What was the one, Sri Ram, Ahura, Master Buddha, Yahweh, Allah, the one, Sri Ram. Ahura mazda buddha. Your way has begun. Ahura mazda buddha. The way they make a love for the one Sri Rama, Rama's the Buddha, Yahweh lives on.

[01:17]

A love towards the One, Sri Rama, Arjuna, Mahasta, Buddha, Yahweh, Vishnu, Allah. T'was the one, Sri Rama, Arjuna, Mahasta, Buddha, Yahweh, Shanti, shanti, shanti, shanti. Shanti. Assalamu alaikum. Shalom aleichem. Peace be with you. I feel that one thing that we said yesterday

[02:23]

First of all, I can't even begin, I have to say to all those beings who are here, thank you so much. That's what I want to say to them, because They make it all possible as far as I'm concerned. All those beings who are one's teachers and I have learned from all of them and that's all I'm doing. So I want to say that to you beings, all of whom know who they are. Thank you. I feel pretty funny sitting in this place because I know it's your place, but thank you for allowing me to sit here.

[03:28]

The thing that I'm supposed to talk about is radical solitude and communities. And the way I'd like to preface this talk is to say what my poor understanding is of what is meant by this. The people who have been talking here have been speaking a lot about East and about West. I remember being in Bombay watching the sunrise through the Queen Victoria Gate and it occurred to me very clearly that America was the East. Okay, I was there and you were here and this was the East and I was in the West, obviously, because that's if you go from California. And I think that

[04:32]

I feel that there is no doubt that we have some business to do. There's a man who told me this story about these two guys, this tribe. And they were talking one day and they got into a thing about which was the way to do it. And so they said, well, I'll tell you, you go this way and we'll go that way. And someday we're going to get back together again, you see. And what we're going to do is we're going to, you know, we'll see where we've been. You know, I talk it over. sit down around the fire and say a few words about our journeys. And I think, as speaking as an American, which it seems to be that I am by nature of birth, that America is very fascinated, obviously, with the East, with the Orient. Whether we use our fascination in terms of trying to kill Orientals, as we do in Vietnam, or whether we try and love them, or try and understand their philosophies or their religions, it seems that we're involved with them.

[05:39]

And whether we like it or not, we're involved with them. In one way or another, we're involved with them. I mean, it seems to be that we're involved. So if we're involved, we're involved. Now, to go from there, you see, we have to make some kind of this, people talking paradoxes, East and West, Christian, non-Christian, always talking paradoxes, except for a few beings who get up and refuse, absolutely refuse to admit that any paradox exists. Because there is no paradox, it's very simple. It's all very clear. And if it's not clear, there's a paradox, there's a question. Am I right or am I wrong? Is it this or is it that? Is it East or is it West? Is it Buddhism or is it Hinduism? Is it Hinduism or is it Zoroastrianism? Is it Jesus or is it Mary?

[06:40]

As long as you have a question, there's an answer. And as long as there's a question, there's an answer. And as long as there's this, there's that. And duality continues forever. So there is a rectification of it, but the rectification of it consists in kind of like you're playing basketball, you see, and this guy, he's guarding you, and you fake him out. You gotta fake him out, because that's the only way you can fake him out. If you can deal with that. So we're living here in America and we have this understanding that this is the holy land, that we are living in the holy land too, a sacred holy land. And that what we are in the process of doing is discovering the nature of our holy land. And a lot of wonderful beings have come to teach us about our sacred holy land.

[07:45]

When we're talking about this, I'm written up as to being the founder of this place called Lama Foundation, which is not the case. I'm one of the people who was there in the beginning. I remember a man, this old man from Taos Pueblo, he came and he told me, see, they're in it too. I'm his sister here, and I'm sorry to see so few Native Americans here, but that's the way, I mean, we haven't gotten to that yet, because they've really got the message pretty straight too, you know, really straight, really clear, and they're just very quiet about it. Well, he came up and he wanted to see what we were doing, because, you know, we had all this kind of stuff hanging out. We didn't look like the normal person in the Southwest at that point. So these Indian people, they thought they'd check us out. And he came up and he said, we're walking around, it's very beautiful. It's like here, you know, it's beautiful. Because that beauty evokes something inside your being, if you can appreciate it.

