Today's Considerations
Most people in the West began meeting Miep Gies and her
husband Jan in the year 1947 (the year that many people think that “floyd” was born)
with the publication of The Diary of a Young Girl, better known by the name of the play and movies based on that book The Diary of
Anne Frank. (Jan, a member of the Dutch Resistance forces in WW II, was referred
to as “Henk” in the diary.)
I met Miep and Jan in 1983 and we remained friends until Jan
took mahasamadhi on 26 January 1993 and until Miep took mahasamadhi on 11 January
2010. Our first visit was in their flat in an Amsterdam suburb, a short ride by
tram from the Centrum (that is, from the Amsterdam Centraal or Centre area)
where I was staying.
Shown below:
Miep and Jan by the revolving bookcase which hid the
door that opened onto the stairway that led to the loft or attic (what Anne Frank called “The Annex"
in her diary) where the four members of the Frank family and the four members
of the van Pels family (called “the Van Daan family” in the diary) hid for 25 months from the Nazis. This was
the couple some time before the point when our paths first crossed:
MIEP AND JAN GIES
Over the years, Miep and Jan and I reunited many times in The Netherlands,
sharing enjoyable dinners and more enjoyable companionship; my daughter and I
caught up with Miep in Dallas, Texas when she was on a speaking tour of the
U.S. and shared a meal; and in 1988 I met Miep and Mary Steenburgen (who played
the part of Miep in the movie entitled “The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank”) when
Miep invited me to the première of the film which was held at the Lincoln
Center for the Performing Arts in Manhattan.
What was shared with Jan (which led to a ten-year
relationship with him) and what was the commonality with Miep (which led to a twenty-seven year
friendship with her)?
Three things in particular: (1) a clear and unwavering sense
of the unicity among all three of us; (2) an unlimited willingness to offer the gift of a non-dual message of
hope to persons experiencing a sense of hopelessness (though the couple never termed it as such); and (3) a common
understanding of what Real Love is.
The other relevancy to non-duality and the current discussion
in this series is what they shared about potatoes - yes, about potatoes – during
our three-hour conversation in their flat on the occasion of our first meeting.
Our talk that
day began with a discussion of the pre-war days and the idyllic existence the
two shared with the Frank family after the latter escaped Nazi Germany and moved to Amsterdam. Then the talk turned to
the two-and-one-half years in hiding. Next followed a more detailed dialogue regarding their
experiences during the years that the Franks were in hiding, including
an extensive discussion of the effects of the Dutch famine of 1944 (known as “the Hongerwinter”
or "Hunger winter" in Dutch) which took place in all of the German-occupied
part of the Netherlands, Amsterdam included.
A bicycle was Miep's only transportation, and she described the seemingly-endless
months of that winter when she rode her bike mile-after-mile into the countryside - in freezing
temperatures and in the dark of night - in search of potatoes to buy on the
"black market" in order to feed the eight people hiding upstairs. (Often, she and
Jan did not eat, giving their portions to those in hiding). In order to feed those she
was guarding over, Miep for years risked either being caught and sentenced to death or being
sent to a concentration camp to do slave labor, both being punishments assessed for helping Jews hide from the Germans.
She said that usually, the most she that ever found on any given
trip was a handful of rotten potatoes, but she always bought whatever was available and returned to the attic with them to feed those she and Jan
were trying to protect from the Nazis and the Dutch Green Police sympathizers.
All ten people were severely malnourished by the time that the authorities
were tipped off that eight Jews were hiding upstairs at the Prinsengracht 263 address
of Otto Frank’s former business. (Records found after the war showed that the informant had
received the equivalent of 17 cents per Jew, a total of $1.36 for the eight
people he handed over for deportation to Nazi work / death camps).
Miep said
that shortly after the arrest of her friends, she contracted pneumonia. For nine months
prior to the arrival of the Allied Forces in the Netherlands, she and her
husband lived exclusively on potatoes . . . on potatoes which were usually rotten
but eaten nevertheless.
Now, all of the above might seem like a long way to go to get to a non-dual
pointer about living on potatoes, but on occasion the sense is that the feelings
inside which remain for Miep and Jan - and for the message and the example of both
love and Real Love which they modeled for millions of people all around the globe - is worth communicating occasionally.
