Nick Gancitano Transcript

Nick Gancitano Interview

Summary:

• Background: Nick Gancitano shares his journey from being a football player to a spiritual teacher, discussing his injury and transition into business and coaching.
• Meditation and Satori: He talks about his college experience with sports psychology and meditation, leading to deep states and a profound Satori (awakening).
• Teachings and Influence: Nick reflects on the influence of Ramana Maharshi and the Autobiography of a Yogi on his spiritual path.
• Teaching Philosophy: He emphasizes the importance of self-inquiry and surrender in spiritual practice, and his approach to teaching focuses on guiding students to understand these principles.

This interview explores the intersection of sports, psychology, and spirituality, highlighting Nick’s unique perspective and experiences.

Full transcript:

Rick: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer and my guest this week is Nick Gancitano. And before I get started with Nick, I just want to make a couple of quick practical announcements that I haven’t had a chance to make. One is that if you’re watching this on YouTube, we’re recording this in high definition, 720p, and you can switch to 720p and then expand it to the full screen of your monitor. So it’s more like watching it on TV. You don’t have to watch it in a little window. That’s why we’re doing it in high definition. Second thing is that my big accomplishment this week was I managed to install an automated mailing list system on batgap.com. So if you’d like to receive an email every time we post a new interview, you can sign up there and just your name and email address, and I’ll be able to notify you. And the third thing I just want to say is that once in a while I get a complaint from somebody that I talk too much during these interviews, and I want to confess that I’m guilty of that and I’m working on it. It’s like Larry King said, “If I’m talking, I’m not learning anything.” So I try to keep my mouth shut, but keep in mind that this is a long-form show. We don’t have a time constraint. We sometimes go two hours, and so it sometimes turns into a bit of a discussion rather than just short questions followed by long answers. And guests sometimes say they appreciate that because it gives them a chance to rest their voice for a second. So having said all that, welcome, Nick. Thank you for taking the opportunity to do this.

Nick: Hi, Rick. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Rick: Yeah. Now when I first was contacted by your lovely wife, Penelope, I looked on YouTube and looked up your name. And what a person finds if they do that is a bunch of videos by a guy giving spiritual talks and some videos of a football player kicking 45-yard field goals for Penn State. And with a little bit of investigation, you discover that this is the same guy. So that’s a pretty cool juxtaposition that you don’t ordinarily come across. Were you, like, injured in a football play and you’re a walk-in now? Or how did this —

Nick: Well, Rick, actually, you know, I did. I played with them, and I injured my knee back, you know, about a year or so out of the collegiate league after. And being with Detroit, I went with Detroit Lions for a little while. I injured my knee while I was there, and so I never really followed through on the rehabilitating and trying to make another go at the pros. I just went into business and did that for about four years or so. So, yeah, I never really … — but I coached. I ended up coaching for about 25 years.

Rick: Wow. Well, as they say, you know, NFL stands for “Not for Long.”

Nick: Yeah. That’s true.

Rick: You make your money until your body gets destroyed.

Nick: Yeah, that’s true. Everybody seems to take a beating.

Rick: Yeah. My cat just joined us. You don’t see this on Oprah Winfrey. There you go. So how did you segue from football player to spiritual teacher, or did somehow those two things overlap?

Nick: Well, I actually, when I was in college, one of the things that they suggested I do was take a sports psychology class. And so I took a sports psychology class and I began to practice relaxation, Jacobson’s relaxation, and began to drop into very deep states of meditation without really knowing why or how. I had always had some exposure to, I guess you would say, Eastern spirituality. The Autobiography of a Yogi was on my bookshelf as a child. I didn’t even know what it really was, but I had had a vision of the sage Ramana Maharshi at a very young age.

Rick: Wow.

Nick: And so, not really being able to piece any of this together until much later. Once I took that class, I just began, I fell in love with meditation, and I got away from it after college for some time. I went into business and that kind of thing, but I didn’t come back to it until after I had gone through teaching, coaching, being in the business world for a while. I guess I had to go through that and experience whatever that was, and become a speaker and that kind of thing, a public speaker and motivational speaker. And then just went through a divorce and came out of that where I found meditation again, and it just seemed to take to water. So then, eventually students just began to come to me after I had a satori that was very profound some time ago, and then students just started to come to me. And that’s how it just kind of happened, spontaneously like that. I didn’t really know. I had quit teaching school after ten years, and I just got a little disenchanted with the educational direction. So I didn’t really know what I was going to do, and then when that satori occurred, that shift, I just started wandering and traveling and studying different teachers and that kind of thing, and that was it. And then it just seemed to reverse where I ended up being a teacher somehow through people asking questions.

Rick: Well, there’s a lot to unpack in what you just said. First of all, how did you end up with a copy of Autobiography of a Yogi on your bookshelf when you were a kid? Were your parents into this kind of thing?

Nick: My father was very open-minded. He had a friend who was exposed to a teacher named Kirpal Singh way back, and he gave my father a book called The Impersonal Life, if you’ve ever read that, by Joseph Benner, and also The Autobiography of a Yogi, and so they were just sitting there. I don’t know whether or not my father ever read them at the time, but they seemed to be there, and I have recollection of them, but never really. Just pictures of Paramahansa Yogananda.

Rick: So you didn’t read it either, it was just sitting there on your shelf?

Nick: Yes, just sitting there.

Rick: I see. And then how old were you when you had this vision of Ramana Maharshi?

Nick: Oh, gosh, probably about 11.

Rick: So you were just kind of like, how did that happen? You were just out playing baseball or something, and all of a sudden this guy popped into your head?

Nick: Actually, no, it’s very vague. The memory was very vague. It was just this very vivid picture. I don’t even remember, to be honest with you, where I was. I just remember that when I first saw him as an adult, I remembered that I had seen it as a child, as a flash. It was more like a, almost like it was a memory, more than anything. And then, of course, later on I came to realize, after, when I was in a state of, I guess you would say, relaxation, that I came face-to-face with him as an adult with another person with me where I actually met him and spoke with him. Or he spoke to me, I guess you could say. I didn’t really speak, but he didn’t say anything in words. It was just a silent transmission to me where he was telling me to share this teaching.

Rick: He seems to get around. I mean, there’s another guy I interviewed named Burt Harding, and he was walking down the street in Toronto one day and this man’s face flashed in his mind’s eye. And then sometime later, it could have been a year or two, he was in a bookstore and he all of a sudden saw Ramana Maharshi’s face on a book and he said, “That’s the guy I saw!” And he ended up starting to read avidly and so on, one thing led to the next. So with you, let’s get things in the right order just for the chronology’s sake, because the story is interesting. So you had this flash of a vision as a kid, which you didn’t remember until you were much older. You also alluded to learning the Jacobson relaxation technique and having very deep experiences. And you also referred to a satori experience. I want to kind of go into all those. Which order should we go into them in?

Nick: Okay, well I guess we could start with them. We’ve already discussed when I had the glimpse in childhood, I really wasn’t even aware of it, but the Jacobson’s relaxation occurred my sophomore year in college. And that may be a good place to pick up because that was really the only type of relaxation I had ever really been acquainted with because I was very athletic.

Rick: Was that the thing where you relaxed each part of your body sequentially, going through the whole body?

Nick: Yes, you tense it and then you relax it. And certain siddhis began to develop as a result of that, which were …

Rick: Kicking 45-yard field goals. So that’s your secret, okay. You cheated.

Nick: Yeah, it was really peculiar things that shocked me, quite frankly.

Rick: Like what?

Nick: Well, like not feeling. Like my body was no longer there. Like almost like seeming like it was not physical, not feeling my body in contact with the bed that I was actually practicing meditation on, like it had moved.

Rick: Would you call that a siddhi?

Nick: You could call it. It was like a form of levitating, you could call it. It wasn’t something that I was trying to do. Also, there was also what seemed to be visions of things that were very vivid. They were very unlike a dream and certain abilities to have and do things at will.

Rick: Like what?

Nick: You know, just deciding that I would want to go somewhere, take a vacation, and then someone within seconds would ask me if I would like to go. You know, little teeny things like … And then later on those siddhis began to develop, which of course after that, at that point I had already been instructed by Ramana Maharshi not to buy into that, not to go down that direction because they are a distraction, which I can see how I was pulled off of that path of developing those yogic siddhis because they are a distraction. But later on there were certain things like looking at a tree and wishing that it was windier when it was completely still, and then seeing, of course, imagining that the tree would be bending because of the wind, and within seconds a tropical storm. Out of nowhere it came and all of a sudden there were alerts and that kind of thing. So just seeing the connection and looking at the ocean and seeing it stop, these kinds of things that were … You could just see that it was just the mind, the whole thing was just a construct of the mind, and that depending on my intention for that thought stream, well that would be the manifest reality or outcome of that. And so that that was not the reality was my understanding, so I said rather than give attention to the illusion of form, give my attention to that which is aware of the form.

