Marlies Cocheret de la Morinière Transcript

Marlies Cocheret de la Morinière Interview

Rick: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer and my guest today is Marlies Cocheret de la Mou… Oh darn it. [Laughter]

Marlies: Just say Marlies Cocheret.

Rick: No, Marlies, I’m going to get it. Marlies Cocheret de la Mou… rignière.

Marlies: Without rolling it. Mourinière.

Rick: We practiced that beforehand. From now on it’s going to be Marlies during the interview. Marlies and I met at the Science Nonduality Conference last October. And I must say if the eyes are the window to the soul, then Marlies has a very beautiful soul. Because as I was sitting there at the lunch table talking to her, I was struck by the clarity and depth and serenity in her eyes. I’ve seen a lot of awakened people close up and there’s sometimes something about the eyes that really strikes you. So, anyway, that was my observation. And it’s been a lot of fun preparing for this interview and listening to at least 7 hours’ worth of various other interviews and talks that you’ve done. I really appreciate the way you speak and the things you say. So, let me just read a little prepared bio here so people get an idea of your background and then we’ll get into it. “Marlies brings a potent invitation into the deep silence that we are. She has been offering satsang and retreat since 2000 when her root teacher, Adyashanti, asked her to teach. Marlies was trained as a psychologist in the Netherlands and works as a certified Hakomi practitioner and a certified tantric educator. She invites all seekers to live as the divine in the body. She brings together sensuality and the silence of our being. With love, directness and humor, Marlies creates a safe place for seekers to discover and deepen into the stillness and love that is our true nature. She works internationally and lives in Santa Cruz, California”. Nice place to live.

Marlies: Very nice.

Rick: So, Marlies, as I listened to you and read the pages on your website, I was struck by how many different things you’ve done. You’ve had a lot of different teachers, done a lot of different practices and are teaching or offering a lot of different things as well. Sometimes in spiritual circles they say, “It’s better to dig one deep hole than a whole lot of shallow wells,” if you’re trying to dig a well. And I used to believe that rather firmly, but now I see so many examples of people who do take a kind of smorgasbord approach to spirituality and are really the better for it. They don’t necessarily stick with one teacher for decades and decades, or they just sort of glean whatever benefit they find from a variety of different sources. It seems to have been your experience.

Marlies: Yeah, absolutely. I didn’t have much choice in the matter. It just happened. I just happened to fall from one teacher to another, even though I feel the teacher before, so to speak, was always included in the other teachings. But I must say, I feel that in my experience Adyashanti, as I also say in the little bio, is really my root teacher. Feels really like my beloved teacher, even though the others do too. There’s not really no difference and there is a difference.

Rick: What do you mean by the phrase “root teacher”?

Marlies: Well, I feel I am in his lineage. He brought me all the way to the core. It’s of course not just him, but I feel my three main teachers, besides life itself of course, are first of all Rajneesh Osho. And I used to be quite shy, and so with Osho, I feel for the first time I experienced just a sense of being home and then being opened, learning to express myself. And then I was with Barry Long.

Rick: Were you with Osho in India or Oregon or both?

Marlies: I was in India. I kind of went with Osho when a lot of people were disillusioned after Oregon.

Rick: After Oregon, so you weren’t participating in poisoning the salad bar or anything like that?

Marlies: No, no, no, I was not busy with that. I’m not so good at that stuff, I think, so it’s good I came afterwards. I came in so-called Pune 2, and it was a really beautiful experience because he was just back in India, and there were just like 30 or 40 people in the ashram, and they were just setting it up again. And it was just a very, very precious time for me because he was my first teacher, guru, and then sitting in darshan with him in the morning for a few hours, in the evening a few hours, doing a lot of meditation and a lot of opening up and diving in. And it was just so beautiful.

Rick: So, going to India is kind of a big leap. I mean, what motivated you to go there in the first place?

Marlies: Well, it kind of happened. I had been quite sick, and I had been bedridden, and somebody gave me a book of Osho’s, and I was like, “God, this is what I’ve been looking for.” And then I got better and studied psychology, and right in the middle of my study, I was living in Amsterdam, and I still remember I was bicycling, as we do here in Amsterdam. And on my bicycle I was like, “Oh, I’m going to India.” So, then I went home and called my brother, we didn’t have cell phones then, so I called my brother who is a pilot and arranges tickets for me. I said, “Can you arrange a ticket for me to India?” He said, “Okay, when?” I said, “Well, as soon as possible.” And he said, “Where are you going?” I said, “I’m going to Pune.” He said, “Oh, you’re going to Rajneesh?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Okay, cool.” So, then he called me back again in ten minutes, “so you’re really going to India?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Okay.” So, he arranged the ticket and within a week I had sold all my stuff and rented out my house and was in the plane. And in the plane I was kind of realizing, “Oh, I’m not very prepared.” Then some people on the plane were kind of telling me how and what. And I got in Pune and there was a Darshan going on and normally the gates are closed, you’re not allowed to get in. And the guard let me in and I just sat down in that Darshan and I just felt home for the first time in my life. It was very, very moving and I still feel it when I say it right now, it was just deeply moving.

Rick: That’s great.

Marlies: Yeah, it’s really beautiful.

Rick: It’s kind of popular with some people these days to put down gurus and say, “Oh, you don’t need a guru,” and “gurus are all phony”. And there are a lot of gurus who have given plenty of ammunition for that kind of argument, including Osho. I mean, there’s some stuff that people think, “Whoa!” But having been with a couple of gurus myself, I’m definitely not one of those people who say those things. Because it’s really remarkable sometimes to meet some people out there, some of them well-known, probably some of them not known at all, who knock your socks off when you meet them. You realize, “Whoa, people can be a lot more than we thought.”

Marlies: Yeah, well, he definitely knocked my socks off. And I also had heard, of course, many, many stories. And for some reason, I didn’t care because being touched right in my heart and in my being seemed to be much bigger than any of those stories, even though I knew a lot of stories firsthand from people. And for some reason, it was just important to stay with him for the amount of time I was there. And it was beautiful.

Rick: Yeah, and it’s kind of interesting because your whole orientation these days is that, we’re not just divine, we’re also human beings, and being a human being can be kind of messy. And that applies to gurus too. They’re not spotless, perfect, walking on clouds.

Marlies: Yeah, absolutely. Well, Osho felt kind of on a pedestal for me. I was not close to him, but for instance, for a very long time you could talk with him and he felt very human. And with Adya, I am very lucky that I can talk with him and meet with him. And I just love his humaness too, the ordinariness. And I also had the luck to be with him in his early days when the groups were 10 or 15 people. And then we would go together after retreats to a cafe and drink something with the whole group. So, it was really wonderful, and still is, to be touched by the being and by the human. And it’s like the whole enchilada, so to speak, and that’s really touching to me.

Rick: So I’m going to lead you through this progressively. So, what do you feel like were the main things that you derived from your experience with Osho?

Marlies: My sense is first opening, a sense of home, a first sense of home. What I had been searching for. For a long time I was searching for something, I didn’t quite know what it was, but I knew when I would so-called find it, that I would know it is it. And that’s what happened when I was with him, this first taste of the being that I am. That was one thing. And then meditation you could do in the ashram, you could do meditation all day. But especially expression, because I was very scared. I was not scared to go in, but I was just very shy. And a lot of the meditations, especially in the mornings, had dynamic meditation.

Rick: That’s where they kind of jumped up and down.

Marlies: Yeah, jumping down and then the second stage, it’s called catharsis. And I remember the first few times when I would do that, I was just standing still, just totally frozen. And I remember this lady leading it, she would whisper in my ear, “It’s okay to make a sound.” And I was like, “Oh, okay.” And I thought, “Well, perhaps next week, I don’t know.” And then I was in Pune, but then the sound, there were so many people doing dynamic meditation simultaneously. So, if you would make a beep, nobody would hear it. So for me, it was a lot about expression, just breaking that veil of frozenness, really. So, I feel that was the big thing, expression and coming into the body. And so, kind of laying a ground for that.

Rick: I’ve been in groups, both with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s people doing the TM Siddhi program, and one time when I visited Muktananda’s ashram in New York, where people were making all kinds of crazy sounds, howling like animals, and screaming, and babbling. And it’s like the kundalini gets going and all kinds of stuff comes out. Is that the kind of sounds you guys were making?

