Pamela Wilson BATGAP Interview
>>Rick: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer and my guest this week is Pamela Wilson. Pamela is a spiritual teacher living on the West Coast. I’ll let her introduce herself in the course of the interview, but I just want to say that I have really enjoyed the last week or so listening to a lot of recordings of you. I’ve listened to pretty much all of the Never Not Here recordings and your Science and Nonduality Conference Talk and your Conscious TV interview with Renate McNay. So, if I could distill the – tell me if I get this right – but if I could just distill what you like to say down into a couple of sentences, it might be that you like to kind of point to the innate intelligence of life, which is our essence and the beneficent quality of that and you have kind of a way of helping people attune themselves to a recognition of that. Would that be a fair assessment or am I leaving out something really critical?
>>Pamela: Actually no, I think it’s pretty simple.
>>Rick: Yeah. You constantly – and I like that, because a lot of teachers don’t sort of refer to the sort of intelligent quality of reality or whatever you want to call it, they kind of emphasize an impersonal flavor to it, and the feeling I kept getting from you was an appreciation of the sort of vast wisdom that guides life, or that governs life and the value of kind of being in the flow of that.
>>Pamela: Yeah, well what I like is relaxation and when I noticed that everything was intelligent, and everything was true nature, that was very relaxing, because then I didn’t have to manage or micromanage, but could just rest and watch the amazing display of intelligence from moment to moment.
>>Rick: So, it kind of sounds like the recognition of that was the horse and the relaxation was the cart. In other words, relaxation followed that recognition.
>>Pamela: yeah. It was quite amazing, because when I still thought I was Pamela, and a cartoon character struggling with life, or against life, that spiritual attentiveness was all about making sure everything went ok and I wasn’t fooled, and everything. Needless to say, none of it worked, because I was regularly fooled, (laughter) but it was very relaxing to notice everything is intelligent and actually everything has a heart. Like the mind has a heart. It’s the supreme intelligence, that gorgeous swirling emotional body, is all heart, and I would say it’s the sum total of the group consciousness that each one of us has within our chest-solar plexus area. Big surprise.
>>Rick: Yeah. So, sum total of the group consciousness, so are you saying we’re like a big jellyfish with a whole lot of little independent cells and our little independent cell has its connection to the jellyfish in the heart area.
>>Pamela: Well, in absolute unity, the only problem with absolute unity is a) it’s infinite and b) you feel it all, and then we wonder why there are all these infinite upwellings from moment to moment during the day or throughout the life. And finally seeing here that, oh! There is only one emotional body, there is only one mind, there is only one being, really, it just has infinite embodiments. You know?
>>Rick: Light that is one though the lamps be many. That is a line from the Incredible String Band.
>>Pamela: Oh.
>>Rick: So, is that your vision then, these days, it’s not just obviously an intellectual understanding, there’s sort of a continuous 24/7 appreciation of the absolute unity of everything and of this apparent Pamela thing, as being just one sort of individual sense organ of that?
>>Pamela: Well, there is just my absolute appreciation as the substratum of everything, and then within that is the opposite, often, play. So, sometimes there is this definite non-appreciation of what’s happening. The space includes that, too.
>>Rick: Yeah. I was just going to say, so when the non-appreciation rears its head, the nonappreciation of the oneness, that doesn’t necessarily blot out the oneness, right?
>>Pamela: Exactly. That would be just a point of view, and the view unusually has a lot of clear seeing in it, as far as I can tell.
>>Rick: So, are you alluding to sort of challenging situations that would tend to, for most people, really challenge the resting in oneness?
>>Pamela: Well. I think that challenges are also the movement of the natural intelligence because they draw our attention to remaining movements to defend that are on automatic pilot or draw our attention to beliefs that are still held innocently in the mind, so it’s all this amazing production, so to speak, to inform that which is apparently in form.
>>Rick: That’s a nice play on words. I like that: to inform that which is apparently in form.
>>Pamela: Yeah.
>>Rick: Well that gets back to our original point, your appreciation of the vast intelligence that is orchestrating everything and its beneficent nature. Not only is God not playing dice with the universe, to paraphrase Einstein, but there is this sort of compassionate orchestration of the course of invents in our lives to lead us on, to enable us to move on to the next step.
>>Pamela: Yeah. And sometimes it doesn’t feel compassionate, needless to say.
No. Kind of like the mother when she washes the dirt behind the child’s ears – “Stop that!”
>>Pamela: Or the Zen master with his stick: “Ouch!”
>>Rick: And perhaps it’s hard to see how the situation in Somalia, or many other horrible situations in this world could be even remotely construed as compassionate.
>>Pamela: Well, it’s tricky because, and now this is my own quirky view, and it may not be advaitically correct, but I absolutely enjoy being non-advaitically correct,
>>Rick: You’ll be hearing from the Advaita police.
>>Pamela: Very good, I look forward to a cross exam. So, basically tension maintains the imbalance within the play, right? And aversion, we could also say, so we also notice that in nature, because nature is being subject to an incredible amount of pressure from the human tribe, so then the natural balancing functions will be slightly awry, which then, so nature shows us, look: imbalance, maybe you all could bring yourselves back into balance, please? You know?
>>Rick: Yeah. Well, someone might ask, though, why should those poor Somalis have to pay for our abuse of the environment that is causing their drought, or for the political crazies over there that are preventing the food from being delivered to them. It seems very unfair, you know?
>>Pamela: Yeah, but that is clear seeing. That’s clear seeing.
>>Rick: What do you mean by clear seeing?
>>Pamela: Well, it’s noticing what’s true, that why should innocents not have water when the planet is awash. So, it’s just the human tribe is out of balance. So, of course we know that, so for me, since we don’t have access to fiddling at the heart strata, so to speak, I like to go down to the root misunderstandings, that are feeding the imbalance, and so that’s what I invite friends to do. I don’t think of myself as the teacher, but like a messenger, just reminding people of their function as the sage, as the mystic, as the warrior, and – it’s quite amazing to watch somebody kinesthetically remember functioning as the balancing function of consciousness or the blessing function, or the – yeah, it’s really beautiful to watch.
>>Rick: How do you get them to do that?
>>Pamela: Let’s see. I was just, we had a French retreat, and a woman towards the end of it decided she wanted to sit with destruction, mainly the earth movements of destruction, like tsunamis and drought and I was just so happy she brought that to satsang. So, she was doing inner satsang with destruction, itself, and she asked it what’s it’s true nature? And it responded, “transmutation,” and we all completely resonated with that, and then, though, she said, “Oh, it’s caught in transmuting through form. It has forgotten that it’s absolute talent for transmutation is actually in the formless.” And when she said that there was complete resonance and then within, in the stillness, I heard a deep chuckle, like that aspect, that it had forgotten, that it had gotten caught in form, just as often things do, under pressure, they get caught in form and function. It remembered, and its chuckle was its “Ah,” it’s joyous remembrance, and I was so touched.
>>Rick: It’s interesting. It’s almost as though, somehow, individuals doing what you do and what that lady did, in the satsang, the way you told the story, it makes it sound as though we are all playing a part in helping the deeper aspect of life awaken to itself. Something which is transcendental to our individual lives, because it itself has somehow gone to sleep and we are each helping it to wake up, for it to wake itself up, or something.
