Eventually, David and I completed one more worldly revolution, and our part of the planet turned its face again towards the sun. Not that we saw it happen, mind you. Profound fatigue and disrupted sleep patterns kept our faces buried in our sleeping bags; oblivious to concepts of “day” and “night.” Our second awakening at the lake happened at a nondescript hour, sometime before the sun’s zenith. I unzipped the cocoon and shook out my sneakers, and stood up unsteadily, blinking in the bright sun.
During this trip, I had been doing a great deal of thinking about my newfound love for God, and my burgeoning zeal for improving my relationship with Him. It took a lot of pondering to establish a foundation on which to construct my new religious edifice. The ancestors on my father’s side had been puritan Presbyterians, with great-grandfather John Calvin Mayne leading the crusade. My father’s brothers were John and Calvin. My parents moved away from all that symbolic dogma before I was born, and our family became decidedly agnostic. My own baptism was practically the only time I had entered a church before I met my wife, Monica, in the Philippines. There, for the first time, I felt the tangible benevolence of something greater than my own mind. The Filipinos were deeply versed in Catholic mythology, and I adopted their religion as an expression of cultural solidarity more than as a real and abiding way to find God. In this manner I arrogantly built my own church, deluding myself that I was constructing a cathedral to “practice religion.” The sanctum sanctorum itself remained woefully devoid of sanctity. Finally, when faced with a personal moral crisis, I turned ineffectually to meditation and self-healing, brashly seeking the vaulted oculus of divinity before I had constructed the pillars to hold the dome. It wasn’t until all the walls came crashing down that I realized I hadn’t even built a firm foundation first.
In my distress, I launched into a fervent study of Catholicism, and especially the devotions to Mary. I liked to read several books at once, and I savored everything I could find about Mary. I found it so appealing that an organized religion should venerate an actual woman; not as a goddess, but as the immaculate, human Mother of God. How sweetly appropriate that she doesn’t even have a last name, and is so easily embraced by any culture as the Mother of All. Unexpectedly, I discovered incredible solace in the unconditional love that was realized in contemplation of this great mystery, and was utterly fascinated to learn that it was not a mystery that had to be solved to be appreciated. More practically, when I prayed to Mary for a small raindrop of a miracle to rescue me from the arid desert I had made for myself, I was showered with blessings that saved me from almost certain death, and set me on the straight and narrow path again, with an opportunity to prove that I was as good a person as everyone had thought me to be. I shall not detail the cracks in the mud here, nor will I explain the miracles. They are private. What matters is the fundamental grace, of which I was certainly among the least deserving of recipients.
David was decidedly undecided about religion. We became good friends in part because of a mutual appreciation for the delightful teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda, whom I had often failed as an erstwhile disciple. I had studied most of the great Guru’s writings, and practiced the exercises he prescribed in the courses he left behind. The puzzle pieces were made available to me, I just couldn’t put them together right. David and I never talked much about religion, or yoga. We both assumed a lot about what the other knew, probably as a convenient way to avoid touching too deeply on any subject. Meanwhile, at home, I was struggling with spiritual truths like a difficult homework assignment, in a vain attempt to fill the hole left by the loss of my integrity as a person. I found I could not consume grace the way I learned microbiology. I had to master the art of submission before I could truly learn anything.
Yoga has been called “the science of religion.” I see cosmology as “the religion of science.” Both seek in opposite directions for the same singular, unified theory of existence. Yoga focuses inward to the soul, while cosmology looks outward to the stars. The crucial thing to know is that both directions are the same. The “in here” is out there. One must surrender inwardly to find it outwardly. Actually, a complete and honest surrender is not a “giving up” of anything. Rather, it is a means of gaining all that is. The hard part is that this profound paradox is not known at first to the one who surrenders. One must learn how to live without any sense of control; and without being out of control, before learning that control is unnecessary for one’s evolution. As soon as the secret is revealed to one who gives up all sense of self, its truth awakens the fundamental awareness of the interconnectedness of the material universe. The subjective “I” contemplates the objective reality of “them,” and becomes the collective “us.”
I thought I could sail to the stars with my ego as the captain, but forgot to bring a lifeboat in case I didn’t make it. To get where I wanted to go, I had to sink before I could sail, by charting a course of letting go. As soon as I suppressed Captain Ahab’s command of my destiny, I discovered a current of love that had always been there, all my life, waiting for me to drift along. If that sounds corny, your own deficient self-esteem is probably filtering the message. There are no words to adequately describe what it feels like to truly give up control, which is why we often resort to using phrases that sound so trite and sappy. The story is cliché because there is only one true way to tell it, and it demands being told truthfully: there is a river of benevolence that will carry you home if you simply stop fighting your way upstream.
