by Greg Kincaid
“So we’re talking just a little ego tune-up?”
“A bit more than that, Ted. But that’s the third realization, and you’re not quite ready for that. Maybe tonight or tomorrow morning before you leave.”
“Leave?” Ted asked, more than slightly concerned.
“We’re going to get you to wake up. I can’t wait to meet the real Ted Day!”
“Is this version that bad?” Ted asked. “If so, maybe you should just give me the third realization now. Besides, I hate to wander around with two-thirds of an equation in my head. It gives me a migraine.”
“You’re doing fantastic, and you do seem to be getting it at the logical, left-brain level, but before you can go much further, you need to move beyond left-brain concepts and labels. We have an exercise or two to help you with that. Does this sound like it’s worth the effort?”
“Yes, but I’m not sure I can eat dinner on an unrealized stomach, and I’m starting to get really hungry.” He crossed his arms and did his best imitation of a swaying swami. “Meaning passes not through the stomach that growls.”
“I recognize that passage: I believe it came straight out of the Man Bible.” Angel reached into her bag and handed Ted an apple. “Eat this.”
Ted gladly accepted the fruit. “So what’s this exercise you have in mind for me?”
“You’ll see. Let’s walk back to Bertha. We can drive up to the trailhead before it gets dark.”
“The trailhead?” Ted asked.
“Patience …”
*1 Angel’s friend Mashid was very involved with the Diamond Group, a spiritual school founded by A. H. Almaas. They too describe the spiritual journey as the Work. See A. H. Almaas, Diamond Heart, books 1 through 4 (Berkeley, CA: Diamond Books). G. I. Gurdjieff, an early-twentieth-century spiritual teacher, also used the term “the Work” to describe the process by which we wake ourselves up.
*2 Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (Novato, CA: New World Library, 1999).
11
Ted sat on a cushion behind the driver’s seat, closed his eyes, and, without even trying to understand what Angel meant by not thinking, started the exercise. While Ted was scanning the universe of his mind for some signal that was not Ted talk, Angel drove the old bookmobile through the parking lot at what Ted considered an entirely reckless pace. He opened his eyes and yelled, “Are you sure you don’t want me to drive?”
“Nope, we’re great.”
“Did you tell me why we’re going to this lake? If so, I missed it.”
“Just close your eyes, Ted, and sense into all that is not Ted. See if you can discover what is resting behind that chatter. Leave the rest to me.”
As Angel navigated the twenty-five-mile road leading to the trailhead in a remote corner of the Pecos Wilderness, she turned from time to time and gave Ted further instructions. Appreciating that approximately 95 percent of Ted’s waking mental activity was mindless chatter, she barraged him with little helpful hints. “Your mind will wander off; just gently return to the task of staying present, observing. Watch your breath if it helps. In and out.”
Ted became irritated at his inability to focus and tried to find something or someone to blame. “You’re chattering as much as my mind. I got it. Door number one. Stay present.”
“Are you able to quiet the discursive mind?”
“Yes, somewhat,” Ted lied. He wished he was beside Angel in the passenger seat.
Over the hum of Bertha’s engine, Angel hollered, “You can’t do this wrong. Just allow your mind to relax, to take a vacation from its normal assessing of Ted’s needs, wants, fears, and cravings.”
Ted knew that Angel was trying to show him something she thought was important, so out of respect for her more than dedication to finding his own higher self, he tried to dig beneath his thoughts, but before he got far he realized that there was some sort of bolt on Bertha’s floor that was rather unfortunately positioned under his right butt cheek. He scooted a few inches closer to Angel. Glancing at her, Ted noticed how gorgeous she looked driving the old, armored beast up the narrow, winding road.
The forest air was pleasant enough, but Ted wondered again what was next on their journey and why they were going to this lake in the first place. His mind quickly wandered further off task.
