TRANSCRIPTION
Raghu: Hi, I’m Raghu Markus. Now, here we were in the middle of our mountain retreat perched on that hill. It was amazing actually. The whole horizon was filled with these twenty-seven to twenty-nine-thousand-foot peaks; was just marvelous. I mean, in the morning; ah, it was the rainy season so in the morning the clouds as they would lift we would have this darshan. It was just staggering; incredible.
Now, ah, we had this major collective, strange experience after being there for a few weeks and as many of you know, Ram Dass gave Maharajji acid twice; both times nothing happened. The second time he gave it because Ram Dass thought that he didn’t actually take it so he carefully put it on his tongue and nothing happened again but he did say that it was good for spiritual beginners and gave you Christ-darshan for a few hours but then you had to leave and he said one should take it alone and in a cold climate so various people thought, “Hmmm, this would be a perfect place up here in the Himalayas so one day one of the Westerners took some acid but he wanted to do it with Ram Dass. He wanted to trip with him and Ram Dass agreed.
It so happened that I lived in a room above this guy where they were tripping and I started to hear very strange noises coming from his room below after they had gone in there together and although this may sound strange, I had a small hole in my floor board and I could actually see through down into the room below and when I looked; I just couldn’t stop myself from looking, I saw this crazy scene where Ram Dass was lying down on the floor but he was moving his arms as if he was flying and making the most insane other-worldly guttural sounds. He later said he was surfing the Universe like the silver surfer; boy oh boy.
Now, many of us on those two floors of the building started to hear this crazy stuff coming from that room and we gravitated towards the room where this was going on and we all ended up sitting with Ram Dass and sort of plugging into the energy of his energy and this other guy and all of us got off on that trip; I mean, it was contact high supreme! Let me tell you! It lasted for about a week! I mean, we used to go to the dining room together and you know, we’re talking about fifteen, eighteen people and we used to sit there and eat in silence like perfect sadhus but now when we ate we would sit in silence, bless the food, look up at each other and burst out laughing. It was a crazy scene. It was so crazy that one of us, actually the energy was a bit much for him; he ended up impersonating Ram Dass and went up see Lama Govinda, a famous Buddhist scholar of that time and who had wrote many wonderful books, actually and went to visit him and said he was Ram Dass. Then he went and gave a lecture at a church and then he went, “Gee I gotta see Maharajji and show him all my powers” and he was so activated by Shakti it was unbelievable.
When he got to Maharajji, Maharajji looked at him and said, “Get over here”. He went over to him and he had a beard at the time and Maharajji took that beard and pulled it and as he described it later, it was if every molecule of energy was drained out of him in that moment; that was just one little off-shoot of that crazy experience but, you know, in the end as crazy as it was, we experienced an at-oneness with each other that went beyond words. I mean, it’s not something I would recommend to anybody or a group of people to do as part of their sadhana but it gave us some kind of understanding beyond the words and it reminded us when Maharajji would say every day; we would walk in there, to the ashram; he’s point a finger in the air and he’d say, “Sub Ek” in Hindi which means, It’s All One; It’s All One.
Ram Dass: “Accept ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Ye are the living temples of God. I and my Father are one. There is one alone and there is not a second and we, if we only know, are eternally it.”
Through a fortune cookie: “The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflections. The water has no mind to receive their image. The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflections. The water has no mind to receive their image.”
If you knew who you are and I know who I am, when you add all of those up you come to the number, One. If you and I were being who we truly are, there would only be one of us here; one awareness, one consciousness; all these bodies like fingers and toes and from our oneness; from our nitch in the wall where the candle flame never flickers when the wind blows; from this inner place where we all are eternally, we would watch the drama taking place at 77th Street and 3rd Avenue. We would watch he who speaks and they who listen and as we look into each of them some of them know and though they are speaking, they are not speaking and though they are listening, they are not listening and even though they know that you can see they are really busy listening. They think they are really listening. They really think they walk in here, sat down and they’re listening. I am listening. I want to know and from our place of one-consciousness we would feel great compassion, great compassion. For I am the wild goose and I have no intention to cast my reflection.
There is speaking happening and maybe it’s hard for you to understand or maybe there’s a place in you that understands when I say though I am speaking, I am not speaking; though I am here, I am not here. Inside of me is going on, a mantra ; a mantra that reminds me who I really am; over and over again and from this inner place where this mantra is going on even as I speak to you, I’m just watching with great awe, wonder, the awesome drama of nature unfold before my very eye, before my eye, before that inner eye which sees all and knows all; the drama that is this drama, this drama and on and on inside, it goes: Om Mani Padme Hum, Om Mani Padme Hum, Om Mani Padme Hum, Om Mani Padme Hum. Always bringing me right to my heart where I dwell eternally.