Why are we vexed by so many judgmental criticisms of the world, because it won’t conduct itself solely for our benefit? Whence comes this striving; this doggedly determined quest for something outside of us to fulfill the internal absolute? We are already complete in the entirety of our existence. Our implicit self-awareness is the evolution of the universe in action. Our mind is but a small subjective wave of cognizance cresting on the surface of a great sea of consciousness, and yet its objective sentience can perceive the entire ocean. The realization that our mind has autonomy of perception is evidence in itself that there is some greater perspective than the one we recognize to be our reality. Who notices the mind, noticing itself? Let go, and allow the current to carry you downstream. As the landscape drifts slowly by, you will see it for what it truly is: the delusion of permanence. Nothing lasts. Everything is eventually carried down the river, to be returned to the mother ocean. There can be no other “way” because a force can only travel in one direction, and everything is called home by gravity.
Throughout history, more people have been killed for religion than for any other idea. Our need to objectify natural grace is so compelling that we refute it in despicable ways. I cannot fully trust any “religion” that is proselytized by human beings, least of all those who most violently defend their faith. I believe there are many true paths to God, and none of them involve violence or fanaticism of any kind. For me, the unifying Eastern philosophy taught by Paramahansa Yogananda and his line of gurus comes closest to the absolute truth. As a product of my culture, I had to find a way to reconcile that reality with the Catholic myths and dogma on which most of our Western civilization is based. However, merely gaining an intellectual appreciation of truth was not enough. I had to learn how to put it into action; to align my daily thoughts and deeds with the fundamental goodness I knew to be right. That was the hard part, and certainly not just for me. It is central to the human condition that nearly all of us struggle with this responsibility our entire lives. Some of us bear our burdens better than others. Many give it but little thought. Undeniably, the purpose of being stranded together on this rock out in the middle of nowhere is to be as helpful to each other as we can be, and to deny this basic reality is to deny our own existence.
One way to do the right thing more often is to decrease the internal dialogue. Usually, our first instincts and impressions are correct because they spring forth from the font of our primal connection to the infinite. It takes some time for the ego to intercept what’s happening and suggest doing it a “better” way. If we can learn to act on our first good impulse, and not talk ourselves out of it, we are way ahead of the game. As an example, consider a typical script running through the mind when it encounters a homeless person. The first thought is from the emotional realm of the senses, “Oh, look at that poor man!” The next one is the instinctive, correct response: “I should help him!” After that, the ego starts to feel like it’s not in control and demands, “Why should I get involved? It’s none of my business.” The soul makes a feeble rebuttal, something like, “It could be you sitting there.” The psychotic ego, using fear like a knife, slashes wildly to repel any reproach: “They must be doing drugs, or something to deserve their condition.” Then the moment is gone, and the opportunity to be of service is forsaken by unnatural trepidation.
The afternoon poked along aimlessly like a child on his way home from school. A playful breeze skipped across the emerald surface of the lake. The few trees near the campground gently waved their branches in amiable communion. I picked my way along the shoreline, exploring the cracks and crevices, hoping to find a dragonfly nymph. All adult pretenses melted away like clothes shed on a hot summer day, and I revisited myself as a young boy. I had already reflected deeply about my past on this day, so why not rediscover that skinny, lonely little kid?
My memories of childhood were few. Most of what happened I tried hard to forget over the years. I was an exceedingly sensitive child – a fragile sprout trying to survive in the acid downpour of my family’s constant, judgmental criticism. The earliest images in my personal highlight reel were traumatic: a smashed thumbnail, a scary tornado, and burning up with fever. The first cohesive experience I remember clearly was a vengeful nest of hornets that attacked me because I smacked their nest with a stick, thinking it was a pear. I suppose that most people remember their traumatic early experiences most vividly. For some, these grim scenes project upon a compensatory background of love and affection. Others remember only pain, and some recall a mixture of guilt and shame. I have thought long and hard on what happened to me as a child that could have shaped my ignominious adult behavior. All I can remember is a vague sense of sadness, punctuated by periods of abject loneliness and intense longing for affection. My seedling searched in vain for a sunbeam of love or comfort, but all the nurturing soil was washed away in the floodwaters of indifference.
Sympathy rarely blossomed in our home. Good Ol’ Dad didn’t care about anyone but himself, and my mom was kept busy trying to alternately satiate or resist his indefatigable ego. The few times I remembered being hugged or cuddled were indefinably weird, and tinged with the vague detachment of most discomfiting experiences. Most of my early childhood memories consisted of being alone, inventing my own games, and avoiding the disapproving eyes of the critics. I liked to make forts out of the furniture cushions and hide there for hours. I made a science of exploring the backyard, and earned a doctorate in self-reliance. I postulated that perhaps I was immune to acts of affection for which I had no frame of reference, or somehow found it difficult to accept being loved, but the emptiness inside remained unfilled all the same. By the first grade, I was making friends like any normal child, only to be separated from them when our family packed up and moved. My father did this to us often; for no good reason. I had gone to six different schools before I finished the seventh grade! This must have had a profound effect on my ability to form normal relationships, but I lacked the objectivity to recognize it at the time. Mostly, I just needed someone to listen to me – I had so much in my heart to express, and no one in whom I could confide.
“The journey to wholeness requires that you look honestly, openly, and with courage into yourself, into the dynamics that lie behind what you feel, what you perceive, what you value, and how you act. It is a journey through your defenses and beyond so that you can experience consciously the nature of your personality, face what it has produced in your life, and choose to change that.”
— Gary Zukav, The Seat of the Soul