So consider Maharaj’s evolution in the message he offered: in
the beginning, his actions focused on “the-bread-of-life”-kind of message that religion
offered; after Westerners began showing up in droves, his talks focused on a “non-dual-epicurean-meals-with-exquisite-desserts”-kind
of spiritual message.
At that point, his talks revealed to the savvy reader or listener
the same seven steps which are shared here and which were rooted in (A) “self-inquiry”
(advising seekers to see all of the false selves which had been assigned to
them or adopted by them but which did not define them) and in (B) “Self-Inquiry”
(advising seekers to find their “Supreme Self” and to abide as that / THAT).
[The same two approaches were tried here initially, only to find that seekers were relocating
(mentally) to THAT, were losing contact with reality as they touted their new-found
Reality, and were moving (mentally) into Lala Land or next door into Foo Foo Land. What strategy was followed by Maharaj, and here as well later on, after seeing that the two earlier methods did not work to treat the Ultimate Sickness effectively? "Back to the laboratory. Must
continue to search for a new version of the Ultimate Medicine after the first
two versions failed miserably."]
Maharaj would share this message which summarized his final understanding:
“If you ask me ‘Who are you?’ my answer would be: ‘Nothing in particular. Yet,
I am’.”
(See? No identity, so most certainly, not some “Supreme Identity.”) He
made clear that “self-inquiry” alone is enough, that it is enough to know who
you are not, even if you never find out “Who You Are.”)
In other words, neither a “bread-of-life”-kind of message or
a “Self-Inquiry” kind of “epicurean-meal-with-an-exquisite-dessert”-kind of message
is required, or even desired, or even workable. By endorsing “self-inquiry,” he was saying (as Miep and Jan
showed) that you can live on potatoes alone. Go for the potatoes. It might feel
cold. It might be dark. But go for the potatoes anyway.
There was certainly a time in Ireland when potatoes would
have been enough. Beginning in 1845 and lasting for six years, the potato
famine resulted in the deaths of over a million men, women and children and caused another million
to flee the country. If those two millions had been able to find nothing more than potatoes alone, they would have survived there.
So, go for the potatoes. It might feel cold. It might seem way too
dark. But go for the potatoes anyway. You can live on potatoes alone. Now, are
you one of those types who will not settle for less? Must you have “the gravy”
on the potatoes as well? That is, is it not enough to know only who you are not? Are you driven to
find out “Who You Are” as well? Gotta accumulate a big ole load of gravy, too?
Rock and roll. Stay the “Self-Inquiry” course to the end (or not). Eat the full
course. But know that you may feel stuffed in the end, stuffed full of new loads
of identities (or "Identities" or “A Supreme Identity"). Fattened up on the fullness
of Self if you are driven to do so, but consider that, for many, the end result had been the same kind of uncomfortable feeling which comes when being full of self.
Not only those who do not know who they are not but also
those who think that they know Who They Are can be full of it. As another option,
some might consider the alternative as pointed to in the title of this EBook: “WhyYou Must Be Empty If You Would Be Full.”
Maharaj tried to offer a proper perspective about all of
this “Self” business when he said: “I am nowhere to be found. I am not a thing
to be given a place among other things. All things are in me, but I am not
among things.”
To realize that one is “not a thing” – that is, that one is not
anything – is "the unending potato" which can last for the entire remainder of a manifestation. It is that which, even alone, can prove to be enough. You can get by on that alone. To know what you are not is "the
potato," and that potato alone is adequate. To think that you know “Who You Are” might be "the gravy," but the high-fat
gravy is even less healthy than the high-carb potato.
Yet here, there are no food laws adhered to, so eat what you
will, eat all you will, and pile the thick gravy on in overflowing ladles; or, eat only
enough so that you don’t end up too full of it. Here, it matters not. As
Grandmother and her Cherokee relatives would say when confronted by the white
man who came their way and who was taking himself - that is, his “self” or his “selves”
- far too seriously:
“Whatever.”
Here, I got the potatoes but then worked like a maniac to get
the gravy as well. In reflection, it is clear that the potatoes would has been
enough. The potatoes only would have been just fine. And nowadays, the potatoes
alone are proving to be just that . . . proving to be all that is required.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
[NOTE:
The four most recent posts follow. You may access all of the posts in
this series and in the previous series and several thousand other posts as well by clicking on the links in the "Recent Posts and Archives" section.]