>>Pamela: Yeah, and we don’t have to know what aspect needs, you know, a little loving attention or help discerning, because it will just pester us. Each one of us has something that just keeps coming to sit, and like, come on, I was present with you, I honored you, or whatever. I watched you, but it just keeps pestering us because it wants to come to rest. It wants to come back into its deep-rooted still naturalness.
>>Rick: So, what would you say, when you are giving a satsang, what would you say are the deeper mechanics of what is going on? I mean it’s not just a bunch of people sitting around philosophizing, there is something kind of more fundamental taking place that enables people to shift.
>>Pamela: Yes. Well, it’s the same thing we feel in the wilderness, or sometimes at the beach, or those precious moments of absolute unmoving – it’s OK, “Ah.” So, when all the friends gather together with the love of that, it feeds it, because we have this idea that the divine doesn’t need to be fed, but in nature is, nature to me confirms everything I notice, so the divine as nature definitely needs nourishment, so saying, here we bring our devotion and our gratitude to that which is and it comes out at the end unmanifest into more palpable fullness. And then that blesses us, but it’s like a circle of blessing. So, that is the main thing that goes on in satsang, and then the other thing is that we’re each honoring the other’s true nature. Now, that’s very rare in a gathering. That’s very, very rare, and when that happens, anything we honor, blooms. It opens and unfurls, and, ah, breathes.
>>Rick: Well, it’s probably not rare in your gatherings, or gatherings like the ones you do, right? Or is it?
>>Pamela: Yeah, but like when we go to an art opening
>>Rick: No, but more of a satsang gathering, you don’t get it so much at rock concerts, but you know, at satsang.
>>Pamela: Yeah, sometimes there is that field at a rock concert. Yeah, definitely. So, what I like about satsang is, it’s definitely a mystery, because we can only be aware of maybe the tip of the iceberg, and meanwhile that whole deep gorgeous substrata, and I would have to say mystic, or mystery, just gives us little clues, you know, but that is also very tantalizing. I like small clues.
>>Rick: Yeah. Kind of reminds me of that thing Christ said about, what is it? Wherever three or more are gathered in my name, there I am. And you know, he’s not just talking about the ‘I am’ in terms of that guy that lived two thousand years ago, but just sort of the presence wells up when people have assembled for that purpose.
>>Pamela: Yeah, that the sneaky trick of saints and sages is devotion. That’s why they work it. >>Rick: What do you mean by that?
>>Pamela: Well, a lot of people say, “Well, if this is true nature” – sometimes people complain about they thought it was going to be a little more glorious or full or rich instead of kind of ordinary and like, “Hey! We’re all the same, isn’t that amazing? But then if they just, in one moment, notice how the gaze itself is devotional, or how the senses are completely devotional, or how, just the sense of smell is devotional, and then all of a sudden everything starts – the body itself starts to remember itself as just devotion and gratitude and formless presence. So, it’s pretty yummy.
>>Rick: It sounds like you are suggesting that there can be an initial stage of awakening, which is nice, but seems a little dry or flat or something, and then it matures into something more sumptuous, more rich with the quality of devotion. Is that what you are saying?
>>Pamela: Well, it’s all there, but the unmanifest is well named, it’s very subtle, so just through our curiosity or through just noticing what is, it reveals itself more and more and then it is noticed to be always sumptuous even when it’s apparently ordinary.
>>Rick: Yeah.
>>Pamela: Yeah. And we are all just beginner connoisseurs, so it’s kind of fun.
>>Rick: I like that. It kind of reminds me of that old saying from Fireside Theatre, “We’re all bozos on this bus.” (Laughter) So, you’re suggesting that no matter how spiritually advanced we may be or may appear to be, or whatever, in the vast scheme of things we’re all just beginners and there is a great range of possibility yet to explore. Is that what you are saying?
>>Pamela: Well it would have to be so, since the infinite is by nature infinite. It’s infinite in its formlessness and it’s infinite in form, and also, we have access to certain so-called realms of existence that we have noticing of, but then, in some moments where all of a sudden there is a deeper relaxation, you can go, “Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness!”
>>Rick: There’s more!
>>Pamela: Yeah, that would be a good sutra. There’s more!
>>Rick: Yeah, like those infomercials, “Call now and we’ll throw in a free slicer-dicer.”
>>Rick: So, let’s get in the way-back machine, and, in your Conscious TV interview, we’ll delve much more into this stuff, too, but let’s loop back for a minute. You were talking to Renate about, I think you were 13 years old or something and you had this determination that if there is somebody out there who knows the truth, you want them to come through the door.
>>Pamela: Yeah, it was actually the phrase that came, because I didn’t know about any of this stuff was, “If there is anyone out there who knows anything, come here.” It was sort of that teenage, petulant, frustrated, outraged, like enough. Yeah.
>>Rick: Did you sort of have the feeling at that point in your life that nobody did know anything? All the adults, and the other people who were supposed to know, you were beginning to realize they really didn’t?
>>Pamela: Well, there was a noticing of people who I would now call, were at rest. And then people who were breathless and farther in the apparent opposite direction. So, that was noticed, but there wasn’t any, like I remember at one point looking at the Greek myths for some kind of clue and I just found a couple of tiny, tiny clues, and then of course going to church, I didn’t find hardly any clues. I mean there was some natural devotion that would rise up, but I kind of wanted, not a game plan, but at least some clues, because to me it was very tumultuous, not so much what was happening outside, but sort of what was happening inside. Yeah.
>>Rick: Well, I think it was commendable that you were looking for clues at that age, I mean a lot of 13-year-olds are clueless and they are more into Justin Bieber or whoever was his counterpart when you were 13, and the fact that you were reading Greek mythology and really looking for deeper meaning in life at that age is
>>Pamela: Well, it could have been just a little extra suffering, who knows? But it was just this noticing, like for instance, my mother was very relaxed, she was welcoming with everyone, she had this kind of like warm-water way of living from moment to moment, and I’d be going, whatever she has, I want that. Because I was a little more of the fire aspect.
>>Rick: Yeah. I kind of did that, in a way, myself, but not quite when I was that young, but later on I was, I kept having this, “Somebody’s got to know where it’s at, so to speak, and I’d latch on to somebody whom I thought knew, and I soon realized that he didn’t. And then I’d latch on to somebody else. So, anyway, what happened? You had this desire, if somebody knows the truth you want them to come through the door.
>>Pamela: Well, I had a porch, and I stared at that door for about an hour, and just willing whoever it was, and then I thought, it was the second story, how were they?
>>Rick: What did you expect?
>>Pamela: Well, I gave up. Oh, I know what happened, like the door started vibrating and this blue-gold light started coming, and this was during the day, so I went like this with my hands and said, “Cancel, cancel, cancel,” because it scared me. And then in the middle of the night the blue-gold light came again, and it was Ramana Maharshi, so
>>Rick: And you threw a pillow at him.
>>Pamela: I did. I was, like who is this Indian man? Go away.
