OUT ON a LIMB

by Shirley Maclaine

  “You mean, like why are we alive and what is our purpose?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I guess that’s about it. I mean, when you have as much as I do and have lived as much as I have you finally have to ask yourself very seriously, ‘What’s it all about?’ And I’m not asking out of any unhappiness. I’m successful, I think, personally and professionally, and I’m certainly happy with it. I’m not into drugs or booze. I love my work and I love my friends. I have a great personal life even with some complicated problems. No—that’s not what I mean. I mean, I think there must be more going on about our real purpose in life than I’m able to see.”

  David wiped peach juice from his chin. It was fascinating to me that I had even felt comfortable asking him such a question, almost as though he could answer it. It was a question I wouldn’t even have asked Einstein had I known him well enough to sit on the beach slurping peaches with him.

  David brushed sand from his sticky fingers. “Well,” he said, “I think happiness is in our own back yard, to quote Al Jolson.”

  “You’re a big help,” I laughed. “Look at my back yard—it’s the Pacific Ocean. Sooo?”

  “Sooo, I mean, you. I mean, happiness and purpose and meaning is you.”

  “Look,” I said, “you’re really a nice polite person, but could you be a little less nice and polite and instead be a little more specific?”

  “Okay,” he went on undaunted by my irritability. “You are everything. Everything you want to know is inside of you. You are the universe.”

  Jesus, I thought, hippy-dippy jargon. He’s going to use phrases that are simply not part of my realistic vocabulary. And as much as I might feel drawn to what he is saying, it is going to put me off because it’s not part of my philosophic or intellectual lexicon of understanding. But then, I thought, my words and phrases and ideas have been limited to my own conceptions, my own frames of reference. Don’t get bugged by words. Keep the mind open.

  “David,” I said, “please tell me what you mean. What you said then sounds so big and ponderous and hokey. I have enough trouble understanding what I’m doing day by day. Now I’m supposed to understand that I am the universe?”

  “Okay,” he said chuckling gently at my frustrated honesty. “Let’s go at it another way. When you were in India and Bhutan, did you think much about the spiritual aspect of your own life? I mean, did it occur to you that your body and your mind might not be the only dimensions there were in your life?”

  I thought for a moment. Yes, of course I had. I remembered how fascinated I had been when I saw a Bhutanese lama levitate in the lotus position (with his knees crossed under each other) three feet off the ground. Or to be possibly more accurate, I thought I had seen him levitate. It was explained to me that he had accomplished such a feat by reversing his polarities (whatever that was) and thereby had defied gravity. To me, it had made some kind of scientific sense, and also appealed to the metaphysical side of my nature. So I left it at that. For some reason, I had no trouble accepting that it had happened, but I really couldn’t honestly say that I understood why. As another lama told me later, “You wouldn’t have seen the levitation if you hadn’t been prepared to see it,” That’s when I began to think maybe I just thought I had seen it. I remembered how, when living with the Masai in Kenya and traveling to Tanzania, I was met by other Masai who knew my name and the fact that I had been made a Masai blood sister without anyone telling them. I accepted the safari white hunters’ explanations that they believed the Masai had perfected thought transference. They said that the Masai had no other form of communication with each other throughout Africa so, out of necessity and also because they were communal thinkers, they could do what the white and civilized world was too competitive to do—communicate through clear mental telepathy and thought transference to their brothers.

  Again, I had accepted what the white hunters told me. First, they had had a great deal of experience and years of observing the Masai and their habits and behavior patterns and second, it just made sense to me. I had no problem understanding that the energy of human thought could live and travel outside of the human brain. It didn’t seem outlandish or preposterous to me at all. Nor to the white hunters, for that matter, and they were certainly practical students with down-to-earth experience of primitive tribes.

  I thought of many moments in my life when I knew something was going to happen, and it did. When I knew someone was in trouble, and they were. When I knew someone was trying to reach me, and they did. I had often had such flashes about people I knew well. I would, for example, know that a close friend had just checked into the International Hotel in Seoul, Korea. I would call on a lark and he’d be there; wondering himself how I knew he was there. Those flashes happened to me often. And if common or garden stories are to be believed, these were experiences many, many people had had, and almost all had heard about.

  As for me, I never really questioned such things. They just were. That was all. But no, I never really related to any of that stuff spiritually. Yes, I was interested in mind over matter, in metaphysical phenomena, in meditational isolation, and certainly in expanded consciousness. But how could I find it for myself? Or was I already aware without recognizing it?

  For instance, I met a lama in the Himalayas who had been meditating in near isolation for twenty years. I climbed 14,000 feet to his mountainside cave and when I arrived, he gave me some tea and a piece of saffron scarf that he had blessed to protect me, which he said would be necessary because I was soon going to run into trouble. He was right. On the way down the mountain, a man-eating leopard stalked me and my Sherpa guide. And one day later I found myself caught in a bizarre Himalayan coup d’état; I was arrested and held at bayonet point for two days while my captors tried to take away my guide and throw him in the dzong (a Himalayan dungeon where people usually died). The experience was like a bad grade-B movie—unbelievable to anyone who hadn’t been there. To me, it was real—and the meditating lama had been right. About the danger, anyway. Even if the scarf only provided moral support.

