Wednesday, August 31, 2005
The Need to Speak
One of the abiding needs for the person who has undergone deep spiritual transformation (and also for those who are dedicated seekers) is a chance to tell their story. Something has occcurred which will change their lives forever. They need friendly ears, caring listeners, supportive audiences. Too often this hunger is not satisfied. Friends turn away, spouses and partners insist the problem is hallucinatory, a defect of the nervous system, some mild psychosis.
And, for a writer, the problem is even more acute.
I know, because for many years I had no one to hear my story, no person to read the many pages I had written.
The other day, I ran across this scribbled entry in the back of a lovely book by a distinguished and well known author. Here is what I had written thirteen years ago:
"Here I am, 64 years old, and still you do not know me. You have cast your words wide, set them up like nets to flare in the mind, for all the world to witness, to applaud or jeer. I have buried mine in a cistern so deep its bottom is only a myth, sent them through the tunnel in the black hole into another universe (my imagination), pickled them like little corpses, or else exotic fruits, waiting, waiting, for the arrival of the precious visitor, for whom they are to be exhumed and--at last--revealed in thier lucent splendor."
This passage was written in 1992, when I was eleven years into my kundalini experience. I felt like someone who was carrying a child, and could find no way to give it birth. (Milton said, "I have some thoughts that rove about, and loudly knock to have their passage out.")It was the next year, l993, that I met Andrew Harvey, who became my mentor and guide, who helped me find release. Through publication, I was at last able to complete the final stage of my voyage, "bringing the gift back home" (as Joseph Campbell puts it in "The Hero's Journey.")
As a result, I have met many others on similar odysseys. We have become comrades and friends, shared our adventures, and in fact become teachers to one another on this rare and difficult passage.
Thank you, Andrew, for this indescribable gift. And thank you, as well, for all you have given to others, who have also benefitted immeasurably from the wondrous openings you have provided for their lives.
And, for a writer, the problem is even more acute.
I know, because for many years I had no one to hear my story, no person to read the many pages I had written.
The other day, I ran across this scribbled entry in the back of a lovely book by a distinguished and well known author. Here is what I had written thirteen years ago:
"Here I am, 64 years old, and still you do not know me. You have cast your words wide, set them up like nets to flare in the mind, for all the world to witness, to applaud or jeer. I have buried mine in a cistern so deep its bottom is only a myth, sent them through the tunnel in the black hole into another universe (my imagination), pickled them like little corpses, or else exotic fruits, waiting, waiting, for the arrival of the precious visitor, for whom they are to be exhumed and--at last--revealed in thier lucent splendor."
This passage was written in 1992, when I was eleven years into my kundalini experience. I felt like someone who was carrying a child, and could find no way to give it birth. (Milton said, "I have some thoughts that rove about, and loudly knock to have their passage out.")It was the next year, l993, that I met Andrew Harvey, who became my mentor and guide, who helped me find release. Through publication, I was at last able to complete the final stage of my voyage, "bringing the gift back home" (as Joseph Campbell puts it in "The Hero's Journey.")
As a result, I have met many others on similar odysseys. We have become comrades and friends, shared our adventures, and in fact become teachers to one another on this rare and difficult passage.
Thank you, Andrew, for this indescribable gift. And thank you, as well, for all you have given to others, who have also benefitted immeasurably from the wondrous openings you have provided for their lives.
