Conversation with Wayne Liquorman

Texte emprunté à: Borrowed to:

http://www.theawakeningwest.com/wayne.html

Wayne Liqourman is a disciple of Ramesh Balsekar , himself a disciple of

Nisargadatta Maharaj and Ramana Maharshi. This conversation was part of a series

but is not included in the resulting book by Lynn Mary Lumiere et John

Lumiere-Wins The Awakening West - Evidence of a Spreading Enlightenment. Five

other conversations were not included but are on the site: Neelam (close

disciple of Poonja), Shanti Mayi, Suzanne Segal, Rabbi Rami Shapiro and Valerie

Vener. To read those go to http://www.theawakeningwest.com and cliks on

" additionnal conversations " .

That conversation probably dates before 2000 because there is no mention of

Wayne Liquorman's book Acceptance of What Is.

__________

Cette conversation est l'une de six qui ne furent pas incluse dans un livre

publié par Lynn Mary Lumiere et John Lumiere-Wins The Awakening West - Evidence

of a Spreading Enlightenment. Les autres conversations avaient lieu avec: Neelam

(disciple de Poonja), Shanti Mayi, Suzanne Segal, Rabbi Rami Shapiro et Valerie

Vener. Pour y avoir accès allez à: : http://www.theawakeningwest.com et à

" additional conversations " .

Cette conversation semble dater d'avant la publication du second livre de Wayne

Liquorman Acceptance of What Is, en 2000.

 

Conversation with

Wayne Liquorman

 

" Ram Tzu knows this...

When a glimmer of

Understanding appears,

You have cancer.

It will grow...

Relentlessly replacing

You with Itself.

Until you are gone. "

- from

" No Way For the Spiritually Advanced "

Wayne Liquorman is also known as Ram Tzu. Even though Ram Tzu and Wayne

Liquorman are two aspects of the same consciousness, he makes a distinction

between that which appears to be an individual, Wayne, and Infinite

Consciousness, which is Ram Tzu. We interviewed Ram Tzu since Wayne says Ram Tzu

is in a much better position to talk about " these things. "

We approached Wayne with some trepidation. After reading his book, " No Way For

the Spiritually Advanced " , we knew that he had a sense of humor, but also that

he could be iconoclastic and quite intolerant of the spiritual games people

play. He skillfully exposes the absurdities and arrogance of spiritual efforts

made in the pursuit of enlightenment. Some might even say that Wayne is

irreverent. He is definitely direct and to the point, and certainly does not

seem care what others may think of him.

It is an interesting twist of fate that Wayne's family name is Liquorman, a name

he says he tried hard to live up to. He refers to his nineteen years of

alcoholism and substance abuse as his sadhana. He says that it prepared him to

open up to something larger than himself, and to ultimately find his teacher.

This former alcoholic and his teacher, Ramesh Balsekar, a banker from Bombay,

are as unlikely a pair as one could imagine. Yet the deep love and respect Wayne

has for his teacher was palpable.

Wayne is a clear example of someone who would not fit anyone's " picture " of what

a person who awakens should be like. Certainly alcoholism is not in the picture

books of most people's minds as a preparation for enlightenment. His life is an

example of how there truly are no definite standards for how one must live, or

what one must do in order for awakening to occur.

At the time we met with him, Wayne told us that he does not have any desire to

become a guru. To quote Ram Tzu, " I don't want a bunch of miserable seekers

cluttering up my living room. " However, during a visit with Ramesh in July 1996

Wayne was given direct instructions to teach Advaita and has begun to do so. He

also writes poems when they come forth. Wayne runs Advaita Press in Redondo

Beach, California which publishes Ram Tzu's books as well as books by Ramesh

Balsekar and others.

 

CONVERSATION WITH WAYNE LIQUORMAN

 

Lynn-Mary Lumiere: Who is Ram Tzu?

WAYNE: Ram Tzu is consciousness, pure and simple. This is where it gets

interesting because Ram Tzu and Wayne Liquorman are essentially two aspects of

the same consciousness, but Ram Tzu doesn't have a body, doesn't have a family,

doesn't have any of those qualities that identify us as individuals. So, Ram Tzu

is in a much easier position to talk about this stuff, realistically.