Marlies: Yeah, any sound, any sound on this planet. Sounds of happiness, anger, anything in between. And, yeah, just expression, there was so much space for expression, at least that was my experience. And for me, it was a lot about being emptied of a lot of psychological garbage, or how do you say that, luggage, that I was carrying around. And there was just so much space for that. So it was a beautiful combination to basically sit five to six hours a day in darshan with him, and then attending those different groups. And especially I did a group with a Zen guy too within the ashram, so there was a lot of silence and then a lot of movement. And that man really helped me very, very much, because I had a lot of emotions, a lot of crying, it’s now hard to imagine. But then, the first few weeks I basically only cried, and this man just helped me. Like every day I just barely could stand, it sounds kind of dramatic, but sometimes he let me do an exercise in front of the group, and I just literally would crumble on the floor and just cry. But there was a freedom of expression, so there was not a judgment anymore of anything that was happening for me or here in my experience, that utter welcoming. So that I would say was the main experience with Osho.

Rick: And you were there for about a year?

Marlies: I was there for nine, ten months. And then I went back a few times, but just for a few weeks.

Rick: And at the end of that, did you feel quite transformed after about nine, ten months? Did you feel like you went into an old rusty Volkswagen and you came out a Mercedes or something?

Marlies: Yeah, that’s a nice analogy. I felt new, I felt like a newborn. And coming back to Amsterdam, I was like, yeah, I don’t know the words to put to it.  I felt just like a load had fallen off my back that I didn’t even know how much it was that I was carrying with me. And then I lived a little bit in the commune in Amsterdam here.

Rick: The Osho commune?

Marlies: Yeah, Osho commune. I lived there just for half a year, but I felt it was too separate from the so-called world. So, I went away, even though I also loved being there. It was kind of both.

Rick: Great. Okay. And then you mentioned Barry Long.

Marlies: Yeah.

Rick: Was he Australian or something?

Marlies: He was Australian, yeah. And he used to come a lot to Europe, to England and Holland and Germany. Wherever he came to Europe, I would go to him. And I feel Osho kind of opened me and I feel Barry really grounded me, really gave me a structure and was really honoring. And he was speaking a lot about the love between men and women, but he was especially, as I heard it, supporting women not to doubt themselves and really take a 100% seat in themselves as who they are. So, I feel in that way he helped me a lot to really come into the body in a wholesome way. I kind of feel, first I was emptied and now I felt I was more like filled up in some way.

Rick: Is he still alive?

Marlies: No, he passed away too. I don’t know how long ago, seven, eight years ago, perhaps longer, I can’t remember. He was quite a rigid personality, but I felt his love so deeply. He was just very, very loving also. So it was just wonderful to be with him. He gave me, I would say, structure. So that’s kind of how I feel, like Osho opened it up, Barry gave a structure, and with Adya, the whole bottom was taken out. It’s like everything was just basically gone, the ground was gone and then it was like the true ground came.

Rick: What do you feel were the mechanics through which Adya brought about that change in you?

Marlies: Okay, that’s an interesting question. I think just his being, the silence around him is just so deep in my experience. So the first time, when there was a little satsang in Santa Cruz and I walked into the room, there were just ten people, and I sat down and it was like, “Oh, this is it”. I just knew this is it. It’s also because the silence was just my first love and I felt that resonated so deeply. I just had no choice, I felt like, “This is my guy.” So then he had a retreat, I think the next week, so I signed up for that and it was so clearly not just from this time that I had known him. I knew I had known him at other times too. I also had a vision, I’m not a person that has many visions, but I remember looking at him one time and I saw him as this Chan Master sitting there in his black robe and I was like, “Yeah, I was there.” And I remember telling him and he said, “Yeah, other people have that same image.” So that was interesting. It was like another kind of homecoming, and just really in the deep silence. It felt like the real deal in another way. And also just to be close with a teacher, we had Dogosan private meetings with him and that was just the most precious thing for me, being in retreat or walking into the Dogosan room, and just walking into the thick molasses of silence and just sitting there. Nothing even needed to be said anymore, that was the answer to anything. And just being so deeply held and so deeply loved. And I still feel that.

Rick: I heard you say you started crying every time you walked in.

Marlies: Yeah, I often still cry when I see him, I just start crying and we both kind of chuckle.

Rick: It’s an interesting phenomenon though, that silence that you mentioned. I felt it with Adya. I had him come to my town and give a talk and I had lunch with him and stuff, and it’s palpable. I mean just sitting eating lunch with the guy. I start kind of having the opposite effect in a way when I get around a lot of silence like that, I start getting really talkative, the energy kind of gets me going, it’s like I drank three cups of coffee or something. But it’s a fascinating phenomenon. Some people emphasize that that’s really what wakes people up, it’s not so much the words anybody says, it’s sort of being in their proximity and there’s some sort of transmission effect.

Marlies: Transmission, absolutely. And to me the transmission is number one, and I felt that with him, and I feel that when I so-called teach. I feel the transmission is way more than my words can speak or touch. And that’s often also what I hear when people come to my satsangs or retreats, that they are just very touched by the silence. So I think that’s a strong thing within what I call the lineage I come from. It’s true that my deepest love is the silence and that’s my day-to-day experience.

Rick: Do you feel that when you put yourself in a position of teaching then the amount of juice that starts to pump through you as a transmitter gets amped up?

Marlies: Yeah, I feel that.

Rick: Because you’re serving that function.

Marlies: I’m serving that, yeah. And it really comes more to the forefront and it’s definitely, in my experience, amplified, but it’s also amplified because you’re coming together with more people. So it’s like both ways in a way it’s amplified. And to me it’s definitely palpable, but also when I sit and meditate it also feels amplified and the moment I actually sense it, it’s amplified. But when we put our attention there the more and more we just are that, then that’s really all there is. I don’t quite know how else to say it. So then that taste that’s here of that silence or of that space or that love or whatever word you want to give it, it just takes you or takes me. It informs me and lives as me and I’m still kind of in awe every day really.

Rick: I think most people listening to this will know what we’re talking about, but if they don’t, what more can you say about that silence that we’re referring to? What is it and where is it? And if a person feels like they really don’t have access to it and their life is being tossed about like a ship on a stormy ocean, how can they get anchored to it?

Marlies: That’s a good question. First of all what really helps is to just stop, even if your mind doesn’t stop, just take a moment to sit down and then take a moment to take a breath, just feeling your breath, and often it helps just to first stay with the breath, that helps to calm the nervous system. What’s the invitation? We have this wonderful body and instead of going into our minds to kind of quiet it down, just go into the body and sense the body. Even right now you can just sense the breath enter and caress your body, and the moment you start sensing that, naturally you feel there is already something still, there’s something that’s not thinking, there’s something that’s not doing, there’s something that’s just easing. And then the more and more you go to that the more and more you fall in, as I call it. So that’s a very short explanation, but it really takes just being still for a moment, just hold the body still, not in a rigid way but in an open way. You open your body to the breath of Shakti, you could say the breath of love, the breath of life, come in and breathe you. And then notice what is already still, what is already here, that’s not touched by your mind, what is already meditating without you doing anything and then listen, find out, listen.

Rick: That’s really good. I mean that right there could be instructions for somebody who doesn’t practice meditation to get started and just sit down for 5-10 minutes a day or whatever and notice that it’s already there.

Marlies: Yes, or even when you go to the supermarket, you don’t have to only sit down. But it helps to first sit down a little bit and then when you are standing in line in the supermarket, instead of going into your mind, you can just go, “Okay, what’s already smiling here? What’s already really, really just here? While my mind is thinking, When is my turn?” All during the day there are just so many moments when we can just taste the taste of love and silence.

Rick: But you yourself still sit to meditate every day, right? You don’t just do it at the supermarket. You reserve some period of time for real absorption into it.

Marlies: Yeah, I love that. I just love to sit and the more I’ve started sitting over the years, the more it sticks with me and it goes wherever I go. But that’s what I find very beautiful about the different so-called lineages. The one lineage I come from, so to speak, with Adya, is really sitting a lot and then that stillness sticks and then you take it wherever you go. And then I’m also quite inspired by Kashmir and Tantra, especially by Daniel Odier. He speaks in a different way about it. When you are in life, whatever you experience, you absolutely, totally experience and taste the taste of life and that brings you in that way to the silence that you are. So it’s like anything in life, silence or busyness is a doorway in.

Rick: And those two things sound complementary to me. You can do both.

Marlies: Yeah, you can, absolutely.

Rick: But there’s an interesting thing in what you just said, I think, some implications. One is the stickiness if you do this, and I think neurophysiologists could explain it in terms of various changes that take place in the brain and the nervous system. As a result of that, some of them are stabilized, they become permanent. And another is that, having sat and then going back into activity, because it sticks, it’s not like you have to do something all day long to hang on to it. It’s like taking a shower in the morning, you’re clean. You don’t have to keep thinking, “I’m clean, I’m clean, I’m clean.”

Marlies: Well, perhaps you do! No, no, I totally agree. It’s like where you put your attention, that’s what you get, that’s what grows. So yeah, when you sit, and also, at least in my experience, when there is a love for sitting and a love for this silence, then you just want to steep in that, like a tea bag, and it gets more and more full and rich and then everything becomes that silence, that “is-ing” here.

