On the phone, someone just asked me "What are you looking for?" Before this trip to India, I used to respond to that question by saying something like "Enlightenment and Love, that is, if they are separate…and if they're not, I'll take them anyway."Now, after India, I found myself saying "I'm not looking for anything. I have found what I was looking for. I just want to go deeper into what I have found, and enjoy it. I simply want to savor it and get the most out of every moment and experience. I have experienced the "Divine Self".

And yes, that is enlightenment and love. I have experienced some depths of both and they are not separate.

That doesn't mean that I've "become enlightened". But a process of immense delicacy and beauty has been initiated. Through the process of my life and the expression of its karma leading me to this holy place, Golden City, just a few hours outside Chennai (Madras), to have the blessing to encounter one known as Sri Kalki, or simply called Bhagavan, I felt like all my life had conduced to this magical moment, wherein I could be simply touched (diksha) on the head, and have an experience of Self unleashed in such a way that it was a combination of the highest, most "tuned in" states ever experienced in my life, rolled into one.

It was an experience of Oneness that was extraordinary, and wholly natural and ordinary at the same time.

I heard that there was this being, Kalki, who had the power to awaken one to his full consciousness and establish one there permanently. I’ve heard lots of stories about lots of teachers. Many teachers are gifted and providing a vital role for their students. I admire this and am thankful for their activity. I have never felt a draw to the guru-disciple relationship—and still do not—but respect those that do. In the case of other teachers, I maintain a certain level of skepticism. But no one that I know of has offered something that I’ve been trying to achieve "on my own", in my own way, through the process of my life, which is to make the enlightened state, the awakened state, permanent. I read the website carefully, and I gathered that here was a man who was extremely clear, forthright and extremely open. I felt his humility through his words, as well as his certainty about what he knew he could do. How many Indian gurus do you know who care about or pay attention to the Mayan Calendar? How many who describe the process of awakening in biological terms, and seek to de-mystify it? How many have such a feeling for the entire world that he or she wants to heal it, enlighten it, and comes up with a plan to do so?

My attention was riveted. Of course I queried, "Is it true?" In this world, over-promising and under-delivering is commonplace, and a sure sign of the Kali-Yuga. I felt my way through this, I listened to his words in an interview closely, I heard what I felt was a deep and rare tone of genuineness, love and concern for humankind. I thought about it, I discussed it with a few friends, and on this hunch, on this intuition, I changed my schedule all around here in New York and went off to India.

I made arrangements to do interviews there, packed my camera and India cloth clothing, oh, and a toothbrush, and left. I figured that if it weren't what I hoped for, the worst is that I'd be with Rena, who had been living in South India for some 9 months, and we'd have a chance to spend some time, go to other ashrams, centers, visit friends in Bangalore, and see parts of India I'd not yet seen. That’s not so bad. It’s not the prize, the crowning jewel, but, for planet earth, ordinary consciousness, not bad. Well! Should I tell you now or wait? I never left Golden City. From the day I arrived, I stayed rooted, became embedded in the life there and its vibration. There was nowhere else for me to go! I couldn't justify even going to Tiruvanamalai to see where Rena was living for the better part of the last year. The only thing that mattered was the fullest possible awakening of my whole consciousness, my whole brain, neural system, chakras and channels, to the level possible for a human being, so that I may "be" where I believe our destiny points us all toward being, right here, fully awake, fully joyful, so I could assist others in stepping out of ignorance and suffering, and be in this Divine condition too.

Through the experience, one sees that consciousness, awareness, being full awake, which is to say, utilizing the entirety of the brain/neural sphere and awakened chakras, spirit kicking at the door of consciousness, knowing in one’s body that All is One--this is the first step in correcting and re-balancing the many ills and diseases rampant in this world, especially those of ignorance, confusion, fear and its son, greed. This is the real medicine--consciousness itself. From this knowing, all else, as Lao-Tse suggests, follows the Tao… My meetings with Kalki (Bhagavan) gave me at least some opportunity to get to know this remarkable and daring visionary. I say daring because, who of the teachers you have known, or known of, have promised full, permanent enlightenment? This kind of comment has a way of putting one’s reputation on the line.

I conducted interviews with him for A Better World TV, and then to meet with him again to discuss both personal and world enlightenment, my favorite subjects! He was also given to wanting to discuss world crises and to come up with solutions to the most agonizing of problems for example, the Middle East situation. It was deeply gratifying and soul-nourishing to be able to discuss such matters with Bhagavan on this plane, and to cultivate a plan that could actually be effective.

