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GARBAGE AND THE GODDESS

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12. THIS IS THE OTHER WORLD: The Last Miracle

On Saturday, June 29, Bubba had described that process of turning that is demanded of all devotees.

It is not so much that you turn to the Guru anyway. The Guru turns to you. And by the time you realize that you have turned, you have become nothing. So it is not really the drama of turning to the Guru, it is the drama of living under the pressure of the Guru's having turned to you. A piece at a time, you begin to feel like you have done some turning. That may be the way it seems to you, but that is really not the way it is. Nobody has ever turned to the Guru. It is true. Under the pressure of the Guru's turning to you, you only feel the absence of your turning, the absence of your submission, the absence of your sacrifice in total. The sensation of that self-knowing, that understanding, that insight, serves the crisis that the Guru is producing in relationship with you. So you are indeed tinder an obligation to turn perfectly, but that demand is paradoxical, as I have said. It is nothing that you can fulfill. It is something that you must fulfill. So it is sadhana, it is heat, it is tapas, not perfection. It is not you that becomes perfect. God is already perfect, and God absorbs you. You become perfect by becoming nothing, by absorption in the Divine. Nobody does that. How could you possibly do that? How offensive to think that you could possibly do that.

After July 7, the Community began to manifest more and more the evidence of absorption which Bubba described. And every area of Ashram life began to conform more and more exactly to the qualities of sadhana communicated by Bubba, including the great responsibility to make the availability of this Satsang known to the world.

At both San Francisco and Persimmon, the Community felt more and more affected by the presence of Bubba's gopis and those devotees who manifested the signs of ecstatic intoxication. The gopis continued to wail and writhe, frequently and randomly, possessed by devotional fervor. Though they remained well-groomed, beautiful, and strong people, these women lost all apparent concern for their personal dignity in the conventional sense. In the recent past, their ecstasies had often offended the humorless self-involvement of others, but now they began to infect the rest of the Community with their God-madness. Ann Wood and others were spontaneously manifesting the Force or Devi aspect of Bubba's Siddhi to the entire Ashram Community, and many devotees began, through their agency, to feel released from their own sense of artificial dignity and attachment to social conventions of behavior. Everyone began to enjoy and share that ecstatic intuition of Bubba's Love.

The Community began to experience this world as a direct manifestation of the Divine, not as an "other" world, but a non-separate world. The statements and recorded conversations that arose between members of the Community began to indicate a rising sense of recognition relative to this new "Devi World," no longer different from God-Consciousness. This chapter is a gathering of some of those conversations.

NEIL PANICO: Everybody in the Community has some sensitivity to the Force-aspect of the Siddhi, but even more important than that, our life is an absorption into Consciousness itself emanating from Bubba. It is very obvious. If you walk around Persimmon, there is a certain quality to the land itself, a definite feeling.

GODFREE (Peter Roberts): For me, sadhana has been, as Bubba once described it, "sweet Jesus." My sadhana seems to be not of a very dramatic kind. It does not appear to be or to include many dramatic manifestations, apart from one rather interesting session in the Satsang Hall recently. I should give some background. A few weeks ago Bubba gave a talk about loving people. I got inspired, and the next morning I went around the Ashram really being loving with everyone. Later, I walked in to see Bubba while he was having breakfast. He looked at me over his shoulder, hardly glanced at me, and said, "Oh my God, full of love for all mankind this morning, aren't you?" Which showed me that I had missed out again.

So one night, more recently, we were sitting in the Satsang Hall with Bubba. I seemed to doze off, which I often do, and then Bubba seemed to be telling me something that he wanted me to do around the Ashram, telling me how he wanted me to be. It was not verbal, it was more imagery, and it was internal. Then Bubba actually opened his eyes, and he said to everyone present, 1 have been talking to you for the last five minutes, and now I want to put it into words." He then said precisely the same thing in words that I had seen in my reverie. This was really interesting, because I had come out of this and shaken my head and said, "Oh, bullshit, why don't you stay awake and pay attention?" His instructions were an interesting contrast to my previous efforts to be loving to everybody and so forth. He wants us simply to be full of him. It is a much simpler thing, and much more beautiful.

