Tag: meditation

Part 2 of 2: Life is a Journey

I’m sure we have all taken time to ponder the question, “Why am I here?” Considering the meaning of life goes back at least as far as the ancient philosophers including Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle and has remained a favorite topic of philosophers through the centuries.

Entire religions are built upon the need to provide purpose for our human existence. I have read a description of Christianity as defining the purpose of life is to seek salvation for a promise of eternal life. A great speaker once told me that the purpose of religion was “to make people feel better about death.”

Discounting all of the religious variations, I think most of us fall into one of three camps:
a) ‘we are born, we live, we die, that’s it’
b) ‘we are born, we live to meet the goals set out by our religion, we die, then spend eternity based on how well we met our religious obligations’
c) ‘we come from pure positive energy, we experience duality and conflict, we return to pure positive energy.’
As for me, when I’m asked what I believe, I usually just say that I’m hopeful.

As a youth, my family attended an active Southern Baptist Church. It was what most Southern people did in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. Every Sunday morning, you would get dressed in your “Sunday finest” clothes and go to your church of choice. Most of us also attended a Wednesday service, as well. I remember one Sunday morning when I was around five or six years old, my father was quite vocal on the drive home from church saying it was the last time we were going to that church, that they spent more time preaching about money than they did scripture. It was the last time we attended church as a family for many years, and it also taught me, as a young child, that church was not to be trusted. I felt a bit like an outcast because ‘everyone’ in our neighborhood attended church on Sunday morning except our family and the family of the town drunk that lived a couple of houses up across the street.

Fast forward almost a decade and I found myself in a new school, 8th grade at the newly constructed high school. My other elementary classmates matriculated to the old high school but our family had moved to a neighboring school district. I met my new best friend, John, on that first day of school. Though he was a year older than me and a year ahead of me, we had several classes together, including chorus. Oh, how I loved to sing. I had first discovered my joy for singing in our weekly music class in elementary school. I can still remember my third-grade classmates groaning when I asked if we could sing “Home on the Range” almost weekly. Just a couple of weeks into the new school year, John asked me if I would consider visiting his church, the local Presbyterian Church, and invited me to attend the choir rehearsal that Wednesday evening. I was all in, choir practice every Wednesday evening, church service every Sunday morning, and often special services on Sunday evenings. I was there so much that my parents and two younger brothers even started attending.

However, there was always a disconnect for me. I would spend the morning in Sunday school listening to how loving and caring God is, then move up to the main sanctuary to be told how judgmental, spiteful, and vindictive God is. Another covenant I had problems wrapping my head around was the declaration we had to proclaim every Sunday morning: “I believe that the Bible is the word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice.” Fifty-five years later and that phrase is still in my head. I never truly accepted the Bible as a literal expression of God’s word, much less that the red letter scriptures were actual quotes from Jesus. I stayed at that church for the balance of high school, not for the message every Sunday, but for the chance to sing regularly.

One of the more recent philosophies was made popular in the 1980’s by author Wayne Dyer and has been attributed to the 20th century philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. I’m sure you are familiar with “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” 1980 is also the same year my wife and I were married. She was a strong proponent of spirituality separate from religious dogma. These thoughts were very much in line with the philosophies of Wayne Dyer and, in the early 1990’s, another author she followed, Abraham Hicks and the “Law of Attraction.” I was not ready to hear those messages, and I called them no more than “woo-woo philosophy.” She was persistent and consistent in how she presented that “new thought” paradigm to me. Most importantly, she demonstrated those ideas through her actions, not just her words. It took until the late 1990’s for the light bulb to finally turn on in my brain.

By this time we had moved to Cincinnati, Ohio and I was committed to my life on the hamster wheel. Always chasing more, always searching for happiness ‘out there’, and never finding contentment. Ten years with the same small high-tech company had brought me industry notoriety, a comfortable paycheck, and a feeling that I still wasn’t contributing to the common good. The owner of the company, along with the VP of Finance, attended a long weekend experiential ‘self-help’ seminar and wanted all of their top-tier managers to attend. I was to be the guinea pig for the rest of the organization. I showed up on Thursday evening not even knowing what the seminar was about.

As with most things I get involved in, I went in with an open mind and participated fully. It was very much all of the “woo-woo” stuff my wife had been telling, but this time it was presented in a way that I could understand. I couldn’t wait to share my newfound discoveries with her and all she would say is, “Yes, I know. That’s what I’ve been telling you for the last twenty years.