One goes there generally to do the 5-Day Enlightenment Process. It begins with review of basics about the nature of mind, thought and feeling, the associative mind, the construction of ego and persona. There are emotional clearing exercises and discussion of the shadow self we all embody. All this is preparatory for the diksha, which is the "touching-awakening process". That’s what it’s all about! In fact, through the course of a month, I received diksha about six times. The first one yielded a subtle, palpable shift in consciousness, such that my ordinary mind receded and was background to a sense of presence. I was aware of a stream of energy passing through me every moment. I felt good. This was not an enlightenment state, but it was the first steps along the way. I had the definite sense that this could, if it kept going, "grow" into a fuller, more encompassing state of "knowing". I was doing very well, but the problem was, there was still too much of a sense of "I". Diminished for sure, aware, tuned-in, for sure as well, but not complete. That evening, actually, without Bhagavan’s presence, we received another diksha. Curiously, for me, it felt like this one dissolved the state I was in during the day, and I was more as I know myself to be. Mind was disappointed; that’s for sure! There remained a greater sense of the "witness", but the sense of aliveness, of vitally flowing energy prior to mind, had diminished.

The following week was another diksha I received upon joining the Swedish group (the groups are often distinguished by language). From this one I felt nearly nothing. One cannot know ahead of time what one’s experience will be. For whatever the reason, this was mine. Sometimes our own thoughts, expectations and concepts obscure and even eclipse the simplicity of what is being awakened. Or, the power in the diksha, for me, just wasn’t powerful, or custom-tuned enough for my energetic configuration.

However, two days later, we joined our original group of South Americans and Russians, and after some panchakarma clearing and a spontaneous announcement by Bhagavan that the first of three more dikshas were to begin that very evening, everything changed. We were now playing in the big leagues. After the diksha, we were given a "lehim", an Ayurvedic preparation that is used to clear mucus and put the body into "elimination mode". Combining these two was the key that opened the treasure. I burst open the gateways.

A brief description of the experiences I had from this diksha would be to say that I "awoke". I was the rhythm of the universe, I was the center of my experience, I was not ‘wanting’, I was in heavenly peace, tuned in and utterly blissful. Perhaps the best way to describe it is that I was in a state of knowing. It was like returning to the way things "really are" that I had left for way too long a time. It was like I had been flying with one engine, and now the other one, so flight could really happen. Yet I wasn’t just flying. My feet were also firmly on the ground. I had the sense that I could live and function in a wholly wakeful state.

Everything that would have been considered happening "outside" me was now happening "inside" me. I was in an utterly awake state. It was simply like "The lights were Turned On!! The veil had been lifted. I was seeing what was truly right before me, as-it-is.

But really, there ceased to be any separation between in and out at all. All experience was direct and poignant. There was also no separation between any idea of God and myself. And everything was included, including "myself" to the extent that there was a "myself". I most immediately discovered this when, in the midst of ecstasy while gazing at the sky, I exclaimed "Thank God for all this!" I felt like I was thanking everything equally, including "myself". There was no distinction to be made. God was both in and out of me and not separate from me. I felt like I was in a Woody Allen movie in the middle of South India amidst a breakthrough of the highest order after 50 years of psychoanalysis, and on the last day, the shrink slipped a psycho-active substance into my water. I could, after all the insight all those years, actually see. It was actually far, far beyond anything Woody—or his psychiatrist could have dreamed of.

It was as though, as I said, the "lights got turned on". Until then, oh I was alive to some extent, and indeed, more alive than many, but now, the deeper, higher lights got ‘turned on', and I could see from the place where All was connected. It was like the circuitry was finally completed and I could see and feel reality clearly. My "self" got re-proportioned, or as I've been saying to people "re-fitted, re-sized". It was put into its rightful place….rather tiny in the face of the cosmos, and our true universal/cosmic identity was emergent. It's not that ego or mind was bad or some such thing or had no place….no, the problem was that they had taken over running the ship. This diksha and all that ensued straightened that out! All was, as any good Taoist would want, in "proper balance". I was in the "truth-state", in harmony with All. It was the state from which teachings flow forth. For the first time in my life, I felt that I could get rid of all of my "spiritual" books. Now I could speak or write them. I recognized that having them and reading them was a compensation for what I hadn't been in touch with inside myself. Life was the book itself.

