By Pete Bampton

“Resistance to new ideas increases as to the square of their importance”

Bertrand Russell

“He who ain´t busy being born is busy dying”

Bob Dylan

The Revolution Hasn’t Happened Yet…

November 2000

“Gentlemen let’s drink” said Andrew, raising his glass.  We all uneasily followed suit.  There were about 30 of us, all formally committed male students sitting around a large table in a private room in a local bar in Lenox, MA. There was a charged silence in the air as we all sipped quietly. The beer – Andrew had insisted it be alcoholic – went straight to my head. None of us were accustomed to drinking let alone frequenting bars anymore. Andrew was catching us off guard and off balance.

“The Revolution hasn’t  happened yet” he said intently, looking around the table at his troops gathered before him.  We were in the midst of an escalating spiritual crisis.  We all knew that our gathering here was Andrews’s latest attempt to break the evolutionary impasse that had been widening like a chasm between him and us.  Over the previous weeks Andrew had met with us several times challenging us all to evolve to a higher level. But his pleas had met with a unanimous collective resistance that was unlike anything he or we had ever encountered before. So now Andrew had resorted to forcing us out of Foxhollow, our beautiful ashram and spiritual home in the Berkshire Mountains in Western Massachusetts. While it was obvious to us all that Andrew had engineered this unusual rendezvous to rattle us out our complacency, as I looked around the table at the faces of my spiritual brothers I knew that they were all embedded in the same profound indifference that I was.

“The problem is that none of you are living your own lives within an absolute evolutionary context” Andrew said.  “You think that because you are with me and have given your lives to this, and most of you have known me for a number of years now, that you are basically “doing it”, that you have arrived somewhere. And relative to what’s generally going on in the spiritual world it is true that you are all leading extraordinary lives, right?” We all murmured in agreement. “But while you may have powerfully inspiring experiences and meetings together and be genuinely committed to the creative work you are doing here, when it comes down to the real deal – which means between you and yourself and how fully you are living these teachings – that is where you are all leaving far too much room for compromise.”

He then spoke directly to a few of us to make his point. Eventually he pointed at me.  “Now Pete here for example, he’s very passionate, very sensitive, he understands the teachings more deeply than most of you, but you would never know it from the way he lives his life right?” Everyone agreed. I agreed.

“You see, I am not interested in gathering followers. If I was a different kind of teacher everything would be hunky dory here and I wouldn’t be giving you such a hard time, because again, relatively speaking, what is already happening is very unusual indeed. But you all know I will never be satisfied with anything less than everything and that means radical transformation. You all chose me as your Teacher for a reason right?”. “Right!” we all answered in unison.  “So I need a significant number of you to become authentic spiritual revolutionaries, which means truly independent liberated human beings that will then be catalysts for a wider evolutionary transformation within the collective. You have all settled into a spiritual lifestyle here, extraordinary though it is, and you are all colluding together to maintain it, but it’s going to end.  I am determined to force this to the next level and you are all going to come with me”.

Andrews’s words rang in the pregnant silence that followed.  I didn’t know quite what to make of what he was saying and nor, it seemed, did any of my brothers. As we all drove in a long convoy of cars back to Foxhollow nobody spoke. Andrew had thrown down the gauntlet and we all knew the implications were going to be big.

Don’t Be So Serious

New Years Eve 2000

“I just got off the phone with Andrew” said Robert. “He says all the guys should meet in the meditation hall at 11:45 pm”.  We all reluctantly dragged ourselves up from our sofas where we had been watching videos. Later we filed into the lobby of the meditation hall, our bowed heads lost in our own whirling thoughts  as we took off our snow laden boots and coats. What was going to happen now I wondered?  My body was heavy with exhaustion and resignation. I longed to disappear somewhere and be free of this unyielding ongoing pressure.  All I wanted to do was sleep. Since that night in the bar things had only gone from bad to much worse.  None of us were doing well. In fact, we were all reeling in the face of what appeared to be insurmountable resistance rearing up in response to Andrews’s demand that we let go and be sincerely interested in evolving to a higher level…