>>Rick: Were you really spooked? I mean here is this Indian man, half naked, shows up in your bedroom
>>Pamela: It was like you are in deep sleep, the light woke me up, I saw that there was an Indian man there and I threw a pillow at him and I went right back to deep sleep. And even the next day there wasn’t a lot of wondering about, what was that all about? And there wasn’t even any wondering like, maybe that was the answer to that cry for help. It just got, I think, you know how the mind can file things away as a cool experience, rather than a true skype-moment?
>>Rick: And of course, at that point you didn’t know who Ramana Maharshi was, it was just that there was an Indian man and then years later you probably found out who he was, and said, “Oh, that was the guy.”
>>Pamela: Yeah, that was the guy.
>>Rick: Huh. It’s funny, because about four of the people that I have interviewed have had these spontaneous, unbidden visitations from Ramana Maharshi, all prior to knowing who he was. It’s like the guy really gets around.
>>Pamela: I know! Four people. Like he is playing.
>>Rick: What do you think was going on there? Do you think that who or whatever Ramana Maharshi was, had somehow retained some degree of individuation or volition and is actually responding to people’s call?
>>Pamela: Well, there is no, needless to say, no person there, but it’s a function in consciousness to respond to a heart-felt invitation or cry. It’s just the nature of it. And it’s no different than a coyote crying at night. So, once again we’re back to the benevolence of life. It looks after itself.
>>Rick: Yeah. So, maybe, Ramana Maharshi, the man, had nothing to do with a visitation like that, but the infinite intelligence gives you a form that you are actually going to recognize when you see it on a book cover.
>>Pamela: Yeah. Because there is only one being. Only one master, only one apparent seeker and all that, so it’s just always having a conversation with itself, like right now.
>>Rick: But it’s fascinating to consider, because you wonder like, wow! The, I mean, jees, you can look at a housefly under magnifying glass and get the same awe of the wonder and the intelligence of nature, but it’s fascinating to consider the orchestration of something like that, where this 13-year-old girl has a desire, stares at a door, and all of a sudden has a vision of a guy that maybe five or ten years later she sees in a bookstore.
>>Pamela: Yeah.
>>Rick: And who is it that’s actually creating that vision and firing your neurons in that way?
(Laughter)
>>Pamela: He wasn’t even holographic. That was kind of cool.
>>Rick: Was he like two-dimensional? Or was he solid?
>>Pamela: No, he looked solid. I mean, I didn’t touch him or anything.
>>Rick: But you weren’t seeing through him, he wasn’t diaphanous.
>>Pamela: Yeah, but, look at it, as soon as the pillow hit him, he left. (Laughter) He should have grabbed the pillow and thrown it back to me.
>>Rick: That would have been cool, that would have woken you up.
>>Pamela: You forgot you called me!
>>Rick: Yeah, what do you think, I came all the way here from India. Although he didn’t, I’m sure. So, then what. You went back to sleep literally that night, but did you go back to sleep metaphorically over the next months and years or did you keep really
>>Pamela: You know, I hadn’t reflected on this. There wasn’t that angst after that.
>>Rick: You just kind of chilled a little bit out after that.
>>Pamela: Maybe he did zap me. He zapped me with all his will, without saying a thing.
>>Rick: That’s another thing that happens, actually, in some of these interviews. I’ve talked to some people and at some young age, out of the blue, the heavens open up and they get zapped and they are never the same since. The powers that be, whatever they are, decided it’s time for this one to
>>Pamela: You know I think that has happened for all of us, because almost everybody has – it’s called memory, but it is a remembrance of a moment of an absolute blessing and a seeing of what is. And it could be after a long hike, or after a little football game or something, you are so tired that all the perceptual defenses just rest and there is just this seeing and enjoying and being and then in some cases there is a little bit more “spiritual adornment.” And then the comparing function in the mind can say “Oh, well, they had the juicier one because they had this little Indian guy,” but really that moment where your back was resting on the tree and there was this shimmering presence, and everything, and everybody had that.
>>Rick: Gallup has done polls and it’s remarkable the percentage of people that say they have had some kind of deep mystical experience.
>>Pamela: Beautiful.
>>Rick: In fact, I met him one time, I was doing a TM thing in New Jersey and he came. We gave him an award and got to meet him. He was kind of a spiritual guy, actually. He was interested in this dimension of society and how prevalent it might be.
>>Pamela: Yeah, I think everybody might. My father told me an amazing story: during WW II he was flying his squadron into the first strike over Hong Kong, to liberate Hong Kong, and the Chinese sent up fireworks, and it was sort of evening, so a deep velvet blue sky, and then these color bursts, and he said he started to go into this kind of ecstasy, you know, everything started to open with the beauty and he had to kind of contain himself and get back to his function, you know, but it was so seductive just to go vast, these were not his words, but, ah, the beauty and
>>Rick: That’s interesting. And then, of course, there are people who have had near-death experiences and usually they don’t want to come back, you know, because they go into this vast, beautiful, seductive thing, and then, somebody comes along and says, “You have to go back.” And it’s, “No!”
>>Pamela: So, here maybe we could have it all, we could have that just natural enjoyment here, relaxation here
>>Rick: Without having to die, or
>>Pamela: Well, you get to keep the body. Why not?
>>Rick: Which, I suspect, makes it all the more enjoyable.
>>Pamela: Yeah, you know, this friend of mine on the French retreat said something just so exquisite. He is a TM guy named Jon Louis, and he said that the body functions the way that a guitar, violin or cello, the body of it, functions. He said that the body amplifies the movements of the heart, so he likened the strings to be the heart and then the form of the body as the amplification of the strings or the music of the heart. And when he said that I thought, “Ah, that’s the true purpose of it.”
>>Rick: Yeah.
>>Pamela: This sensing instrument, it was designed for exploration, enjoyment, creativity, love, you know.
>>Rick: There is a Vedic saying, “The world reveals Brahman.” And so, Maharishi used to use that one, and so my understanding of it was that the world and functioning in it through the instrumentality of our senses and our whole perceptual mechanism, it’s by virtue of possessing this instrument, we are able to appreciate Brahman.
>>Pamela: Yeah. And actually, like the mind is Brahman, so everything is. There go the doggies. Doggies are Brahman.
>>Rick: (Laughter) Brahman indoors, Brahman outdoors.
>>Pamela: Oh, oh. My dog. (Barking) There you go.
>>Rick: Is she doing ok, by the way? You said you were having some doggie emergencies. >>Pamela: Oh, she had some surgery on her knee, she had a ruptured cruciate ligament, so
>>Rick: Well, I hope she is ok.
>>Pamela: Yeah. She is three-legged at this point, but soon she’ll be four-legged again.
>>Rick: Good. So, then, after that 13-year-old Ramana Maharshi experience, how long did it take before you got on to some kind of formal spiritual path of some sort?
>>Pamela: Uh, probably, let’s see. At 21 I took TM and that’s when it started.
>>Rick: Ok. Did that for how long?
>>Pamela: Mmm, I think about eight years. That was super. I was like vast and all was well, for 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the afternoon. The only problem was the in between, that day part.
>>Rick: (Laughter) That messy day part. Didn’t you find though over those eight years that the 20 minutes kind of infused into the rest of the day and enriched it and made it smoother.
