I can't begin to describe how frightening I'm finding this book I'm reading -- Enlightenment Blues (see previous post).
As I said before, I don't have any personal experience with Andrew Cohen. I'm taking as true what is in this book, and I'm sure some out there will see it differently. But it doesn't really matter because I am not so interested in Andrew Cohen as in what caused so many to follow him for years, putting aside their own doubts while the demands on them became more and more absurd. There will always be megalomaniacs, and some of them will be gurus. The more important question is not what to do about them, but why so many follow them.
Author Van der Braak, with his penetrating analysis of his own process, puts his finger on so much of what happens psychologically when one joins the kind of spiritual community that demands absolute obedience and also, especially, on why it is so hard to separate from such a community. Anyone who reads this regularly knows that I have a special interest in cults because I lived in a cultish spiritual community for a short time when I was young. I completely relate to all of the rationalizations Van der Braak told himself.
First, you have an awakening experience with a certain person. Or maybe (as was my case in my youth) you just see the divine in the other, and you want that for yourself. The guru becomes the means to access the divine, or enlightenment, or whatever label works for you. You convince yourself that the guru is the only possible access to the divine for you. Maybe the guru believes this himself, as Cohen apparently did, or maybe, as in my case, the guru doesn't. But the follower believes it -- that's what matters. Once one believes that, it becomes almost impossible to leave. You imagine yourself damned forever if you do, and there will be plenty of people in the community who will try be only too anxious to convince you of that outcome. You probably have no friends who are not part of the community, so there is no alternative viewpoint to hear.
This book is scary because the amount of psychological abuse (and one example of physical abuse is also cited) is so profound, and yet everyone in the community buys into the argument that the reason Cohen derides them, punishes them repeatedly by banishing them to invisibility in his sangha, etc., is so that they will stop coddling their ego. Everyone in the community believes this. If only I were better: I just have to try harder and then I will live up to the standards of the Master. The amazing thing is that not one person noticed the contradiction in Cohen's teaching: if everything is impersonal, if "I" don't really exist, then who is it that is having to try harder to banish the ego?
As Adyashanti once said to me, "Only ego wants to get rid of ego."
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Monday, July 21, 2014
Believe in the Truth in the teacher, not in the person
Serendipitously, while looking for a publisher for my own book, I came across Enlightenment Blues: My Years with an American Guru, by Andre van der Braak. The guru in question happened to be Andrew Cohen, a well-known teacher of nonduality and one of many former students of H.W.L. Poonja (Papa-ji, as he was affectionately known by his students).
I have never even seen Cohen -- only heard of him. But here we have another expose, and another reminder that absolute power corrupts absolutely. And the question arises again with respect to Eastern teachings brought to the West: why do we give such power to our teachers?
Of course, a teacher who has the imprimatur of someone like Poonja is going to be listened to. According to van der Braak's account of what he heard, Poonja sent Cohen out to teach in the West, to "'create a revolution among the young,' telling him that he was the son he had been waiting for all his life." (p. 16)
So Cohen starts teaching and includes this little story about how his own teacher sent him forth to teach. Who is going to doubt? Especially since Cohen obviously exhibits such power and clarity that he just looks enlightened. But in the end, apparently Cohen used power in a very absolute way, while at the same time always telling people that what he did to them was for their own good, to help them abolish their ego.
Sound familiar? It should because this is the story again and again among communities in the West centered around Eastern spirituality. And here, of course, the interpretations of what is going on differ. Those without a deeper realization of reality will certainly say that such a guru cannot be enlightened because enlightened people don't do fascist things. Others -- especially those who experienced the guru in question -- will be more likely to say that the guru, while enlightened, or at least awakened, had a shadow side which became more and more prevalent as he accrued more power.
I believe that the solution to this, from the student's point of view, is to believe in the Truth within the teacher, not in the teacher himself. It's always, always necessary to believe in oneself first, and to let one's deepest yearning for Truth lead one to see the Truth in another. But not to worship the person of another. Therein lies danger.
After I started reading this book, I went on the web and found that last year Cohen had issued an apology for his behavior. It was in general terms, and the copious comments that followed were all over the place -- from being glad he'd owned up to saying it would never be enough to pledging continued allegiance. But one comment seemed to touch on why all of this keeps happening in community after community. The person said that the ego has a reason for existence: to help life maintain itself. This is something I myself have discovered in working through my traumatic relationship with a temple I lived at when I was young. To the extent that we put down that in us -- our ego -- that is just doing its job of keeping us alive, we abuse ourselves and leave ourselves open to abuse from others. And if a given spiritual community at large doesn't believe ego deserves to exist, there is mass denial of an essential function of the self and this allows the guru or whoever has power to use it to put down anyone whose ego dares poke its face out, while his own ego -- denied of course because he isn't supposed to have one -- runs amock.
