MY STORY
I vow to the path of infinite embodied realizations and to support all beings called to this vision.
I vow to love.
The following passages of my life highlight the Calling at the center of my vision that has been burning deeply in my heart since a very young age and what has propelled my journey with blazing fire as a visionary leader. A vision that is both deeply spiritual and worldly.
My spiritual vision is to uncover the Deity Self that lies at the center of this being and embody full integration where human development and spiritual realization meet. A multiple lifetime journey.
My worldly vision is to support visionary leaders who are inspired by this spiritual vision and to help them embody the markers to become essence-led visionary leaders and ultimately 2nd Tier leaders, so we can collaborate in the vision of Lumina, an eco-system where we collaborate together from this place to create magic in the world.
​
The following threads of my story serve the purpose of you and I getting to know each other so we can develop a sacred friendship. And I look forward to intimately knowing your story as well. Together we can share the blessings in our respective fields with one another to manifest the above visions into reality. I very much look forward to the magic we will create...​
​
PS - If you would like to read a brief bio instead
​
STORY PATH
Click on a section below to jump to that part of my story or
keep scrolling to get the FULL EXPERIENCE
"Your longing for Me is My message to you."
- Rumi
"It is the Divine Lover who effects this love within our hearts."
- Brother Wayne Teasdale
THE CALLING
From as early as I can remember, I had a calling.
A calling to know what THIS was. Not a conceptual understanding, but a full immersion of the transcendent and imminent that makes up this. I wanted to understand what this life was about. What was the meaning? What was my highest version of self? What were all the religions and spiritual paths pointing to? This referent (ie God, True Self, etc) that they were pointing to, was deeply calling me towards It with such devotion and fervor. Deeply calling me to understand, experience, live, and serve. What was this Absolute? This Totality? This Source of everything? This Love that I felt tremoring at the deepest recesses of my being-ness?
​
I wanted to know what this Love was. That was pulling me so deeply and obsessively to know it beyond intellectual understanding, but to know all its existence, both in form and formlessness through mystical insight and experience.
​
This calling and yearning to know would provide experiences throughout my life that would provide threads eventually weaving into a tapestry of Vision and a Love that is quite paradoxical and unitive.
It cultivated an embodied aliveness that would guide my service to all beings.
​
Threads of a...
Yogi and Mystic,
Business and Entrepreneur,
​
Transformation Facilitator,
Spiritual Teacher,
​
Societal Change Agent,
​
Lover.
The following highlights those experiences and threads.
PRELUDE
My story contains many stories within it. One living expression that exemplifies the heart of this journey was during the monastery years: 2001-2009. It captures the essence of this calling as a traditional path of a yogi. It ended up being an 8-year self-designed training program that encompassed numerous 90-day retreats at zen monasteries around the world that had a rigorous schedule and complete silence.
8-year Self-Designed Training Program
Where we would meditate for 18 hours/day and with the intention to keep that practice during sleep. It is here where I learned and experienced the early stages of the recognition of nonduality. In between the 90 day retreats, I would continue training in various contexts such as keeping a diligent practice schedule at my home residence at the time (6am-6pm); doing solo retreats in a secluded place (ie backwoods of Maine, upstate NY); training at a Taoist center and yoga center; or traveling Europe with my consort.
Teaching as a Dharma Teacher in 2008
WEAVING THE THREADS OF THE CALLING
I have been extremely fortunate to have such experiences as painful as they have been because they guided me from ordinary to extraordinary love and compassion.
Below are the early threads of the calling and how they wove together to inspire me to enter the monastery as a yogi and eventually share the teachings as a sacred friend.
"I have always been heart centered."
Training in Zen for those 10 years as I described above was difficult because it wasn't aligned with my soul path and the way it wanted to express devotion of the calling. I have always been heart centered. The path of the heart was one of these first threads.
DIVINE ROMANCE
My earliest connection with Source was thru childhood romance and the love songs of the 1980's. Each school year, I would fall in love with a girl as my object of devotion. This devotional practice started as early as age 6. I remember just keeping her in my heart and unknowingly meditating on the feelings of love and it would carry me into an absorption. Later, I would discover this path as bhakti yoga thru chanting with Krishna Das and Bhagavan Das and having a relationship via spirit with their teacher, Neem Karoli Baba. Playing the harmonium, leading kirtan, and regular chanting over a period of 25 years offered so many blessings and guidance into the path of Divine Romance.
​
THE WOMB
But even before this Divine Romance, the calling was moving thru me as awareness. As the stillness of my mind deepened on those long zen retreats, subtle awareness memories would surface that would become clearer and clearer as memories of awareness in the womb. There was no "I" yet, just muddled awareness. In and out of awareness. Just obscure sensations of floating in water, swollen physical elongations connected to something larger, and feeling some proto-emotions of not feeling well, disoriented, and nauseous. I later found out that my mom was regularly sick and going unconscious because of the impact of being diabetic while one is pregnant. I always had these memories throughout my early life, but it wasn't until this quiet of the mind in the monastery when I fully began to remember them and what they were. The no "I-ness" in those memories always left me deeply curious. It was an awareness attempting to know itself thru itself but through the limiting consciousness of a fetus.
