The People's Ashram

An artist friend had promised to draft a design I'd given him for a tattoo that I'd planned for several months. I'd offered him payment, but he'd refused. It took me a couple of months to set aside the cost of the work I wanted done.

I hadn't pressured him at all, but when only a couple of weeks remained before the appointment I'd made with the tattoo parlour, I'd mentioned it to him. He replied that it was absolutely no problem. I didn't pressure him.

A week before I planned to get the tattoo done, I again reminded him. He said, sure, it was no problem. Finally, the day before I planned to get the tattoo done arrived. I met my friend at work--he was also a co-worker. He said that he'd been up all night talking with a friend and barely managed to drag himself to work, let alone remember to bring along the drawings he said that he'd completed.

I said, "Well, o.k." He said that he'd call me the next day.

I was peeved. This was an event I'd worked up to for several months. The tattoo marked a new phase in my life. My last tattoo had been years before, in the midst of another life phase.

I sat to meditate, set the alarm, got comfortable.

I focused on my annoyance. I brought to mind my friend's face, his voice, our phone conversations, other conversations. I thought about him staying up all night chatting with his friend, a mutual co-worker, whom I also knew. I focused on how it made me feel that after staying up all night talking, my friend had simply, "been too thrashed" to remember to bring the renderings that he had promised. I focused on my feelings of doubt that he'd actually cared enough to complete the design.

I found where the sensation of my annoyance produced tension in my body. I focused my awareness on that place, on that feeling of tension. The sensation, the shakti of annoyance, was a tangible presence that I could reach within and touch with the focus of my awareness..

I followed the feeling of this vibration of annoyedness for some time. All other thoughts and sensations dissipated and departed.

After awhile, the frequency of my annoyance brought me face to face with the whom that the annoyedness had affected. I looked at that whom. I recognized the whom, since it was myself that I recognized.

The self that I recognized was the same me that I had always been, each and every moment of my life. All the events that had ever transpired during my life belonged to this me. The funny thing, however, was that this me that I recognized and knew had always been me--was always the same. I'd never been without this me, but this me had never been affected or changed by any thought, feeling, relationship or circumstance of my life. The me that I recognized was like seeing the light of being aliveness in my own eyes. It was more like the screen, or canvas, the background against which the time and activity of my life played.

This light was not itself the specific activities of my life, yet it somehow was responsible for there having been a "my life" at all.

My focus became fixed on this immutable me-ness. It was vast and deep and consuming, and yet--really, nothing at all. This me was absolute, whatever it was, it was that.

I became lost for a time. When I opened my inward gaze, I saw my husband standing before me.

He took my hand in his and we walked together. I began to hear the musical sound of water flowing. As we approached the source of the growing sound, I felt the percussion of thundering water in the ground beneath my feet.

When we arrived, I saw that from more than a hundred feet above, a frothing cascade of water rushed downwards. My husband stepped aside, and I saw a lake so clear and still that the sky and the clouds were perfectly mirrored on its surface. To my astonishment, I saw that the roaring waterfall descended on the lake and entered its water without a splash, without creating the merest hint of a ripple in the lake's crystal smooth surface.

My husband said, "Come on, let's swim." He threw himself into the water and began to swim about, rolling and turning like a porpoise. "The water's fine," he said. "Come on in!"

I followed him into the lake. The water was wonderfully cool and soothing. I dove fully into the lake and emerged, my hair wet. Yet when I shook my head, my hair seemed to throw off its moisture without releasing a drop of water. I stood in the waters of the lake and watched my husband swim.

I asked him, "How is it that your arms and legs churn and kick, but not a single drop of water is displaced?"

"If the lake refused my body," my husband said, "how could I enjoy my swim?"

He rose and walked toward me. He cupped his hands, lifted some water and offered me a drink. I drank from his hands. The water tasted sweet and pure. "If the water did not surrender to your need, how could your thirst be quenched?" he said.

He reached out his hands and held my face. He leaned in and gently pressed his lips on mine. "If your lips could not feel, how could we enjoy our kiss?"

The alarm sounded. My big poodle, Jack, nudged my leg with his nose. "Enough quiet time," I knew he meant. "Time for my walk."

We went for an evening stroll.

Who?

Who invites the pain
of loneliness,
the anguish of still-born
ambitions,
the abuse of employers--
even the senseless
loss of a prodigal child?

Who accepts these gifts
of surrender,
and gives for the giving,

the melodious ecstasy of
a single tone,
a lamp that shines in
a delicious dark,
and finally,
following a long
journey--

a bath in
a mountain lake
where cascading waters
fall in fury,
but enter
in stillness?

Who raises you,
naked and newborn,
from the womb of
a loving Heart,
kissing your tears of joy,
caressing your emptiness?

Who is this,
whose love is
free to enjoy
and for all
to discover?

Who?

MadhyaNandi
1996