Brad & Pam Keene Interview

Rick: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. This is a weekly show in which people who have had a spiritual awakening talk about their experience. My name is Rick Archer and my guests this time, this episode, are Brad and Pam Keene. We all live in Fairfield, Iowa, as do all of the guests I’ve interviewed so far. Sometimes I have made a brief comment or two at the beginnings of these interviews, and there’s something I’ve been kicking around for a few days that I want to talk about for a minute before we get into our interview. In several of the interviews, I’ve been a little bit self-deprecating about the title of this show, Buddha at the Gas Pump. On the one hand, that title is meant to imply that there are ordinary people living ordinary lives who are experiencing enlightenment or higher states of consciousness. But on the other hand, I’ve qualified it a bit by saying, “Well, maybe my guests aren’t experiencing the state of consciousness that Buddha experienced, or great historical figures like him, but they are undergoing stages of awakening, degrees of awakening.” But I’d like to retract that just a little bit by saying that what the Buddha essentially experienced is the same thing that we all essentially experience; it’s just a matter of clarity. He experienced his own essential nature as consciousness, and he described that very beautifully, and he surely experienced it with a great degree of clarity. But he had a role, he had a mission, a job description. He was a teacher, and he was a good teacher, so he made a big impact in his day, which lasts to this day. Other people throughout history have undoubtedly experienced the very same thing, but it wasn’t their role to be a teacher, so we never heard of them. They might have just lived very private, ordinary lives. An example of this that I thought of was that, let’s say you’re walking down a road, and it’s maybe a little foggy out or something, and you see a tree. You know it’s a tree, and not a horse or something, it’s a tree, and you notice it, and you keep on walking. You don’t know what kind of tree it is or anything else, you just see it. Now, a tree scientist, whatever those are called, an arbologist or something, might walk down the same road, maybe it’s a clear day, he sees the same tree, but he knows a lot about it, and he can explain it in great detail. He could give a whole course for months on end about the tree, the genetics of it, and how you grow them, and fertilizer, and all sorts of details about the tree. Both people are having the same experience. Both people could walk up to the tree and bang their head on it, and get a goose bump on their head. They’re both experiencing the tree, but the scientist knows a lot more about it, and can talk about it eloquently, and teach others about it, and so on. So like that, this state that we call enlightenment or awakening, or whatever terminology we want to use, is universal. People in all cultures have experienced it. Some have become famous because they’re so adept at articulating it, and enabling others to experience it as well, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that their experience of it is superior to that of a person who is not a teacher by nature, or by calling. So, I think that’s the point I wanted to make. So I’d like to get started with the interview. And today’s guests are Brad and Pam Keene. They live here in Fairfield. And I’ve seen them around for years. I know Pam sort of because she used to work with my sister in a store here in Fairfield. And my sister in fact told me that Pam had had an awakening some couple of years ago. She told me that. And Pam told me today that her husband Brad also had. And so, other than that, I don’t know anything about their experience. And we’re all going to find out a lot more tonight. So, how would you like to start? What do you feel is the most simple and clear way of starting with the gist of what you consider significant about your experience? And then we’ll elaborate on that as we go along.

Brad: I think everybody should lower their expectations. I think that the habit of anticipation that’s kind of built into this community in particular. I can’t speak for others outside of this community, outside of the movement that is predominant in this community. But I know from my own experience, it’s very, very simple. It’s not complicated. It’s not exalted in the way that I think most people conceive of it prior to actually waking up. My ego hasn’t changed. My thoughts haven’t changed. My feelings haven’t changed. I’m still the same ego personality basically that I always have been since I was five years old. And the content of my mind has changed. But the structure of my mind and the basic mechanism of how I interact with the environment on the level of the ego is basically the same. And I think that what has changed, let’s go there for a minute, is my relationship to that experience. It’s no longer me.

Rick: What’s no longer me?

Brad: It’s that experience of ego and thought and feeling.

Rick: In other words, previously your ego, your thought, your feeling were the entirety of what you thought yourself to be. And now you see yourself as something more than that. Is that correct?

Brad: Well, yeah. It’s a tricky thing to talk about though. Very tricky thing for me to talk about. One of the problems that I think I know I had was that my concept of what Maharishi calls witnessing was that some other ego structure would come in and stand beside the old ego structure and say, “Okay, you go do what you’re going to do. I’m going to be this ego over here.” And that’s not my experience now.

Rick: I don’t think it’s anybody’s experience.

Brad: The other, the witness if you want to call that, is nothing. It’s no thing.

Rick: Would you call it silence?

Brad: I wouldn’t call it anything.

Rick: And yet…

Brad: It’s there by virtue of the fact that all of this is not it.

Rick: Process of elimination. Right.

Brad: And getting back to my original point about lowering expectations, it sounds sort of facetious to say that. You might think, “Well, that’s not where I want to go with my self or my self-concept. I don’t want to lower my expectations.” But what I mean by that is that it is so much more simple…

Rick: Than you thought.

Brad: More natural and intimate than what I was led to believe or what I took upon myself to conceive of.

Rick: Yeah, I’ve had people say to me… Well, I’ve had people take that very same concept and just twist it a little bit to rationalize why people who say they are awake probably aren’t in the more profound sense that people have been conceiving of. In other words, they say, “Fine, you got frustrated that you’ve been at this for decades. You’re apparently not going to get there, so you’re just lowering the bar.”

Brad: “You just gave up.”

Rick: “Yeah.”

Brad: “And you just let go.” And of course that’s the key. I mean, that was the key for me. I was a practitioner of Transcendental Meditation for 25 years. I haven’t been for the last 15. I finally got to the point where I just kind of said to myself, “I get it. I’ve transcended.” “I know what transcendental consciousness is.” “I don’t need to go back and do that again and again and again and again.” “I got it. I’m going to go out and live my life now.” This was kind of where I was at when I stopped the regular practice, which was about 1995.

Rick: But weren’t you living your life even while you were meditating? I mean, because you don’t meditate all day. You do it for so many minutes and you live your life.

Brad: My experience was that I had such deep and absorbing and charming experiences in meditation that I never wanted to come out and live my life. My fantasy for years, 10, 15 years, this chronic background fantasy that I carried around with me, I wanted a cave. And I had a wife and five kids. So, my life outside of my meditation practice was very conflicted. I was resentful of all my responsibilities and all of the pressures and expectations that I put on myself and that I felt were being put on me by my world.

Rick: It reminds me of a Stephen Wright joke. He said he broke up with his girlfriend because he wasn’t really into meditation and she wasn’t really into being alive.

Brad: Yeah, there’s a lot of truth in that.

Rick: So, I guess what you’re saying is that while you were meditating regularly all that time, you sort of couldn’t totally get into this world because you kept a foot back in that one all the time and you weren’t able to just plunge in fully and live life. And so, when you did plunge in fully by discontinuing the practice of meditation, did your experience of consciousness or the self or whatever you want to call it, diminish in any way?

Brad: Well, let me kind of put this in a historical context. When I stopped meditating, I fell off the wagon, so to speak, in a pretty big way. I got involved in alcohol and drugs.

Rick: Were you disillusioned at that point? Did you feel like, “To hell with it. I’m not getting anywhere with this and I might as well just…”

Brad: I don’t know if I ever got that clear on it. It was just sort of a gut reaction to my adult life to that point, being frustrating and not very fulfilling. But as far as your question goes, did I feel like consciousness diminished? I had the opposite experience. When I stopped meditating, I started to feel more awake.

