Right Here

Leaves flutter on the trees outside my window. Through the closed window, the low roar of rushing civilization in the far distance comes to my ears. This quiet early morning I remain steadfastly committed to doing less and less, even in the middle of the activity of my life.

At some place in the bible, it says ‘You should love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength’. At one point in my life I assumed that this was a literal command, so I broke up with my girlfriend—telling her that I could only have one true love at a time—to spend the summer growing a beard while looking for God (hitchhiking and camping) in Minnesota and Montana. Karma, destiny, or random chance propelled me through many diverse adventures to the doors of a small Vivekananda monastery near the shores of Lake Michigan. After a week of early morning and evening prayer and daily hard work with the mostly young brothers who were there, I was almost ready to sign up.

Vivekananda was a Hindu teacher, one of Ramakrishna’s main disciples. He attended the 1893 Parliament of World Religions in Chicago and was a great popularizer of Hinduism in the West and a great believer in the unity of all religions. From my brief time at the monastery, I remember three tenants: 1) our basic nature is divine, 2) the goal of this life is to realize that divinity, and 3) there are many paths (religions) toward that goal. It was the perfect path for an enthusiastic Presbyterian minister’s son who had been gently radicalized by the fringes of the ‘peace and love’ movement in the ’60s, touched by some depth of feeling through living in Japan for a year, influenced by a Marxist professor’s interpretation of Jesus’ anti-establishment message of liberation, and had had a personal experience of oneness on an LSD trip that the Christian ministers and priests he encountered did not seem to understand.

I felt at home with the rag-tag mix of mystics and drop-outs I encountered at the apple-farm monastery. I knew in my heart that this seeking of God, no matter what we call her, is the most important thing in this life. But I also knew that I was afraid to return to my ‘ordinary life’ and, being somewhat of a purist, decided that fear of the ‘real world’ was not a good reason to cloister myself. I returned to college for a wild senior year that involved a series of challenges (including multiple girlfriends) about how to integrate my glimpse of oneness into the complexity and ambiguity of daily life.

I found little support from spiritual teachers that year. My biggest teacher was someone I never met: anthropologist Joseph Campbell. His book, HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES, was given to me by a sympathetic, agnostic Jewish professor of sociology. The main teaching I took from Campbell, aside from his agreement with Vivekananda’s position on multiple authentic paths, was his observation that the hero’s journey is not complete until he comes down from the top of the mountain, back into daily life. The hero’s job is to bring the gift of her vision of God/Dharma/Life back to everyone through integrating what she has experienced into her everyday life.

It’s hard to leave the mountaintop, but since it’s impossible to stay, we don’t really have much choice. I have drifted away from my initial affiliation with the Christian church, but remain deeply inspired and touched by authentic Judeo-Christian teachings. When Jesus encourages us to be ‘in the world but not of it’, I hear him speaking to me. Separating myself from the world has never been my path, something about the challenge of the complexity of it all has seemed to be the point.

So, once again this morning, I vow to remember that the one most important thing is life itself. Through all the activity of daily life, the unnamable source of life itself is present. Getting things done is just a wonderful game we humans have invented to order to pass the time. May each thing I do today be an expression of my love and gratitude for the impossible miracle of just being alive.