  But was his premonition or foreknowledge spiritual? I hadn’t ever really thought in those terms. I was more of a pragmatist. I had respect for things I didn’t understand, but I was more comfortable relating to those things on an intellectual or scientific level, which seemed more real to me.

  “Yes,” I said to David. “I’m thinking more and more about the spiritual aspect of myself or the world or whatever you want to call it;”

  David shifted his position around the bag of peaches and the sandy peach pits which were piling up between us.

  “You mean,” he said, “that the spiritual aspect of your life seems real to you?”

  “Yeah,” I answered, “I guess you could say that. But it doesn’t seem to be a real part of the realistic life we lead. Maybe because I can’t see it. I guess I’m saying that I believe what I have proof of.”

  “Sure,” he said, “most Westerners feel that way. In fact, that’s probably the basic difference between East and West—and never the twain shall meet.”

  “So what about you?” I asked. “How come you seem to have this spiritual understanding in such a pragmatic world? You’re a Westerner. How did you come by your beliefs?”

  He cleared his throat almost as though he wanted to avoid answering me, but knew he couldn’t. “I’ve just traveled and wandered around a lot,” he said. “I wasn’t always like this. But something happened to me once. I’ll tell you about it some time. But believe me, I used to be a regular Charlie Crass with fast cars, fast girls—just living in the fast lane. It wasn’t getting me anywhere but I have to admit I dug it while it lasted.” David’s eyes had grown misty as he talked, remembering. I wondered what it was that had happened but didn’t want to press it since he’d said he would tell me in his own time.

  “So,” I said. “You traveled around a lot?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So have I. And I love it. I love flying to new places, seeing new faces. I don�
��t think I could ever stay still in one spot.”

  David looked at me sidewise.

  “I hitchhiked,” he said, “and worked my way across the oceans on tramp steamers. I don’t think it matters how we do those things, but instead why is what counts. We were probably both looking for the same thing, but from different vantage points.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “but I’ve always thought I was looking for myself whenever I traveled. Like a journey anywhere was really a journey through myself.”

  “Sure,” he said, “so was I. That’s what I meant a few minutes ago when I said the answers are in you. You are the universe.”

  “Jesus,” I said, “we both could have saved a lot of plane fares if we had known that in the beginning, couldn’t we? We could have just sat in the back yard and meditated.”

  “You’re joking, but I think it’s true. That’s why everyone is essentially equal. Everyone has themselves regardless of what station of life they’re born into. Actually a person considered stupid might be a lot more spiritual than someone who is a genius in Earth terms. The village idiot might be closer to God than Einstein although even Einstein said he believed there was a greater force at work than he could prove.”

  “But being a genius and being spiritual—whatever that means—are not mutually exclusive?”

  “No.”

  I remembered a story someone at Princeton had told me. Einstein had been attempting to prove the theory of why those little mechanical birds you put on the edge of a glass would fill up with water and when they became unbalanced, would spill all the water out and begin again. He couldn’t seem to explain how the little mechanical bird worked in mathematical terms and out of frustration, one day he went into town for a double dip strawberry ice cream cone. Strawberry was apparently Einstein’s favorite flavor. He was licking the ice cream cone and walking along a curb in the road thinking about the mechanical bird when he tripped slightly and the top dip of the ice cream toppled off into the gutter. Einstein was so crushed he broke down and cried.… Here was one of the great geniuses of the world, but he couldn’t handle his anxiety over what he didn’t understand any better than the next guy.

  I remembered reading that Einstein was an avid reader of the Bible. I never knew what he really thought of it other than the fact that he respected it. I wondered what he would have thought of the supposed imprint of Christ left on the Shroud of Turin. Some scientists said the imprint was caused by high-level radioactive energy, which spiritualists explained was an expression of the high level of spiritual energy Christ had acquired.

  “So what about Christ?” I found myself asking David. “Who do you think he really was?”

  “Okay,” he said, straightening his posture as though he had finally found a thread to unravel. “Christ was the most advanced human ever to walk this planet. He was a highly evolved spiritual soul whose purpose on Earth was to impart the teachings of a Higher Order.”

  “What do you mean, ‘A Higher Order?” I asked.

  “A higher spiritual order,” said David. “He obviously knew more than the rest of us about life and death and God. I think his resurrection proved that.”

  “But how do we know it really happened?”

  David shrugged his shoulders. “First of all,” he said, “a lot of people saw it, and reported that they were awestruck and even terrified. And second, the remains of his body were never found, and third, a legend of that magnitude would be hard to make up. Besides, how do we know anything in history ever happened if we weren’t witnesses to it ourselves? So, somewhere along the line education and knowledge of history require an act of faith that events are true, or we shouldn’t bother learning anything about the past at all.”

  “In other words,” I said, “why not believe it?”

