Andy Schulman Interview

Summary:

Early Life and Spiritual Crisis:

• • Felt overwhelmed during graduate school training as a psychiatric social worker.
  • Realized he needed help more than he could offer others, sparking his spiritual search.

Introduction to Transcendental Meditation (TM):

• • TM became a pivotal practice, deeply influencing his life direction.
  • Despite challenges, he found support through people and nature.

Awakening Experience:

• • A spontaneous shift occurred where silence became a constant presence.
  • Described the change as both ordinary and profound—marking a new beginning.

Spiritual Themes Explored:

• • Silence as a Solvent: Helped dissolve mental clutter and deepen awareness.
  • Separation of Thought and Awareness: Learned to observe thoughts without identification.
  • Heart-Oriented Practices: Emphasized gratitude, appreciation, and emotional depth.

Personal Growth and Healing:

• • Worked through fear, wrong thinking, and personal habits.
  • Found strength in vulnerability and the value of seeking help.

Tools and Influences:

• • Used Byron Katie’s method for self-inquiry and transformation.
  • Found peace and fulfillment in silence and improved relationships.

Broader Reflections:

• • Discussed varieties of awakened individuals and the illusion of enlightenment.
  • Emphasized faith in God and nature’s support in spiritual growth.
  • Shifted perspective from individual identity to a more oceanic sense of self.

Life in Fairfield:

• • Spoke about the spiritual richness and community support in Fairfield, Iowa.
  • Described it as a “gift” and a place of spontaneous spiritual unfolding.

Full interview, edited for readability

Rick: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer and my guest this week is Andy Schulman. And as I was thinking about how I would conduct this interview with Andy, I had the impulse to just review a little bit what my motivations were for creating this show. And perhaps this will give Andy an angle on how he’d like to tell his story. When I started meditating back in 1968 and later began teaching in ’71, I was told and I began telling people that one could expect to gain the first stage of enlightenment, which they called “cosmic consciousness,” in maybe five to eight years. And I actually know a couple people who say that that happened for them, but for the vast majority of people who were practicing what I was practicing, it apparently didn’t. And now, you know, 30 or 40 years later, if I think of all the people I know who have been on a spiritual path all that time, I can kind of categorize them. One category might be people who just gave up on the whole thing. They got discouraged, they decided it was a pipe dream, and they just decided to live life and not worry about spiritual things. I don’t know what the percentages of these categories might be, but that’s one. Another is people who have been practicing their meditation or whatever. I’ll generalize this to include any sort of spiritual practice. They’ve been doing this for years and decades, and it’s become a routine. And they’ve kind of given up on the idea of actually becoming enlightened, whatever that is, and so on. They just figure it’s restful, I enjoy it, and I’ll just kind of live out my life doing this thing. A subcategory of those people, perhaps, is those who have an understanding of enlightenment as being something quite extraordinary in the sense that, you know, if you’ve actually attained it, you should be able to levitate or do other miraculous things as proof of that attainment. And if you can’t do such things, then you’re probably kidding yourself if you think you have attained enlightenment or whatever term we wish to use. And that might sound kind of silly, but I actually know people who take that attitude very seriously. And another category is people who actually have awakened or become enlightened to whatever degree. My understanding of that observation is that there are stages of awakening. One might have many awakenings, although some people argue that either you’re awake or you’re not, and there are no stages, and so on and so forth. But in this context, let’s say there are stages. And these people might not look extraordinary in any way. They may be living ordinary lives and raising children and working in jobs and so on and so forth. But for them, something significant has happened on the inside, so to speak. Now, if they are so bold as to tell people in categories two and one what has happened to them, I’ve seen two reactions. One is inspiration. People think, “Whoa, someone’s actually getting it, this thing that I’ve been working at myself for so long or had given up on. It’s happening for people. That’s wonderful.” And the other reaction I often see is skepticism, because they can’t levitate or whatever. And, you know, they, you know, maybe, “I don’t like that guy. How can he be awake?” or whatever. Some such reaction. And so my motivation in doing this show was to demonstrate or reveal or whatever we want to say that there are in fact people in this third category that I’ve just laid out that are experiencing genuine awakenings and that, you know, spiritual practice can be fruitful and can result in the experiences or states or attainments or realizations for which people generally embark upon it. And, you know, I hope perhaps that the impact of – and I’m of course not the only person doing this. There are all kinds of things on the internet that you can look at of people doing some similar things – but I hope that the impact of this, if any, is to perhaps inspire the people in category one that it’s, you know, worth pursuing this after all and perhaps enable the people in category two, those who, you know, have just sort of given up on the idea of actually reaching the thing that initially inspired them to do this, that it’s within their grasp. And a subtler point is that very often such people realize that they’ve already grasped it and just hadn’t quite understood it correctly. They thought that it was going to be something other than what it actually is, and so they mistook it or overlooked it. It snuck up on them so gradually and subtly that they didn’t realize that they actually were living in an awakened state or something very close to it. And sometimes just a little bit of understanding along those lines can trigger a shift and enable a person to enjoy that state more consciously. So anyway, I just felt like getting that off my chest. And now I’ll turn to Andy here, whom I have actually never spoken with about his experience, although I’ve heard you speak a few times at our Wednesday night satsang. But I understand something good is going on, so I think I’ll just let you start in whatever way you feel is most appropriate.

Andy: Well, the first thing I’d like to do is thank you, because one of the things I was worried about is what the heck am I gonna say? And you’ve given me the whole route. So as you were speaking, I think it would be good to go back a little ways and sort of give a perspective on who I was when I first started the journey. So at the time, this is August 1976, and at the time I was just completing my first year of graduate school. And it was a time of despair. I was very unhappy. I was drinking too much, smoking too much, and I really didn’t know how I was going to complete my second year graduate school. So one day a friend of mine asked me to come with him to a TM lecture. And at that lecture, the lecturer could not have said more perfect words, because I felt it was as if he was speaking to me, as if it was a private conversation between us. And it made such an impact that I decided to learn. And on August 8th, 1976, I learned TM. And it was a really striking experience, my first meditation. I really felt something really marvelous was happening. But who I was hadn’t changed very much after the initiation. Meditation was great, and I knew there was something very important here. But I was still somebody who was very much caught up in the world. And I was sort of using meditation as a way to make myself better, when I was still doing all the things that weren’t always the best for me to do. And this persisted for a long, long time. About ’79, 1979 or ’80, I learned the Cities, and even that was impressive for how it made me feel.

Rick: I just want to interject that the Cities refers to something called the TM City program, which is an advanced program that people who practice Transcendental Meditation can learn.

