Letting Go
by Tom Endress
June 23, 2008
This talk is the second in a series of a talk I gave on December 2 of last year. That talk dealt with an intense experience I went through in May of 1958. That incident might be called many things, a spiritual awakening, a little satori, an epiphany, grace, or just a strong dose of feeling good. Last May 18 was the 50th anniversary of that event. The original intention of this talk was to compare that moment with similar events in the lives of other people, but with the unique difference that each of these events were preceded by immensely different circumstances than those I faced on that evening in 1958. There were many from which to choose but I finally narrowed it down to three divergent events- mine, which occurred during overwhelming stress, that of Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor which occurred during a stroke, and, should I dare be so presumptive, with that of Siddhartha, which occurred after years of intense spiritual seeking.
I thought the preparation for my first talk was difficult. At that time I suffered through a minimum of 15 revisions with countless tweakings in-between. However, this second talk is the end product of having written11 entirely different talks. That is, I wrote 10 completely different presentations, not just versions of a particular talk, before arriving at this one. Soon it became obvious that there is an awful lot I wanted to share but just as obviously I knew I couldn’t share it all. And for the eleventh time I asked myself what on earth it was it that I wanted to try to present in 20 minutes or so.
Ultimately I found a satisfying answer when I looked anew to the original May 18, 1958 experience for an answer. It then became apparent there were three elements in that experience that seem important to address as well as contrast with the other two people:
First, there was the intense psychological pressure I was feeling that day. I won’t repeat the whole picture here other than to say that I became aware of what I was doing to myself late in the evening on May 18 with my despondent thoughts and self accusations. On the spot I resolved to quit torturing myself and further resolved to face only what each moment had in store for me from then on- that is, to get out of my head and live in the here and now. Thus, there is that which precedes such moments of heightened awareness.
The second element was the sense of sudden lightness on my right shoulder. It was almost as though I had been touched compassionately after expressing rage, as an agnostic, at any would be God in the universe for allowing so much suffering in the world, namely mine, that of refugees with whom I had been working, and the ordinary German people I had met and befriended who had undergone the completely unnecessary, horrendous fire-bombings of World War II.
And lastly, there was the absolutely exhilarating joy and sense of peace I experienced following these first two incidents. This resulted in a sense of oneness with the whole natural world and humanity that lasted for months-and has continued off and on to this day. Since that day I have explored the countless ways this and similar experiences in others could be viewed through psychological, religious, philosophical and spiritual eyes. I believe there are pivotal moments or epiphanies, if you will, in the lives of people that change their perspectives and existence completely. This was one of mine. But perhaps even more importantly, this potential for sudden shifts in awareness lies within us all as our true inner nature. So that is my conclusion up front almost before we get started.
Let us deal with the second element first, that of the sensation of a hand being placed on my shoulder. It is more anomalous than the other two elements in terms of finding it explicitly discussed in the epiphanies of others who have written about their experiences. And it is the more difficult one to entertain at all as a religious event in front of a largely humanistic group of people such as you. Perhaps it would be acceptable to suggest the phenomenon was probably a proprioceptive, physiological response to the release of tremendous tension in my shoulder muscles. After all, I have subsequently experienced the pleasant but explosive release of tension in various muscles during deep massage, although I don’t typically carry much tension in my shoulders. Some of you might even believe that it was a psychological event- maybe something like a positive, tactual hallucination brought on by stress. Although I will remind you I did not conceptualize it at the time as being a touch by God. The positive sensation merely followed the release of pent up anger toward a God-if He existed. My focus immediately following the incident was primarily on the expansive sense of oneness that opened.
Certainly it would not be difficult to relate this story in front of any standard Christian congregation. They would “know” it was the hand of God that touched me. And who am I to argue with them. Seriously! Being honest here. What do I know regarding the ultimate nature of the universe? However, for those who like to debate the various attributes of a presumptive anthropomorphic God, a case could be made for an immanent God being a part of, or within, my own body that expressed compassion through the sensation of my shoulder being touched.
Of course, other religions also have something to say about such events, as you can well imagine. The mystical heart is considered to be on the right side in Sufism where it is called the “Ruh”. In yoga, the right side spiritual heart inhabited by Rama is called the “Anahat” Chakria. It is a well known phenomenon that such right side sensations occur, as I experienced, when the mystical heart opens. So… pick and choose. One can reframe such experiences in so many disparate ways with various religious, spiritual, and psychological explanations that the original experience could loose all meaning. I am simply left with remembering how calming and reassuring the sensation was. At this point in my life I do not feel the need to analyze it any further. I have the reassurance of knowing that this also has been experienced by many other spiritual seeking people in widely different cultures.