​
EARLY INQUIRY
Five years later at the age of 5, the calling moved thru deep inquiry via my catholic upbringing when deeply asking about what God is to my grandparents on the way to church. This inquiry would continue at the age of 7 and 8 when I had to go to CCD education for receiving the sacrament of Communion and would ask the priests of this class many questions and invite them into deeper discussion. Let's just say my inquires left them irritated and a discussion never transpired.
​
CALLING TO BE A PRIEST
When I was twelve, I was inquiring into God so much with the priests and also my love for the Catechism, the theology of Catholicism, they told my mother that I had a calling to be a priest. When I was fourteen, they invited me to a big seminary outside of NYC and I just fell in love with the reverence and sacredness I felt there. Although I felt deep alignment, there was something missing. It wasn't until later that it became more clear what that missing was.
"The dharma I received from this movie was the importance of abundance and manifestation."
WALL STREET
Interesting juxtaposition - at the same age of 12, I also saw the movie, Wall Street in 1987 and fell in love with studying the stock market. My father gave me a book to read to study this topic and I dove deeply in it. The dharma I received from this movie was the importance of abundance and manifestation. This teaching and my calling eventually moved me to be a business major at Northeastern University. It wasn't clear how it was all tied into the understanding of nonduality until the age of 33 when I left the training program and entered back in the world to start a business teaching dharma, and also at the age 43, when I was invited to teach to business leaders and was rewarded substantially for the value I provided. The calling as it was moving thru this movie was teaching me about abundance and how true spirituality reflects this manifestation for myself and all beings.
​
GANDHI
In high school at the age of fifteen, I was exposed to this beautiful Indian Saint as part of the Global Studies class. We were learning about the history of India and my teacher showed the 1982 movie of the same title. I remember watching it and being mesmerized by this beautiful human and the impact he made in helping India become a sovereign country through his nonviolence movement. One of his teachings that imprinted on my soul in that moment was "Be the change you want to see in the world." Watching his life reminded me of the calling I speak of above and this inspiration to make a difference thru my purpose.
​
THE POWER OF THE MIND
​
Around the same time, I was suffering greatly with depression and my emotions were being swayed alot by relational experiences, especially with a woman I was interested in. I remember getting to a point of tremendous suffering and falling to my knees in despair.
​
WHEN THAT MOMENT HAPPENED, A POWERFUL TRUTH EMERGED FROM THE CENTER OF MY BEING AND UPLEVELED ME TO A NEW VERSION OF SELF WITH SUCH FORCE.
​
It conveyed a truth beyond words, a strength, that still carries me forward. That everything originates from consciousness and that this consciousness has a power to shape experience to whatever I desired. From that moment, I began to journal and chronicle all my emotions during each of the eight periods of the school day. This insight is what propelled the beginning of the yogi path, through cultivating self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and self-connection. Through this passion, I decided to dual major in college in both business and psychology.
​
TONY ROBBINS - BUSINESS - PSYCHOLOGY
​
I entered college as a major in business in 1993. The calling's theme for abundance kept moving thru me in addition to the other threads such as personal development and philosophy. I was exposed to Tony Robbins' teachings at this time and he became my first spiritual teacher. His life and service mirrored the calling in my heart and weaved together all the threads of my vision that I discovered up to that point in my life: personal development, transformation, business and abundance, leadership, and a societal change agent. I knew I wanted to teach even more depth than Tony was and decided that I needed to delve deeply in the study of psychology, so I decided to add Psychology to become a dual major.
​
M.S. COUNSELING PSYCHOLOGY AND THERAPIST
Studying psychology as an undergraduate and participating in NLP training by teachers who were mental health professionals and counselors inspired me to become a mental health therapist as well and I decided to enter graduate school. I really enjoyed being a therapist and learning how to empathize more deeply and incorporating my spirituality into the clinical practice. I was living in a residential zen center at the time with 40 people and we would get up at 5am and practice meditation with each other and then I would commute to my work during the day as a therapist for emotionally disturbed children and victims of sexual abuse. I found great fulfillment in this service and at the same time frustration with the system.
"Be the change you want to see in the world." I knew I had to embody this love first.
I would experience these patterns where these children would find balance in our 1:1 work but as soon as they went back into their neighborhood, the court system, foster home, or family, our work would unravel and they would become unsettled again. As I was contemplating on this and the bigger picture with the burning question in my heart: what is the root of these problems?; a life-changing answer appeared. Again, just like when I was 16, the answer of consciousness appeared again and how individual consciousness comes together in groups and create systems from this place. And vice versa - how systems can create individual consciousness. How the individual consciousness and systems' consciousness arise simultaneously and create each other. The four quadrants concept in integral theory explains this well. I knew that love as a consciousness and everyone co-creating from that place was the answer. And the words of Gandhi appeared: "Be the change you want to see in the world." I knew I had to embody this love first.
​
DARK NIGHTS OF THE SOUL
I always have experienced these dark nights of the soul throughout my life where there was simultaneous inner suffering/surrender and being called to know God more intimately. These two forces always felt inseparable and intertwined. I have been extremely fortunate to have such experiences as painful as they have been because they guided me from ordinary to extraordinary love and compassion. And most importantly, a humility and surrender to something larger and invisible. So at the same time, I was experiencing the challenges I mentioned above as a therapist, the calling was moving thru me with such force. I was feeling this compulsion to sit and sit alot and I was having inquiries about whether or not to be a monk. So with Gandhi's voice in my head around "be the change you want to see in the world" and this impulse to do alot of sitting meditation, I felt compelled to enter intense training.
