About Robert

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that."
--Martin Luther King Jr.

"Robert rolls back darkness. I've seen it with my own eyes."
--Anonymous

Robert dos Santos Teixeira, M.P.I.A., M.A., M.S.W., L.C.S.W. (Licensed Clinical Social Worker), is an intuitive, a psychotherapist, and a rabbi. "I guide people in three different ways," he says, "but I always begin by asking the same question: 'What is the Light Within trying to tell you?'"

Inevitably, Robert goes on to ask other questions: "What if? What if there is one Self, one Light shining through everyone and everything? What if you are this Self, this Light?"

The nature of Light is to uncover Darkness, and the nature of Darkness is to cover Light. As an intuitive, as a psychotherapist, and as a rabbi, Robert's role is to uncover Darkness, so Light shines. And whenever Light shines brighter, Truth is revealed.

Know this:

You are the one Self, the one Light shining through everyone and everything!

This is the greatest truth that Darkness--with the help of the religious establishment--conceals or hides from you.

Robert invites you to step into this Supreme Truth, wherein clarity and healing abide. To help you discover the Real You, it is Robert's privilege to share with you this powerful mantra, which he brought through, if you will.

He often asks people, "What are the vowels in the English language?" And they answer, "A, E, I, O, and U and sometimes Y."

I AM Light!

I AM Ancient Light!
I AM Eternal Light!
I AM Infinite Light!
I AM One Light!
I AM Unchanging Light!
I AM the Light Within You!

I AM the Light Within Everyone and Everything!
I AM the Light Within All!
I AM Light Within Light, Within Light, Within Light, Within Light...!

Remember, Awakening is a process. First you think it, then you say it, then you believe it, then you feel it, then you know it, then you become it.

Robert's work as an intuitive, as someone who sees with his or her inner eyes, has its roots in childhood. Robert began to explore the unseen world at a very young age. His Italian Catholic grandmother, Nan, was his first spiritual teacher and guide. As he sat beside her on the sofa in the "Sun Room," the brightest room in her house, she taught him how to read her homemade fortune-telling cards. "Thanks to my grandmother, my inner eyes opened," he fondly recalls.

Years later, while at graduate school, Robert met a young doctoral student from India by the name of Baskaran, who taught him how to meditate, and his inner eyes opened wider. On one occasion, his teacher remarked, "You shouldn't be able to go as far as you are with the techniques I'm giving you. You must have studied meditation in a previous life." Not long after, his teacher said to him, "I am going to open your third eye," and with his thumbs, he pressed very hard between Robert's eyes, while chanting in another language. In the weeks that followed, Robert felt as though he had literally awakened from a dream.

More than twenty-five years later, Robert discovered that Baskaran--now known as Dr. Pillai or Baba--had emerged as an internationally well known guru, and his memory of Baskaran's opening his third eye, which is known as Shaktipat, came flooding back. "I've done many things in my life," explains Robert, "but I've never looked for a guru. Now I know why, I always had one, I just never knew it."

Dr. Baskaran Pillai, also known as
Dattatreya Siva Baba or Baba

A year later, teacher and student were re-united. In the course of their long overdue conversation, Baba exclaimed "God is light," and he encouraged Robert to continue immersing himself in the study of Kabbalah and to chant the Maha Mantra, the mantra of mantras first introduced by the eighteenth-century Tamil saint Swami Ramalingam.

Maha Mantra written in the hand of Swami Ramalingam

Arut Perum Jyoti,
Arut Perum Jyoti,
Thani Perum Karunai,
Arut Perum Jyoti.

Blessing (containing every imaginable blessing) is the Light of Lights,
Through Supreme Compassion flowing from the Light of Lights do we receive,
Blessing (containing every imaginable blessing) is the Light of Lights,
Blessing (containing every imaginable blessing) is the Light of Lights.

In 1997, Robert moved to New Orleans, where he embraced his lifelong interest in the metaphysical. For the next eight years, he read Tarot cards and on occasion chicken bones, dominoes, palms, red beans, and tea leaves, which sharpened his inner or non-physical senses. Years later, he would create his own cards, The PSALM® Cards and Messages from the Psalms (Schiffer Publishing), based on images and verses from the ancient Book of Psalms.

Most of his readings took place outdoors at Jackson Square, in the heart of the French Quarter, in front of Saint Louis Cathedral. It is estimated that he read some 3,500 people, literally from every continent. Mama Lena, Little Bear, Creole Carol, Dragon James, Styx, Star Lady, Witchy, Hubba Bubba, and Gypsy (who sported fangs and claimed to be a shape shifter) were among his colleagues. Jackson Square was also home to clowns, jugglers, Jazz musicians, fire breathers, glass walkers, mimes, magicians, and "benchers," that is, the homeless.

Robert's work as a psychotherapist has its roots in Jackson Square. "My workplace was a carnival," he says. "People shared with me every conceivable concern; at times my readings were brief therapy sessions. Without question, Jackson Square was the greatest clinical and spiritual internship of my life."

Inspired and fulfilled by the therapeutic dimension of his work as an intuitive, he enrolled at the Southern University at New Orleans (SUNO), School of Social Work, where he earned a Master of Social Work (M.S.W.) degree. He went on to work with people in a variety of settings, including street, shelter, single-room-occupancy building (SRO), and mental health clinic, who were dealing with chronic homelessness, domestic violence, mental illness, behavioral / chemical addiction, and / or long-term unemployment.

As a result, Robert has clinical and supervisory experience working with the mentally ill and chemically addicted (MICA), the homeless, LGBTQI, women with children, seniors, and the previously incarcerated. At Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), where he worked as a mental health counselor for three years, he honed his skills as a pschotherpist, offering individual, couples, and group psychotherapy to men and women on a weekly basis. He opened his private psychotherapy practice in February 2011.

Robert's work as a rabbi also has its roots in childhood. "I grew up in a very Catholic town," he says, "and the parish priest, Monsignor Gerald Orbanek, who was a second father to me, opened up for me a fascinating world, consisting of the Bible, faith, mystery, and ritual." Years later, while at a Catholic seminary, Robert began studying Judaism, under the direction of the late Rabbi Hayim Goren Perelmuter, a student of Gershom Scholem, and continued studying at the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies. Upon learning of his Portuguese Jewish roots, study gave way to observance, and he eventually converted, under the supervision of Rabbi Geoffrey Spector (USCJ).

After being displaced by Hurricane Katrina, Robert and his husband, Zafir Buraei, Ph.D., settled in New York City, where Robert met the New Yorker Rebbe, Joseph Gelberman, ztvk"l (1912-2010), a longtime collaborator of Swami Satchidananda. The ninety-five year-old kabbalist and yogi, known as the "Father of Modern Hasidism," encouraged him to study for the rabbinate, and on 28 June 2007 / 12 Tammuz 5767, he ordained him a rabbi. The Light, it seems, had come full circle. During the ordination ceremony, the Rebbe, while making sustained eye contact with Robert, anointed his Third Eye Chakra with oil.

The New Yorker Rebbe
Joseph Hayyim Gelberman, ztvk"l (1912-2010)

After his ordination, Robert served as the rabbinic intern and later assistant rabbi at The Actors Temple, near Times Square, and went on to serve as the rabbi of The Little Synagogue. He regularly officiates at events of the Jewish Life Cycle, serving the growing number of unaffiliated Jews in the U.S. In addition, he is the founder and spiritual director of Uri! Uri! Awaken! Awaken! A Community of Spiritual Seekers. He offers private instruction in "Light Technology," which includes the meditation techniques and sacred wisdom that his teachers transmitted to him.

May the Light you carry increase! Stay blessed and be well.