It dawned on him that spiritual consultants should be licensed. Was Angel’s license in good standing? He should have researched her on Yelp or something. He tried to push away his suspicion of her scamming him and to remain open to whatever was beyond his thoughts—which was a rather boring thing to do and, at the same time, irritatingly difficult. No sooner had this intention formed than another thought occurred to him. Where would he sleep tonight? How would he bathe privately? He wondered what Angel wore to bed. A few seductive images came to his mind.
Angel correctly assumed Ted’s mind had strayed far afield. “You’ll find it is very natural for your mind to wander back to Ted thinking. If it’s helpful, you can repeat a word, like ‘open,’ to keep your concentration focused.”
“Shouldn’t I be reciting something? The rosary or a mantra?” Ted asked, concerned that he was missing a vital piece of the instructions.
“No, don’t try to make this religious. We’re just watching and noticing our mind, seeing how it works or fails to work. That’s all for now.” After another few minutes Angel asked, “How did you experience this exercise?”
Ted opened his eyes and looked around. He was initially struck by the intense, deep green of the trees. They had gained considerable altitude. He stretched, smiled, and said, “Very frustrating. I’m no Buddha. My mind was absolutely unwilling to focus on what I asked it to do. But still, just for a flash, I found some brief moments of silence behind the chatter.”
“How would you describe it?” Angel asked.
“It was peaceful. Seemed nostalgic. The rest of the time, I’ve got to admit, it was difficult. Nearly impossible to shut down the internal dialogue.”
“Very good. Now go back to the first and second realizations and think about them in the context of what you just experienced.” Moving his cushion closer to her, Ted looked perplexed, so she elaborated. “What did you learn about your thoughts?”
“It seems that my mind has a mind of its own.”
With her hand resting on No Barks’s head, Angel turned around briefly in her seat, laughed, and said, “Excellent. You just experienced the first two realizations for yourself. We are not awake to a great deal of consciousness, and we are overly identified with our minds.”
“Actually, it’s a scary conclusion. If I’m not my mind, then what am I?”
“Those are great questions for you to think about, Ted.” Angel slowed Bertha, so that she was crawling up the mountain road at less than twenty miles an hour. “That’s enough for now. Just rest and enjoy the rest of the ride. Later I’ll try to explain the importance of what you just accomplished.”
Ted climbed into the passenger seat, fastened his seat belt, and decided to just enjoy the rest of the ride.
12
Angel parked Bertha at a small campground near the trailhead for Stewart Lake. After pushing the emergency brake to the floor, she turned off the ignition. She craned her neck to get a good look out the windshield. “Isn’t it beautiful? I’ll wait here. Tomorrow morning you and Argo are going on a field trip, another exercise to help you metabolize the realizations. Nature is a remarkable teacher—much wiser than me. You need to learn how to spend time with her.”
“Alone in the mountains?” Ted asked, not trying to hide his disapproval. Open spaces had always spooked him. Even as a kid he’d liked to build forts in his room. As an adult he preferred a roof over his head.
Angel ignored Ted’s apprehension. “You and Argo are going to hike to the top of that mountain. The higher self speaks from places of silence. You tried to find it in your mind and, like most of us, you failed. So now you’re going to get some help.” She pointed at a distant peak barel
y visible through the windshield and continued, “It’s just five or six miles that way.”
“You mean straight up?” Ted asked.
“At about eleven thousand five hundred feet you’ll find Stewart Lake, where you and Argo can spend the night, meditate, and get better connected to the silence where this truth I am describing resides.”
“Really? Please tell me there’s a nice little lodge up there.”
Angel shook her head.
“A Holiday Inn?”
“Sacred space is much better than a Holiday Inn. Up there you can listen and experience what is beyond your thinking mind. When you are ready, come back down the mountain and we’ll talk about your field trip. You’ll have a whole new outlook.”
Ted’s internal processors were humming and spinning, but nothing was registering except a rather panicked feeling of abandonment. If meditation was a strange, almost uncomfortable experience, then this was simply inconceivable. “What do you mean a field trip? Two days?”
