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This article first appeared in Issue 22, “Are You Ready to Change Now?” Click for more information.
Stacey’s fourth-dimensional, satirical satsang is constructed from direct quotes connected by short, fictional linking words and phrases. All quoted material appears in italics.
One afternoon last spring, I was sitting with my dear, wise friend Vera at the local juice bar, sharing a blue-green algae shake, when she was suddenly overcome with inspiration. “Stacey, your debut in the last issue of What Is Enlightenment? [Issue 21, Spring/Summer 2002] was truly evolutionary. I mean, there you were, hosting luminaries from the Buddha to Teilhard de Chardin, who were popping in to WIE’s new Fourth Dimension Conference Room to offer their views on the latest developments in the spiritual world. You have quite the job, old girl. So, I was thinking, why don’t you continue breaking spiritual ground and present the world’s first fourth-dimensional satsang?!” “Satsang?” I replied. “Vera, I have to admit that even with all the advanced personal growth work I’ve done, like in my lunchtime yoga class and with my holotropic breath counselor, I’ve never actually been to a satsang.” “Well, Stace,” she said, “don’t let that stop you, because you owe your readers the benefit of all spiritual possibilities, even ones you personally don’t know that much about. And these days the ‘satsang circuit,’ with its plethora of new, or ‘neo,’ Advaita teachers, is attracting quite of bit of interest.” Now, don’t worry, dear readers if, like me, you’re in the dark about satsangs and Advaita, because I took Vera’s advice, did some research, made a few calls, and am here now to present, for your spiritual edification (and mine), this very special event: the first Neo-Advaita “satsang,” or spiritual gathering, to take place without the usual impediments of space and time.
The Neo Advaita Panel
Welcome, everyone, to the Fourth Dimension! Wayne Liquorman, Esther Veltheim, Tony Parsons, Gangaji, Francis Lucille, and Isaac Shapiro, I’m just delighted that you could join me for what is certain to be a consciousness-raising event. As some of the most well-known Western teachers on the current Neo-Advaita scene, you trace your roots to Advaita Vedanta, the ancient Hindu philosophy of nonduality, conducting satsangs with people all over the world. This is my first satsang. So, could you begin by telling us what a satsang is, and how it relates to Advaita Vedanta?
GANGAJI: Stacey, somehow, by some stroke of good luck, your individual consciousness has been called to satsang. . . .
[Since] this is your first time in satsang, let me tell you what satsang is. Satsang means in Sanskrit association with the truth. . . . If there is some obstruction to that truth, it is brought out in satsang. . . . Satsang confirms your true identity as pure consciousness. . . . There is only pure pristine consciousness.
WAYNE: Gangaji, it must be God’s will because I’ll confirm that. Pure Advaita points to the understanding that everything is ONE . . . all is Consciousness . . . all is God.
ESTHER: I’ll put it this way: A wave appears in the ocean, but that doesn’t change the nature of the ocean—it’s still water. The wave has never been anything separate to the ocean—they are not-two.
TONY: [And everything is discovered to be] the ground of unconditional love, for there is nothing that is not sacred and . . . grace is continuously available.
ISAAC: Yes, Stacey, and to be with Yourself is to be love, peace, and silence. . . . This is the ultimate truth.
STACEY: Wow, the effect is immediate. I can already feel myself starting to relax and expand . . . “I am love, peace, silence . . . All is consciousness . . .” You know, I really appreciate hearing that because I got stuck in a massive traffic jam on my way to work. And even though, on a deep intuitive level, I know that what you’re all saying is true, it’s really easy to forget that “grace is continuously available” when you’re on the New Jersey Turnpike, not to mention just about everywhere else.
ISAAC: You can be in prison or in any circumstance. . . . This is not dependent on time, place, circumstance, or anything else.
FRANCIS: Right, Isaac. There comes a moment where this feeling of . . . benevolent space around you no longer goes away; you find yourself at home everywhere, even in the packed waiting room of a train station.
STACEY: Or in bumper-to-bumper traffic! Boy, this could totally change my relationship to commuting.
