The lesson that second morning was about spiritual responsibility. Are we responsible for others? What is our attitude when we witness discord and suffering? David knew the principles that Jason lived by. There were only two: Don’t accept what you see at face value and go surfing. Was Jason really that free? Or was he simply running away? David didn’t get it.
David skipped the afternoon sessions again and went to the Honolulu Academy of Art, one of the most beautiful small museums in the United States. He was to meet Lillian there after the class. He was sitting between a pair of Chinese lions when he saw her get off the bus.
“That lesson this morning exhausted me,” Lillian said as David got up to greet her.
They entered a tranquil world of courtyards and quiet galleries. Lillian loved the Hawaiian section, especially the feather capes and helmets.
“I think this is your real church,” she told David as they stood in front of a Hawaiian tapa. “From what J.J. said you kind of abandoned religion when you moved away and became an artist.”
“I don’t know if I ever accepted religion in the first place. Doesn’t man make God in his own image? Look at these gods.” He moved along to a display of carved Hawaiian figures. “Could you worship one of these with any conviction?”
“So you’ve been an atheist all along?”
“Not at all. I’ve met Dr. Green, and there’s always been something about Jason, and Elizabeth too.”
“You met Dr. Green?” Lillian said, shocked.
“I went with J.J. on his fifteenth birthday.”
“Don’t you know how special that is?”
“I’m not too big on this guru thing.”
“Are you aware that Dr. Green may have lifted you into a higher consciousness just by being in his presence?”
David was not sure what she meant by that. They walked through more courtyards and ended up at the café for tea, but it was closed.
“The waves must have been good.” David and Lillian sat on the steps in front of the academy entrance waiting for Jason to pick them up. “It’s probably the last swell of the season.”
Lillian took David’s hand in both of hers. “I hope I can see your work.”
There were sparks in that gentle gesture and for a moment David felt a love he’d never known. How could Jason be so blind? You can’t take this kind of love for granted or you lose it. You can’t put any other love before this, like surfing, and expect it will be waiting for you. David pulled his hand away, fighting the physical attraction, and reminding himself that this was the love of a friend in Spirit. Still, he was very attracted to Lillian.
The security guard locked up the academy behind them.
“Jason’s not coming. Let’s go.”
“You sure?” David said.
“I’m sure.” They got up and walked through Thomas Square toward King Street to catch a bus back to Waikiki. There was a farmer’s market at the makai end of the square.
“Are you hungry?” David asked.
“Famished.”
“I’ll cook you dinner,” he said as he looked at the fresh tomatoes. “I learned this wonderful summer pasta recipe in Naples.”
“I love Italian,” Lillian said. They bought locally grown tomatoes, zucchini, and garlic, and there was even a stall that sold herbs and spices. In five minutes they had everything they needed for dinner except bread and pasta. They waited a while for the bus, but it was running so late that they decided to walk back to the boat. They passed a mom-and-pop store where David bought the bread and pasta. He noticed a nice bottle of Chianti that he thought about buying but he wasn’t sure if Lillian drank. When he got up to the clerk Lillian had already bought the wine—same brand and everything.
“I don’t know if you drink wine, but I can’t eat Italian food without some Chianti,” she said. David just smiled and nodded.
When they arrived at the boat, they were hot, and their feet hurt. The tide was out, and the deck was well below the pier.
“This is going to be tricky.” Lillian looked at the gap between the pier and the boat. They put their packages down and David grabbed hold of the shrouds and stepped on a mooring line to bring the boat close to the pier.
“Jump on board when you can.”
Lillian did, and as soon as she was on the yacht, she unhooked the lifeline. The problem was that David had shifted his grip from the shroud to the line and when it went slack he fell in.
“What on earth happened?”
David swam to the channel. “Over here!” He took off his tennies and threw them on the deck.
“You did that on purpose.” Lillian smiled.
“Not really.” He pulled off his jeans, rolled them in a ball, and tossed them up to the boat. They didn’t make it.
“Try again,” Lillian said. He did and she reached out to grab them. But she bent over too far, lost her balance and joined David in the water. David reached down and grabbed her, not knowing how well she could swim, and she came up laughing and hung onto David. He had to turn his gaze away for fear of getting too intimate.
“Just float,” he said.
David tossed his jeans over the stern line, took off his shirt, and then helped Lillian out of her dress. They floated out to the middle of the channel. The water was clear and an azure blue. They looked back at Mata‘i and noticed how she listed to port, the water just touching the white of her hull over the deep blue waterline stripe that divided the white of the hull from the rust-colored bottom paint. The yacht looked small from that angle. Her name was engraved in the wooden banner attached to the transom. Hanging over the transom, mounted on a pair of boomkins—short booms that protruded from each corner of the stern—was the Aries self-steering gear.
“That little piece of equipment,” David said pointing to the Aries “will be a lifesaver.”
“Then I shall bless it and remember it the whole time you’re away.”