“Don’t worry, Ted. You’ll do fine. I’ll put a pack together. The trailhead is just over there. I’ve done it twice before. It’s difficult. That’s the point. You’ll find that in some inexplicable way the experience changes you.”
Ted found this disturbing. “Argo and I have never backpacked before. What about food, water, and supplies?”
Angel smiled and put her finger across her lips. “Shhh. Ted, don’t worry. I have everything you need. You and Argo are going to have a good time. A great time. Trust me. It’s part of the waking-up process. We Lakota say that the best place to find the creator is in creation. Tonight we’ll talk some more about the third realization. Tomorrow morning you walk in creation. It’s a great exercise in finding your true self, even better than meditation.”
“Better than meditation?” Ted asked with more than a hint of sarcasm. “Where is this Father Chuck you said I was going to meet?”
Angel again pressed her finger to her lips. “At Spirit Tech, things unfold at their own pace.”
“What if it rains?”
“Can you sense how, at just this moment, you’re responding entirely out of your fear-based ego? Try to let go of planning, worrying, controlling, and just relax—trust that on this journey what comes next is what is supposed to come next. Trust that you can allow someone or something in the universe besides yourself to be in control.”
“You?” Ted asked.
“Yes, in the beginning, me. Eventually you’ll learn to trust a different part of yourself.”
Ted knew students have little say in their course work, but he didn’t recall a solitary mountain hike being part of the syllabus. His attraction to Angel was pushing him in unwelcome ways, and he felt some disappointment in her for putting him in this position.
Ted got out of the passenger seat, stretched, and looked at Angel. She was still smiling and sitting in the driver’s seat, self-assured and confident. It occurred to him that if she joined him, this hike might be tolerable. It was the going it alone that bothered him. “Okay, I trust you. Argo and I will hike to the top of that Kilimanjaro, sit around with nature, and spend the night in the middle of nowhere with the wolves and the rattlesnakes. I suppose this is the kind of thing that people do on vacation.”
“It’s your vacation.” Angel pointed to one of several piles. “Grab the two lawn chairs from under the blankets and meet me outside.”
Ted knew that he was agreeing, at least in part, to impress Angel. But he also felt she was touching on something important that he would never do on his own. He grabbed the two lawn chairs and then spoke to his dog. “Let’s go, Argo. It’s not nice to keep Mother Nature waiting.”
13
Angel plopped two cans, their “dinner,” onto the small folding camp table. “Help yourself.” The canned food was for emergencies, but she had been so caught up in her work with Ted that she had forgotten to buy groceries. Tomorrow, while Ted hiked, she would drive back to Pecos for supplies.
Angel dived into the can of enchiladas with a plastic fork. “Bon appétit.” Ted seemed uncertain about the etiquette for sharing food out of a can. Angel assumed he’d never done it.
A month ago she would have taken one look at Ted and said he was not her type of man. Being Ted’s teacher was a good opportunity for the Buddhist practice of equanimity—resisting the urge to judge all experiences as either good or bad. Now she realized that she was enjoying her time with him. Perhaps it was sharing all the teachings that were so important to her. Perhaps, too, it was something else. Ted had a softer take on masculinity that she found attractive. She had never considered herself lonely, but perhaps she was wrong. Whether a sunset over the mountains or just a walk around the monastery lake, good companionship, she reflected, enhanced every experience.
With the enchiladas consumed, Angel moved on to a can of Del Monte fruit cocktail. While she worked the handheld can opener, Ted asked her a question that had been bothering him. “How does religion fit into these realizations you’ve been describing? Are waking up and salvation the same thing? Wouldn’t it be easier to just join a church and ditch all this spiritual work? There are churches on every corner and only one Angel Two Sparrow, Native American spiritual consultant, traveling around in a bookmobile. Maybe waking up is just too much work for the average Joe.”
“Or the average Ted?” Angel asked.
