Now, I Am, and That’s Enough

I’m amazed at how I’ve vacillated during my search for truth.  I don’t even want to call it a “search for truth”, because I’ve then identified a cause and become a crusader for it.  It’s ebbed and flowed from gentle curiosity to intense introspection, and I’ve questioned almost everything in the process.  I had a bit of a reality check today, in that I had a job interview with a pretty neat company for a position that’s not really clearly defined.  The P & VP said they knew what they wanted, but they really didn’t know what they wanted.  Oh, yeah, I’m PERFECT for that!  So my mind’s been on other things of late, like paying the bills, and eating.

I knew I was going to be laid off for almost two years before it finally happened, and I had at least a six month advanced warning as to the exact date of the good deed to come.  I can’t tell you how overwhelmingly grateful I am for that.  I’ve noticed throughout my life that I’ve always been taken care of somehow.  I’ve been able to put a lot of trust into the mechanisms at work in my life (whatever that means) to the point where I very rarely have bothered myself with worrying about the outcome of whatever situation presented itself, no matter how grave it may have seemed.  I can always say, and have always said, that it will all work out.  It ALWAYS has… no exception.  So, from that standpoint, I understand that something is at work here of which I’ve been able to realize I have absolutely no control, nor do I care to begin to establish control.  It all works perfectly, regardless of how much I may sweat, or fret, or gnaw at my fingernails.  Nothing I can ever do will prevent what will be from being.  It is exactly, and only exactly, how it should be… ALWAYS.

So now, about this job…  I felt good about the interview.  It lasted for over four hours, and I’ll be back next week for round two.  I know I can do it, the company is great, and the people are genuinely down-to-earth.  What to do?  Nothing!  All I can do is watch it unfold and know that, no matter what happens, it will happen exactly as it should.  My wife asked me if I was anxious, or excited about it.  I told her I wasn’t before actually checking what I really felt.  I’ve thought about it some more, and I don’t have any anxiety or nervousness about it at all.  It would be great to work there, no doubt.  But is it what the universe has in store for me?  No clue.  I will be comfortable with whatever happens.  It’s just amazing when I look back at my life and see where I never had any control over any of this.  It all just happened, and I was just there, along for the ride, so to speak.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m very good at whatever I’ve ever done as a profession, but that’s never all there is to it.  You should read “Outliers“, by Malcolm Gladwell.  You’ll see how much the environment and timing have to do with success.  All true in my case, although I’m far from the success of those cited in his book.

All that to say that I’m back on the negative cycle of the search-for-truth sinewave.  I’ve clung to Advaita because it rings more true within me than does any other “religion” or philosophy.  I’ve read so much (probably too much), and have asked countless questions to those who have realized to the point of being able to reliably predict the responses.  Already knowing the “answers” sort of keeps you from even asking the questions anymore.  All that’s left is the final “ah-ha” moment for me.  And, as things have proven to go for me thus far, it will come, or it won’t, and it will be perfectly, and EXACTLY as it should be.

Will I continue to write?  Probably, but I doubt it will be as frequent as every day.  I’ve become a bit more introspective this past week, and it seems to me that that’s exactly where I need to be right now.  Why doubt the process that has guided me through 40 years of sucking air?  Why anticipate?  Why not trust what I already know?  I exist until I don’t.  Now, I am, and that’s enough.

My Reality

Every once in a while I catch myself marveling at how amazing everything around me is.  I, as well as many hundreds more where I’d worked for 14 years, have become an unfortunate statistic – one of many who currently make up the nationwide 9.4% unemployment ranks.  We were lucky because we knew it was coming for a while, and were given plenty of time to prepare.  As a result, I have been supremely blessed with being able to spend most all of my time with my family.  I love that!  Circumstances up to this point in my life had never allowed for such intense family saturation, and I never would have guessed that I’d almost feel guilty for not wanting to go back to the daily grind of a career.  It churns my stomach, actually… the thought of endless meetings, and long days, and teleconferences, and uniform policies, and silly HR matters.  Ugh!  I don’t look forward to it at all.  Alas, I’m afraid that that is what is in store for me unless I win a lottery jackpot, which isn’t at all possible because I don’t play.

