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Rick Archer: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer, and my guest this week for the second time I’ve interviewed him is Eli Jackson bear. Welcome, Eli.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: Thank you Rick, good to see you again.
Rick Archer: yeah, I listened just this past week to our original interview and I was kind of amazed at how much we covered in a one hour period. So I recommend that anyone listening to this one, also go back and listen to that one. And hopefully we’ll be able to cover some fresh ground in this one, although there’s really nothing new to talk about is the same old thing. Eli has just come out with a 10-year anniversary edition of a book he wrote called sudden awakening. And I’ve read the book cover to cover and also skimmed it a second time. It was very enjoyable book to read. Last week I interviewed C Y Ramana your brother, Papaji disciple. Yukio Ramana. Japanese fella.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: Oh, Yukio.
Rick Archer: Yeah. I think he used to work with him. And yeah, and one thing he
Eli Jaxon-Bear: told us the name Yukio.
Rick Archer: Oh, did you? Okay. And you and he actually worked together. But the reason I bring that up, I mean years ago, the reason I bring that up is that he quotes at one point he quotes Papaji is referring to awakening, in a sense, as just the beginning, and that there’s a sort of a wealth of unfoldment, that that can take place after that. So I thought I might start with that question. Since this is a 10th anniversary of this book. You know, looking back on the previous 10 years, do you feel like there’s been a deepening or a maturation or a refinement or something of the awakening, which inspired this book?
Eli Jaxon-Bear: Well, you know, I just returned from our trip back to Lucknow to my teachers home every 20 years, 20 years since I’ve been in India. And people say they notice a deepening, they notice a change. But as for myself, I can’t see that. I can see that. Life continues unfolding that waking up is the beginning of life. It’s not the end, it’s the end of suffering. That’s the beginning of life. Right? everything unfolds from that. There’s a continual deepening, but I can’t say that the the realization hasn’t deepened in any particular sense. But I guess my incarnation has changed in some way.
Rick Archer: Would it be fair to say that the realization doesn’t change there’s sort of a non changing quality to it so so to speak, but the reflection of it or the embodiment of it, or could betray it could deepen or refine or enrich?
Eli Jaxon-Bear: It definitely does? Yeah, they’re definitely tests along the way. And in that test, testing that happens, it’s it’s like you shed like my expenses, like it’s a shedding of icebergs that you’re not even aware that are there. Everything falls away in its own particular way. And I not being aware of it before it falls away. Realization is the same but after it falls away. There’s a refreshing I don’t know what you’d call
Rick Archer: sort of a positive connotation to Joni Mitchell’s phrase, you don’t know what you got till it’s gone.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: Questions?
Rick Archer: Yeah. There was a couple of chapters short chapters in your book, which really directly address something that I’m chewing on these days. I thought I might also kind of start with a discussion of that. On page 28, you say, the universe is the expression of the I thought the reverberation of I. And then on the next, then is this chapter, the one cosmic being and then they all sort of go together, so the couple of pages after that you say the universe is an intelligent design that gives rise to organisms capable of intelligently investigating the paradoxical experience of form, transcending form, the cosmic being is waking up out of its starry slumber of unconscious dreaming. I thought that was beautiful and yeah, any comments on that?
Eli Jaxon-Bear: I’m glad to hear it. I had no idea
Rick Archer: Well, you know, one of the impressions that got him reading your book was that, you know, this verse book obviously has to have been written by someone who is living the experience, I don’t think there was a depth of, of understanding that came through that could not be merely intellectual.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: That’s good. Because, you know, my teacher said that even parents can be taught to speak the words of Satsang. But the paradox is, is that if you’re ripe, and you’re ready, then if you’ve been here from a parent, that can be enough to wake you up. Yeah. And so, you know, we have weighed on who is delivering a load of wood with an itinerant wood cutter. Here’s some monks who are not awake, but her chanting the Diamond Sutra, and just in hearing it, he wakes up. So you know, the message can be conveyed in so many different forms. But if, if you’re right for it, if you’re ready for it, then the explosion of realization is calling you all the time in different forms in different ways. Yeah.
Rick Archer: I want to talk a lot about ripening in this conversation. And you know, how does one become more ripe and so on. But before we go on to that, here’s another thing related to the thing I just said, maybe we can delve into, I have this feeling of oneness needs duality, in order to know itself or to put it a different way, oneness creates duality in the process of knowing itself. And you seem to address that on page 35, you say the Light of Consciousness is ever present, its apparent veiling reflects its own power to create an illusion of a universe so that it can meet itself see itself and love itself?
Eli Jaxon-Bear: Yes, well, that’s the experience whether, you know, whether there’s intention behind it or not, who can say, but you know, it’s like, in the, we know, there was a big bang, we know, there was certainly there was a nothing and then there’s a something and that’s something is this is consciousness that is now exploded into all forms and from the loneliest to the most elevated. And so then as it comes to realize itself, it’s seen through its own veils, it’s seen through its own creation. So it’s a mystery of lovemaking really, is consciousness loving itself in all forms.
Rick Archer: The reason I find that fascinating is that usually people when they begin to think about Enlightenment, get interested in it. And so they, they approach it from the perspective of the personnel, they think, I am going to get enlightened, oh, boy, it’s going to be great. But this flips it around, and, and kind of presents it from the perspective of the universal, you know, we are that waking up to itself through the instrumentality of a form that that has created, in order to wake it and awaken to itself really, and to have that to sort of live it as a living reality.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: That’s it. That’s, that’s right. And so then, you know, it’s like, if we realize that we’re a finger, and the finger is not separate from the hand, it is different from the hand and as a different function, you can cut off the finger, and you still have the hand. So the finger has a unique place, and it’s unique function. And it can wake up and realize the totality. But it’s, it’s still it’s a finger. Its finger this is it’s not a problem. It’s a joy, actually.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I interviewed someone a few weeks ago, we were talking about the fact that, you know, a lot of people say, Well, I am not the body. But then you go, she said, Oh, go stick that person with a pin. And they say what, wait, yeah, I’m not also, there is this body here, and I am concerned about not having it stuck with pins. But I think it’s it seems to be a matter of what one’s primary affiliation is identification.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: It’s really about identification. And when you realize the true identity of yourself, that includes everything includes the body, it includes everything. So the only one who could say I am not the body is somebody that’s separate. So there’s somebody that separate is the only issue that keeps you from the realization of totality.