Since I was exposed to long retreats and monastics at the residential zen center, their monastery was the obvious starting point.
THE MONASTERY YEARS: TRAINING AS A YOGI
So for those 30 days of complete silence and meditation, they placed me next the most beautiful woman my age. Holy shit, I thought I was going to die!
As I left my career as a mental health therapist at the age of 26 and considered the path of a monk, I entered an initial trial period of a 30 day complete silent retreat at a zen monastery. When I completed it, the intention to be a monk transformed into an intention to be a yogi instead.
There is a funny story to this realization and ties into my vision of romance with life as a spiritual path. I think the monastic zen masters who were overseeing this trial period could clearly see I loved women as I was connecting with the nuns and flirting with every beautiful young woman that lived in the temple or was passing thru. Although I believe they took my intention seriously (as did I), I am sure they also wanted to test me. So for those 30 days of complete silence and meditation, they placed me next to the most beautiful woman my age. Holy shit, I thought I was going to die! I don't know if I can convey what it is like to sit with anyone, let alone someone you are attracted to for an extended period of time in silence and intense meditation. Imagine 12 hours of sitting meditation staring at the floor, just being present, feeling the moment to moment lively awareness. And feeling romantic and sexual attraction for this woman who literally is a foot next to you. Where you can feel their breathing and the emotions they are going thru at any given moment. You can feel their sexual attraction and romantic desire for you too.
As one becomes more and more present, you realize you are more than your physical body and that there is an emotional and subtle body extending from it connecting with the fields and auras of others.
As one becomes more and more present, you realize you are more than your physical body and that there is an emotional and subtle body extending from it connecting with the fields and auras of others. So it is deeply intimate (this is an understatement) to practice meditation with others for extended periods of time. So I experienced such a intimate connection with this woman who was my sitting mate for those 12 hours daily for 30 days as we stared at the floor being present to whatever arose in the moment. And oh boy, did alot arise (no pun intended). In my mind, I experienced a whole movie with her for those 30 days - we courted, we became girlfriend-boyfriend, we got married, had children, fought alot, had amazing hot sex, multiple timelines where on one we got divorced, on others more interesting developments. I don't know if you know what it is like to be a young man at the prime of his sexual energy and going thru this and not being able to relieve yourself. As you can see from the pic above, this monastery was small and very limited. We all lived in tight quarters and literally was impossible to self-pleasure yourself without being seen or heard thru the thin walls. Remember it was complete silence, you could hear a pin drop.
​
So as you can probably imagine, I decided not to be a monk. I was confused. I wanted to practice deeply like the monks and give up my life for service, but I also wanted to do that while being in a deep romantic relationship with a woman where we made vows to help each other to enlightenment. A consort relationship. And to be in the world, enjoying abundance. I realized I was a yogi and much later a tantrika, a devotee of classical tantra.
​
I was lucky enough to attract such a consort relationship for 3 years during those monastery years, but I will leave the telling of that story for another day.
​
Just a side note, if you were curious, that woman experienced the same exact movie and experiences with me. We de-briefed after the 30 days and corroborated our respective movies. Unfortunately, she also revealed that she had a boyfriend. But I was grateful because it gave me more clarity of my path. That was my first experience of emotional polyamory and a precursor of the romantic visions from past lives that came to me later on in subsequent long retreats. Will leave that exotic thread for another day too.
​
Realizing I was a yogi vs monk, I had to get creative about how I could undertake training like these monks and also find a way to financially support this long journey. I didn't know how long this training would be; it just felt like many years in my gut, and I would go as long as the calling took me. It took a lot of trust because I was breaking from society's rules and literally no one supported my decision. Everyone was judging me, thinking I was crazy. Even my teachers, spiritual peers, family, strangers. Everyone thought it was a mistake to give up my career, salary, health insurance, and any assurance that I would survive such an endeavor. I didn't help matters when I would say things like: "God is calling me...I want to attain a union with Him....I want to become Love" or I would only have 3 sets of yogi clothes that looked like a yogi uniform. I just acted and looked different in every which way. I probably looked like a madman from the outside. But in my Essence, I felt organized and grounded. There was such a confidence and knowing this was right, beyond an ego sense. There was just a knowing pushing me forward through the judgments and not knowing if I was going to be on the streets - this calling was so strong that it would not allow the training not to happen. And if that meant being homeless and practicing on the streets of NYC with cardboard under me, so be it. I was terrified at times, but this strength just kept pushing me thru. It still does...lol.
I would manage and lead a Taoist retreat center for a few summers after I would finish a 90-day Zen retreat in the winter. Taoist Mantak Chia and I, 2006
So to train like these monks, I designed a yogi training program where I could be on silence like them for 90 days at a time in both winter and summer at the zen monastery and also do additional intensive training (M-F, 6am - 6pm schedule) in the spring and fall in my "cave" at home. I also at times would go on solo retreats where it was really remote (ie Maine) and practice the monastery schedule by myself. At other times, I would train at Taoist centers, learning the art of qigong or undertake a yoga teacher training.
