Breakthrough

A WEEKEND of DEEP HEALING & AWAKENING

July 12th-13th in

Sacramento

with Robert & Diane Masters

All kinds of concerns — from the deepest trauma to the seemingly trivial — will be dealt with, through a dynamic, creative mix of psychotherapy, bodywork, spiritual disciplines, dreamwork, and group practices. The group will be a safe place to let go of being safe, providing a crucible not only for personal healing, but also for awakening from our entrapping dreams. Limited to 12 participants only.

 

LOCATION & TIME: Sacramento TBA. The group will begin Saturday July 12th at 10:00am and end Sunday July 13th at approx. 6:00pm.

TUITION: US$650. A nonrefundable deposit of US$200 is required. Contact Arthur at aqalicious@yahoo.com for details regarding payment.

 

ROBERT is a critically acclaimed author (of 7 books), teacher of spiritual deepening, and highly experienced psychotherapist (and trainer of psychotherapists) with a doctorate in Psychology, who has innovatively integrated mind, body, emotion, and spirituality in his work for the past 30 years. For more information on his work and writings (and to subscribe to his free newsletter), visit www.RobertMasters.com.

DIANE, Robert’s wife and spiritual partner, assists him in his groups and trainings, contributing deeply to the work being done. She is an intuitive healer and Reiki master, as well as a songwriter and professional singer, with a special talent for accessing and transmitting heartfelt spirituality through her music. See www.dianebardwell.net.

For more information, contact Arthur at:

aqalicious at yahoo dot com.

Note: There will be a free evening talk/event with Robert and Diane in Sacramento Friday July 11th.

For more information on Robert see his website or this thread.

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Arthur Gillard is the managing editor of the Integral News and Views blog (supported by donation/sponsorship) and is available for freelance editorial, writing, and other assigments.

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The retreat described in the following report took place in 2003.

Ayahuasca Retreat In Peru

Here in Vancouver it is easy to get the materials to make Ayahuasca, the potent plant based brew used by indigenous people in the amazon for millennia for healing and spirit journeys. However, wanting to go closer to the source for my introduction to this plant teacher, I recently traveled with two close friends to attend an Ayahuasca retreat in Peru. The retreat took place at the Corto Maltés Amazonia Lodge, on the banks of the Madre de Dios River. We were surrounded by the amazon rain forest, with its amazing diversity of plant and animal life. Being away from the stress and distractions of modern life was healing in itself and definitely enhanced the experience. There were no media available during the retreat, and not knowing what was happening in the outside world helped me to realize that everything important was happening right there – it was the inner work we were doing that really mattered. The Ayahuasca experience itself is hard to describe; it felt something like dreaming or dying.

The Ayahuasca session is a crucible in which psychological and spiritual processes occur at a much greater level of intensity than is typical in everyday life, enabling one to learn rapidly and deeply about life, mind, relationships and spirit. Members of the group reported a wide variety of experiences. Some people had visions, for others the trip mostly involved their thought processes or emotions. One person felt she was dying, surrounded by white light, her body dissolving into nothingness. Another reported feeling enlightened in the present moment, for the first time – after years of serious Zen meditation. A few people battled inner demons in one way or another. One person felt that Ayahuasca was essentially an artificial alteration of his perceptions, though most people felt that Ayahuasca revealed deeper truths about life. Each person had a unique experience, in fact each session for each person was unique.

We did three sessions altogether. Each time we would gather in the dining area of the retreat center, with a pillow, blanket, water, and whatever else we would need for the overnight session. We would walk together down a dark path into the forest, lit by small torches about every two to three meters. We gathered in a special building called a malocha used only for Ayahuasca sessions. Diego, the leader of the group, would say some prayers, and then one by one we would go to him to receive the medicine. When the Ayahuasca started to take effect, Diego would begin to chant and play his guitar. His beautiful chanting was very soothing and centering, and was a valuable and helpful part of the sessions.

