From ORDINARY WOMEN, EXTRAORDINARY WISDOM
The Feminine Face of Awakening
by Rita Marie Robinson

Interview with Annette Knopp

The feminine principle is also about the evoking of beauty. “She” is always present when someone decorates a house, creates harmony or art. It is an overflow of the radiance of our hearts and the need to bring that out. It is the reflection that says “everything is sacred.”

t was a delightful surprise when Annette and Francie called one winter morning and offered to come to Telluride to host a gathering. I knew Francie from Pamela’s circle, and I had heard of Annette. She was the third member of the trio with Neelam and Pamela who sometimes offered satsang at the Omega Institute. Giving satsang as a team is evolving as part of the feminine way, and so is sitting in a circle, another reminder that there is no real difference between the “student” and the “teacher.”

At the day-long event at my house, Annette spoke directly, “There is no such thing as awake or not awake.” Annette was leaning forward trying to soothe Ulli who was determined to “get” it. Her suffering was obvious as tears rolled down her cheeks, and she cried, “I see it in your eyes, and I want what you have.” Everyone who knows Ulli knows that she already has it! She is a loving, sweet, kind person. It’s funny how we are always looking outside of ourselves for what is so obviously within us.

I do the same thing. I felt that same overwhelming feeling flood through me when sitting with Neelam a few weeks before. I started crying, “I just want to gaze into the eyes of the beloved.” I talked about how the Dances of Universal Peace moved me, looking into each other’s eyes and seeing the light and love shining through. When I started talking about how I wanted a soul mate, a partner that I can share this with, Neelam stopped me and said “Let’s not go there.” Everyone laughed, including me. “Just when it starts to get juicy,” she smiled.

Neelam clarified that the initial impulse of wanting to connect with the beloved is real. Then it goes into a story when I begin to project it onto a human being. So she asked me to just stay with the longing, and I did. I sat there feeling it fully, this intense pain in my chest. I closed my eyes and let the tears flow. In a few minutes the intensity subsided.

Neelam asked what was arising now. Looking into her eyes, I felt this impersonal love flowing between us, and I said, “I see the beloved in you and in all these eyes.” I looked around the room. She asked, “Is that enough?” It was so obvious that what I was longing for was not outside of me. “Yes, of course,” I smiled. This love is who I am, is who and what we all are. The longing for that kind of love reminds me to turn within. As Chameli said, “Trust your own original longing.”

Still, it was no wonder that Ulli wanted what Annette “has.” Annette is radiant. Her deep brown eyes twinkle when she laughs which she does often. There’s an intensity about her, but it is not the kind of intensity that pushes you away. Instead it draws you near like a warm fire. We sat in big soft chairs next to each other, where we did the interview in my bedroom.

What stands out about your childhood?

My love for classical music and my connection with nature. I spent a lot of time with animals and in the forest behind my house, and I was talking to God continuously. My mother was Protestant; my father a devout Catholic. My father and I had a strong bond because of our faith while the rest of our family didn’t display or show that much of an interest in spiritual matters.

When you were a little girl, how would you describe your relationship with God?

I would have these internal dialogues and, of course, being a child and being brought up in that way, I believed that God was something separate from me, an authority outside myself. Yet it was so intimate. Sometimes there was such an immense feeling of love and devotion, I would enclose myself in my father’s office at home, I would light a candle, kneel in front of it, and put my hands together as if praying. It wasn’t even a prayer, but I needed to bring a form somehow for this burning in my heart. I was around seven years old.

I remember one day my teacher asked everyone in the class if they believed in God, and one of my best friends said, “God doesn’t exist.” I came home and asked my mother, “Can you believe that?” To me, it was like saying that I didn’t exist. I couldn’t put it together how it was possible not to believe.

I remember another interesting event. Somewhere between the age of five and eight, I couldn’t sleep. It was summer, it was hot in my room, and I tossed and turned around. I decided to lie completely still to trick myself into sleeping. Suddenly I became aware of “all the words around.” I meant the endless stream of thoughts, but I didn’t have that word in my vocabulary yet. I wondered, “Where do all these words come from?” Then that stream just stopped, and there was an empty spot, without borders, that expanded. It had a funny feeling to it, like it was sucking me in, dissolving me. Terror rose up, and I shook myself out of it. I quickly folded my hands and prayed, “Please, please God. Never ever stop the words again!”