Although he hadn’t intended it, he realized that his words might have come off a bit harsh. “Of course, I always thought church was a waste of time, and Spirit Tech is great, but that’s just me.”
Angel set the can of fruit down on the table for Ted to share. She answered in a detached way. “An individual who succeeds in the spiritual journey is fully awakened. The Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad are examples. Their followers understandably wanted to package and label their lives and teachings for consumption by a wider audience. This is religion.”
“So what is the difference between a spiritual consultant like you and your garden-variety preacher?”
Angel looked longingly at the mountains before returning to Ted’s question. “When I was growing up on the reservation in South Dakota, we were poor in ways you would not understand. We were often hungry. Our clothes were little more than rags. My brother and I would take turns drinking this sweet juice at the bottom of the fruit can. It was a treat, dessert, for us.” She set the can down. “Now I get all the juice I want from the bottom of the can. This bounty makes me somehow rich. My brother and my mother, they are both gone, dead. My father, Larsen, is now far away in South Dakota. I wouldn’t mind being hungry again if it meant I could share this juice with my brother and mother. Being alone and having it all to myself is not so good, not like I dreamed it would be when I was a child.” She handed the can to Ted. “Drink some.”
The juice at the bottom of a can of fruit cocktail did not sound like a treat to Ted, but he knew this offering meant something to Angel. He took a few sips of the heavy syrup. As he did, he pictured Angel as a small girl living in some rundown shack, sharing high-fructose corn syrup from the bottom of a can. It was difficult to imagine such poverty. He felt an echoing sensation around his heart. It seemed to vibrate, thick and low. It was dull and sad, neither quick nor joyful. It was as if Angel’s sudden melancholy were resonating within him. He was owning some part of her sadness.
Before he could fully experience the sensation in his chest, Angel returned to Ted’s question. “You see, Ted, I want to share the spiritual juice with others. Sharing makes everything better in life, don’t you think? It’s no good having it all to myself. That’s not how it is supposed to be.”
What she said rang true for Ted. He realized that his lack of sharing—after the divorce, after his grandfather’s death—had left a hole. The hole hurt. “I agree.”
“There is more to sharing than we realize. Do you remember when you asked how you could become more awake?”
“Yes, you said it was not easy.”
“I should have said it’s nearly imposs
ible to do on your own. We’re human—we’re wired to empathize. It’s another part of your awareness that waits to be more fully realized. We’ll meditate again later, and this time I’ll do it with you. You’ll find it easier. Much easier. It turns out that, to some extent, through something neurologists call mirror neurons, you can graft onto my consciousness and use it like training wheels until you find this more awakened state on your own. This is why the world needs some variety of spiritual consulting. It’s very problematic trying to wake up on your own.” Angel stood up and gazed at the mountains as the sun lost altitude in the evening sky. “I don’t want to spend such a beautiful evening sitting here talking and analyzing any further. Let’s walk among the mountains. You’ll be able to see how your brain can resonate not only with other humans but also with nature herself. Try to listen and hear with something more than your logical-thinking left brain. Everything in nature talks, some things even sing, but very few humans listen. If you are interested, I can help you to hear this music.”
Ted had no trouble laughing at himself. “You mean quit knowing so damned much?”
“That would help.”
Ted stood up. “I don’t think trees and rocks talk, but …” He shrugged as if to say, Who really knows? “I’ll do my best to stay open on the subject.”
“A good place to be.”
Argo began to wag his tail and get fired up, spinning excitedly. “Argo loves to go for walks. The strange thing is, he seems to be able to sense that I’m going on the walk well before I actually grab the leash. As soon as I form the intention, he seems to know it.”
“Argo, thank you for demonstrating my point. Dogs know very little, but they get along marvelously, sensing and intuiting their way through life.”
Ted snapped a leash on his brave, furry yellow dog.
Hugging the old terrier, Angel whispered in his ear, “You can hear nature’s music, can’t you?”
