John Rowan, in loving memory

I first posted the text below on my personal Integral Life Blog on the 17th of October 2019.
I can still clearly remember that day. I was going to give a short workshop at our school in the evening,
but memories about experiences I’ve had with the late Dr. John Rowan started to surface in the early
afternoon, and I could no longer avoid the fact that he was gone. Tears flew almost the whole day – but why was I crying?
Don’t I believe that there never is an end?

“I have been meaning to write this for some time now. Dr. John Rowan has had an enormous impact on my life, so much so that I am still integrating specific insights into my daily life. He passed on in May 2018, and I feel it is time for me to let him go.

So, here we go:

A humble man, a great man, an academic, an enlightened being, a mystic, a Kali Ma devotee, my mentor at Rushmore University, and a man that brought a massive amount of clarity, wisdom, and sobriety into my professional as well as private life.

Always alert, aware, funny, and ready to surprise with a joke, gesture, or profound insight.

He dedicated ten years to the Authentic, Subtle, Causal, and Nondual stages of the Wilber map, respectively. Forty years! I cannot even begin to imagine how much perseverance and determination one must possess to walk down this slow but thorough personal and spiritual development road.

No doubt he would have laughed at such meaningless labels; still, in my opinion, he was one of the pratyekabuddhas (a solitary Buddha), a follower of the Sutrayana path (as opposed to the faster tantric path that also leads to the Nondual).

At the TCT® Academy (ATCT, our three-year private school for humanistic and transpersonal consultants), we enjoyed his loving presence for six years, learning from his vast academic and empirical knowledge. I benefited immensely from his audience; I drove him around, ate with him, and translated his words at the ATCT seminars.

It was he who first introduced me to the Wilber map in general and the Nondual in particular during my Ph.D. studies at Rushmore (and later on in person as well), changing my perception and pretty much everything else, entirely…
…right after he thoroughly dismantled my ego-fueled academic papers (I think “pretentious” was his short comment on the title of my paper on conceptual integration of quantum theory and cognitive neuroscience) and inspired me to begin to write from my heart and empirical knowledge.

In-person, we have always had more or less meaningful conversations about the Wilber map, mystical and magical experiences, humanistic and transpersonal psychotherapy, and life in general.

He was able to shift levels of awareness with the greatest of ease. Being or living at the Authentic level by choice, he could switch to the Causal or even to the Nondual level at a moment’s notice.

He embraced personal and transpersonal levels with equal grace — no denial of personal and mundane things and no adoration of spiritual things.

His presence was calm and yet strong, simple yet serene.
He was one of a few people (if not the only one) who really understood me and neither wanted nor needed anything from me.

And he was so graceful in person! I can still recall a situation when I took him to dinner in Ljubljana. It was an early evening, and it was already dark. I didn’t know how to get to the place, and I just drove around, trying to find the way. It must have been obvious I didn’t have the slightest clue where we were. Dr. Rowan, however, just sat there in my car and silently tolerated my aimless driving.
After 20 minutes or so, he looked at me, smiled, and said: “You don’t live here, do you?”
LOL

I particularly remember another event: one rainy Sunday morning, I went to his hotel in Ljubljana to take him to our seminar at ATCT. He was waiting for me, meditating (he disapproved of being late!).

When I entered his room, he stood up and looked at me with clear, beaming eyes. I could sense lightness and clarity around him and in the room.

I asked how his morning was, and he smiled and said that he just had his breakfast.

I came closer to him, looked into his eyes, put my left hand gently on his right shoulder, and said, smiling and with respect: “Now the Buddha is not hungry anymore.”
And the Living Buddha, in all his modesty, lowered his eyes.

I miss him so much!

I was informed that when the citadel shattered, he was at peace, transitioning out of his 93-year-old body gracefully, depriving Great Britain and indeed the whole world of the rare Living Presence of an Arhat.

His legacy still lives on in his 20 books, numerous recorded interviews, and lucid poetry.

As far as this individual here is concerned, Dr. John Rowan’s spirit lives on in my integral approach to life, psychotherapy, and formal studies, in my (more or less unsuccessful) attempt to embrace the personal with equal vigor as the transpersonal…

…his spirit thrives on in our school, ATCT, in the postgraduate Integral Consciousness Studies, and in the lasting gratitude for his immense contribution to me, my students at ATCT, my loved ones, my friends, and my family…

…so long, my dear John Rowan, thank you for your silent lucidity and see you around.

– Edmond C..”