opening the gateway of mutuality v2.1 -...

Opening the Gateway of Mutuality:

an Introduction to the Trans-Lineage Path of

Saniel Bonder

By Hans Plasqui

JFK University, Spring Quarter, 2009

Integral Spirituality, ITH 5061

Gail Hochachka MA

Opening the Gateway of Mutuality: an Introduction to the Trans-Lineage Path of Saniel Bonder.

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ABSTRACT: This paper is an inquiry into the life’s work of the contemporary spiritual

teacher Saniel Bonder, founding adept of the Waking Down work. It will make an

assessment of Bonder’s kosmic address according to Ken Wilber’s theory of

postmetaphysical spirituality. By utilizing the components of integral theory (quadrants,

states, stages, shadow, and integral life practice) an attempt will be made to gain a deeper

understanding of Bonder’s own realization and his teaching method.

Introduction Saniel Bonder is a spiritual adept who is breaking new ground in today’s world of

contemporary spirituality. His Waking Down work has created a breakthrough way for

Western practitioners and is an attempt to move spiritual practice and enlightenment into

the 21st century. Bonder’s major contribution to spiritual awakening is that he has

discovered a revolutionary approach to accelerating the process of self realization by

grounding it in the nurturing context of mutuality.

In the first section, the paper will explore Bonder’s state-stage realization. In the second

section, it will assess his structure-stage development. The third section will discuss

Bonder’s sangha. In the fourth section we will address some of Bonder’s shadow issues

as well as the shadow side of his community, and in the final section, we will critique

Bonder’s extraordinary and innovative approach to contemporary spiritual practice and

nondual awakening.

The Second Birth: Enriched Form of Non-duality

To acquire a clear understanding of the nature of Bonder’s own state-stage realization, we

must point to key events in his own history of awakening. We will track Bonder’s state-

stage growth by using a general description of state-stage development used in integral

theory: gross-psychic (“path of the shamans/yogis”); subtle: covering the entire trajectory

of the movement and awakening of the kundalini energy, rising up through the seven

chakras (“path of the saints”); causal: abiding as the witness at the root of the heart

(“path of the sages”); and non-dual: the ever-present ground of all states (“path of the

siddhas”) (1). As we explore Bonder’s state-stage development, we will gradually

introduce some of the core tenets of his teaching where appropriate.


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Orienting between Subtle and Causal: Kundalini Yoga and Ramana Maharshi

Bonder’s early spiritual search can be likened to a brief exploration of the subtle path of

the saints. He practiced kundalini yoga for a while and had a momentary experience of

nirvikalpa samadhi after reading Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi. Nirvikalpa can

be looked upon as the supreme goal of the path of the saints, as this is a state where the

subtle kundalini energy culminates into causal formlessness in the seventh chakra.

Yet Bonder soon realized that turning this type of advanced consciousness into a

permanent realization was an arduous life long pursuit and was ultimately not to be his

particular path. Soon after this period, life oriented him toward a direct causal approach

– the path of the sages – as he discovered the teachings of Ramana Maharshi. Rather

than focusing on the awakening and rising of the kundalini energy, the primary directive

of Ramana’s instruction was to “let the mind sink into the heart”. For the sages, the locus

of self-realization is not the opening of the seventh chakra – as it is for the saints - but the

awakening of the heart. Their reference to the heart is not an expression of poetic

language, but is pointing to an actual spot within the esoteric anatomy of the human

body. Ramana called this location the hridaya granthi or heart knot – which later became

a core concept in Bonder’s teaching as well.

The hridaya granthi is located at the right side of the heart and is said to be the spot

where life-consciousness and the human body-mind are most intimately linked with one

another. This location is known by the sages as the source of the I-thought; the root of the

self-contraction or the seat of the self as causal witness consciousness. When this knot in

the heart is unwound, the self-contraction is undone and nondual consciousness is

realized. From a scientific point of view, this location would correspond to the sinoatrial

node, or pacemaker, located in the posterior wall of the right atrium. This tiny node is

responsible for initiating the cardiac cycle in the third week of embryonic development,

by producing an electrical impulse.

Glimpses of the Non-dual Embedded in Hypermasculine Dharmas


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Bonder felt a deep resonance with the heart-approach of the sages and assumed for some

time that Ramana was his guru, that is, until he met the American born siddha Adi Da

Samraj. The two decades he would spend with this radical non-dual teacher would prove

to be a complex and difficult spiritual ordeal: profound in terms of state-stage growth, yet

deeply problematic in terms of Adi Da’s radical teaching style. As Adi Da’s devotee,

Bonder had numerous glimpses of his own non-dual nature. However, over time Adi Da

began to increasingly upgrade his own Divine status, while at the same time downscaling

the status of his devotees. He increasingly communicated to his students his disbelief in

their capacities to duplicate his own state, and his community began to portray the royal

court of a God-King. Adi Da’s teaching style became increasingly counter-productive for

Bonder’s spiritual growth and he, in retrospect, diagnosed it as infused with

“hypermasculine dharmas” – which became another tenet of Bonder’s teaching.

