The Precious Gift of Eli
Profound Transmission Of Silence and Love
by
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Chapter Ten: Be Your Natural Self by Lisa Schumacher, USA. I’ve been spiritual my whole life. I was raised by two loving parents in a beautiful family. We had our “stuff,” obviously. My brother and I fought all the time, but it was nothing extraordinarily bad. My parents were very sweet. They are still together, and I love them. My mother raised us in the Catholic tradition, and I really believed in it. When I took the sacrament of Holy Communion, for me it was like I took Christ inside my soul. When I made the sacrament of Confirmation, I was united with him, and I fully believed in it. As I grew older I started to feel that there was something “off” with the Catholic doctrine. Eventually it dawned on me that I was destined to “go to Hell,” so I left the Church. Then I had to find God on my own, and God was never far away. There was no place I felt separated from God. God has always lived in me. It’s clear. Leaving the Church was like dropping a burden. I had felt lost in the Church; there was no way to really meet God as myself, so it was natural to leave. It was clear to me that I didn’t belong, and so I moved on. Following your decision to leave the Church, how did your search unfold? I went off to college. I started to find myself as an individual, and I started meeting people who thought in a different way. I’ve been a poet and a writer since I was a child, and I was in love with nature, so that’s how the sense of a higher power in my life was revealed to me. This was very personal, which is what I wanted but couldn’t find in the Catholic Church. I remember this poem I once wrote about God being an artist. I had seen Manzanita for the first time, and the perfection of the colors of this tree were so stunning! Suddenly I realized that the beauty of nature is truly a miracle beyond comprehension, and I also felt it in myself. The fact that I could witness it meant that I was part of it. Being able to write about it meant that it was coming from me, too. I realized I wasn’t separate from this miracle. I began to look more closely at myself, and to long for freedom from the story of “myself,” as well as the lies I was telling to maintain that story. Finally, at the age of twenty-eight, I came to the point where I just did not want to live anymore. I felt responsible somehow for all the horrors of the human race. I felt like I was incapable of loving or receiving love. Being a human being felt like hell, because we are parasites, you know, everything we do is harming something else. I couldn’t even stand the clothes I wore, made in the sweatshops of Guatemala and China. Stepping out of my house meant I would be crushing living beings under my feet. It became unbearable to me, and I couldn’t reconcile with it. I came to such a dark place within myself that I felt that if I had a negative thought, somebody was being harmed, and I couldn’t control that. I felt like a living horror, and I wanted to end my life. My grandma died and my cat died and it was a really hard time. I went to see a therapist, and she said, “Lets talk to this dark one. What is she here for?” And I realized that this “dark one” is the one who sees. She is the one who tells the truth, and I could receive that, and I could let her thrive. She didn’t have to be kept in the dark, or kept down, and I embraced her. And it was just at that time that I asked for a teacher. So you were consciously searching for a teacher? I was. I didn’t know about enlightenment, but I knew I needed a real teacher. And then Gangaji came. Can you tell us about that meeting with Gangaji? I was sitting in someone’s living room, a friend of a friend, and I was watching a video of this woman with curly white hair (Gangaji). My mind was trying to grasp what she was saying, but I was not quite getting it, so I started to look out the window and just listen to her as my heart opened, without trying to “get it.” Then, I clearly heard her say the words, “Be your natural self,” and it dawned on me that this was the simplest thing, yet I had overlooked it! The thought came into my head, “I can do that!” and my heart caught on fire. There was literally this heat that came into my heart and then out of my heart. It was like an explosion, it was massive, and I fell into bliss. After this experience, my whole life started to change and fall apart. And it was supposed to. This fire burned and raged in my heart. I started writing poems about meeting the love of my life—my own self—my Beloved Master, Gangaji.
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About the Book
In "The Precious Gift of Eli" there are twenty interviews where each contributor attempts to share their very precious moments in Satsang with Eli, as a testimony to the lineage that began with Ramana Maharshi. It is written in the spirit of appreciation for the teacher and the teachings, and it is hoped that it inpsires others on their path of self-realisation. Eli uses traditional Satsang and the Enneagram as vehicles for self -realisation. In his own words he says, "The great gift of the enneagram is that it exquisitely describes who you are not. It shows the veiling of true consciousness by habits of egoic identification." By lifting the veil and seeing through our unconscious patterns of behaviour, strategies and games, we come to rest in the absolute Truth of who we really are, beyond fixation. Each interview describes the contrbutor's spiritual path from their lives prior to awakening, to moments where their realisation deepened and the impact of awakening on their lives. It is the writer's intention to pace and lead the reader so that their own realisation deepens. "The Precious Gift of Eli" is a resource for all those who are curious about awakening, as well as those who, like each contributor, feel a fierce longing to awaken to ever-deepening Truths. In the words of Papaji, Eli's teacher: "May All Beings Be Happy And Free. Om shanti. Om Shanti. Om Shanti. "
About the Author
Premananda Grace (B.Ed, University of Sydney; Post Graduate Diploma, Oxford Brooks University, U.K) was a former high-school English teacher, before re-training to become a Trainer of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, a Transformational Coach, Therapist and Writer, who experienced a profound awakening in the presence of her beloved spiritual teacher, Eli Jaxon-Bear. Describing the experience as ‘an overwhelming experience of love that silenced my mind and brought me to a feeling of total surrender,’ Premananda then decided to write this book as a ‘thank you’ to the teacher who had the capacity to point so directly to the Truth. Premananda says ‘it is a Truth that is beyond description, yet when you have a direct experience of the Self, it is undeniable.’ It is her intention that the reading of “The Precious Gift Of Eli” assists others on a spiritual path as they awaken to ever-deepening self-realisation. Her highest intention is that the book continues to serve the awakening of others. Premananda lives in Sydney, Australia and she travelled to many countries to interview Eli’s students while they were on retreat with Eli, in an attempt to capture their experience while they were at their highest vibration. ‘The experience is always with you,’ Premananda says, ‘yet there is a way that the silence continues to deepen, particularly when we are in the presence of our teacher. There are simply no words to adequately convey what simply has to be experienced.’ In “The Precious Gift Of Eli” there are twenty interviews where each contributor attempts to share their very precious moments in Satsang with Eli as a testimony to the lineage that began with Ramana Maharshi. It is written in the spirit of appreciation for the teacher and the teachings, and it is hoped that it inspires others on their path of self-realisation.