the sum total of what i know.

if looks could kill, i guess i'd be pretty much dead, thrashing around on the ground or at least dealing with a nasty illness. i am specifically, although not exclusively, referring to the results of a speech i recently gave at a local yoga centre pertaining to the self, the one all-permeating self which is pure, free and forever. except i said the self which is pure, free and allegedly forever. there were scowls, growls, and that's ok. 

those good folks had not come to hear me vacillate or say i actually don't know the truth of our existence. they came to be reassured, by someone considered a senior traveler upon this so-called spiritual path, that their faith in self, in our shared humanity, in enlightenment, nirvana, is all well-founded. but, what is that faith based on? is it based on experience or is it a blind faith? the whole premise of this practice we call dhyaan or meditation is that it be experiential, direct, not theoretical, not intellectual, not just a parroting of sages, saints or philosophers from days gone by. 

gurus, masters and spiritual guides are inherently a rather self-assured lot. they speak with tremendous certainty. i prefer to be real, and who does that? they talk as though they have all the answers and may god bless em, whatever the hell that means. but, that just aint me and therefore i'm effectively out of the club. 

i stumbled upon one facebook post recently by a great living master who wrote that the first stage of any seeker is to have a 'burning desire to know the truth of who you are, a burning desire to go all the way'. i know that. i've read it so many times. i've lived it. that's called 'mumukchetwa' in sanskrit. yet, here i sit in my lazy-boy, forty-five years later, without the faintest idea what it even means to go all the way. as well, i don't believe any of them, not yogananda, muktananda, vivekananda, shivananda or any ananda know the so-called true self that is pure, free and eternal. maybe they all do and only i don't. or maybe they do know, but where did that come from? who was that first mother and where did she come from?

there's no need for me to list my credentials or explain why i was asked to speak at that place, to those people, why my opinions count. ultimately my opinions don't count. we each need to consider these questions on our own: where do i come from? where do i go? who am i? what am i? what is the meaning of this life and, perhaps most importantly, how can i be happy? i don't need to convince anyone about the value of meditation. i'm not in business. i have no agenda. 

so here's the sum total of what i know: i know for certain that there's a sense of joy, peace and bliss within each of us that can be accessed no matter our circumstances. my direct experience has shown me that there is more going on here than what meets the eyes, that we are not as separate from one another as it seems.  i suspect that that state of deep meditation, like deep sleep, is like a drop of water merging with the whole ocean of life. i suspect that that state is a kind of a death, and it's not scary. it's beautiful, freeing. at the same time, i know for sure that i'm not ok with dying. i like it here. i want to live. i have netflix. 

here's another thing i've learned along the way: i know for sure that this life is a gift, a glorious fleeting gift, that we should embrace it, and each other.

if the shoe fits.

"life is a song, sing it. life is a game, play it. life is a challenge, meet it. life is a dream, realize it. life is a sacrifice, offer it. life is love, enjoy it." satya sai baba. 

the other day my friend leonard, (short for leonardo,) said i'm a 'serial returner.' i barked something unprintable at him, but immediately wanted to take it back. the argument began when i described how i tried to return a pair of basketball shoes to 'the foot locker' and they refused to accept them. the lady said the shoes looked as though i must've worn them outside, a lot, which was utter nonsense. 

ok, within a few moments of the interaction i totally remembered how i had indeed worn the shoes outside. i had put them on before leaving the 'rideau centre' and walked several blocks to my truck, just to see how they felt. obviously i continued wearing the shoes once i got to the gym, during a few half-court and a couple of full-court games. i wore them to a coffee shop after, then all the way home. 

for whatever reason, that had all slipped my mind. it could happen to anyone, but i did not own up to any of it. in fact i dug in, indignantly suggested the store must've sold me a pair of slightly used shoes. i insisted that i only wore them in my living room. to which the girl suggested i needed to clean my house, a comment i found spectacularly out-of-line and i demanded to talk to the manager. she said she was the manager. i said that was extremely bad news for me and, anyway, i soon simply slithered away.