Andy: Yes. And that was impressive. And this, pretty much, I was still just plain old Andy, and all my habits were still there. But this growing experience of meditation, I knew to be very, very important. And of course, everything that I was being taught in lectures seemed to be the important information in life. When I got into the 90s, though, I felt like something was missing. And I started searching. I had this feeling that on the heart level I had not developed as much as I should have or expect to do. So I started visiting other masters, learning other techniques. And that was helpful, but still, you know, I would have the experience of maybe we’d go on a course for a weekend. We’d experience that deep silence, that bliss. Leave the course totally calm, totally peaceful. And then by Wednesday, it was all gone. And where did it go? And all that. As we come into closer to the time of now, there was a time a few years ago when I just noticed there was a change in my experience. And I noticed that the silence, and what I mean by silence is when you practice meditation, one of the ways you know that it’s working is, you know, there’s some silence and some quiet, some peace. And when you have that experience, you know the meditation, you know, is going okay. But we were given a metaphor when we learned that meditation was like taking a cloth and dipping it in dye. And when you’d hang it out on a bright sunny day, most of the dye would disappear, but some would become permanently fixed to the cloth. So by a few years ago, you know, I’d been dipping this cloth in for 30 years. And one day I just seemed to notice that this silence was with me all the time, no matter what I was doing. And I can’t tell you how it happened or when it happened, but it did. Now it’s very interesting. I knew it to be myself, but even though it wasn’t myself, it’s not like the heavens opened up and I started hearing, you know, angels singing or anything like. It was just this sense of peace and quiet which was with me all the time. And I started asking around about it, you know, and trying to find out what that silence and that quiet was all about. And that, as you know, led me to Tom Traynor’s group where people began to talk about their experiences. And I recognized that somehow there’d been a shift in consciousness in me. Now after this shift or my notice in the shift, life was still the same and yet it was completely different. It’s as if my perspective had changed. And it’s almost impossible to describe what the difference is. Everything looks the same. Nothing changes, but you notice that that silence is within you.

Rick: And do you feel like anything could perturb it? Do you notice it even if you’re in a hectic situation?

Andy: When this first happened, the silence would never be… This is actually a great question because it kind of leads into like, well, if you have the silence, what happens next? Well, it’s very interesting because nothing perturbs the silence, but you still have all your foibles. So if you were very sensitive, perhaps, to people criticizing you before, you might still be very susceptible to being criticized. So the ego may still be fully intact with all its strengths and weaknesses exactly as it was, but you’re noticing your essential nature. It’s become familiar. Now at that time, I noticed it, but I could still be upset by things. I could still experience if I was very… It’s not that the silence is unstable, but where your attention, you know, your attention can either stay with your thoughts or it can stay more attached to yourself.

Rick: To the silence.

Andy: To the silence. And at that time, my attention could waver very easily, but still, you know, when I came back, I said, “Oh, it’s still there. Every day it’s still there.” So in a sense, I was still… Something had changed. Something had changed in me. I’m trying to describe this change. Life changes once you notice your own self. It’s not easy for me to describe.

Rick: Well, let me see if I can help you out with some questions or whatever. One thing I might interject here is that a nice analogy that I find convenient for describing this silence is, imagine it isn’t silence. Imagine it’s some kind of tone, like the buzz this light is making here. And the buzz is going on continuously, and if we choose to do so, we can notice it, or we can just not notice it, but anytime we check, there’s the buzz. So it’s like, you know, with the silence, most of the time you’re busy doing things, you know, you’re working or whatever, but if you choose to notice, sure, there it is. And if you engage in something that doesn’t demand intellectual focus so much, or something like just walking down the street or whatever, it may be that you just kind of float along in that silence very consciously. But in terms of your difficulty describing what has changed, well, you were sort of saying that when the silence first dawned, you had all your foibles and weaknesses and whatnot, as much as you ever did, but there was this silence along with it. Now, did you find that perhaps over time that the presence of that silence kind of served as a solvent, so to speak, to kind of start loosening up some of those personality quirks and enable you to work through some of that stuff?

Andy: Yes. I found that over time, that for me, that doing, and this is not, I don’t believe, for everybody, it may be for some, it may be not for others, but doing a lot of spiritual practices has really helped me. And in that, I think that it has laid the groundwork for me to have to work on those issues that I have and resolve them.

Rick: It’s interesting you should say that, because some people sometimes suggest that spiritual practices can be an escape from doing that, that you just kind of take refuge in some inner state and don’t deal with the stuff that needs resolving, but what you’re saying is that the spiritual practices had the opposite effect.

Andy: Yeah, I would find it hard to believe that someone could take refuge in a spiritual practice because nature wants us to be whole, and whatever it is that keeps you from the wholeness that you already have, nature is going to encourage you to remove it. So that someone could escape into it, I don’t think that nature will allow that to go on for too long. I think in the end, you know, you will be, however it happens for you, pushed in that direction, and certainly as was I. And as I engaged myself and began to, you know, look at these issues, nature provided all the resources that I needed, and I found it was very, very helpful. And as I began to resolve some of those issues, then my experience changed in relation to the silence. Now over the last month or so, you know, when I would hear people talk about, well, you know, they felt silent inside, but that’s all they felt, you know, I could relate to that. But then when people talked about everywhere they looked, there was that silence, I could not relate to it. But now, my own experience is beginning to deepen, and I’m beginning to see that silence, not only within myself, but everywhere. And I think there is some relation to as peaceful as your mind can be, and, you know, if there are things you have to work through, I think there is some relationship, because it allows your mind, as it becomes more peaceful and more settled, to sit in that wholeness of the transcendent. And as you begin to sit in it, you become more identified with it, I think. Eckhart Tolle talked about enlightenment being the separation of thinking from awareness, and I don’t know if that’s a complete expression, but I instantly identified it, because I can still remember the years before I meditated, how much my own awareness and my thoughts were completely intertwined. And after all these years now, I can see there’s been some separation in that. And in that separation, the awareness then can explore the possibility of residing in itself, in its own nature. And its own nature is patient, and it’s blissful, and it’s got a wonderful, tender feeling to it, so that lately, you know, you’d mentioned before that one, if one was in a lot of activity, that you might not notice it as much as if you were settled and more calm, and then you notice that silence. You know, it’s easier to experience it. And I’ve gone through that, but now it seems, even no matter what I’m doing, you know, that silence, it seems like my awareness, its favorite resting place, it likes to be in that silence, because that silence is very enjoyable.

Rick: I notice it more when I’m in a lot of activity, because the contrast is greater. You know, put me in a busy airport or something like that, and it’s like, “Hey, I’m the Buddha.”

Andy: Yeah, I think I’m beginning to approach that.

Rick: When you said a minute ago that, you know, the awareness is peaceful and blissful and gentle and various qualities like that, do you think it’s really the awareness that has those qualities, or is that somehow the impact, so to speak, of the awareness on the physiology, that because pure awareness is enlivened, you know, there’s a sort of a gentleness dawns in our physiology or something? It may not be that way. I’m just asking hypothetically what you think. Because a lot of people say awareness doesn’t have qualities, it’s just awareness, and any qualities you attribute to it are relative in nature, you know, but awareness is beyond the relative, and therefore how can it have qualities?