In his book Waking Down, Bonder describes hypermasculine dharmas as the tendency to

dissociate from the body and ordinary human desires, feelings and relationships, and the

natural world all together in order to control or achieve liberation from embodied life,

material conditions, and even the entire realm of phenomena itself (2). This is the same

tendency that Wilber describes as the unhealthy version of the masculine principle which

occurs when classical masculine virtues like strength, independence, and autonomy are

overdeveloped into unbalanced and unhealthy expressions. Strength becomes

domination; independence becomes fear of relationship; and autonomy transforms into

alienation (3). It became clear to Bonder that Adi Da’s style of teaching was deeply

embedded in hypermasculine dharmas and that this atmosphere prevented the possibility

of further healthy spiritual growth and development. He felt that he was beginning to lose

his integrity as a human being and that he had to leave Adi Da and his community. This

radical move on Bonder’s part implied breaking the “eternal vow” of guru devotion, at

the explicitly stated risk of “hellish karmas for lifetimes”, and therefore virtually giving

up his chances for self-realization. Obviously, this proved to be an extremely difficult

dilemma and his last years in the Daist community felt as if he was going through a dark

night of the soul.


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He finally left the Adi Da community in 1992 and within only a few months after his

departure, completely and unexpectedly, Bonder’s own heart realization occurred; his

second birth, as he called it. He felt that this extraordinary event was somehow catalyzed

by the dark period that preceded it and intuited that it was a necessary evolutionary stage

along the path of awakening for most aspirants. In his own teaching, he later came to call

this phase “the rot”.

The rot literally means the rotting away of the hridaya granthi or root self-contraction. It

is a dark and wrenching period, in which the aspirant’s most basic seeking impulse

gradually disintegrates, and the will to engage the spiritual search becomes most

fundamentally undermined. It is analogous to the dark night of the self, described by the

integral model as a phase: “(…) which totally uproots the subject/object duality and self-

contraction in any form, including its causal remnants.” (Wilber, 2006, p. 124)

Mutuality: Bringing Non-duality Down into the Lower Left Quadrant

This brings us to the heart of Bonder’s teaching, arguably his most precious contribution:

the teaching of mutuality. For Bonder, “Being” contains two dimensions: “identity” (the

realm of self) and “relatedness” (the realm of other). Hence his equation: Being = Identity

+ Relatedness. Translated into AQAL terms, these two dimensions correspond

respectively to the UL and the LL quadrants (4). A complete spiritual realization, in

Bonder’s view, cannot be merely limited to the subjective domain of identity (in the UL

quadrant). It must also include relatedness (in the LL). In other words, realization must

also be awakened as a “we space.” Historically, the traditions defined non-dual

realization mainly in terms of identity within the UL quadrant. Yet in Bonder’s view,

when realization is driven toward an even fuller sense of completion, it discovers its

identity in and as the other. The result is a radical vulnerability and a raw and intimate

exposure to relatedness, or the realm of “we.” Those adepts who have also realized the

relatedness-component of the equation become much more vulnerable, openly accessible,

and accountable for their personal and ordinary human relationships, and this includes

their relationship with their students. Such extraordinary realizers remain deeply open

and critical to their own faults and weaknesses, their shadow issues, and their human

frailties.


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From this perspective, it becomes clear, to anyone familiar with the work, person, and

legacy of the late Adi Da, that his realization of relatedness (LL) had not yet found its

complete fulfillment, even though his realization of identity (UL) continues to remain

unexcelled, as a deeply embodied realization of radical non-separateness from others and

the whole cosmos. Yet the absence of mutuality, from Bonder’s perspective, is exactly

the reason why Adi Da remained unable to transmit his realization in a lasting manner to

any of his devotees over the entire period of almost 40 years of his work.

Bonder considers his own second birth as analogous, but not identical with Adi Da’s

seventh stage. The main distinction is that Bonder, in addition to an UL non-duality also

realized LL mutuality – as an actual awakened realization, not merely as a philosophical

concept or cultural guideline. From an AQAL perspective, this characteristic would be

interpreted as a fuller development of the evolution of self-realization. Mutuality as a key

awakened LL-worldspace; a democratic we-space, was not yet present in the UL

realizations of the spiritual traditions. In Bonder’s view, such a realization would not

have been possible in earlier times, since this required the postmodern revolution and the

crucial insights into the value and importance of LL enacted realities that were ushered

into the spotlight due to the postmodern turn. It is clear then, that Bonder’s fundamental

quadrant orientation is predominantly in the LL, as this is the primary perspective from

which he engages with the world.

In conclusion, I suggest that Bonder’s state-stage realization is actually a novel and

enriched version of that which is traditionally called the non-dual state. While the

traditions have always taught non-dual realization as a state-stage realization oriented

primarily from the UL perspective, Bonder’s work is an attempt to actually embody and

inhabit non-dual consciousness from the LL-quadrant as well. It bears witness to the

mysterious force of Eros, generated from within the innermost interiors of nondual

consciousness itself, which now tends to ground and express non-dual realization within

the preciousness of the “we” space. This is a further evolutionary step in the tetra-

enactment of non-dual Suchness in the world, and a leading-edge manifestation of the

process of an enlightenment that is itself evolving.