For me Ayahuasca brought up whatever I needed to experience in the present moment. I found it to be a very harsh teacher. Whenever I tried to resist what was being shown to me, the experience would become more intense and unpleasant – one of the central lessons for me is that it is better to let go, to surrender to the experience. Some concepts that I had understood in an abstract way I experienced at a much deeper level. One of these concepts is impermanence. I had grasped that concept on a superficial intellectual level, but didn’t really understand it. During my first and third Ayahuasca sessions, I entered into states of intense suffering that I was absolutely convinced would never end – even death would not release me. Yet those states did pass. At another point I found myself spontaneously breathing out love into the world. It was a subtle experience but very distinct. This is something I had practiced in the past, but which I hadn’t really felt before. What had been an intellectual exercise before became an experiential reality during the Ayahuasca session. Since then I’ve occasionally been able to practice this technique and genuinely feel it. Ayahuasca also helped me to see that a great deal of what I experience is a projection of my mind, which interferes with my ability to see the world – inner or outer – with clarity. I had read and thought about being centered and experiencing the moment as it is, without trying to grasp or resist. Under the influence of Ayahuasca, this quality of mind is vitally important, and I believe I am now more capable of manifesting that quality in daily life.

In the second session one of my friends was having a very intense, difficult time, and at one point all of us gathered around her and were chanting for her. It felt wonderful to be part of a circle of caring, giving love and attention to a friend in need. During the first session I had a very difficult time, and others helped me; now I found myself on the other side of that equation and it felt wonderful to take that role for her. During the third experience, when I was suffering intensely regarding karma from past actions - basically feeling emotions I needed to feel but had always avoided - I feel I was “burning karma,” doing some of the suffering I needed to do. I feel clearer now, as if my karmic load has lightened a bit. (For those who prefer psychological jargon: I achieved a cathartic release of repressed emotion.)

No matter how difficult the session was, when the effects started to wear off – when I was no longer tripping – I felt happy and centered. So glad to be alive, to breathe, to be in this space with people I love. This, for me, is a wonderful aspect of the Ayahuasca experience. First I go through the difficult part, then I feel wonderful – it’s the exact opposite of taking a drug, feeling good for a while, then experiencing some sort of hangover.

It seems to me – I can't stress this enough - that the best way to do Ayahuasca is in this sort of ritual setting. The medicine can teach a lot about relationships, and how to give and receive love. Sharing the experience with my fellow travelers afterwards was as significant as the Ayahuasca session itself. The chanting and singing were important aspects of it and the opening and closing of the ceremony helped to put the experience in context. I believe that Ayahuasca, used properly, can be a catalyst to accelerate personal and spiritual growth. You still have to go through your process, but this medicine can speed things up. It shows you what you need to work on and puts you in a state where you can do some intense learning. Ayahuasca, in my experience, works very well in the context of an ongoing spiritual practice such as meditation. I would recommend the Ayahuasca experience to anyone who is seriously interested in spiritual or psychological work. More information about the particular retreat that I attended may be found at http://www.Ayahuasca-wasi.com.

see also Sacred Valley Healing Center

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Arthur Gillard is the managing editor of the Integral News and Views blog (supported by donation/sponsorship) and is available for freelance editorial, writing, and other assigments.

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In 2003 I went to Peru to experience the shamanic plant medicine Ayahuasca; around the same time I discovered Integral Naked and got seriously interested in the integral worldview. I know from my own experience that Ayahuasca is a powerful, sacred medicine with great potential for shadow work, spiritual awakening, and deep healing - and that an integral approach is needed to properly contextualize it and bring out its full potential. For the past five years I've wanted to help bring those two worlds together.

Well, now it's happening.

The man who led the ceremonies in 2003, Diego Palma, is creating a healing center in Peru which will take an integral approach to healing and spirituality: Sacred Valley Healing Center will offer "a living synthesis of shamanic plant medicines with eastern spirituality and western therapeutic techniques." Several people involved in the project are enthusiastic about Ken Wilber's work, and the project overview explicitly mentions Ken and an integral approach.

The four elements of the center are:

• Addiction rehabilitation program for women

• Spiritual retreat center

• Psychotropic medicine plant research facilities

• Community living near the center

My wife Liz and I contacted the healing center as soon as we heard about it and joined the volunteer staff.

If you'd like to know more, please visit the Sacred Valley Healing Center website. The project is still in the early stages but things are progressing rapidly and you are invited to help create this unique integral healing center.

To anticipate a question that's likely to come up at some point: the two sacred medicines that will be used there - San Pedro and Ayahuasca - have a long, venerable history in that part of the world, and are unambiguously legal to use in spiritual and healing contexts in Peru.

namaste,

Arthur

see also Ayahuasca Retreat in Peru

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Arthur Gillard is the managing editor of the Integral News and Views blog (supported by donation/sponsorship) and is available for freelance editorial, writing, and other assigments.

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The following is a transcript of "The Cruxifixion," a five-minute excerpt from The Heart Broken Open: Reflections on the Life and Teachings of Jesus, an interview with Gangaji by Chris Mohr. 

