Jean Marchand - Waking Down Teacher

It was like waking up from sleep or recovering from amnesia. I could not have imagined ever getting something as abstract as what all the ancient and current philosophers describe as Enlightenment, Self Realization or Being in the Now, so easily. I was ecstatic. However, I was also afraid that I might lose this precious self-realization. It was blazing in its presence, yet delicate and tender. I did not want to ever lose it again. After a few months I became confident in the presence of I Am and lost the fear that I may lose this awareness. It, the awareness, was ever present as the observer to my every moment.

However, there was still something missing. This is where the Advaitans and I part company. They would say that there is nothing missing in this realization. I agree there is nothing missing because it includes everything. However, even in this realization of I AM the self, I still had (have) to deal with the mundane everyday problems of day-to-day life and relating to others. My buttons were and are still being pushed and I was (am) still triggered by others and events over which I have no control. I had a strong desire to withdraw and abide in the silence of the self, but who was going to look after my family and responsibilities? I still had feelings and desires that parts of me did not want to deny even though I Am Consciousness. This created a very real and uncomfortable dilemma for the human part of me. I was living in a paradox of being simultaneously infinite yet finite. It felt like something wasn’t right, and I didn’t know what it was or what to do about it. I felt frustrated and could not understand why after such a huge awakening I still had uncomfortable feelings which were difficult to ignore. I felt split.

Luckily for me, a friend whom I had led through the same advaitic process which I had learned to do, told me about Saniel Bonder and the Waking Down web site. Upon visiting the site on Feb. 23, 1999, I immediately felt that this teaching might provide the missing piece to my problem. I ordered Saniel’s book, Waking Down, and immediately entered into contact with one of Saniel’s teachers, Ted Strauss. Ted helped me to start feeling into what Saniel calls the Core Wound. This is the wound which every body on the planet carries, and I would venture to guess is the major cause of most problems that humans perpetrate on each other and the planet. Feeling into the Core Wound was very challenging, uncomfortable and frightening. I remember waking up in the middle of the night, shortly after starting to work with Ted on the phone, and I was sure I was going to die. I started hyperventilating and felt the starkness of Being here in a body. It was terrifying.

Two weeks after entering into contact with Saniel and Ted, I landed in San Francisco on March 12, 1999, to attend a Waking Down Weekend, a three-day intensive workshop. Just being with Saniel and the other teachers on Friday evening was very potent, but little did I know how potent. The next day as I gazed with Pascal, one of the teachers, I fell into a place that brought up an abundance of tears and sorrow. I didn’t know what was going on, but I could sure feel my existential pain.

That afternoon when we broke up into small groups we each took turns feeling into what was going on inside and sharing with the group. As I felt into my pain, it was as if a dam of sorrow broke wide open and engulfed my entire being. Ted asked me, “Do you want to be here?” As I felt into the question, in the midst of overwhelming sorrow I realized that part of me did not want to be here in a human body because it was just too painful and limiting. Ted asked me again, “Do you want to be here?” I again felt into the question and this time I surrendered into the excruciating pain of being here in a body. I fell into the Core Wound. It was unbelievable. There I was, infinite, feeling trapped in a limited, finite body. I felt as if Iwas being crucified. I have never, ever felt such an intense and devastating pain. Yet the bizarre paradox was that interspersed throughout the pain was a bittersweet Joy, the Bliss of Consciousness. My heart was blown wide open. The Love I felt for the others in the room was unlimited. I looked into each of their eyes and felt their pain. I felt their pain of being here in a body. As I looked at them waves of sobbing overcame me. Their pain was my pain. There was no feeling of separation. I stayed in that tender vulnerable place in the heart for the rest of the weekend and several days after. As a matter of fact, I have never left that place of vulnerability in the heart. I am just more selective about who I am vulnerable with. Now I am more discriminative about being wide open in Love with everyone.