Rick Archer: Hmm. And yet, doesn’t that also serve as a vehicle to that realization? It’s sort of the vehicle? Yes, it
Eli Jaxon-Bear: is the vehicle, right? So it’s like, you know what, the ego is not an enemy. The ego is the vehicle to liberation. It’s only the ego that suffers. It’s only the ego that begins the spiritual search. It’s only this identification is in me, that has to find the truth. It’s beautiful. It’s all part of the integrity of the whole process, so that you can’t fight the ego, you can’t kill the ego, because only the killer would be left and the soul. It’s not about making war with any part of yourself. It’s about separating from any part of yourself. I’m not the body I’m not the ego. Only the ego would say that. And so what tends to happen in our culture is we tend to spiritualize ego and we end up with a spiritual ego that has all these beliefs. I am one I am not the body I am consciousness. I am love but it’d be terms of spiritualized eco preaching, rather than the freshness of discovery of not knowing.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I also get the sense that I hear people talking that way that they’re very much in their heads, they’re kind of intellectualizing something that really shouldn’t be lived on a more visceral level. It’s like you’re standing outside a restaurant and saying, Oh, the curry is so tasty, you know, but you’re not actually eating the curves. Here’s another little passage from your book, page 59, when the individuated unique personality returns to its homogenous source, the individuated personality knows itself to be a prism, that conscious love shines through. Love that,
Eli Jaxon-Bear: oh, thank you. So then that’s again, now the the body mind is not the issue, it’s actually the expression, it becomes the unique only you have that particular point of view in the whole universe. And that’s where conscious love shines through your body and uses your speech and speaks with your words. That’s the beauty
Rick Archer: that a friend is fond of saying that we’re all sense organs of the infinite. Yeah. And each sense organ has a different function. And
Eli Jaxon-Bear: each since organism is unique, and expresses the same, that expresses that same freshly, and in its own particular language and form,
Rick Archer: yeah, essentially, to consider though that you know, I’m in the nose smells by virtue of consciousness, the eyes see, by virtue of consciousness, so there’s kind of a fundamental subject substratum, that, like you, I like the hand and the fingers, you know, the palm is common to all the fingers, but each finger has its individuality. And its separate function. I don’t mean to be preaching here, I’m just kind of playing, playing with ideas. I just listened to an interview with a skeptic, an atheist, yesterday or so. And he was kind of arguing about evolution. And you refer to a bit to Darwin and evolution in your book. And you know, this, this idea of random mutation, devoid of any sort of intelligence, and the more I listen to it, the more I thought, you know, I guess I don’t agree with Darwinian evolution, I must be an intelligent design person or something, because I feel that there’s
Eli Jaxon-Bear: is intelligent design. Yeah, false distinction. It’s crazy. I mean, how more intelligent can there be than evolution? It’s, it’s the brilliance is the genius that’s inherent in life itself, that life itself is informed by consciousness is an expression of consciousness. And so is evolution, the intelligent product of that, I mean, to call evolution, something separate from intelligent design, it’s a, it’s a false dichotomy.
Rick Archer: And it amazes me that an intelligent scientific person can fail to see that I mean, can look at anything, you know, that a heart surgeon could be an atheist, or an astronomer, or anything boggles my mind. Because what they’re kind of looking at this awesome display of divine intelligence,
Eli Jaxon-Bear: because they’ve been conditioned by what they’ve been taught that God is, I’m an atheist, and as deeply as they
Rick Archer: are, oh, big old guy in the sky with a beard. Yeah, exactly. There’s
Eli Jaxon-Bear: no God. Yeah, it’s a literary fiction. Mostly what people consider God has been made up of literary fiction, and they read about it.
Rick Archer: So how would you define God?
Eli Jaxon-Bear: Well, you’ve already done it,
Rick Archer: I’ve done it. Just as are all pervading intelligence.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: Yes, all pervading intelligence, the consciousness that is before the Big Bang, and expresses itself in the Big Bang and discovers itself through the products, byproducts of the Big Bang.
Rick Archer: Although I think some people deny that too, but we don’t have to dwell on that. It just kind of seems so evident. Okay, here’s another point you made, the experience of awakening is, is completely personal, different for each person. We’ve touched on this already. But, you know, expound on that a bit, how their awakening could have different flavors, according to the taster.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: Each one of us is unique. No one else occupies your moment in time and space. And so it’s completely fresh, unknown. And when it gets expressed through you, the same ocean of consciousness, expresses itself and experiences itself uniquely, freshly, in an unknown way and speaks with an unspoken tongue.
Rick Archer: Perhaps the takeaway point from that is, don’t get too hung up on comparing yourself with other people’s descriptions of awakening or Enlightenment, you know, because it may not show up in the same way for you.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: It definitely won’t show up in the same way. And that’s the egoic mind of comparison that keeps you separate from what it is you’re searching for. So really, it’s so simple to simply stop the stop to give up the search to not look for something indifferent, to not look for something new, that look for something outside of yourself. And that stopping is really the secret to liberation is that go to the past and not touch the future. And then people miss identify that by saying, Well, I’m just being here now. But who is where exactly. So that we considered like when rom das first writes, be here now, it’s just no psychedelic hippies who get it. And then when Eckhart Tolle does the power of now and it becomes an Oprah becomes mainstream, it’s beautiful now that people, millions of people who never had an understanding, have a deeper understanding, but it immediately gets captured by the ego is trying to just be here. Now, as if the body is what’s here, and you are the body and you’re just showing up here now. But the very process of these words, reefs going from this mouth to that ear to your ear, it’s already past. So there is no, now in this present moment, it’s already past these sensory experiences that we then take in and interpret as being here now are already gone. So we’re continually living in the past, we’re living in the past, as long as it takes the LightWave to hit our retina, let alone from the retina, then make sense of it, to then decide, oh, that means this and that means that,
Rick Archer: of course, that’s not a heck of a lot of time happens,
Eli Jaxon-Bear: but it’s still past. Yeah, to be here now is to be before past and future, to be present. Before the body before the identity is as somebody who’s being here now, before perception before perception. That’s right. Because then the perceiver is perceived without any subject object decision, then there’s no time involved.
Rick Archer: Yeah, so in other words, Be Here Now would not mean, all right, I’m paying attention to this food I’m putting in my mouth. Now I’m paying attention to this TV show and what it it’s more like dwelling dwelling and being irrespective of sensory experiences.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: That’s it. It’s, that’s exactly right prior to sensory experience.
Rick Archer: You mentioned in your book that you’re woke to your true nature, but didn’t know how to stop the egoic mind. So that implies that the egoic mind can coexist with awake having, you know, being awake to one’s true nature. And it says that, my question is, does the egoic mind tend to overshadow one’s true nature isn’t are they somewhat in competition, as it were, they are they’re in
Eli Jaxon-Bear: competition for the space and time. And so the tendency is, for most of us is that with psychedelics, or with meditation, or with lovemaking, there’s at least glimpses or profound moments or weeks when we realize the truth. And in that realization, the egoic re identification happens. And then we, it’s like, okay, I know who I am. But then this continues to play out. And so then there’s a war with that, and but it’s only the ego that fights with the ego. So then, how to come to peace, how to come to silence is really the the issue. And that happens when all the wars given up when you stop trying to change or fix anything. When you’re willing to be still. Silence is the key.
Rick Archer: Did you find in your own experience that you went through a phase where you seem to sort of the I got it, I lost it syndrome, where there was a sort of awakening, and then you felt gripped and lost again, and then an awakening that oscillated back and forth, and that eventually something broke? And there was never any possibility of of losing it again, apparently.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: Well, you know, in my experience, it didn’t happen that way I am, I woke up in very unusual circumstances.