Perhaps Rumi, the 13th century founder of the mystical order of Mawlawi Sufism, sums it up best:
Into my heart’s night
Along a narrow way
I groped; and lo! The light,
An infinite land of day.
Rumi also described the pure loving of the opened heart as the “astrolabe of God’s mysteries”. The astrolabe was a primitive sextant. I would further describe this aspect of the open heart as the fulcrum upon which all the major religions balance, be they Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or Buddhist. And it is the element with which the so-called ego struggles the most as it, under the guise of organized religion, tries to relegate it to a sacramental level, thus avoiding viewing it as the natural core of our being.
Now, the other two elements are going to be discussed in a different way. These are the nature of the pressures that led up to the oneness experience and the phenomena that occurred during the expansive moment I described in my last talk. As I said previously, I have written a lot, looking at such events from many perspectives. Rather than try to condense them, as I was previously straining to do for the past several weeks, I have decided to start with talk number 10 and read backwards in the talks, getting as far as I can today while leaving ample time for discussion. Then look at the other perspectives another time.
After all, in terms of backwards, I was considered a backwards kid when I entered the first grade of school- no doubt related to my having been a blue baby, thus having had a developmental delay in acquiring written language skills. And one has to ask, as I have, did that result in the two hemispheres of my brain functioning a bit differently than other kids from the start with regard to inductive versus deductive reasoning? Or said differently, with regard to lateral versus linear thinking? But more about these human differences in future talks when I get into my fascination with brain functioning. We are all very similar to each other with regard to how our brains function– and yet delightfully different. For example, when I look at a red object, is my brain experiencing the same thing as yours? The Isihara color-blindness charts indicate that the color receptors in different people’s eyes are seeing red in diverse ways. This being the case, how different are we from each other cerebrally while experiencing, remembering, and later trying to relate to others the more multifaceted events we might label as uplifting or spiritual? So, as the French say, Vive la difference.
One could say that what happened to me on May 18, 1958 was an accident. That is, I certainly could not claim that I had arrived at that moment of expanded awareness by having conscientiously and diligently following any spiritual path. Thus, the event was never an earned or a personal accomplishment on my part. Neither was it sought. It was the serendipitous result of intense psychological pressure that rather imploded in on me and wiped my memory banks clean of suffering. Using the analogy of a computer, my brain, the hard disc was reformatted that day.
By way of contrast, I would now like to relate the story of Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. She also went through an accident of a different type that also erased her memory banks and just as unexpectedly opened her to expanded awareness. I’m sure many of you, such as Barbara, know about her.
Jill Taylor was a neuroanatomist working on brain research at Harvard University in 1996. On December 10 of that year she awoke in the morning at home with a severe headache, which was unusual for her. She seldom suffered from headaches. Ignoring it she jumped out of bed and climbed onto a piece of exercise equipment to begin her morning exercises. Looking down at her hand grasping the equipment she was surprised at how unique it looked. It looked like a primitive claw. Then she became fascinated with her body doing the exercising. At the same time she became captivated by all the energy she perceived about herself, felt very expansive, euphoric, and yet peaceful. When she tried to think, to understand what was going on, she realized she could not think in words. At that point, being knowledgeable about the brain, she recognized that she had suffered a stroke. A major blood vessel deep in the language area of the left side of her brain had burst. Understanding the seriousness of her condition, she struggled to use the telephone to seek help. She only succeeded in doing this very laboriously without even being able to recognize the number symbols on the dial. And without the ability to any longer speak or recognize the speech of others, contacted a colleague at work by making barking sounds over the phone.
During the subsequent ambulance ride to the hospital she continued in her euphoric, expansive state even though she recognized she was in grave danger of dying. At some point during that ride she even surrendered her spirit. If she lived or died it was all OK. She was identifying now with an energy force wider than her body anyway. She was no longer the disciplined neuroanatomist but felt one with the total universe. With a deep sense of inner peace she turned her physical being over to fate. Besides she could not figure out how she was ever going to squeeze the enormity of all of this energy, expanse and moment back into her body if she did recover.
Ultimately she did recover after 8 years of therapy and learned to walk and talk again. I invite you to read her inspiring story in her book My Stroke of Insight or look at her videos readily available to download for free on the internet. Known as the Singin’ Scientist she inspires audiences with not only her story but has found out how to share the energy and beauty of “being” experienced in the expanse of the present moment by openly using presence, and enthusiasm. She has not lost contact with that inner brilliance she called “the flow” during her stroke.
Hence, we can vicariously glimpse our own inner, brilliant nature by watching her videos. However, few of us would want to learn what she did by having a stroke-although I suspect some of you may have stumbled onto that route.
