Here in Sedona with Jeff

[nkrivosh]

Hi everyone, I thought I'd update you on my time here with Jeff. He has been asking me to write about my experiences here, so here it is...


ARRIVAL

I arrived into Sedona April 15th in the evening by Shuttle from Phoenix. Jeff arrived to pick me up in his van which is outfitted with an oil processing device which he has build and installed onto the back of his vehicle. It reminded me of the ghostbusters car with hoses and tubes and such. Jeff was very friendly and had a nice smile. We arrived at his place, full of oil containers, tools, pipes, miscellaneous equipment. Jeff had contructed a bed for me to sleep on in a separate room. He showed me the kitchen and boxes of food which I could go though and use at will. He also provided me with some blankets. It was quite a nice and pleasant welcome.


DAILY LIFE

Since my arrival I have spent about 6 hours a day meditating, some time eating and cooking, helping Jeff on various projects he is working on such as a waste petroleum distillation unit, and oil filtration system. In the evenings we have been talking about meditation, enlightenment, the mendicant lifestyle, and what it all means - a satsang. Also, we have gone into neighboring towns to visit the food banks for meals and to collect free food or other supplies.


MEDITATION

Since my arrival I can say that my meditation has improved. I can clearly hear the sound of silence anytime, its like hearing a high-pitch frequency sound. Also my body awareness had deepened. Part of the reason for the improvement is that I am more in the present and not looking toward the future as much, since I dont know what to look forward to. But, Jeff has also helped me in clarifying and expanding on some ideas I had in regards to the Noble 8 Fold Path, meditation, jhanas, and enlightenment. He also has helped me to interpret my past religious experiences.


OBSERVATIONS OF JEFFREY BROOKS (JHANANANDA)

Jeff is an energetic person during the day, walking swiftly, working on various things. While talking he frequently has a slight smile. He wakes up early in the morning before sunrise and has coffee by the fireplace. He gets quite tired in the evenings by around 8PM as his eyes get dry. Throughout the day, he frequently takes breaks from whatever he is doing to sit down quietly to relax and meditate. Jeff is diabetic and to regulate his blood sugar he lives on a diet low in carbs and with minimum amount of white sugar. I have not noticed a considerable degree of discipline in his diet otherwise. He eats whenever he wants, until he is satisfied, neither too little nor too much. I have seen him eating loads of peanut butter with crackers, and low-carb energy bars. Jeff also drinks beer 1-3 bottles a day. He has noticed that it helps with his joint pain.
Jeff is a scientist and researcher. He likes to talk about whats on his mind, he tells all kinds of details related to his projects, experiments, and his plans and ideas to improve the design process of his works. At first I felt that at such times Jeff was engaging in a dialogue, but have recently begun to think that it is more of a monologue, because input or questions from my part are not always welcome. While working, Jeff concentrates intensely and talking on my part seems to break his concentration which can rather easily make him agitated. So I am becoming more mindful of when it is better not to say anything and when talking is ok. In the evening, after all daily work is finished, Jeff switches to talking mode, a dialogue, at which point he is relaxed and easy to converse with. I have noticed that for the most part, Jeff has a good ability to stick to and remember the premise of a conversation. For example, after beginning a conversation, he will frequently go off on what seems like tangents and just as I begin to suspect that he forgot what the beginning of the talk was about, he makes a full circle and ties it all together. I have been impressed by this.

LIVING WITH JEFF, my views of what an Enlightened person is, have been changing. Although I cannot vouch for Jeffs Enlightenment, I can see that he clearly believes that he is, and can justify and explain this belief quite well. I have challenged him with my questions and doubts everyday since my arrival, and he has been able to answer most of my questions to my satisfaction. If Jeff really is Enlightened, then one thing is clear - Enlightened people have feelings, emotions, thoughts, good days and bad days, ups and downs just like normal people. Seeing Jeff like this makes Enlightenment a much more down to earth kind of thing, a real possibility. But, along with this, Jeff does claim to have mastery of religious ecstasies and this gives him insight into the truth of all religions whereas everyone including myself who does not have such mastery is only confused by the mass of misinformation and variety of claims about these experiences.

These are all my observations and opinions which Jeff may not agree with, but I have tried my best to be fair and unbiased. I have already seen the good and the not so good. But the important thing for me is that I still believe that Jeff has something to offer and that I can learn from him. His advice is good and logic sound. Even though I have some criticisms, he seems to genuinely want to help me succeed in my spiritual pursuits and I also do believe that anyone who wants to deepen their meditation practice or get insight on their religious experiences from a holistic, all inclusive perspective, could benefit from Jeffs wisdom.

Nikita

   

[Michael Hawkins]

Thanks to Nikita for this thoughtful set of observations and insights around his time (so far) with Jeffrey in Sedona.

Having spent a few days at Jeffrey's place this past Fall, and having known Jeffrey for many years, I resonate with most of what Nikita says.

