Rick Archer on The Ethics of Enlightenment

Summary

This talk examines the relationship between spiritual realization and ethical behavior, especially when teachers use nonduality to justify harm. It emphasizes compassion, discernment, accountability, and the need to question claims of enlightenment.

Questions This Interview Explores

• Can someone be spiritually awakened yet behave unethically?
• What role do ethics and compassion play in spiritual realization?
• How should seekers evaluate a spiritual teacher?
• How should students respond when a teacher abuses spiritual authority?

Key takeaways

• Nondual teachings do not excuse harmful behavior or erase consequences.
• Ethical conduct prepares the mind for deeper spiritual insight.
• Spiritual awakening and ethical maturity may develop at different rates.
• Charisma, powers, and unusual experiences do not prove realization.
• Seekers should investigate teachers and maintain their own discernment.
• Abuse should be confronted rather than dismissed as divine will or crazy wisdom.
• Teachers need humility, accountability, and time to embody realization.

Transcript

Rick: So I really appreciate everybody coming. Hey, Scott, good to see you. My name is Rick Archer, and I’m the creator and host of Buddha at the Gas Pump interview show—or it seems like the creator and host. People come up to me and say, “Oh, thank you for everything you’re doing,” and I think, “Am I actually doing anything?”

That’s not meant to be a spiritual cliché; it’s just really the sense that it’s kind of happening and I’m just hanging on for the ride. In any case, I really appreciate your attendance and your attention because there are some wonderful things going on in other rooms simultaneously, and so it’s a real honor to have you all here.

My talk today is on a topic that I’ve given a lot of thought to over the years. Some people have graduate degrees in ethics and they study it at Harvard and so on and so forth. I certainly don’t, but I’ve been a participant in and an observer of the spiritual scene for 50 years, and I’ve run into a lot of things, especially since I started doing this interview show.

I get all kinds of feedback from people, and I’ve met a number of interesting spiritual teachers over the years. I’ve hung out with some of the famous ones, and this whole topic of the ethics of enlightenment has always intrigued me. I think it is gaining currency in the spiritual culture that we’re all a part of; it’s something that needs to be better understood and addressed.

Incidentally, in this talk, I’ve gotten a lot of help from some people I’ve interviewed and have been emailing back and forth with—people like Shunyamurti, Greg Goode, David Buckland, who is running the camera over here, Timothy Conway, Peter Cutler, Elena Nezhinsky, and a couple of people who haven’t been on BATGAP—a fellow named Chris Atwood and a friend of mine named Einar Olsen. Some of the things that I’ll say here are lifted directly from emails they’ve sent me.

🛤️ Why ethics matters on the spiritual path

So, words like “ethics” and “morality” have a kind of an unpleasant connotation for many people. They bring up images of overbearing, dogmatic, abusive religious figures, many of whom turned out to be unethical hypocrites.

So this talk is not meant to encourage people to be dogmatic or moralistic or judgmental, but if you’ve been on a spiritual path for some time, chances are you’ve run into some situations, or at least heard about them, in which gurus or teachers have been misbehaving in various ways. In fact, after a while it almost seems like the norm rather than the exception, and you begin to wonder, “What’s going on?”

Very often these people seem to be very spiritually advanced, and their teachings seem to be beneficial. But I’ve run into a number of people who have been burned a few times, and they have become cynical about the motives of all gurus and teachers. Some have even lost faith in spirituality altogether. I think that’s a shame.

So what do we mean by ethical behavior? Who is to say what’s right and wrong? Incidentally, there are probably more question marks at the ends of sentences here than there are periods, and if you hear a sentence that has a period at the end of it, it is still an opinion, and opinions are subject to revision. I don’t mean to present anything in a sort of absolute way. Hopefully that tone won’t come across.

So ethical standards vary from culture to culture and from age to age. Some cultures condone things that most of us would consider barbaric. Is there any universal standard of ethical behavior, or are all norms somewhat arbitrary? I think there is a spectrum.