It had a lasting effect on me because one day much later, my father showed me a picture of the Milky Way and wanted to explain to me about the different galaxies. I was very resistant because the image reminded me of that scary limitless emptiness I had experienced. I told him, “I don’t want to know about that.”

Fast forward for us to what you would consider a crossroads.

When I was about 21, I felt disconnected from my environment in Germany and the way the people around me seemed to view life and the world. I felt more connected to the southern way—more warmth, heart and a sense of daily celebration. I left my studies at the Conservatory of Music and moved to Spain. Then the depression set in when I was about 24 or 25.

Can you talk about the depression?

I didn’t know then what it was about. Obviously, that was part of the depression. I was living and studying in Madrid at the time. The depression was sometimes so strong that for weeks my first thought upon waking up in the morning was, “Oh my God, please, not another day!” What made it worse was that I had a lovely partner, I had friends, and I lived in a place I wanted to live. The outside was apparently perfect, but it was unbearable.

How did it change?

I started therapy, yoga, and t’ai chi intensely three times a week. I experimented with meditation. I went to astrologers and tarot readings. There was a lot of trying to make sense of it, but it was still overwhelming.

As you look back on that now, what’s your sense of what was going on?

One aspect might have been that there was a lot of emotional upheaval. There had been sexual molesting in my childhood and an attempted rape from the father of a friend—from persons who were no strangers to me. Also my father was a substance abuser and was sometimes rather severe in his punishments. So, who knows if that was the cause, but there were a few things that confused me a lot, and I didn’t know how to deal with it. It’s not so much what happens to us, but it’s that we don’t know how to be with or integrate our experiences.

The other aspect was spiritual. I came to a dead end in a certain way. You see that everything can be perfect circumstances, but inside there is something missing or just not “right.” It was funny. I didn’t miss God. God for me existed, and yet there was something that didn’t make sense.

So, you’re saying you felt the presence of God.

Well, yeah, what I labeled as God. There was a strong faith and devotion, but what I didn’t understand is that I thought I was this separate someone. “I am separate from this world. I am separate from you. I am separate from God.” Now I can formulate it this way. If you would have asked me then, I couldn’t have known because no one at that time or in my environment was speaking in such terms or clarifying the misconception.

After some years, the depression got a little bit better, but there was still this sense that there was something I had to find. So I left my life behind when I was 29—my partner, my dog, my friends. I had a good career, I was self-employed, and I lived at the ocean. These were privileged circumstances, and I felt guilty about it. I was supposed to be happy. Yet, all these worldly things didn’t have much meaning anymore.

I had this urge to throw myself completely into the world, to travel widely and intensely so I would finally understand what is the essence of life. I had this sense that if I would stretch myself enough, know all the extremes within and without, I would find the common denominator, the answer to the riddle of life.

My partner didn’t want me to leave. Some friends said I was nuts, others thought I was ungrateful, but a yoga teacher supported and encouraged me to follow that calling. I was very scared when I left, but I didn’t have a choice. I met a few people in India, they were speaking about enlightenment, but I wasn’t interested in that concept. I didn’t even ask what it meant. I was just interested in following this inner fragrance that was saying, “You follow me, and I will lead you.” I stayed almost a year in India, traveling, studying, meeting different people. I also lived and traveled in Nepal, Thailand, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia. I traveled for three years. It was quite an adventure.

So what happened after three years?

It reached a crucial point in Japan in 1997 in the winter. Suddenly, I realized that I had gone through all these different life experiences. I had done all these different things in the world, chasing continuously around to find some answer or a lasting sense of rest. I had had experiences of the fullness of life, the bliss, deep connection, and meeting like-minded people. I had also endured loneliness, fear, and doubt about my journey. I had had different meditative experiences, what people call “openings” like being flooded by lights. But it was never anything that felt like the “real thing,” so I didn’t give it much attention.