I started volunteering with the seminar organization, eventually attending an advanced weeklong class that dug deeper into our decision making, then becoming a leader both in the basic seminar as well as the advanced seminar. One of the most insightful messages I received about myself was that I spent so much time striving to be “Right” even at the expense of “Being Happy.” Yes, words Dr. Phil also often used. Communication between my wife and I actually flourished. Shortly after 9/11 in 2001, my wife and I decided it was time to pursue happiness and we returned to the Atlanta area.

Upon moving back to metropolitan Atlanta, we decided to go into business together. We worked side by side seven days a week and were basically together 24 hours a day. We would never have survived that ritual before finding common ground spiritually. As mentioned in Part 1, our world came crashing down in 2018 when our youngest child took their own life. We not only lost one of the joys of our life, we lost our joy for life.

In the summer of 2018, as my wife was searching for spiritual comfort, she decided to attend a service at our local Unity Church. This was something I was not familiar with, but she did find comfort there and encouraged me to attend. The core principles of Unity aligned with my belief system, and I was comforted by a spiritual group that used meditation to seek alignment instead of a religious group that used prayer to ask for favors. Unity uses the Bible as its basic textbook, not an “infallible truth”. Unity acknowledges the divinity of Jesus but also asserts that the same divinity lies in each and every one of us. In our local Unity Church, Jesus is our master teacher and model. Just as importantly, Unity states that EVERYONE is a unique expression of God and together we are One.

In Part 1, I commented that we, collectively, seem to be more disjointed in our belief system than ever before. How do I respond to this? As the title of this post implies, how do I navigate this journey of life? How do I reconcile that family and other people I know have such diametrically opposed views on religion, politics, diversity within the human race? For me, the inspiration is simple while the application is often quite difficult. If I truly believe that “we all are one”, that “we each have the divinity of God within us”, that “our thoughts manifest reality,” I say to you:

“The divinity within me honors the divinity within you.”

Unity teaches me that the spirit of God lives within/around/as each person; therefore, all people are inherently good. It is not for me to judge.

I was going to close this post with a single word – NAMASTE, for those of you not familiar with the word, it is pronounced: nah-mah-stay. I also found these short definitions, maybe I should have just started this post with these:

“I bow to you”: A literal translation meaning “salutations to you” or “hello/goodbye” in Sanskrit. 

Gratitude: A way to thank the teacher for sharing knowledge and students for their presence and energy. 

Oneness: A gesture promoting unity and acknowledging that beneath differences, we are the same. 

Spiritual Connection: Helps connect energies and close the practice with a sense of peace and reverence. 

“The divine in me bows to the divine in you”: A common interpretation, recognizing shared spirit. Hmmm, sound familiar?

However, I will do it anyway.

Namaste

The Path

It was Tuesday and I knew I had to escape, even temporarily, the drudge I had dug for myself. My life had evolved into a seemingly endless array of projects, deadlines and unrealistic expectations.As I drove toward the mountains, with their trails through the woods, I couldn’t help but think that this break would only add to my existing stress rather than to help relieve it.

I found the parking area, not much more than a wide spot down an old dirt road. It had been miles since I last saw any real signs of civilization, either past or current. I got out of the car and started walking around, searching for the trail-head that would lead me into the forest. I found nothing more than an opening less grown over than the area on either side. I started in.

It only took a couple of dozen strides before I was keenly aware of what nature had put around me. The silent breeze felt relaxing on my arms and face. The squirrels and chipmunks surprised me as they scurried around, probably just as startled to see me. The songbirds were serenading each other, their chatter bringing an ambiance of elevator music around me. And though I couldn’t see it or hear it, the smell of over-saturated soil and the pungent aroma of ferns and succulents confirmed there had to be a stream nearby.

As my feet fell into a rhythmic beat, I trudged further down the path into the spring greenery. My mind was still racing ahead, reminding me that all of the unfinished projects and looming deadlines were still waiting for me and getting more urgent each moment I spent ignoring them. No matter how much I tried to shut out the inner voices, all I could think about was my to-do list, each item calling to me to make it my priority as the whole list would feel much easier to tackle if I could just get that one item crossed off. No matter how hard I mentally prioritized my list, it still felt like I had pages of highest priority items.

