Justin Pomeroy

Charles Berner (Yogeshwar Muni)
by Justin Pomeroy

The soundtrack to the 'life of Charles Berner' wouldn't be the Grateful Dead. That would be for Mark Ederer or Elad Levinson or Ed Riddle or me. I'd be hearing the Dead in one of their long, gorgeous jams or listening to the Almond Brothers' "Blue Sky", when then, after Osha Reader turned me on to the Eagles, Wishbone Ash and Dave Mason, Charles would come to visit me at 'Origin' , Osha's picture-perfect carved-out paradise in the California Sierra mountains. It would be after a particularly intense Enlightenment Intensive that Charles had just mastered and he needed to—wanted to—re-create, vacate his usual, ordinary scene on the coast.

I was house-sitting Osha's Origin while she traveled around Europe. I needed this remote, hermit-like existence to sooth and balance my bodymindspirit after having taken 5 Enlightenment Intensives in a row in Milwaukee. I was blissed-out and Chicago seemed too harsh for me at the time. And so here I was alone at Origin with another visit from Charles Berner! He had brought a tape of Swami Muktananda singing the Guru Gita and so this was our soundtrack! And this was the second time I was "hanging" with him—the first was at the Institute of Ability in Milwaukee where I'd taken those Enlightenment Intensives: with Sandra Gratz (later to be "Bhavani"), met Osha Reader (then karen) when she was chief monitor), Jim Scheuneman and Norm Fredrick, a former Catholic priest who now, (then) had become an avowed Abilitist Enlightenment Intensive master. Charles had come to Milwaukee to lead a "Past Life seminar." I attended and learned a lot about Charles and his relationship with Jane ("Anatta") who also hung with the Grateful Dead. I didn't seem to remember my past lives that weekend though I remembered remembering my past lives on a 1968 acid trip so I was a "believer" and Charles was "amazing!" so I thought at the time. (I had had a breakthrough, yet mild enlightenment at the time. I was conscious that I was eternal but presently (then) I was young and working on my "purpose" in this "new" life). Charles' new religion, Abilitism was like a gnostic secret reminder of a clandestine group that comes together to always understand why we create life and how we can do it more effectively. Charles had inculcated the "secret" of the gnostics and, like prometheus, had "stolen" some of the accelerated pathways from the well-guarded Scientology system and other models like Zen.

Charles had come to Origin to relax, to rejuvenate, to replenish his post-intensive energies. He wanted to run, run out from the sauna and into the snow and then over Osha's frozen lake-like pond, or, if it were summer, he'd jump into the lake and swim over the lake to a stranded rowboat and I'd marvel in his ability to operate the oarlocks as he rowed on and on into the sunny afternoon until he'd then return to the sauna for more purification and release rituals. (I'd be busy listening to the tapes of him teaching the "Basic Truths of Life Course" and then, finally he'd come into Osha's kitchen to play a game of chess with me. Of course I'd lose the games gracefully while scurrying around trying to fix him a fantastic, magical dinner with escargot appetizers and herbal concoctions that I'd learned from Osha once upon a time. Then, Charles got out the tin cans with wires connected to the e-meter and audited me (cleared me)! On one of these ad hoc, impromptu, post intensive happenings, Charles brought along this new goddess woman, Jennifer, named (by him) "Shobha". She was a magical, wild, sophisticated, yet beautiful, high cheekbone shakti woman who dug the sauna and didn't care how many people were in it while she sweated and went into kriyas. Shobha and Charles spent a lot of time doing bonafide, e-meter clearing sessions and relating exercises.

Charles wanted me to go to India with him; he was taking a lot of his California students with him to visit all the modern enlightened teachers of India and Tibet: Ananda Mayi Ma, Swami Chitananda, Swami Mukatananda, the Dalai Lama, Madhusudandasji, and, the great Swami Kripaluananda. Kripalu, upon noticing that Charles had many American students traveling with him who held him in high esteem, tactfully and stealthily asked Charles if he'd like a "private area" out back in a straw hut where he could finally really totally surrender to 'beloved God'. Charles was hip enough to know what this meant and he went out back and let go into being totally free—with no resistance. Spontaneously, he ended up in Sahasrara, the headstand, and felt the bliss of egolessness.

Subsequently, Kripalu gave him the new name of "Yogeswar Muni"—lord of yoga in the muni lineage and, along with the name, the empowerment to "give" shaktipat diksha initiation—like the "Bridal Chamber" of the Valentinian gnostics, the ancient, advanced awakening of the kundalini or evolutionary energy!

I missed that India trip but I had given Charles an original Tibetan thankha painting of Tara in her gorgeous dhakini aspect. Charles used this image as the figurehead or logo for his new "Anubhava School of Enlightenment". This made me feel happy to be connected to a man of truth, a school of truth and soon, after India, Charles, as "Yogeswar" gave me the life-altering, life-transforming kundalini awakening. It was at Yan Kane's home in Richmond. I'll never forget that day, that sunny morning in that special room with the closed curtains when I received Shaktipat Diksha!