Floating on their backs, their hands and feet touching, David thought he was in heaven. They stayed that way for what seemed like hours. David felt that Lillian was as content and fulfilled in that moment as he was. Supported by that beautiful warm water, nothing else in the world mattered. Without either of them saying anything, David felt a union and connection with her that would never leave him. He couldn’t betray his trust to Jason, or to Lillian for that matter, and he fought to hold back the natural outcome of their touch.
“How are we going to get out?” Lillian asked him.
“Well, we could swim around to the beach and walk back.”
“Not in our underwear. Besides I don’t really swim.”
“We could wait until the tide comes in and climb up on the pier.”
“So when would that be?”
“At least two hours.”
“Forget it.” Lillian began to look a little concerned. “Come on. I’m getting cold and suddenly it’s kind of creepy out here.”
David took her hand and the two of them swam back to the boat and stopped under the aft mooring line. David took hold of the line, pulled it down and stepped on it. From there he could reach the taffrail and pull himself on board.
“I can’t do that,” Lillian said.
David ignored her, opened the cover to the dinghy, and brought out the boarding ladder. “Swim to the other side of the boat,” he said as he hung the ladder over the side.
Lillian loved David’s pasta dish. They lounged in the cockpit, enjoying a second glass of Chianti as the afterglow of the sunset turned the sky a thousand shades of pale until there was only the faintest glow outlining the Waianae Mountains. Their clothes hung on the lifelines, and Lillian wore an old pareu David had found below. David was in his trunks.
Jason walked down the pier next to the boat carrying his surf-board. He stopped when he saw them in the cockpit drinking wine.
“Permission to come aboard?” he asked. David couldn’t tell if Jason was joking or mad.
“Come off it J.J. Don’t be a jerk.” Lillian picked up on J.J.
’s attitude.
“I’ve always wanted to live in Camelot. The ending kind of sucked, though.”
“David cooked dinner for me. Wasn’t that nice? Get yourself a glass of wine and enjoy the last of the sunset with us,” Lillian said.
Jason jumped on deck and stowed his board against the lifelines. He gave Lillian a long passionate kiss. “Don’t mind if I do.”
“I fell in the water trying to get onboard,” David said to whomever was listening.
Jason got his wine and sat close to Lillian. “Was it fun?”
“Was what fun?” Lillian answered rather tartly.
“The Academy.”
“I loved it. Are you going to surf again tomorrow?”
“Why? You want another date with Davy?”
Lillian took her dress off the lifeline and went below to change. “You’re being ridiculous.”
Jason moved over, sat next to his friend, and put his feet up on the wheel. “I don’t know why I react like that. It was just the sunset and the wine.”
“We did have fun today.” David said, and immediately knew it was the wrong thing to say. They weren’t kids anymore, and though they had more or less the same perspective on life, they were neophytes when it came to love and jealousy.
David thought that Jason was so detached from his emotions that he didn’t really care about his relationship with Lillian – or his mother or with David for that matter. Was it Jason’s basic lack of fear? It seemed to David to be callous. David never thought of Jason as being insecure about anything, but maybe Lillian was the one to change all that.
“Lillian is perfect for you,” David told his friend.
Jason finished his wine. “Maybe too perfect. I’ve never had someone tell me what to do so much. She needs to scratch the word ‘should’ from her vocabulary.”
“What do I need to scratch from my vocabulary?” Lillian said as she came on deck. She was back to being the protégé of Elizabeth St. John with that certain proper attitude and reserve that said ‘I have many secrets and you better not get too close.’ Somehow in a pareu that attitude had disappeared, and she and David clicked. Perhaps that was what ticked off Jason.
“Should,” Jason said boldly. “Should, should, should. It’s an ugly word and doesn’t fit someone with your consciousness and beauty.” He took her in his arms and hugged her and tenderly kissed her.
“You shouldn’t be so charming,” she said playfully, kissing him back on his ear. “I forget everything when I’m in your arms.”
“Good night you two.” David left in mock disgust and went below to tackle the dishes.
“Don’t wait up,” Jason called back as he helped Lillian off the boat.
They walked back to her hotel holding hands. Neither of them said much. They felt comfortable together. When they reached the hotel, she kissed him and turned away. “Not tonight, my love.”
Chapter 15
Waikiki
Saturday April 29, 1989
On the last day of the “Living Without Fear” seminar, David was already meditating when Lillian arrived. She didn’t sit next to him. Larry Graff escorted Elizabeth down to the platform. She sat behind a table covered with a beautiful brocade cloth and an arrangement of tropical flowers that cascaded down the front. In these last sessions, Elizabeth explained how, after a week of presenting mystical principles, she had to turn the students and their meditations toward the world to give the world peace and forgiveness. She taught that these meditations were gifts to the planet, and that serious practitioners of mysticism should do these three meditations every day.
“In the first meditation,” Elizabeth said, “just meditate until you feel the presence of God. You should have no goal, no agenda, just the desire to consciously experience a sense of oneness with all life. When you feel that stillness you will have completed your first meditation for the world. Let’s all do this now.”