At one end there are things like rape and pedophilia and other things that seem universally unethical. Working on the Sabbath, eating meat, and even polygamy are more of a gray area that many cultures consider okay. Obviously, meat-eating is a big thing in most cultures—no problem—but some people would consider it unethical, like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Then there are things that are accepted in some cultures, such as female genital mutilation, which I think should be at the unacceptable end of the spectrum universally, and in the more enlightened world, hopefully will be.

Most spiritual traditions regard ethical behavior not only as a reflection of spiritual development, but as a prerequisite to it. Most have some notion of karma and say that if we hurt others, it will come back to us and impede our own spiritual evolution. Both Advaita Vedanta and Buddhism teach that cultivating an ethical outlook prepares one for the deep insights required for nondual realization.

In Buddhism, students are encouraged to develop deep compassion even before beginning with teachings on emptiness. In The Art of Happiness in a Troubled World , the Dalai Lama is quoted as saying, “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” So, any way you slice it, it’s good for you.

In Buddhism, students are encouraged to develop deep compassion even before beginning with teachings on emptiness. In The Art of Happiness in a Troubled World, the Dalai Lama is quoted as saying, “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” So, any way you slice it, it’s good for you.

Living ethically—and again, that term needs further definition as we go along—makes the mind more open and subtle and thus more capable of deep nondual insight. There are several different perspectives that people tend to lock into, one or the other, and I prefer a more inclusive perspective that might include them all. I think that people run into trouble when they don’t recognize that all perspectives, even though they may be paradoxically opposed to one another, are simultaneously true, each in their own domain.

Enlightenment, we might say, is the coexistence of transcendental, divine, and embodied or immanent qualities. So, for instance, some might say—and I hear people say this all the time—”Only unity is real and important. Nondual teaching should be descriptive, not prescriptive. Prescriptive teachings can only address a so-called ‘person,’ which doesn’t really exist.” You’ve probably heard that.

So we end up with nondual teachers who claim not to be a person, acting unethically and claiming that no one is doing it and that the world is unreal. There was a—I’m not going to name names—but there was a person whom I interviewed a couple of times and whose interviews I took down when I was contacted by a woman who, at the age of 15 or 16, had been repeatedly raped by him “Bill Cosby style,” and who had been pressed into service as a stripper, being told that “the body is not real, the world is maya,” and “you are the Self; you are not the body or the world of appearance”—using spiritual teaching to condone and justify that kind of behavior. It’s extremely shocking to me.

“You shall know them by their fruits.”

A friend of mine said, “I know a man who was stealing from a store daily for over a year, a one-dollar piece of cake wrapped in cellophane. When a friend would tell him not to do it or ask him why he would do it…”

Oh, wait, I’ve skipped to my second point! Hang on a second.

So anyway, the thing I said about that guy doing that stuff: this is a blatant misunderstanding of maya, and such a belief will not prevent karmic backlashes from happening. I think people are getting less and less tolerant of this kind of thing. Of course, no one would be tolerant of that, but even more minor infractions—people are getting less tolerant. They find the idea of a sage who can abuse or take advantage of others and still be granted the status of “sage” to be abhorrent.

The “Everything Is Perfect” Justification

Okay, now here is the next point I wanted to get to, and that is another perspective: it’s not that there is no world, but the world is perfect just as it is. All is well and wisely put; it’s all divinely orchestrated. And if you adopt this perspective exclusively, you may feel that you can do whatever you like because everything is perfect.

And so here’s the bit about the cake. This guy was stealing a piece of cake from the store every day for about a year, and when a friend told him not to do it, or asked him why he was doing it, he would say, “Aham Brahmasmi. I am Brahman, so everything I do is right.”

My friend told this to the meditating administrator of a state mental health clinic, and he said, “This is not unusual. We see this all the time. People get sort of brainwashed in nonduality.”

Here is another perspective: ethical teachings aren’t needed because, having realized one’s true nature, one will inevitably and spontaneously act in the best interest of all beings concerned in the situation—something we might call “spontaneous right action.”

