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Thursday, September 27, 2001
go west not so young man // I'm getting back on the road this morning to undertake the final leg of my trip
to LA-LA-Land. It still hasn't really sunk in that I'm about to enter into a
very challenging nine-week program. I'm apprehensive and excited at the same
time. It's also somewhat amazing...
When John Martini first told Pam and I about Bikram, and again when Pam came
back from her first few classes, my reaction was, "you've got to be kidding!"
The idea sounded ludicrous to me and as someone who has long been lacking in
physical discipline I doubted I would ever give it serious thought. I still
don't know what happened to cause me to first walk into the studio and I can't
imagine why I went back after the first grueling class -- I thought I was going
to die. Yet somehow, return I did, at first once a week. It was the most
physically challenging thing I had ever experienced and all through those early
classes all I could think about was getting out of there. I would be remiss if I
weren't to add that I had recently resumed personal therapy around long-ago
repressed trauma and that the physical issues I was facing in the Bikram class
were precisely mirroring the internal issues I was struggling with in therapy. I
didn't intentionally conjoin the two processes but after several weeks I began
to realize that they were complementing each other nicely and enabling me to
finally, after 41 years, begin to get to know my body and to understand my
mental and emotional relationship with it.
I've often said that one of the wonderful things about having a mind (as opposed
to a brain) is that we can use it to transform the world we live in.
Specifically, I refer to our ability to transform trauma and tragedy into
positive and affirming life experiences which can be used to propel ourselves
further in our personal evolution. I am finally learning to love and appreciate
myself in entirety and I would not be the person I am today without having had
ALL the experiences I have had. I am therefore learning to fully accept those
experiences no matter how painful or difficult they might have been. It was my
brother's suicide a little over two years ago that helped catapult me past some
of the defenses I had been hanging on to for most of my life. Those defenses,
while they served their purpose by enabling me to survive, must ultimately be
cast off if I am ever to move past survival into thrival (I know, not a word but
it works for me). The option to live consciously exists within me as it lives
within all of you and we only have to get out of our own way to begin to see the
path.
The recent trauma and tragedy that we are all struggling with right now can
equally be transformed into life-affirming, positive results. One of the books I
brought with me is "The Illustrated World's Religions, a Guide to Our Wisdom
Traditions," by Houston Smith. I've had the book for a few years but it was only
recently, with the world's attention focused on Islam and Muslims that I started
reading it. It's admittedly brief and focuses primarily on the affirming aspects
of religous belief rather than acting as a comprehensive and conclusive
examination of religion and religious institutions. I just finished the chapter
on Islam and I must say it was fascinating and informative. I intend to learn
more about it and it's adherents especially in light of the fact that one out of
5 or 6 people in the world practice some form of it.
Having survived a number of self-destructive behaviors I can look back at them
and see that they were all in reaction to, and in defense of, deep pain. It may
be treasonous to say this right now but I can't help but look at the
suicide bombers as people whose pain must be great beyond imagination in order
to have learned to surrender their lives to it so completely and with such
devastating ramifications for the rest of us. Of course, I'm being simplistic
and the politics of the situation are complex and rooted deep in history. Still,
what else can I do but apply my own life experiences to the situation at hand
like a template with which to make sense of it and give it recognizable form.
The war being waged upon us is not being conducted by some mysterious "other"
nor by some external force known as "evil" but by ourselves on ourselves. The
struggle to know the self cannot hope to come to fruition if we don't equally
struggle to know and connect with the rest of the world as brothers and sisters
and finally, as reflections of ourselves. I refuse to hate. I refuse to blame. I
would rather look inward to find the strength to reach outward. To get to know
my enemy as I would know myself so that we may recognize each other and get on
with the true purpose of life which is to know love beyond all.
Yikes, I am running out of room time -- I hear the cleaning staff approaching my
door and I must sign off lest they charge me extra for checking out late. It's
back to the car and back to the buzz of driving. See ya on the other side (of
the border, that is) -- California, here I come!
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