What is a Transpersonal Psychotherapist?

In a recent interview, the phrase "Transpersonal Psychotherapist" was brought up. This, of course, is in line with the questions some have about psychotherapy and the role of spiritual counseling as it relates to the spiritual seeker. Dr. Datanah sent me her take on this type of work (from a paper she wrote in school on Spiritual Counseling and Psychotherapy):

Because I know the spiritual as inseparable from the material, to differentiate between spiritual counseling and psychotherapy seems to create a division where none really exists. I understand that clients might not realize that they are doing spiritual work when they come for psychotherapy, or vice versa, and there might never be a need to define the work with them in those terms, however, I see the work as a psycho- spiritual continuum.

In his poem Tianamen, the poet David Whyte talks of “….loneliness, And how it works at the edge of all experience.” In his poem Dissolver of Sugar, Rumi says, “ Love moves away. The light changes. I need more grace than I thought.” Both these poets express the profound pain that lies at the root of human experience. It is from the experience of this loneliness and this longing that the soul seeks solace.

The therapeutic relationship has tremendous transformative power, and the success and validity of the relationship depends on the quality of presence that is brought into the relationship. There is a sense that in the presence of an aware therapist, a person becomes more fully who they really are. The ego lives in a samsaric mind of constriction, limitation, inflation and pain, but our souls, crave the freedom of the awakened mind. A therapist who is operating from a deep, loving place, from the essence of who they truly are, enables a glimpse of freedom to the client. In fact, it is the unconditional positive regard, and the love that it engenders, that triggers the unfolding and healing of the psycho-spiritual journey.

The characteristics of that love are openness and warmth. These are important as the client undergoes the onslaught to the ego that is the work of the psycho-spiritual journey. Initially, during therapy, the neurosis of the ego is heightened. This manifestation is important because in order to be purified, the ego needs to be seen. It is through the unconditional loving of the therapist, that the client can be truly seen. The places that are closed to love, and those that crave it, are brought to light. The defenses that arose due to early wounding are explored. And the therapeutic relationship provides recompense for the inadequacies of the primary relationships with early caregivers. As this neurosis is allowed to come to light, and hopefully be released, there is what the Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chogyum Trungpa called, “co-emergent wisdom”. The soul needs unconditional love in order to unfold. The therapeutic relationship allows the ego to soften because of the possibility of openness.

The relationship between therapist and client is an important crucible of learning. It should be one of mutual recognition and equity that also embodies the qualities of respect, honesty, vulnerability, curiosity, openness and trust. These allow the intimacy of the relationship to foster the best possible growth. The therapeutic relationship is the transpersonal ‘between’ that is created when two people come together in a way that allows them both to go beyond perception, projections and transference.

As I mentioned earlier, I see therapeutic work as a psycho-spiritual continuum, and it is very important that there is a healthy ego structure that can support the deconstruction of the false ego self without further defensive splitting taking place. When a client wants to work on their spiritual selves, its is imperative that a therapist recognize the need for the developmental work of ego strengthening in order to be able to integrate spiritual teachings into their lives in a practical way. The old cliché, ‘you need to have an ego to lose an ego’, has a lot of wisdom to it. When a person does not have the inner strength of a well-grounded psyche, and embarks on spiritual work, there is a tendency towards spiritual bypassing.

When clients come to my office in order to work through their problems, I see, at the basis of their anguish, a sense that they do not know who they are. It is this most profound ignorance that affects the way they engage the world, and their terror and pain is immense as a result. I have had clients who have come to me with a wide spectrum of issues, with manifestations of psychosis as well as neurosis as well as issues that they define as being ‘spiritual’. I see that the basis of whatever they are manifesting and the feeling is that they are lost and they want to find themselves. They want to relate to their lives from a position of strength and of knowing.

From the Advaita Vedantic position, when we are ignorant of our true nature, our true Self, we identify with our ego, live in a state of fear, and we suffer from anger, greed, hatred and the miseries that arise as we project our fears onto the world and onto others. We become reactive to situations in our lives because we feel that they do not provide us with the sense of well being we crave. We expect to be made to feel whole from external circumstances because we do not realize that our state of wellbeing resides within. We are out of touch with our true nature that is in fact boundless and whole. The reason of course is that the identification in those moments is not with the essence of Self, but with something external. There is identification with changing concepts, thoughts, feelings, conditioned by time and space, and consequently, there is suffering.

My position as a psycho-spiritual therapist/counselor is to hold my clients in an honoring place. I know that my deep trust and love of the play of life with all its multifaceted rich dynamics has a profound effect on my clients. Knowing myself as I do, I have deep empathic resonance with my clients and I have always been able to hold them in a place of love, even if I could not always condone what has sometimes been some pretty heinous behavior. It’s interesting to be with someone who, out of the pain of disconnection manifests aberrant behavior, and to be able to mirror back to him or her, the essence of who I know they really are. The work we do together invites them to realize this as much as possible. My modus operandi is to allow my clients the space to explore the depths of the pain of their issues. Once they have elaborated those issues and framed them in a way that can be integrated into a larger perspective in their lives, when appropriate, I invite them to meet themselves in the light of the Self. Sometimes this takes the form of mirroring, sometimes a deeper exploration of their containing myths and their concepts of who they are in a spiritual sense. My experience is that my clients crave this type of exploration. The sense of deepest disconnect is the most painful of experiences, and the exploration of the Self, the most joyous and freeing. Therefore, there are times when I will actively invite an exploration of the Self, if a client seems to be ready and willing to engage in this type of exploration.

