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100%: Living and Dying with J-R, An Interview with Jsu Garcia

 

(Jsu Garcia was John-Roger’s friend, personal assistant, bodyguard, driver, go-fer—and anything else J-R wanted—from 1988 – 2014)

NDH: So what’s it like working for J-R?

Jsu: I worked for J-R for twenty-six years. It was unbelievable. There’s nothing better. I think Michael Feder, who also worked for J-R once, said, “It doesn’t get any better than this.”

It’s been three months since I lost my best friend. I’m also in love now. I fell in love with Nicole. So simultaneously I think, “Wow I’m in love,” and “Wow, I’m grieving. I’m in pain.” I’m working through all that as I go back and remember everything that happened with J-R.

Probably the greatest thing was the Light Tour to Israel last September. We spent a whole month there. That was the most amazing trip. It was one of the most dynamic things I’ve ever experienced. I don’t know what it’s like to be a Traveler who holds keys, but I do know what it’s like when he gives you the baton. When J-R would give me the baton, it was being like Harry Potter. You can do anything. Sometimes I would even stretch to see how far I could go. For example, someone had their phone stolen on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. When I heard about it I was really upset. I thought, “How can they steal from my people?” I thought of everyone on the trip as my flock. My attitude was, I’m working for J-R, something happened to one of our people, I’m going to get that phone back. And we got the phone back. I talked to an Arab guy who was the head of the area where kids were pickpocketing, and he really spanked them. And a couple of days later we were at his house for dinner, a beautiful place overlooking Jerusalem. Little miracles like that are what it’s all about working with J-R. When you’re prompted inwardly and you have this baton of light energy with you, it’s amazing. You just know that you have a calling to do what you do, and you do a lot of listening inside.

Everybody is different in MSIA, and in how they relate to J-R on the inner. So I’m not special. I just did more time with J-R on the physical. I’m proud of that, and I hope there’s more I can do, but I have good self-esteem about the whole experience. J-R used to say to me, “You have a lot of vanity. You can turn that into valor.” And I think I know what that is. I’m still vain, but I don’t need applause or a reward. I don’t need to be in an MSIA Bible. The one thing that moves me is when someone says, “Thank you.”

Probably my favorite time was when it was just me and J-R. A lot of it was up at Windermere and at J-R’s house nearby at Miracielo. We’d be watching TV up there, or driving late at night, listening to these weird radio shows about UFO’s, or Christian stations.

We’re talking in J-R’s living room in Mandeville right now and you can sense the energy, even though he’s missing. The energy is in the couch, it’s in the walls, it’s a vortex here in this house. When he was alive, no matter how slow he became, he was just a bubble of love, an energy of love, a source of love. It was as though all universes went in and out of him. When you walked into the house, you would peek through the kitchen and into the living room and think, “Wow, I’m so glad to be home.” All your karma or whatever crap you were going through would just go away, because he’s just pure love.

NDH: I always had that sense that he could just eat whatever karma was there.

Jsu: He didn’t say, “Come here, let me get that off you.” It was just an automatic thing that would happen around him. Sometimes J-R would just touch you somewhere and all of a sudden it would lift you.

People in the house like Nat and me would work with him. We didn’t know we were doing it, because if you knew you were doing it you’d blow it. But J-R would use you as a battery. And whoever came over, we just would “eat” whatever was going on with that person, along with J-R. But we didn’t know it, we just knew that the next day we would wake up with a hangover, or we’d start fighting—and that’s usually somebody else’s stuff.

And you learn so much with J-R—you’re forced to learn a lot. He used everything for greater learning, and he used things inside of me for my greater learning. I learned tracking in the DSS, and there is nothing better than tracking. If you’re not doing tracking, you’re being unconscious. You say, “I saw that. I saw that three minutes ago. OK I’ll watch that. I ate this soup and got a bellyache.” Or, “Why do I feel so crappy? Oh, I just got a phone call and it happened after that. OK, clear.”

