So there I was. Alone. Divorced. Looking down from the balcony of my apartment on the third floor. Empty beer bottles laying around. Wondering what the hell I was doing with my life and more importantly... what was the meaning of my life?
When you ask deep, philosophical questions, a lot of folks think the bible is the end all be all authority on all things meaningful. Me personally, I read a lot of the bible. I studied it. I went to church... religiously. I had a study bible, a companion bible, cheat sheets, scripture of the day calendars, Christian books, the whole business. I was in. I drank the proverbial Kool Aid. I was the poster child for Jesus. But to tell you the truth, I was about as close to finding eternal truth as I was finding the lost city of Atlantis.
For me, church, Christianity, the Jesus freaks, all of it... started to feel more like a business or a club; a business where the people sell you sunshine, feel goods, and fake rainbows for 90 minutes. Yeah they make you give an awkward hug or handshake to the stranger to the left and right, but that never led me to any meaningful relationships. I began to see this kind of tribal or pack mentality throughout the place. It was about someone telling me what to think, what to read, what to watch, what music to listen to, and how much money to give. And oh yeah, if you have a question- just pray about it.
I never did well with authority
You go to church to invoke a positive change in yourself and to worship. But I started noticing that a lot of the same people I was standing next to in church on Sunday were the same people stabbing each other in the back on Monday. I became very aware of how judgmental my church going friends were too. This person is a sinner. That person doesn't give enough money to the church. She's a whore. He's going to hell if he doesn't change. This person is sleeping with that person. Don't get me wrong, I was just as bad as any of them. No question. But with me, the more aware of that I became, the more I wasn't good with being like that, like them. It didn't feel good. I became more and more awake to this negative, non Christ-like mindset. Going to church and being around these people didn't feel good. It felt like we were playing a kind of make believe. As they say in Texas, "All hat, no cattle."
By this time, I was attending another church and it had a sound stage, two big amphitheater screens, and a band that gave the church more of a rock concert vibe than a religious feel. This church was generating mega bucks every month too. I mean a million bucks. Literally. Still does. I couldn't help but wonder how or why the pastor felt that God wanted the church band to have a light show and smoke machines but didn't want to fund a homeless shelter or feed the community- but whatever. My spiritual journey was mine. It was about me trying to figure my stuff out. Why we're here. Who God is. What is my purpose. Basically... I wanted to know the big question we all want answered... I wanted to know how to be happy.
I can't recall a particular moment or incident that happened, but one day I decided that I had enough. I figured my salvation wasn't going to come in an offering plate. And saying you're a Christian and going to church doesn't make you a good person. And contrary to it's promises, it doesn't really help you understand what the hell is going on around this planet. No I can't recall a specific moment, but I can recall a lot of hypocritical, two faced, judgmental people who have a habit of telling people who don't believe how they believe that they are going to hell. I started to step back. I started to use a more rational mind when it came to all of the "teachings" of the bible and religion in general. And I noticed a lot of things I read in the bible, had one thing in common... it made about zero sense.
Noah and a boat load of disbelief
When you ask, 'Who are we? Where do we come from?' you want some kind of rational explanation. Or at best at least an honest answer. I'd even settle for, "We really don't know" as an answer. At least it's honest. But we get some very odd story of humanity in Christian ideology. You can't have a human origin story without Genesis and Noah's Ark, right? Ya know, how basically we came from two people- Adam and Eve. Well, so I learned in church. Apparently genetics wasn't too regarded or understood back then.
Then there's Noah- the ark, the great flood. Yeah. It's a story about a 600 year old man who God tells to build a boat and put his family and two of every kind of animal on it to save them from a great flood. So... a 600 year old man is tasked to build a boat - quite an undertaking for a man his age. He puts every kind of animal on this boat. ( Miraculously, pun intended, the animals don't eat each other or Noah or his family.) And when the flood comes, no other boats work but Noah's, apparently. So how did the earth repopulate? Well... incest of course. Had to be. Kind of process of elimination there. But incest is a sin, right? It says so in the bible. (Not to mention disgusting.) Genetically speaking, we should be mutants at best. Actually our species shouldn't of survived. Yeah, this all makes perfect sense. Must be where "God works in mysterious ways." Right. Maybe I should just pray about it...
