It has been my experience it is possible to be in Nirvana one moment, and in the very the next moment, descend into the depths of that all too familiar, confining, egoistic hell. Just because you have spent hours sitting at the feet of some enlightened being, who may even be recognized throughout the world as at least on par with Mother Teresa, when you return home from a two day retreat with your guru, you will probably find you are still living there. You will probably still turn on the television to watch Court TV if that is your habit. You will still desire the coffee that comes from the cappuccino machine at the BP gas station, where you will continue to stop each morning before work, and, putting your $1.25 on the counter, walk out with that sugary concoction of the total bastardization of coffee, and gulp it on your way to work. Had you chosen the freshly-brewed, organic blend from the container on the counter, you would be sipping it throughout the hour, it would have been the conscious choice – it is of course, a Fairly Traded brand. However, the first thing you do when you return to town after having spent two days with your guru, is stop at the BP and fill up your cup with that sweet, foamy, liquid blend of chemicals, sugar, and artificial flavoring. At least, you rationalize, you did not pick up the glazed donut.
Your beloved guru may kiss you and take you in her arms, whispering sweet nothings in your ear, the promises of bliss, and for a moment you are able to simply be.
You are able to taste a moment’s freedom from the world you have been battling with every day of your life. You are, after all, at war. You are in constant battle with what is. It starts when you open your eyes in the morning and wish you could close them and go back into the void, a tendency you have fought against since childhood. It continues as you wish you did not have to go to work, but would rather read your novel. You resent having to face, once again, the call of duty—the bills to pay, the dishes to wash, the demands of your job. If only you could see the face of your guru in the dishwater, see the face of God in the garbage. But, for about 10 seconds, while you rest in your guru’s arms, you are simply loved. So, for 30 seconds a year (the equivalent of three hugs), you have this blessing, this gift—she enfolds you in her embrace and presses you to her; you feel like Nelo being unplugged from the matrix, as she releases you from mortality.
During these 10 seconds of eternity, you forget what planet you are on. In her embrace, there is no genocide, only tenderness. There is no global warming; only the cool breeze of compassion. So, for 30 seconds a year, you are off the hook, lifted to some other plane beyond politics and the wars with what is—free at last. You forget the arthritis in your lower back and the pain that spreads down your upper legs. You do not blame yourself for not being on a rigorous regime of exercise. You forget that you still owe some taxes that you put of paying, but the bill from the IRS is there waiting when you arrive home. You are wise enough to know your bills have not disappeared, so you put off opening the mail as long as you can. Your suitcase sits on the bed in your guestroom, and you prolong unpacking and doing the dirty laundry. Your guru did not magically remove the stains on your white t-shirts or wash your underwear while you slept.
Of course for those 30 seconds that you stopped asking questions and were free at last, someone who was sitting twelve feet away was pissed because the guy who had been sitting close to the guru’s feet for that past two hours was obstructing their view. While your mind stopped screaming and you were not asking why war—why sickness, why suffering, why sunlight, why sky, why ocean, why us—someone else was furious with the woman who was rude at the bookstore.
Someone once told me, “Why is not a spiritual question,” and I was tempted to ask, “Why?” But when I contemplated this koan, I saw the wisdom in not asking a question that simply leads to another, and another, until we land full circle back at the beginning, and none the wiser. For those few seconds, nothing mattered but her smell of roses. You wanted only to breathe deeply from her warm body, as if she were your breath and blood.
When you return home, of course some local ashramites will immediately become engaged in some painful drama, as one woman feels she worked too hard without enough support from others, and her feelings were hurt by something someone said, and she doesn’t think the guru had paid her enough attention. I realize we humans, simply cannot stop ourselves. Who would we be without the power struggling bitching and moaning? It’s terrifying to consider. Would we be living like walking flat liners through this world of opposites, as if everything is actually okay when we all know it sucks and is actually not okay because we are not okay and anything that we touch cannot be okay? Or would we actually be able to have peace on earth and all get along? Will we have to resign ourselves to our 30 seconds of peace a year in the arms of our guru as the only way to be free from the illusion that nothing is okay and never will be?
