A most delightful satsang with dear Jackie O'Keeffe

Dear friends,

we just returned from a most magical night with beloved Jackie O’Keeffe from Ireland, one of those nights that makes more than up for all suffering and trials one went through in this lifetime, completely and entirely.

A beautiful Spring night in Mc Lean, Virginia-special thanks to lovely Trish Remele, below, left in the photo from last August, for organizing the amazing retreat Old Domion retreat house- with soft rain and a lovely breeze through the open screen door, the scent of cherry blossom and then, most of all, the pure radiance that is Jac.

Jac just returned to Ireland after spending 6 months in Tiruvannamalai, India and I first came across her through dear Richard Miller’s fantastic site www.nevernothere.com

Her vivaciousness, absolute down-to-earth, natural demeanour and warmth greatly appealed, so I ordered her book once it came out and a while later, during the deepest crisis of my life, Jac picked up my inner prayer and came to visit our apartment in Arlington, VA.

We spent some precious time together just sipping tea and talking and it felt like I had always known her, the most natural thing, no shyness, just absolute inner Silence, the natural state.

After meeting dear Jac first at an official, most wonderful satsang in this area organized by dear Tania and Stream and their friends of the very popular local www.OneCircle.net right in their beautifully decorated house, where this weekend’s satsangs will also be held, Jac visited the following Monday last August.

We threw together a small satsang in our apartment, ( the video is on her luminous site www.jackieokeeffe.com as well as on www.jac.satsangs.net and my own site, there are also YouTube clips available) which was absolutely magnificent and during the time alone with her, I asked her for advice to alleviate the extreme suffering I was going through at the time, still fairly close to death physically, while spiritually fine, having surrendered all, absolutely all, life itself, in devotion that God’s, Life’s Will be done and told her honestly that I didn’t think I could do another lifetime again ever as just too hard.

We were just sitting on the sofa, it felt like the most known Presence ever in my life, no surprise, given the clear mirror of Self that dear Jac is, and she looked me in the eyes and said ‘What next life, Maren?’ which brought me right out of the story, back into the Infinite Present, unconditioned and prior to anything arising.

During the satsang, I heard inside once more about the Finished Kingdom, coming from a mystical background, and how all our prayers are answered before we even ask if we just awaken to that.

Jackie also relayed that she’s no one’s teacher, that we all are our own teachers as is life and there was not an ounce of specialness about her, putting herself above anyone else ever, just Self meeting Self in joyous recognition as THAT, pure, unadulterated friendship, so, so beautiful.

Later that night, we went on a tour of the monuments here in Washington, D.C, Capitol Hill, Union Station and the Vietnam memorial, courtesy of my dear husband Joe.
In the weeks after dear Jac left, all those that attended satsang reported inner changes and developments, the impact was absolutely palpable, in my case for many weeks, it was just deafening inner silence and such presence that made all suffering a piece of cake and bearable despite really going through an extremely bad health crisis that brought me close to death numerous times.

We stayed in touch and the inner transmission continued wordlessly, many nights, I’d go to bed with a question that would be answered from our own inner teacher yet had a flavour of dear Jac to it, and in the morning, there’d be an email from India with exactly the content I had been wondering about.

Something else took place that surprised me greatly, a deep inner devotion and longing for dear Jac after she left which left my husband wondering what had happened to me and when I honestly expressed what I felt to dear Jac in an email, with her huge compassion, she simply wrote “It’s all OK dearest Maren….sister, friend, beyond all such labels…you are what i am”

Jac explains in her beautiful, absolutely lucid book “Born to be Free-the freedom you look for is where you look from” to try go to the source of the next thought– nice trick if it could be done–obviously impossible, and this simple, yet powerful technique creates the spaciousness in between thoughts running that is truly our natural, prior state.

She wrote me further that this technique might work very well, yet could also be tense and constricting as a practise and that obviously, different things work for different people.

