Enlightenment Blues. Andre van der Braak

brought to light. On the other hand I find that I don’t mind being a little further removed from that all-consuming fire, so that I can warm myself with it instead of being burned.

      In Devon, the seventeen of us living in the villa in Dittisham were the first rank of Andrew’s students. Other, newer students looked up to us, tried to get our attention, tried to get invited to our house. Now, in Amherst, there are about ten student houses, and there is a kind of hierarchy which seems clear. Andrew’s house is of course the first, with Andrew, Alka, and a handful of intimate students. In the second house, which is near Andrew’s, live students who often cook for Andrew, and whom Andrew often visits. Our house is the third in rank. The ranking of a house is determined by the degree to which Andrew’s teachings are being lived. To keep us focused we begin to have regular house meetings in which we evaluate how well we are living the teachings. The problem is there are no clear guidelines for that, only unwritten ones. One of Andrew’s main points is that you don’t have to do anything to be free; you don’t have to meditate, pray, perform rituals or do other spiritual practices. We are already free, and we only have to stay aware of that. But then what does it mean in day-to-day reality to be free? There’s only a negative definition of that: if we behave in an egocentric way, cut ourselves off, want to protect our privacy, hold on to special relationships, then we are not free. Or, it means we resist the fact that we are always already free because we want to hold on to our separate ego. So to keep a standard we have to take a firm stand with each other if we notice such resistance.

      2.2. The House Meeting

      We’re all sitting in the living room facing each other. Dinner and coffee are finished, and it is time for our house meeting. There is an uncomfortable silence. There are eight of us. I sit in the chair near the front window. On a couch next to me are Lucy and Jean, two English women in their thirties. On the chair opposite me is Luna, Andrew’s mother. Over the past weeks I’ve grown very fond of her. She’s psychologically astute, and unafraid to be critical of Andrew and the community. After Andrew’s miraculous meeting with Poonjaji, Luna was one of the first people he’d called. Ecstatic about the transformation he’d experienced, he told her to take the first plane to India. And she had done so, becoming one of his first students. Now, after having been with her son in Rishikesh, she’s moved out of her apartment in New York City to join us in Amherst. Sarah is sitting in the chair between Luna and me.

      Lucy starts to speak. “I want to bring something up that I’ve been noticing,” she says, “having to do with how Andre and Sarah are relating to each other.”

      I freeze. Is there anything wrong with our relationship? Sarah and I are the only two in the house in a sexual relationship, and Andrew has been speaking in satsang these days about the attachment in sexual relationships, and how the romantic illusion can lead us away from enlightenment because we get infatuated. I remember the couple from Boston that Andrew has been speaking to about this—they’ve decided to split up for six months to investigate their attachment to each other. Lucy has also recently split up from her husband Rudy. She lives with her two sons in our house, while he lives in another student house.

      She continues, “You know how Andrew has been speaking about no personal attachments, about the importance of not holding on to our fixed relationships just out of habit and conditioning. I’ve noticed how there is something sticky in the way that you relate to each other. You give each other special looks, and special attention. I feel, Andre, that you are spending more time with Sarah than with the other people in the house.” Other people nod in agreement. Obviously, this point has been discussed prior to the house meeting.

      I shift uncomfortably in my seat. My first impulse is to rebel, to jump out of my chair and tell them that I don’t agree, that they should mind their own business. But that’s my ego speaking of course, wanting to protect my private life. It doesn’t want to investigate honestly and without prejudice, doesn’t want to consider that maybe Sarah and I are too attached to each other. But I have to admit to myself that I don’t fully trust Lucy’s motives for speaking out against Sarah and me. I know she and Sarah don’t get along very well. And maybe she’s taking it out on us because she had to split from her husband.

      But this is all personal, secondary stuff. The main thing is to look at this from the standpoint of Andrew’s teaching. That’s what we’re trying to do in these house meetings. And I recognize that what Lucy is saying is exactly the point Andrew has been speaking about. Sarah and I are spending more time together than with the others. I find that difficult to give up; in a certain way it simply feels natural to me for us to spend more time together. We’re in a relationship after all. But this stickiness is a personal conditioning that we are both holding on to. To give up this personal attachment is the sacrifice that Andrew is asking from us. So I say to Lucy that she has a point, and that this is something that Sarah and I have to look into. The others question me about how serious I am about changing this pattern, and after a bit of talking they seem convinced by my sincerity.

      Now the conversation turns to Sarah. Jean, a fairly dominant woman with glasses and middle-length red hair, talks about a conversation that we had a few days ago. During that conversation Sarah had said with a happy smile that she and I had had sex every night for the past week. Jean now throws that in to prove that Sarah is indulging in her sexual desires, that she is not living the teachings, that she is throwing away her freedom by taking refuge in her attachment to me. Other people agree. I keep silent. I feel it’s hardly appropriate for me to say anything about this. But I don’t like the way Jean is going about it. I feel she’s exaggerating. But then, my judgment is probably clouded because of my attachment to Sarah. Maybe this is exactly a sign of how attached we are.

      Sarah is now questioned more deeply by several of us, and she’s becoming more and more upset. She starts crying. Lucy tells her not to try to escape facing the truth by pretending to be emotional and weak. And so the meeting goes from bad to worse. It feels terrible to see Sarah under the gun, but at the same time I feel she has to look into this. She has to take a stand with this emotional weakness, for the sake of her own liberation. But the others in the house don’t feel Sarah is doing this now. They tell her she is being evasive, defensive, emotional, and sentimental. At the end of the meeting everyone is quiet. Sarah has not ‘come through’. Coming through would have meant that she not only agreed with the criticisms, but would have also apologized in an emotionally convincing way, and have shown to the others that she was genuinely abhorred with the behavior that had just been exposed. She is unwilling to face herself in this way. Instead, she has just fallen apart—buckled under the pressure. This is not a good sign. It pains me to see her like this.

      As we go to bed Sarah apologizes to me, tells me that she will make herself stronger. I try to reassure her that everything will be all right. I tell her it’s good that we let go of our attachment to each other; that this is why we are here with Andrew. She nods. I hope that she will come through but I’m not sure about it.

      The next day there is a lot of talk about our house meeting the day before. Andrew has been briefed, and he wants this sorted out to the bottom. I go for a walk with Luna. She is very outspoken. She feels that Lucy and Jean were on a power trip. I hesitate. I tell her that I had similar suspicions but that I can hardly be expected to be objective.

      “Nonsense, you should have said something,” she says in her usual direct way, “let’s call another meeting.”

      So that evening there is another house meeting. Luna speaks out about her misgivings with Lucy and Jean. Lucy and Jean argue with her. They say she is too psychological, too intellectual. I try to keep the peace and steer a middle course. Then Sarah herself begins to speak. She agrees with everything that Lucy and Jean have said. Sobbing loudly, she berates herself for being so weak and sentimental. I don’t know what to say. I feel angry at Lucy and Jean for making Sarah go to pieces like this, but at the same time I can see that Sarah is clinging to me. Maybe everyone’s right. Maybe she would grow up more if she were forced to stand on her own two feet. Would it be better for us to separate? Should we sleep in separate rooms for a while? I find it hard to put aside my personal feelings for Sarah and stand by the larger, objective truth of the situation. But that is exactly what Andrew is asking us to do.

      The situation with Sarah continues for what seems