Transcription
Lila: I wanted to ask you about your path. What is it that moved you, the Dharma, to begin, and how did it develop from there?
Rob: Okay. Historically, I started actually doing TM [Transcendental Meditation] when I was -- I don't know how old I was, young. I was still in school, so 17 or something. But I never really liked it. I don't know what it was; it didn't really have that much traction to me. My friend was kind of into it, so I did it for a while, but it never really sparked for me. Maybe it was the way it was explained or wasn't explained. It was just sort of -- it didn't make any sense to me. Or maybe I wasn't ready. I don't know. Anyway, I didn't really get into it. Then I went and had this thing in India. I was interested in the mind, really, and I had, like I said, a kind of sensibility spiritually I would say.
Lila: Sensibility?
Rob: Receptivity -- like I was telling you about my father. Oh, that's what I meant to tell you earlier! Sorry. He had this difficult history around -- I'll just say this because I didn't say it earlier -- he had this history with the Holocaust, and his relationship with Judaism and Orthodoxy and keeping rules and all that. And I think, for him, it was about meaning as well. Somehow it gave meaning to all that suffering that he went through if he was religious, in some kind of irrational way, I think. Anyway, at 13, 14, I really wasn't into it any more. Then as I was 16, 17, I started just sensing some kind of nascent spirituality emerge -- especially with nature and with music. It was really strong for me, and I would spend a lot of time just walking on my own in -- they were big parks, really. And music was really important. So when we were supposed to go to synagogue on Saturday morning, I would, at a certain point, just go for walks in the park, and just be in this kind of ... I would tell my father I was at the youth service.
Lila: Oh, you lied.
Rob: Yeah, plenty of lying was going on to get by. [laughter] I went to play football when I wasn't supposed to, all this stuff. Yeah. Lots of lying going on. When I decided to tell him the truth one time -- I just, "Look, I'm actually not going to synagogue. I don't really believe. What I do is I go to parks and I feel God there." And he said, "What are you talking about? You sound like you're mad or in love or something." He just didn't get it. He completely didn't get it. But then, again, he got really, really upset, and some time went by -- I don't remember; days or weeks, even. Didn't talk to me. Really angry about this. And then he said, "I want to talk to you." And he sits me down on the sofa, and he speaks two or three hours straight about the Holocaust, you know, all these intense stories. And I just drink it up. I didn't say a word. And at the end, he put his hand on my knee, and he said, "So I'm glad you've decided to be Jewish again." [laughs] I realized at that point -- I was still young. I was 17. I realized, "I don't think he can compute this information. It just won't go in." This kind of thing happened maybe two or three times when I realized, "He's not going to digest that information." So I just pretended, but without really trying too hard.
Lila: Or feeling too guilty.
Rob: Yeah. It was just, like, "He can't see something. He won't. It's too painful for him." So much was riding on us as his progeny, as his offspring. He felt like his life was kind of -- he didn't have a life; it stopped in the Holocaust. So everything was given into the children. They were the continuation. So not to be Jewish, not to be achieving, not to be -- money and ...
Lila: So much in the book, second generation ...
Rob: Yeah, yeah. I read some books about it, yeah. Anyway, so this was emerging in me. I did TM a little bit. I wasn't really into it. And then when I went to, I had that trip in India, I still wasn't really attracted to anything there spiritually. I wasn't practising. And then when I was at university, it was, I think, right at the start of my second year in university, I was just walking, and I saw a poster advertising a meditation class. And again, it was one of those things -- I knew I was going to get into this. It was just an intuition thing. So I went to the class, and someone explained the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. Probably now I would listen and think, "It's not even a very good talk." I don't know. Maybe. But it just made complete sense to me. I stopped, I think that night, drinking and doing drugs, because it was the fifth precept. It made complete and utter sense. It was just, like, "Yeah, I get this."