My understanding of the Divine, that I know to be in every Being at every moment, allows me to be profoundly present to my clients. It feels natural to me to mirror the beauty and creativity of my clients. As I honor their Beings, and honor their struggles, they can come to know their worth, and to open up to their depths. It is from this empowered place that they will be able to know themselves, and embrace their lives. This then, is the psycho-spiritual work, by whatever name one calls it.

Ideally, it sounds like what cleansing was supposed to be. Except, you know.. without the nudity and porn.

Datanah: 1. My Childhood and Growing Up

Childhood: I grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa. I had a really beautiful childhood. I’m the oldest of three kids. I was definitely the princess… and was definitely in charge. I have a very close and loving relationship with my parents and my siblings. We’re all very close. As are my cousins… we had one big extended family loving us. There was trauma of course, I have a father who raged. But always within the context of “I love you”, and always followed by tremendous apologies. And my mother was the typical nurturer, the classical forgiver. Financially, we were very well off.

It was very interesting politically, growing up in apartheid South Africa. When I was little, I would play with the servants’ children but when you got to be 7 or 8, you no longer played with African children. This was confusing for a child, and the beginnings of my learning compassion. Politically, in my latter years of high school and as a university student, I got involved in a left-wing student organization that did work with black kids in the townships. It was illegal, and therefore dangerous. I had friends who disappeared, a cousin that was under house arrest for 7 years because of her involvement with the ANC. My parents were questioned by the police. I was followed because I had an Indian boyfriend. (which was taboo… crossing the color line.)

I also had many significant mystical experiences as a child. I grew up in a Jewish household, although not orthodox (traditionally practicing). My parents on my mother’s side are a very old Jerusalem family. There’s a lot of mysticism in my family. My great grandmother was the last person to be given permission to be buried on the Mount of Olives. The reason I’m bringing it up was that when she died, my grandmother was in South Africa… so when she went back to Jerusalem to look for her mother’s grave, she went to the hut on the hill and the man who had the grave name and numbers wasn’t there. She walked out and she felt somebody leading her. She turned and went straight and turned and when she stopped she was at her mother’s grave. So this type of mystical experience runs through the veins of the women in my family. My mom had them. I had many experiences myself. As wild as you can possibly imagine, covering the full gamut of experiences recorded in all the mystical traditions. It’s what led me into my studies.

Also, growing up in a non-traditional Jewish family, I started doing yoga when I was four. I would go with my mother to yoga class and we would meditate at the end. So I started meditating when I was four and it became my nightly ritual at bedtime. I also would hang out in the field at the bottom of my road in Africa (the fields were where the African churches would meet) African Christianity is a mixture of missionary Christianity and traditional tribal religion. So, in the name of Christ, people would dance and sing and go into trance. And so would I. I’d spend time with African witchdoctors. There was a lot of that sort of thing in my childhood.

When I was 13½, I cut school one day and I went to a mystical bookstore downtown. While I was in the bookstore, Yogananda’s “Autobiography of a Yogi” fell off the shelf and hit me on the head. There was an Indian guru there and he was laughing and said, “This means you come and study with me.” So I studied Vedanta studies as a teenager, the truth kernel of the Vedas. When I left South Africa, I went to live in Israel for a year, where I became very friendly with a Chinese Buddhist and got involved with Buddhism. All of this is to say that prior to coming to the Buddha Field, I had many years of spiritual studies plus initiations by various gurus. I was also initiated by the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala. Many different experiences like that. There was an organization I belonged to in Atlanta that met at a Trappist monastery (because one of the monks was a Trappist. He was given special permission to meet with us as Trappists hold a vow of Silence. However the head of the monastery really liked the focus of our meetings which was the exploration of different religious and spiritual expressions.) There was a Benedictine monk (a very good friend of mine) that was part of it. There was a Native American medicine man and faith keeper for the Muscogee Nation… I was initiated as a spiritual member of that Nation,as well as of the Hopi Nation. There was also a leader in the Sufi Order. (I actually also have initiation in two different Sufi orders). The head of the gay churches in Atlanta was in that group. There were about 8 or 9 of us. A very interesting group of people. And the head of the Rama Krishna Order in the Vedanta Society who is a good friend of mine. This was in the late seventies or early eighties. It was wonderful. So I had a very varied spiritual background, and experience in varied mystical practices before I ever got involved with the Buddha Field.