Two days later on March 17, I awoke in the middle of the night to realize that Being had landed here in my body. The feeling of being separate from my body and the world was gone. I now had permission to show up here on this planet as Being in a body, not separate from the body. What a relief. I had entered what Saniel calls my Second Birth. It was okay to be here. It was okay to feel the wound of being here now in all of its limitations. The Core Wound had become the Conscious Wound. What a “Great Relief,” as Saniel calls it. I no longer want to escape to a cave in the Himalayas. Occasionally withdrawing into the silence of Being suffices. I am deeply grateful for the profound silence which always resides in my heart, my body and my mind. Life is more relaxed and enjoyable now than it’s ever been. The moments of being vulnerable and feeling my own pain and another’s pain are there more than ever, but I’m not trying to avoid it. Now my mission is to help my fellow humans to awaken to who they truly are, like I did, thus answering Excerpts from the Second Birth the question once and for all, “Qui es tu (Who are you)?” And by the way I did get the concept. “God is Everywhere.”

~ Jean Marchand (excepted from the book, Dancing in the Fire: Stories of Awakening within the Heart of Community by Bob Valine)

Krishna Gauci - Waking Down Senior Teacher

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)

Shanti Spierenburg

Of course something happened that triggered my final breakdown. As part of the Waking Down Weekend everybody got to choose three teachers that they wanted to work with. One of those would then be leading your small personal group. I didn’t get any of the teachers I had written down. I was a little disappointed, but being a “good student” I didn’t complain.

The next day after the morning meditation someone said that everybody got at least one of the choices on their list. I felt very shook up and told CC (Leigh) that I didn’t get anybody on my list. She then said, “But, Shanti, the other teachers really wanted you in their group!” That word “wanted” just broke me down totally. I had never felt wanted. I never felt wanted, ever. I sank into the feeling that I shouldn’t be alive. I had no right to live. I was a big mistake. I cried for hours. I couldn’t stop. I had tried so hard all my life to be a good girl, a good disciple, to gain the right to be alive. I was exhausted.

In my small group with Ben Hursh and Tony Konopka I went even deeper into that feeling while totally being held by everybody in the group. I then ended up being reborn symbolically and welcomed with love and excitement. By the end of the day I felt totally empty. Nothing to say, nothing to do, just be there. I guess I had landed in my version of what Saniel calls “the Core Wound.” For me it’s the pain of not being accepted or wanted in this world and the sense of being very unimportant and disposable—unseen.

The next morning we did this really long gazing meditation. Afterwards I closed my eyes. At a certain point I started to expand and expand. Everything and everybody became me and was in me. The sounds of the airplane. People coughing, crying. The sounds of birds. It was all me. There was no division . No separateness. I sensed this fluid Beingness that was me and everything else. One Being.

After I opened my eyes things looked different, brighter. As if a veil had lifted. I had this kind of expansiveness before in Hawaii where I became the clouds and the thunder while sitting on the beach, but it didn’t last more than a week and never had this physical component to it.

The next few months I was in this state that I only had heard about: my mind quiet, an incredibly deep relaxation and feeling of sensuality in the body. Everything was so bright and direct, and I was feeling very raw because of it. Also, there was bliss and peace, the perfection of everything. I felt that the birds flying over, the trees I walked under, everything was a part of my body. The frantic urge to seek was gone. Just being here was it. There was a pressure on top of my head as if a valve had opened up. And sometimes the psychedelic experience of sitting and hearing others talk and experiencing that I was everyone talking. Also, I so wished I could just be in nature. I would have loved to be able to go to Hawaii and sit at Excerpts from the Second Birth the beach. Sitting there, nothing else. Instead I had to go to work, and on my days off I had a two-year-old. Anyway, it was a great honeymoon. I was lucky it lasted so long.

Saniel (Bonder) does talk in his book about the Wakedown Shakedown, the process where you start to integrate the shadows, the dissociated parts of yourself that you split off because they are too painful to handle. The first year after my Second Birth was a big change. Initially I would feel very raw. Many times, very painfully, I was extremely sensitive to people’s emotions, their reactions or non-reactions. The world seemed so much brighter and more intense. My buffer was gone. For the first time I felt here, very sensually in my body in a new way. I was actually in my body… and enjoying it immensely. Soooo sensual. I felt authentic, real. But by all means not perfect.

