imtalkinghere

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi - My Great Good Fortune

I didn't expect to say more than what is just below this. But James Wolcott's two references - 1, 2 - brought up some memories.

First, about the good fortune: I learned TM when it cost $35.00 for students.  I got to spend time with Charlie Lutes (great pictures here),  one of MMY's first US allies, and one of the most delightful teachers I have ever known. I attended the first conference on Creative Intelligence where I had the extraordinary experience of witnessing Bucky Fuller and Maharishi (whose degree was in physics) engage in lengthy, vibrant conversations about the nature of the universe, and where, as a volunteer, I sat in after-hour staff meetings with Maharishi - saw his unassuming humanity, kindness, simplicity up close and for real. I became a teacher of TM when Maharishi was doing the training, which meant I learned from him daily for more than six months.

Toward the end of that course, my sister and I received word that our seventeen-year-old brother, Clayton, had died in a car accident. Because we were in a period of deep meditation at the time, Maharishi wanted to see us before we hurled ourselves into the emergency activity of flying home. We sat on either side of him as he talked a bit about heading back into activity and made arrangements for us to complete our training (the part where he personally gives you the mantras) later that summer at a different location.  My sister had the presence of mind to ask, "What can we say to our mother to comfort her?" Maharishi answered, "When a mother loses a child, rather than think about the future she won't have with the child, the true feeling - the one to concentrate on - is gratitude for the years she had with that child... because if the mother has done everything she can to love the child and feed and clothe the child... (and here he paused for emphasis) and educate the child, then she has done all she was meant to do for the length of time she was given, and wasn't that a wonderful thing to have?"

And then he handed each of us a flower to take to her.

We were both struck, my sister and I, how the point about education was so perfectly apt for our mother. And the way he had emphasized it, as if he knew her.  He had turned to his left and looked directly into my eyes as he said that. No, my sister said, "He turned to the right and looked directly into my eyes as he said that."

I still have days when I wish I could know Clayton as a grown man. But those days of grief right after our return to the U.S. were positively loaded with support and meaning and mystical power and, yes,  gratitude.

Just a  couple of weeks ago, I was listening to To The Best of Our Knowledge on NPR. The author of a new book on the Beatles was talking about their time with Maharishi, including the part about the groupie-charlatan from London who blew into Rishikesh and convinced John and George that Maharishi was having an affair with one of the women at the ashram. The interviewer asked if the allegation was true. The author replied, "Someone told me...and I know for a fact...it was."

I laughed out loud at this absurdity. (Being the peaceful meditator I am, I also shouted, "Do some decent research, asshole!)

"I remember taking George Harrison to meet (Maharishi) in 1993. George had gone to apologize for the bad behaviour of the Beatles back in 1969. Back then, the Beatles, especially John Lennon, had insinuated that the Maharishi was having an affair with Mia Farrow."

According to those who were at the retreat with them, George and John were asked to leave the ashram due to drug use.

"When George apologised, the Maharishi said there was nothing to be sorry about. He said the Beatles were angels on Earth with their music and he could never be angry with them. George wept."    - Deepak Chopra, in the Times of India

(Chopra also has this fine essay in the Times on Maharishi the man.)

There were other ridiculous things in the radio interview as well. I felt so fortunate for those experiences I'd had that allowed me to recognize so clearly the true from the untrue.

Then, a few weeks later, another episode of the same radio show..and more Maharishi. This time it was long time meditator Geoff Gilpin, whose book The Maharishi Effect explores the changes - some wonderful, some downright odd and disappointing - he observed in the TM movement over the years.

Which reminded me of something Maharishi once said about the nature of Truth - that it is something that must be lovingly tended like a garden or it slips away. Sages appear. They share Truth. Then, over time -  via structures and/or due to the consciousness of individuals and the times -  it becomes distorted, corrupted, even lost. Until it comes again.

And so it goes.

And sometimes ... sometimes ...you get really, really lucky.

The essential truth that Maharishi taught was not one you get from someone else, but the One you tap and nurture within.

Jai Guru Dev.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

January 12, 1917 - February 5, 2008

"All speech, action, and behavior are fluctuations of consciousness. All life emerges from, and is sustained in, consciousness. The whole universe is the expression of consciousness. The reality of the universe is one unbounded ocean of consciousness in motion."   