>>Pamela: Yes, definitely, but I was greedy. I wanted it to be mmmmm during the day, too. Maybe it was me, I had some extra defenses, plus an aversion to people, so it was great when I was in my little cave, savoring stillness. And as long as there weren’t any people around I was great.
>>Rick: Then it got more difficult when there were people around.
>>Pamela: Yeah. Apparent people. Now I realize who they are.
>>Rick: So, after that eight years, what happened? Did you say, ok, this isn’t working for me; I better try something else, or what?
>>Pamela: No, somebody told me about something for during the day, so I still kept doing the meditation, but then I had a walking meditation during the day.
>>Rick: Was that like a Joppa mantra or something?
>>Pamela: No, it was the Sedona Method.
>>Rick: Oh, yeah, I’ve heard of that, sure.
>>Pamela: So, I took every reaction inside that was uncomfortable to its underlying desire, which was approval, control, safety or wanting to maintain separation, and then I would let it go.
>>Rick: So, you got into the habit of doing that throughout the day.
>>Pamela: Oh, yeah. So, I was a bit of a workaholic with all of this stuff.
>>Rick: Were you holding down a regular job at the same time?
>>Pamela: Sort of in and out. The main thing I was doing, yeah, I was really on a quest to understand the nature of mind and the nature of emotions.
>>Rick: Was that effective for you, the Sedona Method?
>>Pamela: Yeah, it was, except it maintained a sense of an individual that was making progress. So, then satsang eliminated that misunderstanding, luckily.
>>Rick: So, you were having to tinker all the time with every – when you had a reaction to something, OK work to the bottom of this one. Here comes another one.
>>Pamela: Exactly. Yeah, I felt like I had a little tiny silver shovel and here was this vastness of stuff, tsh, tsh, it would go all empty and still and quiet, and then the next thing it would fill up again. I didn’t realize I was being with the group consciousness. I thought it was personal; I thought it was mine; I thought it was some deficiency I me that I had to clear.
>>Rick: Oh, so you’re saying that the big mountain that you were chipping away at with your silver shovel was humanity’s mountain, it wasn’t just Pamela’s mountain.
>>Pamela: Yeah. No, pretty much we’ve all noticed it’s too big for one embodiment, really.
>>Rick: So, you felt, OK there is no end to this, I could keep shoveling away forever.
>>Pamela: Yeah, and also because it comes to rest and then it reforms. Because I wasn’t really working from the root misunderstanding. I was working from the root at the desire level, or the wants. But I hadn’t seen that there was an individual wanting to come home. It was a character. So, it was a Shakespearian costume that I would repair during the day, take it off at night for deep sleep, absolute reality, and then next morning I would put my little Shakespearian costume on again. And then, of course, I had another little costume on over that, of spiritual being, and then another costume, woman. You know?
>>Rick: Sounds complicated.
>>Pamela: Yeah, plus it was very heavy.
>>Rick: It could be hot, too.
>>Pamela: Very hot.
>>Rick: So, then you say satsang put an end to all that, so please elaborate on that.
>>Pamela: Well, Lester Levinson, who was my guru, so to speak, or teacher, he passed away.
>>Rick: He was the founder of the Sedona Method.
>>Pamela: Yeah. And he was a real wild sage. And then my friend Laura told me about Robert Adams, so when I went to sit with him, and entered that field of just natural presence, the whole system came to rest, and everything just opened and went empty, and I went, “Oh, my God. That was the first time I hadn’t done anything. I hadn’t mantrad, sutrad, inquired, whatever, and it was like heaven. Like a hot mineral pool.
>>Rick: And that happened from day one?
>>Pamela: Oh, yeah. The same thing again, like the little character would leave, right, and then it would go back and dip into the hot mineral pool, so it was actually really hilarious. I don’t know why I ever got out of the pool.
>>Rick: But it happened. When you stayed, you had to live a life. You had to go home and eat and what not, and then you would be out of the pool.
>>Pamela: Yeah, apparently.
>>Rick: Where was he, down in the Southwest someplace?
>>Pamela: Originally in the Los Angeles area, and then Sedona.
>>Rick: So, how long were you with Robert Adams?
>>Pamela: Last three years of his life, but very intermittently. Because I would go, and he was like my refuge, and I would go and then the I-thought or the mind would like take me away, and then I’d go back, and it’d take me away, and then, I once said to a friend, Llewellyn Vaughn- Lee. Do you know who he is?
>>Rick: Yeah.
>>Pamela: I said to him, well, I didn’t stay with Robert and just stay there, because I was too immature. And he said, “Well, you’re supposed to be immature.” And I said, “Oh, OK good.”
>>Rick: Meaning that everything was well and wisely put, and you just were who you were and did what you did.
>>Pamela: Yeah. I was the apparent coming and going, and Robert was the unmoving.
>>Rick: I think it’s kind of natural, I mean, I’m sure you are not beating yourself up over it, but isn’t it natural? people go through phases, and they go through degrees of spiritual maturity and they stumble along
>>Pamela: Yeah, but I think part of it was the I-thought felt, or believed, in all these spiritual hyperboles about non-existence and annihilation and all that stuff, so every time I would get into a real – where everything is like it was falling away, it would (click).
>>Rick: So, that stuff frightened you.
>>Pamela: It didn’t frighten me so much as whatever that mechanism is that allows for certain levels of relaxation and not any deeper.
>>Rick: So, something would kick in, it sounds like you are saying there was some kind of subliminal thought that, “Jees, if I relax any deeper there might be annihilation, I might lose my integrity or identity or something.
>>Pamela: Yeah, some apparent loss, because that is also part of the spiritual myth. There is a misunderstanding that the mind doesn’t go anywhere, because it is pure intelligence and where could anything go if all-there-is is consciousness. So, once the embodiment gets that, then it can really notice it’s deep unmoving roots.
>>Rick: Remember Maharishi’s hut analogy? A guy is living in a little hut and someone says, “Here’s this palace, this is where you belong.” And he starts walking toward the palace, he thinks, wait a minute, what about my hut. I don’t want to lose my hut. I better go back.” So, he runs back to the hut for a while.
>>Pamela: Well, the known is toasty, for something. Not for us
>>Rick: So, how did you finally get beyond that impasse?
>>Pamela: Well, when Robert Adams dropped the body, that was a wake-up call, again, that – how to put it – it was sort of like, come on – now. Because I was sort of still in the I’m-an-object-progressing-through-time-and-space and we’re doing ok and we have all the time in the world, but it still was part of the myth of the person, that this experience or this insight is going to liberate it.
>>Rick: So, when Robert passed away there was a greater urgency?
>>Pamela: Yeah, there was also like a, “come on, come on now.”
>>Rick: And how did you respond to that, “come on now?”
>>Pamela: Well, it actually was pretty classic. You remember cramming in school, like where there is a big exam coming up? So, I got 60 audio tapes of Robert Adams, and everywhere I went in the car I listened to them, so I was kind of like I realized I had still been in like dilettante mode, like going to the oasis and enjoying myself and then going back into
>>Rick: Yeah, just sticking your toe in the water
>>Pamela: So, I thought I’m just going to immerse, you know, and then, and then I went, and I sat with Francis Lucille, who was so amazing, and that’s when I really got, “Oh my God, everything is consciousness,” but I still thought I was Pamela. I hadn’t quite made “everything is consciousness” and that includes the apparent Pamela. I was like gazing – I just hadn’t gotten – I actually never used to really listen in satsang, I used to just come and rest. So, then after that I went to satsang with Neelam and the Pamela character disappeared. So, that was good.