Rick: I wonder if you were actually causing the tropical storm or if you were anticipating it, or if there was sort of a larger intelligence that was operating both the tropical storm and the thoughts in your head, and so that larger intelligence just sort of manifested in both things and there was a congruence.

Nick: That would be a very accurate way of demonstrating what actually occurred I would say as well, because at a later point that was my understanding. There really is nothing other than the self, and so there really is no such thing as an individual doing anything, and yet at that point in time there was the sense that I was doing it because there was still a sense of “I,” there was still a sense of doer there, and so that was a potential distraction, it appeared at the time. Really there is no potential for going off track if that’s not the destiny of the body, but that’s where it seemed to be leading.

Rick: Yeah, it sort of seems like as long as we perceive ourselves as having free will, we need to exercise it intelligently and ethically and wisely and so on. So you mentioned the satori experience, you also mentioned receiving instruction from Ramana Maharshi. Do you mean like actual sort of one-to-one instruction on some level, or do you mean just from reading his books and seeing what he had to say?

Nick: Both.

Rick: Okay, let’s talk about both those things, that and the satori experience.

Nick: Okay, the satori came after I had quit teaching, gotten to the point where I could no longer really stay in a classroom, I couldn’t remain there, and I quit and sold my home and went and lived in an apartment on the beach. I was reading Osho every day for many, many hours and meditating about 10 hours a day, just not really being aware of time to a large extent, and then one day I walked into the Borders bookstore and I saw the spiritual teachings of Ramana Maharshi, and I was like, “Oh my God, that’s the guy! That’s the guy from when I was young!” And that’s when I had the recollection, so I got the book and took it back and threw it on my bed. And I glanced over it several hours later and I saw a face and I began to cry profusely, and I didn’t really understand why that was occurring, but it was very profound and I just dropped into a very deep state of stillness. Then I began to read it and several days later I had an excruciating headache, somewhere in the center of my head, and I went for a walk on the beach, or the boardwalk really, near where the beach is in Hollywood Beach. And as I was walking I took a deep breath and I relaxed, and upon that relaxation, in that instant there was what appeared to be more like an explosion, like everything where I just completely felt like I disappeared. I became the entire non-phenomenal effulgence throughout existence, and there was no sense of me, but there was a very profound, deep state of presence, awareness of now, and everything was very vivid and very clear and luminous. So that was a satori. Now that lasted, that sense of bliss that came through that, lasted for about nine months. And so there was of course still a remnant of I there, because there was a feeling that I was in bliss, that I had awakened, that I had realized, and this kind of thing. And so there was a certain super-ego arrogance that began to develop at that state, and this is very consistent with what happens with a lot of yogis who work in the Kundalini system.

Rick: Spiritualized ego, they call it.

Nick: Yes, yes. And so that occurred, and then of course I woke up one day with the thought of committing suicide. That was the polarity of it.

Rick: Why?

Nick: There was no rhyme or reason, there was just all types of thoughts that the spiritual path was evil, and all types of past Catholic conditioning to the effect of anything other than following the path of Jesus was the devil. And so all these very profound subconscious things began to purge in a very short period of time.

Rick: Even though you hadn’t been thinking much about Jesus or anything for a long time, but all of a sudden this stuff started to flood in.

Nick: Nothing. Now there was a period of time before that, before I quit teaching, where I would watch this movie called “Jesus of Nazareth.”

Rick: Oh, Franco Zeffirelli?

Nick: Yeah.

Rick: Oh yeah, I love that, that’s beautiful.

Nick: It was a beautiful depiction of Jesus, and I watched it every day for about six months.

Rick: Wow.

Nick: Just certain clips of him, though, that I knew the exact measurements of the tapes where I could go and just contemplate, and just being in the presence of that was so profound and effective. It brought me into a state where I guess you could say it was my satsang at the time. And then I got away from that, and so then the mind came in and just started creating all kinds of dualities, and there was a sense of confusion and state of, again, then the fear came in that I had become the evil one. And this kind of stuff, this was all just in condition into my thought pattern at a very young age that now was beginning to purge, but because there was no thought for so long, when a thought did occur, it became a very profound sense of my reality. And so I identified with that.

Rick: Had you gone to Catholic school as a child?

Nick: No. No, one of my parents was a Catholic, the other a Lutheran, and so they decided to just leave me alone.

Rick: But you still had plenty of guilt packed in there.

Nick: There was still a little bit of that. More of the fear of what would happen if you went down the wrong path, the fear of hell and that kind of thing. And so it was really strange. It was more secondary, I think, information that had come in more so than the actual conditioning from my parents, because my parents never really talked about it, so there really wasn’t much there. But that was a very intense moment, and so from that point on I said, “I need to get some instruction. There is more going on here than I’m aware of.” And so I went and stayed with different teachers and traveled around. And then, of course, a yogi that I knew who was very conscious, who I went and spoke with, and that type of thing. And so that was a very integral, pivotal moment where I no longer felt that I was enlightened. There was a recognition that it was very intense and a lot of fears, and that’s when I guess you could say the real sadhana began. That was when everything began to get turned up, all the deep-rooted conditioning and that type of stuff. And so that took several years, and that began to stabilize. So at that point the real inquiry, the “I,” had come into focus.

Rick: That’s interesting. So you had this big, profound satori thing, and then you went through nine months of bliss, and then this stuff started perking up. And at that point many people would say, “Hey, I’m done, I’m awakened, this is it.” But in a way you’re saying, “I’m just getting started here.” So you went and saw all these teachers, and I presume you’re suggesting that your interaction with these teachers helped to work out all this doubt and confusion that had percolated up, and then you say you really started sadhana, you really started self-inquiry. Is that a fair synopsis of everything you just said?

Nick: Pretty close. My understanding after being with these teachers is that my belief then was that these teachers were going to somehow be able to transmit the truth to me. And so I recognized that in the ego that was there seeking enlightenment, there was a recognition that any time you seek to another teacher, in a sense, on a very subtle level, you’re seeking to become a teacher. In other words, you would only seek to get the information from someone. In other words, you would only seek to follow someone else if you wanted to be followed. You see, it’s a reflection of my own inner thought. I would only seek someone else, be a seeker, if I wanted to be sought. And so I began to question the reason for my trusting what they were saying over my own inner guidance, my own inner directional voice, and I began to doubt. And so then I began to reject those teachers, what they were saying, and I began to break away from the need for other. And at that point, I became very aware of the self, the formless awareness that was aware of it all, and that inner consciousness, that sublime presence then let me know that there was really no need for me to be following that. And so, however, one of the things that happened along the way was the insight, the connection with Ramana Maharshi, where he then told me to go teach, to share it. And he passed me a seed and the conveyance, telepathically, if you want to call it that, was that to pass the seed of truth on, and then I passed it to the person next to me, and he smiled and he hugged me or put his arms around me, and that was it, that was the conclusion of that. And since then there have been several communications.

Rick: Okay, yeah, I definitely want to get into those. But just to wrap up this point about following teachers, so you’re a teacher now and people are hanging around you, listening to what you have to say. How is that any different from what you were doing with those other teachers?

Nick: Right, because there was a sense that there was my trying to seek them. In other words, you could call yourself a teacher, I guess, in the position that I’m in, but I don’t really consider myself, if you will, the teacher as much as just the teaching is coming through this body. There’s no sense that I am doing the teaching.

Rick: Might that not have been the perspective of some of the teachers you were visiting?

Nick: Most definitely.

Rick: But your orientation to them was flawed, is what you’re saying.

Nick: Correct, correct.

Rick: There was this needy, sort of “I, thou” kind of a thing going on.

Nick: Yes, and there were also very distinct qualities that I had, and I believe everyone who goes looking for a guru or a teacher, is that they believe they know what the guru is going to be, that they have a projection that the guru is going to look like this, they’re going to act like this, they’re going to have these certain virtues and personality traits, when in fact the guru turns out to be the opposite of everything you thought it was. And it ends up destroying all of those concepts that you have, and that really more is kind of like an ambush, if you will, a divine ambush that surprises you and catches you completely off guard by showing up as, let’s just say, a very meek girlfriend, or a mother or father who is very overbearing or intolerable, and they force you to get in touch then with your sense of resistance to those qualities that they’re exhibiting. And so rather than looking for it in the way of someone who is speaking to you in discourse or pontification, this became very evident to me that it was more important that it came in a very natural, spontaneous way, as it pertained to me, because I was a school teacher, and therefore, I was looking for someone to teach it to me in the way that I was taught knowledge in a very traditional academic setting, and that that’s not the way that it was going to be communicated. It was going to be communicated very directly through profound experience and insight, as it pertained to this particular organism.

Rick: So would you discourage people in general from visiting teachers, or would you say more like, be prepared to have your preconceptions shattered and be open to approach a teacher in a mature way? You have to understand the relationship properly. It’s not that there shouldn’t be such relationships, but that they should be entered into with a proper sort of maturity or understanding or something. Would you agree with that?

