A good friend of mine in her birthday greeting to me,
describes our lifetimes as a “parenthesis in eternity”.
It is a good phrase, so evocative of the truth of the nature
of our short appearance, our swift ride, and our small expression in a sea of
foreverness.
I do not experience my birthdays, (or any holiday type day),
in a sentimental way. I don’t
bemoan the lack of festivities, no Christmas tree, no family turkey dinners…I
have long ago accepted the solitary nature of my journey, and have come to see
my life’s structure as quite necessary to the pattern.
For many years now, I have been professionally engaged in
the development of the interior design of homes and businesses. I have coaxed and pulled and nudged
them into existence, caretaking and harmonizing the outcomes, careful of the
edge between true beauty and the overwrought nature of too much design.
I never planned this profession for myself, didn’t choose
it, never yearned for it. It came
and got me. And as I look back
over the years of my life, I find that is true in almost ever dimension of my
being, the most important of which is the freedom that came to find me.
A book that bounced off a shelf at me, a therapist whose
presence would not leave my attention, a mother who suddenly out of the blue
unlocked the suffering of my childhood with the story of her own imprisonment,
a Beloved Teacher who gave more than can even be described, a Coach who has
never let me down, and finally a heart strong enough to bear it.
There is nothing about my life that speaks of conventional
achievement. I have spent many
decades on the very edge of penury, and now I am once again on food stamps,
unsure if there will be an income to keep myself and my dogs fed.
I live on the edge…I have for a long, long time.
And on this, the day of my birth, 58 years gone, I discover
the truest measure of the intimate nature of the “success” of my life.
I have traveled from abject terror, a condition that populated
almost all of my days and nights, in the form of night terrors so potent that I
could not be alone, to the courage to face my fears, which was lent to me by my
Beloved Teacher, to this day, a day in which I understand the very nature of
fearlessness.
I have crossed over.
I cannot say that it will be permanent, that I will always
have access to such a startling state of mind. I dare not whisper the hope that it will last, this capacity
for meeting myself, for holding my fears, in such a way that they dissipate
like fog with the rising sun.
But for now, it is a grace that is as welcome as mountain
air breezes.
Having lived 28 years in some form of terror, 26 years in
courage – (the activity of taking action in the face of fear), and now a
somewhat steady experience of fearlessness… I feel the desire to share with you exactly how that journey
is accomplished, consider it a reverse birthday gift, it is the very best of
what I have to offer you, and I offer it with the greatest humility that I have
ever felt. The process is such a simple
one that it could be laughable, were it not for being so deadly serious.
I became suicidal well before my teen years. I prayed often and hard to be delivered
from life. I could not bear the
terror and the hardship my mind placed upon me, born out of a reaction to my
mother’s intense and unpredictable rages and my uncle’s sexual assaults. The fear, which enrobed me like a death
shroud in a tomb of pain, could not be managed on my own. I began to need others in a way that
was off putting, and intensely draining, to those few who were willing to try
caring for me.
I trusted nothing and no one…ever…
Into that worldview walked a small white haired man, who had
traveled a very similar path. He
was never one to “share” his story, so it took almost thirty years to piece together
the full nature of his equanimity and for me to arrive at the very surprising
awareness that he shared many of the same experiences, and reactions to the
those experiences as I did, and best of all that he had grown entirely beyond
their reach, here was a man that not only walked his talk…he embodied it. I suppose that is why I trusted him so
completely from the moment I laid my eyes upon him. He held no space inside himself for me to indulge in my
fears, his brand of help was a ruthless and rigorous one; do not leap to the
assumption that he was in any way unkind.
He was kindness personified, but he had no time, nor any interest in
indulging my fears. If I were to become
his student, the clearly defined price, was unfailing courage. His mission…
Never, ever, stop embracing the fear.
I did has he bid.
I never stopped moving toward it.
While under his tutelage, and with the help of my coach, I accepted over
and over again, the hard truth that every fear I had ever experienced was a
product of my own mind. Yes, my
mother beat me until my sister feared it would kill me…yes, my uncle raped me
and destroyed my reproductive system, but the fear… that was my doing.
I was too young, too unformed, and too unschooled to
challenge the productions of my mind in my youth. But when I found my Beloved Teacher, his tireless and
relentless communication, that all of
my suffering was entirely self-induced, was absolute. He did not ever focus on the “perpetrator”, there was no
warm embrace for what I had suffered, only a rigorous examination of the ways
and means by which I had colluded with my abusers to create my own victimhood.
