Self-Realization and Other Awakenings

turnover. There is something about having made the
commitment to live together that stabilizes the
Sangha.
I was with Robert for 8 years, about 7 in Los
Angeles. Over those 8 years, maybe thousands of
people came to sit in Satsang or have lunch with him
and thousands more met him on the phone or had
contact via letters. Robert never had an ashram; we
always met at someone else’s house.
Like clockwork, every year the Sangha would be
torn apart by some inner conflict and entirely break
up. Every year we were forced to meet in a new house
of a new student, because of an explosion of rampant
jealousies, arguments, perceived slights and
humiliations and perceived failures of Robert to be the
perfect Ramana-guru; the Sangha would break up and
half would leave without ever explaining why and we
would start all over again somewhere else.
The central problem in Robert’s Sangha was
Robert’s behaviors contrasted to his words in Satsang,
and access and/or control over Robert and the
direction of the Sangha.
It seemed everyone wanted more access to Robert
than they had, and there were many small cliques that
wanted to control every aspect of the Sangha: from
who was to transcribe Satsangs, who was to compose