9.TIMOTHY CONWAY   This "insubstantial figure in the dream, pointing to the Divine Dreamer," has lived and studied the nondual essence of our sacred traditions for 40 years since an utterly life-changing, spontaneous awakening to God or Reality in his 16th year in the hills of Southern California. Timothy fortunately met many enlightened masters, especially in Advaita Vedanta (Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, Annamalai Swami and others among Sri Ramana Maharshi's immediate followers, Amma Amritanandamayi, Anandamayi Ma, Mother Krishnabai, Dadaji of Calcutta, et al.) and various lines of Buddhism (Taungpulu Sayadaw, Shifu Hsuan Hua, H.H. the Dalai Lama, Seung Sahn, et al.), as well as spiritual adepts in Taoism, Sufism and mystic Christianity and Judaism. Timothy has freely shared the "pathless path" of deep spirituality for over 25 years in satsangs and in free ongoing education classes at the Santa Barbara City College. Author of Women of Power & Grace: Nine Astonishing, Inspiring Luminaries of Our Time and the forthcoming India's Sages-- Volume 1, India's Sages: Nondual Wisdom from the Heart of Freedom, profiles 40 authentic sages from the modern era; the even more massive Volume 2, India's Sages Source Book: Nondual Wisdom from Hindus, Buddhists, Jainas, Tantrics, Sants, Sikhs & Sufis, features over 120 wonderful sages and scriptures from India's "living past." A trilogy of works focusing on nondual spirituality, religion, science and political justice is also in preparation. www.enlightened-spirituality.org

INTERVIEW

1. Vedanta, Taoism, Buddhism, Judeo-Christian Gnosticism, Mystical Sufism, all laud transcendence of duality and desire, verified by transcendence of sexual behavior, from Buddha to Dalai Lama and millions of others in India over the millennia. Has modern non-dualism created something new where sex and desire are not transcended? And is this a higher state than what Buddha and founder of Advaita, Adi Shankara, taught to monks and lay people and lived personally?

John, when we talk about “modern non-dualism,” this represents a continuum ranging from stellar figures of stupendous inner freedom, clarity, and abundance of flowing virtues and unusual capacities… down to (on the low end of the continuum) some very venal, corrupt figures in the “blab it and grab it” neo-satsang movement and also within traditional nondual spiritual traditions, such as Zen, Vajrayana and Advaita Vedanta. Some figures on the low end of this continuum of “nondual spirituality” (and they seem to be quite dualistically involved in their needy, greedy, seedy tendencies) have abused their presumed role as “spiritual teacher” to lure in sexual partners for selfish-gratification, violating the ancient code of conduct wherein sages are not to mess with the bodies or minds of their students for self-centered reasons.

So not all voices in the field of “nonduality” are equally worth listening to here.

For instance, the highly impressive holy woman Anasuya Devi (d.1985) of Jillellamudi (in southeast Andhra Pradesh, India) was a pinnacle-level sage expressing the purest advaita/nonduality both in her all-inclusive and egalitarian behavior toward fellow beings and in her wonderfully paradoxical teachings, and yet she was a married woman who bore three children and was very active in bettering conditions for the people in her region. My own mentor Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (d.1981) was married earlier in life and fathered children (before his wife died), as did Sri Atmananda, Dadaji, and many other laypersons in the Advaita Vedanta, nondual Sant, and Advaita/Abheda Bhakti traditions of India. Looking to other traditions of nondual spirituality, many Japanese Zen and Korean Son Buddhist sages in the modern era (because of Japan’s Meiji Restoration’s policies) have been married temple priests, though almost all of the nuns have remained celibate. A number of high-level Tibetan lamas of impeccable reputation like Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche have had a wife or single consort. Nondually-oriented Muslim Sufi and Hasidic Jewish sages are often married.

Some of these figures may have had very little sexual activity in their marriages, living almost entirely as celibates, while other sages may have been more sexually active. It all depends on the kind of relationship with their partner, and how often sexuality was part of the style of loving interrelationship and communication/communion. I know from direct experience with my beautiful wife Laura (committed partners for over 19 years) that one can enjoy the dearest, sweetest, juiciest intimacy and most profound sense of mutuality of consciousness within the One Absolute Awareness while being fully clothed, just sitting together holding hands, and clearly intuiting this Single “I” that personifies as “we.” That’s really ecstatic (or instatic)!—and yet occurs on a very refined, sublimated level… not so much like big waves energetically crashing but more like a very, very deep and powerfully calm Ocean of Bliss.
In authentic spirituality one intuits and lives as the One Spirit underlying all souls, the One Self of all selves. So one truly goes beyond viewing fellow beings as an “it,” an “object over there,” and instead opens up to the Open Awareness that is omnipresently HERE, boundlessly HERE, transcending yet including all individual viewpoints or persons/souls.