“No one can harm you but yourself”, was his constant
refrain.
I was so disassociated when I first met him, that I often
felt like he was speaking a different language. I could understand nothing he said, I could not grasp the
simplest of concepts, I could not gain the slightest foothold on the idea that
the harm I was so desperately suffering from was on the inside, and not from the
tragedies of my past. I sat, and
watched his mouth moving, completely incapable of understanding him for years
and years. I sat there, unmoving,
because my heart knew, could feel, could discern and intuitively understand,
that here was a man who had crossed the great divide. A Being entirely free of fear, a being of such transparency
that he was almost invisible. He
did not exude the deeply narcissistic desire for greatness; he did not embody
the grasping for external power that characterizes so many “leaders”. His was a humility, a simplicity, a character of such
pristine spaciousness that his mere presence humbled me. And so I sat, waited, hoped, and
feared, that I might never be capable of truly accepting his great gift, of
opening to his deepest guidance, of following the path he had so miraculously
illuminated. He passed into the
ether, the unknowable realms, a mere twelve weeks ago and in his passing came
the final piece of the puzzle of self reliance, sourced from a deep well of
self trust.
So…I promised you an examination, a prescription of sorts,
for the state of mind that was so stable in my Teacher that it was as palpable
and perceivable as his blindingly white, and meticulously groomed beard.
It will surprise you, it might even disappoint you…
Stand still.
Don’t move. Stop your
search.
Let the fear have you, but don’t let it inform
you. Let it rake itself through
your system, causing your bowels to clench and your throat to ache. Let it tighten your lungs and feed on
your nerves, let it cause your joints to lock up and your insides to hum, with
the vibration of its coming…and most
importantly with its leaving.
And I promise you, I promise you with my hand held above the certificate
that heralds my arrival, this day, 58 years hence…that it will miraculously pass
into nothingness if it is truly met, honestly embraced, authentically invited
into the heart. In this, you will
discover, much to your never-ending delight…that “No one can harm you but
yourself”. And so much more
importantly, you will come fully, completely, compellingly, into the
self-reliance that was the cornerstone of my Beloved Teachers message.
You can be trusted, or perhaps more accurately, the heart of
you can be trusted, can bear it, can illuminate it, can seize the moment,
proclaim the hour, be witness to the resurrection, and will be able to
transcend your fears and awaken in a fearless place, where all are welcome, and
all can be met.
My experience of fearlessness is not stable, as it was for
my teacher. My most recent loss of
a job I gave my very best to, has, (after the shock abated), served to increase
my access to fearlessness, by forcing me to face the myriad of fears that arise
when income is not available.
Having a flow of money in ones’ life helps to allay the overwhelming
nature of our fragile lives. It
serves as a bulwark, a rampart against the threatening seas of instability that
threaten us at every turn. And not
having it, demands that we either run deeper into denial and thus travel more
damningly toward slavery, or turn and face the inherent nature of the chaos of
living and in the doing, win for ourselves the potential to live fearlessly in
the face of all that life can serve up.
I am often amused by the all the hawkers of spiritual commercialism,
who seek to sell the idea of bliss 24/7, or the promise of greatness, or the
healing of our lives, none of which would even have a place on your shelf, much
less a space in your heart, if you knew in your depths that your life can be
trusted…just exactly as it
is. As my Beloved Teacher was
always counseling, “There is nothing to fix.”
He said that “whole seeing” was necessary to truly come to
realize the truth of that. And
even without access to his great gifts, I know in my heart that it is
true. There are no circumstances
that need trance inducing
solutions… nothing in your life needs to change, for you to step cleanly into
the heart of your life. You only
need to discover the willingness to stop the search for more, better,
different. The driving force of
your particular brand of fear that causes you to believe the lie, that some
future experience will bring the release your heart cries out for.
So pucker up and blow, gently, on the false light from the
candles of deception that drives your seeking. Stop, stand still, become quiet, and your freedom will
become a self-evident fact of the very foundation of your nature. You are already home. You are already safe. You are already free.
Freedom and fearlessness are your birthright. My prayer is that today on the day of
my birth, that I have passed along to you some small measure of the deep
goodness of the gift that my Teacher gave to me. I invite you to hear, through my simple words, his profound
availability, his great gift, his deep wisdom, his uncompromising precision,
and his deep compassion.
But mostly I invite you to stop the search…
Adayre R. Miller
(Ronni)
9/14/12
photo courtesy of flickr photo sharing and Enjuliee. To see more fo this artists’ work,
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