Rick Archer: LSD trip in the cabin, you had
Eli Jaxon-Bear: never left. It’s your now. I mean, that realization was permanent. But along with that realization, I had no psychological insight into Mike nature and my character into ego. And it had never studied me, but I’ve never been with a teacher, I’d never had learned any distinction. I just, I knew who I was, I knew I was awake. And I was searching for a teacher for 18 years to find one. But along the way, if people contacted me, some would get it but mostly what they would get would be my personality. Mostly they’d get with you, you know, my own stuff that was still there. And hadn’t been hadn’t shared hadn’t been shared, let’s say. And so the realization didn’t change but the expression of it is what deepens the when everything is shared, then there’s a freshness of contact. That’s possible.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Some people do speak of having a woken or how to have this realization and then kind of going through this on again off again phase before it stabilizes, but maybe there They’re not talking about the same depth of realization, you’re referring to maybe what you’re referring to is something which once having realized, couldn’t be overshadowed.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: That’s for sure. You know, when you when everything in the whole universe disappears when there is no earth, there’s no people, there’s no time there’s no space, and you’re completely present awake and clear in that. You know, without a doubt, who you are and where you are, you know, your consciousness, you know, you are formless, timeless, spaceless. How can you ever it’s impossible to lose that. But that realization? Well, it’s gonna be ever present. Now, the egoic mind can then try to do something about it, or try to teach someone or fix someone or do something with it. Because there hasn’t been this distinction between the clarity of consciousness and the imaginary doing of something.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And then, of course, you know, I mean, the trials and tribulations that life can throw out, you can kind of be challenging, oh, I’m lost my job. And I’m, I’m going into foreclosure. And now my kid is on drugs. And you know, all these problems can get so taxing. I mean, I know people who’ve been meditating 4040 years who sometimes get into depressed states, or, you know, just kind of freaked out, or how to have a stroke or something. And then, you know, what was this all about? You know, I’m miserable. So,
Eli Jaxon-Bear: yeah, so that’s a wake up call. If you’re, if that’s what’s happening, you realize that everything before that has just been a spiritual Trent’s spiritual ego. And so, that’s the opportunity is to use the crisis to see deeper.
Rick Archer: So when you were in the thick of your RV of cancer, which was an amazing story, which, towards the end of your book, you talk about it, and, you know, when you’re on this heavy chemotherapy, which is this kind of experimental treatment and knock it out. was, I mean, he must have felt like crap, but it was, you know, was that sort of inner light still unperturbed by that, while that stuff,
Eli Jaxon-Bear: you know, I was ready to live and ready to die. Either way, whatever serve best is what I wanted. If it served for my data happy for it serves for my life. I’m happy for it. And it was, yeah, it was definitely not pleasant. It was definitely painful.
Rick Archer: Yeah, you lost several inches in height, because your spine was collapsing, and
Eli Jaxon-Bear: my bones were broken. And you know, the chemotherapy is nauseating. It’s painful, opening processes. Not pleasant, but it doesn’t touch the truth of yourself.
Rick Archer: It’s interesting, because, you know, some people put put a fair amount of emphasis on the correlation between physiology and consciousness and the need for physiology capable of supporting that enlightened consciousness. But, you know, it seems to me from all the records of you know, Nisargadatta and Ramana, dying of cancer and all kinds of other records of Christ being crucified and so on that, that there can one can cross a threshold after which doesn’t matter what happens to the body that, that awakening, maybe maybe it’s sustained by some subtle aspect of the physiology that isn’t touched by disease or injury, but somehow it’s never lost at a certain point.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: That’s right. That’s what we’re here for, is for the realization that’s never lost, regardless of what’s happening physically, emotionally, or mentally. So that, you know, I mean, the cancer was a physical nightmare. And And before that, you know, I’m writing a fair was turned into a scandal by a therapist. It was an emotional nightmare. I mean, the whole people who said they loved me, suddenly hated me, the whole world turned on me. I mean, I was a witch hunt, I’ve never experienced being the being on that side of a witch hunt was Whoa. So it showed me so much it showed me the capacity of emotions and the limbic brain, and I learned so much from it, but it never touched the truth of myself. Never True Touch the truth of the realization, that just give the truth. The realization gave me the capacity to stand and take it to not fight back, not prove anything, but just take it, accept it, say, Okay, I did it. I take full responsibility. Here I am willing to be, you know, the willing for truth and reconciliation with anybody at any time.
Rick Archer: Well, you know, both of those things sort of served as teaching examples for other people who perhaps, you know, who are willing to see them. Because, you know, I kind of I didn’t know you too well, in the past, I’ve never met you in person even. But when I kind of read about how you went through those things, and how you dealt with them and how you came out the other side, I, you know, gained a lot of respect because those both of those things could happen to any of us and if you end up somebody thinks that’s not possible, then they’re setting themselves up for a fall.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: Definitely, you know, when I was setting myself up because I was so arrogant. I mean, I had become arrogant because I had been celibate for 12 years, I was finished with sexuality. And I was and I saw other teachers falling. And I felt superior at some level. And that subtle inflation of ego, a conflation of feeling superior, had to be popped.
Rick Archer: Yeah, interesting. And as I say, it wasn’t just for your benefit, it was for the benefit of anyone who wants to sort of observe, you know, and take lessons from what others experience and perhaps, you know, save themselves the same trauma by gaining a little humility, you know,
Eli Jaxon-Bear: yeah, that would be nice. But you know, I had just read, I just finished reading the Richard Baker’s book, shoes outside the door about his fall from being the Roshi of the Zen community of America, to having had an affair with his best friend’s wife and the collapse and the destruction of that, and I just finished reading that book when I fail. And so it didn’t help that way. Except it didn’t play with me some more in that hole, that idiot, how could he be so stupid? How could he be so dumb, then? What’s the deal? Why come on, you’re awake? How could you do that? And as I put the book down, it happened to me. Wow. So
Rick Archer: in a way, it kind of loops back to what we started talking about in the beginning of this interview, which is, you know, further refinement after awakening, I mean, perhaps that take can take the dimension of more ideal behavior over time. Although, of course, that has a lot of cultural connotations. And boxes. I mean, there. There are cultures in which polygamy is totally normal or whatever. But
Eli Jaxon-Bear: that’s right. But what it is, here’s where it is, Rick, is the news. This subtle inflation’s of ego that can happen in the midst of realization where you can start to feel special in any way you start to feel superior in any way. And when that comes, it has to be popped in the minister. Some sort of depending on how inflated it is, there’s the size of an explosion when it gets pumped.
Rick Archer: Interesting. Yeah. It’s my observation that sometimes, you know, egregious inflation’s of ego take place as a result of some awakening. It’s almost as if there’s this tenacious bit of ego that just goes haywire once there’s that fuel of consciousness illuminating it, and people begin claiming themselves to be avatars.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: Exactly.
Rick Archer: All kinds of crazy stuff.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: Crazy stuff. I mean, the guy was really nuts, you know, egomaniac. Really an egomaniac?