Yeah. Maybe, ideally, it sounds like it makes sense, but it’s really hard to find examples of it. And even if this were true, it would leave everyone who hadn’t yet achieved realization without any ethical moorings until they had become realized. So why wait, you know?

So again, I prefer an all-inclusive approach: that all these perspectives have their relevance, but none can be taken to the exclusion of the others without creating some kind of imbalance. The highest teaching of Vedanta, as you know, is Aham Brahmasmi—”I am Brahman”—and Tat Twam Asi—”Thou art Brahman.”

And if we’re really living in nonduality, then the chair, and people, and everything are just as much a part of us as our arm is. You wouldn’t intentionally hurt your own body because it is part of you.

So, if nondual awareness is genuine, if everything is really seen as part of you, as Jesus said, “Whatsoever you do to the least of these, you have done it to me,” there shouldn’t be any inclination to hurt anything or anyone. And if there is—if people are behaving that way—maybe we should question their realization: “You shall know them by their fruits,” you know?

So, if nondual awareness is genuine, if everything is really seen as part of you, as Jesus said, “Whatsoever you do to the least of these, you have done it to me,” there shouldn’t be any inclination to hurt anything or anyone. And if there is—if people are behaving that way—maybe we should question their realization: “You shall know them by their fruits,” you know?

On the topic of hypocrisy, if we claim or imply that we have realized our true nature and are offering to help others do the same, is it consistent for us to behave deceitfully, perversely, selfishly, or cruelly?

Deceit might include lying about one’s level of spiritual attainment, one’s lifestyle, or adherence to vows—claiming to be a celibate renunciate if that is not really the case. It might include supernormal claims, such as being a breatharian or able to live on sunlight or something.

Some famous gurus have been excellent stage magicians and claimed their miracles were real in order to fool the naïve villagers and even many Westerners. Of course, there are Christian evangelicals who also use stage tricks.

And then we get into gray areas: people claiming to be channeling beings from galaxies or parallel universes or other times or dimensions. Should there be any criteria for ethical standards for such performances? Again, I’m asking a lot of questions here. I’m not saying that this, that, or the other should be.

Ethical Safeguards for Ayahuasca and Psychedelic Use

Then there’s the whole ayahuasca area and its related things. Should people conducting these things be trained in diagnosis and in dealing with bad trips? Should people be interviewed before they are given such substances to find out if they are psychologically strong enough to cope with the information they will receive during such an event?

What if there is a latent psychosis? What if someone admits beforehand that they have a history of schizophrenia? Should they be allowed to take large doses of such hallucinogens? There isn’t much regulation or oversight.

Then there’s the whole money issue. Churches routinely ask their members to tithe, therapists charge for their time, seminars and courses nearly always have a fee, and most retreat centers have to charge in order to keep functioning. Spiritual teachers have to pay the rent, just like anyone else. What ethical guidelines should there be around money?

Rick: I interviewed Adyashanti the other day and asked him that question. He went on for 10 or 15 minutes about it, so when that interview goes up, you might be interested in hearing his answer. It was good.

Perhaps an evaluation and enforcement of all teachers should be left up to their audience and the court of public opinion. P. T. Barnum said, “There’s a sucker born every minute”—some people are going to excuse their teacher’s behavior no matter how egregious.

Also, there is a problem that spiritual seekers are often kind of naïve and innocent in a way—ungrounded, kooky, and easily taken advantage of—unless perhaps they’ve been around for a while and have learned the hard way. Many times, they start out that way. There have been sad situations in which people have been taken advantage of and have had their faith shattered.

So we need whatever regulations there may or may not ever be. There are regulations in other professions, like psychiatry, psychology, and medicine. They all have codes of ethics that they have to abide by, and there are boards that govern them. They can lose their licenses if they violate those guidelines. Maybe that will happen someday with spiritual teachers in general, or maybe spiritual teachers will always be like herding cats and it won’t happen.

In any case, whether anything like that ever happens, it’s incumbent upon the student to develop discernment and discrimination, and to learn to make wise decisions.

