by Dan Millman
Two weeks later, she returned with her son. Gandhi looked the youngster in the eye and said, “Stop eating sugar.”
Grateful but bewildered, the woman asked, “Why did you tell me to bring him back in two weeks? You could have told him the same thing then.”
Gandhi replied, “Two weeks ago, I was eating sugar.”
“So remember, Dan, embody what you teach, and teach only what you have embodied.”
“What would I teach other than gymnastics?”
“Gymnastics is enough for now; use it as a way to convey universal lessons,” he said. “Give people what they want until they want what you want to give them. Teach somersaults until someone asks for more.”
“How will I know if they want something more?”
“You’ll know.”
“Socrates, are you sure I’m destined to be a teacher? I don’t feel like one.”
“You appear to be headed in that direction.”
“That brings me to something I’ve wanted to ask you for a long time — you often seem to read my thoughts or to know my future. Will I someday have these kinds of powers?”
Upon hearing this, Soc reached over and clicked the TV on and started to watch cartoons. I clicked it back off. He turned to me and sighed. “I was hoping you would bypass any fascination with powers. But now that it’s come up, we might as well get it out of the way. So what do you want to know?”
“Well, for starters, foretelling the future. You seem to be able to do it sometimes.”
“Reading the future is based on a realistic perception of the present. Don’t be concerned about seeing the future until you can clearly see the present.”
“Well, what about reading other people’s minds?” I asked.
Socrates sighed. “First you’d better learn to read your own!”
“You seem to be able to read my mind most of the time.”
“Your mind is easy to read — it’s written all over your face.”
I blushed.
“See what I mean?” He laughed, pointing to my rouge complexion. “It doesn’t take a magician to read faces; poker players do it all the time.”
“But what about real powers?”
He sat up in bed and said, “Special powers do in fact exist, Dan. But for the warrior, such things are beside the point. Don’t be deluded by shiny baubles. A warrior can rely on the power of love, of kindness, of service — and the power of happiness. You cannot attain happiness; it attains you — but only after you surrender everything else.”
Socrates seemed to grow weary. He gazed at me for a moment, as if making a decision. Then he spoke in a voice both gentle and firm, saying the words I had most feared. “You have prepared well, Dan, but you are still trapped — still searching. So be it. You shall search until you tire of it. You are to go away for a while. Seek what you must, and learn what you can. Then we shall see.”
My voice quavered with emotion. “How — how long?”
His words jolted me. “Nine or ten years should be sufficient.”
Feeling a sudden panic, I said, “I have no place to go, no other place I want to be. Please, let me stay with you.”
He closed his eyes, and sighed. “Trust this, my young friend: Your path will guide you; you cannot lose your way.”
“But when can I see you again?”
“I’ll find you when your search is finished — really finished.”
“When I become a warrior?”
“A warrior is not something you become, Dan. It is something you either are, in this moment, or something you are not. The Way itself creates the warrior. And now forget me. Go, and come back radiant.”
I had grown to depend so much on his counsel, on his certainty. Trembling, I walked to the door. Then I turned and looked one last time into those shining eyes. “I’ll do all that you’ve asked, Socrates — except one. I’ll never forget you.”
I walked down the stairs, out into the city streets, and up the winding roads through campus into an uncertain future.
I decided to move back to Los Angeles, my hometown. I took my old Valiant out of storage and spent my last weekend in Berkeley packing for my departure. Thinking of Linda, I walked to the corner phone booth and dialed the number of her new apartment. When I heard her sleepy voice, I knew what I wanted to do.
“Sweetheart, I have a couple of surprises. I’m moving to L.A.; will you fly up to Oakland as soon as you can tomorrow morning? We could drive down south together; there’s something we need to talk about.”
There was a pause on the other end. “Oh, I’d love to! I’ll be on the 8 A.M. plane. “Um” — a longer pause — “What do you want to talk about, Danny?”
“It’s something I should ask you in person, but I’ll give you a hint: It’s about sharing our lives, and about babies, and waking up in the mornings hugging.” A longer pause ensued. “Linda?”
Her voice quavered. “Dan — I can’t talk now. I’ll fly up early tomorrow.”
“I’ll meet you at the PSA gate. ‘Bye, Linda.”
“‘Bye, Danny.” Then there was the lonely buzz on the line.
I arrived at the gate by 8:45 A.M. She was already standing there, bright-eyed, a beauty with dazzling red hair. She ran up to me, laughing, and threw her arms around me. “Ooh, it’s good to hold you again, Danny!”
I could feel the warmth of her body radiate into mine. We walked quickly to the parking lot, not finding any words at first.
I drove back up to Tilden Park and turned right, climbing to Inspiration Point. I had it all planned. I asked her to sit on the fence and was about to pop the question, when she threw her arms around me and said, “Yes!” and began to cry. “Was it something I said?” I joked feebly.
We were married in the Los Angeles Municipal Courthouse in a beautiful private ceremony. Part of me felt very happy; another part was unaccountably depressed. I awoke in the middle of the night and gently tiptoed out to the balcony of our honeymoon suite. I cried soundlessly. Why did I feel as if I had lost something, as if I had forgotten something important? The feeling was never to leave me.