Another memory:

The first 14-Day Enlightenment Intensive, 1973 Dixon, California

I attended Charles' (Yogeshwar's) first 14-day Intensive in a farm house outside of Davis, California near a small town called Dixon. Wild, histrionic Shobha was there thrilling us with self-generations of Kali and Durga. Dan Karan was there and Yan Kane and many old Abilitists like Shirley ?. I drove Osha's Land Rover to Dixon, signed in with Mark Ederer, the Chief monitor. Mark was strict and tough in those days—the "Humphrey Bogart" of Enlightenment masters! "This is about 'enlightenment', man!....let's get going!" Mark and Elad Levinson brought along Werner Ehrhart, the founder of the EST Training. I had Werner for a partner a couple times. WOW! Was his consciousness ever vast! He had a "second level" *another* enlightenment experience at this intensive—so Charles claimed. During the work period, I was Charles' secretary so I took dictation for him as he wrote letters. This was while Dan Karan was busy constructing seiza meditation benches in the woodshop and we all kept the farm afloat. Werner had left after the 3-day period, after his enlightenment experience and had written Charles asking for a "certificate" signed by Charles authenticating his enlightenment. Charles had me type a letter which essentially said, "Sorry Werner, but your enlightenment was very shallow and I don't feel moved to write out a declaration of enlightenment for you at this time." Yan Kane and I stared into each other's eyes on the 13th night (all night) of that two-week intensive asking the question to ourselves, "what is another?" Needless to say, we were "oned" into an intuitive, unity space forever.

Another memory:

January, 1974, The Kahoutek Festival of Consciousness
(Kahoutek was the name of a giant comet that was witnessed in the sky at the time)

Held at the San Fransisco Civic Center, this incredible festival featured Werner Erhhart, Ida Rolf, Ram Dass, Ken Keyes, the "Living Love" guru, Yogeswar back from India, and Claudio Naranjo, the author of The Psychology of Meditation. I noticed that my hipster friends from Chicago and their religion, Naturalism were featured there also. Naturalism was a new religion (like Abilitism) that I entered into after I left the mystical Christian monastery, The Holy Order of Mans which was born in Haight-Ashbury but was also sprinkled throughout the Western world including Chicago. Naturalism's philosophy or theology was that final and unequivocal enlightenment came from doing samaritan services in the world (a kind of Bodhisattva ideal, as in Buddhism) but then, also having intensive time of LSD use inside, for example "orgone-generator" houses with sensory-deprivation tanks (samadhi tanks). Meanwhile, we had "LSD Rescue" centers, a 24/7 free service available in Chicago, New York, Toronto and LA. My first experience as a "therapist" was working at Chicago's LSD Rescue while I was in college.

As I arose on the elevator of the exclusive Mark Hopkin's Hotel on Knob Hill in San Francisco that first night of the Kahoutek Festival, I was alone with Charles and we had been invited to a Naturalism party in 3 suites of the 4th floor! All the luminaries and consciousness rogues were to be there. "Remember what I told you, Justin—don't drink the punch! It's spiked with acid, I know these guys!" Yogeshwar warned as he pointed his index finger. Later, I had to call Pat Liles so she could drive over to the party to meet her "idol", astrologer Zipporrah Dobyns and subsequently drive me back to her house in the Berkeley hills to "ground my cosmic visions." (I finally did really see comet Kahoutek on an early morning in Marin a few weeks later while driving with Elad in his van down Mount Tamapais at dawn. All the cars were pulling off on the side of the road to witness this startling and terrifying phenomenon.

Addendum

Charles was a teacher, a good teacher who knew how to communicate. He had an "old fashioned" gravelly James Stewart voice. His lectures were mind-blowing. He defined "space" as "the thought that matter is located" and "time" as "the illusion that we're getting somewhere". He told me that in the Bible, in Genesis, the first chapter, when God says, "let *us* make man in *our* image,"(elohim) that the *our* was us, all of us still there at the beginning of every cycle when we perpetually play the game of life and "creation", the game with all its risks of pleasure, pain, illusion and delusion, love and loss, forgetfulness and re-awakening, success and failure, sinner and saint-climber. Charles gave the world a great gift—a synthesis of all of the best— designed to accelerate awakening and final enlightenment. Borrowing from the creme de la creme, syncretizing and eclecticizing the best of tantra, sutra (jnana), karma yoga and dzogchen and bhakti devotions. Blended with progressive Western honest communication in a Scientology-fashion of repetition. He performed this feat while still battling his demons of materialistic visions and sensual egoistic desires. I have many other, far more sublime memories of Yogeswar Charles Berner, the California guru with the message of accelerated enlightenment through communication and understanding and evolutionary energy awakening and finally through self-surrender to the ultimate absolute truth.