MARQUIS DE SADE: Stacey, you’re already outnumbered. And, I’m sorry, but I’m going to add insult to injury. I agree with Esther. Similar to the concepts of virtue and vice, [justice and injustice] are purely local and geographical; that which is vicious in Paris turns up, as we know, a virtue in Peking . . . that which is just in Isfahan they call unjust in Copenhagen. . . . Justice has no real existence. . . . So let us abandon our belief in this fiction, it no more exists than does the God of whom fools believe it the image: there is no God in this world, neither is there virtue, neither is there justice; there is nothing good, useful, or necessary but our passions. . . . [And] the idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind. . . .

ESTHER: The misinterpretations [of God] that have been given to the various world religions have come about because man wanted to have a reason for everything. If you ask me, the religions that teach you that God created you sinful so that He can save you depict a pretty sadistic God.

DE SADE: Ah, sadism . . . well, we are no guiltier for following the primitive impulses that govern us than is the Nile for her floods or the sea for her waves. . . . All universal moral principles are idle fantasies.

ESTHER: Right, and to understand this is to realize that guilt is just a fanciful notion and that it has absolutely no validity.

STACEY: No guilt? No moral principles? But, what about all the awful events in the world? I mean, just look at what happened to all those people in the World Trade Center—

WAYNE: Stacey, I recently explained in a workshop that from the point of view of the bacteria that got to feed on those bodies, it certainly wasn’t a tragedy, so who are we to judge what’s right or wrong?

STACEY: What?!! I mean, all those innocent people! It was an unspeakable act, the most shocking—

TONY: Well, if you want to call it a sin, Stacey, from an Advaita point of view, all concepts of good or bad, original sin, karma or debt of any kind are products of an unawakened mind. . . .

FRANCIS: The only sin is to take oneself for a sinner. . . . There is no point in condemning oneself as a sinner or in trying to change oneself. Sense of guilt and desire to change also reinforce the ego.

TONY: And, for that matter when [Christ] told people their sins were forgiven, he was really saying to them that they had never had a past that they could be held responsible for. They had simply been characters lived through by the infinite, never having had any choice or free will.

STACEY: Tony, are you serious? You know, I’m J ewish, so no, I didn’t go to Sunday school and I’m hardly an authority, but I’ll be damned if Jesus ever meant anything like that! He really should have the opportunity to respond to this, but I just don’t have the courage to invite Him to join us. I’m afraid of what He would do! And far from being uplifted by all this, I’m starting to find it really depressing.

ESTHER: Stacey, actually what is “depressing” is the misperception that you need to care and that things need to matter. You see if you understand that your True nature IS neutrality, caring and making things matter is really missing the mark.

STACEY: But I can’t not care. Aren’t care and love important, you know, in a human way? And for that matter, what about God? Doesn’t most everyone say, “God is Love”?

ESTHER: When it is said that “God is Love,” the word love signifies neutrality. It has nothing to do with the opposite of hate. God is just another word for neutrality, and neutrality denotes “not helping or supporting either of two opposing sides. . . .”

And remember, there is no point, no purpose, and no meaning. . . . You think of caring as something important because you misunderstand caring to mean “something to do with the heart.”

STACEY: Whoa, just wait a minute. Of course it has to do with the heart. I mean, what about when people suffer? What about all those poor people in the World Trade Center? And, for that matter, what about my Great Uncle Mischa? Even though I’ve never told anyone his story, he’s often on my mind. You see, one day dear Aunt Beryl took me aside and confided in me: “Stacey, you should know what happened to our family during World War II, so I’ll tell you. When the Nazis invaded Romania, which is where some of your Jewish ancestors were from, they first looked for the Jewish doctors and teachers in the small villages. And they came upon your Great Uncle Mischa, who was a teacher and was in the middle of teaching his young class. And they marched him out of the school at gunpoint, with his class of students following him. And right in front of his students, in the school yard, they forced him to dig a large ditch, and then in front of all his students, they buried him alive. And that was how the Nazis destroyed the Jews, and it worked.”

(Of course it worked. . .!!!)

STACEY: Who’s there? Who said that!? Adolf Hitler?!! Oh my God!!

HITLER: Stacey, since you were talking about God’s will and the extermination of the Jews, nothing could stop me. I had to respond. You see, I received a divine mandate while I was recovering from a gas attack during the first World War. And as I lay there, it came over me that I would liberate the German people and make Germany great. . . .[And I was] an imated with an inexorable resolve to seize the Evil [the Jews] by the roots and to exterminate it root and branch. To attain our aim, [I knew] we should stop at nothing, even if we must join forces with the Devil.

STACEY: And I heard that the people who participated in this extermination wanted to commit these unspeakable acts. Through their own free will.

TONY: Stacey, there is no question of there being free will, simply because there is no one there in the first place who can have a will or make a choice.

HITLER: But, I could not have done it without so many willing participants. And here with me is one of my commanders, Eduard Strauch, who will testify to that.

STRAUCH: Heil Hitler! No one should ever doubt the eagerness of the men who served under you. Even if the killing was hard and unpleasant . . . we [were] convinced that someone must carry out these tasks. I can state with pride that my men [were] proud to act out of conviction and fidelity to their Führer.

TONY: Everything that happened . . . could not have been any other way.