walking around the mall for a while thinking the whole affair over i kinda wanted to go back and apologize to the lady. she had been so kind and patient, even gave me a nice bag to carry the shoes out of the store in. she didn't deserve all that. however, at the same time i also thought how virtually nobody alive today will be around in a hundred years. nobody's gonna remember. so i put my nice semi-new basketball shoes on, threw my old ones away and left the building. 

my logic may have been slightly skewered, as it so often is, although it is true. even sooner than a hundred years, nobody will remember the aging guy with hairy ears who tried to return used kobe bryant basketball shoes. nobody remembers my grandmother, jessie, not even me. there's a plaque in a park at lake wilcox, ontario, stating that the park is dedicated to her memory. yet nobody in that park ever actually remembers her. that's for sure. after i'm gone, nobody will remember my mom, and she's hard to forget.

ernie mahoney got a bench dedicated to him. i sit on it from time to time, but how many people remember ernie? there's a nice lady somewhere around who remembers, and me, but as time marches on fewer and fewer fine folks will remember that great guy. and what about jane, pierre, art, doug, maureen, mary. heck, nobody remembers albert einstein, napoleon bonaparte, lassie, christopher columbus, leonardo (leonard) devinci ... not really. so why worry about fame and fortune (?) why worry about past and future (?) why take ourselves so seriously (?) 

if the truth be told, which is so very often a bad idea, i had hoped new shoes would help me play bball a bit better but blasted-all they didn't. i still had legs without much bounce left in em. my hoofs were still sore afterward. nobody remembers how i used to leap like a bounding cheetah. but i have nice new shoes, and ernie, and pierre, for now. 

the secret.

RAJ GUHYA - Secret Knowledge, by Padma Shyam.

The knowledge that all is one source, one life, is a hidden secret, only because we normally don't look for it. Our external, obvious senses tell us the world is just all forms, forever changing in time. These may be beautiful, or may not be. Instead of simply following your obvious senses, stop and become aware of the perfect and pure existence that is  always present behind the obvious senses, behind the mind. Here you can find the secret knowledge, the one blissful source of being.

a time for everything.

sneezing can actually hurt your back. i once couldn't walk normally for days after a sneeze. i regressed to a previously more ape-like incarnation. cleaning ones ears can cause serious problems as well. i scratched an ear-drum once with a q-tip. i never did that again, i can tell you. when next i had a wax build-up i went to a professional who did such a good job i could hear everything clearly. i actually asked the lady to put some of it back in. even coughing can be tricky. i once had a bit of food-poisoning, nothing serious, but when i coughed, well, it wasn't pretty.

the buddha apparently viewed the human body as loathsome. i don't really see it that way, although there was that one time i had just met a lovely lady for lunch when i realized i'd forgotten to put my teeth in. krishna, we're told, insisted that we each have several bodies, a concept i find scary as i tend to feel a tad schizophrenic at the best of times. st. seraphim of sarov denied himself all physical comforts, even recliner chairs and such. i once met a guy who had kept both his arms up in the air for many years, an impressive feet to be sure. i wanted to shake his hand. my friend butch believes the body is simply for pleasure, lots and lots of pleasure. he changed his name because he didn't think moishe really fitted the image he wanted to project. 

now i'll tell you where i'm going with all this: i know these bodies are wonderful and terrible. i get both concepts of enjoying and transcending desire. i've been into a bit of self-mortification myself and enjoyed sensual pleasures as well. not at the very same time, of course, although those are not as mutually exclusive as one might think. i knew a lady who ran a very successful business with only some latex and a whip, but that's another story, sort of. i have in fact experienced both sense-deprivation and self-endulgence. what i mean is, at this point, i recommend moderation in all things, except love.

"acquire a peaceful spirit and around you thousands will be saved." st. seraphim.