Rick: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer. Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of interviews with spiritually awakening people. There have been about 355 of them now, so if this is new to you, you could go to batgap.com, B-A-T-G-A-P, look under the past interviews menu and you’ll see all the previous ones categorized in various ways. You can explore those. This program is made possible by the support of generous and appreciative viewers and listeners, so if you appreciate it and feel like supporting it, that would be great. There’s a donate button on the right-hand side of every page on batgap.com, and if you don’t like PayPal, which some people don’t, then there’s a donation page which explains other ways of doing it. My guest today is Annette Karlström. I’ll just read the little bio she sent here. Annette is an internationally recognized speaker, author and teacher in development of consciousness, living in Helsingborg, Sweden. Her focus and specialty is guiding the individual and groups towards finding your inner compass to discover your full potential and true nature. Annette also has a strong presence in chanting sacred mantras, offering mantra concerts as well as having recorded several CDs carrying the transmission of divine grace through the oneness blessing, easily accessed by simply listening. She is the author of two acclaimed books. In her first, From the Heart, she shares her bumpy journey of consciousness, of conscious awakening and natural transformation, as well as answering sensitive and profound questions. Her second book, Namaste, Awakening the Power of Presence, is a roadmap and extraordinary guide exploring the sacred truths that are hidden in our everyday life. It is filled with wonderful guided meditations and anecdotal stories. Annette is the founder of Diamond Life Foundation, an alternative health practice and meditation center in southern Sweden where she gives weekly programs, courses and guided meditations, as well as giving craniosacral therapies. Since 2003, she has been traveling around Europe and the world, sharing her story, teaching and singing. When she chants and speaks, there is a natural transfer of grace that is received, either in person or over the phone. She has initiated to give the oneness meditation, which is sacred transmission of energies that accelerate awakening to the intelligence of the heart. She offers online oneness meditations every Tuesday evening, Swedish time, on her free live stream channel. And I’ll be providing a link to that live stream channel on batgap.com. So viewers may recall that I had a guest on here a couple years ago named Eric Eisen, who is a very old friend of mine, who is also a teacher of oneness meditation and we talked a bit about that, but we won’t presume in this interview that anybody knows anything about it and we’ll have Annette explain it to us. But maybe for starters it would be interesting to hear about your bumpy journey.
Anette: Yes, my bumpy journey, I think it started as long back as I can remember. I’ve always been a seeker of truth or the seeker of why am I here, you know, as long back as I can remember. I think I was three years old when I started questioning things and wanting to find out. And living in a mostly atheistic country, you know, people are not so interested in spiritual questions in my country or my part of the world. I grew up in an academic, more scientific family and nobody really had these kind of questions, so I just came in with that. And I remember seeing some Sunday school or something next to the little store that I used to go to with my mom and I said, “Oh, I want to go there.” There was like these colored windows with angels and Jesus and things. So I was, you know, sent to this Sunday school to learn all about Jesus and God and I took it upon me very seriously. I remember asking my little friends, “Do you believe in God? Do you believe in Jesus or none?” I wanted to know “why are not more people interested in this?” So my bumpy road started as far back as I can remember and I come from a very nice family, a very nice upbringing. And there was no reason for me to be in some kind of a pain. But all my life I’ve been having some kind of inner restlessness, not satisfied with life, wanting to know this. Is there a God or not? And I took it upon me very seriously to pray every evening, you know, the traditional praying but on my knees. And then I started to question, “What am I saying? You know, why is this prayer… only people who pray will get help?” And so it is from that perception of wanting to find something that could go in any religion or outside any religious or spiritual path.
Rick: Okay, you can continue. I was just going to say, so, as you got older and, you probably began to explore actual various spiritual paths like most of us did, right?
Anette: Yes, that’s true. When I was very small I used to have this expansion of… what I know now is expansion of consciousness. I thought it had something to do with my pajamas.
Rick: Because you put them on at that time and then have big expansion?
Anette: I had this blue silk pajamas and I used to put my thumb in it like little children do. That was my comfort and I put my thumb in it and I did like this and then I would hear the sounds and I would go into the sounds and I would be outside the body. And I did this every night and I thought everyone did this and it had something to do with this, you know, thing with the thumb.
Rick: So just the sound of rubbing the silk together kind of triggered a transcendent experience?
Anette: No, it was an inner sound.
Rick: Inner sound, okay.
Anette: Inner sound of like some kind of rhythmic inner sound that was very beautiful. What I now know, many years later I got introduced to Nada Yoga, you know, the inner sound, the yoga of inner sounds. It was just, I just had those experiences and I thought everyone had that and I loved going to sleep every night because then I would have, you know, the thumb thing. So yes, many years later we moved to Helsingborg where I live now. And I got confirmation then in school and I wanted to ask the priest a lot of questions that I had because I was not satisfied with no clarity about this. But I was too shy. I had developed a very great shyness of feeling different because the way I was was very different from others. So also moving from Stockholm, which is the capital of Sweden, to Helsingborg which is down south and at that time it was not so common. So I was teased in school and I became too shy to question things. And those years were probably the hardest, because this presence or this longing for uniting with the presence within was still so strong, maybe stronger than ever, because I didn’t feel like I belong in this world. So I left Sweden just to be away for three months because I wanted to get some sunshine. I thought my suffering had something to do with the weather, must be something with the Swedish weather, and in Helsingborg it’s very windy. So I thought if I could just get some sunshine for a little while I’ll be fine. So destiny had me go to the city of angels and I thought that was so beautiful. In California.
Rick: Oh, Los Angeles.
Anette: Yes. So I was there for three months and then I was supposed to study chemistry and go the scientific route like the rest of my family. I got accepted at the university in Sweden to be a chemist, but destiny wanted something else for me. My whole life changed over there. Not that it got less bumpy, it actually probably got more bumpy at that time. By coincidence I ended up in Hollywood at the recording of TV shows. I worked in a family taking care of their children as an au pair it’s called when you live. So I was going to do that for three months but on my day off one day, there was a man coming in the car and I did something that only a Swede would do. Not Noah, you’re not supposed to do this, but he rolled down the window and he said you want to come with me to see a TV show? I go “oh cool, yes”.
Rick: Wow.
Anette: All right, so I just left the bike and I got into the car. And this was in Orange County, so it was maybe an hour and a half or two hours ride up to Hollywood. I thought I didn’t even know that Hollywood was around there, and I was just like “wow this is so cool”. And luckily he was taking me to this Hollywood studio. And once coming there we, were there to be audience, you know, to actually sit there and laugh at you know the sitcoms. At the break then, the bathroom break, I went to find the restroom. And I got lost on this day. Paramount picture, a lot that we were at, lots of movies. And so there was this guard and a TV light, the news light. And he said you look lost, and I was very scared. I said “I don’t know where I am” and “how do I get back”, and he heard on my accent “oh you’re from Sweden, we have also a newscaster who is from Sweden, you want to meet her?” he said. Again sometimes, we have these meetings and the whole life changed. So it’s like “oh yeah, cool”. So I got in to meet Christine Lund, who is the newscaster for ABC television Channel 7 News at the time, and she looked like she could be my aunt. So we kind of connected in a very strange way – she hadn’t spoken Swedish since she was six years old, so she enjoyed speaking little Swedish. And just at that time she heard what I had done – – that I had come there with this man, and he had also then found me inside the news station. And she said in Swedish to me “you shouldn’t just jump into people’s cars like that, it’s not a good idea”, and she felt some kind of protection for me. So she helped me, and she helped me also to start working for ABC News and Paramount Pictures as a guest relation hostess. So that was changed, so I called my mom and dad and said “yeah, I’m not going to be a chemist. I’m going to work in Hollywood”. Of course, that’s not the good news for someone maybe, so they took the first plane over to see, “is this really a good… is this for real?” But it was a very nice job and it was… I had nice people around me. But during that time, working in Hollywood you would think… because all I’m looking for is some happiness. And seeing growing up in Sweden looking at Hollywood movies, you think everyone’s so happy there, maybe working in Hollywood I can find happiness here, right? So I had great expectations, but it wasn’t what I thought it would be like. Actually it would be more suffering than I had experienced in Sweden, because here everything was surface, everything was fake, it’s supposed to be like that of course. And the inner suffering, the inner searching got even worse at this time, because now I was also working in front of the camera and behind the camera. Because of course everyone in Hollywood would get discovered right, so I was of course one like that and they said you should…. it was actually on some director for the Cosby show, a famous name, who said it, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have gone that route. Thinking back to it but I started studying acting and I thought “oh maybe I can be an actress, I could get happiness”, being in the movies.
Rick: And I hope you didn’t have anything to do with Bill Cosby.
Anette: No I didn’t, it was another show.
Rick: Okay great. Because he’s pretty notorious these days.
Anette: Yeah, no it wasn’t the Cosby show, but he was the director for it. It was enough so I knew him very well, I had great respect for him. And actually I was watching a movie stars dog, that was my job my sign for the day. I was the guest relation – you do all kinds of jobs. So I was there – while she’s doing the lines, I was there holding the dog, and one of the actresses was sick. And the producer director said, “hey you there with the dog, can you just get up on the set and just say these lines?” Because it was a woman that was sick that day. So I just “okay…”, said the lines. And he’s the one who said, “hey you’re really good, are you an actress?” and I found myself going. And then I thought “well if he thinks I’m really good maybe that is something”. I can be fulfilled and and find happiness and so that’s how I got into that business. But doing all the acting classes and learning film acting and going for auditions and being in the Hollywood business – it just made my confidence even worse. Because now I’m in a category with blue-eyed blonde and either I’m a European or I’m a California and when I spoke it wasn’t any good because I had too strong accent. And I had managers and agents – the whole thing, and they said they try to figure out what are we going to do with her, and I said well we’ll just keep her silent. Can’t you be like well will I have you be like that the Greta Garbo, like in the silent movies you can just sit there and be silent talk, It’s just no good so I thought “well I have to talk sometime”. And they sent me to a voice coach. And they said maybe you can be a singer, maybe you can be a pop singer. This is the business of Hollywood. So they sent me to a voice coach and after about 10 lessons.
Rick: You should have stayed back in Sweden and joined ABBA.
Anette: No, you should listen to this but the voice coach called my manager after a few sessions right, and said maybe you should try something else. So both acting and singing – the whole thing was just a failure from the beginning, but pursuing that and still thinking I have to do something just to find happiness in life. I also found like a Los Angeles – it’s like a Mecca of new age and everything was there, all the teachers, the workshops, the books. I was always at the Bodhi tree reading all the books and I loved it. It was the best place I thought. I’d live here forever and just learning and studying and I can put up with this business somehow. And so I learned to meditate very nicely, 45 minutes every day. But the rest of the day was, like I said, filled with anxiety not fitting in.
