Rick: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer and my guest today is Neelam. I interviewed Neelam a couple of years ago and you may want to listen to that interview before listening to this one but otherwise just go ahead and listen to this one. It’ll be fine on its own. Neelam is a direct disciple of HWL Punja Papaji whose teacher was Ramana Maharshi. Her unequivocal commitment to truth helps us turn inward and release underlying patterns of conditioning which block the recognition of our true nature. With the utmost tenderness while helping us to address all aspects of daily living, including past conditioning and trauma, she invites us into the same recognition of truth that her teacher Papaji transmitted to her. And I can attest to that having listened to about before this interview and about 20 hours before the previous one, there’s a real sweet rapport between her and the people that she works with. And she works with small groups on phone conferences and probably in other ways as well but that’s what, and extending over a period of months. So there’s a sort of an ongoing course that people take and interact with Neelam and there’s a very sweet family feeling that develops among the participants and a lot of personal attention. So Neelam welcome again thanks for doing this. And I’d like to start with a basic question which is that the word awakening or sometimes enlightenment, maybe we’ll see if you distinguish between those two words, is used a lot. You hear so many people saying I had an awakening but unless we all agree on what that actually means then we’re not communicating when we use the word. You know, one person says one thing and ten different people hear ten other things. So I’d like to start this interview by having you define what you mean by awakening and perhaps also enlightenment, if there’s any distinction between the terms and that’ll provide a good foundation for the rest of our discussion.
Neelam: Beautiful, so I really think it’s a very important question because as you say so many things can be called awakening. So you know I have to start, I have to go back and I have to start with the direct experience of presence. Because that first of all that’s the, you know, the very direct transmission of the natural state. It’s also the gift of this lineage, you know, that this lineage just goes directly right there and says here you are, that’s your nature and you can know that in this moment. So we have to begin with this because without knowing this you know we can’t talk about anything. It can’t be just a mental understanding, it has to be an actual experience. So once we have that, once we know that and whenever that happened, it might have happened a long time ago or years ago or lifetimes ago, you know that there’s this process that starts which is really guided by our desire for freedom. And that’s what I call the process that leads to awakening. And in this process we will go through these experiences, many different times of experiences of expansion and you know kind of out of body you know and bliss and love and peace and oneness and consciousness and all sorts of different things we may experience and yet eventually we are going to go back to identifying or go back to that sense of identity as me, that little sense of identity. So it will be a great experience and then we’ll be like you know, I’m back here and that is going to go on and on and on for however long it goes. This is predetermined, we don’t know you know but eventually we come to this moment where that shift happens and the shift happens and it’s a change from that sense of identity that is based in the body. Habitually even when we point to ourselves we say this is me and then when we direct our attention inward it goes, it lands first on the sense of the body and that is the sense of identity. And in the moment of awakening something happens, something shifts, something changes and that sense of identity changes into knowing oneself as presence. And so now it’s not a mental knowing, it’s an actual direct knowing that in the moment when you bring your attention to your inner where the attention lands is presence, it’s nowhere, it’s nothing.
Rick: Is it ever a hundred percent one way or the other? Is there anybody in the world who is just a hundred percent identified with presence and no sense of individuality, or anybody vice versa who is so completely locked into their individuality that there’s just no remnant of presence whatsoever or is it all as a matter of, you know 50/50 or point and I don’t know that this is the point when we talk about awakening right? Because when we talk about, when I talk about awakening I’m talking about that shift of attention right? A shift of attention and there’s no percentage in it, you know, there’s no percentage. You either know yourself as this body or you know yourself as presence. There is no like 70% knowing yourself as presence. Now, however, awakening doesn’t necessarily mean the end of conditioning right? It doesn’t necessarily mean that once awakened that means nothing ever arises and there’s no stuff going on. That’s not true. It means only that there really is the knowing and the actual knowing that is not anymore, it’s not anymore a question. It’s also not anymore, see before it was like, is this it? Wow that was great and then where is it right? And now that is not there anymore right? There’s a simple knowing that who we are is always here. It doesn’t mean that that’s the end of conditioning, it doesn’t mean that that’s the end of everything that arises.
Rick: So I heard you describing a period, I think you might have been with Mother Mira then when you’d be in bliss for a period of days maybe and then you’d be in hell for a period of days and bliss and hell and bliss and hell.
Neelam: Throughout the same day, you know.
Rick: And you say eventually you got tired of that and you felt you needed to find a teacher who could bring you out of that cycle and you found Papaji and that eventually happened. When it eventually did happen was the awakening you experienced substantially unique and different from the bliss period that you experienced with Mother Mira? In other words, was it a whole different whole different ballgame?
Neelam: Completely different and when you say I found Papaji I would say Papaji found me or Satsang found me or you know that the response of the, you know when the desire is true on the inner, the universe or consciousness responds to that right. That’s how we find the teacher right or the teacher finds us or whoever that was. So yes completely different because sitting in blissful states there will be an end to it and there will be a period when there wouldn’t be any blissful states. So it will be coming in and out of it. It was like a Samadhi state that was not yet the final Samadhi where there isn’t anymore the coming out of it right. So there will be that blissful state and then there will be suffering right. And so, and now there’s no coming out you know there’s no coming out of knowing right. It doesn’t depend on the state you see. It is not dependent on is there bliss here or is there pain here or is there challenges here or is there just blissful loving states here. That doesn’t matter, that doesn’t touch it.
Rick: So now you would not say that you’re in bliss all the time but awakening is different than being in bliss all the time that’s what you’re saying.
Neelam: For sure definitely.
Rick: So you could be unhappy or angry or feeling sick or all kinds of you know things that we don’t usually consider to be blissful but those don’t compromise the awakened state necessarily.
Neelam: I can say all these states arise in presence and there’s always a challenge or a chance to identify with it. That is still always the possibility. So there needs to be that real true vigilance with that. However that knowing of who I am that’s not something that comes and goes right. That’s not something that happens you know when there’s, everything is going well and then it unhappens you know that is not affected by whatever states arise here.
Rick: Yeah and so by knowing who I am you mean whatever states are coming and going presence is like a continuum and is just not affected or diminished by those states.
Neelam: Let’s do it right now Rick, why can’t I ask you to just direct your attention towards your inner?
Rick: Just closing my eyes or just doing it?
Neelam: You can do however you want close your eyes are open it doesn’t matter to me.
Rick: Okay i’ll close my eyes.
Neelam: Yeah just direct your attention towards the inner. Beautiful beautiful and what do you know in this moment? What do you know?
Rick: Same presence as when my eyes are open and my attention is directed outwards but with more less sensory input.
Neelam: Right right right of course of course but the presence is not different.
Rick: Correct.
Neelam: Yeah and it doesn’t matter like maybe now you’re feeling whatever you’re feeling because we are sitting and doing an interview right? And maybe an hour from now you will be in a completely different state because something will be going on in your life right?
Rick: Yeah.
Neelam: Something different and yet when you direct your attention towards this is it any different?
Rick: No and what I find is that you don’t really need, maybe it made a difference in the early days but after a while you don’t really need to direct your attention to it any more than you need to direct your attention to breathing and in fact you know thinking about it or trying to put your attention on it doesn’t make it any more there than forgetting to think about it causes it to go away. It’s sort of like a solid thing.
Neelam: Exactly and you know that I’m just reflecting back on what you said was there a difference between the when I was you know sitting in bliss and suffering and then after the awakening and I remember that the first time after that awakening experience when I went to back to satsang with Papaji and I walked into that satsang and I knew in this moment you know Papaji is me, everything is me, everything is just here right. And as before it was this is me and this is Papaji and this is the thing that is going on here and these are the people right and now everything is just me right everything is just me and that’s just how it is you know there is no separation.
Rick: So after your awakening then everything was in terms of the self you could say.
Neelam: Exactly, exactly.
Rick: And from then on or was that just an initial taste and then that kind of faded?
Neelam: From then on what faded initially there was this elation and blissful states connected with this experience and that lasted maybe a couple of years and that subsides too but that knowing that everything is who we are that’s always here, that doesn’t change.
Rick: That’s interesting because in my experience I feel that presence is very strong but I don’t feel like i’ve totally gotten this thing of everything is me and i’ve discussed this with some other people i’ve interviewed also when I look at the tree or look at my computer or something I don’t sort of have that sense that I hear some people describing so makes me wonder you know.
Neelam: I hear you, I hear you and so just can we do one more time close your eyes and when you have your eyes closed and you really direct your attention towards the inner and when you hear my voice speaking right now Rick, where is that voice coming from?
Rick: Well it’s just in my own consciousness.
Neelam: It’s here, it’s not coming from anywhere. So just for a moment give the moment of attention to what you just said, it’s in your own consciousness.
Rick: Yeah and so is the tree and the car and yes.
Neelam: Everything really truly is in your consciousness.
Rick: I see that, I understand that but somehow I don’t interpret that as seeing things as me, you know what I mean?
