Random meeting and teaching with Mark West (Nisargadatta) @ QVB 17-5-24

 Random meeting and teaching with Mark West (Nisargadatta) @ QVB 17-5-24

I had one of those random encounters yesterday with Mark West (a direct student of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj in the 1970s, who resides in Sydney). I consider Mark to be one of my teachers, and I attended some one-on-one teachings around 2015 or so at his residence in Kings Cross, Sydney. During that time, I had been able to enable some sort of energetic connection with both Mark, and also the whole lineage of Sri Nisargadatta, which become very devotional and yielded a lot of 'results' on the spiritual plane in general and with progress on the "I am" understanding and experience.

Since then, and perhaps from the first time I met Mark (also randomly) around 2013-2014, I had randomly experienced seeing or meeting Mark spontaneously around the Sydney CBD, where I worked in Town Hall precinct, and in other spots around the Sydney CBD. Sometimes we just have those unusual connections with others and for the time being, or during our lives, we seem to meet that person over and over in a completely unplanned and spontaneous way. A similar thing used to happen with a Tai Chi teacher that I had in the 1990s, Peter Yu, who was a master of Yang and Chen tai chi systems, and whom I trained with in the 90s learning Yang style tai chi. I would randomly see or find Peter walking around the city, and we would have brief chats outside training. This kept occurring until his death in the 2000s, where unfortunately I was not present or aware of this, and just stopped seeing Peter around until I did find out that he had left this plane.

Back to Mark West..

I hadn't seen Mark for several years, though I did seem him very briefly from afar this year or last year, but didn't approach him at that time, since I was busy and he was a bit far off.

I had been having the recurring feeling though that I SHOULD strike up conversation with him, as he looks to be getting on now, as he's in his late 70s, and doesn't look the best health wise. He's lost a fair bit of weight, and seems to have aged considerably due to health issues-- which he later told me he was having. Besides, having the blessing of a connection with someone who has a DIRECT lineage or connection with one of the Advaita "greats" isn't something you find every day.. so I did want to pursue my connection and relation with Mark. I endevaoured to strike up some convo if and when I next bumped into him.

Lo and behold, yesterday I was walking down QVB walk, under George Street, on the way over to my mail box, and I see Mark West walking slowly in front of me, down the escalators, carrying some old bags, an umbrella, and shuffling along. I followed him for a bit, and then when next to him said "Hi Mark.. how are you going, Mr West?"

Right away he was friendly, and asked "How do I know you?", I said "We did some one-on-one teachings a few years ago at your place.. I'm Dean.".. "Ah yes, I remember now..", he said, then he literally launched off into Nonduality speak and delivered a full blown conversation and teaching on nonduality, awareness, consciousness etc., while walking in the busy underground arcade.

We ended up near Pitt Street mall, and I broke in, asking where he was headed, and he said up near George Street CBA.. so I steered him up that way, and I offered to get him a coffee while we continue the 'teaching' conversation, which he agreed. We ended up at the cafe in QVB, near the Northern end, and sat there for a good hour to hour and a half. 

He took out an old worn copy of Sailor Bob Adamson's "Beyond Words, Beyond Mind", which is likely out of print now. He spoke a bit of Nisargadatta, which he can still quote from memory.. and also emphasised a convo he had where he mentioned to Maharaj that "Maharaj had failed because he (Mark) still didn't have the realization..", to which Maharaj replied words to the effect of 'Don't worry about his, Mark, I have planted the seed, and it WILL sprout in due course'. Mark then mentioned to me that the same thing had been done, ie Mark had planted the seed and this would sprout in due course if it hadn't done so already. We spoke of different topics:

- Nisargadatta Maharaj and his approach

- Emptiness in the Mahayana Buddhist teachings

- Douglas Harding's pointers to awareness and self

And then he read a large chunk from Sailor Bob Adamson's book, which is quite compact and points to the nature of awareness, consciousness and presence as the underlying reality of self.

After this, he read a few pages from "Nan Yar", which he also had in his old bag there, and especially around the theme of desire for happiness, and the having to let go of all teachings, books and texts eventually as the main aim is realization of the self, rather than book learning.

