You can pick the meals up from her at her home, or from the restaurant
where she prepares the meals, and if you choose that option you may also stay
for “Sunday Community Dinner”.
Which I did choose to do…
I sat at a long table with a variety of folk, the most vocal
of which were two young men. They
were both very beautiful, long of bone, slender of build, with soft, long fingered
hands whose nails were neatly trimmed and cared for. I enjoyed watching them and the vigor of youth they
displayed so effortlessly, so potently.
They were engaged in some sort of social or political movement, or
perhaps religion, I didn’t listen as well as I watched. But the tone was clear, the intent
obvious, and the commitment complete.
They spoke of supporting the cause, giving their energy and will to the
outcome, they sparkled as they spoke, and gave off a charming residue of the
faith, that youth can often provide us with. I enjoyed them very much…
As I sat and watched, I wondered at our capacity to believe,
how much we give ourselves to our beliefs, how complete is our surrender.
And then, on Wednesday of this past week, I was invited into
the home of a couple of women whom I have come to admire and value. They were a part of the crew that I led,
while doing the redesign on the large commercial building job, from which I was
just laid off. My admiration was
born of how easy it was to work with them, and how committed they were to the assignments
it was my job to provide. I gave
them direction and they would carry the ball over the finish line…it was of
great help to me, as I strove to complete a job of such overwhelming dimensions.
The invitation was to a support group. Seven women, most of whom were younger
than me, coming together to provide “support”. I haven’t done that in a very long time, in part, because I
was insecure about whether or not I could maintain the understanding that has
been blooming in my heart and mind these last years, while participating in an environment
that is dedicated to fixing, or solving, the lives and problems of its members.
It took me so long to awaken from that sort of trance, that
I have been unconsciously avoiding that type of group for a very long
time now.
You might wonder how the young men and the young women in my
story link up to one another. Here
is that link…they were both, in different ways, actively demonstrating the
power of believing.
A belief, I have come to see, is a lot like a virus. It is so potent, so capable, and so
powerful, that even the simplest ones can infect your mind, before you have the
ability to even recognize their presence.
The earnestness of the young men, and the vigor of their commitment
to whatever belief they had been espousing was so complete, it consumed all their
time, skills, energy, will, and had them visibly bent upon the path determined
by those beliefs, (I repeat, I don’t know what the belief was, as I was only
interested and engaged in watching the activity of believing as it played
across their countenance…so unfortunately I cannot report the nature of the
belief.)
As for the young women, they too, were completely engaged.
As we talked and expressed the current circumstances of our
lives, we chose “angel” cards and talked about how it related to our
understanding. We spoke about the
challenges we are facing or the concerns that are capturing our attention. I have a hard time with this sort of
conversation, now, as everyday I believe myself a tiny bit less than I did the
day before. And, I remember a tiny
bit quicker than I did the day before, that thought arises in consciousness and not
the other way around…
One woman at the table was most arresting. I felt a kind a strong pull away from
her that was entirely inexplicable to me.
I had a very difficult time looking at her, although she was entirely
presentable appearance wise. I also,
had a hard time listening to her.
It was as though my body wanted to move away even as I continued to sit
quietly beside her. As I said, it
was very arresting.
As the evening wore on, and the clock wore down…it was her
turn to express her view of the card she had drawn, and the turmoil she was
facing in her current life experience.
I have to say, that I was deeply moved by her candid
disclosures and the agony that was written so large upon her expression. She spoke about her search for a lover,
of her need for friendship and companions, for her desire to be attractive to
others. It was a long and winding
path, and included conversation about how she repelled others and how hard she
sought for a solution to that problem.
How she had radically changed her appearance, behaviors, expectations,
and whittled down her requirements to the bare necessity, all for naught.
I found it really difficult to listen to, for two very
different reasons.
First she reminded me so strongly of me in my twenties, when
I too, felt entirely unlovable.
(Which still occasionally strikes me to this day.)
Second was the shear intensity of her search. That too, I was entirely familiar
with. An all out commitment, a Katie-bar-the-door-dedication
to uncovering the potion that would end the dreaded and dreadful spell
under which she was laboring, a willingness to do WHATEVER it might take to successfully end her search. Man… it made my teeth ache…
As she continued her pleading verbal onslaught for help,
support, guidance and “the-all-consuming-passionately-sought-after-solution,
each member of the table’s gifted young women spoke of one solution after
another. One – right word, action,
fix, attitude, mechanism, formula, process, and idea – after another, tumbled
onto the table like rabbits running from hounds.
As I sat there, I began to notice that I had unconsciously
begun stroking the tablecloth along the hard edge of the table. My thumbs hooked under the edge, my
eight fingers resting atop the surface, I smoothed the cloth over and over, as
I listened to all the heart felt and utterly kind advice, that was pouring
forth to put out so hot a flame.