Education: When I was an undergrad I was probably pretty indifferent to school. I did very well in school, it was very easy for me. As an undergrad, I was a typical 19-20 year old kid, in that, I’d make deals with myself like, “If I can’t get a parking space, I’ll go shopping.” But I passed everything really easily. For my Bachelor’s degree, I majored in English Literature, Social Anthropology and Psychology. And then I left South Africa, lived in Israel for a year, then came to the States. I was a very natural mom and felt very enriched by my experience of mothering. Something about unconditional loving and going beyond yourself. I helped start a ballet company in Atlanta and an International School. I worked for the Southern Center for International Studies (which is Jimmy Carter’s organization… not the Carter Center but a behind-the-scenes political thing. I did fund-raising.) I worked to provide housing for Vietnamese and Russian refugees. I was very involved in the growing-up of Atlanta. When I got there it was a tiny town. But Andy Young was the mayor and he wanted to make it an international city. I was very involved in that stuff. And when my kids got old enough to be at school for the whole day and were involved in after-school activities, I went back to school and studied Interior Architecture and Design. But when I started working in that… it turned out that when people would call me constantly and it was never about “5 beautiful tiles they had to choose from,” it was always some interpersonal drama in their life. And I was on the phone forever with them. One day I realized, “I’m kind of counseling people and if I’m going to do this with any integrity, I have to go back to school.” So I went back to school and got a Master’s degree in transpersonal psychology. And then, subsequent to that, I received my doctorate in East-West Psychology with an orientation in Spiritual Counseling and Spiritual Emergency.

Marriage: Before the BF, I was married. Twice actually. The first time I got married when I was 21. To the guy I’d been dating for 3 years in South Africa. I did the typical South African thing. If you’ve been dating someone for a long time, you get married when you finish your University studies. And so I got married. And then I got pregnant 3 months later. We were both kids and he wasn’t ready for a kid. And I wasn’t prepared to get rid of the kid. So that was the end of the marriage. When my marriage ended, I was 22… with a baby. I was 24½ when I married my second husband, an anesthesiologist. My first husband was a neurologist. They were both in the medical profession. Then, we left South Africa and went to Israel for a year… and then came to the States. I was with my second husband for 15 years before we were divorced. Oddly, I would get some cocked up message from Angelo via Frolic about how I never stuck to things. Not my experience at all. When I met the people from the Buddha Field in Atlanta, I had been divorced for about a year. And I had two kids. My son was 11 and my daughter was 16.

Sexual/abuse problems: Often when I talked to Tighre he would say “what about the sexual abuse you had”. I always told him he was confusing me with someone else. He always said I was in denial. I wonder now if he was told to say that. There was none of that in my family. My father would rage and during that time he was emotionally abusive of course. He has a very short fuse, but thee was no physical abuse at all. And you know, South African people are very above-board emotionally. They shout, scream, love, kiss each other…Very much like Southern Italian or Southern Mediterranean… people singing all the time, all around you. It was like that.

I do know that one of the things that attracted me to the Buddha Field, one of the things that really attracted me was that I was living far from my country of origin and therefore my close family. So, even though I had lots of friends (I always have had) one of the things I loved about the people that I met from the Buddha Field was that they were like this very close family. And I think that was very significant.

Datanah: 2. Finding the Buddha Field in Atlanta

In Atlanta, there was a bookstore that had a café in it. And that was the café where Tighre and Frolic worked. They used to help serve sandwiches. One Wednesday morning, I was sitting in the bookstore with my daughter, and she said to me, “That cute guy is looking at us, mom.” He was. It was Tighre. Soon, my daughter had to go wherever she was going, and when she left Tighre came over and started talking to me. We immediately had a rapport. We had this long conversation that was lovely, “Who are you? What do you do? What are you interested in?” It turned out that we both liked Tai Chi and Yoga. And Tighre asked me if I had ever meditated. I said sure. And then he asked if I’d ever meditated in a group and I said, “Not for a long time.” So he invited me to a group meditation that he went to on Sunday nights… (I actually didn’t know until the end of the evening that everyone at the meditation knew each other… I thought it was just like a yoga class. You go to a meditation and people just turn up.) I accepted of course. I thought he was adorable. Lovely, warm, sweet. And I gave him my phone number and left to do whatever I was doing… picked up the kids and came home. When I walked in, my house mate said, “Oh, this guy called and said he met you this morning and wanted to know what we were doing this evening. I told him nothing so he’s coming over.” So, I was like, “OK.” So now I’m thinking this guy was totally into me. Because when I had left the café, he had given me the most beautiful, warm hug and it was like: here was this beautiful guy, and he was into me, and how nice. Anyway, he turned up with Frolic and we all had a gorgeous evening. We all just adored each other. They asked if they could come back on Friday night. And we all just loved each other.

So, I went to the meeting on Sunday night. The satsang meetings were held at a house where a whole lot of the BF people were living together… but I didn’t know that everyone there knew each other then. I actually walked in late. Everyone was already sitting and meditating (before anybody started sharing.)-- I’m pretty sure it was Frolic sharing satsang that night – and it was the whole production with this chair and the flowers and everything. It was at the end of the evening that I realized all these people I had met were there all knew each other. And it was lovely. I think Simone was traveling at that point but he came a few weeks later and literally, from that day, we became this big extended family. I remember one snowstorm – I had a very large house and Atlanta shuts down when it snows – I had fourteen people in my house. Everyone from the BF was there. We were drawing, we were writing, we were sleeping, people were in my bathtub… and we were this very big extended loving family. Plus at that time my son was going through a difficult time, dealing with the divorce. And Tighre and Frolic would go to the gym with him and take him swimming and to play basketball… a pretty good substitute for the males in his life… His dad was bipolar and his “out there” behavior was one of the things that contributed to our divorce. So for my son, who was about 12 at the time, it was wonderful. I was 38 then. Around 1990.So that’s how I met everyone. It felt like the group was an instant family.

