by Greg Kincaid
“It’s still very subtle. I’m not sure if it’s anything.” Ted’s mind made an unprecedented shift. Because he now totally trusted Angel, he did not resist this shift into a seemingly hypnotic state. He continued, “What I am sensing is a movement of some kind of energy. At least in my mind, it has a structure, like a vortex. Now it is expanding and gathering more energy—something is passing through this vortex, in and out like a breath. It’s almost like there has been an incision in my abdomen and I am breathing energy and life through this space and not through my mouth.”
“Can you put your consciousness into that space? Really explore what’s there. See if you can get inside it and look around. Let it take you where it will.”
Ted’s dreamy peacefulness went even deeper, but this time instead of falling asleep, he tried to follow Angel’s lead. He felt very aware. Awake. “I can imagine this space and I am sensing it growing, and in fact my entire self is expanding rapidly.”
“How big are you now, Ted?”
“I am both expanding and diffusing.” Ted’s breathing was shallow, but his words were strong. “My sense of proportion is slipping away. But …”
“It’s okay. Try to stay with it.”
“I now find myself having expanded into the sky. Where the vortex of my lung was a few seconds ago is now a dark, star-clad universe and I’m just suspended there. I feel like one of those early cosmonauts, spacewalking in eternity. My relative size and proportion are lost—this territory is just too vast, too infinite.”
“Does it feel like infinite space, Ted?”
“Yes, but there is nothing. Absolutely nothing but me and a luminous darkness. Yet I can somehow see.”
“Are you alone?”
“I don’t feel alone.”
“In this space, Ted, are there any sensations available to you?”
“Yes. Tranquility, peace, and something primordial. It is so very empty. I sense the absence of time and all things physical.”
Angel’s voice was calm, soothing, loving, and accepting. “If you could put a word to where you are, what would it be?”
“The boundaries between me and the universe are collapsed. I don’t know where I start and everything else ends. It’s groundless. It’s peaceful nothingness.”
“Can you stay with that feeling?”
Ted teetered back into his normal state of being. He opened his eyes. “It’s gone.”
“Don’t be disappointed, Ted. You’ve just experienced something powerful. It will live in you for the rest of your life. It is very much a part of you. No one can ever take it away. You will travel back to this place again and you’ll get clearer about what you are experiencing.”
“What was it?”
“Don’t try to define it. If you do, it’ll become stale. Just let it be whatever it is.”
Ted sat up from the ground, where he was sprawled out on an old blanket, and looked up at Angel uneasily—wholly unsure if he should be committed or sainted. “What did it mean? Where was I? Was it a good thing?”
She gently encouraged him to lie back down. “Relax. It’s always been there for you. There was just too much chatter and distraction in your mind before. Too much knowing. You’ll come back to this space later. Don’t grasp for it or try to hold on to it. Resist the urge to define it and own it. Just let it be like a dream from which you have now awakened. Your right brain can sense it, intuit it, and embrace it without knowing. Leave it there for now.”
Ted kept his eyes closed and wondered what exactly he had just experienced. Was it God? Did some force or presence indeed underpin his existence? Was this some exhilarating mystical experience or just some bland, empty, and ordinary thing that had somehow eluded his consciousness for the last thirty years? He didn’t know. He tried to follow Angel’s advice and just accept it without labeling it.
“Just rest here, Ted, for about twenty minutes. With this exercise there are sometimes little aftershocks. I’m going to go to the river and bathe. I’ll be back soon.”
Ted closed his eyes. He wanted to enjoy the peaceful tranquility that had just passed over him, but soon thoughts of Angel bathing crossed his mind. Again he slipped into a near dream state, except he was totally conscious. He was able to see Angel in his mind. Her lithe, strong body was perched atop a large boulder. A strong afternoon sun kept her warm as she leaned over and let her long black hair float atop the icy-cold current. Her fingers moved through her hair like a comb, helping the shampoo to dissolve into little bubbles that floated down the river and disappeared. She sat up, bent her right leg and crossed it over the left, and twisted her hair to squeeze out the excess water. When it was dry enough, she stood and looked over the hills like a guardian, with her hands cupped to protect her eyes from the sun’s glare.
Ted was unsure if he was just daydreaming or if he was somehow seeing Angel in his own mind. The prospect of some extrasensory experience frightened Ted, so he opened his eyes, got up, and sat in a chair, inviting the return of ordinary consciousness. With nothing else to do while he awaited Angel’s return, and hoping the exercise he had just experienced might make it somehow easier, Ted tried to plunge deeper into the fifth level.
The fifth level, he decided, was the logical extension of the formula that Father Chuck had introduced to him a week earlier. At some point there had to be a consequence of less self. Angel had told him that when enough of Mr. Digit’s influence has been dismantled, the higher self emerges with its own unique voice. No longer a curious guest lingering on the front porch of his personality, the higher self moves in and becomes a functioning member of the psychic household. He wondered if that was what he had been experiencing the last few days: the growing emergence of a part of himself that he had lost somewhere along the way.