Rick: What would you say to those who dismiss the importance of any kind of practice? Some people say, “Well, you shouldn’t bother doing practices, it only reinforces the notion of a practicer and you’re already there, so why do anything?” That kind of argument.

Marlies: Well, I would just say, very simply, it’s BS, but okay, I would just be more sophisticated. I think it’s important for everybody to ask themselves, “What do you love to do?” Because sometimes meditation can be challenging, but also sometimes when you ask people, “What do you love to do?”, a lot of people also say sitting in nature or just walking in nature, and they take that as a doorway in. And I can only say from my own experience that sitting has helped me so much. Also, when we sit, a lot of people have this hope at first, “The moment I sit, I’ll fall directly into the silence of my being.” But for most of us, when we sit, what’s there is our conditioning, right? All the things that we don’t want to feel and don’t want to hear and don’t want to taste. But when you come to a place, when you truly wake up and you know I’m not only this body and mind and all the whole stuff, in another way you start also having the wonder and willingness to really start tasting the taste of life, no matter how she comes. And with that, the meditation is so wonderful, to just make space to just sit. I remember Adya saying at one time, “It’s like porch sitting, just sit on your porch and just sit and then just notice, notice what happens.” And tasting the taste of life in that moment. And the more we take in the taste of what is the experience right now, it can be pain or it can be pleasure or it can be the ultimate silence, we will all end up in the end in the resting of what we are. It cannot not happen.

Rick: So, in your experience in working with students, do you find that most people do eventually settle in, as you’re saying? Or some people complain, “I just don’t get it, I sit there, I fall asleep, I have thoughts the whole time, I’m worrying about what’s for dinner, what’s going on at work.” Or do you feel like most people take to it like a fish to water, they have an innate capability or ability to transcend or settle in or go deeper?

Marlies: No, I feel it’s a little bit of both. In the retreats that I offer and even in the satsang, I always take time to sit together. And it really helps people to be in the sangha, so to speak, and taste that taste of silence together. And often I guide a little bit, and so it helps people to have a taste also that it’s okay to have the taste of a busy mind, while simultaneously there is a presence there, there is a being there. And that more and more when you bring your attention to the being, or more and more you start resting as being, then more and more it starts really sticking on you. So the more we come together, and you come together in a group and taste that silence, the easier it will be when you go home. And also when I work with people I hopefully help them to have some tools, how to sit with yourself when all this psychology or mind bubbles up, because it does.

Rick: Yeah, now that’s a whole theme we could talk about, and that I heard you talk about quite a bit in your other talks and interviews that I listened to, which is that I think the way you phrased it was, once you realize your true nature, that’s not the end of it. Then that actually acts as a solvent for all kinds of things that have been bottled up to start getting released. So I think some people think, “All right, well if I realize my true nature, I’m home free, I’m done, I just kick up my heels and relax.” But it actually can open a Pandora’s box of all kinds of stuff.

Marlies: Absolutely. I learned within Zen there are so-called ten steps to enlightenment, and step number three is waking up to your true nature. So you have seven steps more, but truly when you look at yourself and you have had a taste of your true nature, for some people there is a long period of time that they are kind of in a transcendental place, but most people I would say not, and they fall immediately kind of back in their humanity. And then how to deal with that? And then what I find is a big difference when you wake up to your true nature, you tend to live your life not from fear anymore, but more from curiosity. So then the curiosity kind of like, “Wow, this is amazing, even though I know I’m this love, there is still this belief or this whatever it is on the surface.” And then you get curious, like, “Gee, what is that? Let’s look into that.” And sometimes it’s also really nice to do it in a group. Last week I was teaching a women’s retreat in the UK, a five-day retreat, and I’m just every time struck by the deep collective emotional body of women, of females. And most of the women that come, they really have woken up to their true nature, and there is just trauma stuff that wants to come free, and so there is an art into not staying stuck in the emotion, to really letting the emotion come in and let it flow out. And then it’s kind of a process of being emptied. So when you have woken up to your true nature, more and more you get emptied of anything that you don’t really need, and most things we don’t really need.

Rick: Let’s not presume that everybody knows what we mean by waking up to your true nature. Please explain what that means and how would one know when one has done that?

Marlies: Well, it’s an interesting question because I can’t really remember a so-called moment that I woke up to my true nature. It was more after the fact that a friend actually during a breakfast took my hand and said to me, “A lot has changed, huh?” And I said, “Yeah, actually, a lot has changed.” And she said, “You know, I’m so happy for you.” “Yeah, I’m happy too.” And that was my confirmation of awakening.

Rick: I think there is something in the Bible where it says something like, “The kingdom of heaven comes like a thief in the night.”

Marlies: Yeah.

Rick: It’s not like, “Here I am!” It’s more like it kind of sneaks up on you and you think, “Wait a minute, when did that happen?”

Marlies: Yeah, exactly. So, when I then started looking back I could remember during a retreat with Adya that there was just this short moment, not a big bang, just this short, most ordinary moment that there just was something else here beside this human, that there was just this immensity, immense void, I don’t know how else to say it. But that was just it, there was not even so much thought about it. And it was just way later that there was kind of more the realization like, “Oh yeah, I know I’m not this body, I’m not this mind, I’m not these feelings, I’m not these ideas.” It kind of came after, it kind of grew on me in a way. And so it’s in a way first realizing that you are not seeking for something necessarily anymore. It’s like, “I’m not this body and what happens when I chop off my arm? I’m still that. What happens when I chop off my other arm? I’m still that. And when I chop off my legs? I’m still that. When I chop off the whole thing? I’m still that.” So, that’s kind of realizing that there is something here that’s just always here. So, it’s kind of more coming to space.

Rick: I was reading about a Sufi saint, I forget his name, but they did that to him because he said, “I am God.” And so they started, they dismembered him limb by limb, but he wouldn’t stop saying it.

Marlies: That’s so interesting. I’ve never heard that. And then the second you could say … can you hear the singing?

Rick: I hear some kids in the background or something.

Marlies: Well I just have to say this. The religion I grew up with is football, soccer.

Rick: Ah, so they’re watching a soccer match?

Marlies: Well, that’s going to happen tonight after our interview really. And then Holland will be playing Costa Rica, so everybody will go crazy. So, everything looks orange in Holland. So that’s what you hear in the background. But anyway, so then after this coming into space so to speak, or into the silence, knowing that’s what you are, part of the next step is what I call “incendence.” I know the word doesn’t exist, but I like it. This space, this silence starts coming into the body, into your life, into your whole life. And then that starts settling in. And I often have this image of a magic wand that’s just touching, it’s the light of awareness touching everything inside you. So it starts kind of entering into the human. And then, first you could say there’s a sense, “I” goes out of the way and then this love comes through or the silence comes through or just being comes through. But then you don’t go out of the way anymore, you are that love. You become that love and start speaking as that love and being as that love. So it’s kind of sinking in, into it, until there’s a sense of coming more into the world, this love is tasted everywhere. And some people say it opens the heart. But to me it just opens the whole body, just opens your skin and your organs and you feel the quivering of the silence of your being, you feel it everywhere. And then it just totally settles in, into your belly and your legs and what really connects more with any deeper, deeper fear that’s there for your existence. This will be met until that falls out also, kind of drops away. And so it’s an incendence, kind of the elevator goes down in, that’s to me like the awakening process. So first the awakening itself is spontaneous, I could say it’s a thief in the night, and then the awakening after that is more a process, a deepening, so that you really steep in it, so that you only know all there is, is silence, all there is, is love, all there is, is presence. And in my experience it’s just learning, I don’t even know if it’s learning, I don’t even know if it was a choice for me, but just this love, this silence is just became my beloved, became my first love. And the good thing of this first love is that there are no abandonment issues, I will never leave you.

Rick: I’m reminded of Christ on the cross, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” Because he was under such duress. And I know you have some genetic disease that influences your kidneys and your liver and everything. Do you still have problems with that? and do you have times when you’re under a lot of duress and you feel like, “Wait a minute, am I losing it? Where did it go? I don’t feel that sense of ease that I’m so accustomed to”.

Marlies: I feel it every day. There was a period of some years there was every day a lot of discomfort and now there’s less discomfort but I’m confronted with it every day, so I need to care for myself quite well, and simultaneously I’m doing remarkably well. I’m kind of in awe.

Rick: So, do you feel like this awakening to your true nature has made you physically more healthy in a way that doctors could actually measure?