We soon settled into a new apartment. I tried my hand at selling life insurance; Linda got a part-time job as a bank teller. We were comfortable and settled, but I was too busy to devote much time to my new wife. Late at night, when she was sleeping, I sat in meditation. Early in the morning I would do a few exercises. But before long my job responsibilities left me little time for such things; all my training and discipline began to fade.
After six months of sales work, I had had enough. I sat down with Linda for our first good talk in many weeks.
“Honey, how do you feel about moving back up to northern California and looking for different work?”
“If that’s what you want to do, Dan, it’s OK with me. Besides, it might be nice to be near my folks. They’re great baby-sitters.”
“Baby-sitters?”
“Yes. How do you feel about being a father?”
“You mean a baby? You — me — a baby?” I hugged her very gently for a long time.
I couldn’t make any wrong moves after that. The second day up north Linda visited her folks and I went job hunting. I learned from my ex-coach Hal that the men’s coaching position for gymnastics was open at Stanford University. I interviewed for the job that day and drove up to my in-laws’ to tell Linda the news. When I arrived, they said I had received a call from the Stanford athletic director and had been offered the coaching job, to begin in September. I accepted; I’d found a career, just like that.
In late August, our beautiful daughter, Holly, was born. I drove all our belongings up to Menlo Park and moved us into a comfortable apartment. Linda and the baby flew up two weeks later. We were contented, for a time, but I was soon immersed in my job, developing a strong gymnastics program at Stanford. I ran for miles through the golf course early each morning and often sat alone on the shore of Lake Lagunita. Again, my energies and attention flew in many directions, but sadly, not in Linda
’s.
A year went by almost without my noticing it. Everything was going so well; I couldn’t understand my persistent feeling that I had lost something, a long time ago. The sharp images of my training with Socrates — running into the hills, the strange exercises late at night, the hours of talking and listening and watching my enigmatic teacher — were fading memories.
Not long after our first anniversary, Linda told me she wanted us to see a marriage counselor. It came as a complete shock, just when I felt we’d be able to relax and have more time together.
The marriage counselor did help, yet a shadow had come between Linda and me — maybe it had been there since our wedding night. She had grown quiet and private, drawing Holly with her into her own world. I came home from work each day totally spent, with too little energy left for either of them.
My third year at Stanford, I applied for the position of faculty resident in one of the university residence halls so that Linda could be with other people. It soon became apparent that this move had worked only too well, especially in the arena of romance. She had formed her own social life, and I had been relieved of a burden I could not, or would not, fulfill. Linda and I were separated in the spring of my third year at Stanford. I delved even deeper into my work, and began my inner search once again. I sat with a Zen group in the mornings in our gym. I began to study aikido in the evenings. I read more and more, hoping to find some clues or directions or answers to my unfinished business.
When I was offered a faculty position at Oberlin College, a residential liberal arts college in Ohio, it seemed like a second chance for us. But my search for happiness only intensified. I created courses like “Psychophysical Development” and “Way of the Peaceful Warrior” — which shared some of the perspectives and skills I’d learned from Socrates. At the end of my first year, I received a special grant from the college to travel and do research in my chosen field.
That summer, Linda and I separated. Leaving her and my young daughter behind for a time, I set off on what I hoped would be my final search.
I was to visit many places around the world — Hawaii, Japan, Hong Kong, India, and elsewhere, where I encountered extraordinary teachers, and schools of yoga, martial arts, and shamanism. I had many experiences and found great wisdom, but no lasting peace.
As my travels neared their conclusion, I became even more desperate — compelled toward a final confrontation with the questions that rang out in my mind: “What is enlightenment? When will I find peace?” Socrates had spoken of these things, but at the time, I didn’t have the ears to hear him.
When I arrived in the village of Cascais on the coast of Portugal, the last stop on my journey, the questions continued to replay themselves endlessly, burning deeper into my mind.
One morning I awoke on an isolated stretch of beach where I had camped for a few days. My gaze drifted to the water, where the tide was devouring my painstakingly constructed castle of sand and sticks.
For some reason, this reminded me of my own death, and what Socrates had tried to tell me. His words and gestures played back in bits and pieces, like the twigs from my castle, now scattered and floating in the shallow surf: “Consider your fleeting years, Danny. One day you’ll discover that death is not what you might imagine; but then, neither is life. Either may be wondrous, filled with change; or, if you do not awaken, both may turn out to be a considerable disappointment.”
His laughter rang out in my memory. Then I remembered an incident in the station: I had been acting lethargic; Socrates suddenly grabbed me and shook me. “Wake up! If you knew for certain that you had a terminal illness — if you had little time left to live — you would waste precious little of it! Well, I’m telling you, Dan — you do have a terminal illness: It’s called birth. You don’t have more than a few years left. No one does! So be happy now, without reason — or you never will be at all.”
I began to feel a terrible sense of urgency, but there was nowhere to go. So I stayed, a beachcomber who never stopped combing through his own mind. “Who am I? What is enlightenment?”
