When life is ready and it is destined, the Guru principle appears whether in the form of life events and/or circumstances, or in the form of a human being within whom, the seeking has been resolved and can transmit the clarity of the Formless Being-ness that IS, that really is sought after.
I have been fortunate enough to be held by the guiding light of the Guru Principle within and without, throughout the seeking process.
Roger Castillo – Beloved Guru
Roger’s Website: https://www.rogercastillo.org/
Roger’s Youtube: https://youtube.com/c/RogerCastilloBeingLivedofficial
Roger’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/roger.castillo.58118
Ramesh Balsekar’s wisdom as echoes through Roger:
“Pleasure and pain are circumstantial. Suffering is always attitudinal. Suffering is not intrinsically a result of pleasure and pain in daily life but rather stems from our ATTACHMENT to the pleasure and pain in daily life.”
If there were just one pointing from beloved Roger that revolutionized the seeking process within me, it would be “Let’s keep it practical! What are you, Gurleen, really looking for, in this lifetime?”
These words echoed in my being, even felt annoying the first time I heard them, thinking “How do you keep the journey towards unconditional love and acceptance practical?” Felt like a contradiction.
Little did I know that what felt like a contradiction, was a deep resistance to coming back (from the recognition of the Formless Awareness) to grips with the physical realm and the suffering that was still lingering on for me- the person. It came down to the honest recognition that what I really want is to be happy in this life, as Gurleen.
Roger’s clarity, wisdom and tirelessly pointing to the concept, “Happiness is the end of suffering. End of suffering is peace of mind in daily living. Peace of mind is not the presence of something, but the absence of suffering. And that is the happiness that is available for the human being, in fact it is our birthright.” is the beacon that keeps one focused on what is on the pedestal of seeking- peace of mind or something else.
The framework that Roger uses to combat the existing suffering within the seeker, or as he would quote “Ramesh’s (his teacher) Grace”, is extremely robust and holds the intellect and the heart of the seeker in one-pointedness: The end of suffering, aka continuous and unbroken peace of mind in daily living.
It was magical to come home to Nanak’s teaching of non-doership and Ek Onkar (the teachings that were imbibed almost as concepts without experiential evidence in childhood) from Roger’s framework, especially with him not being aware of the Sikh path or Nanak altogether.
The attitude of non-doership and non-attachment to outcomes, which is again not an attitude that can be cultivated, but rather falling away of the attitude of personal doership (I am the doer, the other is the doer, life is personal) and attachment to outcomes (belief that my happiness, my completeness is to be found in the flow of life), is the pinnacle of total understanding leading to the end of suffering. It all has been put so simply on the seeking platter for the seeking mechanism to feel at ease with answers that not only made sense, but also were experientially confirmable. Hence, the seeking falling away.
As Roger puts it, then it seems to be an avalanche of unfolding where the suffering is seen, from the nooks and corners of the psychological system, witnessed or felt through, processed and integrated for the understanding (falling away of misunderstanding) to penetrate the daily life experience until it is unbroken and continuous. It is all a happening and would and/or would not happen as predestined.
If it weren’t for the flow of life bringing Roger’s pointing’s to me, my process would have been a lost one for God knows how long!
Coming home to integrating the whole expression of myself- the essence of who I AM and the person that I am living as is the grace of the Master.
Eternal gratitude to Roger and Roger’s Guru- Ramesh Balsekar for the generosity that is the teaching being imparted by them. The teaching that brilliantly undoes the existing conditioning that leads to suffering and updates the conditioning of this human being, as per destiny, to be free of suffering.
“Suffering is very common, but it’s not our true nature, intuitively this is known, that’s why seeking happens. Satsang is one of the most powerful tools that the divine uses to forge a path back to the heart of being.” Roger Castillo
Qapel Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat Sensei
It was a blessed time in life and after a quick google search, I got the opportunity to spend time in the company of Qapel and Sensei, along with their beautiful community at the Clear Sky Center in British Columbia, Canada.
Qapel (Doug Duncan) and Sensei (Catherine Pawasarat) teach meditation and act as spiritual mentors to students internationally and at their retreat center in BC, Canada. Having lived overseas for many years and travelled extensively, Doug and Catherine draw on intercultural and trans-cultural experience to broaden the range and depth of their understandings of liberation that they share with others.
Living alongside them brought the confirmation within, what it means to fully embody the total understanding– what actually it looks like, feels like, how it is free of any boundaries, so extraordinary and yet, looks like ordinary daily living.
Eternal gratitude to Qapel for pointing out the bypassing that was taking place in my system at the time in the form of subtle clinging to the experience of Emptiness and being a person (embodied or suffering) was resisted unconsciously.
Catherine Sensei has been the form of grace, the empowerment personified that effortlessly reflected back the power that IS- the power to be a whole person, including an integrated shadow.
Living with the teachers and the sangha has been a gift of a living example of how wholesome relationships look like, the relationships that are in place to walk one another home. And also to celebrate the Emptiness of the form and all forms within the Emptiness.
Check them and their teachings out at www.planetdharma.com
To know more about the Clear Sky retreat Center, visit their website: www.clearskycenter.org
Planet Dharma Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Planetdharma
Planet Dharma Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PlanetDharma
Thank you for teaching me the power of coming from the
Emptiness that always is in the benefit of all beings.
Guru Nanak
Guru Nanak and his guidance has been the anchor for even the suffering to be allowed from the very beginning of this unfolding.
Guru Nanak was the founder of the Sikh path (now religion) towards self-realisation, towards union with what we call God. He labelled it ‘Ek Onkar’ (Check these videos out to understand the deeper meaning of Ek Onkar LINKS). Another key message that stood out for me was, “All is Hukam (Cosmic Law).”
Nothing that happens or doesn’t happen, nothing that is or isn’t, is outside of Hukam (outside the unfathomable Cosmic Law).
His words have been a warm hug, full of devotion, and sometimes a much needed sword of reality-check. His writings are timeless and are capable of delivering to the seeker, that which is needed in that given moment. My system being of bhakti (devotional) temperament, the teachings of Guru Nanak have beautifully shaped the ground of surrender and has kept the poison of arrogance in check for me.
Timeless gratitude to my best friend- Nanak!
Ek Onkar, Satguru Prasad.
If you want to dive deeper into Nanak’s wisdom, check this youtube channel – NANAK NAAM. They do a commendable job at interpreting the Sikh wisdom.
Everything in life, is fully an expression of and a pointer towards the deeper dimension of who we ARE, What-IS, the Source, the Formless Awareness, the Consciousness- call it what may. All the names point towards It, and yet, It is name-less, beyond labels and concepts.