And They Flew…

Because I have no income, due to the economic troubles we are facing and having been laid off from my job, I choose the only way I can to honor my financial obligations by conserving my savings, (which of course I am living off of), in the strictest ways possible.

I buy only the necessities, which amount to food, shelter, and in our climate air conditioning. I drive only to and from the library, and to and from the grocery store, and once weekly to the dog park and library.

If it were not for the dog park, I suppose I could go days and days without speaking to anyone at all…save the small conversations held in line, during my food purchase transactions.

In years gone by, this situation would have induced such panic in me that I would have been calling the 411 operators, just for the sound of another person’s voice. Gratefully…with time, commitment, perseverance, and an unwavering desire for healing it is possible for me to live and even thrive, under these dire and difficult circumstances. In my twenties, I could not possibly have stood this…back then, as a friend of mine once put it…”your mind is a dangerous neighborhood, you should never go in there alone.”

Sometimes as I reflect back over this astonishing inward journey that my lifes has turned out to be, I am well beyond gratitude’s shores and somewhere, in some land, I don’t even have a name for…it does not escape my attention that every single step, in hindsight, has been carefully orchestrated, masterfully guided, and mindfully capable.

The very first of these masterstrokes came in the form of a “didn’t happen”, rather than a happening. And that was, that I never entered the halls of traditional psychiatry, I was spared and wonderfully so, the medicinal approach to emotional solutions that is now so widespread in our culture. Not long ago, I spent sometime with someone so heavily medicated, that I couldn’t seem to find a person in there. She worked, came to social events, we went out to dinner occasionally, but I always felt like I was spending time with someone who was slightly out of focus, or like watching a television program with the sound turned down...you have a basic understanding of the plot line, but no real clarity or nuances. It was tiring, and finally unpleasant.

I was looking over a book recently written by the psychiatrist, Howard C. Cutler, M.D. he was detailing the very reasons why I was so blessed to not have wandered down that road in my search for healing. He said, “This type of training, (psychiatric/medical), has led many in my profession, to the grim conclusion that the most one could hope for was the transformation of hysteric misery into common unhappiness”. Our priests of mental and emotional health, the medical doctors specializing in psychiatry, have as their core value, at the heart of their training, the goal of turning “hysteric misery into common unhappiness.”

Lord, love a duck…

In Dr. Cutler’s defense, his book was born out of long and detailed discussions with the Dalai Lama regarding the pursuit of happiness, and the means by which to achieve happiness. So he too, it seems, has turned his back on much of his traditional training and sought out the wisdom and abilities of the Spiritual pathways.

In my own life, I have come to understand that every problem devised by the shattered and self-created egoic mind structure, has only one solution…and that is Spiritual development.

Name your problem… from petty theft to hoarding old newspapers, from nail biting to alcoholism, from cheating on your college entrance exams to sleeping with your best friends spouse, from pulling out all your eyelashes and eyebrows to using aerosol spray cans to get high, every single self-debasing activity, ever devised by a broken and weeping human being… the answer is now, and always will be, a renewed connection to Spirit.

When the Spiritual realms begin to lay claim to the territory of a human life, these problems begin to unknot themselves, by themselves. Here is the reason I stopped setting goals, years and years ago.

The reason goals are so useless, especially in the realm of healing, is that the inner realms of Spirit do not, nor I am sure, have they ever followed a linear path.

In the world of our sense perceptions, we must follow a step-by-step process. As the guru’s of self-help are so fond of pointing out, “If you don’t know where you are going…how can you possible get there”. True enough, in the outer realms of the material world, but utterly useless in the development of Spiritual connection…why… because Spiritual development might start off at G double back to A, skip over B and bring Z to the party way before the end. It never follows a straight line, it cannot be predicted or controlled and will not be subject to the self made mind’s demands.

If you want to fly to LA, you must A. book a flight, B. purchase a ticket, C. arrive on time to the airport, D. board the flight…etc. etc….you get the idea. So you can-and I am sure you have-set a goal, planned that goal, taken those steps, and arrived at your destination.