Now, we came here all laden with games; laden with our dramatic roles. I mean, we all learned our parts so well. We’re masters at playing our parts. I’m a serious young student. I really want to know. I’m a woman. I’m the Earth Mother. I’m a responsible member of this society. I’m young and impressionable. I’m really confused, man. I’m all screwed up. I’m pretty happy. I just want to hear what this scene’s about. I’m a holy man. That is the, those are the parts that are available for the evening. Pick your part. There’s only one of us who’s got to play all these parts. It’s all right. Don’t get uptight. We have a multitude of forms. We can be the bus driver on 3rd Avenue or a North Vietnamese in the woods. We’ll just move in slowly.
We came in here bearing our parts because we’ve learned them so well, I mean, you’ve been sitting home practicing your parts. You were taught your script; mother, father, coaches- you’ve had extraordinary coaches who taught you your parts so well so that you are exquisite, exquisite response mechanisms, feed in, outcomes.
I used to do a questionnaire when I was a psychologist called “Who am I?” There was five things of “Who am I?”; answer the question; gave it to a junior high school student. I am Carol Brown. I am in the eighth grade. I am a girl. I am an American. I am going to become a nurse: Five answers to “Who am I?” Give it to a Harvard senior; “Who am I?”: I am man. I am a biological complex. I am a point in time and space. I am David Smith. I am twenty-one. Give it to an Indian Saint: Who am I? I am God. I am eternal. I am. Blank. Blank. How can you get here and now this evening and turn off all of our dramatic parts and just let them run on. I mean, you can let run on who you’ve been but let’s just not get hung up in them.
Let’s be here together. How do we do that? Well, we have been going through a procedure purification which is useful, quite helpful and we call upon a being who I will explain later to you about where he lives. This being is called Guru Rinpoche of Padmasambaba and Padmasambaba was the man who introduced Buddhism to Tibet and this is a very important period in Padmasambaba’s influence for us. He is depicted in these Tanka reproductions and in order to call on Padmasambaba to bring us here and now you will do the following: You will imagine Padmasambaba who is sitting on a lotus in the middle of a lake and you will imagine him directly out from your, the middle of your eyebrows and then go up about a thirty- degree angle and then imagine him out there; just a little above your head, out there. He is entirely made up of light. He sits on a throne. It is the sun-throne of wisdom and he is the eternal child who sits there. In his right hand he holds the lightning bolt of the method of becoming eternal; the Upya and in his left, he holds the cup which is filled with ambrosia; it’s filled with moksha; filled with bliss. He has cut off the heads of aversion, attachment and confusion and he wears them as ornaments on his trident which he holds to his side as his consort. He sits un-moving in meditation. He chants, “Ommmm and Hummmm”, drunk upon highest happiness for the Buddhas of the past, present and the future shine forth through the pores of his skin. His youthful smile is full of compassion; victory is his crown.
Imagining now this being of pure light out in front of us with eyes closed, you will first need to purify your body and mind before you can invite Guru Rinpoche into your prydiam or spiritual heart. The first thing you are going to get rid of are rogga and rugga which are disease and attachment. In order to get rid of all the physical hang-ups and all of the attachments to your melodrama that keep you from being here and now you’ll breathe all these things out and they’re going to come out a dark red and they will come out of your right nostril when you, now if you are not tuned in on astral vision at this point, you will not see the dark red just yet but you can imagine it. You will breathe three times out the right nostril and each time imagine you’re breathing out all the physical hang-ups and all the attachments that keep you stuck, keep you stuck; three times.
And now out the left nostril, a blue-grey in color, you will breathe out mental obstacles and anger; all the people that got you hung-up today; got you up-tight; all the people that angered you; all the people that you still get angry at when you think about and get that anger into you; really think about them until you’re really angry and then breathe it all out; a kind of a blue-grey out the left nostril; three times out the left nostril.
Wish we had a fan to blow away all those vibrations and then out the mouth, pearl in color, three times you will breathe out swath, inertia, the heaviness, the stone-like quality, Tamasia, all the qualities that keep you from getting on with it, all that kind of ahggg; three times, purple out the mouth.