Marlies: I think that the silence has done a lot of healing because I actually don’t listen so much to doctors because I’m not too crazy about them. I have a team of alternative practitioners that work with me and also a regular doctor. But I’m in charge so to speak. But I feel that the deepest healer is the stillness. I literally feel the more the stillness settles in, there has been a process. I could really feel, how can I say this, there was discomfort and there were a lot of thoughts about discomfort, especially a lot of fear because I had a lot of fear of dying. And I remember, I think it’s now eight or nine years ago, I woke up one time in the night and I was like, “God, I’ve been on the path but I know I’m not fully baked. I just know it.” So I remember saying a prayer, I said, “Okay, I just want to be completely baked and I just need your help. Please help me.” And I went back to sleep, I didn’t think much about it. And then two days later I was in the hospital and then everything in this illness had activated like a hundred on the scale. And I was in the emergency room and I remember lying there and thinking, “Oh, I think it has to do with my prayer.” So then I took a period of quite some years to cave. I did work but it was very, very challenging then. But it was also so beautiful because just tasting the simultaneity of the deep silence and this human Marlies who was doing all she could to be okay or to not be so afraid. But then this whole psychological layer just fell away because I couldn’t sleep very well of the discomfort. So in the night I was sitting and sitting and sitting and then I realized, “Wow, this is not me, this is my mom.” Because my mom had the same illness and she died when she was quite young, in her 40s. And I was like, “Oh wow, this is not me, this is not me.” And I remember one day what was for me really funny, sitting with it, and there was just so much discomfort and I was like, “Just fuck it, I just want to be dead.” And then I had to laugh, “Oh yeah, here is what I am so afraid of.” And then, so that changed a lot. And then I remember one day I was like, “Oh yeah, I feel like any overlay of the illness is gone. I’m just sensing only the pure sensation.” And the more I tasted the sensation, the less discomfort there was. So this overlay gave extra discomfort and the fear of course gives extra contraction. And now it’s more and more that I feel discomfort and it feels just pure physical. And so there is no concern anymore, there used to be concern and all the things I perhaps needed to do about it. And now there is just such resting with it, it’s quite beautiful. And I just feel it every day, so it feels kind of my inner teacher. So in a sense, it’s become my friend. I don’t really speak so much about being sick anymore. I don’t feel sick, I feel I am whole and healthy and I just need to take care. I need to add some certain features to this physicality.

Rick: Nice, that’s a good explanation.

Marlies: I don’t know if you have heard of Christian Science, but Joel Goldsmith speaks so beautifully about God being the true healer or spirit or true nature. That’s the only one that heals, and we are that. So in his mind there is no illness and it’s really wonderful to just sit with that, to really taste that.

Rick: Yeah, I think sometimes people take that to extremes and refuse to give their sick child a blood transfusion or something. But definitely, I think you’ve illustrated quite nicely in the last few minutes the healing power of silence, of just sort of basking in your true nature and letting that work things out.

Marlies: Yeah, absolutely.

Rick: Another thing that you alluded to, you were talking about those 10 stages in Zen, 10 stages to enlightenment and realizing your true nature being the third. It’s sort of obvious from the way you’ve been speaking that, at least correct me if I’m wrong, but that you don’t consider awakening to your true nature to be a sort of black-white on-off kind of situation, but it seems to be a progressive unfoldment that just gets deeper and clearer and more profound as you go along.

Marlies: That has been my experience, so that’s really all I can speak of, but I also know, because I have the luck that I can check with Adya also, I check with him on things, and so that has been my experience. It has been very natural, it feels very, very natural, just this deepening more and more as the silence. And then now it feels like I’m just following orders in a way, that’s how it feels. There’s the flavor of Marlies and I enjoy Marlies, actually I enjoy her. And above all, or in all, there is this taste of love and I just feel so much love for life and how she takes me all the time and how I am that life. And truly words cannot really describe the simultaneity of the profundity and the ordinariness all together, so I just feel this deep bow every day for all that’s given and taken away. And this process has been really a process of saying yes, yes, yes, this too, yes, yes, and that has been deepening, it’s a deepening process. And then more and more I just feel so emptied and simultaneously so full. Also in the retreat last week, when I was teaching I was just struck by how I feel just space walking. I feel like a space walker and a space body and all is welcomed in that. All is welcome and tasted and received and just comes in and goes out and it’s not up to me when it comes in and goes out and stays, there’s just an utter attending to what is and that has been a process.

Rick: I get the impression listening to Adya that it’s his experience too, and I would wager that it’s probably everybody’s experience relative to where they are, there’s still a next horizon, there’s still a deepening that’s taking place, a clarification, a refinement, different areas for different people maybe to different extents. I even have a quote from Adya someplace where he says, “I feel like I’m just a beginner, I always feel like I’m just a beginner.”

Marlies:  I agree.

Rick: And no matter how advanced we are, I would suggest that probably we are all beginners relative to someone, or relative to some possibility.

Marlies: And even relative to yourself.

Rick: Exactly.

Marlies: It’s also so beautiful because when you are this so-called space body, this open space, then that is always a beginning, it’s a fresh moment, there’s only one moment in a way, and in a way every moment is fresh and new. And it’s just so freeing not to hold on to anything anymore, it’s just 100% attending to what is, and that’s fresh and that’s new and that’s a beginner’s mind, absolutely.

Rick: I used to think that beginner’s mind meant some kind of a novice state, and these days I understand it more as being a sort of mature understanding or state to be in.

Marlies: I agree. I remember when I was so-called embarking on the path and being with Osho and I remember him saying on one of his birthdays, “I’m absolutely contented and one day you will be too, perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps the day after.” And I was like, that’s what I want, to be absolutely contented. And I want to say something to that. I also had this idea that it had to do with gathering more information and getting more understanding, but of course it’s totally the opposite. It’s just letting go. What more can be taken away, what more can be let go of. And it’s just so beautiful, painfully beautiful.

Rick: A little while ago I referred to people who say you shouldn’t do practices, but there’s also a kind of a thread in the spiritual world where people say, “Well, give up the search,” because Papaji said that, he said, “Give up the search.” And I got the impression talking to you that if you want to put the horse before the cart, then you don’t have to worry too much about giving up the search, just mature into that fullness and you’ll find yourself in a condition in which the desperate searching mentality has just disappeared and there is a contentment. As you were just saying in reference to Osho, there’s a sort of predominant fulfillment, and so you don’t have that kind of, “Oh, life sucks and I got to get out of where I am and into some better thing.” You’re happy with where it is, where you are, even though there’s still continual unfoldment, but this is good now.

Marlies: Yeah. I think that also it’s really knowing that we’re all in the world, we all have our samsara in the world, we all have our job to do in the world, it’s just to know we’re not of the world. We have heard it so much, I’m not saying something new.

Rick: In the world but not of it.

Marlies: But when you really know that within, then there’s also a joy to be in the world and do what you need to do, whatever it is, paying your rent or going to the store or whatever it is, or attending to people or attending to what is so-called daily mundane life. And when you know there’s something greater than that, it doesn’t matter so much anymore. The way you are there, you’re just there and you’re not resisting much anymore, you’re just saying, “Yes, this is part of life, this needs to happen.”

Rick: That’s nice. I guess one way of looking at it is, if a person were impoverished, then every little gain and loss, a dollar here lost, a dollar here, gained, would be a big deal. It’s like, “Oh boy, a dollar.” But if you’ve won the lottery or something, you’re a millionaire, then you know you can gain and lose thousands, and it doesn’t shake you up very much, because there’s a foundation.

Marlies: Right. Well, I think that’s also an interesting thing, because there are a lot of people that live on the edge. And I still hold the question that, yes, in one way of course when you’ve woken up, it’s all settled, then the nervous system calms down. But when you’re in that place of survival, it’s quite a challenge, you’re so dependent on your nervous system and it gets so easily activated when you don’t have that one dollar. It’s one dollar, but for them one dollar is huge. And so it’s very challenging not to let yourself be taken over by the nervous system and then you’re shaking. And it takes so much courage in the midst of those survival places to learn to calm the nervous system and to learn to rest in oneself. And that’s easier said than done when you’re on the edge.

Rick: Well it can sound very glib to just say, “This is the way we should be.” I mean, you’ve devoted a lifetime to this and you’ve really established something through that devotion, but the vast majority of humanity is having a pretty hard time of it.

Marlies: It is.

Rick: You can’t go into some village in Somalia and just say, “Oh, rest in the self.” They need food, they need medical care, it’s a horrible political situation. A lot of people are really going through it.

Marlies: They are. And I think also that brings out the heart. It’s an opportunity for all of us to benefit, to let all people benefit from our wakefulness and our love and in that way really truly touch all beings.

Rick: If, as we were saying earlier, the main vehicle for awakening is transmission, like sitting in audience presence or something, then obviously if enough of us can awaken, then we form a global net in which there is this kind of transmission happening all over the place throughout our vicinity.

Marlies: I totally agree with you, it’s just so beautiful. But there’s also periods where it’s really good to just be really selfish, you know, it’s like, “I want to wake up, I want to be free.” And that’s part of the deal, at least that’s how it was for me.

