It has taken me a very long time to recognize what I really want. Not what I once imagined I wanted…not what the culture trained me to want…not what my parents wanted for me…but what I truly, really, want.
And I am not talking about your garden-variety desire, the stuff that the Buddha claimed all suffering sources out of. Stuff like the desire for money, recognition, power, fame, or the most common desire, which is as ubiquitous as the UV radiation in which we are immersed, the desire for things to be other than they are.
This “want” seems to come from beneath me it is so deep inside.
It is the desire to live a natural life, the desire to live in accordance with the wordless, seamless, flowing source. To do only what is truly mine to do, to live only as I can live, to step out of the shadow of the personal self and keep my focus, and therefore my direction, on the Impersonal Ground of Being.
Safe from the shifting tides of the personal will, I want to turn my life over to the “something greater”, than that which can be imagined by the personalities conditioned mind.
Just last week, I overheard a conversation between a student and her advisor. The student said in a somewhat shy manner, that she wanted to take the skills she had learned in energy work “around the world”. The translation for that sentiment is that she wants to become famous for her capacity to “heal” others.
I wanted that too, once.
I am so grateful I didn’t get it.
I have, it seems, gone through a kind of right of passage. Having discovered inside myself the ability to stop my thoughts, and much more importantly than that, the ability to free myself from the beliefs that robbed me of the potential for naturalness…I had begun to wonder how one might make decisions, if not by being guided by a “belief/value system”.
Two fairly extreme situations have now answered that question, in an experiential and “lived” way.
The first was the moment when I came around my dining room wall, to find my favorite dog squared off against a hissing and striking diamondback baby rattler, which my cat had brought in on one of her many prey excursions.
I realized then, the truth that my Teacher had always assured me was so.
That if I trusted myself enough… if I learned to trust life enough…that action would source out of an entirely silent mind, and much more importantly, that I would have no need of plans, or goals, or knowledge. He was correct, of course.
When push came to shove. When leather and road met. When the crows came home to roost…my mind had nothing to say, and my body or some higher intelligence that was using my body, saved my dog, the cat, injury to myself, and even the snake. Action was smooth, effortless, simple, effective, and of course highly adrenalized, and therefore extremely exhausting, once the moment had passed. But I didn’t need to know a single solitary thing.
Next came an event that happened just last week. If you had asked me anytime prior to this event, if I would have taken the action that unfolded…I would have been very, absolutely, certainly, completely, totally, without-question-positive, that I would NOT have done as I did, in fact, do.
It seems I stole a dog.
The dog was in harms way, and had been, on many more times than just this occasion. He was underfed and under groomed. But mostly his life was at real risk, and his “owners” were the reason his life was at risk. I had spoken to them the last time I had saved the dog from being run over, I had asked that they make more responsible choices, I had hoped for the best and wished that there were some way in which I could avoid what seemed inevitable…his death, or profound bodily harm. (These were the actions I that I knew to be appropriate ones.)
This time, it was me that nearly ran over him.
This time…I didn’t have my dogs with me, and when jumping from my car to make certain he was not hurt…he came to me, joyfully, when I called to him.
He came home with me gladly, playing and snuggling most of the way. He was possessed of an amazingly wonderful temperament, happy, loving, open, extremely friendly, playful like a puppy.
Without a moments thought, or even the tiniest tinge of conflict…I found him another home.
It happened without effort or stress. I merely called the person whose image popped into my head, and minutes later they were in agreement that the dog’s life was in peril, and had taken him home with them. They found a home for him the very next day.
No doubt, there are some of you who are reading this, who will think I have done the wrong thing for the wrong reasons, or the right thing the wrong way, or the right thing the right way…or some other combination of personal “opinion”.
In fact, an old friend of mine says that I experienced no conflict because the action I took was so completely in accordance with my “value system”, that it created no dissidence within me.
I disagree with that notion…
I have spent the better part of three decades dismantling my “belief and valuing systems”, and my very personal “opinions”.
My teacher was very fond of saying, ”show me a belief and I will show you… where a mind has stopped growing”. We are all familiar with the “beliefs” of generations gone by, we smile knowingly at the terrible ignorance that once allowed people to believe that the world was flat, or that surgeons need not wash their hands between operations, or the horror of believing that Jews, could and should, be eliminated because they were not quite human.
But we think that our beliefs about “manifesting” or about our inherent right to prosperity, or about how we need to pursue and develop our “greatness” are “good” beliefs. This is a terrible type of blindness… the inability to pierce the veil of the egoic minds capacity to lure us to sleep, with notions that cause us to pursue outer directed illusory goals, projected into an entirely illusory future.
So how does corralling and capturing a snake, and stealing a dog in harm’s way, afford me a “right of passage”.
Both of these actions, in their own way, were extreme. The first a socially sanctioned action, which no one would have disagreed with, although most would have wanted someone else to do the heavy lifting – as did I, at first blush. The second was questionable, at best, to those who “believe” that ownership has its privileges and its inalienable rights, or that I should have reported it and left the decision in the hands of the authorities.
But here is the thing…my thinking mind, laden as it is with all the beliefs, notions, ideas, ideologies, and dogmas, that I have ever learned or unconsciously taken in…was no more present in the taking of the dog, than it was in the capturing of the snake.
“I” was not involved in either of these experiences.