Rick: Where did you learn from, the Vedanta Society or….?
Anette: It was Siddha Yogi.
Rick: Siddha Yoga, ok. Muktananda.
Anette: Yes. Yes, it was actually the old guru, Guru Nityananda. I saw a picture of his and something happened, some kind of awakening of the heart. It was through the chanting at his ashram and seeing his photo. And I remember I took all kinds of classes and they had both Jnana Yoga and Bhakti Yoga. And then I heard a video of Muktananda and they were speaking the path through devotion and love is the fastest one. And I thought, “oh because I’ve tried to figure this out, trying to understand all this for so many years”, and going to Jnana Yoga. Yhe knowledge yoga classes just didn’t clarify anything. It just didn’t give anything no matter how high a Swami was teaching it, it’s just I’m not getting it. But through the chanting evenings that we did at the center, that’s when something started to happen in me, and I thought I’m probably a bhakta, that would be my way. So I pursued that path very intensely, and singing Om Namah Shivaya and singing all of these sacred chants and it became part of me I loved it. So many things happened in those years that prepared me for what was to come later. And what I didn’t like about it was – or I liked but I was looking for more – it wasn’t fulfilling the whole part of my seeking, because 45 minutes every morning I sat and just had a mantra and breathing in and out like that. Very nice, but 23 hours – the rest of the day – it’s filled with anxiety, fear, all of these things that is happening. So I thought it could be the reverse I could take 45 minutes of chaos if I can have 23 hours of God, or that presence, that peace within you know. So I started looking, because in Los Angeles there’s everything, right? So I’m thinking “meditation in action” – there must be such a course somewhere, so I was looking everywhere. Meditation in action – somewhere where you can have that niceness where you meditate, but you shouldn’t be able to just sit. I can’t go in a cave even though I started thinking that would be my way, that’s probably my path to be a monk and to sit in the cave, because I really really enjoy the meditations. So I was looking for something that would be meditation in action like I could have hours of peace and of that niceness of… that experience of meditation was so profound I just loved it. Just sitting breathing in and out you know repeating a mantra so simple and I’m going deeper and deeper, but I realized I cannot sit in meditation for the rest of my life even though I started to contemplate that path. I thought maybe I should be a monk or a nun and I should sit in the cave and just devote my whole life to this But then a part of me said, “no we’ve done that already, you need to be a regular person”. I had some kind of strange sense of a past life or something where I oftentimes felt like an old sadhu with a beard… like a Shiva, with a loincloth. I felt like “oh this is so familiar, this is so home, I could just do this forever”. But some part of me pushing me, “no, be a regular person, be a normal person and just keep pursuing it”, and it was not until I moved back to Sweden – strangely enough to Helsingborg – where there was the shift that I was longing for, many years later. When I lived in California and the city of angels Los Angeles, I felt I just loved it there you know, all the variety of people, you can really be yourself. If there’s a place to live that would be it, and I thought that I could live anywhere in the world as long as it’s not Helsingborg. Because my memory of Helsingborg, of growing up there, was just so filled with such a deep-rooted anxiety, I could live anywhere but there. And it’s so strange that what you resist, persists. So that’s what happened to me – destiny had me moving back here. And it was mainly because I had then got married and we had a child, and at that time there was big riots in Los Angeles, and there were weapon detectors in first grade. And I thought it’s time to move and coming back, missing my parents who are grandparents then living in Helsingborg. I felt the heart – it’s always the heart that calls you isn’t it – it’s that’s what makes the shift. So here we went – the family moved here. And coming here to Helsingborg there was more trauma happening or more drama of my life. You could say there it wasn’t over yet. Coming here with an American husband and realizing that we didn’t work here in Sweden and we have grown apart. And I thought “well, maybe having a child will fix it”, so the classic thing that we think sometimes. but we had a daughter she’s born here. And unfortunately the marriage couldn’t be saved, so we divorced when she was a baby. So if things were bad before in Helsingborg, things got pretty bad at this time. This is probably the worst time in a place like this and also my situation around. And sometimes it has to be like the darkest before the dawn. It was like that for me. I had also, when I gave birth to my daughter I had received a near-death experience and that came to have a profound effect even to this day. It was during the birth – during the actual delivery – my husband he was in the room and I had yelled at him I said “you have to tell me when to breathe”, he’s American right, I’m yelling at him because our relationship – I was not at the space where I could fix that, so I was angry and I yelled at him, “you have to tell me when to breathe”. So he was sitting in the corner saying “breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out”. That was his thing and then I came up with the idea “what if he’s not telling the truth, what if when he says breathe in I should actually breathe out? How do I know he’s telling the truth?” It was that kind of a logic that came into my head – when you give birth you don’t have that the regular logic, so my logic went berserk. So I said said to myself “well, I’m gonna show him.. I’m not gonna do what he says”, and I still to this day remember that like I thought it was such a brilliant thought that I’m gonna like overthink him, I’m not gonna breathe at all, that’ll show him it was just that kind of an insight in the moment of the pain whatever’s going on. So I simply just held my breath, just to like outsmart him. This is the stupidest idea I’ve ever done, but you’re not really thinking there. So as I did that, after some time I could feel the heart pounding like a hammer to my ribs you know, and I’m just experiencing this physical sensation. And I’m, pooh, I’m out of the body and I go into this dark tunnel or this dark darkness of this universe, because I could also see stars and things and I was drawn into a light. And this experience came to be very profound for me, what happened now, because there was a big light and this light was alive, very brilliant, intelligent. I can’t put words on the magnitude of my experience of being in this light. I had of course been seeking this all my life, but this was an experience that overtook my whole beingness, whatever I was in right now. And what happened now was a few light beings – I call them – came out from this light, and they were like human figures but there was no hair or skin or anything like that, they just look human. And I knew with every cell in my being that this is another me – this I knew in Lakesh like the Mayan Indians who I love very much – I am another you. I was startled to see that the beings coming out of the light is another me, and there was three or four of them.
Rick: And each one was another you – each of the three or four?
Anette: Yes, I can’t explain this more than it was a very profound experience that helped me very much. And in later days…
Rick: Was it like different lifetimes of yours or something that each of these beings represented or what?
Anette: No, it was the one light coming out as three or four just like that, and I remember seeing these three or four tall light beings and they were filled with joy, filled with humor and wisdom. And they came out and said “what are you doing here?” It was telepathic communication. I said “what are you doing here”, and I said “well, I think I messed up the breathing because I was giving birth”, and I said “I think I did something there”.
Rick: Meanwhile, from the doctor’s perspective had you gone unconscious or something?
Anette: I had no idea because there was no doctor there, it was just my husband in the corner saying “breathe in, breathe out”.
Rick: I mean, there wasn’t a doctor, a midwife or something?
Anette: No, not in the room at that time they were…
Rick: Okay.
Anette: Yeah, that’s hospitals in Sweden for you – there going…
Rick: Understaffed.
Anette: Yes, very much, but there was no midwife, no doctor there when this happened. But I realized that I’m in some kind of trouble, but I didn’t see it as a trouble because I’ve been seeking the light all the time and I said “okay guys, don’t worry. I can go in there, it will be fine, let me into the light”, and they said “no no no” and they showed me a life review of sorts and they made me see that it’s not my time. And one of them picked me up, it’s like you’re in some kind of… you’re not heavy, you’re very… like my experience was he picked me up like this and he went like that, and he set me off he set me off like that and I was like “oh…”. And that’s when I saw I had a silver cord and with my belly button down into earth. I saw the universe and I saw like the Pleiadian systems or the stars different… was like “wow!”, but I was kicked back into the body. And now happened something that really came to change my picture of reality because as I’m coming down into the body, I’m also coming in from the inner universe, from the inside light into this gross big body. The first thing that I hear coming in… So I’m coming from outside and from inside at the same time. The first thing I hear is the voice of my then husband saying “breathe in, breathe out”. so I’m coming in with “oh, no!” that kind of a feeling. And the pain of the contractions and everything. So again the things happen very fast, and once again I did the same thing, because of this relationship was not healed and I was not okay in… and I held my breath again somehow to show that I just can’t do this. For whatever reason I did that I can’t recall, but I did the same thing and I experienced the same thing again. Boom boom boom, the heart would like a hammer up in my ribs, and I’m out again. Again the same star system was like… And there’s no pain when you’re out there, you just like “oh!”. And again to the light now they came out very fast this time and they’re like “oh, you’re back again, what are you doing back here?” Now they’re a little more irritated like “we showed you it’s not your time”> And I go “I know guys, I had a new strategy”. I remember the second time I came I said “you know what? I know I’m supposed to give birth to a child but I think I’ve learned all my lessons. And there’s a husband that’s sitting there, he can take care of her”. And I try to like make some kind of a deal that… but because it’s just the most amazing thing to be with the light. You just want to get in there. It’s like “just let me in, don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. I’ve learned whatever I’m I have to learn. Just get me in there”. And now they laughed – I remember they laughed so much that they turned double like this. But I was so serious and I could not understand why they’re laughing because I had a great strategy. I thought I was very intelligent, I had that kind of a mission to get me into this light. But one of them said “okay, I’ll walk you down this time”. So he walked me all the way down – so amazing – and he told me stories all the way down. And then he showed me and told me stories of what I am to do here. He said “it’s not your time. What are you talking about?” and he shared funny stories and I was laughing. And now this time coming again into the body from inside from the inner light stepping into this week. And the first thing I remember hearing the voice “breathe in, breathe out” but I also heard my own voice and my lips… And my lips were like big, like tractors, like huge. I remember thinking, ah it’s such a gross thing, this body…”. And the lips were saying “I remember, I remember”, because the light being was there telling me, “don’t you remember, don’t you remember?” “Oh, I remember”. So I came into the body the second time saying “I remember, I remember”. And then my daughter is born… this kind of dramatic birth for her. I’ve shared this with her many times we talked about and I thank her… Thank you for letting me see the light. And I say “well, and you taught me how to breathe, it’s like you got to breathe, mom. You got to breathe, don’t stop breathing”. So we have developed a great sense of humor for it. But it was a profound experience of discovering what I had learned. The universe, the light is within you, the light is also outside. So my own experience kind of settled into that many years later. And of course after the birth of my daughter she was put on my stomach. And she looked up right away in my eyes and that moment I’ll never forget – it was “I’m looking at God”. I knew I’m looking at God in God’s eyes – that was my profound experience. And then memory erased, memory completely erased. I remember nothing of what I’m here to do or my life review – nothing but it was a profound experience that came to help me many years later. Life I was thrown into being a mother, and it didn’t work out – with this relationship I was not in a place where I could work things out with him, but we were married 10 years and we had two beautiful children – a son and a daughter. and so the breakthrough came when I’m now a single mother with two children and my own work. I work as a cranial sacral therapist and I worked at my home and my home was like a hospital. There was always somebody feeling bad sitting in the kitchen, because that was the waiting room. That’s how my children grew up like “okay, there’s somebody there” and then they go into the living room and they get help and then they go out the hallway. So it was that kind of circulation of people always and I had a mission to fulfill. I want to help the world, right, and not the least help myself because I’m filled with misery. And if I could just help people the best I can, maybe I get help too one day. But I was probably one of the most miserable people you could find. I was afraid of everything.