When it comes down to it, it looked like we were taking care of J-R but he was taking care of us. He was holding my karma and Nat’s karma with a protective shield so we could do the work.

NDH: When you say you learned a lot, was it things he said verbally, or was it inwardly?

Jsu: It was more inward. I’d get a lot of pictures inside. He didn’t sit down and discourse to you. Maybe that happened a few times, but 99% of the time it was inner. You’d say, “I want to put this in the Light, I’d like to go to Israel, Hamas is bombing, blah blah blah, and I need Light.” He’d say, “We’re going. It’s going to happen,” and you’d get these things in your head about what you needed to do. I’d call someone I knew who had information, I downloaded an app that told me how many rockets were being fired in Gaza, I’d be watching the news, and I’d be getting information on the inner from J-R. You let J-R do the inner, and you focus on the outer to make sure it’s safe on the physical. J-R would make sure it was safe spiritually. I got a lot of information in dreams. J-R called me a “dream prophet” because I could remember things from dreams and spirit would warn me about things in the future. It was never something huge or tsunami-like, but more about my own process. Spirit would warn me about something and I’d write it down. It was more about me, and J-R, and Nat, and our process. We’d come together and it was like, “I had this dream. Did you have this dream?” “Yeah.” “OK then we’ve gotta watch it.” J-R would listen to what I had to say, and I’d cross-reference it with Nat, and I knew I was right on a lot of the time, because J-R was telling me.

One time we were getting ready to head out of town with J-R and we were all ready to go somewhere. J-R kept telling me “no” and I kept getting ready. You have to understand that a lot of the time J-R would change, and so you’d have to be ready and act “as if” (“as if” the plan was on). I said, “Nat, get everything ready, let’s go,” we rolled out, we got to the airport curb and J-R said, “I said ‘no.’” And then you think, “OK, that was real,” and you cancel the trip. That was J-R when he was older and healthy. But even when he was younger he would do that. Once there was an India trip set up, four or five of us were ready to go, and at the last minute J-R cancelled it.

Last year, we knew that J-R was getting weaker. Even when he was not feeling well, and we didn’t know if he was going to make it to Israel, he was still so strong. He would always open up the door for the nurses, which was astonishing to me.

I would go up to him and say, “I really want this Israel trip. Can you give me this?” And he would say, “Yeah, I can see you want it.” I always checked in with him to see if it was clear. If you ask what’s the best part of working with J-R, it was that—my private moments with him asking about what’s clear and not clear to do.

When I got a clearing from J-R, I went for it, I didn’t stop. If he changed his mind when I was halfway through it, I would stop. J-R would always test to see how disciplined and flexible you were—not as a slave or anything like that, but he would see if you could move with him when he said, “Stop.” Sometimes I would argue my point and then I would stop. He would say something and give you a certain look, and you would know that he really means it.

J-R told me that living with him was like “sleeping at the edge of a volcano.” When you get burnt enough, you’re just tough. The burning is experience, and experience is how to maneuver around the volcano. You learn not to go that way because it hurts, so you think, “I won’t do that again. That burns.” One thing that he was very strict about is that when he was doing emails you would have to stand by the door and wait until he addressed you. If you barged into the room interrupting him, you would get another 10 pounds of karma. Not by hitting or yelling or anything like that, but it was the energy behind it. It was just, “I told you not to do that,” and the authority behind it is what gave it force.

Actually when J-R yelled we would always crack up. I’ve never had him yell at me where I wasn’t laughing. And it always rode on love. He would yell, “HEY!!!” at seminars and all the crap would leave you. It was always about what he said with his eyes, and the words were just a small part of it.

