PAPAJI
After hearing the teachings of HWL Poonja (also known as Papaji) in 1992, I spent five years traveling back and forth to India to be with him. The kindness and personal attention that he extended to me was beyond intimate. This amazing being effortlessly blessed me in a way that is still with me. I carry him in my heart even now. One could say that he IS my heart. Through his grace I realized my nature as unchanging awareness and discovered the source of peace within. I came to know myself not as a body or a personality but as pure Consciousness. My living relationship with him gave my life profound meaning. Out of great love and respect, I happily visited him as often as possible, drinking in his powerful presence while receiving his darshan. Papaji gave freely of himself and he delivered the goods as promised, and for this I will always be thankful.
And yet after his passing it began to dawn on me that without his physical presence, the written teachings and techniques left me feeling empty of meaning. It wasn’t that they were not effective–they certainly put me in the formless reality. But I began to wonder about the rest of me. What about living my daily life? Was there a purpose to my existence in form? Incorporating Eastern culture into my world was helpful, but I didn’t have a sense of how to live my truth. What I received from Papaji was my Self as Consciousness Itself. Other than that, I was more or less on my own. It was clear to me that while ancient Dharma could put me in touch with my Buddha-nature, it didn’t necessarily help me (a 21st Century Westerner), to get a grasp of how to live an authentic life in modern America. It wasn’t designed to do that.
SANIEL
So how to live an Awakened Life? After realizing my nature as freedom from definitions and limits, I was not about to follow rules or ideals that came from the conditioned minds of other people. I wanted to be plugged into my own unique, individual life’s guidance.
When I first began to check into the teachings of Waking Down in Mutuality, I was intrigued, but to be perfectly honest, upon my first meeting with Saniel Bonder I was not impressed. I had read his book, and while I did not disagree with much of what he taught, it did not seem to be anything that I had not heard before. I found one aspect of what he was saying particularly annoying: Saniel seemed to be implying that most if not all forms of teaching in the more ancient schools led to a realization that was not altogether “embodied.” In fact his claim to having a unique teaching seemed rather grandiose to me.
So upon attending one of his sittings in 1998 (there were about six people present), I mentioned to him that I felt there were many Indian spiritual schools (like the schools of Tantra) that taught embodied awakening exactly as he did, and it was simply that there were cultural factors and language that made for the appearance of difference. He answered me, explaining that while it was true that culture played a part, it didn’t account for all the differences in the embodied realization that he and his friends were living. I was not satisfied with his reply.
It’s pretty likely that would have been our last meeting, except for one thing: after the sitting he invited me to lunch with his students. He asked me to sit next to him and we had a very friendly, rather down to earth meal together in which he was totally available to me, not simply as a “teacher,” but as a fellow traveler and human being. In the conversations we had it was plain he was actually interested in my life and background and listened to my story attentively. I found him to be sincere and very interesting.
MY FIRST WAKING DOWN WEEKEND (1998)
Within months I found myself (in spite of my doubts) attending one of the Waking Down Weekend intensives. Two things happened there that opened me up to the possibilities in this teaching that I hadn’t glimpsed before.
To begin with this was not like any weekend I’d done. From my previous spiritual background, I was used to satsangs, retreats and intensives where there was one teacher and usually anywhere from 30 to 80 participants. In fact in some gatherings there could even be as many as 500 in attendance. At the Waking Down Weekend there were six or seven participants and four teachers including Saniel. Also, the teachers with him were not his assistants, but full teachers in their own right. Saniel taught the beginning session on Friday and the last session on Sunday, and the other teachers taught the rest of the time.
At the Saturday morning session there were three teachers in the room: Ted Strauss and Hillary Davis (a married couple) and a third woman teacher. They invited any questions or comments. It was difficult, but I felt that I had to be totally candid, so I said something like, “I’m here as open-minded as possible, but I have to be honest with you that there are some things that I don’t agree with here. In particular, Saniel seems to imply that this form of realization has not happened until now and that this is something unique in the sacred traditions. I feel that this form of Awakening (as I read it in Saniel’s books) has most likely already happened plenty of times in other schools in India and Asia and perhaps in other places we don’t know of.” I waited for the reply. I was thanked by the teachers for being so honest and taking the risk to speak my truth. I was then told that I was doing everyone present a service by speaking into the room feelings that others may have, but didn’t feel safe enough to say themselves.
Then Ted said, “I understand your point and I can see why you’d feel that way, but I agree with Saniel and I don’t think that this particular form of realization has appeared anywhere else that I know of.” This was pretty much what I expected to hear, though I was impressed that he was so gracious. What his wife Hillary said next however was quite a surprise, “Actually, I agree with you, Krishna. I don’t agree with Ted and Saniel on this one.” She didn’t seem to be joking. I was amazed. Then what the third teacher said put a smile on my lips, “Saniel teaches that?”
Here I was with three different teachers with their own very different comments on what I said. The strangest thing was that there was no interest in “getting it straight” or having the right answer and it all felt just fine. No one had a problem with any of it. There was room for disagreement. “Wow, “ I thought, “This IS different!”
The second thing that caught my attention was seeing Hillary Davis work with one of the participants. Hillary, like me, has a background in Advaita Vedanta with Papaji. One of the central understandings of many in that school is that attachment to a person’s personal story (how they see themselves, how they think of themselves and their past) is an obstacle to clear seeing and should not be taken too seriously. What I saw as Hillary listened to one person’s story of suffering was subtle and difficult to convey: I could clearly see and feel that Hillary was seeing this person as Consciousness itself, free of all limiting definitions of mind, and at the same time Hillary was taking the person’s story 100% seriously and seemed to be believing everything this person conveyed about their life experience. It was obvious that the person was being deeply seen as a person complete with limitations, but not held to them, because they were also seen as being free of them.
The actual seeing of this is really inexplicable, but when I saw it I immediately was reminded of a story about The Buddha. Someone asked him about the most important part of his Dharma: “Is it Emptiness? Is it no-self? Is it impermanence?” “No,” he answered,” It is compassion. And anywhere that you find a teaching on compassion, go there.” As I watched Hillary and other exchanges that weekend, I thought, “This is compassion. I need to learn this.”
by Krishna Chris Gauci (excepted from the book, Dancing in the Fire: Stories of Awakening within the Heart of Community by Bob Valine)