The Correlation Between Higher Consciousness and Ethics

Now, this is a big question: Are higher consciousness and ethical behavior correlated? When I was a TM teacher and student, and so on, for many years, Maharishi always said that there was a tight correlation between higher consciousness and ethical behavior. He said that an enlightened person acts in accordance with all the laws of nature, and that you couldn’t possibly do anything harmful if you were in a higher state of consciousness, and so on.

But there seem to be so many violations and exceptions to that rule that I’ve really come to doubt it. I’ll elaborate as we go here.

Is it possible to be an enlightened scoundrel? Ken Wilber mentions “waking up” and “growing up,” and says that the two are not tightly correlated. Most famous gurus have actually done things that are kind of questionable, but had they reached the pinnacle of human potential?

In other words, a friend of mine just wrote a book called How Much “Enlightenment” Is Enough? He has pictures of glasses of water on the cover that are getting fuller and fuller. Here’s a quote from Nisargadatta Maharaj shortly before his death. He said:

“Forget ‘I Am That.’ I’ve realized so much more since then. It’s so much deeper.”

So I have this attitude that we’re all works in progress, and that having the opinion that there’s some kind of static terminus point that we are going to reach—or that this, that, or the other teacher has reached—is only going to result in disappointment and confusion.

Everybody is a work in progress, as far as I know. I don’t think I’ve ever met an exception. I may not be qualified to judge people’s level of development or anything, but that’s how it seems to me.

And even in the Vedic literature there are—okay, one more point before that. I think that the correlation between higher consciousness and ethical behavior is more like a stretchy rubber band than a tight, rigid pole of some sort. But God-realization and saintliness are associated for a reason.

Traditionally, God-realization is correlated with the development of qualities like love, compassion, and so on. In my opinion, full enlightenment—if there is such a thing, or at least a great deal of enlightenment—would include their development. There could be some channel that—oh, well.

There are numerous examples of great Vedic sages who were tripped up by some latent tendency or some subtle remnant of ego they didn’t even know they had. There are many degrees of awakening prior to the final enlightenment, if there even is such a thing, and in my opinion, there isn’t.

If harmful, selfish behavior is displayed, it shouldn’t be rationalized away. It indicates some lack of development that would need to be addressed.

If harmful, selfish behavior is displayed, it shouldn’t be rationalized away. It indicates some lack of development that would need to be addressed.

Okay, a point on purity: Words like “purity” and “impurity” may evoke all sorts of creepy religious judgments and abuses. I use the term in the Vedic sense, referring to vasanas, or impressions, and the gunas—sattva, rajas, and tamas.

Someone who rapes children is being governed by impressions and impulses that are impure by comparison with those governing someone who dedicates himself to feeding starving children. That may be a little shocking, but it gets better.

The relative world is comprised of pairs of opposites and gradations in between. To disregard them is to render all values meaningless and to endorse nihilism.

Here is an interesting thing from my friend Timothy Conway, who has been on BATGAP a couple of times. He said:

“Buddhists and Hindus refer to the ‘asura titan,’ or the demon types of consciousness, which can seem very powerful, very bright, very charismatic, and enlightened. But more insidiously, it is a syndrome afflicting someone who might think he is enlightened but is not, because he or she is still fueled by greed, aversion, and delusion. “It is especially alluring and misleading when the person has some lovely deva karmic aspects mixed in—certain talents or virtues. Such a combination of powerful light and dark entities can be very confusing to those lacking discernment. “Ramana, for instance—the bad guy in the Ramayana —would be an example. He was charismatic, learned, and possessed numerous powers, but he was still operating from selfish motives.”

Then there’s another consideration in all this. This whole talk could be expanded into a weekend or a semester or whatever. There’s a lot to consider here: the whole issue of kundalini.

There is such a thing as deflected rising, where kundalini rises to a certain point and then gets deflected or stuck. A person can display the symptoms of enlightenment without actually being enlightened. Those symptoms can include tremendous Shakti, darshan, and radiant influence. They appear like, “Whoa, this guy must be enlightened,” and yet there is something really off. The offness can get extreme.

