[These discussions of the Advaita-Asia-India-“Native American” unicity are in response to an e-mail regarding the May 27th HBO presentation of “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.” You may visit http://www.hbo.com/films/burymyheart/ if interested in details. In an interview with actor-American Indian Adam Beach who plays Ohiyesa/Dr. Charles Eastman, Beach noted how the white man’s dualistic judgments affected him during childhood and into adulthood: “Imagine people trying to tell you being Indian is bad, is wrong and that your culture, your tradition is dealing with the devil. It affects my generation. After a hundred years of this manipulation of 'you're not a good person,' it really affects us.”]
CASE STUDY: A First-Hand Account of the Advaita Message as Transmitted by One of the Indigenous Peoples in the U.S. (Continued from yesterday)
THE FIRST TASTE OF THE CYCLES AND A SECOND TASTE OF NIRVANA
F.: (Are you seeing that the consciousness that was called "Grandmother" can still teach us all?)
CASE STUDY: A First-Hand Account of the Advaita Message as Transmitted by One of the Indigenous Peoples in the U.S. (Continued from yesterday)
THE FIRST TASTE OF THE CYCLES AND A SECOND TASTE OF NIRVANA
F.: (Are you seeing that the consciousness that was called "Grandmother" can still teach us all?)
With Grandmother, witnessing happened more than anything else. During walks in the woods, deer and owls and hawks and rabbits and coyotes and eagles and snakes and foxes and fish in the nearby stream and scores of species of birds would be witnessed. Once, while gathering herbs with her, I asked, “Can we get into trouble for trespassing if the owner catches us?” She said something that, at the time, made no sense at all: “Do not be concerned. No one owns the land.” I thought but did not say, Grandmother, all land is owned by somebody." Each morning, Grandmother would go into the woods alone after sending me to the garden where I picked the vegetables that we would prepare for lunch and dinner and placed them in a bushel basket: Let's see...for lunch we'll have okra and tomatoes, corn, and cream peas with cornbread, and tonight we'll eat blackeyed peas, potatoes, and the chunks of smoked ham that the woman gave Grandmother in gratitude for curing her migraines.
Many times at night, while sitting with her in the rockers on the porch, the plaintive cry of a bobcat could be heard in the distance as fireflies passed before our eyes. Grandmother could lift an upturned hand and the fireflies would land on her palm and walk about. On the few occasions when I could be still, they would do the same with me. (It seemed that I could not unwind during the first days of my visits with her, but the longer I was there, the more slowly I began to move.) The rustle of insects’ wings could be heard. Chirping crickets provided a musical background for a small child sitting next to his Ah-ni-yv-wi-ya Grandmother. But a happening one evening provided another taste of Nirvana. (Those early tastes would eventually drive me throughout a multi-decade-long quest as an adult to try to recapture the calm and soothing sense of at-one-ment that came in those early Nirvana moments to a child on retreat.)
It was late one evening when Grandmother and I were using paring knives to strip away willow bark in preparation for making a healing potion. Another woman would be visiting early the next morning, also for treatment for migraine headaches. After the bark was taken into the kitchen and put to soak with other herbs, we returned to the front porch and sat in rocking chairs. I was unaware of how vigorously my chair was moving on the dark porch, nor how still Grandmother’s chair was in contrast. Unconsciously, when my rapid rocking walked the chair to the edge of the porch, I stood, moved it back, and began the process all over again. Later, the full moon would clear the tops of some of the trees in the piney woods in front of the house, and a gap between the limbs of the taller trees allowed moonbeams to strike Grandmother.
I glanced to my right to see that she was looking straight ahead toward the trees and the moon. She was enlightened as the moon bathed her in a bluish luminosity that was still bright enough to reveal the brown spots that covered the top of her hands, hands which looked to be more bone than skin. I looked at my smooth right hand, then at the rough skin on her left hand, and then at the lines that crossed her face. Nature would not allow those lines to be ironed out into a smooth texture ever again. An obscure awareness of something about “patterns” or “cycles” or “phases” tried to surface from the brain-stem, but I had no tools to use to clear the way for it to come into consciousness: even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were.