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
A Chain Reaction
It was Monday morning and I was in a hurry to make it to my appointment with the accountant, trying to arrive before I needed to be at work. I was hyperventilating about tax issues and my status as an independent contractor with my own recently formed corporation created to allow me maximum freedom from the demands of the man. But I was terrified by the costs of that freedom, as I contemplated my accountant giving me a long overdue reality check. Naturally, the weather had been brutal, with 50 mile an hour winds the previous night and when I stepped into my rather small garage, my feet touched ice and I braced myself for a fall just before breaking through ice and finding myself standing in 4 inches of water. I quickly accessed how far my new Uggs were submerged, and pissed I had not purchased and used a water resistant spray, thinking I already had a can, but of course, didn’t or couldn’t find it, screamed fucking shit, and ordered Beardog into my backseat (he always comes to the office with me because my boss loves dogs – being a proper English person, and there is already one other Chow mix who comes daily to our building. I squeezed into the front seat – my garage is tight, as I said – and began pulling out and realized I was stuck, my wheels spinning on the ice as water splashed madly on the walls, the tables, the summer clay pots, the garbage cans. It was basically like being in a car wash. I moved forward a bit and then backward for about five minutes, trying to rock my way out of being stuck, and as I finally got unstuck found the only way my car would get enough traction to move was if I backed out in such a way my right review mirror was knocked off (already did that once last winter and had to have a new one put on) - fucking shit, I screamed.
Once at the accountants, I waited for about thirty minutes to see Fred, who apologized for the wait, and I smiled and said no problem, of course you are always willing to kiss your accountants ass. And, after chatting realized I didn’t have my ducks in a row, and needed to find about 300 receipts and get busy deducting stuff if I didn’t want to be in deep shit with the IRS – fucking shit I screamed, once back in the car and on my way to work.
Later, after we had lunch downtown, my friend asked to borrow my car to get back to her job – no problem, I said, and as she backed out of the parking space in front of the restaurant and started to move forward, an SUV backed into my side door. Kartika, she screamed, it wasn’t my fault. I know, I said, she backed into us. It was seven degrees and we got out of the car and a sweet girl of about 22 walked over saying she is was so sorry, it was her fault, and she would pay. I don’t know what to do, I said. And of course, my friend took charge saying, Kartika we have to call the police and called 911, and a young cop came to the scene and I noticed he is the son of a friend of my friend, and of course, I remember seeing him once when he was twelve. He asked for her license, which she readily produced, and at that moment I realized I did not even know where my own license was (I was uncredentialed), and thought, wow, I am lucky I wasn’t driving. When the policeman asked for proof of my insurance – I told him I would be right back in a jiffy and ran quickly around the corner to my insurance company where they produced a copy of proof of insurance and put it in a nice blue plastic folder (I was deeply impressed and resolved to immediately place it in my glove compartment and never remove unless to present it to an officer after an accident). When I returned with proof of insurance, the officer kindly remarked “that works for me.” Fortunately, he didn’t ask to see my current registration, because it was not in the car. But immediately upon leaving the scene, I drove to the courthouse to pick up my current license plate and registration one day before my deadline.
Upon returning home from work that evening, I went through a basket of purses in my closet and finally located my license, discovering it had been expired for one year – fucking shit, I screamed while throwing purses into the corner of my closet. The next morning I drove illegally to the courthouse to renew my license, and was told I needed to take the written test. Do you want to study, asked the lady at the desk. No, I said, I’ll wing it. I took the test and failed. The lady then informed me that had I passed the test, they would not have been able to give me a license any way because the name on my social security card and the name on my license did not match (after 9-11 they always check on this) and I would have to resolve this before getting a new one. Oh shit, I said, now I have to hassle with getting that duck in a row. So, I called the social security office and was told I had to bring in proof of my name change - an original copy of my divorce papers and some other form of ID such as a doctor’s record – so I spent two hours trying to locate my divorce papers to no avail and the next day paid the court house $10 to get a copy. Then I went to the doctor’s office to get a copy of a record and was told I needed to pay $150.00 on a past due account before they would give me my record. Oh shit, I said, concerned about my checking account balance. This was not a good week on the surface of things.
