[world-vedic] Digest Number 14

[Guest guest]

Soul or Troll

 

By John Giuffre

(Edited by Maddy & Syam)

 

 

Each inscribe their truths on me,

So happy or bitter

At what they think they see.

Jean Giuffre

(Written by Mom at age 21)

 

"Goofy & Cute; Fun & Silly; Boyish & Bashful; Weird & Very Weird; Short &

Funny." Gossip about those ugly looking, lovable troll dolls so much the rage

with girls? Not quiet. Yes, this was young girls, but they were friends

telling of the two qualities that best describe me. After hearing the list,

several recommended I try the purple hair like the troll dolls themselves.

Thankz Shaw.

 

Their input made me feel really macho. You know, in a runty kind of way. My

priest was more forgiving. Boyish & Overweight. That certainly made me feel

sinless. Some of the older, young ladies were sharper still: "Eccentric &

Psychic; Perceptive & Dysfunctional; Smoocher & Try to be cute; Unreliable &

Boy in man's body. Man-child." Not quite a hunch back, but far from the

suave, dashing man I always imagined for myself.

 

By now, my buddies could see the girls having a hay-day with me and the

obvious toll it was taking upon my sagging self image. The guys chimed in:

"Peaceful & Friendly, Loving & Joking; Persistent & Polite, Energetic &

Charming; Boisterous & Witty."

 

The compliments were great to hear and so unexpected. It was a first from

most of these guys. But the price: "dissed" by a band of girls. As the

youngest of them happily volunteered, a 14 year old: "Old & Desperate." Leave

it to kids to be honest. No wonder adults don't ask for their opinions. The

ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic symbol for children was a man with a vertically

held finger across his lips. Hmmm.

 

Reducing myself to "two qualities that best describe" me at first seemed a

cute English Class writing exercise. A little quality time of personal

reflection and self discovery. It appeared a poetic retreat from the every

day superficials that dominate our lives into a rather mundane and often

simple typecast of some media or academic social stereotype. Winner-Loser.

Schizophrenic-normal. Forbearing-Overbearing. Social-Anti-Social.

Passive-aggressive or what ever.

 

The idealic ring of this assignment is a testament to my Professor's passion

for his craft. By his own admissions: "slightly eccentric." I would describe

him as genius with enough edge as to be engaging as a person. He makes even

the drags of English seem dramatic. He represents one of a great man notions

I hold for myself: The brilliant professor. Yet, three hours with such a man

could not fully prepare me for 30 minutes of polling 20 friends. Half hour

later, I found it easier to contest the assignment's questions then my

friend's replies to it. They made the question seem quaint and innocuous,

even trite. It's like answering Happy & Sad. Not that I know what quaint,

innocuous or trite really mean, but both questions and answers seemed to miss

the point. It was worse then that actually. I didn't know what the point was.

 

The assignment asks for the "two qualities that best describe you." I kept

ending up with something entirely different. The answers, whether from others

or me seemed to miss the mark. I kept getting descriptions of my state of

being. Not me. I am happy. I am sad. These describe my state of experience.

Not who I am. Character references had the same problem. They described my

different traits isolated to a frozen space of time. At best, they described

a short term out of many hundreds of phases in my evolution from somewhere

(who knows?) to something (God or death).

 

On Friday night, this was still all in the realm of the esoteric. By Sunday

afternoon, life transformed it into a three dimensional issue of the heart.

Yeap, that means pain-the worse kind.

 

 

* * * *

 

This Labor Day holiday found me blissfully anticipating a weekend with my

ex-girl friend. It had been a long 4 months. I had traveled the country in

search of love. I realized it was here. I was returning home. My penniless

life and professionally undirected ways that so enraged her were a thing of

the past. A new and good paying job. Enrollment to Santa Monica College. I

even had a vehicle. My first in 4 years. Boy was I excited. I knew dozens of

things I'd differently. I was going to tell her. Show her. I could see her

beautiful face. Satisfied. I played this moment of reunion. Rekindled old

flames fluttered. I could touch my hopes. Obviously, there was strong

feelings. From both of us. I was sure of that. I could hear it in her voice

on the phone.

 

Ever the romantic. A true Aquarian. Of course, I read far too much into the

possibilities. Yet, life has a knack for crushing one's hopes in the most

merciless way.