 

John Lumiere-Wins: Wayne Liquorman is the publisher and Ram Tzu is pure

Consciousness?

WAYNE: Yes. I make the distinction between Wayne Liquorman and Ram Tzu because

we are talking about the identified consciousness and infinite consciousness. I

find it useful to make the distinction to say Wayne Liquorman is not

enlightened; Wayne Liquorman is not enlightened because no individual can

possibly be enlightened. And Wayne Liquorman goes about his daily routine just

like everybody else does and for all intents and purposes he's just another guy,

just an ordinary guy making his way through the day. Whereas Ram Tzu is in fact

enlightened. And in fact there is a line in a Ram Tzu poem which says, " If you

find Ram Tzu, kill him! " Because Ram Tzu does not exist in phenomenality.

 

JLW: He doesn't exist as a separate individual in phenomenality.

WAYNE: Correct.

 

JLW: Phenomenality exists within Ram Tzu.

WAYNE: Ram Tzu is consciousness without any of the meddlesome properties of ego

and personality that is what confuses the issue when you are talking with

someone who is " enlightened. " It appears as though you are talking to an

individual. And no matter how many times in the course of a conversation that

that person said, " there is no such thing as an enlightened individual,

enlightenment is the absence of the individual. " You can't help but supply, in

between the lines, an individual.

 

JOHN: You can't help but notice that it appears that somebody is speaking to

you.

WAYNE: Absolutely, and that is the rub. There are various ways of reconciling

that but the problem remains.

 

JLW: So, in your experience--and I'm not sure to whom I speaking--[Laughter] are

these two separate experiences, or are they two aspects of the same one?

WAYNE: Well obviously, when consciousness identifies itself with a body

mechanism which has certain characteristics it is born with, such as gender,

temperament, and all of the influences it has on its life, that all serves to

effect the perceptions that go through that mechanism. So, the way the mechanism

articulates is determined by all those factors. More specifically, the way the

organism responds is determined by its nature. If you have a consciousness that

is not identified with the body then it is much freer than one that is. Even

though there may be understanding here, the understanding is tempered by the

fact that it exists within a body-mind mechanism. The reason we say that there

is no such thing as an enlightened individual is because by its very nature a

body-mind mechanism cannot be enlightened. It is a limited quantum.

 

LML: And what we truly are is and always was enlightened.

WAYNE: All there is consciousness. All there is is enlightenment, fundamentally.

 

LML: So, what does enlightenment mean to you?

WAYNE: Not much! [Laughter] Within the context of the phenomenal manifestation,

it is another event. The mistaken assumption is that that event happens to an

individual, and it doesn't. The occurrence of enlightenment is the falling away

of the veil of identification as a separate body-mind organism. Yet, the

body-mind organism stays around and functions, usually in much the same way it

functioned previously. How could it not? It is still determined by all the same

things that it was determined by previously. The myth is that when there is

enlightenment, all of a sudden there's this unbelievable sense of bliss. The

word " bliss " has been taken to mean some kind of ecstatic personal state. And

it's not a personal experience at all.

 

LML: There are many ideas of how an enlightened person should appear -- holy,

blissful, serene, never getting angry and so on.

WAYNE: Absolutely. You can hang around in certain spiritual camps and see the

people who have very clear perceptions of how enlightened people, or people

close to enlightenment, are supposed to look. You see these beatific looks on

their faces, and these kinds of " seeing into the ethers " look in the eyes. It's

really comical. But, it couldn't be any other way!

 

LML: Could you tell us about this occurrence of enlightenment that happened

here? What is the story?

WAYNE: Well it happened right there in the chair John is sitting in, as a matter

of fact.

The story is that I was essentially in love with two women and in the same week,

each of them decided to clear the field for the other. One of them came here to

tell me this and I experienced an incredible wave of sadness come over me. It

got deeper and deeper until a deep emotional pain started to envelop me. I had

never experienced anything of this dimension before. It kept growing and finally

there was this huge blackness, everything blanked and I had this sensation of

being sucked into a pit of unbelievable pain. The perception was one of falling

into a pit of all the suffering that has ever been. I was racked with huge sobs

of excruciating emotional pain. And it was obvious that it was not in any way

related to the fact that my girlfriend was breaking up with me.

