The Things I Wish I Could Tell Him....

I don’t know how long that list would be.  Could it last the rest of my lifetime?  Those things I would tell him…

The things I would say that only he would truly understand.

My Beloved Teacher is dead. 

I am glad for him; I know that he has been released back into the freedom he so elegantly embodied.  But my body is grieving in a way that I did not grieve for either of my parents, whom I loved, but not in the way I love him.

I would start by saying that I have matured enough to know, in the depths of my heart, that my spiritual evolution has not been about me, or about my getting somewhere, or getting something I want, or need, or desire.  That I am finally in touch with the soft ordinariness that comes from the recognition, that my Awakening is not about my getting some form of approval or applause, and that it is not even about my getting some measure of relief from the life threatening suffering that led me to his doorstep.

My Awakening, such as it is – humble as it is, is not even fundamentally, or essentially, mine.

Whatever measure of clarity, honesty, and truthfulness that he made possible for me, by his life long service, now rests safely in my heart, but is not truly mine, in any way at all. 

I cannot begin to imagine the patience it must have taken to sit with me, and to give so selflessly to me, when I was buried in such a deep state of self-absorption.

He tried in so many ways to help us to see our selfish drives, our deep neediness, our broken, fractured, and conditioned views.  Once he spoke about an apple.  Red, firm, sweet…he talked about how we imagine the apple is there for our use and consumption, to meet our needs for nutrition, comfort, and desire fulfillment.

Try he said, to imagine the apple is not there for us…but rather, for the use of its species.  That the apple, however tasty and delicious we might experience it to be, is specifically designed so that the seeds of its species might travel into the ever unfolding Now, for the purpose of keeping “appleness” alive on the planet.

That Apples, and People, and Planets, and Dewdrops…are all an interconnected web of Oneness, and that “we” are not special, merely because we cognize and can speak.  And more, to view us as the pinnacle of creation is a misinterpretation of the vastness of the Creative pulse.  We are a single note, in a glorious symphony, to vast for us to even comprehend, and we would serve others and ourselves so much more effectively, if we can mature to the point of knowing this simple truth.

Here in this apple allegory is the deep blindness that I suffered from, that we suffer from, the same blindness that causes all the suffering that has ever been, or will ever be…the blindness of wanting life to be about us, about our desires, our needs, our wishes, our hopes and aspirations.

I would say to him, if I could, “George, I understand so much more now, that your investment did not fall on fallow ground, that your help and guidance and grace, will echo in my heart until my last breath…”

I finally can feel, deep in my heart, that my life is not for, or even about, me.  That I am useful and valuable only to the degree that I can break free from the selfishness of desire, and transcend the harm that I cause when I use my gifts for the purpose of satisfying impulsive wishes and wants.

I would say, certainly, “I love you, and deeply so.”

But, so much more importantly, “I trust you in a manner that cannot be defined.”

In the years that I was still attempting to hide behind pretense and artifice, still trying to become someone important, someone special, even as I would sit in front of him and burn with the shame and embarrassment of the recognition that he knew, and could deeply see, my pathetic screen of artificiality…even then…I trusted him completely.

Sometimes I could not lift my eyes to look into his, I came to a place that I would no longer speak in his presence, no longer ask the question that was unconsciously designed to make me seem knowledgeable and impressive…because he always knew the rabid nature of my neediness, and he never one time shielded me from that knowledge.

His was a hard grace, a knowing grace, and a grace of depth, breadth, and potency.  I could never successfully hide from him, and in truth, I probably did not really want to.

I came to him to learn to see. 

Not in that way that selects only the sights we prefer, or the ones that reflect us in a favorable light.  But rather, to well and truly see…to see without opinion, without grasping, without hope, without need, without desire.

Almost all of my best memories include him, or some measure of his influence. 

When my mother set us both forever free, by telling me of her brothers sexually molesting her, of her father’s wild rages…it was George… who had helped me to craft myself into a person, who could tolerate the transformation from her “innocent” victim, into her warrior forgiver and thereby, to become capable of loving her without conditions or expectations for the remainder of her life.  It was he, who gave me the foundation to open to my mother’s childhood, and allow it to require of me bone deep forgiveness for her, for us, for who we were together.

It was George who made it possible for me to end my need for self-flagellation and self-harm.  I can’t recall the last time I was truly critical of myself, not in that self-hating destructive way I was so deeply addicted to.

It was George, and his influence, that made it possible for me to save myself from myself.  He is the reason that I can glimpse the world of the Impersonal Self.

There is no contribution, now or in the future, that I might possibly make, that will not be a direct descendent of his all encompassing selfless grace and generosity.

I weep, this long sad day…not for him…but, selfishly, because he is no longer breathing the same air I breathe, and that I will never again be able to tell him of the gratitude that I carry in the very cells of my body, for having been gifted with the opportunity to meet him these three decades gone.

He told me, often, that I only saw his light, because I was capable of seeing it, that I was as much responsible for the depth of my salvation as he was.  And I have known for a very long time that the volume of my gratitude was a type of burden for him, but even so, he shouldered that burden with as much grace as he did every other need, his thousands of students brought to lie at his feet, over these last three decades.

I feel blessed to have known such a Being.

Blessed to have seen a one such as he, blessed to have not been lost to the pseudo teachers who promise wealth, ease, fame, and greatness, blessed to have been required, by him, to end my dependency on the world around me, and Awaken, instead, to the world within me.

He has helped me to balance my books, to become accountable, to enter adulthood, to have the potential to rise above the inherent selfishness of the conditioned mind.

To have someone freely give you the instruction, by which you might one day find your freedom, to ask nothing in return save honesty, commitment, and integrity, is in some ways too large a gift.  And I am ashamed and humbled, that I have not paid it forward in some more demonstrable way.

The last time I saw him, I was allowed two minutes to sit with him.  I looked at his impossibly shiny white hair, into his cerulean blue eyes, and touched, softly, with the tip of my index finger his nearly transparent skin on the arm above his hand…and I said, just one more time…”thank you, and thank you”…and….”I love you.” 

It will have to be enough, that last opportunity to thank him…it will have to last me… until I too, am released from this form into the Formlessness, from which, he had long ago begun living out of and teaching from.

I wish somehow to share him with you; I hope that is what I have done.

In Grief and Gratitude,

Rhonda Darlene Miller (Ronni)

6/29/12