                           - Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

He taught me this.

He gave me the experience of it.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

 

In honor of Labor Day

In a light “Summerscapes” essay in today’s New York Times, Bridie Clark colors in sweet details from the summer of her twelfth year, the summer she set out to transform herself. It reminded me of so many childhood girlfriends -  for instance, the one who used the summer of her father’s military transfer to transform herself into “someone different” between seventh and eighth grade; in short, better hairstyle, cuter clothes and a determination to make cheerleader, with the five-year goal of eventually becoming her high school's homecoming queen (which she did, by the way, and still called it the “happiest day of my life” more than a year after she graduated from Berkeley - not just because she got the crown, I told myself, but because she made it happen. Hey, we all have our dreams..).

When I visited her for a week the very next summer, her anxiety was palpable.  Had I arrived as a carrier of the bad juju from that other, past (please, God) place? Would I inadvertently reveal something to her new friends that might break the spell? As we got ready for a summer dance, she rattled off a long list of rules that really, really mattered here. “Girls don’t dance fast dances with girls here!” she kept repeating, as if I hadn’t grasped it the first time. “And no eye contact with boys unless they come right up to you and speak first!” And so much more. Fortunately, some guy with Cool Creds asked me to dance four times – something that rarely (okay, never) happened at home  – and her panic abated. She loved her old friend, but not at the expense of her new self. And that was as it should be.

But that second summer was my own summer of change. For me, it was about walking into a social gathering without the cover of a gang of girls. I never enjoyed – or understood - traveling in packs, and I wanted to be able to walk into any social space all by myself and, no matter what I found there, feel comfortable initiating a conversation. My plan in that summer between eighth and ninth grade went like this: at least three nights a week, all summer long, I would walk by myself – south on Broad one block, west on North a bunch of blocks, left at Church Street for one more - to the PennSupreme ice cream shop next to the big parking lot, where everyone hung out on summer nights, and I would make myself walk into the crowd and start a conversation. I had a job babysitting two little kids for eight hours a day that summer and I made a deal to do the family ironing as well in order to make enough money to buy some new clothes for this effort. I still remember standing in front of my bedroom mirror (I bought a full-length mirror, too, that summer) practicing my smile, my "hi"; even more, I remember my heart pounding as I made my way down North Street. But I never once turned back. I threw up twice, but I didn’t turn back. And I got good at it, something which came in handy years later when I dated a series of shy artists who dreaded their own openings. “Stick with me,” I could say with sunny assurance. “I’ll get you through it. I know how to do this.” To this day, I look back and love that eighth grade girl. I love her discipline, I love her method, I love her accomplishment. I love that she learned that the “trick” was to open her heart, to have gentle good will toward rooms full of strangers. She inspires me.

In the years since, how many times have I winced each time someone pronounces, "People don't change!” as if it's some fresh thought?   I know they are wrong, but grieve for whatever experience has brought them to this no place. When a 70-year-old acquaintance at a party in June waved her hand and announced, “I’m too old to change,” I shouted “NO!" with a ferocity that shocked the both of us.

I mean, if we can’t change, why are we here? What is more satisfying than growing into a new and better way of being, acting, perceiving? Why is it that adolescent girls can seize the moment, while so many supposed adults have given up?

Robert Bly captured it in a Kabir poem on Bill Moyers’ show last week

Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.

Jump into experience while you are alive!

What you call "salvation" belongs to the time before death.

If you do not break your ropes while you're alive

do you think that ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic

just because the body is rotten ---

that is all fantasy.

What is found now is found then.

If you find nothing now,

you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.

Perhaps one of the richest things about the traditional school summer break is the clear, open  space it provides between what was and what will be, which fuels hot afternoon daydreams of new possibilities and imaginings of how to make them so ... and sometimes, sometimes... the will to act.

This is the essential labor of life.

Have I mentioned my mother?

There’s this bit of infrequent shtick here at our house. I’ll be expressing some curiosity or testing a  perception on something, and the Greek will stop cold what he is doing, point at me with a straight-out arm and announce loudly, “Not normal!”