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In the above exploration, we have disclosed two significant characteristics of Bonder’s

kosmic address: His state-stage realization can be described as an enriched form of what

is traditionally known as “non-dual awareness”, and his primary quadrant orientation is

deeply within the LL. In the next section, we will evaluate Bonder’s structure-stage

development.

Structure-stage: a Conveyor Belt from First to Third Tier Any attempt that is made to determine an individual’s structure-stage development

without including integral methodological pluralisms zone 2 psychometrics, will

inevitably invite some degree of self-deception in determining an individual’s level of

vertical structure-stage development. Without applying a zone 2 approach to our analysis,

we can only reach subjective conclusions (holding them lightly), based on an analysis of

textual and verbal communications, and then check whether these resonate with the key

features of a particular stage of development. Based on this analytical approach, I will

suggest a structure-stage “ground floor” where I suspect Bonder is at, and work my way

up from there.

Ground Floor: Healthy Green Launching Pad and Second Tier Center of Gravity

Some of the key terms used in Bonder’s teaching are: democracy, egalitarianism and

mutuality. Though his spiritual path is called “Waking Down in Mutuality”, in terms of

structure-stage development, Bonder cannot be simply qualified as an exponent of what

Wilber calls “the mean green meme” (or unhealthy green), because he recognizes a

healthy functional hierarchy within the student-teacher relationship: “(…) True mutuality,

I observe, notices different degrees of wisdom and experience (…) Gurus, adepts,

teachers of all kinds really have things to offer!” (Bonder, 1998 p. 147). So clearly, his

teaching is not just about egalitarianism. Bonder is aware that these healthy relationships

within a functional hierarchy can easily slide into unhealthy dominating hierarchies. Once

this occurs, the hierarchical structure becomes oppressive and an end in itself that must

be maintained at all cost. “The sad but true cost of all this is that, in such structures,

nobody wakes up! Nobody becomes free.” (Bonder, 1995, p. 89) To avoid this trap,

Bonder walks a fine line between exercising authentic responsibility for the process of


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spiritual transmission that is happening through him, and nurturing and sustaining

authentic mutuality. “I can’t trivialize it in the interests of becoming so democratic that

no useful functional distinctions can any longer be made between those I serve and

myself.” (Bonder, 1995, p. 89)

In short, I suggest that his egalitarianism in combination with his awareness of the

distinction between functional hierarchies and dominator hierarchies, provides his self-

identity with a solid ground-floor foundation of healthy green. However, at the same

time, his awareness of the importance and value of healthy hierarchies, is suggestive of a

well-established second tier center of gravity. Since at second tier, these healthy

hierarchies are reintroduced into the worldview.

There is another sign of second tier development that shows up frequently in Bonder’s

teaching, and this is his adage to: “dare to grasp the means of your own realization”,

implying that the one-size-fits-all formula does not exist and that the only yoga there is, is

one’s own unfolding individual yoga. This clearly distinguishes him from gurus operating

within the confines of a first tier structure-stage, as they have historically displayed the

tendency to impose their own trajectory of attaining self realization onto their disciples,

in the firm and absolutistic belief that their way is the only true way. Their structure-stage

development simply does not have the capacity to allow for much variation, nor to deeply

take a person’s uniqueness into account. The inherent limitation of all the first tier

structure-stages is exactly that all of them are convinced that their worldview is the only

correct one, while all others are somehow misguided. In second tier this limiting capacity

drops away and all structure-stages are seen as having their own unique truth and as

fulfilling an indispensable function within the great spiral of development. Therefore, the

second tier guru no longer presumes that the way in which he attained his realization

should serve as the model for all of his disciples. These teachings suggest that Bonder’s

center of gravity is well established in at least second tier.

Third Tier and the Language of the Bodhisattvas

Considering Bonder’s spiritual attainment, we might presume that it is also reasonable to

stretch our estimates of his structure-stage development further into third tier, at least on


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the cognitive line and likely on a few of his self-related lines. In Integral Spirituality,

Wilber succinctly describes the qualities and characteristics of the indigo and violet levels

of third tier. Some of the terms he uses to describe indigo are: “Luminous clarity and

compassion”; “trans planetary social ideal”; “spirit as infinite Light/Love”. He describes

the quality of the worldspace of violet as: “brilliant clarity”; “infinite love and

compassion”; “including all sentient beings from their perspectives”. (5) On the basis of

these descriptions, I would suggest that many of Bonder’s expressions are most likely

originating from a third tier structure-stage development, particularly his Bodhisattva-like

utterances: “I went into teaching with a vision of helping change the course of human

history – dramatically for the better. (Bonder, 2006, p. 15) And: “I wanted to ‘Johnny-

Appleseed’ this kind of embodied, mutual awakening among thousands and eventually

millions of people.” (Bonder, 2006, p. 15) And: “I too am a force for the liberation and

translation of all beings and things. And I stake my claim in the Ground of All That Is

(…)” (Bonder, 1995, p. 485) And: “I am here, and I do my sacred work and service, for

all beings.” (Bonder, 1995, p. 486)

A new generation of Bodhisattvas in the West

In a little over a decade and a half, Bonder’s work has produced hundreds of people who

have awakened permanently into their second birth, and are as such, non-dual realizers.

