What Liz has written in her introduction to India is so profound, so impactful, so challenging, so full and wondrous - a simple and academic into to Yoga and Gurus and such - that I don't even know what to say. All I want to do is rewrite everything she's written, just copy it all here, so it's recorded perfectly, stamped permanently in me. Because, now that I've read about this, now that I know that this Yoga thing exists in a more meaningful sense than a westernized, sweaty Bikram Yoga class on the Upper West Side; and now that I have the pangs of desire for it, I can't unread it. I can't un-know it, or un-desire it.
I yearn for a fragment of the understanding she talks about. I think I've yearned since I was a child on those late night bike rides with my dad when I'd look up into the night sky and ask, "what's up there, Dad? I mean, what's really up there?" As if a mass of stars and planets was not enough for me. Or, as if to know that there were stars and planets and even more galaxies up there was not enough. What is past all that? What is more infinite than that? What's beyond all that? (I think, even then, I was curious about more than what was physically beyond, but metaphysically beyond)
Liz records: "The classical Indian sages wrote that there are three factor which indicate whether a soul has been blessed with the highest and most auspicious luck in the universe:
1. To have been born a human being, capable of conscious inquiry. (Me)
2. To have been born with - or to have developed - a yearning to understand the nature of the universe. (Me)
3. To have found a living spiritual master." (Not Me . . . yet?) p. 124
This is a jumping off point. I stand at the edge of devotion. I know all I have to do is ask and really mean it and God and the Universe will conspire to help me. But, I'm afraid. I'm afraid of the unknown. The same way I was afraid of a life without drinking. I couldn't imagine it. I can't imagine this new life in pursuit of enlightenment from which I couldn't turn back. As I was afraid that getting sober would ruin my creativity, so am I afraid this will. I'm afraid my creativity will become all ethereal, God-like and uber spiritual, inaccessible and aloof. I'm afraid I'll lose touch with the language of the common man. Liz didn't. She kept her feet on the ground and wrote a best seller.
I'm in transition now. I've lost my job (for what I assume is a good reason). I can try trusting God. Or, at least, I can try being fearful and do what He'd have me do anyway, even though I don't know what that is right now. I can't help but feel a little screwed spiritually right now.
Perhaps I can "enjoy the view". I can live in the free fall, live in the uncertainty. Like Liz did in Italy, I could look around in it, make a map of it, learn from it and grow because of it. I could learn about how I act in the face of uncertainty and fear. What can it teach me about old habits and how to let go of them? I can learn about letting go of the clinging to others, for I'll drown them too. My fiancee is the person I'm really clinging to right now. I put too much reliance on her for a sense of well-being, of "ok-ness". Hell, I even need her to tell me I'm a good writer, just so I won't dive head-long into the pits of self-pity.
"The Amazing Grace of Sanskrit," p. 120. "I adore the cause of the universe . . ." Perhaps I can find the whole song and use it in my morning prayer and meditation. "I honor the divinity that resides within me." That reminds me of "Deep down inside every man, woman and child, there is an understanding of God." I'm misquoting.
"The Yogis say that human discontentment is a simple case of mistaken identity." p. 122. This is where I could just copy everything she's just written. Let me try a meager try to sum up: We have a divine self. God resides within us as He resides in everything. Better yet, He is part of us and we are part of Him, as is the grass, the moon, the stars and the space between all things. We've just been given the gift to understand Him, but only if we choose to see.
"That supreme Self" (makes me think of "The Glory of God made manifest within us" Marianne Williamson) "is our true identity, universal and divine. Before you realize this truth, say the Yogis, you will always be in despair, a notion nicely expressed in this exasperated line from the Greek stoic philosopher, Epictetus: 'You bear God within you, poor wretch, and know it not'." p 122.
A loose translation of the word Guru is "out of the darkness and into the light". Attraversiamo Guru.
I feel like God is waiting to see what I'll do. Nothing for right now? First things first: I have to move out of my apartment and in with my fiancee. She's dedicated, in a way, to my writing, too. Perhaps it gives her hope for herself and her creativity? Inspiration? She's found a writers loft near her apartment.
I have to transition out of the restaurant, though. I do, in fact, need closure. My stuff is still there. My pay is still there. I'm not fully detached, yet. So, transition me, God. You answered the first half of my petition. All I had to do was sit there and accept the firing. What do I have to do for the second half?
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