Freddy Nielsen: Anandagiriji's statement about the situation with Freddy Nielsen

Anandagiriji's statement about the situation with Freddy Nielsen in response to a question posed by a participant at the Oneness Teachers Conference, Los Angeles, 3/31/06

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Before we talk about what happened to Freddyji and all the recent events, we should understand the vision of this movement.

There's only one vision for this movement: to set man free. One of the important principles of the movement is, Bhagavan says anything binding is not my dharma. We used to explain this principle at the beginning of this process. Now it has been established and we don't have to speak about it any more.

At the earlier retreats when people attended our processes at the university, it was told to them if this teaching is not working for you, please renounce it; don't hang on to it. If this path is not working for you, no matter how profound it might appear, it might have worked for all your friends in an extraordinary way Ð it might have changed their life Ð but if it doesn't work for you, it is not your path; it is not yours.

Initially, when this work began and the movement started, the disciples of Bhagavan, like me, were traveling throughout the country in India and different parts of the world, and conducting the courses ourselves. In 1999 we all returned back to our country. Bhagavan said "I do not want this work to be done by us. Our work is to help people. If people are interested, if people feel they have benefited by what we have done to them, and they have the passion to bring this to other people, let them do it. It has to be people's work. It is people who have to lead this work. It's people like you who have to be leaders and more leaders like you must emerge and must reach out to more people and help more people. This movement creates leaders. Wants everybody to have that opportunity to serve mankind. Wants everyone to have the opportunity to feel the honor of playing a part and bringing about the Golden Age.

How many people have come and spoken to me... It was such a great feeling, they said, when people walked up to them and said how their course, their deeksha had transformed their lives. And they wept to me. I'm sure many of you must have felt that, when you have given deekshas, when their lives got affected and they walked up to you and they expressed their gratitude to you. Your life feels so purposeful and meaningful.

So this is the vision of this movement. Who belongs to this movement? Anybody in any part of the world working for oneness belongs to this movement. This movement is not really a movement. It is no singular path. You come to a course. You find what you're seeking for. You discover your faith, you discover your god. And you help others discover their faith.

Coming to Freddyji, I have known him for 15 years. We love him a lot. Especially myself, had a very deep connection with him because I was the first person he met. We played together, we ate together. What you know of Freddy is very little. And what little you know of him Ð it could be of very beautiful, pleasant experiences, or unpleasant, hurting experiences -- but still it's only a little that you know of him.

We have spent 15 years together. And after initiating the work in several places he was supposed to come back to Golden City and help us in the processes there.

But things were not going exactly as they should have happened. He was hurting too many deeksha givers. He was not allowing them to grow. He was even upset with the idea that myself and Pragyanandji were coming to the U.S. I cannot go into the exact nature of the complaints. Maybe if anyone is interested, you can take a look at the mails, of how many people have been hurt. You must help others become leaders. Not condemn them, crush them and you yourself try to emerge as the sole leader. That is not what this movement wants. Maybe you didn't see that part of him. The dharma more open, open to more people, he opposed that idea.

We called him to India, put him through a process, explained to him. He would be all right for a few weeks or a few months and then he would start troubling again. Every time people wanted to become independent, he would send tons of mails to us condemning that person and saying how that person is unfit. In fact last year a group of people from America and Sweden came to meet me. I asked him, I told Freddyji, "U.S. needs more people. Right now Raniji is all alone working there. Maybe you can go and open the doors to many more people."

But many people from U.S. and Europe feared the decision and they wanted to have talks with me. They met me also, in Campus 3. They said, before you make your decision, you must know something about Freddyji. Not that we were not aware; we were aware, but anyway we heard. They said, he's excellent in opening up new places and creating the desire and passion in a new person. But once they're in the movement, he cannot relate to them any more. Once a person is growing in the movement, he cannot relate to them. And they told me, you're losing all such people. You're only seeing a few at hand; you're not seeing all those whom you're losing. All those who are working hard, who want to have opportunities to work. We explained the situation to him many, many times. It's not something that happened in the last few weeks. It's been the last few years ever since Bhagavan made the decision the power goes into the hands of all deeksha givers. He opposed it very strongly. He told the movement would collapse if power goes to everybody. The explanation we gave him was we were prepared to take this chance. Bhagavan himself gave him this explanation. And Bhagavan told him, "Freddy, I don't decide. I do what comes to me. I feel this is what has to be done..."