Rick: I think that’s natural.

Marlies: It’s very, very natural and then it just naturally just opens up and it just wants to share and it wants to help. It just cannot, it goes from the personal to the impersonal, and it’s just beautiful.

Rick: I’m reminded of that thing in the 23rd Psalm, “My cup runneth over.” If a cup isn’t full, it’s like, “Leave me alone, I’m busy filling my cup.” Well, when the cup is full, it just naturally starts to overflow. I’ve seen that kind of transformation in many, many people, “Yeah, I’m getting mine, just leave me alone.” And then at a certain point they say, “Well, how can I help you?”

Marlies: Exactly. It’s really wonderful to speak with you, Rick.

Rick: Well, thanks, and likewise. So, I don’t know if Carla and Viram Verbeck are significant enough to talk about, or whether they had anything to do with Tantra, but Barry Long did. You mentioned Tantra, and then there were Charles and Carolyn Muir, and you became a certified Tantric educator. I didn’t know there was a certification in that. What does it mean to be a certified Tantric educator?

Marlies: It’s just a certificate that Charles and Carolyn give, and they offer different trainings. I worked for them and it was just really lovely to work for them. Well first, Carla and Viram, they are brother and sister, and they were also with Osho, but they were also very much influenced by Barry Long and also by Hamid. They are in the first group with Hamid here that started in Europe, like 22 years ago. So they taught Tantra, kind of a combination of those different teachers, and really coming into the body. And I was grounded into the silence.

Rick: When most people hear the word Tantra, or a lot of people, they think, okay, Tantric sex, that’s Tantra. But I understand from other friends like Igor Kufayev that that’s really only a small part of it, that it’s this whole big huge thing. Lakshman Juh taught Kashmir Shaivism and I think Muktananda had some kind of relationship to that, whatever. It’s a whole school of wisdom, so put that in perspective for us.

Marlies: Well to me, Tantra is kind of saying yes to all of life, it’s very simple. And to me it’s really learning to absolutely rest as the silence of your being, no matter what you’re attending to. And then the movement and the way you live your life, you live as the silence, you let the movement come from that. So in a way, let the speaking come from that, and let the being come from that. So how I use it, I teach trainings. I’m actually starting a training next year, but I’m teaching women’s retreats, it’s called “The Way of Woman, Silence and the Female Body”. So to me that’s Tantra, it’s like really first knowing who you are, waking up as that, and then moving as that. And that does include sensuality and sexuality. And sexuality basically includes the genitals, and that’s so forgotten in most spirituality. And what I thought was always so interesting, people can wake up to their true nature, and of course you have the deepening process, but still they have so-called two left hands with their own body, they’re not really settled in their bodies, there’s not really the love for the body. And so I would say Tantra is learning to rest as the being that you are, and then start moving as that. And that’s mostly how I use it.

Rick: So how would Tantra reconcile itself with the monastic traditions of all cultures? Would a Tantric adept recognize that those who chose a path of monasticism and celibacy were on a track that was appropriate for them, or would they feel that that was sort of an incomplete path in some way, and that theirs is more complete because it takes into account everything?

Marlies: I don’t have the answer to that. I think it really depends on the person that you speak to, because some people that I meet, like for instance one woman that I think is really beautiful, her name is Jetsuma Tansen Palmo, she is a nun, and so I assume sexuality is not happening that much in her life. And to me she is really fully baked. And then there are people in the so-called Tantra world, the sexual Tantra world, or Western Tantra world, that to me are absolutely not baked. And the other way around.

Rick: So they are using it as a license for indulgence or something?

Marlies: I would say so, yeah, it’s more about pleasure and indulging the pleasure. There’s nothing wrong with pleasure, it’s just not a fully baked perspective. And so I would say how I teach Tantra and how it was taught to me, well Charles and Caroline when they taught Tantra, they really said it’s Western Tantra what we teach, it’s Western and Hindu Tantra, those are the two Tantras we teach. So they really were clear about that. But then also at the time when Tantra came in more, you had a lot of monks in the monasteries that were not really fully baked and they came into contact with Tantrikas, who are really in the marketplace, and they would come together and live their lives with these females and then became so-called fully baked. So to me Tantra is the absolute total inclusiveness of all of life. A lot of spirituality has been quite male-oriented and very transcendental, and there’s a beauty to that, it’s just not the whole picture, it’s a half-baked story in my mind. And so to me Tantra is just fully totally inclusive of all of life and especially including the body in that also. And even in Advaita, it’s quite disembodied, like Ramana who I think is absolutely beautiful and he lived quite transcendental in my experience. What has its beauty to it is just not my interest, my interest is very much to include also the wonder of this body and the sensation and the taste of life, to taste that sweetness of life, that’s just so utterly beautiful. And I think more and more we come to a time where the body is more included, so that Mother Earth is also included. We’re all kind of hanging, hovering a little high above and need to really land on the earth too. So to me that’s what Tantra is.

Rick: There was a story about Shankara, who was a monk and the founder of Advaita really, and he would go around the country debating all these people and if he won the debate they would become his disciple, that was the rule in those days. He was supposed to debate this woman, and the woman was enlightened and I don’t know if she was a master of Tantra, but her expertise included all the worldly experiences and he said, “I’m not equipped to do this.” And so there was a situation where some king was dying at that moment and Shankara put his own body into a cave under the protection of some of his disciples and went into samadhi and left his body and went into the body of the king just as the king was about to die. And boom, the king springs back to life, and not only the king but this really bright guy, much brighter than the king had been. And so he spent about a month enjoying all the pleasures of that life and the queens kind of got on to what was really happening and sent emissaries out to find the body of Shankara and destroy it so he would stay in the king’s body and be their husband. And just as the people had found it  and were about to burn his body, his disciples came to the court, because Shankara had begun to forget who he was, as Shankara. They came to the court and began to recite some poetry that Shankara had written about the nature of the self and everything. And when he heard that poetry, he remembered, “Oh, that’s who I am.” And the king’s body dropped dead, Shankara went back to his actual body, came out of samadhi and didn’t get burned and went on and had the debate. I don’t know whether he won it or not.

Marlies: I love that story, I’ve never heard that, that’s really great.

Rick: So, on your website you have a whole page, a whole section about sacred sexuality. What is sacred sexuality as compared with, I guess we would have to use the antonym profane sexuality or ordinary sexuality or something?

Marlies: I would say for most people sexuality is kind of like friction sex and quite goal-oriented, we come together, we have so-called sex to get an orgasm and then we’re done. And I make it quite black and white here. So I’m here hopefully to broaden people’s menu a little bit. And for me sacred sexuality is just when you come together with your beloved, you move from the stillness. So you’re not going immediately out there to the other, first you’re inside yourself, you rest as yourself. And when you truly rest as yourself, the way you come together has a whole other pace. You really start receiving yourself and receiving the other and you just be tasting. Because to me, I love one of the sayings of Dogen Senge’s, “Enlightenment is the taste of the one thousand things”, something like that. And that’s what to me is sacred sexuality, it’s the absolute taste of love, whatever way she comes. So it can in one way look the same, two people kissing each other, whether there are two males or two females or a male and a female, it doesn’t really matter. But it’s like a coming together that comes from a stillness and it tends to be a lot slower and doesn’t have the goal of an orgasm. If it has a goal you could say it’s just to rest as the being that you are and let that being move. And then when you come together you just let the bodies move. A lot of people I think when they make love, or I would call it having sex, it’s more their minds having sex with each other, than really the bodies moving. So it’s just in slow motion, kind of letting the bodies come together and let the bodies make love and see how the bodies enjoy being together. And I would say it’s quite different than what a lot of people do. For a lot of people sexuality is just having a release so you can sleep better. And somebody had done research, I don’t know if it was Johnson & Johnson, but the amount of time people in America take to make love is like six and a half minutes.

Rick: Masters and Johnson.

Marlies: Masters and Johnson, that’s what they are. And so that’s not very long. I would just barely lie down on the bed, to be with someone. So to me sacred sexuality is really the making of love that comes from the stillness of our being. And when the stillness of our being moves us, in a way you can make love all the time, it’s not only when we lie in bed together, it’s also when we are speaking here right now or when you walk outside. But it is letting the body make love, and it’s not friction sex, it goes slowly, and there’s a connection. And you don’t particularly do it in the dark, you just look into each other’s eyes, that’s the window to the soul, and you just let the bodies move and be surprised, and every time is different. But after lovemaking, you come out rejuvenated, you come out nourished, you come out just a little softer, a little bit more alive, a little bit more vibrant, and a little bit more in yourself than before. So that’s what I call sacred sexuality with partners. What I also do in some retreats is to offer a sacred spot massage. I don’t start immediately, I bring loving touch to the body and if it’s right I also massage the genitals. I don’t do it with men, only with women, and I also teach women how to do that with each other or teach couples. And that tends to be an access point, a G-spot, what’s funny I don’t know the name for men, but it’s a sacred spot inside the vagina which seems to be the access point of a lot of pain, a lot of pleasure, and a lot of possibility for healing internally in the body. And it’s mostly about bringing loving touch so that the skin comes to life, so that the body comes to life and you can just be together in that sense of wholeness.