Day 1 of my solo retreat in a secluded area of Maine
I got creative in financially fueling this indefinite program by using all my savings and finding sponsors. For the first year, I was able to use my savings to pay for the two 90 day retreats and my parents agreed grudgingly to host me spring and fall in between the retreats, probably because they couldn't stomach the idea of me possibly being on the streets. When my parents saw me getting up at 6am and practice meditation or some other training method until 6pm, they couldn't understand it through their world view and they just explained it to themselves over time that something was wrong with me. Tensions built and by the end of year, they kicked me out of the house. I think they thought I would stop after being on the street. But I landed at one of the zen centers and I had enough money for the next 90 day retreat. I will be honest, I was terrified because this calling would not allow for me to compromise the training. It just kept saying: "Keep going...just do it. "
​
It was unwavering.
8th 90-day Retreat in Korea
So I entered my third 90 day retreat. Let me just spend a minute to explain the rigorous schedule, so you can get a taste of the training. I would wake up at 4am and do 300 prostrations (bows) before everyone else coming in the meditation hall at 4:30. Bows are when you come down to your knees from a standing position and rotate your hands up in a surrendered pose like giving refuge to buddha-nature, and then using your core muscles in your lower pelvis, pressing back up to a standing position and repeating over and over again. You keep your mind present on your lower belly (seat of essence) and the present moment, letting go of any thoughts. I would try to do a 1000 bows daily and sometimes I succeeded. But because you are in sitting meditation for 12 hours a day, the knees start to succumb to inflammation and pain. So I usually averaged around 550 bows daily.
​
Then we would chant followed by sitting meditation. This lasted from 4:30am - 7:30am. Then breakfast would follow. For some reason, in this tradition, meals only lasted for 5 min and then they would hit the stick signifying the end and having to clean your bowls with hot tea. Afterwards, we would have to do work period (ie cleaning the toilets, cutting wood) for an hour followed by a short break.
​
The rest of the schedule:
​
10-12: Sitting Meditation
12:00: Lunch
12:30-1:30: Break aka meaning more meditation
1:30 - 4:30: Sitting Meditation
4:30: Break, more meditation
5:00: Dinner
5:30 - 6:30pm: Break, more meditation - I did yoga.
6:30 - 9:45pm: chanting and sitting meditation.
10pm: Bed - attempt to keep the meditation going while falling asleep
No journaling and books were allowed other than the zen books they provided. If you know anything about zen books, especially this lineage, you will know they are as boring as watching a brick wall. "The sky is blue. The grass is green. Only keep don't know mind" is the gist of the book. How many times can you read passages and stories highlighting that. Eventually, you put that down and go outside and meditate on that with the liveliness of nature.
​
As you can see from the schedule, you can't escape meditation at any moment. If you chose thinking and creating stories in your mind, you would just suffer. Especially if you are doing this for 90 days. 90 days is a long time. I remember when I would start on day 1 and seeing this monotonous schedule ahead of me for 90 days, the asceticism, the militant zen culture, and feeling like it would be forever...
I WOULD FEEL THE DREAD AND WOULD JUST SAY TO MYSELF IN SURRENDER AND HOPELESSNESS: "OK, TIME TO DIE." AND I DID.
I went crazy my first 90 day retreat. It happened after the intensive week, which is week 7. During this week, you practically don't sleep and practice more sitting meditation. The additional schedule is:
​
10pm: Bed
12Midnight - 2am: Sitting Meditation
2am - 4am: Sleep
​
If you know anything about me, my body and mind need sleep. I need a solid 8 to 8.5 hours sleep a night. And if I don't get that, especially in those early years, I would get a little loopy.
​
Meditation is very interesting during these times because you still dream like during sleep, but you are too tired to follow the stories or get looped in thinking. The sense of "I" gets blurred.
​
After this intensive week and we resumed the normal schedule, this blurriness of self continued and I felt a transition happened within. Because I was getting more sleep (lol...only 6 hours now), I had energy to think again and would reflect on this state of mind. As I reflected, I began to panic. All my life up to that point, I was a certain identity and always thinking. What would I be if I was not thinking anymore or this thought of self disappeared? I panicked and thought death or madness was surely coming soon.
​
After I went thru that panic and just kept meditating, my mind became clear as a mirror. No thinking. Just complete silence. Just the brown floor. The sound of the crackling heating panels. Hearing my breath. And as I relaxed into it, I experienced continuing moments of this inner silence and it felt amazing. The panic and craziness went away. Even in this silence though, there was still a subtle sense of self, an "I" in the background. It wouldn't be until 11 years later when I was meditating with an enigmatic teacher that there was a taste of all of the "I" dropping away.
​
On most of my subsequent 90 day retreats, I would continue this midnight practice (1 hour only) from week 7 until the end of the 90 days.
So back to the third 90 day retreat and when I was left with the terror of not knowing how I was going to continue funding this training program and whether or not I would end up on the street because the calling was unwavering.
It was on this retreat that I met a special korean woman (we didn't actually speak until after the retreat) and we entered a consort romantic relationship and made vows to support each other towards enlightenment. She came from a financially abundant family and decided to sponsor my training. These 3 years were one of the best of my life. She lived in Germany and I got to live a yogi lifestyle in Europe. It was unfortunate because of our young age and level of maturity, that it couldn't contain the intensity of our soul mate connection. Also there was alot of pressure from her family to not date a yogi. Korean culture really values status and prestige and a yogi is considered to be at the bottom of the totem pole. Because of this cultural pressure and our level of maturity, we separated after 3 years of a beautiful practice and relationship.
​
At this point, I was in the training program for 5 years and the path would provide opportunities for the next 3 years offering various situations so I could continue financing it. Family support would appear again or opportunities to earn money in between the retreats.
