I met Andrew Cohen in 1986, in Devon, England. Within days of beginning to attend what Andrew was then calling satsang, I was immersed, dissolved, and overwhelmed by a depth of living realization and a magnitude and singularity of Love that I had never dreamed was possible. It was the beginning of the most important relationship of my life, a relationship that I was both utterly unprepared for and had sought for with all my heart for most of my conscious existence. But to backtrack…

At the time I met Andrew I was deeply involved with the Buddhist/Vipassana community and had been since I was 19, when I did my first 10-day retreat at the Insight Meditation center in Barre, Massachusetts. It was there that I first fell deeply in love with the teachings of the Buddha, and later met Christopher Titmus with whom I developed a mentor/student relationship and friendship. It was he who encouraged me to deepen my practice by going to Wales for his annual month-long summer silent retreat; which I did the summer I turned 21. Afterward, he encouraged me strongly to go to India for his winter retreat in Bodh Gaya, with the goal of perhaps going afterward to Thailand to ordain, as he had many years before.

The time between the Welsh retreat and when I left for India (after finishing Art College in 1984) only served to deepen my conviction that the path of meditation and spiritual study was what I felt deeply called to. I left for England in December of 1983 to meet Christopher in London to travel with him to India to begin my studies. I didn’t know what was going to follow, but I had no timeline or plans to return to the US.

The time in India was life-changing (far more to do with the timeless power of mother India herself than almost anything I could have found on a month’s retreat) leaving me shaken and questioning how it was that I had been given so much for so long- something until going to India I had never questioned in any way. At the end of the retreat Christopher asked me to move to Devon to help him run a mediation retreat house that he and his partner Christina had founded. I accepted, and after taking some time to travel I returned to England to live and work the following spring.

I adored England, and felt deeply at home. I enjoyed my work for Gaia House, and my reconnection with many of the others who were in the Vipassana community, many of whom I had met first on the retreat in Wales and were on the board of Gaia House.

During this time Christopher began a community at Sharpham House, a nearby Manor house who’s owner offered the to nursery wing (an amazing space) for Christopher’s students to live in and use to offer classes and weekend retreats. It was there that I moved, just after word of an American’s enlightenment began to hit the shores of this pastoral world.

I’m not sure I can even convey what a shock even these rumors were. All that I had learned since 19 was that one’s duty was to “one’s practice” and developing equanimity. Enlightenment was utterly out of the question, off the charts, arrogant in the extreme to even wish for. That was the Buddha, and perhaps a few sages like Ramana Maharshi, or Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. That an American, just a few years older than me…well it was both utterly inconceivable and like a flare, lit up the landscape of assumptions and structures that none of in the Vipassana community had ever questioned. Little did I know that this was a wavelet, a fractal of the tsunami that Andrew was to bring with him and that I was to be immersed in for the next 23 years.

Very shortly after Andrew landed in Totnes, Devon (on the invitation of Murray Feldman who had introduced him to HWL Poonja) he began teaching in the living room of Murray and his wife Shanti’s cottage every night and taught there for about a month, if memory serves. In spite of the fact that the cottage was – no exaggeration – at the top of the drive to Sharpham House where I was living with others from Christopher’s community, I found myself very divided and did not go. I could not, however, insulate myself from the currents, rumors, and tremors that were shaking this formerly sleepy Buddhist community that I had left America to be part of…Stories of profound meditation and spontaneous awakenings of great depth; in many cases happening to people with no prior history with meditation or even any religious tradition.

The gatherings in the cottage living room quickly outgrew the space as more and more people came for satsang. So Andrew, Alka, Orly, Brad, and the others that had come with him from Rishikesh, decided to rent another larger cottage a few miles down the road. It was at this point that my boyfriend, Steve, decided that he needed to see what all the ruckus was about…not a small thing for someone on the board of the local Buddhist meditation center (that I also had managed) and with even longer ties than me with its main teacher and founder Christopher Titmus.

Steve went to satsang one night, and came back amazed and filled with stories and encouragement. He went again and shortly afterward arranged to speak with Andrew privately. He came back from that meeting profoundly affected and with no doubt that Andrew was a true Guru.

At this point, in spite of all my fears of spiritual authorities I felt I had to see for myself what was going on under my nose. Andrew seemed to be awakening revelations that I had read about in the sutras and “I am That”. But, after many years of Vipassana meditation and retreats, these accounts honestly did not in any way seem plausible to me.

But I was wrong. In a packed, stuffy Devonshire cottage living room, full of the smells of wet wool, wellies and smoke from the fire, strangers and friends sat crammed together or perched on the window sills or out in the hall. Into this crush, night after night, Andrew would descend from his room upstairs in jeans and a t-shirt. Some nights he would just sit in meditation, in the overstuffed green chair that he used every night, and the room would be enveloped in a profundity of living silence that I had never, ever experienced before. Other nights he would speak or answer questions, and when he spoke with others it was as if he was answering my most secret unasked questions.