Bonder claims that because he broke with the traditional hypermasculine format of

spiritual exchange, he somehow managed to break the code that has prevented non-dual

realization to occur for great numbers of people in the past. His aim is “to manifest a fully

effective school – one, in other words, from which people actually graduate in great

numbers” (Bonder, 1995, p. 90), rather than settling for the ancient adage that self-

realization is only for a rare few in any generation. He confidently challenges us to see

whether he does in fact deliver his intended results as a teacher, and it seems that his

(self-proclaimed) success rates are indeed simply off the chart. In most cases, he claims

awakening will happen within 2 or 3 years and is almost guaranteed (6). Since many of

these realizers also begin to teach, the numbers might potentially increase exponentially.

Here are some of his estimations of the number of people that have permanently

awakened into their second births:


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- Early summer 2005: between 300 and 400. (7)

- Late 2006: between 350 and 450. (8)

- 2007: 400 to 500. (9)

He boldly claims that the rate of second birth awakenings is now approaching one a week

(10) and doesn’t shy away from presenting his offer in pragmatic American-style

commercial language: “(…) if you‘re willing to invest about ten thousand dollars and two

years of part-time study (…) you have about an 80% chance of entering into this

awakening permanently.” (Bonder, 2006, p. 9) If these claims and numbers are anywhere

near accurate, it is not an overstatement to say that this is one of the most astonishing

messages that has ever come out of the spiritual world. Further exploration into these

claims and their legitimacy is certainly in order.

Reflections about the validity of these claims

One can acquire a sense of what these claims amount to in real life in the book The

Second Birth, where 38 people involved in Bonder’s work share their personal

experiences of their own heart awakening. Below, I will make an attempt to hone into the

validity of these self-reports, by measuring some aspects of them against criteria set out

by the integral model, as well as by Adi Da’s stage model. I have undertaken a general

textual analysis, subjecting each single story to the same basic questions. I selected

questions that can be seen as indicative of a non-dual state-stage realization, and will

present the results of three of those questions here:

Question 1: Did the person first become established in the witness consciousness, before

non-dual awakening took place?

Criterion: “Once you actually and fully contact the Witness, then – and only then – can it

be transcended into radical Non-duality (…)” (Wilber, 2004, p.8.)

Results: In 11/38 cases this was indeed the pattern. In 3/38 cases it was not, and in 24/38

there was no clear mention of anything relative to the question.

Reflection: Wilber often states that 25% of the population is now at green altitude. It

seems reasonable to suspect that most of Bonder’s audience comes from the spiritually

interested among that group. Wilber also frequently calls attention to the alarming fact

that many green altitude spiritual people confuse their green worldview (of the mutual


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interpenetration, existential equality and the rejection of hierarchical levels) with non-

duality, which he claims is a type of pre-trans fallacy. The reason for this confusion,

according to Wilber, is that the expression of the green worldview to the untrained ear

sounds similar to a description of non-dual suchness (11). So a legitimate question that

could be asked is whether all of these four to five hundred second birth realizers, which I

suspect are predominantly green altitude, can truly make the distinction between their

green lens interpretation and a non-dual state? If not, then did this profound shift into

non-dual suchness really indeed take place in as many cases as is suggested in the

Waking Down work? In addition, it could be that from the perspective of the green

altitude self, it is not evident to make the delicate distinction between e.g. the sense of

subtle oneness experienced in savikalpa samadhi, the sense of causal oneness

experienced in jnana samadhi and the sense of non-dual suchness of sahaja samadhi.

Question 2: Is the person’s hridaya granthi or heart knot broken?

Criterion: “(…) ultimate Realization is associated with the opening of the primal psycho-

physical seat of Consciousness and attention, in the right side of the heart.” (Adi Da,

1989, p. 379) and: “(…) even the supra-individual-causal Witness has its bodily correlate

in the heart region on the right.” (Wilber, 1995, p. 579) Only when this structure of the

causal Witness is pierced does non-dual Consciousness arise.

Results: In 5/38 cases the heart knot was clearly reported to be unwound, yet in 33/38

cases there was no clear reference to such an event.

Reflection: If the unwinding of the hridaya granthi is such a profound an finalizing event

in the spiritual life of the individual, as well as a most central phase of the Waking Down

process, wouldn’t it be fair to expect more than 5/38 explicit references to it?

Question 3: Did this person move through the rot, as the dark night of the self is called

in the Waking Down work?

