764. Roger Linden

Part 1: Nondual Awakening, Meditation, and the End of Separation

Part 2: Innate Well-Being, Difficult Emotions, and Seeking Without Strain

Roger Linden’s spiritual search began with a brief glimpse at age six and reading J. Krishnamurti as a teenager on Hampstead Heath. After decades of meditation, teaching Transcendental Meditation, and encounters with Jean Klein and Tony Parsons, a walk on the Heath in 1999 brought a recognition that overturned his expectations: the sense of separation fell away, yet life remained remarkably ordinary.

In this two-part conversation with Rick Archer, Roger distinguishes temporary experiences of bliss and expanded awareness from that lasting recognition. He describes how personality, thoughts, emotions, and conditioning continued, and explores whether spiritual practice prepares us for an awakening it cannot manufacture.

The conversation then turns to well-being in everyday life. Drawing on his experience with meditation and his training in psychotherapy, the Feldenkrais method, and the Alexander technique, Roger describes how subtle tension can accompany our efforts to meditate, act, or manage difficult feelings. He suggests that allowing a little ease—without suppressing emotional reactions—can help us appreciate a quiet well-being already glimpsed in a smile, laughter, or a moment of connection.

Rick presses for practical clarity about conflict, deeply ingrained conditioning, and challenging life circumstances. Together, they explore why awareness can seem to come and go, how spiritual practice carries into daily activity, and how to continue seeking without overlooking the life available now. Roger also points to Sydney Banks and the Three Principles as a related approach to understanding thought, experience, and innate well-being.

In 1998 he started attending meetings with Tony Parsons, author of The Open Secret. On a retreat early in 1999 a comment by Tony “triggered another powerful glimpse”. A few days later whilst walking, all sense of separation fell away. It was realised that there is only consciousness. Since then there has simply been unity. He leads regular groups in London and elsewhere in the UK.