Socrates had told me, long ago, that even for the warrior, there is no victory over death; there is only the realization of Who we all really are.
As I lay in the sun, I remembered peeling away the last layer of the onion in Soc’s office to see “who I was.” I remembered a character in a J. D. Salinger novel, who, upon seeing someone drink a glass of milk, said, “It was like pouring God into God, if you know what I mean.”
I remembered Lao Tzu’s dream:
Lao Tzu fell asleep and dreamed he was a butterfly. Upon awakening, he asked himself, “Am I a man who has just been dreaming that he was a butterfly, or a sleeping butterfly, now dreaming that he is a man?”
I walked down the beach, singing the children’s nursery rhyme over and over:
“Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream, Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.”
After one afternoon walk, I returned to my sheltered campsite, hidden behind some rocks. I reached into my pack and took out an old book I’d picked up in India. It was a ragged English translation of spiritual folktales. Flipping through the pages, I came upon a story about enlightenment:
“Milarepa had searched everywhere for enlightenment, but could find no answer — until one day, he saw an old man walking slowly down a mountain path, carrying a heavy sack. Immediately, Milarepa sensed that this old man knew the secret he had been desperately seeking for many years.
“‘Old man, please tell me what you know. What is enlightenment?’
“The old man smiled at him for a moment, and swung the heavy burden off his shoulders, and stood straight.
“‘Yes, I see!’ cried Milarepa. ‘My everlasting gratitude. But please, one question more. What is after enlightenment?’
“Smiling again, the old man picked up the sack once again, slung it over his shoulders, steadied his burden, and continued on his way.”
That same night I had a dream:
I am in darkness at the foot of a great mountain, searching under every stone for a precious jewel. The valley is covered in darkness, so I cannot find the jewel.
Then I look up at the shining mountain peak. If the jewel is to be found, it must be at the top. I climb and climb, beginning an arduous journey that takes many years. At last I reach my journey’s end. I stand bathed in the bright light.
My eyesight is clear now, yet the jewel is nowhere to be found. I look upon the valley far below, where I began the climb many years ago. Only then do I realize that the jewel had always been within me, even then, and that the light had always shined. Only my eyes had been closed.
I awoke in the middle of the night, under a shining moon. The air was warm and the world was silent, except for the rhythmic wash of the tides. I heard Soc’s voice but knew that it was only another memory: “Enlightenment is not an attainment, Dan; it is a Realization. And when you wake up, everything changes and nothing changes. If a blind man realizes that he can see, has the world changed?”
I sat and watched the moonlight sparkling on the sea and capping the distant mountains with silver. “What was that saying about mountains, and rivers, and the great search?” “Ah, yes,” I remembered:
“First mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers.
“Then mountains are no longer mountains and rivers are no longer rivers.
“Finally, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers.”
I stood, ran down the beach, and dove into the dark ocean, swimming out far beyond the surf. I had stopped to tread water when I suddenly sensed a creature swimming through the black depths somewhere below my feet. Something was coming at me, very rapidly: it was Death.
I flailed wildly to the shore and lay panting on the wet sand. A small crab crawled in front of my eyes and burrowed into the sand as a wave washed over it.
I stood, dried myself, and slipped into my clothes. I packed by the light of the moon. Then, shouldering my knapsack, I r
epeated a phrase one teacher had said of the search for enlightenment:
“Better never begin; once begun, better finish.”
I knew it was time to go home.
As the jumbo jet settled onto the runway at Hopkins Airport in Cleveland, I felt a growing anxiety about my marriage and my life. Over six years had passed. I felt older, but no wiser. What could I say to my wife and my daughter? Would I ever see Socrates again — and if I did, what could I bring to him?
Linda and Holly were waiting for me when I got off the plane. Holly ran to me squealing with delight, and hugged me tight. My embrace with Linda was soft and warm, but empty of real intimacy, like hugging an old friend. It was obvious that time and experience had drawn us in different directions. Linda had not been lonely in my absence — she had found new friends and intimacies.
And as it happened, soon after my return to Oberlin I met someone very special: a student, a sweet young woman named Joyce. Her short black hair hung in bangs over a pretty face and bright smile. She was small, and full of life. I felt intensely attracted to her, and we spent every available hour together, walking and talking, strolling through the arboretum grounds, around the placid waters. I was able to talk with her in a way I’d never been able to speak with Linda — not because Linda couldn’t understand, but because her paths and interests lay elsewhere.
Joyce graduated in the spring. She wanted to stay near me, but I felt a duty to my marriage, so we sadly parted. I knew I’d never forget her, but my family had to come first.
In the middle of the next winter, Linda, Holly, and I moved back to northern California. Perhaps it was my preoccupation with my work and with myself that was the final blow to our marriage, but no omen had been so sad as the continual nagging doubt and melancholy I first felt on our wedding night — that painful doubt, that sense of something I should remember, something I’d left behind me years ago. Only with Joyce had I felt free of it.
After the divorce, Linda and Holly moved into a fine old house. I lost myself in my work teaching gymnastics and aikido at the Berkeley YMCA.