Andy: Well, I’m not quite sure I know that answer.

Rick: I don’t either.

Andy: But I must say that, you know, it’s just getting more peaceful, more enjoyable, and I feel that nature is trying to help me out in every way that she can to help me move forward in that growing experience. Now, you know, does the transcendent in its pure state, it’s quality-less, but wherever I’m experiencing it, you know, as myself, I can share with people that it is peaceful, it’s calm, and when the mind is settled, it can be very enjoyable.

Rick: That’s fair enough.

Andy: Yeah.

Rick: When you said a few minutes ago that doing a lot of practices, a lot of spiritual practices and techniques, helped you work out a lot of stuff, which moved things along nicely, did you just mean the techniques you’ve been practicing for decades, or did you mean a whole new batch of them that you started doing?

Andy: A whole new batch of them. When it was the 90s, I felt that I had not developed the quality of love enough, and, you know, sort of from an astrological perspective, and you know I do astrology, you know, looking at my own chart, that is definitely a challenge to me in this life, learning a little bit more about love. So what I did was, in looking to, you know, some of the traditions of India, you know, there are what they call divine mothers who are there, and they teach more heart-oriented practices. So I began getting involved in some of those.

Rick: You mean like Ammachi and Karuna…?

Andy: Ammachi, Karunamayi,

Rick: Shree Ma and all these different…

Andy: Yeah, yeah, and you know, because of that desire to increase my own capacity to love, I looked towards them and I learned some things from them, some practices that I continue to do today. And also I’ve looked at other teachers, such as Ravi Shankar, and he taught this breathing technique, and I tell you, you know, even if I wake up in the morning and I’m a little grumpy, I do this breathing technique and I’m just feeling very good by the time I’m done.

Rick: Sudarshan Kriya?

Andy: Sudarshan Kriya, yeah. So between the meditation and the Kriya and the siddhis and these other practices, and a lot of them have to do with chanting, chanting works from India, such as the Lalita Sahasranama, which is the thousand names of the Divine Mother, the Sri Suktam, which is to the Goddess Lakshmi, and the Khadgamala Stotram, which is also sort of in the same Divine Mother direction. I just feel the combination… I’ve often believed that for the longest time, that from India, the Vedic tradition and the Sanskrit works are sort of like a tool belt, and you know, these different practices can produce a different result. So I headed out in the direction of, well, what do I want to create for myself? So this will help me with this, this will help me with that, and I created this custom package, which I’ve been practicing now, and yet…

Rick: Shulmanism.

Andy: Shulmanism, yes, yes, donations are accepted. I’ve created this practice that I do daily, and it’s been very effective for me, and yet some of the most wonderful things have been here in Fairfield. Tom’s group, Mary Lamoureux’s, Byron Katie group, there’s just so much here. So I feel nature is just showing me different, different ways to move me along, and it brings up gratitude, because when you begin to experience yourself, and that silence, and its blissful nature, you know, I do not feel that I’m a finished enlightened person at all.

Rick: If there is such a thing.

Andy: If there is such a thing, good, good point. But I do feel that I’ve crossed the line, so now that from who I was before, I’m now in a different space, and when you experience more of that peace, and that calm, and that patience, and that bliss, and a little bit more compassion for people, it’s a very good space to be in.

Rick: Yeah.

Andy: And it really can make the difference in a life, so that, you know, we can sort of let life…

Rick: I think what the world would be like if just about everybody was in that space.

Andy: Yes, it would be wonderful, it would be great. Now I’ve been told, and I accept this, that as we move forward, you know, the experience begins to deepen, it becomes more filled out, and as you just rightfully pointed out, there’s an endless amount of possibilities out there for us to look forward to.

Rick: Yeah.

Andy: So just hitting this beginning point can bring out a lot of gratitude, and a lot of appreciation, you know, and it didn’t happen in five to eight years, but I can say that once it does happen, it was well worth the wait.

Rick: Yeah. There’s a blog associated with this TV show called batgap.com, which stands for Buddha at the Gas Pump, with an extra A in there so you can actually pronounce it, and when I put up Andy’s interview on the blog, I’ll include links to those things you mentioned, the different teachers and things like that.

Andy: Oh, that’s great.

Rick: You can send me the links and I’ll put them in there in case people want to check it out themselves. It’s interesting because in the last few weeks I’ve been listening to a lot of interviews on another blog called Urban Guru Cafe, that’s produced in Australia, and their basic theme, everybody who speaks on that show, is that either you’re awake or you’re not, and when you kind of see clearly to the heart of things and realize what you are, that’s it. And there’s no progressive path, this whole nonsense, this whole thing of moving through stages of progression to higher and higher levels, or more and more complete stages of development, and so on and so forth, is nonsense, because to talk that way implies that there is a person who is going to be doing all this progression, and in fact there is no person, there’s just the essential nature of things, which is that’s what you are, you’re not an individual, and on and on and on. And I’ve enjoyed listening to these things, but I’ve listened to hours of them, in fact every single one of their 70-something productions that they’ve done so far I’ve listened to. But I am still of the opinion, and you’re articulating this quite nicely, that while all that may be true, and on some level there is no person, on another level we’re living life, and there are of course infinite gradations in the quality of how we can live life, and how much compassion we can bring to bear on our situations, and how much love and how much intelligence we can manifest in the world, and all these different qualities. And that stuff can be developed, and you’ve explained in your own experience how you’ve been developing it. So I just think it’s kind of sterile or flat or one-sided to insist that relative development is a distraction, or it’s unnecessary because there’s nothing or no one to develop. In fact they say the same thing of meditation, that meditation is a crock because it implies that there’s a meditator. So it kind of puts you right back in the soup you’re trying to get out of, to sit and do meditation, because who’s doing it? All you have to do is realize that and you’re done.

Andy: I’ve heard the story of two world-famous people who seemingly had spontaneous enlightenment experiences, Byron Katie and Eckhart Tolle. And all I can say is thank God that didn’t happen to me, because it seems like in their lives as they went from ignorance to full enlightenment abruptly, abruptly. I’ve heard stories that Eckhart Tolle spent two years on a park bench just looking at the sky trying to put it all together. When Byron Katie was in her halfway house and this happened to her, they brought her in her husband and she said, “Who’s that nice man?”

Rick: Just wiped the slate clean.

Andy: Just wiped everything.

Rick: And she hadn’t had a stroke or something either. It was an awakening.

Andy: So I think for most of us, you know, I just can’t imagine life without meditation. It is such a tremendous gift that we have received. I just can’t imagine having lived life never doing it.