Neelam: Because you’re still thinking about it you see. If you’re using your mind and the concept of me and you and all that, that’s why I had you close your eyes because then it’s easier. Yeah. And I had you to just experientially see we have to go by experience just listen to your to where that voice is coming from. You instantaneously said it’s here, it’s in my consciousness.
Rick: Well if the me is presence, if I’m presence, then it seems to me that when I look at a tree, that the tree should be appreciated predominantly as presence if the tree is me. But I’m not so sure I get that, you know. I don’t want to be disingenuous in my own experience. I mean I don’t want to hamper it by throwing in unnecessary doubts but at the same time I don’t want to, i’ve always had this tendency to not want to claim anything that I don’t feel I’m really experiencing.
Neelam: And that’s really good because otherwise we, you know, if it’s false then it’s not true and it’s not congruent and that’s not right. But at the same time you know maybe because see the sensory experience when we engage through senses it takes over. So we have a habit of, and that’s the habit of still identifying with the body right. When you have your eyes open and you look at the tree, I’m looking at the plant here and if you’re looking through your senses you are going to see you and it. If you’re looking through that knowing that you have within, you see, if you go back to that knowing I wonder what would happen if you just sit and there’s a tree and you would not engage you know the senses that want to interpret for you. This is me, this is the tree. That interpretation happens so habitually you don’t even know that it’s happening. Before you know your brain has relayed information to you and you are like yeah well that’s me, that’s the tree and whatever. But if you would listen with this deeper sense of presence or truth I wonder what would be your experience.
Rick: That’s interesting and of course you still have to use your senses. I mean if you were blind, if I were blind we wouldn’t see the plant or the tree. Someone would have to tell us it’s there unless we felt it with another sense you know or it made some noise or something. So we still have to use our senses but I guess you’re saying and correct me if I’m wrong that there’s a kind of a way of experiencing in which the senses are still functioning but there’s something deeper that is perhaps more predominant or as part of the mix there through which you are actually experiencing. It’s almost like the deeper level of what you are is communing with the deeper level of what the tree is and that’s how it’s known.
Neelam: You know it before thought right? You know it before thinking, you know it before you know it’s an object. Even a blind person I would say because of my sensitivities I live with no electricity most of the time. So I live a lot in the dark you see and yet in the dark dark you know out there dark right and yet there is that sense of knowing and things you know that is prior to thinking right? It’s we know things you know we just and the reason I’m saying I’m not trying to take anything away from your experience but I’m just pointing you that somewhere without knowing you still you know use the sensory as the guiding post. It’s not that we are not to have the sensory. The sensory is important in the very deep Samadhi there is no sensory, but then the sensory is important when we are in the body but what is it that you rely on when you are in the inner right? Are you relying on your knowing or are you relying on the senses? The senses is still here, we are not trying to deny or suppress you know but what is your attention?
Rick: True I mean if you’re really in there if you’re meditating or something then the senses are as it says in the Gita turning within like a tortoise withdrawing its limbs so you’re not really engaging them at all and then, but of course we can’t exist in that state all the time we have to eat and earn a living and stuff so we’re engaging our senses but you just taught me something interesting that I don’t think I had really thought of or at least not it wasn’t kind of in the forefront of my understanding which is that you know you begin to function in a way in which the sort of, there’s something deeper than the senses or perhaps it’s a subtle realm of the senses that begins to operate and that begins to interact with objects of perception at their deeper level as well and to appreciate the deeper level of the thing rather than just what the the gross surface perception has to offer, is that correct?
Neelam: Right and what I’m saying is that in the awakening that sense of you know ground shifts
Rick: Yeah
Neelam: Now we are coming from a different ground you see it’s not that the senses have to disappear and you know they may disappear at moments and then they might appear back at moments it doesn’t matter it’s the body right but what matters is that ground that we come from. In this ground everything Is see.
Rick: Yeah
Neelam: Everything yes? And everything same same same no different right different in form different in appearance but not different in the essence.
Rick: Now still on this theme of awakening and what it is and so on I read a quote by a Zen master at one point and he spoke about having had you know many many awakenings over the years some major some minor and the analogy occurred to me of like education. Someone could go to the first grade and study arithmetic and he might say okay I am doing mathematics and he’s right but he’s not doing what’s what, you know a phd student in mathematics is doing but both things are mathematics and yet there’s been this sort of evolution of of what they’re doing or now that’s of course just a metaphor but in terms of awakening can you honestly can we honestly say that there there can be an awakening and it’s valid and it’s legitimate and it’s exactly what you’ve defined in terms of shifting one’s orientation to presence being the predominant identity but then there could be you know numerous levels of deepening and clarification of that over time or but feel free to disagree if you do because this is just a
Neelam: Yeah and first of all you know when we say many awakenings then we have to define right because I remember having a lot of amazing experiences before this that I could have called awakening right and and back then maybe for a better lack of understanding but luckily I wasn’t very educated in the spiritual terminology you see so I didn’t have the points of reference to like say well this was it and this was not but they were extreme states blissful you know beautiful you know expanded and and I could have called that awakening you see. Because since this there is no on in the one sense there is no change there is no that is not going anywhere right what is that is not evolving in any way right. What is really evolving is the embodiment of that yeah what is really evolving is how that knowing informs everything that arises here. That’s what has changed then I can say from that time if we look at time at whenever that happened to this time there is a tremendous change in and in the embodiment of that there isn’t change in the in the actual experience of it you know here it is that was it was like that before too.
Rick: Let me pursue that a little bit more so I understand about embodiment we’ll elaborate on that more but no change in the actual experience of it so does that mean that if again I’m using a metaphor if it were if we compare it to a light it’s not like the light is getting brighter and brighter and brighter it’s still light it’s not you know changing from one thing to another it’s still light but it’s getting brighter all the time so would you say that your actual appreciation of presence is getting clearer more profound or anything or is it just it is what it is.
Neelam: The truth is the truth you know the truth is the truth that is the truth you know so so that the actual knowing that this is not this body or this mind or this these senses that arise here that has not changed okay.
Rick: And when you say knowing you don’t just mean an intellectual thing you mean an experiential thing, experiential that that hasn’t changed right that was there from that very moment you know it was there, Wow, and back then it was new now it’s not new anymore you know it back then it was like Wow and now it’s like yeah this is normal right right what has really changed though is you know what has really changed is how that has penetrated through the levels of personality through the levels of you know conditioning or understanding you know how deeply that has informed now everything that arises here and how the expression see if I would look at you know how I used to speak about it however many years ago and how I speak about it right now the expression has changed tremendously right. And the reason for that change is because there has been an inner change right there has been an inner willingness to just say okay let me be here let me just sit with what arises, let me not assume anything, let me not land in any spiritual understanding, let me not assume anything you know from what I know already right, let me just see in a moment over and over and over again right can I be here, can I be here, is this it too, is this the truth also, can I also in this find truth and rest in peace and quiet even when that arises? Is that, is that true right? Let me not land anywhere, let me not land in understanding, let me not land in awakening right, let me not land in that either.
Rick: So that willingness has made you cooperative so to speak and you’ve been a willing patient lying still on the operating table while nature rearranges your brain.
Neelam: We can say at times cooperating, at times resisting.
Rick: But ultimately you haven’t.
Neelam: What other choices there you know once you know nothing see see the thing is once you know nothing is satisfying anymore nothing can satisfy other than this knowing right it just really doesn’t.
Rick: And I presume this is an ongoing process like five years from now ten years from now you might say to me you know remember when we did that thing back in …
Neelam: Exactly, exactly.
Rick: So how about the word enlightenment I mean the in at least in terms of your use of that word is is there any sort of ultimate endpoint to all this process and we might reserve the word enlightenment for that or would you use it just synonymously with awakening and then probably in your understanding there is no endpoint.
Neelam: You know I would be very careful because there is there’s there’s many different kinds of information about it out there you know so I’m very careful to not to use the word enlightenment and I’m rather you know using it one and the same as awakening right or very close you know and because that’s how Papaji used it you know he used it he used it just you know as one thing that he wasn’t really he wasn’t really speaking much about the differences you know even though I could say there are some differences right. But you know what Ramana says what is interesting you know what I read in a little obscure little book you know that Ramana’s ashram has published a long time ago is that, you see, because once awakening or enlightenment whatever we have call it, it happens there’s no volition anymore see. Volition as this is the end of that movement like I want to know it, I want to get it I want to understand, that that’s the volition right, that’s that’s the individual still looking for something searching right. So this end of volition right so there really isn’t anymore if that’s the true state right there isn’t any more an individual looking for anything anymore right. However, what he describes is that there are four or three other stages that happened that happened but they happen as as a destiny of a particular individual that they were different individuals on the planet and then there are different individuals on the planet that can reach that for example state of living in the Turia, living in the fourth state you know where there’s just no memory and there is no time and there is no you know and there’s there is that that much greater you know knowing of or transcending of this individual kind of experience. But that doesn’t happen by desire you see that happens of its own right if that was the destiny of the individual. So, so he says that he says there are three other stages but they are not reached by wanting you can’t reach them you know because you sit here and think well I like you know I would like this right.