Papaji warned:

“This is the Kali Yuga. Even rakshasas, demons, will incarnate as teachers to mislead you.”

I’m reading this book, Holy Madness by George Feuerstein. It is very interesting. There’s a section here from something called the Kula Mārga Tantra, or something—I should have brought my reading glasses.

“There are many teachers, like lamps in house after house, but hard to find, O Devi, is the teacher who lights up all like the sun. There are many teachers who are proficient in the Vedas and the Shastras, but hard to find, O Devi, is the teacher who has attained to the supreme truth. “There are many teachers on earth who give what is other than the Self, but hard to find in all the world, O Devi, is the teacher who reveals the Self. Many are the teachers who rob the disciple of his wealth, but rare is the teacher who removes the disciple’s affliction. “He is the true teacher by whose very contact there flows the supreme bliss. The intelligent man should choose such a one as his teacher, and none other.”

Discerning Claims About Enlightened Behavior

Okay, can we judge or understand the behavior of the enlightened? It is often suggested that an enlightened being’s behavior is beyond our capacity to understand, and that we should accept on faith that he is acting in accordance with divine will.

For instance, it seems that the Divine has a fondness for Rolls-Royces, or young women, or young boys, or whatever. Those are obvious allusions to actual situations in which people just said, “Well, I’m ignorant. This guy is enlightened, and I don’t understand this, but I’m just going to go along with it because it is beyond my capacity to understand enlightened behavior.”

Again, discrimination and discernment. This might be starting to sound a little judgmental at this point. As you know, Jesus said, “Judge not, that ye be not judged,” and, “Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”

We’ve all seen examples of people adopting holier-than-thou attitudes, laying trips on people, and perhaps we’ve even done it ourselves. But at the same time, we must be discriminating.

We have a right and an obligation to evaluate a potential teacher, to call them on their stuff if necessary, and to leave if they are not receptive.

We have a right and an obligation to evaluate a potential teacher, to call them on their stuff if necessary, and to leave if they are not receptive.

At a symposium of Western Buddhist teachers, the Dalai Lama had strong words for teachers who abuse their power and students who give their power away. His Holiness said:

“A teacher who behaves unethically or asks students to do so can be judged as lacking in ultimate insight.” “As far as my own understanding goes, the two claims that you are not subject to precepts and you are free—these are the result of incorrect understanding. No behavior is free from consequences. For this reason, true wisdom always includes compassion, the understanding that all things and beings are interconnected with and vulnerable to each other.” “Even though one’s realization may be higher than that of the highest beings, one’s behavior should conform to the human way of life. When teachers break the precepts, behaving in ways that are clearly damaging to themselves and others, students must face the situation, even though this can be challenging. “Criticize openly. That is the only way.” “If there is incontrovertible evidence of wrongdoing, teachers should be confronted with it. They should be allowed to admit their wrongs, make amends, and undergo a rehabilitation process. “If a teacher won’t respond, students should publish the situation in a newspaper, not omitting the teacher’s name. The fact that the teacher may have done many other good things should not keep us silent.”

On the issue of readiness to teach, there is almost always a lag between realization and its full embodiment. Assuming the role of a spiritual teacher can confront you with challenges you wouldn’t otherwise face.

The very act of teaching channels some sort of higher energy. You tend to become brighter, more eloquent, and more charismatic. People are attracted to you, sometimes sexually. They start thinking you are special, that you know something they don’t know. It could easily go to your head. I think we’ve all seen this happen.

When I became a TM teacher in 1970—and just before I say that, there’s definitely a need for teachers. I’m not necessarily saying that everybody should wait ten years after realization, although some traditions say that. They advise waiting years after awakening before beginning to teach.

After his awakening, Ramana marinated in a cave for years. Swami Atmananda never gave satsang until he and his master agreed he was ready. It took years.

I’ve been told that in the Zen tradition, one is supposed to wait ten years after awakening before beginning to teach. Thich Nhat Hanh was always diligent in his own actions and motivations. He felt that if he ever slipped in some way, he would immediately stop teaching. He felt that his life was his teaching.