I came to this certain point where a natural inquiry took place. I said to myself, “Hold on a minute. I’ve done this and that, and it seems to be like dresses I wear and then leave behind. This is Annette scene one, Annette scene two, and all this is changing. If all this is changing, who am I?” I was shocked and thought, “I have lost my mind. I’ve lost the plot completely!” I couldn’t find the “I” that was me! I was extremely upset about it. I didn’t have the knowledge that would say, “This is a very good discovery, go on.”

Instead it was this feeling, “You are in really big trouble. You left a good life just to go on this crazy journey, believing in God and that everything would be fine, and look where you are now.” It was devastating. It came together with states of paranoia where in the morning I didn’t want to look in the mirror because I was afraid I wouldn’t see my reflection anymore. Upon looking, I was relieved, but then immediately the panic set in again because this body, this face didn’t seem to really be me.

It felt like my adventurous endeavor was a failure. I looked back and asked, “Where did I make the mistake?” I felt I had done my very best so I decided, “Just call it life and say goodbye.” I was ready to finish, commit suicide. It wasn’t out of a feeling that my life was all terrible, but I was really tired. There were moments of being concerned about my family. I didn’t want to cause them suffering nor have my neighbors find me with blood on the tatami. But my sense of complete alienation from life and the world was stronger.

So, I went through the snow at 2 a.m. to a 24-hour shop to buy some razors. I knew I wouldn’t find sleeping pills. I still had a cell phone in my coat pocket from when I had come home before. I touched the cell phone, and there was this thought, “I could call one of my friends and say, ‘I need help. I don’t know what’s going on.’” But it was clear that they wouldn’t have the answer. If there’s anything that could help me, it must be That I had always trusted. So if That wouldn’t want me to die, it would stop me.

As soon as I arrived at the front of the shop, my phone rang. It was a man’s voice. He said, “It’s Brett.” I didn’t remember anyone with that name. He reminded me that we had had coffee together six weeks ago and exchanged phone numbers. He apologized saying this was a terrible time to call anyone, but he had woken up in the middle of the night with an intense feeling he had to call me right now. He was a sensitive and bright person. He said, “I don’t know what is happening with you, but I feel you must be in a very difficult space. I want you to come over to my house so you have someone to talk to.”

I resisted at first, but then something broke down in me and was relieved. I went into the shop and handed the cell phone over the counter, and Brett gave the man his address and the directions to call a taxi. Half an hour later, I was at his house.

I broke down completely, and I was crying, “I don’t know who I am!” Brett looked at me quite puzzled and said, “Well, you’re Annette. You were born in Germany. You’re studying in the morning, and in the afternoon you work. I think you’re a competent person, and you’re a beautiful woman.” I kept crying, “No, this is not who I am.” We didn’t get to an understanding, but it was OK. He was very kind and comforting, and something in me gave up. I felt, “OK, That made this happen. That shall take care of me now.” I didn’t do anything anymore. It was a hanging out, not even a waiting.

Are you talking about a surrender?

I am not very fond of that word. It can convey a sense of someone “doing” it, and it is not like that. To me, it was an organic development, a choiceless understanding, a simple falling away of trying to control life, reaching for something.

The idea that I’m the one doing life or creating my reality.

Yes, there was not knowing what would happen. A week or two later, a friend from San Francisco called to see if she could visit me in Japan. I told her I didn’t know if I would still be here when she came. She suggested we could meet in Australia. “I’ve done that. I’ve been there.” She wondered if I had been to Byron Bay. After I hung up, it was so strong. I knew I had to go to Byron Bay, and I didn’t want to. I was tired of traveling and ending up in new places, but a day later a friend in Australia called. She offered to take me to Byron Bay, so I ended up in Australia a month later.