Rick: So if it’s your destiny or your Dharma or the way you happen to be wired then maybe you will reach them is that you’re saying?
Neelam: Exactly so so what happened for me a long time ago you see what happened for me long time ago was I you know everything fell away and that any interest in anything other than being here fell away so there stopped to be interest in what is this and what is that and what kind of state am I in and is this this or is that that and how does that measure on this scale or all of that which in the beginning still as an imprint was still functional you see there was still some time some years you know that was functional like yeah awakening sure yeah awakening and this you know and then that fell away too you see.
Rick: And yet you’ve devoted your life to spirituality and to teaching spirituality and so obviously this still is your most ardent interest.
Neelam: When I say it fell away what fell away was needing to know anything.
Rick: Or be certain about anything.
Neelam: Or anything because what is here in the moment, you in the moment, either you are at rest and knowing your true nature or suffering. It’s only these two options. So if you really know, in my experience if you really want to just be very very very very clear and very adamant about where are you at that’s all that matters right you know. Who’s going to measure that right? What’s the measurement? Who’s interested you know? Who who who needs to know? Are we here or are we there or what is the state or you know. You know that was still there a little bit as a construct as a structure you know and that fell away naturally and the interest became only can I be here.
Rick: And yet as a teacher i’ve heard you give nice talks for half hour 45 minutes at a stretch about some particular topic and you sound very knowledgeable so you do have you do know things and you impart that knowledge as a teacher.
Neelam: You know at some point what I realized is because in the beginning when I was teaching I was just sharing the direct experience and I couldn’t really even speak much back then because see there was not much integration between that awakened state and and the body-mind you know. The brain wouldn’t function there wouldn’t be any you know words that would come right. So so and and after a while though I realized that, you know, what the knowing of the direct experience of presence is not not is not necessarily everything that my students need to know. There’s a difference there right. Like I don’t live in that you know you know thinking about it right and yet when I come to teach I recognize oh that knowledge needs to be or verbalized in some way that inner experience needs to be shared in some way that you know understanding of what’s happening has to be somehow explained to others right, but it’s not necessarily, you know like what I’m trying to say is that when I live my life moment by moment there isn’t really any kind of reflection of like who am I and why am I like this and what’s you know I mean like that kind of doesn’t happen.
Rick: Yeah that would just be a lot of mental agitation.
Neelam: It’s just natural just being here.
Rick: Yeah and of course I mean again it might relate back to how we’re wired because there have been a number of great sages who have been really erudite and written you know like Shankara written these long complicated things and that was that was his fort, that was his skill.
Neelam: Exactly and in a way I see that you know the challenge of my health has brought a certain you know a certain opportunity with it right because not not being able to travel, not being able to see people in person, not being able to do the things that I used to do there was a lot of deepening in the real true understanding of what it means moment by moment you know can I be here and how to work with what arises here and how to understand the body the nervous system the brain more to really help it to be able to come to rest right. So there has been a lot of deepening and from it, see that’s what you are listening to right, hours and hours and hours. From it there have been a lot of different topics that would arise here and a lot of different things that would arise to speak about and to share right which really are the result of just this inner process though I’m trying to say you see it’s a result of what’s going on on the inner right and then it wants to express itself and it wants to share it with others to to say hey you know this is we could look at that right isn’t that interesting.
Rick: Yeah that’s an interesting phenomenon actually, it seems like people go through all sorts of things and and even even though those things might not be something we would request or hope for because they’re difficult but they all end up being part of our toolkit you know and and if we end up becoming a teacher a lot of people have spoken to they say that they don’t regret a single thing you know like for instance Adyashanti was on Oprah the other day and he said he went through a period of life after his initial awakening which was really hell for about five years but he said he wouldn’t change a thing because it sort of endowed him with certain capabilities as a result of those experiences.
Neelam: Exactly and we never know you know so that’s why I don’t try to analyze you know where I’m at I’m just like okay here I am, here it is, can we be here right. Is that what we can do?
Rick: So another thing I’m interested in about presence like you were well mentioning Adyashanti for instance he had an experience similar to yours where he he was sitting at a bus stop and he said I just want to know the truth and I don’t care exactly what happens to me it could be hell it could be heaven I just want to know it, bring it on. And sure enough it came on and you said kind of a similar thing and what I find interesting about that is that it’s almost as if somebody’s listening, you know that intelligence which is governing the universe is you know seek and you shall find. It’s sort of like if we reach out from our side with that sincere intention we get a response. Maybe you could respond to that and i’ll ask another question about it.
Neelam: You know that because the teacher is the inner right, the true teacher is the inner however if we could fully surrender into what we know in the inner then we wouldn’t, we wouldn’t need an outer teacher right. But most of us, most of us you know, there are examples you know Ramana there in and done right we don’t know what it means done also I don’t want to put labels but you know no no human teacher right most of us though don’t fully know how to surrender to the inner to the what the inner is telling us is true right, so the way consciousness responses when there’s true desire for freedom it would respond, it would respond by bringing us in touch with the teacher yeah and it would respond by bringing us in touch with the teacher who can speak to us in the words that we understand.
Rick: And that teacher may be a human teacher or it may be a disease or it may be whatever we need it seems.
Neelam: Whatever it is right, whatever it is that helps us to trust that inner experience whatever helps us to trust.
Rick: But to me the fascinating implication of that is that you know presence is not just some merely, some kind of I don’t know just some, it has intelligence to it it’s it’s responsive it’s you know if we look deeply enough into what we mean when we say the word presence. I mean think of think of your thumb and what’s actually going on in there on the molecular level, the biological level, the atomic level, there’s this incredible you know world of intricate interactions and things going on, also orderly and and intelligent in their in their functioning. To me it begins to speak of God you know that that presence …
Neelam: We can say what power is that right?
Rick: Yeah
Neelam: So we can call it, you know there’s many ways to call it right presence, consciousness, space, God right? Even though I don’t really relate to God as a person …
Rick: Not an isolated person
Neelam: But just the force right, well because what what power is that you know what power is anything right.
Rick: Yeah well it’s amazing if you think about it I mean you know presence I mean some people you hear the word presence Echardt Tolle totally talks about the now and you just think of this sort of dumb mass of being or presence with no, it could evoke that kind of understanding but if you actually think about what’s actually going on and everything you see and everything that’s within and without you, there’s this infinitely awesome orchestra taking place. That’s I think fascinating and that and when you say things like you know you have a desire and then and then presence responds by giving you this experience or bringing you this teacher or something it always reminds me of that that we’re not talking about some some kind of mechanistic thing or mere sort of being, we’re talking about a sentient maybe an omnipresent sentience but in a vast intelligence that we seem to be just immersed, in that pervades everything. I’m talking a bit too much but I
Neelam: That’s good that’s good you need to
Rick: That particular point just kind of intrigues me and I enjoy bouncing it off people that I interview to see how they feel about that.
Neelam: Sure, sure. Yeah.
Rick: I mean have you found for instance, you’ve talked about since your awakening even that the embodiment has progressed through many, many stages have you found a dawning of kind of a deeper sense of devotion or expansion of the heart? For Ramana had his awakening and then he spent his life devoted to the the intelligence that that was embodied in Arunachala and many other spiritual people have you know, it seems that like Adyashanti again he had his initial awakening and then over time he just began to be fascinated with the person of Jesus and he felt like Zen, he actually said in that interview that Zen seemed kind of lacking in love lacking in qualities of the heart and and it didn’t satisfy him because he felt his own heart was blossoming after his awakening so has that been a dimension of your experience since your initial awakening and the embodiment you referred to has it had to do with growth of the heart?