>>Rick: So, did sitting with these folks, Francis and Neelam, did it have the same sort of effect that Robert had had, in terms of in their presence you felt restfulness and when you left it sort of stirred up again.
>>Pamela: Yeah. It was getting lighter, the contrast
>>Rick: Yeah, it was working itself out
>>Pamela: Yeah, but that little root, um, I’m Pamela, or I’m Rick, or whoever, that is like the first – like if we were knitting a sweater, that would be the first little knot. And it’s innocent, because it’s true nature is I-am-ness. I am that I am. And then I am.
>>Rick: So, when you sat with Neelam, were you with her long before that happened?
>>Pamela: No, just a couple of satsangs.
>>Rick: And then bingo.
>>Pamela: Bingo! (laughter)That’s funny.
>>Rick: I don’t suppose it was anything in particular she said, or anything, it was just somehow the time was right and the atmosphere was such that it just happened? Or what?
>>Pamela: No. It’s a great mystery, because you can’t really track all this. It might be that just immersion or genuine interest is an emulsifying function, and then, because it’s all designed to arise and subside, right? But what happens is, here I notice that a lot of things weren’t arising and naturally subsiding, and that the Velcro was aversion, or you could also say attachment as well. Some misunderstanding, so that was like the crazy glue, and I think that the Velcro and the crazy glue just relaxed, because that was the function.
>>Rick: Lost their grippiness.
>>Pamela: There you go. And so, then everything just falls back to where it never left from, of course, back to naturalness.
>>Rick: As you say, it’s hard to assign causality, but it kind of sounds to me like you had been through this whole process for years, exposing yourself to this, that and the other thing, this and that person, and all along the way you had been moving closer and closer so to speak to that final collapse and finally when you were ready you were ready and it just happened, under those very conducive circumstances.
>>Pamela: Well it helps, because Robert Evans used to say that the vibratory rate of somebody at rest is a million to a hundred million times that of a defended or identified system, so this little defended, apparently identified system would go sit with someone at rest, and it’s also the same thing that we notice when we go to the wilderness or the forest, or if we are around, sometimes big animals that are really restful. Same thing. Yeah.
>>Rick: Yeah, but perhaps ever so much more so, I would suggest, because I mean there are plenty of outdoorsy types that spend plenty of time out in the forest, hiking and skiing and that kind of stuff, which I love, myself, but there is this kind of supercharged quality to someone like Robert Adams which has a very profoundly transformative effect on people in his proximity.
>>Pamela: Yeah, just because the system is unveiled, so to speak. You could say it requires a huge amount of juice to maintain the defense structure in the system. So, when that relaxes, that is why the vibratory rate is oomphy, because most of our juice is going into the survival strategies, and that’s
>>Rick: That’s an interesting point. You are saying, obviously, that for instance, Robert Adams, before he had his awakening, most of his energy was engaged in maintaining his individual structure and his boundaries, and his defenses, and after his awakening all that energy was liberated and could influence people like you who came to see him.
>>Pamela: Yeah. So, that’s what is so lovely to honor those mechanisms because they are actually pure devotion and service. And that’s where are big strength is and that’s where our big, whatever you want to call it, is.
>>Rick: It’s interesting to see also, in some cases the almost super human energy that a so-called enlightened person might have, going doing things, somebody like Amma, the hugging saint, sitting there for 20 hours, just hugging people without even a bathroom break and being just as cheerful at the end of it as she was at the beginning. How does anyone get that kind of stamina?
>>Pamela: Yeah, but that’s her function. So, all of life is in support of that function. Now that wouldn’t be your or my function, no, and once again it is the intelligence of life, so we notice where our juice is. Like Yo-Yo Ma with his cello. That’s where his primordial life force is really.
>>Rick: We all have our channels. So, would that final kind of – was it final, that thing with Neelam? I mean, after that there was no reemergence of the agitation or the constriction?
>>Pamela: Well, you know, they never write books about the unfoldment, really. In the old days it was so rare that somebody saw their true nature that they all got excited about speaking about how to apparently notice that. But for, I had a grace period of maybe a couple months, where it was like an unmoving pond. It was glorious.
>>Rick: Even if you were busy doing things, driving a car
>>Pamela: Oh yeah, it was – unmoving pond was driving, it was really great. And then one day fear swam up into the pond and I heard thought go, “Fear? What is fear doing here?”
>>Rick: Where’d that come from?”
>>Pamela: And then I heard the stillness just say in this big juicy voice, “Fear is welcome here.” I’m going, “Oh, of course, where else would it go to know itself or to rest?” So, that’s when life showed the welcoming aspect of openness. And all of us can notice that is actually always what is, because everything is given free access through the openness within. So, that was the beautiful noticing. But I would just be present with everything and it would arise and it would subside, but some things didn’t just arise and subside, so they kind of bothered me a little bit, and that was also great because then I had to inquire or stay with that a little longer, because I was still in the – you-have-four-minutes-of-my-timelessness approach inside. I would be with it, and then most things would arise and rest, but at one point several years into the unfoldment, I noticed that the mind would still go back into old fashioned services and some really strange thoughts moving through stillness. I finally asked stillness, give me a break, six years into resting and the mind is still weird, “What’s that about?” And it said, “Well, you go all around the world helping friends see their true nature, but you forgot to show your mind it’s true nature.” And I went, “Oh, that’s true!” So, then
>>Rick: It was almost as if there were some cobwebs here and there that had not been swept out and
>>Pamela: Oh, well, some of the functions had big juice. If you think of the mind by nature is infinite, it’s formless. Intelligence is formless, right, so here is an infinite point of view, plus it’s devotional and it’s service oriented and it wants to protect the embodiment, and it worries itself sick sometimes. So, it was nice to show it it’s true nature, so it could kick back and rest.
>>Rick: I’ve just been listening to an interview with Loch Kelly and Adyashanti, they were talking about life after awakening, and so on, and they were touching upon a similar theme, that there could be a honeymoon period initially after the awakening where everything is just hunky dory and then all sorts of things that haven’t really been attended to show up.
>>Pamela: Yeah. That’s grace, too, because you are also relaxing the tension in those functions for everyone. So, when one friend will sit with something, you are really sitting with that aspect of humanness or consciousness for everybody.
>>Rick: Everybody on the planet, you mean?
>>Pamela: Yeah.
>>Rick: Oh, that’s interesting. I didn’t think of it that way. So, you are not just working things out within yourself, you’re working stuff out – you know, it’s funny I just remembered something Maharishi once said. Someone asked him, what happens when we get rid of all our individual stress? And he said, “then you start working on cosmic stress.”
>>Pamela: That’s it. Now the only function of stress for tension is to maintain the polarities, like in fabric you have warp and weft, and it requires tension to maintain fabric. So, what happens when we start being with certain aversions the human tribe has, or certain stressors, and we show it it’s true nature, what happens is that fabric relaxes. And in unity you have to relax for all beings. It’s actually a law of nature, so we’re just playing with what is and the only thing that maintains the perception of other would also be tension, so we’re just playing, really.
