I am indebted to Thomas Stearns "TS" Eliot who inspired this
conversation.
It was the start of a long, long journey. It wasn't the kind of journey
which covers
miles and miles and
miles.
Rather it was the kind of journey which takes years and years and
years. He started out on this journey not because there was some
country he wanted to go to, some country different than the country he
was in at the time. Rather it was because there was some
way he wanted to be, some way different than the way he
was being at the time.
To go on a journey which covers
miles and miles and
miles,
you say the name of the place to which you want to go, then you start
walking or you buy a ticket. The trouble with this journey, however,
wasn't that it was one which takes years and years and years rather
than one which covers
miles and miles and
miles.
The trouble for him was he couldn't say the way he wanted
to be. It was, in fact, much easier for him to say the way he
didn't want to be. His journey, then, took shape around
the way he didn't want to be, rather than around the way he wanted to
be. And such journeys are always fraught with peril.
On the first stage of his journey he sought to understand
the ways he was being which he didn't want to be. The method of
understanding was his first logical choice. For a while, at least, it
provided some relief. Things which can be explained and
understood were somehow more palatable to him than things he couldn't
understand, he discovered. But soon however, he realized any
understanding he gained was also dictated to and driven from and
mediated by that same way of being he didn't want to be in the first
place. It was a trap, a trap which he couldn't escape from or resolve.
So he abandoned that approach entirely and continued on his journey.
To say he turned to spirituality
next,
isn't exactly true. "Turned to spirituality" implies some kind of
intentionality,
some kind of
deliberation.
But that's not
what happened.
What happened
was spirituality simply appeared
next
on his journey ie it
showed up
right on his path (so to speak), so he embraced it. He reasoned what
was missing from his life might be an experience of spirit, an
experience which, once realized, would cleanse his current way of being
and somehow elevate him into a higher
state
which would be more pleasing for him to be. After a few more years his
awareness of spirituality was more developed. He could now carry on
witty and intelligent discourses about spirit. But he eventually
stopped doing that when he discovered talking about spirit didn't bring
about a permanent shift in his way of being. To the contrary, when he
wasn't talking about spirit or practicing the discipline of spirit, he
realized he was still exactly the same way he didn't want to be to
start with. Nothing had changed.
So he turned to religion. Religion, it seemed, was the only direction
in which he hadn't yet turned on his journey. The ceremony, the piety,
and the righteousness resonated with something deep within him - though
he wasn't exactly sure what. He even took to having conversations with
God
(or at least with whomever and whatever he believed
God
to be) about topics he couldn't fathom by
reflecting
on them himself, or by talking them over with his
friends
and
family.
Then one day he outright asked
God
to make him be the way he wanted to be, and
God
told him "But you already are the way you want to be, my
Son - that's why I made you the way I made you" which wasn't a
satisfactory answer to him, and it certainly wasn't the answer he
wanted to hear. "How can this be the way I want to be, how can this be
the way you made me, if I don't want to be this way?" he pondered out
loud, railing against
God.
But
God
had already moved on, being very busy that day answering the
next
caller's
prayers.
Finally, many, many years after his journey started, partially by
happenstance
and partially by sheer good fortune, he met
Werner Erhard.
And very soon he found in his life what he had been looking for, all
these years. Overjoyed, he went to
Werner
to thank him for what he had given him, the getting of which had
completed his journey, the getting of which had completed his search
for a way of being he preferred, the getting of which had
transformed
his life.
And
Werner
said to him "Don't thank me. That's too small. I didn't give you
anything. You had it all along.".