Rick: Yeah.

Andy: It just seems like life would be too hard.

Rick: And that’s your experience and it’s my experience too. I mean, I haven’t missed one since July 25th, 1968. But half the people who come on this show who are awakened have stopped meditating because they feel like, “I’m always in that state. Why do I need to do it?” And it might be argued that for some of them it would be good for them to continue doing it, but ultimately they have to decide. And many of these people I’m referring to are growing by leaps and bounds. I mean, they’re still going through all this amazing progress. But for them, meditation doesn’t seem to be the vehicle anymore. They have other vehicles perhaps, or just living life is sort of a continuous meditation for them.

Andy: Yes, yes.

Rick: So I wouldn’t insist that it’s something where everybody has to sit down and close their eyes twice a day. But for me that’s been valuable.

Andy: Yeah, and not for people posting their experiences. Posting? You know, after they’ve crossed the line and they decide they don’t want to. But when I first started out, and for all those years, when I didn’t appreciate as much as I should have what had been granted, I’ve really got to say that for all those years, meditation helped me get through.

Rick: Yeah, me too. I mean, I was a high school dropout. I’d been arrested a couple of times for marijuana. And I was pretty much taken full advantage of everything the late 60s had to offer, basically. And I was pretty blown out. And it just started healing me from day one. And just wave after wave of healing just continued for years to come. You know, it’s interesting, regarding what we were talking about a minute ago, it used to be, and maybe still is in India, that in villages two wise men would sit down and debate. And one of them would be debating the Advaita perspective, non-duality. And another would be debating from the perspective of Dvaita, or duality, arguing that the diverse creation is also true, or real in its own right. And they would have this debate for hours, going back and forth. And the effect it would have on all the listeners would be, it would sort of swing their awareness from one pole to the other, and kind of broaden it in the process, until it was able to incorporate both perspectives simultaneously, and not be tripped up by the paradox. You like that word, paradox?

Andy: Yes. There are so many ways to look at evolution. And I don’t say this just because I ended up here and I came this way, but because of my experience, you know, I feel like, evolution, people need help. And there are a lot of souls on the planet who are qualified to give that help. And, you know, we need help for the simplest things, like learning the alphabet. So if we need help for that, why not for something as subtle, as experiencing your own self?

Rick: Yeah.

Andy: And that’s why I feel that, you know, Dvaita, yes, you know, it’s true, But is it true for you? And I just feel that for me, if I had just read Dvaita books, I wouldn’t be here now, in this place.

Rick: You know, the granddaddy of Dvaita really is Shankara, who lived a couple thousand years ago. And, you know, a lot of people don’t realize this, who are aware of Shankara, but he was as devotional as he was intellectual. And if he’s being devotional, why, you know, obviously he wasn’t refuting the notion that there is some value in giving credence to diversity and duality. In fact, he was quoted as saying that the intellect imagines duality for the sake of devotion. The intellect imagines duality for the sake of devotion. But those who follow in his footsteps, I mean, ultimately, these guys like Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj and Ramesh Balsekar, and all those are kind of ultimately in that lineage, although maybe not officially. You know, some of them I think, I don’t know, I can’t speak for all of them, but sometimes when I listen to talks, it seems that it’s a little too dismissive of the relative for my taste.

Andy: Yeah, we’re in the world, and you know, being Westerners, you know, our minds have just been educated and overworked. I think sometimes to the extent where, such as for myself, you know, I felt something was missing here. And I’ve heard it often said that, you know, the mind is a cruel taskmaster, but a wonderful servant when it’s working in conjunction with the heart. And in this evolution, I have found, I have experienced that, as I’m, you know, that peace and that silence is there, to some extent the mind is much prepared and ready to relax a little bit and just enjoy it. And what keeps it from enjoying more, you know, the Byron Katie group that I was talking about even two weeks ago, there was, she had this list of beliefs, and she handed it out to everybody so we could get experience at working through the process. And even though I’ve come this far, I looked at the first belief, I said, “Yep, that’s me.”

Rick: What was that?

Andy: “I should know what to do all the time.” You know, maybe that comes from being a Jewish overachiever. You know, you get that planted in your mind. And then what I learned from that, that that was my mind still thinking. It was in charge to create happiness because of some lack of faith that God is doing everything correctly. And so it’s these little things, these foibles that we have in our ego that can, even though we’re established in that silence, can take us and distract us with thoughts that just produce unhappiness. And I think part of the evolution is to work through these thoughts that produce unhappiness, that distract us from the peace and bliss that has been with us since birth.

Rick: Yeah. There’s a nice book by a fellow named Adyashanti who is coming here a year from now. It’s called “The End of Your World” and it’s written pretty much for people who had a spiritual awakening and have discovered that in spite of that, there’s still lots to deal with. There’s all kinds of issues. There’s the whole “I got it, I lost it” syndrome and all sorts of things. And it addresses a lot of these points very beautifully. But as you were saying half an hour ago, there are all kinds of ingrained habits that have taken decades and taken a lifetime or lifetimes to accumulate. And who’s to say, why should it be that merely becoming attuned to that silence that is our essential nature, is going to instantly eradicate all these habits?

Andy: Yes. And from an astrological point of view, when I look at a chart, I can see the story embedded in this birth. Things that we’re here to achieve, things that we’re here to do. So the establishment of the silence doesn’t change the tasks that we still have to accomplish. I may be feeling this peace, this bliss now, but I may have thoughts about things I want to do in the coming days, and because of those thoughts, I may not be able to proceed and accomplish those things because I’m still experiencing wrong thinking.

Rick: Can you give an example?

Andy: Yes, I can. Again, this was at the Byron Katie group. I had this fear that perhaps I wouldn’t be able to attain my goals. And so she said, “Name a goal.” I said, “Drive to California and get a job.” So she looked at me and she said, “Do you have a car?” And I said, “Yes.” She said, “Do you have some money for gas?” I said, “Yes.” She said, “Could you drive to California tomorrow and get there?” And I said, “Yeah, no problem. Can do that.” And then she said, “So what’s upsetting to you?” And then I realized, I said, “But I might fail because I wouldn’t get a job.” And right at that moment when I saw that thought, the thought split into two parts, which was I have enough skills to get a job and in the work part of life, I’ve done well. I’ve always done good work. But in reality, I might drive to California and because of the economy, there might not be any jobs available. Is that reality based? And I saw how I was lumping no jobs available and insufficient skills and cramming it all into one thought. But because of this Byron Katie work, I was able to separate out my skills from the plain reality that I might go to California and there might not be any jobs available at that point at that time. But that’s reality. But it’s not a reflection on me.

Rick: Right.