So, I'm having this experience and something in me broke or let go, and I let

myself go into it. All of the fear and resistance to the pain and suffering I

was experiencing went away. I opened to it entirely and essentially merged with

it until there was no longer any separation between it and me.

 

JLW: You weren't experiencing it, you were it.

WAYNE: Correct. And that was it. After that, in that complete acceptance, if you

will . . . this is where it gets real tricky because we have to speak in

personal terms--the language is designed this way. The acceptance is

simultaneous with enlightenment, oneness, understanding, whatever you want to

call it, they are undifferentiated. The minute you start talking about it, you

start breaking it back up again. To say that it's an experience is not precisely

correct, because an experience always presupposes an experiencer. In That, there

is no one to experience anything.

 

LML: Did that sense of a one who experiences things ever come back again?

WAYNE: Of course it did, but not as the doer. The one who is responding to your

questions, who articulates, that's all very much there. I still yell at my son

when he doesn't do his homework, all of the mechanisms for functioning within

the phenomenal manifestation still exist.

 

JLW: So what is different?

WAYNE: Not much! [Laughter] There is an underlying understanding. But that

underlying understanding is not part of the functioning of the mechanism.

 

JLW: They are independent of one another. The functioning will happen with or

without the understanding.

WAYNE: Correct.

 

LML: Is there any way at all that this understanding has changed the quality of

your life?

WAYNE: Not really! My teacher, Ramesh Balsekar, used to say that if you are

given the choice between having a million dollars and enlightenment take the

million bucks because at least there's someone there to enjoy it! [Laughter] In

enlightenment there is not a " one " to enjoy enlightenment.

 

LML: I'd like to back up a little here and ask if you could tell more of your

story leading up to the understanding that occurred when your girlfriend was

breaking up with you -- your nineteen years of alcoholism, and meeting Ramesh.

WAYNE: Well, there were nineteen years of alcoholism and drug addiction that got

progressively worse as those years went on. I had alcoholic edema in my ankles

and wrists, and was all puffed up. I was drinking a quart of hard liquor a day

and snorting a gram of cocaine everyday, just to keep going. I was dying. And I

was absolutely dead inside; there was no spiritual connection at all.

I had thought that I was the master of my destiny, and that anything I set my

mind to do I could do. If I were going to have any chance of being successful,

I'd have to use my native intelligence, quickness and wits to outwit the other

guy because he was out to get me. I just had to be smarter, quicker, faster,

slicker than he was if I was going to survive. That's an incredibly painful way

to live your life--to be fighting the entire world all of the time. My solution

to that problem was to medicate myself. And it got a little out of hand!

So, at the end of one weekend binge I was laying in bed all coked up and trying

to pass myself out with alcohol and pot so I could sleep. I was sweating and

miserable, incomprehensibly demoralized. Then I had a moment of absolute clarity

when I felt my entire being change and knew intuitively in my soul that I

couldn't do this anymore.

After that, I found a group of other alcoholics who had a way of living without

alcohol. They had a program of recovery that was about finding some kind of

spiritual power to live by. When I told Ramesh many years later about this, his

comment was that the alcoholism had been my sadhana. Other people go do charity

work and meditate and I got to do alcohol and drugs. That's what it took to

bring me to a point of sweet reasonableness, if you will. It broke down the ego

at least enough so that I could admit to some quality in the universe, other

than myself, that might have some source of power. In that moment my entire

world shifted.

I then started reading the Tao Te Ching, doing T¹ai Chi, went to hear Ram Dass.

I spent a couple of years checking out all kinds of things, various meditations,

reading Rajneesh and this and that. When I went to hear Ramesh for the first

time, the whole thing was just beyond me. It didn't click with me at all. I

didn't understand the language, but I felt there was something there. So I went

back and this time it was more intimate, in someone's home.

