I and my friend, another former teacher, decided to exchange weekly emails and discuss issues which at present concern us...
This is the first exchange...
And I will post the others as we progress in our correspondence...
I hope you will find it engaging and thoughtful...
As usual, you may comment on any issue that both of us discuss...
Note: He calls me H and I refer to him as Ross...Both of us were teachers at Pocock...and now we have retired.
H.K.
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H,
A friend of mine died just before Christmas. I was asked to give a tribute to him at the Anglican Church where a Memorial Service was being held. Mark died from complications from kidney dialysis which he had lived with for many years. When he first had to go on dialysis he got severely depressed thinking he was going to live with pain the rest of his life. I visited him several times and I frankly didn't know how he would be able to cope with this every single week. Some time elapsed before I saw him again…but when we did re-connect I knew something wonderful had happened to him because he was so filled with life and energy. We never had a conversation about this…but I just knew something had happened on a Spiritual level. All through the 2 weeks in the Hospital where he was slowly dying at the end…I spent quality time with him and finally I had figured it out. At the memorial service this is how I put it: Mark had experienced an alternative state of consciousness which was triggered by a Mystical Experience After this he was flying. He now knew something which was life changing.
This talk I gave was the first talk on a Spiritual Matter I had given since I retired from Pocock. I also had gone through a life/death experience which had initiated an alternative state of consciousness. Much like Mark it was a Mystical Experience …several of them…which had triggered this altered state of consciousness in my life.
So here I am straddling my balance between Time and Deep Time….Knowing that Deep Time has forever changed how I am in Time. The greatest challenge I seem to face is how to keep my balance. When people wanted to be sarcastic to others they would often shout at them < you’ll never make it in the real world> With a continuous experience of Deep Time…your mind and your spirit sees the words <real world> very differently than others. It significantly changes how comfortable you are in the present world when you can often experience the deeper world…..the thing is BOTH ARE REAL…..and that is the struggle of a Mystic….to keep one’s balance.
So I find myself, now, on a journey much more different than my time at Pocock. I am very slowly finding a new vocabulary to express this. Poor Doug D. got a shock…but so have others who knew me then and who seriously talk to me now. One man put his hand on my arm and quietly said – “ Ross…you've changed”. He’s right. But there is no developed vocabulary to explain the journey I am now pursuing. But this is more REAL for me than anything that went before. BALANCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Signing off for this week.
Ross
Ross,
You have been a good friend and above all; you have been non-judgmental.
That is a big part of the reason that I stayed with you…
You insisted that “they are allowed…” and that intrigued me at first and
initiated a better grasp of you as a friend.
Indeed, I am not a mystic. I do not want to embark on a journey…which is
not me. But I appreciate the duality in any unity…I would have reiterated the
multidimensional diversity in unity. After all, each one of us is a complex
universe of convoluted complexity. The lifelong trick is to simplify it…to form
patterns…As we agreed before; to do the math without numbers...
After retirement I am more conscious of my lifelong journey…To grasp
myself more and arrive at peace. Peace is bliss and peace is all we’ll have
when the journey is accomplished.
I always wanted to live in a monastery by myself and meditate and arrive
at my peace…But the world is a mean place. It did not allow me…The world is not
as kind as you are and it did not “let me be…” And now, there is Syria,
Ukraine, the “Arab Spring” which refuses to bloom; since I am not a mystic, it
was neither Spring nor Arab…You cannot have forced springs. Also there is the
centenary of the Armenian Genocide…The anniversaries of all the other
genocides…These pulled me back.
The reality is harsh. The reality is brutal. The reality is man-made.
And the reality did not allow me to live by myself in a monastery striving for
internal peace…by myself. And I obliged; succumbed to the reality that had
engulfed me; that has enveloped me…And I gave all I had to change and strove to
change and worked for change…chased the ever eluding horizon…of peace. Peace
was not there…Peace will never be there…It is sad that we have not learned to
live in harmony and celebrate peaceful co-habitation…with each other, with
animals, and with nature.
I am not a mystic…I will never be one. That’s beyond my powers. But I
will always think about man’s inhumanity towards men. I will always cherish the
memory of us walking together in the anti-Iraqi Invasion parade. I know you
were happy. I realize that it was a new experience and a new dimension of Ross
was blooming up…I waited for the blooms…I am waiting for the blooms…I know they
are there…somewhere…, and I know they will come.
I will strive for internal, as well as external peace. But, I have a
doubt within me, buried deep down in there, somewhere…That peace will never
come…and I will never be in a monastery.
Sad, but very real.
Keep in touch.
H
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