One night, several weeks after I began coming I was held up and arrived late. The only seat left was an old wooden rocking chair set out of the line of sight, at the very back of the room in an alcove under the stairs. Because I could not see Andrew easily, I closed my eyes to listen to him speak. As I listened I fell more deeply into a timeless space of  no-thought than Iever had before. The next thing I knew, Steve was shaking me to leave. Satsang had been over for perhaps an hour, and I had had no idea, in spite of being surrounded by dozens of talking people drinking tea. Deeply disoriented, I knew I had to get home to where I could be quiet again, because I knew I would be able to “keep it together” for only a minimal amount of time. Keep what together, and for what, I had no idea but I would soon find out.

As soon as I got home, I lay down on my bed. Almost right away, I left my body, the first and only time this has happened to me. I could see it on the bed below lying next to Steve, but felt no fear, only relief, excitement and awe. In the bizarre nature of such things, it seemed like I went up to the top far corner of my bedroom ceiling where both a doorway and the being who guarded the door awaited me. Whenever I try to remember what this being looked like I can only remember light, and get the image of an angel from one of the early 15th century paintings of the annunciation. Strange, but there you are. There were no words, but there was communication – of joy, love and of great welcome. I was allowed to pass. As I entered the vast field or space I was aware of countless other beings in a sea of light, and a boundless wash of Love that was not mine and not theirs – but was all of us, and was also profoundly more than all and any of us…more vast and beautiful than can possibly be described. It was into that Love and perfect Joy that I disappeared as all individuation vanished. And I knew then, beyond any doubt that my truest Self was this Love, but that it was also the final nature and Truth at the center and bottom of everything, seen and unseen.

I was stunned and more than a little shaken by what had happened when I woke the next day. But I never had a moments doubt that what I had seen and felt was real, however extraordinary and hard to explain. A few days later I had the opportunity to tell Andrew about it. He pulled me aside to talk privately, and then left for a moment to return with a picture of Ramana Maharshi. “You do know” he said, “that this man’s experience and yours are one and the same?” This completely stopped me – I held Ramana in awe. I had traveled almost the length of India in second-class train carriages a few years before to spend time at his ashram. I had also had a deep experience while meditating at his tomb prior to leaving Arunachala – so in this world there was probably no-one I would have been less inclined to place myself in the same sentence with. However, as Andrew said these words, I saw, and even more importantly, knew something even more deeply. It was that this Love was my True Self it was also THE True Self, and so in that deepest place, the most (and only) real place, I was the same as Ramana, and that also, in this, Andrew and I were no different…and even more than that, we were One – that his truest heart and mine were the same. This lasted the merest sliver of a second, but seemed forever. In the next moment I saw the vast implications of that truth on every level…the total surrender, care and big-hearted abandonment of my personal history that I also knew in that moment would have to be given. And in the next heartbeat I utterly rejected it.

In all fairness, I have to confess here to the benefit of 23 years of hindsight and probing compressed into this last sentence. At the time, all I was aware of was the barest flicker of recognition, followed by a tsunami of “me?? Ramana??? Who on earth is he kidding? Doesn’t he know what a neurotic young/American/woman/mess I am?” And then I pulled back in what seemed to me to be confusion.

The reason I am emphasizing now something that happened at the very beginning of my relationship with Andrew is because I now know that these events set the stage for everything that has come since, both profoundly good and extraordinarily difficult. In that moment, the moment of showing me my True Self, Andrew became my Teacher, my Guru. And in that he also became the one who would accept no less of me than he knew I was capable of – a fight of wills that would at times be very painful for both of us. After this event I became more and more immersed in Andrew’s teachings, ultimately leaving Devon and moving back to the states to be Andrew’s student.

Shortly after the time above Andrew taught in Amsterdam for the first time. Then he went to Rome, Israel, and beyond as people who had met him invited him. More and more, the joy of being with others who were experiencing the same extraordinary Freedom became the focus of all of our lives. Also, at the same time (as has been recounted elsewhere on Guru Talk) Andrew began to see that direct and unequivocal experiences of the divine source were not enough for most of us – even those who viewed him as their Teacher – to surrender the ego and live in true service of love and unity, no matter what we had seen or said.

So, the following arc of the years – leaving England to return to the States to settle in Cambridge, then out to Marin, California where we were for eight years, and then finding and settling in Foxhollow in Lenox, Mass…were all woven through with trips, Teachings, and Retreats in India, Europe, Australia and beyond, with the continuous evolution of his understanding of the human condition. This was fueled by his struggles with all of us (myself emphatically included!) to live up to what he knew we knew and to be willing to come together in trust, care and interest in the Truth. The trouble being that the Truth also includes the facts of the closer than close conditioning of gender, culture, and self image and personal history…and on his repeated demand to truly lean into these issues with a big heart I also fought Andrew tooth and claw for many years, while sure I was doing everything possible.