Nick: Yes, I would say whatever is, is exactly what’s supposed to happen. And so also be wary of anyone who calls themselves a master or who allows themselves to be called master in any way. To me, those are signs of the superego phase that I was discussing, one who knows that there is only one master and that’s the I am. That’s the formless awareness. There is no such thing as a separate individual master. Anyone who believes that does not understand the true notion of what self-realization is. They’re still in that stage of trying to maybe develop a following or trying to accumulate things. And this is nothing wrong with this. It’s just to say that I am a master or to allow someone to say that, there is only one master. There can only be one master and that is the infinite intelligence that runs it all. And it has nothing to do with the form. It has to do with the formless dimension that animates it all. And so this is just, there’s just a very slight tweaking that needs to occur there. Nonetheless, it doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with them. It doesn’t mean that they’re intentionally trying to deceive. It just means that there is a touch of tweak. Just who is it that thinks they’re the master?

Rick: Well, wasn’t Christ addressed as master and perhaps Ramana Maharshi as well? It doesn’t mean that they had egoic tendencies. It just means that they were masters, you know, which by definition means that they were residing in that universal self as that. But people see them as, you know, I mean people can only perceive from their level of consciousness, you know. And you look at someone like Christ and you think, “Whoa, he’s great.” But you’re not seeing through his eyes. You’re not seeing him as he sees himself, you know, which is that universal consciousness, right? So I’m just kind of playing devil’s advocate here and suggesting that what you’re saying is not necessarily universally true. There may be instances in which someone is addressed as master and yet they aren’t gripped by the taint of ego.

Nick: This really is going to be very specific as to how you’re going to respond to that. I bring this up only that if someone does find themselves being called that to question and really look and see on a very subtle level whether or not that is the case. And of course whether or not Jesus actually allowed it or not based on the scriptures that have been recorded, which are at best, you know, very sparse and very selected and picked apart. And so to really say how he would have responded to that statement …

Rick: It’s very speculative.

Nick: It is. And having had people actually try to establish that kind of a devotee-master relationship, that is something that immediately felt like that’s not it.

Rick: Yeah.

Nick: You know, that’s not the way to go with this person. To establish with them, “Let us be clear. You can call me whatever you like.”

Rick: I’m not talking about in your particular case. And also your point is well taken. I mean there are egregious examples of people whose egos have just gone berserk when they start receiving the kind of adulation that you’re talking about here. But I’m just saying that in some cases there may very well have been and are teachers who are sufficiently ripe or mature or enlightened or whatever word you want to use, that it’s not going to be a problem for them. I mean Shankara himself, who is the granddaddy of non-dualism, said that the intellect imagines duality for the sake of devotion. So he wasn’t averse to the notion of creating a sort of an imaginary separation for the sake of the enrichment that devotional practices bring.

Nick: +Well, this is why I say as long as one allows themselves to be addressed as the master or master, that they are aware that the master is nothing to do with the sense of individuality. It has to do with the presence that is the substratum of it, and that that does not occur. This is why I say it has to be based on, if there is a sense of individuality that is being addressed during any kind of devotee-guru type of relationship, that if they were to just turn inward and see, just look and check to see whether or not that’s the case. It’s more common, I know, amongst a lot of Zen, because the term “master” is used very frequently. It’s also used, it was used with Osho, and he encouraged the master-devotee relationship. But Osho was more of a deconstructor. He was more of a deconditioner than he was an actual leading someone into the actual heart on a large scale. Marginally, yes, with very select students or people that he was with, but for the most part, he laughed at everything. And so again, yes, are there rare instances where they are? And again, then yes. But in general, if you see the term “master” being used, I would just say, question, who is it that’s seeing the master, and who is it that’s wanting the master’s guidance and direction? It’s none other than …

Rick: Yeah, no, I think it’s a really good cautionary note, because there have been … it’s the exception rather than the rule that you find somebody who is in a teaching position who is able to really stay completely established in the large S Self, and not let it go to his head to some extent. And in Christ’s case, he said, “I and my Father are one.” So, if he was addressing someone, presuming he said that, if someone was addressing him as “master,” presumably he recognized where that respect was actually being directed to, not to him, the man, but to the Father, to the Universal Spirit, or whatever terminology we want to use. Which actually has interesting implications for those other sayings that are bandied about so often, that “No man cometh unto the Father, but by me. I am the way, the truth, and the life.” I mean, what “I” is he talking about there? Is he talking about this guy walking around in sandals in the Middle East 2,000 years ago, or is he talking about a much larger, more eternal, universal sense of “I”?

Nick: Yeah, yes. And there were times when students asked me, “So who are you?” And I just say, “Well, I am.” And so the name “I am” stuck even with me for a while. And so “I am,” which this body came to be known by, by those who were not understanding what was meant by that, then you can see where the confusion can be fostered and it can grow. And if it’s not nipped immediately, then it can grow out of control. And if there is going to be an abidance in that formless state of awareness, nothing can really be assigned to that formless awareness, not even the word “master,” to even respond to that. And so this is why I say if anyone does call someone a master, then it’s just as easy to say, “You recognize that you are.”

Rick: Right.

Nick: It’s really you, and to really bring that back to them, because really that’s the responsibility, is to just not to take credit or not to even feed off of that, but to turn back and say, “Your responsibility at that point is to just remind everyone to turn back toward themselves.”

Rick: Yeah.

Nick: And to not get caught up even in that devotee attachment that can develop and become very strong. And at some points it may be helpful, depending on how caught up in, let’s just say, a different type of conditioning it is. In order to break one type of conditioning, the other extreme of conditioning may be necessary, sort of like the thorn that’s used to remove the thorn and then throw them both out. But to not then hold on to the new thorn, which is, “I’m the master and you’re the devotee, so go get my coffee.”

Rick: Yeah, right.

Nick: That kind of thing.

Rick: Yeah, I think it’s a good point. And what you just alluded to is that one size does not necessarily fit all. There are stages of development, there are stages of teachings appropriate to the people, whoever they are. I mean, Vedanta, which is of course what we’re talking about in terms of non-dualism, means the end of the Vedas. Anta means end. And the Gita says, how does it put it, “To the enlightened sage, all the Vedas are of no more use than as a small well in a place flooded with water on every side.” So at that stage, all these different teachings and strata of knowledge and all this business has been gone beyond. But that’s not to say that a great sage in the Vedantic tradition, such as Ramana or Shankara or somebody, would throw the whole thing, all the rest of it out. I mean, Vedanta is one of six systems of Indian philosophy and the others are considered to have their function at particular stages of development, but they are also recognized as not being the ultimate.

Nick: Yeah, I like to just keep it very simple and use the first name. You know, this way there’s no confusion. There’s no possibility of that. And this is why I say, you know, someone talks to me, no matter how many years they come and sit and satsang or meditate, whether or not there’s even a verbal dialogue that even needs to take place, that’s really completely up to them. And so at this point, it’s just, “Hey, you can call me Nick.” To make it simple, you can call me Nick, but there’s no Sir Nick or Master Nick or Sri Nick, you know what I mean? Or Nick G or whatever it is you want to put under your name. This is all just a way of creating a lot of fluff around something that, you know, is really not necessary. And it allows for the confusion to breed. And if you just nip that right in the bud, right off the bat, and just say, “Okay, hi, name Jim, my name’s Nick.” Great. “Okay, hey, I like what you’re saying, let’s, you know, interact.” Or, you know, if you want to meditate together, that’s great. If they want to sit, but there’s no … in other words, you’re not feeding it, and so as long as you make sure that you’re not feeding it, then you’re good.

Rick: Yeah, it’s good. You’re not trying to build up a lot of hoopla around yourself, you’re just sticking to the core message, which is what it’s all about anyway, you know?

Nick: Yeah, yeah.

Rick: Yeah, good. So, you mentioned that you’ve had several kind of interactions on a subtle level with Ramana Maharshi, that there were some transmissions or teachings or something that took place. Can we talk about those?

Nick: Sure. Not really much to say in the fact that they were more a look and a smile, it’s touch.

Rick: Like in meditation or something, he would come to you?

Nick: Either that or spontaneously. Meditation is kind of a difficult word to really describe, because at some point you don’t know whether you’re meditating or not, you just are. So, I’m not really sure at what point meditation stopped, you know, and it just became the natural realization of what always is. So, I’m not really sure whether there was meditating at that time, or if there was just being and then the image occurred, and it was either at some kind of a conveyance, it wasn’t him speaking to me in Tamil, he wasn’t speaking, you know, none of that was occurring, it was just very, I understood, in his actions. And this is what I felt to be very powerful, because it didn’t require it. If it had been words, one might be suspect as to whether or not this image coming to my mind was like the one that occurred earlier, when I became very, you know, frightened. And so, at this point, there was none of that. This communication occurred in a way that was unmistakable. It wasn’t something, and I felt it throughout my entire being, every, you know. And so there was no real…

Rick: It was just out of the blue, you weren’t looking for it or anything, just…

Nick: No, no.