The very first day on the street in Byron Bay, I met a man who was doing Tibetan eye readings. He looked familiar to me. I asked him if I had met him in India, and he said, “Yeah, yeah, you look familiar,” and we chatted. “Come on, I will give you a little eye reading.” He looked into my eye and said, “Oh my God, you are so ripe. Look, you have to see a man who’s here in town who is doing satsang.” “Satsang, what’s that?” He told me it was a spiritual gathering. I said, “No thank you. I’m not interested,” but he explained they were meeting in a wooden building, the surf club on the beach.

Somewhere in my head I remembered the conversation because after a few days something got unruly in me and said, “You need to go there.” I didn’t want to, but I found myself walking towards it like in a daze. There was a gathering of maybe 80 people or so, and someone was playing guitar. After awhile, a man came in. He sat silently for a few minutes, and then he said, “Welcome everyone to satsang. Please feel free to speak. We have a microphone that goes around.”

People would get the microphone and speak, but the teacher suddenly said, “Excuse me. Give the microphone to this young lady there,” and he pointed to me. The microphone came to me, and I felt embarrassed. I didn’t have any questions, but something came out of my mouth. “I have this very simple and yet it seems complex question, ‘What is all this pain about?’”

He said, “Well, if you have a lot of pain and you have a nightmare, then you want to wake up. If you’re dreaming very pleasantly, it’s just fine to be asleep. Are you willing to explore something? My experience is that when people come and they have pain or suffering, it all has to do with who they think they are. So I want you to just be open and forget everything you have ever read or heard or perhaps studied that you’re a soul, that you’re this body or anything. Just for a moment, allow yourself to directly experience who are you?”

When he said these last words, the whole world stopped. It was just complete stillness. Then suddenly the first sound I heard was the ocean crashing against the beach, and I knew immediately, “I am this ocean out there! I am the ocean.” I looked at the room which was me as well. “I am the people. I am the chairs. I am the microphone. I am this body.” I wanted to say, “I’m everything.” As soon as I wanted to utter this, it sort of popped and gave way to limitless transparency, a transparent nothingness that could not be located specifically. Yet everything was made out of that. I couldn’t speak anymore.

He asked again, “Hello, who are you? What did you find?” The answer came, “I am everything and nothing.” He started to laugh and said, “Yes! That’s it. That’s it. Wow. That didn’t take very long.” The next step was, “OK, let’s look again. This everything and nothing, do you have to do anything to be that?” “No,” I said. It was obvious. It seemed a very silly question.

“OK, let’s go back a bit more into the story. You spoke of some pain. Was it emotional pain or physical pain? What was it?” I wanted to tell him about this red thread in my life that felt like a hole in my heart. I looked, and I tried to find some pain, but I couldn’t find anything anymore. It was like nothing ever really happened. It was like a dream.

What had happened in that moment was the knowing I am outside of manifestation, prior to the universe and galaxies, never born. Yet I was at the center of everything in creation. This is what I had always been looking for. I was at home. I had never left. It was like a thirty thousand pound backpack dropped. And this laughter deep from my belly swelled up. I laughed and laughed, and the teacher laughed with me.

This teacher was Isaac Shapiro, right? [Annette nods.] Last night you talked about people coming through the back door and others having a big bang kind of awakening. That sounds like a big bang.

I know. This is why I usually don’t tell the story because it seems a big bang, a dramatic story. Also, it doesn’t end here. It is a beginning.

And are you afraid people will think it has to look like that?

This is always the tricky thing because when people hear certain stories, there is the fascination with the different experiences of someone else, a belief that it should look this or that way. The person, then, is made special. But it is not about the person or one particular way. The most important thing is to ask, “Where do these experiences arise from? What is present already prior to all experiences and is unchanging?” This is what we have to recognize.

So this so-called awakening experience is the beginning. How did it get more refined?

There’s an integration or a refinement on many levels. Again, this might be different for someone else. On one hand, there was a shift of perspective, living and operating from a deeper understanding, sometimes being completely awake while the body is deeply asleep, knowing myself as causeless happiness, as the infinite, then sometimes being completely wrapped up in the limits of the personal identity.

Also with time, there was an intense and sometimes truly agonizing emotional clearing. There was no way to hide from my experiences anymore. It felt that things from the past would arise again, be relived, but now there was the opportunity to really be with it and not turn away.

