This transcript captures a pivotal session from Bartholomew's final workshop series, addressing the profound question of continuity and connection after a teacher's physical departure. Opening with reflections on the Ramana Maharshi film shown the previous evening, Bartholomew used this as a teaching opportunity to explore how spiritual transmission actually intensifies when external forms dissolve, pointing to documented cases of students achieving awakening after Ramana's death through deepened inner connection.

The session revealed a fundamental teaching about the limitations of verbal transmission versus the power of silence. Bartholomew explained how words must pass through multiple "dictionaries" - the teacher's vocabulary, the student's interpretation, and their different experiential backgrounds - making silence the true medium of spiritual teaching. He emphasized that every moment of sincere yearning (for love, against despair, to help others) creates a meeting point in the "quiet heart" where real transmission occurs.

A central metaphor emerged around being "caught in the machine" of awareness - Bartholomew used Whoopi Goldberg's skirt caught in a paper shredder as an analogy for how just the slightest contact with awakening consciousness sets an irreversible process in motion. This leads to his teaching on the "committed relationship" that consciousness makes with seekers, comparing it to magnetic attraction where, once in the force field, there is no escape from the pull toward union.

The session addressed practical concerns about safety and security, with Bartholomew making the stark declaration that no external place is truly safe since the planet and individual lives are subject to constant change. True safety, he insisted, exists only in truth itself - in the recognition of one's fundamental identity beyond form. This teaching becomes particularly relevant given his observations about the coming times of upheaval and transformation.

Extensive discussion of angels revealed them as beings of pure light existing across vast scales (from tiny to "hundreds of thousands of miles tall"), with life strands that "undulate in and out" of human consciousness. This points to a larger cosmology where various forms of consciousness interpenetrate and support each other, with angels serving as companions rather than distant helpers who respond to commands.

The relationship between form and formlessness received detailed exploration through questions about time and space. Bartholomew explained that time-space exists only to accommodate form - objects need time to be observed and space to exist in. The formless realm, being our deepest nature, requires neither, which is why awakening can happen "in an instant" outside the constraints of linear progression.

Student interactions revealed deep concerns about motivation, commitment, and fear. When asked about "purer" motivations for seeking, Bartholomew delivered a compassionate teaching about how God/consciousness accepts seekers regardless of their starting point - whether through disgust with life, desire to serve others, or overwhelming grief. The session included a particularly moving exchange with a student terrified by the totality of commitment exemplified by Ramana, leading to teachings about mature spiritual seeking that acknowledges the magnitude of what's being approached.

The treatment of doubt and faith proved revolutionary, with Bartholomew dismissing both as mental constructs that keep seekers spinning in conceptual circles. Instead of building faith or overcoming doubt, he advocated for direct silence and the willingness to be "worked with" by awareness itself. This teaching culminated in his declaration: "I don't ask you to have faith. I ask you to be quiet and find out."

The session demonstrated Bartholomew's masterful use of story and analogy - from the Zen tale of the woman who thought she'd lost her head (still on her shoulders) to represent our forgotten divine connection, to detailed discussions of how students create the teaching experience they receive through their collective desire for depth and expansion.

Throughout, there was an underlying current of both encouragement and stark realism about the spiritual path. Bartholomew celebrated students getting "caught" in the awakening process while honestly acknowledging the fears that arise when one glimpses the totality of what spiritual realization entails. The session balanced profound metaphysical teachings with practical guidance, humor with gravitas, and unconditional love with unflinching directness about the nature of the journey ahead.