They talked about Angelo. (There were pictures of him in the house even though there weren’t supposed to be.) Also, I got to hear tapes of his sharing. The focus of the group was “We’re meeting because of him.” The story at that time was that one of the girls in the group had been stalked and the group had split up. I was aware of that… that there were people in different cities. And then people in our group started to leave. Tighre was one of the first, and we were very close. He and I would do tons of things together. So it was very touching when he left. And when he left it was because he was “going traveling” and didn’t know if he would see me again. And then others would leave and when everyone was leaving they would ask if I wanted to come with them but they did say my kids could not come. And it was very clear to me that there was no way in hell I was going to abandon my children. And my kids had come to satsang in Atlanta – they came to everything. They were very much a part of the group. They were just not allowed to come where Angelo was. I was just told that if I wanted to come, I could, but they couldn’t. So it was very clear. They said that they wanted me to be there… and that I needed to be there…Of course I would never abandon my kids….I don’t think abandonment is a very conscious or compassionate thing to do, do you?

It was interesting actually because when my daughter left school she went traveling and Simone had been in contact with her. After everybody left Atlanta, I was asked to mail things for people. They kept a mailbox in Atlanta and they’d send things to my house for me to mail – part of maintaining the façade that people still lived in Atlanta (they didn’t want people to know where they were.) So I was very involved in that way. And then when my daughter was traveling cross-country and she was invited to come to Austin, but Simone told her, “Your mother is not to know where you are.” And she was absolutely horrified. She was like, “What the f.ck are you talking about? My mother was in there with everyone else. We were all doing class together. I know you still are in contact with her.” So she actually freaked out and didn’t come. And she would have come if he had not said, “Don’t tell your mom.”

They were in Atlanta around 2 years. And I never saw Angelo during that time. I spoke to him once on the phone (although he denied it was him.) I knew it was him because I’d heard his voice on a tape. But he called to speak to Frolic and I answered. So that was my only contact with him. And then everybody was gone.

Datanah: 3. Austin, By Way of Bali

Well, life continued and at one point, I found myself working 6 days a week. I was exhausted… carrying on a private therapy practice, working at a community mental health facility and I had my interior design practice. I was just so busy. And in 1999, I was just DONE with working so hard. I decided to take off 4 ½ months and do a road trip around the states. So I told Simone my intentions and that I already knew everyone was living in Austin (one of the guys that was not invited to come to Austin had found phone bills with the Austin information on them.) So when I told Simone I would be driving through Austin he said, “Oh my God, I have to see you.” So I came and saw him and he invited me to Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving dinner was a beautiful celebration. I loved seeing everybody because I hadn’t seen them for years at this point. I had been very close to everybody so it was really nice. Still, I had huge warning bells…

There were a few things that really gave me pause. That seemed really f.cked up. Like them putting a huge bib around Angelo’s neck for him and I was like, “What is this baby bullshit and this servile bullshit?” Then, I hated that everywhere he walked, everybody “en masse” would turn and look and follow him around. It was crazy to me. My own interaction with him was disturbing also because I felt like he looked into my eyes but there was nobody there. I really felt like he was not connecting with me. And I talked to Simone about that. And then also, he came on stage (to “perform”) wearing this gold lame see-through thing and started singing a love song to his guru, he said ( How ironic is that). It was like some third rate disco in South America somewhere. I thought what the hell was he doing? So I left that night disillusioned. With real questions. I remember talking to Simone and he told me it was my mind and to drop it.

So then I continued on my travels. When I got back to Atlanta (Feb 2000) I felt done with Atlanta. I had been there for 18 years and it felt like I was ready for a new phase of my life. I don’t even remember who I talked to at that time. I was very close to Tighre, Simone and Frolic… and I know I talked to one of them. And they said come to Austin. And I thought that I was ready for an adventure so I sold my house in Atlanta. I was ready for a new phase. My kids were done with school. My daughter was off somewhere else, and my son was off at his own school and I thought that I needn’t hang around Atlanta anymore?

So I drove to Austin. I got here on a Thursday afternoon. And on Friday morning I got a phone call from a good friend of mine (who is a Sheik in the Sufi order) and he asked where I was. I said, “I’m sitting by a river looking at some terrapins on the lake.” And he asked where and I told him Austin. He laughed and said, “Oh, I really have to see you.” And he said he would be in Austin the next weekend and asked if I would see him. I often see clients who are his disciples that are going through things so I thought it was one of those things, but he said that it didn’t have anything to do with that. So, the next weekend I saw him. During the intervening week I was connecting with everyone again and it was lovely. I didn’t get invited to anything except meditation at that point but that was lovely to reconnect with everyone. And then on Saturday when I saw my friend, he said, “I have a request for you if you’re up to it. I’d like you to travel around the world for 6 months buying art for some people.” I asked where he wanted me to go and he said to go wherever I want. And I said, “I’d really like to go to Bali and India and Morocco.” His reply was that if I went to Morocco, then there was a Sufi in Egypt he’d like me to meet so he’d like me to go there too. I said absolutely. For me, it was a no-brainer.