GANGAJI: There is nothing that keeps you from the realization of your inherent, permanent, present freedom except your imagination that somebody or something is keeping you from that.
ESTHER: Which means You are everywhere . . . dimension-less, limit-less, and time-less . . . formless, infinite, and eternal. . . . You aren’t bound or limited by any-thing, You simply ARE.
STACEY: “I am everywhere . . . formless, limitless, timeless . . .” With every word, I feel myself sinking deeper and deeper, as if I were in a warm bath, with little bubbles. The truth is so comforting, reassuring, and freeing!
ISAAC: Yes, beautiful. Simply be. . . . Because . . . the entire universe is appearing in you. . . . All of eternity, every known universe, every known reality, every known galaxy is appearing in you.
WAYNE: And speaking of the universe, my dear teacher wrote: “The Universe is uncaused, like a net of jewels in which each is only the reflection of all the others, in a fantastic interrelated harmony without end.”
STACEY: Wow, “a net of jewels.” I just love that. My beloved grandmother Bertha, may she rest in peace, used to call me her jewel. And now you’re telling me that all these jewels are appearing inside me. How perfect! I could rest in this blissful feeling forever, but for the sake of my readers, I have to inquire further. Could you please say more about Advaita?
WAYNE: God wills me to, Stacey. Consciousness [is] the Source and the Substance of everything. . . . It is infinite potentiality. . . . And whether you call that Genesis or the Big Bang, doesn’t matter; this is the point at which that which is infinite potential expresses into manifestation . . . into all this stuff of life.
STACEY: Infinite potentiality . . . You know, at the end of my last interview I learned something extraordinary from one of my guests, Father Teilhard de Chardin. I learned that I had significance, evolutionary significance, and potential. And I discovered how the universe, which includes me, is evolving.
(. . . Of course your life has evolutionary significance.)
STACEY: Oh Father, how kind of you to drop in.
TEILHARD DE CHARDIN: Bonjour, Stacey, it is just wonderful to see you again. I was on my way to the Omega Point, and knew that even a short visit here would be evolutionary. So remember, in us, the evolution of the world towards spirit becomes conscious . . . as the terms of a vast process in which the whole mass of the universe is involved.
WAYNE: It is an appealing notion . . . because it gives a purpose to this incredible manifestation that is comprehensible to the human mind, “Ah, this is God setting in motion a process whereby there is a disidentification seeking reunification.” Such a concept is an overlay on this existence which is as valid as any. But understand that it is a human mental construct that is overlaying this phenomenal Reality.
TEILHARD: Our perfection, our interest and our salvation as elements of creation can only be to press on with this evolution with all our strength. . . . Remember, we hold the earth’s future in our hands. But the Omega Point is calling. I’ll have to be on my way now.
WAYNE: Stacey, let me describe the nature of Reality another way. Out of this incredible potentiality extrudes Universes and Solar Systems, and out of the Solar Systems is extruded this planetary system, and this little planetary system here is extruding out into Earth, and out of this Earth are extruding all of these various body-mind mechanisms. And they arise and they live a little span and then they fall back into this infinite potentiality; and new ones are created . . . so that you have this one particular extrusion—we’ll call it ‘you’. . . .
STACEY: I, Stacey Heartspring, “an extrusion that merely arises and falls back into potentiality”? To be honest, I think I liked being a timeless jewel better. And getting back to my evolutionary potential—
GANGAJI: This idea of you becoming more of what you are, or of the world becoming something different, is nonsense.
ISAAC: As funny as that sounds, there is nothing you have to do, because you cannot control anything.
There is not a you to do it!
TONY: We are so locked into the belief that our lives have some sort of purpose . . . but when there is an acceptance and a resting in there being no purpose, a new wonder can arise.
STACEY: A “new wonder” can arise through accepting that my life has no purpose? I think Father Teilhard would have certainly put his two cents in here!