Rick Archer: Yeah.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: Let’s speak the truth about it. I mean,
Rick Archer: I guess we know who we’re referring to
Eli Jaxon-Bear: the avatar,
Rick Archer: right. There have been other examples of numerous examples, I’m afraid. Which is not to my mind to say that there couldn’t be avatars. But you know, most of the people who claim it probably aren’t.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: You know one of the things by teachers said, which I really enjoy, so, you know, be careful about people who give themselves spiritual names, that you either your named by your students or your named by your teacher, is when you start giving yourself inflated spiritual names. That’s really a dangerous signal.
Rick Archer: Interesting. So obviously, Gangaji got hers from Papaji. And they accepted it and could have kept calling herself Toni. But you know, got me I actually got a spiritual name from Amma the hugging saint, but I just felt like I can’t run around, call myself that. I’d just as soon stay with Rick.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: My teacher said to me, he said, you know, if you shave your head and call yourself, Swami, you have a much bigger following. But then people will think you’re different in some way. Don’t think you’re separate. Oh, he’s a Swami, he doesn’t have to go through what we go through. So
Rick Archer: yeah, I suppose if you’re really sincere about this game, then you’re why would you want to create obstacles for yourself by by doing kind of, you know, by setting yourself up in that way for all kinds of pitfalls? I mean, you know, keep it simple,
Eli Jaxon-Bear: stupid. Keep it simple. Keep it silent. Silence is the simplest, the simplest. That’s actually the next thought.
Rick Archer: Let’s talk about practices for a bit. You mentioned in your book that you engaged in a lot of practices and you say you still practice some of them. And in the book, you say, awakening happens suddenly after lifetimes of gradual ripening. And of course, the title of the book is sudden awakening. But what if a person isn’t sufficiently right for sudden awakening? Wouldn’t practices perhaps be helpful for many people to kind of bring them to the ripeness that you know is going to make sudden awakening feasible?
Eli Jaxon-Bear: Possible? Sure. Everything’s useful in its own way. Everything’s useful in its own context. It’s just practice may help you mature in some way may help you You refine yourself or control your mind in different ways. Ultimately, it won’t lead to realization, but it can be useful along the way.
Rick Archer: Perhaps there’s some Zen guy that said, you know, awakening may be an accident, but spiritual practice can make you accident prone. So perhaps it can sort of ready you for the making more,
Eli Jaxon-Bear: possibly. But you know, if you look at all the ashrams in India, with millions of people doing yoga their whole lives and never, never waking up, right? So the problem with the practice, the practice is that it reinforces the idea of a practitioner. And the practitioner is someone is the egoic identity, trying to get something from the practice. And that’s the trap. So yes, it can be useful. I love my Dallas practice. I mean, I, I love that, Sam when I set these intervals, but
Rick Archer: did those reinforced the notion of practice or Sure, about the notion that it takes a thorn to remove a thorn? I mean, can’t there be practices which actually dissolve and diminish the notion of, and maybe it depends on the practice, I mean, some practices might sort of be, you know,
Eli Jaxon-Bear: any practice or someone practicing. And the someone practicing is the only obstacle to what you want. It’s always a search into the future, whatever you’re practicing so that you’ll be better or different next time.
Rick Archer: What if the nature of the practice is that during it the practice or dissolves into sort of know someone that’s
Eli Jaxon-Bear: thin? Why SCADA practice? Why not just live it, stop practicing and start living? I’d say, if that’s your practice, if your practice is dissolve into nothing, and be nothing, why practice because practice assumes that, oh, that’s only going to last for a certain period of time. And then you’re going to pick up the practice of me. So just stop the practice of me and everything else will take care of itself.
Rick Archer: How do you stop the practice of me?
Eli Jaxon-Bear: As you said, by fully stopping, when you said that, you said, you said you can have a practice where you fully dissolve, disappears, or whatever you send,
Rick Archer: actually, I’m alluding to my own experience here. And I’m as will pursue this a little bit because this is a friend of mine has always bugging me about this and saying ASCII lie about that, because you know, you’ve been doing this for 44 years. But you know, when I was 18, I learned Transcendental Meditation. And my experience of it was that, you know, I’d sit for 20 minutes, and I just dissolve into, you know, ocean of bliss, ocean of being whatever. And then I come out again, and of course, in that I’d undissolved. But over time, I kind of began to find that the analogy of dying a cloth and bleaching the sun and dyeing it and bleaching it, that until it becomes colorfast, even when it’s in the sun vor began to play out in my life. So there was an example of a practice which sort of didn’t, at least in my experience, didn’t seem to reinforce but actually began to dismantle and dissolve the rigidity of my ego and individuality.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: That’s it, everything’s useful. Yeah, everything’s useful. But then at a certain point, you have to say, Okay, enough, I don’t want to come back out of it anymore. I don’t want to end the 20 minutes and come back to me, the practice of me because me as a practice, you have to practice me. And so finally, yes, you have a maturity that comes from those years of your deepening through your practice, to say, Okay, I have to stop the practice of me, and then you don’t have to re re materialize.
Rick Archer: That’s what I actually what I found over time is that I don’t come out of it anymore. And it but I still do it. Why do I do it? Because it’s tremendously restful for the body, it seems to have this refining influence, and so on. But whether or not I’m doing it, there’s that sort of continuum?
Eli Jaxon-Bear: Sure. I know sitting above meditating. Yeah, it’s wonderful. And yet, I
Rick Archer: have friends who say, I don’t bother meditating anymore, because it really makes no difference whatsoever. So, you know, maybe that’ll be my experience next year. But right now, this
Eli Jaxon-Bear: is like, Listen, you know, all you have is your attention. And then the question is, you know, how are you going to spend it? Why not spend it meditating? Instead of spending it hanging out in the bar?
Rick Archer: Yeah. Or watching TV or watching TV or
Eli Jaxon-Bear: having a beer or whatever it is? It’s like, you know, give yourself the best quality? Why not?
Rick Archer: Okay, I like you. I think you’ve covered that. Well, I appreciate it. One thing that’s often said, and you use the analogy, I guess you’re quoting Papaji about, you know, the intensity of the desire for freedom being important. And I think he used the analogy, if your hair is on fire, you’re running to the river, and you’re not gonna sit down with some friends and have a card game or something. But you know, by the same token, if your hair on fire you would need or go to the bathroom or watch a movie or do anything else. You’d be running to the river and yet, you know, in normal life, we do these things. So, I’ve seen people get so extreme that they were, you know, fasting and to extremes and just kind of like pushing themselves. And I’ve actually had a friend or two who went mentally ill because of that strain of extreme extremism. So where do you find the balance, you know, between the firing up the desire for Enlightenment and being kind of a bit of a normal, natural, relaxed person?