Rick: So when you do those retreats you yourself are going around the room massaging everybody or are you explaining to them how to do it themselves?

Marlies: Yeah, that would be interesting. No, the women come in groups of three and within each group, everybody has a chance to give for an hour, everybody has a chance to receive for an hour, and everybody has a chance to be the nurturer for an hour. So when a woman receives they lie in the lap of another woman and it’s like a big ritual and it’s very, very powerful. It really changes women’s lives because there’s so much sexual abuse and so much sexual trauma.

Rick: And women want to do that even if they’re not gay? They sort of massage each other and everything?

Marlies: Yes, they do. And of course I always get questions from women, they are afraid they’ll become gay or to fall in love with another woman.

Rick: Because I know if there were a bunch of guys they would say, “Hey man, I’m not going to do that.”

Marlies: Yeah, guys, they are just different. I don’t know, but I happen to be in a female body so that’s what I do. Not with everybody of course, not everybody is interested and it’s not for everybody either. I even wonder myself sometimes, like, “Gee, why are you doing this? A little crazy.” But then every time when we are in the ritual it’s just so beautiful and then the shift that happens in the lives of these women. It’s often the first time they have been touched with love and not with any goal that something needs to happen. And the shift happens in their lives. And now I have women come that have really woken up to their true nature and they know who they are and some of them have such heavy duty trauma. And then during these retreats, I’m just amazed every time myself, so much changes and their life changes and there’s a deepening that comes. Because I think we should not underestimate that yes, who we are is neither male nor female but still in my experience I come in a female body that has the personal conditioning but also the collective conditioning. And still the biggest industry in the world is the sex industry and it’s growing, sex trafficking is huge and still growing and there is misuse of little boys and little girls from three or four years on, hundreds and thousands. It’s unimaginable, I can’t get the number down, but that’s just how it’s misused and we all taste that. And for some reason that’s what I’m doing, sometimes I feel a little weird that I’m doing it, but it feels so natural. And I think it has to do with the fact that I had some abuse in my teens. I was raped a few times and that was the way I got healed in my own body. So it seems like women are interested in that and that’s what seems to be happening. I don’t do it in all the women’s retreats, some women’s retreats are just satsang, and in some retreats I do offer that too. And women always have the freedom to join or not, and so far they always have. And it can be tremendously healing during the ritual to keep your clothes on, because you don’t have to do it, you can just have, for instance, one woman with one hand on your belly or one hand on your vagina and the other hand on your heart, just that during the whole ritual with your clothes on. It can be the most profound healing that finally somebody listens to you and that just sinks in, or being touched in a loving way and when it’s enough, it’s enough, and somebody listens to you. So it’s beautiful, it’s really beautiful.

Rick: Well, what you just said about the amount of sex trafficking in the world and all that horrible stuff that’s going on, child prostitution and everything, obviously something like that is symptomatic of a deep malaise in collective consciousness, there’s something really wrong that makes it so prevalent. And so maybe what you’re doing is just making a contribution to the healing of that through the work you’re doing, maybe a small contribution, but you’re making it and perhaps you’re helping to heal or resolve something in collective consciousness which eventually will help to diminish that kind of stuff.

Marlies: I hope so, but what I find so interesting in my own life is that I never thought I was going to do all these things. And when the interest in sexuality and healing had happened, I remember when Adya asked me to teach, first I was like, “Why did you ask me, ask somebody else.” But then when I got over that and sat with it, what came to me was to first offer satsang for women only. So I remember talking with Adya about it, I said, “Why should I,” he said, “Just listen to that, just go for it.” So I did. And then it started just unfolding more and more to bring in sexuality and just really bringing all of life, the total inclusiveness. And now I find myself doing women’s retreats, it’s just happening. So I feel I’m just following orders also in that realm.

Rick: Do you ever find yourself doing something in a teaching capacity and then after a while you think, “Eh, that’s kind of crazy, I’m not going to do that anymore,” or you just get tired of it?

Marlies: Absolutely. The only sense I sometimes have is that I’m kind of bored with myself. When I say something …

Rick: You’ve said that a thousand times.

Marlies: Oh, Jesus, man. Something needs to happen. And to me it tends to be in a place when I know I need to take a next step, even if I’m not quite sure what it is, but then part of you wants a little to hold on to the old. But yeah, I do know that sense. I think it takes really courage as a human and then especially in the role as a teacher to be fresh, to really dare to be fresh and new.

Rick: So what’s Hakomi? You teach Hakomi also?

Marlies: Yes, Hakomi is a body-centered psychotherapy method. So it’s basically a method that you can use as a … what’s that?

Rick: Thunder, we’re having a thunderstorm.

Marlies: Thunder, all right.

Rick:  It was the 4th of July yesterday too. We’re supposed to have fireworks tonight, so nature is giving us some fireworks today.

Marlies: Okay, good. So as a psychologist I use Hakomi and Hakomi …

Rick: Sounds Japanese.

Marlies: A lot of people think it is that. It was a method invented or developed by a man called Ron Kurch and it’s actually interesting. He started including the body in his weekends and some people said, “You know Ron, you need to give it a name.” And he said, “Well, I don’t have a name.” And that weekend somebody had a dream, I think he was dreaming or maybe it was somebody else, I can’t remember, but the dream gave Ron the title and it was Hakomi. So they came together the next day and he said or somebody else said, “I got the name Hakomi,” and nobody knew what it was. And then somebody had some kind of an alternative dictionary and what it means in, I think it was Hopi Indian, is “Who am I? How do I stand to all these realms?” So in Hakomi, “Stand to all these realms.”

Rick: Realms, okay.

Marlies: Realms, yeah. And within this method you do little experiments in mindfulness. So it’s not regular talk therapy where you just talk and you let somebody just blah, blah, blah the whole time. But you really come in contact with the storyteller and not so much with their story. The story is included, but you really meet the person where they are and you bring in mindfulness and you do little experiments and find out how the person has organized himself or herself. And it works a lot with core beliefs and how they are rooted in the body.

Rick: So this is something you do as a therapist, one-on-one?

Marlies: Yes, but I don’t feel there’s much separation anymore between Marlies the therapist or Marlies working with sexuality or Marlies Satsang. It feels like one.

Rick: You have different tools in your toolbox, right?

Marlies: Yeah.

Rick: According to the need.

Marlies: Yeah, yeah.

Rick: Okay. And I was writing down things that I got from your website. You also mentioned Kashmirian Tandava dance, and that you’re really into dancing, also West African and Nia.

Marlies: Yeah. And especially Congolese dance. I feel my other spiritual teacher is my Congolese dance teacher, Vivian. To me he’s the most amazing dancer on this planet. You can be an amazing dancer and a terrible teacher, but he is like the most amazing teacher also. When I’m in Santa Cruz I go to his classes, any class he teaches I go to. I love that.

Rick: So when you were young you were shy and when you first went to Osho you were afraid to make noise or anything and now you’re like doing Congolese dance. Were you much of a dancer when you were young or were you too shy to dance?

Marlies: No, I was in ballet. I did one or two years ballet, but that’s very quiet and very structured. Congolese dance is quite structured also, it’s certain movements you make. West African is more jumping and Congolese is more down to the ground, very sensual. But we always have live drummers and it’s always a happening.

Rick: Sounds like fun.

Marlies: It’s really fun. I must say when I travel the main thing I miss is my Congolese dance class.

Rick: You should go to the Congo.

Marlies: Yeah.

Rick: You also mentioned Lama Tsultrim Alyona.

Marlies: Tsultrim Alyona, yes.

Rick: Who’s that?

Marlies: She is a lady who set up a big Tibetan Buddhist center in Colorado. I forgot the name now for a moment.

Rick: You studied with her?

Marlies: I did go once actually together with Sharon Lentrit. Sharon and I did a week-long retreat with her together and it was very beautiful. I think she’s really beautiful. I didn’t study more than that. There was also a period for me where being asked to teach by Adya you’re kind of kicked out of the nest. And at least that’s my experience and it’s really very freeing and simultaneously also there’s no structure, no nothing. So I also had some insecurity for a little while, like, “Oh, perhaps another teacher can give me some more structure.” So part of me was searching, so she was part of my search in a way. I was deeply touched by her and the teachings. They’re really, really beautiful. But I also realized, “This is not my lineage. This is not what I do.” And I had to really come to terms with the fact that I need to bring forth what wants to come forth as Marlies and how she wants, whatever wants to be expressed here and not taking that from anywhere else. So that was part of the journey.