TONY: Stacey, I really have to disagree with your friend Teilhard. Consciousness simply is. It is energy manifesting without any interest in any of the concepts that our minds have about . . . purpose or meaning. It is absolutely impersonal and has no particular direction. It is playing the game of creation and destruction.
ESTHER: And with each arising and subsiding of the Absolute, universes are created and destroyed. With the appearance of each bodymind, one could say a droplet of Consciousness is superimposed upon, or assumes a manifest appearance. Each droplet is unique in its own way, but all the droplets are still only Consciousness. The droplet plus the bodymind give rise to “I am.”
STACEY: So, let me see if I’m getting this right. According to Advaita there is no real evolution, no becoming, no purpose. Instead, I’m a droplet of consciousness that’s fallen onto my bodymind? I can relate to the droplet part—you know, consciousness—but “bodymind ”. . .? That sounds a little dry, even with the droplet.
ESTHER: And to use you as an example, Stacey , your “birth” is simply part of a coincidental chain of events, a synchronicity that comes about spontaneously and for no particular reason. . . . One could say that your “birth” is just an accident. There is no particular reason for it.
STACEY: No particular reason for my being here? My birth just an accident? Just try and explain that to my dear Grandma Bertha, who always called me her jewel. You know, I’ve done a lot of personal growth work to deal with my anger, but Esther, that’s hitting below the belt.
ESTHER: Angry? Well, if you think others make you feel and act a certain way, you are saying they have power over you. This would mean that you blame them for how you feel. If you think it’s your fault that you act a certain way, you are saying you are to blame. Either way, you are saying that you and others have personal will, personal volition—aren’t you?
STACEY: Absolutely yes, of course. I mean, if I’m not doing it, who is?
TONY: So what is it that is angry?
STACEY: Me. I am.
TONY: And who are you?
STACEY: I am myself, Stacey.
TONY: So are you your name?
STACEY: No, but that is my identity.
TONY: But it is not constant and it arises from memory. It can change—and so who are you?
STACEY: Boy, is this how you talk in Advaita? I’m not only feeling confused, I’m feeling dizzy, like I’m in a trance, and let me tell you, not the kind of trance I would recommend to anyone.
ESTHER: Don’t worry, confusion is good because it means your mind has been thrown off balance. But of course this isn’t to say it was actually balanced in the first place!
STACEY: Esther, did you actually say that?! I’m beginning to feel a little desperate here!
GANGAJI: Find who is feeling desperate. The feeling of desperation only continues because you assume that you are, in fact, something that the feeling is hooked on to.
ESTHER: Right. And what you have given lip service to up until now is being questioned. And about “purpose,” to find your life’s purpose may help you cope and feel better about yourself. But if you are unable to then carry out that purpose . . . you discover that it helped you feel in control. Don’t you think that is what finding a purpose is all about—control?
STACEY: Control? I don’t want to be in control. I want to have evolutionary significance. I want to help create a brighter future. I mean, the future is calling, can’t you just feel it? And my intuition tells me that my personal evolutionary significance is about more than just being a bodymind extrusion—
TONY: Relax, Stacey, you are the divine expression exactly as [you] are, right here, right now. [You do not have to] surrender, be purified, or go through any kind of change or process. . . . [You] don’t need to be serious, honest, dishonest, moral or immoral, aesthetic, or gross. . . . The infinite is not somewhere else waiting for us to become worthy.
FRANCIS: In this welcoming we live in the Now. There is nothing to gain, nothing to lose. . . . We already have all we need.
STACEY: Gosh, I’d love to be reassured that it was all so simple. But what about evolution and the fact that everything’s obviously changing? And not only that—if I’m honest, I’d also have to admit that there are things I need to change about myself—you know, like more than just my taste in jewelry. And I’m reminded of that fact every day when I’m ready to kill the guy who cuts me off on the freeway, and I avoid acting on my impulses.
WAYNE: But you will “choose” one way in one moment and entirely differently in the very next moment. . . . Because a moment from now . . . another thought will have gone through the mind, or another hormonal change will have taken place in the body. . . .
STACEY: Yes, that impulse is definitely stronger at certain times of the month.