It was a beautiful house in the Hollywood hills and the whole scene was

completely enchanting. Ramesh walked in, there were about eight of us, and I sat

at his feet. From that time on I was just hooked. I started going up there every

day. I was doing everything I could to be in his presence. I was as hopelessly

in love with this guy as I had ever been with anyone. I just wanted to be with

him every minute if I could. It was horrible because I was always scheming ways

to get in there to see him.

 

JLW: It's really beautiful though. When that spark is ignited and you just can't

not be with somebody like thatSthat's rich.

WAYNE: Oh yes, it was very rich. It is as vibrant an experience as one can have,

I think. That experience led to a time when Ramesh was leaving and we were at

the airport discussing turning the tapes of his talks into a book. And someone

asked me if I had ever been in the publishing business. I said no, then Ramesh,

who had been out of this conversation entirely, said, " Not yet. " It was as

profound an experience as that night when I got struck sober. There was that

intensity and quality of knowing that something irrevocable had just happened in

my life. Without doubt, deep in my guts, there was an intuitive knowledge that

something had happened again. So, I then went to Bombay a couple months later to

work on a manuscript with Ramesh. That was 1988.

Then he came back to the United States again and I was in charge of the tour. My

relationship with Ramesh deepened to a point where he told me I was his

spiritual son. This was one of the most special moments of my life. When the

relationship between guru and disciple reaches that kind of intensity, there is

no other kind of relationship that can match it. It has a dimension beyond a

relationship with a lover or your child, because it goes into the realm of

consciousness. It transcends the purely phenomenal in which all the other

relationships exist.

 

LML: Could you say something about the guru-disciple relationship in terms of

non-duality. There is no other, yet there is this beautiful relationship.

WAYNE: It's one of those really sweet paradoxes. There is this underlying

ambiguity and paradox that all there is is consciousness. All there is is the

oneness. In the ultimate understanding when the disciple realizes the Truth

completely, the distinction between the guru and the disciple evaporates. And

yet, there is at the phenomenal level, an incredibly intense continuation of the

original relationship. When I go to Bombay and visit with Ramesh we don't talk

about any of this shit anymore. [Laughter] What's the point? It's all a load of

crap. To talk about the Truth is like a mere child's finger painting

representation of Yosemite Valley. But we still genuinely enjoy being with one

another.

LML: There are people who are seekers of enlightenment, they have a longing for

this. Do you have anything to say to these people? Is there anything they can do

to have this occur?

WAYNE: Who is there to do it? That is the question. That which thinks that it's

functioning, that which thinks that it is the operating center of the universe

that can do something is an illusion. It has no independent power. It can't do

squat. So, it does all kinds of things as part of the functioning of the

totality, but it has no more volition about what it does than the light bulb has

about turning on when it's switched on. The only difference is that when we do

something we think it's our own idea.

 

LML: So what to do? Here in the West people are very much into self-improvement.

There's therapy, meditation, many spiritual practices. What value does all this

have if any?

WAYNE: The problem is all you get is an improved self! But all of it can have

value. You've got huge ashrams full of people getting up at 3:00 in the morning

and doing all kinds of bizarre shit. That's all happening, and in some cases

benefit is derived from it. In a few cases it is a stepping stone to some kind

of ultimate understanding, but you have to understand that it's not causative.

Ram Tzu says that he believes in cause and effect, but he's just not sure which

is which! [Laughter]

 

JLW: You mean whether it is teleological or sequential?

WAYNE: Right. Which is the cause and which is the effect; what causes what? The

example Ramesh uses, because he likes to go to the racetrack [Laughter] is, do

you win money on a horse race because the horse wins or does the horse win,

because in order for you to win money, it has to. And therefore, what seems to

be the effect of the cause--that the horse won and you got the money--it may

actually be that the cause for the horse winning was that you needed the money.

 

JLW: Cause and effect is based in a sequential idea of order and that's an idea.

LML: So someone can do twenty years of meditation and then have ultimate

understanding but there is no direct cause and effect that understanding

happened because of meditation.

WAYNE: Obviously, because there are a lot of cases like Ram Tzu.