Andy: So, you know, then I, just from seeing that, I said, “Ah, we’re off again.” You know, I had that feeling more like, “Okay, let’s get going. We can do this. We can do that.” And it was a very enabling feeling. And, you know, when you– when the thinking becomes a little bit more correct, you’re not fighting with yourself and you feel an increase in a kind of personal strength and more steadiness. And again, you know, more– it feels like a deepening to have that wrong thought recognized for what it was. And then to say, “Oh, yeah, I have plenty of skills.” You know, maybe there is no job there, but, you know, that’s just the way it is. And then I could accept that as like, “Nope, didn’t fail.” So, I see this process, and as I said before, I’m glad I didn’t pop into a higher state of consciousness from one second to the next, because I think it would have been very overwhelming for me. And I think this gradual– what does Tom call sometimes this oozing over– I think there’s a lot of compassion in that method. I think it allows us to move forward with not having too much to deal with and making progress. So, I– you know, going back to the other point, I wouldn’t recommend spontaneous enlightenment for anybody.

Rick: Well, it’s interesting, because I think the people who espouse that would say that, “How can you be overwhelming to yourself?” All we’re talking about is realizing what you are, and so what’s overwhelming what? It’s just you, and there’s nothing about that that can be overwhelming. But, you know, as we’ve been discussing, I mean, we’re human beings, and even though some might argue we’re not, we’re just that reality, we’re not human beings, but fine, you’re still living life. And there’s a big collection of habits and tendencies and inclinations and proclivities and so on and so forth, and those aren’t just going to go poof in a pile– in a puff of smoke. They’re still going to be there, and you’re going to deal with them or not.

Andy: Yeah, there are things in your nervous system, you know, I’ve heard it said that when you go through traumatic and stressful experiences, these experiences become ingrained in the nervous system. And I’ve also heard that when they come out, they can be as dramatic and uncomfortable–

Rick: As when they went in.

Andy: As they went in. So for people who would make the case that, you know, “How could there be any problem?” Well, I suppose if you had no karma, and you had no ego, but I have karma, and I have an ego, and I can see there’s going to be some time to work through this, but once you cross the line, it’s okay. It just doesn’t matter anymore.

Rick: You’re just enjoying the ride.

Andy: You’re just enjoying the ride. And I think, even if this was as far as I was going to go in this life, that would be okay.

Rick: That’s a good attitude. I mean, it sort of reveals a state of contentment. You know, like, “I’m content.” I mean, you probably went through a long period where you had this sort of craving of a seeker. “Got to get this, got to get this, oh my God, am I ever going to get this?” But now, you probably don’t have that, right?

Andy: No.

Rick: I mean, you’re just kind of enjoying.

Andy: It’s enjoyment, it’s arrived, and before it was there, I had many habits that kept me from enjoying. And now that it’s arrived, I think nature’s put a little attention on, “Let’s polish this up and let’s straighten that fender out, and let’s do this and let’s do that, so the vehicle you’re riding in looks a little better.”

Rick: Were you doing the Byron Katie work before you had your recognition of the silence, before you had your awakening, or is that something you got into afterwards?

Andy: I tried it before, but the person who I was, I think, was trying to scam consciousness and the relative to have both in a way that wasn’t very spiritual. But since this experience of the silence, now there’s more of a viewpoint, “Okay, what within me is keeping me from reaching the highest heights that I can do?” And it’s not that I’m ambitious, it’s not that at all, but I think a person knows things about themselves that if they could change them, they would change them. Maybe they just need a little tweaking here and there, and a process like Byron Katie’s is beautiful for that. Every time one of these gets a little bit more exposed to the light, they seem to kind of dissolve in the light, and then there’s just more space to be a little more content. And it’s the contentment.

Rick: Some people call this “shadow work,” working on your shadow.

Andy: I could see that.

Rick: And the light analogy is good there, because if you shine enough light, then there isn’t the shadow. You just have to get the light to poke into all the shady areas that have been avoiding it.

Andy: You know, I… This Tom’s group, you were there when Neil was there, and Nate, and Rory, a couple of weeks ago. And they were having experiences. Pretty big stuff. And I mean, this path is endless, and you can go very far, but you don’t have to go very far in order to feel you’ve really gone somewhere. I mean, if those are the things that are waiting to be experienced later on for me, you know, it gives a feeling of this endless possibilities and an endless journey that only gets more spectacular as you…

Rick: Which is not discouraging. I mean, some people think, “Endless journey, oh my god.”

Andy: No!

Rick: But it’s more like, “Oh boy, this is more and more fun.”

Andy:Yeah, because once you have that silence, bliss, I know I keep coming back to this, it’s just… it’s so fulfilling, it’s so rewarding that you really… you’re not done, but it doesn’t matter how long the line is, because you feel peaceful and waiting is no big deal anymore.

Rick: Incidentally, this group that Andy has been referring to, Tom Traynor was on this show a few weeks ago, so some people may have seen that. And whether or not you did, if you go to batgap.com, you find a link to Tom Traynor’s… I think it’s to his email. And if you wanted to… or if you’re here in Fairfield, you can get in touch with him and find out where we have this thing, and you can come to it in person on Wednesday nights. And if you’re out of Fairfield, we have a professional-quality conference phone on the table in the middle of the room, where people call in from out of town in order to listen in or even participate. So, batgap.com for that. Now, you’ve taken us through a progression of silence beginning to be appreciated, and then on the basis of that, resolution of personality quirks and whatnot, which has deepened the silence still further and enabled you to kind of see silence even in the world around you. Would you say that… But so far, all of that is kind of a subjective experience. Subjectively, I’m experiencing silence. Subjectively, I’m perceiving the world in a richer way. But would you say that there’s been anything objective that others might notice also, in terms of the effect you have had on people or on the world or whatever, as a result of this inner development?

Andy: I’ve noticed… I’d have to ask people, but I’ve noticed I’m getting along with people better. Being in this subjective experience, people, more and more people, they come to you and you’re just… It just works out great.

Rick: Yeah, things are smoother.

Andy: Things are smoother. And I think that’d be a great question to ask me in six months, because I could ask a lot of people. But I think they would have that impression, but the subjective impression of getting along more smoothly with people, that is the gift of the silence.

Rick: That’s an interesting point. Maybe we could even explore that for a minute. What is it about the experience of silence that enables one to get along better with people? I could answer it, but I’d like you to answer it.

Andy: Sure. Mind is settled. It’s ready to listen. It’s ready to see what they have to say. Not so much the mind being so busy with the content. There’s more of an underlying tone. Just being receptive with people, gentle with people, patient with people. The mind isn’t so restless as it might have been before.

Rick: You probably have some friends, I know you do, who’ve also had an awakening of the nature that you’ve had. How do you hang out with those people? What is it like being in a group of people who are awake?

Andy: Wow. For sure, they’re not carbon copies of me. It’s not like everyone’s sitting around, like I’m sitting around and I’m experiencing this. This is the way I’m experiencing it. This is how, for my life, and when I say, “Gee, I’m getting along better with people,” that’s a big thing for me. It’s very important.

