My Spiritual Adventure, Part 1
“Silence is the language of God. All else is poor translation.” — Jalal ad-Din Rumi
I have previously mentioned several times that I would write here about the particular meditation system I have been practicing for more than 40 years now. Well, since I recently finished an annual retreat hosted by this organization, I figured this was probably a good time to spill it. But be warned, there is a lot to communicate here so it may be written in several posts.
I shall start at the beginning, as it should be …
I found myself in the early 70’s at the University of Texas, after several of my unexplained experiences when I was growing up, which I have already mentioned some of here in this blog. This offered up an environment to help me explore my ‘predicament,’ trying to figure out what the hell had been happening to me.
I spent more than a year reading volumes of material on anything related to this. Back then it wasn’t like today. Nowadays, you can find all kinds of metaphysical books in most bookstores. Then you really had to seek them out, because most bookstores didn’t carry those types of titles.
Still, they weren’t very satisfying. A good portion of them were all theory and philosophy. Some were about experiences the authors or others had, but didn’t really say how or if those experiences were repeatable by anyone else. What I wanted was the nuts and bolts of this greater reality.
Anyway, I finally figured I needed a teacher or coach of some sort. Not a guru or master, or any other kind of devotional figure. I couldn’t readily relate to the devotional aspects of many of the spiritual paths. I needed someone readily available who had something to offer, but wasn’t full of himself. Turns out that was a tall order. I began attending lectures and started going to the different spiritual centers that began cropping up around town. Austin had become a virtual hotbed of metaphysical activity during this period. I think every type of persuasion, philosophy or practice had some kind of chapter or center there.
As I explored these places and listened to more lectures, a feeling gradually began surfacing. At first I ignored it, and then I sparred with it, until I finally realized I needed to address it head on. These so-called spiritual persuasions, presenting themselves as serving the seeker’s needs, seemed to be only masquerading as such. Their main purpose drove home clearly – to further the beliefs, practices and view-opinions of their organization by indoctrinating new converts and keeping their followers with the boundaries of a certain level of brainwashing.
So, the bottom line for me was simple. Belief and faith were simply just not enough. I could not see them sustaining me for very long. When it came right down to it, I guess I had deeper needs. First, I needed more actual first-hand experience. Second, I needed to understand what all this was all really about. And third, well, it felt there had to be a third but I didn’t know enough to know what that was yet. Now where to?
After practically turning over every rock around, searching for my tiny little place in creation, but barely getting a whiff of it, I was growing more and more irritated. Almost to the point of being quite desperate. By January 1972, I had almost given up when I came across an obscure ‘Cosmic Consciousness’ class. The ad caught my attention, so I went for it.
Yes, I was still learning what all this metaphysical nonsense was about. While it had been mildly entertaining, it only made me feel emptier. The “new age-ness” of it all turned me off, making me less receptive to the ideas and quirkiness of this whole arena of otherworldly concepts.
This class lasted 10 weeks with a different guest speaker each week, all expounding on their cosmic theories and philosophies concerning this obscure set of experiences we refer to as life. After enduring a few of them, I was wondering why I was bothering to hang around. But the instructors assured me it would get better and that they had saved the best presentation for the last class, and I just shouldn’t miss it. Right.
In fact, after asking the speakers a few questions they couldn’t answer, I was beginning to question my own sensibilities in this matter. Not only did I not know anything, but apparently neither did they. I had no idea then that just realizing you don’t know anything could open a door. A huge one was yearning me to step forward and enter.
Finally that last week came, and I only decided to go at the last minute. I stood in the hallway outside the classroom, watching other students enter and sit down, and wondering if I even should be here. Finally I peeked in the door window. It was a good-sized auditorium, and this week it was almost full. Curious. None of the other classes had been more than half-full. Okay, okay. I grabbed the knob, opened the door and stepped in, with some serious expectations.
I was caught off guard by the man standing on the elevated stage and writing on the chalkboard. He was wearing a bright blue jumpsuit, the kind mechanics wear, and being a little overweight, was round around the middle, and bald with glasses. Not exactly in the normal guru-mold I’d seen these last several weeks. So basically he was fairly average-looking, and probably wouldn’t especially stick out in a crowd. Unlike the previous, self-important ‘master gurus’.
As I went by the stage, I glanced at him and we made quick eye contact. He had a slight thin smile and a sparkle in his eyes. I sat down in a row fairly close to the stage, and watched the room finish filling up.