I understood at this time (rather than back in 2015 or so), that the whole point of this meeting, and these teaching sessions or nondual pointing sessions, was to actually imbibe the energy of the teaching/teacher, and let the pointing do it's work during that time, so as to establish some sort of abidence in/as pure awareness or as one's nature -- rather than worrying about the content of the delivery or what was actually being said. Let's face it, having heard or read material related to Advaita Vedanta, Mahayana Buddhism, the three greats of Advaita in the 20th Century (ie Nisargadatta, Ramana Maharshi, Atmananda), or nonduality in general.. over a period of years or decades, then generally you've heard pretty much every single pointer, concept, or teaching device already. It's not the content or any new content or pointing that will bring about an understanding or realisation of Self, but rather time spent contemplating and USING that content to undo obstructions or blocks to knowledge of Self (or Not-self).

The meeting ended with me having to get back to 'the office', and Mark having to get back to where he was headed in the city. We did exchange details again, since Mark's website was no longer around now (as he is retired and didn't have the time or money to maintain it.. besides, Mark was never a highly publicised teacher with a following, unlike contemporaries such as Sailor Bob, that have always had a solid following and need for material-- which Mark has reservations about, in terms of dependence on a guru or messenger for years on end.. but that's another story).

I'll let things run their course for now, as I've not made any immediate arrangements to meet again, but will be open to the prompting or possibility of doing this in the months ahead.

---

(Gleanings from Nisargadatta - Mark West (notes from meetings with Nisargadatta in the 1970s)

A couple of reviews for Michael Singer's Unthethered Soul series. (spoliers)

 

A couple of reviews that I came across that went against the grain with Michael Singer's books and material. More generalised information, tips, advice and a shotgun approach to spirituality throwing in the kitchen sink, but not really delivering the goods for the earnest seeker in any meaningful or practical way.

https://shannonlinden.ca/why-i-couldnt-surrender-to-michael-singer/

https://salvadorbriggman.com/review-of-the-untethered-soul-by-michael-singer/

https://www.scaruffi.com/politics/singer.html

If you're after something light, and some general information on starting off with spirituality, then perhaps this book set is for you.. otherwise, you may be best spending your time and money on something with a little more depth and less marketing.

Actualism or Actual Freedom - deep dive 1 - notes approach links issues discussions

 

Actualism or Actual Freedom - deep dive 1 - notes

I've decided to take a bit of a deep dive into a niche set of teachings and approaches called "Actualism" or "Actual Freedom". This originated around 12 years back, again from Australia (which is unusual in terms of being anywhere on the spiritual map). Originally, the approach was posted by a "Richard", and later included some other names "Peter", "Veneeto", and over the last decade has grown slightly to include others who claim to be 'free' and 'actualised' (but avoid common terms such as enlightenment, due to wanting to stand out as something different, a new teaching, or 'third alternative' to the current spiritual offerings out there).

If I had to sum up this teaching or approach, taking into account there's hundreds of lines of text on the source website attempting to explain what it is and isn't, then I would say it is pretty much:

- The consistent (or permanent when the habit self-ing/self-reference has ceased after a long while) state of present moment awareness with hightened clarity of external sensory perception and focus. This naturally leads to what AF is attempting to do, which is enjoy oneself and sense experience in the present moment (becaue the nervous system is calm, focused, clear and chilled). Of course, this isn't anything new, despite AF claiming it's a new thing, and this approach has been around for thousands of years via certain schools in yoga, Buddhism, Zen, etc. I won't say ALL schools, but certain niche schools that took this approach to clarity and awakening. IMO there are better ways of approaching this instead of using an enquiry only, and forsaking other aids such as a regular meditation practice, having some stability and ethics in life etc.. and this is why there seems to be a relatively few people who have stuck it out with AF and gained the promised end result.

I originally encountered this teaching and site (also) about a decade ago, but due to the lack of coherent content on the site, and a lack of structured approach, decided to leave it. There was some commentary on DharmaOverground and in a few other places such as Soh's ATR blog site, but commentary and understanding seemed to be limited to the main actualfreedom.com.au site.

Since then, an excellent, coherent and simplified site has popped up explaining Actualism in simple, easy to understand terms. This can be found at https://www.simpleactualism.com/intro and I would highly recommend this over the original 'Gold Standard' website http://actualfreedom.com.au/ in terms of beginning to study the approach. However, the original website does have a massive amount of background information and Q&A, which makes it worth browsing over time. 