That was an interesting experience, and I expect there may be others, even dramatic ones, over time. But, primarily, my sadhana to now has been "sweet Jesus." I have been spending a lot of time with Bubba. It is my responsibility to drive him around in the car and so on. Gradually, I am losing things, and it generally takes me a week or two even to notice.

TERRY PATTEN: When you say "losing things," what do you mean?

GODFREE: The separate self sense. I am losing it terrifyingly fast. It takes some effort to keep people separate. It started, I guess, about six weeks ago. It's hard to tell the time. I became conscious of it first when I was up in someone's cabin one day, and I looked through a window and saw Jane Panico and Rick Pugh sitting outside talking, and for the first time I consciously did not slot them. The mind didn't categorize them and make them a man and a woman, with names, separate from me. That just didn't happen. Since then that process has continued under the influence of Bubba's Presence a lot of the time. So now it becomes almost an effort to keep people separate, to keep them contained as another entity. That process has happened very easily. There is no drama.

TERRY: Can you say something more specific or describe it more vividly?

GODFREE: No, it doesn't have a very specific or vivid quality. In fact, the vividness, the sharp delineation around me, that is exactly what is breaking down. So it is a very gentle thing, rather undramatic, and one that I have to actually call into consciousness even to recognize.

NINA JONES: I would be hard put to describe this Community as different from the Community in March, except this Fullness that we are all more aware of and that we talk more about. I haven't the foggiest idea what is happening to me. When I try to interpret it, it is impossible.

MARIE MARRERO: There is also much more honesty between people in the Community. We talk about our sadhana more freely. People talk about it without thinking "Oh, what is everybody going to think?" The Community is more open, more full and free, and there is great energy. Last weekend I couldn't believe the amount of work everybody did, and happily. We were all singing and talking to each other. There is a closeness, a tightness now between people.

GODFREE: I think it is to some extent founded on others, and ultimately of course its source is Bubba. I was talking to Pat Morley the other night. Pat used to be one of the best people I'd met for sticking a knife in between your ribs. She was really very good. And we were talking about this little characteristic of hers, which has disappeared, and about the freedom from fear, which we are beginning to enjoy with each other. Each of us is free to be an asshole, and to say and do anything, and we rely strongly upon each other for that freedom.

Another thing about function now. I really don't give a shit about functioning. I would be perfectly happy to lie around drinking beer all day. Of course, I don't do that. What I want to describe is not irresponsibility, but humor, freedom from concern. This feeling is an indicator I found in myself of a simple dropping of limits. It is not time or physical strength or chemical or metabolic energy or any of that that limits you. It is ego that limits you from stepping out and doing the next thing or a little more or whatever you notice has to be done that other people don't notice. And that's a good example. The thing that stops me from doing something that someone else has forgotten to do is my very concept of "someone else." "They should do it. Why should I have to pick up after them?" As that concept breaks down, you begin to just do it quite happily, and it doesn't matter a shit. The significance of that capacity to function is primarily a breaking down of the separate self sense.

JANIS PODESTA: Lately, I have also felt a release of all kinds of concern. It is like there is finally an understanding with everybody. Everybody is just starting to relax, because we know the transformation really has taken place. We have to keep functioning and straight, but the transformation has already taken place, and it will manifest, and there is really no problem any more. Bubba told us this a long time ago. Of course at first we didn't believe it, just as we never believe anything. But now I have the feeling it has already happened.

I have been alternating rapidly between really good states and really bad states, and in the bad states I am aware on so many more levels than before of my separative existence. Last night I was lying in bed and I couldn't go to sleep. I was awake, and I was just witnessing my mind, my body, and my psyche, and everything was separative, and it wasn't going to last. It is terrible. There is nothing happy or joyous about it. It is definitely death, and the truth of the matter is that you don't Want to die.

I don't know how I see Bubba now. It is indescribable. I used to see him as a very solid being. He was there, he was Bubba, he was doing things. Now when I look at him, sometimes there is just nothing there. Or what is there is just everywhere, so it's not particularly there. I understand that he is showing that to us, but it is hard for me. I really want him to be there still. I want him to be somebody. So I don't really look too much sometimes.