 

LML: Would you say that more people are having this ultimate understanding in

the West? Do you feel that there is a quickening of this Consciousness occurring

at this time?

WAYNE: I haven't a clue. I certainly see a lot of people who have spiritual

experiences which they believe are enlightenment, but regrettably aren¹t. I

think the whole question of enlightenment is really kind of funny to begin with.

The notion that this is something that some one desires--I promise you that if

they knew . . . I mean there is nothing to want. It is not an experience worth

having, it is just not! [Laughter]

 

LML: What do you mean by that?

WAYNE: It is not an experience possible to have. It is not an experience period.

 

JLW: But it is a realization that alleviates the kinds of suffering we go

through because we are identified with our ideas of who we are.

LML: Yes, doesn't awakening bring freedom from suffering?

WAYNE: Yes, there is freedom from suffering. But I'll make a distinction, it is

a freedom from suffering, it is not the freedom from pain. Suffering comes about

as a result of the identification with the apparent individual. And yet, the

pain, be it emotional or physical, is felt as profoundly by the organism, maybe

more so, because there isn't quite the resistance to it that there was . . .

There is a guy who lives by Santa Cruz or someplace, he writes on a chalkboard.

JLW: Baba Hari Das, at the Mount Madonna Center.

WAYNE: Yes. I never met him but whenever I start getting into the depths of this

subject, I often think what a great idea it is just to have a chalkboard on

which to write a couple of words. It keeps it much simpler. As we get involved

in each of these concepts of suffering, and the difference between pain and

suffering, we can bring in the thinking mind and the working mind. The thinking

mind is mitigating the experience of the working mind, " blah, blah, blah, blah,

blah, blah. " All of which doesn't go to answer any questions; it goes to create

more. And it is endless. So, there you have it.

 

LML: You did say that there is a freedom from suffering that results from this

understanding--not from pain, but from identification as one who is in pain.

WAYNE: Yes. But I'm not even comfortable with that concept. Because where you go

with it is, " Okay, now we have established that enlightenment does, in fact,

improve you and is now, in fact, a desirable state because you have these

benefits. It¹s not really so.

 

LML: You make it sound like there aren't really any benefits.

WAYNE: There are not really benefits, [Laughter] to the individual concerned.

 

LML: So the individual concerned is not more peaceful or happier?

WAYNE: Maybe, depends on the day. [Laughter]

 

JLW: I'd like to pursue this a little bit too, because I think what I'm hearing

is that the individual who is seeking enlightenment, is blindly, or perhaps not

so blindly, moving to his own demise. So, in that sense, there is no benefit to

the individual. But, after there has been a realization, it¹s not that the

individual realizes, it is that Totality realizes Itself in a particular locus

of individuation of Itself. It is hard to say it in words, but there is

something very rich in this and very satisfying, in an impersonal way.

It's like being a dirty piece of glass or a clean piece of glass. I mean

ultimately there is no difference, the dirt is part of the same thing, the

individual ego is part of the same thing. Yet, when it is realized, there is

clarity, there is presence, there is an openness, an acceptance of what comes

and a release of what goes. There is fullness and a freedom and a flow and an

ease that wasn't there as much before.

Isn't this so for you?

WAYNE: Yes, but that came about gradually. For me the step from identification

to dis-identification was barely noticeable. There was that dramatic event which

is spiffy to point at and say, " Okay, that was it. " But for me, the changes

which had been taking place in me over the intervening years, had brought about

already a tremendous amount of acceptance and intellectual understanding that

all this is a dream and that it is just unfolding as it is supposed to. And in

fact, I would say that subsequent to the understanding being complete, the

external perception of my life, of my friends and others--it probably looked as

though I was more involved in my life afterwards. Because there wasn't that last

vestige of intellectual bullshit of, " Oh this is all just a dream; this isn't

real, " which is an intellectual thought.

 

JLW: And a subsequent pulling back from being with. . .

WAYNE: :From being with whatever the actual experience was.

 

JLW: So you knew simultaneously that you were with whatever the experience was

and also, you were none of it--is this correct?