I can say, for myself anyway, that giving rise to ecstatic phenomena and becoming saturated in them to the point of perpetual bliss, joy and ecstasy, does not in itself make the circumstances and consequences of human life go away.  Our accumulated karma remains active -- or, perhaps, significantly intensifies -- and in my own case, thoughts of enlightenment are replaced by a day-to-day, moment-to-moment investigation into the various qualities of existence.  Jeffrey has been saturated for something like 40 years, so he's had a lot more time to allow the charisms to erode the fetters that keep most of us bound and attached to life's drama.  The path to complete eradication of fetters and attachments is not, in my experience, an easy one -- but, as one of my early teachers Ramesh Balsekar put it, once we've taken the plunge, our head is truly in the tiger's mouth, and there's no going back.  It's best to just continue with our meditation, mindfulness and study practice, building the rest of our lives around it, and making ourselves content in the knowledge that the mechanism of enlightenment has been engaged once and for all.

Congratulations to Nikita for engaging in his own way, and for embracing what Jeffrey has to offer, even when it's not what our preconceptions may have foretold.

Many blessings,
Michael

[Michael Hawkins]

https://rightabsorption.wordpress.com/2013/04/26/standing-at-the-end-of-the-line/

For posterity, a blog post made from the above -- thanks to Nikita for starting this thread.....

[Jhanananda]

Thank-you, Nikita and Michael for your comments and support.  Nikita has been a tremendous help to me.  I often need his help to lift something heavy, and he is always there, and helpful, and never complains.  Among the many things he does for me every day, Thursday he helped me collect nearly 75 gallons of waste vegetable oil (WVO) from two restaurants, then Friday he helped me get them down off the roof of my van and process them through the first stage of turning them into fuel. 

Nikita and Michael know that I may not be a good housekeeper, or walk on water, but I regularly perform the miracle of turning garbage into fuel.

[stugandolf]

Nikita,  It has been a month since you wrote "Here in Sedona with Jeff" how about an update!  Last evening before going to sleep I pondered the idea of an update.  Just before awakening, one of several , I dreamed you and I and Jeff were sitting around and talking - " I asked you how long you had been in Sedona "?  "You answered about..."  And there are some who do not believe dreams are real... I appreciate the clarity of your perspective and Michael Hawkins' perspective.  Stu

[nkrivosh]

Hi All, a little update,
I haven't been on the GWV much lately, as I've been doing much more camping since I purchased my car about a month ago. During the month I continued my daily meditations, some of which were quite nice and peaceful. I've recording my dreams and meditation sessions regularly, also making fuel and going to food banks as before. One of the nights I had a conversation with my mom where I expressed the need for more emotional openness within our family. I speculated that having not expressed feelings of support and love for one another, everyone in our family was suffering from a difficulty opening up the heart chakra. I expressed my love for my mom. After the conversation, the feeling of love and kindness spread and intensified, there was a trembling in my heart, and my love spread to all beings. It felt so real and powerful that it seemed all beings are actually affected by my loving-kindness. For the next few days I still had a strong sense of that loving feeling lingering inside. I was also much more aware in the falling asleep stage, where there is a loud buzzing in the ears, vibrations of the entire body and an entering into an immaterial space. In one dream I flew around in circles and realizing the nature of the immaterial space I decided that walls were no obstacles either, at which point I was flying through objects and through the walls. A week or more went by and I had a chance to talk to my father, telling him I loved him in Russian, for the first time in my life, something I wanted to say for years since beginning a contemplative life. Again there was a trembling in the heart area but this didn’t carry through as profoundly to my meditation session this time. My meditation was pleasant. Since then I travelled around Sedona, and visited some of the so called Vortex locations. I didn't feel any magical vortex power there but the sheer beauty of the panoramic views stunned me and took my breath away first time in my life. I travelled to the Grand Canyon, Indian Reservation desert lands and camped in National Forests alone. All the while I've been coming and going to and from Jeff's Sedona base.

Spending lots of time with Jeff, was becoming very stressful for me. One day everything would be great, and then suddenly Jeff would get angry at something, and negativity would spread and arise in me. I was getting really uncomfortable and looking forward to getting away from Jeff ASAP. But after camping out by myself for a couple of days and coming back I would find that Jeff seemed refreshed himself and that me being away allowed him to relax more deeply, in isolated conditions which he has become accustomed to living in over the years. So I realized that it was to both our benefits if I used Sedona as a base to come back to for short stays, rather than for longer periods at a time. I also noticed that Jeff was much more peaceful in the nature than around Sedona, because van troubles, fuel making, and the distillation projects, were stressing him out and taking a heavy toll on him. So since I began camping out more, I have found more stable calm. At the same time some of the things I have talked about with Jeff were beginning to sink in deeper, and I notice a new kind of appreciation for my spending time with him. I appreciate being in intelligent company, and Jeff’s ways of analyzing and forming hypotheses, and insights on various subjects. Also my own interpretation of my own experiences keeps evolving. We still disagree frequently during discussions, but I think it is perfectly fine to disagree, and learn to find a common threads and roots of miscommunication.
 