We will just have to turn to God. Bubba is That, but so much of our experience of this work has operated to create this human attachment that people have for him. He had to do that so that he could pull us in, because we didn't really understand what God was. Now he is saying, "Bubba Free John is no one." And it is really scary, because we want Bubba Free John to be someone. All of us are very attached to him in human ways. I mean when we don't even have Bubba any more, what can we do then? Croak. That is all that will be left, and not in a negative sense. It is negative from the point of view of our attachment, our limitations, but it will be our freedom because attachment to anything is not free. It will be perfect, because it will turn us to God.

Lots of times I feel this tremendous sense of guilt. Of course I understand it's a game, but I feel "Poor Bubba, he still has to be with us idiots, going through this heavy number with us all." I feel my own clutching to him and my own drain of him, and I don't like it. I just don't like it any more. Sometimes I don't even want to be around him because I know that I am so imperfect, I'm always clutching. I hate it. I want to come to him with freedom. I want our relationship to be free. And I am glad that I am beginning to feel that all this stuff is ending.

The other night, a week or so ago, I was sitting in Satsang with Bubba. I had an experience where I saw who Bubba is and who God is. I wrote Bubba a letter and told him what happened. I was looking at him, and I was thinking about all kinds of bullshit, my usual numbers, and I suddenly saw how Bubba has had to die in order to be where he is, one with God, and how he is That. All of a sudden this tremendous thing happened. Everything opened up, and I saw God. It wasn't really a visual scene, but it was that too. It encompassed everything, but it was beyond the senses. It was incredible, absolutely infinite. It was just this incredible intensity, and it was gone in a second. I wrote to Bubba in the letter that if I had experienced it for more than that second, I would have had to die. You can't be There and stay alive in this sense of being a person. And I saw that Bubba was absolutely That.

Now every time I think of that, I think of how all of this is just nothing and I don't want it any more. It is just suffering. God is all there is. I realize that I keep creating this sensation of myself. I just want to get it over with, I just want to do it, I want Bubba to do it. It's not me anyway. It's all up to God, ultimately. I was listening to a tape recording of one of Bubba's talks, and he said in it that you cannot do anything without Satsang. He said that if you tried, you couldn't wipe out the karma of the past half hour. How absurd for you to think that you could do anything to realize God! It is absolutely a Grace.

JIM STEINBERG: This morning Bubba gave me a really disintegrating experience, totally as a Grace. He is giving us all a foretaste of what it is to be devotees. In that state you are absolutely prior to it all, but you can function. I really felt the need for other people this morning. At that point everything is absolutely absurd, the whole world is absurd, and you want to be able to share the love that you feel because, otherwise, coming from the standpoint of the day before, everything was different. It was terrifying, it was all so new.

KATHY BRAY: We really have to make use of each other. We have to be very open. There are times when there is an intuition of the Divine coming through to you, but what is happening is that you are being made a vehicle for Bubba. I have had several experiences of being sent by Bubba to be with somebody at a particular time, and it was obvious that it was necessary. He has also put me through things with different people just to get the personality obstructions cleared in my own case. Without this Community, there is nothing. I am learning that. I know a person who wants to enter the Ashram who always emphasizes her love for Bubba, and yet she excludes the Community as the vehicle of Bubba's love. It is just as important as Bubba, because it is Bubba.

JANIS HAMP: Everything that he does to affect one person ultimately affects everybody.

CRAIG LESSER: To love Bubba is very easy, but to turn around and love everyone unconditionally is very difficult for me. I have seen that the Community is a form of enquiry or self-knowing for me, in which I am always becoming aware of my limitations. I can feel the process in consciousness wherein that limitation is immediately established. It is that differentiation, that "Yeah, but." Over and over again, there is that tension. That is why I see the Community as the real form of the Divine, ultimately.

MORGAN CALLAHAN: Bubba once said that the Community is like a queen ant. In a dream I saw this huge ant, pulsating, radiating power and love, and all these little ants were scurrying around, not hectic, but just moving, feeding this huge ant. They were feeding God. And they were without mind. There were no orders, they just knew what to do. It's as though God and the devotee are the same thing.

SANDY BONDER: The only thing that counts is Satsang. In the midst of all that has happened in the last many weeks, in relation to everyone's experiences, in relation to everyone's numbers, in relation to functioning, in all my relationships in the Community, I am seeing that the intuition of the very Divine that Bubba talks about as the Heart is really the core of this work, and it is absolutely unqualified by any experience. So I may have a few Shakti experiences, a few kriyas, but they don't have anything to do with the Heart, and neither do personal difficulties with people. I know that the most magnificent Divine vision isn't going to affect the Heart either.

