Conversations with Avant-garde Sages - The Wizard LLC

Conversations with Avant-garde Sages
Taking a breather from my spiritual tutoring and from a day job as
a real estate developer, I took up my long lost friend’s invitation to
attend the epic artists’ festival in the desert known as
Burningman. This looked like a serious event, with harsh
conditions in the middle of nowhere, with a challenge and
opportunity to recreate myself any way that I desired. I was called
to conduct an experiment in unconditional love. The moment I hit
the ground, I was to assume my own divinity and the divinity of
everyone I met – not as a concept but as an already accomplished
fact. Furthermore, I would assume that everyone that I met was
worthy of unconditional love, without resorting to the
instantaneous judgments and reciprocity that had been my habit
based on initial appearances. I was able to be both of those Truths
wall-to-wall throughout what turned out to be one of the most
mind blowing events of my life and I lived on a cloud for two
months afterward. While the magic of that event faded, and I
found myself back in the grind of my daily existence as a single
householder with children, the yearning for being remained. It
was clear now something had truly shifted.
Shortly after returning from Burningman, John Troy arranged for
a small troupe to visit Tiruvannamalai, India and Arunachala, its
“sacred” mountain. Ramana Maharshi was devoted to the
mountain, Arunachala, and always referred to it as Shiva, the
formless Self; the same formless Self that was my revelation. As
you might expect, my expectations for this trip were high as I was
expecting nothing short of a Wizard of Oz journey into a magical
land resulting in my total, permanent transformation.
Synchronicity enjoined us the entire journey. We arrived at our
hotel with just enough time to freshen up before joining many
thousands of pilgrims in the full moon circumambulation of this
sacred mountain. Oh my God! There were people growing out of
the street with fifth stage symptoms of diseases we eradicated in
this country thirty years ago. There were parentless dirty street
urchins running around oxcarts and monkeys and sacred cows.
Sannyasins were walking around in saffron robes blessing car
fenders with potions.
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