I’ve been given a rare blessing in this life.  I have no job, but I have a life filled with such joy and love that a job just seems so pathetically unimportant.  It’s just too bad that I have bills to pay, and groceries to buy.  I suppose that sometime soon I’ll be negotiating a new stint as an employed dolt, and loathing that first day away from heaven.  It’s true what they say, you know… “you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.”  I will miss being around my family all day long, and will think of them often in my next tenure in indetured servitude.  I will, no doubt, feign pride and happiness at finally landing said gig, and maybe even pretend to look forward to contributing to something bigger than myself.  I just hope I won’t get lulled into the corporate bullshit, and become a part of the machine.

Until then, I know what I have been blessed with, and I will count those blessings every moment I’m allowed.  I have placed a number of my art pieces for sale, and that would be wonderful if that took off, but I have no such pipe dreams.  Actually, that would be absolutely fantastic.  Maybe, several years after I pass, my children and grandchildren could benefit from my artistic efforts.  Who knows.

So, this was a bit off topic for me, but I thought about oneness, nonduality, awareness, etc, and I didn’t think I could write again on the subject without regurgitating what has already been said over, and over again.  I sound like a broken record.  Nothing fresh, nothing new, no enlightenment, not even a glimpse.  I brought it back down to Earth tonight.  I’m unemployed.  I’m looking for a job that I don’t want to go back to.  I love my family, and I love spending every moment with them.  I’m tired, and I’m enjoying a nice merlot.  That’s my reality right now.  I don’t want another one, nor do I care to deeply understand the one I have at the moment.  See me tomorrow… maybe things will change again.

Batman, Fallen Soldier, Grandpa, and Stubbed Toes

I don’t have a lot to write about today (it’s actually after midnight now, but I can’t sleep yet).  I was watching the latest Batman movie with my wife tonight.  We tried to watch it last night, but crashed about 40 minutes before the end, and had to pick up again tonight.  About the time when Batman had pulled the Joker up after saving him from splatting on the ground below a high-rise building, the Joker hanging upside down, I got this intense feeling that came over me like a wave.  My body recessed into the background and it seemed as if my peripheral vision disappeared.  I could just barely focus on whatever was in front of me.  This wave of chilled tingling came over me, and I couldn’t feel my arms or legs, but I started smiling and feeling really good.

I wondered for a second, “Is this it?  Is this the beginning of my awakening?”  I guess not.  It wasn’t all of the sudden and quick like I’ve heard it would be.  Plus, all it was was an experience.  Being experience, it could not ultimately be real.  It was kind of weird and exciting, though.  I’ve still got remnants of that feeling in my arms, legs, hands, and feet.  Don’t know what to think of it, but my state of mind is much, much lighter, and I’m still grinning uncontrollably.  No drugs involved… I promise.  Anyway, maybe I shouldn’t even mention it, but I have nothing else to talk about at the moment.

Meanwhile, last night, there was an enormous show of support for a fallen soldier from our community.  His body arrived at a local airport, and was escorted to his home church by tons of motorcyclists and police.  I did not attend because I don’t know that I could have controlled my emotions, but there were a lot of people lining the streets on his final route home, all there to show their support and honor the sacrifice of this young man.  Most of these folks didn’t even know him personally.  Our community came together for one man, and one family in a way I’d not seen before.  I’m sure that some of these folks that lined the streets are not fans of our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, but they still support the men and women that are asked to risk their lives for all of us.  So this evening I’m extremely proud to be a part of this particular brand of humanity, this local community that rallies around a grieving family.  Beautiful!

Then, this afternoon, my 92 year old grandfather had emergency intestinal surgery.  Last I heard he was OK, but I’m a state away, so if something changes, there’s a bit of a delay.  He’s been in ill health for a number of months now, and has battled one ordeal after another on his way to his last days.  Is there anything I can learn from this?

Witnessing the outporing of support for our local fallen hero, and feeling the emotions of that, plus that of possibly losing my grandfather, I’ve decided that oneness, or whatever it’s called, seems a long way away from me right now.  To think that any of this is not real, is just as unfathomable to me as it is for me to believe in Santa Claus.  And to top it off, I cracked the hell out of all the toes on my left foot.  It HURT BAD, and I remember thinking at that moment how ridiculous it was to think that THAT was not real!  OUCH!!!

Watch Me Squirm!

Reading “Talks with Ramana Maharshi” today, I found this:

“Effort is necessary up to the state of realization.  Even then, the Self should spontaneously become evident.  Otherwise, happiness will not be complete.  Up to that state of spontaneity, there must be effort in some form or another.”