Rick: And so what was the communication, or what did you get out of it?

Nick: Well, for one thing, to get rid of his, you know, stop reading. Stop reading, you know, and of course, not that people shouldn’t read, but that there was no longer any need to read.

Rick: For you.

Nick: Yes.

Rick: Right.

Nick: And so that was, you know, also to get rid of the pictures of him that I had all around, you know, and that type of thing. Not that that was wrong either, because there’s a certain presence, vibration, that’s transmitted even in that state. If for someone who’s not able to hold their attention on the eye, meditating on a form, a gross form, until the mind is ripened to be sensitive to the more subtle dimension, then of course that’s necessary, but then of course that was communicated. So there was almost a … the way he demonstrated it was like he was surprised that I would still have his pictures up all over the place. And it was almost embarrassing, but it’s got the point across, you know, and so I took those down, and then just… And it says, you know, once the outer guru is replaced by recognizing the inner guru, there’s no need for the outer. So that’s a very important stage that I feel some people get stuck in, you know, the externalization, and the idol worship, and the guru worshipping, and that kind of thing. And this is why I say Ramana, if you will, personified, for lack of a better word, the purity of not even doing anything, not doing…just realizing that you are always yourself. You can never not be yourself, and going at it from that angle, and then if someone demonstrates a lack of that capability, he would backpedal, but he had already covered the root. He had already hit them with the highest, and then he can backpedal based on what’s necessary. He didn’t start with the lower and then say, Well, he didn’t think you were ready for the higher. No, he’s going to give you every opportunity, if you will, to grip onto that, and to not have to be diminished in understanding, or assume that you can’t comprehend the very simple truth that, you know, “I always am.”

Rick: Yeah, I’ve heard that about him, that he would sort of like hit you with the highest teaching, and if that didn’t stick, then he would say, “Take it a notch down,” and “Okay, how about this?” And just kind of keep doing that until he found the right fit.

Nick: Yes, it’s such a delight to be in that, because there’s such a sense of empowerment and compassion in a teacher that, if you will, for lack of a better word, that recognizes that. Now this is on the level of form, of course, we’re talking on the subtlest level. None of that makes any difference, but because we are talking on that level, then of course it is a breath of fresh air. And once you’ve been to Tiruvannamalai, and you’ve been through the guru circuit there, and seen all the different teachers that arrive and share their teaching, it’s very easy to get kind of pulled around and led to different ponds to drink.

Rick: I’ve heard it’s quite a scene over there, I haven’t been there myself.

Nick: It’s quite an exquisite environment in every way, and of course being on Arunachala is a very wonderful experience. But you can find whatever it is you want there in the way of spiritual seeking, and also just being there without having any expectation, but just deciding I’m going to go live there for a month or two months, or six months, and then just staying there and allowing whatever is going to occur to occur without having any expectations. Because if you have an expectation, then of course the mind will gladly accommodate you by creating circumstances and experiences that will make you feel that that’s part of the awakening. But the awakening has really absolutely nothing to do with experience at all. And it’s making that distinction. It’s not the experience, it’s that which experiences it all, that which is perceiving it. So this is another place. But it does get kind of in your face there because you will find teachers from pretty much every lineage there.

Rick: Sort of like Alice’s Restaurant. So how long were you over there?

Nick: Oh, several times, I went several times, yeah. And stayed for about six weeks or so each time. And so just to spend time there on the hill, and the first time was to find out a little bit more about the lineage of Ramana after the Insights. And then of course I recognized there’s a heavy component of ritualism, which didn’t appeal to me at any point. I never really felt like I would do that, but I recognized that it was necessary for some people to do that. But I kind of got away from that and I just started going then instead of just spending the entire day on the hill. And that was very profound and I got very sick at one point. That was an incredible point too where [my] temperature was 104 or something like that for quite some time. And it was evidently necessary for some of the vasanas that were entrenched in the organism to be uprooted. But I didn’t know if it was malaria or what at first, but after a while you just kind of recognize, you jump under the cold shower and you just want to die at that point. And so then you felt a tremendous release occur in that. And so it was just layer upon layer, it seems to unravel in that, you know, it doesn’t have to be there, but it certainly seemed to assist in the process on whatever level that occurred.

Rick: Yeah, well you know there have been instances in which sicknesses preceded profound spiritual awakenings, like St. Francis, you know, we spoke of Zeffirelli, there’s that Brother Son Sister Moon, which depicted him having gotten very sick and then waking up from that a completely different person. So maybe sometimes that’s the way a lot of karma gets knocked out or something.

Nick: Yeah, yeah, there is a lot of, you become privy to a lot of different dimensions in that vibration, I guess you could call it, and not really knowing what any of it is, because you can never really be prepared for anything that’s going to occur. That’s why it’s important to be aware of the “I am” and just give attention to the formless awareness and realize that any type of movement in consciousness is on some level a distraction.

Rick: Yeah, actually you know, the first time I ever had what I would think of as a spiritual experience was when I was a kid and I had a high fever, and I kept having this experience of simultaneous vastness and tininess, heaviness and lightness. It was like, at the same time, it was like I was infinitely heavy and infinitely light, infinitely vast and infinitely small, and I was just sitting there in bed with this high fever, like, “What?” You know, having this experience and thinking, “This is so amazing.” But it’s like, you know, the fever somehow, as you say, kicked me into a different dimension or something.

Nick: Yeah, same.

Rick: So your first encounter with Ramana was this, you know, “Okay, get rid of the books and the pictures,” but you said you had several. What were the others?

Nick: That was the second. The first one was the “Teach It.”

Rick: Aha, I see.

Nick: And so that. And then the others were just non-physical. They were more, they, it’s very difficult to describe. It was more just a presence, a recognition of a presence. Also there was a certain channeling, if you will. It felt like a channeling kind of just coming through, where it was almost like he had come within this particular body. And at a time when there was teaching occurring through this body, that presence came within this one to make sure that I did not, because this person was at a very critical stage in their sadhana.

Rick: The person you were teaching?

Nick: Yes, that they received it, worded it in such a way that they could not be misinterpreted. And so in a sense it was teaching me while he was inside.

Rick: Interesting. So what do you think was actually going on there? I mean, a strict, non-dualist fundamentalist might say, “Wait a minute, Nick, you’re getting into kind of, there’s this entity, Ramana, that’s coming and coming inside this entity of Nick, and that sounds rather dualistic to me.” So what do you think was really going on, the mechanics of that phenomenon?

Nick: Yeah, well the whole thing is phenomenal. I mean, the whole seeking, finding thing is on the level of phenomena. So there’s no difference between that and a teacher sitting across from a student in a classroom and talking to them. Really, it’s all part of the illusion. And so these phenomena are operating on a level that’s far beyond our comprehension. For me to speculate as to why that happened or to be able to explain to someone who is a so-called pure Advaitist, that can’t be explained. Jesus used many dualistic terminology as well, and so did other teachers. It’s really just the struggle of trying to explain what cannot be explained, words need to be used. And so in that regard, I mean, I can’t make any sense of it. All I know is that it was the so-called phenomenal depiction of the nominal reality. And so how that manifests, they do mirror, you know, they are in a constant state of reflecting. And so somewhere depending on where you find your sense of self, if you will intersect that transmission or that experience, and every experience is based on a, I guess you could say, a vibration. In getting in a yogic phrase, you know, that you can interpret that in different ways based on chakras and all that kind of stuff, but really it’s all just a manifestation of the formless awareness. And so I like to keep it as close to that, as simple, you know, as possible. I don’t really know why certain things happened. I don’t know why sometimes I even referred to God as Father for a while, you know, because that seemed comforting at the time, you know, for whatever reason. But there came a time when there was a recognition that, you know, there’s no separation between you and the Father to make any, you know, alluding to anything contrary to that would be to go astray. And of course, there is a series, there are a series of stages that someone goes through before they let go of that, before those concepts. Even non-duality is part of the duality, you know, because non-duality and duality are a duality in and of themselves. You know, they only exist because of each other. In truth, there’s really neither, because there’s all. It all exists within the one. And so, you know, this is where if you become attached to a dualistic perspective or a non-dualistic perspective, you’ve missed the point. It’s really somewhere in between and including both.

Rick: I love that. You couldn’t have said it better. Brilliant. And people do tend to get a little bit lopsided to one side or the other, you know, and adamant about it’s only this way or it’s only that way. And I think it misses the point. Nisargadatta said, and I’ve said this in several interviews, that the ability to embrace paradox and ambiguity is a good measure of one’s spiritual development or whatever, you know.

Nick: Yeah, beautiful. He had a way of stating things that was quite beautiful.