It's time for more leaders to emerge. Back then there were only four mukti teachers. Only four people who could do courses. Four people who could give deekshas. And then Bhagavan said, "Anybody could do it."

After so many attempts to explain to him, after so many attempts asking him to change his style, we had to finally [do something]. He is an important member of the movement and moreover he claims to be the first disciple and the first to be initiated directly by Amma and Bhagavan, though Amma and Bhagavan have not initiated anybody directly. All this makes him more important, and he being such an important representation of this movement, whatever he does is observed, and a wrong message is communicated. There are so many people, so many deeksha givers who have similar problems. Who walked in, walked out. But Freddyji being so important, we felt it was important that he be the right example.

We worked on him several times. Every time he came to India we put him through a process -- a 20-day process, sometimes a 30-day process. He would be all right for a few weeks.

Maybe you do not know that side of him. Maybe you have not seen that side of him. We have been so, so very tolerant, so accommodative, but this is not something that is personal. Not a question of whether we like Freddyji or not. It is about how much he can make others emerge as leaders or how much he proves to be an obstacle in the path of others.

We don't want any singular leader. We want leaders everywhere. We want teachers everywhere. We don't want somebody to be told how useless he is or she is. You have not met these people who have been hurt, condemned publicly. We were kind of compelled to take we were not taking an opinion, taking a position, any stand for a long time. Because speaking facts would be hurting him. We didn't want to expose Freddyji. We've been defending him for a very, very long time. Amma Bhagavan still feel sad about what has happened.

Though Amma Bhagavan are the source of this phenomenon -- they give grace -- they're not involved in running the organization. It's the three archaryas and 100 senior dasas who form a committee, who receive the complaints of people and make the decisions. And if they're important decisions, we inform Amma and Bhagavan. We informed them about the situation; they felt sad. But we explained to them that it had to be done. They said, "All right."

Yes, you were saying it would be such a nice occasion where we could discuss [things] like we were one family. In the future, any such problems will be referred to the deeksha givers. You make the decision. It is your work. In fact, we are contemplating, we are thinking about it, forming an advisory committee consisting of deeksha givers. We will refer the problems to them, because it is people like you who have complained.

So we had to ask him not to claim any association at the moment, because he was not representing the movement in the right way. If he changes his style, if he's more helpful to people than harmful, of course he could come back.

Whenever there have been problematic people in the movement it's bound to happen because when you're unenlightened, you are unenlightened. You have a self and it wants to stand above the rest.

They say you can't wake up a man who pretends to be asleep. If you already believe that you are enlightened, you can never see your flaws, you can never see your ego, you can never see yourself. It happens with leaders. And you must know we worked a lot on Freddyji, addressing this issue. We told Freddyji, "Freddiji, this is your problem. You have to be aware of this." But he proclaims to people that he's in the highest state of enlightenment, but it's not true. We told him not to make such claims. But some people asked us and we had to tell them the truth. That he's not enlightened.

This is a family that has to grow. More and more leaders must emerge. There should not be a single leader. And I don't know how much you were aware of the situation, that exactly that was happening.

It is the nature of the self to stay above the rest. It wants to become. All

that it knows is becoming, becoming, becoming. If you observe your own lives, all you want to do is become somebody. You want to be somebody in your family, you want to be somebody in your work place, you want to be somebody in your neighborhood, you want to be somebody in your city, in your country, in the world. You want to be somebody.

You psychologically survive in this constant pursuit of becoming. You become heartless, you become brutal in this process of becoming. Since you are devoid of the joy, of the love, you look for this little pleasure that you get from becoming.

You can't stop it. Don't try to stop it. If nothing happens to you, then you become spiritual and try to become something special. It's not wrong. That is the nature of the self. It wants to be somebody, somewhere. Nothing wrong with it. You can't stop it; don't try to stop it. But you can be aware of it. You can know, "This is what I am." Your fall, your failure, is when you stop seeing it. When you assume that you are already in the highest [state], then you can't see anything, you refuse to see anything.