Rick: You’re still meditating at that point I presume?
Anette: It’s very difficult to meditate when you have two kids…
Rick: and your business and all that.
Anette: Yes, it was just… I was not at the point where there was any time for that. I was just… every night I was looking forward to “I can go to sleep tonight”, that was my joy. A little bit of breathing and then it’s just tough, just hard, with just difficult times. And sometimes it needs to be a little more difficult before you get a shift. And for me that’s how it happened. It was that my life came to have a dramatic shift – my first dramatic shift you could say. I was at the lecture here in Helsingborg, it was by an atheist who was holding a spiritual workshop or a lecture it said, and I thought oh I’ve seen everything in Los Angeles but not this. And I actually threw that paper away, that “I’m not going to go to that, I’ve done everything in Los Angeles, I got to go through life”. But no matter what I did, this piece of paper was there. So it’s like maybe I should just go to that and cancel my appointments that night – because I always worked. So I rescheduled them and I went, and it came to be a life-turning event for me. This atheist, then he said simply he was… had very few words because he was clinically deaf, so he couldn’t speak so much. And he said “I’m not a speaker but I have been to India and I’m not a spiritual person. Don’t ask me any spiritual question, ask my big brother. I don’t know anything about spiritual things, I’m not interested in that. I just have experienced something that I wish everyone could experience in their own way like a positive disease”, that’s pretty much what he said – like it would be contagious somehow, and he kept touching his heart area. And I felt like this “oh, I want that too”, whatever he had, he’s had in the heart. looks like. And he doesn’t speak much, he doesn’t know anything. But he’s obviously experienced something. I felt an energy in the body and it wasn’t like… he was not particularly charismatic or brilliant in his saying or anything. It was just, something is happening here. And he said “I will put some music on and I’ll go around…” This is before the phenomenon of the oneness blessing or oneness diksha, oneness meditation, all of this thing that is more known right now. He said “I call this experience healing because you will get the kind of experience that you need. The only thing that you need to do is be grateful before you receive it”. He said it very serious like that and then he put on the music. And he said so before you get it just be grateful and if you can’t be grateful then you have to pretend”, he said very seriously. I thought that this is the weirdest lecture I’ve ever been to. So it was during this lecture then, he he touched the head of each and every one very lightly and I’ve received healing many times. I also get healing in my practice so healing I know what that is like. But this was different – when he touched my head just very lightly there was the presence of that intelligence, of that strong… if I could say a presence of God this would be it. This is what I’ve been looking for all my life. I knew this with every cell of my being this is it. And I was surprised I didn’t expect that to happen.
Rick: Especially from an atheist, kind of ironic that this guy’s an atheist
Anette: No. I know, this all completely overtook me, I was not prepared for this. And he had said you should be grateful, but you never know how you’re going to react when you have an experience like that – something you’ve been looking for all your life and here it is. you don’t know what you’re going to… how you’re going to react, and what you’re going to feel like. And unfortunately I was not grateful at all when this happened, I was shocked that I was not grateful. he had said you have to be good and I wasn’t when this happened. Here’s this presence of this loving witness seeingness and all-encompassing love and intelligence of just seeing, and what I know is chakras – different energy points of my body – was looking around in different points and could see everything there – not just like the nice things about Anette but all the other things too. And this became very apparent to me – what I am carrying around. And so what happened now was I became so angry, I became so furious, and directed this anger to this presence to my big shock that I’m reacting like this. I could not stop this reaction and I tried everything I could to not be angry, but I was so mad. So you be surprised how you react when you have an experience of something you’ve been looking for all your life. this man he’d been telling “be grateful when you receive this” but I wasn’t grateful when this happened, I was so deeply angry. And I directed this anger to the presence.
Rick: Do you think that maybe this deep experience you had stirred up some deep thing that caused the anger, or maybe not… but maybe you could play with that theory a little bit: why were you angry, what was there some sudden release as a result of the deep experience that bubbled up as anger, or was there some other reason for it?
Anette: I saw that I wasn’t only angry, I was also hurt. I was filled with guilt, with sorrow, with all the negative feelings you could have – anxiety, depression, low like so dry inside it was every kind of shadow emotion you could have, any kind of emotion that you just don’t want.
Rick: So you were seeing yourself so clearly for the first time.
Anette: What happened was as this presence came, which could be seen as a light or whatever it was. At the time when I first experienced it all of these feelings came up and the anger was the one that on top. So it got directed. It got directed there and I said “why are you coming now? Don’t you know I’ve been looking for you all my life? You’re coming now? Through an atheist in Helsingborg? I’ve been looking, you’re coming now, so I’m angry”. And at the same time I remember how this man said you should be grateful and I tried to push all this down like “oh no! I should be grateful”, it’s the only thing. He said the only thing you need to be is grateful and here I am the most ungrateful, pitiful person sitting on the earth complaining like “are you coming now?” So I tried to like push all of this down but nothing I did was helping. So more and more of the different anxieties and different horrible feelings started just pouring out of me, and now something happened that came to change my life. because this presence then got a voice, and I don’t hear voices like this. This was a voice that was coming from seemingly outside the whole universe and inside of me at the same time. It was a thundering voice and if I could say there is a voice of God then this would be it. Whatever you would call this, it was a voice and it had a clear message to me. And the message came to change my life. What was said here: it said “don’t be afraid to meet your inner suffering, don’t be afraid to meet your inner suffering”. And as I was sitting in the most inner suffering, you could imagine at that time it was a good advice, so I did what the voice said: just relax, just meet it, just say “this is what this is it”. Right, so I just relaxed about it and as I did that I just met it, confronted it, just this is here, then the energy of that – the anger, the frustration, the dryness, the hurt, the bitterness, the whatever all that was like one big mass of something, grayness – it went through the body like a physical sensation I’d never experienced before. It was a physical-like flow, like a river, through the whole body, that I later learned that’s joy. I had not experienced that or bliss like such strong experience of joy for no reason, that it can take a physical sensation like that. And I felt like around my cranium I felt pressure or certain points. And I thought “is he standing there doing something to my head, is he putting his fingernails inside my head?” I had these kind of thoughts of what is… I never experienced anything like this. But he was moving in the other side of the room, so he wasn’t doing anything. I just had very dry wood, so to speak, and he just came with a very lightly. Some kind of fusion happened in that meeting, that’s all I can say. But the profound thing was there was a teaching that was given to me from inside. This man had not told me anything. It was given from inside: don’t be afraid to meet your inner suffering. And given me this sense of a sacred joy of some sort that eventually died down. You get peak experience, it died down. And it good enough for me to get home. Somehow I remember this was February into the apartment was I ran to the computer and I started – I think there was Google search then – I was searching on the computer anything that this man had talked about, India or something. There was nothing on the internet then, nothing. All I had was this deaf man, and he’s coming back to Helsingborg. He was from another city, he’s coming back a week later to have a course and I signed up to that course. Because I have to find out everything. He doesn’t speak much, whatever he’s saying I got to write it down because I’m a writer, I’m a reader, I’m very like an intellectual like that. So I can’t just have this kind of experience of a lifetime and not knowing more about it, I need to know. What do I do now? So I sat in the front in this course. I think there’s only ten of us. I thought the whole city is going to be there, everyone’s had this kind of profound experience but it wasn’t the case. I sat in the front, he looked at me. He was very serious and he said “you can put down that paper and pen”, because I was sitting like ready, whatever he said I’m just like…. I’m not like “okay…” He said “this course is about experience”. He said “there’s only two things you have to remember. One – you have to connect with your antaryamin”.
Rick: What?
Anette: Yes, that’s what I said, “what?” I had never heard that word before and so he wrote it on the big board behind us: antaryamin, mean it is a Sanskrit word. He’s an atheist, he’s not a spiritual person, he liked this word. It means the one that dwells within or the indweller. It’s a Sanskrit word and he’s like “this is so cool, this is a cool word” because it describes what has happened to him. He said there’s something inside, I call it the antaryamin. He would never call it divine or anything like that, it wouldn’t fit in. So he said “get in contact with antaryamin. However you relate to it, whatever you call it, that’s your business. And two: ” – and now he said something that almost made me fall off the chair – he said “don’t be afraid to meet your inner suffering”. So then I felt literally like a white flag from inside of me, like I’m not in war with life anymore. I have found a path like “I give up, the war is over”. I found my path because it was given from inside, a path that… He’s obviously found something, and he’s saying there’s only two things: get in connection, get a relationship with this inner self and don’t be afraid to meet the suffering, And so the course was simply about these two things, how to go about doing that on a practical way. Because this is a very practical farmer. And I said “how do you meet suffering? How do you do that?”, the classic question. And here’s this man, right? He said “go buy an egg-timer”. Which I did. And he said “next time you’re in some kind of uncomfortableness or suffering” – suffering is a big word, he said start with something little – “you’re uncomfortable, you don’t like about whatever experience. When you come home at night you set the egg-timer, and just like when you boil eggs you just sit and Boil-In-The-Feeling until the timer is ring. Then you can do other things but during the time when you have the timer on, then you just experience whatever is you were trying to run away from. So this is his own way that worked for him. And I did this. I had no one to help me or coach me in this path but him. So for a year and a half that was the only thing I did – developing a relationship with that antaryamin in my way and then also learning to stay with what I am running away from. So these two things together I discovered was the magic key. If you only sit and experience an awareness of what is difficult, that is not getting you necessarily into the transformation. And only praying to the divine or having a relationship with the divine – which I’ve been doing all my life – that wasn’t… that wasn’t doing it for me. Here the divine presence came in and gave a teaching: listen you got to know what to do when you’re with me – it’s that kind of a thing. So I felt the divine gave me that. I got to do… he didn’t say “go tell your mother about this, go tell the world about this”. He said “don’t be afraid to meet your inner suffering”. So I took this upon me very serious. I did not speak about this to anyone. I just did these two things for a year and a half before I first time went down to India. And already I could see that my life started to change because I did this inner process, these two things together was the magic key, relation to the divine – what I call divine but my friend who introduced it would not call it that. It’s very also important to me that this was a path where you can keep this to yourself, you could be anonymous, you can call it anything you want – you can call it divine or you can call it an antaryamin or you could be an atheist, you could be Christian, you could be Buddhist, anything – the important thing is your experience and what you do with it.