This continued until 2008, when one day as I was sitting in the monastery, the calling in my heart was changing. I was being pulled back into the world. And I knew it was time to stop sitting and begin service.
TEACHING
NONDUALITY
The calling that has moved thru me the last 49 years always took different forms and emphasis, but it always included both the spiritual and world threads. There was a true oneness weaving together human development and worldly action. When I entered the monastery as a yogi in 2001, I always knew in the core of my being that the training was for all beings. But I also knew one of those "all beings" was myself. I needed to experience the integration of spirituality and human development, this oneness, this love that was in all things. I had to be the change I wanted to see in the world.
This embodiment of love.
You can never attain perfection of this love and embodiment as a human, but you can at least teach the kindergarten level of it. It is all relative. This kindergarten level might be a PhD for some. But how I am delineating kindergarten here is when a practitioner experiences the second level of nonduality (before formlessness) and experiences a basic unconditional love in their heart. Even if they fall back in the ordinary consciousness of likes and dislikes or attraction and aversions, they know at some level they are in it and simultaneously they embrace this ordinary consciousness in a transcend-include unconditional love. They do not get attached to their aversions, their attachments paradoxically, they stay curious and explore the pathway for this part to come back to unconditional love.
Using the levels of nonduality as I delineate in this article, the first time there was an experience of nonduality in a clear sense was 2002 as I described above when thinking completely stopped and there was a panoramic experience of the present moment. There was still a subtle "I", but it was in the background being experienced as a wave in the ocean just like the other forms of the external world were being perceived. It would never stabilize for most of the day until my Dzogchen teacher, Dan Brown taught me how to in 2017. But up to that point, it still conveyed a strength and sense of presence. A love that was always there. And I would begin to teach that love and presence in 2009 and how it could be integrated in one's life.
​
THE TRANSITION
As I was sitting on my 9th 90-day retreat in 2008, the calling was pushing me to come back in the world and share these teachings. Although my ego kept protesting: "I'm not perfect yet, I'm not fully realized, I need to train more in these long silent retreats," there was a knowing beyond this individuated self that it was time to give back. To be of service. This knowing was felt like a confidence, not an ego one, but an impersonal type of strength pushing in a certain direction.
​
At this point, I was already a dharma teacher and teaching in some capacity in the school of zen I was a part of. I received permission to teach in this role in 2003 when I got my full robes as a dharma teacher. On three 90 day retreats during the years 2003-05, I helped to co-lead the retreats with the zen master as a head dharma teacher.
Teaching on a 90-day retreat as Head Dharma Teacher in the Czech Republic, 2004
DHARMA AND CAPITALISM
In 2009, when I left the training program, I started to feel my time in the zen lineage was coming to an end. As I stated earlier, I always have been heart-centered and had entrepreneurial ambitions. Most of my peers and teachers were anti-capitalist and I could feel their judgments and aversions towards the vision I had for the world and the business path I was beginning to embark on and how I was integrating that with dharma teaching. In 2009, there were strong opinions about selling the dharma for money. Dharma traditionally was taught in a feudal or some kind of traditional economic system either as free or at the very most, donation based. Although I support that system, I don't feel it is completely culturally and historically aligned. I also saw alot of these same people be close to poverty or have poverty consciousness. Intuitively, I knew there were other possibilities for manifestation. A manifestation for abundance. I felt capitalism could be a vehicle for that. So I started a dharma business in 2009 and left the zen school.
Fortunately I had the support of my teacher, Zen Master Wu Bong. And he was open to supporting this vision and teaching. He gave me permission to use the title, Senior Meditation Teacher, for this purpose.
With my teacher Zen Master Wu Bong after a 90 day retreat in 2005
For some reason, I thought NYC was the best place for this dharma business and began there. I felt this inner support and foundation for this next journey since I was a dharma teacher within the school for eight years and also because of my training as a mental health therapist in 1999 and working in that capacity for two years. It was in that role as a therapist that I began to teach my rudimentary understanding of meditation and spirituality and how it interfaces with personal development and mental health.
So through this teaching foundation as well as certifications in yoga and some methods in Taoism I became a spiritual guide in NYC helping individuals with meditation and living this meditation to create the life they most desired.
​
I spent the next 5 years in that capacity exploring different expressions of teaching (teacher vs friend vs mixed to name a few) and economic models. I then took a sabbatical for 5 years and resumed teaching informally. There were many trials and joys (see Business Leaders section below) during this period. But eventually thru these trials, I came to mature in teaching dharma thru conscious capitalism starting in 2018 until present.
​
So since 1999, I have been teaching over 25 years in many capacities as a mental health therapist, dharma teacher, senior meditation teacher, business coach, and spiritual teacher. The past 5 years, I have been teaching dharma in the business world with CEOs, sales leaders, and entrepreneurs. Currently, I am teaching individuals in the business world who feel called to be a visionary leader and be a change agent for this world. I teach them how to traverse the 3 levels of a leader - from an ordinary, to an essence-led, to finally a 2nd Tier visionary leader.
SACRED OUTLOOK
As I have been teaching all these years, I have been still a student at heart. I have been learning the worldly aspect of nonduality. If you do a google search of nonduality on the internet, you will see teachings that are limited to the spiritual understanding of the word such as "formlessness", "no 'I' ", or oneness of life.