Neelam: You know I would say it really if we call it the heart then I would say it really is a continuous embracing or meeting of everything as is and it’s really allowing for everything because you see what I’m interested in lately you know as I’m speaking with students because otherwise you know it’s just my inner right experience what I’m interested in is how does the impulse that arise in presence how does that translate itself into action in our experience and what are all the different other things that get involved you know our past our conditioning our you know whatever whatever we think whatever we believe whatever we you know think this is good or this is bad or it should be here or it shouldn’t be here right so a lot of the work that I do sitting myself and sitting with students is a work of you know what is present right can I be present to that is that okay also you see it’s when this particular state arises because when we have expanded states that’s easy what about if we have difficult states what about if we have pain what about if we have anger what about if we have frustration what about if we want to go and kill somebody right what about you know things all sorts of things arise is cake is that okay can we really be here right so if so you know it because that’s what I consider love you know is it’s really that because love is natural right it’s a natural quality that is already here most of the time we don’t know that is here because we are engaged with what arises right we are engaged with the motivation of the past right so for me that interest is when you say you know the heart was blossoming for me it’s like everything is included yeah can I be with this too can is that okay but not just okay you know when I am sitting in meditation right which is like great everything is okay right but is this okay when somebody you know is angry with you is this okay when you have a challenging interaction with somebody is this still okay when you know the events in the world happened that are happening right is it still okay when you know the climate change that we are dealing with and the effects of that is that still okay then see does that have place and and does what arise here in response to that is that okay also
Rick: Okay now you just were used the word okay about 20 times so we better talk about what we really mean by okay so when you say okay are you mean do you mean that you can take it in stride you can accept it as it is without arguing with reality is that what you mean by okay
Neelam: Yes yes yes that’s what I mean that’s what I mean and what I mean again is that when you go right now to the inner and in this moment is everything okay the way it is
Rick: Yeah yeah sounds very much like Byron Katie the way she teaches you know she’s
Neelam: Well it’s it’s the natural state right we can have many ways of wording it the reason why I like to use the word okayness is because you know when we are quiet it’s so obvious right when let’s say you got extremely aggravated you know with in your relationship and you’re going through the big drama internally right and so if we really work with okayness but really not mental concept and you would ask yourself is what is present right now okay
Rick: And if you really are established in accepting what is as okay would you really take a very oppositional position in a relationship or in some other situation in other words would you stir up as much drama as somebody who is not accustomed to seeing though everything is okay and and this person is wrong and that idea is wrong that they’re in opposition to things
Neelam: Even deeper than that because first you know when we go into relating we first need to recognize that okayness is true for Everything.
Rick: Yeah
Neelam: Is the ground of your experience is the ground of your partner’s experience is the ground of the experience of everything in the world so when we use okayness as a as an inquiry when we ask ourselves is something okay we are not in there and saying where am I at right now am I really in the truth of what I know am I really resting in the okayness of everything that says or am I engaging in drama right and so first you know rather than trying to be anywhere I use this question of okayness as a you know the answer is yes or no and if it’s a yes right on let’s be here if it’s a no we have to clarify our relationship with what is because otherwise we can process what is forever and we are never going to get satisfied because that’s stuff can’t be satisfied the story can’t be satisfied right but if we come back to the sense of if we come back to the sense of true real inner okayness that will be the beginning of our inquiry right and then we come back to that and now that doesn’t mean though and this is where the translation is so important that doesn’t mean that you’re not going to go back to your partner and say what you just did was not okayed.
Rick: You may say that but it seems like there would be a different quality to it than if you were not established in presence you know it’s like you know there’s so many people who are so contentious these days the republicans hate the democrats the democrats hate the republicans and you know there’s all this Israelis and the Palestinians I mean it seems that if all these people were really established in deep sense of abiding presence that there might still be differences of opinion and philosophy and you know and all but there wouldn’t be this rancor and bitterness and outright warfare as a result of these sorts of differences.
Neelam: And even if they were not established if they were willing you see rather than always looking out there if they were willing to for a moment look within and see am I actually at rest right this experience here really knowing that everything is okay the way it is right or resting in presence or whatever we call it if there was a willingness to do that you see but what I see in the world more is because there are so many changes happening first of all there’s billions of people on the planet that’s a huge humongous collective consciousness right that means a huge amount of tendencies see a huge amount of tendencies that come to be experienced right that itself affects the planet the consciousness tremendously right then we have the huge changes of the climate change there’s a huge deep change going on for so many years already that only now it becomes you know like more common knowledge right meaning now everybody’s talking about it and many years ago only a few were talking about it right so it’s much more visible but this these changes affect us yeah the human body is affected by it you see I don’t know if you notice but there’s so much more conflict on the planet right now first of all because there’s so many more as I say so many billions of people but also we are affected by all these changes that are going on see this little nervous system this little brain you know that all that is all connected this all interconnected there’s no separation and so there’s there is more you know tension because of that right there’s more
Rick: Hard to say if there’s more conflict I don’t know I’d have to ask an historian we’re not in the middle of world war two or or anything like that we’re not burning witches on the town square there’s there’s a lot of things that have improved but there’s definitely a lot of strife and a lot of you know seemingly irreconcilable differences among people and it seems to me that you know this bit more even a little bit more introspection if not a deep diving into presence is the the antidote
Neelam: But this is you know why why I said so many billions of human beings on the planet so many tendencies present yeah the tendencies come here to be cleared most of the people the gross of the seven billion or however many billions already there are is not interested in that you see
Rick: What did you mean by that just now the tendencies come here to be cleared to be experienced right
Rick: By whom?
Neelam: Well well why why would there be even birth in a human body why would there be even birth right why would consciousness need to incarnate into anybody because we are in a human body but look there’s there’s billions of other beings right on the planet right
Rick: And billions of other planets
Neelam: Exactly so so so why would even incarnation be happening right what is incarnation incarnation is tendencies what are tendencies tendencies is that the postponement of being here tendencies the idea that there will be a time in the future that we will get to experience something that we don’t have right now and therefore we have to keep going right consciousness has to keep going looking for these experiences right because if it looks for these experiences then eventually there’s going to be this time that is going to be this perfect experience of something right and we get these moments we get a second of it and then it’s like oh that’s over okay looking for the next one right so these are tendencies and we can say if you and i are talking here sitting in this interview and whoever is watching the predominant on the tendency would be the tendency for freedom right because otherwise we wouldn’t be here talking about it
Rick: Wouldn’t be interested in this
Neelam: Exactly however there are other imprints that have not been cleared right that brought us into the human body and why being why to know our true nature right but here is also the time to meet the past to not to perpetuate anymore to not to go through another cycle of there’s going to be an experience out there sometime somewhere that is going to be better than what is here right
Rick: There’s a lot of what in that you just said i in listening to talk
Neelam: I’m sorry maybe it’s too much
Rick: No it’s good i’m trying to think of about five different ways i could go with this but the you know so you’ve alluded to reincarnation just now and i heard you talk about it in your talks and it makes a lot of sense to me that as a soul we go through many many many lives experiencing different things and you also alluded just now to what i would call a sort of an evolutionary impulse that it’s at the heart of everything and that really is probably at the heart of creation itself without which we wouldn’t have a creation we wouldn’t have stars forming and eventually exploding and forming heavier elements which form our bodies i’m sure you know that that everything in our body was once part of a star so there’s this sort of how did that happen it didn’t happen randomly or by like little billiard balls running into each other so there’s this kind of evolution toward greater and greater complexity greater expression of forms capable of or evolution of forms capable of experiencing being experiencing consciousness capable of having the intelligence which governs the universe experience itself with greater clarity and embodying that with to greater and greater degrees so it almost sometimes people put the emphasis on you know we have all these tendencies we’re on this cycle we’re on this wheel of karma we want to get off and just end the whole thing but but and maybe that’s a valid perspective but isn’t there also i mean can’t we give god some credit for having created a universe the universe for a purpose and that purpose meaning being to bring into existence to beings like you and i who can have a conversation like this about something which we can actually experience which is a far cry from what it was before the big bang
Neelam: But but you know we we have to start in the beginning with you know when we are really truly at rest right yeah where is the universe right what is the universe
Rick: In our experience
Neelam: When we are truly in peace why don’t you just do that again Rick let’s just together you know when we are in the moment here sitting quietly and you direct your attention towards your inner you know beautiful then where’s the universe right or what is it
Rick: In my experience it’s less active although i have a brain which is enabling me to have that experience and that brain is there’s trillions of cells doing things in that brain
Neelam: Into the human body and then we go into the perceptions and all that but when we sit in the real deep truth you know then we know that you know universe arises in presence