>>Rick: Do you feel that it’s going to be a never-ending process in that way? That there will always be something to kind of run through the washing machine?
>>Pamela: Not really, because there’s very few. It’s going to sound funny, but there is a top ten hits, so to speak, that maintain tension and
>>Rick: And you’ve worked through those pretty much?
>>Pamela: Well, how to put it, like say there is a piano, and each one of the notes on the piano is a certain aspect of humanness. I’m still discovering that there are a few other notes of the piano that are starting to come sit with me now, and it’s a great honor that I hadn’t, like recently I have been sitting with disappointment. I never sat with that before. A friend told me one time she was sitting with disappointment and I totally had no resonance. What are you talking about? Yeah.
>>Rick: But if you are kind of working stuff out for the whole of humanity through this process, it seems like there is a load of stuff, I mean humanity is huge and the amount of stuff in the world to be worked out is never-ending.
>>Pamela: On the surface, yes. But, if we see a tree, there is just an amazing amount of branches and leaves, but then there is just one trunk, and I don’t know how many roots, and one tap root. So, I like working under the tree of life. I’m just relaxing the tension in the root misunderstandings. And that is just my pleasure, and I invite people to notice that. That might help their systems relax, too.
>>Rick: Yeah, I think I understand that but what I’m saying is will there be any end for you as long as you live, to this relaxing of intentions at some primordial level. Do you ever get back to the placid pond thing that was your…?
>>Pamela: Well, it’s the placid pond that’s curious about the remaining restlessness in consciousness, because it’s by nature compassionate and since it has no suffering in it, it will notice any remaining suffering, and it’s drawn actually, by remaining suffering, because the remaining suffering sends like a little fax or text all the time. Help. Help. And that’s beautiful, because then it draws awareness to more of what is.
>>Rick: Mm. That’s really nice. Yeah. Not too many people talk about this, that’s why I’m probing it a little bit. It’s interesting. We’ve all heard the idea that there are yogis in the Himalayas, sitting in samadhi, and they are all helping to keep the whole humanity from blowing itself up, so
>>Pamela: I think that’s who we are. We’re those yogis.
>>Rick: Well, maybe some there, too, but what you’re saying is interesting, because here is a person who is traveling all over the world, very much involved in activity who is doing the same thing.
>>Pamela: I think it’s pretty exciting stuff, because by nature I am curious, and I like to get to the root of everything, and one day I was wondering inside, if everything comes and goes, why does samsara or suffering stay the same? And just that wondering made me realize, oh, it wasn’t ever supposed to be the constant. Whereas in our tribal belief, the belief is – and even I’ve had many sage friends say, “Well, this is how it is; suffering is what is.” Now, suffering is definitely a part of what is, but it’s not what is. You know what I mean? So, that was a really exciting moment. I went, “Son of a gun, it is supposed to arise and subside. And it got velcroed on to no thing through our aversion and through our looking away or for not wanting to touch it, or for no reason.”
>>Rick: What happens when you sleep?
>>Pamela: (Laughter) That what the Maharishi folks ask.
>>Rick: I’m curious, because people ask me, well, Maharishi said that when you are in cosmic consciousness you are supposed to maintain consciousness through your sleep, would you please ask people that question?
>>Pamela: Well, each sage speaks from their own experience, and that’s a really unique thing from embodiment to embodiment and I can tell you a funny story. After the shift, there was no sleeping and I was more rested than I had ever been.
>>Rick: Are you saying that the body didn’t even lie down on the bed and get some what would appear to be sleep? You kept doing stuff for 24 hours a day?
>>Pamela: Well, I wasn’t really doing anything, I was just like this big glorious happy elephant, you know?
>>Rick: But you didn’t even feel the need to lie down?
>>Pamela: No, there was just whatever is – was – is, that wasn’t part of its modus operandi.
>>Rick: How long did that go on?
>>Pamela: Well, actually, I asked that sleep be returned, because I really like it. How fun is that, you dive into bed and (snore). So, one night the phone rang at two in the morning and it was the sheriff’s office in Sonoma or somewhere, and they go, “We have your brother here, can you come get him?” And I go, “Sure.” And he said, ”I’m so sorry to wake you up.” And I said, “Don’t worry, I don’t sleep.” And it was so fun going over in the middle of the night getting my brother, driving him home.
>>Rick: So, how long did you go on literally without sleeping?
>>Pamela: I can’t remember. It was
>>Rick: Days? Weeks?
>>Pamela: It was maybe weeks, but short, and I felt better than I had ever felt, because I think what happened is, it’s like a power surge, once all that fabric of defendedness or me relaxed, there was just this lovely power surge, like in a computer, that blew all the files out. It was great. And so, then I asked for it to come back in and now I’m a champion sleeper. I love it.
>>Rick: So, that whole thing about maintaining pure awareness during sleep, that doesn’t happen for you?
>>Pamela: I have a feeling that it’s actually what is, because for everybody, because when we wake up, even though you are in deep sleep and the mind is in deep sleep and the body is in deep sleep, you always know if you slept well or not, so that would be what Maharishi is pointing to.
>>Rick: Well, you feel good if you slept good. You think, oh, that was nice.
>>Pamela: Well, but it’s more than that. There is something that never goes to sleep.
>>Rick: That’s true. I’ve had this thing a number of times where my wife has woken me up because I’m snoring, and when I wake up, I’m like, “That’s funny. How could I be snoring? I was awake.” So, there was awareness there.
>>Pamela: So, each sage, that wouldn’t be the experience of every sage, that which Maharishi spoke of, or felt constancy of that experience. And any experience is just to confirm what is, so a lot of friends that comparing function will rise up in the head and it’ll just make the innocence sad, because, “Well my sleep isn’t like that, and I have dreams still, and weird things, so therefore I could not be this.”
>>Rick: Well, I’m glad you are saying that, especially if TM people are listening, because a lot of them are still holding that up as a sort of acid test for awakening, and I know plenty of people who I would consider to be very much awakened, or whatever term you wanted to use. One friend I can think of says he hasn’t lost awareness since he was eleven, but other people say, “Hey, I’m out like a light and I wouldn’t have it any other way.” And I really think it’s good to emphasize that it’s not going to be that way for all people; it’s not a universal acid test. It might be characteristic for some people.
>>Pamela: Yeah, and this that we are doesn’t need an experience to confirm it. You see? Experiences are designed to come and go, to confirm the constancy of what is, but as soon as they confirm it, then they can rest. If we were all walking around seeing the luminous transparent nature of your sofa and your dog, that’s really great, but you only have to see that once and then the sofa gets to be the sofa, and the dog gets to pretend it’s still a dog.
>>Rick: MmHmm. Good point.
>>Pamela: We have way too high standards for all this stuff.
>>Rick: Yeah. In this community there are people who hold the ability to levitate as a necessary prerequisite. That really sets the bar hopelessly high.
>>Pamela: But as vastness and as formlessness, you never stop levitating.