And then: “But when your path is devotion, then surrender and love makes more sense than anything. Gladly there are different paths and the path of devotion is a beautiful one, less head and more loving. Surrendering the ‘i’ until grace takes the one who is surrendering…and you are grace so it does complete itself, exquisitely, I suppose this offers a softer approach!”

Fast forward to tonight, again, it’s very hard to find words through the all-pervading Silence, yet the wish to share with all beloved ones who couldn’t attend tonight makes one give it a try, no matter how insufficident the words may flow, may the Essence of dear Jac still arrive!

After many more months of intense spiritual devotional practice and what felt like dissolving, dissolving and yet more dissolving of all overlay, I was so fortunate to get to sit with dear Jac again twice during satsang tonight and ask two questions that had long been answered inside and didn’t really need confirmation, but that I heard a lot of friends ask lately, too, and that definitely differed in this inner response somewhat from ancient scriptures, and so I’d like to offer them in case you, for some years, have struggled with similar ones, too:

-This past winter, during a walk on a snowy street, feelings of depression arose out of nowhere, felt very intense, and there was observing, witnessing taking place inside while walking.

All of a sudden, it seems like attention shifted from what was witnessed to the one who was witnessing these sensations, and right after, it felt like all dissolved, collapsed, long held beliefs, thoughts, feelings, as well as the one they appeared to, all in one big go, whooosh, gone.

I returned home in amazement, it felt like the usual deep morning meditation, only more lastingly so, never was mind’s charade believed as deeply again after that, seen through with much more ease and clarity.

I relayed this experience to dear Jac tonight and said that the ancient Advaita scriptures, including some of Ramana’s work, for the most past speak of an Ultimate Perceiver, yet that not such thing had been seen as true here, rather, as finally put in words a few days later, taking dear Greg Goode’s wonderful “Standing as Awareness” out again and reviewing it more in- depth, perceiver and perceived were seen as the same, part and parcel of mind’s grand illusion, the witness still dualistic, although more subtly so, and light, emptiness, Rumi’s field beyond duality, whatever one may call the Unspeakable, totally unaffected and unchallenged by dream, being eternally awake, unborn and undying.

Jackie confirmed what had been revealed inside and what dear Peter Francis Dziuban as well as Greg Goode have both been saying in different ways.

My other question applied to the Advaita notion that the 3d dream is ‘Self’s play’, which never, ever rang true inside here, and, as also dear Greg Goode pointed out, reminds of rather very human attributes projected onto the Divine, same as dear Peter Dziuban writes in his gorgeous “Consciousness is All”.

My inner unfolding had pointed to dream being entirely dependent on prior Emptiness, that, at most, allows for dream dreaming itself, whereas the Ultimate is not depending on anything and cannot behold inequity, definitely doesn’t play lost and found, what kind of cruel game would that explanation be, had always been the thought here whenever I read about this point in the ancient Vedic scriptures.

Again, Jac confirmed, that yes, dream never touches truth, light stands alone, untouched, singular.

Dream can only ever a be a superimposition, overlay, illusion on the screen, never part of it, yet at the same time, since only that spacious screen exists ultimately if one goes back far enough, dream never had existence at all, while, right here and now, Light, Emptiness is all, and in that sense, none of what the five senses attest to is ever real, yet, once seen through, can attest to light rather than dream, wakefulness rather than sleep– and mind, while seen as ultimately illusory, can be used as a practical tool to serve rather than us being its servants and slaves to attachment and aversions.

Jackie finished the evening with her usual warmth and humour, hoping we would leave with nothing, and boy, did we feel lighter, all layers of illusion removed once again, offering this lucid gem:

We are all of it either way,

-looking at consciousness’ formations that are indistinguishable from consciousness’ movement/energy itself, if we go play in the world of appearances,

-or, abiding as THAT, the direct path, that knows no progression, as it already is at the point of completion outside time and space always, unconditioned, free and undimensional.