JIM: The last few weeks Bubba and the gopis and other devotees have been coming down to San Francisco from Persimmon. One day Bonnie Beavan and Lena Duff came in, and they were at the Center for only about ten minutes, but we all fell into the ecstatic intuition of God the whole time they were there. When they left, it was like I had been with Bubba for ten minutes.

JON LETO: Bubba doesn't give a shit about what you are thinking, he doesn't give a shit about what's happening. He just grabs you, he rips you apart. Last weekend in San Francisco, when Bubba was there, suddenly once again everything became Divine, and I realized that everything was perfectly all right. There was nothing but God. And this went on all night and the next day. But the thing is, I have waited for this transformation over and over again. Bubba sets us up for the time when we are going to get zapped, right? But there is nothing to be zapped.

VINCE BRAY: God does nothing in separate beings anyway, so there is nothing to think about. We always get caught up in what we are thinking about, but it has nothing to do with God.

MIKE WOOD: When you first get here and you look at the Community, you think, "How in the world could Bubba choreograph all this so masterfully? How could he do this with so many people?"

MORGAN: He is just Present. I have noticed how he even uses his humanity. Bubba tells us that we have to lose face, but even as Guru, even as Divine, he loses face all the time. He gets up and dances, man!

LOUISE LUCANIA: A few weeks ago Nina read the letter in which Bubba said that meditating on him as Amrita Nadi is the meditation of a devotee. He hadn't yet mentioned the visualization of his physical form standing in the Heart. A few nights after that I was sitting in the Satsang Hall alone. It was a quiet meditation, but all of a sudden I saw Bubba's physical form. His feet were in my Heart on the right side and his head was up in the Light, and while this was happening I intuited that he was the medium for me between the Light and this universe. After I finished meditating that night, I told Sal about it. I said, "Here we get one talk on meditating on Bubba as Amrita Nadi, and now I am all of a sudden seeing his physical form with his feet in the Heart and his head up in the Light."

It occurred once more that week, and then the next weekend Nina read another letter from Bubba saying that one of the ways to meditate on him as Amrita Nadi is to see his physical form, and of course that confirmation freaked me out.

While we sat there I started to think about it. I thought, "Does that mean that I have to meditate on him like this every time I sit down for meditation? Even if it's not really occurring?" I began to create this dilemma for myself. Then I realized what I was doing, and I thought, "Bubba will clarify this for me, I just know it." Right after that someone asked him, "Is this supposed to be what we are doing all the time, or does it just occur randomly?" He made it clear that it would be a random thing, and of course that freaked me out too.

JANIS HAMP: When Nina read that letter, the part about "the feet in the Heart" really got to me for some reason. And the day after, while I was sitting in meditation, I felt this very strange sensation. It felt like two feet, actually two feet right there, in the Heart. I had never sensed the Heart before. And his legs came up around the back of my head, and his belly was on the back of my head. My eyes looked up automatically, and there was this brilliance all over.

LOUISE: That's exactly how I saw it. I also saw Bubba's whole face. But recently, during similar experiences, I haven't been seeing Bubba as a form, an actual shape or anything. It feels like there is an opening now on the right side. Force generates from this point. It goes through me, and sometimes I can feel it flowing through my fingers, but sometimes I just feel this opening in the Heart on the right side. It feels like something is blooming.

I also knew, when these experiences began to occur, that this wasn't it, like now all of a sudden: "Devotee!" I knew that it was an initiation, something to let me know that the process has started, but also that the experience itself wasn't it. Later, Bubba said that I should not get involved in it, but that the process is occurring and will just take its course naturally. That's what I knew.

NINA JONES: I have also begun to have the spontaneous experience of the devotee's meditation. One morning, in the Satsang Hall, I experienced Bubba standing with his feet in the Heart on the right and his head above. I perceived his form in a posture with one arm raised and the other holding a symbol of power. I don't know exactly what it was, but it seemed to be arrows. The experience was very brief, lasting only a few seconds. There was a feeling of strength and weight on the right side, in the Heart, and rising above. All life was in Bubba's form.