 

I was met at her porch by a young, large Hispanic man. Howard. He updated me

on her well being. He moved in 2 months ago. Her auto-mechanic's "best

friend." I vaguely remembered meeting him. Those weekends she took to service

her car-I was too busy doing other things. Damn! Damn! The blurred memories

were stirring in me, but it was the emotion. It slammed me. Hard. Like that

feeling of getting punched-real hard in the gut. But this was in the chest. I

wasn't going to lose all composure just because I could not breath, swallow

or feel anything.

 

He was going "to be there forever," he explained. She was pregnant with his

child? He refused to let me see her. "She's resting." That's how he put it.

He was my worst fear. I love her. Now, she is really lost to me. Forever.

Never again would she hold me close as her love. As her partner in life. Or

even as confidante and friend.

 

Some lady, who I had never met, appeared. She curtly shooed me off the

grounds. They had to eat dinner, she repeated impatiently. Forget insult to

injury. This was decapitation of the heart. This lady may have saved me from

losing face. I could have seen myself break down. Right there. Right outside

her door.

 

I knew I loved her. I did not know I loved her that much. Not until then.

That's the worse kind of love. It sneaks up on you. It pounces without

warning. Bang! KKAABOOOOOOM!. You are utterly helpless. No defense. It hurts

so much. I was miserable. A complete wreck. The most devastating emotional

experience in years-decades. I had gone full circle in my search for love. It

was no circle at all. Well, it was. It was the circle of torment. It was the

last straw. And I broke.

 

I cried and I cried. It was the unleashing of every defeat, sorrow and loss

ever tucked away. The complete loss of any grace or composure. Pure

blubbering. The kind only possible when one has lost all that is dear and

left with nothing. Nothing but the truths of one's heart. I have cried but

few times this decade. Never with such unrelenting purge of heartache. I

cried alone as I drove home. I cried at home. I cried the next day too.

 

Being so heart-sickened, the obvious happened. All the familiar qualities so

often used to describe me were no longer true. "Social, Out going, Thick

skinned, Friendly, Smooth-talker, Tolerant, Generous, Affectionate, Love to

make people smile, People person, Bubbly, Loving, Charismatic, Never get

angry, and most ironic of all: Peaceful." Here was the remaining list of

qualities by my friends.

 

Today, I was anything but. I now had an entirely new personality set. Who

could have imagined this new me even 5 minutes before meeting Howard? Now, I

was distant to all. Incapable of basic social interaction or affection. I was

as bubbly as a dying dear. Close to feeling spiteful. Despite this total

transformation, I was still very much the same person.

 

Should I list the happy, out-going & loving "yesterday-me" or the miserable,

bitter and introverted "today-me?" Presenting either the happy or sad or even

the seeming paradox of something in-between seemed irrelevant. They fail to

describe who I am. The most I could say: I have shared in the experience of

these qualities. These qualities and character traits often have more to do

with my reaction to specific scenarios or phases in life, then they do with

the real me.

 

Life experiences remind me of amusement part rides. My response is according

to the ride. If fast, I scream. If cute, I reflect passively. To see me in

either or both and say I'm loud or quiet is far from the best description of

me. To know me for more then my reaction to the ride, to know what I am like

when I am not riding, is to know me better. Similarly, if the ride is life,

then to know us best is to know what we are like outside of life. Or before

and after it. This is the very reason why so many, for so long, have looked

to the occult, religion and the spiritual. It is nothing less then wrestling

with the age-old question: Who am I?

 

(Uh Oh. Is this turning into a philosophy thing? Scary huh? Well. Not quite.

This is to demonstrate how I view myself. How I see others. It is more a

personal psychological profile of my view of the world. Of life. Me. Once I

understand how I see things, I will know why I see things the way I do. What

I see. Now. As I was saying. Who am I? And the media dare say Generation X is

not thoughtful.)

 

As far as I can gather there are two primary choices:

 

1) I am matter-chemical interactions or

 

2) I am spirit-a spiritual essence.

 

Matter by definition is always changing. Yet, through all the material

trappings I find myself; there has remained something unchanging about me. (I

used unchanging, because the word "unchanged" sounds too much like a dirty

diaper. Just wanted to share some of my agony in writing this thing.) This

"me" has remained quite distinct from all other experiences including the

many personas and personality types tried and experienced from childhood

until today. Whatever that thing is that goes unchanged, that is my true

self. Since I don't change, I sense that I must not be material. This seems

logical to me. This defines for me the meaning of spirit and sums up my

premise for spiritual.