Rick: So did he provide some kind of technique or method to get in touch with this antaryamin or how did he expect you to do that?
Anette: Yes it was on the course. And this still also… we call it… it also stayed with me how, I also teach. And see a person who has found antaryamin himself – you find like a secret way in to this field – what I know is a unified field of consciousness. You can call it whatever you want. He had a very strong definite experience of that presence within. So in his course he did the same thing that they had done down in India, and a very… this is before the temple and all this magic happened down there. It was just in the low-cut jungle and in some huts, and the monks and nuns down there – they prayed for the participant. In other words praying is: you go to the inside – of course my friend wouldn’t call it “pray”, he said “I’m going to talk to my divine – my antaryamin – and ask please give this to everyone here”. Because when I try to do something in life, whatever it’s healing or anything else, nothing happens. I only get problems. I don’t want to be involved in all this. So he simply had us lie down on mats and he talked to his antaryamin, may please help these people, they want to have this kind of experience. so that’s what he said.
Rick: Funny this guy calls himself an atheist. Because it sounds like he’s communing with something that he considers to be intelligent and responsive and yet non-material and transcendental or something. He has a strange definition of the word atheism, it seems to me.
Anette: It’s beautiful. I love it, you know. We’re free to call this whatever we like and call ourselves whatever we like as long as we become happy. It’s really about that – a happy person can never hurt another. So whatever we call ourselves or how we relate to this, it’s really… it’s personal.
Rick: Sometimes Buddhists are referred to as atheists and yet they have obviously a connection with this this sort of field of whatever you want to call it. But they just choose not to attribute any kind of divinity or you know intelligence, I guess, even to it. Anyway that’s just a little side thought.
Anette: Thank you for sharing.
Rick: So continue.
Anette: So after doing this process very intensely I started with – like this man who is deaf, he shared from his own experience, “I started with something simple” he said. Because being deaf it’s kind of embarrassing sometimes. I end up in situation and I feel embarrassed about it. So my first suffering was feeling embarrassed and I was also like that. I was embarrassed about everything in my life. So I started pursuing those things that was difficult for me to do and just staying with it. Setting the egg-timer and just feeling embarrassed until the clock ring. The thing that he said was the key to this he said is, you have to do it every day. And later, much later I learned about neuroscience and the wiring of our brain, and to break a habit you have to do it regularly. So all these things I learned much later. But that’s how I started, just picking up.. because the profoundness of his state that he’s he’s just giving very simple, practical things to do. So every day I sat or every evening I sat with the egg-timer and eventually my brain got used to this doing it. For a year and a half I got so used to not running away from that which is called suffering but to actually confront it or embrace it or just seeing it. That, which is the non-dual way, that I learned afterwards. It’s like “oh, that’s so cool”, I just kind of got into it in there. And then through awareness learning it from this… in the simplicity of this way. And there were some things though that was still difficult for me to be just in awareness of being with. And I heard of this course in India called Samskara Shuddhi, Samskara, that is your past lives, your deepest cleansing. So there could be some past life things that is still bothering me or something. So I went down to India, my first time in August 2003. And that’s when I had the profound experience number two, the first one was definitely in here in Helsingborg where that inner voice came that changed my life. But the presence that I had got to know was more like the volume of a radio channel – it’s like sometimes it would be very like I could really feel this presence and sometimes it was be like I guess it’s there but it wasn’t so clear. But that came to change in August. And I took a course it was a three-day course with the monks or the Dasas down there, that guided how to meet the different kind of shadow energies, and invoke the presence of your divine into it and not resist it. And it was nice to do it in a group and not have the option of running away with your thoughts and things like that. So it’s very strong, very powerful, and I felt like I had taken a shower from the inside. It was that kind of a feeling. It was actually so amazing that I thought I’ll stay here forever. I didn’t… I just didn’t want to leave it was just an amazing experience, but we were also to have a Darshan, a meeting with the founder of the Oneness University. One of the founders – there’s two founders – and he had been… Shri Bhagavan, he had been in silence for three months at that time and he was having a Darshan for the first time. And I went in there with a group of Russians, there was 30 Russians and me, and we were told we could ask questions or something like that. And it was at this Darshan that he he shared with the group – he said humanity has been preparing itself for a shift in consciousness that will start happening after 2012, and here from the Oneness University we will contribute in this shift in consciousness by giving an energy transfer we call Diksha. I had never heard of this before, ever. And he said “we’ll start on Sunday, you should all come. You could have a good transformation in consciousness, the different doorways of consciousness that you could go in and have an experience of and something could happen to you”. So of course my plane ticket back home was on that day – 17th of August, but I was going to make this big day when the first Diksha was given to the bigger, to the odd, what I call it the regular people. And word spread fast and people came from all over. And you know how it is in India. I believe they said it was about 150,000 people there that day.
Rick: Wow!
Anette: Yeah, So they were at this ashram called Neyman and they took in… was very beautifully organized. It was like 10,000 people at a time like a big rock concert thing with fences, so you didn’t feel squished or anything, was really nicely organized. I was really impressed by that. And coming in there there the Dasa’s. They walked around to different sections and put their hands on our heads.
Rick: The Dasas are…?
Anette: monks and nuns that work at the Oneness University as teachers. And this first Diksha was to be given through them to us. And I had this thing of always having male teachers all my life, and male masters, you know. Like starting with Jesus, and then talking to God the Father in Heaven, all of this… I was so happy that in this path there was an Amma sitting next to Bhagavan, they were holding this together. This is what I knew I was looking for. For a while I thought it was the Siddha yogi path, because as Muktananda left his body there was actually two people joining together holding that. But then that movement kind of split up and I split with that, because inside I felt I want both the Divine Mother, Divine Father – Divine Female, Divine Male – to be together. That has been something that I’ve been carrying in my heart all this time. So I was so sad when the Siddha movement kind of didn’t do that for me. They did beautiful things, both of them did beautiful things but they didn’t do it together. And for me I needed them to be together. And in this path there was both an Amma and a Bhagavan holding this phenomenon of bringing this in, and in my head when we received this Diksha it was so important to have the female – a little bit more like I want a female Dasa to give this whatever this is Diksha. I don’t know what this is, whatever it is, it must be from a female Dasa, one of the nuns I just it has to be because I’ve had too much male – all my life – influences. I need more of the feminine. So I prayed. I learned to pray and talk to my Divine, so I talked to my Divine, said “have the female Dasa”. And I looked in my section where I was sitting was a male Dasa. I was a male guide going down and giving this very you know powerful energy transfer, and I remember feeling like so.. that disappointment, that like… or remembering my friend the atheist back home saying you know you should be grateful really. So I said I should be grateful, I shouldn’t sit here complaining “but I want the female, I want you, I don’t want the male”. And I started having this conflict again, and then I know what can I do about the conflict: nothing. I had to be just like “this is happening!”, it’s like “oh no! Not now”. I want to be like in this beautiful state receiving this wonderful Diksha. But I was like in the innermost conflict again, what this is happening. And right before he’s coming to my head, there’s two female Dasas running over to me. I could see and feel their shawl sweeping around me like this, and one of them pressed down her hands on my head, like really like, and I was so taken by this experience, I couldn’t believe it. I got heard from my divine the last second, it was like the last second, She just like” I got you”.
Rick: Pretty cool!
Anette: That was a cool experience. And the same experience happened that did in Helsingborg – this inner presence, but now it was experienced more like a golden ball of liquid light. That’s all I can explain it. It was like, she went bloop. It felt like liquid light, just a hook and expanded in my head. It went down by itself in my throat. I’m busy just feeling in awe, like if I was busy with the anger and disappointment, and now awe. So I just see how all of this is happening and it goes into my chest area and it expands. And it goes into my stomach and that’s when it landed like a huge golden basketball of something. And it was so filling, some kind of sweetness like honey or nectar, I could feel like it was… So I saw that I’ve been carrying like a dark hole in my stomach, like a black hole in my stomach, just trying to fill it with something. Just that it’s been the issue somehow, and that together with my brain is now used to not running away from suffering, not running away from that which I don’t want to have there. But just like “oh well, this is what we have to experience now, whatever the moment brings you”. So a combination perhaps of not resisting the now and the gift of grace that happened to me that day made a shift in consciousness, a profound shift in consciousness this time. there was a lot of noise happening there around – that it always does in India – with 150,000 people, there were speakers… You know, you have to leave the area, everyone has to come out. you know. And I could move, I was again filled with this bliss. And I thought the Russians – because I was with the Russians, I don’t understand any Russian but they always like adopted me and they kind of pulled at me like “nitty-nitty – we have to go” and so I figured the Russians will save me, the Russians will take me. I’ll just sit here. I can’t move and I looked up after a while and all the people in my section they couldn’t get out because there was some kind of problem. And they said “sit down. you will receive it one more time in this section”. I said “oh cool! I get it one more time”. And this time I didn’t care if it was a male or female I was like you know just.. whatever is happening… And this time it was a male, that’s a male monk, that gave this very beautiful… And the same thing happened again – golden liquid light coming in, filling the head and now doing something more in the left brain. It seemed to be having its own intelligence whatever is it doing. And then sure enough after this, after some time there was a Russian woman tugging at my arm saying “nitty-nitty share a taxi to airport”. So I actually from there went straight back home to Sweden, kind of a dramatic exit from India. But it was when I came home, then I realized something is very different now than from before I left, even though I had started this process before. There was energy shooting up my spine – electric. I was feeling so happy, I have never been so happy in my life. I actually didn’t know how to function and I just fell in love with my family. I couldn’t speak of… there was nothing to talk about. It was just like falling in love with everyone. My daughter was then eight years old and I had missed all her baby years, because I was so miserable and trying to help this world. And it was like “ah she’s so beautiful”, and we just connected like that. And then it was so difficult to see myself… like how can life work now on a practical level. So I actually remember I went to the doctor and I said you know “I feel so happy that I don’t know how to live my life”.