Also J-R had caretakers that would come in when he was far away working out of the body. I liked the “old man.” I met him when we were traveling in Israel, and then when I moved into J-R’s house I recognized him. It was like, “There’s that old man again.” There was an American Indian, a Japanese guy, and others. His cadence would change and sometimes they’d be unfamiliar with what was going on. They sometimes didn’t know where we were, or would ask, “Who are you?” Nat and I would be cracking up. The old man was my favorite…and there was also some Biblical guy that would come down. Sometimes he’d want to eat but didn’t know what the food was, or would ask, “What is that, water?” Then that person would go to bed and J-R would wake up as himself and say, “What’s going on? Let’s go eat.” Then you could tell that J-R was back.

Daniel was J-R’s basic self. Daniel didn’t like me sometimes because I was very pushy, and Daniel wanted whatever he wanted. You would know Daniel was there because Daniel was tough. If he wanted something you’d better get him what he wanted.

Some people would treat J-R delicately and say, “Oh I don’t want to disturb J-R.” I did want to disturb him because I felt that the more I got his attention the more J-R was physically here.  I would read to him and do emails with him. Sometimes when I asked him about something he’d say, “You decide.” There’s an authority that comes with that, like when he gave staff the authority to do initiations and ordinations. And you feel the baton being passed to you. It was magical being around him, and magical things would happen just by working around him.

When he was young J-R was a dancer and an actor. And that’s what I am. I always saw J-R as an artist, someone creative. That’s what set him apart. He knew art, acting, and theater, and then he became a cop, then an insurance investigator, he worked in a psychiatric ward, studied psychology, then he was a teacher, and then a Traveler. He wasn’t born into anything, like being born into the family business. I think he did it all.

NDH: It seems like the way he guided you was very inner and very non-inflictive. He would give you the inner guidance, and when he actually said something outwardly it was to get you back in line if you got too far off. Other than that, you would go on your own, with the inner guidance, as long as you weren’t going too far off course.

Jsu: Right. In 2007 I did the “Spiritual Warriors” tour. The further I got away from J-R physically, the stronger he was inside me. I couldn’t believe it. It was like, he’s telling me what to do everywhere I go. It was John-Roger in HD. And then when I get home, it shuts off. And then it’s, “Go take the trash out. Go do this, go get me that.” It’s a different world.

People don’t necessarily understand that often the further you are from J-R physically, the stronger you are, and often the stronger the inner relationship. Being around him the feedback was instantaneous, that’s the big difference. But I was in Peru with people who’d never met him physically who act like me and have the same experiences that I have. That blows me away. The Traveler is in everyone equally, and it’s powerful in everyone. I don’t understand any of that; I only understand the bubble that I’m living in, and I wouldn’t want to change it.

It’s very different now that he’s gone. I do miss the physical form. I’m all about the form. When people talk about the formless, for me that’s a load of crap. When you have a living master in the living room, it’s damn good.

NDH: How do you stay grounded? My experience being at Mandeville with J-R is I’m being pulled out into all these other levels.

Jsu: It’s hard-core at Mandeville. You have no time. It’s not a nine-to-five job. There are days when you have maybe three hours of sleep. You go to sleep at 3:00 am and wake up at 6:00. There’s no time to be spaced out. It’s beyond boot camp. I loved it. Now I wake up in the mornings and I sleep in and it’s crazy. There was no sleeping in back then. When you finally get to go to bed, you’re really done, and you feel like you’re done. You’re begging God, “What else?” And then you get more juice. J-R gives you juice. And J-R was basically the opposite of the black hole…he was the white hole of “Preceptor awesomeness energy.” You’re like an electric car that gets plugged into the wall. You can go all day. I think I went 72 hours once, and it was insane. I was hallucinating at that point. After 36 hours you’re hearing things. You’re like a radio, hearing noises of the universe, and everybody’s happiness and sorrows.

And there were sweet spots—doing S.E.’s with J-R or watching TV with him. That was one of my favorite things to do.

NDH: Was it different when you were traveling?