THERE IS RARELY A TEACHING ON HOW THE EGO AND SELF CONCEPT INTERFACES WITH THESE TEACHINGS. OR EVEN WORLDLY MANIFESTATION.
The dharma that has lived in my soul since conception always expressed a full teaching of what nonduality is - the formlessness and form, in particular the human. Spiritual development with human development which includes ego development and how to manifest abundance in your life. This ego development and manifesting is in service of all beings, to help them liberate from the cycle of suffering and manifest abundance as well. Heaven and earth becoming one. This is my understanding of enlightenment and the fourth turning of the dharma wheel. I am not the only only that has this teaching. Ken Wilber and the Integral Spirituality community have it as well. I am fully aligned with his definition of enlightenment - full spiritual state development and full human development (see his Integral Spirituality book, Appendix 2, pg 235 for more info).
​
So since 2009, I have been learning to embody these two inseparable faces of realization - the spiritual and worldly. The inseparable pair. How to be in the world and not be of it. In these years since the monastery, my yogi training has encompassed weaving these threads into one. Sometimes the emphasis is deeper recognition of the formlessness, at other times, it is learning how to embody manifestation. But with each deeper recognition and embodiment, there is a transcend and include of the previous level like a spiral with ever encompassing breath upwards. And I can feel these learnings and trainings from life are moving in the direction of the seamless recognition of both at the same time. True Nonduality. Aka Sacred Outlook.
​
2002
​
There have been key moments of these experiences that build on each other. The first was 2002 as I described above with the panoramic awareness of this present moment and no thinking. These experiences would come and go and there was always an "I" present still in the background.
​
PURE AWARENESS
In 2013 with an enigmatic teacher I was studying with for 6 years, she helped remove that obscuration momentarily and an experience of pure awareness was experienced with no "I". That was revelatory. But it didn't stabilize because fear was still present and it wasn't time yet to ripen in that way. Just a side note, if it did ripen, I would have left the world and became a sadhu in India. There is so much bliss and peace in that pure awareness that it fulfills all desires. All I wanted to do was eternally make love to this place as a wanderer and yogi. I was told by numerous spiritual teachers that the Divine will not allow the return to that recognition until I have satisfactorily integrated my current recognition of nonduality with worldly achievement. I was bummed when I first heard that and also jealous of all the yogis out there who experience this precious gem of formless bliss and not need to be in the world. Over time, I began to understand as I realized I have been those yogis for many lifetimes and I am here in this current incarnation to complete my training in full nonduality - the seamless oneness of spirituality and worldly achievement, so I can understand what true love is and sacred outlook. The marriage of samsara and nirvana as a Buddha. Nirmanakaya.
​
IMMORTAL BABAJI
It was also with this teacher that it was revealed that the immortal Babaji was supporting my journey and at times, appearing at our sessions and on retreats. I couldn't see him like this teacher could, but I definitely felt his presence. There were times I began to see, but very faintly, and one time (2022) there was a strong vision of him when my teacher Dan died and I was asking for a new teacher. It was then that I began exploring a new way of receiving spiritual teaching thru the practice of the Retinue and receiving the blessings of the Buddha realms.
Immortal Babaji
STABILIZATION WITH DAN BROWN
In 2017, I met my Tibetan Buddhist Dzogchen teacher, Dan Brown and from the first time I set my eyes on him, I unexpectedly went into an absorption and it never stopped. This recognition of emptiness of all forms and how form is emptiness and emptiness form, began to stabilize moment to moment. Even when I would "lose" the View, this formlessness was always there. I began to see how it is not a state or experience, but rather the ever abiding groundless ground making up the matrix of reality. It is only the recognition that is the experience and that which grows. But the ground of being never increases or decreases, never was born or dies, never gets lost. It is always here in timelessness. It is the recognition of It that grows over time as one is on the path of realizing themselves as a Buddha.
Dan and I, 2018.
Dan was an amazing teacher and supporter. He helped heal a sickness I developed in Zen - attachment to nonconceptual states. Because of my training on those long retreats, I had an amazing skill in entering samadhi and states of no thinking for long periods of time. I had many Zen teachers over those 10 years and I didn't meet Zen Master Wu Bong until much later in my training. Those early Zen teachers of that school were less mature in their realizations and most of them had the same sickness. Zen is known for their attachment to no concepts and just being in the moment. There is an actual term for this pattern called the "zen sickness."
​
In Tibetan Buddhism, there is a healthy relationship between thinking and meditation. They encourage debate of ideas and in my opinion, they hold a more complete understanding of nonduality.
H.H. Menri Trizen of the Bon School of Tibetan Buddhism. Dan's teacher. Also in my Retinue and Altar
Dilgo Khentsye Rinpoche. Another teacher in my Retinue and altar.
So Dan showed me over time how to think and keep the recognition of nonduality at the same time, the View. I remember how elated and liberated I felt with this new found relationship of concepts and the View. Also felt validated because I was always challenging my Zen teachers on this and would get bullied. A new strength and trust in myself developed. A trust in the dharma of my soul.
​
Over 5 years I was with him, Dan validated these recognitions of nonduality and the corresponding stabilizations. I began to access deeper recognitions, what they call the Sambhogakaya Buddha Body and he invited me and 30 other of his senior students to a brain study at MIT and Harvard. He had already did a brain study on awakening and he wanted to do a brain study on students who were further down the path and who could experience that unconditional joy and bliss. As a psychiatrist and professor at Harvard Medical School, he hypothesized that these deeper recognitions and stabilizations could be a model for positive mental health. But it never came to pass because the pandemic hit in 2020 and his health began to deteriorate fast until he finally passed away in April of 2022.