For several months now I seemed to have had no access whatsoever to the wellspring of awakened inspiration, joy and insight that had infused my experience since meeting Andrew.  As was the case with all of us, there had been times when I retreated into the shadow of ego when challenged to face myself, times when I had to struggle to break free from its grip, but this would usually not last longer than a few days or weeks. Even in the most difficult times I had not doubted that this was the life that I wanted. But I had never experienced anything like the numb indifference that now suffocated my soul and felt as if it was freezing the very lifeblood in my veins.  Whatever the leap was that Andrew was calling us to, I clearly did not want it.  And I knew deeply it was because there was nothing in it for “me”.

I knew I was up against a fundamental wall of selfishness and arrogant defiance.  I would freely admit all of this to Andrew and my brothers. But I didn’t care. And I knew that none of my brothers cared either. We all knew this. Andrew couldn’t have made it clearer to us. He had recently begun to cover the walls of our locker room with mocking cartoons (drawn by myself) and our letters to him so that we could see the hypocrisy, pretence and the appalling lack of heart that we were expressing. But rather than let our Master’s impassioned call for some courageous purity of intention penetrate our armour and prick our submerged spiritual conscience, we battened down inside ourselves absorbing and neutralizing one blow after another. Beneath all of the pretence of our interest in meeting Andrews call there was an unspoken contract between us, and we were digging in deeper.

…What greeted us as we descended the stairs to the basement underneath the meditation hall was something we could never have been prepared for. We walked into a full fledged New Years Party! The whole “holiday period” had been one protracted hell realm for all of us, so it definitely hadn’t been on our radar to be celebrating anything. I and my brothers stood dumbfounded as we observed our Master’s latest outrageously creative attempt to puncture our unified field of resistance.

Music was blaring, there were multicoloured streamers decorating the walls and ceiling, flashing disco lights, tables decked with bottles of bear, cigarettes and snacks. But the biggest shock of all was seeing a number of our spiritual sisters decked out in mini skirts, fishnet tights and heavy make-up grooving seductively to the music. As we came down the stairs one by one they sidled up to us, blowing party whistles in our faces coaxing us and saying, “Come on relax, don’t be so serious!”, inviting us to dance and drink. It was humiliating to endure but it didn’t galvanize me or any of my brothers to break out of the stupor that we were in.  I sunk back into a frozen numb place inside myself where none of this embarrassing ordeal could touch me. I just stood and stared blankly at the floor until it was over.

If ever there was such a thing as dharma theatre then this was it! One thing I want to make very clear though is that even in the midst of the wildest creativity there was always an implicit awareness of what was appropriate conduct within the parameters of the situation. This did not have to be established beforehand for it was simply inherent in us as a result of being with Andrew. So in this instance that means that no we didnt end up indulging in a drunken orgy with our spiritual sisters, as might have happened in a similar situation with Da Free John or Osho Rajneesh for example. On the contrary, the experience of being plunged into this theatre was excruciatingly austere in its impact. If there were any smiles that flickered across any of our faces, they were only the smiles of the ego…

Through this whole protracted ordeal, of which our New Years party was part, our cherished self images as fundamentally sincere spiritual revolutionaries stood in stark contrast to the seemingly impenetrable wall of defiant resistance that reared up within us.  While we gave lip service to the truth of what we were faced with in ourselves, we remained in deep denial. Andrew had made it clear to us that what we were confronting were impersonal forces of collective ego that were deeply embedded in the fabric of the human race. Because he was pushing for a breakthrough on a collective level we seemed to become vehicles for archetypal forces in humanity that resisted this evolutionary leap. Although I had a deep intellectual grasp of the teachings of Impersonal Evolutionary Enlightenment, emotionally I didn’t want to let in any larger picture at all. As Andrew kept relentlessly applying pressure, and more letters and cartoons portraying our predicament went up on our locker room walls, the only thing that was in my picture was “me” and my own suffering. Eventually I began to doubt the whole thing – what Andrew was doing and my own intention – and I simultaneously began to yearn to be free to do and be as I pleased.