Jsu: When you come back from a trip the energy moves. That baton that J-R gave you of total responsibility is enormous and awesome, and when you come back it’s gone. You’re like, “Darn.” Then you just go about your business, or just flake out for a short time. Maybe you watch a movie, go for a run. When you’re traveling, it’s like putting on an iron man suit or a batman suit, but it’s even better than that. You put it on and you can see and do everything, and you’re aware of everything. Then when you come back from a trip you have to turn in the suit because it has to go to another staff member. And then you’re back to your normal karma, and you have to deal. It can’t be sweet like that all the time. But it’s given to you like that when you’re leading a group and you’re taking care of J-R.

I’m an egomaniac. I enjoyed taking care of J-R and taking care of the group, and Israel is my territory. I knew it and I went after it. It was like a bookend for J-R’s life. It was his 80th birthday, an amazing trip all the way. The Rabbi at the hotel (who we talked to in order to make sure we were in alignment with Jewish law during the holidays) could see that we were there to serve J-R and to serve God. He said he could see it in my eyes.

I don’t know how long grieving lasts. I don’t know if you ever really get over a loss like that. I lost my grandmother and J-R in one year. It’s funny, I didn’t cry for my grandmother, and I didn’t cry for J-R for a while, but now it’s February and it’s happening. I was responsible for his body and making sure that everything went the way he wanted. I was a good soldier and Nat was too. And now it’s grieving…so what do we do? It’s not business-as-usual for me, and I don’t think it is for anyone. USM has helped me a lot in dealing with it.

The other day it really hit me. I was like, “Wow, J-R’s gone. Will I be able to see him again?” When I die I want to hook up with J-R wherever he’s at. What hotel room is he in, in heaven? How the heck am I going to contact him? But I’ve got his cell phone number so I’ll get him.

I’ve never lost anybody like this. I don’t know anything except that I have to stay true to myself, and all I get is “nothing”. Do nothing. I haven’t had any inspirational pictures and thoughts that J-R would normally give me. But what I do get is that J-R has also said: When you’re looking for an answer and you’re really desperate, often the answer is, “Nothing.” A non-answer is an answer.

NDH: The way I experience it is that when I push for an answer it doesn’t come. It comes when I let go of the pushing.

Jsu: Someone told me, “You have to cry your tears.” I don’t think I’ll ever really cry enough of these tears. It’s deep. It’s weird, because it’s been 26 years of living here, the physical J-R is seared into my brain, so there’s a feeling like he could walk in at any moment, or I have to go drive him. I might be a mental case before you know it. But I’m living in a bubble, and no one can know what that’s like or judge it—and I’d do it again a million times over. Wherever J-R goes or gets reincarnated, I’m going, because I found the guy I want to be with, and that I got to be with.

It wasn’t just me who lost J-R. About five thousand people also lost J-R, or maybe a hundred thousand, and they’re dreaming of J-R. John’s the Traveler now and it’s important to support him, and it’s also important to grieve, and that doesn’t take away anything from John. No one’s getting away from this. It was big. It was a big person that we lost.

NDH: The way I see it is that the grieving process is going to go on—either with you or without you. If it goes on without you it becomes unconscious. It’s like anything else in life—you can either participate in it or not, but it’s going to go on anyway.

Jsu: I listen very closely and I try to mimic exactly what J-R taught me all those years. That’s to strengthen my inner core, my true self. I get J-R inside, but outside I don’t get anything yet. My practical treatise in the DSS was about completing at least three things every day. And that’s what I do.

NDH: In spite of all that I feel J-R’s presence so strongly.

Jsu: I recently went to Florida for a funeral and I couldn’t wait to get back here. The energy at Mandeville is premium, it’s the source—as are other MSIA properties—Prana, Prana West, the Briggs House and 2101 Wilshire, Windermere, Arrowhead. Whatever J-R touched has premium energy in it. This thing flows in and out and through everyone and everything.

NDH: So it sounds like you’re in a good place.