David tried to follow what she said. He did feel the atmosphere become incredibly still, yet he couldn’t get the image of Lillian off his mind. He tried to do what Jason had told him when they were teenagers—find the spaces between the images and thoughts. That worked for a few moments and then Jason came to mind. What a jerk, David thought. How could someone go surfing and abandon such an important spiritual gathering? The word “judgment” came to him and he realized how judgmental he was. Why should he care what Jason was doing? Then his mind went into the serendipity of being in a spiritual retreat, and discovering a part of himself he didn’t know existed. Or perhaps it had always been there. Maybe Lillian was right and just having been in Dr. Green’s presence had done something to him. None of this had been planned, that much was for sure.
After a long pause, Elizabeth began talking again. “Now in your second meditation, after you have felt the deep stillness of the Spirit, say to yourself, ‘This realization of spiritual wholeness nullifies material cause and effect.’ You put spiritual law into play, the law of one—one power, one life, and one love—and as you let go of judgment you will see your life manifesting the fruits of the Spirit. So again, let’s all do this.”
This time David felt the peace descend upon him more quickly.
“Now in your third meditation for the world,” Elizabeth said, “attain your realization of the Divine Presence, and then recognize this: ‘This realization of spiritual consciousness is opening the human mind to the Truth.’ That is all. That is your prayer. That is your gift to the world.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes and the depth of stillness in the room became such that David thought everything disappeared—the people, the room, and time. It was something he’d never experienced before. Others had mentioned it—this incredible sense of being, yet without any personal attachment. The idea of who he was began to shift. He was still David, but at the same time he was himself without any limitations – nothing to fear. When Elizabeth began to talk again David could barely hear her. Slowly he came back and focused on where he was.
“We cannot go to the world and tell it to be spiritual. Most people are not interested. We cannot tell the average person about the freedom that comes from the discipline of the soul, because they’re not willing to put in the work required to experience spiritual fruitage. But our three meditations for the world will break down the resistance to spiritual things, and perhaps in some, instill the desire to know the Truth.”
That was how the class ended. Elizabeth thanked the class organizers, her volunteers, and her audience for their attention and willingness to go with her into the consciousness of love. David just sat there, not wanting to get up. Lillian came over and sat next to him. She took his hand and squeezed it. David was quite moved by it all and tried to keep his emotions in check. He squeezed her hand back but couldn’t talk. She hugged him, got up, and left.
Elizabeth was standing at the door, still receiving the gratitude and love of her students, when David slid out of his row near the back of the auditorium. He noticed a man standing at Elizabeth’s side, drinking in the adulation that spilled off of her. He assumed that was Larry Graff. David joined the line, and when Elizabeth saw him, a big smile filled her face.
“Davy, how wonderful to see you!” She gave him a big hug. “Why didn’t you let me know you were coming to the class? I thought you’d be out surfing with Jason.”
David just smiled. He still felt like he couldn’t talk, and Elizabeth realized what had taken place. She hugged him stronger and David felt her incredible love. Finally, she let him go.
“Larry, this is one of your crew, David Walker.”
“It’s nice to meet you. Hope Jason has made you comfortable on the boat.” Larry radiated manners and breeding. “I didn’t know you were interested in spiritual things. Jason never mentioned it. I thought you and my brother were going to be the two skeptics on the voyage.”
He took hold of Elizabeth’s arm to escort her from the auditorium.
“Larry, why not include Dave and Jason in our dinner tonight?”
&nb
sp; “Well darling, it wouldn’t be possible. We’ll have plenty of dinners together, won’t we, Dave?” Larry patted David’s head as he guided Mrs. St. John out.
That night Jason took David to a restaurant and bar that was right out of a Somerset Maugham novel. A collection of South Seas schooners and rotting live-aboard yachts were anchored off the wooden piers fronting the restaurant. The Honolulu airport runways were directly across the lagoon, and when the jets took off, they drowned out everything. The décor was Polynesian kitsch. Dried puffer fish with lights inside hung from the rafters. Posts of carved tikis held up a bamboo ceiling, and live orchid plants grew from the walls. Waitresses in their sarongs and leis moved through the rowdy clientele.
A Hawaiian girl showed the guys to a table near the musicians—a four-piece string band playing traditional Hawaiian music. The crowd was local and loud, singing along with the band. Most of the patrons were drunk. Jason ordered them poke and a couple of beers.
“I love this place,” Jason said, “And the music is great.”
“You don’t bring Lillian here, do you?”
“She loves it. At least she pretends to. She felt obligated to go to Larry’s party tonight with Mom or she’d be here instead of you.”
The band finished their song and a tough looking older man, a Caucasian with a weathered face and thinning hair got up and rang a bell next to the stage. Everybody cheered. The exotic waitresses picked up trays of beer and began giving away drinks. They served the musicians first.
“We’ll get another set. Good on Fat,” Jason said, referring to the guy who rang the bell.
The musicians started up again -- they were as drunk as the audience. It didn’t diminish their playing, though, it made them freer. They were joking, singing “naughty” lyrics—as the locals would say, and rousing the audience. Some girls got up and danced to the erotic lyrics, grinding and thrusting, causing roars of laughter.
“You know what they’re singing about?” David asked.
“Not really,” Jason said. “I think it’s about sex.”
The Atua Man Page 12