As in “That’s not how people think”, though I prefer to cling to Deepak’s Chopra’s definition of health: “What we call normal is merely the psychopathology of the average.”

Well, I have to say, if I am not “normal”, this is in large part due to my mother, who is less “normal” than I. I offer as Exhibit A, the following report she filed some years ago:

One day, my two grown children were discussing the Transcendental Meditation Siddha Program, and one asked the other to define Siddha abilities. As the other began to list them, the ability that captured my imagination was “Omniscience.”- “Now, that would be wonderful!” I thought to myself.

Many years later, in May 2002, I was teaching a Reiki II class. The students were especially intuitive and insightful, and at the end of the class, when I turned it over to Q&A, they began asking me questions I had never been asked before, had never even heard asked, and didn’t know the answers to. And yet, lo and behold, I was answering them, and as I answered, I knew the answers were right.

The light/energy in that room was unlike anything I’d ever experienced with a class. I knew something special was happening, but what? And just as I was thinking this, I saw that the question being asked was coming toward me as though on a ribbon. As the ribbon approached me, another ribbon with the answer was rising from a deep well within me, and the ribbons passed each other in front of me. As this continued, I realized that for any question posed, the answer would rise. Amazing.

And then it was time to end the class and the students moved out the door, me still floating in this light-filled state. The very last one was standing beside me and she said, “I just read a book about General George Armstrong Custer and, believe me, he was not a nice man!” I had turned toward her and saw that this statement was coming toward me on a ribbon, and a ribbon was arising within me and as it emerged, I saw a name written on it… George W. Bush.”

My students were barely out of my driveway before I was on the phone to my daughter in California, telling her about this experience. “George Bush, the reincarnation of George Custer – that was the feeling of the ribbon.” She suggested I read everything I could about Custer to see if there were similarities. Over the next couple of months I followed her advice, read numerous books, noted similarities ~ and there are many, many…

Several weeks later, as I poured over my stack of books, it occurred to me to ask which book my student had read,  in case it was one I had not discovered. I called her and said, “What was the name of the book you read on Custer?”

“I didn’t read a book on Custer.”

“Wait a minute. Didn’t you say as you left, 'I just read a book on George Armstrong Custer…?'”

“I didn’t say that.”

So what happened? Who did say that? I was looking right at her, her lips formed the words, and there came a ribbon, and it was her voice that said it.

I now think that my teachers on inner planes wanted me to have that information as part of the lessons they are teaching me on how a soul grows (or doesn't) through lifetimes, and are able to teach this not only through those I am in contact with in person, but also use people on the national stage as examples.

With teachers like that it’s hard to miss the message!

I believe now that, for that very brief period of time, I had the experience of Omniscience. I believe Omniscience must be on a fine level of the relative, probably very close to where you find the Akashic Records. I’m sure there’s someone out there who can explain it accurately, even draw diagrams of it, and maybe even access it at will, but I have not found them yet.

My mother.

Who, as I write this, is – at age 77 – on a road trip with her spectacular friend to master Dr. Eric Pearl’s ReConnection healing technique.

On another day, I can tell you about some maddening challenges that come with this terrain. But, overall, there’s no question - I’ll take this over “normal” any time.

And with this I formally note for the record one of the profound and awesome gratitudes of my life.

Ah, memories...

We watched the Tony Awards tonight - all commercials on mute, as usual. At one point, I was seduced by the silent image of a New York City hansom cab.

ME
Next time we're in New York, let's take a horse-drawn carriage ride. I've never done that.

GREEK
We rode in a horse-drawn carriage.

ME
You mean in Egypt? Edfu? Kinda different. And wasn't that a donkey?

GREEK
No, in New Orleans. Remember the carriage ride?

ME
There was no carriage ride.

GREEK
Yes. We rode in a carriage. In New Orleans.

The room was pretty dark, but I swear I saw a dreamy look cross his face. We went to New Orleans for my birthday six years ago. How could I forget...?

I was blinking into space, trying to pull up some trace of memory ... Nuthin'.

ME
You're absolutely certain?  We - you and I - rode in a horse-drawn carriage in New Orleans?

Now he was staring into space...