However, I am convinced the chain reaction caused by a large number of AWOL ducks, was indeed a blessing. In one week, I got a new social security card and license, paid off my doctor’s bill, had updated my license plates, and had current registration and proof of insurance in my car. I had also asked to be made a permanent employee at my company and was on my way to having taxes taken out of my paycheck and would be enrolled in a health insurance plan the following week along with other employee benefits. One week later, we had layoffs at work and I just got hired before the hiring freeze.
Once at the accountants, I waited for about thirty minutes to see Fred, who apologized for the wait, and I smiled and said no problem, of course you are always willing to kiss your accountants ass. And, after chatting realized I didn’t have my ducks in a row, and needed to find about 300 receipts and get busy deducting stuff if I didn’t want to be in deep shit with the IRS – fucking shit I screamed, once back in the car and on my way to work.
Later, after we had lunch downtown, my friend asked to borrow my car to get back to her job – no problem, I said, and as she backed out of the parking space in front of the restaurant and started to move forward, an SUV backed into my side door. Kartika, she screamed, it wasn’t my fault. I know, I said, she backed into us. It was seven degrees and we got out of the car and a sweet girl of about 22 walked over saying she is was so sorry, it was her fault, and she would pay. I don’t know what to do, I said. And of course, my friend took charge saying, Kartika we have to call the police and called 911, and a young cop came to the scene and I noticed he is the son of a friend of my friend, and of course, I remember seeing him once when he was twelve. He asked for her license, which she readily produced, and at that moment I realized I did not even know where my own license was (I was uncredentialed), and thought, wow, I am lucky I wasn’t driving. When the policeman asked for proof of my insurance – I told him I would be right back in a jiffy and ran quickly around the corner to my insurance company where they produced a copy of proof of insurance and put it in a nice blue plastic folder (I was deeply impressed and resolved to immediately place it in my glove compartment and never remove unless to present it to an officer after an accident). When I returned with proof of insurance, the officer kindly remarked “that works for me.” Fortunately, he didn’t ask to see my current registration, because it was not in the car. But immediately upon leaving the scene, I drove to the courthouse to pick up my current license plate and registration one day before my deadline.
Upon returning home from work that evening, I went through a basket of purses in my closet and finally located my license, discovering it had been expired for one year – fucking shit, I screamed while throwing purses into the corner of my closet. The next morning I drove illegally to the courthouse to renew my license, and was told I needed to take the written test. Do you want to study, asked the lady at the desk. No, I said, I’ll wing it. I took the test and failed. The lady then informed me that had I passed the test, they would not have been able to give me a license any way because the name on my social security card and the name on my license did not match (after 9-11 they always check on this) and I would have to resolve this before getting a new one. Oh shit, I said, now I have to hassle with getting that duck in a row. So, I called the social security office and was told I had to bring in proof of my name change - an original copy of my divorce papers and some other form of ID such as a doctor’s record – so I spent two hours trying to locate my divorce papers to no avail and the next day paid the court house $10 to get a copy. Then I went to the doctor’s office to get a copy of a record and was told I needed to pay $150.00 on a past due account before they would give me my record. Oh shit, I said, concerned about my checking account balance. This was not a good week on the surface of things.
However, I am convinced the chain reaction caused by a large number of AWOL ducks, was indeed a blessing. In one week, I got a new social security card and license, paid off my doctor’s bill, had updated my license plates, and had current registration and proof of insurance in my car. I had also asked to be made a permanent employee at my company and was on my way to having taxes taken out of my paycheck and would be enrolled in a health insurance plan the following week along with other employee benefits. One week later, we had layoffs at work and I just got hired before the hiring freeze.
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