Of course, the world goes on with its demands and needs. We all need to make money, go to the dentist, and so on. I was getting used to undisturbed spaciousness, and at the same time was really opening to the human experience with all its splendor and pain. This opening uncovers the inherent softness of the heart. It is not anything intellectual but a “slipping into place” with all of life which is ordinary and humbling but also exquisite and deeply rewarding.

I remember one day seeing a rotting bird on the beach and being completely overwhelmed by the beauty of it; images of starvation and dying passing through—all that we see as horrible. In that moment, I saw it as the unfathomable beauty that is me. At the same time, I am increasingly sensitive to all the suffering that exists.

Can you give us an example of something painful that you could be with?

After that shift of perspective, I had a boyfriend who left me. I was in pain about it because I didn’t wish the relationship to end, but I could see that my pain was actually made out of many components like, “What will other people think? What does this mean about me?” It was seeing that all those thoughts were imposters in a certain way, movements away from what is. Then pain was simply flushing through my chest, clean pain or sadness without stickiness. Beautiful.

It seems like a good time to talk about relationships.

Before, my relationships were all about “me.” How do I get love. How do I get what I need? It was a sort of bargaining or trading. Now, love is something very different. It stands on its own—without cause. It is not about trying to change someone so he fits my perspective. Sharing my life with others and my partner is a gift. It enriches my life. It’s “how God loves God” in daily experience. Usually when something comes up that doesn’t seem to be in alignment in our relationship, we can look at it without blaming or making each other wrong. We hold the space for it, and let it be. Usually there is a gift in it. It is an invitation to an endless deepening, a returning to real innocence and humanness.

Is he on some kind of a path?

He has been in a Sufi community for many years, but he also has a background in Vipassana and Zen.

Does he participate in satsang?

He’s been to a few other teachers. We don’t speak much about it. We don’t theorize much. It’s simply the living of it.

Has he had what you would call this shift?

I don’t know. I don’t classify people as awake or not awake. My essence and his essence are the same. It’s simple: “You are This. This cup of tea is This.” I find it misleading to speak of awakening. It sounds like a happening.

Last night you said the feminine leans towards fullness. What is it about the feminine, not women, that’s different?

To me, it’s a distinctive aspect of reality. The feminine is the aspect of energy, the pulse of life, I experience as creation in its fullness. It is also the aspect of interconnectedness that is intrinsic in empathy and openness towards life’s experiences. In India they call it Shakti. Shiva represents more the aspect of unmoving emptiness of space. “Shiva is nothing without Shakti,” says the Bhagavad Gita. We all, men and women, are made out of both and are invited to recognize ourselves as those sacred principles. They are different aspects of reality, but not separate.

The feminine principle is also about the evoking of beauty. “She” is always present when someone decorates a house, creates harmony or art. Women generally like to adorn themselves. It doesn’t come necessarily from egoic vanity or to attract a partner. It is an overflow of the radiance of our hearts and the need to bring that out. The world needs that, especially in difficult times. It is the reflection that says “everything is sacred.”

What do you share in your satsang that brings forth more of the feminine than a masculine embodiment would?

When I do meetings for men and women, I now call them “Circles of Presence.” I prefer a more interactive participation, a more lateral sharing. I see myself rather as a facilitator, not a teacher.

We can easily fall into the trap of using concepts of spirituality to escape or be dishonest with ourselves about what is going on in our lives. We can even use silence and emptiness to try and compensate for our difficulty to connect with other people or engage in life. We might be trying to integrate silent presence in daily life, but the experiential aftermath of some past events make it difficult. I find it important to attend to that. Otherwise, it keeps creating a painful split and intellectual pretentiousness rather than a real and heart-felt integration.

I observe in some Advaita circles a tilt towards the Absolute, like a clinging to emptiness which results in an unwillingness to attend to the personal and human aspects. It reminds me of the old stories of religion in which the body and the worldly existence were considered a nuisance to be left behind. Women tend to be more grounded in that aspect and more connected to life. As Papaji, the Indian sage and teacher, once said, “Realized men set up a religion. Realized women return home to the hearth and the family.”