Soon, my nervous system could not take it any longer. I had promised myself, prior to coming,
that I would not threaten any portion of any belief system that might be
expressed, from angels to crystals, to tarot cards…my commitment had been to
allow others, just as I had done with the young men, to express their believing
with not a word from me.
I have stayed away from groups such as these, for the
express purpose of not again becoming infected with believing myself, and also
that I would not unconsciously or unwillingly attempt to dispose another, of
whatever belief they are taking some small comfort in.
I realized that the stroking of the table that my fingers
were unconsciously acting out, was an expression of the internal pressure I was
feeling, as I listened to someone harm themselves in the exact manner I had
harmed myself for so many years.
Finally I could not take it any longer, and I asked her
permission to speak… she granted me it and I spoke to her about the power of
her disclosure. The honesty,
courage, candid nature of her expression was admirable and profound, and it
moved me.
But…I queried…”could it be that there might be another
choice? Is it possible that you
might consider stopping the search that occupies your every waking moment? Not forever, or even for a day…but just
for one moment? Could you stop
searching for that one moment to discover what might happen in the stillness
that would follow?”
I said more than this, and I said it in more fluidly and in
more convincing terms…but it is the essence of what I said. It seemed to have stunned her for a
moment, as she fell entirely silent.
I did not then, nor do I now, know whether what I said was of use to her
or not. But I do know that I was
compelled to say it.
Shortly after that, the group broke up and she left. The hostess asked me to stay behind for
a moment to look at something she had in storage, and I did as I was bid. As we stood together reaching a
conclusion, somehow the woman and her search was brought back into the
conversation.
In this conversation I answered the question of why I do not
join in the solution seeking process that dresses itself up as support. I talked about how completely she, and
they, had been “seduced”, (my term), into joining in the woman’s belief that her
life needs a solution to the problems she had so passionately detailed…(and
before you recognize that she had indeed repelled me – I counter – that it was
not she, that was repelling me, it was the need with which her seeking took
over the room, she is not the source of that, but rather… a carrier.)
The desire, and therefore the seduction, to provide a
solution to the world’s problems is so rampant that whole industries are based
on it. Large businesses would
close their doors, if it were not for the belief that things, and lives, and
the world’s problems can be solved, and further, that it is only a matter of
finding the right combination of processes to produce that solution.
Which is why my Teacher’s essential lesson that, “nothing in
the world needs fixing, and no personal solutions are necessary”, is such a
radical departure from life as it is lived on this planet, every moment of
every day.
I spoke to the remaining young women about the way all concerned,
had been seduced by the great need and the seeming necessity for a solution so
deeply heartfelt and compelling, most importantly the woman who was suffering
the greatest, she chief amongst us, was the one most seduced by the search for a solution.
I did not know, until that precise moment, how much clarity
I had access to. It released me
from the need to stay away, lest I be reengaged in the seeking that is the
primary force upon our planet.
You do not have to be a “spiritual seeker” to be seeking. Seeking fame, money, relationship, companionship,
hope, help, health, awards, achievements, fame, or recognition will do just as
well.
And all forms of seeking lead to a type of blindness that is
absolute. Seeking means that we
are not really engaged with life at all, but rather that we are living the life
of the mind, engaged only in the images and thoughts that run through our busy
minds and keep us always on the trail of something better, and something
different. Living for a future
that will never arrive…
A form of agonizing living death, no wonder Zombie movies
and stories are all the rage now.
I understand more now, than ever before, why the best
Teacher’s never market or push their ideas. Why they speak only when spoken to, why they require their students
to ask before they will give the secrets they have come to know in their hearts
and deep wisdom.
I do not know if I served the woman whose loneliness and abandonment
was so powerfully compelling or not, I do not know if I served the other young
woman who were so generously engaged in the pursuit of solutions or not.
I can only know what occurred for me, and I can say with
deep relief, that I have demonstrated to myself that I am now, at this
particular moment, immune to “believing” that a solution is necessary, needed,
or wanted. I may now, for the
first time ever, be of real use in the world…or not…depending on how life
chooses to move.
It was a small test.
I am the only one interested in the grade, and although it is a
pass/fail grading system, it is really more like pass/or “not just yet”. Perhaps soon, I will be able to live
more fully in the compassionate understanding that no solutions are ever required,
and thereby not end up lost again, as I did while working in the job I just
left. Or perhaps not…after all, it
is truly a pass/or “not just yet” system…and that is a very good thing.
To live with compassion, but without the capacity to be
seduced into believing that life has anything other than total perfection to
provide us with, is the Mastery that my Teacher breathed into my life. To be willing to let others choose
their emotional addiction to suffering, over the fear of letting go of the
problem solving, around which their entire identity is formed, takes great
courage and true command of oneself.
I have made, it seems, a tiny step forward in that direction.
What a great blessing it is to be alive and sane…
Ronni Miller
8/24/12
photo courtesy of flickr photo sharing and Nevada Tumbleweed
to see more of this artist work please follow this link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/us_army_rolling_along/4273036140/
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