ESTHER: And while the spontaneous, uninhibited, unpremeditated action is happening there is peace. . . . While you are acting with full focus and putting all your energy into it, minus judgments, there is peace. You see, peace is there when you experience what is as it is fully.

STACEY: Peace? What do you mean peace? Do you think my Uncle Mischa or his students or his family or any of the families of the World Trade Center victims experienced peace on those fateful days? And what about the fact that Hitler, and everyone who committed these heinous acts, had personal responsibility?

TONY: Don’t worry, Stacey. [Hitler], like everyone else, played out the character that consciousness chose, and death is simply a return to the source from where the character appeared. The beloved plays every part in the play. . . . From the point of view of the separate self, everything . . . seems to be a battle ensuing between good and evil. . . . Once awakening happens, it is seen that there is no such thing as right or wrong.

WAYNE: Yes, Tony, and when there’s the understanding that this manifestation is the perfect functioning of God, of Consciousness, or Totality, in that acceptance is peace. . . .

[Because] what we’re talking about here is What Is, not how you think it should be, how you would like it to be, how you, if you were God, would make it! God is not human-hearted.

GANGAJI: Pain is simply pain; sensations in the physical and emotional body. Suffering is in time and has with it some story line about pain. The story line generates infinite strands and permutations—who caused the pain, why, when, how, and on and on. There can be an enormous investment in the story, and therefore, a reluctance to let it all go.

TONY: And anyway, where is this suffering? I don’t see it.

STACEY: Well, dear readers, I think it’s time to call on a true authority—Sri Aurobindo, philosopher, revolutionary leader, and spiritual visionary. I couldn’t imagine anyone better qualified to guide us toward the Truth, and boy, do we need guidance. I sure am hoping that God wills you to join us from the subtle physical plane.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, Stacey, I shall join you for the evolutionary benefit of all. And this is how I can best answer this most fundamental question of human meaning: Man’s greatness is not in what he is but in what he makes possible. His glory is that he is the closed place and secret workshop of a living labour in which supermanhood is made ready by a divine Craftsman.

But he is admitted to a yet greater greatness and it is this that, unlike the lower creation, he is allowed to be partly the conscious artisan of his divine change. His free assent, his consecrated will and participation are needed that into his body may descend the glory that will replace him. His aspiration is earth’s call to the . . . Creator.

If earth calls and the Supreme answers, the hour can be even now for that immense and glorious transformation.

GANGAJI: Well, I disagree with you radically. . . . I would say that’s a “landing.” . . . [Because] what’s missing is the realization that this idea of a doer is a thought and empty.

STACEY: A “landing”? I was just starting to feel elevated. I mean, Sri Aurobindo, there is some way it can all make sense, and there is some greater purpose to our lives, isn’t there? I would end with your exquisite, glorious words, except for one thing I know my dear readers would want to understand: What does make this new, or Neo-Advaita teaching different from traditional Advaita? Sri Ramana Maharshi, as one of the greatest Advaita teachers of all time, could you please join us from your sacred mountain in India?

RAMANA: I’ll join you, Stacey, because God has willed me to set the record straight. I agree that it is true that we are not bound and that the real Self has no bondage. It is true that you will eventually go back to your source. But meanwhile, if you commit sins, as you call them, you will have to face the consequences of such sins.

TONY: As I said before, all concepts of good or bad, original sin, karma, or debt of any kind are the products of an unawakened mind . . .

STACEY: Tony, are you implying that Sri Ramana is—?

RAMANA: Don’t worry, Stacey. Just concentrate on what I’m saying here. Whatever is done lovingly, with righteous purity and with peace of mind, is a good action. Everything which is done with the stain of desire and with agitation filling the mind is classified as a bad action. Do not perform any good action through a bad means . . . because if the means is bad, even a good action will turn out to be a bad one. Therefore even the means of doing actions should be pure. . . . You cannot escape them. . . . [Otherwise] what is the use of merely saying with your lips, “I am free”?

STACEY: Dear Ramana, Gangaji said at the beginning that “if there is some obstruction to the truth, it is brought out in satsang,” and I think that obstruction has been revealed. I do think I’ll sleep better tonight.

FRANCIS: From the vantage point of a personal entity, of a bodymind, deep sleep is . . .

TONY: Francis, the sense of a separate entity is illusory. Presence is what you are.

ESTHER: Tony, where did that thought come from?

GANGAJI: And if thought is insubstantial and is not there, what is there?

TONY: There is no one here doing anything. There is energy in a form discussing something with energy in another form.

ISAAC: Yes, it’s simply a functioning of this bodymind: it has nothing to do with You.

WAYNE: Right, a bodymind mechanism in the phenomenal dream-play, just like all of the rest of these bodymind mechanisms. . . .

STACEY: Even if I am a bodymind mechanism, I’d like to conclude on that note, by expressing my gratitude, most of all, to you dear readers—

ESTHER: For gratitude, there has to be someone (a ME) experiencing the gratitude and someone . . . to direct the gratitude towards. Again, this is evidence that you are not there yet and that the mind is still playing its conceptual tricks.

STACEY: Esther, tricks or no tricks, my dear readers are out there, and they certainly deserve thanks for staying with me as I navigated the high seas of the spiritual world’s first fourth-dimensional satsang—which God has certainly willed to be a very enlightening event!