Spiritual Transmission. Amir Freimann

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СКАЧАТЬ and in the state I experienced that day outside the hospital in Jerusalem, there was no such split.

      In that fraction of a second, the very foundation of my being seemed to shift. When I found myself back in the world of self and time, I knew that Andrew had always been and would always be my Teacher, and that somehow I had always known that.

      I stumbled to the phone booth at the hospital entrance and called the house where Andrew was staying.

      “Hello,” he answered in his now familiar voice.

      “Andrew?” I said, “This is Andrew. I mean, hi, Andrew, this is Amir.” I couldn’t think straight.

      “I’m yours,” I said.

      I could feel Andrew smiling on the other end.

      “I knew that since we first met,” he replied. “Why don’t you come over and tell me what happened?”

      SEPTEMBER 15, 1987

      TOTNES, UNITED KINGDOM

      A few days after completing my end-of-year exams in medical school I flew over to the U.K., and was warmly welcomed into one of the sangha (Sanskrit for community) houses of Andrew’s students in Totnes, a town in England’s picturesque South Devon region, where Andrew was staying.

      A few weeks after arriving in Totnes, I spent one evening after satsang (Sanskrit for being in the company of a guru) with Andrew and the people who were living with him. The next day I received a message from him that he wanted to talk with me, so I went over to his house. As we sat together in the living room, Andrew laid out for me the full picture of my psycho-spiritual makeup. He said that on the one hand, he found me an exceptionally warm, trusting, serious and committed man, and felt a deep connection with me; but on the other hand, he felt a heavy presence of ego in me, and he and the other people with him had been very aware of it during our meeting the night before. He said it was rare to have these two extremes co-existing in the same person. Then he said: “You want to become as light as a feather, and this may take a few years. I suggest that you forget any plans you may have other than being with me. Think of yourself as a wandering monk. This means you should completely forget about your medical career.”

      That was a lot to let in, and Andrew saw that and got up to make coffee for both of us. During the few minutes that he was in the kitchen, I decided I was going to follow his advice. Instantly, I experienced a change in my attitude. When he came back, holding two cups of cappuccino, I told him: “Andrew, something completely unexpected has just happened to me. Only a few minutes ago I was dreading the possibility that you would suggest that I completely discard my medical career, and now I feel like I’ve just dropped a few sandbags, to help my takeoff.”

      And so it happened that I ultimately and irrevocably discarded my plans to become a medical doctor, and never looked back.

      But my meeting with Andrew that day also marked another significant turning point in my life. Until that day I had never liked coffee, and under any other circumstances I would have refused it, but when your guru makes you a cup of cappuccino, you drink it. I drank it—and to my utter surprise, I loved it. That day I became a coffee lover.

      NOVEMBER 1990

      SANTA CRUZ AND MILL VALLEY, CALIFORNIA

      In mid-1988 I moved, together with Andrew and over one-hundred of his European students, to live in the United States. We lived for about a year in Boston and then moved to Marin County, California. At about the middle of 1990 the pressure on me by Andrew and my friends in the community, to face my “Israeli macho” conditioning, was becoming unbearable for me. I could see some of what they were pointing out to me, but I also felt that there wasn’t much I could do about it. I fell into despair and considered giving up my spiritual aspirations and returning to “life in the world.” At some point I left the community and moved to Santa Cruz, a few hours away from where the community was living. I rented a room in a house there and spent a few months working and thinking about what I wanted to do with my life. The crisis ended surprisingly with a dream.

      In my dream I was sitting face to face with Andrew, close to him, telling him in great detail all I was seeing and understanding about my psychological and spiritual condition, all the obstacles I saw in my way, which of them I had already faced, which of them I felt I could overcome and which of them I had no confidence that I could overcome. Andrew listened to me very attentively without responding, and when I finished speaking (in the dream it was after a long time), he said to me very simply: “It all depends on what you want.”

      I woke up immediately. It was still completely dark outside. The dream was so lucid, so tangible, that it could have been real. I knew that in the dream I was clearer and more accurate than I could ever be when I was awake, and I decided to write down all I had told Andrew in the dream while it was still fresh in my memory. I opened my diary and began writing feverishly. I wrote about the obstacles in my way, but as I read what I wrote I knew these particular obstacles could not stop me. At the end of the process I had all the obstacles clearly laid out on the pages of my diary, and none of them was a real obstacle. I knew what I wanted.

      At 9:00 a.m. I called the office of the community and asked to give Andrew the message that I wanted to come back. Minutes later I received a call from Andrew. I told him what had happened, and asked him to let me come back to the community. “Why don’t you come over and meet with me and a few of your friends,” he suggested. A few days later I moved back to the community.

      JANUARY 1991

      BODHGAYA, INDIA

      (DURING A MONTH-LONG RETREAT)

      “Andrew, what happens when we die?” The question came from a Bhutanese monk at our month-long retreat; he wore saffron robes, and had been coming regularly to satsang with Andrew.

      “I don’t know,” Andrew said, “I don’t have any memory of it. But when I get there, I’ll send you a postcard.”

      We all laughed, and I started thinking: Do I know anything about this question? Is there anything in my experience that could indicate to me what happens after we die? What if I died right now—would everything stop or would something of me continue?

      I sat there, imagining that I had died, suddenly, without anything leading to it, and I knew that my death would have absolutely no effect on my relationship with Andrew. It wouldn’t even register on that level—it would be completely insignificant. I didn’t know how I knew that, but I had no doubt that it was true, and as I contemplated it I was flooded with intense ecstasy. I was thinking about death and I was totally ecstatic, because I knew my death would mean nothing for my relationship with Andrew.

      JANUARY 1998

      RISHIKESH, INDIA

      (DURING A MONTH-LONG RETREAT)

      “I’ve just inherited a lot of money and I don’t have to work anymore,” said the man sitting in front of Andrew in satsang. “On the one hand, I am attracted to do social work and help the needy, and on the other, I am pulled to dedicate my life to the spiritual quest. What should I do?”

      “You should find what it is that pulls you like a black hole, that if you immerse yourself in it you will disappear into it, and then you should give yourself wholeheartedly to that,” Andrew replied.

      I contemplated for a minute what that black hole was for me, and quickly came to the answer: It was the purity and absolute nature of the enlightenment teachings СКАЧАТЬ