Rick: What I find helpful is to take the example of a common thing. I mean, take this cup, for instance. On some level, there’s a cup, you know, but then a sort of molecular chemist or something might say, “No, it’s just molecules.” And he’s right. There’s no cup. It’s only molecules. And then maybe an atomic physicist might say, “There are no molecules. It’s only atoms.” And he’s right, too. On that level, it’s only atoms. Where are the molecules? And then, you know, a quantum physicist might say, “Well, there are no atoms. It’s only these virtual fluctuations in the vacuum state.” And he’s right also. So on all these different levels, each has its own level of validity, and one does not actually invalidate the other. Somehow, the whole package is each of those things is true, and they’re all true together, and they all kind of fit harmoniously without contradiction or conflict, and that’s the way the universe is.

Nick: Yeah, you know, this is an excellent point because part of the realization, when it really drives deep, is that everything that has ever been said is true, and it’s also not true. So you can, from that perspective, so to argue with somebody or to say, “Well, you know, you’re really …” You have to take one direction and you have to run deep with it if there is an intention, let’s just say, to pound a point home. But there really is no individual pounding the point home, but at the same time, there is, because there is the appearance of a separate individual who is getting awakened. And so for the sake of the infinite intelligence playing all the roles, something needs to occur in order for that to express itself in this particular density. You know, there’s a lot of people who get into the spiritual thing and they get caught up really in the letter of the law rather than the heart of the law. What’s important really is the presence that comes through in what’s being communicated, and if we tune into that state, if we tune into that presence and we recognize, we can resonate with what’s being communicated rather than, let’s just say, what the literal translation is, depending on what the situation is. So this is why we all have people that would appear to be more present that will come through and they will have a mastery of the Advaitic principles, and maybe can even speak Sanskrit, got it all together, and yet someone who doesn’t understand anything and acknowledges that is in a state of surrender. They don’t understand why any of it is, but they’re happy and there’s a sense of peace, and that’s really the objective, that’s the focus, is to be at that point where the intellect is not constantly critiquing and analyzing, breaking things down into quarks and bosons and muons and leptons, and whatever it is that goes on, right? We can do that and you could probably make a good argument or a good case, depending on who your audience is. But really, the highest message is that there are basically two paths and they really are one. There’s surrender and there’s self-inquiry. Every spiritual path ultimately fails. Every one of them, because ultimately it leads to surrender.

Rick: It becomes its own undoing, eventually.

Nick: Yes. They fail because you will never find the answer, you will never find nothing in something.

Rick: Right. In a way that’s like saying, well, the boat fails. It gets you across the river and then you get out of it. But the boat doesn’t fail, it’s just like it served its purpose, so you get off.

Nick: Well, yes, and again, this too, at least this is my perspective on it, is that you can believe that it was necessary for you to do everything that was done. But then there’s also an individual that had to be there in order for that perception to take place. That I had to meditate for ten hours a day for two years in order for the satori to occur. Now, that’s a speculation. It did happen that way because that’s exactly what’s supposed to occur. It’s perfect. So if I say, well, now run around and say, okay, everything is perfect, everything is perfect, to somebody who doesn’t think it’s perfect, that doesn’t really help. That doesn’t really create transformation. It’s important to tune into the space, to the stillness, so that you can identify with what their dilemma is. Having compassion is really just seeing them as already being the self. See everything as being the self, and by being that, then whatever information needs to flow through your mouth or in the way of the movement of your body will happen naturally without any effort on your part because your attention is just given to the self. Of course, the infinite intelligence knows exactly what that needs. So as long as there’s an individual there, it’s like Ramana Maharishi said, it’s like the blind leading the blind. If you’re trying to teach someone, it really doesn’t support. We’re being exposed to… a lot of different teachings can be beneficial, and it can also be a hindrance depending on really where someone is. That’s why, again, surrender is the result of the path failing. Someone will try to do everything they possibly can. They will count prayer beads, they will sit in meditation, they’ll do whatever they want all day long, do all these things. Maybe stand on their head, do some pranayamas, whatever they do, ultimately they’re going to get so frustrated that they’re going to say, “What in the hell is going on here? I’m not getting any closer,” and all these thoughts start flooding in, and then they’re just like, “I give up.” Even Buddha’s realization didn’t come while he was in the midst of his meditation. It arose after his complete giving up and waking up the next morning, and then the realization was there. So you could say, “Well, he did it.”

Rick: Didn’t he say, “I’m going to sit under this tree until I’m enlightened and that’s it?” Or, “I’m either going to die or until I’m enlightened.” So then, of course, the realization comes in the complete giving up and letting go. The self-inquiry is even a form of surrender, if you take it on, because every time you say, “Okay, now who’s aware of that thought? I am,” you are now choosing to give your attention to God, the “I am,” rather than that particular thought. So you’re surrendering that thought, you’re not rejecting it or resisting it or trying to get to a better thought. You’re saying, “I don’t care what it is. Who’s giving attention to it? I am.” It no longer becomes unimportant what that thought is, and so now you’re surrendering to the “I.” So whether or not you’re surrendering to what your concept of God is, that eventually will lead to a letting go of everything else as well. They both all ultimately lead to what’s called surrender. And then, of course, surrender really is just being.

Rick: I just want to bring in a point that we’ve been dancing around here, though, which is that there is an appropriateness to different teachings at different stages of realization. We were talking about how Ramana would scale it back to the point where he found the appropriate one for that particular person. Sometimes spiritual teachers will be on their own path for 20, 30 years, doing meditation or whatever they do, and then they’ll have an awakening, and then they’ll turn around and say, “You don’t need to do any of that. You don’t need to awaken.” Because from their perspective, it seems superfluous. It seems like they’ve gone beyond it. But I would caution that just as you went through all the stuff you did, the Jacobson technique and this, that, and the other thing, it’s hard to say what if, but those were all stepping stones for you. Those were all stages. You finally reached a stage at which all those became irrelevant, and no point in having them around. There was a stage of reading Ramana Harshi books and having his pictures around, and then at a certain point, that stage was irrelevant. So there seems to be a tendency in some spiritual circles to just dismiss the value of all possible paths and stages and practices and whatever from the perspective of the mountaintop. But there is a value in terms of practical advice at each stage of climbing the mountain, which I don’t think should just universally be swept aside.

Nick: Perhaps everyone who’s hearing this, Rick, will be at the point where they’re ready to sweep it all aside and stay with the inquiry.

Rick: Perhaps.

Nick: This is the question that, could this teaching, as it’s being delivered here, come to anyone who has not read before?

Rick: Well, I was just listening to Scott Kiloby this morning. I don’t know if you know who he is. He’s a non-dual teacher that I’ve interviewed. I was listening to a recording of his, and he was citing an instance in which a person who he had come in contact with who had really been dwelling on non-dual teachings became kind of depressed to the point of suicidal because he felt that he kind of acquired this nihilistic perspective, like everything is meaningless and nothing matters and you have no free will and therefore you can’t do anything. It actually was having a counterproductive effect on him.