For the next couple hours I was mesmerized by what I heard from our non-guru type. There was a moment when I thought maybe I’d stumbled into the wrong room, and was in the middle of some kind of bizarre science fiction club. The content of the lecture was not exactly in line with what I had been hearing recently. In fact, it was quite far out and in a class by itself.
But yes oh yes, my life at that time was quite out of balance. The outer life I lived in this physical world didn’t coincide with my inner life. The part of “me” inside who I believed to be me didn’t fit with the outer one. None of it fit. I had felt from an early age that things weren’t right. And no one else was able to help, or even seemed to understand. The imbalance and discontent had been growing for years, with the gap constantly growing and getting harder to bridge. Now I felt I was near the breaking point. Give me relief. Give me answers. Just give me something, damn it. I just didn’t feel comfortable in my own skin.
Of course, I didn’t believe these feelings and thoughts were anything unusual, and certainly not unique to me. But they were happening to me. So I was determined not to stand for it, and to do something about it, as soon as I could. I surely wasn’t going to go through my life this way. Everybody just said, “Oh, it’s only a stage,” “You’ll be okay eventually,” “It’s your imagination,” “Focus on other things.” Etc., etc., blah, blah, blah …
Damn it, what was creation about, anyway? Was life a prison term, or an extended vacation? Did we get to ride the surf? Have any fun? Did anyone possess the manual to this planet? Or was it out of print? And no publisher to pick it up and reprint it? So, what? Were there answers, or only more questions? Or was asking these questions only continuous, ongoing futility?
Addressing these thoughts and feelings almost seemed to be taboo. Was the world really that shallow? I certainly was in no position to make such sweeping generalizations, or to reach any definite conclusion. That is why I continued to search. To find my path. My quest to understand, and to know myself. The real me. Gad, that seemed like such a ridiculous clichéd proclamation. Oh well, oh well, maybe I would only discover everyone else was right. If so, fine. It would be my discovery, and I would know and understand it. And finally learn to live with it. Is that what everybody else did? What I still hadn’t learned? I certainly hoped not!
Back in the late winter of ’72, that path from those early experiences beginning in ’58 had led me to this classroom. As the speaker began to wind down, I glanced back around at the audience, wide eyed and sitting on the edge of their seats. I could sense most of them were as mesmerized as I was. The atmosphere was almost surreal.
It wasn’t that the speaker was particularly charismatic, or even that great in his delivery. Or that he instilled some kind of magical presence, or special importance. No, it wasn’t him, or was it? It was what he was saying, what he was trying to communicate, the surreal experiences he’d had. And the fact he was just so normal looking and so matter-of-fact about it all, yet expressing the wildest and most far out things I’d ever heard. He could have been my Uncle Ralph, but here he was describing the physical and spiritual universe in a completely different language than I had ever heard before. A true original.
The irony of the situation finally began to dawn on me. Not only did he look like a mechanic, but he spoke like one too. In fact, he viewed himself as a spiritual mechanic. How did he put it? “Philosophers can philosophize all day, and not have to prove a thing. Mechanics have to make things work. They have to prove it, or they’re out of work.”
And then the real clincher came. The hook that finally reeled me in. When he mentioned the concept of the “sound current,” my interest really piqued. That’s when he began relating to experiences I already had, ones relating to the sound in my head. And no one else had previously known what I was talking about.
Once I had the chance to fire my questions away, he was not phased, answering them so effortlessly. In fact, the way he answered made me feel like I didn’t even know enough to ask the right questions. Jees.
So, now my path seemed obvious. I was ready to make my move. Fine, okay, prove it to me. The challenge had been put forth. And I took it. Why not? What did I have to lose? If it didn’t work, I could move on. So, it could be nothing ventured, nothing gained, or let’s get on this horse and see how it rides.
Ultimately, that day changed my life. It began the process of re-balancing my life, and integrating my inner and outer self. Basically getting my footing and finding my way so I could move on to where I really needed to go.
Over the following years the search that began as a confusing mystery became an ongoing adventure, culminating into an expansive love story. The mystery has been in trying to figure myself out. The adventure has been the roller coaster taking me there. And the love, well…that was what I have been finding on the journey, and what has been sustaining me through the challenges and progressions of the next forty odd years (and hopefully way beyond). I wouldn’t miss it for the universe.
Stay tuned next time for Part 2 of 3 …
TMC