My point is – as all scripture says – the ego is a tricky, slippery, nasty bastard! So, as its sworn enemy, Andrew did resort to strong tactics at times. But – and this is crucial- he only did this with intelligent, self-determined adults who had sworn directly to him that this was their life and they didn’t want kid gloves!

I must also confess that much of what has become controversial in later years I did not see, as my own form of stark refusal was to pretend I had no memory of what I knew and was utterly unable to do more than serve in the kitchen…with a few illuminating exceptions. But (and I can see clearly now why) my and our refusal to transform, at its worst, made Andrew exhausted, angry and despairing. And so the years were very, very up and down, with what seemed at times more down than up. Yet even during the hardest times we were learning and things did change and evolve. But they never, ever would have without the pressure Andrew had to bring to bear – to his own distress.

It’s important also to see that all of this was against the reverse curve of Andrew needing more and more authentic conviction and humility from his students, not less. With some, this was occurring, but they were few. For myself, four years ago after a particularly difficult retreat and follow-up, I decided to no longer be part of Andrews’ community…that I had to find another way forward.

In the midst of a particularly difficult time for Andrew’s female students, I left. I found a light-filled apartment not far from my work, and settled in for the winter depressingly convinced that I had wasted the bulk of my life and all my youth (I was then 48) on a bitter failure. Six months later, a lifeline came from a totally unexpected quarter. Two of Andrew’s closest male students had begun a conversation that resulted in a realization that Andrew’s community as a whole had almost no respect or appreciation for its beginnings and that this was something that needed addressing. So, with the greatest trepidation I and others who had met Andrew in the first few years began speaking with them about this. The effect was astounding. Whole chunks of my experience that I had taken totally personally began to be seen from a much bigger perspective. And even, perhaps more important, I realized that that which had led me to Andrew was still totally alive and that none of it had been a waste…and that the mystery, possibility and journey was there for me to engage with now and in going forward.

As a result of these conversations a number of us decided to meet in Israel and to have a retreat together in En Gedi on the Dead Sea to speak further. It was an amazing gathering, with a wide range of Andrew’s current and ex-students…all of whom had been his students for 20 years or more. From right at the beginning, as we walked and spoke in that amazing landscape there was a depth of Presence and a releasing, an up surging of Love and connection to the ineffable that, shortly before, I had thought I would never experience again. There was also a gradual healing over those days, and a deepening understanding of the magnitude of the forces that are at play around any true teacher of Enlightenment…Evolutionary transfromation is a messy business and the biggest of hearts is needed. And even more than that, the Mystery is always a Mystery…and it wasn’t over yet! A facet of this is the strength of connection and care between so many of us that have been Andrew’s students. This was, for many of us, re-booted by our time in En Gedi and has only gone from strength to strength since and continues to expand.

I came back to Boston that spring with the renewed heart and passion to ask myself anew how to live my life with integrity and purpose. And, with my history with Andrew fully in the picture, to begin to find out what was the right path for me outside of the formal community of EnlightenNext. Again, to my surprise, the answers were not long in coming.

Standing doing dishes one day I had a vision. It was of me, but not in any recognizable form. Rather, it was of a soul-map, showing very clearly the areas that were developed and those that were not. Not surprisingly, perhaps, my area of dignified mature engagement with the world was weak, as was my area of human vulnerability and love. Again, not surprising as I had not been in a romantic/sexual relationship for over 17 years (and even then it had hardly been my forte!)

Having been offered guidance, I decided it only made sense to follow the thread. After a lot of thought and research I decided to go to Graduate School, to deepen and solidify the dignity and self-reliance that Andrew had very specifically asked me to cultivate so many years before. And I also decided to take the risk of a relationship that presented itself at that time…something that would have been inconceivable only months before.

Now, two and a half years later, the pursuit of my MS is going very well, and is nearing its completion. The initial relationship was not so successful, but showed me in many ways how much I had grown and how much Andrew’s teachings were part of me. And, perhaps even more important, that in the face of the resulting emotional turmoil, I re-discovered how they were indeed the truest bedrock of sanity, goodness and love imaginable – and in no way the abstractions I’d been making them for so long. It was also then that I began to have many “aha” moments…”Oh that’s why Andrew said that”, “Oh that’s why Andrew so wanted women to be independent” “Oh that’s why the Five Tenets are the foundation for living a liberated life. They actually are! They just are, Period!” …All this, after 22 years!! There were many moments I’ve also felt like Homer Simpson (Duh!) and like sending Andrew a telegram. “Dear Andrew, I get it. I’m very sorry for being such a total idiot. Love, Kate”

In a way I did send that telegram. I’ve stayed in touch with Andrew and the more independent and authentic my inquiry became, the closer we have become. And at a certain point I realized that we had never been this close, except perhaps right at the beginning. Not because of anything Andrew had done, but because (at least in part) I was finally growing up as he had asked me to do for so many years…and in that I was beginning to realize the fact my responsibility for everything he has taught me.