There has been a hand-full of moments in my life, when “I” was not there. When my Mother took her last breath. When she told me her darkest secret. When my Teacher told me the truth about my self-constructed, self-perpetuating, self chosen mask. When I captured a snake, and when I stole a dog…
There are a few others, but you get the idea. And these small moments in time, are some of the best moments I have ever experienced. They are the ones that will pass before me on my deathbed; I have no doubt about that.
The ones that predated the stealing of the dog were moments that were in some manner thrust upon me.
Taking the dog was a moment free of the extreme needs of the experiences that preceded it. And yet, it was just as entirely “self”-less, as the moments that led up to it.
Here, I see, is how life is supposed to be led. One moment at a time, grounded totally in the present, compellingly empty of a self, where decision/action/result are one smooth effortless and wonderful expression, of the deeper source of Impersonal Being who is guiding and directing the outcome.
I asked my Teacher how to live in the world without a “self” guiding the way, a very long time ago. I share it with you, because keeping something this valuable only to myself is a poor choice. So I include an email exchange we had in early September of 2004…
“Dear George:
I have a question regarding giving.
Aldous Huxley provided this most satisfying quote defining genius, as “supreme usefulness”. And you have provided the understanding that “what injures essence enhances personality, what embarrasses personality heals essence.”
So in light of Huxley’s definition, that to find ones genius is to provide a supreme level of usefulness to the human family and in light of your assertion that what gives to essence will be the polar opposite of what gives to personality, I am looking for a deeper level of understanding with respect to giving.
For instance, my neighbor has inoperable cancer. He is frightened, desperate, lonely and very needy. If I give him my time and attention in the manner, which is customary, (and in which I am currently most aware of, and the way he is most desirous of), I would commiserate, calm, and soothe him…keeping an eye to “giving” him comfort and succor.
However, using Mr. Huxley’s definition and your direction, that action would be neither supremely useful, nor serving his essence. I understand that the supreme level of usefulness is what you have always demonstrated, which is to “shock” people’s personality in favor of awakening their essence. Of course, that would not be appropriate in such a situation as my example.
So not having the forum or the skills you possess, how does a person go about being useful to essence in the everyday personality world? I am trying to grasp this concept under the assumption that “giving” to another’s personality has just about as much value, as does “giving” from one’s personality…namely, little to none.
I hope that I have asked this question in a clear fashion and that you can provide some additional clarity at some future Monday meeting.”
Here was his response:
Ronni –
“Your question is very clear, and your response, or direction, to resolving the example is also very clear.
If we follow tradition, we would feed the hungry, and they would never learn to fish. But we would be hallowed for the feeding. If we don’t feed them, and teach them to fish instead, we secure their future, but the present generation would consider this insensitive. In any polarized situation there is both praise and judgment. So what do we do?
We must develop whole seeing, where uni-polar exists. We find it in the idea world, (his term for Universal Source beyond the mind), not in the thinking world. When Jesus asked a man to follow him, the man said, “First let me bury my father.” Jesus said, “Let the dead bury the dead.” (In another lesson he used this parable to describe the need to step out of the deadening world of self generated conceptual understanding, or the “thinking” world…or as Jesus put it…let the dead bury the deadened.) When Aldous Huxley was dying, they say he asked for LSD so he could die alone, conscious and aware. Georg Groddeck said that we should go to bed and be alone when we are ill, to listen to the sickness and learn from it.
It seems to me that I relate to these examples. And for me, to nurture the sick and dying is to meddle in the same way that I would be meddling if a person inherited a fortune and I stepped in to help them spend it. Yet there are times where both are appropriate. (Emphasis mine.)
I personally think rules are polarized, and not only should each event be considered in the present moment, I may change my response from moment to moment. No two moments call for exactly the same response, in the same way that no two moments are alike.”
George
~~~~~
Here is my right of passage.
I once believed that stealing was wrong, no matter the motivation. In this way, I was laboring under a “believed” value system that was deeply inhibiting, and would not have allowed me to take the action that has resulted in the animal’s salvation.
In the moments leading up to taking the dog; those of decision, action, and outcome, there was no conflict what-so-ever…the next few days brought a great deal of conflict. I did not sleep for almost three days, wondering how I came to do the thing done. I worried about the potential effects on me, what if I was found out? What if my “bad” behavior was discovered? What if I am judged, blamed, harmed in some way…?
Surely you can see the difference between the essence in me, and the personality in me. The two sides of me, the one willing to face any measure of censure or harmful outcome in the service and action of a will higher than my own. The other, worried and sleepless, wondering if I had done the “right” thing.
I am fifty-six years old. Before I die…I “want” from some place deeper than my physical existence to live as fluidly, quietly, creatively, and instinctually active, as I saw my Teacher do…time and time again.
I want the “uni-polar, whole seeing” that allows me to serve essence and not personality…I want to be strong enough to do as the moment calls me to do, despite how “wrong” it may appear on the surface.
Allan Watts said of Georg Groddeck 1866-1934, "He was a completely wonderful man because everybody felt calmed by him. They felt an atmosphere of implicit faith, in nature and especially in the individual’s own inner nature. No matter what, Groddeck taught, there is a wisdom inside you which may seem absurd, but you have to trust it."
My particular brand of “absurd wisdom”…that is what I want…
Adayre R. Miller
Photo courtesy of flickr photo sharing
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