Letters from the Field: A Wellspring of Gratitude Is the Hallmark of Awakening

Hi Fred!

I wanted to write to you, as it has been awhile since I communicated my deep gratitude to you for the profound impact your awakening and your presence has had on my sense of awakening and on my life!

 I don’t try to put into the character’s words very often what my “journey” has been like and the change in my experience since I found “Beyond Recovery” and contacted you about three years ago.  I think my story is probably quite typical.  In 2001, with 11 years clean and sober in recovery, having diligently and consistently worked with what I now think of as the “clearing out” process of the 12 steps, I was introduced to my first non-dual literature (The Power of Now), and had an immediate awakening in the first few pages.  Over the next 14 years, I studied Nisargadatta and much of all the literature, watched and listened to the recordings and videos of so many of the awakened teachers, worked with one spiritual teacher for a couple years (Stephen Bodian’s School for Awakening), and continued my own “clearing out” process through the steps.  Awakeness experience through me during this time was of the “wave” knowing that the truth was that I was really just the “ocean,” and seeking, seeking that continual felt experience of oneness.

It has been all good! As always, one spiritual book led to another. In early 2015 I discovered Beyond Recovery, and, once again, within the first few pages, Awakening through Joel experienced a profound and deeper awakening, unlike anything previous!  The change is best expressed through your line, “The difference between the relative surrender of a drop apparently surrendering to the ocean, and the ocean recognizing that no drops exist, is quite significant.  IT IS ALSO EXPERIENTIAL.”

I have always liked the saying from recovery that, “Sometimes the greatest journey we make is the 12 inches from the head to the heart.”  This journey has felt like that. It makes me have a better appreciation of the meaning of the word “Embodiment.” My subsequent and critical couple of Clarity sessions with you allowed me to confirm and understand my experience, and continuing these past three years with podcasts, your other literature and, most importantly, Satsang, has felt like a continual and deepening stabilizing process of this experiential awakening regardless of the circumstances of my life.

That last line of your quote is so significant to me. Previously, Awakening’s experience through me seemed, in retrospect, mostly through my head and my knowledge of the Truth, but at that moment, and since then, it moved down to my EXPERIENCE! I no longer experience myself as the “wave” that knows the truth that it is part of something greater.  My experience is always now as the “Ocean”, seeing the world through “Joel,” not as Joel.  My experience is of Awakening interacting in the relative world through the Joel character each day, taking the required “dream actions” in the “dream world,” the constant dance of awakening to the absolute, yet living in the relative world.  It is a “relative life,” but as I continue to experience, “Joel” walks through the world much more lightly, with less friction when fully understanding that he is not in it. There continues to be less persistence of the “Joel” and a sense of greater and more consistent clarity of the “”Oneness” seeing and living, not as, this wonderful Joel-unit.

 So, I can’t really find the words to adequately express “Joel’s” thanks to Awakening for manifesting and living and teaching through you, Fred!!!

 As you said once in Satsang, in recognition that no thoughts are really true, I believe (and I nearly fell out of my chair laughing), “This is what’s happening over here.  It’s clearly bullshit, but I just wanted to report it!” J

 All my love and respect,

 Joel