 

Sure. I too identify with different "material" situations whether of mind,

body or the world. Inevitably though, they are all ripped away by time,

leaving me to again journey for the new me. The real me. To explain myself by

some "material" definition at best describes me in a passing sense. Happy

today. Sad tomorrow. Noble today. Wretched tomorrow. Proud today. Humble

tomorrow. The only thing that does describe me in perpetuity are those

attributes of the spirit.

 

My definition of spirit is consciousness deduced to its finest and after

which there can no longer be life or consciousness. Such life force is

referred to in India as "Atma" or spirit soul. Therefore, I find Atma: life

force and consciousness-the sense of self, to be the most accurate

description of myself. To say in a final analysis: "I am a spirit soul" feels

more complete then saying: I am brave. I am cowardly, I am sophisticated. I

am clumsy." Each of these traits are ever so passing and pass all the more

quickly with each ticking year. Kaboom!

 

Let's talk a little about this spirit before discussing spiritual qualities.

It can be tricky to understand so lets begin with some logic. If the spirit

has consciousness-is consciousness-then too, it has experience. Experience

implies by definition, action of some kind. Action must denote qualities of

some sort, which in turn means personality. Consciousness = Experience =

Action = Qualities = Personality.

 

This may sound a little complicated, but really, its common sense. Think

about it. Automatically included in consciousness is experience. If nothing

more, it is the experience of consciousness. Experience is the definition of

consciousness. Without experience, you have a state without consciousness.

Unconscious. Most would agree with this logic. It is easy enough to

understand.

 

If consciousness is simultaneous with experience, then experience is also one

with action. If nothing else, the experience of consciousness is a form of

action. It is the action of experiencing consciousness. I know this sounds

like a "Zen thing" but again the logic of it is simple.

 

Now for action, qualities and personality. Action is also similarly

inseparable from qualities. The action of experiencing consciousness has the

qualities of being an ugly, beautiful or neutral experience, etc. By most

religious measures the experience of the world is ugly-miserable. The

experience of liberation, heaven or even Nirvana is beautiful-wonderful.

Miserable and wonderful, these are qualities. And like all qualities, they

automatically chisel out a personality in kind.

 

Each of these traits are common to all life. They are inseparable from life

itself-as they are from each other. Take one of the quietest forms of life.

Plants. A renowned study for its time demonstrated that plants "experience"

love, aggression and even fear. In one test, plants affectionately talked to

by caretakers grew better--all other care being equal. In the most startling

test of all, plants responded dramatically to a person entering immediately

after having destroyed plants in the previous room. Fear!? How did the plants

know? Telepathy!? Ultra consciousness!? Experience and qualities certainly.

What personality. All life is a display of personality. And so are we. Us.

You. Me. Personality. You've "got personality, Personality. Personality" as

goes a song from the "oldies."

 

If I am a personality, there may be one greater then myself, even a Supreme

Personality. It would then be fair to assume that this Supreme also has "His"

own sphere of activities. Generally, people and most religions approach this

from the other way. They start with a Supreme Personality of Godhead,

generally residing in an abode of some special kind and from whom comes all

else. Us. Though this approach would be interesting to compare against, it

remains an entirely different discussion.

 

The prevailing model of Nirvana, complete spiritual immersion, fails to

account for such spiritual activity, personality or qualities. This leaves me

skeptical. Have Buddhists accounted for all spiritual phenomenon though

mastered in aspects thereof? They recognize that suffering is caused and

proportionate to one's desires and attachments. (Boy, do I have a lot of

both. I guess that would explain my torment.) Their solution: cease desire by

elimination of all activity, personality and qualities without distinction or

possibility of spiritual ones apart from the material. (How's that for a long

sentence.)

 

I bring this up for one reason. Many people inadvertently correlate

"spirituality" with this Buddhist model of a void-like Nirvana. They too fail

to recognize spiritual personality and qualities. Why is this of concern?

Well, simple. Spiritual qualities lie at the heart of my point. In short, the

qualities of our spiritual personality are representative of our true

qualities. The temporary qualities of our temperate "material" body are

passing, if not misleading.

