Oh, I'm sure my ever-loving soul has a handle on the larger picture, but what good does that do my conscious mind?
Okay, okay....meditation can lift me out of my body and enable me to commune with my spirit guides or my angels or whatever other disembodied entity feels compelled to take the floor; but honestly, am I willing to believe all that? And what practical application can there be if I do?
I am no newcomer to the whole philosophy of consciousness expansion and transcendentalism, which is really seriously messed up given my present attitude towards much of it.
Since the age of fourteen when I stridently liberated my beleaguered psyche from the nuns and Catholic school, I have heavily perused, plumbed and, in some cases, propagated every belief system and metaphysical arena of thought that I could get my energetic forcefield around, with the only exception being all realms of obviously dark, satanic or just plain disturbing connivances.
I spent untold hours in my teens and twenties twisting my limbs into yogic postures a white girl with knock knees and a D-cup has absolutely no business undertaking and totally messed up my inner ear chasing after my inner being with all that inner breathing.
And lets not forget the time I tore all the ligaments in the ball of my right foot while hoisting my top-heavy body through some yoga routine that was intended only as a meditative salutation to the sun; not as a preparatory drill prior to handling an assault weapon. I was supposed to be finding God; instead I spent the afternoon looking for crutches.
Clearly, enlightenment was not to be found through my body.
In high school I was big into yoga and theosophy and the teachings of the ascended masters. In college I took my turn at Transcendental Meditation. During the initiation process (which came only after the two-hundred and fifty dollar fee was collected...a fee that has now risen up to $2,500!) I was given a mantra. My mantra. My SECRET mantra.
This was the sacred word that would lead me deep into those inner-space bubbles of cosmic thought; that would catapult my essence into the cosmos where I would unify with the Divine. My mantra.
I was told that everyone was given a mantra unique to them; one whose supernatural beams were so imbedded in the soul that only God could void them.
I was instructed to repeat it to myself at the onset of meditation and strictly forbidden to share it with another living, prana-sucking soul or my vow of allegiance to my guru and ability to convene with the transcendent would be divinely revoked without any refunds.
For years I kept this evanescent blessing to myself; long after I had abandoned that particular avenue towards enlightenment. I knew the power had gone out, or perhaps, it had never been fully plugged in; but for whatever reason, I respected the directive of silence.
At least until I began to understand that the only way I was going to charge my soul would be with a battery of illumination that came strictly from my heart and by freeing myself from the shackles of theosophical and dogmatic restriction wherein each doctrine and practice claim nirvana was best reached by swallowing their particular manna.
Eventually, I abandoned the notion that I could not become a more enlightened, holier person unless I became a rigid adherent of a specific belief system or placed my incomplete understanding in the Lotus-positioned lap of a highly-paid guru; someone already claiming to have tagged celestial base and is now home free.
Perhaps the first indication I had that there were more areas of separation than there were epiphanies of oneness came at the realization of one single deficit that every religion, belief system and formal, spiritual convention had in common: The Us and Them factor.
From my early years of Catholicism to my years donning the theosophical garb of everything from Transcendentalism to Tarot cards, I found the singular thread of self-righteousness weaving a heavy garment of insolation throughout all of them.
Obviously, there were some outstanding and holy individuals within all of these churches and organizations who clearly understood the concept of humility and love and proved to be the exceptions.
However, not in numbers enough to convince me that one way excelled over another. In fact, I'll go out on a limb here and say that I witnessed far more examples of feint sacrosanctity within these hallowed halls of meditative plundering than ever I did at the mall or the pizza shop.
Once I removed myself from the metaphysical shackles of those esoteric rituals that seemed so foreign and out of sync with the daily confrontation of cosmopolitan artifice, I was able to finally understand unity in it's fullest sense.
Suddenly, there was NO difference between me and them. I had finally come within reach of grasping the blessed truth that I was, indeed, ONE with the heaving masses of pedestrian thinkers just trying to cope with whatever awaited them at the next sunrise.
I smiled with them, cried with them and reached deep into my reserve pockets of compassion to know them as I solemnly rejoiced at the fact that I AM them!
I am not begrudging anyone else the right to seek clarity by a specific path that resonates with them. I am not implying that there is not great good in all forms and fashion of worship or that ritual is not a valuable technique in which broader doors of thought and understanding can be nudged open. I am not even suggesting that everything, once it is confined within a regimented platform, is all smoke and mirrors.
Where God is sought, there He will be found. He has no favorites.
However, for me, I find it best to canvass the world for greatness armed with humility and acceptance; particularly an acceptance of the fact that I am just a poor schlep like everyone else and one who claims no special edge, advantage or understanding of the game but only an unbreakable resolve and a willingness to try.
And so, when I at last spoke out and questioned others about my sacred and secret mantra, I was not at all surprised to discover that nearly everyone I asked had the same one that was given to me. Upon further inquiry, I found that everyone of a particular age group at the time of initiation is given the same one! At eighteen years old, my mantra was AING.
The way it unrolled for me mentally was A-ing. 'A' followed by ing, like the suffix forming verbs from nouns. In retrospect it would appear that even then in my sincere but fickle quest for God and goodliness I was thinking like a writer.
I do find it uplifting and centering to attend mass on Sundays, and there was a period of years when I attended every morning. There is something to be said for the tactile ignition of clean scented sanctity as it falls to earth in the devout gestures of sacred rituals, and I won't deny that transcendence is more easily glimpsed from an inviolable pew than from a gum-laden bench at a bus stop.
But easier is not necessarily better, nor is the experience always genuine.
I think that by graciously straddling despair as we steadfastly negotiate our daily truce with disappointment and struggle, we stand to yield far more redemptive graces and everlasting wisdom than could be gained from any mantra, mudra, meditation or surface investment in sanctified ritual.
So, for now, I'd rather seek God by mixing it up in the streets.
Aight?
Tagging transcendence in the masses, yo...... Se la vie, Aing.
