Enlightenment...NOW!

posted 1/25/2007
On my way to work each morning, I pass a billboard. It shows a smiling blonde guy with a little beard and longish hair. The kind of guy who might work at the Waterbed Warehouse. Or the fellow that makes your fruit smoothie at Mr. Juicy.

Every morning the billboard catches me by surprise because under the man's name (he is Deeksha, or he believes in Deeksha, or he is a follower of Deeksha, I'm not sure which) it exhorts, "ENLIGHTENMENT...NOW!!!!"

And I think, "NOW? Now's not good for me. I'm in traffic. Later. Enlightenment, Saturday."

I don't intend to join Deeksha's ashram, but I do intend to get enlightened. If not now, well...some time. It's not that I'm unmotivated. I'm very interested in enlightenment, per se; it's just that I lack a path. I've trotted down any number of spiritual rabbit trails, both conventional and esoteric, yet I haven't quite found my place.

I was raised (and confirmed) a Lutheran. That went well enough. I was an altar girl; I belonged to Luther League (you know, a club for teens who roam the countryside nailing up demands on peoples' doors). I played a weeping woman in our youth docudrama of the Crucifixion. It was pleasant, but I wasn't very inspired and, eventually, I strayed.

I spent some time with Unity and with Unitarians. They were lovely, positive people, although I always felt like I was having a cocktail at the Christian Lounge, it was so entertaining. Lot's of hugging. Perhaps, a wee bit too much hugging from the guy with the programs standing in the vestibule.

I had a Jewish girlfriend and did my best to marry any one of her three adorable older brothers. But I wasn't successful...at least not yet. I'm willing to convert to Judaism (in case you know anyone), inasmuch as I don't really have any particular faith to convert FROM. I do, after all, have a fondness for potato pancakes.

I attended several Womyn's Goddess Weekends held out on a ranch that had never seen the likes of our kind. These were festive gatherings with dancing and drumming and journaling, and most of us stayed bravely nude throughout. Except for boots - you'd be foolish to wander around in Texas brush without wearing heavy footwear.

I enjoyed the Goddess Get-Togethers, although a few participants took their personal mythology a bit seriously, to my way of thinking. One woman approached me (naked but for her cape, boots and tall carved walking staff) and told me that a) her name was Mountain Dreamer and b) she was the village story teller.

I don't recall having much of a response. I might have asked her if she was hot under her cape, but I'm sure I did NOT ask her to tell me a story.

One weekend, I stumbled into a friend's Sufi retreat. Although the music and dancing were joyous (I believe that I volunteered to embody Saturn in an expressive group dance of the planets), and the hummus was fabulous, I remained mystified. I had read about Sufism and I asked questions at the gathering like, What is Sufism? But I never quite got the message.

I like Buddhism quite a lot...at least, what I understand of it. It seems as though the Buddha thought of every contingency in life, and offered practical advice accordingly. I fear, however, that one cannot fully comprehend Buddhism unless one commits to a meditation practice.

I am a conceptual meditator, and I have many things to prove it. I have a zabuton, a singing bowl, Deva Premal CDs, Tibetan bells, books by His Holiness, the Dalai Lama and Buddhas, large and small. I even have DVDs of teachers demonstrating meditation techniques. Apparently, I like to watch other people meditate, while I do something else...like knit or eat chips.

For awhile, I attended a weekly service of Gregorian Chanting at an Episcopal church. It was transcendent and serene, but at the end of Compline, I would return to my body and discover that I wasn't in 11th century Britain. During the chanting, I had been transported to an isolated stone abbey in the wild Orkney Isles. When it ended, I came crashing back to my ordinary reality, which wasn't very mystical or profound. It made me sad.

So far, although I've been a spiritual dabbler, I have stayed fairly close to a recognizable path. My forays into religion have been relatively mundane compared to friends and acquaintances who have wandered even farther afield in the quest for realization.

I know one woman who started following a guy who claimed to be from the Pleiades. He was phenomenally good looking and elegant (a metro-Pleiadian) but I found him overbearing. Just being from a galaxy light years away didn't enhance his personal charm to my way of thinking. I don't recall that he had any real spiritual insight to offer, other than his exotic origins, but many women seemed to find that sufficient.

Another woman joined a group who revered dolphins as spiritual emissaries. As sometimes happens, my acquaintance developed a passion for her guru - a male bottlenose living in the Florida keys. In these catastrophic affairs of the heart, you rely on your girlfriends to take you aside and tell you the unvarnished truth.

"Honey...I know you love him. I know he's great in the water. But, really...he already has a pod and you're just...well...you're just a moonlight swim for him. The two of you can never be more than sentient creatures, passing in the night." (As predicted, it didn't work out between them- he was shellfish - and, eventually, she went back to her husband.)

Followers of Zen say that enlightenment is found in complete attention to mundane tasks at hand. You chop wood - you carry water. Or, to apply the principle in my own life, I walk Pomeranian - I unload dishwasher.

Somehow, the essence of life reveals itself by our willingness to be here...now (as Ram Dass would say)...and fully observe. We've all had glimpses of enlightenment in those moments that either explode like fireworks in our understanding, or drift in as light as light. God is suddenly revealed to us, and truth is self-evident. We recognize our essential nature and accept our place in a cosmos we cannot begin to comprehend. This precise and pure awareness is not bound by religion or belief, but lies at the heart of our mysterious and brief existence.

Years ago, I was settling my father into a nursing home. His roommate was a gentleman who had lost his speech to a stroke. Above his bed was an elaborate oil painting of a Boston Terrier.

Making one-sided conversation, I asked, "Oh, was this your dog?" Without making a sound, he burst into tears, and I saw his complete heartbreak. To live is to love is to lose. I was closer to enlightenment in that moment than I may ever be again outside of the transfiguration that is childbirth.

A woman once asked Carlos Castaneda how to achieve true spirituality. Castaneda told her to remind herself each day that everything and everyone she loved would pass. Just that single awareness would bring her all of the enlightenment she would ever need. So, I walk the Pomeranian (again) and I unload the dishwasher (again). And I reflect on how there is always a first time we do anything in life, just as there will be a last time. A first love, a first child...first true insight. Enlightenment may be closer than I think. Maybe now.

Note-to-Self 2: Consider visiting Mr. Deity on You Tube. He's adorable, even if He does erase my prayers from His message machine.

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Ingrid divides her life between the San Juan Islands (where her heart lives) and Austin, Texas (where her paycheck is generated). While Ingrid is spiritually promiscuous, she credits her guru, Jimmy Buffet, for her mantra ..."If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane."

Ingrid is an old-school Libra and believes that the Revolution should be a catered event.

Her column appears every other Thursday in San Juan Islander. To contact Ingrid, send emails to ingrid@sanjuanislander.com

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