It was that a part of my brain, dormant by and large until then, got awakened. As Kalki says, this is a neuro-biological process. I wholly agree. All of our brains and nervous systems are hardly used and are largely dormant. We only use 5% of our brains, right? No more! I got, through the masterful touch of Bhagavan, access to the rest of what was given to me. He helped me gain access to "myself". But this self isn't "me" in any commonly thought of way. This self was the same self of all beings, cosmically proportioned, if it could be called a self at all. "I am that" made inherent, organic sense.

My ordinary sense of self was not to be found anywhere. It should be said that I’ve had this experience, at this point in my life, numerous times. By no means was this the first. But it was for sure, the profoundest, without the ingestion of a sacred plant or sipping of a sacred tea. Meditation, T’ai-Chi, Chi-Kung, writing, chanting and other forms of inner work have ripened my being an have brought me into subtlized states of awareness that are awake, clear, centered, resounding, but nothing of this level. It could well be that all my prior explorations, disciplines, sadhana, prepared me for these experiences of diksha with Sri Kalki and his dasas.

What is going on here can be understood by relating to the world, the universe, as an orchestra of vibrations, of resonance fields. As a tuning fork rings, it sounds the notes in the piano, the strings of the sitar by resonance, and the two form the beginning of a harmony. When Bhagavan "touches", his resonance field awakens that resonance in the dasas, and in turn, that field in us. He is not "giving energy" so to speak, he is awakening, bringing to life, a "string", a whole field of strings, that have been dormant in our own neuro-physiological configuration, "untouched" with most of the things of this world. This new field of tones, contains intelligence, linked to dimensions--the cosmic internet, if you will--far beyond our wildest imaginations. It is teeming with knowing, so that the awakened state is an incredibly alive state. It is teeming with energy. Which is why ground, earth, when experiencing these "high" and heavenly states, is so important. The enlightenment state shows us the Oneness of all life, that there is no separation between the material and the spiritual, or samsara and nirvana, it is truly all One! Indeed, physics bears this out brilliantly, as do those that awaken these parts of their intelligence. In the midst of all this, there remains a distinct personal blueprint, like an individual flower of a species that is now expressing this reality in his particular way. Kalki makes this reality clear when he says "6 billion souls, 6 billion different enlightenments". Mine felt, at least at times, like what would happen if you would cross the humor genes of Jackie Mason with Woody Allen's. All I can say is that I hoped the South Americans, Swedes and Indians I was with appreciated a little New York Jewish humor....

I do feel that the confluence of the sacred plants our precious earth offers up to us that are psycho-active, and many years of sadhana, the Gurdjieff Work and Buddhist and Taoist practices, opened the doors to my consciousness such that the "terrain" I entered was already quite known to me. The sacred drink of the Santo Daime Church from the Amazon in Brazil in particular, seemed to prepare the way well.

Kalki said that these places, these dimensions, already traversed where the neuro-pathways have already been cut, would be the first places the diksha would guide one through. So in the middle of south India, I felt at first that I may have been in the jungles of the Amazon. But it was better than that. The light kept shining. The clarity shown through. There was no toxin or substance in my system. This was this brain itself with all all the centers open. It should also be mentioned that Kalki says that everyone has done enough sadhana—in their own way—to successfully receive the diksha, that is, to become and stay, enlightened. This is a provocative and fascinating comment. Perhaps he has access to the resonance fields to make it so.

In this holy place, for which we had spent a good 10 days and many lifetimes preparing, this humble, still, intent being, Bhagavan, through his dasaji's (servers), touched us indirectly, and awakened our consciousness to its appropriate Divine place, loca, dimension. The dream of lifetimes was coming to fruition. I went to India on an intuition and a hunch. I had no idea how real, or unreal, my experience of the diksha would be. I hadn't been in India in 7 years. My visit to Satya Sai Baba, interesting and worthwhile as it was, was not enough by any means to bring me back. Many are very connected to him, and I am happy for them. There was no offer of enlightenment that I recall. Nor did I meet anyone in his midst, or in that of other teachers, who were awakened. I’m not inclined toward gurus, bhakti or devotion anyway—I feel it in my heart, but it’s not my way.

But Kalki's website, and conversations with a few friends, helped me feel a potential here. Not a certainty, it was a gamble, but a potential. But I feel like I hit gold, the true alchemical gold. Bhagavan says "Be your own teacher. Take the diksha, let your own enlightenment guide you. Then, if you want, go back to your own religion or practice or teacher, enlightened!" Spoken like a true Taoist.