So I didn't start on a retreat. I started with -- we had to like [meditate for] five minutes a day at home, like homework, and then you would come and discuss with a teacher for ten minutes, and then there would be another class. But right from those five minutes, it was like, it was really powerful for me. I was really -- just those five minutes, I was like, "Wow, I feel really different." After I'd go, I'd have my dinner, and it was like, "Things look different!" So I really took to it like a fish to water. I was really into it. And I was kind of naturally disciplined, and I loved it, and I just got more into it.
I did that for two years, until I went to America. And when I moved to the States, I moved very near IMS [Insight Meditation Society]. You know IMS. So I was in the same state at least, in Boston -- it's west in Massachusetts more. I was a couple of hours from there. But we had CIMC, Cambridge Insight Meditation Center. It's a non-residential centre. I was reading Dharma books. I loved Ajahn Chah and that whole lineage, and everything -- I just, everything I could get; all Theravāda, mostly, I think. I was also kind of into a little bit of Sufi stuff, but just kind of reading more than anything.
Lila: Do you remember who?
Rob: What I read? No, but I remember reading those Reshad Feild books. I really loved them as a teenager. I don't remember much else. But practice-wise, it was very straight-ahead Theravāda, and really a lot of emphasis on meditative practice, and I loved it. Then I got into the whole Insight Meditation thing, and I loved that too. And -- should I say this on the tape? [laughs]
Lila: Yes. Please!
Rob: It's such a long story. You ask me these questions, and they all involve long stories! [laughter] About a year and a half after I started meditation, I was really into it, and so I would go to whatever little day-longs or weekends. I hadn't done a long retreat.
Lila: You were 20 ...?
Rob: I started about 19. I think I was 19 when I started, maybe 20.
Lila: That was back in England?
Rob: Yeah. So this is still at university in England. I went to any day-longs or weekends. And I went to one -- I don't know exactly when it started, but basically, when I look back now, it was suddenly all this pīti, really intense. It was great! I was like, "This is fantastic!" [laughs]
Lila: So what is pīti, because ...
Rob: Pīti is rapture or basically bliss, a lot of bliss, physical bliss, from the meditation -- really a lot. So it was just, like -- and my consciousness was changing, and it was just wonderful. If I get the order of things right, a little while into that, after a couple of months or something, something had bumped up to another energy level from these day-longs and things. And I was practising every day. And then I started practising twice a day. Then the pīti started being accompanied with all this kind of kriya, really shaking and stuff like that, and quite strong. I talked to the teacher there. I can't remember -- what did they say? Whatever it was they said, it wasn't very helpful.
After a while, what happened was there was a lot of bliss at first, and just nice, and then the bliss and the movement, and then just the movement and the bliss had gone. But the movements were super intense, like really a lot. I was so dedicated and so into it, so I just stuck with it, you know? I'm just trying to remember the details now. I can't remember what advice I was given in England. I actually don't remember. But whatever it was, it wasn't particularly helpful. Then I moved to the States, yeah, and then I had the IMS there and the CIMC. So first thing, I got to the States, it's like, "I'm signing up for a retreat at IMS." And I did all these weekends at CIMC. And then this movement thing was just getting more and more intense. It would come whenever I would still my mind. Even listening to music, if I listened with a lot of concentration, my body would, like, explode. [10:40]
Lila: Like, move? What way?
Rob: Move and shake and spasm and contort. It developed over a while. By the end -- I'll tell it sequentially. It was stronger and stronger. I really just kept showing up. I didn't really know what to do with it, you know? This was the '80s -- '85, '86, '87. All the teachers that were around were really -- lots of people had very conflicting ideas about what was going on, and what I needed to do. No one really knew. No one really, at that time -- I'm kind of painting a picture of the Insight Meditation tradition at that time. A lot of people saying this or that, da-da-da, from the teachers, but no one really knew. So I was kind of left on my own with it. I remember it just got stronger and stronger, and I was practising really with a lot of dedication. I was living at a really high pitch -- like, I lived alone for that first year before I had -- I'll tell you about that later. So I lived kind of like a monk. I practised my music and really studied hard, and then I did my meditation, and all this crazy movement. I didn't really have any -- I didn't know anyone in the country. So it was a little bit crazy, and I'm like 21, and this stuff is just getting stronger and stronger. I did these weekend retreats and day-longs. And at one point, I started roaring -- like a lion, like a tiger! [laughter] I'm just saying that ... anyway! So I started roaring. And by that point, because I was moving so much and doing all this stuff, and I think sometimes hitting my chest really hard and doing this [turning head side to side].
