's the perspective I like the most on on everything that's happened. Yeah. Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. Coming back to Andrew, do you have any particular um memories? Thank you. Yeah, I've gone blank. Yeah. Memories of of uh particularly also like fun moments with with Andrew or just outrageous moments or things that you would like to share. Well, because I'm sure you have I have so I remember when he told us that he we were in a group meeting at Fox Hollow in the red room and it wasn't a formal meeting. was just a tea discussion of sort of informal meeting and he told us that he'd been to see Evander Holfield Holiffield the boxer you know the heavyweight boxer of the world I think he obviously he was champion at the time but um as he to interview him for the magazine and um I remember just involuntarily kind of um crying out in joy at the the the the sort of outrageous iousness of the the wild sort of freedom of the of the fact that they would interview this guy, this boxer for the for the magazine. That that was one. Um and then a sort of funny little one in a way was in Marin um California. You know, I I arrived out there as a kind of newbie. I was terrified of these men's meetings we'd have. I mean, they were they were terrified, but I was particularly terrified. And every so often, Andrew, excuse me, he'd just cancel one for no particular reason. Um, you'd just get a message on I think we had pages at the time and it would just be meeting canled. And um I do remember the utter joy, but it's the same thing of the no limitation, the no limitation element of of that he would just decide something for the right reasons. And um you'd get this just this rush of oh, we're not we're not in a groove here, you know, we're not in a I mean we were in a groove, but you know that he break out of that. Yeah. Yeah. you know um he was great in that. I agree like when you thought you have figured out how this all works then to to change it or to Yeah. to cancel it or to change course or to no we don't do this we do the the other thing. Yeah. and and it was part of his teaching style to keep to keep us alive and on the toes and it's the some of these little things uh uh um because there was another incident um tiny little thing in London uh we were having like a formal dinner with him and I was sitting near him and he I mean you know me and I don't talk much so I was talking. For some reason, he wanted to stop me talking, which itself itself was a strange situation, but he he laid his hand to stop me talking. He laid his hand on my wrist. Well, just across the table. And I just always remember the feeling of that touch, the lightness of the the touch. But it I mean, there was so much in it. It's kind of like I don't know. There was so much in it. But and I and and also just the way he moved. I that was one of the things I loved around Fox Hollow. The way he moved was so beautiful. He never hurried, never stumbled, he never spilt anything. And it wasn't because he was sort of particularly picity about those things. It was just his attention to Yeah. Yeah. I mean it very graceful in its own way without being kind of affected. Um yeah. Yeah. And I do appreciate also how he dressed. I must say it was um it lifted it lifted the standard around. I mean we didn't dress like that. We should have done probably but um he set a standard. Yeah. And he wanted to set the standard. Speaking of standards, I have to tell you a funny story. Sarah was just, you know, Sarah. Yeah. Sarah Tops. She was here and she picked up your book because she didn't know she hadn't known that you had written a book. So, uh, she picked up the book and started to read and then she started to to, uh, laugh out loud because in one of the first pages you write that food was important from the beginning and we we could very much relate to it because here at Manifest Nana, we we have a really high level food standard of cooking uh, even in the midst of South India here and we we have organic food and and uh when people are here, when students are here, we we always kind of competed with each other to to cook really high standard meals. And also Ala and I obviously living here with Andrew uh had had a a good cooking standard. So that's that's that's similar as as how he how he dressed himself. It was also he lifted us all up in in many ways in in terms of of standards like food and and also looking after our bodies and exercise and and uh honor this this vehicle. Totally. Because one of the I made some notes yesterday just in preparation and one of the things was quality the quality of life as but and also quality of expression and precision the the actual language um and now I'm stumbling around but but but the but the kind of I mean also I do I mean there the fluency um there was a little thing I I watched that BBC DC select um how I created a cult um three is it a three-part documentary and there's you know Andrew is talking to the camera quite a bit and right at the end he he lets rip a little bit um and I'm afraid I can't remember the exact exact words but is so typical of him that he would come out with one of his kind of New York kind of demolitions of of some person who sort of say I remember him calling Stewart a cosmic goofball. Um and um but he would come out with these wonderful little cameo descriptions that were just rattled rattled out of him. Just so funny. So, so on on so so New York for one thing and just so so spoton in ter in terms of um their accuracy which is the point I'm making is the you know his his especially I mean obviously in the teachings his quality of um um his articulate that was an amazing thing about Andrew was how good he was with words given that he'd had no no real education not much education or or or formal university education or anything. He was his use of language was absolutely spot on. Yeah, it totally was his use of language but also his I I was amazed in in the last years when he gave satsang here uh after the retreat he gave satsang for the tu westerners that come here. So we had uh people here in the house for satsang and the level of precision when when he got questions from people and and and the precision of his responses to people. Yeah. Amazed me every single time. And yeah, more often than not, I I saw people here coming with a question and I could feel how and who handed them the jewel of of their own liberation right into their hands. Not many took it because people tend to let it fall out of their hands. But it was evident how how precisely he could see where somebody was stuck and what would need to happen for them to to be liberated on the spot. Yeah. And that that is an amazing skill. Yeah. Now I remember him um in a teaching in Fox Hollow um I think Gerard asked him a question and he he took the question in and kind of he sort of synthesized it and um refined it and said are you asking this and I always remember him doing that and it was like it was like a sort of purified version of Gerard's question. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, she was really amazing in just respect. Is there anything else that you wanted to to bring into this conversation, Tim, from from your preparation? [Music] Um, well, I think I think um well, it's the I want to go back to the gratitude. I think I feel, you know, Mhm. And uh interestingly the gratitude towards Andrew is is is totally integrated with the gratitude to life for steering me towards Andrew that the two things are kind of because it's not necessarily that it doesn't feel very personal the gratitude to be honest. It feels co more I suppose you call it spiritual cos I don't like the word cosmic but um I just I just feel so lucky in my lifetime to have met him and um to you know he he basically built a bridge for me you know to the enlightened field the enlightened dimension and put me through my p you he he he literally sort of turned a sort of shaggy the old donkey into well I don't know a racehorse but he kind of well it you know it took this unrefined character and refined him a little bit um well a fair bit maybe um no that's beautiful yeah and he you know and the way in which that happens is a whole mixture of things isn't it it's the it's the dharma and the dialogue and the personal the personal instruction and kind It's it's really knowing somebody who um I remember my first question to Andrew. I was so terrified of him always in the teachings. But um I did finally in the very beginning, this is just a joke. But um we were in Schwanal up in Switzerland in the the mountains in a big retreat and and I plucked up the courage to ask him a question and I the question I asked was um I mean this is just so ridiculous but it was how how does an enlightened po person um uh interact with a hotel porter? Um, and I think I don't know. I mean, it's just a total Andrew was totally non plused by this question. He I think he could not conceive why I was asking it. And but really what I wanted to know was how is an enlightened person in the world, you know, how are they? And um and that in a way is what I would most grateful to Andrew for because he he showed me how an enlightened person is in different situations around the world in in life. And I do remember al I wasn't there but I was told about this that um in Paris somebody had made a screw up and taken everybody to the wrong railway station. So the group of people who were traveling had to scurry to a different rail, the correct railway station. And somebody told me that Andrew refused. He he refu he well not exactly refused but he just wouldn't run. He wouldn't get caught up in the panic and the anxiety and the you know and it's little instance like that like it's like well the how does an enlightened person how is an enlightened person in life? But um are so are so useful. You know, they they kind of dispel so so many um big ideas or wrong ideas that one has about um what an enlightened life and an enlightened person is. Yeah. Oh, I I totally agree. Uh I found it impressive here in in Tuanomalai. We live in a village. Yeah. And there are a lot of villagers around us that that knew Andrew and the the way he treated everybody and and they were not students or anything. They didn't really know uh who he was, but they did feel that he was a very special person and and they all loved it. and and when he died two weeks ago, the level of of reverence and uh respect and love that they showed to this man that they barely knew, but that treated them in in in the most appropriate way. And as as you describe it, that is a an an exemplar how how we want to act as as awake people. Yeah. And it has nothing to do with intellect and and philosophy and and knowing it. It just has to do with how how are you with people? Yeah. And how appropriately can you can you respond to the world around you? Yeah. And the people here were I t I tell you were so beautiful when we came back with the body uh Tuesday night and it's it's so different than in the west even to kind of h have a body that you that you have to treat in a certain way and have to put somewhere and and the people here were just hands on and loving and respectful and grieving with us. It's Yeah, it can only be described as beautiful. And it had a lot to do with what you just brought up, the way Andrew was with everybody. Yeah. Was uh amazing. Everybody loved him. Well, I think when you say when you mentioned there the intellect and knowledge and what have you because because one of the thing notes I did make yesterday was about the what he's taught me about innocence, you know. Yeah. And I do feel that he had this he he was an innocent man. um in many ways um from birth from well not from from his childhood onwards he had that I believe he was somewhat sort of arrested at at his early age of about four or whatever due to the bullying of his brother that he was he was in a way in a little bit set at that some facets and features of him were were caught at that innocent point and and I think that the I mean innocent and emptiness. You can see them as the same. You can see them as the same thing, can't you? And that because there's one of the features of him that I so loved was his this unfettered um spontaneity, this unfettered exuberance, the the laughter and the fun and the mo the mimicry and he was un it was it was unfettered, unrestrained. And it will it was a little bit he could be like a little bit like a like a child in that respect. And and then if you sort of take that innocence into an adult form, it comes out in the way that you've just, you know, in how you are with people. And um it's that it's essentially the sort of not knowing condition, isn't it? of openness and receptiveness and um not being fixed or habitual or and so I think that's one of the feel I I feel that he taught me that through knowing him this is not sort of obviously sort of direct instruction but through knowing him I I feel I see that innocence is its own power source if you like or its own um it allows I It's hard to describe, but it it allows something. It's it's different from the intellect. It's different from knowledge. It's um obviously not brute force. It's its own it's its own sort of form of form of expression, I suppose you could call could say, but it it sort of basically allows something else through, doesn't it? Um. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. And I and I do feel in the way Andrew was and the way he moved, there was this innocent element to him. This this this four-year-old boy in different respects. I could see. I don't know. Very much so. Do you think so? Yeah. Yeah. No, totally. Yeah. I remember he'd walk up to people in restaurants and just sort of ask them what they were eating and things just like Yes. Exactly. you know. No, he had that and it was very charming and very endearing in a way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Shall we leave it with this? Sure. It feels it feels very complete and uh lovely. Thank you. I enjoyed it a lot. Uh it's such a fantastic idea to do to give people to really I mean I'm looking forward to um seeing all the other people you mentioned. Yes, me too. [Music]