One night I was working in my office trying to keep my failing business afloat, a fact that was contributing greatly to my victimized miserable state, when there was a knock at the door. “Come in”, I shouted.  One of my spiritual sisters dressed in waitress garb walked in with a glass and a bottle of Jack Daniels on a tray – an emissary from Andrew. She placed the glass on my desk in front of me, filled it with whiskey and walked out. I stared at that glass for a long time and as I did so something inside me snapped. I had had enough. I couldn’t find a shred of anything inside myself that wanted to meet the call of my Guru. There is no point in pretending anymore I thought, I was going to get out.

Checkmate, mate!

March 2001

“Checkmate mate” said Calvin with a knowing smile in his best mock-cockney accent as he picked up the salt shaker and placed it carefully between the catsup and mustard containers in front of us. The glass I had been rapping on the table as I rattled out all my reasons for wanting to leave the community was now surrounded on all sides – by Calvin’s glass, our empty non-alcoholic beer bottles, the catsup and mustard containers, and now the salt shaker that closed the circle.

“I just don’t feel I have the conviction to follow through on this anymore” I said.  “I want to get my life together and spend more time alone. I have had enough of the pressure and I don’t want to carry on half-heartedly and bail out later and create even more karma. I …” As I tapped my glass on the table to punctuate the solid reasoning behind my argument Calvin countered by murmuring “I, I, I, and I” under his breath as he marshalled all the available objects on the table to make his point, “but what about we, we, we and WE?”

“Checkmate Mate! You’re surrounded! You can’t escape! We are in this together!  Give up!”  I looked into his gleaming eyes and something melted. I let go of my encircled glass and sat back in my chair completely flummoxed. The next second we both erupted into spontaneous laughter as the conviction behind my tirade of self justification evaporated into thin air. Tears welled up in my eyes. I loved this guy. A sweet natured American from Oklahoma, he was my closest spiritual brother in the community. We had been through quite a bit, scaled the heavens, struggled through the hells, together.  So now here he was in front of me, and how the heck did he get here?  He had tracked me down via a phone number he had found in one of my discarded notebooks, had flown all the way from Boston and called me up and arranged this rendezvous in a restaurant in downtown Santa Fe, after I had shoved all my belongings into a rental car a few days before and driven 2000 miles like a bat out of hell to New Mexico.

Into The Fire

June 2001

As I understand it now the reason that our individual and collective resistance was so extreme was because Andrew was pushing for an actualized breakthrough into a collective matrix of awakened consciousness beyond ego. This was not the “Enlightenment” of the great traditions with the goal of transcendence of the world and nor was this an individual spiritual attainment. What Andrew was endeavouring to bring into being was a literal mutation in our shared humanity, a mutation that far transcended anything that we could “have” for ourselves, or even understand with that rather limited apparatus called the “mind”. Thus the force of resistance that asserted itself within us had its roots in deep structures of self-preservation that went far beyond any of us personally. We were confronting the impersonal forces in the human condition that were inconsistent with the deepest truth of our Being that now longed to be born in an unprecedented new form. Andrew was trying to forge a new pathway for the evolution of consciousness and we were the vehicles for this mutation. This was our obligation and our destiny.

Some will say that this orientation toward “Evolutionary Enlightenment” was not what they originally signed up for when they became a student of Andrew. But I don’t think that could ever be completely true. While the articulation and emphasis of Andrews teaching did change considerably over time, from the very beginning people gave their lives over to something bigger than their own liberation. Something thrilling, something radical, something magnetic and mysterious in its insistent call. In becoming a student of Andrew’s we had not only recognized our true nature as non separate from Life itself, we had given ourselves to a sacred obligation to transcend the agenda of the separate ego and demonstrate a new possibility for humanity. That’s why we had all given up so much to come together in this remarkable adventure. That is why we, and Andrew, called it the Revolution!