Criterion: The integral map distinguishes three dark nights: The dark night of the senses

(a transition phase from gross-mental to subtle); the dark night of the soul (a transition

phase from subtle to causal); the dark night of the self (a transition phase from causal to

non-dual). It is only during this last phase that the self contraction is undone, leaving

nothing but non-dual suchness. (12)


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Results: In 13/38 cases the answer was yes. (13) In 9/38 cases the answer was no. (14) In

16/38 cases there was no (clear) reference to a dark night. (15)

Reflection: First, a fair number of people have unambiguously gone through a dark night

of some sort in Bonder’s work (13/38). Still, in 16/38 there is no clear mention or

reference of this key phase in the Waking Down work. An explanation could be that

communicating stories about the rot is not the most attractive marketing tool to raise

people’s interest in this path – which is something Bonder upon occasion has remarked.

Secondly, it is not always clear from these descriptions of dark periods, which one of the

three nights many of these reports are referring too. You can only fall into the heart if you

have transitioned through the dark night of the self. Transitioning through the other two

nights would not be a sufficient requirement to enter into non-dual Suchness. Some

reports mention depression, or a brief period of darkness and despair, which could be

sufficient – even from integral standards. Integral Theory acknowledges that evolution is

“messy” and that stages do not necessarily unroll like a neat, well written script.

Sometimes a “generic” passing through a stage is sufficient to be able to move on to the

next one. (16) Sometimes passing through a stage happens rapidly, sometimes slowly,

depending on numerous variables that are unique to each individual case. Yet, stages

can’t be skipped, and the basic sequential order of the map remains universally

applicable, since it is representative of the esoteric anatomy of the human being. So the

question remains, whether all of these individuals navigated through all stages

sufficiently, (at least generally) ending as a result, immersed in the dark night of the self,

and from there into final realization?

As a concluding statement it must be stated that it is undoubtedly so that all of the

self-reports in The Second Birth represent a profound change in the lives of the

individuals involved. It is evident that the type of textual analysis I used is not exact

science and that it is difficult to discover with any kind of certitude whether these

individuals reporting their own stories, are using a different language to express their

understanding of their state experience, or whether it is a problem of different content?

Shadow Inquiry: Hypermasculine, Hyperfeminine, “Bodhisattvic

Reluctance”


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Bonder seriously engaged in shadow work, both before and after his second birth. He

often emphasizes however that his most profound shadow work occurred after his second

birth, and is still an ongoing process. Because of this, he is very aware of his shadow

scars and of how they might impact his work. “I am sure that some of my scars and

reactions still project their shadows into the total picture that I am painting for you.”

(Bonder, 1995, p. 22) He is quite upfront and transparent about his own limits and makes

every attempt to avoid having his students compensate for aspects of his personal work

that have yet to be carried out. For this reason, Bonder does not apparently transmit or

project his shadow issues onto his students (17), at least not to the degree that would

cause hindrance to their work of completing the process of falling into the heart. Below,

we will explore three shadow issues, which are relative to the masculine force, the

feminine force and to Bonder’s sangha respectively.

Living up to Fatherly Expectations - the Hypermasculine

A major part of Bonder’s coming to terms with the masculine force took place before his

second birth. Especially during the last several years of his involvement in the Daist

community and his devotional relationship with his “spiritual father” Adi Da, Bonder

became increasingly aware of how the overuse of the masculine energy has a crippling

effect on the human psyche. After leaving the Daist fellowship, Bonder worked through

many of his father-related issues with a therapist, investigating how his choice of his

former teacher and community had replicated aspects of his relationship with his natural

father and with his family. He explains how he always had a strong tendency to live up to

the expectations of both his natural father and to Adi Da, and had to struggle mightily to

take his own stance in life. As a result of his insights into the profound nature of the

suffering caused by hypermasculine dharmas, both in his own personal history, as well as

in the history of the wisdom traditions, Bonder took a revolutionary stance by grounding

his own teaching within the foundation of mutuality.

Suffering the Deprivation of Mother-Nurturance - the Hyperfeminine

Bonder discovered another important insight into his shadow issues while looking into

his relationship to his mother and to women in general. He explains that he had suffered a

deprivation of mother-nurturance in early childhood, and that this has greatly influenced


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his relationship to women and to the feminine. This sense of deprivation resolved itself

through a profound healing process that occurred during his second birth. This process

was set in motion by a sexual encounter which he experienced as the merging of God and

Goddess. Because of this extraordinary healing process, Bonder was able to come to

terms with the feminine, providing him the ability to penetrate even more deeply into the

mutuality that was already such an essential part of his soul-nature. Bonder has

admittedly pointed to the fact that in order to come to terms with his difficult struggles

with the hypermasculine, he had overcompensated by going too deeply into mutuality,

being “(…) too accommodating, too soft – too feminine (…)” (Bonder, 1995, p. 21).

Could it be that in his early years his style of expression was more oriented towards the

hyperfeminine?