Lila: In the retreats?
Rob: Yeah. Like, in the meditation, and sweating, and it was really intense physically. It was a real workout. So the other people were like, "What the hell's going on with this guy?" The teacher said to me, "Why don't you just go and do some walking meditation downstairs?" So I went down, walking meditation, and he comes down, maybe the next day or in a few hours, and said, "How's it going?" I said, "Well, I'm okay, but now I'm roaring." [laughter]
Lila: While you were walking?
Rob: Yeah! [laughs] He said, "Roaring? Hmm. What do you do for a living here?" [laughter] I said, "Well, I'm studying music." He said, "Oh, I thought maybe you would be a lion tamer or something." [laughter]
Lila: Not very helpful!
Rob: People really didn't know what to do with this, you know? Then I went on a residential retreat at IMS. These were non-residential weekends, and the energy was just building and building. And again, it's summer in Boston, it's getting really hot. So I went to this retreat, and then it starts getting even stronger, and really like repeatedly thumping my chest [gestures hitting chest with fist] -- really conscious, really bright, sharp mind.
Lila: And you didn't try to stop it?
Rob: I didn't try to stop it.
Lila: What did you tell yourself?
Rob: What I told myself was the way out is through, you know? And I just had this ...
Lila: You're purifying something.
Rob: Purifying something, and "I need to find out what this is. Something will emerge. I will get conscious of something." And I was up for the challenge of it, no matter how difficult it was.
Lila: Amazing.
Rob: On this IMS retreat, it gets stronger and stronger, thumping, and he said, "Can you sit at the back? Because people are getting scared, you know." So I sat at the back, and it's still strong. And then he comes in, the teacher, and says, "Can you maybe sit in your room?" It's across the courtyard at IMS from the meditation hall. So I went and sat in my room. And then it gets even more intense, and I start talking in tongues, like babbling.
Lila: Like gibberish?
Rob: Yeah. Well, I don't know, but something. And roaring, and hitting myself, and spasming. By the end of the day, I'm physically exhausted. And then at one point, my whole body just started shaking, like completely almost bouncing up and down. I was completely conscious. I was a little freaked out, a little scared, but just like, "Okay. Look at it." And really sharp, bright mind, a lot of mindfulness. Then I just spontaneously, "No, no, please, no," and shaking and shaking. Obviously I had shouted it.
Lila: "No, no, please, no"?
Rob: Something like that, I had shouted. So I was very aware that I was doing it, but I didn't choose to. It wasn't a choice. The meditation teacher was in the middle of a sitting. He comes running out of the hall, bursts into my room. [laughs] I said, "I'm fine; it's just a little bit strange, you know? But I'm really fine."
Lila: This is so English! [laughter]
Rob: It is! [laughs] "Obviously I'm fine ..."
Lila: "I'm fine. I'm just super crazy right now."
Rob: Yeah! And so he said, "Look, I think you need ..." Oh, that's the other thing! Before that, in an interview, he said, "Look, I think you've been tortured and executed in a past life, and this is the reliving of that memory." He had said this to me two or three days earlier, and I was like, "Pfft. Wow." I sort of took that back and said, "Okay, well, if there's something that's going to come ..." So I was really looking. It's like, all this stuff is going on, maybe I'll see a memory and it will release. He just came to me and said, "Look, I think you need to ... I think it's better ..." I was hitting myself so hard, smashing my chest, just over and over, and roaring and all this stuff. He said, "I think you're going to hurt yourself, so why don't you stop?" This is about six days of a ten-day retreat. And I was heartbroken. I was devastated. I was like, "How am I going to get enlightened if I can't ...?" [laughter]
Lila: Not beat yourself to death! [laughter]
Rob: And I remember I walked on the road outside IMS. I just walked. He'd said this, and he said "Stop," so I had to get back to Boston. He said, "You need to find a past life regression therapist. I know some people. I'll put you in touch, or you can look this guy up or whatever." So I walked down the road at IMS, and I was just -- you know, I was 21, and I loved the practice. I was so into it. I was so enamoured and on the path. And then it's like, "If I don't meditate, how am I going to [get enlightened]?" And it was just terrible. It was like [deflating sound and gesture]. And at the same time, part of me was relieved -- it was exhausting, you know, just physically.