The problem with many leaders in history, is the moment they become leaders,

they become heartless. They no more represent, or they're no more the same people for what they stood for once upon a time. You lose all awareness and you start believing you can't do wrong; whatever you do is perfect and is absolutely right.

And that's the very reason Bhagavan said, "It has to be people's work." How many times people offered land and money and infrastructure in their countries and said to Bhagavan, "Why don't we start an organization here?" And Bhagavan said, "No, if you want an organization, you own that organization. We don't want to be involved. If you want to build a center, let it be your center. You want to build a temple, let it be your oneness temple. We'll guide you, we will support you, we will help you."

So those who are still worried or concerned about what happened with Freddyji, please understand that there's nothing personal here. It's in the interest of the deeksha givers that we had to make this decision.

It's not that we are happy about it. We're only concerned with one thing; our passion is only one thing at the university there. We don't want to miss 2012. We have no likes or dislikes. We take no sides. We don't have time for that. The helpers and the dasas at the university, all we are doing is praying for people, helping people, guiding them. This is our work day in and day out. And we didn't make this decision based on the opinion of one or two individuals. The situation has been going on for the past two years. We didn't speak about it, that's all.

Well, if Freddyji takes it in the right spirit, he will grow, for sure. One of the great miracles that can happen to an individual is to be able to see the truth about themselves. If that has happened to you, you can call it a turning point in your life.

A few years ago, I was in Sweden at a place called the Angsbacka Festival, called the No Mind Festival. At the end of the festival there was, not exactly a debate, but all the teachers who participated in the Angsbacka Festival, and all the people of the festival would gather and questions would be posed to the teachers from the participants there. And the teachers would have to answer those questions. In fact the convener of that festival, Arjuna Ardagh, he is here and now he is giving deekshas. And the owner of that festival, Micky, in fact he is right now at the university helping others go through the process. He himself attended the 21-day process and also took the advanced course. One of the questions he was asked was, "What is enlightenment?" A lot of teachers were giving their own views of enlightenment. All equally true. Some talking about when you feel love for everybody, when you see light everywhere, when all duality has ended. It was my turn to speak. Back then, four years ago, I shared with the people my experience of freedom, because I could not speak other than what I knew from myself, directly. Anything else would be untruth if I spoke, even if it was true. One of the very helpful remarks made by Bhagavan: "Truth, when it's not your truth, still remains untruth."

Not all people liked the answer I gave, because we want to hear profound things, always. We want to speak about life, about duality, non-duality, origins of the universe, about the omnipresence of god, philosophy. We don't like to be told that you are garbage. And that the truth is that you are in pain, you are in suffering, you don't know what you live for. You are hurting; you don't feel loved. Spiritual people don't like to hear these things. Many of us would like to hear how our true identity is the eternal self and we are to discover our true identity. Fascinating things for our mind, but how far would it take us? So I told them, if you had a chance and the opportunity to encounter yourself, to see the truth of what you are and when that opportunity surfaced, if you're not afraid of looking at it, if you are willing to look at it, if you would accept it and even embrace it, that is freedom. That is the moment for the first time in your life, that you will feel no fear. A moment when you are seeing yourself as you are, not trying to hide anything. That surely is a great miracle. You feel fear all the time. Fear in everything you do. Fear of losing the images that have built over time. For the first time when you can see yourself clearly, all the so-called ugly things about yourself and say, "This is what I am." That' s the moment when you're free of all fear. That's the moment of freedom. And if you so wish, you can call it enlightenment.

I could speak about it because it's a miracle that happened to me. A miracle for which I'm forever grateful to Amma and Bhagavan. Not after knowing Amma and Bhagavan as Amma and Bhagavan, but as the director of our school. With what ease Bhagavan helped me see myself, accept myself. When you're becoming an adult and moving from childhood to adulthood, the transition is a very difficult phase. You suddenly discover you're losing your innocence, you're becoming self conscious, you're becoming more and more self centered, and the more you see, the more painful it becomes. I was going through that phase while studying at Jeevashram. And especially it was more difficult for me because I carried this image of a wonderful student, of how good I was, how generous I was, and I could see that I was not that inside. It was very painful, a lot of conflict, a lot of debate.

