Enlightenment Blues. Andre van der Braak

as a spiritual path. Andrew doesn’t buy any of all this. He insists that enlightenment is beyond the mind and the ego, and that psychotherapy can only make the mind and ego stronger, more integrated, and healthier. He considers this a watering down of the spiritual teaching of enlightenment. He says spiritual life is not a hobby you can practice on the weekends or add to your life as a bonus. The spiritual life is a life of renunciation, and not compatible with a worldly view.

      He challenges his former Buddhist meditation teacher to a dharma debate—and we feel he clearly wins. The new has won out over the old. Quite a few of the long-term Buddhist practitioners and even a few of the teachers become followers of Andrew. There’s controversy in the air. Buddhist students are discouraged from going to Andrew’s teachings. He is accused of hypnotizing his followers.

      In his satsangs Andrew tries to inspire us to dedicate our life to the ecstatic reality of enlightenment, to surrender to our longing for liberation. The satsang room is often buzzing with excitement. After years of spiritual practice leading us nowhere, suddenly everything seems possible.

      To stay in touch with Andrew, we write notes to him to tell him about our experiences, about how satsang has struck us. Often Andrew reads our notes aloud in satsang. If it happens to be our own letter we’re ecstatic. We’re a close-knit group. We see each other every night in satsang, and the rest of the time we do everything together: eating, talking, discussing Andrew’s teachings, blissing out, watching videos, listening to music. There’s an indescribable sense of intimacy between us. We’re family.

      Before long we’re all writing ecstatic love letters full of mystical experiences and profound gratitude. We address Andrew as “beloved Master,” just like Andrew did with his own teacher, Poonjaji. In our houses we have pictures of Andrew, so we never have to be without his disarming, boyish smile, and his beautiful eyes that radiate goodness. His gaze seems to come straight from the Beyond. There’s none of us, man or woman, who isn’t profoundly in love with Andrew. We can stare at his picture for long stretches of time, feel ourselves melt and become one with him. In such a state of surrender, life flows by effortlessly. There’s no problem, nor has there ever been one, or could there ever be one. We’re just letting go and relaxing into this state of surrender, again and again and again.

      In the evening satsangs we’re amazed by the profound clarity in each of Andrew’s responses. He always hits the nail right on the head, puts his finger on some fixed idea that the questioner has unknowingly been carrying around, dissolves some emotional resistance in another, and sends us all into deep bliss through long and powerful silences, where we can feel the reality of No Separation tangibly penetrating the room.

      During the day we walk around with this precious secret firmly established in our consciousness. We can see it in each other’s eyes; we can hear it in any word we utter, whether in profound conversation or idle chitchat. Everything becomes sacred, whether it’s having tea with scones in the local tearoom, listening to a Van Morrison tape, or watching a Marilyn Monroe comedy. It’s the secret of enlightenment that we share, unbeknownst to the other inhabitants of Totnes, who to us seem to merely continue in their dreary, daily plodding existence, with no eyes to see and no ears to hear.

      We’ve rented a house in Dittisham, a few kilometers from Dartmouth. It’s a semi-detached. Ten of us live in the left house, seven of us in the right. Because Andrew comes to visit often, and shows an active interest in the affairs of the house, others consider us as a kind of inner circle. We ourselves feel that too.

      I am utterly happy here. I have found my destiny, like water that reaches its true level. The past and the future have fallen away from me, and I’m living in an eternal now. It feels as if my personal biography is at an end, like a book that after a certain page only contains blank pages.

      One of my housemates is a woman from Denmark named Sarah. She is 26. She has left her college studies to follow Andrew to England. She is attractive, intelligent and lively but also insecure. We spend a lot of time together, going for walks, having long conversations. I give her table tennis lessons during which we rave together about the fantastic turn that our lives have taken. Slowly we begin to feel attracted to each other. One day Sarah brings up the topic of being in a relationship together. I am not sure how this fits in with our new life. If my life is a book that contains only empty pages, how can I start to fill it up with other things? How would Andrew feel about this?

      During the earlier days of Andrew’s teaching, there had been touchy-feely stuff going on between people, something not that uncommon around certain kinds of gurus. People would stare into each other’s eyes for a long time, titillating themselves and each other with feelings of bliss and intimacy. In such a state it would seem the most natural thing in the world to sleep with each other. But Andrew spoke out against such things. Promiscuity would only distract from the jewel of enlightenment. He wanted people to be either in a relationship or otherwise to behave themselves.

      I decide to talk about it with Andrew. He listens to my story and then advises me to let it go for now. “You’re just getting established in this new realization,” he says, “and getting into a relationship would only distract you at this point.”

      I tell Sarah what Andrew has counseled and we decide to cool it, and just be friends.

      In January 1988, Andrew goes back to Amsterdam to teach. From there it will be to Rome. A firm community member by now, I give him my apartment in Amsterdam for the month, while I live with five others in a one-bedroom apartment. Sarah is also there. And again Sarah and I become attracted to each other. Each night I give her a goodnight kiss, and this little ritual becomes a little more extended every night. Then one evening as the others are out and Sarah and I are home alone, our overheated nervous systems can contain themselves no longer, and we start kissing and making out on the couch. We are definitely in love, what to do? I write a letter to Andrew, telling him about our renewed attraction, and asking him for permission to get together in a relationship. His answer is something to the extent that we are free to do what we like. After Andrew has finished teaching in Amsterdam he moves on to Rome for a month, and Sarah and I move into my apartment.

      Andrew’s teachings in Rome are a true European gathering. Students flock from England, Holland, Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, and of course Italy itself, enjoying the city, the fashion shops, and the coffee shops. It’s one huge vacation for everyone. After two weeks in Amsterdam with Sarah, I go for two weeks to Rome, to be with everyone. I live in a large apartment with twenty others. Every evening there is satsang, and during the day we hang out in Rome. It is just like our life style in Devon, only the scenery has changed. We invite Andrew to have a coffee with us and he accepts. He asks me to pick him up. So, dressed up in my best clothes, I go over to his flat. Alka, now his wife, lets me in and says that Andrew is almost ready. Then Andrew steps into the room, fresh out of the shower, and starts dressing. We chat about all kinds of things, and when he’s ready, we take a bus to the restaurant. On the bus I talk to him about my relationship with Sarah. In some kind of way I am trying to get his blessing for our relationship, but he is neutral and noncommittal. I am relieved that Andrew at least doesn’t disapprove. And I am thrilled to be spending this private time with him. Like always, it’s wonderful to be with him.

      Satsang in Rome is a big success. The living room there is a lot bigger than the one in Amsterdam, but is still much too small for the hundred and fifty people who try to squeeze themselves into eighty square meters. We sit locked in shoulder to shoulder on the floor, listening attentively to Andrew. The temperature in the room reaches tropical heights. This, for now, is the last chance to come to satsang in Europe. Andrew has announced that he will move to Amherst, Massachusetts, next month. As soon as Andrew starts giving satsang in the U.S. he will draw thousands of people in no time. We’re all convinced of that. Then we might all be sitting anonymously in the back row. So now is the time to take advantage of the attention we can still get from Andrew.

      I sit cross-legged on the floor. I am in bliss. Andrew speaks about his own story with Poonjaji. In front of a large audience that is awed with admiration, he says that Poonjaji has told him he will create a revolution amongst the young in the West! “I pass my mantle on to you,” Poonjaji had said. Andrew says that whoever wants can follow him to America where he will be teaching. From the first of May onwards,