~

Chris Mohr: In the third chapter of John, Jesus himself says "So god so loved the world that he gave his only son."

Gangaji: What a rich aspect to discover!  Crucifixion, of course, the symbol of the crucifixion is what has been the symbol of Christianity.  But in most lives the invitation of the crucifixion in a very personal day-to-day sense is what is most avoided.  Above all let me not be crucified!   [laughter]  Let me escape crucifixion.  And so [the way] that Jesus has been used - the very fact that he was crucified means I don't have to be crucified.  But I believe this is a great error.  I believe that if you are willing to be crucified in small ways and in huge ways - if that is what is appearing - then you will realize what Christ has realized. 

Chris Mohr: Before he was even crucified, in the Acts of John, he said "Learn how to suffer, and you shall be able not to suffer" - and what an amazing promise that is!

Gangaji: That's right, and you can only know the fulfillment of that promise if you meet the suffering that is presented to all of us throughout the day, throughout one's life, in the extreme moments of suffering and death, or the suffering and death of loved ones, or the suffering and death of the planet - to meet that, to suffer consciously, rather than unconsciously, to experience the pain of suffering directly, without any hope of escape, to be nailed to the cross of suffering, at least for one instant, fully and completely, then you know how to suffer.  And there the promise is immediate, the resurrection is here.  The one who imagined himself to be nailed to the cross is none other than God, than the presence of love, than that which is eternally free, eternally saved from the misidentification of one who's separate. 

From the Book of James, five: "Become seekers of death, therefore like the dead, who are seeking life.  For what they seek is manifest to them - so what can be of concern to them?  When you inquire into the subject of death, it will teach you about election.  I swear to you, none will be saved who are afraid of death, for God's domain belongs to those who are dead.  Become better than I, be like the son of the Holy Spirit."  This is directly related to "if you know how to suffer, you do not suffer."

Chris Mohr: And if you know how to die you do not die.

Gangaji: Yes.  I believe it's been misunderstood, grossly misunderstood, that it is after death, in the sense of the death of the body, that the saving is found - when the truth is this death is possible every moment; and the fear of death, as we have talked about before, is what drives the ego to its survival of this particular body. 

If this fear of death can be recognized as the foundation for all actions of mind - even in the worship of God - then there is a possibility to stop.  To actually, directly, in this moment, meet the fear of death.  Meet death.  Die.  Not to physically die, but as if you were at the moment of physical death, and all will be lost - your body, your hopes, your victories, your defeats.  Everything that has been won is lost.  Your name, your relationships, your spiritual attainments, everything is gone.  You die.