Rick: You used to have issues with that?

Andy: It never got voiced, but I could see where I did, where I had issues with it. For me, that’s like, “Wow, that’s great.” It’s more peaceful relationships, more cordial with people. What is it about, like to be with other people?

Rick: I was wondering, you hear references to the assembly of the enlightened being such a great thing, and also…

Andy: I really have to say, it comes in so many different flavors, and so many manifestations. It is… There are definitely personalities in there, and they are people who, you know, they grew up a certain way, and they have personality, and it has certain characteristics. And I think that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to do something that’s not just about me, but it’s about my characteristics. But… And it’s not… I don’t know how to express this. They each demonstrate what they’ve achieved, and I can’t say like, “Okay, I look at him, boy, look, feel his silence, feel his silence.” It’s not like that. I mean, the expression of where they’re at is according to how they are. But you just know when they start talking, and you listen to them, there’s just this quality about them. And… It’s just so… I mean, even Tom himself, you know, in his personality and his laughter, you know, one might easily assume he’d be the last person to have any silence at all, because he’s a very different kind of person. So when I’m with them… It’s… It’s the listening to them, and hearing what they have to say from the level of their consciousness that really begins to let you know, get a sense of where they are. And you know, your mind may not understand it, and your mind may want to understand it, but there’s such a solidity about these people and what they’re going through. And some of the experiences are just striking, and maybe even leave me in awe sometimes. But there’s something in what they say that just lets me know that what they’re experiencing is the truth.

Rick: What you said kind of harkens back to my introduction, in which some people say, “Oh, so-and-so is awake? Well, how could he be awake? Because he seems to have this kind of personality or that kind of personality.” And, you know, implying that they have a preconceived notion of what an awake person is supposed to act like. And I would suggest that you’re going to see just about as much variety among awake people as you see among people in general. Because they are people who just happen to have realized something which is deeper perhaps, or more fundamental. But they’re still going to be all the… Like you jokingly said a few minutes ago, “They’re not all like me.” There’s not some cookie-cutter definition of what an awake person is supposed to look like, or act like, or talk like, or behave like, or anything. There’s a great deal of variety among such people. I also just want to touch on the point that you referred earlier to his silence and my silence. Wouldn’t you agree that it’s really the same silence and we’re just kind of each tapping into it within ourselves and perhaps expressing it in our own way? Kind of like the same electricity is lighting this light and that light, and the light in there. Yes, absolutely.

Andy: I guess for people who need a lot of traits to be demonstrated in order to ascertain a person’s consciousness, I think you and I came up in a similar tradition. Yeah, Lord Krishna. Arjuna asked Lord Krishna the very same question. He said, “What does an enlightened man talk like? What does he act like? How does he sit? How does he walk?” And Krishna, I forget the exact answer, but he went on to describe all sorts of more inner characteristics or aspects of that state, rather than any kind of observable state. Outward observable.

Andy: And I think that in some ways that may have put us off the track for a while, but in experiencing what I’ve had and seeing other people in town, I don’t think the outward manifestation is the acid test of this.

Rick: Right.

Andy: I think, you know, the transcendent, myself, there is nothing more natural that you already have that can be experienced. And it is silent and peaceful in one of its aspects. And it was, I guess, our destiny to take this path of meditation and gradually, slowly, slowly, you know, it worked. And I guess as far as when I think about Maharishi, it’s really astounding what he has brought to so many people. And I think I’m getting more to the point where I would think for people who have gone through this tradition, I would be a little surprised if they don’t have an experience of their own silence in some way.

Rick: Yeah. Well I think a lot of them do. And, you know, I mean most, if not all. But there is this, you know, as we’ve been talking the last few minutes, there is this sort of expectation as to what enlightenment is going to look like on the outside. And in a way it can actually be a, I’m not sure quite the right word, but a distraction or a source of confusion when you have met someone extraordinary who radiates consciousness to an extraordinary degree, like Maharishi or Amma or some of these saints. Because you think, “Alright, well that’s what enlightenment is like.” You walk around and you knock people’s socks off by your mere presence. And you can sit on a couch and hug people for 24 hours or something without getting up to go to the bathroom, or whatever. And they’ll think, “Well, I must be lifetimes away from a state like that. If that’s what enlightenment is, I must be a schmuck.” But I like to think of that more as, you know, fine, if we like to think in terms of levels of evolution and degrees of enlightenment, it would make sense that there at any given time are a handful of very great beings on the planet who have reached a much higher stage of evolution, spiritual evolution, than the average person. But if you get down to what’s essential about their experience, the awareness of the Self or pure consciousness or whatever, it’s this very same essential thing that you’ve been talking about. And they may have a gift or a job calling for speaking to a larger audience and having a larger impact in the world than you or I have. But again, same electricity, little light bulb, big light bulb, whatever, but it’s the same electricity.

Andy: It’s the same electricity. And that’s why I’ve reversed my own perspective. It’s like, “Boy, this is something that should happen to everybody.” And in a sense, it doesn’t seem that hard. I mean, even though it took all these years to get here, now it’s just the most natural experience. And again, it’s impossible to describe what changed. I mean, that silence is there inside, and now it’s maturing a little bit. And I notice it outside.

Rick: Do you also have the feeling, just a sense of fearlessness in a way, like everybody is afraid of death to some extent, at least most everybody, but do you sort of feel like, have this attitude that, “I could live to be a hundred, I could die tomorrow, either way, it’s cool, and I’m on this sort of evolutionary adventure, which won’t be disturbed by however it goes”?

Andy: Yes. Yes. I’ve had some experiences because of a medical condition I’ve had, which is not close to the edge, but it certainly could make you scared. And it’s happened so many times, it’s like by now I go, “This is the most boring thing,” even while I’m there feeling like the 600-pound gorilla is on my chest. It’s like, “Okay, we’re not getting up and playing football right now.” It’s that kind of thing, and there’s much less fear. And I really feel that that experience was given to me as a way to lessen fear about that.

Rick: Yeah, most of the people who, like James Van Praagh and Betty Eadie and Dannion Brinkley and all these people who have written the near-death experience books, they all have this kind of complete confidence that whatever is going to happen is fine, that nobody really ever dies, and it just eliminated any such fear from them.

Andy: The worst thing would be the how of it.

Rick: Some horrible process you wouldn’t want to go through.

Andy: But aside from that, there is more of a continuity and feeling of… And part of it, I think, is that there’s got to be faith. I’ve heard it once said that once you have faith, that the journey is over. Because once you trust in God that you’re being taken care of, it’s another way that peace just floods into your life, because so much of what we do is in response to our ego believing that I should know what to do, and not having a real faith that God is doing a lot of stuff, and God is always taking care of you, and always will.