A year ago I decided not to be a coward, and gave love (small l) another chance. And amazingly, in spite of all my ideas that pretty much anyone would run upon hearing the story above, I have met and fallen in love with a wonderful man on a search of his own. One that had taken him though the seminary rather than the more Eastern route, but the difference has proven immaterial.

So…much happened for me both within and outside Andrew’s formal community. But none of it has happened outside my relationship with Andrew and what he is bringing to the world. How my part in all of this will continue to unfold is unknown, but possibilities and goodness are beyond doubt. I look forward to what is next with a very full heart!

Kate Fleming can be contacted at kfleming333@gmail.com

Walking down the road in Stockbridge MA, my head is buzzing after talking with everyone. Something is burning through my nervous system, wanting to come through. Something is emerging that has its own life and force. This emergence happens in apparent spaces between us that don’t really exist: in the living paradox of autonomy and communion and a palpable energetic  field that can only be Love. It is a Love stripped bare of romantic components; it has no face but the other, no urge but for union, no reason except to merge into itself and multiply. This Love only sees the Beloved, which is not another individual but a particular awareness and vibration. It is the setting for the story and the story itself; the play and the players, as well as the audience and the theatre. It wants itself, multiplied exponentially. It wants to live together, to talk, and to breathe in each other’s company. More and more and more and more endlessly. It doesn’t want to leave or sleep or deal with any practical reality. It just wants to go, go, go, onward and upward.

This force has gotten us all into major trouble, by identifying with it, by confusing it with the thrust of ego. It takes so much to face it with maturity and be able to ride this wild horse without falling off or running all over the country, unhinged. What has set this in motion is the force of the Guru Principle. It was meeting Andrew that awakened this in many of us or put that which we had been seeking for years into context and form. Most of us are post-modern boomers, from Western Europe and America, living the most privileged existence on earth of any time. And we ran smack bang into the most eternal and ancient method of spiritual evolution and transformation: the Guru.

What makes it different this time is that it was not only an individual who had taken the expression of this on as himself; but someone who has the understanding of evolution and a deep interest in what was emerging between us. It took some time for Andrew to understand what was going on. It has taken much longer for some to live it. But we are all connected by that initial recognition and Awakening, the shared consciousness that imprinted all of us in those early days.

Transforming human beings is an outrageously difficult and messy business. To get us to honor that which is not us, but comes through us, and not take it for ourselves but only give to it; it is like turning straw into gold. Andrew only wanted us to make this our own, to submit ourselves to a higher reality so that we would express only That. He wanted companions on the journey and did everything he could to get us to evolve, mature and transform, so that we could carry the gift that we had been given.

As far as I can see, the Guru Principle can move us out of the post-modern predicament of the intensity of narcissism. By bowing to a higher principle and allowing it to work through us, it is possible to go beyond the cynicism and arrogance of 21st century ego structures. Everyone who was with Andrew in the early days got a very big taste of that possibility for free. There was no price to be paid it seemed, we just let it happen. The morning after I met Andrew, my mind was like the sky; clear, empty, vast and limitless. This experience corresponded to all the Tibetan texts I had ever read. But I had no idea what was being asked of me in order to be true to that experience; the renunciation of mind, ego, position, cultural identity, gender identity, power etc, etc… None of us knew what a struggle it was going to be to live this fully. The biggest sacrifice is the price for this extraordinary gift of transformation.

Barbara Waldorf can be reached at barbara@guru-talk.com

I am one of Andrew Cohen’s oldest students having met him in 1986 when he had been teaching formally for only around six months. His teachings have changed enormously over the years, but the seeds for everything that have unfolded were there in the early days. My purpose in writing now is really two-fold.  I would like to write primarily about those early years to attempt to give a sense of what it means to be in a relationship with a true Guru. This is no small matter and in some ways could take a lifetime to fully express. I would also like to address the accounts given from some of Andrew’s ex-students which so glaringly omit the recognition we all had of what Andrew was taking on in us and the enormity of the task.

To get us to temporarily let go of our conditioned way of acting based on fear and desire was not difficult, but to get us to truly change, to live up to what we had experienced and knew to be true, that was a whole other story. I cannot begin to tell you the amount of time, energy and love that Andrew poured into each one of us to help us to evolve, let go and truly change.