From building a tree house, to world domination…you can force what you want to happen, and it will change not one jot or tittle, your level of emotional, mental, or spiritual well-being. In point of fact, I would bet the last penny of my dwindling life’s savings, that once your “goal” has been achieved you would eventually be, let down and disappointed at best, and hollowed out at worst.

How could this pull the rug-out-from-under-you-horrible-truth be so blasted invisible?

Well… it is the egoic mind’s sleight-of-hand trick to keep you looking the other way, while your life’s flow ebbs away from you, spilling itself down an empty and pitiless hole of desire, and setting you up for the next climb up the mountain of “goals”.

Salvation, and I mean that word in its most graphic form-as in-saved from a burning building or a flesh eating bacteria, can only be had by the mind so abused by itself that is willing to lay down the structures it built up during childhood, in favor of the care and guidance of the Unknown.

Salvation is a free fall backwards, from a very great height.

Now, I am not saying that there aren’t the occasional brilliant flashes… those among us like Saul on the way to Samaria who break open all at once and are so renewed, in Spirit, that a name change is required. But those are the exceptions to the Spiritual path, not the norm.

For the vast majority of us, who escape the tyranny of our own minds, the trip is a fitful combination of false starts, round abouts, and cul de sacs. You have to pack light if you are going to take the side road to the spiritual peak, if you decide to decamp the flow of your cultures paradigm’s and strike out on your own, don’t expect to get to take your cherished notions with you.

First you must delouse. For you are without doubt, covered head to toe, in a miasma of self, family, religious, and culturally induced illusions. (When I left the fundamentalist religion into which I was born, I feared deeply, that I would end up in a burning lake of fire for all of eternity. That will give you some idea of how much impetus I had, for finding the help I so desperately needed, to end my suffering.)

Second, you must come out of hiding. (Here is where, if you are observant, you will first notice the guiding hand of the Divine). To come out of hiding, you must begin to tell someone the secrets you are keeping. The, oh-my-god-if-they-knew-that-about-me-the-earth-would-open-and-swallow-me-whole, closeted and furtive, worst about yourself. The one thing you simply couldn’t bear for anyone else to know, has to be known, or there is no hope what-so-ever.

In the tradition of the “teacher will appear, when the student is ready”, the right listener will be brought to you no matter what obstacles stand in the way.

Emerson describes that phenomenon this way… “O believe, as thou livest, that every sound that is spoken over the round world, which thou oughtest to hear, will vibrate on thine ear. Every proverb, every book, every by-word that belongs to thee for aid or comfort, shall surely come home through open or winding passages. Every friend, (teacher), whom not thy fantastic will, but the great and tender heart in thee craveth, shall lock thee in his embrace. And this, because the heart in thee is the heart of all; not a valve, not a wall, not an intersection is there anywhere in nature, but one blood rolls uninterruptedly, and endless circulation, through all men, as the water of the globe is all one sea, and, truly seen, its tide is one.”

Your teacher feels your call and will be waiting for you with open arms, a tender heart, an iron will, and an eternally giving spirit. I know, I have found several…each with successively deeper understanding and wisdom, the last of which required more of me that I felt could be found, and yet find it I did…and so will you…

Trust is the only thing you are allowed on the spiritual journey, the only tool at your disposable, the only thing you need to pack, the one thing the journey cannot begin without, and the only ticket to wisdom that exists. Control is the first thing you have to unpack.

The Gospel of Thomas allows that salvation stands at one end, and utter ruin at the other…”

“If you bring forth what is inside you,

what you bring forth will save you.

If you do not bring forth what is inside you,

what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

And the Poet Guillaume Apollinaire promises that the leap into the unknowable has fear, help, and glory abounding..

“Come to the edge.

We can't. We are afraid.

Come to the edge.

We can't. We will fall!

Come to the edge.

And they came.

And he pushed them.

And they flew.”

Until Tomorrow…

R.

Photo courtesy of www.flickr.com

And They Flew…essay by Ronni Miller copyright 2009 all rights reserved, reprinting available with author’s permission. If you wish to contact the author you may do so at ronnidmiller@aol.com