But while it was one thing to recognize this intellectually, and even experience the reality of it in profound openings of clarity and revelation, it was quite another to be able to carry that perspective in and as oneself when one was being emotionally battered by the storm of ego erupting from within and without. Because Andrew had closed the exits to a life of compromise and was now playing hardball either our centre of gravity had to move up the evolutionary spiral or the urgency of the evolutionary process forced us out. One by one almost all of us collapsed into a pit of victimized self pity, fell into doubt and defiance, gradually severing the delicate sinews that bound us to each other and to our Guru. Andrew would not, and could not, compromise and risked everything to break this impasse. Many left during this time. I myself had left and come back.  When I returned I entered the silence of a retreat that had begun a few days before, joining many of my spiritual brothers.

As the hours and days of meditation and silence flowed by in a timeless continuum, the trials of the recent past fell away and I sank ever deeper into the Ground of Being. My spiritual heart, that had only ever been one with my Guru, began to pulse into life again. As I dived completely into the meditation practice and the passionate chanting of an excerpt from “Enlightenment is a Secret” called “Pride is Vicious”, my being filled with a luminous energy and the turbulent currents of my mind unravelled in the vast infinite space. In light of this reawakened innocence and limitless expansion of self the painful truth of my embedded selfishness and unwillingness to battle for what I most deeply knew was exposed in sharp relief. When the chips were down I had chosen to betray my own true heart and my Guru for the illusory promise of my own self preservation.  But as I meditated and chanted along with brothers with whom I shared a profound soul level bond, I could no longer make myself a special case. We had all recoiled and revolted in the face of Andrew’s demand. The deep human conditioning we were facing into was fundamentally the same for each and every one of us and now here we were all burning through it, giving ourselves to this practice because our lives literally depended on it. We were in a purifying crucible together in which the mounting spiritual power and momentum of our shared intention and practice confronted, chastened, and gradually dismantled our egoic rebellion.

After several weeks of immersion in this extraordinary continuum of profound meditation we began to meet regularly with several of our brothers who were not on the retreat. They had made a remarkable breakthrough together. Through taking an ongoing absolute stand with all the movements and motivations in themselves that were rooted in the separate ego self they found themselves coming together in the surging knowledge of their identity as One Self like never before. It was astonishing to witness as brothers I knew so well were clearly radically transformed. The past had literally fallen away. They were all expressing an authentic doubtlessness, a liberated passionate care and a penetrating subtlety of discrimination that was breathtaking. Many of us struggled to meet this as nothing less than a genuine heartfelt authentic response would bear the searing singularity of the awakened consciousness that reigned in the room. The degree of subtlety with which any trace of impurity was being recognized and responded to was absolutely challenging and unthinkably profound. With each meeting the stakes rose and the noose tightened around any attachment any of us had to expressing ego in any shape or form.  Whether it was expressed as a victimized relationship to our past or conditioning, fear of letting go of our defences, arrogant over confidence and self-satisfaction, or an unwillingness to trust in others and fully participate, the movement of the separate ego was seen and named for what it was – the impersonal enemy within that had to be caged and transcended for the sake of a higher emergence. The circle burned with a sacrificial fire. There was no way back or around this demand. One could cut the evolutionary tension with a knife.

Emergence: July 30th 2001

“In the actual state of humanity, it is the individual who must climb to this height as a pioneer and precursor.  But if a collectivity or group could be formed of those who had reached the supra-mental perfection, there indeed some divine creation could take shape; a new earth could descend that would be a new heaven, a world of supra-mental light could be created here amidst the receding darkness of this terrestrial ignorance.”