​
HIS BLESSINGS
​
​Dan gave his blessings for me to continue teaching with these deeper recognitions as long as I didn't teach with his trademarked methods and teachings. He understood I taught similarly because of my background in Zen and other schools of spiritual training. Through an email where I catalogued all my teaching methods and how they were sometimes similar to his, he gave his blessings and appreciated how I was sincere with him.
​
BUSINESS LEADERS
The experience of deepening recognitions of nonduality took a profound shift in the last 6 years. Although I started worldly service in 2009 and thru various iterations over the subsequent years, it wasn't until around 2019, that the experience of nonduality came complete circle. Up to this point, I only learned how to recognize thru awareness, unconditional love, or formlessness. But starting in 2019, I began to understand the manifestation and true service aspect of nonduality. I began to experience this profound love in action with less concern about the fruits of these actions. Becoming a vessel for this profound love in the world and inciting the dharma wheel of intimacy for all beings to experience abundance.
​
And it started with serving business leaders either in corporate or entrepreneurial spaces. This particular journey of insight wasn't a smooth one. A number of trials and experiences led me to this place.
When I started the dharma business in 2009 in NYC, great challenges were experienced. At that time, coaching had not become popular and using social media as a business tool was just beginning. There were no mentors or peers that I could consult with as everyone in my network and what I knew in the larger spiritual community had a negative view on mixing dharma with business. Also I experienced major pushback from the general public that I was attracting around placing monetary value for my services. Over a period of 4 years, I warriored thru these challenges, but eventually they got the best of me and I caved in and went donation based and as a result, I experienced extreme financial hardships.
A dark night of the soul ensued.
Will leave that period of the journey for another time. For now, I will just say that I considered being a monk again or a wandering sadhu in India or a cave yogi in Nepal, but it wouldn't come to be. Through the pain and trauma of these years, I was pushed with fierce grace back into the world.
​
The beauty of that period birthed a new set of teachings - Dynamic Presence, and the Universe orchestrated a series of events that brought me back into the business world in 2018. This time, my students were not the general public, but business leaders who absolutely loved to pay for the value they were receiving. It was quite the contrast from the old days of $50/hour to a new value scale of $500/hr and sometimes even $1000/hr. They actually were more committed and had more potential to receive the teachings I was offering.
​
Through the last 6 years of serving these business leaders, entrepreneurs, and a c-suite of a start-up, I learned so much on how to attune to these beings and help them connect more deeply to themselves and their loved ones. And how to support them leading from a place of essence-led leadership. I also got exposed to models and teachings of manifestation and material abundance and how everyone could experience this. And thru the trials and triumphs, I began to slowly realize and embody the manifestation and service aspect of nonduality. Learning how to recognize the formlessness in the form and worldly activities. The dark night of the soul and the deepening recognition of nonduality helped foster a nonattachment to outcomes and service, but an intimate nonattachment. Through both fierce and gentle grace, I have been shown the path of true love and providing abundance for all beings. Feels like just the beginning, 1st Grade, but I am excited to live this path with further integration of the spiritual and world to be shown in the future.
What a unspeakable joy it is to be shown this path of true service. Especially thru the vehicle of sacred friendship and crazy wisdom.
WHAT AN UNSPEAKABLE JOY IT IS TO BE SHOWN THIS PATH OF TRUE SERVICE. ESPECIALLY THRU THE VEHICLE OF SACRED FRIENDSHIP AND CRAZY WISDOM.
​SACRED FRIEND
When I began sharing the teachings for the last 25 years, a unique teaching style began to emerge. I always had a resistance to "identifying" as a teacher. The key word here is: identifying. Yes of course, from the outside, I look like a teacher, but inside it feels different. The meanings people project unto the concept "teacher" connotes fixed hierarchy, idealization: sage vs human, and reification of these meanings. And as a result of this projection, several effects materialize: people give their power away; they see this teacher as perfect and not being human with shadows and limitations; and other unhealthy projections that become unconscious and perceived as real, solid, and fixed. I have also seen most teachers out there begin to embody these projections and begin to believe they are actually a teacher and higher up. And sometimes it is so subtle and imperceptible. They look humble, but a true empath can see right thru them and the subtle unconscious patterns they teach from. I have seen them lose their way towards Buddhahood and forget how to be vulnerable and human. These projections and playing the role feels inauthentic and not intimate. Feels like a delusional game.
​
I always have valued authenticity, breaking these delusions, and inviting people into real human intimacy. I would do this by deconstructing these projections and playing roles considered unorthodox such as acting like an infant or enacting versions of myself from an earlier stage of consciousness. I have accrued a number of methods to do this and for those who know me more closely, have characterize my style as crazy wisdom.
​
The heart of crazy wisdom is friendship, a deep love felt in one's heart and inviting others into this heart presence with each other, reminding them of their true power, their deity self, a self that encompasses both divine and human. Inviting them into this relationship with each other to experience true intimacy.
​
When you remove all the projections, conditioning, likes/dislikes, and connect with one another from the heart, an unconditional friendship gets revealed that has always been here. This sacred friendship is an another marker for recognizing nonduality. It is always here, never born, never dies. Just unconditioned and eternal.