[08:49]

It's said that the corn stalks and the flowers are the stars of heaven and the stars of heaven are the corn stalks and flowers of the earth. Now if you can see it that way. So he said like this, he said, young man, I want to tell you a few things. Just a few things. I'll take a little bit of your time. He said, I am an Indian. You are a white man. Now, I have my way. You have your way. You lost your way. We're living on the same mountain. They live 30 miles that way. He says, we live on the same mountain. I kind of remember my way. But I see you've lost your way, my dear friend.

[09:53]

Well, I'll tell you a few things, you know, but don't take my way. You see, that's my way. So you've got to find your way. You've got to find your way. You understand what he's telling us? You have got, we have got to find our way. Don't take my way. Don't take my way. Don't become an Indian. Don't become an Indian. Find your way. I'll help you find your way, but don't take my way. We're talking all this morning, this Rabbi Green said, I'm not a Christian. I'm not a Christian. I'm a Jew. I said, well, wonderful. Isn't that wonderful? That's what he is, you know. And the good father of the Eastern Church, he said, I'm a traditionalist. I'm an orthodox. Good. That's what he's saying. He's saying, I have my way. You've lost your way. I help you find your way.

[10:54]

Don't take my way. But now, he says, okay, I'll tell you a few things. First of all, very simple, he said, you see that up there? Now we, unfortunately, we're inside, but you know there's this light, it's called the sun, that's shining. He said, you see that? He said, that's your father. You see that? He got down on the ground. That's your mother. Take good care of her. Wonderful mother. Feed you, give you food. Everything comes from your mother. We went, we looked at all the trees, we looked at all the little plants growing, the things. He'd tell me each one of them. He'd tell me the name of it in his language. It's a gift. It's holy. It's sacred. Take good care of it. Be nice to it. He took me all around.

[11:55]

Took me an hour and a half. One walk. And then we come back. And he said, that's my son, my dear young man, friend. I may even call you that. Our ways are very simple. We understand how it is. But you understand somehow. You find it. You find it. Well, I just show you a little bit. So, for a lot of us, that's the way you beings who come from other cultures appear to us, to some of us. All of you. We've gotten to the point where we admit that we lost our way. I mean, that's where we're at. And I know a lot of you still feel that you're on the way and your way is right, and we're not in any argument.

[12:57]

We just suddenly found ourselves one day, like real kind of little, and we didn't know which way to go. Which way to go from there? Which way to move? So we're trying to work things out for ourselves because there's a lot of things that don't make sense. We say, it's a Christian country. Well, patently it's not a Christian country. We're living in a savage country. It's patently obvious to most of us that the commandments of Christianity or the Judeo-Christian Greek Mediterranean complex are no more followed in the United States of America or any Western technological nation at the present time than anything is followed. It's a farce and a lie. Except at certain levels. The breakdown of the Western Christianity is certainly very clear when you look at Germany and what arose in Germany.

[14:01]

That was a Christian civilized country. What arose was a monster. It's a monster. Because something was imposed on top of us which we haven't taken the trouble to understand clearly what it is. And so there exists inside of us all sorts of things that we don't know how to deal with. And we got a beautiful overlay, but not much more. So we've been trying to figure it out, just a group of people, and we've been asking people, we tell them, we're pretty stupid, we don't know very much, we'll probably goof and make mistakes with your ways, we'll probably do all sorts of travesties of your religions and everything, but please help us, because we're very little and we don't know what to do. And so some people have stepped forward. to help us. And we're kind of grateful.

[15:03]

We're not buying their package. We're seeing. We're trying to figure it out. And they seem to be pretty good about it. One thing leads to another and you find yourself with a bunch of people who finally have come to that admission that they don't know, okay? Very simple, that they don't know. They look around, they can't figure it out. It doesn't make sense though, it really doesn't make very much sense. It doesn't, it isn't clear to us. Maybe it is to some of you, but to us it was not clear. Those of us who were Christian, were raised, some of us raised in the Roman church, some of us raised as Protestants, didn't see, because we somehow, I don't know what happened to us, but to this generation, they really understood, you know, what did that man mean when he said, give up everything and follow me? And what did he mean when he was talking to Nicodemus?