 

(Damn! Instead of narrowing myself down to two qualities, I have simply

offered a dual set of personalities to choose from. Leave it to an Aquarian

to simplify. Heady!?)

 

Separating the qualities & personalities of the material from the spiritual

is the science of philosophy and religion. Though contentious, there are

universally accepted characteristics of spiritual qualities. The most common

of course is love. Happiness would be another. Enlightenment or knowledge, a

third. The Vedas, ancient scriptural texts of India, offer 3 qualities to

define the soul: eternality, knowledge and bliss. I find this to be the

broadest description of both myself as well as all others. What a relief!

Otherwise, I would just be a walking troll doll.

 

You may disagree with some of these premises (while the rest of you have no

idea of what the hell I am talking about.) Quite O.K. This is not a

philosophy paper intended to convince you of newly unraveled truths. These

points are simply to demonstrate my own process for defining people by their

qualities.

 

The point then: the material qualities we identify people by is simply a

designation point of one's spiritual evolution. For example, if one's true

spiritual quality is love, its opposite would be lust, anger, greed and envy.

Therefore, the degree of one's anger or greed designates the step on which

one remains in their spiritual evolution to their natural inherent love. In

short, material qualities are a contrast to our spiritual ones. Not ends onto

themselves. (Wordy but a fairly common idea to most religions.)

 

Let us finish with a simple example. Take sickness and health: illness is

always contrasted against one's best health. Not one's worst. Sickness is the

aberration, not the norm. It is generally treated as the passing, not the

permanent. Similarly, the qualities of our spiritual state is our natural and

healthy state. Those qualities of our "material condition" are the abnormal.

The passing ones. By this logic, every soul is spiritually ill to the degree

of their "material condition." A "Conditioned soul."

 

A doctor sees past a patients flu. No matter how messy the symptoms or how

wretched becomes one's appearance. Similarly, a saintly person sees beyond

other's material actions and qualities and relates instead to all as a pure

spirit. "A child of God." No matter the situation or person. The vision and

character of all the enlightened ones are divinely perched from this

perspective of the evolving soul. Therein lies the secret to their kindness

and the mark of their wisdom.

 

Knowing the ways of the saints or even their secrets to the mysteries of life

and the universe are quite different than oneself being fully enlightened. I

am a case in point. Though I find such wisdom most gratifying to my spiritual

sensibilities and though I find it intellectually invigorating; it fails to

fully quiet the longing for this special lady I have come to love. As such, I

say that as of this moment, there are two qualities that best describe me. I

daze forlornly into these pages with tired eyes and a heavy heart. For I am

the regret and despair of one who has forever lost his most cherished love.

 

Herein lies the silver lining. This experience brought into focus my central

issue with this assignment along with a host of many others. A thin, very

thin, silver lining indeed. A trade off of the worse kind. But Pertinent

still and quite revealing.

 

Unbearable torment is often the price of wisdom. It is these very events,

generally love and its lost, which transforms placid ideas from poetic

sayings or distant truths into three-dimensional worlds of the heart. Wisdom

is having felt with the heart instead of prying with the mind. This may

explain why the wise are so apt to motherly tenderness and animated with a

child's radiance. The intuition of a mother's love and the innocence of a

child's play are tools of the heart and often, the means of the wise.

 

Am I wise? Well, I can now answer clearly, simply and with pride. "Professor.

I have the two best qualities of all: I am 'new and improved.' I have felt

with my heart."

 

Truly, this is a first in some time. Something about this was oddly

liberating. It is a new experience. A very different kind of vision; "seeing

with the heart."

 

The mind shuts out the pains of the world while the heart remains ever so

tender to them. I feel a pain like never before. But the heart can also

experience pleasures and partake of beauty in a way the mind can never touch.

It is this experience that I am once again allowed to share in-in some small

way and for some short time. I now see contrast, drama and relevance where

before I saw non. I now feel empathy for those I never before noticed. I sing

to music I never before would hear. (Love songs. Such "mush." Pathetic. I

know. But they now resonate with me-for the first time ever. Scary.) I strive

with a new determination, a stronger purpose never before possible. And so it

is with this assignment. This was anything but the romantic writing retreat

so happily envisioned. But it did prove a great journey of self-discovery. It

is for these simple rewards that I now remain thankful. For today, I walk

away, change of heart and a better man of mind and spirit.