Can you talk more about the women’s circles?

I have felt for many years the strong pull to bring women together. Central to the gathering is to recognize and give space to what is already whole and precious in us. Otherwise we keep repeating the old stories, trying to fill the holes in our hearts through endless shopping, hiding behind immaculate make-up, or imitating men to feel powerful.

The women’s circle is a lot about coming back to the body, to its intrinsic wisdom and uncontrived aliveness. Part of it is through dancing, the invitation to dance how we rarely dance—from the present moment, from “within”—to let move what wants to move. We all think too much in our culture. Through movement, stuck energy can flow freely and reorganize itself in the organism. In dance, you can experience this very cellular knowing, opening up to the reality that it’s all energy. It’s all a dance.

Another part of the gathering might be sharing of the challenges of daily life. Women can support each other by simply listening. To be received without analysis or without someone trying to fix you is a gift in itself.

Your teacher said that you’re not going to wake up from a good dream, so do you have to have a bad dream? Do you have to have a dark night of the soul?

No. That’s a concept that can foster ideas of postponement and misunderstanding. A dark night of the soul might have been the case for some of us, but non-dual awareness, the silent Self, is already present. Always.

Is there anything else important to share?

I want to end with a dedication: “May we all breathe, walk and talk from preciousness and infinity.”

Annette had a private session scheduled after the interview, so she and Francie left for town. The sun was shining when they drove off the mesa but before long, a spring snowstorm moved in, and it began to really dump. I sat at my desk looking outside at the big fat flakes, and started to write in my journal:

Annette’s story of how she “woke up” really is seductive, I have to confess. My mind locks onto the story and thinks that’s the way it’s supposed to look. It can’t help itself. The mind wants to figure this out. And it thinks that if it just does it a certain way, follows a particular formula, then I will “get” it. But there is no “I” to get it. And there’s no formula. Like Anandimaya Ma said, “There are six billion ways.”

It was in the kitchen during a break when Annette looked at me and said, “There is no way the mind can do this because the mind wants to have it, to own it. And there is no such thing to have.” Tears came to my eyes when she said that. I knew it was true.

It’s like using my hands to grasp some air to breathe. The air is right here, it’s available. If I try too hard to breathe, it’s like a panic attack. But if I just relax, breathing happens without effort. Our true nature will naturally arise because it is right here. Always.

The phone rang, and it was Annette and Francie on their cell phone. It was dark by then. They were lost and stuck in their two-wheel drive rental car somewhere on the mesa. Chris and I bundled up and headed out in the storm with a tow rope and chains, items we always keep in the truck in the winter. After a quick search nearby, there was no sign of them, no tracks in the snow, no headlights. The wind was blowing, and it was still snowing making visibility near zero. We called on our cell phone to try and determine their location. “We can see someone’s car lights behind us. Is that you?” Since we couldn’t see them we knew it must be someone else. “Maybe you can stop them and ask where you are.”

It was a neighbor who got on the phone and told us their exact location. We drove for a few more minutes and found the little car in the middle of the road on a slight hill, unable to go forward. With my winter driving experience and Chris’s pushing power, we managed to get the car turned around and back down the hill to a safe location for the night. We all piled into the cab of the truck and drove home, the snow still coming down hard. Once inside, we gathered around the woodstove and laughed about what could now be called “a mesa adventure.”

As they warmed up around the fire, I told Francie and Annette about my women’s group that has been meeting for almost ten years, how we celebrate the seasons and cycles of the year, creating our own earth-based ceremonies. There’s a sense of shared responsibility because we take turns leading the group. Movement, deep listening, silence, and creativity are all components of our regular gatherings.

When they left the following day, Francie and Annette expressed a genuine desire to return sometime as guests of our women’s group. It was obvious they believed we had something to offer to them, another reminder that there is no hierarchy except for what we create in our heads. It occurred to me that not only are love and peace available right here, right now; wisdom is also available. All aspects of our true nature.