And in this moment of dying, the promise of death, which is God's domain, is revealed to be here, is revealed to be unable to be lost.  So what can be lost will be lost; what cannot be lost is the presence of God, inseparable from the truth of who you are.  Who you think you are will be lost.  Let it be lost so that you can see directly who you are.

~~~

[Transcript of an audio excerpt from the Gangaji audio selections page, written by Arthur Gillard.]
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Arthur Gillard is the managing editor of the Integral News and Views blog (supported by donation/sponsorship) and is available for freelance editorial, writing, and other assigments.

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[Transcript of an audio excerpt from the Gangaji audio selections page, written by Arthur Gillard.]

Somehow at this point in time, on this planet, there is a huge mass of people who don't have to be primarily concerned with food and shelter.  Obviously there must be some concern enough to take care of food and shelter, but that's not the primary concern of the life - and if it is the primary concern for this mass of people I'm speaking to, it needn't be. 

For our ancestors - maybe our recent ancestors, but most certainly our ancient ancestors - it had to be the primary concern, the absolute concern.  And it was the source of the challenge of one's life: food and shelter.  But somehow we find ourselves at a point where there is enough food, and there is enough shelter, for the body.  That the deepest questions that our ancestors perhaps could never take even a moment to consider, the deepest questions, can be not only considered, but met fully.  That one's attention, which has already been freed up, can be given to the deepest issues, the deepest questions.  Usually, when one's attention is freed up from the drive of the necessity of food and shelter, the free-floating attention simply gloms on to more food, better shelter, more success, more things, more power - just because the nature of the mind and its attention is to attend to. 

Those of you who are here have at least discovered in some degree that the issues of your life, the issue of your fulfillment, the issue of the purpose of your life, is really not about more things.  I say to some degree because I know that there are some people here that that's not true of - but to you I'm saying: just listen, because there will be a point where it's true, and then these words will find a place in your heart. 

So I honor everything that has come before us.  The toil, the challenge, that gives us this privilege - because it is a privilege to consider these issues, and many people on the planet don't have this privilege; and most people who have this privilege throw it away, trivialize it, or don't even notice that in fact they don't have to be concerned all the time, every moment of every day, with food and shelter.  So I salute you in this privilege.

For me, about eleven years ago, I recognized that my life had been filled with privilege - which in itself was a huge recognition, since I had mostly spent my life being aware of its lack.  How I didn't have what somebody else had, or what I had had and lost, or what I imagined I should have.  And then there came a time in my life where I recognized, "my life is privileged.  Now what am I doing about that, and why am I still suffering?"  And it was at that time that I prayed for a teacher.  I had had numerous teachers come into my life for brief periods, and I had definitely benefited from all of them, but still I was seeking ultimate fulfillment, ultimate release.  I had experienced moments of release, and moments of fulfillment, but the seeking was just always shy of  complete fulfillment. So I prayed for a teacher.  And if you pray, as you know, your prayer will be answered - but usually not at all like you expect. [laughter] Beautifully not at all like you expect, because your expectations are based on past ideas.  I met my teacher and through his grace and his power, he revealed the source of fulfillment, and he asked me to bring this to you - not to bring the fulfillment to you, but to bring the revelation of the source of fulfillment to you.  So this is how we meet, at this precious moment in this privileged lifetime, to consider the truth of who you are.

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Arthur Gillard is the managing editor of the Integral News and Views blog (supported by donation/sponsorship) and is available for freelance editorial, writing, and other assigments.

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From March 6 - November 6 2006, I hosted a Q&A thread (I thought of it as a “group interview” with Robert Augustus Masters on Integral Naked - one of the most popular threads of all time on that forum. 

For convenience, I've decided to post links to the separate entries here; if I get insanely ambitious at some point I may write a rough index of it or make topic summaries of each section - but don't hold your breath.  There's a lot of great stuff in here, so leisurely browsing is recommended.  :)

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Introduction

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Part One

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Part Two

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Part Three

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Part Four

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Part Five

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Part Six

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Part Seven

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Part Eight

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Part Nine

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Part Ten

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Part Eleven

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Part Twelve

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Part Thirteen

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Part Fourteen

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Part Fifteen

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Part Sixteen

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Part Seventeen

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Part Eighteen

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Part Nineteen