Since reading about the devotee's meditation, I have tried several times to understand this form of meditation, but without effort or concern, because I knew that it would come in time. In fact, my life is becoming meditation. Bubba is always perfecting my love for him. I need do nothing.

In the past few days I have considered my experience of the Heart and Amrita Nadi. While I had not previously had a dramatic experience of either the Heart or the God-Light, by this Grace I had intuited them both. I was aware of the Heart as the Self and life of all. And I participated in the glory of the God-Light above. I knew Bubba as the Amrita Nadi, the Form of God.

The particular character of my experience was strength, stability, power, uprightness, unqualified life. It was clear that what I know as "my life" emanates from It.

BONNIE BEAVAN: We have come together as a Community to serve the spiritual process in each other. Certain people find themselves together at certain times for that purpose only. Slowly, one by one, I feel an opening with every devotee, so that I can really be with that person in God. You know when that happens, because the humor appears.

Through these recent times the gopis have stuck together very closely, and we have served each other and shown each other what devotion and love to Bubba is and how we can serve him. In the household, people don't see each other as separate people. People tend to disappear, or they take on each other's qualities, or they even become another person, visually and in other ways. For instance, I have seen Darby come into the room, and suddenly become totally transformed into Nina. Things like that are happening all the time.

When people disappear as "others," there is just this love, with no existence on this life level as separate selves. You still deal with the life level, but there are no demands. There is just constant sacrifice because you are constantly serving the spiritual process. People are constantly giving to you, but that giving has nothing to do with you. It is just a matter of being responsible for the spiritual process. It just flows. It is so fluid, there is no form to it at all.

I have been having lots of Force-manifestations, but no concern for them. At one point I thought that might be because I never had any contact with any kind of spiritual seeking before I came to Bubba. But it doesn't have anything to do with that, because the whole thing that is really going on in me is just that attention to Bubba, simply that attention. Even when there are all these incredible experiences, it is simply that attention. It is Bubba, it is the Divine Reality, in you, living you, feeling you. Compared to that, a kriya or a vision is even more minor than a cigarette.

During Satsang in San Francisco, the Saturday of Guru Day weekend, everything was moving really fast on a life level, the movie was being made, all these things were happening. That day I was very emotional and full of love. But it wasn't even my love. It was Bubba, filling my entire body and wanting to embrace God at every moment. It was that constant attention, but it was absolutely perfect. It's so hard to describe the intensity. That turning to him creates such a fire, and you become so conscious of your resistance, and yet it is nothing. Everything that has been happening has been nothing. For me, the only thing that is really happening is love, it is God. And even that love is nothing finally, because there is no differentiation between the self and Him.

Then we left for Persimmon. Normally I feel a need to talk with Bubba or to be with Bubba or to look at Bubba, but at that point it was like being in another world. We gathered in the Satsang Hall to bring gifts to Bubba. I had put together this leaf-basket of fruit, and even while I was putting it together, it kept falling apart. The strawberries were falling on the other stuff, the peaches were getting stained by the strawberries, and I even fell over while walking up to Bubba's chair. I felt an absolute resistance in me, not only a gut resistance, but this feeling throughout my being. I was really scared. When I got to Bubba, I set the basket down and went up to kiss him, and I said to him, "There's just resistance in this whole way." And he said, "Why? How come?" or something like that. I had nothing to say. He took my head, and I could feel everything that he is here for come into me. He gave that to me, he gave the gift back to the giver.

I guess the next thing of interest that occurred was after the wedding on Sunday. I sat down at Bubba's table, and I had absolutely no control over what was going on. My body wasn't mine. I didn't even feel my body as mine. There was only this sensation I've had before in Bubba's Presence, the feeling that this body is being used.

Neil went and sat down in front of Bubba. The moment before, I felt this whole thing coming on. And when Neil sat down, I felt him screaming through me. Then I felt Jane screaming through me. It didn't have anything to do with me. I was screaming for them. I was letting it come out through me. I don't know how to show that or prove it. It's just an absolute clearness of the body, so that everything just runs through. There is no concern, it just happens. I wasn't even directing attention to them. My whole body, my whole being absolutely was Bubba on a whole different level. It was very calm, very peaceful. I was in relationship to all that was going on. It wasn't just screaming for them, it was bringing out that whole thing that they are, all their resistance, and I just wanted to let it come out for them, so their love could be there with Bubba.