Rick: Yes
Neelam: So even though we have to talk in this dualistic way and i talk in this way too because if i want to explain certain things like if i want to help my students to direct their attention towards tendencies that oftentimes remain invisible right tendencies that bring us here and we kind of have a blind spot and avoidance of like whoa let’s not go there and that eventually succeed that would need to continue in some way right so i need to be able to speak in these in these dual ways and yet when we look at you know like when we sit truly truly in presence then we can see what universe arises in presence right so it’s an experience that we are having right and the and the and the you know consciousness is having an experience of this you know consciousness is having an experience of being in the body consciousness is having an experience of having a conversation with you consciousness is having an experience of billions of humans being on the planet right now struggling with whatever they are struggling with right so so we need to keep it in that perspective you know because as i see it if we take the universe as just it the entity that exists on its own independently then we are missing a little bit that you know it’s it arises in it’s it’s here as an experience
Rick: Exactly and it’s it’s here as a mechanism through which it the through which consciousness can experience itself
Neelam: And through which consciousness can reach freedom
Rick: Reach freedom
Neelam: Exactly because there’s a reason why you know we are here and why we are going through what we are going through and why we have to go through it and why we say well why is this happening to me or why is this happening to this person why is this going on and there’s you know there’s a reason to that as long as we can see it as oh that’s what it is can i be here other than oh my god why is this happening or i wish it wasn’t here
Rick: It’s funny because you can kind of swing back and forth from seeing it from an individual perspective or seeing it from the perspective of the you know the universal consciousness and and from that perspective how could consciousness ever have not been free you know
Neelam: Exactly exactly
Rick: From the individual perspective it seems like something we want to get to you know
Neelam: And yet it doesn’t know it you see because these tendencies that are here these are like little seeds that believe themselves to be something other than what they are yeah this is you know we need to you know that it needs to know itself right it needs to know itself just looking up a there’s this great t.s elliott quote he says hang on a minute i’m not finding it right now but there’s something about the the journey you know we go through this whole rigmarole and we come back to where we started and know the place for the first time
Neelam: Right that’s right
Rick: Okay but when you talk about tendencies i kind of took it to a metaphysical level but when you when you’re talking about tendencies you’re talking about vasanas impressions ingrained ways of behavior that that keep us kind of constricted
Neelam: Exactly or that keep us because what a tendency is as i said is a postponement right it’s a postponement of being present with what is right and that postponement has been going on for a really long time yeah so it has been here before this life and that’s the only reason why i talk about it because otherwise we wouldn’t even be in this life if there were not certain impressions that are still drawing us into this experience right there wouldn’t even be that experience why i would be necessary
Rick: And we are repositories of many such impressions right we are just bundles of them and and so it’s not like we should want anyone to feel guilty if they you know are drawn outward and or don’t appreciate you know presence fully in this moment because a lot of this stuff you know we’re so wired from so many lifetimes of impressions that that that’s going to tend to keep happening
Neelam: Exactly and that’s why my interest is so closely on the inner you know where am i at yeah am i at rest or am i suffering because when the tendency arises it’s usually so habitual and so familiar that it feels like me right it feels like who you are and before you know you are acting on it you are engaged and that engagement recharges that tendency
Rick: Reinforces yeah
Neelam: It forces it makes it stronger so yeah
Rick: Okay so you’re saying that by kind of catching it and coming back to the self we could say coming back to presence you take the steam out of it you you
Neelam: And then you exactly catching it and and being first of all being aware that that’s a tendency rather than you see even even people who have had deep awakening right I know a lot of people and I talk to a lot of friends there’s we still have the nervous system and the brain and all that and there are still tendencies here and so so so so so even there can be still a misunderstanding right when something arises it can feel like so like natural but it really isn’t right it’s just the past right so so for so first of all we need to really you know go go back and and even know that this is the past right but then the reason why we are born in the human body i’m sure you know you heard many times that is one of the prerequisites for freedom yes why would that be right because first of all we have that intelligence which can be so much trouble right but it also gives us that self-reflection like so many times today we said okay just go and look on the inner right so it gives you the capacity to to go and look right into our true nature first of all but it also gives us a nervous system in the brain you see and so when the past arises one of the reasons that it hasn’t been finished is that it hasn’t been experienced and so now we have a nervous system in the brain that can do that right so when the tendency of the past arises and if we can recognize it for what it is rather than engaging it we can say okay can i be here and what can i be here means it means can i really allow the full experience of it in this body without engaging it without suppressing it but can i allow it to really run through that’s part of the reason why we are born in a human body can it really be present that you know the excitement of it the shakiness of it the fear of it there whatever that is can that content that was holding it in this you know seed right can that content fully come and just be here and can it be experience and can it be then recognized like oh there was just you know an imprint there was just an energy that moved through that’s all it was right because when it’s recognized for what it really is which is in its essence everything is our true nature then it doesn’t have to keep doing this thing over and over and over again and sometimes and i’m sorry but sometimes we have to do that over and over and over and over again until the charge of it which we don’t know how long it has been here maybe millions of years it has been repeating itself right you don’t know that charge until the charge really diminishes and then it’s done you see then it doesn’t have to continue right
Rick: Sure to some well you just think in terms of conditioning you know i mean even pavlov you know this just basically we’re habitual creatures things get deeply ingrained and whether it’s you know and you can take extreme examples such as drug addiction or you know behavioral tendencies let’s take an example like for instance maybe you have a tendency to get angry at people and how most people you know many people would just react blindly without without thinking without self-reflection get angry when the impulse arises what you’re saying well let you say what you’re saying how would you recommend doing it differently
Neelam: Well well first of all you know i when i say tendency i mean there’s something prior to our this life experience so when when the bad when we come into this body there’s already tendencies and there could be new tendencies that were formed in this life right but when we say you know the baby is so innocent that’s true and it wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t something you know past pushing it into this
Rick: Right right
Neelam: So so the tendencies are already here right they are not just and yet they reinforce themselves throughout of this life experience so because of certain tendencies will be already drawn into certain situations in this life yeah which would reinforce that tendency
Rick: So take a particular example whether the one i just brought up getting angry at people or some other one if you’d like to choose it and maybe let’s draw a contrast between how people ordinarily would do it and reinforce it or how you would recommend dealing with it so as to un-reinforce it
Neelam: You want to take it more into the practical level and that’s a little you know that’s a little higher up than just kind of understanding how it all works but let’s just take it there okay so on the practical level for that you know reaction from anger to be there there had to be somewhere we don’t know when a prior movement away from our true nature because when we are at rest in our true nature it will be rare that we would react because anger is natural too and sometimes anger is important right as an expression but it will be rare that we’ll just react from anger right so that means that movement away has already happened right somewhere so when somebody’s really actually angry you know has a lot of reactivity from anger i would say okay let’s slow it down right let’s notice it as an experience in your body let’s sense it for a moment let’s come out of the thinking about it you know let’s kind of drop that let’s bring it back to the sensory and let’s just kind of notice it as an experience right let’s just say is it okay for it to be here right now somebody would say yes or no right and then we can okay depending on what it is we would sit with it in a certain particular way right and
Rick: So when you say okay it means that rather than pick up the phone and yell at so and so you’re asking them to kind of put their attention more within and maybe feel the physiology or some kind of inner impulse that’s spurring them to that kind of action
Neelam: And i am asking also them to ask themselves is it okay that this impulse is present right now are they okay with it or not and then we just do a little inquiry let me just explain this we just sit with it for a while until something shifts and they come back to rest yeah and when they come back to us then they regain perspective and then they go like oh oh there’s other options it doesn’t just have to be you know screaming right there’s other options okay okay right regain perspective because we came back to rest right
Rick: Yeah so you’re saying that there’s a cycle action impression desire we perform an action it creates an impression that plants the seeds of future desires which gives rise to another impression you know another action and so on and what you’re saying is nip it in the bud and rather than perpetuate this cycle break the cycle by just coming back to kind of a self referral self-awareness kind of thing feeling the sensation if it’s there and you know not necessarily acting you know reflexively
Neelam: Exactly but not suppressing it either
Rick: Not suppressing it but maybe
Neelam: Experiencing the heat of it the challenge of it the emotion of it the how it manifests in the body let’s have it let’s have the sensation we don’t want to suppress it but we want to really experience it to go like oh okay we can be here you see that movement doesn’t have to take our attention away from who we are
Rick: Yeah and it sounds like feeling it like that would actually produce the physiological change necessary to sort of eliminate that impression in the brain in the nerve system
Neelam: Exactly it would change the pathway in the brain over time it would change the pathway and it would really as you say you know to eliminate it over time as an impression right it wouldn’t be there
Rick: Yeah