----

As an initial reading or overview today, after having fully gone through the SimpleActualism site, some points I'll note here:

• The aims seem to be similar to certain approaches in early Buddhism, being insight into anatta, and the loss of a 'self'/'I'/'being' or referential entity or individual. This is for the overall aim of being "happy and harmless", and living a sort of 'natural', 'common' state of existence without psychological suffering. Key differences between other common spiritual paths include the treatment of sensuality (encouraged in AF, not encouraged in Early Buddhism for instance), a lack of philosophy (supposedly, although there's quite a lot of philosophical conjecture on the AFT site), and of course a much simpler structure and approach with AF, excluding all rules, conduct, cultivation of concentration, insight, maps, etc.--- NOTE however, there is some talk about cultivating a harmless, happy state of being and investigation into feelings, emotions and negative states with the intent of move out of these and back to the natural, actual state of affairs. 
• This also resembles some nondual approaches, particularly certain contemporary nondual teachings such as Tony Parsons and Jim Newman, where there is just  experience or life happening in a fresh way right now, minus any person or individual present.
• There are however, some ideas present when one probes deeper into the AF approach, and some of these ideas remind me of Barry Long's approach to the human being and body, a removal of all spiritual concepts, theories, and spirituality in general, coupled with the idea of the present moment or NOW being all there is (cf Eckhart Tolle, Barry Long), which is a sort of gateway into experiencing this moment as being a living body. 
• The process for this, or practice if it can be considered one, is to use an enquiry to return one's awareness to the present moment and experience 'being alive' via the senses and apparent (actual) world, minus any reference to an internal entity. In terms of likening this practice to other practices, it would be what Shinzen Young calls "See-Hear-Feel Out" or favouring the attention on external phenomena appearing at the 5 sense doors- excluding internal images, sounds and feeling sensations, and a noticing of how this brings about a cooling of the mind and feelings and generalised happiness and wellbeing. Internal feeling sensations and emotions are used differently and in an investigative way to dig up what's happening in one's experience that triggered a loss of the 'happy, harmless' state, with the aim to bring up these emotional causes or triggers into conscious awareness and drop them in favour of returning to a moment by moment experience of being alive (and happy and harmless).
• The enquiry itself is "How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?". There is also some enquiry and investigation into moments when one is not feeling 'good', or ruminating on thoughts and feelings outside of the present moment, which are the cause of negative emotions in general.
• A main goal of the Actual Freedom approach is to be "happy and harmless". Triggers that detract one's experience from this are investigated as to when and how these arose, with the idea being to return to one's experience at this moment as a living body-mind, happily and harmlessly.
• Fundamental to the AF approach is also the notion of a PCE or Pure Consciousness Experience, which is basically a hightened sensory experience (since it seems described mostly as a temporary, but attainable state), whereby one experiences the perfection of sensory phenomena (the actual world) and one's natural being, minus any referential self/I/me. These "PCE" episodes are encouraged and used in the approach as well, though there's discussion about how and when to use these episodes with the aim of permanent 'actual freedom'.

As I go through the approach over the next week or two, and edit this blog post as needed.

Main themes or points in the AF approach:

• Time - This moment here and now is the only time there actually is.. past and future are imaginary. Experiencing happens now and this needs to be repeatedly understood and experienced
• The self, "I", "me" is the root cause of all misery and problems with the human condition, and is an instinctual, animal self built up over time and evolution. This is the part that is 'immolated' or removed to enable simple, natural living as the actual
• The means to do this are- the enquiry 'How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?", or similar. Investigation and uncovering triggers that have removed one's state from being happy, harmless and then a return to that state. Abidance in the present moment and foregoing past/future concerns. Sensory experience and refinement leading to PCEs and unmediated experiencing of phenomena (without a mediating 'I' or inner self).
• "Virtual freedom" is a partial arrival point where 99% in this process where the problematic "I" has been eliminated. Over time, the remaining 1% is eliminated, culminating in actual freedom
• Repetition of the above and having the above as an overarching goal for one's life situation until change takes place and is embedded as an ongoing experience\

Daniel Ingram has summarised the practice very well here and some relevant conclusions:

https://www.integrateddaniel.info/my-experiments-in-actualism/

Some issues:

• The Actual Freedom Trust website is hard to navigate, find information and generally contains much unrelated information bording on complete nonsense or garbage that is totally unrelated to the practice or approach of 'actual freedom'. Some links run in circles.. such as searching for "virtual freedom" within 5 nested links of conversations and then finding 'Well, did you search for 'virtual freedom'?'. The whole website needs to be cleaned out and simplified or improved and updated
• There is a weird personality vibe going on with the AFT site and group (also noted by Daniel Ingram on his site), and since there's a lack of other online information or talks or assistence with the approach and practice, it is generally a challenge to actually follow and put into practice on one's own, without the help of guides or teachers, apart from the thousands of lines of text that one needs to go through on the AFT website. There is an online forum, although again, there seems to be a small number of regulars, and some have been posting journal entries for this practice going on for years, which contain much unrelated content to the practice itself, and are more along the lines of self-reflections.
• The overall practice and approach is simple enough, but as is often the case, contains gaps that need to be filled elsewhere. It's all well and good to advise that once triggers and emotions are found that have led to a loss of happiness, then the 'silliness' of them will be seen and they can be dropped. However, in actual practice this is easier said than done, and not taking into account the years of shadow work and emotional work that may need to be done by individuals, lest they script themselves into a false awakening or carry on in delusion thinking they are 'free' because they have heightened sensory perception and can bypass emotions and feelings relatively easily.
• The enquiry itself is effective in the beginning of the practice, but can lend itself to becoming mechanical, like any enquiry or prompt over time. Just advising one to 'enjoy the present moment and appreciate one's living experience at this moment' isn't really going to cut it for the majority of people immersed in their own life situation, or those with busy lifestyles who do not have the skills for continued attention/concentration, nor the free time to sit around in silence and undisturbed space or nature doing the enquiry for hours on end.
• The amount of people who have been certified or claim to be 'actually free' is relatively small for an approach that has been going on for 15 years and claims to simple, easy to follow, and for all people. This generally leads me to believe that there are indeed gaps in the approach, and it is likely the founder(s) were unique situations in themselves, having gained some sort of clarity that may have spontaneously occurred otherwise, as per other nondual teachers that spontaneously claim to have awoken without much practice or ado. That said, AF isn't Neo-advaita, and fully acknowledges that there is suffering, one to suffer, and a path to take leading to the end of that suffering. There are things to do, in short.

Some discussion material is available on the internet, and the bulk of it was done around 2010-2015 when this method seemed to be capturing the attention of a few people in spiritual circles:

Discussions

 

ATR

Attempts to map Actualism with ATR maps, Buddhist maps etc.

 

https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2009/09/actual-freedom-third-alternative.html

 

https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/search/label/Actual%20Freedom

 

original article by Soh re: Buddhism and actualism

 

https://app.box.com/s/sbyi64jrms

 

 

REDIT discussion from 9 years back on differences with AF and Buddhism, Dzogchen

  

https://www.reddit.com/r/Dzogchen/comments/3n75ik/actual_freedom_philosophy_and_method_seems/

 

 Actualism practice discussions on DhO

https://dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/2401384

 

Related: "Actualism Made Easy" ebook by Justine (pdf)

https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/2969859

https://www.scribd.com/document/89160012/Justine-s-Memoirs-on-Actual-Freedom-Part-I

https://www.calameo.com/books/001100941868620b67859

 

Barry Long's teachings - some final notes. The good and the questionable.

 

Barry Long's teachings - some final notes. The good and the questionable

I'm going to write a few final words about Barry Long's teachings, after having courted them for the last month or so. There's a lot of good in his teachings, but there's some questionable areas as well, and certainly some grey areas that could be the source of confusion or frustration with seekers. Bear in mind that these are just my observations based on a few decades of spiritual experience, and should be regarded as just opinions (or ignored- if it bothers you, the reader).

What I like about Barry Long's teachings:

• I love how Barry Long keeps things real. In his talks, books and content, he's always trying to keep seekers thinking about self-honesty, and bringing things back to one's actual experience rather than getting lost in theories and philosophies that consume so many teachings out there and are a cause for endless debate and distraction
• I really like how Barry Long always brings in the primacy of the body, and a form of embodied awaking that makes use of the body, feelings, sensations and emotions. His starting point in his meditations and in his teachings with using the body is excellent, and there's no diversion into thought based conceptual models, which again makes intellectual bypass an impossibility here
• I like how Barry makes use of relationships and the roles of men and women with regards to spirituality. There's some inherent issues here as well, but he acknowledges this seldom used area
• I like how Barry Long's talks are generally spontaneous, unprepared and engaging for the audience. The pre-recorded teachings such as Myth of Life series are excellent in production, and he's a great story teller and narrative deliverer. 
• I like how Barry Long brings seekers back to the area of emotional maturity and the need to face emotions and work with challenging emotions and sensations via the body. Many have used this approach (and some directly from BL himself), such as Eckhart Tolle, who has pretty much lifted Barry's teaching in some parts word for word, apart from renaming some concepts such as 'personality'/'self'/'pygmy'/'thinker'/ into 'pain body' (ET's label). Likewise the body approach with regards to emotions and as a starting is pretty much Barry's focus that was lifted by a few teachers.