Still, there are other ways to glimpse this inner nature than through strokes or by spending years relentlessly pursuing a spiritual path-
Traumatic life situations can sometimes help us become aware of this inner nature. During my first presentation on December 2, I discussed the accidental epiphany that took place on May 18, 1958 as I walked despondently through a park in Kassel, Germany. At that point my dark mood reached such a crescendo that I recognized in my gut the futility of continuing the despairing thoughts and feelings generating this mood. I knew they were getting me nowhere and abandoned them completely with the resolution to focus on whatever the reality of the moment held from then on. This act has always struck me as one of committing emotional suicide to all my previous thoughts, feelings, beliefs about life, and expectations. There was a firm commitment to living in the present, although I wouldn’t have thought to word it quite that way at the time. Neither was it an act of will, but rather one of resignation. So it sometimes happens to people when they get so fed up with what is happening in their lives that they stop doing everything detrimental that they are doing to themselves. Then are amazed at how wonderful the world is perceived. Suddenly they are standing in the middle of an alive, beautiful, affectionate universe that is flowing in and out of itself as one living and breathing organism.
When I first heard Jill Taylor on a video talking about her surrendering in the ambulance I knew exactly what she was talking about. In that Kassel park I surrendered all the pressing thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and perceived obligations that made up what I thought of as my life, replacing them with the commitment to live only in the present, come hell or high water, or even nothing. But such a commitment to live only in the now does not mean to deny or ignore our thoughts and feelings. You have to be aware of something in order to surrender it unless, of course, a blood vessel bursts in your brain cutting you off from these thoughts.
It is important to note that there is a vast difference between surrender and denial. In surrender, as I am using it here, you are fully aware of what you are doing to yourself- right now- in this moment- as well as the futility of continuing your actions. And you surrender, stop. It’s not an act of will. You simply surrender to whatever might be present beyond the hyperbole of the circular feelings and thoughts you now understand you are entertaining. It’s sort of a “Well, it couldn’t be any worse!” type of conclusion.
Denial is an act of secretly hanging onto something you believe, feel, want, or are planning to continue doing anyway. Generally we push these denial decisions out of our consciousness. And these are the decision fulcrums upon which all this spiritual insight stuff rests… all this awareness stuff you now keep hearing about all over the place in books, on the radio, on Oprah’s program on TV, all over the internet– until it fairly comes out of our ears. Generally we are unaware of these decisions. However, when we do allow ourselves to become aware of them, we find that these decisions lie just below the surface of consciousness. All we need to do is become quiet and focus on what is going on inwardly. Then we will become cognizant of them… of all the thoughts, perceptions, beliefs, and feelings going on between our ears. Which allows us to see the fullness of what is really going… “what is”. This ability or facility is naturally there, in us. There’s nothing “supernatural” about it. And when it is freed we see the fullness of what is, be it the fathomless energy of our interconnected, dependently arising thoughts, a beautiful rose rooted in mother earth reaching for the sun, or a robin opening our hearts- everything around us and within us is filled with vibrant, loving spaciousness.
Oh well…. this freedom seldom last very long does it? Predictably it is not long before our linear, thinking mind, or our so-called egoic mind, fires up again. For many people this is only a matter of seconds. For example, you may have just become enthralled with the mystery behind the existence of a beautiful flower when just as suddenly something pushes a button inside your mind and you became conscious of the time and of the more “important” things you should be doing than standing there looking at some flower or other. Or you were snapped out of the expansive moment by a comment made by someone near you who feels the need to talk. And the moment is lost. Or you may have been looking up at a star filled sky in the evening and felt one with the spaciousness of the universe. But in the next instant you began to try and identify this or that constellation you had read was there and the sense of oneness evaporated as your thinking mind quickly took over.
This happens to all of us. And it happens so fast that most people do not recognize (1) that for a brief moment they were into an entirely different mode of awareness and that (2) there is a parallel between this type of lateral thinking or expanded awareness and what mystics variously call enlightenment, the numinous, grace, Satori, and so forth, or what some neuroscientists, such as Jill Taylor, speak of as right brain functioning-which is not exactly the entire picture. Actually the whole brain is fired up and alive in heightened awareness. There is scientific evidence of this. The Tibetan Buddhists refer to this expansive, state of brilliance as Rigpa. But I am out of time again, so my left brain informs me. At least I think it’s my left brain. I am left handed so there is a 40% chance that is my right brain speaking. I actually don’t know which side is running my mouth and I did my dissertation on this stuff.
However, I think you have a glimpse of what I will be talking about during the next talk or so.
June 22, 2008