[16:05]

And what did he mean about all those things, really? And what did he mean about love your brother? And where does that really start? And what are the extensions of it? And what about all those people in the prisons and in the jails? What about those people, really? And what about all the money changers in the temple? What about those? They're right back in there, aren't they? What about all of that stuff? Is that Christian? Is that the Christian church? Well, if that's the Christian church, many people said, well, you know, the germ of it's good, and we're going to find out what that germ is, what that seed is, and they can keep the rest of it. And they can have all their arguments and everything. We don't care, because that's insanity masquerading as the reality. And the Jewish kids, same thing. And that's predominantly what we are, right? We're Jews and we're Christians who found ourselves now living in cities, on mountaintops, all over the United States in all kinds of different ways and beliefs, you know?

[17:13]

It's like what Mao said, let a thousand flowers bloom, is exactly what's happening. There's a thousand, thousands of communities of people living all different ways and nobody knows how it's going to turn out. No one knows. It's an experiment as all kinds of people living all kinds of crazy different ways. And many of them crying out for all kinds of help and not finding and tormenting themselves and going through pain because they want to know. They don't want to know here. They don't want another answer for their heads. You know, it says, well, this is the way it is because they look and they look and they look and they don't believe it anymore. It's not that way. It says, thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not kill. Period. End of report. Thou shalt not kill. Period. End of report. It does not say, Thou shalt not kill South Vietnamese, but kill North Vietnamese, does it? No, it says, Thou shalt not kill. Period. End of report. No more.

[18:14]

That's it. That's the message we got, isn't it, as people? We got that message. Thou shalt not kill. So, you know, that's a gross example and it just gets down to finer and finer examples and we realize that we don't know anymore what the truth is because there's this gigantic... it's like the smog level in New York. There's this layer of... I think that's what the smog must be sometimes, of our misunderstanding of what it is and what it's about. So we're looking. So we go to these people and we live in certain ways. And so we look around for models. Now, one of the other things that we don't mention is that that magical stuff, whatever it was, floated around and floated through my generation pretty strongly. I think Baba Ramdas was talking about it last night. And a lot of people I knew suddenly were interested in all sorts of things that they didn't used to be interested in.

[19:15]

I mean, from all sectors of the society, from physicists in universities to prisoners in jail. You know, it seemed to kind of cut across some kind of spectrum of what people wanted. So that's all part of that soup too, and we can't leave it out. It's kind of like our supposedly bad child we keep under the rug, but I'm going to pull that rug up a little bit and say it's there too, you know. That's part of what happened to us, people. So we started, people, I would meet these people in the streets, you know, and they may be Bodhisattvas for a day, or Jesus for a day, but they had an experience of something which doesn't go away. They've had some kind of an experience that you're supposed to get, at least from what I understood when I made my first Holy Communion. That's what I thought I was going to get when I did that. And that was the measure of my impurity, I guess, that I never quite got that message.

[20:20]

Well, I got that message one day, you know. I finally really, I got it. I used to catch glimpses of it, you know, at church. You see it every now and then. You know, like that mass yesterday morning. It kind of points that way, you know. But like there was churches and schools for a reason. for children, you know, and that's to teach them something. When they go through puberty, when they go through a certain age, that's what the church and the school is supposed to be there for. That's what initiation is about. You take your young people and you say, okay, here it is. This is the sacred life. This is the meaning of your life. This is why you're alive. And our society has not provided those answers for us. We're not saying it's supposed to. They finally did. They don't like the way they did, but they have. We got some answers now. Do you understand what direction we're going in, in this whole thing?