So there sat a child that had not yet cycled one decade with a grandmother that had cycled many. There was smooth skin and rough, there was a day that had cycled into night, there was a moon cycling across the sky, and that full moon would soon complete another cycle as well. There was something there to be understood, but it was beyond my grasp, so the nervous rocking began again. And again to the edge of the porch. And again, a chair pushed back beside Grandmother’s. I looked to the right and saw Grandmother’s blue, expressionless face looking forward into the moonlight, then my rocking began again as I looked at her hand, at mine, and at the moon that had moved diagonally into a higher position in the sky.
With my chair moving front-to-back, front-to-back, front-to-back, I looked again at Grandmother, beautiful now in the subtle color that was fading into a darker blue. Something wanted to be realized, yet I was decades from that happening. Then suddenly, my rocking stopped...and did not start up again. And when it was obvious that something had stilled the chair and would keep it still for the rest of the night, I looked at Grandmother, still looking straight ahead, but I saw a smile form on her lips. Remember the peace that may be found in silence.
Then, I began to feel a calmness. Next, I felt her left hand move from the arm of her rocker and rest itself atop my right. In the stillness, I had finally become…available. The moon had moved so high into the sky that the roof of the porch was beginning to cast us into shadow. I looked down at those two hands and, for some reason, they did not look so different anymore when viewed in the fading light. I looked at her and she looked at me, and she smiled and I smiled, and then we both looked back toward the piney trees and the sky above, and I knew, by nothing more than the touch of a hand, exactly what it was like to love and to be loved, unconditionally. I felt in harmony with all things. Being Indian is an attitude…a way of being in harmony with all things and all beings. It is allowing the heart to be the distributor of energy on this planet. Yet that feeling would last but briefly. After reaching the “adult years,” it would take decades for it to manifest again.
Yet for a few moments that night, I sat back, in Nirvana, experiencing something that was indefinable to a small child, without a clue...but also without a single fear or a single desire. I felt, but did say out loud, “I feel whole; I feel complete; I feel safe; I feel happy; I feel like all is well; OK, Grandmother, I have learned another lesson and I am not concerned.” When I sneaked another glance at her, it seemed that Grandmother was even closer than by my side. I could not understand, but that did not interrupt the peace. The first peace, which is the most important, comes from within when people realize their oneness with the universe. I would barely remember being gently shaken some time later, coaxed to my feet from the rocker, guided to a bed from my rocking chair with her arm wrapped around my back and side as she half-carried, half-walked me out of the shadows and through the night and into the comfort of very, very deep sleep.
How about you? Have you had a taste of Nirvana that you might be recalling once again? Was the taste sweet enough to trigger a search to find it and keep it? If not, is the bitterness of not having that sweet taste enough to inspire you to begin to follow “the path” that will lead you there? Are you ready to walk out of the shadows and through the night and into the comfort of Realization? Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
Many times at night, while sitting with her in the rockers on the porch, the plaintive cry of a bobcat could be heard in the distance as fireflies passed before our eyes. Grandmother could lift an upturned hand and the fireflies would land on her palm and walk about. On the few occasions when I could be still, they would do the same with me. (It seemed that I could not unwind during the first days of my visits with her, but the longer I was there, the more slowly I began to move.) The rustle of insects’ wings could be heard. Chirping crickets provided a musical background for a small child sitting next to his Ah-ni-yv-wi-ya Grandmother. But a happening one evening provided another taste of Nirvana. (Those early tastes would eventually drive me throughout a multi-decade-long quest as an adult to try to recapture the calm and soothing sense of at-one-ment that came in those early Nirvana moments to a child on retreat.)