Rick: In spite of the alcohol and drugs?

Brad: Yeah.

Rick: Really? So that didn’t muddle it up?

Brad: I don’t want to make it sound like I’m advocating alcohol and drugs, because I don’t do that now. I haven’t for several years, and I don’t recommend it. It was a mistake. It was self-destructive. It wasn’t good. It was bad. I’m clear on that. But just to let you know what I was going through at the time that I stopped the practice of TM. After a period of time, I dropped those habits, and I felt as though my program, which had before been sitting with my eyes closed in a warm, dark, quiet place, suddenly was my life and my relationship with Pam. It was about this time that Pam came into my life. It was a very natural thing to begin to live my life as my program, and to relate to Pam and be in relationship with Pam, my wife, as my spiritual path. It just kind of evolved from there.

Rick: We were talking before the interview how some people seem to have these dramatic spiritual milestones as they go along, that they can even identify, put a date on, look back on a calendar. And other people, it just kind of moves along. They know they’re progressing, but the steps of progress are kind of imperceptible. So, which has it been for you?

Brad: I’d say a little of both. There’s been times of quantum leaps. I’m sure this is a very common experience for anybody who has awakened, and noticed that the first blush of that truth in your life is like a honeymoon period. It’s, “Oh my God, this is it,” with a capital “I.” This is the big “it.” My experience was that it came and went, it came and went, it came and went. It’s funny, though, every time it came, it came back less dramatic, but deeper and more real. I don’t know if that’s an experience that others have had or not, but in my experience, it was always more simple, and more natural, and more effortless, I guess is the word, but less overwhelming.

Rick: And then when it went, did it also not go to the same degree? So it’s almost like you had this sine wave, and it kind of leveled off gradually.

Brad: Right, but it didn’t quite level off like this. It seemed as though it got… Deeper and deeper. I don’t know what other people have experienced, but that’s kind of how it went.

Rick: And how long did that go on? Or maybe it’s still going on, but when did it begin to go on, where you really noticed, “This is it,” with a capital “I,” “Honeymoon is here”? When did that first start?

Brad: Well, that honeymoon period was back in 1995.

Rick: When you started meditating?

Brad: Right. And, I don’t know, maybe a month or two or so?

Rick: A month or two what?

Brad: Maybe for a month or two, I was established in that, and then it went away for years.

Rick: And at what point did you do the drinking and drugs?

Brad: Right there in that same period of time.

Rick: Actually, during that month or two when you had it?

Brad: Kind of, yeah. I mean, the being didn’t care. It didn’t care.

Rick: Did the… Just let me know if there are any questions I ask, which you find uncomfortable, and just tell me, I don’t want to answer that. I mean, I did my fair share of drinking and drugs, mainly when I was 17, 18 years old. And when I started meditating, the thing I noticed was I felt so darn much better as a result of meditation, both during and after, than drugs or alcohol had been able to make me feel that I kind of lost the desire for them. And once or twice, I drank a couple of beers, and I noticed, “I don’t feel as good as I do when I don’t do this,” and so I just kind of never thought about it again. So, I’m wondering what the motivation would be, and I’m not saying my experience is the universal template, but what the motivation would be. Did you find that drinking or drugs actually enhanced the thing you were already having, and otherwise, why would you do them?

Brad: It wasn’t… It almost wasn’t as if they were related in any way at all. And just as a comment on what you said, you found when you were young and you started meditating that you felt better not doing drugs and alcohol, that your life was starting to move in a more positive direction. On one level, that was true of my life too, but on another level, on the level of where I was really living, which is on the level of feeling, it wasn’t happening for me at all in that way. I wasn’t feeling better. I wasn’t more fulfilled. I wasn’t happier. I wasn’t more productive in my life. I wasn’t a better person in that egoistic sense at all, and I never had that experience, which is one of the reasons why I stopped meditating. To put it in the most blunt terms, it didn’t work for me, not in that way. But obviously, there was something going on, but it didn’t make my life better, and so I bailed.

Rick: Yeah, that’s interesting. It’s funny that it wouldn’t… I don’t doubt it, and I’ve seen many examples of it, but it puzzles me sometimes. Maharishi used to use the analogy of, you could take any leg of a table and pull it, and the whole table would come along. And by that he meant that you could refine the physiology, or you can use a mental technique, which is connected, the mind is connected to the body, and that will bring the body along. And he always talked about how all the facets of life would develop simultaneously. In fact, he gave an interpretation of Patanjali’s “Eight Limbs of Yoga,” which are usually thought to progress sequentially as one develops. And he said, “No, really, they all develop simultaneously, to the degree that samadhi, or pure consciousness, develops.” And I thought that for years and believed that, but looking back, so many examples, I see exactly what you’re saying, which is that there isn’t as tight a correlation between inner subjective experiences of consciousness, or whatever you want to call them, and development of the heart, and behavior, and ethics, and all those things, as we would like to believe.

Brad: That was my experience.

Rick: Yeah. And it almost suggests that there ought to be, and needs to be, specific practices to develop each thing, if they’re not going to develop…

Brad: I would say that if you’re on a spiritual path, you need a guru in your life.

Rick: A person, a spiritual authority…

Brad: Somebody that you can be with, personally, physically, on a regular basis. Because it’s a different thing for everybody, you know? Everybody’s going to be reacting differently, growing differently, expanding differently. One size does not fit all.

Rick: Yeah. Most authorities say that, that you do need a guru. There are rare examples like Ramana Maharshi or Ammaji, who got enlightened without one. But even they would say, I mean, Ramana Maharshi said, “The mountain is my guru.” Or Arunachala, and Amma was sort of seeing the whole world as her guru. Everything was teaching her. Have you had a specific guru in your life, or are you speaking kind of wistfully? Or is Pam your guru?

Brad: Pam is my guru.

Rick: Ah, I can buy that.

Brad: And she should speak.

Rick: Well, we’ll get to Pam. In fact, you can pipe in any time. We’re just kind of carrying on here.

Pam: Well, I’m different from you, in that I didn’t grow up with the TN jargon and any of the concepts. I remember when I was explaining to my mother that I had awakened. I just said it very simply, that enlightenment is when your center shifts from the mind and emotions to yourself.

Rick: Beautiful.

Pam: She got it. Just like that.

Rick: How old were you then?

Pam: I was 54.

Rick: Oh, so not that long ago. Maybe just last year.

Pam: Yes.

Brad: Two or three years from now.

Rick: And probably your mom must have been a fairly spiritual, aware person to have gotten it just like that.

Pam: She did. I could tell that she was moving with every word.

Rick: Yeah.

Pam: And then at the end she said, “Peace.”

Rick: Nice. Does she live here in Fairfield?

Pam: She’s passed on.

Rick: Did she, or is she on the West Coast?

Pam: She was on the West Coast.

Rick: So, there’s a thought that I wanted to finish up, but I think we’re going to come back to it in the course of the whole conversation. So, you say TM was not your path, but I’ve seen you around for years. I mean, you’ve been in Fairfield for ages, but you haven’t been doing TM or never did it?

Pam: Not seriously.

Rick: Okay. So, what was your main engine, would you say, on your spiritual train?

Pam: I basically am my own guru. And I’ve had various teachers in my adult life. And I’ve been a seeker since I guess 19.

Rick: So, you’ve been a seeker. Now, did that primarily translate into reading a lot of books, or did you do certain practices? What accounts for the spiritual progress you’ve made, do you feel?

Pam: I was in different movements. I left them. When I came here, I thought it would only be fair that I should try TM. But I didn’t necessarily like it that much. So, it never stuck. It never stuck at all. And I don’t meditate now.

Rick: Would it be relevant to say what different movements you’ve gone through and what you got out of each one? If you feel like it wouldn’t be, then we don’t have to go into that.

Pam: Not necessary.

Rick: Not so relevant?

Pam: Not really. I didn’t really feel that what I did necessarily was that important.

Rick: I’ve seen examples where teachers say that, and teachers who have been actually doing spiritual practices themselves for many years, they end up getting awakened, and then they say to their followers, that they begin to accumulate, “You don’t really need to do spiritual practices. Awakening is spontaneous. It just happens. Just be. Just wake up. Snap out of it. Whatever.” And to me that always seems a little disingenuous or something, because it seems to me that it may be unlikely that they would have had their awakening had they not been doing different spiritual whatever they had been doing. It somehow brought them up to the point where awakening could be spontaneous.

Brad: I think there’s a time and a place for that instruction.

Rick: Yeah.

Brad: I mean, there’s a time and a place.

Rick: Oh, for the instruction of “Let go”?

Brad: Yeah.

Brad: “Stop all this. This is a waste of time. You don’t need it anymore. Shut up and be.”

Rick: Yep.

Brad: And, you know, there it is.

Rick: Yeah, last time I saw Amma, Ammaji, you know, the hugging saint, she gave the analogy of taking a boat across a river, and she said, “When you get to the other shore, get out of the boat. Don’t hang on to the boat. That’s not the goal.” [laughter] So, and I have another friend who’s quite young, 25 or so, and he was born to meditating parents and learned to meditate when he was four, and did it for quite a few years, I guess. But he said he was never really into it, never really enjoyed it that much. And he pretty much doesn’t meditate now, but boy, what a clear, articulate fellow. And he’s obviously speaking from his experience, very deep, profound experience of the self, or pure awareness, or whatever you want to call it. And not only that, but a clear experience of the whole subtle structure of relative creation, in terms of angels and impulses of intelligence and gods and all this stuff. It’s part and parcel of his daily experience. But it almost seems like he’s got this kind of spontaneous momentum, where he doesn’t really have to practice anything. Just his, as you were saying, the process of living his life is a very powerful spiritual practice for him. And every single thing works stuff out.

Brad: Intention, I think, is the most of the formula. If you have a desire for God, and it’s a sincere desire, “In Thee I abide.”

Rick: I’m sorry, the last phrase you said?

Brad: “In Thee I abide.” And, yeah, techniques and instruction, understanding, all of that I’m sure helps. But I think the most important thing is to be in that desire.

Rick: It’s said that when people used to come to Ramana Maharshi for instruction, the first thing he would say to them is just a Mahavakya like “That Thou Art.” They have these Vedic expressions that, if you’re ripe, are meant to be the final trigger to wake you up. And if that didn’t work, then he’d say, “OK, well, practice self-inquiry. Look into who you are and make that a regular practice.” And if that didn’t work for the person, he would say, “All right, meditate. Practice meditation regularly.” And if they really couldn’t get into that, then he’d say, “Do good works. Engage in humanitarian activities or something.”

Brad: It’s right out of the gear.

Rick: Is it?

Brad: Yeah, that’s what Krishna told Arjuna.

Pam: But the alternate is just to let go.

Rick: Do you feel that that instruction is relevant to everybody, or you really have to go through some development before it can become… You can’t walk up to the average guy on the street and say, “Hey, let go,” and expect anything to happen. Or can you?

Pam: I think it’s very individual. I think it’s the ultimate. People have to be ready for it.

Rick: I think that’s a good point. One of Maharshi’s favorite phrases was, “Knowledge is different in different states of consciousness.” And I think that’s kind of useful. Or the way Sly and the Family Stone put it was, “Different strokes for different folks.” It’s like, you can’t… And you were saying just a few minutes ago, one size does not fit all. You can’t apply the same teaching universally necessarily, because people are not all at the same stage of development, and people have to kind of find what works for them. And some people have this sort of dogged determination to stick with the same thing till death do they part. And others have gotten to a certain point where they feel like, “Well, I think I’m at the end of this. Now what?” And they move on to a different thing. And it’s not really for me to say which approach is best, but I think it can definitely work both ways. And more often than not, you find that people who are expressing really clear levels of awakening are very open-minded about what got them there and what might get others there.

Brad: Yeah.

Rick: So, at any point in this conversation, if you feel like there’s something you’d like to add, or something I’m not thinking of that you think is relevant, just bring it out. And I’ll be quiet. So, do you feel now… Well, let me ask you this, Brad. At the end, you said you had this awakening, and for a number of years you were still taking some drugs and stuff like that. And then that phase ended. Was it Pam’s influence that caused that to end, or was it something else just within yourself that you thought, “Well, this is over now”?

Brad: No, it was Pam, definitely.

Rick: And you also said that you consider Pam to be your guru. Can you elaborate on that? Would you mind? I mean… Go ahead.

Brad: Oh, well… I mean, in the most literal sense, in the sense that it’s right on the surface. She’s my teacher. And I would say that the main lesson that she’s trying to teach me at this time is that of embracing a personal God as opposed to an impersonal state of awakening. R’ And how are you trying to teach him that, Pam? And why is that important?

Pam: Well, it kind of goes with surrender, and humility, and devotion, and all of that. It kind of goes together.

Rick: And what do you mean by a personal God?

Pam: What do I mean?

Rick: Well, I mean, he’s saying you’re trying to teach him that, so you must have a way of explaining what that means.

Pam: Well… A personal God is… includes the impersonality. So it’s beyond the impersonality. I feel that an impersonal God… the realization of impersonal God is subordinate to the realization of personal God.

Rick: Is it preliminary? First one, then the other?

Pam: I think so.

Rick: For most people?

Pam: I think so, yeah.

Rick: And was it that way in your life? First realizing the impersonal, and then the personal?

Pam: It’s hard to say. Because I always believed in a personal God. But I just put that aside when I came here, and adopted all of the beliefs of this community, which I believe is impersonalism. I just put it aside, and then I awakened, and I just had to figure it out. But when I awakened, I think I would say it was impersonal.

Rick: The awakening?

Pam: Yes.

Rick: Some people… In fact, I was just listening to a guy this morning who was talking about how awakening can move in stages, and it might start in the mind, but really not touch the heart. So, like what you were saying earlier, perhaps, but being awake and yet really not having that have a tremendous impact on your behavior, or your ethics, or your feelings, or any of those things. And then it can, from there, move down to the heart level. And then he takes it another step to say it moves to the gut. And I don’t feel qualified to elaborate on those stages in great detail, but it seems that awakening can have this, and more often than not, does have this progressive nature like that. So, if that terminology helps at all, do you feel that the impersonal awakening is sort of the first stage of it, kind of on the level of the mind or something, but it doesn’t really involve the heart? Or does that terminology not help to elucidate it?

Pam: It doesn’t really help.

Rick: OK.

Pam: It does help to know that enlightenment is a relative term.

Rick: In what respect? It grows.

Rick: Right, right, right.

Pam: It changes.

Rick: Yeah, it’s like a rheostat, not an on-off switch.

Pam: Right, right.

