فصل 18

18

Letting Go of the Rope

I awoke from that dream a changed person. My way of thinking had been transformed at a very profound level. For the first time, I questioned whether more and more discipline was going to take me where I so desperately wanted to go. Sitting alone in my van that morning, I knew the answer was no. My path to true freedom was subtler than simply requiring a tighter grip.

Something much wiser than me had reached into my psyche that night and rearranged my entire relationship with myself. I no longer saw the lower aspect of myself, with all his personal issues and melodramas, as the enemy that had to be destroyed. I looked at him now with a new understanding. I needed to use all these disturbed personal energies for my ascent. It was perfectly clear to me that since he was the problem, he was also the solution. I actually felt a tinge of compassion toward that struggling person within me. I would later come to learn that the Bhagavad Gita says that one should raise the self with Self, not trample down the self. I had been trampling down my personal self in the name of getting free from his humanness. I now needed to learn how to raise those energies up to assist me on the journey.

I left my van and walked in the direction of the temple building. I was feeling much lighter and more open. I felt like I wanted to unbind myself and spread my wings. But there was something that I needed to do first. Since the beginning of my mental disciplines, I had imagined a room inside my mind where I would take my personal self to meditate. It was a room with giant wooden doors for entry and solid glass for walls. What made this room so special was that the glass walls looked out upon the entire universe. Sitting in the lone meditation seat, one could see Earth suspended in the darkness of space. In the distance were stars and galaxies floating in the infinite. Whenever Mickey had a problem, I took him there to chill out. I even used to play with leaving him there. I wanted him always to be quiet, and I wanted him always to remember that all his experiences were happening on a tiny speck of dirt floating through infinite space.

That morning when I stopped on my way to the temple, I closed my eyes and opened the giant wooden doors to that very special room. The person I had left sitting on the meditation seat immediately straightened himself up. As I approached him, he became more disciplined and focused. In drastic contrast to how strict I had been in the past, I reached my hand out to him in a kind and caring manner and said, “You can come out now.” What followed that utterance makes me ashamed to this day for thinking this practice was some sort of an innocent mind game. The moment I said those words, I experienced an emotional release the intensity of which I had never imagined possible. Tears poured from my eyes, and my legs completely buckled beneath me. My heart broke open as though some major event had taken place that allowed for a lifetime’s worth of relief.

Once this cathartic release had run its course, I realized something I will never forget: that scared, troubled person in there whom I had been watching and judging was indeed a person. The psyche is a person with feelings and thoughts, hopes, fears, and dreams. He is not to be locked in a room and constantly told to shut up. There are much more constructive ways to deal with these disturbed, self-centered energies. Unfortunately, I had to learn this the hard way—through experience.

Feeling more whole than I had been feeling for a long while, I remembered my statement in the dream, I’ll have to find another way. There was no question as to what “the other way” would be. I had to learn to surrender more, instead of struggling so much. I had already determined to surrender to life’s flow, even if I couldn’t understand where it was taking me. I had to do the same thing inwardly. I needed to learn to just relax inside instead of fighting with my mind so much. Just because the voice talks doesn’t mean I have to listen to it or let it affect the direction of my life. It has nothing to do with me—I can just relax regardless of what it’s saying. I was back to the basics: I am the one who notices the voice talking.

I came out of silence for the rest of my stay at the community. I don’t mean I talked a lot, because I didn’t. I was just social enough to where people felt comfortable talking to me. I met some of the longtime residents and listened to stories of their own journeys. Despite the changes I was going through, I didn’t change my meditation and yoga sessions. They were not the problem; I was the problem. I had built a mental concept of absolute discipline that was actually holding me back. In my meditations, I had been achieving heights by pushing down on the lower energies. But that was just a form of suppression. I had to learn to channel those energies upward instead of pushing them away from me. It took some time, but I eventually began to realize the true purpose of yoga. Done properly, yoga is the science of channeling all energies upward until they merge together at the highest point—Oneness.

After a few weeks at the community, I started my journey home. It was a wiser, clearer person who drove back to Florida. Though the seeds had been planted and some very deep lessons had been learned, it was going to take some time for me to learn how to come to peace with myself. Meanwhile, I was looking forward to returning home to my land and to the solitude of my beautiful house in the woods.