First and most importantly. I met a true teacher who showed me how to end the indulgence in fixation. Before meeting this teacher, all my work to end the fixation met with only limited success.
Introduction to From Fixation to Freedom
[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.22″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.25″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.25″ custom_padding=”|||” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.7.7″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]When I wrote my first Enneagram book in 1987, there was only one other available on the subject. It was written from a Jesuit perspective and described the Enneagram in terms of Jesus. I wrote mine in an attempt to make the Enneagram accessible and to point to its use for transcending the fixation. At the time, my own spiritual search had not ended so my book could only go as far as I had gone. In the intervening decade two major events have precipitated the writing of this book.
Eli
We both are missing being in satsang with you. But we are taking care of our bodies for right now which has been a great challenge my cancer came back just before New Years. We have both been growing in spite of our lack of being with you.
I’ve seen my attachment to my body much more clearly since we last saw each other. I woke up last week and I couldn’t understand what this weight was everyday I woke I’d feel this weight and couldn’t describe it. But I could describe what it felt like, sadness. I shared it with Adrian he told me he ‘d been feeling the same way and told him that I understood it to be fixation it was about the attachment to the body, a body that is harmonious physically. He said, “ I think you’re right”. Once we both saw it , it burned and a smile came over our faces.
Five and a half year ago, I learned I had breast cancer.
In the middle of a huge crowd of people a radiologist called to tell me the news on my cell phone. As I felt my mind and body tumble through space, Eli’s voice called out to me: “It’s always a good day to die.”
Many diseases and much physical devastation later, I’ve been given the Grace to live that Truth as this ego body dies. The diagnosis is unimportant. The realization is Everything. Any day is a great day to die to the imagined future, and the not-good-enough past. It’s always a good day to quiet the mental and physical and emotional stories we tell ourselves, no matter how logical or righteous they may seem at the time.
Dearest Eli and Everyone,
No escape :). Last weekend I was literally taken to a sangha where I was asked to give a video-satsang and talk about my insights. Mysteriously a friend of mine called me last week to join him and talk in front of a group of people at the weekend. They usually meet every month but the leader of the group became ill. After this satsang, I really experienced what Papaji said:” I’ve never given satsang, I always only receive satsang.” At the end of the day I got so deeply silent, there was just space, love, peace, oneness, gratitude.
Although there was so much silence and love the day before the event, of course when I got there I had to face my fear of losing control :), the stupidness of wanting to meet other people’s needs, the fear of I will not be loved and I will be judged.. etc, and all kinds of fears that usually come with the 6 fixation. And the greatest thing is that the fear was there but IT DID NOT MATTER. I was used by Grace anyway. It was really burning in me but deep inside there was so much trust!
Baden Baden, Germany
Sixty of us gathered together to lift the veils. We came in as coaches, trainers, therapists, mothers, printers, pilots and more. We saw through the veils to what is untouched by all identity. We discovered what it is to be a true friend and the power of trance work to reveal and finish the unfinished business that keeps us clinging to our unresolved egoic identity even after many deep and profound realizations.
For me this event was coming full circle in the teaching as well. Before meeting my beloved, Papaji, the bestower of silence and liberator of all souls, I had spent a decade using trance work and the enneagram to facilitate waking up from the trance of personal identity.
Because of the response from the people, I see the usefulness of this work. As a result I will be incorporating Lifting the Veils and beyond into the U.S. Three Year Intensive. This started in August with very good results. Also, after this latest Baden Baden retreat I have been asked to start a Three Year Intensive in Baden Baden that will focus on passing on the insights and skills of this work. This will begin next September.
I could not have imagined being able to resume my teaching schedule in the condition my body was in two years ago. Or even less could I ever have imagined teaching Lifting the Veils.
Aussie Report
We are nearing the end of our tour here in Australia. We love the people, the culture and the countryside. The sangha here is deep and true. Many people have reported first being in retreat with Gangaji at her Blue Mountain Retreat fifteen years ago.
A college professor at the Research School of Pacific & Asian Studies of The Australian National University in Canberra was relating to his new wife how he had become radicalized. He mentioned my name, she googled me, and he flew to Sydney for a satsang meeting and dinner. Pete now, Dr. Van Ness then, had been my mentor in charge of my doctoral dissertation at the Graduate School of International Studies in Denver. (Condi Rice was a few years behind me, and he says she was a liberal before she went to the dark side). The last time I saw him in a classroom setting, my name was Elliot Zeldow. I was 23 years old. I walked into the room with a jug of wine and a joint to announce that we were shutting the school down and setting up Woodstock West on the campus lawn. It was spring of 1970, and we were protesting both the trial of Bobby Seal of the Black Panthers and Nixon’s announcement of the illegal bombing of Cambodia. ( The shooting of the students at Kent State happened during these nation-wide protests).
When Gangaji and I first came to Budapest in the 1980s, our first impression was of Border Patrol Soldiers with guns and Red Stars on their hats going through our luggage in our train compartment as we crossed the border. (It felt fifties noir at the moment.) So we were totally amazed when our hosts had a small gathering at their flat and we all sang the old hippy song, The River is Flowing together in a circle in their living room.