Now, I’ve read enough of the experiences to know that most, with few exceptions, of the realized of the world have had spontaneous realizations.  Byron Katie, for instance, was laying on the floor in an attic, and was startled from sleep by a cockroach crawling on her foot.  Her telling of that moment is much better than I can do it justice, but she instantly realized she wasn’t who she thought she was.  Another, which I have just moments ago read, had just been through a horrible, “dark night of the soul” encounter that left the person sobbing, in fetal position on the floor when, shortly after hoisting theirself up on to a chair, suddenly saw that their thoughts were not their own.  Maharshi’s experience was somewhat similar in that he had a thought of death and followed through with it in his mind to see who, or where, he was after the body died.

Then I read the quote above telling me that there is effort necessary in order to realize.  What effort?  Should I be at the end of my rope, destitute and depressed beyond reason, with nowhere to go, and no shoulder to cry on before I can expect to realize the truth?  My brother, I wonder if maybe he’d have held off taking his own 35-year-old life for one more day… would he have realized after reaching the absolute bottom of his hard-fought life.

I’ve had it pretty good, see.  I’ve made all the “right” choices in life, apparently.  I’ve had good jobs, done fairly well for myself – not anywhere near rich or well off, mind you, but I’ve done alright.  Things have always come to me in good measure, and I’ve never really had to worry about how bad things are, or laid on the floor, knees to chest bawling my eyes out, pondering ending my own life.  Is that what it takes?  No, I don’t believe that for a second, and that’s why I continue to question everything.

I remember telling someone that I wanted to experience God, and that person telling me that I couldn’t.  Oh, how I abhor being told I can’t do something!  That was over 10 years ago.  My definition of “God” has changed drastically since then, but I still long for that experience, that knowing.  This can’t be all there is to it, can it?  Everything I read about Advaita says it is.  Oh hell, give me the kool aid!

So, Maharshi, what is it, exactly that I’m supposed to do?  What effort is necessary on my part?  Clear my mind?  Meditate?  Prostrate myself to someone who has realized?  What effort?  Oh, you guys are gonna love this blog if I ever do realize?  Watch, though… somebody will turn it into a book and say, “this is the path to realization… do what he did”, and we’ll start yet another religion.  All the while, I’ll be in the background saying, “you guys don’t get it… don’t do what I did!”  Isn’t it fun watching me squirm?

Adversity and Reality… hmmmm

I’ve had an amazing week so far.  It’s funny because nothing really amazing has happened.  There’s a sense of rightness in the world to me right now.  It’s all happening just like it’s supposed to.  Really, how else could it be happening other than the way it is?  When you look at things that way, the arguments you have with the way it is just don’t make much sense any more.

The company I work for is folding up and going to Mexico.  Sometime early next year there will be a massive layoff, more than half the people there now.  I don’t know, but I might be caught up in that.  Maybe I’ll last until the very last day, when they finally close the door.  I don’t know.  I catch myself every once in a while with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, then wonder to myself what that’s all about.  I know better than to get emotionally wrung up in something I have absolutely no control over.  I remind myself of all the other adversities in my life, and how, as bad as it was at times, it never was as bad as I thought it would be.  Then I look back on those adversities and I can see, in every single instance, that what happened was exactly what I needed.  So not only was it pointless to worry about it all, it was necessary that I went through it.  And now it’s necessary that I go through this.  Heck, 13 years is plenty enough time to work for one company.  Time for something else, huh?

Sometimes I think, “Wouldn’t it be great if I had no motives?”  I was out on my back porch last night, looking down at our unkempt landscaping around a small Koi pond.  We’ve got weeds in it pretty bad, but they’re not ugly weeds.  I caught myself attempting to identify the different weeds.  I had an instant recognition of this, too.  Why do I have to label everything?  Why can’t I just look at the scenery without my mind pointing out everything by name?  I wonder what my experience would be like if I could just look without judgement.  When you look at a scene, see if you catch yourself doing it, too.  There’s a tree with no leaves.  I think it’s an Oak tree.  And the grass, that must be fescue.  The sky has a lot a clouds in it.  Maybe it’s going to rain.  I almost hit that dog running across the street.  It was a Beagle.

What would it be like to look and just see?  Not thinking about what you see, just see.  The same for all the senses.  If you closed your eyes and listened, your mind would categorize and label all the sounds.  We’re one step away from the ultimate reality, what’s really there.  Our minds seem to get in the way so that we don’t experience anything directly.  There’s always this filter there interpreting what we see, feel, hear, taste, smell.  I want to know if there’s a way to turn the filter off.  Anybody?