The Real Deal

When I met Andrew in 1986, I had been very seriously involved with Vipassana Buddhist meditation for ten years. In spite of all the extensive and intensive practice that I did with many teachers starting with Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield and ending with Christopher Titmuss and Christina Feldman, I did not find my life more enlightened, free or sane. What I found was a desire to continually go back into retreat and meditate. I would experience a lot of peace, bliss and insight on retreat, but when it was over, I had not fundamentally changed. After ten years, I had even begun to teach meditation, but inwardly I had become disillusioned and quite lost. I found as well that this gap also existed in the teachers that I knew; in other words a gap between what they were teaching and how they were living.

When I truly met Andrew and recognized who he was (and that took awhile given my background and suspicion of gurus) it was like nothing that I had ever experienced before or since. I knew beyond a doubt that my life as I had known it was over. I had come home, a home that I had yearned for all my life. I experienced a profound trust and letting go and an intimacy with all Life; with oneself, others and with Andrew. One could call it Love, this intimacy, but it was not a personal love. Andrew was the focus for this “event” but it radiated out to all those who were around him. The intimacy and love between all of us who were with Andrew during this time was beyond anything that any of us had ever experienced and at the same time it was totally natural. From my own experience I knew for the first time what it meant to be a disciple of a true Teacher, a true Guru, and that it was like no other relationship. I would flash upon the biblical scenes of Christ and his disciples (even though I was not brought up as a Christian) and I understood what they must have felt.

When one merges into Life with this degree of trust—trust in the unknown, in that which is beyond the mind, beyond time and space—then we recognize for perhaps the first time how much mistrust and cynicism has been our on-going state and how much self-aggrandizement we have habitually indulged in. Only after meeting Andrew, did I recognize what a superior position I had taken as a spiritual seeker/meditator.

I had met many teachers before Andrew – both from the East and West, but I had never met anyone like Andrew. Besides working and meditating for two years at a Meditation Center in Western Massachusetts which was heavily focused on Vispassana Buddhist meditation, I had lived at a Zen Farm in California for about 6 months and did a number of Zen retreats in the Soto and Rinzai tradition. I had also been to Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado for two summers when the late Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche was teaching, and I had worked at a meditation center in Wiltshire, England for a year and consequently did a year-long retreat there. During these ten years, I met many teachers, both from the East and West and from an assortment of Buddhist traditions. Fundamentally the teachers from the West were sincerely dedicated and many of the teachers who I met from the East were very impressive, but still I can say without hesitation that Andrew was different.

What was it that was and is so unique about him? For one thing I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is the Real Deal, and by that I mean that he is living what he is teaching. He is the ultimate expression of integrity in every aspect of his life. He really lives from a deep place of not knowing and at the same time always strives for perfection in everything he does.  I think it is very rare to truly live from a place of not knowing without the rigidity that often comes from being steeped in a tradition, especially when this is combined with an unusual degree of wanting to find out for oneself what is true. In a way he is a blend of the Western modern man of reason who always wants to find out what the truth is, not settling for superstition in any form, and at the same time is totally immersed in the ungraspable mystery of Life. He manifests the unchanging nature of the ground of being and simultaneously is always leaning forward, changing, learning and developing. This I had not experienced in any of my past teachers.

Another factor that has always struck me is the depth of Andrew’s simple humanity. He has so much heart, uncompromising and at the same time so very flexible, soft and full of humor. You knew that he was, and would always be, totally straight with you. This is a very rare quality and one that inspires so much trust. When I say Andrew is always straight I mean that you never feel that the important things are left unsaid. There is never any pretence, hidden agendas, or what I would call shadows; he is transparent. Andrew naturally responds very directly to life and to people. His directness is coming from a penetrating clarity and a desire for the highest to be expressed in his students. And although his teachings have changed enormously since the early years, he always responded to the aggression of the ego, to pretence, neurosis, any place in us that wants to be special, separate or hold onto a problem. Since most of us do have masks or shadows of pretence to whatever extent, at first this degree of undefended responsiveness could be very disarming, and perhaps even alarming, but no matter what one’s responses were at any given time, it fundamentally inspired such a deep trust. It also gave one “permission” in one’s contact with Andrew, perhaps for the first time in one’s life, to be that direct and straight with oneself and others.

“Not One Drop of Selfishness”

In meeting Andrew an incredible change took place in us in all directions, inner and outer, as the awakened Heart took precedence over the egoic Mind. But in spite of that, for all of us, the ego would eventually resurface and regain control. As a Guru Andrew was endlessly creative in how he worked with us in order to wake us up and help us face the truth. I remember with one close student who was very uptight and full of self-doubt, Andrew had him sit up front next to him while he was teaching in the most loving way. He was given a cup of tea. They both actually had cups of tea! And every time this man would indulge in self-doubt, he was instructed to have a sip of tea. When the man took a sip of tea, Andrew would take a sip too. It was very sweet.  Andrew was trying to help him to relax and let go and it worked!