WAYNE: Well, what I am saying is that prior to the final understanding, there

was still that mentation going on in which there was the evaluation of the

experience based on the Truth. Now there is none of that. I mean, this all just

is. The whole question of it being real or not real--it all goes away. It is

moot.

 

LML: In your case then it wasn't a dramatic shift; it was subtle.

WAYNE: Very subtle.

 

JLW: Because the organism had made a significant adaptation to the non-dual

perspective already?

WAYNE: Absolutely. Because I was living with Ramesh, three months at a crack,

and almost every waking hour was spent with him. Lord knows how many hours of

talks I sat through!

 

LML: We would like to ask how you experience relationships since the shift in

identification.

WAYNE: Let¹s define the ego as the operating center, the thing that responds

when its name is called, that which was born with certain qualities and

characteristics. Its subsequent development elaborated certain qualities and

diminished others until, on a given date, it has a certain set of

characteristics. Those characteristics respond to a situation according to its

nature and that is the thing that has relationships. That ego, if you will,

continues to interrelate with people and the world according to the way this

script is written.

And so when two people fly down from Oakland and set up a tape recorder in its

living room and ask it questions, it responds according to its nature and

according to its perspective and according to its background. And the

relationship that evolves between these two mechanisms and this one has to do

with the dynamics of all of those mechanisms and it couldn't be any other way.

That is the understanding. Did I answer your question?

 

JLW: Yes, you did for me. So, if I understand, relationships exist for you as

they always have with a kind of ground of understanding that they are the way

they are because they just happen to be that way.

WAYNE: Yes.

 

LML: Another question we hear people ask a lot is, " How do things get done? " How

do decisions get made if you don¹t function as an individual, separate " I " ?

WAYNE: This is an outgrowth of the same question and it has essentially the same

answer, which is that there is an operating center here, without it this body is

a vegetable, it doesn't function. There has to be something that enables the

mechanism of the body and the mind to function.

 

LML: And what is that? Who is that doer?

WAYNE: Ultimately, the doer is consciousness. There is only one operating center

and it functions through a variety of mechanisms. The analogy that Ramesh uses

all the time is that of electricity operating through a variety of devices. The

devices are established in such a way to perform certain tasks--when the

electricity goes through the microwave it heats up your food. And the light

bulb, when the electricity goes through it, illuminates the room. All these

various devices had particular functions. They are all animated by the same

energy and the only thing that determines the output is the nature of the

device.

This particular device, the Wayne unit, if you will, on this given day is

sitting and answering questions posed to it, because that is what is happening.

It is what is supposed to happen and in order for it to happen, this Wayne unit

had to exist and these two units had to exist in order for this moment to occur

and whatever flows out of this--for that to happen, this had to happen. And on

and on and on and on.

 

JLW: So the doing just happens.

WAYNE: Doing happens, clearly. But where we get screwed up is in the notion that

enlightenment somehow transforms the individual into some kind of super man,

creature, thing that has all these extremely desirable qualities and various

powers and various capabilities. Let's face it, as egos, what we want is

control, we want power, we want to be able to make things happen because that is

how the ego is constructed. There is this notion of enlightenment being this

state of supreme power, because you are now identified with God, rather than

being identified with this puny, rotten, little body that is going to get sick

and hurt and feel bad and vomit and do all kinds of lousy shit and die--its just

not going to be pleasant. So we believe that the obvious solution is to be God

because that's going to be a lot better.

 

LML: Yes, the ego likes to believe that you will be better than every one else

and you won't hurt...

WAYNE: ...And you won't die. So what could be better than that?

 

LML: That's the ego's idea of enlightenment.

WAYNE: Un-huh. And it's all true!

 

LML: You mean it's true that you don't hurt and you don't die...

WAYNE: Uh-huh, and that you are God. That is all absolutely true. That is

exactly what enlightenment is. But it is not happening to an individual

body-mind mechanism. That's the rub. [Laughter]

 

LML: Anything else you want to add that we haven't covered here?

WAYNE: I can't imagine what it would be!

 

Namastê

Nirgunananda