WAYNE: And in any case, all of these bodymind mechanisms are created by Consciousness and operated by Consciousness, [so] that every thought, every action, every emotion and every response is the thought, the action, the emotion, and the response of Consciousness.
STACEY: The response of Consciousness? Does this mean that I, Stacey, actually have no free will of my own?
WAYNE: Yup. Everything IS. The script is written. The entire film is in the can. . . . Everything [is] happening in accordance with the will of God, or the play of Consciousness, or the dance of Shiva, or whatever you want to call it.
ISAAC: Right, Wayne. It’s simply a functioning of this bodymind: it has nothing to do with You.
TONY: So relax and let it all happen—because it will anyway. . . . You have no responsibility in any way for anyone or anything. There is no one there, and there never has been anyone there who can take responsibility.
ESTHER: And, anyway, in certain areas of the world a very different value is placed on human life. Very different “laws” exist in different areas of the world. What one culture sees as bad, another finds quite acceptable. You may say they are wrong, but who made you the morals police? . . . The actions themselves aren’t the problem. It’s the belief systems that accompany actions that are the problem.
(. . . Esther, that is music to my ears! After all, it is all relative, a matter of perception, a point of view.)
STACEY: Who’s that?! The Marquis de Sade, the notorious and scandalous French author?! Well, for obvious reasons, you most certainly were not invited. But since you made the trip all the way from the eighteenth century, what have you got to add?
MARQUIS DE SADE: Stacey, you’re already outnumbered. And, I’m sorry, but I’m going to add insult to injury. I agree with Esther. Similar to the concepts of virtue and vice, [justice and injustice] are purely local and geographical; that which is vicious in Paris turns up, as we know, a virtue in Peking . . . that which is just in Isfahan they call unjust in Copenhagen. . . . Justice has no real existence. . . . So let us abandon our belief in this fiction, it no more exists than does the God of whom fools believe it the image: there is no God in this world, neither is there virtue, neither is there justice; there is nothing good, useful, or necessary but our passions. . . . [And] the idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind. . . .
ESTHER: The misinterpretations [of God] that have been given to the various world religions have come about because man wanted to have a reason for everything. If you ask me, the religions that teach you that God created you sinful so that He can save you depict a pretty sadistic God.
DE SADE: Ah, sadism . . . well, we are no guiltier for following the primitive impulses that govern us than is the Nile for her floods or the sea for her waves. . . . All universal moral principles are idle fantasies.
ESTHER: Right, and to understand this is to realize that guilt is just a fanciful notion and that it has absolutely no validity.
STACEY: No guilt? No moral principles? But, what about all the awful events in the world? I mean, just look at what happened to all those people in the World Trade Center—
WAYNE: Stacey, I recently explained in a workshop that from the point of view of the bacteria that got to feed on those bodies, it certainly wasn’t a tragedy, so who are we to judge what’s right or wrong?
STACEY: What?!! I mean, all those innocent people! It was an unspeakable act, the most shocking—
TONY: Well, if you want to call it a sin, Stacey, from an Advaita point of view, all concepts of good or bad, original sin, karma or debt of any kind are products of an unawakened mind. . . .
FRANCIS: The only sin is to take oneself for a sinner. . . . There is no point in condemning oneself as a sinner or in trying to change oneself. Sense of guilt and desire to change also reinforce the ego.
TONY: And, for that matter when [Christ] told people their sins were forgiven, he was really saying to them that they had never had a past that they could be held responsible for. They had simply been characters lived through by the infinite, never having had any choice or free will.
STACEY: Tony, are you serious? You know, I’m J ewish, so no, I didn’t go to Sunday school and I’m hardly an authority, but I’ll be damned if Jesus ever meant anything like that! He really should have the opportunity to respond to this, but I just don’t have the courage to invite Him to join us. I’m afraid of what He would do! And far from being uplifted by all this, I’m starting to find it really depressing.
ESTHER: Stacey, actually what is “depressing” is the misperception that you need to care and that things need to matter. You see if you understand that your True nature IS neutrality, caring and making things matter is really missing the mark.