Existence loves everything -- and that includes ego.
I have never even seen Cohen -- only heard of him. But here we have another expose, and another reminder that absolute power corrupts absolutely. And the question arises again with respect to Eastern teachings brought to the West: why do we give such power to our teachers?
Of course, a teacher who has the imprimatur of someone like Poonja is going to be listened to. According to van der Braak's account of what he heard, Poonja sent Cohen out to teach in the West, to "'create a revolution among the young,' telling him that he was the son he had been waiting for all his life." (p. 16)
So Cohen starts teaching and includes this little story about how his own teacher sent him forth to teach. Who is going to doubt? Especially since Cohen obviously exhibits such power and clarity that he just looks enlightened. But in the end, apparently Cohen used power in a very absolute way, while at the same time always telling people that what he did to them was for their own good, to help them abolish their ego.
Sound familiar? It should because this is the story again and again among communities in the West centered around Eastern spirituality. And here, of course, the interpretations of what is going on differ. Those without a deeper realization of reality will certainly say that such a guru cannot be enlightened because enlightened people don't do fascist things. Others -- especially those who experienced the guru in question -- will be more likely to say that the guru, while enlightened, or at least awakened, had a shadow side which became more and more prevalent as he accrued more power.
I believe that the solution to this, from the student's point of view, is to believe in the Truth within the teacher, not in the teacher himself. It's always, always necessary to believe in oneself first, and to let one's deepest yearning for Truth lead one to see the Truth in another. But not to worship the person of another. Therein lies danger.
After I started reading this book, I went on the web and found that last year Cohen had issued an apology for his behavior. It was in general terms, and the copious comments that followed were all over the place -- from being glad he'd owned up to saying it would never be enough to pledging continued allegiance. But one comment seemed to touch on why all of this keeps happening in community after community. The person said that the ego has a reason for existence: to help life maintain itself. This is something I myself have discovered in working through my traumatic relationship with a temple I lived at when I was young. To the extent that we put down that in us -- our ego -- that is just doing its job of keeping us alive, we abuse ourselves and leave ourselves open to abuse from others. And if a given spiritual community at large doesn't believe ego deserves to exist, there is mass denial of an essential function of the self and this allows the guru or whoever has power to use it to put down anyone whose ego dares poke its face out, while his own ego -- denied of course because he isn't supposed to have one -- runs amock.
Existence loves everything -- and that includes ego.
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Nonduality and Concepts
I recently watched this debate: http://batgap.com/whos-driving-the-dreambus-a-conversation-with-tim-freke-and-lisa-cairns/
A nondual debate? Well, yeah, it was. The central question, if I can dare to paraphrase, was whether, once awakened, we completely operate without a sense of self, or future, or ideas of what we believe will make the world a better place -- or whether, on the other hand, the awakened life includes all of that as well. Lisa Cairns' position was what I would call the "absolutist" one, while Tim Freke's position was that we "come back" from the absolute into the world, where we do operate as separate individuals relating to other separate individuals even while we do not lose the awakenness.
There are a couple of Buddhist concepts that I thought could have clarified things and maybe even resolved the debate. They are "substance" and "emptiness." These are more or less dichotomous the way I am using them, and there is no way to understand their meaning without experiencing that to which they refer. But I'm going to give it a try.
The reason things look separate has to do with our belief in their substantiality. We believe we are looking at something separate from ourselves when we see a tree. We don't know it, but it is just the label that makes this appear to be the case. This is why Buddhism speaks of the world of "forms." "Forms" are just forms, not individual entities, and when forms are seen as "empty," they are seen without substance. It's as though all things are ghosts -- you know how ghosts walk through things in movies? Well, it's because they don't have substance, which living "beings" are thought to have.
So -- nothing is really separate but things appear separate. And the question is whether that appearance is believed to be the ultimate truth or not. Most people implicitly believe forms have substance. But when that belief starts to fall away, we begin to experience ourselves as the other.