Rick: The image comes to my mind of a honeybee. Marlies is like this honeybee that’s going from flower to flower, cross-pollinating them, picking up stuff here, carrying it over there.

Marlies: Exactly. And Hakomi is also like that, it picks up from a lot of other methods. Within Hakomi there’s a joke, “How much more can we steal?” But I feel now I’m really in my flavor and the flavor is deepening and there’s just now. And it took time to come to that complete trust.

Rick: There is a lot of cross-pollination happening in the world, isn’t there? I mean, it used to be that with no communications or means of travel, people had a certain tradition and they just did that. And these days, look at my site, look at everything else that’s on the internet, you can just check out everything under the sun and pick up bits and pieces here and there, whatever is of value to you.

Marlies: Absolutely. But I imagine for you interviewing all these different people must be so fascinating because everybody brings a different piece.

Rick: Yeah, it’s really enriching for me. And it’s not like I go and spend retreats with everybody and delve deeply into what they’re doing. I would like to do that too, but at least I spend a week or so, reading and listening and really doing my best to get a sense of who they are and what they’re doing. And every week is enriching. It kind of adds a new ingredient to the soup.

Marlies: Yeah, totally, I understand that. And that makes me actually curious. When you listen to the things, to my voice so to speak, what did you get curious about or what is at least what we didn’t talk about yet? But is there anything that struck you?

Rick: Well, I usually don’t take notes because I’m usually listening while I’m riding my bike or cutting the grass or things like that, but I just kind of get to know the person and get a feeling for them. And sometimes questions will form in my mind which I’ll remember when I interview them. Other times it’s more like I become their friend, even though they may not have met me yet. And then when I talk to them I can have a chat as friends, that I kind of know you. So, I don’t know, in your case, I’m trying to think, there was just a lot of “aha” moments as I was listening to you, it’s like a feeling of, “Yeah, that feels right,” and “I know what she’s saying and I can relate to that because I had that experience myself,” or whatever. There was a lot of that, whereas there have been a few people I’ve listened to and I think, “Holy crap, how am I going to interview this guy? He’s not connecting at all.” But there was just a lot of affinity, which I feel with a lot of people because there are so many people who are just really on a good wavelength these days. It’s really genuine what’s happening in the world and it gives me a lot of optimism because I really feel like the world’s problems which could do us in are a symptom of something which people like yourselves are applying the medicine to where it’s needed, at the deepest level and that the medicine is becoming more and more plentiful all over the world and that we can hopefully expect to see some of these symptoms diminish as collective consciousness rises.

Marlies: Yeah, we’re living in precious times. We’re living in such amazing times, that everybody can come into contact through the internet, but also we have this opportunity to wake up and then to stabilize that, and bring that everywhere. I mean it’s very exciting.

Rick: It is exciting. Let’s see now, there was a whole other little package that I had in mind that I wanted to talk to you about. I like these interviews to be really comprehensive and deep as possible, so – I should have said this in the beginning – if there’s anything I haven’t thought to ask that you like to talk about, don’t hesitate to bring it up. Is there?

Marlies: I may have said this already, but I think for me what I didn’t know beforehand, so to speak, when I embarked on this whole adventure, is that I’d feel such love for humanity. I feel that has been missed by so many for long, and I feel it’s coming in more and more, just the inseparability of our humanity and our divinity. I would say that’s what touches me so deeply. Even while I’m speaking right now it just touches me, it’s just so beautiful when we really bring that together and we don’t have to make any separation anywhere anymore. That all, absolutely all, is welcome and can be received. So that’s where my love is, I guess my love is everywhere, but yes, that’s what comes to mind right now.

Rick: Well, Muktananda used to say, “God dwells within you as you,” and also if we think of what God really is, then God dwells within everything as the essence of that thing, that being, that thing, whether it’s a rock or a person, there’s that sort of divinity permeating omnipresently the entire creation. There’s no place where it can’t be found, and we’re like little fish swimming in that ocean. So waking up to that, as I think you’ve been saying, is the greatest marvel and the greatest privilege and adventure. And what better way could there be to live one’s life than to dedicate it to that awakening, that realization?

Marlies: Yeah, I agree.

Rick: And one size does not fit all. I mean, there are some people who will totally resonate with Marlies and think, “Oh, I got to go see Marlies, do retreats with her,” whatever. Other people say, “Not so much, I think I’ll go check out this other guy.” And that’s part of the beauty, I think, of what’s going on in the world, with the internet and with all these different teachers. Who was it that said the next Buddha will be the Sangha? And it’s more of a many-to-many setup now rather than one-to-many. And there’s such a variety of possibilities. And that doesn’t water it down. I mean, look at the way nature is. You go to the rainforest and there’s just a million different kinds of bugs and plants and there’s this great proliferation of diversity and richness. And I think we’re kind of seeing that in the spiritual scene of the world. The awakening is not all of one flavor. It’s not like, “Okay, Jesus is here and he’s going to be everybody’s teacher.” It’s more like, using the rainforest as an example, when the ground of the forest gets more nutritious, then all the diversity thrives. And it’s like the spiritual ground of the world is waking up and it’s resulting in a diversity of expressions that we’ve never seen before.

Marlies: Absolutely. And within that, it’s also so important for everybody to trust their taste and go where they want to go, what touches them to trust that, that it’s not the same as anybody else. And I actually wrote an article last year about kind of the setup of satsang, because satsang tends to be that there’s one teacher on stage that tends to be male. It’s changing now, there’s more females coming forward too, but it tends to be male. And then you have the audience and that tends to be more females than males. But okay, you have teacher and audience and then there’s this agreement, like the teacher has it and does it and knows it, and me and the audience, well yeah, I have it kind of, but perhaps not totally. And I think we are shifting more and more to stepping out of that paradigm. And yes, the teacher can get hooked to it too, “I’m the teacher so I know”, or “I’m the student so I don’t know”, and “he or she tells me I’m the same, but I’m not really, or yeah, perhaps I am”. And I think we’re in kind of a deepening of more and more people waking up, but also more and more people settling into that ground of being. And I think, as a teacher, it’s also more and more taking on the role of being undefended and being more transparent. And I know in my own development when I was first asked to teach, one of the things I felt was strange was that I was asked to teach but I didn’t feel particularly enlightened. So I said to Adya, “just ask somebody else because I know enlightenment hasn’t happened here. How can I teach? That doesn’t make any sense”. Well, I got over that, but he said it’s more important to be in integrity than to be enlightened. And I said, okay, I can do that. And then, but in the beginning there was a defendedness in me because, there was some idea of how I thought I was supposed to be as a teacher, to know things and to act a certain way, till that fell away, and gratefully so. So now I feel just myself, no matter if I’m talking with you or having dinner with my friends or teaching. And I think that’s really a big gift, as it is for me being with Adya, seeing his humanity. I feel just me being in my humanity is huge, and it’s a gift for people too because they get touched by that and then more and more they learn or receive their own humanity in the midst of their divinity. And I think we have a big possibility to more and more shift into that, more kind of equality. You could say it’s not so patriarchal anymore. And also within traditions, so many traditions are very male-oriented, and now more and more females can come in, but it’s just in the last few years, it hasn’t been that long. So I feel we are on the verge, of new possibilities. And I think all of us within that have an opportunity to truly, truly wake up, but then also truly, absolutely, totally, own our awakening. Not like, “Oh, I’m awakened,” but really like own that beauty and start living as that in a non-egoic, non-selfish way. And to me that is so beautiful when that starts happening.

Rick: Those are good points. So many teachers have gotten in trouble because either they or their students have put them on a pedestal, and they feel that they are beyond reproach and that whatever they think must be cosmic because they are thinking it and therefore they should think they can do it. “Don’t question me, I’m the guru, I know best.” And boy, the bigger they are the harder they fall, and many have fallen. So I think what you are describing here is safer for the teachers and really better for the students because it’s not like somebody like Adya isn’t special and doesn’t have a wisdom and a depth that most of us don’t have. We would benefit from sitting with him, but at the same time, I think one of the things that makes him so appealing is that he just comes across as so, “What you see is what you get,” so regular. There’s not even a hint of putting on airs or being holier than thou or anything like that.

Marlies: Yeah, and that’s very, very freeing to have an example like that in front of you. So, yes, I think that’s beautiful.

Rick: I heard you say in one interview, I think it might have been with Renata McNay, you said, “Well, I’m awake to my true nature, but I don’t know exactly what enlightenment is, so I guess I’m not enlightened.” So do you have any idea in your own way of understanding things what enlightenment is and how we can contrast that with stage 3 in the Zen thing you mentioned, being awake to one’s true nature? If we want to think of, and some people don’t like the word “goal,” but if we want to think of enlightenment as stage 10, the ultimate realization, what is it?