​
So I help people remember this sacred friendship by deconstructing the projections and narratives thru various dynamic power relating roles such as being their teacher, student, client, friend, infant, child, vulnerable human, crazy madman, guru, and infinite other expressions. But the heart of this expression is sacred friendship.
​
If I am guilty of any identification, it would be as a sacred friend and in more intimate relationships, a frienduru (to be discussed at a future time). But at least with this identification, it becomes fluid as one has the capacity to embody other forms of identifications as I mentioned above and in the end when they all play out and get extinguished in heart presence with one another, the true expression gets revealed.
​
So being a sacred friend disguised in various forms has become my teaching style and method. I like to reset the power dynamics and remind people of their own power.
INTERSPIRITUAL LINEAGE
Because of this method of sharing the teachings as a sacred friend, I have purposely decided not to represent a specific lineage and refused the possibility of being anointed as a teacher in a formal way (ie preempted this with Dan Brown in 2018). It was one of the reasons why I gave up my robes and role as a dharma teacher back in 2009 in the Zen tradition I was affiliated with. I wanted to teach as a yogi and not be pinned down by any constraints of a spiritual institution or tradition. It is more difficult to deconstruct the projections and reified conceptions if you are in one. Playing the role of a madman or other costumes allows one to deconstruct any projection that comes your way and have more freedom to support someone in their awakening because everyone needs a particular medicine for liberation (including myself). Some need a Guru, or a Teacher, or friend, or brother, or father, or madman, or an infant, or secure attachment figure, or gentle love and attunement, or fierce grace, or any other myriad of forms that exist to support their journey to liberation. And sometimes they need each of these roles at particular times and seasons of their life.
​
This freedom and learning style has allowed me to explore various lineages and spiritual traditions over the last 30 years such as Christian mysticism, Dzogchen, Mahamudra, Taoism, Zen, Classical Tantra, Bhakti Yoga, and certain Self-Realized Teachers.
​
Dynamic Presence as a model and teaching method is an interspiritual lineage for this reason. I hope as a legacy it will continue to adopt other lineages in a transcend and include way and evolve ever deeper into an interspiritual lineage for infinity...
THE STORY
CONTINUES
I will be honest - writing the above was a very difficult process and took a few hundred hours. I would write and then delete and write again, only to find myself deleting again. Eventually I persevered. Writing in first person and "I" statements was extremely difficult for a number of reasons.
First, I felt extremely uncomfortable talking about myself and "my" experiences. They are very private and intimate and lends to the possibility of being misunderstood and creating judgments. That I am cultivating self-importance. Also could lend to the idea that the individual self is really real and solid. Side note, it is and it isn't. The two truth doctrine of Buddhism (absolute vs relative truth) and the wisdom of developmental psychology can provide an answer to this paradox. Will write about this another time.
Second, this sharing is usually shunned and frowned upon in traditional spiritual paths (or maybe just the ones I was a part of). It is usually discouraged to make any reference of an individual self in the event you create self-importance or reification of an illusory self. I felt these voices and personas constantly while writing.
​
But I didn't write this for the above mentions.
I WROTE THIS FOR YOU.
I am meant to serve a particular group of people, young visionary leaders and they have always been so inquisitive of my story. They have encouraged me to share more openly because they experienced benefit from knowing about it. They revealed it provided inspiration for their own spiritual practice and bringing their vision to the world. That it helped them get to know me on a deeper level and develop a more intimate relationship with me. That they received more of the blessings that are in this field called Rob. I believe that is why in some Guru Yoga traditions such as Tibetan Buddhism and Hinduism, that autobiographies or biographies are written. Because the more intimate a student gets with a teacher, the more the blessings of that teacher's field gets transmitted. And these blessings support in removing the obscurations and obstacles of someone's path to realizing their True Self that is already here and omnipresent. Like a mirror and dust. Blessings from a teacher can help remove the dust so the student can see they are already this clear and love radiating mirror.​
But I'm not a guru, but a frienduru. A sacred friend walking alongside you on your path.
I also feel I am a student at heart and continue to learn both from my students and also my teachers. I currently am continuing my training in various capacities. As I mentioned above, in 2022, the immortal Babaji made his presence known thru a vision and am learning how to receive his teachings from this modality. It is a completely different way of learning as it is beyond human communication. As I practice 3 Steps to Connection with him, he communicates thru what feels like very strong felt impressions in my field that seems beyond words and beyond the linear mind. And thru this communication, changes begin to happen in my field and how I orient to life. Usually I just feel a profound love and light intermingling with my human transporting to more expansive states of being. Helping to trust more and surrender to the craziness of this human realm and world.
l also continue to pursue more traditional paths of training such as the advanced courses of Dzogchen with several teachers. Also, I am learning from a crazy yogini in the Kashmiri Saivism tradition although she is beyond categorization.
I try to keep up to date on trauma research and therapy and how that interfaces with my work on relational dynamics. Part of that training is being in trauma therapy myself and learning how to integrate these parts of myself with Essence Self. This integration feels like a never-ending journey. This and my love for all paths speak to the truth that I have always intimately known - the teachings are infinite and I vow to learn them all.
And with that, the story continues...
I hope the sharing of my story brings you into deeper friendship and the blessings that my teachers have bestowed unto me. May the sharing of these blessings continue in an unbroken way from person to person for infinity...