What does the ordinary life look like when we know this? Depends on the person, I'd say. But so long as this truth, having been realized, is remembered, we cannot believe anymore that our concepts of how things should be ultimately matter -- because it is concepts that form the basis of substantiality. Maybe we want to do something that "helps" the world, but if we have an idea of what that might be, we are deluding ourselves, because it is the human mind, not the world, that operates through concepts. We just live. And if that living is from a genuine place, then that is all we can do. And even if it is not from a genuine place, it is still all we do.
A nondual debate? Well, yeah, it was. The central question, if I can dare to paraphrase, was whether, once awakened, we completely operate without a sense of self, or future, or ideas of what we believe will make the world a better place -- or whether, on the other hand, the awakened life includes all of that as well. Lisa Cairns' position was what I would call the "absolutist" one, while Tim Freke's position was that we "come back" from the absolute into the world, where we do operate as separate individuals relating to other separate individuals even while we do not lose the awakenness.
There are a couple of Buddhist concepts that I thought could have clarified things and maybe even resolved the debate. They are "substance" and "emptiness." These are more or less dichotomous the way I am using them, and there is no way to understand their meaning without experiencing that to which they refer. But I'm going to give it a try.
The reason things look separate has to do with our belief in their substantiality. We believe we are looking at something separate from ourselves when we see a tree. We don't know it, but it is just the label that makes this appear to be the case. This is why Buddhism speaks of the world of "forms." "Forms" are just forms, not individual entities, and when forms are seen as "empty," they are seen without substance. It's as though all things are ghosts -- you know how ghosts walk through things in movies? Well, it's because they don't have substance, which living "beings" are thought to have.
So -- nothing is really separate but things appear separate. And the question is whether that appearance is believed to be the ultimate truth or not. Most people implicitly believe forms have substance. But when that belief starts to fall away, we begin to experience ourselves as the other.
What does the ordinary life look like when we know this? Depends on the person, I'd say. But so long as this truth, having been realized, is remembered, we cannot believe anymore that our concepts of how things should be ultimately matter -- because it is concepts that form the basis of substantiality. Maybe we want to do something that "helps" the world, but if we have an idea of what that might be, we are deluding ourselves, because it is the human mind, not the world, that operates through concepts. We just live. And if that living is from a genuine place, then that is all we can do. And even if it is not from a genuine place, it is still all we do.
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Enlightenment and cultural accretions
I'm reading a couple of books that, in very different ways, discuss an issue relevant to those involved in traditions that come from other cultures. One is a memoir about living among modern Sufis in Afghanistan: Embattled Saints: My year with the Sufis of Afghanistan, by Kenneth P. Lizzio. The other is a novel about a shy Japanese priest sent to New York to help build a temple for his sect: Buddhaland Brooklyn, by Richard C. Morais.* The problems these two men face are the mirror opposite of each other.
The American who goes to Afghanistan hoping to gain Sufi mystical wisdom is dismayed when told how important shari'a law is. Over and over again, he is admonished that shari'a is part and parcel of the mystical path, not something only for fundamentalist Muslims but for all Muslims. He resents having to grow his beard to a certain length and shape, and he believes the sexual segregation is plain wrong, to name only two of his many issues with Muslim law. But he wants what the Sufis have, so he goes along.
The Japanese priest has the reverse of this problem. Having lived in a mountain temple since he was a boy, he believes that everything that he was taught to do in reverence to Buddha is a step on the path to enlightenment, and that none of it can be omitted. So, for example, when his New York believers complain that it is hard for them to kneel on the floor, he says, in effect, "Tough shit." When they want lectures more relevant to their daily lives, he explains that, in order to attain enlightenment, devotees must understand the sacred texts in all of their subtly . He believes the New Yorkers aren't taking Buddhism seriously because they don't want to do it the received way.
When I was young, I practiced two kinds of Buddhism in Japan. My unexamined assumption was that I could only get enlightened if I became like a Japanese. And the problem was, the Japanese believed this as well! I went home after a year, a total failure.
The trick is to separate the essential teachings from the cultural context. Not easy. On the one hand, we have (hopefully) an enlightened teacher who has taken a certain path to his or her wisdom. On the other hand, we have aspirants who are not enlightened and do not share the teacher's cultural assumptions. In such a situation, who is going to decide what is necessary to the deepest spiritual realization and what is just a cultural accretion?