Very early on Andrew challenged me because after everything had been revealed to me—and I had experienced more bliss, ecstatic joy and oneness of being than any human being could ever ask for—I went back into the neurotic mind that always wants more, compares and indulges in paranoia and self-doubt. When one has tasted and realized such oneness, then retreating back into the neurotic mind and all that that entails is selfish.  How one responds to such a deep realization of oneness reveals everything about our basic condition. In the Light, all the darkness and ignorance gets revealed very quickly.

I didn’t see myself as a selfish person, and from a conventional point of view, I would not have been considered selfish. I had done a lot of volunteer work with the elderly and dying for example. But in the light of the higher consciousness and higher aspiration for liberation that I was experiencing, yes, I was very selfish. And looking back now, it is quite impersonal. I am part of a whole generation of selfish people—post-modern narcissists—for whom the realm of one’s own feeling experience and the freedom to do what I want in “my” life is of utmost importance. I had always lived my life as I wanted and indulged in my emotions in a big way.

I had already known Andrew for over a year. I had been given so much – more than any human being could ever want in this life time.  Many times there was the sense that I could die now because everything was so perfect but still it wasn’t enough, I wasn’t satisfied. Rather than being grateful, I wanted more, more bliss and affirmation. Andrew responded by asking me to write him every day without one drop of selfishness. I did that for close to two weeks and at first it was a real struggle as I could only write one sentence, but by the end of those two weeks something had cracked in me and my heart opened. The heart opening was in relationship to Andrew but really our relationship to Andrew was a microcosm of our relationship to all of life, to the unknown and to limitless possibilities. When that happened, I was filled with gratitude and love and only wanted to give endlessly. In that ecstatic state, the best of us comes out and for quite a long time afterwards the heart took precedence over the mind and all its endless preoccupations.

Everything is Seen

There are so many incidences that I could relate about myself and others that illustrate how Andrew tried everything and experimented in so many ways to wake us up to what we had realized and to change. The relationship with a true Guru or Master is like no other. I had no experience of a Guru from my past and never sought a Guru. The mere idea of having a Guru was distinctly unattractive to me. Even if I had never known about the corruption of so many Gurus, I still would have found the idea totally foreign and scary. It represented a loss of independence and discrimination, the idea of being a blind follower. This is no doubt very much the cultural conditioning of the Western mind. So you can imagine it was a real turnaround for me, to meet and acknowledge Andrew as my Teacher and Guru. It really felt like a choiceless decision. It turned my life upside down in the most glorious way. I was afloat in unknown waters and life took on epic proportions.

The relationship with a Guru is based on trust and a knowing that the only thing the Guru wants is your liberation and your willingness to live your highest potential. It is said a Guru is a dispeller of darkness. Everything eventually is seen in a Guru’s presence – things about yourself that definitely don’t fit your self-image. Nothing that Andrew has ever said to me was untrue but, almost from the very beginning, it was often a shock to some degree because it did not fit my self image of the “nice, good spiritual” person who really does care.  It can be totally excruciating to hear the truth of who we are. In the conventional world this truth would never be revealed because we live in a collusion of compromise never daring to believe that anything more grand and exquisite for human beings and life could be possible. It is a precious gift to hear the truth from a true Guru. In spite of how excruciating it is, you do always know that he or she really does see you, the heights of what you are capable of and also what is in the way, the ego and all its self-deceptions. And you also always know that the Guru’s motivation is pure and that makes all the difference. It’s quite amazing to actually know that a Guru’s motivation is pure because there is so much corruption in many teachers, not all, but many. In meeting what I am calling a true Guru, you see with new eyes the glory of what is possible, a previously unimaginable goodness in life and its potential.  You see this because of the Guru’s own state, where he or she is dwelling.

The ‘Untrue” Self

When Andrew really started taking on our egos and pride, which is traditionally the greatest hindrance in the spiritual journey, and after we had been with him for quite awhile and we still weren’t changing, one of the tools that Andrew used with his older students was to give us names that epitomized our core condition, our core way of operating in the world that was based on survival and compromise; not on liberation of the self, maturity or sanity. This core condition in many ways, as I reflect upon it now, was based on our own personal conditioning and also on the collective ego, or that which is formed by our culture. I was given the name “Dizzy.” Andrew really hit the bull’s eye in terms of capturing my fundamental condition. I was horrified and ashamed. It captured my modus operandi on so many levels: the dizzy dame, dumb lady who asked stupid questions, disorganized, losing things all the time, lost in my own world of feelings and thoughts and not willing to be straight, simple, direct and transparent. This was the persona that I put out to the world when underneath there was a smart, perceptive human being who understood and saw much more than she expressed. She also was in need of a lot of development and was lazy and didn’t seem to think it was important to be organized and together in the world. She was the “sensitive” creative being who didn’t have to be that grounded and practical.