  “Sure,” said David, “but first, take a hard look, listen, really listen, to what the man said. Everything Christ taught had to do with understanding the knowledge of mind, body and spirit. In fact, the First Commandment given to Moses, even long before Christ, was the recognition of the Divine Unity: Mind, Body, and Spirit. Christ said the First Commandment was the chief commandment and to misunderstand it would be to misunderstand all the other universal laws following it. But, he said to understand it fully we had to understand that the soul and spirit of man had everlasting life and the soul’s quest was to rise higher and higher toward perfection until we were free.”

  I looked at David, trying to absorb what he was saying. A few years before I think I would have called him a Jesus freak, and launched into a dialogue accusing him of espousing beliefs that diverted attention from what was really wrong with the world.

  “So how does all of this square with this world we’re living in?” I asked instead. “I mean, how can belief in the soul and keeping the First Commandment and all that clean up the mess we’ve made of this world?” I didn’t want to get upset, but it wouldn’t have been difficult.

  “Well,” said David, “all our ‘isms’ and self-righteous wars and industrial technology and intellectual masturbation and socially compassionate programs have only made it worse, it seems to me. And the longer we disregard the spiritual aspect of life, the worse it will get.…” He folded his legs under him and used his hands to make points in the air. “See,” he went on, “Christ and the Bible and spiritual teachings don’t concern themselves with social or political questions. Instead, spirituality goes right to the root of the question—the individual. If each of us set ourselves right individually, we would be on the right path socially and politically. See what I mean?”

  “Yes,” I said, “I guess so.”

  “In other words, if we understood our own individual purpose and meaning in relation to God, or even to mankind and leave God out of it for the moment, it would automatically lead to social harmony and peace. There’d be no need for war and conflict and poverty and stuff, because we’d all know there was no need to be greedy or competitive or afraid and violent.”

  Well, it wasn’t a new idea. Ultimate responsibility of the individual was basic to Quaker thought, for one thing, and—leaving God out of it as David suggested—the concept was also basic to Kropotkin’s political philosophy of anarchism.

  “Why are you saying we need to understand our individual purpose and meaning in relation to God?” I asked. “Why couldn’t we just understand it in relation to our fellow men?”

  David smiled and nodded. “You could,” he said. “That would be a good beginning because in fact, in caring about mankind you are relating to God, to the divine spark in all of us.” He paused. “But it’s easier,” he said, “if you first learn who you are. Because that’s where cosmic justice comes in. We can’t just relate to our lives here and now as though this has been the only life we’ve lived. All our previous lives are what have molded us. We are the product of all the lives we have led.”

  I thought of Gerry and his politics. Had such spiritual concepts in a political context ever occurred to him? Or to any politician for that matter? The voters would think our political leaders crazy if they voiced such ideas. Jimmy Carter came as close as anyone but most of the “smart” people I knew liked to think he was doing a “media-grope with God” and didn’t really mean it. They didn’t know what to make of him if he really meant all that stuff about being born again, and in fact, they just laughed, let him have his idiosyncrasies but wished he’d get the hell on with being a better administrator and a stronger leader. In fact, they were pissed off at his God talk while the economy was falling apart. And as far as reincarnation was concerned, any born-again Christian would freak out at the idea. And, where Gerry was concerned, if he believed in either God or reincarnation I could just see the English cartoons.… The British Isles sinking slowly into the sea while God smiled down from above, with a caption saying, “Cheer up! Next time around you’ll do it right!” Guaranteed to lose Gerry the election—even if our affair didn’t.

  My mind began to tumble with the ideas implicit in our conversation. I wasn’t
sure I liked them. On the one hand, it sounded plausible in an idealistic sort of way. On the other, it just sounded outrageously impossible and flat flaky.

  “Cosmic justice?” I questioned sarcastically, dripping peach juice from my chin in the ocean breeze. “Is this where your reincarnation comes in?”

  “Sure,” he answered.

  “You mean, you believe our souls keep coming back physically until we finally get it right?”

  “Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it?” he asked. “It certainly makes as much sense as anything else going.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Big truths are hidden, but that doesn’t mean they’re not true.”

  “But if I really let myself believe that every one of my actions has a consequence, I’d be paralyzed.”

  “But that’s already happening,” he said. “You just aren’t aware of it. That’s what Christ was trying to tell us. Everything we do or say in our lives every day has a consequence and where we find ourselves today is the result of what we’ve done before. If everyone felt that, understood it in their gut, the world would be a better place. We shall reap what we sow, bad or good, and we should be aware of it.”

  “And you believe if we took our actions more seriously in this cosmic sense, we’d be kinder and more responsible people?”

  “Sure. That’s the point. We are all part of a universal truth and plan. Like I said before, it’s really very simple. And you should be more aware of it because you will ultimately then reduce how much you hurt yourself.”

  “You mean you really believe we all create our own karma like the hippy-dippies say?”

  “Sure. That’s not so hard to understand. The Indians said that thousands of years ago. They knew it long before your hippy-dippies. It’s how we lead our lives that counts. And when we live by that, we will all be kinder to one another. And if we don’t, each of us pays the consequences in terms of the universal plan. We don’t live by accident—you know there are no accidents. There is a higher purpose going on.”