Rick: And as far as I can tell, I may be wrong, but it’s the rheostat that has no limit. You can just keep being turned up. You used the word “belief” a few minutes ago. It’s been a long time since I’ve… I mean, I’ve never placed great stock in believing or not believing anything, although I think for years I was fairly heavily invested in a set of beliefs without really even knowing it. But even then I would have told you that what’s important is what you experience, not what you believe. At the very same time I had a whole suitcase full of beliefs that I was carrying around with me. But if you think of all the arguments that take place over religious issues and so on, all the wars that have been fought, to me it’s like people arguing over what they believe is like a couple of hungry people sitting in a room arguing over whether the meal in the next room is Indian or Italian or Chinese, rather than just going in there and eating it and experiencing it firsthand. The word “belief” is completely inappropriate once they’re in there eating. But you used the word “belief” a few minutes ago. You said you had a certain set of beliefs before you came to Fairfield, and then you kind of adopted Fairfield beliefs once you got here, and then you had an awakening, or you woke up, and you had to kind of re-evaluate everything in terms of what was meaningful to you. Can you elaborate a little bit on what your beliefs were before you came, and what they are now, having gone through those stages?

Pam: Well, I never really put that much stock in my beliefs.

Rick: Right. Kind of in the same sense that I was saying.

Pam: Yeah. It’s just I kind of grew up believing in a certain way.

Rick: Yeah, things made sense. They were explained to you, “Oh, I believe in this, that reincarnation,” or whatever.

Pam: Yeah. So, it’s not like beliefs are that important.

Rick: Right.

Brad: But when you were a little girl, you loved Jesus.

Pam: Yes, I did.

Brad: And I think that’s the difference between an impersonalist and somebody who seeks a personal relationship with a personal God. I didn’t love Jesus when I was growing up. I disdained all religion when I was growing up. And what Pam has brought into my life is the other way of looking at God.

Rick: The other meaning personal? Devotional?

Brad: The other meaning personal is a personal relationship with a personal God.

Rick: Is that Jesus?

Brad: Yeah, it could be. I don’t think it has to be.

Rick: I mean, for you.

Brad: For me? No, I’m not a born-again Christian.

Rick: Right.

Brad: No. I mean, I guess that’s not really true. Because when I said that, it didn’t feel good. I’m not a religious person. I don’t attend a church. I don’t subscribe to a particular dogma.

Rick: So, do you consider yourself a Christian? Or is that too confining?

Brad: I just feel like it’s not an appropriate description in this time, in this place, in this age.

Rick: Right.

Brad: You know, I hold Jesus in my heart. I hold Buddha in my heart. I hold Krishna in my heart. I hold Mohammed in my heart.

Rick: Right.

Brad: I hold all those expressions of the Divine equally in my heart.

Rick: And they’re all… yeah. Now, when you say “personal God”, to my mind, that implies sort of making a choice. You know, there are theoretically a lot of women that we could be married to, you and I. And we might have different relationships with each one, and we might love each one very much, each in its own way. But we have chosen a particular woman to be married to, and that’s our orientation. So, you know, like that, there are so many… I don’t have a clear concept of what a personal God is. And it seems to me that if one is going to be devoted to a personal God, that you kind of choose one. That there’s some kind of concrete point of focus. Or maybe you choose many. I’m devoted to this whole crowd of great beings, or something like that. I’m just trying to clarify what you mean by getting oriented in terms of devotion to a personal God.

Brad: It’s just a personal Other that is Divine.

Pam: That’s what I would call it too. It’s just the Other.

Brad: It’s the Other. It’s beyond… What’s that line from Dylan? It says, “As great as you are, you’re never going to be greater than yourself.” And it’s that. That to me is the definition of impersonalism. A humbler must be “I” in the totality. You say that to an ignorant man, and he thinks, “Oh God, I’m God.” “My ego structure is God.” “I, small I, am the totality.”

Rick: By the same token, when Christ said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” if he was referring to that guy who lived 2,000 years ago walking around the Sea of Galilee, that’s a very specific entity and a point in time and place. And many people interpret that as meaning a much more universal thing that he was referring to.

Brad: Yeah, but it doesn’t have to be. It can be a very personal thing that he was referring to. He could have meant it literally. And you can take it literally. It can be truth, literally, if that’s how you choose to worship.

Rick: Absolutely.

Brad: But the point is, when you ask us, or ask me, or ask Pam, “Which God do we choose?” “Which God do I choose?”

Pam: That’s like imposing a relative concept.

Brad: Yeah, it’s just a personal other. It’s very real.

Pam: Based on experience.

Brad: Yeah.

Pam: The absolute truth is simultaneously and inconceivably one and different.

Rick: Yeah, I totally get that. And I’m not trying to pin you down. I’m just trying to understand what you’re saying and clarify it. Because many people, if they said, “Worshiping a personal God,” they might have something very specific in mind.

Pam: Yeah, a particular deity.

Rick: Yeah, I might worship Krishna, or Jesus, or whoever. So I think I have a better idea of what you’re saying. And I love the point that you were just bringing out, which is that there’s this sort of inherent paradox in the structure of creation, in the structure of reality, where something can be entirely unified, and at the same time there can be diversity, and the two don’t negate one another. Or like you were saying earlier, there’s a level at which there’s nothing there, and then there’s a level at which, even the word “level” is inadequate, but a level at which there’s very much something there. You have an ego structure, you have a life, you have a personality. The two of them manage to coexist perfectly, even though they’re totally unlike one another, incomparable to one another.

Pam: Yeah, like they’re reconciled. The opposites are reconciled in the wholeness of Self.

Rick: Exactly. I couldn’t put it better. It’s worth repeating, the opposites are reconciled in the wholeness of Self. It’s the PAM sutras.

Pam: That was my experience for a few months after I awakened. As I went through what we were just talking about, it wasn’t like… Anyway, I went through this period that lasted a few months where I felt like Alice in Wonderland. It was like, one minute I’m infinite, the next minute I’m infinitesimal. One minute I’m an exalted being of light, the next minute I’m a pathetic, abused child. But all of those things became reconciled in me. But I did go through that.

Rick: Something like that was the first spiritual experience I ever had. It was when I was a kid and I had a really high fever. I probably had measles or chicken pox or something. We all got those diseases in those days. And I can remember now, distinctly, sitting in bed and having this feeling of infinite hugeness and infinite tininess at the same time, and infinite lightness and infinite heaviness at the same time. There was this feeling of massiveness and nothingness. And I just sat there and marveled at it in this delirious, feverish state. And it left an impression on me that I never forgot. I think it might have been perhaps being sick like that that broke through some little chink in the armor of my perception and gave me a taste of something of that nature. But you’ve referred a number of times to, “Well, I awakened and then I had this experience,” or “My beliefs changed,” or “This happened,” or “That happened.” Can we talk a little bit more about the actual awakening? Because it seems to have been a fairly specific incident or time.

Pam: Yeah, I think it was. I could pinpoint it to almost the hour. It happened mid-dance.

Rick: You were dancing?

Pam: Yes. I was doing sacred dance. And it was in December of 2005. And it felt like a simultaneous implosion and explosion in the heart. And I started to weep while I was dancing. And I didn’t recognize it at the time, but in the days that followed, you know.

Rick: Everything was different?

Pam: Yeah, it confirmed to me that something did change.

Rick: And it never faded away, as far as you know. Have there been subsequent breakthroughs like that, or was that the big kahuna?

