Eli Jaxon-Bear was born Elliot J. Zeldow in Brooklyn, New York, in 1947. His eighteen-year spiritual path started in 1971, when he was a federal fugitive during the Vietnam war. In 1978, Kalu Rinpoche appointed him the president of the first Kagyu dharma center in Marin County. In 1982, he was presented with a Zen Teaching Fan at ChoShoJi Zen Temple in Japan.

After a search took him around the world and into many traditions and practices, his path and his search ended when he was pulled to India in 1990, where he met his final teacher, Sri H.W.L. Poonja. Confirming Eli's realization, his teacher sent him back into the world to share his unique psychological insights into the nature of egoic suffering in support of self-realization.

Eli infuses the teaching with his teacher’s living transmission of silence. He presents a unique map of egoic identification as a vehicle for ruthless self-inquiry and final realization of true freedom. He dedicates his life to passing on the transmission of his teacher.

Eli currently meets people and teaches through the Leela Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to world peace and freedom through universal self-realization.

He is the author of Sudden Awakening into Direct Realization, (New World Library), The Enneagram of Liberation: From Fixation to Freedom, (Gangaji Foundation Press), and he is the editor of Wake Up and Roar: Satsang with H.W.L. Poonja, (Sounds True).

Transcript of this interview

Interview recorded 4/14/2013

First BatGap interview with Eli.

YouTube Video Chapters:

00:00:00 - Introduction to the Interview with Eli Jaxon-Bear

00:04:20 - The One Cosmic Being

00:06:49 - Lovemaking and the Mystery of Consciousness

00:09:21 - The Truth of Self-Identification

00:11:21 - The All-Pervading Intelligence

00:13:34 - The Consciousness Before the Big Bang

00:16:15 - Being Present Before Perception

00:18:39 - The Permanent Realization

00:20:58 - Using Crisis to See Deeper

00:23:14 - The Capacity of Emotions

00:25:33 - The Fall of the Roshi

00:27:40 - Spiritual Names and Practices

00:29:49 - The Usefulness of Spiritual Practices

00:32:02 - Dissolving the Ego and Individuality through Meditation

00:34:22 - Finding the Balance Between Enlightenment and Normal Life

00:36:53 - The Middle Way and the Eightfold Path

00:39:03 - Trusting the Universe's Support for Awakening

00:41:11 - Letting Go and Letting God

00:44:04 - The Wounding of the Egoic Shell

00:47:06 - The Insanity of the Ego

00:49:48 - The Search for Truth

00:51:37 - The Mystery of Traveling

00:53:46 - The Significance of Devotion and Higher Beings

00:56:24 - Meeting Siva at the Banks of the Ganga

00:59:00 - The Importance of a Final Teacher

01:00:59 - The Psychedelic Experience and Ayahuasca

01:02:41 - LSD and Awakening

01:04:47 - The Mystery of Freedom and Love

01:06:45 - People Waking Up

01:08:22 - A Global Awakening

01:10:13 - Introduction to batgap.com