Well, Simone had a different perspective. “You’re being tested by the universe.” And I thought about that and I thought that actually the universe seemed to be giving me a beautiful gift. It was asking me to say “Yes” to life. And a great life at that! I was to travel with an unlimited budget, going wherever I wanted, meeting whoever I wanted, and it just felt awesome. It didn’t feel off to me at all. So I went. I had this amazing trip with unbelievably incredible experiences… and met (oddly enough) some very powerful spiritual leaders. I saw the Dalai Lama again when I was in India. I met the teacher who teaches all the priests and monks in Bali. I spent time with some very beautiful Sufis in Egypt and Morocco. I did spiritual practice with all of them. I mean, I won’t go into it but it was a fabulous and rewarding trip. And then I came back to Austin. I was glad I did it.

Datanah: 4. In the Buddha Field

I was here in Austin for about 6 or 7 months. And during that time I got invited to class and I started having problems with it. Classes in Atlanta were great. Class here felt confusing to me and the reason was that half of what I was hearing was pure Vedanta and Buddhism -- and it was spot on. And half was a bizarre misinterpretation. And it bothered me. A lot. And I started talking to Guinevere, Tabitha and Frolic about my concerns but none of them wanted to hear it. No one understood what I was talking about. I had a background in psychology and spiritual practice and I just couldn’t make sense of it. And I was talking to Frolic a lot because I’m also a hypnotherapist, and I would have regression with him (I definitely feel every therapist needs to have their own therapist. Very great spiritual teachers I’ve met have told me how necessary it was for them to have teachers.) And after 7 or so months, of wrestling with my love for these people versus my misgivings -- and the half of what I was hearing that was great versus the half that was crap… [At this point I’d be sitting in class thinking “Why in the f.ck is he doing the same drama therapy exercises, and Gestalt exercises that anyone could learn at a weekend seminar at the Esselen Institute in Big Sur in the early seventies?”] I had my Master’s degree by this time and it boggled me how superficial he kept everything, and how he was using exercises that were no longer deemed that effective by the therapeutic community anymore. Finally, I applied to the Doctoral program at a wonderful school in San Francisco and left.

After receiving my degree, a client called and asked if I’d design her house in Austin. This house was a disaster and it probably took 14 months to complete. So I was back in Austin again. Back with everybody and loving everybody. I got invited to everything again and to class. Again I would go but end up having endless discussions about it with Tabitha… I’m sure I drove her absolutely berserk. Also during that time, Martina lost it. With my background (I had worked for a long time in a drug and alcohol clinic) I could see this girl was going to kill herself if she did not get in-house help. And I told Fellini (we had become really good friends) that she needed to be in rehab. She needed to be in-house. There’s no way she could maintain sobriety as an outpatient. I was worried that this girl was going to kill herself. But of course, she was getting feedback from Angelo that said no. So I was already against him. And I was very, very concerned. And then Martina really lost it. And I was driving her around one day and Angelo was calling her on the phone and Martina was crying and waving the phone around and screaming at him saying, “You’re not f.cking hearing me!” I could hear him saying over and over again “Drop your mind” over the phone,. She was crying to him for help and he was just saying “Drop your mind”. I was completely devastated at his lack of compassion. Its OK to say that to someone who is not in crisis, but totally un-present to say it to someone who is going through a severe breakdown. But of course he never did understand the psycho/spiritual continuum very well. So I had long discussions with Fellini…long discussions. I said to her, “I don’t give a shit what he’s recommending, the guy does not know how to deal with an addict. She’s an addict and she’s going to kill herself if she continues like this.” And I don’t remember time-wise whether the Nascimento thing happened before that.. I think it did. So this was probably the second time I was really pissed off with him.

So that whole thing that happened with Nascimento was such bullshit, because it turned out not to be Nascimento. I actually met Nascimento when he first started dating Natasha (they stayed at my house for a week.) And I had serious concerns. I had a session with Nascimento (during which he admitted that he had beat up all of his past girlfriends.) I told Natasha, “I’m really concerned. I think you should stay away from this guy. I told her that I had no respect for him, I’m seriously worried about you.” And I had probably told that to Frolic too. So when all the threats (or whatever) happened… they came to me and said, “We want you to write a letter, stating your understanding of Nascimento’s character from a therapist’s perspective. And this will be your service.” I was OK with it because I had seen Nascimento as a client and lived with him for a week and could talk from my own experience. When I found out it that it wasn’t actually Nascimento that had written the letters, I was absolutely furious. Because I wrote a professional letter, from my perspective that I never needed to write. It was an honest letter. It was my perspective of him but it was based on being told, “Here’s the letter he wrote, what do you think of this?” So what I wrote was my response based on that false information. It was based on a lie. So I felt abused and I thought it was completely unethical. And then this whole thing with Martina happened… I thought it was all not right … I really started questioning. I had long discussions even with Dharma… Dharma begged me to stay. And I said, “I can’t sit there and hear him say things like “I look in the mirror and I see the Buddha -- but I don’t see the Buddha in anybody else.” And I’m sick and tired of hearing, “I’m just the finger pointing toward the moon”, and acting like he was the Great Enlightened One, or hearing him give mixed messages like “You’re God, but really even after 18 years with me you’re still a f.ckup.”

