In this interview, spiritual teacher Arjuna Ardagh recounts his departure from India after his wife became pregnant and "allergic" to the country, the surprising rumor spread by his guru Punjaji that Arjuna would become a teacher, and his subsequent return to Seattle where he grappled with the realization that our true nature is spacious, unwounded awareness rather than the personal story we identify with. Arjuna explains that this awareness is universal and not limited to any spiritual sub‑culture, emphasizing that awakening is relevant to everyone regardless of political or lifestyle differences. He uses the analogy of champagne served in different containers to illustrate the distinction between the essence (the awareness) and the container (forms, beliefs, religions). He draws parallels between the Buddha’s enlightenment under the Bodhi tree and Jesus’s teachings, arguing that both point to the same core truth: the self is not the mind but the awareness that observes the mind. Arjuna describes the difficulty people have in recognizing this formless truth, often clinging to the finger‑pointing (religious labels) instead of the point itself. To make this insight accessible, he and his collaborators have created "Awakening Coaching," a program that translates non‑dual awareness into everyday language and practices, helping people shift attention from the ever‑changing thoughts and feelings (maya, samsara) to the observing presence. The conversation ends with a brief clarification of what Awakening Coaching entails.
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just the body was just bathed in relief and joy. And, um, so to wind the story forward, I really— there was not much to do after that. It's like, okay, it's just this peace. And I stayed with him for almost a year, and then my wife at the time, uh, became pregnant. I have no idea how that happened, but anyway, she, she got pregnant.
And, um, probably one of those early morning things.
Yeah, yeah, innocent moment with the tussle. Yeah, it was actually But anyway, my wife got pregnant and decided she became allergic to India. She couldn't stand the taste or the smell of India anymore, so we had to leave. And shortly before leaving, my teacher Punjaji, he didn't say anything to me, he just started to tell other people that Arjuna was going to go back to the West and teach. He never said it to me, he just told other people. So finally I went to him and I said, you know, what is this rumor I'm hearing that you've been telling people I'm going to teach? He said, oh yeah, you go teach. I said to him, you must be joking, you know, because I'd seen what happens to people when they become teachers. It's a trap, you know. I said to him, you must be joking. He said, yes, he said, the truth is a great joke. 'Go share it with your friends.' So that was that, and really I left, I returned to Seattle. I didn't really know what to do, you know, this thing seemed very kind of obvious that actually who we truly are is space. Who we really are has never been wounded, it doesn't need any healing. Who we really are doesn't really have a name. Or an ID number. Who we really are is not separate from everything else, but there's also this story of a me imposed upon it, which we all have access to as well. The story of me and my life and my finances and my marriage and this and that. But then there's also this space. So I didn't really know what to do with it, but it started to happen on its own. People started to come and ask me what I'd been doing in India, and I tried to explain. And the space became infectious. People would just fall into that space and recognize it for themselves. And that's really what's— that's the story of my life. Since then, this life has been in service to that spaciousness. And what I'm discovering now more and more is that this doesn't have to be in any way an esoteric or a spiritual thing for a certain subculture. It has been like that, but it doesn't have to be like that. But what we're talking about, this kind of awakening, it's really for everybody. You know, whether you're Republican or Democrat, whether you're carnivore or vegan, whether you're rich or poor, who you are really is relevant. Doesn't matter what your life's about, Who you really are is relevant to everybody. So that has been my passion in the last years, is to make this simple oversight, this simple case of mistaken identity, correctable for anybody, no matter what their life circumstance.
It seems like this is— if you really, if you really look at the core of many different religions or spiritual practices, you find the same kind of message. The Buddha talks about it, of course, and it's always that beyond all of those things that you hold on to, all the things that you grasp, everything that you've achieved, there's something beyond all of that. But as you say, it usually has been looked at in some sort of parochial way. You know, "We're Buddhists and you're not a Buddhist, so we're better than you," or, "You don't believe in Jesus," and really this is what Jesus is saying if you read carefully.
Absolutely.
Sounds the same. Can you comment on that?
Yeah, you know, this is a really good point, and it's actually the point that I feel most passionate about. Is we need to distinguish between the essence and the container. It's as though when you drink fine champagne, it could be served in a crystal glass, it could be served in a coffee cup, it could be served in a Styrofoam cup. Same champagne, you see. We can either get attached to the container or to the essence within the container. Let me just have a sip of the champagne. So it's absolutely true that Buddha spoke only of this. All of Buddha's teachings, the Heart Sutra, the Diamond Sutra, it's all about this inescapable fact that who we are is not who we thought we were. Buddha, he wasn't called Buddha, he was called Siddhartha, but he was seeking for many, many years. Finally he sat down under a Bodhi tree in Sarnath, in, I'm sorry, Bodh Gaya. He sat down under a Bodhi tree and he said, you know, I'm not getting up from this Bodhi tree until I've sorted this thing out because it's driving me nuts. And during the night, a very simple thing happened. His mind tried to play all kinds of tricks and offered him, just like Jesus, the devil tempted Jesus as his mind in the 40 days and 40 nights. So the similar thing happened to Buddha, but it was only one night. And his mind, Mara, came and tempted him and said, you know, look, you could be rich and famous, you could have all these sexual pleasures, you could do this and that. Everything that came up, he said, "I know what you are. You are my mind. I'm not going to be fooled by you. I know you're my mind." And in the early morning, as the light came up, as the dawn came, he realized that who he is is not the mind, but is that which is aware of the mind. He'd spent so much of the night saying, "Oh, that's my mind, that's my mind, that's my mind, that's my mind." In the morning, he started to ask, "Well, if all of that is my mind, Then who am I aware of the mind? And he realized what I am is this space, this emptiness, this presence. And in his language, in Pali, the word for what we call spacious awareness, the word in Pali is 'Buddha.' They call that Buddha. So he went back to Sarnath to his friends who he'd been exploring these things with, and he became known as Buddha, which means one who is awareness, you see. Everybody is Buddha, everyone is awareness. So you're absolutely right that Jesus spoke of that when he said, "I and the Father are one. The kingdom of heaven is within." Same, you see. Everybody speaks of this, but here's the problem, you see. Is it's so difficult to hear because what is being pointed to has no form. Who we really are, it has no birth, it has no death, it has no nationality, it has no boundaries. It's love. It's awareness. But it can't be defined. So what happens then is, because it's really difficult to understand this with thinking, we clutch onto the finger pointing at that instead of that itself, and then we become a Buddhist instead of being Buddha. Then we become Christian instead of being Christ. So then we become a follower instead of pointing towards where the teacher was pointing, instead of looking towards where the teacher was pointing. And this is actually— this is the funny thing, that this thing, this matter of awakening profoundly simple but not habitual. It's the easiest thing in the world to just be what you are, but it's not our habit. Our habit is to make things complicated. So that's really been our endeavor in the last years, now with the Awakening Coaching Training, is to translate this into a language and a context that anybody can understand. So we're not followers of anybody. We're not preaching any philosophy, change of lifestyle. We're simply interested in people recognizing who they really are and then learning how to live life from that instead of from the clutching habits of desire and fear.
And awakening coaching, it's interesting to have two. Is it awakening coaching or is it Awakening coaching, or is it both or neither?
It's awakening coaching, yeah. So coaching, you know, is a very— we understand that what is awakening. Awakening just simply means one thing, nothing more complicated than this: to shift the attention from the changing phenomenon of thoughts and feelings, maya, samsara, just changing stuff, you know, to just to shift the attention from where it's all moving to that which is aware of it moving. That's what all I mean by awakening, is to shift the attention from what we're aware of