Nick: So it appears it was having a counterproductive effect. But again, having the faith in the infinite intelligence, nothing is counterproductive. Even if the body were to take its own life, let’s just say, that would in fact be the destiny of that body. And the infinite intelligence will have again succeeded in accomplishing what was necessary at that time. For instance, let us consider, say, a yogi who experiences a very extreme Kundalini blowout, not under the guidance of a proper teacher, and his brain is damaged in the process, a subtle circuitry, let’s just say. And so he goes through such a process and now his body needs to die in order to take a more better suited one. We could look at it and say, “Well, he shouldn’t have been doing it because it led him to die. He received this.” Well then, where does responsibility fall? All responsibility falls in God. It all falls in it. So if somebody hears something, even if it appears that it’s not true or it’s not right or it’s not in their best interest, it’s always in your best interest because you will always hear what is necessary given your intention. If your intention is self-realization, then you will be drawn to a teacher who will point you directly to the self. If you are not geared, if it’s not the destiny of a certain organism to realize the self, but let’s just say to convey mistruths or non-truths along the way for a period of time before they’re ready, then every action that is performed through that body will demonstrate that type of behavior. So ultimately, the reason why the self-inquiry is so simple is you just give attention to “I.” Everyone is aware of “I.” Everyone can be aware of “I” on a deeper level. So if they want to dissipate their thoughts toward a lot of different things and believe that they do need to go through all those other steps, then they can. But let’s just say that you’re in Tennessee, and if you’re in Tennessee and you want to go to, let’s just say, Miami, and you want to ride your bike to Miami. So let’s say, “Well, okay, every single day I’m going to ride my bike toward New York, and I’m going to get my legs strong enough so that one day I can ride to Miami.” But all you really had to do was just start going toward Miami, and your legs would have gotten strong anyway. So again, these are all just different ways that the mind can create distractions and say, “Well, you didn’t need to do it,” but I mean the whole idea, and really the most compassionate thing you can do is assume that everyone can handle the self-inquiry, which is the most direct path, and see them in that light so that that consciousness then permeates their very belief system, their limiting belief system that I need to go through 20 years of asana, I need to master this, which is really all just an egoic ploy to make you believe you have to go through all the certain steps. There really are no steps. There’s just “I,” and there’s just “now.” And whether or not you deliver it in the way a cartola does, where you just say, “Feel the now.” Become aware of the presence right now, or if you say, “Get hold of the sense of ‘I’ and just keep your attention there,” and you say, “Well, I can’t hold my attention there all the time.” Okay, well, that’s just a thought. Who thinks that they can’t hold their attention there all the time? Or who thinks they need to do pujas for three lifetimes before they’re ready to actually turn inward? Well, you do. So the “I,” as long as you get in touch with the “I” and you see, all really the sadhana is, from my perspective, is it’s not about what you think about. It’s reversing the direction of consciousness. If the mind is externalized and going toward things, no matter what that form is, that is externalized mind. But as soon as you say, “Turn attention toward self and turn inward,” you have succeeded, if you will, at reversing or neutralizing the conditioning, the tendency for the mind to go outward toward those things, which is really the primary focus of the self-inquiry. It’s not to ask the question, “Who am I?” It’s to reverse the flow so that you can become caught, so the “I” can become caught in the heart current and withdrawn into the source, into the heart where it then vanquishes. This is why I say it doesn’t really matter. If somebody wants to do yoga, that’s great. If somebody wants to read the Bible and read all the different scriptures, that’s fine. Just don’t forget yourself in the process. So this way it doesn’t really matter what kind of spiritual path somebody is on. It’s not to take away from that. It’s just to realize that once you taste the bliss of the self, those desires to do all those other things, they’re going to just fade away anyway. They’re going to all drop away. So what I’m saying is that you can save yourself the headaches of having to go through all those if you’re hearing this. And you can just immediately come to the “I am” and just rest there. And then there’s no place really for the ego to be fed in doing, in effort, in doership, because that’s really the root of the ego. It’s the sense that I’m doing all this spiritual practice and that I need to purify my mind and I need to purify my body. No, that’s just a thought. The “I” is ever pure. And this is why I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with those things. I’m saying you can bypass it all.

Rick: The “I” is ever pure, but obviously we live the experience of the “I” as a human being through a physical apparatus, through a nervous system. And if that physical apparatus is damaged in certain ways, we won’t be living that experience of the “I,” at least not in any way that we can express or communicate or … it won’t be a living reality. We might be in a coma or something. On some level the “I” is there, but it’s not being lived. And as I see spiritual practices, they’re just a way of fine-tuning that apparatus through which the “I” is lived, like a guitar player is going to tune his guitar before playing it. And I know people who meditated for decades and then awoke and don’t meditate anymore. They just don’t feel like it’s relevant to them. I know people who still do it regularly, even though they’ve awakened and they feel like it’s just icing on the cake or something. They enjoy it. I know a guy who was self-realized at the age of four and went through … and now is in his 60s and has been doing spiritual practices since his teens and still does them. So it’s like one size does not fit all. You’re going to find among people all sorts of instances of different situations. I’m leery of making any kind of universal rules or prescriptions of “This is the way it ought to be and everyone ought to do this.” Variety is the spice of life. We’ve been talking a little bit about God and infinite intelligence. If there’s one thing that’s evident about that infinite intelligence, it’s that it sure likes variety.

Nick: Yes, and I’m not saying that there is only one. I’m saying that the body can do whatever it’s going to do, but that’s not who you are anyway. So as far as the variety of life and all these things, those are all on the level of phenomenon. Those are on the level of physicality, so that’s not really who you are anyway. So by giving attention to the I am, to the self, to the formless awareness, how many varieties of form are there there? If we give attention to that, then all those other things, they may continue to go on until the strings or the tentacles of identification and conditioning begin to withdraw into the heart. Then you can rest there and realize that it’s all happening in you and that you’re not really the character in the dream, you’re the dreamer. So a lot of people, again, may state that they are self-realized and that they still meditate. That’s fine to say that, yet in realization, when one knows the self, there is no such thing as meditation. So to even sit in meditation from the realized state, it just means you’re just sitting there. It doesn’t mean that you’re meditating or not meditating. Self-realization is merging into the meditator where you disappear anyway. So again, these are all very convenient arguments from a neo-Advaitic perspective. And it’s very commonly used that I still, every once in a while, like to meditate. Well, just say that you’re sitting there, or don’t say that you’re doing anything, but to say that I still like to meditate, there’s still an I there liking to meditate. You see, in the instance…

Rick: Well, that’s like what you might say, “I like to eat. I like Italian food.” That implies there’s an I there liking Italian food. Well, it’s almost absurd to say that. Obviously, we still eat. And we have preferences. It’s like we said earlier with the cup. On one level, there’s no cup. On one level, there are no preferences. On the other level, there are. It’s like the Zen saying, “First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.” And it’s not all or one, it’s like both.

Nick: So let me ask then, what is the intention of this communication? In other words, is it to bring one into the self and abide there, or to sustain the seeking?

Rick: I think ultimately it’s the first.

Nick: Okay, ultimately, or would you say… I mean, is that the direction? Because how many directions can we go in at one time? If we talk about the duality and externalizing our mind, then unless we’ve developed the ability to keep our attention in the self and for that to occur, then there’s no one doing it anyway. As long as there is a seeker, then they have to be clear. You see, because there is no really waking up. You’re either awake or you’re not. You either know who you are or you don’t. The seeking is all part of the illusion. It’s all part of the dream. So you’re either awake or you’re in the dream. You’re caught up in the dream. And as long as you’re seeking, there is no “I’m getting awake.” You’re either awake or you’re not. There’s not stages along the way.

Rick: How about in your case where you had that profound satori and for nine months you were in a state of… some kind of awakened state, but then after a while you began to have all this stuff. Would you say that you were definitely not awake?

Nick: Oh, definitely not. See, that’s the whole thing. See, to the ego, enlightenment is some thing. It’s a thing. It’s an attainment. It’s an experience. And so that’s the delusion, because no matter how still you may feel that you are, as long as you are identified with forms, even experiences such as bliss, kundalini rushes, satori, whatever that is, there’s still someone there that’s believing they’re doing it. And that’s why I emphasize that that was a distraction. That was an egoic tactic in order to convince you so that the mind does not continue to… in other words, to break the sadhana, to break the continuum of turning inward and to break that pattern. Because again, the ego, the illusion, Maya, survives because of the tendency to rehash the old patterns of going out and attaching on to things, and it will make your experiences that much more elaborate in order to seduce the mind, you see, into going back out and taking those forms. But as long as the attention turns back in toward the self, toward the formless, and you rest in the peace of that, then when that seeker dissolves in that formless awareness, then the body can appear to be doing what it’s doing. Even if the person, the body, let’s just say the organism that inhabits the awakened consciousness appears to be in meditation, they’re not really meditating. They appear to be meditating to the people who are outside looking at them that believe that they’re not awake yet.

Rick: Or they appear to be eating or walking or talking or doing this stuff, but from their perspective, nothing’s happening.

Nick: Yes.

Rick: Yeah, no, I got that.

Nick: Hold on. My screen just went off here. Oh, there we go.

Rick: You look good.

Nick: [Laughs]

Rick: So, what else? So, this is an out of the blue question, but do you, on some level, believe in reincarnation? Do you think that’s a phenomenon, a part of the mechanics of the universe?

Nick: I think it’s as real as this reality is.

Rick: Ok. So, if we, you know, and this reality is of course ultimately not real, but to the extent…

Nick: But it does exist.

Rick: Yeah.

Nick: It does exist, but it exists on the level of thought.

Rick: Right.

Nick: And so as long as we identify with the mind, then yes, there is reincarnation. When attention is turned in toward the source, then whether or not one is experiencing a life now or in the projected hundred years from now or the past, it’s really irrelevant. Because in the now, right, which is the only place that really exists, you see, is the formless awareness that’s aware of all of this. So, yes, it does exist to some, but again, this is a very convenient way that the mind, you know, if you’re a Christian, you say there’s no reincarnation. If you’re a Hindu and say there is, it’s a very convenient way for the split in the mind to endure. You know, the conflict between the two arguing schools. They’re both right and they’re both incorrect.

Rick: Right. I would say that it exists to the same extent that planets exist and flowers exist and dogs exist. I mean, if you’re going to sort of acknowledge the existence of phenomenal creation, then there’s no reason why that couldn’t be part of phenomenal creation. And the reason I brought it up is that I’m wondering whether you’ve ever considered the possibility that the reason you sort of just had this spiritual proclivity from a young age might be that you had done spiritual practices in past lives or something and it developed to the point where in this life it just started to blossom in you.

Nick: Yes, well, that was the understanding at the time. That was, I guess you would say, the intuitive understanding that had occurred. That the stream, the life stream that you could call Nick or whatever that was, it had gone through a series of experiences that you could divide into separate lives. And you could say, well, that he was a devotee of Ramana Maharshi in a past incarnation. You could say that.