Pam: That was the big one. But I felt it was stabilized when I became Kundalini complete, you know, in the lightning flash.

Rick: Oh boy, that will give us something more to talk about. So this is what year? ’95, did you say? Or 2005?

Pam: 2005.

Rick: 2005. And so you were dancing. Use the terminology again, the heart?

Pam: Imploded and exploded simultaneously.

Rick: Can you elaborate on exactly what that means, or what that experience was?

Pam: Well, I don’t know if I can get more into it than that. That’s approximate.

Rick: Okay, good enough. You know, sometimes these statements can be unpacked, and sometimes a pithy statement is as good as it’s going to get. And so then you went through a procedure of integration, stabilization, and then you said you became Kundalini complete. So you can’t leave us with that one, that’s too much of a teaser. What do you mean by Kundalini complete?

Pam: Well, that’s just when the Kundalini energy reaches the crown chakra.

Rick: And it reached it, and stayed there.

Pam: Well…

Rick: Or does it go up and down?

Pam: Ah, where does it go after it goes up? I don’t know.

Rick: Maybe it keeps going up.

Pam: What it felt like is that my material existence was then completely uprooted. I actually saw in my mind’s eye roots of a tree, and I heard the sound.

Rick: The sound of what?

Pam: The roots.

Rick: Of being torn out?

Pam: Yeah, and it was all in here. In the Bhagavad Gita it refers to that tree, the imperishable banyan, that has its roots upward and its branches down, and the goal of life is to uproot that tree.

Rick: It actually says that in the Gita?

Pam: Yes.

Rick: The goal of life is to uproot that tree?

Rick: Interesting.

Pam: I never understood it.

Rick: Yeah, you literally had that experience.

Pam: Yeah, I literally did. And then from that day on, whatever happened during my dance became stable.

Rick: And so, what caused your Kundalini to do that?

Pam: I don’t know. It happened during intercourse. And I’ve only read that the basis of the Kundalini going up to Shishuna is when the male and female parts, the Ida and the Pingala, are in equal proportion and are moving simultaneously. And that’s like the precursor for the real Shakti to move.

Rick: Right. And it just took three seconds. And it happened, I was on the brink of an orgasm, and I noticed that the muscles in the high vagina contracted, and it sent this coherent beam of light up the spine to the crown chakra, and I did just like the pictures in the books, “The Thousand-Year-Old Odyssey.” And I was able to see Milky Way and…

Rick: Galaxies and things like that.

Pam: Yeah, within me.

Rick: Just in that moment, or do you still have visions of that nature?

Pam: Sometimes I do. Sometimes I do.

Rick: Interesting.

Rick: Did you realize that was going on at the time?

Brad: I don’t think so. I don’t think I was aware of that experience you were having. I mean, it was a powerful experience. I was there, if you know what I mean. Yeah, but no, not specifically. I didn’t know.

Rick: If you don’t mind my asking, so did you guys like study Tantra or anything like that, and make sexual activity an intentional spiritual practice, or was this just kind of a spontaneous thing that happened?

Pam: We never read any books. We’re not that kind of… I’ve never read books for anything.

Rick: Just kind of exploring your own…

Pam: I think it’s just kind of innate inside of me.

Rick: Right.

Pam: It’s just my innate path.

Brad: But yeah, we definitely consider our relationship, our sexual relationship, our spiritual path, a large component of our spiritual path. In fact, we refer to it as “program.”

Rick: That’s interesting.

Brad: It’s like our sadhana, our spiritual sadhana, daily practice.

Rick: Wow. Some people… There’s this whole fuss about celibacy, and the whole spiritual literature, and tradition, and everything. Some people say that sex is draining, and it dissipates energy that would otherwise be converted into higher consciousness or higher evolution. Obviously, your experience belies that. There’s another fellow that I met here in town. We have this Wednesday night satsang every week, where we discuss spiritual experiences. He’s come a couple of times. He described something similar to what you’re saying. In fact, he said that… I can’t remember all the details of what he said, but he said that he actually…

Brad: We know who you’re talking about. It’s a small town.

Rick: I probably won’t say his name. But he said that he actually doesn’t ejaculate when he has sex, even though he has an orgasm. But somehow everything is just subsumed. So it’s interesting. I don’t know much about it, but it’s interesting to explore the different varieties of what constitutes spiritual practice, either in a clearly defined, institutionalized way, or what people just discover spontaneously, as you seem to indicate is your experience.

Pam: It’s just kind of an outgrowth of my healing.

Rick: Are you a healer?

Pam: Of sorts, I suppose.

Rick: Of your own personal healing, I see.

Pam: Yes, it kind of grew out of my own sexual healing. I just awakened.

Rick: What do you mean by sexual healing?

Pam: I was abused.

Rick: Oh, okay.

Pam: I have a pretty fair history of sexual abuse. And as I began to heal those issues, it was almost spontaneous when I did heal the issues. Just all of these different ways of evolving just awakened.

Rick: That’s interesting. So, let’s see now, you both said around the same time, ’95. No, yours was ’95, yours was 2005, in terms of your initial awakening. You’ve each gone in your own way.

Pam: I had a similar awakening. That was back in 1987. I would describe it though as an unembodied, I don’t know.

Rick: Disembodied?

Pam: Yeah, it wasn’t like…

Rick: It wasn’t an embodied awakening.

Pam: Like when I was dancing, that was definitely in the body. But back in 1987, I experienced another kind of awakening. That’s very similar to what I think you’re talking about.

Rick: More impersonal?

Pam: Yeah.

Rick: And after that, did you feel like sort of detached, or this witnessing thing that people describe, where there’s a sense of uninvolvement or silence, no matter what you’re doing in activity, and so on? And that went on ever since ’87, more or less?

Pam: Not ever since. It just kind of went away.

Rick: Oh, okay. P

Pam: But it was pretty strong there for a while. I couldn’t hold on to it.

Rick: Well, not holding on to it, meaning to retain it.

Pam: Yeah.

Rick: I see. Did you have a thing similar to what your husband said, where there’s a sense of, “Yeah, fine, I’m a personality. I have an ego. I have emotions and all that. But at the very same time, I’m not those things. I’m something completely other than that.”

Pam: Yeah.

Rick: Yeah. And do you still have that, or did that kind of fade away with the experience?

Pam: I still have that.

Rick: You still have that.

Pam: It’s permanent.

Rick: Some people say that there’s a sort of a predominance of one or the other, like, “Predominantly, I feel like I’m this universal awareness, and secondarily, I’m personal.” And others say, “Well, the universal quality is usually kind of in the background, and I can notice it if I check, but it’s sort of secondary to just my personal experience.” And others still seem to say that both things are just part of a larger whole. That phrase you used about ten minutes ago was so beautiful. I don’t know if you can come up with it again, but the wholeness somehow contains…

Pam: You had the opposites, or the concealed and the wholeness of self. Is that what you mean?

Rick: Yeah. Do you feel that anything can perturb that wholeness these days, or is it so comprehensive?

Pam: It is so strong. And I have to say, it’s kind of put to the test. When 11 months ago, I had a heart attack.

Rick: Really?

Pam: Mm-hmm.

Rick: Wow, you don’t look like the heart attack type. [laughter]

Pam: It was definitely hereditary.

Rick: Runs in the family.

Pam: Runs in the family, yeah.

Rick: And that’s funny, because one of my other guests who came in here had a heart attack. And we were talking about how that put to the test his experience.