So I went back to Boston, looked up this guy. He said, "I'm too full now," this guy. He's a famous past life regression guy. "But I've written this book. I'll put you in touch with two of my students who are training to do this. In the meantime, read my book."
Lila: What's the book?
Rob: I think -- Roger Woolger. It was called Other Lives, Other Selves. So I read this book after all this stuff -- really intense, and all this da-da-da, and the "No, no, please, no." And from the outside, you know, it made sense, what he said, because it looked like almost someone was maybe stabbing me with a spear or something, and I was just like this [bracing and twisting]. I went back to Boston, again in the crazy Boston heat with no air conditioning, and not really having much of a group of friends, in this very solitary existence and super intense. I read this book, which was full of like -- the idea is, if you remember past lives, it's usually going to be the most traumatic, most bloody and gory and horrific things that will come to the surface! [laughter] There are these stories of people, and they're just really horrific, like horrible. So I'm reading this and thinking, "Oh, my God." [laughter] "I wonder what mine is going to be!" Anyway, then I saw these two people [students of Woolger], but I think I just didn't trust them. They didn't exude a sort of confidence in what they were doing. So nothing really happened.
I walked by a kind of spiritual book store, and I just saw like a psychic advertising something, readings. I was so confused what was going on, so I'm like, "What is this thing?" And I was so looking, with as much attention as I could: "Can I find out what this is? Can I see a glimpse of something?" Nothing. I just didn't understand it. So I saw this sign, and I said, "Maybe someone else can give me something." I went to see the psychic, and she sent me to a psychotherapist -- which was probably good advice. [laughter]
Lila: Finally someone who made sense! [laughter]
Rob: Yeah! And this woman, I saw her for about three months. She was okay. It kind of got me over a crisis. I stopped meditating. At that point, I moved into a house with some other musicians. It was like a party house. I started drinking beer a little bit, and just like more normal for a 21-year-old. So my energy was super tight, high, like a violin, and it just kind of came down. I stopped meditating, hung out, more social. And I saw this person, got me through a crisis, and then kind of let it be. [20:12] Anyway. But I still wasn't meditating. But I was still interested in spiritual things -- like the music I was listening to and everything. So I had this idea: at some point I'm going to get back into it. I did a lot of body work. I did a lot of -- what's it called? Kwon Do?
Lila: Tae Kwon Do?
Rob: It wasn't that. It was Sundo, it was called. It's similar. It's a bit like qigong, but it's Korean. I did a lot of that, and some other -- really kind of grounding the energies and opening things up. Then, at some point, I got working with a psychotherapist that I mentioned earlier. And she was great. It was like a whole other level. Actually, at first she was great. That's a long story. I remember going in and saying to her, "I feel like either I have really intense emotions that I don't understand, or I feel like something is going on emotionally but I'm not in touch with it. So I want to ...", you know? That was really helpful with that. I started getting more in touch with my emotions and more conversant and fluent, and with a lot of body work, and different lifestyle and social.
Lila: Took the pressure off.
Rob: It was like I was really an intense pressure cooker, you know? It's beautiful, but it's like ...
Lila: We were talking about intensity the other day, and I was reflecting that in intensity, you can have different ingredients. It's not only the pressure. It's the heat as well, the direction.
Rob: Yeah, completely! And how much wisdom is there, and all kinds of -- how balanced it is; many things.
Lila: It sounds like a huge pressure cooker, as you were saying. What did you understand from all that?