Neelam: But let’s say in that case i would go even deeper and i was how come somebody is so reactive what is the experience of the past that made them so that they can’t be here
Rick: Well you’re not asking them to go back to a past life and realize that they you know were mistreated or something like that you’re you’re
Neelam: Well well you know i’m not asking them to go anywhere but i’m i’m i’m saying you know if there were experiences in their past this past current past or other past that resulted in a certain unresolved charge that is still present then that charge is what we want to meet you see without necessarily knowing the specifics of those experiences the specifics but sometimes the specifics come up that’s okay but that’s not what we are looking for right we are just looking to see like oh there is this charge and that charge has been here for a really long time ago and when anything touches the charge delicate touch there’s like ah right that reactivity happens so that reactivity is almost a secondary pattern right because the primary is there is something i can’t be with something i had to and i personalized i mean i say i because i don’t know how to say it otherwise there’s something we couldn’t be here with before
Rick: In your own experience when you first started doing this after your awakening was there like a whole shitload to use that expression of stuff that was coming on fast and furious that you had to deal with and then it gradually diminished over time and now it’s kind of tapered off to a trickle or has there been a pretty consistent you know momentum
Neelam: In the beginning there was a very spontaneous natural just arising and things will just turn over almost by itself right and then eventually after some period of time i don’t remember you know the specifics of time but it hit on some kind of resistance see there was some inner resistance and there was for a moment luckily just for a moment some sense of wanting to identify with the awakened state rather than being present to others and luckily that has you know been seen very very quickly but what was missing in my personal you know experience was something that i call tenderness there was a lot of you know just coming from my conditioning there was a lot of harshness about being with certain states and then there was a certain level of arrogance from that awakeness too you know that just thought like whatever this is not important you know we don’t have to be here right well you know what’s this nonsense you know let’s not just not mess with it right but but there was there was the tenderness missing of just okay this is what’s here can i be here and eventually there was that shift and you know because i i remember back then dealing with some physical challenges and i remember suddenly going like wait a minute let me just be here and then suddenly realizing whoa this is just you know this is the way to go because in being here that’s what eventually relaxes what is here and that eventually you know that when we really come back to rest everything begins to orientate by that you know everything goes like oh yeah that’s great i can be here now that’s wonderful you know so
Rick: That’s interesting it kind of sounds like you know once that awakening occurred then a lot of rearrangement needed to take place and and in your experience you know there was this tendency of arrogance or harshness or whatever but that was that stuff was coming to your awareness to your attention because it needed to be swept out it needed to be resolved
Neelam: Yeah you know it needed to be seen for what it is rather than just perpetuate
Rick: Right it might have been there even before they wake up that you might have been blind to it or something
Neelam: Of course of course i’m sure there was i’m sure it was i’m sure it was and then on top of it it became maybe a little bit of a spiritual conditioning which by the way so much of it out there you know conditioning right what we think is spiritual and how it’s supposed to be and rather than the true being with what is here
Rick: Yeah yeah you talked a lot in your recordings about authenticity and that what you just said reminds me of that of and my interpretation or impression of authenticity is just you know not not mood making i mean not sort of clinging to an attitude or a belief or or just some like trying to take refuge in some sort of spiritual mindset but just being genuinely what you are without trying to gloss over it in any way
Neelam: Yeah and and is the inner the true knowing on the inner and the outer the expression is it congruent yeah is there congruency between the real knowing of what we know and then how how does it translate when you talk to your friend how does it translate when you are with your spouse or your partner how does it translate when you are with your children how does it translate when you are interacting with the world is there still is it still congruent or is it just I know the truth and then something else happens when there’s action right
Rick: Yeah do you walk your talk
Neelam: Exactly
Rick: A lot of times when you were talking I was reminded of you know like the Tao Te Ching which talks about being in tune with the Tao you know and it even talks about rulers ruling countries if they’re in tune with the Tao and how how smoothly and in tune with in tune with nature really or the Gita you know action in accord with Dharma that if we’re sort of isolated in constricted individual consciousness without an appreciation of that sort of deeper more universal value then we’re just kind of kicking around with very partial understanding and appreciation of things and making a mess you know but if a lot of what you said reminded me of those principles of just acting from a settled state settled in presence and then who’s really the actor then there’s a saying Brahman is the charioteer
Neelam: Yeah yeah and also recognizing though that when that action really is based on our past to make the difference you see and if necessary do what is needed which is inquiry and if necessary make amendments in the world if that action has hardened anything for anybody in some way and really so that brings everything into congruence you see it’s not it’s not about perfect right because we can also think like what’s that perfect state you know and nothing ever goes wrong you know but no you know we are all just in it learning as we are learning right so if we recognize later on oh man this was just my reactivity you know can I make amendments for that because that what brings the inner and the outer to congruence right
Rick: Yeah I’m reminded of your fellow Papaji disciple Andrew Cohen whom i’ve interviewed and you know there was a lot of controversy around him and about a year ago or six months ago he he’s just decided to stop teaching and completely do a self inventory and he’s calling up people individually and apologizing for things he’s done and all there’s this you know and he had had a very profound awakening but there was I think perhaps but he would admit and he even I’m mentioning him because he’s being very public about this but he would admit that there was still a lot of conditioning governing his behavior and you know a lot of people got kind of upset and disillusioned when he made this turn of heart and a friend of mine who’s been with him for years felt like oh he’s just pulled the rug out under me but my initial reaction was right on Andrew that’s fantastic you know what what an evolutionary step for you
Neelam: Isn’t it great that’s like how you know that’s what’s needed right that’s beautiful
Rick: Yeah it’s like he deserves congratulations for coming to the realization that that was necessary and for you know for trying to make amends as you say
Neelam: Exactly beautiful and you know a few years ago from now maybe he’ll come back as a teacher but he’ll be a much better one without all that you know
Neelam: Who knows right but at least there’s that tiny little recognition and that step into like oh that’s not enough you see yeah it’s not enough to just know it and to know it in a certain way that’s not enough you see there’s something else needed you see R’ embodiment house cleaning exactly
Neelam: Congruence congruence
Rick: Something is needed yeah so it almost seems like a person is not going to be a maybe maybe a person can go on for a whole lifetime you know acting inappropriately after awakening has dawned but i get the impression that you’re not going to be allowed to do that in most cases it’s eventually going to crack through you
Neelam: Exactly we hope or something is going to
Rick: Something is going to happen or the
Neelam: People around you are finally going to say you got to be kidding right right to clean up you know
Rick: Yeah and do you think there are any people who eventually reach a point at which there is really little or nothing left to process that they’ve really worked out all the vasanas
Neelam: You know i don’t know that
Rick: Do you think Papaji was that way
Neelam: You know i i wouldn’t comment on that i don’t know
Rick: Hard to judge
Neelam: And and i would say you know when we talk about Papaji’s Papaji would say somebody asked him Papaji do you still need to be vigilant and he would say with every breath
Rick: Yeah
Neelam: Because he says you never know you never know you know when something can arise you know you just never know you see and you have to be vigilant there are also stories of Ramana and his disciples and Ramana you know when they were dying in the process of dying Ramana would sit with them and hold one hand on the heart and one on the head he said so that the vasana can’t escape so that it’s met here and he said he was successful with one but he was not successful with the other because his attention moved and the vasana escaped and it just went to another birth right
Rick: Interesting
Neelam: So you know so it’s like well you know uh you know like see see that’s what i mean when i said in the beginning i i’m just not thinking like that what i’m really more interested in where am i where is my attention am i at rest or am i suffering
Rick: Each moment
Neelam: Exactly what’s going on here yeah
Rick: I know you advocate taking a certain amount of time to just be in silence each day either some sort of meditation or just sitting in silence you want to elaborate a bit on the importance of that
Neelam: You know this this this two or three different things i really recommend one is you know we need a quiet time for self-reflection and just you know coming back to rest right the life is very engaging and oftentimes there’s a lot of things going on and we can easily get distracted by what’s going on and so that keep coming back that’s what you know that’s what brings that congruence and it also brings a lot of insight about what are the tendencies that are moving that’s kind of that time you know i also recommend a lot for people these days to sit in the awareness of the sensations in the body because that’s often missing and that’s very different than meditation but it really helps them later in the moment you know in or in inquiry to be present to what is rather than just be totally you know taken by the experience right and then of course inquiry which is you know can i be here can i be with what is here can i let it come to rest.
Rick: All three of those things there’s some overlap too i mean you can be sitting in a meditative state and be aware of the sensations in the body and be processing stuff and all but
Neelam: Yeah it’s a little i find it a little different you know but but anyway there are just some elements that i think are helpful these days.
Rick: Yeah i’m reading some notes here that i think Lee or Nina sent me and just we’ve covered most of them i’ll just read you some of them and if
Neelam: You would talk about relationship a little bit.
Rick: Yeah okay go for that let’s do that
Neelam: Because that’s one of the things that i talk about you know if you have you know my interest in talking about it is because i find the relationship being in relationships you know not just intimate partnerships but in general that it really tells us so much about where we are.
Rick: Ram Dass said if you think you’re enlightened go spend a week with your parents.