>>Rick: Yeah. Our friend Jill talks a lot about the necessity of a final teacher and of the importance of transmission. And almost, it feels certain that, without that, awakening couldn’t take place. Like a person could not just be off meditating someplace and all of a sudden have a genuine and permanent awakening, they have to get in with a final teacher and have some sort of transmission take place. Do you feel that adamant about it or do you feel that it could actually show up in a number?
>>Pamela: Well, there again, she is speaking from your own experience, and most sages speak from their own experience, so that is true for her, and I’ve met some sages who were just washing dishes, and all of a sudden, they went, “Oh, my God, the water, and my hands, they’re so – the moon. It’s all one!”
>>Rick: I have a friend who had the very same experience, she was just washing dishes, looking out the window and all of a sudden, she had this sort of deer in the headlights thing, and that was it.
>>Pamela: Yeah, so now we’re all going to buy her dish-wash soap. Let’s try it. So, we’re all unique, and that’s the way of the infinite. It’s not going to be cookie cutter at all, so
>>Rick: I really like that – different strokes for different folks – which is not to say that it couldn’t be a tremendous advantage, obviously. It was in your case, and maybe even in the majority of cases, but I would be hesitant to make it an absolute criterion.
>>Pamela: No because this is not conditional, needless to say. It doesn’t require anything, as it already is all there is. So, really all the hanging out with somebody who is already at rest, all it does is sedates the body/mind so that we can see what is. So, that’s also why people took drugs. So, here with the sage, if you hang out with a sage, there are usually less side effects.
>>Rick: Yeah. And it tends to be legal. Do you – how many years has it been now since that initial, since that Neelam
>>Pamela: Fourteen.
>>Rick: That’s pretty good. And as you go from month to month and year to year, I’m sure there is something that never changes. There is this presence which can’t be polished up any, it’s just what it is, how could it be anything else? But in another dimension, paradoxically perhaps, we’ve alluded to this earlier, sort of about the never-ending unfoldment or refinement or enhancement or whatever words you want to use, in your life, how is that showing up?
>>Pamela: Let’s see. Well, there is definitely a noticing that who we are is an absolute sensitivity.
>>Rick: We are an absolute sensitivity?
>>Pamela: Absolutely. Everything is made of absolute sensitivity and strength, from the formless all through form. So, there is an enhanced sensitivity here and sometimes it can be very uncomfortable. So, I notice that I have to – like I’m driving too much, I’m doing too much – then the system sends a signal that you need to have a little bit more balance, and so that’s just the recent kind of invitation. Before there was just this huge life force, like you were saying with Ammachi, like I could do 12-hour days for three weeks, and then it’s kind of like whatever the juice that was holding that function and filling it up, would just start to subside, and then I would go home like an empty husk. So, now there is just realizing that, I mean, because that’s really just what I’m noticing as an absolute sensitivity, which also points to absolute strength. Because only that which is an absolute strength could afford to be as completely open, welcoming, sensitivity. So, that’s kind of where I’m at recently.
>>Rick: That’s interesting that you have juxtaposed those two terms, which are polar opposites really, but they kind of counterbalance each other as you were just saying.
>>Pamela: Yeah, but they’re closer than that, they are actually totally one, because our culture has polarized them, because you have strength and then you have vulnerability, but actually only that which has huge elephant strength could be so
>>Rick: super sensitive.
>>Pamela: Exactly. So, they are actually one. So, that’s coming into balance now and there is some awkwardness in it returning back to balance.
>>Rick: Well, you think of sensitivity as maybe your eyeball or something,
>>Pamela: Laughter.
>>Rick: and then strength as maybe like steel, something really hard, and obviously you wouldn’t want to bring the two together. But I know what you mean, there is, well you said it better than I could probably reiterate it. So, what is that awkwardness involved in? Is it just a matter of physiological adaptation to…?
>>Pamela: Yeah, that could be it, but what happens for all of us is our awareness is drawn to what it, yeah? But we might not have noticed that aspect is too small a word for what is, yeah? so one, often our awareness is drawn to the nature of what is in a certain area, so to speak, and it uses imbalance to draw the awareness. Because if it was just hhhhhuuuu, awareness might just cruise by, but because there is something uncomfortable or not quite balanced it sort of draws awareness to going, hmm, hmm. how curious. So, I haven’t completely, it’s new, it’s really new.
>>Rick: The grain of sand creates the pearl.
>>Pamela: Exactly, so right now, and needless to say, the oyster isn’t going, “I love that grain of sand.” “Ack! Let’s put some lacquer on that.”
>>Rick: So, would you say at this stage of the game this exploration or establishment of absolute sensitivity and absolute strength is your primary kind of
>>Pamela: Yes. It’s revealing itself, and there’s some awkwardness. It’s not like it’s – yeah.
>>Rick: What do you do to address or resolve that awkwardness?
>>Pamela: Well, it’s gets extra attention. Attention or awareness, by nature, my joke is that it’s warm intelligent aloe vera gel. And so, here’s this loving attention noticing gritty discomfort or imbalance or misunderstanding. So, I’m still with it, I haven’t returned back to full aloe vera yet.
>>Rick: That’s a good point. They say, the attention has a healing influence,
>>Pamela: Absolutely.
>>Rick: you know, on every level of life. You put your hand on the stove, and first of all you pull it away, but then you get a burn, and why do we still have pain, we’ve already pulled our hand off from the stove? Because it draws our attention to the injury and helps that to heal. And this is just a more subtle injury, so to speak.
>>Pamela: Yeah, it’s interesting because if there is only one being in the universe, then I could say that I’m sitting with, and this is my new joke, that the nervous system should never have been called the nervous system, because it’s a setup. Right? So, now, kind of sitting with that original imbalance in the vibration, of that which we call nervous system, so that’s why it feels a little raw recently.
>>Rick: Interesting. So, do you feel like you’ve gotten down to the real nitty gritty, so to speak, the most fundamental level of the imbalance?
>>Pamela: It feels like it.
>>Rick: Maharishi used to call that pragya parad, the mistake of the intellect, that there was this sort of primordial, fundamental mistake that some kind of deepest level of intellect makes, and that eventually gets corrected.
>>Pamela: Yeah, that would be, as far as I can tell, in terms of the intellect, the misunderstanding would be that it’s deficient because it’s formless and has no attributes. But this is more of a prior to language kind of tremor in the stillness. So, I don’t know what it is, I’m still being with it.
>>Rick: Yeah. That’s fascinating. I’m glad you’re willing to talk about it. There are so many people I talk to, that I bring up this sort of topic, and they say, “I’m done, I can’t see any possibility of further advancement or enhancement. This is the end of the road.”
>>Pamela: Well that’s true, as formlessness.
>>Rick: Yeah, I think they are just identifying with formlessness so strongly that that’s the flavor of their experience.
>>Pamela: Yeah, I don’t know. I’m just fascinated with, I mean I love being substratum, but substratum by nature is totally aware of stratum. So, now substratum is coming back for all the stratum, so all the stratum can know itself as substratum.
>>Rick: That’s great. Infusing it, enlivening it.
>>Pamela: Yeah. Come home, come rest.
>>Rick: And when you’re doing that satsang with a whole roomful of people, basically you’re seeing stratum there.