Rob: At that point, nothing yet. I had a strong, "There's probably some really intense trauma there -- maybe past life, maybe this life." Into therapy, it's like, "Okay. This is good." I told the therapist, and she was like, "Okay." She was of the school, "Oh, there must be definitely something there." So I was living -- to say that I wasn't practising wouldn't be right, but I wasn't doing formal insight, I wasn't doing formal meditation. I stayed away from that for a long time.
Lila: So what did you do?
Rob: I was doing this intense psychotherapy process -- again, back to intensity! She was intense and it was intense. She really demanded that you did it full-on, and you really gave it, and you really sorted your life out. Yeah. I was doing that. But music -- practising music a lot. And the music, like I said, is part of the spirituality for me. So all that was there. And I think probably, let's say, four years, three or four years went by; something like that. Still in the therapy, still doing body work, a lot of music, and good times. And my father died during that time.
And then, at some point in this process, there was so much heart opening, and so much getting touched, really beautiful, good, and I think something from the heart opening meant that -- I wasn't clear about it at the time; what actually happened, and I can explain it later, what actually happened was I found myself walking into book stores (when they had book stores and Amazon hadn't taken over the world). Going into book stores, you could just browse. And more and more, drifting over to the Christianity section, and reading about Jesus. I'd grown up not even really knowing who Jesus was, except that it wasn't good. [laughter] That's another story! When my mother's mother died and got cremated -- she wasn't Jewish; she didn't convert. She got cremated in a kind of ...
Lila: The grandmother? Why would she convert?
Rob: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So she was nominally Church of England. She had a kind of little bit Christian sort of thing. The coffin was on this electric conveyor belt into where it gets burnt at that moment, and then we were supposed to sing these hymns to Jesus, Christian hymns. So the coffin's going in, and this music's going, and everyone's singing, and my father's like, "Don't say that! Don't say that!" [laughs] So anyway, that was an aside. [laughter]
But anyway, I found myself at that time really drawn to Christ, to Jesus, and the sort of heart teachings there, and this devotional sense kind of just blossomed in me. I could never have predicted it! It had something to do with the heart work that I was doing. I just kind of fell in love with Jesus and the sort of heart teachings. I really was saturated in that. A little time went by, and I found what's called centring prayer. Have you heard of it?
Lila: Just yesterday.
Rob: [laughs] How funny! Where did you hear of it?
Lila: In a Dharma talk! Somebody mentioned it in a talk. Very strong concentration, it sounds like, the way he described it.
Rob: That's interesting. I think it gets taught different ways. But what I understood at that time was more it's a 'letting go' practice. It's more like neti, neti. The idea is, you have a word ...
Lila: "Neither this nor that."
Rob: Yeah. You have a word -- mine was "God," basically -- that just points your orientation towards letting go of everything that's not God. So any image, or any thought, or any feeling, however spiritual they are, however lovely, they're, in Meister Eckhart's words, they're creature, not creator.
Lila: Creature?
Rob: In other words, they are created. They're not the transcendent divine. It's dualistic.
Lila: It's very dualistic.
Rob: It's very dualistic, but a bit like neti, neti in the practice. You just kind of, "Not this, not this, not this. I want just this, just God." So my word was "God." I think some people then concentrate on their word like a mantra, and now it's taught differently with more images. But anyway, back then, the way I did it was really this letting go practice. And it was beautiful. There was a lot of devotion. So I was devoted to that and that whole thing, and something was just happening in my heart and in my being in really beautiful ways, very lovely, and none I could have predicted. [27:22] And then I got involved with a centring prayer group, and I was actually teaching that a little bit in a group at the local church. I was really into that.
So that went on for a while, and then at some point, I was just curious. I always had this thing: insight meditation is my thing, kind of, and I'll get back to it someday. So I just started doing mettā. I added mettā to the centring prayer. I was practising quite a lot. And that seemed fine after a few years. And then gradually I started adding the insight meditation back, and it was fine. It was really fine. All that crazy stuff, it was different now.