STACEY: But I can’t not care. Aren’t care and love important, you know, in a human way? And for that matter, what about God? Doesn’t most everyone say, “God is Love”?
ESTHER: When it is said that “God is Love,” the word love signifies neutrality. It has nothing to do with the opposite of hate. God is just another word for neutrality, and neutrality denotes “not helping or supporting either of two opposing sides. . . .”
And remember, there is no point, no purpose, and no meaning. . . . You think of caring as something important because you misunderstand caring to mean “something to do with the heart.”
STACEY: Whoa, just wait a minute. Of course it has to do with the heart. I mean, what about when people suffer? What about all those poor people in the World Trade Center? And, for that matter, what about my Great Uncle Mischa? Even though I’ve never told anyone his story, he’s often on my mind. You see, one day dear Aunt Beryl took me aside and confided in me: “Stacey, you should know what happened to our family during World War II, so I’ll tell you. When the Nazis invaded Romania, which is where some of your Jewish ancestors were from, they first looked for the Jewish doctors and teachers in the small villages. And they came upon your Great Uncle Mischa, who was a teacher and was in the middle of teaching his young class. And they marched him out of the school at gunpoint, with his class of students following him. And right in front of his students, in the school yard, they forced him to dig a large ditch, and then in front of all his students, they buried him alive. And that was how the Nazis destroyed the Jews, and it worked.”
(Of course it worked. . .!!!)
STACEY: Who’s there? Who said that!? Adolf Hitler?!! Oh my God!!
HITLER: Stacey, since you were talking about God’s will and the extermination of the Jews, nothing could stop me. I had to respond. You see, I received a divine mandate while I was recovering from a gas attack during the first World War. And as I lay there, it came over me that I would liberate the German people and make Germany great. . . .[And I was] an imated with an inexorable resolve to seize the Evil [the Jews] by the roots and to exterminate it root and branch. To attain our aim, [I knew] we should stop at nothing, even if we must join forces with the Devil.
STACEY: And I heard that the people who participated in this extermination wanted to commit these unspeakable acts. Through their own free will.
TONY: Stacey, there is no question of there being free will, simply because there is no one there in the first place who can have a will or make a choice.
HITLER: But, I could not have done it without so many willing participants. And here with me is one of my commanders, Eduard Strauch, who will testify to that.
STRAUCH: Heil Hitler! No one should ever doubt the eagerness of the men who served under you. Even if the killing was hard and unpleasant . . . we [were] convinced that someone must carry out these tasks. I can state with pride that my men [were] proud to act out of conviction and fidelity to their Führer.
TONY: Everything that happened . . . could not have been any other way.
ESTHER: And while the spontaneous, uninhibited, unpremeditated action is happening there is peace. . . . While you are acting with full focus and putting all your energy into it, minus judgments, there is peace. You see, peace is there when you experience what is as it is fully.
STACEY: Peace? What do you mean peace? Do you think my Uncle Mischa or his students or his family or any of the families of the World Trade Center victims experienced peace on those fateful days? And what about the fact that Hitler, and everyone who committed these heinous acts, had personal responsibility?
TONY: Don’t worry, Stacey. [Hitler], like everyone else, played out the character that consciousness chose, and death is simply a return to the source from where the character appeared. The beloved plays every part in the play. . . . From the point of view of the separate self, everything . . . seems to be a battle ensuing between good and evil. . . . Once awakening happens, it is seen that there is no such thing as right or wrong.
WAYNE: Yes, Tony, and when there’s the understanding that this manifestation is the perfect functioning of God, of Consciousness, or Totality, in that acceptance is peace. . . .
[Because] what we’re talking about here is What Is, not how you think it should be, how you would like it to be, how you, if you were God, would make it! God is not human-hearted.
GANGAJI: Pain is simply pain; sensations in the physical and emotional body. Suffering is in time and has with it some story line about pain. The story line generates infinite strands and permutations—who caused the pain, why, when, how, and on and on. There can be an enormous investment in the story, and therefore, a reluctance to let it all go.