Rick: You wanted a pill for that?
Anette: I wanted… because I got serious like… I can’t stress, stress is not having an effect just to make schedule and having all this, the kind of work ahead, you need to have some kind of quicker energy. And here I’m just… I could lie on a carpet. I’m just going into that what I remember from my childhood, but the sound and the pajamas… that… How can I book clients? So the doctor looked at me because I thought he must he must have some kind of suggestion what can I do now because there’s something. He looked at me and he sent me to a psychologist. “I’ll go see her, it’ll be fine”. So I went to the psychologist. I explained the whole thing again – what happened to me. And after an hour she also want to go to India.
Rick: That’s great.
Anette: And she said “you know what? I’m going to put you on sick leave for five weeks. I’m sure you haven’t got used to this by then”. So I got sick pay for five weeks it was a second gift of grace that I actually got this time after this very big change in my body system.
Rick: Only in Sweden could you get something like that.
Anette: Yes, at that time. At least today, things change. But it was a grace that I could have that time with my family and just get used to. Then I started taking my clients and booking and it was actually the clients that said “you’re so different now than when you were before, you know what happened to you in India?” And I don’t want to take their whole hour to speak of my experience because it’s expensive to go an hour to craniosacral. I don’t want to take your time and your money for that. So I’ll have that in my living room on Sunday. I’ll have what I learned is satsang, which simply means you share your truth. I’m a very shy person – I know that – but it’s satsang, I’m sure I can just say to a few people who are interested. So I thought 10 people could come and just listen. I can share it. Those people, my clients that were interested, that could come. Now a friend of mine had a big website and he put it on his website, and that we will share her experience from India. And that day – that Sunday – 90 people show up at my door.
Rick: And you don’t have room in your living room for 90 people.
Anette: I was completely taken again by storm, by shock. I said “what do we do, what is happening?” People just keep pouring in, and the people from Denmark, from Copenhagen – they had a film camera and it’s like “oh, what is going on? I was just going to tell a few people…” So someone said “there’s a hall around this neighborhood where we can go in and just be, where we can all fit”. So they knew like a community place. So we went there and they put me on top of a table because they all wanted to see. So I got this experience – the first time in my life on camera then, and I knew from Hollywood that I’m not good on camera, that… And my voice and microphone is like “oh, I’ve been told I can’t speak, be silent, you know, this is not working”… so all of the memories from Hollywood, the trauma, that came up. And also knowing that I can’t speak up, I’ve taken many classes trying to look people in the eye – I can only look one person in the eye – maybe it doesn’t work otherwise. Now there’s 90 people sitting there and they put me on the table so they could all see. And on top of it I was supposed to speak of the most sacred most profound personal experience I’ve ever experienced like this. Oftentimes when we have a shift of some kind, we get tested. So this was like for me, the biggest nightmare you could ever have happen, big nightmare like this… And what did I have? I had my divine, I had my antaryamin, and I said “what do I do now? what do I do? I have nothing to say, what can I… I have never been able to look more than two people in the eye”. And my divine said very clearly “stay with what is there, experience whatever is you’re experiencing. I’m there”. So there’s no shortcut. It’s just sitting there, experiencing whatever is going on, and the willingness to experience whatever that is – that’s all that’s needed. Just the willingness to experience it. There was nothing happening. All the years of anxiety was more like old photographs, like yes, that is part of and… it’s like personality, like a toolbox with different tools, like different aspects, like an etic – this and this and this. But it’s like a bigger part of me was holding the smaller part, saying we’ll take some of this, a little bit of humor, and oh she loves to sing, she… maybe I can’t sing but I love to do it, and it didn’t matter. So I sat there on the table and I started just singing because I love to sing. And now it didn’t matter that I can’t sing right. And I thought they are all going to throw tomatoes at me, I was absolutely certain because I had such strong charges around. You can’t sing, but nobody left nobody threw anything. They all stayed and I went around and gave this experience, healing. At the time said I just hope – and I had my friend who had introduced this to me, he was there too – we gave this energy transfer or just a wish like a positive disease: let it just be contagious somehow, I don’t know what this is.
Rick: Had you been trained to give Diksha at that point?
Anette: No, no, no, no.
Rick: You just kind of did your best to figure it out?
Anette: I did what like he said, he had trained me. He said “you talk to your antaryamin. It’s not up to you, it’s up to your antaryamin”. So I did that. I talked to my antaryamin and said “let’s just do that”. What else are we going to do? I shared a little bit about my process in India, sang a little song and then I said “I’m just going to give you experience healing with my friend”. So we walked around doing this thing and then I thought “it’s over”. But no, the people from Copenhagen that was filming, they said “come to Copenhagen, have a satsang there”. I said “oh!”. So from then on, going to Copenhagen. There was people from Berlin, they said “oh, you come to Berlin”. And there are people… So this like unexpected journey around the world happened that I wasn’t seeking. I just was told to come to this place, from one place to another, to just share my experience. And I was comfortable enough to call it satsang because that’s all I could do – I could just share what is going on. In the most strange places I would be invited, around the world. This phenomenon happened on its own and it’s still going on, like going where the heart is calling.
Rick: So at a certain point you got more formal training right in India to be a Diksha giver and all that?
Anette: Yes. And the phenomenon of giving it is you’re trained like that. You know you get initiation and you’re also trained very clearly that it’s from your inner divine self or your antaryamin, they use that word antaryamin because you should be free to relate to it in your own way. So it was… that’s how it’s given. It’s none of us giving it – it’s that presence within.
Rick: You’re just a channel or tool or instrument.
Anette: Definitely.
Rick: Yeah. So the deaf guy, had he actually been to the Oneness University place and that’s why he was using the antaryamin word?
Anette: Yes.
Rick: At that stage it was in a very preliminary…
Anette: Yes, it was in the very very beginning of this.
Rick: Yeah. So maybe this would be a good time for you to explain… well, you’ve sort of explained it just now but what is actually happening when you give Diksha? Why does it work and how does it work?
Anette: You get connected into that unified field of consciousness we can call the supreme light or the super conscious, whatever you want to call it depending on you. There’s only one to my own understanding, my own experience, there’s only one. And as we each find our own way into connecting into this unified field, we can help to awaken it in another. It’s not that you’re giving something because it’s already there within the other, and they relate to it in their own way. So we don’t know as a giving this, we don’t know, it’s not up to us. But we can wish good things for people and we can give this energy transfer. And it’s up to them and their antaryamin, their higher sacred self, or what they do. It’s like sending an email, right – here’s some good news, you can open it or not, use it the way it fits you. That is my understanding, my experience of it. So I don’t get involved with being… like hearing did it work or not, it’s not up to me. I know it worked for me.
Rick: Yeah, so when you study at Oneness University do they give you training or methods to more effectively and reliably and clearly connect with unified field or whatever we want to call it?
Anette: Yes, very clear teachings. I am totally amazed at these dasas, the monks and nuns – they have dedicated their lives to helping in this process, they’re amazing. That was one of the things that really took me by storm when I went there, because it wasn’t just like the founders were in a great state of consciousness – of course – but all of their monks and nuns are also in super states. We’re having that presence of something so kind, so loving in their eyes, so intelligent. And the way they teach – the amazing thing I have found over the years because it’s 14 years now, I keep growing. It’s not like “oh yeah, I made some kind of a shift”. Yeah, there was a big shift happening at that time but that wasn’t the only shift. That was just one big shift that happened. It keeps growing and growing. And these guides – we call them guides or dasas or monks or nuns, whatever you want to call them – they have dedicated their lives to the phenomenon of awakening each person in their own way and to help this world in that way through evolution of consciousness.
Rick: Are they really monks and nuns like they’re living the monastic life. Because with the Osho group, for instance, they called themselves sadhus I believe, but they weren’t really sadhus. They were just sort of people using that name. But these people are really monks and nuns?
Anette: What I know… yes they live together, so they don’t have household, they don’t have families, they’re not married. So they live the kind of life of service. So they’re not monks on the traditional form like they have to do austere things.
Rick: And they’re living celibate lives”
Anette: Yes yeah, they don’t they wouldn’t have time.
Rick: And now questions are starting to come to me. You’ve been… this is probably the least I have talked in any interview that I’ve ever done, but because you’re so you’re actually a very good talker and you’re telling this story so with such great interest. But now I’m starting to get some questions. Well, a couple of questions: one is the is there a difference in capability among Deeksha givers depending on how clear and deep they are? Maybe some are sort of 10% and some are 80% or whatever in terms of their ability to transmit, and also I would imagine there must be similar differences among those who received each Deeksha in terms of their receptivity and openness to it.
Anette: Yes it said that there are three components in giving and receiving a Deeksha. So it is the giver, it is the receiver, and it’s the Deeksha itself. So the actual Deeksha or the energy transfer has the most power of the three. So if the Deeksha has a mission, like the divine wants something for someone else. Let’s say it’s someone… like when you give a Deeksha, if you were to not feel so good as a giver – let’s say you have a bad day, it’s just you’re in some kind of mood and you’re going to give a Deeksha to someone – maybe that’s not like the optimal… The best way to be when you give a Deeksha is in a state of gratitude. That’s the highest state you can be in. But maybe you’re not able to feel grateful and somebody’s asking for Deeksha what do you do? Well, what is happening then, is the Deeksha is like a faucet it’s turning on. So what happens is you as the giver feel really good a little less comes to the one who is asking. So it’s a good idea for the other person to be as clear channel as possible, otherwise all this Deeksha goes to you as the giver, right. But if the Deeksha itself has a mission – like it’s some kind of time for the gift of grace to be given to this person – it doesn’t matter this giver is absorbed in some other kind of thing, it will still work because the Deeksha has priority, it is their sovereign.
Rick: I understand that. I mean I used to teach Transcendental Meditation many years ago. And sometimes I would teach somebody, and all of a sudden I would have this incredibly profound experience while I was teaching them and I wouldn’t necessarily be in any very clear state that day or anything. But all of a sudden it would just be like boom, and then I talked to them afterwards and they would have had the same experience. And so I figured must be that this person was really ready and somehow whatever the mechanics are on a subtle level of this process, we both got uplifted by it because of their deservability, you know their readiness. So what is the scene like over there? I mean it sounds like it’s a really big place and there are a lot of people… Give us numbers, it’s like how many people are there at any one time, how many of these dasas are there, how much does it cost to go there, I mean if one wanted to get involved in this and start going there, what are they going to find when they go there?