Rick: And I gather that in your case, that faith hasn’t just been conjured up, it’s developed on the basis of your actual experience, which is that you’ve concretely experienced time and time again that God does take care of you, that things do work out. And when it happens enough times, it gets through our thick skulls.

Andy: Yeah, but even the ego’s core ego beliefs can actually keep happening to you over and over again, and still, I don’t believe it. At least for me, I’ve seen that possibility. But as again with this, I think there’s something across that line, and I guess in a way I would just say, you begin to get a little bit established in CC.

Rick: Cosmic consciousness. Meaning silence there all the time.

Andy: Yeah. I think what happens is that, I think nature then… tries the best it can to help you move forward. Once you’ve taken that… Everything is done to help you as much as possible from anything that keeps you from moving forward at the fastest possible speed.

Rick: It kind of reminds me of that story about the guy in the flood who was praying to God, and praying to God to be saved from the flood. So some rescuers came along in a boat, and he said, “No, no, no. I don’t need the boat. God’s going to take care of me.” Then the waters were rising, so he climbed up onto his house, and another boat came along, and he said, “I don’t need the boat. God’s going to take care of me.” And finally, the water’s coming up, and a helicopter comes along, and he’s taken off the helicopter. “I don’t need your help. God’s going to take care of me.” So he drowns, and he goes to heaven, and he meets God, and he says, “Hey, I had so much faith in you. Why didn’t you help me?” And God says, “What do you want? I sent you two boats and a helicopter.”

Andy: Yeah. And I think it just… Oh God. And I think once you cross that line, it’s like you become more of a willing partner in the process. But it’s not like every day I wake up and I go, “Okay, what are we going to fix today?” It’s not that at all.

Rick: It’s just a flow.

Andy: It’s just a flow, and the flow seems to have some direction to it. It seems, you know, wants to take you to certain parts of the river, and on the bank, and on the shore, and then continue on. And, you know, it’s got purpose and flow, and you appreciate that, and you get an understanding. “Yeah, I can see that. I can see that I’m being helped. I’m being helped along the way.” And, you know, there’s more of a willingness to cooperate, and from my side do whatever it is I can do to help that process out.

Rick: Another way of looking at it is that when we’re completely in the grip of ego, such that our perception of ourself is that, “I am this flesh-bound body and personality, and it’s me against the world doing the best I can,” then we’re so kind of, in an apparent sense, so detached from that intelligence which actually is governing the world and which is doing everything. We’re appropriating unto ourselves something which doesn’t really belong to us. And there’s a lot of discussion of that in the Bhagavad Gita also, “Live not for the fruits of…” You have control over action alone, never over its fruits. “Live not for the fruits of action,” and so on and so forth. But when your experience shifts, as you’ve been describing, you’re not predominantly identifying or defining yourself as a space-time-bound individual. You are that silence. And what is that silence? It’s kind of essentially, if you see it clearly enough, it’s that intelligence, that lively intelligence, which is manifesting the whole thing, which is conducting the whole show. And so if we’re shifting our affiliation from this isolated wave, and I am only a wave, and I’m completely separate from that wave and that wave, to I am the ocean and these waves are arising in me, then from that perspective it would seem that things are naturally going to proceed more smoothly.

Andy: And there’s also an increased recognition of situations where nature’s trying to help you. This has been becoming much clearer over the past several weeks. Little things that would just seem to have no meaning. I’d recently applied to renew my passport. Now, I am curious about websites by nature, and I noticed on the United States government website, they had a place where you could put in your email address and they’d notify you when they sent it out, back to you. So I got the email, and I’m tracking it day by day, and it ends up in Drakesville, Iowa. And it was just amazing to see how nature was helping me. Because what would have happened, I wouldn’t have known it was there, but here it is, for some reason I decided to put in my email address, I saw it went to Drakesville, I drove down, I picked it up, and I felt like, wow, you know, all these little things, some little crazy karma had to come, but even in that, I got a notification. And I see just all this, you know, the Byron Katie group, Tom’s group, I see how life is positioning things to try and help me.

Rick: Yeah, it’s interesting, because some people might hear that story and say, “Well, that’s just coincidence, I would have put the email address in myself and checked on it,” and so on and so forth. But there are so many myriad details in life, and as far as our perceptual abilities are concerned, we’ve only got a tiny peephole on the universe, and we’re going along doing the best we can, and there are so many factors that are beyond our control. But people begin to experience, when this awakening gets more lively, that all kinds of unforeseen factors and events begin to work in their favor, which no one could have quite figured out on their own. It just sort of happens in a certain way, in a supportive way.

Andy: And that’s that, “Oh, I’m being helped.” And it’s that recognition. Well, I could have gone through the process where they sent it back, myriad of calls to who, no where at the government, and the net result would be, “Submit it again,” and another fee, and very aggravating. But it’s more this appreciation that this isn’t a little coincidence. This was actually an intention by nature to help me out because someone in Washington made a mistake.

Rick: Did you ever see that movie, “Sliding Doors,” with Gwyneth Paltrow?

Andy: Yes, as a matter of fact, I did.

Rick: She’s getting on a subway, and she gets on. And then they show the same scene where she doesn’t get on, the door is closed. And then they take the movie, kind of parallel tracks, of what happens to her when she got on that subway, and what happens to her when she didn’t get on that subway, and it’s completely different outcomes. It’s an interesting movie.

Andy: It is an interesting movie, and I think what the mind can do sometimes is minimize what is actually the experience of nature trying, and God trying to help you. I was telling you about that Byron Katie experience before. What happened was some people had gone and done the work, and then it was about 15 minutes later in the group, and I said to the leader, “Well, I do have something I want to talk about, but I don’t want to squeeze it in to 15 minutes.” And she said, “Well, I’ll tell you what. Why don’t those people go on, and I’ll stay here with you, and we’ll work on it.” Now, again, it seems so obvious that that might be a perfectly normal happening, but what it did was it provided a super personal environment for me to work that through, and enabled me to be more spontaneous with it, and I think it facilitated the whole working through of it. I didn’t minimize it to, “Oh, wow, we had a generous person leading the group, and the others went home.” I don’t think that’s what happened. I think I was being supported and being willing to do the work, and being given an optimum private environment where I could do it, and it would be even easier for me to do.

Rick: This is what Christ was talking about when he said that beautiful passage, which unfortunately I can’t quote very precisely, but “See not the lilies of the field.” They don’t toil, and they don’t sow, and so on and so forth, but I can tell you that even Solomon in all his glory was not as great as one of these or something. And then I think it was in the same passage that he said, “If my Father will provide even for these, what more would he do for you?”

Andy: And it’s, you know, the ego, oh, I just can’t say enough. This thought, “If I don’t do it, it won’t get done. I should know what to do.” We have these beliefs so burned into us that they disallow for the appreciation of something greater than ourselves.