TONY: And anyway, where is this suffering? I don’t see it.
STACEY: Well, dear readers, I think it’s time to call on a true authority—Sri Aurobindo, philosopher, revolutionary leader, and spiritual visionary. I couldn’t imagine anyone better qualified to guide us toward the Truth, and boy, do we need guidance. I sure am hoping that God wills you to join us from the subtle physical plane.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, Stacey, I shall join you for the evolutionary benefit of all. And this is how I can best answer this most fundamental question of human meaning: Man’s greatness is not in what he is but in what he makes possible. His glory is that he is the closed place and secret workshop of a living labour in which supermanhood is made ready by a divine Craftsman.
But he is admitted to a yet greater greatness and it is this that, unlike the lower creation, he is allowed to be partly the conscious artisan of his divine change. His free assent, his consecrated will and participation are needed that into his body may descend the glory that will replace him. His aspiration is earth’s call to the . . . Creator.
If earth calls and the Supreme answers, the hour can be even now for that immense and glorious transformation.
GANGAJI: Well, I disagree with you radically. . . . I would say that’s a “landing.” . . . [Because] what’s missing is the realization that this idea of a doer is a thought and empty.
STACEY: A “landing”? I was just starting to feel elevated. I mean, Sri Aurobindo, there is some way it can all make sense, and there is some greater purpose to our lives, isn’t there? I would end with your exquisite, glorious words, except for one thing I know my dear readers would want to understand: What does make this new, or Neo-Advaita teaching different from traditional Advaita? Sri Ramana Maharshi, as one of the greatest Advaita teachers of all time, could you please join us from your sacred mountain in India?
RAMANA: I’ll join you, Stacey, because God has willed me to set the record straight. I agree that it is true that we are not bound and that the real Self has no bondage. It is true that you will eventually go back to your source. But meanwhile, if you commit sins, as you call them, you will have to face the consequences of such sins.
TONY: As I said before, all concepts of good or bad, original sin, karma, or debt of any kind are the products of an unawakened mind . . .
STACEY: Tony, are you implying that Sri Ramana is—?
RAMANA: Don’t worry, Stacey. Just concentrate on what I’m saying here. Whatever is done lovingly, with righteous purity and with peace of mind, is a good action. Everything which is done with the stain of desire and with agitation filling the mind is classified as a bad action. Do not perform any good action through a bad means . . . because if the means is bad, even a good action will turn out to be a bad one. Therefore even the means of doing actions should be pure. . . . You cannot escape them. . . . [Otherwise] what is the use of merely saying with your lips, “I am free”?
STACEY: Dear Ramana, Gangaji said at the beginning that “if there is some obstruction to the truth, it is brought out in satsang,” and I think that obstruction has been revealed. I do think I’ll sleep better tonight.
FRANCIS: From the vantage point of a personal entity, of a bodymind, deep sleep is . . .
TONY: Francis, the sense of a separate entity is illusory. Presence is what you are.
ESTHER: Tony, where did that thought come from?
GANGAJI: And if thought is insubstantial and is not there, what is there?
TONY: There is no one here doing anything. There is energy in a form discussing something with energy in another form.
ISAAC: Yes, it’s simply a functioning of this bodymind: it has nothing to do with You.
WAYNE: Right, a bodymind mechanism in the phenomenal dream-play, just like all of the rest of these bodymind mechanisms. . . .
STACEY: Even if I am a bodymind mechanism, I’d like to conclude on that note, by expressing my gratitude, most of all, to you dear readers—
ESTHER: For gratitude, there has to be someone (a ME) experiencing the gratitude and someone . . . to direct the gratitude towards. Again, this is evidence that you are not there yet and that the mind is still playing its conceptual tricks.
STACEY: Esther, tricks or no tricks, my dear readers are out there, and they certainly deserve thanks for staying with me as I navigated the high seas of the spiritual world’s first fourth-dimensional satsang—which God has certainly willed to be a very enlightening event!