[21:23]

Or is this going over, going by you? Yeah, okay. So, we find ourselves in these communities, and we're looking for these models, and you, all you people have provided us with models. The Catholic Church, the Christian Church, but the funny ones, you know, it's like before Alexandria, it's like Gnostic, Gnostic. It's the Desert Fathers, it's the Starets of Russia, It's things like that in our heritage that really kind of mean something to us, because we can relate to it and really directly understand it. I met this wonderful man in Albuquerque, I was working on this book, printing book, I wandered in this printing press one day, and I really got to talking to this man. He was so high and so beautiful. I didn't know where he came from.

[22:25]

I said, how did you get on to all this? And he said, well, I was a Catholic priest for 22 years in a parish in New Mexico, and he was a Chicano. So if you can, any of you who are into what parishes were like, you can imagine how imprinted. He said, I met this woman, and I fell in love. And I said, wow. And he said, yeah. And he said, but we still are trying. He talked to me a long time. He celebrates mass in his house on the kitchen table. And I never saw anything like that. Because I really had the feeling that I was really in the Holy Land. You know, like what it was like when it was really at the beginning. There was this guy who came, you know, Jesus, and he did live a life. And they lived a certain way. And it was a very simple way. And the way they did it, they didn't have any big gold chalices and fancy flashing things. They didn't have that. They didn't have any big churches.

[23:25]

Just like a rug, you know, because maybe a rug, that's where they were meeting that night, or a table. You know, really simple. Really simple. So, that's what these people keep telling us. It's really simple. My young friends, they say. My young friends. Thank you, Granddad. They say it's really simple. I mean, I see it like... Just very simple. So, And there we are on that side of that mountain. But there's things that we can't understand. We still can't understand. So I say, well, we understand that people need solitude. All people need solitude. They need a time to get away. And it's been called meditation retreat and everything and so on and so forth. And so we try and find the best people to teach us meditation that we can find.

[24:27]

We ask them to come and to help us and they help us and I don't know if they consider it worth their while but it's certainly worth our while and we learn something from it and we do it. We have a little house up there, it's a little retreat, you know, and somebody goes in there and they get their food every day and they come out. They're finished with that. And then sometimes people go to the city and they say, God, that's the worst retreat I've ever been on. It's worse than the hermitage. Do you understand what I'm saying? That because we define it as that, it's just the understanding of the need for that particular kind of space apart in all communities. We have the same understanding, that's all. We do it. We need it. We use it. We come back and we find the best people to teach us that we can find. That's all we're doing. And we're trying everything out. that we can think of to try out.

[25:28]

And where is it getting us? It got me out of it. I couldn't make it anymore myself. Because I can't understand that either. Because it becomes an institution again. And it's this question we were talking about formation, I think, was one of the titles of what we were talking about. It's the formation. It's the spiritual formation of our beings. We have to understand that there are no fixed loci. That because the truth was true, does that mean that it's always the same truth, or is that a definition of truth? Do you eat pablum? Do you go on eating pablum because you ate pablum? You know, if you're sick you stop eating. Does that mean you stop eating forever? Does it mean you start eating sometimes? In other words, what we're understanding is that some of our people have gone, they've come from the Peace Corps, let's say, and another guy is a helicopter pilot from Vietnam, you know, who's just gotten off heroin.

[26:39]

And there they are. And that's part of our society. And they say, well, here we are. Here we are. See us? Here we are. We're your children. And so they come in. And we live together. And a lot of those people become something else that they never thought they'd become. And I don't know how it happens. I'm not aware of how it happens. It's a process. We're not concerned with the product. These communities are something that they're passing through. There's Jesus houses and houses of prayer, you know, for those who are into that model. And then there's the worst shooting galleries in the world for people who are into that model. There's all kinds of crazy things happening out there because nobody is supplying any kind of stuff that anybody can, because it's not in any level where it's stuff anymore that anybody can deal with. I was privileged enough to attend a meeting in the other room of the masters.

[27:45]

I don't think they have the answer either, really. Because there isn't any answer, is there? Is it an answer we want? Is that because we're asking that question? It is. It is. This is it. This is as far as we've gotten right now. This is the sum combined total of our being at this moment. All of you people, I guess, are in some way involved in the spiritual life. All of us are. This is what we're manifesting. So suddenly you wake up one morning, you know, and you're supposed to get up at four o'clock in the morning, you go down and you sit there for a certain number of hours in a certain way that somebody tells you. You get stiff in the shoulders and then somebody comes along and loosens up the shoulders and then suddenly you find yourself in this room with this man and he says, how do you realize God when you are sitting there? And it's very clear.