Eli Jaxon-Bear: Well, you know, if you look at the Buddha’s experience, and when he went out, he was on fire for waking up, he saw the suffering of the world. And he tried extreme weight. He tried fasting, he tried extreme fasting, he tried extreme yogurts. He did lots of extreme stuff. And finally, he said, Okay, I’m just sitting here until I get it, no matter what. And he sat down under the tree until he got it. Day and night, I’m sitting here until I get it. That’s the steadfastness. That’s the willingness that’s the desire that is unshakable. And then forget about ordinary life, ordinary life takes care of itself. If it comes back, it goes back if it does, doesn’t, that’s not your business. You’ve given yourself fully to what you to the truth of yourself. And then how that expresses itself is unknown. Maybe you stays a naked Sadu in a cave somewhere, maybe you live the normal householder life, but it’s not about you’re doing it either way. It’s really just surrendering yourself so fully, that expresses itself naturally through you.
Rick Archer: I once heard of a saint who lit an instant incense stick and said, If I’m not enlightened, by the time this incense stick burns down, I’m gonna kill myself and he got enlightened before it burned down. But um, I mean, that obviously, would be an extreme example. And even, you know, any, the average person listening to this would, it would be extreme for them to go sit under a tree and say, I’m going to sit here until I get enlightened. But the Buddha obviously, after his Enlightenment came out with the Middle Way, didn’t he call it and it was sort of a balanced path with the right livelihood, and this and that, and the other thing that it was sort of a kind of a antidote to extreme extremism.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: You know, his eightfold path, my teacher said is, comes as an expression of realization, that is a path to realization. So you can practice, right thinking right action, right livelihood, right, yada, yada, and you never wake up. But if you wake up, and those things will naturally express themselves through you.
Rick Archer: Does it work both ways? I mean, if you pull a table leg, all the other legs come along, if if you, you know, wake up, all those things are going to be expressing naturally. But also, if you kind of bring your life more into alignment with things like that, can that be conducive to Enlightenment? Can it work both ways? Well,
Eli Jaxon-Bear: you know it possibly everything’s possible, anything’s useful. And yet, if you look at the other monks and nuns that have posted themselves in order to search for God, or if you can actually find it,
Rick Archer: yeah. It’s true. Perhaps because they’re kind of out of their dharma in a way, you know, just living a life, which I’m sure there’s a legitimate reason for monks and nuns and some who are cut out for it. But look at the Catholic Church. I mean, a lot of people who are trying to live it aren’t apparently cut out for it.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: And you know, when the Buddha ends up setting up monasteries, and doing all this stuff for his people, because that’s what they want. It wasn’t his teaching, it wasn’t really what he was seeking. But then, okay, you want to do it, do it.
Rick Archer: To help to have a structure, I mean, you have the Leela Foundation, and it has, you know, certain tax status and certain you know, you have an accountant, and you have to do all that relative stuff to provide a vehicle to make it available.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: Yes. But you know, that kind of happens on its own. And it’s like, you don’t have to really force it. You don’t have to work at it or dislike it. And when I went out searching, it wasn’t about foundations or anything, you know, I just gave myself over fully. Being in the cabinet in Colorado, it was like I was willing to die. If that’s what it took. I didn’t want to die. I was afraid of dying. I fought it. I was willing, if that’s what it says. And then that woke up. And then after I woke up, I left that I had already as a federal fugitive, I left everything behind. I would have left my career and family I’d left all the normal pursuits that people think give you a happy life. And then when I went searching for my teacher, I went off into Peru where I lived for six months, but I had $50 in my pocket when I left, and I never looked back. And so from there, it’s like, life unfolded in such a mysterious, full way. I mean, I’ve had life experiences I never could have imagined or wanted and unbelievable. And it’s not because I worked for them or I did them or because they had to be there in order to support it was just life unfolding itself quite naturally. have mysteriously
Rick Archer: seek and you shall find knock on the door shall be opened. You see that, you know, when a person kind of makes the decision to move in that direction circumstances start working out in ways they couldn’t. Yeah,
Eli Jaxon-Bear: the whole universe isn’t supportive awakening. Yeah. So you give yourself to awakening the whole universe supports not giving us know a little happy smell rainbows can be total tragedy. And here’s a tragedy, you know, it can be whatever it takes, whatever it takes, universe will provide it, if what it takes is depth and the universe will provide death when it takes us Life provides life. So you can trust love, you can trust consciousness to such a degree, that you don’t have to worry about setting up a foundation or having an accountant or any of that stuff, you know, that takes care of itself. Those are byproducts. That’s not something to be pursued.
Rick Archer: Interesting, you know, harkening back again, to the beginning of the interview, we talked about how often usually this is looked at from the perspective of the individual, okay, I can trust this. And I should, you know, like, intensify my, my desire, and then universal help me and so on. But flipping it around again, you know, we are that Universal Intelligence, which has cultured this particular expression to the point where it’s able to begin to recognize itself. And, you know, there’s that bumper sticker let go and let God perhaps, you know, since we, you know, most people do still have a sense of individuality. Or all you really have to do is be cooperative, you know, when those stirrings start to happen, and you know, enjoy the ride.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: That’s one of the bumper sticker when I was in Austin that said, If you love something, set it free. If it doesn’t come back, hunker down and kill it. Little cynical. It’s like, I never wanted to relationship. I never wanted children. And so I made a vow when I was 10 years old not to have kids. And so I was free of that. So I never had to get entangled in career and family and all that. And I never wanted to settle down. And so when the universe presented me with the goddess in a human form, I wasn’t interested. I wasn’t interested in long term, sex, of course, and fun, of course, but commitment and settling down what for. And now it’s like this, that was 1975 When I first met my partner, and we’ve been together ever since. So 30 something years, or 40 years, whatever it is. It’s not something that I ever searched for or ever wanted. But it was one of the gifts that was bestowed by the goddess of love. And I’m so lucky and grateful.
Rick Archer: I met mine that year, too. And for 11 years, I said, Absolutely not. I want to be a monk. And finally, 11 years later, my life was kind of like falling apart. And it’s like I, you know, it had to happen. And it happened. And it was great.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: 13 years for me, before we got married, we lived together for two years.
Rick Archer: I was hearing me saying falling apart and it was falling apart before we got married. I mean, really, I was just so so excited, pushing myself to such extremes. I had like a big boil on my neck. And I was eccentric and obsessive and all this stuff. And I I needed balancing in the in the in the worst way. I know, that’s what I was saying. You were the one all right reserved. You, you have a bit in your book about wounding as a spiritual seeking. And we’ve sort of been addressing that. But maybe we can dwell on it just a little bit more. You know, when when bad things happen to good people so and so forth. There, there seems to be a kind of a loving hand at work, even when bad things happen.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: You know, the ego has to be wounded, the egoic shell has to be pierced. And in that piercing it can be very painful. And in the very pain of the wounding can be the start of the spiritual search to start from relief, the start or the end of suffering. But it’s really it’s like a chick hatching out of an egg. Like there’s a picking from the outside and then the chick has to pick it from the inside. And so the picking from the outside is experienced as a wounding because suddenly you’re impervious shield has been pierced, and there’s pain, there’s suffering. It’s like the Buddha waking up and seeing old age sickness and death. We’re all kind of woundings that happened into his shell of egoic identity. And so each one of us has those wounds we have this time where things Pierce where we are shattered, we are broken. And that’s really the before that happens really there’s usually no spirit We’ll search there’s no need for it because you’re already content and Falon in the ER egoic identity. And so the cracking of the shell from the outside is the first step, and then you as the chicken inside have to pick it at the pick of the shell, to burst free from it. And suddenly
Rick Archer: there’s a saying that angels aren’t interested in Enlightenment, because their experience is too glorious, you know, and it’s as a human being, we have a much greater kind of opportunity. Because you know, human life is a school of hard knocks, and we’re not going to just be content with this, we’re going to be going in until we seek something deeper.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: Yes, my teacher says the same thing is in the realm of the gods resolve too much noise are all talking and boasting and doing all their things. And so when another human comes to silence, all the gods come to sit at your feet to receive the transmission of silence, because that doesn’t happen.