Lately he could almost feel himself cringing at his own Mr. Digit’s ego chatter—a constant barrage of wants, wishes, aversions, feelings, and thoughts. Sometimes it was just laughable. At other times it was depressing to realize that such an unruly little tyrant had been running his life. He used another of Angel’s exercises and tried to focus and welcome into his mind this new kid on the block—a calm, peaceful, and accepting presence.
Ted’s ego was bruised and banged up from all of the Work. The relationship between the egoic or false self and the true self had devolved to the breaking point.*2 Around two fifteen, Ted closed his eyes and let out a long, sweet sigh. Finally, it just happened: the pieces fell into place. Ted woke up.
He knew nothing but experienced everything. He opened his eyes and was able to locate the sensation, truly feel, the presence within himself that was not Mr. Digit. An almost overwhelming sense of love and gratitude flowed over and through him. He recognized that this space within him was the real Ted, his true self. He simply rested there, as if he had finally come home to peace. Still, it was somehow also frightening.
Angel returned from the river and sat down beside him. She sensed his awakening and his fear. “Ted,” she said, “I know your head is probably spinning right now. I warned you that this would be hard. You’ve come much farther along than you realize in a very short period of time. You now recognize clearly that Mr. Digit and his entire worldview are off target. The problem is that his software has been running your life for so long that without it you will feel lost. Even though you sense the presence of your higher self, you have not yet fully attuned to this new operating system within you. It may seem like you’re floating in spiritual no-man’s-land for a while. Trust me: eventually you will be standing on firm ground.”
Ted recognized some of what Angel was saying but did not entirely agree. “I am disoriented, Angel, but I’m also committed to this idea of sifting through the disparate parts of my personality structure and electing a new chairman of the board. I never realized I had this option. It’s exciting.”
“My mother called it something different. She said that alcoholics must turn their lives over to a higher power. I think she meant that her Mrs. Digit personality was literally k
illing her and she had to learn to tune in to a different voice in her head. She was saying the same thing you are saying. She wanted to find the voice and turn her life over to it.”
“This higher power still seems like a small, whispering voice that I have to strain to hear.”
“Yes, Ted, our purpose in life, the Work, is to amplify that voice and learn to deeply respect it.”
“It’s always been there, but for some reason I stopped listening to it. I don’t know why I stopped hearing it.”
Angel only smiled. “You’re not alone—we all become very adept at ignoring this aspect of ourselves. The fifth level is about reclaiming your true self. Strange as it may sound, it’s not just alcoholics that struggle to hear the voice of their true self. Deeply religious people struggle at the fifth level just like everyone else. No one is exempt from doing the Work.”
Ted sat there for a moment and tried to let everything they had talked about over the last few days coalesce. He was anxious, so he stood up and began to pace around the fire. He realized that this shifting, waking feeling was vaguely familiar; it was like the shift from studying a foreign language to actually speaking it.
“You know, Angel, the tumbler on a safe is an interesting mechanism. All the parts have to be set at just the right spot. When that happens, the lock clicks and the safe door can swing wide open.” Ted thought a bit more and continued, “Randomly, it would take many lifetimes to come across the right combination of numbers that allows the tumbler to fall into place. However, you’ve been giving me hints at the combination. It’s quite an amazing feeling to find yourself standing in front of an open door—suddenly aware of the entire contents of the safe. It’s an exhilarating rush. That’s how I feel right now. Everything you told me and what Father Chuck and the other coconuts provided has all come together for me.”
What was in that safe was a grand discovery. Ted felt as if he suddenly understood everything. Not just the levels but everything: the grand big picture of Angel Two Sparrow, Ted Day, and their journey together.
He realized who she was, why she was here with him, and what his vacation was all about. Ted was a smart guy but still, at the end of the day, like the rest of us, he’d had so many nagging little questions. Not one of them bothered him now. He’d had a blinding flash of intuition. Now it was up to him to slow that flash down and put the pieces together. The right side of his brain had given him the answer. Now he needed to learn to use the left side to slowly put the answers into words and explain himself as best he could. “Angel, I could be wrong, but I think I’ve got it.”
Ted continued to pace about their campsite testing his theory in his mind. He wanted to rehearse it to himself before he said it to her.
Angel, being a full-blooded Lakota, respected his need for silence. She retrieved an old dog brush from Bertha and sat down and groomed No Barks. The wolf dog enjoyed the attention. Angel hummed quietly to herself while Ted paced and pondered.
As he circumambulated the fire faster and faster, his excitement grew. He knew that he was onto something important, but he still couldn’t quite get it to tumble out of his mind in words. Angel herself might not be aware of the importance of what she was doing. Maybe it was a long shot and he had it all wrong. He needed to articulate this theory. This was not knowing.
Finally Ted sat down next to Angel and No Barks. Angel smiled generously but still said nothing.
*1 Angel had been fortunate enough to spend an entire week learning the process herself, but she’d forgotten to bring along the bible on this subject: Betty Edwards, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, The Definitive 4th Edition (New York: Penguin, 2012). Fortunately, she remembered enough to give Ted a crash course.