One day Frolic told me that he wanted to ‘play’ with me. We hadn’t seen each other for a long time, so I said sure (I was very excited to spend some time with him.) So I went over and we started ‘playing’ as he called it… He was taking a course in NLP and wanted me to take it with him so we could spend time together -- and so that the course wouldn’t be so boring for him. It was a mail order course and we’d watch the video and write answers to the questions in our notebooks and then do some exercises and answer some questions and he kept the notebook so he could “compare my notes to what he’d written” and this went on for 6 weeks or so. At the end of that time, I asked for my notebook and he said, “Well actually in the master’s name, you’ve just done service.” which completely pissed me off. I don’t blame Frolic at all, but felt that I basically took the test for Angelo’s NLP certification. And that evidently wasn’t a unique experience. I spoke with others that had done the same thing… One of the people got him his doctorate in theology amongst other things. It was evidently common. He apparently has a lot of certifications that he doesn’t rate. For me it was just compounding one thing after another and eventually I just couldn’t stand it any more. I would say that pretty much was the catalyst for my leaving.

Datanah: 5. Why I Left

Before I left that final time… I was really incredulous -- thinking it was bullshit. And I talked to people about what I was feeling. I remember we went to see that movie… Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring… We were talking about it in class and Angelo asked us questions about our perceptions of it. And I shared that the epitome of that movie for me was when the teacher died -- because for me that was the ultimate teaching… when you come to the point where you become your own teacher. It was a Buddhist movie and the Buddhists have a saying “ When you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” Basically kill everything that is not the Reality that resides in all Beingness. When I gave my answer Angelo said, “I’m not interested in the spiritual epitome, I wanted to know about the psychological.” And I said, “Well, what are we doing here then?” And he didn’t answer me. It was completely f.cked up.

I guess the real final end was being in class and seeing the incongruities, seeing how everybody was manipulating him by giving him everything they thought he wanted, and watching the sycophants (which would nauseate me.) So I got to the point where I wouldn’t go to class. And I thought, “What am I doing here?” And one night I had a dream that was the total turning point for me. I went to bed and dreamed that I saw Angelo turning a corner and he became a cobra and slithered toward me and his mouth opened as wide as it could open and the next thing I knew he had morphed back into himself. He and I were standing face to face, head to head, mouth to mouth and we both dissolved into nothing. And I thought, OK, that’s it. There’s no difference between me and him. I’m done. I packed the next day and left. It was about a year after I left that that the breakup happened.

And that’s when I started getting phone calls from everybody. And then the whole thing devolved. Fellini called and told me the Donner story. Then I started getting phone calls from Frolic with all the spin. And Simone would call and ask me what I heard. It was really important. All this crap I’d get over the years off and on but now it came really hard and fast. I actually sent Frolic an article on ethics and so then they started calling and asking, “Is this ethical? Is that ethical?” Frolic first started calling me to justify what he was doing and to make sure that he never did anything wrong himself….But also at that time, people were calling me and telling me about Angelo falling asleep during their cleansings. Guenevere called me once and she said that she had heard he was watching porn during cleansings and that she spoke to Xena about it, but that Xena said it was rubbish… that it was dance videos and she knew because she had put them in the machine. And I said, “Stop right there. Are you telling me this man is teaching you to be present and he’s watching a video, of whatever kind, while he’s doing therapy with you?” This went on for weeks and weeks. People were falling apart.

Datanah: 6. And Then The Break-up

Actually, when all the drama happened with Donner, Simone called me from the car (I'm sure Angelo was with him) to talk about the ethics of it and try to convince me that Angelo had done nothing wrong. Simone said, “There are so many rumors but here is what really happened.....Angelo only asked Donner to strip naked and then sit down with his back to him.” I stopped him right there and told him to go no further......that it is totally unethical for a therapist to ask a client to strip. He sounded totally shocked.

And I was getting call after call from people who had had things stolen from them, or been lied to or manipulated. One thing after another.

But to be honest, I wasn’t shocked. Because I had had my own experience of deception and lies and manipulation – and my own experience of being confused. Confused about why he was not clear in what he was teaching. There would be moments where he would say things that were pure Vedanta, pure Buddhist teachings -- and then his own personal behavior was so contrary to it. So my confusion for a long time when I was in class was, “Why is there no clarity here? And why are all these people that I love so much -- that are obviously intelligent mature adults… caught up in this?” And at this point, most people weren’t really talking to me. Fellini was -- but others just thought I had it wrong. But it obviously wasn’t wrong. That was why I had left. But I also understood that they couldn’t see it that way. Not acknowledge it and stay in the group. Also they were emotionally manipulated, and were prohibited from reading the source material from Hinduism and Buddhism and other great teachers.