These are the words of a master. He wants nothing but for our collective playground, this beautiful earth, and all of our playmates, our brothers and sisters, to be in our fullness as Divinized, truth-ensconced, joyful Beings to our core. When you really look at the biochemistry, you see what the Great Spirit intended: you see that the human organism is designed for the ongoing experience of joy, pleasure and bliss, if you will, ongoing cosmic orgasm, just as nature’s pulsing is experiencing moment-to-moment.. It’s a set-up for bliss! What's an endorphin? What are the skin and the senses? How does one take in a fragrant, yellow-bursting flower? There's no escaping it—we're set up for bliss, joy, beauty and love. But, look at us. We opt for the opposite. We've missed, we've totally missed the mark. We live instead in suffering. Conquest. Power over instead of power with. Fear and paranoia. How could we have gone so astray? These are not new ideas to me, nor possibly to you. But now, I'm living the truth of the higher knowing; it is feeling- and experience-based and connected. These are not just words. They are my reality.

So all the teachings I've ever listened to are now living in me. They're not static, they're not intellectual, they're alive. They have a real, living, or as Mr. G. used to say, "vivifying" home inside me. I spent nearly a month in India, and despite plans to travel and see friends in Bangalore and elsewhere, I never left Golden City—there was no reason to. I traveled lifetimes for this—I had no idea that it would really be forthcoming, but indeed, after several dikshas I want you to know, one of them hit us all—all 100+ of us—and we began to truly create, or rather live within, a better world.

How wonderful. I see hope, I see hope, I see hope. The economic power elite of this world are all fear-based puppies. They will see. This moment, they know not what they do. Swords to ploughshares—it’s around the corner. Corruption too is based in the simple psychology of feeling like one "doesn’t have enough, and one isn’t enough." This is where greed comes from and the desire for massive control. They're hungry ghosts, without a clue of what this game is really about. This is so transparent to me. All the greed of the multi-national corporations, all the green-washing, all the politicking and jockeying for power of our society, all the suppression, oppression, depression and repression, it all is a symptom, a terrible and destructive symptom, of a life uninformed, untouched by the power of one's own highest Self. This power clears it all up, quickly. As brothers and sisters, we are literally One, and to hurt another is to hurt oneself.

This is no longer an idea when one awakens--it is real. The games of power and control cannot be perpetuated. They lose their power, and there's no lure in it. There's enjoyment. God knows, the material realm is joyous! but it is not a realm any longer of "power over" but "power with". From the view of Golden City, and "my" view being there, this is the way it is. Anything that is not love, as the Course in Miracles says, "is unreal". And everything is real...The awakened mind, as all the Buddhas of all time have said, and all other awakened beings of our planet, is our organic, natural way, that has gotten obstructed by the course of events, but is to be returned to by every human being, either now, or later. For myself? I will take now, thank you!

I've been back in the States for almost two weeks. We had a last meeting with Bhagavan the night we left, and received his blessings, and an invitation back anytime. He said he wanted to bring me through a process that would empower "me", so to speak, to give diksha, and possibly do so through the UEB Energy Balancing Program and The LIFE System, the healing/biofeedback instruments I use. And, Kalki said, people should be able to become enlightened through A Better World TV. He's right. It was designed to inform, uplift, inspire and enlighten! So it will be. He said that he's going to "finish me off, with a permanently established enlightenment". Well, honestly, with what I've experienced already, what is bubbling inside me when I'm quiet, at ease, simple, is an energy of a subtle sort that brings forth joy spontaneously, and insight. An inner knowing and seeing occurs throughout the day. It disappears when I get too busy, mental or preoccupied. But then it comes back later on, or the next day. It is like this "intelligence" is working in me. In certain conversations that are related to dharma, it begins to assert itself again, a certain inner vibration quivers and quickens.

There is some sense of presence I keep enjoying, whatever it is that enjoys. It feels much as Eckart Tolle describes—a felt presence. I know, through feeling, what Tolle is saying.

It is simple, it is aware, it is connected, it feels globally good. It has a depth, a shape of love, a feeling of, if you're ready for this, "giggly gratitude". It's just so good, so deep, you just want to giggle and cry and laugh. Who do I thank for this state? For this life? Thank you Mom and Dad! Thank you Grandparents! Thank you All-the-Way-Back! Thank you Adam & Eve! Thank you GOD! but, what, really, is God, if it is not you and I??? If God is everything, so too, it is you and me. The monotheistic religions that have such a penchant for objectifying God, making "it" into a thing, and "outside", is just an example of how little is experienced, and just learned in and by the mind. In this state of awareness, this isn't even to be discussed. It is like saying breakfast is the first meal of the day. Water is wet. Everyone knows it. God is ALL.