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Part Twenty

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Part Twenty-One

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Part Twenty-Two

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Part Twenty-Three

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Part Twenty-Four

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Part Twenty-Five

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Part Twenty-Six

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Part Twenty-Seven

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Part Twenty-Eight

Robert Augustus Masters Q&A: Part Twenty-Nine

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Arthur Gillard is the managing editor of the Integral News and Views blog (supported by donation/sponsorship) and is available for freelance editorial, writing, and other assigments.

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(originally written in early 2006)

Lessons from a Spiritual Crisis, or What Kalindi Taught Me

In 2001 someone with whom I'd been in a significant long-distance relationship for 2 years committed suicide - this followed a period of several months during which she was suicidal and I was devoted to trying to save her; it finally appeared that she was OK, and shortly after that point she killed herself. I was in shock and broken down/open, suddenly realizing the extent to which she had become the sun that I orbited around; with Kalindi gone I was flung into space, and all hope and meaning were gone. I spiraled down into clinical depression and a couple of months following her death I woke up planning to kill myself. Basically I felt like I was in an abyss and there was no way out. If it hadn't been for the fact that thanks to her I knew quite well the impact suicide has on other people, I would have done it for sure; but as I didn't want to inflict that pain on my family and friends I found ways to keep going and put my life back together again.

What did I gain from that experience? A more vivid sense of the ephemerality of life, the omnipresence of death, and the radical incompleteness of the relative realm. A deeper sense of the importance of love and connection. I feel that this grieving experience propelled me rapidly through the end stages of the green meme and into a more integral perspective. I feel more compassionate. I've also tried a lot of things that I might not have before, and I feel less afraid. After she died, many times I prayed to Tara to help me take on Kalindi's karma, if such a thing is possible, to process her suffering for her. I dedicate all my merits to Kalindi first and foremost, and often feel as though I'm living for her as well as for myself.

Through Kalindi I feel connected to Death in a way I wasn't before, now that someone I shared a deep heart/soul connection with has crossed that line - and “voluntarily” at that. Her life and death are an existential koan to me, a mystery I don't feel I'll ever fully plumb the depths of. It's easy for me to be grateful for her life, but sometimes in a certain way I can even be grateful for her death, however much I wish it hadn't happened, especially in the way it did.

For a long time after her death I felt completely exposed to life, helpless and vulnerable; and when my “armor” started reforming, although I felt more able to cope with life (in fact, more than I had been before she died) I missed the openness that I experienced. I would like to get back to that kind of state, but in a more functional (and less traumatized) way.

One other thing. In the midst of the worst of my “abyss” experience, I felt something that confused and disturbed me at the time: deep down there was sometimes a sense of…bliss…or space…or something (or nothing?)…at the time it felt like a betrayal of her to feel anything positive, but later I wondered if I was actually broken open to something like causal awareness, and just wasn't able to recognize it at the time for what it was.

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Arthur Gillard is the managing editor of the Integral News and Views blog (supported by donation/sponsorship) and is available for freelance editorial, writing, and other assigments.

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People can neglect to take care of their financial needs in pursuit of therapy or other means of self-improvement - but people can also use financial issues as an excuse to avoid doing work on themselves that they really need to do, both for their own and others' benefit.

In my own case getting into a financially sound circumstance has thus far never seemed a particularly viable option, whereas physical, emotional, psychological, existential and spiritual issues need(ed) to be dealt with - alternatively taking turns or ganging up on me all at once. 

"Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!" - Through the Looking Glass

I've also never really had a lot of faith in the health or stability of the economic/political/ecological situation around here - so I've found it very difficult to really get with the program, since I believe "the program," as currently formulated, is deeply pathological and dissociated from vitally important wider contexts - e.g. the health of the biosphere and the living conditions of other people in the world.

I believe as a result of all the work I've done I'm a much better person than I used to be, and hopefully make more "positive ripples" than "negative ripples."  I continue to undergo paroxysms of existential anxiety at imagined long-term prospects for physical comfort and security, which often don't seem all that promising to me - and will in any case inevitably end in sickness and death.

Perhaps I can identify enough with the spiritual ground to weather whatever happens to me existentially - I think of Michael Huchison's story as an extreme example of one way that could work - and meanwhile I continue to work on improvements in key dimensions of my life using whatever resources (internal and external) are available at a given time.  So far I haven't had anything left over to put aside for whatever "later" may come, and admittedly I have a lot of anxiety around that.

Is that a copout?  Am I unnecessarily bypassing financial security in the pursuit of self-improvement, health, awakening?  short answer: I don't know.

Occasionally I feel like I'm on the right track.

spiral out,
Arthur

