CASE STUDY: A First-Hand Account of the Advaita Message as Transmitted by One of the Indigenous Peoples in the U.S.
F.: The ancestors of my Ah-ni-yv-wi-ya (or “Tsalagi” or “Cherokee”) grandmother were sent away from the land they had cleared for farming and lived on for generations when the land was confiscated by the U.S. Government and sold for $1 per acre to a family from Germany. Those Native American ancestors were “resettled” to areas in Arkansas and Oklahoma. Eventually, one "American Indian" family was “pardoned” and allowed to move back south to a small, remote, heavily-wooded tract of fairly-useless land in what came to be known as “Cherokee County.” That family would eventually procreate and it would be in that region where the consciousness happened to manifest in a space that I would someday call “Grandmother.”
The Space called ”Grandmother”
Her family would pass down to her not only their philosophical teachings but also their healing methods as well. She would become a medicine woman, visited regularly by the infirmed, but her curative abilities were not limited to the physical. Time with her would heal the troubled “mind” and emotions as well. With Grandmother, the ancient teachings that found their way from Asia and India were taught at times by word but were transferred more often in the silence of example. In her small house set on a knoll in a dense and isolated forest where I spent my childhood summers, it seemed to a young male from the city as if there was nothing…yet it was seen later as an adult that there was everything.
As for that nothingness, never did she complain about the lack of indoor plumbing or about a too small house or about the absence of electricity. Never did she complain about having to draw water from a well or about having to gather wood or about having to build a fire each morning under a large black kettle in order to heat her water. Never did she complain about the multi-mile walk to the nearest store or about having to use a mule to plow her one-acre garden. Never did she complain about the red dust blown into her eyes from the lane that paralleled her land or about being alone in a very dense forest.
To the contrary, she was free of fear and free of desire, functioning as a minimalist who was completely content, even as “less” marked each aspect of her existence. All efforts by her children to provide “the basic amenities” were refused. Though “nihilism” would not have been among the words in her vocabulary, in practice she lived in what dualists would have called “a moral fashion” without needing a defined, moral code or religion to guide her; though she provided healing for many, she never did so to attain a sense of “self”-value or to give “meaning” to “her life”; and what happened on any given day at any given time was never a result of “preferences.” Looking back later, it was seen that everything that happened with Grandmother happened spontaneously or not at all.
She knew no time; she honored no days with dualistic notions about some being “more important” or “different” or “holier” than others; she honored no person with dualistic notions about some being "more important" or "different" or "holier" than others; she was attuned to the cycles of the seasons but lived only in the moment; she was at-one with all. The manifestation spanned a century, so she obviously cared for her body without caring about her body. Looking back, it is obvious that she had none of the delusions that cause many to confuse three-dimensional things or three-dimensional beings with the real.
THAT FIRST TASTE OF NIRVANA
For a young child longing for peace and for respite from an existence that was plagued with far too much nonsense, with far too many judgments about being “good or bad,” and with the application of excessive punishment when labeled “bad,” the contrast of summers with a calm, serene Ah-ni-yv-wi-ya grandmother became a welcomed balm. To be in her presence in the quietness of the natural surroundings of a forest and in a home where serenity reigned was to be in Nirvana. At least it was for a young child who was already trying to escape an environment in the city that was far too chaotic, far too noisy, far too castigatory in character, and far too illogical and irrational. The concept in India of undergoing “the forest dweller stage” became my experience long before I heard the term.
AN EARLY LESSON ABOUT THE ILLUSION OF DEATH
When in the city with my parents, bedtime was always marred with a prayer which included the phrase “…and if I die before I wake.” That always struck me as a peculiar concept to introduce just prior to sleep, but my protests in that regard were ignored and the lines had to be spoken. That prayer was never a requirement at Grandmother’s; in fact, Grandmother never used any prayers that I saw or heard, but she did offer a hug and a kiss and a pat at bedtime, so sleep in her home was long and deep. Except for one night.
One night, when fears generated by strange noises outside the open window drove me from my bed to hers, she calmed me with a hug and shushing sounds. That night, the noises triggered a fear that “this might be the night that I die before I get to wake.” The thought drove me to seek something to assuage the fear in a way that would allow me to return to sleep, so it was asked, “Grandmother, am I too bad to get to go to heaven if I die?” After a moment of silence, in which she was processing a hurt that I only now realize she was feeling, Grandmother said, “Not only are you not bad, but there is no death, so do not be concerned. Just go to sleep and rest.”
“There is no death?” I repeated sleepily. I wanted to ask for more explanation, for more assurance, but I wanted even more to return to sleep, so nothing more was said after a few incoherent mumblings from a child transitioning from abject fear into the quiet-breath sounds of sleep. It would be forty-five years before it would be seen in retrospect that the transitioning from abject fear into the quiet-breath sounds of rest would be a metaphor for the Advaita “journey” of transitioning from my relative existence that had been marked by imagined fears and unmet desires and “mind”-generated suffering to enjoying the quiet-breath moments of rest, post-Realization.
Can you relate to a child running about in the darkness of abject fear over what was really nothing? Can you relate to an adult still doing the same? Are you ready for the quietness to replace the chaos? Are you ready for the sleep-state level of peace to manifest during the waking hours as well? Are you ready for peaceful surroundings? Are you truly ready to take all seven steps that are required to complete the journey that can take you to that? Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
FOR INFORMATION ON A BOOK TO GUIDE YOU THROUGH THE SEVEN STEPS:
