Denomio: 11. I Wasn't Around for the Break-Up
When the big Buddha Field breakup happened, I was in
Since I left the BF I’ve pursued multiple disciplines. I read many, many books and studied many different disciplines. I always thought it was funny that the group was identified as the Buddha Field and yet nobody ever studies the Buddha. I had the chance to study a lot of spiritual disciplines since I left and I feel much more integrated than I was 3 years ago. I look back on my view of the world in the group and it seems very limited. Microscopic.
The things I treasure about my time in the group were the experience of all-encompassing love at the points where I was just completely in love with everyone and everything; the experience of dropping the small “I”, dropping the limited self in order to serve something that I perceived as higher was just beautiful; the search; the intention of serving the highest (whether or not the highest was there, the intent was there so that was beautiful and transformative -- both to me and those around me). And that’s an element I was talking about earlier… people that weren’t even in the Buddha Field would say, “Wow, thank you so much. You’ve transformed me so much.” Not just to me. To others in the group too. People would say, “There’s just something about you, thank you so much. What is it?” And I think, in large part, that’s because the BF was a collection of people that wanted something higher. Who truly wanted to serve… God or Love or the Universe. Whatever the label. And that was beautiful. And I think the most important thing I got to do, was tap into the experience of love more and really start loving myself more. That was healing. I didn’t have to stay in the same self-destructive patterns that were, on some level, based on hating myself and hating my life… so I got to start having a sense of love for something beyond myself – which allowed me to love myself. And that allowed me to transform my experience of ME – to not be in a sado-masochistic relationship with myself anymore.
Angelo really was a dynamic personality. I mean, I was in awe of how well he could relate to so many different people. He could be an artist, an intellectual, he was psychologically hip, he was well-traveled. He could expound on spiritual truths… like we would see a movie together and he would just start rattling off things that had never occurred to you when you were watching it. And you’d think, “Wow, that’s a whole other level of depth than I was experiencing watching that movie.” And he was really disciplined in what he believed. He was really devoted to what he thought and believed and was 100% dedicated to that. Which helped to bring that out in me. He could touch you on your third eye and you would quiver. There was a tangible excuse to believe in the power of Love and God and Consciousness. But suddenly that was one of the things as I was leaving… someone came up to me and said, “But don’t you see how he transformed you and he gave you all this love, and that all the love you’re experiencing is through him?” And that was how I saw it at the time. But I realize he was just the excuse to allow me to experience that love that was already there. He said, “Look, here I am in this thing… you can be here too… come through me.” Perhaps at the time I didn’t believe it was possible to experience that. But maybe if I was under his cloak, I could ride his coattails and it would be possible for me too. So it was the excuse to experience that in myself.
Shakti was certainly evidence of special powers. Or stories from people where he seemed to be tapping into the ethers. Like when he knew something and you thought there was no possible way he could have know it. And in some ways, I think that’s possible. That he was tapped into something. Just because at some level he was deluded doesn’t mean he wasn’t tapped into something that we’re all connected to. Guinevere told me a story about how he knew the name of her cousin or something in cleansing. Or he would know subplots of stories that nobody else knew and so, because those details come up every once in a while, we wanted to think he was tapped into this thing. All the time. Maybe. I believe he believes in his own experience. He reaches out to the Divine and because he reaches out, maybe sometimes the Divine answers and he does get those inspirational things. There were definitely times that felt like that, where he plucked something out of the ethers. But I think now, looking back, that it was the random happenstance of life. It was just something that happened… and then got turned into, “I SEE. Always.” And I just don’t think that was the case.
There was a sense of pride being in the group. I was proud of helping his body. I was proud of helping humanity to evolve. I was proud of being part of this elite community that GOT it… when there were so many other people in delusion. There was an energy around him that facilitated things… the garden at his house was this little oasis that was unbelievably beautiful. And the performance center, while I didn’t participate in the building of it (other than the occasional afternoon) was kind of magical. None of that would have happened without the energy that surrounded him. So, all of that was a sense of pride (while I was in the group).