That is a form of service and sacrifice to other devotees. The way we can serve each other is to maintain that absolute attention to Bubba at every moment, to show this love, this attention, this sacrifice every moment. Nothing I do for myself ever really satisfies my demands, my needs, and the recognition of that has made me turn my attention to fulfilling Bubba's demands, not mine. To be conscious enough in every moment in order to sacrifice the ego, that is really intense consciousness. But it becomes easy to have that attention and to accomplish that sacrifice. It is even very ordinary. The love and the intensity in Bubba's company are just incredible. There is just no way to describe it.

Later on, many skits were performed to entertain Bubba and the Community. But the intensity was so strong I couldn't stay there. I ran to the Satsang Hall. There was no way to keep me away from there. I went in and at first I was totally out of my mind. I was screaming for a long time, and I knew that I was somehow screaming for the world. At this particular time there was no one person for whom I was screaming. No one was there, and I was screaming for the world. I was sacrificing to the world all my own demands at that point.

Then I began spontaneously to chant in different languages, none of which I consciously know. I was making very strange sounds. The sounds seemed to do what needed to be done at that point, which was to bring on that fear, that fear of death, that resistance to God. That went on for quite awhile, and my fear increased. Nothing that was going on was for me. It was being done for everybody, because there is no difference between its being done for one person or for another. The chanting continued, and the fear intensified. The bats from the attic started flying all over me. I had already taken off my clothes and jewelry, and now I put my dress over my head. Through it I could see the bats flying all over me and the rain pouring through the leaks in the ceiling. God was just coming in, there was no escape. There was only God, and I couldn't deny it any more. The fear kept increasing, until there was only that fear of God, only that denial of God, only that resistance to God. I had only that resistance, and I had to sacrifice it some way, but there was no way I could do that on a life level.

Finally, I threw on my clothes and ran out of the Satsang Hall, and when I ran out everything released. Everything went, from my head to my feet, everything was released, and there was nothing there. My body was not obstructed any more. Everything went through it, all this energy and intensity, and there were absolutely no obstructions in my body. But that was just my body. There is so much more than just my body.

Bubba sometimes says there is nothing. And sometimes he says there is only God, and that is everything. Right now it is so hard to perceive Bubba, to know him. Because it isn't him. I am so used to looking at his physical form, to seeing him and talking to him and being with him and thinking he is the fulfillment of my demands. But he is really showing me what my demands are. He isn't even there any more, and everything that's been going on, all this screaming and yelling, is only part of my learning of a new relationship to everything I see in life, everything.

I don't even know what I am talking about right now, but it doesn't matter what you say, what you do, what you think, what you feel, because that isn't any of it at all. We still have to communicate that relationship, that love of God. We have to use this verbal communication at this point, but that doesn't matter. Because you know I love Bubba with everything in me. Everything in me is just turning to him, it isn't me. What is this hand? What is this body? What is this mind? What is it that I see beyond my mind? It is nothing. There's only God, Truth, only that Reality. That true consciousness that totally begins to live us as we turn to God. It begins to take us over so that we can be a vehicle of God. Bubba doesn't love us, be is us, he lives us, he feels us. He works through us, we are only him, we are only God, there is no difference any more.

Some people want to have miracles, they want to have something, they want to have something that will prove something to them, but that isn't sacrifice. Bubba doesn't have to prove anything. We have to sacrifice at every moment. And as long as we sacrifice, there is nothing to be proved. Why does anything have to be proved? There is only God. To truly look at everything prior to our assumption of ourselves is to know that nothing "other" exists, that there is no thing, there is nothing, there is nothing anywhere. Bubba isn't there, no one is there, it is all just God and God! How can you care about anything? There's nothing there!

All this talk is secondary. There is no description of Truth. It is prior to anything that exists in our perception. We still assume separateness, at least I do. And the moment which is prior to whatever takes place in this being scares the shit out of me. I have such fear of it. I know it's there and I sense it and I feel it and I know it. It is God-possession. It is God totally taking over your form, working through you as a vehicle to communicate God to all beings who are responsive. That's our only purpose in this world, to serve God and communicate this to all. It is nothing, but it is still our function. Our only function in this world is to communicate Truth.