I had a period where synchronicity was happening. It was like living in never-ending magic. Objects would appear that I really wanted, like a Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story for my son when it wasn’t made anymore. On the other hand, I would get triggered by a seemingly harmless event that would throw me deep into my inner dungeon. Very dark, very hopeless, definitely an inner hell that would sometimes last for a few weeks. Then suddenly I would wake up in the morning and it was gone. Afterward, I would feel more integrated and here and connected. One time I had a symbolic past-life dream that left me waking up in total horror. It was all about being abused , raped, victimized, killed as a woman. It stayed with me for a long time. Also, I went through a period where I would ooze negativity, powerlessness, jealousy and resentment. I felt it coming out of my pores and in my breath. It lasted for months until, for now, it is gone.

Since my last episode of Wakedown Shakedown I feel again a deepening sense that I am being held at all times. I had some very deep plunges in my first two years of Wakedown Shakedown, and I know I am not done. What is strengthening me is the feeling of being truly seated in Me. My gut has opened up, and I feel an inner power that is coming in, that wants to manifest itself. I am struggling to find a way to express this new life in a different way, like finding a different work where I can express more of the new me.

~ Shanti Spierenburg (excepted from the book, Dancing in the Fire: Stories of Awakening within the Heart of Community by Bob Valine)

Bill Trout

It was an unusual weekend by any standard, but the most significant event for me came at the very end of the workshop during one of the meditations. I looked at Sandra Glickman, one of the workshop leaders, and she became the living embodiment of the Hindu goddess, Kali. I’m not talking about the traditional iconographic representation of fangs, blood, necklace of skulls, etc. But she was absolutely the most fearsome, terrifying thing I’d ever seen. I knew I was looking at the face of my own death, the person/being that would surely kill me. Remember that spiritual work at this point still rested largely on the “Kill Bill” theory. One’s ego had to be relentlessly assaulted until it either crumbled and/or dropped away. Now, here was that death looking me in the face. I’d never had an experience like it. I decided that anything or anyone who could produce that was worth my attention. I went up to her before I left and asked if she would mind working with me. Sandra graciously agreed. We’ve been working together ever since, something for which I am profoundly grateful. I also found that she was not that frightening, really.

February 3, 2002, fell on a Sunday–eighteen months, two Human Sun Seminars, one Waking Down Weekend and a Transfiguration Retreat after that first workshop. I was not having a particularly good day. I had gotten up relatively early, fixed breakfast for my family, followed that up with the dishes (I think) and by around 11:30 or so was collecting clothes for doing the laundry. Feeling somewhat abused and taken for granted, I plopped down on the edge of my bed and looked disconsolately down the stairs (the bedroom is located in what was the attic of the house and it looks rather like a loft—the stairs are clearly visible).

All at once, it was as if the tide ran out and left me, like a shell or piece of driftwood, just sitting on the sand. I was just there, utterly and completely there with no pretense, no personality, nothing. I couldn’t have provided a social persona if you had offered me real money. Gurdjieff had said that man was a plurality, with many different personalities trying for dominance at any one given time. I’d had no trouble with that; I’d had zillions of different voices in my head telling me what to do for almost as long as I could remember. Suddenly, there on the bed, everyone shut up. There was just one person there, me. I still had thoughts, but they were just part of the scenery, like a car radio out in the street that was turned up loud enough for me to faintly hear. They were no more or less important than anything else. And the whole experience of myself as there was so unbelievably ordinary. I was literally the dust on the floor. Aldous Huxley in Doors of Perception quotes William James (I think) as saying that God is the hedgerow at the bottom of the garden. I related totally. Things just were. I just was. There was no distinction to be made between the two. I remember thinking, “Well, at least I’ll have something interesting to talk to Sandra about.” And I picked myself up off of the bed and went to do the laundry.

~ Bill Trout (excepted from the book, Dancing in the Fire: Stories of Awakening within the Heart of Community by Bob Valine)

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