There are some people who are completely celibate and very yogic and subtle with their energy, and yet still immaturely view other human beings as “it-objects” in a dualistic way. While other people are occasionally sexual and yet truly see/feel their partners and all beings as Self-same aspects of this One Self. That’s a much more mature kind of nondual awakening.

Relationships with each and every sentient being are immensely transformed by outgrowing the “me-to-it” kind of relationship that treats people as mere objects, and instead awakening to the genuinely nondual “I/We” relationship whose Source, Substance and Host is this ONE AWARENESS right HERE, closer than the body-mind-egoji complex. Personal relationships become far more precious and poignant when embedded in this SUPRA-personal context of True Self. Around sages who have authentically awakened and dis-identified from the dream and then come “full circle” to re-identify with and pervade the dream in empty/full Awareness, one senses a tremendous loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and peaceful equanimity—the “Four Divine Abodes” (catur-brahma-vihara) as the Buddha called these supernal virtues.

Now, let’s examine more carefully the question being posed here by my old friend Stu Sovatsky (we were grad students together at CIIS in San Francisco circa 1980). Because i feel that underneath the surface aspects of the question, the real issue is about relationships, and whether one has shifted from treating fellow beings as limited objects (sexual or otherwise) or one has opened up to our unlimited, infinite True Nature or boundless-yet-all-pervasive Reality.

For starters, let’s be very clear that the phrase “transcendence of duality and desire” needs nuance for much greater clarity and usefulness. First, “transcendence of duality” does not mean denial or suppression of duality within an authentically nondual context. For an awake sage, the polarities of this cosmic-dream still play on—from positive-negative charges in the atom, to binary immune system responses in earthly organisms, to laudable social laws and customs—and are honored as such. All the world’s most respected nondual adepts have clarified this.

That is to say, while abiding as absolute, changeless, formless Awareness, one is nondually Host for the dream-play of changing formations, sensations, perceptions, emotions, relationships and responsibilities. And the latter two include abiding by the functional “dualistic” rules of civilized society—e.g., stopping at red lights and proceeding at green lights on the roadway; upholding the universal virtues and refraining from criminal, cruel or callous behavior; promoting wholesome samskaras (personal tendencies) and outgrowing unwholesome ones.

This nondual diversity within unity is the quintessential teaching of all the classic nondual traditions East & West. I could adduce thousands of references for you on this point.

And this leads to the second point, “transcendence of desire” does not mean trying to pose as an unfeeling, apathetic robot. Yes, problematic selfish desires/emotions are outgrown in real spiritual maturity, but all sorts of wholesome desires can flourish at the level of the personal consciousness and not prevent living in/as one’s Supra-personal (prior to personal) True Self, which is the most stupendous and quite natural Open Awareness-Aliveness.
For instance, there are wholesome desires or yearnings that one’s fellow beings within the earth-dream be able to enjoy healthy water, food and air; and that, on the level of human society, a good education, gainful employment, adequate healthcare, beautiful environments and uplifting arts be available for all, not just for the privileged few. Lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu—“May all the beings in all the worlds be happy.” That or some version of that wording is a very ancient prayer from India. That prayer naturally, spontaneously arises from a heart-mind that knows there is only One Reality yet desires and yearns for the wellbeing of all beings.

Therefore, “transcending desire” does not mean becoming a statue, but it also means that we’re not overly attached to the processes or the outcomes of endeavoring in various ways to promote the commonwealth or public good.

So now let’s begin to zero in on sexual behavior and the issue of celibacy, which seems to be Stu’s concern in the question he raises.