And then it hit me – or, rather, and then I hit it, whatever “it” was. A huge mirror? Blocking the path? Though I could still see the path meandering straight ahead? Then it registered. Backing away and looking around, the path turned off to the right. The mirror had been placed at such an angle that the forest seemed continuous and the trail just followed along in the same general direction. I couldn’t see my reflection in it until I was right up on it, having already passed the “point of no return”.

What should I do? The easy solution would be to turn around and back-track my steps all the way to the car waiting for me in the parking area. Or, I could turn to the right, following the remnants of the trail deeper into the north Georgia woods. As soon as I took my first step onward I heard the birds again, noticed the wind brushing against my cheeks, smelled all that Mother Nature had left for me to take in. My steps got a little lighter and a little quicker. My mind slowed down as I ignored the tremendous urge to flee back to the apparent safety of chaos.

Just as I was comfortable within my cocoon of new experiences, BAM! Another mirror? This one, just as imposing yet undetectable as the first, loomed above me. This one was angled to the left. It was decision time once again. I could easily take this as a sign to abandon my current path and turn back or I could just treat it as a detour, letting me know I was headed in the wrong direction and to continue toward my goal, that I needed to change course to move forward. Since I was striving to do something different from what I was used to doing in hopes of changing the direction of my life, I chose to continue on and not reverse course back to where I had just come.

Though confident in the moment I had made the right decision, doubt crept in as I continued on my journey. Was it wise to ignore my years of experience to continue on this whim of an idea that I might find something different? Or was I just wasting time, postponing the workload and ignoring the deadlines that waited for me back home, thus worsening the situation I would face when I returned? Someone once told me the greatest distance on earth is the 11″ between a man’s brain and his heart. In my internal battle, my brain was telling me to turn around and flee back to safety. My heart was telling me to continue on, enjoy the moment, relish the experience for what it is and nothing more. I found it difficult to allow my heart to take control over my brain, but continue on, I did.

As I walked on I encountered more mirrors. Some faced left, others faced right. Some with slight angles, many with large angles. I continued down the path, now just as intrigued to know where I was headed as I was to escape the mundane existence of everyday life. And then it happened. I reached a point where I was completely surrounded by mirrors. They were positioned in a way that all I could see was the reflection of everything around me, the trees, the paths, everything except me. I couldn’t find how I got in and couldn’t find a way out. I crumpled to the ground, defeated and deflated.

I laid there, curled up in a fetal position, both comforting myself and admonishing myself for making such a bad decision to keep going though all the signs said to turn back. I wished I were home. I slowly sat up, my knees bent and my feet flat on the ground. I leaned back, supporting my weight with my hands and arms behind me, much like the times sitting on the beach soaking in the rays of the sun and the sounds of the surf. I closed my eyes and pictured myself on that beach. There were no worries. Work was waiting for me when I got back but that’s what it would have to do – wait. The time at the beach was for me. A time to recharge my batteries so I could better handle all that life threw at me when I got back home. Why was it acceptable to leave life’s worries behind to go on vacation to the beach for a week, but not okay to escape for a couple of hours during the work week? Maybe this was what I was searching for, a week’s worth of vacation crammed into a 2 hour time span.

I slowly opened my eyes, squinting from the dappled sunlight streaking through the trees. I sat there comforted in the surroundings just as I had been at the beach, both in reality and just now in my mind. I looked around from my seated position expecting to find the obvious way out that I was too frantic to see during my earlier panic. What I found was everything was just as I left it, surrounded by mirrors, life reflected all around and I was caught in the middle.

As the reality of my predicament settled in, I became more aware of how uncomfortable I was. My legs were cramping up from all of the walking and my arms were tired from helping support my body weight while I sat there. And what was this under my hand, hard and rough, so out of place in this idyllic setting I had put myself? A rock – about the size of a baseball. I had played ball from the time I was a young boy, playing with the other neighborhood children in the local park. I had won many ribbons on field day for being able to throw a softball further than anyone else in my grade. One thing I knew about baseballs is that I could throw one hard and fast.

Half without thinking and half out of rage of my current situation, I threw that rock straight ahead with every ounce of strength I could muster. I placed all my energy into that rock. For that instant in time I put my whole being into that rock. Nothing else mattered right then. Within the blinking of an eye, the rock struck the mirror that was directly in it’s path. The rock didn’t bounce off, it carried right through the mirror, shattering it into thousands of tiny shards that fell to the ground. In front of me was a path begging me to follow. In the distance was a sun drenched clearing… and my car, parked exactly where I had left it just a couple of hours before.