Rick: Did you get some inkling of that or are you just speculating?

Nick: That was the feeling.

Rick: Okay, so you could have been around there during his lifetime, whatever.

Nick: Yes, and that was while there was identification with form, even though it was on the level of form within the dream. But again, now there’s a recognition that was all just a movement in consciousness. So I can call it whatever I would like, but really it can all be reduced to this. The mind, when it is moving, you see, when it is in movement, it creates duality. When it’s not moving, when it’s still, there’s not. And so whether or not that’s reincarnation or whether or not that’s this incarnation or even a future one, those are all basically lumped into one category. They’re all on the level of form. So in other words, the ego is when the mind is externalized and the self is when the mind is turned inward.

Rick: Good, that’s a nice pithy way of putting it. I mean, that could be remembered as a sutra, sort of. The ego is when the mind is externalized and the self is when it’s turned within.

Nick: Yeah, it’s easy. And there are some yogis that actually believe, that make statements that I still have three lifetimes. I still have four more lifetimes until my realization occurs, which is really…

Rick: They told you that you do?

Nick: No, no, that they do.

Rick: Oh, that they do, I see.

Nick: That there’s really, you know, that they’ve accepted their fate. And that is just a thought. The fact that I have three more lifetimes or four more lifetimes, number one, it makes time in the future a reality, which only exists in the level of mind. But as soon as all they have to do is say, “Well, who thinks that?”

Rick: Yeah.

Nick: I do. And so now you’re back at the I, and so the conditioning begins to unwind. And so you can see how if you buy into the dogmas of the various different yogas and religious systems and philosophies, that it’s very easy to get caught up in that. And that’s why I don’t say there’s anything wrong with those. I just simply point to the fact that whatever it is that you’re giving your attention to, if you just ask, “Who’s aware of that?” and you turn inward, until the conditioning of consciousness begins to find that current, there’s like a… it feels like an inward current. As soon as the mind becomes still, you can feel that flow, that movement going inward, and to catch that and ride that inward. Then all those different thoughts, they really just kind of drop away. They have no strength. It’s like you could say the scripture about the burnt rope and this type of thing. Nothing has any strength. It doesn’t mean that those thoughts won’t occur, but they won’t have any staying power because they’re like clouds floating in the air. You see through it, and once you see through it, you’re like, “Ah, why am I bothering giving attention to that?” Again, only if the intention… again, everything I’m saying here is only if one’s intention is self-realization. Because some people may say that they want to awaken, but really underlying it, that’s the ego saying it, that’s making that accusation, really it doesn’t want to wake up, it wants to seek for a couple of years. That’s fine too. It’s all good. But that’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is someone who wants to really find that place and stay there and not identify with that. It requires your entire mind, the entire mind to be focused on that. This is why suffering is such a wonderful tool of awakening. This is why every spiritual path ultimately leads there.

Rick: Gets your attention.

Nick: Yeah, it does. Because once you’ve suffered and you realize, “Wow, I’m not getting anywhere with this,” you’ll start jumping around to different maybe sadhanas. Not you. In general, people who jump around to different spiritual practices, maybe different teachers, thinking that that teacher is going to say something that’s going to jar them, and that they’re going to be the Satguru. But really, it’s the Satguru within that’s allowing all of these thoughts to even emerge into the field of awareness for it to be seen. So this is the joke. This is the whole humor of the cosmic joke, if you will. It’s really you. You’re always here. You’ll always be here. So we can speculate on the level of form and the fun and the games of the seeking and all that. Satyam Nadeen has a pretty interesting book out. You’ve probably heard of it, From Seekers to Finders.

Rick: I haven’t read that one. I read Onions to Pearls, but I haven’t read Seekers to Finders. Where is he these days?

Nick: I don’t know. I’ve never met him.

Rick: He came to my town and I saw him speak, but I ought to track him down and interview him. I’ll try to do that.

Nick: Beautiful guy, yeah.

Rick: He awoke in prison in South Florida.

Nick: Yeah.

Rick: As good a place as any, right?

Nick: Yeah, what the heck.

Rick: So how long have you been teaching now?

Nick: Well, gosh, it’s probably been… I guess the first student that came to me was in 1998, but that was pre-awakening, so to speak. That was when I was, again, making the statement that I was awake and that kind of thing, running around and touting that. I would say authentically, really, it’s seven years, eight years.

Rick: Okay. So what are the fruits among the students who have been drawn to you? What kind of outcomes have they been getting?

Nick: Well, I don’t really know. I haven’t really been focused on keeping them around. My focus is to have them understand the basic principles of, you would call, Ganana, and to understand the self-inquiry and the reason for self-inquiry, and then to let them go.

Rick: But have any of them at any point gotten back to you or said, “Hey, Nick, I woke up. I got it”?

Nick: Well, my instruction was, “Don’t.”

Rick: Don’t?

Nick: You don’t need to. There’s no one to tell. Once you know, then I’ll know.

Rick: Okay.

Nick: And so, now Penelope, she has undergone a shift. She lives here. That’s very obvious. But she doesn’t really talk about it or anything.

Rick: That’s okay. But I think there’s some validity to asking that question, because as Christ said, you should know them by their fruits, and you wonder, “All right, well, what is the efficacy of this teaching?” Because you’re spending all this time and energy doing it, and presumably it’s for some particular benefit to the people with whom you’re interacting. If it felt like it was of no value to them, you would be doing something else or nothing at all. So you wonder, “Okay, well, how many of them are waking up, having the kind of awakening you have had?”

Nick: Well, the last one would probably be the closest to the way that I would see it, would be not doing anything at all. It’s the not doing anything at all that makes the transmission effective, if there is such a thing. In truth, there is no awakening, and again, on that level, there is no real awakening. When you convey from that space, your words carry a vibration, let’s just say, that has a very penetrating effect on the consciousness of the one that it befalls. But it really hasn’t gone anywhere, and really it’s just a projection of your own mind that you’re waking up. So this is why I say, if someone comes here, that’s great. And if they stick around, that’s great too. I don’t tell them to leave. I encourage them that eventually you should replace what you’re perceiving as being the outer guru, if you will, with the inner guru. And then if you end up leaving and don’t come back, there’s not going to be any hard feelings for anyone who’s going to miss you, that’s going to be disappointed by the fact that you didn’t come back. It’s like congratulations, if you’re out there and you feel like you’re abiding in the self, and you’re feeling that stillness, then you just continue to watch the dream. And it’s ultimately me anyway. So it’s the same witnessing awareness that’s going to be looking out of their eyes as well. So it’s nice when people come through, because it’s part of the game, it’s part of the fun, to watch someone who’s been pretending that they’re a separate individual realize that they’re not. Really, it’s a joyous event.

Rick: I’m sorry, go ahead.

Nick: Well, you could look at it like this. You have a room, a massive room full of invisible furniture. And of course, they’re all covered up with… You’re born, let’s just say, and then all of a sudden, people start running around and throwing sheets over them and covering this furniture up, and now it appears that they all have some shape. And then maybe some people are around, and so they’re covered up with sheets too. So you have some that are running around, covering up everything and trying to give it form, and trying to make it visible, make it into shape, while you have others that are running around taking the sheets off, awaking them, helping them. But then, of course, the ones that have taken them off, they’re running around and throwing them back over, trying to cover them up again. But once, of course, the sheets come all the way off, then you see the ones that already have been around without the sheet on, that know the truth, they allow the sheet to stay on. Because it’s much more effective if the ones that are throwing the sheets around believe that you still don’t have the understanding. In other words, that your sheet has never come off. So it’s more effective to keep your sheet on and to be like you’re ignorant. There’s much more effect on those that are still, if you will, wanting to take the sheet off. And this is very similar to the story of Brahma and Maya. Part of consciousness is trying to keep the illusion alive, while part of it is trying to awaken. And that’s what keeps the balance, that’s what keeps the play alive. It’s a game. And so as long as you realize it’s a game and it’s all in fun, then you don’t take anything too serious and you can have fun. Who is it that’s pretending that they don’t know? But ultimately you’re seeing that underneath it all, your very seeing everyone as already being awake but pretending to be not awake is the most powerful tool, instrument of awakening that there is. Because to see everyone as the self, as already awake, causes that reality to follow them.

Rick: Right. What you were just saying reminds me of a verse in the Gita which goes something like, “The wise do not delude the ignorant.” While remaining uninvolved or unattached, they engage fully in all sorts of actions. You know what I’m saying, that verse? It’s kind of like you’re playing the game, you’re doing your thing, you’re engaging in activities, whereas your predominant reality is that you’re not doing anything, but you go through the motions, so as not to create a division or a delusion in the minds of those who perceive the world as more substantial than it actually is.