Anette: So there are different ways to go there. First of all, one interesting point is the Oneness Temple – it is a magic, like you said it’s like a magic fairytale place. It’s like so …
Rick: I’ve seen pictures of it, it’s beautiful.
Anette: Yes, you told me when we started talking like the Oneness Temple looks like a fairytale place, and that’s exactly how I feel.
Rick: It looks like the Wizard of Oz kingdom or Disneyland or something.
Anette: That’s how I feel, like “wow..!” It’s like candy for the eyes, the eyes go ha ha because it’s in the middle of a low-cut jungle. So there it is in white marble – everything is made from white marble, carved out elephants and lions and horses – and just magical staircases spiraling up, and it’s like this magic place. So you just want to go there. And it’s built like a structure, like the pyramid, is built in a way called vastu, knowledge of how a building can affect your consciousness. Yes, so it’s built with that knowledge together with a Danish architecture company that has designed it so it’s very like modern, very hip, very cool place. And it’s the largest hall in Asia, the third floor you can sit – without pillar, so you can sit like 12,000 people on the third floor meditating – with no pillars. And it’s like this cool… like in Sweden we have… the lighting is very important because it’s so dark here we have IKEA here so we have IKEA lighting. I always think of “oh, I’m going into the Swedish home”. I don’t think anyone else agrees with me on this but I feel very at home because it has all these lights, the cool lights from the ceiling. So it’s like a magic temple because of the lighting and inside the floor, there’s these flowers that you can sit on the flower. And there’s the Sri Yantra, it’s like a figure, a sacred symbol in the center that is like the power where eight different power place lines meet at the same time. So the actual center of the temple is like a Yantra, like an energy structure. So you sit there and you feel just like I’m like home, this is a really nice place to be. And in this temple there have been over the years… it was built, it took seven years to build, it was built 2008 in April I believe, for the opening and they wanted to have it then like a oneness temple. But they had some problems having it as a oneness temple because there’s no nomination of religious things. So they actually have to sort this out somehow of it being a temple for oneness, a temple for all, for everyone. So maybe soon it will be released to the public. But so far you have to take a course or be involved somehow at the Oneness University because it’s set up like that from the government and the political situation, religious structure. Just to explain a little bit what’s going on: because it’s not like an ashram like other sacred places, you can go and visit just freely like that. They have to actually pay taxes like a business, they have to run it like a business until their laws in India change. So it can be a spiritual place because that’s what it is. But so they have worked around this to make it affordable for people and they have something called Shambhala. And Shambhala is a mystical vision of a place in another dimension. I think it’s from the Buddhist tradition or a sign of coming of the light. They call the temple now the Shambhala and then you can go for like a one-day course and it’s very low cost to go to this. If you only want to go to the temple you can join in then into the Shambhala, where you simply just pay for the food and the shelter or living there. So the cost is as low as possible and you can stay for just a few days. If you just want to go there and experience the temple you go to the temple every night and you journey with one of the dasas, so you learn how to relate to that antaryamin inside, you learn from that dasa, female or male, like their way. Because we all have different ways, so they’re just teaching us their way.
Rick: So each dasa has a slightly different way of doing it?
Anette: Yeah, they have their own personality, their own…, they’re not the same. Oneness is not sameness, so they’re very different but they are all connected into that unified field and it’s so cool to take classes with different dasas, to say oh this is how they do some…
Rick: Pick up different things.
Anette: Yeah, it’s like very subtle things.
Rick: How many of them are there?
Anette: I think there is about a hundred or so, but there’s certain that are only working with us Westerners who are used to us Westerners. There’s also those who only work with Indians and traveling around. They do lots of work like volunteer work, helping a hundred villages around, giving them food and shelter, schools and hospitals. So there’s a lot of work happening around the temple that we’re not really seeing.
Rick: What part of India is this?
Anette: You fly into Chennai, and then it’s three hours, about two, three hours with taxi up north.
Rick: Okay, Chennai is on the east coast, south India?
Anette: Yes, south east coast.
Rick: Right, okay.
Anette: Yes, it’s in a nature reserved area.
Rick: And most people who would come here obviously wouldn’t just come for one day. I mean most people listening to this would be flying in from the US or Europe or Australia or something, and so I imagine they have longer programs for a week, a month, whatever.
Anette: Yes, actually they suggest stay for at least a week. You don’t go to India for a day. So you stay for a week at the Shambhala. That’s like the lowest, most economical – if that is your situation where you have to consider that. Then they have longer courses. So they have three-week courses, journey courses, that is also extraordinary. Then it’s more of a process, so it starts like a beginning and an end. You know, these… Shambhala is one-day courses, so you travel that day with a dasa and then it’s a new dasa next day and so forth. But on the journey courses, it’s one journey for three weeks. So it’s a different kind of system in that, in the teachings and the experiences that you get, you go a little deeper. And then they have lots of other types of courses also.
Rick: And Bhagavan and Amma are designing all this, they’re overseeing the whole thing ultimately.
Anette: Yes, they are the founders. They started this and they retired in 2014. They said, “We came here with this mission to help humanity, to create such a structure, a building that could stay for at least a thousand years without being damaged by the weather and wind and all this”. And the structure would hold the presence of light, the golden light that is a symbol that I experienced coming into that. A golden light could be a symbol of just seeingness, you know, so you put light on something, you see it. So they want the divine to be housed into that temple, so when you go in there you will have an experience. But they still, of course, oversee it and have their part, but they’re not so much out in public as they don’t want this to be like a guru phenomenon.
Rick: Right, I heard an interview with him one time and he spoke very clear English and I really liked the things he was saying. It really… there’s a lot of wisdom in it. So it’s… I mean India has a reputation for being kind of rough and the food, you know, you can easily get sick when you go there and so on, but this place is pretty comfortable for Westerners?
Anette: Yes, it’s extraordinary, the things that have happened since I first came there, 2003. It was… we didn’t even have beds at that time, it was so simple, you know, we’re just like little huts with banana leaves roofs, you know, and I was with the Russians, I was just sleeping on the towel on this mud floor, you know, so simple, rustic, but I loved it, you know, for me it was like perfect, that felt really, you know, like a spiritual seeker, like a sadhu, you know, because I read all those books and I would love that. But also realizing, coming back to Sweden, seeing that people would want to experience that, they have developed this very nice campuses around so that you could have the comfort of a Westerner that is used to the nice toilets, of course beds. They even have like a five- star hotel, also campus, yes, so also it’s part of the Oneness University where Sri Rama Bhagavan actually lived themselves. So after that they moved into the temple, but that campus is very nice and they made it into a campus where you can stay and they call it campus 3 or Ananda Loka or something. I don’t know what they call it, they have different names, but it’s one of my favorite campus to go to, it’s filled with peace. But all the campuses are like that, there are five, six, seven around them.
Rick: Oh, all the campuses like right in a cluster near each other or are they different parts of India?
Anette: No, no, they’re around the same area, but like campus 3, they’re at the foothill of sacred mountains where old siddhas are said to be, where you can have many great mystical experiences. That’s maybe why I love it so much, because you can actually communicate with these siddhas that are dwelling, like could be 10,000 years old.
Rick: Not in the flesh communicate, but on subtle level.
Anette: On the mystical level, yes, but they can also appear if it doesn’t freak you out, they can do those things too. They dwell up there and there is a mountain campus called the sacred forest campus, there we are just for a day and the indigenous people who live there, when they met Sri Yama Bhagavan, they said we want to build a campus here and they said, “oh do you come with a light-skinned people?”, because they had heard this in the generation that when the light-skinned people come, then the world will start its awakening. So that’s very cool, so that is an awesome place that we go to visit, we don’t stay there, good energy. It’s like you can talk to the ants, you can talk to the tree, there are mystical things happening there that is just like a fairy tale.
Rick: That’s great. Let’s talk a little bit about what, I know that over in the Oneness University people are sort of proclaimed awake, like okay you’ve had your awakening and so on, and let’s talk about what you guys actually mean by that, and to start with that someone named Dee from Denver sent in a question, maybe this will get you going. She said when your mind is engrossed in something, say a good book or adding figures, are you simultaneously aware of the Divine? For instance, I might ask you, would that be one of your criteria of what awakening is, that awareness of the Divine or some kind of self-realized state persists no matter what you’re doing, even if you’re engaged in reading a book or driving a car or adding figures or fast asleep, for that matter?
Anette: It is an experience, I can only speak for myself now, I don’t know what the criteria are. I can answer it in two ways, I can answer it the way that I know, because you also asked how do you know if you’re awakened, right, and then I can answer from my own experience.
Rick: How does the Oneness group define awakening?
Anette: Okay, we’ll start there. Some of the Dasas are highly trained, developed in their consciousness that they can go into, I would call it like a Google search, but on the Divine level. They can go into someone’s brain or their collective consciousness and if they have your name and your birth number when you were born, there’s some information about you. What they do is five of these Dasas goes into five different dark rooms. They are trained to go into the Divine field of consciousness, like an advanced Google search I would say, and asking this person, is this person awakened, if they are, on what level and if all five come out with the same answer then that’s it. Otherwise… so that’s how we are proclaimed awakened, on one, on what level.
Rick: Do they do that a lot for people? I mean if you think you’re awakened you talk to the Dasas and say hey would you check for me?
Anette: They only… they did in the beginning and all they got overwhelmed with my emails. Then they had to stop that because they would use these five Dasas too much, and they said “we only do it now for people who take the three-week course”. Then you get declared awakened and on what level, and this level is only for you to understand and to be to be growing, to see where you’re at and what’s the difference between being on the lower level of awakening, what’s happened when you go into the awakening building. It’s like you are …
Rick: There’s an awakening building?
Anette: This is my explanation now. I came very quickly into my way of explaining it or understanding it. It is like… there’s no actual awakening building even though I would say the temple could be such a …
Rick: So it’s kind of a metaphor.
Anette: It’s a metaphor, that’s what it is. Thank you, thank you for helping this, sweet. My way of looking at it is when you’re not awakened you look at the world a certain way – like something is bothering you, it’s in your face, because that’s how you see things. When you go into awakening it’s like you go into a building and you’re – let’s say you’re awakened on level one or two – you like go up to that level and you look at the same reality from that second point… level.
Rick: Second floor.