It was late one evening when Grandmother and I were using paring knives to strip away willow bark in preparation for making a healing potion. Another woman would be visiting early the next morning, also for treatment for migraine headaches. After the bark was taken into the kitchen and put to soak with other herbs, we returned to the front porch and sat in rocking chairs. I was unaware of how vigorously my chair was moving on the dark porch, nor how still Grandmother’s chair was in contrast. Unconsciously, when my rapid rocking walked the chair to the edge of the porch, I stood, moved it back, and began the process all over again. Later, the full moon would clear the tops of some of the trees in the piney woods in front of the house, and a gap between the limbs of the taller trees allowed moonbeams to strike Grandmother.
I glanced to my right to see that she was looking straight ahead toward the trees and the moon. She was enlightened as the moon bathed her in a bluish luminosity that was still bright enough to reveal the brown spots that covered the top of her hands, hands which looked to be more bone than skin. I looked at my smooth right hand, then at the rough skin on her left hand, and then at the lines that crossed her face. Nature would not allow those lines to be ironed out into a smooth texture ever again. An obscure awareness of something about “patterns” or “cycles” or “phases” tried to surface from the brain-stem, but I had no tools to use to clear the way for it to come into consciousness: even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were.
So there sat a child that had not yet cycled one decade with a grandmother that had cycled many. There was smooth skin and rough, there was a day that had cycled into night, there was a moon cycling across the sky, and that full moon would soon complete another cycle as well. There was something there to be understood, but it was beyond my grasp, so the nervous rocking began again. And again to the edge of the porch. And again, a chair pushed back beside Grandmother’s. I looked to the right and saw Grandmother’s blue, expressionless face looking forward into the moonlight, then my rocking began again as I looked at her hand, at mine, and at the moon that had moved diagonally into a higher position in the sky.
With my chair moving front-to-back, front-to-back, front-to-back, I looked again at Grandmother, beautiful now in the subtle color that was fading into a darker blue. Something wanted to be realized, yet I was decades from that happening. Then suddenly, my rocking stopped...and did not start up again. And when it was obvious that something had stilled the chair and would keep it still for the rest of the night, I looked at Grandmother, still looking straight ahead, but I saw a smile form on her lips. Remember the peace that may be found in silence.
Then, I began to feel a calmness. Next, I felt her left hand move from the arm of her rocker and rest itself atop my right. In the stillness, I had finally become…available. The moon had moved so high into the sky that the roof of the porch was beginning to cast us into shadow. I looked down at those two hands and, for some reason, they did not look so different anymore when viewed in the fading light. I looked at her and she looked at me, and she smiled and I smiled, and then we both looked back toward the piney trees and the sky above, and I knew, by nothing more than the touch of a hand, exactly what it was like to love and to be loved, unconditionally. I felt in harmony with all things. Being Indian is an attitude…a way of being in harmony with all things and all beings. It is allowing the heart to be the distributor of energy on this planet. Yet that feeling would last but briefly. After reaching the “adult years,” it would take decades for it to manifest again.
Yet for a few moments that night, I sat back, in Nirvana, experiencing something that was indefinable to a small child, without a clue...but also without a single fear or a single desire. I felt, but did say out loud, “I feel whole; I feel complete; I feel safe; I feel happy; I feel like all is well; OK, Grandmother, I have learned another lesson and I am not concerned.” When I sneaked another glance at her, it seemed that Grandmother was even closer than by my side. I could not understand, but that did not interrupt the peace. The first peace, which is the most important, comes from within when people realize their oneness with the universe. I would barely remember being gently shaken some time later, coaxed to my feet from the rocker, guided to a bed from my rocking chair with her arm wrapped around my back and side as she half-carried, half-walked me out of the shadows and through the night and into the comfort of very, very deep sleep.
How about you? Have you had a taste of Nirvana that you might be recalling once again? Was the taste sweet enough to trigger a search to find it and keep it? If not, is the bitterness of not having that sweet taste enough to inspire you to begin to follow “the path” that will lead you there? Are you ready to walk out of the shadows and through the night and into the comfort of Realization? Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
