ctong@leonardo.rutgers.edu (Chris Tong) (06/30/91)
a different kind of posting... I just finished writing a heart-felt
letter to a young 13-year old friend, precocious (she adores the late
Jim Morrison of the Doors, and has recently been reading a massive
number of books that coincided with almost all the books that changed
me [and perhaps you], including works by L'Engle, Hesse, Kerouac, and
even Nietsche), and full of spiritual longing.
I post this to rec.arts.poems because it is a poem.
I post this to soc.religion.eastern in part because I view it as a way
of trying to communicating, based on my own experience, a
traditionally eastern way of life (devoted to Self-Realization via the
Guru) to a contemporary Western adolescent, in terms that are
heart-felt and will really mean something, here and now.
But I also post it because it moved me to write it, and it might move
you to read it.
Chris
-----------------------------
Dear Rebekah,
You are a rebel, a romantic, and a desperate one.
Great!
There is another possibility, though.
What do you suppose REALLY lies beyond the doors of perception?
******
There is much worth criticizing in the conventional, middle-class world.
But consider now, with me (likewise a rebel, a romantic, and a
desperate one) the limitations of rebellion, romance, and despair. Let
us consider, heart to heart,
REBELLION. The rebel seeks Freedom, without Responsibility. But
freedom and responsibility are two sides of the same coin. If freedom
merely HAPPENS to you by chance, then tomorrow it can UN-HAPPEN, by
chance. You may have noticed, freedom more often un-happens than
happens! The only way to secure lasting freedom is to take
responsibility for the actions that destroy our freedom.
The only way to secure lasting freedom is to always love.
To scream rebellion against all, blindly, indiscriminately, is to also
miss seeing the Door that leads to Freedom, when it quietly opens, and
calls to us, for a brief time.
Real Freedom requires surrender, submission (have you noticed?).
But one must very carefully choose, with all one's heart, to what and
whom one surrenders...
The rebel condemns the conventional, even when it is full of hope,
since she sees that conventional hopes only end in death.
ROMANCE. The romantic idolizes the unconventional, even when it is
full of despair, since the unconventional always appears to offer
freedom.
The romantic always worships half of the whole: the light over the
dark, the freedom of being on the road over the responsibilities of a
conventional life, the rush of young blood over the stagnant pool of
beaten-down age.
But, therefore, romance is always murdered savagely, when the other
half comes roaring in. Night follows day. The road provides no
nourishment. The Angels of Age and Death pass over no one forever.
We romantics builds our sand castles when the tide is out... and
adore our creations, with our backs to the Sea.
DESPAIR. Despair seems noble, because it seems true, the only response
of the heart-broken who have dared to strip conventional life of its
lace and fluff, and then pay the feeling-price for what they see
beneath.
But - I tell you now - they didn't strip far enough! They didn't
penetrate the whole Truth. They saw the nightmare beneath the daymare.
But they didn't wake up.
I tell you now, if you were truly - TRULY - happy for even just one
moment, you would never, never again be able to worship despair.
Don't worship despair.
But perhaps you have not failed enough yet.
Finally you must despair of even despair.
******
So, Rebekah - you are a rebel, a romantic, and a desperate one.
You are courageous and deep and suffering.
Great!
But I wish you to be Happy.
******
We are alike. How could I help but love you?
And so I propose to you a Radical Idea,
a greater destiny,
courageous enough to embrace
rebellion, romance, and despair,
but powerful enough to drown them all
utterly
in a Sea of Happiness.
******
There IS a secret Place,
a Happy Place, a Divine Domain:
the Realm of the Great One.
To Be in this Place is to be Awake
beyond the nightmare,
to be One, Whole, standing beyond the Realm of Twos:
of childish yes and adolescent no,
of wordly Goldmund and ascetic Narcissus,
beyond the dead and beyond the living,
beyond romantic idealism and desperate realism,
beyond the dreams of conception
and beyond the doors of perception,
where there is not even separate you and separate me.
Two is separation, suffering, fear, anger,
brief, imperfect union
and endless, endless longing.
One is Freedom.
Look for that Place inside or outside your self -
you will not find it.
You see, Siddhartha proved it, long ago:
The search ALWAYS fails,
regardless of where it looks.
There is no path we can find or make to reach that Place:
The Happy Place is reachable only by a Wrinkle in time,
a magical hole in the Universe that can be opened
only from the Other Side, sheerly by Grace.
There is One who opens that door from the other side...
and the only way through the door is
(your Heart of hearts has guessed it)
Perfect Love of that Great One.
And once on the other side,
beyond belief,
you ARE that One,
and the Door dissolves,
and You are not separate from anything.
To not be separate
is to be completely happy.
The Door is not made of wind or wood or air.
The Door always appears in human form.
But it is always only the Great One, in a disguise
that even mere human beings can see and love.
Find that One in human form
and you find the Door.
Find that One and you will suddenly see
that your suffering is not
something that is happening to you.
It is something you are doing.
sostopdoingit.
Suffering is the only thing that
hides the Great One from our eyes.
Amazingly enough, we are all
vigorously disbelieving in Happiness.
This is YOUR choice, Rebekah, in every moment:
be a rebellious, romantic, despairing
martyr.
or STOPDOINGIT!!!
and be Happy.
The Great One is neither the mere promise of Happiness,
nor the wistful longing for Happiness,
nor the cynical disbelief in Happiness.
The Great One IS the Happiness of the Other Side,
here and now.
Find that One
and you will forget despair.
Find that One
and you will drink Bliss,
you will be drunk in Ecstasy, night and day.
Your heart will be broken with Joy,
for no reason whatsoever.
Accept no limited one.
Find the Unlimited One.
******
I tell you this, full of passion, because we are alike.
I tell you this, full of compassion, because we are not apart.
I tell you this, having glimpsed the Door and the One.
If I sound a little crazy,
it is only because right now my deepest wish
is to dissolve all separation between us,
and for you to swim in my open heart,
at home, a feeling fish,
until you feel it:
I'm drunk with Bliss!
What worth our adoration more than this?
I worship Happiness itself -
Join me.