GREEK
Oh. - Wait. - No... No... What it was is on the ride in from the airport, the cab stopped just to the side and behind a horse. His ass was right next to my window. I remember because he was wearing one of those buckets to catch his turds.

ME
Well, it's nice that you could turn that particular image into a romantic memory.

I mention this story for anyone who...

...wonders how it is that I fell in love with this fabulous creature...

...or doubts it when I - of the more reliable memory - say that we have laughed out loud together every single day of our going-on-ten-year marriage.

Rain Through Sunday

My father died yesterday morning at 9:14 AM Eastern time. It happened quickly. Heart attack. As he would have wished, I think.

It’s been raining here, will be raining here for a while, so perhaps that’s why I am feeling so fully his visit here in November 2002.

I got a rare phone machine message from him saying, ”We’re going to travel cross country. Leaving tomorrow.  See you when we get to California.”

Within days, he was at my door. In other words, he drove to my house.

It rained throughout that too brief stay. And their arrival coincided with three days I was hosting Sister Joan Chittister for a speaker series. So I took Dad’s wife with me to some Joan stuff, and the Greek threw a hard hat and some rain gear on my father and took him along to work at one of the most exquisite homes ever built in this state. It was a day marked by three revelations: (1) The building – a Zen temple really – was an impeccable level of craft he recognized but knew he would never be able to describe adequately to anyone he knew back home – “Oh, man, that was really something!” he kept repeating, then he would laugh and shake his head, “and there’s no one I can share it with.” (2) They stopped at Trader Joe’s on the way back, where my father discovered  the glory that is Two-Buck Chuck. (3) I think that was the day he got his first inkling that I had married well.

On the day Sister Joan left, we finally had some time alone together. He was sitting at the dining table as I was making soup.  Just the two of us there. Rain thundering on the roof. I sat down opposite him and, almost immediately, he said, apropos of nothing, “I haven’t lived life as a good person.” He was talking about the first 40-some years, the ones before his second marriage.

I nodded. “Some big mistakes,” I said. I leaned in, “From this person, Dad, everything is forgiven. All. Completely. Forgiven. None of it matters to me. I am just so glad you are my father.”

I honestly believe that’s what he came for. Luckily, it was true.

Sixteen years before, I had checked into the Mount View Hotel in Calistoga, California. “I need a room with two chairs that can face each other,” is what I told the reservation clerk. Over the next few days – in between appointments for hold-it-together mud baths and massages – I sat in one of those chairs, pictured my father in the chair across from me, and I let him have it – the violence, the shrapnel from rage, the endless battles over money for shoes, for health, for learning.  I yelled, sobbed. It was a sloppy mess. Several times in the hotel hallway, I noted that the guy in the next room was looking at me strangely. I didn’t care. I was on a mission. I went until the heat was off my words. And then, exhausted, I forgave that soul in the opposite chair.

Sometime later, I had a vision. The family kitchen. Daddy in a rage. Balls of fiery anger were careening around the room, ricocheting off the walls,  and some piece of me was dashing about – with an inspired, even graceful athleticism – gathering them up and holding them tight to keep them from doing damage. ---  I realized I was still holding them. They were not mine, and I needed to give them back. As the balls tumbled from my hands, my father was suddenly a three-year-old playing with a basket of stuff on the floor and the balls became toys that fell into the basket.

“Please forgive me for taking your things,” I said.

He looked up and smiled, and I relaxed about the giveback.

The next day, Dad made his one and only “hey, how ya doin’?” phone call to me.

There’s a brief tale that captures something in the surprising relationship we shared:

“I once knew a crazy woman who worked her hands in the air…she made sculptures in the air. I didn’t think she was doing anything. But, since she was crazy, she used flour for makeup. She was always making immobile sculptures in the air. But one day she moved her face and the flour fell from it like a cloud covering up something in the air. And I saw a beautiful geometric form. Then I took a bag of flour, went into her room and started to throw flour around in the air. And beautiful sculptures began to appear. That’s the story.” – Alexandro Jodorowsky

In much the same way, this father with zero sense of mystery provided me with some of my most profound experiences of it. Incredibly, he would even meet me there.

THE complex relationship of my life. The fabulous opportunity.

My Dad… provider …no longer of this earth. Something has tilted.

Pete            21 October 2006