Jsu: As long as I follow my true self I’m in a great place. If I try to make someone else happy or get approval or go into a panic or feel lack, it just opens up negativity and then you’re lost. I feel pretty strong inside. But I definitely feel the loss of J-R. It’s like somebody slammed a giant sword through your chest and it’s not healing yet. It’s pretty raw. It’s hard to believe it’s been three months. I’ve had people tell me, “Oh, when J-R went I felt it but I’m back to work now and everything’s OK.” For me, it’s like I hit a brick wall. I’m not in a rush and I’m taking care of myself. It’s bizarre being able to sleep in the mornings. The first couple of weeks I was like, “Wait a minute, J-R needs me. I think he’s up.” And people would call and ask, “Hey man, do you want to go out?” and I’d be like, “Wait a minute, let me check with J-R.” That’s what I had in my repertoire. Now I don’t have to check with J-R, but I check inside.

NDH: Because I wasn’t physically close to J-R like you were, there’s not a grieving in my basic self. But the loss for me is the energy outside of me. So my body and my basic self are OK, but in my consciousness the world is different. For you, your immediate surroundings are different, and inside of you is different. For me, J-R wasn’t tied to the basic self like that, but he was always around me in the world, and now it’s like he’s not around me in the world the way he was. So if I go “out” and focus on the outer world, I can feel that loss. So it encourages me to go inside more.

Jsu: For me I’d have to live on the moon to not have that outer association. Everything reminds me of J-R in the outer. It’s kind of like PTSD. You wake up with nightmares and sweating, horrible things. It felt like someone blew up something in a terrorist attack, and I’m looking for my legs, going around dazed. It’s deep in everybody. Definitely having friends and loved ones with you helps. I think J-R talked about how he buried his Mom or his Dad and then went back and did a seminar. That’s unbelievable.

I love looking at J-R photos and memorabilia, and that ties me back into the energy and comforts me. They anchor me and make me feel great. But something that’s written, like the newspaper obituaries, still bothers me. Seeing a newspaper clipping that says, “John-Roger, spiritual teacher, dead at 80,” gets me really bad.

NDH: That outer “truth” that’s in the newspapers has an unreality to it because he didn’t really die. So reading it is like hooking into a false belief.

Jsu: My basic self is definitely traumatized. But I never think of anything as separate form me, or the basic self as separate from me. I don’t like saying that the basic self is upset and I’m not. It’s all me. But I loved caring for him. It was therapeutic for me. I always said I wish we could love others the way I loved J-R. I haven’t always been nice to people. And I apologize for that. There’s no excuse. And it was very hard to be taking care of J-R and you’re up all night, not sleeping much. So you get up the next  morning and you’re cranky. There have been some casualties along the way with people’s hurt feelings. But I’m hoping that we can move on.

NDH: It sounds like you were also in the role of being the bad cop sometimes.

Jsu: And I loved being his bodyguard. That’s the way you roll. I don’t apologize for anything I did with J-R. But as far as my approach with other people, I do apologize if I’ve hurt their feelings. I would never say, “Oh, J-R made me do that.” I did it. I think that’s what J-R loved about me. I didn’t cop out. I took responsibility for it, and I don’t mind taking responsibility for it here. Like he always said, “Chew fast, and start eating now.”

NDH: Is the way you tune into him inwardly different now?

Jsu: The death and the memorial and that whole process were a lot of logistical distractions. Now I’m back tuning into him more. My lessons are all there. I keep repeating to Nicole all the things that he said to me. She’s a sounding board for me. And I’ve got a million “J-R said” stories that I tell myself.