The LL/LR Split - a “Bodhisattvic Reluctance’

With its elaborate but informal network of non-dual realizers, the Waking Down work

has generated a potent LL force field of we-space amongst Bonder’s students. Yet among

these realizers, there seems to be little will to create anything like an engaged spiritual

community. As such, the LR remains underdeveloped, and Bonder is well aware that

because of this, and over time, the LL also risks to be blown away with the wind, as it

were. He explicitly identifies the reasons for this reluctance: “(…) many of those who

have made use of my spiritual service are disinclined, some vehemently so, to participate

in anything that smacks of rule and hierarchy.” (Bonder, 1995, p. 21) From an integral

perspective, this shying away from rule and hierarchy could be interpreted as a shadow

remnant of what Wilber calls “the mean green meme”, or unhealthy green. As indicated

earlier, a significant degree of Bonder’s audience is most likely at a green altitude, and

much of this group of individuals may yet have to come to terms with their adversity to

rules and hierarchy. This challenge and limitation of the green altitude could perhaps be

the most important shadow issue of his sangha. Moreover, it is reasonably possible that

this could be interpreted as an extension of Bonder’s own early shadow issues.

Up until now, Bonder’s work has been unprecedentedly adept at healing the spirit-matter

split in individuals. This healing occurs when the hridaya granthi is unwound and the

simultaneity of consciousness (‘spirit’) and phenomena (‘matter’) is realized. In integral


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terms, this would be translated as a UL/UR split. In comparison with the unquestionably

profound yet exclusively UL-oriented realizations that the great traditions have produced,

this remarkable accomplishment is a step forward in Spirit’s evolutionary emergence. Yet

the reluctance of the Waking Down work to fully engage in the LR reveals that there is a

further split that must be healed: the “LL/LR split’; or the cultural/social split.

The cause of this LL/LR split in Bonder’s community could be interpreted as an

incomplete embrace of the Bodhisattva vow; in other words: a certain reluctance for

taking full responsibility to serve and awaken all sentient beings in a fully AQAL

embrace; or even: a reluctance to fully own and engage one’s awakened non-dual

consciousness. Many of the non-dual graduates of the Waking Down work simply go

back to their own lives and refrain from developing this gift to its fullest potential. This

“Bodhisattvic reluctance” can be seen as a phenomenon analogous to the tendency of the

Advaita Vedantins to abide as the background witness consciousness, while allowing all

phenomena to arise and pass in a detached fashion. As such, the Advaita Vedantins see

consciousness as senior or prior to phenomena, and hence they keep the UL/UR split

intact. With Bonder’s students, a similar situation is occurring, but in this case the subtle

dualism is arising in the lower quadrants. There is a distinct impression that many of the

Waking Down realizers experience the LL as senior and prior to the LR, and hence as

more real, and somehow still more important.

This split in the lower quadrants could be traced back to a lack of structure-stage growth

– a trajectory that widens the self’s identification from egocentric, to ethnocentric, to

worldcentric, to kosmocentric. A deeply kosmocentric commitment such as the

Bodhisattva vow, cannot possibly enter the radar screen of a mere green structure-stage

level of development. This awareness only comes into existence in the worldspaces at the

higher structure-stages. This type of growth has not been emphasized in Bonder’s

teachings, as he builds his work primarily around state-stage awakening and shadow

work. So, one of the great challenges for the Waking Down community is probably:

healing this LL/LR split by unreservedly responding to Spirit’s evolutionary call for a

further tetra-enactment of non-dual Consciousness in all four quadrants.


15

Grasp the Means of Your Own Realization

We could attempt to make a detailed comparison between the practices of Bonder’s

Waking Down path and the practices listed in the modules of the ILP matrix, but this

would not be a useful way of understanding his basic attitude towards practice. While

Wilber’s scalable approach is highly granular and methodic, Bonder’s approach to

practice intentionally refrains from such an apparently daunting list. He does not wish to

intimidate the often already weary seeker with what seems at first glance to be a list of

practices suggestive of superhuman ideals. Yet, this does not imply that Bonder’s path is

not integral, but rather that it is primarily an organic approach to practice.

Purification Before or After the Second Birth?

Bonder’s most essential advice concerning practice is to dare to grasp the means of your

own realization. This means that he has gone beyond the often rigidly formulaic

approaches of the traditions in which the guru synthesized his own process and

prescribed it to his students, and has replaced it by practice “regimes” that are tailor made

to the individual. Bonder’s approach is also pragmatic and economical. He claims to

have found a way to get past the endless preparing and purifying of the body-mind in

order to attain realization. His approach is to do exactly as much practice as is required

for the body-mind and soul-nature in order to liberate sufficient energy for awakening,

yet absolutely no more than that. “If you don’t have to go through kundalini experiences,

we don’t require it. If you don’t have to go through endless droppings into your

emotional issues (...) we don’t require it.” (Bonder, 1999, p. 70) The primary focus is

non-dual state-stage realization. Once this event occurs, the remaining work on the body-

mind and soul-nature (such as additional shadow work and structure-stage development)

can now be fully engaged in with significantly less resistance due to the dropping away

of the self contraction. The process is now driven by a renewed and liberated energy.

Bonder defends his approach by pointing to the dangers of placing the purification

process entirely before realization. This tendency presumes that after realization one

becomes entirely free of karma and that evolution comes to an end once enlightenment is

realized. This in turn becomes a pretext to the belief that further transformation and


16

change is no longer necessary. Obviously this is an outmoded belief within the context of

a 21st century evolutionary enlightenment.