Nick: Yes, and Ramesh has a beautiful one too, Ramesh Bhaskar. He says that you don’t have free will, but you still have to live as if you do.

Rick: Good point. Ramana said that kind of stuff too. He definitely advocated virtuous action, and he didn’t absolve people of the responsibility to behave in a moral and compassionate way. He didn’t write the whole thing off as illusion, “You can do whatever the heck you want.” In fact, he used to listen to the radio and read the newspaper every day. He was concerned with world affairs and practical matters, and he didn’t dismiss it as a dream to the extent that it was of no consequence to him whether people were suffering or not, or whatever.

Nick: Yes, yes. As far as Ramana was interested in these different worldly affairs, he often used these things in order to formulate anecdotes for awakening. And so it was important for him to do that. Not so much that he was interested in what was going on in the world, but he used them. It’s very important for, if you will, if that’s the organism’s condition, if that’s its destiny, if you will, its karma, whatever, to be a teacher, then to the extent that that teacher is wanting to be an effective teacher, it’s important to be connected to the ones that do not believe that they are awake yet, so that they can correspond with them, so they can connect and relate with them.

Rick: Yes, well, to be able to speak in their language.

Nick: Yes, absolutely. In fact, Penelope reminds us sometimes that that’s something that’s necessary when that is lost sight of. Because sometimes it’s just like, “Oh, they don’t want to.” She has a very soft way about her, where she’ll go get them and she’ll say, “No, you’ve just got to be patient. You’ve got to be…” And there’s a certainty now there’s the personality, which has absolutely nothing to do, really, with the presence that’s actually penetrating or doing whatever it’s doing. And so as long as you believe it’s the personality, then we lose track of it. But as long as we believe that it’s just occurring anyway, and that these bodies are just forms that are occurring in that awakened consciousness, then it’s like ice sculptures all floating in a big pool. It’s all made of the same substance, but in the meantime, while it’s melting, it still can pretend like it’s not the water.

Rick: That’s a nice metaphor. I like that. You know how you had your satori and you had the period of nine months where you thought you were enlightened or something, and then you realized you weren’t? Is there any possibility in your mind that there could be another such awakening that would make you look back on your present situation and think, “Wooy, I thought I had it, but this is even more somehow clear or fundamental or whatever”? Do you think that’s possible or are you done?

Nick: No, that was an experience, and this is not an experience at all. This is more what’s aware of the experience. It’s abiding in that realization. It’s like you may be in the cloud, pretending you’re a cloud, and if your cloud changes into the shape of another cloud, you could say, “Okay, that’s enlightenment.” As long as you’re identified with clouds, then you can say, “Okay, that one’s better than the one I’d had, so that’s enlightenment.” As long as you think enlightenment is an experience, then you can fall under that misconception and fall into that trap. But as soon as you realize you’re the sky, then you can’t make that misunderstanding again.

Rick: So you would characterize your nine-month thing as an experience, even though it lasted so long? Usually experiences come and go more quickly than that. This was apparently a 24/7 condition for nine months.

Nick: It evidently felt it needed to construct a very elaborate retaliation in order to keep the dream alive. It evidently felt it needed that extent. Also, there are a lot of different things that can occur within the physiology of the body that prevent it from occurring quicker. It’s very difficult to say. Also, circumstances and environments and that type of thing, where you live, whether you’re exposed, like I was never on the computer or doing any types of external things, so there really wasn’t a tendency to really need to externalize much. There were resources that were built up where staying inward for extended periods of time in nirvikalpa samadhi were possible. So you can sustain the illusion of being awakened by entering into the nirvikalpa state regularly, but that’s different than sahaja samadhi. So there are still some seeds there. You know when the seeds are there once you realize the truth. Of course, there’s a period of unwinding, if you will, that occurs after what would be considered sahaja. There’s no such thing really with the nirvikalpa. It doesn’t really happen that way. That’s why you know it’s an experience. There’s still someone there thinking of something. And the nut, if you will, the sense of me that is seen as being, “Oh, that’s what I thought I was.” That me, it wasn’t just gone, it was seen and then it was not. But where is it aware of? Once you know yourself to be formless awareness and non-resistant of whatever it is that takes place, then there’s really no need for that. There’s a knowingness. That’s all that really can be said.

Rick: I heard a yogi say one time that there are yogis in the Himalayas who are in a sort of a state, like your nine-month state, and feel like they’ve got it. And then when they die, they’re quite surprised to discover they hadn’t actually been liberated. But the circumstances of their life and all allowed them to perpetuate that feeling or sense of liberation, but it wasn’t the final thing, even though they thought it was.

Nick: Yes, it’s very common.

Rick: Do you find any sense of maturation or enhancement or progress or anything? Or is that all nonsense words to you now? Do you feel like there’s a refinement, for instance, in your sensory apparatus or anything else? You’ve referred to the physiology several times as being instrumental in enabling any sort of experience to be taking place. Do you feel like your physiology is refining in some way now over the days, weeks, months, years, so as to enrich or clarify or enliven, or whatever adjective you want to use, your experience of life?

Nick: Well, it would change. The body changes, experiences change, but there’s no confusion as to the reality, so there’s no sense that I’m changing.

Rick: Right. I’m not referring to the essential “I” changing. Granted, that’s not going to change, but in terms of the way that’s reflected or expressed in your life as Nick, is the Nick character somehow still undergoing some kind of refinement which is enabling this character Nick to function in a more smooth or profound or…?

Nick: It still learns, and you could call it evolves on some level. You could say that the body does go through that series of natural phenomena that occurs. That you could call the prarabdha, karma of the body, if you wanted to, but that’s not where my attention is. Generally, from time to time it occurs and you say, “Oh, that’s different, that’s changed,” or the body does change. It grows older, it gets gray hairs, it gets a little fatter, a little hunched over, that kind of stuff. But it has different foods that it likes. It goes through its preferences and that kind of thing, but there’s not really a fixation or a rejection or resistance or an attachment to those things. There are still some predispositions like certain foods that you like that still linger, but if you don’t get it, you won’t linger. You may even get irritated if they don’t have a certain food that you like at a restaurant if you go out. Then you may demonstrate, there may be a demonstration going on that you’re very disappointed and irritated, and then within a second it’s completely gone, there’s no lingering of that behavior, so to speak.

Rick: Or how about if the Lions have a crappy season, does that bum you out?

Nick: Well, I don’t know. No, actually it doesn’t, not anymore. There was a time not too long ago that it did, though. There was still interest in that, yeah.

Rick: The reason I brought up the question is that some teachers say that even after self-realization the further refinement that takes place or that can take place, resulting in more subtle perception or growth of the heart, for instance, more love, compassion, that kind of thing, even though the self is not going to change any, it is what it is and it’s realized, there’s still an evolution of the vehicle.

Nick: Yeah, earlier I spoke of there’s a period after what you could call the shift, the stabilization period, and I think that that would fall within that. It can, of course, but I think those are just personality traits. The personality over time, it loses a lot of its vigor. When the physiology changes of the body, the adrenals change, so the amount of adrenaline and all those types of things, the hormones change, all that. Those are just natural phenomena, I think, that happen within the body, but the realization is all-encompassing, it’s complete. Any type of subtle perceptions, they would all just be considered part of the movement in consciousness, not the stillness. You could perceive it that way, but I don’t think that that’s enhanced by the realization of the self, that would have occurred whether or not the self was realized through that particular organism.

Rick: Okay, good. So we’re kind of reaching a point, I think, which you could wrap it up, but is there anything you feel like we might want to cover that I haven’t thought to ask about or anything?

Nick: Oh, no.

Rick: Okay.

Nick: Very thorough.

Rick: So obviously I’ll have this… well, people can watch and listen to this in various ways. For instance, if they’re watching it on YouTube, they might not realize there’s a website where you can watch all these interviews. I do one a week, and so that website is batgap.com, B-A-T-G-A-P, and it stands for Buddha at the Gas Pump. There I will have a little bio of Nick and a photo of him, and you’ll send me that bio and then whatever links you want me to put in it, like a link to your website, so that if somebody is interested in studying with you or something, they can get in touch.

Nick: Okay, Rick, thank you so much. It’s been a real pleasure.

Rick: Yeah, thanks. I’ve really enjoyed this, and thank Penelope for me. She was very well organized and pleasant to deal with in setting this up.

Nick: She is. She’s wonderful. Thank you, and I will let her know, and Rick, anything that we can do to support you in your business and sharing this with people, we’d love to assist.

Rick: Thanks. Well, it’s not a business. It’s more of a hobby. Maybe at some point it will become a business. That would be great.

Nick: Wonderful. Thank you. Again, feel free to keep in touch if there’s anything we can do to support you.

Rick: Will do. Thanks. Thanks, so next week everyone, I will be interviewing Mandi Solk, S-O-L-K, who lives in Great Britain. She is also a non-dual teacher. I hope you’ll watch then. Thank you for watching, and see you next time.