I went back to CIMC, but that was the time when I first had contact with Christopher [Titmuss]. He won't remember. He used to come to CIMC twice a year. I would go. We'd get a different teacher every week to come and give an evening Dharma talk. There was something about him that I really just gravitated -- the way he presented things, and the sense of freedom, and I loved it. And also the political, the environmental. I remember him saying -- it must have been 1996 or something; I can't remember exactly -- something like, "If we don't get green in the next twenty years (which is now passed) ..." There were a lot of things. I loved it. I loved everything else, too, but there was something about him. So I went on a retreat with him in '96 at IMS. This was after a long time of not being on retreat and not being really intense. And it was really fine. It was completely fine.
Lila: Wow!
Rob: But I'd done a lot of work in that meantime. Back to the explanation: I think if the energies and intensities are not balanced, things can get really bonkers -- really bonkers, mad. [laughs] I have so many students now come in with beginnings of this kind of thing, and I know how to work with them right then to just -- it becomes not a problem. You don't have to assume, "Oh my God, it must be trauma," or this or that, or "It's the kundalini! Oh, help!" But if you relate to it wrongly, it can go -- like it did with me, it just gets crazier and crazier and crazier. I've lost count how many people have this kind of thing and it's like -- I just know how to work with their energies or get them in a slightly different way, and it just goes away.
Lila: It's so interesting that you say it, because when you were talking about it, I had this thought, memory, about a retreat I was teaching with Christopher ages ago in India. There was a person on that retreat having something quite strong -- not as strong, but very strong as well: movement, shaking. And basically what Christopher said, very bluntly, "Too much pressure." Simply too much pressure. And when I was working also with the people having similar things -- not as intense; I've never encountered someone having such intense experiences -- I always kept that, and it's mostly basically always worked, taking the pressure off.
Rob: Yeah. And for me, there are different ways of doing that. One is, I think my whole -- looking back, there was one teacher, Bill Morgan, who's actually a psychotherapist. I told him all these different opinions, and he said, "I don't really know. But I do notice that it's usually the people who really put in too much effort that have this kind of thing." He said, "I can't really help you, but I notice that." That's one thing.
Lila: That's helpful.
Rob: Yeah, it was helpful in hindsight. There was a lot of pressure in the way that I was relating to practice. But there's also a kind of moment-to-moment pressure. One's working, let's say, with the breath, and it's like, how much am I going to be like an Uzi, like a laser beam? I could harness the mental energy like a laser beam. It's like, sometimes that's really helpful, and sometimes it's really not. One more thing: sometimes when the pīti comes and the energy comes -- this I encounter all the time -- it gets stuck, or people make it too narrow. So taking the pressure off is also making more space in the body and letting it flow. If I'd have known these things back then, probably ... Still, I learnt a lot through that massive, let's call it 'detour,' but it's not really a detour. I don't regret it, but a part of me is like, "Wow, that didn't really need to happen." [laughter]
One more thing: when I got back to the Insight Meditation scene, in that gap that I was out of it, that's when mettā had come in. I think people had realized, it's all gotten a bit kind of [pounds fist into open hand] and cold. So they had -- Sharon [Salzberg] had started doing a thing, and a lot of people were teaching mettā and balancing it. Again, there was a kind of imbalance of something in its infancy, and in different ways people have -- you know, a very different place now, and I would hope like you're saying and like Christopher said, teachers nowadays, when people have that kind of thing, they should know you can work with this quite easily. It doesn't have to be a big deal. And it's so helpful for the student. They have this thing, and they think it's so difficult, but really it can sometimes take twenty minutes and they know what to do and it's fine.
Lila: And it goes away. And even, I found out, when I actually tell people, "You know, you can stop it ..."
Rob: Yeah. I couldn't back then, but maybe it got to a certain point.
Lila: Maybe if someone would have told you ...
Rob: At the beginning, yeah.