Sri Aurobindo

On the night of July 30^th 2001 we had a meeting together that was unprecedented in the history of Andrew’s students. From the very beginning each individual spoke with a pure passion, transparency and authenticity that expressed only their highest and deepest experience. The circle rapidly ignited into a ring of spiritual fire as we found ourselves consumed and transported beyond all knowing into the uncontainable mystery of a collective enlightened consciousness.

All distinctions between the One and the Many rapidly dissolved in a searing conflagration of unity. Every individual, mysteriously more fully themselves then ever before, melted into a glowing field of luminous energy. There was only One Heart, One Mind, and One Voice that hungered to speak. But what was so new and utterly awe inspiring was the unmistakable presence of a greater and higher intelligence that was emerging in this context of seamless autonomy and communion. This revelation was far more than a spiritual experience. It was the palpable sensation of becoming a conscious part of an even more infinitely conscious Whole. It was as if we had somehow forged ourselves into a great unified Receiver that was now able to pick up a signal that was always there but had hitherto been beyond our reach. A new matrix of awakened consciousness, literally a new Being, unshackled from any vestige of separation, was surging into manifestation through us and as us. It vibrated with a luminous insistent call that seemed to erupt from the depths of our souls and from the infinite vastness of the overarching cosmos simultaneously. It had its own agenda and was pregnant with a purpose that held the fruition and resolution of the human predicament within it. This was implicitly and simultaneously known by us all beyond the mind, and yet we were miraculously able to express it.

One after another we gave voice to our recognition that in this emergence lay the potential for not only the end of all conflict, but the creation of a new order of human relationship and a new world. A new epoch of limitless possibility was dawning and breaking over us in ecstatic waves of revelation. We spoke of the sensation of standing on the threshold of a new understanding of human existence peering into our collective evolutionary future – the status quo of separation and conflict superseded by a miraculous context of unity and resounding creative purpose. We had miraculously penetrated together to the very fount of Creation and we were being called to be its servants. In light of this we knew nothing could ever be the same again and the implications of what Andrew was teaching, and was here to bring into being, were far beyond what we had ever considered possible.

The meeting came to a seamless and natural close as the last person spoke and the whirlwind of that transcendent higher intelligence seemed to spiral upward and out of the room. We sat absolutely stunned in silent awe, drenched in a Love that knew no bounds that had emptied us of all self-importance. After a few whispered words, we all walked down to Andrew’s house in the middle of the night and prostrated there on the grass outside while he slept. We all lay there in silence in the cool night air for a long time.

Andrew was completely delighted when he heard about this. He marked this event as the birth of “radical impersonal evolutionary enlightenment”, the fully actualized expression of a collective enlightened consciousness infused by a passionate care for Life itself. This was the true beginning of what he had worked so hard with us to make manifest. This was why he had refused to compromise and had pushed us to our limits. This was why he had been willing to risk everything. This was the sacred potential that he knew all along was latent in all of us. And now we were all on our knees before it, humbled and transfigured by the enormity of what was being birthed in and between us.

This extraordinary phenomenon continued and gathered momentum as we met almost every evening over the ensuing weeks. I was reeling  in awe and wonder at what was occurring. As I surrendered more and more I found myself soaring into realms of knowing far beyond anything that I had experienced before. Often the intensity of the awakened passion that would spontaneously stream out of me in the meetings shocked me because I could not recognize myself in it. It was coming from somewhere so absolutely Other and yet it was absolutely and undeniably myself. Then, after our volcanic meetings I would go back into the silence of the retreat and dissolve once again into the unfathomable depths of meditation and silent ecstasy. Never had I felt so at one with my Teacher, with his overwhelming passion, with his revolutionary vision. I was seeing through his eyes and feeling with his heart. And what I saw and felt burned into the depths of my being. There were many more trials to come, as this spiritual baptism would meet with further rounds of egoic blowback, but that knowing, passion and vision of what is possible in and between human beings has never left me and is the defining arrow of my life.

Pete Bampton can be contacted at pete.bampton@gmail.com