When Andrew first gave me my name, and for most of that year, I didn’t budge from a stance of embarrassment and lack of interest. The only way one can change is by beginning to get interested in really getting a full view of who we are. Andrew has always said that we can’t see ourselves objectively and this is true, but with his help and the help of others, we actually can, but we have to be individually motivated to do so. Also we cannot quickly grasp the full extent of what is being reflected as often it’s so close to us, but the important thing is to be interested. Nearing the end of that year, I did finally start getting interested and a lot got revealed in unexpected and sometimes quite mysterious ways, and by the end of the year Andrew took my name Dizzy away. It wasn’t like I had totally finished with this condition since it is so core, but I had begun to change. The “vessel” as they say in Buddhist literature has to be purified to be worthy to be a conduit of freedom and integrity and that is on-going. A lot changed for me. For a time I manifested a degree of simplicity, clarity and lack of pretence that was simply because I started to face into myself. It was in some ways quite miraculous, but it certainly was not the end of the story. The human condition, as I said earlier, is huge and it can’t be taken for granted and we can’t rest on our laurels and that is what unfortunately many of us did.

The Female Ego and True Women’s Liberation

At a certain point Andrew really starting honing in on the female collective ego.  Even though on some level we all knew about the ego and had faced into our own “personal” egos to one degree or another, this was on a whole other level; it was personal and collective. It first started to become apparent when we had so much difficulty and resistance as women to meeting together in a higher perspective. But it really showed its face when Andrew brought this fact up with us. He was met with a huge NO from all of us! It wasn’t as if we literally said “no” but on a visceral and almost preconscious level this was our collective response. We showed absolutely no interest to find out what this was about. It was so huge and so close to our skin because what Andrew was touching upon was just the tip of the iceberg.

It was the female collective ego that had been developing over centuries and, in terms of our real awareness of it, had also lain dormant for centuries. This was Big. It was like the discovery of the New World, but in this case it was about the female psyche and ego and our response was: “Don’t get near this. This is our secret”. It was a secret even from ourselves but we also did know something about it. I think we all had intimations that we weren’t really as “trusting” or “good” as we presented ourselves to be, but this had to be kept a secret. It was part of our make-up as women: the pretence, the façade, the subterfuge where appearances are more important than anything else. It was also part of our sexual power over men, the main power that we had. We could not admit to not being fundamentally “good” and, even worse, to being aggressive, mistrustful and dishonest. Maybe we could do this on a personal level but not on a collective level. Andrew started to crack into that secret and you can imagine how difficult that was. The face of female Pride reared its head up and said “You are not getting near me. No way!”  This response was visceral and on a totally irrational level. The feeling was that if we were exposed in this way, we would literally die.

For a very long time Andrew kept telling us how uninterested we were in looking into what was going on, and that in itself was devastating to our self-image of being these fundamentally “good” and caring spiritual human beings. How could we not be interested? And for a long time we really didn’t even believe it to be true. Yet, at the same time, we were terrified that it was true. We tried to carry on as before but once the “secret” was out of the box, more just started to be revealed.

For many reasons based on our biology and our past history over eons, women have developed a very complicated ego to survive in a world in which it was literally not safe. We learned to be very manipulative in order to survive. Our survival depended upon looking good, “winning the man,” being seen in a good light. Out of this conditioned core of fundamental insecurity comes a craving for affirmation. Of course men have their own particular culturally and collectively conditioned ego to deal with, but men aren’t so attached to being fundamentally “good” since that has not been so culturally valued. Also men have been out in the world in a way women have not been for centuries, and consequently have developed a much higher degree of objectivity. Women are particularly conditioned to be very feeling-based. Feelings reined supreme over rationality and objectivity. So while this is understandable in the big picture of human evolution, it made it very difficult for us as women to clearly navigate our experience together. It was almost impossible for us to trust each other when we were just with other women. Under the façade of niceness, there was a fierce unacknowledged competitiveness. Most women (and men!) have no idea that this exists. This was a huge condition that had to be faced and transcended in light of a much higher aspiration for human beings, men and women, together. We began to see that transcending these collective structures was so essential if we were going to be able to evolve and create a new awakened culture together of a whole different order.

As you can imagine cracking into the depth of this uncharted terrain was a major undertaking for Andrew. He had no idea that these deep structures that collectively bound women into a web of collusion and compromise were there, until he discovered them himself through us. He had no precedent in spiritual tradition with which to deal with this either.