Meditation didn’t change for me from being in the group. I’d been meditating my whole life and had different practices and different teachers at different times. So I didn’t connect it to Angelo. I’d been meditating since I was four … so I was never got caught in that “oh, Angelo and meditation are the same thing.”

I stayed as long as I did because of the community. The people I connected with in Atlanta… and the people I connected with way before I had any relationship with Angelo. I always felt when he looked at me, he never saw me. What he thought of me probably came from other people’s perceptions anyhow. I never thought this man knew anything about me and my life. And then the stories I’d hear about me that were supposedly my issues or my problems, like I never stuck to anything or that I was sexually abused as a child, I knew were not my issues or my problems. So for me, Angelo was an aside. And a curiosity, because he’s got a very bizarre personality. So it was definitely for me about my friends, the community, and the people I love.

There was a schism with the group after I moved away. Not with my friends though. I always let my friends know what I thought. And interestingly enough, we still talked. And I also told them, which was true, that I felt love for Angelo as I feel love for all of man. And I feel love and compassion for him, I still do. I feel he’s a very damaged human being and my sense is that he must have had a very damaging childhood… so it’s not difficult for me to say there’s love and compassion there… but there’s also tremendous dislike… and sadness -- I think is what I’d say I feel.

I never felt like I was trying to get to any endpoint… for me, being in the group was simply connecting to people I loved and staying connected with them.

Datanah: 7. Reflections

I did receive guidance. I got guidance not to sell my house when I left Atlanta, to rent it out instead… but that didn’t make any sense to me and I needed the money to go to grad school and put my daughter through grad school. I never felt like Angelo had any sense of me or my life -- so the guidance that I was ‘given’ (not to go traveling for instance) didn’t make any sense to me. And I guess because I didn’t listen, he didn’t give much more guidance. Also, I thought the guidance he was giving other people was fucked up. And I told them. I told Tabitha the guidance he gave her was really damaging. The guidance he gave Martina (before rehab) was really damaging. So I didn’t think he had any clarity about a lot of things. Angelo just felt off to me.

I had experienced shakti before the Buddha Field. With other people. Years and years of it. Even without anybody there. So I never associated shakti with Angelo. And then the first time that he “gave me” shakti, I felt nothing. What I felt was him pushing my head back… so it went back… and everyone was gasping and Simone came to me afterwards and I said, “You have just been initiated in to the beginning. This is nothing." But it didn’t feel like a real experience.

Another thing that would bug me was when we were sitting in meditation and seeing some of the sycophants shake all over the place. I’m not saying they weren’t experiencing something… but I’ve been in the presence of spiritual teachers who, when people started shaking, they’d tell them to stop and pull themselves together. So for me, it became a performance -- an art piece -- where they would shake all over. Like, “What the hell?” He was putting on a show but so were the rest of the people. Which is not to say some people might not have felt it genuinely… because people feel things… and I also know the mind is very tricky so when you put yourself in a spiritual scenario, you can have spiritual experiences, and some can feel very profound, and some can BE very profound. -but I felt like there was this charade happening. And then I was sure there were also people that had very meaningful experiences to them. I never felt like they were specifically Angelo-related though. And the first thing he ever said to me was so meaningless his first words. We were at a ballet performance. I was invited and I was standing there with a sister and he looked at her and said, “You’re a beautiful ballerina.” Then he looked at me and said, “You need to learn to point better.” And for a little bit I thought, “What is he trying to tell me?” It it some sort of Koan?.....but actually he hardly ever said much to me…

And the other thing I have to tell you about which really shifted things for me, was in class one day when my son and a friend of mine from India were in town, and they were invited to a Sunday outing. And Angelo gave shakti and threw prashad and all that. And this friend is an expert in Newar art and there was one particular painting Angelo loved… he brought a few guys over to where I was staying to see the paintings… So they were all standing around and Angelo was looking at all the paintings and, honestly, he said to me in at least 7 different ways that he wanted me to get him one of the paintings. He would look directly at me and say things indirectly like, “This painting has special shakti” or “This painting has a real light to it. Much better than any other ones” And things like that. When he left, my friend said, “He really wants you to get him that painting.” And I said, “I know, he told me 7 different times in not-so-subtle ways.” So I thought OK, I’ll get him that painting. He really wants it and basically the art supports the artists in Nepal so it’s a really good cause. So I bought it for him and framed it and took it over to his house. When I was there, he came in and looked it up and down and he looked at me and all he said was, “I knew you would get me that painting.” And I just thought, “F.ck you, don’t try and pretend you are psychic.” I didn’t say it… I just said, “You’re welcome” and he turned and walked out of the room. I mean, f.cking well say thank you at least, you know? That stuff bugged the shit out of me. Because it didn’t feel real. You ASKED for the painting. I got you the painting. Have the grace to say thank you.

