“Like Snowflakes Melting in the Sun”…

In the more than two and a half decades that I studied with my Spiritual Teacher, his presence affected me so profoundly in so many different ways, that I would not be capable of naming them much less describing them. But I attempt to none-the-less; his piercing intelligence, his complete commitment to us - his students - freedom, his total lack of interest in our approval or acceptance, his sweeping and awe inspiring generosity, the ringing bell of his authenticity…but most, foremost, and forever more… his humility.

It is the humility that affects me most deeply. His intelligence trained my capacity to understand, his precious presence kept me moving in the direction of ever deeper unfolding willingness, his authenticity was proven over and over for more than two decades, and his humility offered me a model to which I can only aspire.

Every time I would have even the smallest opportunity, I would attempt to extend my deep gratitude to him for providing me with such extraordinary nourishment and each time a cloud of displeasure would pass over his otherwise entirely peaceful countenance when I would attempt to praise him in my ham-fisted efforts to mumble out my gratefulness, while the tears filled my eyes and ran down my cheeks.

I understood his displeasure… as he gave many brilliant talks about the destructive forces of the “twins” has he called them, of Praise and Blame. The impact of taking our understanding of ourselves from another’s praising or blaming opinions, is to lose ourselves entirely, and travel a downward spiral of self-harm and self-denigration. So he chose as a matter of course, to accept neither our praise nor our blame. Something I am only now beginning to fully understand.

But here and now I feel the need to speak of his humility. He is most certainly humble in the way you and I are familiar with the word. He took no light for himself, needed no applause or recognition, had an absolute aversion to the concept of setting himself up as “great” and therefore separate from the All. He spoke often and quite convincingly of the deep and desperate hell that we will find ourselves in, when we conceive of ourselves as better than or lesser than any other. Giving up competition and comparisons were one of his favorite lessons, always driving home the necessity of “transcending” the need to define ourselves on a linear scale, that by its nature, puts one head higher than another’s and in the doing of so, sets us up for deep losses and agonies in the long run.

These are some of the surface ways in which I experienced his deep and abiding humility.

But now I have come to an entirely new addition to my favorite experience of him, and this ethereal quality of humility that wreathed his head like a garland of flowers. His humility was so complete it nearly had a fragrance, it certainly had a texture, and its depth was almost unfathomable.

This new definition includes the revelation that the depth of his humility came from the fact that he no longer lived thru any concepts of himself. He came to the current moment free of the conceptual mind, present in so complete a way as to be as available as a breath of air… and as nondescript as a dust mote.

I would often think of him out in the world, absent the startling blue carpet, of the room in which we all gathered to hear his lessons for all those years…and I would wonder if the folk just walking about in their day to day lives, had any experience of him. I would have given a great deal to watch him at the grocery store or in the dry cleaners or at the car wash. I have no doubt that he is as kind and caring to non-students as he is to us… it is not him I would want to watch, but them…to see his effect on them. In one brief story his caretaker, (he is ill now and in need of considerable attention), told us that she took him to the dentist, got him out of his wheel chair and into the dentist chair, saw to his comfort and then left the room. Upon the completion of his visit, she said, the Dentist would not let go of him. The Dentist took charge of getting him out of the dental chair and into the wheel chair, out of the office and into the car…all the while asking his caregiver…”who is his guy – what does he do?” (And we have got to assume it had NOTHING to do with what he said to the Dentist, I mean have you ever tried to talk around those fat little pillows they stuff into your mouth with such abandon?)

His presence was such a startling contradiction, at one and the same time he was the most powerful presence I have ever had the good fortune to encounter, and yet he was so nondescript it is difficult to adequately portray. I suppose the most striking physical feature was how very - very clean he looks to me, his hair what there is of it…and his beard are snow driven white, and quite sparkly, his skin has taken on the translucent quality of age and every tiny hair on his head and face is always perfectly in alignment with one another, as though they too had deep respect for the expression of Universal Intelligence which he has come so to embody, for me, and I suspect a large portion of the nearly 40,000 students who have found their way to him.

It is only now that I have become capable of setting aside the bondage of the “thinking mind”, that I can see the deeper aspects of his humility. To live, and express, and move about, in the world free of the conceptual mind… not only makes the world around you exquisitely beautiful, fresh, wondrous, and awe inspiring…but it removes the filters that stand between the Self and the Other.

When you can touch directly the awareness, or the Ground of Being, absent the speaking mind…all concepts of yourself, your personal history, your likes and dislikes, begin to melt away like snowflakes in the warming sun. Because he has years and years of the “direct experience” of life under his belt, this quality of true humility…or “living absent the conceptual self”, showed on him like a diamond. It practically sparkled thru his skin.

I sometimes shake my head in wonder at my good fortune to have encountered him, and more, to have avoided most of the spiritual promise makers in the marketplace, who make sweeping promises of more and better and wonderful, in favor of a simple man with a simple message of the work of Acceptance, and the Freedom of Being.

His birthday is today…and no doubt that is what has prompted this most personal of essay’s. Seventy-nine and in the slow decline of age, his essence is preparing to withdraw him from us, his loving and grateful students. It would not be an exaggeration to describe him as my spiritual father, although I hesitate to do so, as I doubt he would define me as a daughter. He often told us that he “served the deck, not the individual cards”; he meant by the use of the phrase, that his mandate was of service to Humanity and our evolution as a species and as Spiritual Beings. His task was no less than our salvation and his commitment was total. He was not my pastor, nor my guru, nor so simple a thing as a guide…I suppose in my constant desire for the poetry life has to offer, the Catholic notion of “Father” comes closest to describing his role in my life.

I am not so naïve as to believe that what the Buddhist’s call “shenpa”, or the experience of being hooked and dragged back into the drama of living out of the conceptual mind is over in my life. But I have had the Direct Experience of breathing in and out - entirely absent the thinking mind - and that deep experience will become the Teacher, in my life, that he once was. I can trust me now, to continue forging a path of clarity and wonder and beauty.

My Teacher/Father’s entire message could be summed up in the two phrases he used so very often, these 25 years passed. They were: “You must leave home, (the conceptual mind), you must find your own truth, (the thing only you can do), you must replace yourself, (guide and nurture the next generation who will carry the flame of understanding).

And the most profound:

“You must become your own Teacher, Teachings, and Student”.

Here on the day of his birth, I accept full responsibility for deepening my connection to the Silent Ground of Being, and for the legacy he has left behind in my heart, mind, and soul.

In Deepest Gratitude and with the Aspiration of Humility,

Adayre R. Miller

8/17/10