This approach to teaching and practice only makes sense if it is placed within the context

of Bonder’s claim that it is actually possible to attain a non-dual state-stage realization

relatively rapidly. It is innovative and original in the sense that it reorganizes the familiar

sequential order of the classical developmental sadhana trajectory.

Bonder’s Breakthrough Way for Shadow Work

Nowhere does the logic of the actual mechanism behind Bonder’s notion of purification

after realization become more clear than in his explanation of the dynamics of shadow

work. Bonder suggests that shadow work can only be minimally effective before full

state-stage realization. The reason is that before realization occurs the egoic knot in the

causal heart (hridaya granthi or root self contraction) is still intact. The heart knot is the

primal structure around which all our shadow voices and characterological wounds

cluster; it is the core to which they are all directly connected. As long as this primary knot

of self-contraction is still intact, all of the secondary shadow voices tend to stay intact as

well. There continues to be an egoic center that we naturally tend to defend and uphold,

which makes progress in shadow work difficult. During the gestation process leading up

to the second birth, and especially after realization occurs, there is an ever widening

expanse of spaciousness and freedom available in which we can deeply and fearlessly

engage in shadow work, with much greater results.

You Don’t Have to Perfect the Body-Mind… Because You Can’t

Bonder’s most central point regarding practice is his constant attempt to place it within a

profoundly relaxing context. He insists that perfecting the body-mind is not required in

order for the second birth to take place, nor is it even possible. Realizing this

impossibility, there is only one option left for the aspirant: accepting oneself as one is.

In other words, one must give the body-mind permission to be as it already is and stop the

endless war with oneself for the sake of spiritual growth. He calls this approach

greenlighting, which does not mean egoic self-indulgence, but a dynamic self acceptance

of the true and total self as it is, thereby giving oneself permission for transformation.


17

The primal undercurrent running throughout his teaching communications is that there is

nothing wrong with you as you are now. The result of this is a profoundly relaxing effect

on the self-contraction, which is the cause of all seeking. This demonstrates that his

teaching is not primarily about practice. Rather, it is about setting in motion a profound

disintegration of the seeking impulse and entering into the experience of the rot – a

process in which the will to practice finally begins to dissolve. During the rot, the self-

contraction which is the very force that drives the search starts to disintegrate. The

previous foundation from which one used to engage in practice becomes increasingly

undermined, as the gestation process towards the second birth proceeds.

Conclusion In closing, I will summarize and present several concluding insights.

In the first and second sections we explored three elements of Bonder’s kosmic address:

state-stage, structure-stage and quadrant orientation. His state-stage realization is a

permanent non-dual state. It can even be interpreted as an enriched and profoundly new

expression of nonduality, because it is embedded in a LL-mutuality. Yet Bonder does not

have a full mastery of the psychic and subtle state-stages, as he quickly passed through

these domains. His structure-stage development embraces a wide range of stages: from a

healthy green first tier foundation, to a second tier center of gravity, and likely further

into the third tier structures of indigo, violet, and higher (in the cognitive line and in some

of the self–related lines as well). Because Bonder’s self-identity spans this broad

spectrum, his sangha also has great potential for functioning as a conveyor belt (as

understood in Wilber’s Integral Spirituality), allowing his students to develop into higher

stages in a healthy manner.

His quadrant orientation is deeply LL, embedded in mutuality. A final point we can make

regarding Bonder’s kosmic address is that he potentially qualifies for full enlightenment

according to Wilber’s groundbreaking definition in Integral Spirituality, which is

suggestive of an enlightenment that evolves and requires at least an indigo structure-stage

and a non-dual state-stage realization.


18

In the third section of the paper, we explored Bonder’s sangha, especially his

unprecedented success rates in producing non-dual realizers. We weighed 38 self-reports

of these realizers against various criteria, suggestive of non-dual enlightenment as

proposed by the integral model. The conclusion was that it was not always clear whether

these criteria had been sufficiently met in all individual cases. Yet, if these self-

proclaimed success rates are anywhere near accurate, the message they send is

encouraging and Bonder’s bold experiment deserves at least the benefit of the doubt, if

not an actual try out.

In the fourth section, we looked at Bonder’s early shadow issues, as well as at the present

shadow of his sangha. We suggested that after healing the UL/UR split successfully, the

next challenge for many people in Bonders work is probably: healing the LL/LR split, by

engaging in further structure-stage growth.

In the final section, we explored Bonder’s original and economical approach to practice

which illustrated that he reorganized the traditional practice regimes by emphasizing that

only a sufficient amount of practice is necessary in order to optimally catalyze the second

birth. The remaining work is to be taken up only after the second birth has occurred.

In summary, Bonder’s path is a promising trans-lineage experiment at the leading-edge of

spiritual practice and awakening, with great potential to move humanity’s spiritual legacy

successfully into the 21st century.