The world as we've constructed it, with all its rights and wrongs, institutions with regulations, God in religions with rules, and social restrictions, military might, all look mighty strange from this point of view. Where'd we get so many odd ideas? And why did we institutionalize them all? Soon we'll all be free, and all of this will look real odd, and not just to the few of us. Each day, there is a sense of this presence, ebbing and flowing, sometimes nearly disappeared, and at others, ebullient. It must be said that it's very simple, it's just core good feeling, in touch with a vibration that yields sweet honey in the form of love, and pressing out the expression of gratitude, with awareness that all is here, right now, perfectly, and that we create our reality. We are dealing, yet again, with the play of perception. Make it good!

The feeling inside is precious. Sometimes I feel dumb to it. At others, I tune in, and "I'm there". How do I say? Something, like a well-watered seed, is growing in me, and I am deeply, deeply grateful that it is. The lights turned on. Everything flowing like it should in the depths and in the heart of the Tao.

With this feeling in my breast, with us all feeling this, the world will be transformed. It will be. There is no question. It is happening. The power of reality, of truth, or what is real, is asserting itself and it is happening, right now. It is so powerful. And the world as we know it today, with the wars, with environmental destruction, with human pillage, will cease to be. It will simply cease to be. There are powers at play far beyond anything we now know. Far. Like a major rippling effect, 100th monkey-style, with the first 64,000 enlightened, the rest of humanity will open like flowers. Guns and destructive actions will seem awfully silly. The love between brothers and sisters will flourish as you can imagine the Powers-On-High would want and envisioned. It will all happen because God will be watching. That means you. There's so much to say, and yet, no need to say anymore at all. I'll add to this another time. I simply watch what's happening now. The witness is more pronounced than ever. Delicate star watching over us!

There are many teachers, and many teachings, doing wonderful things all over the planet. Some people are waking up spontaneously in different parts of the world. It can and is happening. What is going on at Kalki's is something special and traditional too. I experienced it. We all get to go about this our own way with our own teachers, inner or outer, this or other-dimensional. It's nobody's business. But for those of you who would like to learn more about what I just went through, and to find out more about what Bhagavan and Amma (his wife) hold and offer, you can go to: www.trueawakening.org, www.livinginjoy.com and www.worldawakening.org.

Please know that while the power to transform is utterly present in and through Kalki, the exact best means by which to convey it, at the right level and degree for which cultural group, is without question, still being experimented with. Kalki is always fine-tuning the instrument for the different "minds" of different cultures that show up. So the process of enlightenment for me continues to grow, and is often highly subtle. One needs to know that this is a work-in-progress.

Now I have been back for four weeks. The richness of the peak enlightenment experiences, living in New York City, have seriously diminished. Though they diminished from that level, by the time I was leaving India. But within me is a seed that I described before, growing in me. A vibration "kicking" at the door of consciousness. My life is different. I have much further to go. It should be expected that there’s a certain amount of diminution. The witness remains. The experience was wholly worthwhile.

For all of this, I feel deeply grateful to Kalki and Amma, even though I haven’t yet met her. I would love to have dinner over at their house some day, and talk with them both about everything, especially the ways and means to heal the world from ignorance and suffering, and bring it to joy and total aliveness. Together, we can all bring this about.

June 8 is the day Venus transits in front of the sun. Our Earth will be radiated with the power of Venus, which is Love, Beauty, the Feminine. We are getting help from all sources. It begins this June 8. The Venus transit occurs in tandem. Its second component is June 6, 2012. The Venus transit occurs every 135 years. It is now of particular importance considering the lack of love, truth and the feminine vibration on this planet. This will be changing...I can feel it. A Better World is in the midst of planning for an event to honor and celebrate this. It is connected to world enlightenment. Everything's getting easier. Keep an eye open for our presence. I will be airing my interviews with Kalki, the dasas and participants in the Enlightenment Process over the next few months. So stay tuned! You won't want to miss them. If you want more information and even some direct experience of Kalki and the Golden Age Movement, tune in! This is what I was doing in India. Hardly anything, and yet everything was done.