Rick Archer: There’s a beautiful phrase in the Hindu puja, which is at whose door the whole galaxy of Gods pray for perfection day and night, it would reference to the guru. I’m going to interview a guy in a few weeks named David Gersten, who wrote a book called Are you getting enlightened or losing your mind? And I think you referred to your book and in your book to madness or fear of madness, and I’ve seen you know, there seems to be a sort of a, you know, a cohesiveness to the rigid egoic personality, which sometimes in the process of transferring transforming to a liberated state can be a tricky business because that cohesiveness on the one hand, keeps us bound. But on the other hand, it keeps us sane. And there can be a can I’ve seen people flip out going to mental hospitals and whatnot in who we’re doing our, you know, devoted spiritual practice or on
Eli Jaxon-Bear: what you’re calling seen, I would call a kind of controlled madness.
Rick Archer: The bottled up madness.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: Yeah, people are crazy egos are crazy. It’s like we’re living in a crazy world, we’re living on a slave planet. And everyone is, you know, somewhat insane. And just the ego keeping that gives you a structure to appear sane in an insane world. So yes, there is a tendency, and I remember all this one woman who had a brain tumor, and because of her brain tumor, she lost her sense of eye. And
Rick Archer: Suzanne Siegel, Suzanne Siegel.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: So Suzanne was was a suffering person, filled with fears, anxieties. And this loss of sense of I, the community embraced her as a spiritual teacher as if she had something to impart. But she didn’t she had a brain tumor. And she ended up dying suffering in the fraid. So madness is very different from the from silence. silences, is Saturday. So if you just stop following this train of thought, it might seem like a train wreck. But you end up in silence. And silence has clarity, wisdom, intelligence, Saturday, that’s true. Saturday is older, all the talking to ourselves is just kind of madness.
Rick Archer: My wife just wrote me a note saying selfless service keeps you grounded and as a path in and of itself Seva.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: Selfless service is so beautiful. The problem is, there’s usually someone trying to do it. And the one who’s trying to do it is the only obstacle to it. And so when you stop trying to do selfless service, your life itself becomes an expression of selfless service.
Rick Archer: It’s another one of those cart and horse conundrums. Cuz I could, you know, argue the flip side and say, well, if a person is all just about me, me, me, how can I gratify myself, that kind of tends to continue to reinforce the ego whereas, whereas there when there really is a selfless service, even if a person is somebody artistical to begin with, it can kind of have the effect of diminishing that egotism and, you know, putting one in a larger context or perspective than just all about me.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: You know, it’s just so Bill Clinton that interviewed Bill Clinton where he said, you know, selfishness is the same as selflessness. Because really, what I’m doing for the world I’m doing for myself, and you can see he’s doing that kind of selfless service, but it’s not diminishing his ego in any way. It’s not making him any more transparent as, as pure consciousness. So yeah, it’s better to be selfless than selfish, better in your practice, to practice selflessly and practice selfishly. It’s not even about a search for Enlightenment, that’s selfish also. It’s really a search for truth. If you search Truth pretended like, it doesn’t matter.
Rick Archer: Oh, at this anonymous.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: No search for truth, it doesn’t matter if you’re enlightened or not, search for Enlightenment doesn’t listen to this or looking for the truth. It’s looking for me to wake up.
Rick Archer: Yeah, but when you actually do isn’t that truth and then you realize it’s not the me who woke up I mean, it’s almost this is almost a semantic
Eli Jaxon-Bear: search. So if you’re searching for the truth, the truth will set you free. He’s searching for Enlightenment, generally you’re searching for an experience that isn’t here in this moment and you’re going off somewhere else, you’re practicing something or you’re working on something or you’re trying to get somewhere. And so what I’m speaking about is what’s already here that needs no practice and needs no search, and that the practice and the search actually obscure the presence of what’s already here. And when you’re willing to find the truth of what’s here, that truth itself sets you free. And then your being itself is selfless service. It is an expression of consciousness, not because you want it to be here, you should be that this because that’s who you are already.
Rick Archer: Yeah, we spoke earlier of being sense organs of the infinite. In a way we we become organs of actions of the infinite.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: That’s right.
Rick Archer: Yeah,
Eli Jaxon-Bear: life is an expression of consciousness
Rick Archer: serving in whatever way the infinite moves us to serve.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: Exactly. And it’s a mystery. It’s a complete mystery. I never expected to write a book. And I’ve written a bunch of books, I never expected to travel. I didn’t like traveling. When my parents took the family, to Europe, I didn’t go I wasn’t interested in traveling. I like being here in the United States. And I’ve been on the road now for nine months a year for years I’ve been, I’ve traveled all over the world in places I never expected to know never wanted to go. And yet, what mystery it is really beyond belief.
Rick Archer: Looping back again, to another point we brought up in the beginning. Here’s a question for you. When seeking ends do exploration and discovery and deepening end? And before you answer the question, I want to quote a couple of people. I just Shanti said, even now with me, the mystery is just beginning, always still beginning. And St. Teresa of Avila said, the feeling remains that God is on the journey to That’s it, you can respond.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: You know, you said several words. They’re not necessarily compatible. So you don’t need to be seeking for the freshness to be here. That the seeking actually overlooks the freshness that’s
Rick Archer: here. Oh, yeah. But you know, so But my question was when seeking ends. So in other words, you know, when seeking has really when you no longer have that seeking energy anymore, does that necessarily mean that there’s going to be an end to exploration and discovery and refinement? Okay.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: That’s what it is. Yeah, exploration is very different from discovered. So you don’t have to explore, I say, you can realize freshly deeply in, and that happens quite naturally. You don’t have to be an explorer, you just have to be still.
Rick Archer: So exploration has the connotation of I’m still looking for something whereas discovery discovery has the connotation of just kind of finding things. That’s it as they present themselves. That’s what it is. Yeah, it’s a subtle distinction. I mean, I we said Columbus discovered America, he was actually looking for what I was looking for India, actually,
Eli Jaxon-Bear: actually, he was looking for China’s looking for cafe, or was he thought he was just south of China? And that’s why he was in India. Hmm. Interesting.