Pam: So how was that for you?

Pam: Well, I’m not afraid.

Rick: Of dying, you mean?

Pam: Yeah.

Rick: Yeah.

Pam: I completely trust. I’m not afraid. I don’t have any deep fears. I think, you know, little fears.

Rick: Yeah.

Pam: Little fears, but no real deep fears.

Rick: When you’re in the midst of the heart attack– Can we get you some water or something?

Pam: Yeah, that would be great.

Rick: Yeah. Hey, Brian? Could you get her some water?

Brian Hawthorne:  Sorry, what?

Rick: Some water. Yeah. Thanks. When you were in the midst of the heart attack, was there this– how did you deal with it? How did you experience it from the perspective of someone in whom wholeness is predominant and contains and reconciles the parts? Or does it like, you forget all that and then, “Man, I am having a heart attack and I am in pain and this is scary and…”

Pam: No, it’s pretty simultaneous.

Rick: Huh.

Pam: But the one predominates. The knowing. Knowing predominates.

Rick: So even then the knowing predominated.

Pam: Yes.

Rick: It’s not like the heart attack got the upper hand.

Pam: No. It was always there. It will never leave me.

Rick: Hmm. All right. Thanks, Brian. You don’t even have to edit this out. This is very informal. Here you go.

Pam: Thank you.

Rick: It’s interesting because I sometimes wonder– I don’t feel that I’ve had an awakening as clear and as profound as you’ve had, but there’s always this sort of unperturbable thing. I can be exhausted having not slept and running through an airport trying to catch a connecting flight and out of breath, lungs burning, but there’s this sort of silence that’s almost loud. But I sometimes wonder, “Geez, what if I really put to the test?” Some severe physical pain or torture or something like that. I don’t know.

Brad: Well, you’ll find out.

Rick: Yeah, hopefully not. Don’t want to find out.

Pam: I’m just not afraid of anything now. I mean, that was quite severe.

Brad: The thing was we were reading scripture at the time that this occurred. We were reading Bhagavatam. The verse we were reading was talking about how important it was to have one’s awareness on the divine, on God, at the time of death. Suddenly this stabbing pain doubles Pammy over. It wasn’t technically a heart attack. It was an aortic aneurysm. The aorta actually got dissected. Yes.

Rick: Whoa. That can kill you pretty quick.

Brad: Yeah.

Pam: I was very fortunate.

Rick: You just got to the hospital real fast?

Brad: No, we waited for a couple of hours thinking it was gas.

Rick: Oh.

Brad: I couldn’t believe it.

Rick: Well, it must have been a small aneurysm. Otherwise, you would have bled to death.

Pam: It was pretty big.

Rick: Really?

Pam: I mean, when the surgeon actually went in there, he couldn’t believe how much damage was caused.

Rick: Wow.

Pam: And my operation was like twice as long as a normal one.

Rick: Because of the damage?

Pam: Because of all the damage.

Rick: Huh. Amazing. Well, I’m glad you pulled through.

Pam: Yeah, but as a result, you know, I’m not afraid of death.

Rick: Yeah. You might have been afraid before that, I guess.

Pam: Yes. I had my doubts. Like you.

Rick: Yeah.

Pam: You know, I’m wondering, you know, is it just what they talk about in the books? I mean, just because we’re awakened, I mean, does that really count for anything when you’re dying? I mean, does it really? I mean, how can you know?

Rick: I don’t feel like I’m afraid of death, but I don’t particularly relish the process of dying, you know? Because that might not be a picnic. I mean, you know, as they say, I hope I just go quietly in my sleep, like my grandfather, not like all the people in his car who were screaming in terror. You know. It’s like I’m not afraid of what may be on the other side, even if there’s nothing on the other side. Although I’m quite confident there is. But the process of going through that, you know, if it’s a difficult one. I heard an interesting story this morning. I was listening to this fellow Adyashanti talk, and he was talking about his Zen teacher’s teacher, and he was dying of cancer. The person who was attending to him brought him some tea, and as she was getting ready to put the teacup down, he went into this coughing fit, you know, and he was in agony and coughing. And she put the teacup down very abruptly so that it almost spilled and broke. And he said, “Be careful of the teapot.” And she said, “I don’t care about the teapot. I want to take care of you.” And he said, “I am the teapot.” So even in the midst of severe illness and pain and discomfort, that knowing that he is everything, everything is contained within him, wasn’t shaken.

Pam: Beautiful. Yeah. Wonderful.

Rick: Do either of you have a sense of mission? Some people I talk to have this sense that, “My life is taking on a new purpose now. It is something I am meant to do, something I am meant to fulfill or achieve or convey to the world.” You know, some such thing. Do you have anything like that, or is it more like, “We are just living our lives, and nothing major is going on.” Am I getting at something here?

Pam: We do have a mission.

Rick: Can we talk about it? It is not a mission unless you talk about it.

Pam: I almost didn’t want to. Oh my God.

Rick: We want to make this as entertaining as possible.

Pam: It would require probably another sitting.

Rick: Well, we could do another sitting, you know. I mean, if you want to wrap it up, we can have a whole other session, “Pam and Brad’s Mission.” Or we can go on now, we have got time. It is a two-hour disc.

Brad: Let me just give them a few.

Rick: Give me some teasers, and then we will have people enticed for the next session.

Brad: Maybe I will start, and then you can…

Pam: All right, you start.

Brad: All right. Well, Pam’s story, she was phobic of dance her entire life. I mean, major phobia. Couldn’t go to wedding receptions and things like that. Couldn’t go to the school dances. Didn’t even like listening to music because of the possibility that, you know, there would be some dance inspired in the atmosphere or in the environment or something.

Rick: Interesting.

Brad: And about, what, six, eight years ago now? How long ago?

Pam: Eight years ago.

Brad: Eight years ago, she began to work with a healer here in town to address the phobia. And over the course of time, I don’t know, a year or two, how long was it?

Pam: Before I started dance?

Brad: Yeah.

Pam: About a year?

Brad: About a year. She actually worked through this phobia into a form of sacred dance that comes through her. There is no teacher that she has. There is no tradition that she is, you know, in lineage of. It is just something that just comes through her. And you can jump in any time.

Pam: It is a long story.

Brad: But the healing power of this dance is phenomenal because what comes through her is total and complete surrender to the will of God. Right? And that is what…

Pam: Pull out all the stops.

Brad: Yeah, it is very out of the box in the sense that it is not a public performance by any stretch of the imagination.

Rick: You do it in your living room or something.

Brad: Well, we actually have been working with people. We have a group of people, a couple of groups of people that we have been working with over the last three or four years. Around the power of this dance, we have brought people into our homes and we have had them prepare for three or four days to let go. And then we all go to what we call our temple space and Pam does the sacred dance. I think you should probably pick it up from here.

Pam: Well, it is my way of sharing pure love. And the effects are quite profound. Many awakenings. Many, many awakenings.

Rick: People to add to my list.

Pam: Yeah, we will tell you about them. It is very powerful. It is just the most powerful thing.

Rick: So it is not like you just dance for them, but you kind of enable them to dance as you do, in their own way?

Pam: Well, I just allow the energy to dance me. And they let go in whatever way and to whatever extent they can. Whatever that means and whatever that looks like. So they may be dancing or they may just be sitting there? It can take any external form. There can even be union between people. But that is rather rare that people could actually let go that deeply, to that degree, because most people can’t do that.