When I became a TM teacher in 1970, at the age of 21, Maharishi said to us that when a war is raging, there is no time to train sharpshooters. Just hand them a rifle and send them out.

But we didn’t claim to be awakened. We were just a bunch of kids taught to impart a technique. My girlfriend, after I became a TM teacher, told me, “I thought TM teachers were saints until I got to know you.” I took that as helpful feedback.

Rick: Then there’s the whole issue of crazy wisdom, which is discussed at length in this book. I’m very skeptical of anyone excusing egregious behavior as crazy wisdom. There have been legitimate examples of crazy-wise adepts, holy fools, and rascal gurus, but for every genuine one, there have been many who use crazy wisdom as an excuse for bad behavior. Jesus said—and I had quoted this earlier—”You shall know them by their fruits.”

In evaluating a teacher, perhaps we should ask ourselves, “Do I want to become like this person?” Traditionally, these holy fools—whom you read about in this book and elsewhere—were humble, meek, and self-abnegating. They went to extremes to avoid adulation or appearing special; they were sitting on dung heaps and things.

In contrast to this … [interrupted by an inaudible member of the audience] … in contrast to this, recent or contemporary teachers whose behavior is excused as crazy wisdom have often tended to be self-indulgent, ostentatious, and grandiose.

Then there’s the whole issue of free will. Some people say this whole talk about ethics and morality and behavior and all this is moot because we have absolutely no free will. Ramesh Balsekar contended that we are just governed by our genetics and our conditioning, and that, too, has been used by some as an alibi for misbehavior.

I do think that people act according to their level of consciousness, their degree of purity or impurity, their conditioning, et cetera. Someone who is rather stunted by those measures can’t just decide to act like a saint, but ethical guidelines give people something to adhere to within their capacity to do so, like traffic rules.

My final quote here, and then we can take some discussion, is:

It is this integration of one and two that makes life. Nonduality is one thing, but living Nonduality is another. To live Nonduality takes heart; we have to love something, everything. We have to take the false appearance as beautiful and precious. If we don’t, it is a lifeless Nonduality; it is a principle, not a life.

[Applause]

Rick: Thanks. There is a mic right there, and if you’d like to ask some questions … get some discussion going.

Audience Member: I think—can we drop names?

Rick: Sure, that may be interesting, but it would get me sued also!

Audience Member: You could beep it out.

Rick: Yeah, we could beep it out. So, any thoughts, feedback, discussion? Do you agree? Disagree? What do you feel about all that?

Yeah, please go on the mic.

Audience Member: Well, my question is just an observation about what we were saying earlier, which is the correlation between higher states of consciousness and unethical behavior. I’m wondering if maybe we don’t quite understand what the standard for a higher state of consciousness is, and maybe we should begin with that. Then we could find an equal way or an equal plane where the two can be correlated, because the correlation may not be happening simply because we have a misconception about what it is.

Rick: Yeah, no, that’s a really good point. I have this attitude, for what it’s worth, that—well, like Ken Wilber again. I haven’t read him extensively, but I’m told that he refers to “lines of development,” and that there are all these different lines, which can get pretty out of whack with one another.

But if I were to use the word “enlightenment”—which I tend to avoid because it has such a superlative quality to it, a sort of static quality—I would regard it as a holistic development in which all those lines have been brought along to a very great degree and are in correlation to one another.

It doesn’t mean developing in every area or in everything that human beings can do. It doesn’t mean you’re going to be an excellent basketball player or something, but with regard to the virtues and behavior and that kind of thing, and wisdom—even things like sensory refinement, blossoming of the heart, and all those kinds of more spiritual faculties—I would say those should all be at a pretty good peak. If some of them are really found to be lacking, then I don’t think it would deserve the term “enlightenment,” in my estimate, in my opinion.

Audience Member: Yeah, that’s what I was saying: to redefine the concept of a “higher state of consciousness” to be a lot more holistic and integrated.

Rick: Yeah, good.