Now imagining Guru Rinpoche sitting out there on his lotus; imagine coming from his ajana, the point right between his eyebrows, a being of white light that comes directly to your ajana, directly to your ajana; a being that burns right into you and it burns out all the physical impurities. It just keeps working on the physical impurities; feel it burn through you, Omm; and then from his ajana, the same place, to your throat, a red beam which burns out of you all untruths, all lies, all wrongness of speech…Ahhhh and then a blue being that comes from his spiritual heart to your spiritual heart, your prydiam, and this blue being burns out all impurities of thought, all the thoughts that keep you from being an enlightened being; from knowing who you truly are….Hummm and now let that blue being become a broad blue avenue and down that avenue comes Guru Rinpoche himself; pure light, pure love, pure awareness, pure energy, total wisdom, absolute power and he comes into your own heart and he resides there and when you know who you truly are, you and he are one. You are composed of pure love, pure light, pure energy, pure wisdom, infinite power and his mantra is: Om Ah Hum Budgra Guru Padme Siddhi Hum; Om Ah Hum Budgra Guru Padme Siddhi Hum; Om Ah Hum Budgra Guru Padme Siddhi Hum. Om Ah Hum Budgra Guru Padme Siddhi Hum.
Om is, Aum is the un-manifest. Aum is the eternal formless; the void. Aum is what lies behind all. Aum, Ah is the imminent, the imminence form of manifestation. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God and sound; the sound which is later to turn into form, the imminent is Ah. Hum, the manifest. Hum, the manifest. All the forms in the Universe are Hum; Om Ah Hum. Budghra – lightning bolt; three- in- one. The three-in-one lightning bolt Budghra Guru; the lightning- bolt -wisdom, wisdom, guru, wisdom, wisdom. Om Ah Hum Budgrha Guru Padme – Padme means lotus and it also means unbearable compassion. The three-in-one: Lightning Bolt, Guru, Wisdom inside you of unbearable compassion. Siddhi – of infinite power. Hum is manifest; Hum – heart; is manifest in my heart. Om Ah Hum Budghra Guru Padme Siddhi Hum – the three-in-one, the un-manifest, the imminent and the manifest; all are Padmasambaba and they are made up of unbearable compassion when they view the form and the three-in-one is infinite power and it all resides in my very heart and if I can go within to my own heart, to my spiritual heart, my prydiam, I will then know, I am He. I am He. I am He.
It is from this place in our heart cave where we now are that we watch the entire drama that is our lives. We watch the illusion with unbearable compassion; compassion meaning empathy; meaning the true understanding of how it is; a kind of empathy you can only have when you have quieted your mind down enough and transcended your ego enough so you can hear how it really is; so when you are with the candle flame you are the candle flame. When you are with another being’s mind you are the other being’s mind. When there is a task to do, you are the task. The mindless quality of total involvement that only comes when the ego is quieted and there is no attachment. It is only when you reside quietly in your own prydiam that you become He total life, unbearable compassion and infinite power. “Had ye but faith ye could move mountains” said, Yesuh and that is literally true.
The Bible is not a metaphor. It’s not a story made up that teaches how to be moral beings. It’s a straight message of how it is when man lives in the spirit and the spirit is right inside and it in order to get in the spirit it’s not a whole lot of hocus pocus. It’s a very simple, methodical, mechanical set of steps but they are only available to him who can hear. Let those who have ears, hear. Teach not he who does not want to know.
The whole game is based on faith. What you may not perhaps understand is the whole game you’ve been playing thus far is also based on faith. You have had faith in your senses. You have had faith in your rational mind. We are living in a society which a total temple dedicated to the rational man; even though the first commandment says, “There is only one God. Thou shall take no other God but me”. Even though that’s said and we repeat it, we still worship the rational man. We worship our own sense data. It’s only when you see the assumptions you’ve already been functioning on that you can start to extricate yourself. You have got to have heard the first message before any of the keys open anything because you don’t even know there are doors until you have heard the first message.
George Gurdfieff was a Westerner that went this entire trip or at least a large part of it. He said “You don’t seem to understand. You are in prison.” He said, “If you were to get out of prison, the first thing you must realize is that you’re in prison. If you think you are free, you can’t escape”. You see the problem? If you think you’re free, you can’t escape. There’s another way of saying it – If you think the games you have going are what lead to what it is you’re seeking in life, forget it; forget this trip entirely. What is required for this trip, was required to go within, to accept “ye become as little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven”; to go the entire trip again, you have to have experienced despair. You have to experience a giving up of the faith in the systems you have going thus far. It’s a necessary prerequisite; it’s a necessary prerequisite.
Transcribed by Jessie Senibaldi