Anette: Yes, second floor. So then it looks like that a little different, now you have a different perception of the same thing. Still it’s bothering you. you’re not you know… but you’re awakened, but you’re on this level. So then let’s say you move up because you get trained of not resisting what is. You get trained and your brain is actually changing, and you you learn these things and you have processes for that. And then you go into higher level and to go really quick. Then what is the difference between like a Buddha or a Ramana Maharishi or someone in who’s really big state of consciousness, and somebody who’s just like starting this process? Would be that… that would be like on the hundredth floor? let’s say a hundred floor – it’s the top floor in this metaphor. So he is the Buddha is resisting nothing, okay nothing of the mind he is resisting. Those of us who are not on the hundred, we might have resistance to some things and we are growing and we’re learning. But we’re in the building or in the process of continuing, the neurobiological shift has happened. We perceive reality, we have not changed reality, but we perceive reality in a different way. That is the awakening process from my own understanding and experience.
Rick: That’s a good explanation. Does the Oneness University – I guess that’s what you call it – is that the best way to refer to it – the Oneness group or whatever you call it.
Anette: Oneness University is a university, it is a university for consciousness. So that school for growing in consciousness you can call it that or the Oneness Temple. Words are not really important. If it makes problem for people then you can call it something else.
Rick: I just want to know I want to refer to it correctly… but does the group or does the teaching in kind of have a fairly clearly defined explanation of how many levels there are… like they might say seven levels or when the Dasas say “okay well this person is awakened” would they actually be so specific as to say “oh they’re at level four”, or is it a little bit more fuzzy than that?
Anette: They don’t put much emphasis on this. When they first started giving awakening levels, it was to simply explain this and like you can grow into this. This shift has happened and you can grow, it’s for your own good. But it started a lot of conflict around people and they said let’s just forget this awakening levels, because it’s just creating problems for you. Let’s forget it, but yes complicated and then people said “no, we want to know if we have grown or not”. So then they started it again and then they removed it. And one course I remember said all of a sudden they said “no we’re not going to give it”. It doesn’t matter but some people get upset. This just doesn’t really matter – they give a level just for our understanding like a metaphor you know. They can see if that much of your brain has changed. So if you’re on a presence, your very presence, can change a room – some kind of explanation like that I heard in the beginning. Now they don’t like to go into that because people… then someone on a 19 go “I don’t change a room…”, so it’s just that you don’t… what it’s happening real practically is you don’t have a problem with what is happening around you, you don’t resist. It has to do with how much resistance you let. So after you’re up after 50, then you start processing the suffering of humanity that start… the collective human consciousness start flowing through you. So you’re still having the same tools of connecting with your antaryamin, and then not resisting what you experience, and responding from the intelligence of the heart. It’s really quite simple: you learn how to live through the senses, so the mind is not… the mind is more like a tool. My experience now from that… and her question sending in – is the mind is a great tool? It is. Also I’m coming from an intellectual country, so it’s not like you give away the mind or the mind is no good and you shouldn’t have the mind when you’re writing or the divine is here and the mind is there.. No. Not my experience. The divine can flow through the intellect, the divine can flow through the words or a pen, it’s not like you are different from that. You are that too and you learn to day-by-day go closer and closer having that relationship to the divine. And you feel it when what you are doing how you responding is helping another is bringing back goodness to you and to the world, then you’re doing something good. You don’t analyze so much about it.
Rick: Sounds good. I mean I imagine if you’re upset because you can’t figure out what level you’re on, then you can safely assume that you’re not on a very high one. You should just relax, keep on going. You said something interesting a minute ago about maybe after level 50 or something you begin processing the stuff of the world and I’ve heard a number of teachers speak about this and even recently. And in fact Ramana said that his cancer was due to the fact that he was processing a lot of the stuff from his devotees. At one point one of his devotees said “hey why don’t you just give us all that suffering that you’re experiencing? Apportion it among us, we’ll gladly take a load and take it off you”. And then he said “where do you think I got it from in the first place?” So have you been experiencing this processing the stuff of the world and does it make you uncomfortable? Do you feel like it takes a toll on your body for instance, or do you just kind of digest it and it doesn’t really… it’s not hurting your health or your well-being in any way?
Anette: It’s definitely not hurting my well-being or my health or my body or anything like that. It’s not like… it’s a natural occurrence, it’s not like I do something. It is just what is happening. So it is the process, is the same as with the egg-timer when you start You just learn after a while you don’t need any egg-timer. You just experiencing life as it is. You don’t say “I’m going to sit now and experience the suffering of the world”. It’s just it doesn’t matter if it comes from your ancestors, if it comes from your family, if it’s the collective human consciousness, or if it’s something else. You learn – your brain gets the hang of it. I’m not resisting what is there and I believe this is a process of how long can you stay with with that or something, but it’s not something the mind is involved in. So it’s just a natural happening.
Rick: You sometimes get a feeling for what it is you’re processing like “oh this is my family, this is my ancestors, this is something, this is a lepo that I’m working out some of that mess or do you or is it just more of a… describe the subjective experience of this.
Anette: Sometimes they’re divine since that is the central thing in my process is the relationship with the divine or the antaryamin. So my antaryamin can sometimes show me a picture of where this is stuck – maybe some ancestor, something is happening and this is causing the problem of… the karma of this is happening. So sometimes yes I can know what’s going on and I can also see the results of me just not resisting it, and experiencing it, feeling it, seeing it, and not resisting it. And something happens in me and something happens very often in the outer world or with a person. So it’s a beautiful process to be involved in, and the fact that you don’t feel hopeless or helpless, because that there is a presence inside of you that wants goodness and well things in this world. And the more people that can wake up to it without making a problem about it, without hurting another or hurting oneself, the better this world is going to be. So until that time, whatever suffering is given to me it’s not a suffering, it’s like a non-effort effort.
Rick: yeah, it’s like a little assignment that you have to take care of – all right I’m going to process this, I’m a washing machine and here’s a load of laundry.
Anette: But it gives joy – see it’s a win-win kind of thing. So it’s not like “oh, I have to take all the suffering of the world”, because that’s how I spend the first part of my life. I’m here to help the world but I went about it the whole the wrong way. I tried… I thought I had to do everything, I mean as many people I can get into my living room – and they often got well – but that’s not what we’re here to do. We’re not here to have like a burden. That’s the reason why we get connected to the divine: is something released on the shoulder? I will go to Missouri sometime. He goes “it’s so weird, how can your shoulders… they’re like so loose..” like but I’m not carrying the world’s pain. I just let it experience, you know. So I wish that for everyone actually it’s a joy to to not resist. Resistance hurt. To resist the things that is difficult, so painful – that is much more painful. I heard one priest today on the Swedish radio. She said something really beautiful and the priest here in Sweden is perhaps very much more open, but she said I enjoy going talking to people who have sorrows or have difficulties because I have the divine hand in my back. I can go into the darkness with them. I’m not there to say something that’s going to save them, that’s not my role. My role is to just be there and listen and be there. And I’m safe because I have that in my back. So beautiful.
Rick: That’s nice yeah yeah, it’s like the divine is really… there’s a nice metaphor that I’ve heard spiritual teachers use. It’s like, if you’re on a train let’s say, you don’t have to hold your suitcase in order to get your suitcase to its destination, you can put it down because the train is carrying it and carrying you. So just just put the load down and enjoy the ride.
Anette: Yes that’s a great analogy that’s really cool. I was going to add something to that train… you don’t have to run once you’re on the train you don’t have to run – it doesn’t go any faster.
Rick: Yeah, you’re not going to get there any faster by running up and down the aisles. So you mentioned a few minutes ago that Bhagavan had mentioned that 2012 would be a turning point and that the world is awakening and so on. Has he, or do you, have any sort of vision as to how things are going, and whether we’re all going to survive or not, and you know what the world may end up like if we do survive this transition?
Anette: Yes, I’m very optimistic about this whole process and but I do feel that it is important that as many people as possible awaken into that intelligence of the heart. Now it doesn’t matter what religious path you’re on, or what philosophical path you’re on, or spiritual path or non-path or an atheist.. whatever you’re on just so that you help humanity. It’s time, it’s high time to come into clarity what this time is all about. We talk about evolution of consciousness – what does that mean? I think it is most important for people to be clear what this time that we’re living now is all about, and except for going to India I’m also very enthusiastic about the Mayan Indians. I’ve been that since long back. The Mayan calendar that supposedly ended 2012 and it’s not like the world was going to go under. They clearly said that there’s an evolution of consciousness that this calendar is built on, and there built some pyramids and these pyramids has nine levels. So there’s nine evolutionary levels of consciousness for humanity. And what is unique about 2012 – which is what the founders of the One Earth University also aligning within is saying – that after 2012 there is a new possibility to download the divine consciousness or to merge with the divine. Like if you can use then the analogy of the Mayan calendar of the pyramid with the nine levels, humanity technically is at the top of the pyramid right now like the priest in the old Mayan culture – he was standing there representing that consciousness where we’re at. So that is where humanity is actually at, but we are not realizing that. Many people, most people on this planet are still in resonance with lower levels of consciousness – with duality consciousness when seeing things as right and wrong, me and the not me, and so forth. That is where most people are in alignment, whereas the evolution of consciousness has taken us into a plateau where we can actually download the divine consciousness our own way without having to belong to any particular path or religion. And that is the high time I feel that people start awakening into that. There’s not one path that is the right one, because if you have that kind of understanding it’s fine. It’s just that we’re not in that evolution of consciousness now. The humanity has evolved to the top of the pyramid and if you were to look at that analogy, what is the next step if you’re standing on the top of the pyramid? Heaven. So the heavenly energies, the divine consciousness is for us humans to learn how to download, to learn how to connect with it – because that’s the answer to the problems we have in our world. And not until the evolution of consciousness have come to that point for humanity where they see we each have to find our own way, whatever path, whatever way we choose, let it be for the goodness. Let me not hurt another or myself or my family. let’s do it in a kind way. And there’s so many paths that are helping for the awakening of humanity as long as you respect each individual’s way to do it.
Rick: Yeah, so it sounds like you’re saying that whatever your path, the times are such that it will more readily bear fruit. It’s a good time to be pursuing spiritual development because whatever effort you make in whatever way will be much more productive, and your chances of awakening to whatever degree are much better than they might have been in definitely and we see it. We see here at our center – I have a meditation center in a clinic here and we have events happening every week. And there’s lots of new curious people like what is going on here and they went… and they have nothing. They don’t know anything about meditation or spirituality but they get an experience they go into that field right away. So that’s nothing to do with “have you been a meditator for 45 years?” or are you like “you just came off the streets?” Like I have no idea what this is like this kind of cool like wow I just felt and they have shared these experiences and each one is different. It’s not the beauty of life you know there’s not one like the other.