Rick Archer: Do it seems that you know, like Ramana and Papaji had a either a belief or an experience in what we would call supernatural beings such as Shiva. For instance, the mountain was the embodiment of Shiva. And a few minutes ago, you referred to Papa Papa Ji referred to the realm of the gods and so on. So they kind of acknowledged the existence of these strata of creation, which maybe we could even just think of as laws of nature, in a subtle sense. Do you feel that there’s what? Maybe we could discuss that a little bit. I mean, Ramana was devoted not just to the mountain as a massive stone, but to its embodied to its function as the embodiment of Shiva, I suppose. So, how does you know after he was you know, well ripened in his realization, obviously. So what is the significance or relevance of devotion to some higher being or higher power, whatever post realization,
Eli Jaxon-Bear: you know, devotion is an act of love. So we stay with what we love, and whatever it is, if it’s your holy mountain, if it’s your It’s always an embodiment of love. So love loves love. So if Ramana it’s Shiva has all the mountain, that’s what he loves. It’s not a devotion is a practice, it’s
Rick Archer: that devotion is some spontaneous expression. And
Eli Jaxon-Bear: it’s just a spontaneous expression of love. You know? And then that that’s quite, why not, you know, then all, everything’s present when there’s so many, how many dimensions are there and how many beings in every dimension? It’s infinite. We can’t know the number of beings and we have a lot of string theory says, What 13 dimensions wrapped inside each other. So if there are 13 dimensions of being wrapped inside each other, that’s an infinite possibility of freshness and realization. But you don’t, you don’t have to search for it.
Rick Archer: No, I wasn’t implying that necessarily just explore for it. Right. But it may be something that blossoms at a certain stage. Yeah. You know,
Eli Jaxon-Bear: when I first met my teacher, he I first met Papaji. It was in Hardwar. And I told him, he wants to move to Satsang. And I said, No, actually, my wife is the socceroo, you have to meet my wife. And I’d like certain wells to have you great, is that I said, but my wife is not a yogi. She’s a goddess, and I have to find the best place for her to stay. And so we took a train together to hardware, because he’s gonna meet her at the banks of the Ganga. And when we got there, it was Shiva Yachi. It was this Shiva festival. And so there was loudspeaker Shiva chanting 24 hours a day, for the first few days that we were there. And then when I was sitting at the bank of the Ganga one night and suddenly the music went off, the chanting went off into became completely still. And I was sitting at the bank of the Congo meditating. And I could hear the chanting in my head. And when I listened to it and put my attention there, it disappeared. And I heard it. On a deeper level, I heard it was subtly still chanting, in my being kind of put my attention there disappeared, that happened on a third level, very subtle level where this chanting was still happening, I put my attention there disappeared. And then as I fell into this list full of emptiness, it’s like this, suddenly, a gust of wind came up along the Ganga as it came down towards me. And as it touched me, I became frozen and I became shivering, I got into a fetal position. And it felt like Shiva has was coming down the river and as the hymn of Shiva, this quote, touched my being. It’s like suddenly, I was plugged into 220. Instead of 110. I was like, my whole body became electrified, my hair stood on and I was shivering and shaking beyond belief, not at meeting Shiva, but and having the hem of His cloak fetch me as fast. As there was a supernatural event that was a meeting of Shiva that I’ve loved Shiva from my first awakening, she has been part of my consciousness. So I don’t I don’t worship Shiva. And my heart is with my son, Guru, Apogee. Apogee is an embodiment of Shiva. Romanism.
Rick Archer: Chakra said the intellect imagines duality for the sake of devotion. See, you almost have to imagine it to create some kind of Ducati dichotomy. Otherwise, it’s all
Eli Jaxon-Bear: that’s that’s what the universe is. The universe is the cloak of imagination. So the consciousness can love itself find itself devoted to itself.
Rick Archer: What do you feel? Is the importance of a teacher you know, these days, some people brush it off? gurus, you know, and you know, there’s an old saying the teacher appears when the student is ready. Obviously, a teacher has been very important in your life. Do you feel like there are exceptions to that rule? Or ultimately, does everyone kind of really need to have final teacher to seal the deal?
Eli Jaxon-Bear: You have to have a final teacher. It’s beyond your ego, though, how the teacher appears. Who knows. I personally I was one of those who said, you don’t need to teach you do it yourself. I was part of the do it yourself movement. And I needed a teacher. I didn’t know that I needed a teacher. I knew I needed somebody more awake, but I was to pass on what I didn’t have. And so that’s what I was searching for. I wasn’t searching for a teacher in the sense of a guru. I didn’t want a guru. I was just searching for someone more awake than I was like a transmit to me how to pass on the realization I had realized. And so that’s a girl. That’s a girl. And I didn’t and so the last place I looked was India because I wasn’t interested in gurus. I wasn’t interested Being a devotee. I didn’t want I didn’t like the whole group scene, right? So I looked everywhere. I started my spiritual search. I went to Peru, I went to the back. And these were I was the first gringo they’d ever seen. I was looking for a secret hidden brotherhood somewhere. I mean,
Rick Archer: Did you do Ayahuasca?
Eli Jaxon-Bear: I Ayahuasca, yeah.
Rick Archer: back in those days?
Eli Jaxon-Bear: Yeah. And then with the cancer, I got brought to the Ayahuasca ceremony. But
Rick Archer: Interesting. Now there’s a question. This, you know, this is post awakening, you know, self realized. And yet you you did Ayahuasca? So what was the experience of doing ayahuasca and as an awakened state?
Eli Jaxon-Bear: You know, I wasn’t looking for it. I was actually looking for my acupuncturist. And I went searching for him. And I’d heard there was this Brazilian shaman in town with him. And so I went up to his place, and I got there, everybody was dressed in white, and they were clearly all very stoned. And, you know, I got invited in they, they gave me clothes, they put me in white, and they gave me a bunch of high Wasco to drink. And they all prayed for me for my cancer. So it was a very psychedelic experience. But it was phenomenal.
Rick Archer: Yeah. So in other words, in the midst of that psychedelic experience, there was that silence, which
Eli Jaxon-Bear: was a certainty. Yeah. And I was grateful. I’m so grateful that they put all their energy into praying for me, you know, that’s beautiful. And basically, that the way they’re using the site, Alaska these days, is that after it was over, I was able to drive home that night, I was totally sober. That was mind blowing to me, I was going through was very different. And we were tripping for three days. You couldn’t drive home that night? I went blind, actually, from the day after. Wow. So it was very different. I mean, there was you know, beings appeared in the room and all that stuff. Yeah. Different experience. So yeah, why not? I mean, I Alaska was the problem on the LSAT. Why not? It’s like, there’s no rules. There’s no rules. It’s like, drink coffee. You drink tea, you eat chocolate, or you don’t you avoid sugar or you like sugar with differences?
Rick Archer: Yeah, it’s just that you know what, what you put in your body does have an effect on it. And on your brain and so on. And I got so fried fried on that stuff back in the 60s that, you know, I have a bit of an aversion but I’m open minded to the whole thing. Just very cautious safety first, you know?
Eli Jaxon-Bear: Well, that’s a throw caution to the winds man.