*2 Father Chuck counted himself very lucky to live close to Richard Rohr and was heavily influenced by his Catholic brother. One weekend Angel and Father Chuck had been fortunate enough to attend a seminar that dealt entirely with the false self and the true self. Angel had a recording of the seminar and played it over and over—loving it almost as much as her Lakota drum music. See Richard Rohr, True Self, False Self (Cincinnati: St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2003) (audio recording).
27
“My vacation is coming to an end,” Ted told Angel. “Only a few days left. What you, Mashid, Stephen, and Father Chuck have taught me has been turning around in my head and is finally all coming together. When I add it all up and then break it back down, I keep landing at the same spot. It might sound strange to you, but from an entirely objective standpoint, being the little agnostic fellow that I am, this is my take on the essence of religion and spiritual development and everything you’ve taught me.”
“Well, there are no tests at Spirit Tech, but if it’s helpful for you to have a final exam, I’ll listen.”
Ted started. “Two thousand years ago, give or take a few centuries, three very spiritually advanced sages, all men, walked the earth. They all preached and taught a similar lesson about the possibility and the methodology of human transformation. Their vocabularies were different, but they all believed that a life without awareness was deficient. They came from different cultures and different times and, on the surface at least, they are remembered in different ways. One was a savior. Another was a messenger. The third was an awakened one. Each of these men was born into a community that recognized his exceptional nature and appreciated his unique message of hope through human spiritual transformation. Naturally, each culture placed around the neck of its hero the highest honor it could bestow—its own unique epitaph of greatness. In those days they didn’t hand out medals or Nobel Prizes; instead they bestowed titles: king, savior, son of god, angel, and enlightened one. All the same thing.”
“Ted, it’s a sound enough theory. But remember, too, that it’s the nature of most religious followers to firmly believe that their brand of religion is the only authentic flavor and the other brands are just watered-down, quaint versions of the truth practiced by a few billion people on the other side of the planet.”
“You mean a Christian would say that what I said is a fair enough analysis of Muhammad and the Buddha but not of Jesus, who is truly the holy one?”
“Yes, and a Jew might say ‘right on’ about Muhammad but not Moses. Or a Lakota, ‘You sure nailed the Buddha. He was just a regular guy, but have I ever told you about Buffalo Woman?’ ”
“That’s my point, Angel. That’s just the third level. When we let go of knowing, we have to let go of thinking that our way is the only way—or necessarily even the best way. You were right. This part was easy for me because I was never sold on any one program to start out with. I don’t for a minute believe that any one religion has the right and only answers. Instead I believe that each religion uses the best metaphors and signposts that exist for them in their culture to try to explain that which is entirely inexplicable.”
Angel nodded. “Ted, many people might argue with you, but I’m not one of them. I will say this. It may be fair to say that religion is in large part metaphor, but it is also fair to say that some metaphors work better than others, depending on our cultural differences.”
“So much for background. Now let me take my final exam from Spirit Tech.”
Angel held up her hand. “I have my red pencil.”
“It’s quite clear to me, Angel, that the first realization is accurate: to varying degrees we are unawake. It’s also clear that the second realization is equally on target. Our lack of awareness is tightly linked to our Mr. Digit personality. Finally, as the third realization dictates, we are resting at different stops along the way, and by doing the Work we have the capacity to evolve and wake up.”
Angel clapped her hands. “Bravo, Ted. I’m already confident you have the first five levels of awareness down, so skip those and get right to the sixth level. If you get that one right, I am giving you a diploma.”
Ted moved closer to Angel and began. “First, imagine if you can that these great men we’ve talked about so much for the last few days—the Bu
ddha, Muhammad, and Jesus—were all born not thousands of years ago but, let’s say, thirty or forty years ago and in the Western world, maybe Cleveland or Cincinnati. So now Jesus, Muhammad, and the Buddha are out there somewhere wandering around the Midwest with the exact same abilities and gifts they were wandering around with a few thousand years ago in the Old World. They have essentially the same message of personal transformation to deliver to this now totally different, modern audience. Imagine too that instead of the Buddha, Jesus, or Muhammad, it’s one of their equally talented sisters. What would this feminine savior look like, and what would she say today? In this more modern world, with a millennium or two of human development and understanding behind us, would she be a carpenter, the leader of a caravan, the son of a prince?” Ted waited for Angel to answer, and when she didn’t, he supplied some more likely options. “A minister, a doctor, or a poet?”
“It’s your exam. You tell me.”
Ted continued. “All right, then. Here’s my theory. I don’t think anyone would believe Muhammad’s sister if she said she’d wandered down from some cave with her laptop after capturing this really catchy prose, word for word, that God delivered to her.”
“Maybe not.”
“The Buddha’s twin sister, starving herself half to death beneath the bodhi tree, wouldn’t get much of an audience on the five o’clock news.”
“Just another lost, homeless soul.”
“Jesus’s female alter ego, claiming to be the by-product of an immaculate conception, would likely find herself in a straitjacket.”
Angel wrapped her arms around herself and gave a little fake struggle.
“In fact, in today’s world these men or their sisters would have a hard time getting airtime and would have to find a different way to communicate.”
“It was hard enough then. You’re right; it might even be harder today. Maybe that’s why no spiritual giants have emerged in the last two thousand years or so.”
