Thursday, February 4, 2010

Avatar Masters

AVATAR MASTERS

The Java Sea kissess the shores of Tejakula, a small village in the North of Bali. It couldn’t be perfectly more created as a fairy tale backdrop for living with nature. A Shangri-La of sorts.

I’ve come here, unknowingly, to have counsel with the “elders” -which I mean only as a term of endearment.

Ever since I was little, I’ve had the utmost respect for those with life experience and have wanted TO KNOW what they know. I’ve felt distracted and obfuscated by the small talk of others and, if anything, have suffered from harboring too serious a nature, something I’ve chalked up to my eastern European roots.

This word: AVATAR is suddenly omnipresent. Without Google capabilities I’m guessing it means an enlightened master. But when I get to a proper Internet connection I find it means “ Embodiment: A new personification of a familiar idea, ‘the embodiment of hope”. Or a Superhuman embodiment of a deity, especially Hindu.”

Avatar is not a word that had been in my common parlance, as I had eschewed dungeons and dragons and all magical reality paradigms, mostly because they have always been the domains of geeks. And while I’m interested in consciousness, I have never been interested in the “wizards, or warlocks” variety. However, the same package in Indian robes has always completely entranced me. Go figure. Sai Baba can pull a watch out of his asshole, and I’m over the moon, must know how to acquire that siddhi, but say the word Merlin, and my eyes roll far up in my head.

I suppose this is why there is different means for different humans.

The other day I met a girl at Desa Seni, beautiful bright-eyed, fresh. Tara (pronounced Terra) had the “download” to come to Bali while watching the new James Cameron blockbuster Avatar. I haven’t seen this movie. I know from Facebook it’s “the best movie of all time”, that you must see it in 3-D, that it is an epic adventure involving blue people, returning to nature, and that people are freaking out about it. Other searches online reveal that some people are depressed because they can’t go to Pandora. It brought Tara (Terra) to Bali. It’s grossed over 1 billion dollars.

I’ve always referred quietly to my lesser self as Terra and my higher self as Tara. The irony of meeting my doppelganger, at least in name is not lost on me.

One time, while I was at a teacher training in Tucson, 2005, someone wrote “Ava” in front of my nametag, which said Tara. I looked down at the anonymously renamed “Ava-tara”, nametag. I was so honored, though really didn’t know the weight of its meaning.

Years later when I was teaching at a troubled kids program and told them my name, they asked me,”Tara, like Avatar…?” I thought they were little geniuses until I realized that was a cartoon on TV.

In my tidy little bungalow at this edge of the world resort, there is a stack of stale, crusty, roach infested magazines. Since my friend Shirley down in Seminyak has been dying for magazines, something, anything, I risk the roaches and bring down the stack. They are all called “The Avatar Journal.” All are dated 2006.

I open up to a random page and the first quote that jumps out at me is :

“The harsh judgments you make about others are about the same things you resist recognizing in yourself.”

I close the magazine almost too quickly. This is exactly the theme of my last month in Bali. Exactly. Not that this isn’t common theme in life for any heady person, but If there were one phrase to encapsulate my own pain and suffering it would be this.

In the world of movements, and self-help programs from Landmark Forum, to EST, to TM meditation, to Lifespring… somehow the program called “Avatar “ has eluded me. Unthinkable, since the woman who wrote the Harry Potter mega hit novel series turned movie series was “an Avatar master”. Hiding in plain sight. The creator of the Avatar method is Harry Palmer.

The crusty magazines are almost like magazine advertisements filled with photos of “masters” with big hair, and business cards with rainbows and galaxies and invitations to the programs and testimonials to its life changing capacities. The quality of their pictures makes it that looks like they are selling real estate, in the 80’s. All of this is very off-putting. I put the magazines down and pick them up again intermittently. I decide to bring them with me while I attempt the dial up Internet. It takes so long to load a page, or email that I can read a whole “article” while waiting for an email to be sent.

Then this catches my eye:

BUTTERFLY ENLIGHTENMENT

The Butterfly Effect is a term that was popularized by American mathematician Edward Lorenz to illustrate how a small change could set off a chain of events that could result in a major change. A butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil causes a chain of events that leads to an atmospheric disturbance in Texas.

Avatar is one of the first technologies capable of deliberately accelerating the conscious process of enlightenment. It is a path to truth that doesn’t begin with a lie. The Avatar adaptation of the who am I? question is, “What is the purpose of who/what I create myself to be?” or “How did I come to believe this?

The rest of the paragraphs from the publishers go on to talk about Avatar Masters and Wizards, and that’s where my eyes uncontrollably roll back in my head and I have a problem listening.

So I just stick with the first part.

Martina, an older friend/student I’ve made from Desa Seni, who has lead me here says we will go up to Abasan to meet Sabine, the founder of Gaia Oasis. I’ve already read her vision, written in 1989, about forming an intentional community of like-minded individuals dedicating to awakening.