None of this was new or unique to me. I had endless discussions about all of this with Tabitha (because she had told me she wanted to leave but she was told by Angelo that if she left, she would be destroyed.) I told her, THIS is the reason you should go. To see that you can handle it. You’ll give yourself a chance to grow up if you’re away long enough to find out who you are.

Datanah: 8. Some Parts Were Beautiful, Some Were Damaging

In my life, I had been around other teachers and had other teachers – a lot of them I didn’t seek out or anything, I’d just find myself in their presence. And they all said the same thing: “It’s not about me. It’s about your relationship to your own essential ground. The truth of your own being, and any teacher worth their salt is only going to remind you to remember who you are.” So Angelo was another teacher. And when he reminded me, I appreciated it. But when he stopped doing that, I thought he was full of shit.

One thing I always thought was beautiful was the devotion that people had for Angelo. That was beautiful. Because I felt it was genuine – right up until they stopped having it. Which was also genuine. So there was beauty there. There was definitely beauty in the way people helped each other, cared about each other. The sweetness in that was very powerful. There was genuine beauty in people’s genuine desire to deeply connect with who they were spiritually.

As for my own actions, I feel sorry for the participation around the Nascimento letter, and my participation with having done that coursework for Angelo (albeit unaware as I was). And I understand that I couldn’t have known, but I’m still sorry I participated.

The emphasis placed on physical beauty seemed very damaging to me. F.cked up. First, Angelo to me always looked like a caricature. The Botox. The false eyelashes. The plastic surgery. It felt like a façade, you know? But the same emphasis that he placed on physical beauty… was like the shallowness that manifested in his teaching methodology. I can’t tell you how many discussions I had with Tabitha – trying to figure out a way to give him different exercises to do. We had endless discussions about that. As I said, it felt to me like he didn’t understand the therapeutic process. He didn’t understand how to shift people from a place of “Step 1 – Acknowledge your deficit.” To the next step of actually letting go of their drama… their identification with the drama. On the contrary. In class I saw him reminding people after 18 years of the same dramas they held from their childhoods. He was not letting go!!! And that same shallowness manifested in the physical obsession. And I saw it damaging people I knew. I saw eating disorders, I saw obsession with the whole outer beauty thing. And I don’t think there is anything wrong with being outwardly beautiful. It’s gorgeous. I like beauty and it’s natural that people are drawn to beauty. But I saw him being cruel to some people in class because he never thought they were beautiful enough and that upset me. And I didn’t think it was some “deep teaching.” It didn’t have any depth. It was like the taunting of a bullying child. There was no compassion and he was not acknowledging the inner beauty. What kind of spiritual teacher doesn’t do that? That’s absurd.

The lying I experienced from the beginning. As soon as everyone left Atlanta and I was sent this package… I didn’t realize right away but at some point I realized that I was participating in a lie. I was lied to about who the packages were going to and why I was sending them. And then it hit me and I was like, “Oh my God, I’ve become complicit in this.” And then I was asked to tell on people. I was told it was for their best interests (that Angelo knows what they are saying and thinking.) I didn’t do it… and I’m glad about that. But I was directed to.

All of the lies kind of rocked my world – in the sense that it was just heinous to me. I think that most of what I heard from Angelo was lies. Really early on, I was sharing with Fellini and so I knew almost from the day I arrived that Angelo wasn’t celibate… so I didn’t actually believe that one. But then when he would lie about it, it didn’t exactly add trust. The horror came when I saw how many people had been, and are still hurt because of all of it.

Datanah: 9. Masters

It actually didn’t surprise me to find out that Angelo didn’t have a master. First, I never saw him teach anything that came from any lineage that felt authentic. When I was in Atlanta, I heard that Angelo had a master and it was somebody he met on a beach in CA and that didn’t feel right. I’ve been around people that are in lineages that are centuries old, so when I heard that I immediately thought it wasn’t true. There was never really anything that indicated to me that he DID have a master. The only thing I saw in him that I didn’t see in other teachers (which I always thought was a deficit) was that he didn’t ever associate with other teachers. Every teacher I’ve known not only learns from other teachers, these guys always had other teachers, even other teachers from other paradigms to talk with and get feedback from. To learn from, to share with, to communicate with. I never saw the humility of that in him. That he didn’t have a teacher didn’t shock me. As far as “The Knowing” was concerned… I knew of Maharaji and his methodologies. I knew of his Knowledge. I knew that’s what it was.

Yes, I believe Masters do actually exist. There are Masters whose sole purpose is to lovingly and unconditionally lead you through your defenses to the quiet inner stillness and wisdom of the beauty of your Essential Truth that is hidden in your soul. They are not there for their own ego gratification but solely to reveal you to your Self.

Work should ideally be engaged with the student who does not idealize the teacher, as idealization constricts the energy. It is best engaged in a spirit of curiosity, innocence, humility and wonder, allowing for the primordial terrors that often surface as part of the process. Work should be able to contain the student’s feelings of being stuck, resistant, righteous, struggling over power and their judgments, with the recognition that these are part of the process. It is in being truly seen, that we heal.

A good teacher never creates dependency, because the teaching should be about freedom.