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Endnotes 1. Wilber adopted the terms “path of the shamans/yogis” for gross-psychic; “path of the saints” for subtle; “path of the sages” for causal; and “path of the siddhas for non-dual from the late Adi Da Samraj. See: Da Avabhasa, The paradox of instruction, 1997 2. Bonder, Waking Down: Beyond hypermasculine dharmas, 1998 3. Wilber, Introducing the AQAL framework, 2005, p.16. 4. The quadrants are the four dimensions of every holon. They are graphically depicted by Wilber as a cross. The Upper-left (UL) corner signifies the interior of an individual (the subjective). The Upper-right (UR) corner signifies the exterior of an individual (objective). The Lower-left (LL) corner signifies the interior of a collective; a culture (intersubjective). And the Lower-right (LR) corner signifies the exterior of a collective; social systems (interobjective). 5. Wilber, Integral Spirituality: A startling new role for religion in the modern and postmodern world, 2006, p.309. 6. Bonder, Waking Down: Beyond hypermasculine dharmas, 1998, p.2. 7. Bonder, The Second Birth: Stories of awakening within the heart of community, 2005, p. xii. 8. Bonder, The 21st Century Enlightenment Manifesto: A prophetic heart-call to a new standard of liberated living for everyday people everywhere, 2006, p. 8. 9. Bonder, E-mail newsletter, April 16, 2007. 10. Bonder, The 21st Century Enlightenment Manifesto: A prophetic heart-call to a new standard of liberated living for everyday people everywhere, 2006, p. 10. 11. Wilber, Integral Naked, conference call on boomeritis Buddhism, 27/01/2007. 12. Wilber, Integral Spirituality: A startling new role for religion in the modern and postmodern world, 2006, p.124. 13. The specific descriptions of the rot ranged from a diagnosis of cancer combined with a vision of death; an emotional crisis; a period of darkness during youth rather than right before awakening; a nightmare; a crisis after the second birth; a couple of brief dark periods; a previous life revisited;… 14. Yet in some of those cases a capacity to feel into, or go deeply into suffering was reported. 15. To complete the picture it should be noted that 4 of those 16 cases did mention some sense of failure regarding their lives. 16. According to the Integral Model one does not have to acquire an elaborate expertise in all the phenomena that could be disclosed on all given levels of state-stage development. Just a generic capacity to access the level is sufficient to be able to pass through it and move on to the next one. Just like passing through the verbal level will not give somebody the capacity to speak all languages. (Wilber’s full length argument about this issue can be found in SES, page 609) 17. The only public source that I am aware of that speaks out in very emotionally loaded language about his experience with Bonder and his work is Todd Vickers in his book Truth Like Fire. His claims may or may not be indicative for Bonder’s shadow, yet what strikes me is the is the emotionally dramatized tone of his declarations, which give me the distinct impression that he is shadow boxing with his own issues, rather than reporting on his understanding of Bonder’s shadow. In such cases Bonder always makes it a point to elaborately apologize in heart felt terms like these: “My work has always been intense, and many people have found it necessary to take their leave over the years. In most cases this has been a natural and gentle passage, both for them and for me. In some cases it has been quit difficult. I remain saddened by those difficult partings. To each of you who has gone away from my work and from me confused or hurt, I must say: I am sorry. I wish I could have handled our interchanges in other ways. Please know that I do not take your departure casually. I have considered it deeply and looked for every lesson I could learn that would help me refine my work thereafter. Please also know that I frequently praise you to those who now benefit from these refinements. I remind them that the ease of the way for them has been paved on the roadways you and I had to cut through the jungle of not knowing how to do this, until we could no longer even try to do it together at all.” (Bonder, 1998, p. 149)


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REFERENCES

Adi Da, (1989). The Da Upanishad: The short discourses on self-renunciation, god-realization, and the illusion of relatedness, The Dawn Horse Press, Clearlake, California. Bonder, S. (2005). The Second Birth: Stories of awakening within the heart of community. Mt. Tam Awakenings, Inc, San Anselmo, California. Bonder, S. (2006). The 21st Century Enlightenment Manifesto: A prophetic heart-call to a new standard of liberated living for everyday people everywhere, Mt. Tam Empowerments, Inc. Bonder, (1999). The Conscious Principle: talks on recognition yoga and our tantric experiment in mutual conscious embodiment, Mt. Tam Empowerments, Inc. Bonder, S. (1995). The White-Hot Yoga of the Heart: Divinely human self-realization and sacred marriage – a breakthrough way for “westerners”, Mt. Tam Empowerments, Inc. Bonder, S. (1998). Waking Down: Beyond hypermasculine dharmas. Mt. Tam Awakenings, Inc, San Anselmo, California. Bonder, S. (2007). Waking down in mutuality. Video presentation, part 1, Integral Life. Wilber, K. (2006). Integral Spirituality: A startling new role for religion in the modern and postmodern world. Boston: Integral Books. Wilber, K. (2005). Introducing the AQAL framework: A guide to integral theory and practice. Integral Institute. Wilber, K. (1995). Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The spirit of evolution, Shambhala. Wilber, K. (2004). The Simple Feeling of Being: Embracing your true nature. Shambhala, Boston and London.

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