What should I do? Should I stick onto that image or be prepared to get rid of that image and speak the truth. I did not know which was more desirable. The pleasure of the image or the pain of having to live up to the image while not being that. Because I was seeing, I was seeing that my innocence was going away, was gone. I was seeing all of a sudden I became self conscious. I was wanting to know what others think of me, which was not the case when I was younger, a child. What others felt about me. There was jealousy, there was competition, there was growing lust, lustful thoughts.

So I decided to go and speak to Bhagavan, the director of our school. Tell Bhagavan, this is what I am really; I'm not what all of you think. I made three attempts. Fear would stop me. I would go up to Bhagavan's doorstep, prepare myself to speak everything. Fear would stop me. Everything, all those beautiful things that people think about me would be lost forever. Should I do it? On the fourth time every time I thought I was brave, every attempt I made I said this time I would speak it out. Fourth time, anyway, I made it to Bhagavan's room and I told Bhagavan. Before I would change my mind, without pausing, I spoke out everything in every little detail. A detailed description of all the jealousy thoughts I had, of how self-conscious I was becoming, of how much I compare, of all the lustful thoughts I had, etc., etc., etc. And Bhagavan would listen to everything, as a matter of fact, like I'd told Bhagavan, "Bhagavan, I had idli and dosa for breakfast this morning." That was the response of Bhagavan: as a matter of fact. He would listen to everything. In my opinion, I was speaking such ugly things. I was kind of expecting that Bhagavan would be shocked, would be angry, and upset with me.

At the end of all this, Bhagavan said, "Now that you know what you are, why don't you go to one of those boulders and sing a song aloud, 'this is what I am'"?

It's a beautiful campus, Jeevashram. Ups and downs, lots of rocks and boulders. So Bhagavan said you can go to that boulder and sing. So I went to the boulder and started singing aloud a beautiful song of my ugly self in complete detail. And ever since, that was in '88, it's 2006 18 years, I don' t remember to have any conflict. I don't remember. Not that everything changed since that moment, not that everything changed immediately. Not that my thoughts became different. Somehow, I could not complain anymore about myself. Every time I could sing a song easily about myself. That's why I call it a miracle. But you need grace for that. If simply by singing a song about yourself, you can be free, that would be so easy. I am sure it was not the song that liberated me. That listening of Bhagavan, that very listening of Bhagavan, his reponse, was a deeksha. I could see with such ease. So I say, it will be one of the great miracles in life if you can see yourself. That is when you will touch god.

Why did we come here? We were talking about Freddyji, yes. Yes, if he does not take it personally, if he can see the truth, the truth in the fact that there is a self. A self that aspires to be above the rest, a self that wants to dominate.

I've made several attempts to help him see that. But this is a painful situation. It's a great opportunity if he can see that. I am sure that it's the greatest blessing and he can experience a great miracle in his life. But if he does not see, he'll feel hurt. And the most beautiful thing on this planet: this deeksha, this work, this movement, Amma Bhagavan he will speak against all this. Any of these things could happen. But it's so difficult for the leaders to see the truth. But if he sees, yes, he has done so much for this movement and he'll continue to do so much. But otherwise, I can tell you straight away, if he does not face himself, he'll speak against all those things he stood for until now. Because when you have a self, all that matters is your self. Nothing else matters. That is the beauty of the self. It will do anything to survive. It will deny the very thing it stands for to continue to survive. Of course, all that matters is survival. You want to be somebody. So let's wait and see. But for you to understand and know, it's not something we did in haste or a hurry. I know it's nothing personal. After a very, very long observation, some people know that. After trying a lot to help him grow, explain to him to change his attitude, his working style, we had to do this.

Nobody walks in, nobody walks out. People are free to do whatever they want. But since he's looked upon as such a senior, important member of the organization, we had to make certain things clear to people.

Let's pray for a miracle.

The beautiful thing is, forget about what he would be contributing to the movement again if he comes back. What happens to his life you have no idea what a miracle like this can do to your life. A miracle like this, of seeing what you are and if you can sing a song about it. It's an extraordinary thing. I can tell you, you will begin to love god after that. You complain too much because you hate yourself.