Sometimes it takes more than a generation to work this out. When Philip Kapleau found what he'd been looking for in Japan, he brought it back to America virtually wholesale, and it was not until his senior student, Toni Packer, said, "Wait, much of this doesn't really work for a lot of Westerners," and went off to found her own meditation center, that the deepest realization in Zen could be found, without the cultural accretions. My own teacher, Adyashanti, was a third generation Zen student -- someone who had never been to Japan and whose own teachers had also never been there. There was enough distance to have lost the cultural accretions and yet the wisdom of the lineage was intact. How grateful for this I am! This is what we all hope can happen. It doesn't always.
*Note: My review of Buddhaland Brooklyn appears on the Buddhist Fiction Blog.
My review of Embattled Saints is at http://www.bookslut.com/nonfiction/2014_07_020733.php
The American who goes to Afghanistan hoping to gain Sufi mystical wisdom is dismayed when told how important shari'a law is. Over and over again, he is admonished that shari'a is part and parcel of the mystical path, not something only for fundamentalist Muslims but for all Muslims. He resents having to grow his beard to a certain length and shape, and he believes the sexual segregation is plain wrong, to name only two of his many issues with Muslim law. But he wants what the Sufis have, so he goes along.
The Japanese priest has the reverse of this problem. Having lived in a mountain temple since he was a boy, he believes that everything that he was taught to do in reverence to Buddha is a step on the path to enlightenment, and that none of it can be omitted. So, for example, when his New York believers complain that it is hard for them to kneel on the floor, he says, in effect, "Tough shit." When they want lectures more relevant to their daily lives, he explains that, in order to attain enlightenment, devotees must understand the sacred texts in all of their subtly . He believes the New Yorkers aren't taking Buddhism seriously because they don't want to do it the received way.
When I was young, I practiced two kinds of Buddhism in Japan. My unexamined assumption was that I could only get enlightened if I became like a Japanese. And the problem was, the Japanese believed this as well! I went home after a year, a total failure.
The trick is to separate the essential teachings from the cultural context. Not easy. On the one hand, we have (hopefully) an enlightened teacher who has taken a certain path to his or her wisdom. On the other hand, we have aspirants who are not enlightened and do not share the teacher's cultural assumptions. In such a situation, who is going to decide what is necessary to the deepest spiritual realization and what is just a cultural accretion?
Sometimes it takes more than a generation to work this out. When Philip Kapleau found what he'd been looking for in Japan, he brought it back to America virtually wholesale, and it was not until his senior student, Toni Packer, said, "Wait, much of this doesn't really work for a lot of Westerners," and went off to found her own meditation center, that the deepest realization in Zen could be found, without the cultural accretions. My own teacher, Adyashanti, was a third generation Zen student -- someone who had never been to Japan and whose own teachers had also never been there. There was enough distance to have lost the cultural accretions and yet the wisdom of the lineage was intact. How grateful for this I am! This is what we all hope can happen. It doesn't always.
*Note: My review of Buddhaland Brooklyn appears on the Buddhist Fiction Blog.
My review of Embattled Saints is at http://www.bookslut.com/nonfiction/2014_07_020733.php
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Buddhist "Ideas"
I hope this won't be a rant, but I just saw a program on PBS that got everything possible wrong about enlightenment. The commentator was personable and obviously interested in Buddhism, but she didn't have a clue.
Should this be a cause for distress? I don't know. Maybe it's to be expected. How can you know you don't know the real thing until you experience it? This is, after all, why there is such a thing as lineage (which I so much appreciate despite my dislike of hierarchy): people who have been given permission to teach can be trusted to speak from the Truth they have realized. But when people who don't know speak as though they do, then others who listen also get confused.
What did she say wrong? Pretty much everything. First of all, she kept talking about "Buddha's ideas." Yes, in a way, anything that is put into words can be called an "idea." But what Buddha realized is not about thoughts in the head. In fact, it's about what is not thought.
The commentator at one point says that Buddhism leads us to seek escape from the real world of suffering -- I'm paraphrasing but that was the essence. This is the whole problem: when you experience the world you see as the "real" one, then everything you say after that has to be wrong.
The commentator kept saying that Buddhists believe that you have to do this and that in order to find tranquility or nirvana -- she pretty much equates the two. And maybe I'll stop here, because really the fundamental problem is that not once did the essential truth come up: we don't exist. Until that is known, everything will be seen upside down and backward.
But I remember myself how confused I was when people used to say this to me. Sometimes I'd even get angry. What do you mean, I don't exist? Who is this person who is dialoging with you right now if I don't exist?? And it is, actually, very difficult to explain what that means when this psychological self has always seemed so solid, so it's no wonder that the subject wasn't even broached on this show. But at the same time, this is the raison d'etre for the Teachings. It's not about following some path in order to get psychological satisfaction of some kind. It's to realize that we are transparent -- empty -- and it is because we are empty that all of existence finds its home in us.