Tomorrow we will begin the first summer retreat, and I am looking forward to it. I wonder how it will be different from staying around Sedona, and how living in a forest for an extended period of time will affect my meditation and self awareness. From spending days in the Kaibab National Forest I was becoming in tune with nature more deeply -  sleeping under the stars, hearing and seeing all the different birds and insects and watching and learning their behavior around me. Just observing nature, the trees, the earth the sky. This has been fascinating and giving rise to a new kind of pleasure. I think there is lots more to learn.

[Jhanananda]

Hi All, a little update,
I haven't been on the GWV much lately, as I've been doing much more camping since I purchased my car about a month ago. During the month I continued my daily meditations, some of which were quite nice and peaceful. I've recording my dreams and meditation sessions regularly, also making fuel and going to food banks as before.

Good to receive an update from you, Nikita.  It is also good to know that your meditations have been baring fruit, but you are also seeing that not all meditations are ever going to be the same.  There will always be ups and downs from one meditation session to the next.  Just as not all sleep experiences are going to be blissful. However, perhaps you are seeing that living a lifestyle that is conducive to a fruitful contemplative life does bare more fruit, and sweeter fruit, than a lifestyle that is not oriented to the contemplative life.

One of the nights I had a conversation with my mom where I expressed the need for more emotional openness within our family. I speculated that having not expressed feelings of support and love for one another, everyone in our family was suffering from a difficulty opening up the heart chakra. I expressed my love for my mom. After the conversation, the feeling of love and kindness spread and intensified, there was a trembling in my heart, and my love spread to all beings. It felt so real and powerful that it seemed all beings are actually affected by my loving-kindness. For the next few days I still had a strong sense of that loving feeling lingering inside. I was also much more aware in the falling asleep stage, where there is a loud buzzing in the ears, vibrations of the entire body and an entering into an immaterial space. In one dream I flew around in circles and realizing the nature of the immaterial space I decided that walls were no obstacles either, at which point I was flying through objects and through the walls.

A week or more went by and I had a chance to talk to my father, telling him I loved him in Russian, for the first time in my life, something I wanted to say for years since beginning a contemplative life. Again there was a trembling in the heart area but this didn’t carry through as profoundly to my meditation session this time. My meditation was pleasant.

Clearly your contemplative life has opened your heart chakra, which has resulted in greater compassion for others; and along with it you have acquired greater lucidity in your sleep space, which has resulted in the OOBE.  If you were to report this to the average meditation teacher he would boot you out for having "fallen for the powers," instead of encouraging your for having developed compassion, which is one of the divine abodes of Buddhism.

Since then I travelled around Sedona, and visited some of the so called Vortex locations. I didn't feel any magical vortex power there but the sheer beauty of the panoramic views stunned me and took my breath away first time in my life. I travelled to the Grand Canyon, Indian Reservation desert lands and camped in National Forests alone. All the while I've been coming and going to and from Jeff's Sedona base.

Now getting too old to do much, my aspiration is that I can be a home base to those who will take up a fruitful contemplative life, so I am only too happy to help you in any way I can.

Spending lots of time with Jeff, was becoming very stressful for me. One day everything would be great, and then suddenly Jeff would get angry at something, and negativity would spread and arise in me. I was getting really uncomfortable and looking forward to getting away from Jeff ASAP. But after camping out by myself for a couple of days and coming back I would find that Jeff seemed refreshed himself and that me being away allowed him to relax more deeply, in isolated conditions which he has become accustomed to living in over the years. So I realized that it was to both our benefits if I used Sedona as a base to come back to for short stays, rather than for longer periods at a time. I also noticed that Jeff was much more peaceful in the nature than around Sedona, because van troubles, fuel making, and the distillation projects, were stressing him out and taking a heavy toll on him. So since I began camping out more, I have found more stable calm. At the same time some of the things I have talked about with Jeff were beginning to sink in deeper, and I notice a new kind of appreciation for my spending time with him. I appreciate being in intelligent company, and Jeff’s ways of analyzing and forming hypotheses, and insights on various subjects. Also my own interpretation of my own experiences keeps evolving. We still disagree frequently during discussions, but I think it is perfectly fine to disagree, and learn to find a common threads and roots of miscommunication.

Yes, the stresses of trying to do so much with so little tends to stimulate inflammation episodes, which tends to make me grumpy with pain.  So, it is good to know when to stay and when to go.  After your last departure I did almost nothing while I dealt with the inflammation.  Since then I have learned to simply take aspirin to deal with the inflammation. But, there would have been little use in you being around anyway until the inflammation settled down, so you might as well go camping.

Tomorrow we will begin the first summer retreat, and I am looking forward to it. I wonder how it will be different from staying around Sedona, and how living in a forest for an extended period of time will affect my meditation and self awareness. From spending days in the Kaibab National Forest I was becoming in tune with nature more deeply -  sleeping under the stars, hearing and seeing all the different birds and insects and watching and learning their behavior around me. Just observing nature, the trees, the earth the sky. This has been fascinating and giving rise to a new kind of pleasure. I think there is lots more to learn.

Well, camping by yourself may become your new lifestyle.  For now you will be camping with too old contemplatives, so it is likely to pose new challenges to your equanimity.