What I find questionable or doubtful about Barry Long's teachings:

• I find Barry Long's idea (e.g. in the tapes on Making Love) that making love equals a divine method by which actual love is produced, and that it is somehow 'god's design' that this is how spiritual development can and does occur -- to be a bit questionable. Similarly, his idea of celibacy as selfish needs some qualification. I don't find the sages of the past that preferred celibacy to be selfish or self-centred in eschewing sex- it was just their choice and aligned with what they were aiming to achieve. This is a highly personal area that will differ according to one's life situation, and isn't a one-size-fits-all teaching. This is probably why people like Eckhart Tolle removed this part of Barry's teaching completely while taking up the rest of BL's teachings.
• Much of Barry Long's stories and cosmology is exactly that.. stories and myth. It serves a purpose with the listener's subconscious and does really have an effect, however, it shouldn't be taken as literally true, any more than the Bible or other content that Barry often trashes in his talks. Admittedly, Barry's stories are helpful for spiritual insight, but they're still stories and creative content ultimately.
• Some of Barry's live audience talks give the impression that he's putting on a performance or being overly dramatic. This is probably Gurdjieff's approach coming through, and it's obvious Barry is acting in many instances, and isn't as authentic as say Eckhart during his talks. For some unknown reason, many of Barry's available talks are the one's he gave right before he died, and the delivery isn't the best or highest in form, which it totally understandable. Some of the responses to people's questions are downright silly or idiotic. Someone asks 'How can I love more?', and his response is something like "Just love more!!" or "Go out and find love and do it!" etc., which degrades the whole thing.
• A key issue I (personally) had with BL's teachings was the approach and treatment to the emotions and the body itself. He often states that the 'trickster', 'evil one', 'monster' etc. live in the belly/stomach as the emotional accumulation of the past (akin to Tolle's pain body), and this needs to be constantly watched, dissolved, dealt with and killed off. The approach often seems harsh, and ends up turning into a battle with the ego/pain body/self-- which of course ends up in a vicious circle with the ego trying to do away with the ego. There doesn't seem much compassion in this approach, and Barry's ideas of "love" rarely touch on self-love, or self-forgiveness, or even acceptance of the pain body. Instead it's something to deal with, corner and watch.. lest it enter one's brain and take them over with thoughts. While there's some merit to this idea, ultimately in the long run, this doesn't work, as anyone who's been on the spiritual path for years understands. Self-love and compassion are just one of those essentials that one needs to cultivate, understand and incorporate into any shadow work or emotional work. Barry seems undeveloped in this regard, and more intent on eliminating self-comfort, and having people 'on the cross' undergoing the pain of dissolving the emotional body, rather than using alternative approaches that may well suit some seekers in a much more effective and gentler way.
• Although there's a good number of teachers who have lifted Barry Long's material and incorporated it into their own teachings while not acknowledging Barry Long.. one can see that Barry himself did the same thing with lifting some teachings word for word, such as from Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Krishnamurti, Ramana Maharshi and others. Passing oneself off as a Western Master having little or no link with "Eastern teachings" isn't exactly true, and he often seems to give the appearance of having come up with all his content himself as some dramatic "God realized" Master appearing in the West (apart from some very early talks in 1969 where he openly directed others to outside sources). Barry Long developed his own glossary pretty much and students of his need to understand exactly what he means by terms such as 'self', 'me', 'I', 'intelligence', 'consciousness', 'sensation', 'god', etc.. which all have very different meanings to common parlance.
• I won't comment on Barry's personal history or life, but there are some events that seem to be documented that would definitely place Barry in the camp of being a regular human being (versus being some sort of a font of God-realized wisdom and total knowledge and penetration into 'the unconscious' (whatever that actually means)).

Overall, there's a lot of good things in Barry's approach, and a lot of original and interesting and useful material, however, some areas need to be taken with a grain of salt and used wisely according to one's individual situation.

Peace to Barry.