The dreams are what I care about the most. They went away when J-R died. Now they’re coming back. Some are karmic; there are different levels. If I’m a reflection of everyone else and everyone is a reflection of me, then there is a lot of work being done on the inner after J-R died. I feel that he went to another galaxy and for a little bit of time he wasn’t around. And then he comes around now. You still feel the purple and see the purple. You go to John’s seminars and you can feel the Traveler. What I recognize as “J-R,” sometimes I didn’t experience right after he died. I checked people comments on Facebook to see what everyone else was feeling. People seem to be having a lot of inner experiences but the outer “bubble” is not in the world. On the inner I’ve been having great dreams more recently. And just because we’re not having conscious dreams, it doesn’t mean anything. There’s a karmic flow and you’ve got to sit in it and wait to come up for air. There’s something going on in the inner, and if you look at the news you can almost guess that maybe we’re all being used.

When J-R first died I thought he took a piece of everybody with him, and that would be the bridge that sits on the shoulders of Christ. At first Nicole and I were walking dazed. At other times I feel like I’m dead and nobody’s told me. And maybe everybody’s dead in the world and nobody’s told us. The inner can be disturbing but I’ve had some great dreams, and some really peaceful dreams. I remember John saying that we’re all looking for the visitation, for the John-Roger visitation.

Knowing J-R, I know that J-R is going to take care of everybody else because that’s what he’s got to do, and I’m strong enough to hold and wait. And that’s what I’m doing.

I have a really nice connection with him on the inner but I love dreams too. It’s been a weird time. It’s nice having time to dream now.

NDH: I know that J-R said that Jesus built a bridge into the other levels. I feel like J-R built a few more lanes on the bridge so we can go back and forth a lot more easily and contact him more easily.

Jsu: I agree with you. J-R has used all of us to make golden super-highway bridges, to make them wider. We’re on the shoulders of Christ, and the previous Travelers. For me, something big happened on the inner. And whatever was predicted to happen in the world, I think J-R’s helping to prevent it, and we’re all working it along with him. Maybe he took off so he can prevent some things. Babies are still being born, there’s work to be done. It’s important to preserve J-R’s teachings and to make them available. We have to look at what that’s going to look like in terms of today’s platforms. Facebook has been really nice to express in. I’m still looking at what I’m going to do. And it’s nice to help others who are worse-off and put my attention on them and help them, like a family member who passed away. I don’t know what to do except to keep busy and don’t just do nothing. And I’m also following love, looking for where love is going to lead me.

And I’ve been 26 years without a woman. It’s an interesting thing, being in a relationship now. Before J-R passed away I thought this would be a bleak time for me. It was dark inside of me when I tried to anticipate it. But now that it’s happened, along with a new relationship, it’s been a blessing, and whatever J-R did to set this up was amazing. It was a gift, and it really gave me life, because I really didn’t want to be here if J-R left. I thought it would be a dark time, but now I know that I can handle it. “Dark” isn’t evil, it’s, “Damn, my friend’s not in the living room.” You have to think, “What will I do now?” So you think, “OK, I’ll chat with my girlfriend. Or chat with my friends.” But I do love being alone with J-R and having conversations with him.

When you have J-R in you, he’s like looking through your eyes, entertained. I would feel like the Holy Spirit was next to me in companionship, watching a movie together, like we always used to do. That would be a better way to describe it. I had some dream experiences, a really nice inner connection, but on the outer I have a lot of comfort. I feel like the Traveler is in me, sitting next to me, enjoying hanging out. I know people have had this experience, where you can feel J-R looking through your eyes. And you think, “Who’s looking through me?” And that’s what it’s like here, watching TV or doing anything, and you can feel that someone is watching you, or watching through you.

I had a great dream the other day. I’m naked driving in a car. (To me, being naked means that I’m open.) I call J-R and I ask if he’s hungry. He says, “Yeah, come and pick me up.” And then he says, “Don’t worry about dying, you’ve died many times without me there.”

3 thoughts on “100%: Living and Dying with J-R, An Interview with Jsu Garcia”

  1. Ah, Jsu, thanks for sharing your heart in this. God bless you (and Nicole) as you walk through this shift. You gave so much to support our beloved J-R. Light and love as you discover what is next for you on all levels. I hope you share more of your “J-R said” stories with all of us in time.

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