Neelam: Exactly so it’s a very direct you know inquiry right so no you know you can’t hide right and as i talk about relationships you know i’m saying that there’s a certain part of our conditioning that only arises when we relate see it doesn’t arise that much when we are just on our own so you can say well i was fine before i met you right or i was fine before i talked to you and then i talked to you and i’m not fine anymore right and what’s not fine is is because conditioning has arisen that it’s not been visible before right so in that way i if done rightly not as a agenda but as a you know awareness relationships can be a great path to freedom right but not as an agenda like well we have to be in a relationship to to be free no but if you happen to be in relationships in your life which everybody is in some kind of relationship right then that can become a great way to really inquire into some of these tendencies or some of these conditionings that we don’t know otherwise because when we when you are by yourself they don’t show up that strongly even though they show up also they show up in the way we relate to work in the way we relate to food in the way to we relate to our body in the way we relate to the practice or sitting or or inquiry they show up in many ways too but then when you relate whoa you know it just shows up very very strongly and that’s then a great you know place for inquiry
Rick: Yeah well 50% of all Americans get divorced Mickey Rooney who died recently was married eight times so yeah
Neelam: It’s amazing yeah
Rick: So it seems like a lot of people haven’t learned that lesson and you know they probably have this outer directed thing of you know something’s wrong here it’s your fault I’m going I’m moving on so how would as a teacher how would you recommend to people that they use relationship as a teaching tool for discovering one’s own you know weak points or whatever
Neelam: Right well first of all I would say you know a relationship that means two nervous systems arising in presence so which we have to remember because what you have this nervous system is going through the other is going through similar things it’s just a little different but two nervous systems arising in presence so that means you know when so that that that’s first really important to recognize that it’s it’s not that what is going on here is not so different than what is going on over there you see which is often the reason we don’t see it is because the projection the mechanism of projection the positive and negative projection covers that up and we don’t see the other just being another that is going through whatever we are going through also just you know another experience arising in presence right so I first teach that kind of taking that little distance and looking at that projection and understanding that the other is just another you know they are going through whatever we are going through right it’s just another experience arising here first of all secondly you know I say you know fulfillment or happiness or rest is not found out there we can’t find it with the other we can share it but we can’t find it with the other because it’s an inner experience and when we come to relate you know there’s so many of these unfinished early experiences and early states that arise and when that gets involved you know I talk about conditioning and there’s the second kind of conditioning that arises in relating and there’s certain experiences that or certain parts of our conditioning that are trying to get met by being with another they are trying to get finished by being with another so if you ever are if anybody’s in a relationship that has these so-called issues right where people can’t get along that’s the unresolved past right that’s your unresolved past my unresolved past that’s what it is and there is no resolving it out there right there’s no reason there’s no meeting it out there that the only way we can meet it is by meeting it here so that’s why I say you know I really recommend inquiring or relating and can you come back to rest you know can you come back to rest that’s the beginning there’s of course many things I talk about when we talk about relating but can we come back to rest
Rick: Do you think that if a person didn’t have unresolved issues they wouldn’t even bother getting into a relationship
Neelam: I don’t know that it’s true you see I’m not sure maybe you know I’m not sure because there’s part of our pull towards relating is unconscious unresolved past part of it is conscious you know like wow that’s great you know I want to have that or be with that or be around that so I don’t know you know maybe I don’t know you know who knows
Rick: Are there people among your students who are taking your teaching to heart with regard to relationships and you know in order to recognize that the the fault doesn’t lie with the other they’re you know it’s their own tendencies that are bubbling up but they’re in a relationship where the partner isn’t a student of yours and and isn’t thinking of it that way and they’re just going on doing what they do and how do you how do you what do you say to such students
Neelam: Here I would have to respond very you know practically to any each particular person because everybody is different and I would have to know much more information before before I can give an answer well let’s say you’re working in a job and your boss is a jerk and he really is a jerk you know and you know you have you don’t have control over the way he behaves but you have control over the way you behave and you can sort of
Neelam: Have control over if you remain in that job or not
Rick: You do you have that
Neelam: And so and so you know what I see inquiry really does for people because it does different things for different people right sometimes what it does is that whoever they are with begins to resonate with it right see an interesting example I had one two three students women students over the last few years that have been in my longer programs and I did a program on relationship a couple of months ago and their husbands showed up you know because they were sharing some things with them
Rick: They decided to join it you mean
Neelam: Well then they came to another little program I was doing because these women were in my long-term program you can’t just join it you know but came to another little I had a talk on the relationship and they showed up
Rick: Right
Neelam: So so the first thing is people can begin to resonate they may have a different path they may have a different way but if they begin to resonate they will start to like it they start to like the changes I remember a husband saying to me once I wish you would keep my wife on the retreat because every time she comes this is so great you know when she comes up to the retreat so so they either begin to resonate or they begin to really hate it you see and if the change is something that they can’t really resonate with then they that that’s going to drop out at some point
Rick: Yeah
Neelam: Or it’s going to create a transformation you know I have another example of a student and she would come and say I can’t really resonate or I can’t really be with my family because they are you know they eat pizza and they watch television and they you know when I go there and she says and I’m a vegetarian and I’m you know doing yoga and I’m and she said what should I do and I say well why don’t you just go and hang out with them a little bit and she said I can’t do that and I said well just go and watch some television you don’t have to eat the pizza maybe get vegetarian you know and so she goes and then some months later she comes to me and she says you know I don’t know what happened she said but my father so got into it that now he’s reading a Eckhart Tolle and he’s you know like he started like a book club or something I don’t know you know he’s just so totally into it and I’m just saying well it’s a it’s a simple you know like there’s the resonance right and if we trust in it like with the job example you know I have another student in a program right now and she just said I have been in a really bad job for so many years and since I have been doing this inquiry something happened and I just quit the job she said I came so much into that congruence within myself and into the resonance and I realized I was so codependent that I couldn’t really do it before but now that I know that here everything is okay now I can just leave it and I could just just go and do something else right so you know it’s not like there’s like one advice you know what I mean but when you do the work when you do the inner work the outer begins to respond right
Rick: Yeah no that’s good I mean I understand how you couldn’t give a specific advice but that general principle if you do if you take care of it this is a Bengali saying if no one comes on your call then go ahead alone so you know if you do it then one way or the other the outer environment is going to change
Neelam: Exactly and I often you know I talk to people who have had addictions before you know and they know when they have changed from the addiction like most of their life or most of their friends fall away yeah but then they find a whole new life
Rick: Oh yeah that happened to me I mean I was I was into drugs I was hanging out with all my drug friends I I learned to meditate and for about three months I just walked the dog every day and you know didn’t hang out with anybody and then a whole new social circle began to build
Neelam: Exactly beautiful yeah it’s just the way it works right
Rick: Yeah cool so what else we got here I’m just looking at the list there’s all kinds of interesting notes here you you are talking a lot more about the nervous system these days we’ve sort of covered that but I think it’s important because obviously the the nervous system is like if you know if conscious if consciousness is like live through the nervous it’s similar to like you know you need a television set to pick up on the signals that are in the air all the time anyway but you don’t pick them up without a television set and the quality of your television set determines how clearly you pick them up so like that we have a nervous system and you can finish the thought
Neelam: We have a nervous system and what I say is that the more we understand this instrument you know we live in the body right the more we understand and we understand how it works the more helpful we can be to you know the more helpful it is to being with our own experience right
Rick: Yeah
Neelam: So when we understand how does it work and when we understand you know when when I teach about it I talk about the brain and I talk about the instinctual parts of the brain and and there’s a lot of our experience that is not accessible by thinking right which really is what proves what the spiritual teaching has been talking about forever but physiologically you know it’s proven that the higher brain as beautiful as it is you know doesn’t reach into the instinctual parts right so it can’t regulate you know stress it can’t regulate these instinctual states you know they come on and they are you know they are here and you no matter what you think they are here right so we need to develop a different way in that way is through this sensation right if we understand that that’s how it works you know then if we also understand how trauma past affects our ability to be present right if we understand trauma as not just an event that happened in the past but if we understand trauma as a charge an unresolved charge that is present in our nervous system right then we see how that charge limits the capacity that we have in every moment to be with what is right so if we can understand that if we can work with that if we can have the tenderness and kindness and you know generosity of being here like well can I just be here you know can I just be here with this right and understand that that’s what’s going to help see because when we talk about capacity like can I be with you know like challenges in life challenges in life happen capacity gets smaller and smaller and smaller within right and we say well I want to make a change but we want to make a change out there right rather than saying well I want to make a change so let me be with this very small capacity let me be with this nervous system that is so struggling with whatever is going on in life right and from that being something happens capacity opens up now we can come and deal with what’s happening rather than just I don’t want this I want to I want to change I don’t want to be here because well can I be here right so
Rick: Yeah
Neelam: Well we understand you know it and work it the way it needs to be worked the more helpful it is for our ability to be here
Rick: Reminds me of the first time I ever saw Maharishi Mahesh Yogi he gave a lecture in which he started quoting Darwin he was saying survival of the fittest is the law of nature and I don’t know if that’s how Darwin meant it but he said there’s so much challenge these days the pace of life is increasing so much and you know we have to increase our fitness to our capacity basically I think he was saying in fact he used an analogy it says if a donkey has to carry a heavy load you either have to lighten the load or strengthen the donkey and he said you know sometimes you can’t lighten the load because there’s so much coming at you in life so you need to strengthen your capacity increase your capacity and then you know what might have seemed like an overwhelming barrage of stuff becomes manageable
Neelam: Beautiful and so I talk more about the nervous system how it works and also how to sit with it because we have this you know we have learned a lot of us come from some you know like what does it mean to be with something it means like get totally overwhelmed and let it all just be here and that’s not necessarily how the nervous system works right we have to learn like well just capacity and a little bit you know how you know regulate and all that and once we get that then it helps us so much with you know practice right inquiry yeah
Rick: I’m sure you’ve heard the term neuroplasticity exactly there’s a lot of that going on I think in what you’re talking about yeah yeah because because you know the change it used to be believed that there is no change in the brain after a certain time right and of course in the spiritual teach realm it was always true that you know of course the change happens whenever the consciousness you know sets right then then that’s change you know it changes everything right so now it’s like well you know by repeating certain actions certain behaviors certain you know way of being eventually it develops a different pathway in the brain to that’s brain plasticity right it’s changeable which is another way of saying you know you can be free right it’s possible it’s available to you this lifetime right it’s possible
Rick: A lot of scientists are recognizing that too like Rick Hansen and Rudy Tansey and various scientists are all writing about how dramatically the brain can actually change
Neelam: Exactly
Rick: Yeah so there’s a point that one of your helpers sent me I think the she’s she said one point she’d like me to bring out in this that the impact of doing a long-term program with you or with any other satsang oriented teacher or teaching is an opportunity to deepen into presence in a way that is continuously more impactful than a satsang here and there that long-term programs provide a safe container in which deep-rooted vasanas or patterns of conditioning can be seen held and fully let be here as they are and witnessed by others in a non judgmental way that can provide a path to really set these attachments free so I guess I’m bringing that up as a sort of a moving toward a conclusion of the interview that you offer these long-term programs six-month programs and whatnot where you meet with people in fairly small groups in an intimate way not in physically in the same place but over a conference call and maybe you could speak a bit about what I just said where the impact that you’ve seen in these long-term programs as opposed to attending a satsang here or a talk there
Neelam: You know and I also say in my own teaching that has also changed over the years right because there’s different interests at different times and so initially you know my interest was just share it with anybody just go as bright as wide as you can and anywhere and everything right there was the movement in the beginning right and then eventually there was more like developing of like how can I really help people to be here because not everybody understands when you say just be here but what does it mean right how do you do it right and then eventually I recognized you know my interest now is in that deeper work with people it’s not really anymore just bringing them back over and over and over to recognition of presence right now the work is more like hey what stops you really you know from fully resting here right let’s address that and that is what the longer programs are about and the initial six-month program is really broader because I have new students come into it and it’s a broader that really covers you know more direct experience and more inquiry and how to do it and all that but then after that initial six-month program and even in this we go deeper into the tendencies but after the initial six-month program I really spend time more individually with people you know people write stuff people you know there are certain questions they answer we interact we do things in which I can be more of help to these particular tendencies that maybe are not visible to them you otherwise and also the longer the longer time you know it’s like when we talk about brain plasticity or when we talk about practice you know I’m not really satisfied anymore with somebody just visiting with me for a moment you know I really want to see the change and when I want to see the change that takes time you see and so when we can do this over and over and over again for a certain period of time that usually results in a more permanent change.
