Sunday, August 22, 2004
The Wild Card
Recently, I attended a spiritually focused workshop at a nearby retreat center. I enjoyed the people who came, many of whom were obviously sincere, dedicated people, looking for ways to deepen and expand their spiritual commitments. But the topic of kundalini was not included (nor did I expect it to be.) I even had an energy balancing from a lovely 80-year-old nun, and the experience was quite nice, but she herself seemed to know nothing about kundalini.
Once again, I felt a bit of the "outsider," the person whose spiritual experience is so out of the ordinary that it seems futile even to bring it up. Most of the meals took place in silence, so I was not able to talk with many there. But on the last day the prohibition was lifted, and during the final lunch, a woman in her thirties sat down next to me at the table and we began to talk. I discovered that she was, like me, a writer, and, when she asked me what I wrote, I told her (after a moment of hesitation) about "Unmasking the Rose," my personal spiritual autobiography. Immediately, her experession changed to one of wonder. "I knew there was a reason I sat by you!," she exclaimed. Then she described for me her own spontaneous kundalini awakening of a few years back, an experience with many striking parallels with my own. During her awakening, she also went into what I think of as "mystical consciousness," the time when all the world and its beings are suffused with great beauty and love. So, we exchanged key information about our lives and our awakening process in a space of some 40 minutes or so, but we each recognized a deep bond with the other.
Such meetings are, I think, highly significant. Each of us learns that we are not alone, that others are also undergoing a similar process, and indeed such radical experiences are occurring world wide. This in itself is a source of great hope and inspiration for me. Who knows how far this incredible phenomenon will spread? And who can predict what its consequences will be? Things which start small often grow to mammoth proportions (consider the beginnings and spread of such movements as civil rights, feminism, gay rights, to name a few). No matter how disturbing the events reported in the daily news, another, deeper, and more significant transfomration is taking place, beneath the radar of the common press, invisible to many except those who have eyes to see, and ears to hear. There is indeed a "wild card" in the deck, and although we can't name it, it may be the means of our salvation.
Once again, I felt a bit of the "outsider," the person whose spiritual experience is so out of the ordinary that it seems futile even to bring it up. Most of the meals took place in silence, so I was not able to talk with many there. But on the last day the prohibition was lifted, and during the final lunch, a woman in her thirties sat down next to me at the table and we began to talk. I discovered that she was, like me, a writer, and, when she asked me what I wrote, I told her (after a moment of hesitation) about "Unmasking the Rose," my personal spiritual autobiography. Immediately, her experession changed to one of wonder. "I knew there was a reason I sat by you!," she exclaimed. Then she described for me her own spontaneous kundalini awakening of a few years back, an experience with many striking parallels with my own. During her awakening, she also went into what I think of as "mystical consciousness," the time when all the world and its beings are suffused with great beauty and love. So, we exchanged key information about our lives and our awakening process in a space of some 40 minutes or so, but we each recognized a deep bond with the other.
Such meetings are, I think, highly significant. Each of us learns that we are not alone, that others are also undergoing a similar process, and indeed such radical experiences are occurring world wide. This in itself is a source of great hope and inspiration for me. Who knows how far this incredible phenomenon will spread? And who can predict what its consequences will be? Things which start small often grow to mammoth proportions (consider the beginnings and spread of such movements as civil rights, feminism, gay rights, to name a few). No matter how disturbing the events reported in the daily news, another, deeper, and more significant transfomration is taking place, beneath the radar of the common press, invisible to many except those who have eyes to see, and ears to hear. There is indeed a "wild card" in the deck, and although we can't name it, it may be the means of our salvation.