Should this be a cause for distress? I don't know. Maybe it's to be expected. How can you know you don't know the real thing until you experience it? This is, after all, why there is such a thing as lineage (which I so much appreciate despite my dislike of hierarchy): people who have been given permission to teach can be trusted to speak from the Truth they have realized. But when people who don't know speak as though they do, then others who listen also get confused.
What did she say wrong? Pretty much everything. First of all, she kept talking about "Buddha's ideas." Yes, in a way, anything that is put into words can be called an "idea." But what Buddha realized is not about thoughts in the head. In fact, it's about what is not thought.
The commentator at one point says that Buddhism leads us to seek escape from the real world of suffering -- I'm paraphrasing but that was the essence. This is the whole problem: when you experience the world you see as the "real" one, then everything you say after that has to be wrong.
The commentator kept saying that Buddhists believe that you have to do this and that in order to find tranquility or nirvana -- she pretty much equates the two. And maybe I'll stop here, because really the fundamental problem is that not once did the essential truth come up: we don't exist. Until that is known, everything will be seen upside down and backward.
But I remember myself how confused I was when people used to say this to me. Sometimes I'd even get angry. What do you mean, I don't exist? Who is this person who is dialoging with you right now if I don't exist?? And it is, actually, very difficult to explain what that means when this psychological self has always seemed so solid, so it's no wonder that the subject wasn't even broached on this show. But at the same time, this is the raison d'etre for the Teachings. It's not about following some path in order to get psychological satisfaction of some kind. It's to realize that we are transparent -- empty -- and it is because we are empty that all of existence finds its home in us.
Thursday, May 1, 2014
When Does Spiritual Dialog Hit the Mark?
A few of us on Facebook have been discussing Oprah's interview with Adyashanti on Easter Sunday. The main issue resolves around a certain place fairly early in the interview when Oprah has an "ah-ha" moment -- when she realizes the nature of the connection between her and Adya. Some people think that this realization wasn't as deep as it could have been; others that it was in fact a glimpse of the nondual dimension of consciousness.
I'm not so interested here in which view is right as in the fact of the disparity of views. We all watched the same interview and yet every person that commented saw it differently! On the one hand, maybe this shouldn't be surprising. It's common to emerge from a satsang thinking it was a wonderful talk only to overhear someone else say it wasn't that good. Or vice versa. To speak about the wordless dimension is in itself a kind of contradiction, so it's not surprising that when words are used, people interpret them differently.
The question that's been teasing me, though, is this: if you watch the interview, it's clear that Adya himself knew exactly what was going on with Oprah, where she was and how she took what he said, even if the audience obviously wasn't so sure. So how did he know?
I've watched Adya talk with students over the years, and also spoken with him myself numerous times. It seems that he particularly has a knack for being "with" the student -- being able to comprehend what is meant by the words someone utters about the inexpressible. He misses the mark only rarely. I've always wondered how he was able to do that.
Of course, a satsang is different from a TV show. Without the commercials on Oprah, the show ran only 36 minutes. With interruptions every four or five minutes, I doubt if anyone watching had the opportunity to sink into a deeper state of consciousness . So we were watching from the outside. The participants, though, did not experience these commercials: they had the advantage of spending the time together uninterrupted, the time to move into a place where they really could meet. And this is where Adya was when he was dialoging with Oprah, and where he is when he dialogs with someone during satsang. And it is only when we ourselves are in that place that we even have a chance of knowing what the two participants are experiencing together.
I'm not so interested here in which view is right as in the fact of the disparity of views. We all watched the same interview and yet every person that commented saw it differently! On the one hand, maybe this shouldn't be surprising. It's common to emerge from a satsang thinking it was a wonderful talk only to overhear someone else say it wasn't that good. Or vice versa. To speak about the wordless dimension is in itself a kind of contradiction, so it's not surprising that when words are used, people interpret them differently.
The question that's been teasing me, though, is this: if you watch the interview, it's clear that Adya himself knew exactly what was going on with Oprah, where she was and how she took what he said, even if the audience obviously wasn't so sure. So how did he know?
I've watched Adya talk with students over the years, and also spoken with him myself numerous times. It seems that he particularly has a knack for being "with" the student -- being able to comprehend what is meant by the words someone utters about the inexpressible. He misses the mark only rarely. I've always wondered how he was able to do that.