Over the years there would be breakthroughs with us women which we could not sustain. We were dealing with not only the individual ego that has formed through our personal history, but with the collective ego of the female gender. The difficulty for us women was our mistrust and competitiveness, but probably the biggest obstacle to transcending this in ourselves was our prideful refusal to let go and really see our “personal” experience from an impersonal perspective.

You cannot imagine how much it took from Andrew over years and years, first to get us to acknowledge this conditioning (which was not personal but which we all took personally), and then once acknowledged and looked into, to get us to the point where we actually wanted to change. And even then it was a whole other leap to actually change. It is one thing to get one woman to transcend her condition, but it is quite another to get a collective of women to change. It was a monumental task – a huge battle – and for a long time it was not clear at all if it was going to happen. There were no guarantees. If it had been left up to us, we would have never gotten interested, period. So many of us continued to “fall” in the face of this challenge and express gross ego in the worst way and fundamentally not care. It is only because of Andrew’s relentless desire to liberate us as women that some of us did finally change and a true sisterhood has emerged in which women are expressing an authentic autonomy and interconnectedness that was unimaginable before.

For myself, as I look back now, my way of dealing with being confronted with ego, and particularly aggression which I really didn’t want to see in myself, was to project this aggression onto many of my own sisters. I became “weak,” cowering and inept which was really all a façade to cover up my own unwillingness to face myself impersonally and fully acknowledge my own aggression, lust for power and mistrust. I opted for a passive aggression where I could blame and resent others. I was a coward. A coward doesn’t stand up for herself, she doesn’t show her cards, but underneath she knows so much more. This is really an untenable position to take because it does not allow for any authenticity, any true meeting with others. This position of cowardice which I took to the extreme was also an impersonal stance with some of the women, meaning it was the same conditioned reflex that manifested in many of us. Others took a different stance, had a lot more courage, but also were often coming from wanting to be in a powerful position. In either stance, one is holding on to oneself, still wanting to have power. This was a whole dynamic that had to be seen, acknowledged and transcended, and finally it did change, but, as I keep saying, it would take an enormous degree of relentless “hammering” from Andrew before it actually did.

Projecting the Shadow

Dealing with the refusal to really face ourselves and change is an ongoing part of any genuine spiritual path. It is often what seems like an endlessly arduous task of climbing up a steep mountain with the summit shrouded in clouds. All we know is that we have to keep going or fall. Because staying on the “straight and narrow” demands such ongoing humility and relentless honesty with ourselves, we are often tempted to seek relief by projecting our “shadow” onto others, for example “my sisters are out to get me” or “Andrew is punishing me” etc.  But this projection, which can very insidiously distort the actual facts of what is occurring, is a direct result of the refusal to take responsibility for our own condition. It doesn’t take much to go there and lose true perspective on what is happening, especially in an excruciating and challenging circumstance. When this shape shift occurs we then become the “victim” and everything gets distorted very quickly, faster than the blink of an eye. The delicacy and subtlety of what we are involved in with this relationship can be so easily distorted when we are not clean with ourselves.

It is exactly the knowledge of the dynamic I have just described (and this is something that was exposed between us repeatedly) that I find so seriously omitted from the accounts of some of those who have left and still harbor so much resentment. They don’t acknowledge their own refusal to take responsibility for their shadow. From being a student of Andrew over time one does learn about this distortion that can easily happen and therefore even if one decides not to change, one really doesn’t have any excuse for not taking responsibility for ones own distorted perceptions. We were taught how to be objective and rational by a training and practice that we had all been so fortunate to receive. We also all knew very quickly after being with Andrew that what we were embarking upon was ENORMOUS—it was and is a heroic task and that is what thrilled the best part of ourselves.

This Relationship is for Life

I am not one of the core students now which means I am not part of the on-going group of students who directly receive guidance from Andrew and are now really partners with him. But one thing I know for sure: he is no longer doing battle in the way he had to do for so many years. The ego, individual and collective, is not in control anymore. It’s a major victory and what is emerging is a truly evolving transformed community of autonomous, profoundly interconnected human beings that are caring deeply about creating a new future with higher and deeper values.

Andrew is still however my teacher. This relationship is for life. To deny it would be to go against my heart and soul. I only have profound gratitude for everything that Andrew has done, not just for myself, but for the evolution of the whole human race. As long as one stays connected to Andrew, the teachings and the depth and breath of what one has realized and recognized in meeting him, then development and evolution is always possible. I feel tremendously passionate and committed to this life of the Spirit that is ever new, ever changing and ever reaching for deeper and higher values of goodness and truth. I have learned and continue to learn so much. My conviction in what is happening is unshakable and the resounding positivity that has always been the pulsating lifeblood of Andrew’s vision now makes truly significant and profound change possible for us all.

Judy Fox can be contacted at judy@guru-talk.com