Traditionally, figures like the Buddha, Shankara, the Chan/Zen and other Mahayana masters, et al., warned about getting entrapped in the samsara rebirth-cycle fueled by our egoic tendencies (the samskaras or binding attachments and aversions or problematic likes-dislikes, the selfish motivations and behaviors). These warnings are issued because the sages knew, either from direct psychic perception or received spiritual wisdom, that getting entangled in unwholesome states of consciousness leads to painful rebirth destinies such as hell, ghost, and titan/demon states. For spiritual masters of the Middle-Eastern and European religious traditions, the language was usually (but not always) couched in terms of “sinfulness” and “last judgment day" scenarios, with usually an even heavier sense of what painful and unending “hell” destinies awaited selfish souls, although some of them taught a doctrine of rebirth and eventual ultimate salvation for all (e.g., the early widespread Christian idea of apocatastasis, or universal redemption).

Because of the intense physical and emotional energies involved with sexual attraction and sexual behavior, sages have cautioned fellow humans to carefully watch their step. The more psychologically-oriented spiritual masters invite us to mindfully notice how states of consciousness unfold moment by moment when the organism is in a state of sexual attraction-arousal lest one reinforce selfish patterns of consciousness and then fall further and further into chronically contracted states of clinging, greed and lust—and all the other complications that can ensue (lying, manipulating, etc.).

My mentor Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj adamantly cautioned against “indulging one’s beingness,” the personal consciousness or individual viewpoint. In Maharaj’s view, no one was truly awake or liberated until all such self-indulgence had completely or largely evaporated. Sexuality is definitely one of the modes by which this personal consciousness is too often selfishly indulged. But our society serves up many other potential avenues of indulgence, such as “getting high” on the adrenaline rush of excessive fascination with popular media (enervating video games, movies, tv shows, music videos), or pigging out on intensely sugary, fatty or caffeinated substances created by profit-hungry agribusiness. Or indulging whatever agitates the organism by violently stimulating our biochemistry. Let’s face it: our society has become obsessed by upping the levels of stimulation—it’s all about “getting high” rather than the spiritual art of getting clear about what’s right HERE as our fundamental Identity. And sexuality, driven by powerful hormones and the psycho-biological drive to procreate and have sexual pleasure, is being hyped as #1 thrill in our world today. Special financial interests within modern society exploit the sexual drive at every turn through calculated advertising campaigns. Girls and boys are being sexualized even before they hit puberty. Images of young people’s bodies are exploited in countless venues to sell everything from cars to clothing to cellphones. Implants for breasts, buns, lips and whatever other body-parts are being used to look sexually attractive even into one’s seventies. Many men are risking their health taking viagra, cialis etc. so they can have an erection for many hours on end. There are powerful economic incentives to get as many humans as possible utterly obsessed about sex, sex, and more sex. Such sexualizing forces today are far more potent than in the eras of the Buddha, Shankara and even early modern sages like Ramana Maharshi (d.1950) and Chan master Xuyun (d.1959).

As an antidote to all this, such sages give us methods of self-inquiry. Sri Nisargadatta, in July 1980, fourteen months before he dropped the body gave us a very profound and rarely-found teaching about feeling into, meditating upon and becoming one with the colorless, shapeless Vital Power (the Prana-Shakti). I’ve elucidated this in section 6 of a long article I wrote on the sage and his teachings (see www.enlightened-spirituality.org/Nisargadatta_for_therapists.html ).

This formless Life Force or Prana-Shakti is what allows us to be alive, moving, feeling and thinking. Without this animating power, we could not lift a finger, feel a sensation or emotion, think or comprehend language, breathe, grow hair, digest food, move across the room, or do anything at all. So this Power is “the all-accomplishing God of your world,” as Nisargadatta declared. He told us to intuitively ponder this Power, get to know this, meditate on this, merge in and finally JUST BE THIS formless Power. This meditation upon and being one with the Life Power he recommended as an adjunct or alternative to his much more well-known cognitive pondering of the “i-amness” or consciousness. I find this meditation on the formless Vital Force is a very effective moment by moment way of hosting daily activities—it’s especially effective for people that have lot of duties and responsibilities, which many people feel is an interference with trying to contemplate “Who/What am I?” Whereas the contemplation of “What is this all-animating Aliveness” can easily happen throughout the day and night.

When one is authentically attuned to and aligned with this Vital Power, one loses the sense of selfish doership. All actions are obviously being enacted by this Power. One realizes that the personal consciousness never really had any of its own power at all. One REALITY is being everyone and doing everything and always has been the One Actor/Action.