Of course, a satsang is different from a TV show. Without the commercials on Oprah, the show ran only 36 minutes. With interruptions every four or five minutes, I doubt if anyone watching had the opportunity to sink into a deeper state of consciousness . So we were watching from the outside. The participants, though, did not experience these commercials: they had the advantage of spending the time together uninterrupted, the time to move into a place where they really could meet. And this is where Adya was when he was dialoging with Oprah, and where he is when he dialogs with someone during satsang. And it is only when we ourselves are in that place that we even have a chance of knowing what the two participants are experiencing together.
Friday, April 11, 2014
Barbara Ehrenreich a Mystic?
This is from Ehrenreich's interview with Terry Gross on April 8, 2014:
"I was just staring at the woods ... [when] something happened. It's like a layer peeled off the world, the layer that contains all the meanings, the words, the language, the associations we have. Yeah, I was looking at trees, but I no longer could say I knew exactly what a tree was, with all the knowledge and experience that goes into our notion of a tree. . . .
"What if there is a world underneath what we perceive? We're usually in a world of shared "reality." You and I agree on what we see if we're together, we have similar explanations for it, and so on. To leave that behind and just see things without any of those human attributions, well, that's very, very strange, but I wanted to know more. ... I couldn't tell anybody. I had enough sense to think that this would be seen as crazy."
I suspect a lot of people reading this have had awakenings -- and if you have, you know that this was one. This is the world with language stripped away -- the world of "That Which Is."
Most people know Ehrenreich as a lifelong socialist and social activist. Her new book, Living with a Wild God, is a real departure for her. She kept the mystical experiences of her teenage years secret for more than half a century!
Ehrenreich is just a bit older than I am -- culturally we are contemporaries. I didn't have any teenage mystical experiences, but I know that if I had, I would have kept them a secret. The 1950s and early 1960s were not a time to tell people things like this. You would be thought crazy, or you would simply be dismissed. I'm not sure which would be worse. When the most important thing in your life happens to you and you can't find anyone who can validate it, you must keep it secret. You must keep it secret or it will be destroyed by those who cannot understand what it is to know what is actually real.
I feel sad that Ehrenreich didn't have the support that people can find now when they have these types of encounters. If you listen to the whole interview, you'll see that she hasn't gotten to the bottom of it at all. She doesn't know yet that this is just the tip of the iceberg -- that without language as a barrier, we do not actually exist separately. If things had been different when she was young, she could be fully enlightened now. Think of that, and think of how important it is for us to nurture these spontaneous realizations in those we know.
"I was just staring at the woods ... [when] something happened. It's like a layer peeled off the world, the layer that contains all the meanings, the words, the language, the associations we have. Yeah, I was looking at trees, but I no longer could say I knew exactly what a tree was, with all the knowledge and experience that goes into our notion of a tree. . . .
"What if there is a world underneath what we perceive? We're usually in a world of shared "reality." You and I agree on what we see if we're together, we have similar explanations for it, and so on. To leave that behind and just see things without any of those human attributions, well, that's very, very strange, but I wanted to know more. ... I couldn't tell anybody. I had enough sense to think that this would be seen as crazy."
I suspect a lot of people reading this have had awakenings -- and if you have, you know that this was one. This is the world with language stripped away -- the world of "That Which Is."
Most people know Ehrenreich as a lifelong socialist and social activist. Her new book, Living with a Wild God, is a real departure for her. She kept the mystical experiences of her teenage years secret for more than half a century!
Ehrenreich is just a bit older than I am -- culturally we are contemporaries. I didn't have any teenage mystical experiences, but I know that if I had, I would have kept them a secret. The 1950s and early 1960s were not a time to tell people things like this. You would be thought crazy, or you would simply be dismissed. I'm not sure which would be worse. When the most important thing in your life happens to you and you can't find anyone who can validate it, you must keep it secret. You must keep it secret or it will be destroyed by those who cannot understand what it is to know what is actually real.
I feel sad that Ehrenreich didn't have the support that people can find now when they have these types of encounters. If you listen to the whole interview, you'll see that she hasn't gotten to the bottom of it at all. She doesn't know yet that this is just the tip of the iceberg -- that without language as a barrier, we do not actually exist separately. If things had been different when she was young, she could be fully enlightened now. Think of that, and think of how important it is for us to nurture these spontaneous realizations in those we know.
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