[29:01]

It's not a question of anything, really, is it? How do you realize God? How do you realize God? You can walk around for days, months, weeks, years, just thinking that all the time. How do you realize God? until you get to the point that there's no society to go back to because you've gone off some deep end. You've taken it to some kind of logical conclusion. They call it blowing your mind. You've blown your mind finally. I mean, you don't have a mind left because all these people have been telling you all this to say there is no God but God. I'd try that one on. There is no God but God. I can say that about probably 50 million different ways. There is no God but God. All this talk about Jesus this morning, there is no God but God. All this talk about Vietnam, there is no God but God.

[30:02]

What about the Berrigans, there is no God but God. What about, there is no God but God. There is no God but God. There is no God but God. There is no God but God. Do you have a question? Is there really a question? There is no God, but God. And you can go on asking the question, you can become more and more exquisite at asking the question, at defining it. But that's the, there is no God, but God. Do you want a name? There is no God, but God. Do you want to call it something? There is no God, but God. Is it this? There is no God, but God. Is it that? There is no God, but God. Do you want a label for it? There is no God but God. Do you want to put it in the box? Put it in the box. Take it out. Do whatever you want with it. It doesn't really make any difference, because there is no God but God. And everything that you do is an act of God.

[31:07]

And everything that I do is an act of God, because God is all that there is. There is no other. There's nothing else. This is it. You know? That fantastic line of Huang Po again. What is before you is it. What is before you is it. That's very simple. And as soon as we accept that, then we can begin. Then we begin. Then what we do is what St. Paul says, we put away the toys of the children. Those are the questions. We come to a finally we understand that there's no God but God. It's very simple. And we see that there's all this suffering and we realize that it doesn't really arise from causality but in some way it does arise from causality and that one way to put an end to suffering is a rather simple way is to practice those causes which give rise to happiness. and those causes which put an end to suffering and put an end to unsatisfactory experience.

[32:13]

Could it be any more simple than that? If something is unsatisfactory, if you're suffering, put an end to it. Have done with it. Or go on suffering. That's okay. It's part of it. Because there is no God but God, and that's God's suffering. That's the agony on the cross. Christ will remain on the cross suffering as long as we continue to suffer. When we want to stop suffering, finally really accept the promise as the truth, there will be an end of suffering in the world. And that's what we're trying to find out about, and that's all I'm going to say. I am, [...] I am

[33:47]

I'm trying to figure out how I'm gonna do this. Ho! [...] I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

[34:58]

Thank you. Thank you. Dear people, I don't have very much to say and I have very little claim to be standing here except that I've born three children and in the last year or so I've tried very hard to follow my heart with the result of which that I've experienced something of death and something of life and there have been many people here

[36:46]

who have asked a lot of questions about not just Lama Foundation, but the way in which some of us are living, the reasons that we may have for going the ways that we go. I sensed at lunch today a very grave concern with the different patterns of life in this country. And so as a representative of one of them, I just wanted to speak to it for a moment. It's really quite simple. As a child and as a student, I was always very fortunate because I was a very high achiever and everybody took very good care of me. I didn't have the problems that Sarah lives with every moment of her life. But I feel that I have been in prison.

[37:49]

And that could be said very glibly, right? I know what it's like to be hungry, but I don't know what it's like to be hungry for years and years and years and see my children not eating. But I know what it's like to be hungry on a lot of different levels. And I think that when we come together to speak of God, that partly we're coming together in praise and partly we're coming together because we're in prison and we want to get out. And for me, much of the inspiration of being in this place during this week is seeing a few beings who really seem to be out. It's wonderful. It's just wonderful. You know, there's a hope somehow. And I don't think the hope is essentially political or essentially religious. I don't think it has much to do with institutions which generally are formed to maintain the truth which has already been uncovered.