The spiritual kick to the nuts
If you read Part 1 of this series, you may recall my encounter with a Buddhist monk in a book store. Again, I remembered this monk telling me that when I was ready, I was going to embark on a spiritual journey. After a lot of back and forth, I decided to leave the church, never to return. I was finally left alone, in peace, to flesh out religion, the origin of people, the meaning of life, all of it... my way. No stop signs. No speed limits. It was now coming to pass. I was ready and now embarking on that spiritual journey that monk had foretold about me years prior.
A funny thing happened to me as the weeks rolled past since my disappearance from church. People I had associated with at church... stopped calling me. Yep. Once in a while, I'd run into one or two of them and they always acted like they owed me money or something. The conversations were short, sweet, and over faster than a baptism in a water park.
Another interesting thing happened. Something a little more refreshing- for the first time I was free to pray any way I saw fit to. And... I didn't have to listen to any shitty church band music. Amen.
Years went on and again I found myself in yet another very dark, unhealthy, relationship. One that continued for five long years. (They say that lessons are repeated in life until they are learned.) I lived in an environment that was so toxic that when you walked into the house you could literally feel the tension in the air. It was so bad that my house was just a house, it wasn't my home. It was a big, beautiful house, nice neighborhood, two car garage, private gym, and a prison inside.
I needed a plan. I needed an escape. But I couldn't afford to walk away from a house I just bought. I couldn't yet abandon three step kids that needed a stable man in their life. But what could I do? The answer wasn't in a book, or in a Joel Osteen speech, it was actually inside of me. I knew I couldn't physically escape the outside world by just running away but I could escape it temporarily... from the inside. I began practicing a technique that I had learned in martial arts class years and years ago... I began meditating.
The magical signs from the universe
I started doing daily meditations. Sometimes two to three times a day. 10 minutes here. 20 minutes there. It was my escape. It was my temporary way out of the nightmare that I had manifested. It was my way to call a time out, reflect, and escape the bullshit. I was beat down by my spouse and her kids. Pressured by balancing home, acting jobs, and a day job. But the more I meditated, the more peace I began to feel throughout the day. It was like a prayer but deeper. Slowly, my perspective about myself and life started to shift. By continuously diving into my self, into my breathe, I slowly started to understand myself and the world around me. For the first time, after all of the sermons I sat through, the baptisms, the shitty band music, the hypocrisy, life finally began to make a kind of sense. I started to see the connection with things, events, and thoughts. I began to finally wake up.
I eventually walked away from that horrible relationship and from the four bedroom house I co owned. I had allowed that woman to make me feel like that fat youth leader made me feel when I was 17- not good enough. As my perspective on life changed through meditation, so did my perspective on my self. I slowly started discovering something good, something real, the complete person that I am and always was.
During one of my meditation sessions, a very, very, very, odd thing happened. I mean down right trippy. I had an "experience." As I sat with my eyes closed, my concentration on my breathe, I was transported within my mind to another place. I saw an incredibly lush rain forest. And I was standing in the middle of it. And then suddenly, without warning, this unusual looking woman appeared. Her face was kind of oval. Her skin was flawless, almost with an air brushed quality. She was quite beautiful, actually. She put her hand on me and called me by three names that I didn't recognize. In fact, it wasn't English. She then stated that 'I was loved' and that she 'is with me on my journey through this life and that I would never be alone.' She hugged me and then told me something really strange, she said, "the forest wants you to come home." The forest wants me to come home? What the hell does that mean? I immediately snapped back to my room where I had been sitting. I felt very jarred, kind of like when you start to fall asleep and wake up feeling like you are falling. That's what it was like. I looked up the "names" she called me. And oddly, they were real words. They translated to character almost horoscope descriptions that fit me to a T. Things that make you go, "hmmm."
One of my close friends was having her own spiritual journey at that time. She was very interested in checking out a Buddhist temple and asked me several times if I would go with her. I finally agreed. The following week, on a Friday, we went. It was amazing. The temple was open 7 days a week. Just walking in there, there was a feeling of openness, comfort, and love. A stark contrast to the rigidity of traditional church. One of the monks, a young white guy, took us on a tour of the property and told us many facts about their Buddhist traditions and beliefs. Many of which I had previously read about in books. The most peculiar fact he stated to me was this- He said that Theravada Buddhism, the sect of Buddhism practiced there, was also known as "Forest Buddhism". Forest Buddhism? Forest! The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I remembered the vision of the flawless woman and what she said to me during meditation a few weeks back - "The forest wants you to come home." That was it. I had arrived. The journey led me here. I was home...
No comments:
Post a Comment