Rick: Yeah, in a public gathering. I mean, not public, but in a group of people.

Pam: Well, that is not really an issue in that sacred space. It is just that most people are not able to let go. First you have to work through the mental issues and all of the emotional issues before the body can start to let go.

Rick: Right.

Pam: And that is kind of what is usually happening.

Rick: Right.

Pam: I mean, with me it does, because that is the dance.

Rick: Yeah.

Pam: Anyway, it is a profound vehicle for awakening.

Rick: And so if you see it as a mission, that implies that somehow it will become more widespread. You will be able to enable others, more and more people, to do it.

Pam: It has definitely been in just the beginning stages.

Rick: How do you envision it unfolding? Like the kind of thing where people who are doing it with you would get so adept at it that they in turn would be able to do it with other groups of people and it would just sort of spread in it.

Pam: Yeah, well right now I am in the process of guiding a couple of women to be dancers.

Rick: I see.

Pam: But it has taken a long time. My first dance was in, what, 2006? That was one group that I danced them every month until they could not handle it anymore. And the group basically disbanded because too many buttons were pushed. And that was the end of the first group. Then we got together another group in 2008. That group lasted two months. Then we danced again in 2009 with another group, which consisted of graduates in the first two groups.

Rick: Kind of more hand-picked from the first groups.

Pam: Yeah, and you know, they are still going, but in the meantime I have a heart attack.

Rick: Yeah.

Pam: So everything has kind of been put on hold. But right now I am guiding two ladies to be dancers. And what could possibly happen, I could see, is they could become adept at dancing. It is not like just something that you can just sign up for and become a dancer. It is like you have to achieve a certain level of surrender. You have to pass, basically, initiations. So we can determine if the person is surrendered.

Rick: So you have a way of qualifying or determining whether a person has reached a certain stage.

Pam: Yeah.

Rick: Is it possible to describe how you can determine that? Or is it kind of more a subjective, perceptual thing from within you?

Pam: The latter.

Rick: So it is not something you can write the steps down.

Pam: No, it is not like that. And you know, I never thought I would be getting to this.

Rick: Yeah.

Pam: Or at least I never thought it would take this long.

Rick: Right.

Pam: I thought it was not going to take more than a few months.

Rick: That is what Maharshi said when we started the TM Movement. He said, “In three years I am going to enlighten the world.”

Pam: Yeah, sort of like that. Anyway, so finally after, what, three years, I finally have two candidates who may or may not be ready.

Rick: Has my sister ever come to one of those things? She being a dancer?

Pam: No, but I love her too.

Rick: Does she know about it?

Pam: Oh, yeah.

Rick: Probably a little.

Pam: I would love for her, she involved too.

Brad: Couples have to come as couples.

Rick: I see.

Pam: Yeah. Because, you know, we really do support monogamy.

Rick: Right.

Pam: Yes.

Rick: Huh.

Pam: That is one of our programs.

Rick: Right.

Pam: And then we have some other programs that maybe we are not that prepared to talk about at this time. But the mission is to bring more enlightenment to this planet, create masters, lift the planet.

Rick: Great. It needs all the help it can get.

Rick: Yeah, because, you know, especially, you know, the topic of sex, there is so much confusion, so much baggage, so much, you know, it is a loaded topic.

Brad: Fear and greed.

Pam: You know, people are stuck there is what I am trying to say.

Rick: Uh-huh.

Pam: And this dance is great at dismantling those blocks. In fact, you know, there is one couple that has been dancing with us, you know, since the beginning. They have completely transformed their marriage. The first time they came over to our house, they were fighting, you know, they had issues.

Rick: Yeah.

Pam: And now, they have completely transformed their marriage. She has completely overcome all of her sexual abuse issues. She is completely freed in that level, completely freed up. So, that is just one of the side effects of this work. But the ultimate goal of this work is beyond enlightenment even.

Rick: And it is? What is it beyond enlightenment? What is that goal that is beyond enlightenment? Are you talking about some more global kind of thing?

Pam: Returning to Divine Mother’s world. Returning home.

Rick: And what is the Divine Mother’s world that we would return to if enough people did this? What would the world… Are you talking about having this world become like Divine Mother’s world?

Pam: Oh, that could happen.

Rick: Or are you referring to something else?

Pam: Well, there is a spiritual world and then there is this world. But it certainly is possible, at least I hope, through this work, that who knows, maybe the planet could transform into it. Join the fleet of spiritual planets.

Rick: I like that idea. I sort of feel like we are not really welcome in the club yet, because we are such a bunch of idiots down here. So, does this dance thing have a name, so we don’t have to refer to it as the dance thing?

Pam: Yeah, well, we have called it, you called it, you named it after me.

Rick: Pam.

Pam: We call it Sharanalila.

Rick: Oh, that was your email address, Sharanalila.

Pam: Sharana is my name. It was revealed to me back in the 80s and it means surrender. And Lila, of course, means dance.

Rick: Does it have a… Is that an actual Sanskrit word, Sharana?

Pam: Uh-huh.

Rick: Okay, good. Let’s call it Sharanalila. Now, is Sharanalila something primarily for couples, or does a single person just come to it and participate, without a partner?

Pam: Yes.

Rick: Okay, so it is not just a partner thing.

Pam: Right, it is definitely not a partner thing.

Rick: But if a person is married, do you want them to come as a partner?

Pam: Most definitely. You know, this… How do you intend… You are announcing this now, because this interview will go on YouTube and people all over the world will watch it. So it is very likely that someone, someplace, will say, “Hey, I want to put together a group and have Pam come out here and start teaching us this.” Is that your intention, to move around and meet with different groups of people and find likely interested candidates and so on? Good. So do you want to actually give out some sort of contact information on this show in order to have people… like your email address or something? Or would you… My email address always shows up at the end of these, and people can contact me and I can put them in touch with you, if you would rather do it that way.

Pam: What should we do, honey?

Brad: Give them your email address.

Pam: Okay.

Rick: You can always change it, if it gets out of hand.

Pam: Yeah. Change from Hotmail to Gmail or something.

Pam: It probably won’t. It’s very intimidating.

Rick: Well, you don’t have to. It’s up to you.

Pam: Well, you know, should we…

Rick: Yeah, just describe your email address and spell it out, and if people are watching this and they’re interested, they’ll send you an email.

Pam: Okay. My email address is sharanamrita, S-H-A-R-A-N-A-M-R-T-A at hotmail.com.

Rick: The first time you told me that, I thought it was R-I-T-A, but it’s just R-T-A.

Pam: R-T-A.

Rick: Right. So, say it one more time. sharanamrita S-H-A-R-A-N-A-M-R-T-A

Rick: at hotmail.com.

Pam: That’s correct.

Rick: And your name is Pam Keene. So, if someone is interested in finding out more about…

Pam: Sharanalila.

Rick: Sharanalila. There you have it, her email address. And you can send her an email and she’ll tell you more.

Pam: Oh, boy.

Rick: There you go.

Pam: That wasn’t too hard.

Rick: That wasn’t too hard. I mean, you know, if you have the desire to…

Pam: Well…

Rick: If you do have a sense of mission, like, “This is something I want to share with a larger circle of people,” then you’ve got to start tooting your horn a little bit.

Pam: That’s true.

Brad: Yeah.