Rick Archer: actually had some guy get in touch with me and offer me to buy me a plane ticket to Peru because he was going down there.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: Oh, I’d say LSD is the way that more than Ayahuasca for for awakening, because it has, there’s an icy clarity that LSD, you don’t get the dreamy like stuff that you do Ayahuasca?
Rick Archer: What do you feel are the the planetary implications of individual Enlightenment, I know that since you’re young, young days, you’ve been a kind of political guy and wanting to change the world and various ways. And I suspect that that the flavor of that remains, you know, despite your primary orientation, just being awakening, but you feel like they’re sort of, they’re going to be effects of awakening as it becomes more common on the world.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: That’s been the purpose of my life since I woke up was to bring the world to peace that we all live as brothers and sisters in peace. And I knew that if everyone had the realization I had, the world would come to peace. And so that became an issue. Whether that will actually ever happen. Probably not in my lifetime. And you never know. It’s like these floods of awakening can happen and get wiped out in an instant, or the takeover in the whole world can wake up. Really, there’s no way of knowing, well, yes, give yourself to it.
Rick Archer: No one really predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall, you know, they took everyone by surprise. So sometimes societal changes and look where we are like with civil rights today, as compared to the 60s, you know, there’s been a lot me that new movie about Jackie Robinson is just coming out, you know, for like, what he had to go through. Now, most of the, you know, star athletes are black. So, changes happen,
Eli Jaxon-Bear: changes happen. And you know, the tragedy of that because I was, you know, involved fully in the civil rights movement, and I gave my life to them as my first step towards freedom. I just saw something now we’re forget the movie where the woman says, you know, now there’s no more black and white, it’s all green.
Rick Archer: And environmental, though Money, money, money, money, of course,
Eli Jaxon-Bear: it’s all money. And so, you know, that’s it. It’s like, no, everybody has their civil rights, but on a more free are they adding better? Definitely, definitely. We don’t want to clarify. Definitely. But this ultimately, ultimately, it didn’t bring More freedom didn’t bring more love and bring more peace. In fact, I found probably more love and more humanity when I was in the segregated ghetto, surrounded by the Ku Klux Klan, and then you find in a prosperous green community, we’re very much going for the money. So it’s all a mystery how it unfolds.
Rick Archer: Yeah. But at the point we’re sort of touching upon, though, is that there does seem to be a kind of a bit of an epidemic of spiritual awakening taking place. And technologies such as this, helping it to, it’s mind blowing. Yeah. And it’s got to have some kind of impact. I mean, it has had an impact already. Yeah, sure.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: I mean, Satsang, all over the world, people waking up all over the world, it’s really, it’s the first time and it has to pass from heart to heart. Each person catches fire, and passes on the flame. And in that, then, you know, it will spread exponentially. I mean, the weatherman used to have a slogan, but a prairie fire takes a single spark To start a prairie fire. And that’s really what this is. It’s the Spark has been lit. It’s alive in so many hearts. And it’s passing from heart to heart. And so, already, the world has changed. I mean, there’s no yogo on every corner, and people meditating and the Internet having every teaching possible, people are waking up. That’s so beautiful. That’s what we’re here to support.
Rick Archer: So what do you feel your track record has been? You’ve been teaching for around 20 years or something? Do you find that a lot of your students certain healthy percentage have woken up in the sense that you define it I satisfied with the results,
Eli Jaxon-Bear: you know, satisfied with the results, I’d say, I’m blown away that people have woken up. It’s true. It’s people that woke up and people, ordinary people, people, you never would have expected, the least likely people have woken up and have stayed awake over a period of time. And they’re now teaching and passing it on. that’s mind blowing to me. And they were the ones that I expect to be. I mean, this are people from very straight Republican ordinary lives, that have walked that had practice and that had psychedelics that had yoga, teachers wake up and stay awake and stay true to the realization.
Rick Archer: Did they stay Republican? No. Attaboy, I have a few friends. I have a few friends who are, you know, have been on a spiritual journey for decades. And they’re still very conservative politically, it’s It boggles my mind. I don’t get it. But you know, variety is the spice of life, I
Eli Jaxon-Bear: guess. It’s a mystery. It’s all really a mystery.
Rick Archer: Great. Well, that’s all the questions I had written down. You know, I kind of been thinking about this for a while. And I wanted to draw some new points out of you that we hadn’t discussed in the previous interview. Is there anything? How are you? How’s your health is the cancer still in remission?
Eli Jaxon-Bear: It’s, you know, it’s not called remission. But yeah, the cancer is manageable. I stopped doing my chemotherapy after five years of chemotherapy.
Rick Archer: Oh, great. You don’t have to do it anymore. Well,
Eli Jaxon-Bear: nobody knows. It’s like, the radical intervention by these doctors worked. So that now it used to be everybody be dead by now. Yeah, it’s I’m still alive. So who knows how it will play out.
Rick Archer: That’s great.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: Yeah, I’m happy, I’m healthy. I really appreciate you for being part of this global awakening that’s happening, and for helping to, you know, spread the message around so that everybody can wake up.
Rick Archer: Thanks, I’m doing what I feel there’s something I can do to make a contribution. You know, it’s kind of like, various skills that I’ve developed over the course of my life have just all come together to enable me to do this, you know, computer skills and spiritual practice and things and speaking, public speaking experience, and all that stuff is just feels like next logical thing to do.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: It’s beautiful. And that’s how we all could use in our own particular way. And we each have our own particular strengths of mind and character and purpose. And we all get used in this universal play of consciousness awakening to itself.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Great. Well, keep at it, I hope you stay healthy and happy well into your 80s. And if not, 90s
Eli Jaxon-Bear: I expected to die before I was 30. You know, yeah, so it’s all a mystery to me. I mean, I never know I’m an old man who ever would have guessed, you know, I mean, I’m living my life as many of us did in the 60s and Sufi. I’m not gonna be 30 I’m never
Rick Archer: gonna make it there. So, never trust anyone over 30 of your life now
Eli Jaxon-Bear: fully. And so, in that here, I am an old man. Mystery What a surprise. So Thank you for keeping the light alive and passing it on from heart to heart.
Rick Archer: Yeah, let me make a few concluding remarks. I’ve been speaking with Eli Jackson bear. And this is an ongoing series of interviews. So if this happens to be the first one you’ve seen, at this point, there are about 170 others you can save half the time, you’ll find them [email protected], bat gap.com. And there also you will find a link to a podcast if you prefer prefer to listen to this kind of stuff in audio rather than sit in front of your computer. You will find a chat group that crops up around each interview gets quite lively at times as well as a sort of a general discussion group. There is also a donate button which I appreciate people clicking if they have the inclination and ability. And there’s a link to signing up for a newsletter to be notified each time a new interview is posted, which is about once a week. So that about does it so Eli, thanks again. Give my love to Gandhiji yeah, hope to be in person one of these days. That’d be nice. Yeah. And for those who are listening or watching, I’ll see you next week.
Eli Jaxon-Bear: May all beings be happy and free. Thank you.
Rick Archer: Thank you
Eli Jaxon-Bear: Namaste
Rick Archer: Namaste