Rick: I like that saying. There’s another book which I may have mentioned on this show called “Collision with the Infinite” by Suzanne Segal. Did you ever read that book?

Andy: No, I haven’t read it.

Rick: Great book. And she’s an example of somebody who awoke abruptly with no forewarning and no recognition of what it was, and she was in a state of fear for ten years until she finally figured it out. Because she couldn’t find a personal self anymore. There was just this sort of vastness, and she’s, “Where did I go?” And she finally met a spiritual teacher, Jean Klein, who kind of got her to stop desperately seeking an individuality and just relax into it, and then things got good for her. But one of the main themes of the book and how she kind of lived her life during that whole period was just to do the next obvious thing. Just do the next obvious thing. And it pertains to what you were saying, because if the ego is trying to figure out all the different details, there’s too many ramifications. You can’t figure them all out. But if you’re kind of going with the flow in the sense that we’re talking about here, the next obvious thing will continue to present itself.

Andy: It does. And because we’re both in attendance at Tom’s group at different times, one of our great mantras is, “I don’t know.” [laughs] And really getting comfortable, I think, with that idea that I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I don’t know what the next moment is going to bring. I don’t even know if I’ll be alive in the next moment. And that…

Rick: Amma says you should live your life like a bird on a branch. The twig might break at any time. You should be ready to fly.

Andy: Yeah. And because of that, we just really don’t know. And doing the… And the obvious thing is like, “What’s happening anyway?” It’s just happening to you. You get out of bed and you think this is going to happen. Well, we don’t know if it’s going to happen. Today, I do some computer work, and one of my clients said, “Please meet me between 8.30 and no later than 8.30 to 9.” And they were very insistent on it yesterday. They never showed. You know? Even in the simplest things in life, when you think you have it, and yet we would take something like that, “Well, that’s no big deal. That kind of thing happens all the time.” If you’re wanting to maintain that you’re in control and this is the nature of life, yeah, it happens all the time. But you really can begin to appreciate we are not in control and don’t. And that we want to happen, that fruit may or may not come. And we don’t know.

Rick: You have control over action alone, never over its fruits. Also, you could have reacted to that guy not showing up by blowing your top, “Oh, that idiot, why didn’t he show? I got out of bed early, blah, blah, blah.” Or you could say, “Okay, next obvious thing, what am I going to do next?” And it wouldn’t… Whichever attitude you expressed wouldn’t have any influence whatsoever on whether the guy showed up or not, because he didn’t.

Andy: That’s right.

Rick: But obviously the negative attitude would mess up your day a little bit. You might feel grumpy all morning or something, feel like it had ruined your day, and so on and so forth. Instead of just water off a duck’s back, on to the next.

Andy: It was really interesting. I called this person up, and I said, “Where are you?” I knew some of what they wanted to have done, but I wanted to get more of the total list of things to do. And I gathered they were working till 11 o’clock at night. And it was really interesting. It was more the feeling of, “Oh, they’re having a hard time.”

Rick: So you felt some compassion for the guy?

Andy: Yeah. It’s like, “All right.” This is a person that I also know socially, and this is a good person. But you could see, you could hear how tired they were, how their mind was just racing and racing and racing. It was like, “Okay. Don’t worry about it. I’ll do what I can do, and we’ll get back to the other stuff when you have time.”

Rick: I think that’s an example of what I asked you about earlier, about a concrete manifestation of this in your outer life. Maybe the 1977 Andy would have really gotten upset with that guy for not showing up.

Andy: Oh, absolutely. I mean, it was me. How dare you keep me waiting.

Rick: Okay. Well, is there anything else that you feel like we haven’t covered? Or when you get home you’re going to think, “Hey, I wish I should have talked about that.”

Andy: I like, I really, you know, I think since we come out of a similar background, I’m really glad that you brought up sort of how we see evolution. I think that I feel we have a very valid perspective and a very realistic perspective. And I think it was great. And I think what you did in sort of setting this up really helped me a lot. So I appreciate that and I thank you.

Rick: Yeah, and I would add that I respect other people’s perspectives on evolution. Like these, I wouldn’t have listened to all 76 of the Urban Guru Cafe broadcasts if I didn’t find something of value in it. And I’d like to actually have some of those people on the show once I get the ability to interview people remotely. But, you know, as you said earlier, I think we really have been given a gift. And, you know, Fairfield, Iowa is kind of a real interesting place. There are not too many towns of this size, roughly 10,000, where about 3,000 or 4,000 of the people are on this sort of intentional spiritual path. It makes for a very creative and interesting community. And it’s not mono-culture either. I mean, it’s not like it’s a TM town.

Andy: No.

Rick: Although some people would like it to be. But there’s a great deal of diversity and eclectic flavor to it. And all kinds of things going on all the time, like some of the things you mentioned. And all kinds of interesting people coming through town and giving talks. There’s a guy over here tonight giving some sort of talk from India. And actually a number of people have moved to Fairfield who have no TM background whatsoever and don’t intend to have one. They’ve just been drawn here because of what we’ve been talking about, you know. And have found it to be a charming place to live.

Andy: It is a fascinating place to live. And I feel that Fairfield is just a spiritual capital of this country. I really do. I mean, that’s my opinion.

Rick: Yeah, no, it could be.

Andy: That’s how I feel about it.

Rick: I mean, I don’t like to get into too much chest beating because there are all kinds of interesting people all over the place. But as far as a community of this size with these numbers of people, you know, hundreds, a couple of thousand people sitting down and meditating together twice a day at the same time and so on, I don’t think that’s going on anyplace.

Andy: Yeah, I think it’s a fascinating place. I think if you’re interested in experiencing your own self, I think living in Fairfield, just living here,

Rick: It’s a technique in itself.

Andy: It’s a technique in itself. And can help you do that.

Rick: Yeah, right. Well, on that note, that plug for Fairfield, I guess we can conclude. So thanks, Andy. I really appreciate your coming in. And, you know, since we both acknowledge that there’s a progressive nature to this path, maybe we’ll have you back on when there’s something new to talk about.

Andy: Oh, that’d be great.

Rick: So this has been Buddha at the Gas Pump. I think it’s episode number 14 or 15 or something now. And in the titles at the end, you’ll see some credits of people who’ve helped a lot with this production. And you’ll also see that website that I mentioned, batgap.com, from which you can find links to all kinds of other things. There’s a chat group, a Facebook page, getting Twitter set up, and all the interviews that are being done here are being archived on that, and they’re also being archived on YouTube. And also being turned into a podcast, so you can listen to them on your iPod while you’re driving or something, which I do a lot of. I came walking in here tonight with my iPod on, listening to something. So thanks for tuning in, and we’ll see you next time. [Music]