The Vision: In 1989 this is what I saw:

I found myself among a large group of people in beautiful natural surroundings, with soft slopes, trees and mild air. The main feeling was an auspicious, indescribable softness, tenderness and openness. Suddenly I sensed and saw that we were all interlinked with each other by light streams for channels. I became aware that these were direct soul-connections and that each of knew what the other was feeling and thinking. These were channels, in which information was exchanged directly, because our life was ruled by sincerity and honesty. I sensed that I found myself in a place of healing, a sacred place….

Gaia Oasis has two centers: The Ocean Center and the Mountain Center. Abasan, the mountain center, is where Sabine lives. We take a car up a winding road that looks very much like Hawaii. Lush green dramatic mountains lead up to mist covered mountaintops. We get out and walk the moss-covered steps to a wantilan (meeting area) where three elderly women sit having lunch. Monica: grey haired but youthful round face, is the resident yoga teacher at Gaia Oasis. Saicho, the body worker we’ve technically come here to see, German/Irish accent, but half Japanese, Asian shaped but blue in color, and then Sabine. Tall like me, with piercing blue eyes, wears a simple green cami dress, grey hair is held back in clips, her expression is often a half smile. I immediately love her.

We sit down to lunch and I immediately feel like I’ve found myself at a council of Saraswati, Durga, Laksmi, and Kali. I am Kamala, the youth, the virgin, the innocent, despite my 38 years of age. This council of elders has hundreds of years of collective experience.

After lunch Saicho and Martina excuse themselves, so Saicho can do Chen Tsen organ work on Martina, and Monica grabs a scooter back down to the Ocean community, Sabine and I are left to chat.

At first we feel each other out. We talk about my yoga teaching; I quickly decided add in shift to the Body Mind Centering stuff to let her know that I’m more than an Anusara teacher. She is relaxed and happy.

“Are you a therapist?” I ask, trying to get my handle on this woman, who is clearly the mastermind of this paradise and yet is so girlish and childlike belied by her German accent, which gives her an heir of profound authority.

“I don’t know what to call myself…” She says, bemused if not somewhat consternated by the question.

She tells me of her psychology studies in Germany and being frustrated, and then finding a more sensing, emptying approach. Finally being led to India, she tells me of years in Pune, studying, everything from Reiki to rebirthing, to Tantra, and then in the 90’s finding the Avatar teachings. She is a master. She founded Gaia Oasis 1999, 10 years after her initial vision.

“My parents raised me Buddhist, not as a religion but as a way of comprehending experience. So I always had that, and with all the work I’d done, nothing prepared me for the Avatar courses.”

Here, I forgive the name, and know that the basic premise is that we are creating our own reality in each moment, based on our ability to see clearly. This is what the Bok Jinpa Buddhist meditation course I’ve found myself in at Desa Seni is all about. This is what Kashmir Shaivism is about. This is the whole theme of my journey here.

“I know this,” I say, “but I found myself in Seminyak getting caught up in the loss of myself, my identity as a yoga teacher in LA,”

“The ego, “ she says,” is always looking for something to grab onto.”

“I know this, and yet I was shocked that it came up for me here.”

“Yes, but even the things we know, are memories and things that we hold onto. Even the experiences of this or that attainment or level of understanding, are things that ego holds onto…”

I know this too. I look in her eyes. In the next moment I am crying.

“What is this?” she says with nothing but kindness, “What is coming up for you?”

“Just appreciation, recognition…” I say, fighting my embarrassment at being so candid, but also knowing it is ok, “I was getting so discouraged, down there.” I say and start crying harder.

“Oh, you don’t have to tell me, “ she says with so much experience and wisdom beneath her, “ I know…oh I know…”

When I leave her for my appointment with Saicho, we hug for the longest time. We are exactly the same height, and her eyes, her face, remind me exactly of my Grandpa Fritz from Switzerland, it’s almost as if I’m looking at, me.

Later, after my session with Saicho, I wander up to the Lotus house to find Martina and Sabine talking. I’ve already had the thought while looking at the moss covered steps traversing up and down the mountain to the salt water pool, the outdoor bale, the inside/outside healing space, that Martina should move here.

When I arrive, they are talking about just that.

“Tell her,” Martina says, “About the meaning of Tejakula.

I explain to Sabine that Tejas, in Ayurveda means light, like the light of someone’s essence. The tejas in their eyes. All of Ayurveda is based on the balance between prana, ojas, and tejas. Tejas is also in the Anusara invocation “Tejase”, the light of consciousness. And Kula, is a community of the heart. A community that is yoked by its desire for spiritual awakening.

Now it is Sabine’s turn to cry.

Tejakula has been a trading community since the 1st century, and is a very sacred place in Bali. It is the home of the only native aboriginal population, according to one article. Sabine only knew that it meant “Light Village”.

Later, when back in Seminyak I think about the people who are depressed about not being able to visit Pandora. I can’t even find the local movie theater. And even when I do Avatar won’t be in 3-D. But it’s comforting to know, there are great embodiments here who are trying to live in harmony with nature, with each other, and trying to create a world that is enjoined by love and understanding, even if there method of getting there includes Wizards and Masters, it’s a worthy endeavor.