Rick: Yeah, I think this is a good point and I think it’s an inspiring point and I think more people need to hear it. Because if you just watch the news you can get kind of discouraged and you read about global warming and what’s happening to the oceans and what’s happening to the animals and it’s everything – it sounds like we’re not going to survive as a species much longer. But what doesn’t make the news is that there’s this groundswell of awakening taking place, which is part of the reason I have started this show, to sort of like make people more aware of that, and that groundswell of awakening I think has profound implications for the surface level problems that beset us you know for global warming, for political unrest and economic woes and all that. Awakening is going to, in some way, hopefully help us resolve those things. Those superficial problems are symptomatic of some deficiency in world consciousness and that deficiency seems to be getting remedied.
Anette: Yes, and you’re doing an amazing work. I love watching your shows I love watching all your teachers. I just salute every one of them and the work that you’re doing, such passion from your heart to bring in different perception. This is completely in alignment. And like you speak of the grassroot – maybe you said something else but I heard grass.
Rick: That’s a good phrase for this yeah.
Anette: Okay it’s like a grassroot thing, this is how I see it. like it… like the analogy of like when you do the dishes you put the water in the sink and then you pull the plug, so the water goes down. So we’re like close to the plug, where the dirty water goes out. Because there are things that like whoa…
Rick: Spinning around.
Anette: yeah, those of us that are like we’re invited to your show or we can share these things, we feel like well so many things are happening, but so yes things are happening. But at the surface they just go yeah, things are changing a little bit. But they don’t know slowly like they’re also coming down, we’re all like spinning, going down the drain.
Rick: That’s great in a good sense. Going down the cosmic drain to infinity, the infinite sewer system.
Anette: That’s a good analogy.
Rick: Here’s a question that came in from Mark Peters in Santa Clara, California. He asks, “Is there any simple practice or daily check-in that you would recommend for building the relationship to your antaryamin?”
Anette: Beautiful question. yes, this I’m very passionate about. Find your own way, first of all find a way that is natural for you or start developing a way. The important thing is that you do it every day like you do a vipassana. Vipassana is so beautiful – it’s an old Buddhist meditation where you just feel the body, because then you can see… because the mind that is chattering so much… the mind is directly connected to the body. So if you want to affect the mind or to be able to witness the mind, you need to be in contact with your physical body, because there are parts of the physical body where you might have resistance. So if you were to sit down every day and do a vipassana, you just feel the body and just be in awareness of the physical body, see the breathing moving in and out by itself, not interfering, allowing the body to breathe the way it wants to. You would naturally expand your consciousness then you can put a focus inside your heart. It’s usually the heart that we start to feel the presence, to feel that inner light. and to be interested in your antaryamin in the way that would be natural for you to experience it. You can see it like a golden liquid light if you like, or can feel it like a presence of joy, of peace, something that wants goodness for you, something that wants to help you in your world. Start relating to it in your own way. The important thing is just like when you brush your teeth you have to do it every day. If you only brush your teeth once a week you might as well just forget about it, it is no good. So it is the same with connecting into your antaryamin – you connect with it every day. And you can do different things like – I love to sing, it doesn’t matter if all of Hollywood says you cannot sing, girl. I sing anyway and I’ve actually recorded some CDs just to show that anybody can chant because when you chant the sacred mantras of the chant, sacred sounds automatically you are like downloading, it’s like having the cable to the Internet like where do I plug it in? I’ll sing a mantra because you are like… in the Sanskrit language there are God, so here’s 3,000 different nuances like a diamond with many different facets. So I love to sing mantras. It’s a heart opener. so when you do it vipassana just take three minutes. Just like sit down and just be an awareness of the body. You allow everything there’s like a ticket to joy when you do this, so you know that you don’t resist anything. Just welcome everything. Then you put a focus on your heart, then you can pick up a mantra, you can sing a mantra. You can sing it loud, you can whisper a mantra, or you can repeat it silently inside. There are different aspects affecting your consciousness in different way. you can also listen to a mantra if you want and you just hear the mantra, or you can talk. You can talk to your divine like it is your best friend. because eventually you can have that kind of a bhakti relationship and more of a devotional path, where it becomes like a super great friend that Will help and you can ask a blessing for the day. Or if somebody’s feeling bad, your family someone needs help, you say “please help this family, please help this person”. It’s a great way to have a communication and relationship with that inner best friend, and spending some minutes every day and at night too maybe. Isn’t that a good idea to do that at night too before you go to sleep because all these things happen at night. I always like check in. It’s like I’m going to sleep, please be with me in my in my dreams, help me to digest what I need to digest and let me learn more during the night. So I talk like that.
Rick: Yeah, that’s great. Let’s do it. So you might say in summary, find a practice that seems to work for you, you know, maybe learn some technique or get a mantra from somebody qualified to give it or whatever. And then just start doing it every day even even 10 minutes or whatever. Yeah yeah, but I think regularity is important.
Anette: Definitely, better 10 minutes a day than two hours once a week. The regular thing that makes a difference it actually affects the neurons in your brain you will have a different perception definitely.
Rick: I was listening to a guy in an interview recently and he was saying the the way you can tell if a technique is working for you is if you actually enjoy it and if you feel like doing it. It shouldn’t be something where you have to beat yourself up to sit down and do something. You should actually look forward to it, and so find a way of practice that you actually look forward to and that is refreshing and enjoyable and it’s a highlight of your day.
Anette: Make some tea, go and sit down, have some tea with your divine. Enjoy definitely.
Rick: I don’t know if the acoustics would be very good, but do you feel like singing something?
Anette: oh sure yeah,
Rick: Go ahead, whatever you feel like singing.
Anette: okay I can guide them a little just if you can whoever because I… or how do you want this?
Rick: Whatever you want to do, I have no idea but whatever you would like to do
Anette: Well, I’m thinking that there is some viewer that are taking part of this and I’m thinking maybe the viewer…
Rick: right now there’s a hundred and fifty of them or something, I can’t quite see – small print. But yeah, there’s quite a few people watching now, and then thousands will watch later.
Anette: Okay well that is so cool. So the viewers can kind of get the feel for discovering their own inner presence. So just close your eyes and relax in the body. Feel the feet touching the floor, your legs, your buttocks, your whole hip region, your back and spine, the stomach, your whole belly. Whatever is going on, just relax your chest and shoulders, your arms and hands and fingers. Relax your neck and throat, relax your whole head and your face, relax. You can see the breathing happening in and out by itself. You don’t have to change the breathing, you just allow the body to breathe the way it wants to breathe. This what you’re doing now is a vipassana, an old Buddhist meditation, where you still the body and you’re in awareness of every part of your body, and you relax it – not resisting anything that might come up. When you do this you have an expansion in your consciousness, where you can see your inner world, your thoughts and feelings – Whatever is happening inside of you. Now, you can put a focus inside your heart. In the heart you – usually easiest – can experience your higher sacred self, however that is for you – as a presence, as a golden light. However that is for you allow that presence to move out in every part of your body. Let it move out in every cell of the body also, emanating outside your body, under your feet, over your head, in front of your body, behind your back, all around your body. Let this golden presence of light move out all encompassing love and receive this oneness blessing through this chant: Om Purnaamida Purnaamidam Purnaat Purnamadachyate Purnasya Purnamadaya Purnamevavasisyate Om Purnaamida Purnaamidam Purnaat Purnamadachyate Purnasya Purnamadaya Purnamevavasisyate Om Purnaamida Purnaamidam Purnaat Purnamadachyate Purnasya Purnamadaya Purnamevavasisyate Om Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti And just keep your eyes closed just for a little while, and give gratitude inside your heart in whatever way you are experiencing the presence. When we give gratitude to that presence within, it is like giving fertilizer on that seed of knowing the divine from within, every time you give gratitude. You always end your time with the divine or with your antaryaman – however you relate to it – end it always in gratitude that you have this anchor into that unified field of consciousness, your sacred self in your own way. When you feel complete in your gratitude, you take a deep breath and open your eyes in your own time.
Rick: That was nice. Do you want to tell us the meaning of that chant?
Anette: That is a… oh like your dog is called Luna. I always think of the moon when I sing that chant. It’s the full moon. So if you take something away from that which is full, it is still full. If you add something to it, it is still full. You cannot change it. So if you use the divine every day and you make use of the power of the light, you don’t take anything from it. You cannot add something to it. It is complete. It is full like the full moon. Every time there is a full moon, I always think of that chant. I love that chant.
Rick: Yeah that’s nice. Yeah it means this is full, that is full, taking fullness from fullness, fullness remains. And to me it always reminds me that the divine is completely permeating everything, and that the sort of unmanifest field of all possibilities from which creation arises is not depleted when the creation arises from it. And in fact the fullness permeates both. There’s nothing but fullness. It’s beautiful.
Anette: Thank you for explaining it so beautifully.
Rick: Whatever, out of the mouths of babes. So I think that it would be nice to end on this note since that was so sweet. So I want to thank you for participating in this and telling such a nice account of your life. It was very uplifting I think to hear the whole story.
Anette: Thank you so much Rick. Thank you for the platform you’re giving so many of us and for bringing this out to the world of each and every one of us finding our own path. I’m so honored and so grateful, so deeply grateful to be invited here today. Thank you so much.
Rick: You’re welcome. So let me make a few little concluding remarks. I’ve been speaking with Annette Karlstrom and as always she’ll have a particular page on batgap.com and from there I’ll have links to her live stream account thing and to her website and to her YouTube channels and to her books. So you’ll see that there. This is an ongoing series of interviews as you probably know. If you would like to be reminded whenever a new one is posted there’s a tab on BatGap where you can sign up to get the email once a week or so. There’s an audio podcast version of this and there’s a tab for that. There’s the donate button that I mentioned in the beginning. I appreciate people’s support and there are a number of other interesting things if you explore the menus. I always say that because no point in going through them all but there’s not that many things but if you just pull down the different menus on BatGap you’ll find some interesting little things to check out. So thanks for listening or watching and thanks again to you Anette. It’s really been a joy.
Anette: Thank you, thank you so much Rick.
Rick: Yeah, and next week I’ll be speaking with Roger Castillo. He’s in Perth, Australia, and he was a close student of Ramesh Balsakar who in turn was a student of Nisargadatta Maharaj and had a brief conversation with Roger last week and we really hit it off. I think it’s going to be a really nice interview. So thanks for listening and watching. We’ll see you then.