ANNAPURNA SARADA, Friday, August 21, 2015 4:44 am

Advaita & Universality, Experiences with Lex Hixon

Lex Hixon was my first mentor and spiritual teacher.  I received a tremendous amount from him long before I could really appreciate it.  He took me to Swami Aseshanandaji, and thus to the Ramakrishna lineage and Vedanta.  He himself was a disciple of Swami Nikhilananda.

The devotees of Sri Ramakrishna may appear enigmatic to some nondualists, as many of us enjoy and practice bhakti and jnana yogas as a matter of course.  Swami Vivekananda once stated, “I [Swamiji] am an jnani on the outside and a bhakta on the inside, but Sri Ramakrishna was a bhakta on the outside and a jnani on the inside.”  Sri Sarada Devi counseled a young monk of the Order who rebelled against the rule forbidding ritual worship at the Ramakrishna Order’s Advaita Ashrama in Mayavati, “Sri Ramakrishna was an Advaitan, so all of you are Advaitans” (i.e. need to be nondualists).  I’m paraphrasing here.

Being very familiar in a short time with Sri Ramakrishna’s life and how he entered nirvikalpa samadhi repeatedly, even daily, and how he taught by avasthas (stages) that covered the spectrum of dualism, qualified nondualism and advaita, well, I was always surprised to hear people refer to him only as the ecstatic devotee of Mother Kali and then turn to the great contemporary sages as the only modern day lights on Advaita. (I’ve always wanted to say this publicly.)

Anyway….back to Lex Hixon.  He epitomized for me certain aspects of Sri Ramakrishna – his childlike and guileless moods that could shift lightning-like to serious teachings and deft, if mild, scoldings.  His easy shifting between the four main yogas, and perhaps most memorable of all, and of particular benefit to many, was his sincere and deep “joint citizenship” within four World Religions. This latter aspect is really the principle of universality based upon Advaita.

Like Sri Ramakrishna when he practiced non-Indian Traditions, Lex did not mix Traditions.  He entered them completely, and at the exclusion of the others.  He did not pick and choose among the practices and tenets or mix and match to create his own personal system. There were no comparisons and no need for comparisons.  Lex loved and revered these sacred Traditions and imbibed them at their core essence, evincing an indomitable faith in the method of transmission and practices used in each – a faith that he transmitted to those he led to any particular Tradition.  He is known for having brought many people to their spiritual home, whether it was in Buddhism (Tibetan or Zen), Christianity, Vedanta, or Sufism.  And the adherents of each Tradition (also as in Sri Ramakrishna’s life) thought he was primarily “one of them.”  At the time of his passing from the body, he talked about the Clear Light beyond Religion.

Sometime around 1990 he was invited to give a seminar class on World Religions at Portland State University.  A decade before, he had written the now classic Coming Home, The Experience of Enlightenment in Sacred Traditions. He was also known for the popular radio program in New York City, In the Spirit, which was a kind of “who’s who” in the realm of spirituality from the early 1970’s to late 1980’s. He interviewed famous and unknown spiritual teachers and practitioners from all different religious perspectives – from Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa to Swami Muktananda, Guru Bawa, and Rabbi Shlomo Carlbach.

The morning of his seminar in Portland, we walked into the small amphitheater with stadium seating that curved around the speaker’s platform.  Looking down from the top row and gazing at the potential, Lex announced, “We’re going to do theatre today.”  He then set up four chairs and a podium.  His plan was to present speakers for Sufism, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Tibetan Buddhism, and Advaita Vedanta.  He himself would “play” each speaker and the moderator as well. We were charmed by this and totally interested.  Unfortunately, we did not have the presence of mind to record/video it, something I regret deeply.

As far as I know, there is not yet an authorized biography on Lex Hixon.  What little I know can be summarized as follows: He was not raised in religion.  As an undergraduate, he had the holy company and spiritual guidance of a Lakota Sioux Episcopal priest.  After graduating, he met his Guru Swami Nikhilananda.  Later, Lex did his Ph.D. thesis on Gaudapada’s Karika.  During his radio work at WBAI with In the Spirit, he met and became a disciple of Sheikh Muzafer Effendi of the Al Jerrahi Order of Turkey, eventually being made a sheikh of that lineage for North and South America.  In this capacity his name is Sheikh Nur al-Jerrahi.   Also during this time he became a practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism (I know he received initiations from the last Karmapa and studied/practiced with Tomo Geshe Rinpoche) and actively studied and partook of the sacraments and holy days according to the Eastern Orthodox calendar.  His home was saturated with holy vibrations.  At any given time there might be Buddhist monks living in the basement “cells” and zikr going on in the huge living room.  Upstairs held a beautiful Tibetan Temple to Mother Tara where daily rituals were practiced, and which one had to pass through in order to enter the humble and powerful meditation shrine dedicated to Sri Ramakrishna, Holy Mother, and Swami Vivekananda.  This sacred confluence of Traditions was the antithesis of eclecticism.  Sadhana, spiritual discipline, was the prevailing atmosphere, right in the midst of a family scene as well.

From my experience with Lex, he always leaned toward the mystic/transcendent aspect in each of these sacred Traditions.  One time we were walking around the picturesque water reservoirs on Mt. Tabor in Portland and he had a rosary in hand.  He hid it in his clothing as we approached someone.  He liked, and was incredibly adept at, engaging people in spiritual conversation.  He could draw out whatever spiritual depth was latent in a person.  He told me that he was careful to keep his rosary(ies) out of sight before finding what orientation people were, and if he had it with him, he would pull out the appropriate rosary.  In this way, he sought to make them comfortable.  Religion was like a master key with him that he used to open people up with.

It is too many years to remember the details of Lex’s presentation at Portland State.  I recall that as each “speaker,” he discoursed on the important principles, teachings, methods, and avowed goals of each tradition, speaking from the heart and from experience.  Students in the audience asked questions.  From time to time, Lex “broke character” and gave an aside.  After representing Christianity and then Sufi Islam from the lineage of the Al Jerrahi Order of Turkey, and as he was shifting to the chair for Tibetan Buddhism, he smiled at everyone and said “This is going to be a big jump here.”

The other time he broke character was as he shifted from Tibetan Buddhism to Advaita Vedanta.  “Now,” he stated, “this is the one that makes it possible to sit in all the other chairs.”  Then he discoursed on Advaita Vedanta.  Now, by saying this, I do not think he was saying that Advaita was superior over the other Traditions.  I am certain that Lex’s knowledge and experience of each of these Traditions proved to him that the experience of nonduality was patently there at the culmination of these paths, including the Abrahamic ones.  I think he was indicating that the unique beauty of Advaita Vedanta is that it not only is focused on nonduality, it expresses it philosophically so clearly, and in doing so, proves nondual Reality to be the underlying foundation supporting all approaches.  Speaking about his book, Great Swan, Meetings with Ramakrishna Lex stated:

“This book holds the key to unlock all my life experiences. It provides a bridge between East and West, a bridge which I have crossed in both directions and which many people will be able to cross comfortably, maintaining their intellectual, cultural and spiritual integrity. Essential secrets for the unfolding of cultural interaction and spiritual growth in the 21st century are encoded in this vibrant portrait. With Ramakrishna as our inspiration, our subtle task is to create a global society based on the intuitive sense of the Sacred, a society with rich diversity yet without boundaries.”

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