Marlies: Well, I can only speak in my experience. In my experience it is deeply knowing that I am not this, not this body, and simultaneously I am this also, and that’s it. It’s like the deep knowing of that and then moving as that.

Rick: But don’t you already have that?

Marlies: I do. And so, well, who knows, perhaps I am. I think in our hearts we all know what enlightenment is, we all know what enlightened action is, natural movement is. And I think it would be really interesting to have a school, we could go to school and be tested. I think it would be so fascinating, all the people that say they are enlightened or awake or whatever, they’d get tested. And to really find out.

Rick: What do you think some of the tests would be?

Marlies: I don’t know. I know for myself, in one way there is a knowing, there is a fully bakedness, and in another way I question, I still question. And so, I don’t say enlightenment has happened here, because I can’t say that for sure.

Rick: I certainly can’t, but it’s an interesting discussion, because if we are going to use words, they have to mean something, or they should mean something, otherwise we are miscommunicating. So personally I just reserve the E-word for some kind of superlative ultimate realization, whatever that might be. And even then I suspect that once one is established there, there is still a horizon, some more refinement or something. So I just don’t know where to draw the line, or really how we should use the word, for what state we should reserve that particular word.

Marlies: Right. Well, that’s a really good question, because as many as people you ask, everybody will give another answer. And I can only say, I feel really free, I feel liberated. And for me that means that I feel what I mentioned before, I feel like a space body, even though I feel quite embodied, and I feel there is an utter beingness here that fully receives life. As far as I am aware, there is no resistance to anything anymore, and there is an utter letting life in and letting life out. And there is an utter kind of being in the world and simultaneously not being of it. So what I feel all the time is this deep silence and this space. So I feel like space walking, really. And to me that is liberation. I am not sure if that is enlightenment, I truly don’t know. It’s funny because I always had two wishes. “I want absolute enlightenment and I want lots of new clothes”. And so the new clothes, that’s kind of fine now.

Rick: Yeah, you got that.

Marlies: I got that, got that down. Enlightenment I truthfully don’t know and there is not that interest anymore. So I can only say that seeking dissolved itself and there is still an ongoing maturation happening. So within that I do feel liberated, but I don’t know if that is necessarily enlightenment. And in that way I hold it partly the same as you hold it, that to me Adya is enlightened, to me Ammachi is enlightened, those kind of big names. But also there is a guy on – do you know Mount Madonna?

Rick: It’s a retreat center in California, right?

Marlies: Yeah, it’s a retreat center. There is this teacher there, I don’t know if he calls himself a teacher or a guru or whatever. He hasn’t been speaking for the last 40 years and he is the most ordinary man. For me, he is enlightened, very, very quiet. But I think in our hearts when we look we can feel when there is enlightenment around us and within us. But I think it would be great if we have a school and we get tested.

Rick: They should be able to test your brain waves.

Marlies: Yeah, test brain waves.

Rick: They try to do that here in my town at Maharishi University of Management. There is a guy named Fred Travis who has been doing that kind of study for years, testing people’s brain waves and trying to establish physiological parameters for various states of consciousness. I think it’s very much a work in progress, but I think he has actually published some interesting stuff. There is something in the Indian tradition where they describe 16 Kalas, you had your 10 things in Zen, where they describe 16 Kalas and these are supposed to be levels of evolution. And apparently the human beings occupy the fourth through the eighth, something like that. So, Ramana Maharshi and Amma and people like that might be in the eighth, but then there are like eight Kalas above that. So if that’s true, then the whole word “enlightenment” is just sort of a relative term. We can take examples like you mentioned as being the enlightened people on this planet, but relative to what might theoretically be possible in the universe, they could be kind of in the backwaters.

Marlies: Yes, probably. But I think in my experience, also one of the side effects or features that you can see in someone that’s really free or enlightened or liberated, is they’re just quite generous. They really want to benefit all beings, want to benefit who is right in front of their nose. And it’s just a natural gesture, you just flow over, you’re just overflowing. It doesn’t mean you’re all like, “Ahhh,” like that. It’s just very natural, a natural overflowing and a natural trust in life. And didn’t Ramana say something about perseverance at all situations, at all times? It’s like just really having that vigilance and that open presence in all situations, at all times. I do feel that, so perhaps I qualify, I don’t know. It’s interesting for me because it used to be important to get enlightened, to so-called get there, and now it’s not. I just feel there’s a deepening and I feel drawn still to go in and in and in and in, and that’s just what’s happening. And then there’s the overflow outwardly and there’s just gratitude, really every day there’s so much gratitude for all that is and all that isn’t. I’m just in awe, truthfully all day. I’m overcome with it still.

Rick: So I think that the acid test for you will be if the Netherlands lose the soccer World Cup.

Marlies: Man, that’s it, that’s it. We will see!

Rick: You’ll be on the floor in misery and we’ll say, “No, she’s not there.”

Marlies: I know, we will find out tonight. We start tonight and when they play against Costa Rica. If we lose it’s good we’re doing the interview now and not afterwards.

Rick: I know, you’ll be like drinking whiskey tomorrow.

Marlies: All day.

Rick: Great, well this has been delightful. I guess we better wrap it up. Any final parting thoughts or are we good?

Marlies: I just want to say I think one thing, first of all just thank you. Thank you so much. You benefit so many people by doing this. It’s very touching, I find it very touching what you offer.

Rick: It’s very fulfilling for me as well.

Marlies: Thank you. And I also just want to mention that I offer satsang for men and women too. I offer retreats for men and women because sometimes I think men feel a little bit left out and they ask if they can come in drag and things like that. Perhaps one day it will happen. But I also offer silent retreats for men and women. So I just want to mention that, and that it has been a delight to be invited by you to be interviewed.

Rick: Thanks. So on your website it probably lists your retreats, right?

Marlies: Yeah.

Rick: Okay, so I’ll be linking to that. It’s just marliescocheret.com, isn’t it?

Marlies: That’s right.

Rick: M-A-R-L-I-E-S-C-O-C-H-E-R-E-T, but I’ll be linking to that from that from batgap.com. So let me just make a few concluding remarks that I always make. You’ve been listening to or watching an interview with Marlies Cocheret de la Mourinière. Got it right?

Marlies: Yeah, very good.

Rick: And this is an ongoing series, so there are about 230 something of them now. If you go to batgap.com, B-A-T-G-A-P, you will see them all. There’s an alphabetical index down the right hand side, there’s a past interviews menu and under that there’s a chronological index and a categorical index of all the different interviews. There’s also a favorite interviews page where people have voted which ones their favorites are. I don’t think it’s completely statistically significant, but it gives you some flavor of some of the more popular ones. There’s a YouTube channel that you can subscribe to if you’re on YouTube, and YouTube will notify you when a new interview pops up. There’s a place on my website where you can subscribe to an email notification that says “Join our mailing list” or something, and you’ll get about one email a week each time a new interview is posted. There’s a “Donate” button on there which I appreciate people clicking. It makes it possible for me to do this. What else? There’s a discussion group for each interview that has its own page in the discussion forum, and some of them get very lively, some of them not so much, but each interview has its own page. So you’ll see a link to that on Marlies’s page, and you can get in there. You have to, I think, register on the site before you can actually see the messages that have been posted or post anything. So if you go there and you don’t see anything, it’s because you haven’t registered yet, so you have to do that. There’s a “Login” or “Register” button. This also exists as an audio podcast, and just about as many people listen to the audio as watch the video. So if you want to subscribe to that, there’s a link on each interview where it says “Subscribe to the podcast,” and you can just click that and subscribe. That just about covers it. You haven’t written any books yet, right, Marlies?

Marlies: No, it’s in the making.

Rick: Okay, you’re working on a book. So I’ll just link to your website and people can go there and find out what you’re doing, and if they’re in the Santa Cruz area, they could probably sit with you as a therapist if they wanted to, right?

Marlies: They can, but I also offer sessions over Skype if people are interested. I offer half-hour or one-hour meetings, and then I travel. At the moment I’ve been traveling a lot in Holland and Europe and UK and Ireland, and then in August I’m going back to America.

Rick: Good, and then you’ll be out at the Science and Non-Duality Conference again. I’ll see you out there. Okay, that tells people what to do. I think they can figure it out. So thank you again, and thanks to all who’ve been listening or watching, and we’ll see you next week. Next week is going to be with a fellow named Bernardo Kastrup, and we’re going to be talking about a book he wrote called “Materialism is Baloney.” One of those more intellectual, academic guys, but it interests me, and so we’ll have that conversation.

Marlies: Right.

Rick: So thanks. Thanks.