~~~

The above was posted in the Financial Bypass - Self-Development Trumps Biosurvival Needs, which itself arose from the excellent and highly recommended Spiritual Bypassing thread.

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Arthur Gillard is the managing editor of the Integral News and Views blog (supported by donation/sponsorship) and is available for freelance editorial, writing, and other assigments.

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In this dialog, Ken Wilber explains his unusual form of cognition.  The audio version is available for Integral Naked members here (note that you can join for a month for free and sample/download tons of great audio and video material - if you decide to stay after that it costs a mere $10/month.)

Ken Wilber: Idiot Savant or Just an Idiot? 

Integral University Student: I have a logistical kind of question: how do you personally keep track of all the information – do you use notebooks, do you work a lot on the computer? Because there's so much information.

Ken Wilber: Yeah, I know. It's all in my head.

IUS: <laughs>

KW: That's all I can tell you. <laughs> I don't take notes, I don't have notebooks.

IUS: Really?

KW: I work on a computer and that's it. And then, I don't know why this is so, but it's almost like idiot savant, you know? I've read at at least a Ph.D. level in 23 disciplines.

IUS: Jesus!

KW: And I don't know. You hope it's something special, but I could just be a nut! <laughter> I'm not stupid, I'm aware that this is extremely weird and rare - and then you can reflect on what all that means. I think I did more of that when I was a young male, and those kinds of things were important, and people were calling you the next Hegel or something like that. And you know, you think that's great. That just has no meaning to me now; it's just what is, it's what's arising and my duty is to use it responsibly and communicate it to the best of my ability. And that part I do believe. I believe it's some sort of deep metaphysical rule that you're allowed to understand an important truth if you agree to communicate it. And I think if you don't you get sick, your soul gets really, really sick. So that's my main concern, how to handle this responsibly. That's what we're trying to do here, that's what we're trying to do at Integral University and Integral Institute in general; and I think what is really terrific about it is that, because a large part of what I'm doing is anchored in second and third tier, it's anchored in real structures of consciousness and in real states of consciousness. And so it's actually like stumbling on a new territory; it's not something I invented, it's something that I discovered. Turquoise territory, use that as an example – that's an actual substance in the universe, it actually exists, there's a place that exists, it has a kosmic address. It's just not lying around out there in a fixed way. It's brought forth and enacted by those who grow and develop to that level or structure of consciousness; and it's something that we're all bringing forth as we move into this territory – and I just stumbled on the place a little bit earlier, and just started [to] take notebooks about what I saw, writing about this extraordinary new territory. And y'all are landing on the same continent, and so we're all discussing this together; and that will start actually fleshing out that continent, incidentally. It's one of those weird wonderful things that it's a mountain that's already there but not quite. It's there as we climb it – it actually comes into being <laughs> but it's not just dependent on us, anybody that stumbles on that mountain will co-create it, because it exists. That's what's amazing about all this. Hopefully there's something special about what I'm doing, that I'm not just a nutcase.

IUS: <laughs>

KW: <laughs> But, you know, history makes that decision.

 

IUS: Yeah.

KW: Yeah. But usually I just have maybe 4 or 5 books open that I'm having to type quotes from, and that's about it; and I'll sometimes jot down notes about maybe the names of chapters or something but I don't have any notebooks of information or anything like that at all – and the thousands and thousands of books that I've read, for some reason I retain the information. It's not a photographic memory, because that's kinda useless, you have to understand the information. For some reason I retain the understanding of the information and so I can recall it – all of it, right back to when I was 18 and started doing this.

I also have an idiot savant level of pattern recognition. I'll tell you how this works, just very quickly, since you're asking how I logistically [do this]. If I am watching a movie or watching TV and there's a movie star or an actress in it; once I recognize a face, I can spot it from any angle – if you show me a corner of their ear from behind I'll know who it is – and at any age. People see me do this, they don't believe me until they see it, and it's weird. I'll go, “hey that's so-and-so at age 12” or something and they'll go “no no no” and we'll look it up and it is [that person]. Because I have that patten recognition if I'll read Jane Lovinger and two years later read Eric Jantsch and then years later read Robert Kegan or something I would instantly see how they fit. It just pops up in my mind, it's a strange thing; but because of that I would then write down the patterns that connect because that's what I see. I don't think these things through, I'm looking at them like I'm looking at a cup or a rock or a table – I'm just reporting what I see. The reason I write so quickly is I'm not thinking, I'm seeing or hearing or feeling; and so when I sit down to write a book the book is basically already done in my head and it usually only takes a matter of a month or so to write a book – there have been 2 or 3 exceptions but it's usually extremely quick, because it's already done; and the first draft is usually very close to the last draft.

So, is he special, or is he weird? Well, history will tell.

IUS: Well, we're grateful that you're around! <laughs>

KW: <laughs>

Another voice (Rollie?): Well it's obvious you're especially weird, Ken. <laughs>

KW: That sounds right! <laughs> Weirdly special.

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Arthur Gillard is the managing editor of the Integral News and Views blog (supported by donation/sponsorship) and is available for freelance editorial, writing, and other assigments.

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I have great gratitude that you have appeared in my consciousness, and that you have invited me into your consciousness; and inviting me into your consciousness you invite my life's experience into your consciousness - as I invite yours into mine. And then we have a possibility of a deepening, broadening, unexpected sources of gratitude. The very fact that we can meet here like this, and speak to each other and receive the strength of each heart in this room, each mind in this room - this is astounding! And then to realize it doesn't end when this meeting ends, that there is a meeting that is so profound and so deep that it really doesn't even matter if we never see each other again, that we are in each other's consciousness; that consciousness itself is fluid and open - and by consciousness I mean heart consciousness, mind consciousness, even body consciousness.

It's like what's been fragmented comes back together. And we become whole with one another. We find our wholeness individually, and are complete in that wholeness. And then the mystery of more completion to what is already complete. [laughs] More satisfaction with what's already fulfilled. This is the great benefit of the play of one another, of the appearance of each another, of the differences in each other, different circumstances. The changes in form, changing relationships, comings and goings; the sadness in losing, the joy in gaining - all of it, the full and whole plate of being a human being, awake to itself as being a human being.

So I really value these meetings immensely, and your time that you take in coming here. And I do take you into my consciousness, and I am knocking on the door of your heart and mind consciousness, saying "let me in." There's some place we go together that's beyond what any of us can know alone - even though to go there we have to know it first fully alone.

from http://www.gangaji.org/satsang/library/listening.asp