Rick: And it sounds like it’s the kind of thing that is not going to be easy to kind of package. Like, you know, buy your Sharanalila tapes and do it on your own or something. It sounds like it’s going to definitely take a rather adept person, such as yourself, to work closely and intensively with a small group and, you know, kind of get them to the point where they might in turn work with small groups. So, you know, some things are like that. I mean, there are some teachers and teachings who have thousands coming to them, and others prefer to work with a handful. And I think each has its place.

Brad: Yeah, right now it’s all Pam, basically. So, until she can train others to do what she’s doing, it will be her. But it’s really very, very special what comes through her.

Rick: Right.

Brad: And it’s even beyond the training. You know, I mean, to talk about training others… People tend to think, I would think, in terms of learning a kind of dance or something, or even learning another kind of dance very deeply and very totally and very completely. But this is about total surrender.

Rick: More like a transmission.

Brad: Yeah, well, yeah, it’s like opening yourself up, surrendering yourself, and achieving that level of humility and surrender, whereby you are just an instrument of the will of God, with a specific intention. And that’s what the dance is. That’s what she does in this dance. It’s almost like she has to die every time. I mean, preparation for the dance is like dying, is how Pammy describes it. It has to go that deep. And to train people to do that…

Pam: I’m going to have to think of something else now, because I’m not afraid of dying.

Rick: Yeah! Well, you know, it’s not the first time that we’ve heard of the concept of sacred dances. I mean, dancing is in some context considered to be a sacred thing, a sacred path. I mean, the Native Americans have all kinds of sacred dances, the Whirling Dervishes, and certain forms of Indian dance are considered sacred. So it seems like you’ve just discovered your own form of it, your own expression of it, which, who knows, might become a more widespread tradition over time, or maybe not. Maybe it’s just in your circle of influence, this is the way you’re going, this is what you have to give. I don’t know. Do you have music playing while you’re doing it, or is it in silence, or what?

Pam: Brad usually chooses the music.

Rick: So you play something.

Pam: But it’s optional. It certainly doesn’t, certainly don’t require it. Sometimes it helps to move the energy, but sometimes it’s not necessary.

Rick: Well, Fairfield is an interesting town. I mean, there are things going on all over the world, but there’s a lot of things happening in Fairfield. It’s kind of a concentrated place, where there’s all sorts of little groups doing all kinds of things, and most of the stuff you don’t even know about, because you’re living your own life, and people are living theirs. But there’s this sort of… I mean, among other things, we have a thousand Vedic pundits here in town, chanting the Vedas all day long. So it’s an interesting place for a little town of 10,000 in the middle of the cornfields.

Brad: Yes.

Rick: So is there anything that… I mean, we could probably do a whole other interview at some point, if you want to, when you feel like things have evolved with your mission, with Sharanam Lila…

Pam: Sharanalila.

Rick: Sharanalila, to the point where there’s much more to say about it. But for now, do you feel like there’s anything of significance that I may have missed, or that we may not have spoken about? Any kind of concluding thoughts that you’d like to make, either of you? Something you’d like to leave people with?

Brad: I think what I would like to leave people in this town with… I have friends in this town, many friends in this town. I’ve lived here for 25 years. They’re very regular in their practice at TM. They go to the dome every day.

Rick: Let me just interject, TM is Transcendental Meditation, and the dome is some large domes up on the campus of Maharshi University of Management. Yeah, for collective practice of TM. Where people all meditate together. Just, we don’t know who’s… Okay.

Brad: And I see them, and I see that they’re awake, and they don’t know it. I drive by them and I see them, or I talk to them and I feel them. I just want to encourage them to be open to that possibility. And as I said in the beginning, lower your expectations. There’s so much baggage that comes along with the concept of awakening. It’s important to unload that baggage. Get it out of the way. The truth isn’t a concept. The truth is not a belief system. The truth is itself. And I think that there is a tendency to hang on to understandings and concepts to the point where they become attachments that stand between someone and the truth. I mean, there is more than enough consciousness in these people. Transcending twice a day for 10, 20, 30 years, you’ve got it. That’s enough. You don’t need any more. It’s a simple thing. You know it.

Rick: Well, that was one of the motivations in doing this show, was just that I felt like there’s a fairly large segment of the community who, just as you described, has been meditating for decades and they’ve basically got it, but they’re kind of very resistant to the suggestion that anybody actually has gotten it.

Brad: It’s institutionalized ignorance.

Rick: Yeah, and you suggest that, “Oh, there are all these enlightened people in town, all these awakened people,” and they put an interpretation on that to make it impossible, at least for them to accept. In fact, I’ve had people insist to me that, “Unless you can levitate, you are not awakened. You’re just not there.” And talk about lowering the bar. I’ve never seen anybody levitate, but I’m sure I’ve seen plenty of enlightened people.

Brad: I’ve never seen anybody levitate either.

Rick: And yeah, I accept that it’s possible to levitate, but I can no longer accept, based on so many experiences, that it’s a necessary precondition or symptom of awakening. And it’s like, as I was saying in the very beginning, a whole range of people can be awakened and have that same essential inner experience, but manifest or reflect it very differently, according to their makeup, their skills, their dharma, as it’s called, their job description. And some people may have the ability to levitate, just as some people are great violin players. But not having that ability does not mean that you’re not experiencing the essential nature of life, of reality.

Pam: And it’s so important to acknowledge that awakening, and celebrate, because it becomes the basis of future progress.

Rick: Yeah. As a matter of fact, Maharishi himself, since we’re speaking kind of tangentially of people who are followers of Maharishi, used to say that doubt is the greatest impediment to awakening, or to enlightenment. And he would always encourage people to doubt the doubts. And in fact, every time I was in India with him for four months on a course, and every night it was somebody’s birthday, and he would always do the birthday celebration by wishing happy birthday to the already enlightened Brad, or whoever. He kept saying, “Already enlightened, already enlightened.” And everyone was saying, “What does he mean we’re already enlightened? We’re just a bunch of dunces here, how can he say that?” But, you know, what was he saying? I mean, personally I think that on one level everybody’s already enlightened, because we’re all plugged into that same thing, which if we become sufficiently aware of it, we by definition are enlightened. But, you know, it’s a matter of clarity, and as you say, there are so many people listening to this, or in this community, who have enough clarity. They’ve been on a spiritual path for decades, and is it going to just be one more course, one more technique, one more oil massage, or is there something in the understanding that could dissipate, dispel the doubt, and get it over with?

Brad: Yeah, yeah.

Rick: So, we’ve made a chink in the armor, perhaps, with this discussion. And I guess we’ll leave it at that. So, thanks a lot for coming in. Brad and Pam came in on very short notice, I just called them last night, because the person that I had scheduled to come in couldn’t make it after all. So I really appreciate you coming in on short notice.

Brad: You’re very welcome, thank you for having us.

Rick: You made a great contribution. As I mentioned earlier, at the end of this show there will be some titles, which will be on the screen long enough, or if you’re watching this on the computer you can pause it, so you’ll be able to write things down. But there’s a chat group associated with this show, where people are discussing these things all day long. There’s a YouTube channel where these interviews are being posted, and you can watch previous ones, and so on. My email address will be there, in case you want to get in touch with one of the guests, and Pam gave out hers earlier in the interview. I intend to turn this into podcasts, I may have, by the time you watch this, so that you can listen in your car, and so on. So there’s all kinds of possibilities, and you’ll see that in the titles. I thank you very much for watching, and we’ll see you next time. This has been Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer. My guests have been Brad and Pam Keene. Thank you.