With this realization, there’s no gap between perceiving and acting responsibly and wholesomely. Household duties and community service just flows without any heavy sense of being the doer who must counter inertia to launch actions. Moreover, neurotic neediness drops off because one is profoundly, fully Alive as all-pervasive Aliveness. It’s very much like floating and flying through this dream-life, wherein everything is made of this One Power or Reality, this Prana-Shakti.

Sri Nisargadatta strongly invited that we become surrendered to and transparent for this One Power, so that the sense of selfish doership and ownership of actions evaporates. Then the God-Self is doing everything, unfolding everything, accomplishing everything, including the spiritual practices pertaining to the personal consciousness.

Along with this, a natural brahmacarya or purity/chastity ensues. It’s not a rigid pose of “trying to be pure.” It’s quite natural, this letting go of doership and clinging to experiences.

But, depending on one’s life-calling or vocation (one’s svadharma, as Krishna calls it in the Bhagavad Gita), one may be attracted to either the eremitic-monastic renunciate life or to householder life. Frankly, I think the householder life is far more of a spiritual test of one’s real maturity, because it forces one to be fully immersed in intimate, empathetic, loving and compassionate relationship with another personal consciousness in the most naked way, in all senses of that word, while dealing with the immense complexities and responsibilities of modern society. The renunciate life certainly has its own set of challenges, but, to generalize, I don’t think the interpersonal demands are nearly so intense—and once one is ensconced within a certain institutional religious support system, a lot of basic needs for food, housing, healthcare and income are insured.

Now, if one has chosen renunciate life in one of the traditional or modern religious orders where vows of celibacy are required for entry, then those persons with such calling should try to honestly abide by these vows. If persons cannot abide by them, then these persons do well to stop the pretense and simply go back into general society. Otherwise all sorts of complications ensue—intrapsychic conflict, secret lusting, deception, and/or misusing the power of their role as imagined “spiritual superiors” to lure people into satisfying these persons’ sexual urges. We’ve all heard the widespread stories of clergymen (it’s usually men) East and West who’ve screwed up badly by their addiction to screwing.

As for persons not living by vows of celibacy, the question of sexuality and sexual behavior still invites a closer consideration.
For instance, how much is your sexuality a form of real communication and intimate bonding with a partner, or is it merely for selfish gratification? When sexual attraction/arousal energy arises, is it a contracted energy that feels stopped up and egocentric or, rather, is one a transparent channel for this energy to radiate as a blessing for all the beings in all the worlds? Is one caught up in attachment to certain goals or end-states (orgasm) or does unattachment and a sense of real freedom prevail? (Proof of the pudding: one could suddenly stop the momentary sexual activity and not have it matter one bit.) Is one’s partner being treated as merely a pleasurable “it-object” or intuited as the open Awareness-Isness-Aliveness, the all-pervasive Reality?
Sexuality is energy. As with all processes, the important question is whether, at the level of the personal consciousness, we are surrendered to and purely one with this formless Life Force or Vital Power, the all-powerful God of our world, as Nisargadatta called it.

So sexuality—like relationship, like working, like eating, or anything else—is just another opportunity to discover whether one is merely living as a narrow, limited “me / my” contraction or as Open Self, the Supra-personal Self Who personifies as this self and every self for the sake of an amazing Divine Play.
Perhaps this very roundabout way of responding to Stu’s question has brought more clarity.

Once in the 1980s i was at a potluck dinner party and someone brought a big bag of Chinese “misfortune cookies.” I recall getting one that humorously (and accurately!) said, “Yours is a long and uninteresting story.” Someone else, though, got a misfortune cookie that announced, “Your spouse will become famous as an advocate for celibacy.“

Happily, my multi-orgasmic and very “hot” wife will most likely not become this kind of advocate—and that’s not about my prowess in the bedroom… she has orgasms in her dreams or when i barely touch and stimulate her.

As i view it, our deepest spirituality goes far beyond the issue of sex or celibacy. It’s about True Identity and how relationships are lived in the context of this Identity, by the Grace and Power of the One Aliveness. When we are moment-by-moment feeling and freely being this One Vital Power, when our lives are the unburdened, wholesome worshipping and enactment of this One Power, then everything unfolds without problem.
May all be free in their intrinsically ever-free Buddha-Nature.
 

NDM: When you say that, in Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj's view, "no one was truly awake or liberated until all such self-indulgence had completely or largely evaporated," this also sounds like what Ramana Maharashi said about vasanas.