Rick: I remember hearing you say that you went through a phase where you would be walking down the street and you would actually see people’s past lives and stuff like that I mean do you still have that something like of that nature with your students where you’re kind of seeing much more deeply into their makeup or their nature than people ordinarily would see?
Neelam: What I can say is and this is the gift and the curse you know of consciousness right of that recognition is that you know even walking on the street or looking at anybody you know I can tell I can tell their history I can tell the different things that they went through I can tell what their conditioning is and so on and on and on I’m not going to speak more about it but in a flash you know it happens and I can see that all of it right which sometimes I really I really work on protecting myself in a way from this information and so you know places I go I don’t like to talk about what I do and I don’t like to engage in that way I try to really keep very much to you know like let’s not even you know engage on that level right let me not even that information comes to me anyway
Rick: Yeah there’s a saying you know too much information it’s not just too much but it’s just like you know that the significance of it you know that can be challenging you know what I mean because it’s not just information it’s very significant information
Rick: But it would seem that that would be a handy capability to have in working with students to be able to see much more deeply into their I see
Neelam: Sit with a student that’s why that’s where I reserve the time yeah that right because just being in a world that could be you know overwhelming but just but sitting with the students that’s very helpful because then I can see where they are at I can see what’s really happening and that’s how I can be helpful
Rick: You know more yeah so it’s not something you really want to have going on in the grocery store but when you’re sitting with a student yeah
Neelam: Exactly and yet that information comes in anyway sometimes and it’s you know it’s just how it is so
Rick: So how many different programs do you Have? You have this six month thing and then
Neelam: Because of the because of the limits of my health I only do usually two six-month programs throughout the winter and fall and winter
Rick: And they’re identical so ? You do one and then another
Neelam: It’s for new students and one is for the students that have done programs before
Rick: I see so the first one’s like a prerequisite to the second one
Neelam: Well in a way yes yes yes because people learn inquiry and then throughout the summer I do smaller programs and also a program like a five-week program where I teach inquiry too also you know there’s this other I do some open calls and some other different little things you know
Rick: Okay
Neelam: And and shorter programs in the summer too
Rick: Yeah people are busy with things in the summer yeah good well it sounds like you have a whole lot of if a person having listened to this interview feels inspired to plug into it somehow there’s there’s all kinds of things they can they can do
Neelam: Yes of course they can come to our website and they can look at our schedule and they can see this variety of ways to come and visit and see if that’s something that they would like to
Rick: Yeah and and as I mentioned in the first interview I have some friends that i’ve known for decades that are that are students of yours and have really consistently been engaged with you well that reminds me of one more question which is that what kind of changes have you seen in people who have worked with you for a long time
Neelam: You know the one thing is unfortunately sometimes you say you know unfortunately you you when people go through the good changes you don’t see them anymore right because they just you know they don’t need to do it anymore right but but the changes that I see really in long-term students is is the capacity to be here the capacity to be here and really what they can be with within their own experience and also the what I see which is really amazing you know I have seen this over and over and over and over again and I see this in many of the students that you probably know you know that the changes are in how does that translate into their life
Rick: Yeah
Neelam: How does that capacity show up in the way they are actually functional in life that’s where that’s where I see the biggest change you know real-time change right
Rick: That would really be the acid test I should think you know
Neelam: Exactly
Rick: And do you ever have some students who say sorry Neelam I’m just not getting it you know I mean maybe I should move on
Neelam: Well you know they probably did move on
Rick: We just moved on anyway
Neelam: And I have that conversation but that I don’t think that ever happened you know I don’t think that maybe there was maybe there was one time that a person came into a program and she said I just don’t she was with another teacher before and the teacher speaks in a different way and she came into the program and she said I just don’t understand how you are saying it and I said well you know you just relax and then you will but but she decided to just move on and that’s you know that just you know what to do right
Rick: Yeah I mean come who comes
Neelam: Exactly
Rick: Yeah great is there anything else that you feel like saying before we conclude
Neelam: No no I think that’s good you know I think that’s we we have done it all and maybe one thing I always want to say is you know we want to know freedom is really available to us you know that is our natural state and it we can know it in this lifetime you know and that’s what I would like everybody to remember that that’s really true and we can and it’s possible
Rick: Yeah I think I’m glad you meant you said that and even more so these days than might have been true 20 30 40 50 years ago it seems like it’s it’s more in the air these days
Neelam: See things are speeding up on the planet so there’s really like okay you know what’s what else to do you know you can still go and do the nonsense that you doing or you can just really go like whoa wait a minute this is really true I can actually be here
Rick: Yeah that’s great well I think we’ve given people a nice overview and I think we managed to cover a lot of things that we didn’t talk about too much in the first interview so it’s worth listening to both I’d say
Neelam: Beautiful yes
Rick: So let me make some concluding remarks first of all thanks again Neelam it was wonderful talking with you I really enjoy it and I know you had to do a lot of running around and we sent you equipment and you know all kinds of stuff we try to do
Neelam: No worries
Rick: So that was great I appreciate you doing all that and I just want to make a few general comments so well first of all as we have already said during the interview if you want to get in touch with Neelam you just go to her website which is neelam.org and i’ll have a link to that on batgap.com and there will be a page for this interview in particular if you happen to be watching this on youtube or something you can go to batgap.com you’ll see that page with a lot more information links to Neelam’s website and you will also see all the other interviews I’ve done well over 200 now there are several different indices there’s an alphabetical index chronological index a bunch of other things if you play around with the the menus on the website you’ll also see a link to an audio podcast so that you can subscribe on itunes and just listen to the audio there’s a donate button which I appreciate people clicking if they feel inspired there is a place to sign up to be notified by email each time a new interview is posted and so you’ll get about one email a week as a result of signing up there and there’s a discussion group that crops up around each interview a forum and there’ll be you know there’s a different section of the forum for each interview so you can go in and discuss some of the things we’ve talked about in this interview if you like so thanks for listening or watching and thanks again Neelam and it’s so nice.
Neelam: Such a pleasure to talk to you.
Rick: It was great.
Neelam: I appreciate you and all the work that you put into it is just so awesome you know I really really appreciate that
Rick: Well it’s a lot of fun and I have some wonderful helpers my wife who’s sitting here who does hours a day worth of stuff and my friend from high school Ralph Preston who does all the video post-production Larry Kelly up in Canada who does the audio post-production a guy named Jerry in Utah who coordinates the sending of equipment and testing things with people there’s a team of translators and transcribers headed up by a guy named Nicholas who’s in Spain and so there’s a lot of people who’ve stepped forward to volunteer which is another thing you’ll find on the website is a page of potential volunteer activities if you’d like to take a look at that maybe there’ll be something that resonates with your skills so good so
Neelam: Yeah and I also mean though you personally personally listening to hours and hours and hours before the interview that is so you know awesome and deeply appreciated so
Rick: Well I really enjoy it it’s very listenable it’s good stuff all right thanks Neelam
Neelam: Thank you thank you so much
Rick: Bye-bye