Lila: We're back in that arena of somebody -- we need someone to tell us actually what -- it looks funny; why would we need someone else? But that's the way forward so many times. We don't know; something in us doesn't know and we have this power. One more thing that came to my mind -- actually two things. One thing is really the whole teaching of the Theravāda, the way it started off in the West, in the beginning, very [makes hand motion] -- not all of them; the Forest tradition and Ajahn Chah are more open. But they had to balance it, as you were saying. But for Christopher, for example, it was never anything -- he was never teaching this kind of thing because there was not pressure to begin with.
Rob: There wasn't that pressure, and he doesn't really do that laser beam thing.
Lila: And the other thing, the laser beam, for some people it works fantastically; for others, it works fantastically as well, and it has this thing, like with the intensity. I know it also very well, from my experience. I didn't have these kinds of things. But for some of us, the ability to focus the mind to a very narrow and sharp sort of thing, it's a double-edged sword.
Rob: Yeah, definitely. I find that I can do it now, no problem -- but it's just a mode. It's like on your camera you have a zoom or a wide angle or whatever. But there are ways of doing it, and also being conscious of what's happening energetically at the same time. Sometimes you're just like that [laser beam hand motion], and there are a lot of things you have to kind of be aware of at the same time and balance.
Lila: It sounds like you were very independent in your thoughts and in your actions from what you're telling me up to now. You look for resolutions ...
Rob: I was independent to a certain extent. I was very dedicated. Like I said, I had this -- it was very clear to me what was really important and what I really loved.
Lila: That's amazing.
Rob: And I think -- you know, I have this cancer, and I think I wrote on the blog thing once, one of the pieces that if I die I feel it will be okay, if I die young, is that I feel like I can look back to something around that time, 16-17, and really making choice after choice, no matter how difficult or what the possible consequences, in line with what I felt I really loved. So it's like, if you can look back at your life, no matter how many years or not -- if you look back on your life and you don't have that feeling, you're going to probably feel not that great about dying. But one of the things I think that I feel really grateful for now is that I feel like I can really say that, you know? And that's meant sometimes doing the opposite thing of what I was doing, whatever, but it's more like just keeping on track with that, living ... That, I think, is really important, whether you practise or not, whatever is important to the soul, to be close to that, and to follow that, and be in touch with that, and listen to that, and put that above everything else. Then I think the probability of regretting or feeling like I didn't quite live, or now death is somehow scary, it changes it.
Lila: Yes, of course. That's lived. It is a gift, and it sounds like you had it from quite a young age.
Rob: It's a gift, but it's also, it's like karma: every time you choose that way, then the next time it's easier to choose that. Every time you don't choose that way, then the next time it's harder to choose. It's a gift, but it's also a muscle that you strengthen or weaken.
Lila: Yes. And it's very inspiring to hear, of course. It's also in the mix of the karma of the listeners, the seers.
Rob: For me, it's an important element. But in terms of independence of thinking, I think at that point -- I feel more independent now; we can get to that. But at that time I was still ... When he told me, "You need to stop meditating," you know, I was still in the framework of, "How am I going to get enlightened if I can't meditate?"
Lila: You were very young.
Rob: I was very young. But just in terms of, like, I wasn't so independent of thought that I thought ... [laughs] So, stuff like that. Where were we? I got back into practice, and was really taken with Christopher and his teachings -- and everything else, too, but there was something about his that really spoke to me, something in the flavour, something in the atmosphere, and his teachings. He taught me a lot I understood quite quickly about emptiness, at a certain level at least. Not like the deep end, but more the perfume of the deep end but in terms of insights.
Lila: Enough to get you going in this direction.
Rob: Definitely, yeah. But what I would call the easier end. For example -- we may or may not talk about this one, but it's okay; you can decide if you want to pick it up at some point. This relationship with this therapist (who's now dead) got really complicated in a not-good way, really abusive actually. So there's another independence thing. This is going to be long if we go there. But let me say this now; then we can go back if you want later. There was a lot of, again, pressure on me. That was a very pressured situation. I felt like I was believing I needed to heal something, I needed to purify something, I needed to understand some trauma or have some catharsis or something so that I could have my spiritual power.
Lila: That was the framework.
Rob: That was the framework. And she hooked me that way.