Audience Member: Thank you.

Rick: Sure. Ah, yes, mic please.

Audience Member: Thanks for your talk. I was thinking, sort of from my own perspective, that there’s not just intentional harm that’s caused, but there is also unintentional harm. So I’m wondering if you have anything to say about whether someone somewhere along the process of enlightenment still has the ability to unintentionally harm, and if that is helpful.

Rick: I’m sure they do. I mean, I’m probably nowhere near enlightened as I would define it, but I’ve certainly caused unintentional harm at times in my life. There’s a Buddhist sage of yore named Padmasambhava, and he said, “Although my awareness is as vast as the sky, my attention to karma is as fine as a grain of barley flour.” And Don Juan, in the Carlos Castaneda books, said to Carlos, “A warrior has time only for his impeccability.”

Both quotes imply to me a sense of diligence, a lack of sloppiness, where you can’t just sort of wallow in your unboundedness and then behave any way you like. There needs to be an integration in which you have balanced the unbounded awareness with skillful action, and harmlessness would be a big part of that skillful action.

Audience Member: One quick follow-up thing, and that’s very helpful. I guess where I’m also thinking is, is unintentional harm avoidable at all? Will it always occur when you are an incarnate being?

Rick: Yeah, I mean, you walk down the sidewalk and you step on little creatures and things, so there’s always going to be some. The Jains would starve themselves to death to avoid taking any life, but is it really harm to eat a carrot, or even a chicken, in the big scheme of things?

So these are all gray areas, subject to discussion and definition and so on, but I think that at least the aspiration to not be harmful, intentionally or unintentionally, is a laudable one.

Audience Member: I’m Pam, and I’m delighted this is happening, and I wish there were more people in here.

Rick: Oh, there’s a pretty good crew.

Audience Member: Ah … but I’ve come through the trenches of experiencing abuse and things like that early on, so, anyway, I’m glad you’re here. But I’m just finishing a Finders course in Jeffrey Martin’s study of different teachers. One of the things he said is that he finds that people were stealing before they moved into a persistent nondual state, and they still steal afterward. He is not finding a high correlation with a shift—some, but not a real high correlation.

And the other thing he said is that when people do shift into an awakened, persistent stage, they tend to lose more of the capacity to observe themselves.

Rick: Yeah, I disagreed with Jeffrey on some of that and debated it with him a little bit. In fact, one thing he said is that when they shift into a particular stage—I forget which stage he called it—they tend to become very flat and emotionless, and the enlightened person becomes rather insipid, and they want to move back toward a previous state in order to have more juiciness in life.

And I said, “No, Jeffrey, there’s a flat state that you get into at a certain stage, but then beyond that, moving forward rather than backward, it all begins to blossom again; you get much richer.”

Okay, so people who were stealing before and stealing afterward, I would just say they are works in progress.

Audience Member: I was just wondering if you think that the true issue lies in teaching people on their spiritual path how to make more authentic choices that are in alignment with their consciousness. In my work with a lot of women over the past twenty years, I feel like we are spiritual beings having this human experience, with all these desires and choices that we want to make.

But I think it’s about trying to be authentic to yourself when you’re not alone in this world. Issues start to grow and multiply when you have children, families, and responsibilities, and so I think that’s where the challenge lies.

Rick: Yeah, and ultimately I think we are our own barometer. If we cultivate a certain self-referral awareness, a certain kind of way of functioning, then we get indicators and signals from within ourselves when we’re out of alignment with something. So we don’t necessarily need to rely on external authorities as much. Who could really evaluate better than ourselves?

Well, there is that Robert Burns poem that says, “To see ourselves as others see us.” But still, I think that’s an important component, if we could cultivate that kind of inner barometer or antenna so that little alarm bells go off if we’re moving out of alignment.

I think I’m out of time. Am I really out of time?

Audience Member: Yes.

Rick: I’m really out of time. All right, I’m so sorry. This lively discussion could go on a long time with this, but I guess this is just a taste, some food for thought. So, thank you very much for coming.

[Audience applauding]