[38:58]

I'm not saying that they are necessarily harmful, but we seem to have a tendency to want to stay in prison. You know, we change the walls around a little bit. So, once you get hold of the tale of the possibility of getting out of prison, If you dare, or if you find yourself with no choice, you hang on to it. And it takes you a lot of strange places. And you find yourself breaking a lot of rules, which you yourself had always thought to maintain. And I'm sure that there are many people in this room who, within the established institution of which they're a part, have found this same thing. Because anytime you take an internal journey, you go into very dangerous places. You know, I begin to feel that every meditation is potentially a risk of dying.

[40:02]

But what else is there to do? No? There really isn't anything else to do. And so we proceed to die one way or another in order to live one way or another. And I found that life in suburban America, which is what I was doing up until about three years ago, was not living. There were walls around the people, and there were lots and lots of churches, and there were walls around the churches, and there was lots of very interesting stuff to do, but it didn't really seem to be relevant to any kind of source. And so when I and my family at that time left and went to Lama, it was with the kind of feeling that there's a possibility. There's a possibility, however difficult, to build a sort of life where every day, and most of the time every day, you'll be doing something that seems to make sense.

[41:19]

So when you get up in the morning and you see the sunrise, and that makes sense somehow, that's all on time. And when you eat, you give thanks. That all makes sense somehow. And the children are able to be close to the earth, you know, and run in the woods. And meditation happens like two, three times a day. And lots of people are praying. And you don't really have to think about how are we going to tell our children about God, because they see. They see who we are, what we do, and that's what they see. And if it's terrible, that's what they see. And if it's holy, that's what they see. Because children are much more perceptive than we are. Most of the time. Not all of the time. So, for me it was an attempt going into a community and helping to form one. to integrate the compartments of my life and my being and the being of my family in such a way that prayer and meditation and spirituality were not separate from all the things that have to go on to maintain life on this earth.

[42:44]

And it's really that basic. I mean, you don't have to have very much to do that. You need to keep warm and you need to have some way to make a little money, but not very much if you're living in a group, to have enough food and there needs to be... It's just that kind of basic physical stuff and from there on you can proceed. And as I see it, that's what Lama was about when it started. And it's probably still about that. And also all of the other, you know, communities that have any spiritual connection are really about that because there are a lot of people who know that they're in prison and they want to get out. And none of the systems really have shown that they're able to deal with it on a social level. And it seems a little peculiar to say, well, we can deal with it, you know, internally.

[43:51]

You meditate so many hours a day and you say these many mantras and you sit and you fast, you do all those trips. And something's going to happen, you know, and you'll get more and more centered, more and more calm and more and more present. You know, that's all right, but At the same time, if you're going to a job 9 to 5 and living a life that's very controlled by money and stuff and commuting and cars, makes it, seems very contradictory. You know, I know it's possible and I know people who do it, but I guess we're very hungry and it's just not enough, you know. So in a way we try to make a new life, which is an old, old, actually old established tradition. You know, you can't stand it, you go make a new one. It's the whole tradition of this country. And that's... If you don't like it, get out. Love it or leave it. You know, I love it. We've said the reverse so many times, it's nice to trade off.

[44:59]

But we went this spring to France to help Pierre Valliat, and there were people from all over the world, and they were all kind of looking for the same thing. It's just the Americans seemed to be doing it a little louder and a little faster, that's all, because we got more space to play with. You know, people have wanted to know about Lama. I mean, I could give you all kinds of like hours and how many bells and so on, but that really doesn't matter too much at this point. I just wanted to tell you the impulse behind my going into a community and the work that I was doing there. The only other thing I wanted to add was a great deal of thanks to all these beings here who are teachers, who are teaching. Because for many years you all and people like you have been just giving in this incredible fashion which I don't understand except it seems to be something that grows in one's nature.

[46:08]

So thank you for it. Namo Buddhaya. Namo Shakyamuni Namo Shakyamuni Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya

[47:12]

salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu Namo Buddhaya, Namo Buddhaya, Dhārātmā, [...] Dhārātmā Namo Buddhaya, Namo Buddhaya, Namo Buddhaya, Satsang with Mooji

[48:39]

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