>>Pamela: Well, I see, no, I’m seeing substratum.
>>Rick: in those people.
>>Pamela: Oh, yeah. No, that’s actually the gift of satsang is that whoever is in the front has absolutely no doubt who everyone is. That’s why doubt even rests in satsang. Because if I went there thinking, “Oh, my God, everyone is identified and they’re all…”
>>Rick: Yeah, right.
>>Pamela: And then I’m confused. And if I think that there is awake/asleep, I’m confused. So, if we start, we are all this. You are that which is so unmoving that you are aware of movement. You are silence and thus aware of sound. You are prior to language, so aware of language. Prior to thought, so aware of thought. So, we start there, and then we can have some fun.
>>Rick: That’s great. Highest first. Well, this is delightful. Let me see, how long have we been going? Quite a while.
>>Pamela: A lot of timelessness.
>>Rick: Yeah. Shouldn’t keep you going too long, but it’s so enjoyable talking to you. I know you have a satsang tonight and you need to rest and prepare for that.
>>Pamela: Not really.
>>Rick: Oh, you don’t?
>>Pamela: I do.
>>Rick: That’s true. You’re wonder woman, you can just keep going
>>Pamela: No. because that’s function. Every function is like, when I see my sister, she is a master gardener. There is no way I would have the stamina to do what she does, because her function is supported by life, just as this function is supported by life, and your function. And like watching my dog, before her accident, running. I couldn’t run that fast, but that’s her function, to show that there is no time space, or she can’t be measured.
>>Rick: That’s a good point, to I’m glad you brought it up. It’s an important one for people on spiritual paths to remember, which is that, Indian tradition talks of it as dharma, we each have our own dharma, and what is that saying in the Gita, “Because one can perform it, one’s own dharma, although lesser in merit perhaps, is better than the dharma of another.”
>>Pamela: Yeah.
>>Rick: Because it’s what you are cut out to do.
>>Pamela: And also, there is no lesser. Everyone is of equal value and every function and form has equal value. It’s just that the comparing function thinks they came in a beggar.
>>Rick: That’s just a word the Gita threw in there. I almost hesitated to mention it. The brain wouldn’t do too well without a colon.
>>Pamela: (Laughter) Yeah. Very nice. So, you know, when you mention people on the spiritual path, I just want to say that what we overlook, and what I certainly overlooked, is that my resonance with truth and the longing to return back to the ultimate satisfaction pointed to my nature, because only true nature would have a resonance with true nature. So, just the fact that we are interested points to that: Oh, you are that.
>>Rick: So, what you are saying then is that people who have actually shown an interest in this, who have woken up to an appreciation of this are as good as there, essentially.
>>Pamela: Oh, yeah. They can actually notice. They can trace back the longing for stillness, for peace, or however they would speak it, trace the longing back, because it’s stillness that is longing for its own embodiment to live that. Just it’s compassion is long for its own embodiment to live that, and so on. Yeah, so it’s kind of fun, because what happens is as longing arises, it hits the head, and then we go off, so it’s kind of fun. Whatever the longing is, make a U-turn, go down, find who is longing for it, because there is no individual longing for it, it is just life saying, “hey!”
>>Rick: It’s longing for itself.
>>Pamela: Yeah. That’s what it is.
>>Rick: Which loops back to something we said in the beginning which is that, it’s sort of like, through this mechanism, that sort of essence of life is waking up to itself.
>>Pamela: Yes.
>>Rick: It’s very paradoxical, because obviously something is governing the universe and keeping everything running in an orderly fashion, so how could it not be intelligent and awake and so on.
>>Pamela: But it is in its formlessness, but as soon as something comes in to form, in order to maintain form there has to be tension. And as soon as there is tension, then the clear seeing gets apparently diminished. So, that’s why, just as you said with the burn on the skin, the awareness notices the burn and it brings that balm, so also, we notice tension anywhere or anything that doesn’t feel like, ah, full resonance with itself, and then that balm brings it back to itself. It’s just fascinating.
>>Rick: And yet we’re able to maintain form, in case of someone who is awake, they are able to maintain form without the tension, somehow.
>>Pamela: Yeah, see there’s another myth gets busted. So, tension is actually ceremonial, it doesn’t really do anything. I mean if you think about tension in terms of protective tension in the body, it has no function, really. It’s devotional, it doesn’t really have function.
>>Rick: If it doesn’t have function, why does it happen in the first place?
>>Pamela: Out of devotion for this essence that has supreme value.
>>Rick: I mean, it seems like a big waste of time that it would arise in the first place and we would have to somehow – but I’m just saying this to play devil’s advocate. Because obviously there is a sort of whole play that takes place and I suppose without that apparent loss of knowing itself, the play couldn’t even take place.
>>Pamela: Yeah, there has to be some costuming for a good play.
>>Rick: Yeah. In fact, the really good movies are the ones you kind of forget you are watching a movie, and you really get into it. If you just think, yeah, I know this is just a movie, then it’s not so enjoyable.
>>Pamela: That’s so true. Mmm. Lovely.
>>Rick: It’s fascinating and it’s very – I find it very profoundly enlivening or enriching to have this kind of discussion with you. It’s very enjoyable.
>>Pamela: Thank you, likewise. I mean this is such an ancient conversation.
>>Rick: Yeah, people have been having it forever.
>>Pamela: Oh, yeah, definitely.
>>Rick: Well, I guess we better wrap it up. I’m reluctant to because I’m having so much fun, but
>>Pamela: Well, we can always, in another moment of timelessness
>>Rick: We can do another one.
>>Pamela: Yeah, why not? Thank you, Rick.
>>Rick: Good. Thank you. So, let me just make some concluding remarks. I’ve been, this is episode 83 or 84 of Buddha at the Gas pump, so named because the implication is that you might be pumping gas and the guy standing next to you is literally a Buddha, someone who is every bit as awakened or enlightened as the people we put on pedestals from the old days.
>>Pamela: Maybe everybody is this.
>>Rick: They are. In fact, that is what the Buddha said, when he awakened. He said, “All beings are awake.”
>>Pamela: Yeah.
>>Rick: And so, episode #85 or so, I’ve been speaking with Pamela Wilson. Pamela travels around the world doing satsangs here and there and I bet if you sent her a plane ticket, she’d come to your community to do one.
>>Pamela: Even without a plane ticket.
>>Rick: Oh, yeah. You could do it through Skype or whatever. I’ll be linking to Pamela’s website from mine, and if you happen to be listening to this on an audio, or something and don’t know what my website is, it’s batgap.com. Go there you can sign up for email newsletter to be notified every time a new interview gets posted. There are little discussion groups that spring up around every interview that I put up there, people start talking about it. You can engage in one of those if you want to. You can sign up for a podcast, and listen to this while you’re driving around, like Pamela listened to Robert Adams. This one guy who listens to this while mending fences in Arizona on a horse.
>>Pamela: Wow. Lucky man, he has a horse.
>>Rick: Yeah, nice. So, anyway thank you everybody for listening or watching. Thank you, Pamela.
>>Pamela: Thank you.
>>Rick: And the next one up unless some weird thing happens will be Adyashanti. So, thanks and we will see you next time.