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A Turn in the Road The Spiritual Traveler
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 It
was late October. I had been living in Amman, Jordan, for
several months, when I got a rare call direct from
Jerusalem. It was Shlomo Orgad, a member of Eckankar, whom I
had met during a brief stay in that city about two months previously,
in August. At the time, he had invited me to attend a
gathering in Tel-Aviv in early November, and I had told him that I
would be happy to participate. He was calling to remind me
about it. Shlomo gave me the name of the only other Eckankar
member in Amman, an American woman named Cindy Davis, who worked as a
nurse supervisor in one of the main hospitals. I called her
up, and asked if she were interested in making the trip with me.
“How many people will be there?” she wanted to know.
“Shlomo said maybe eight or ten.”
“What’s the meeting about?”
“He told me the subject is ‘Receiving Guidance in One’s Daily
Life’. Anyone is welcome to give a short talk on the
subject.”
Cindy
agreed to come with me. Next, I set my mind on preparing a
talk. The problem was that I had nothing to say on the
subject of receiving guidance in one’s daily life. I really
had no notion of it at all. I had been raised as an atheist,
and had never developed the sense of having a personal relationship
with God that is common among people with a Christian
background. So, instead, I decided to write a talk about the
idea of ‘Acceptance’. It wanted to write about the
importance of accepting life as it is, accepting one’s self with all
one’s limitations, and accepting other people’s
limitations. I felt a little like a provocateur, writing a
talk that I knew would be quite different in tone and viewpoint than
the other talks I expected to hear. But what could I
do? I wanted to contribute something, and yet I couldn’t
write on the subject of ‘Guidance’. So I decided to write
what I knew, what I felt, and what had been my experience. I
sat down, wrote the talk very quickly, and afterwards felt a great
sense of accomplishment.
When I met Cindy on the morning of our trip, I found her to be a
somewhat heavy-set woman, a bit younger than myself, with straight
brown hair, a forehead etched with delicate lines, and a direct,
business-like gaze. She had an authoritative air about her,
and I had no trouble picturing her in charge of an extensive staff at a
major hospital. The bulk of our trip to Tel Aviv was
uneventful. We first took a taxi from the hotel to the
central bus station, in the center of Amman. The bus route
took us quickly out of the city, descending quickly through dry,
mountainous terrain. The climatic change was swift as we
entered the Jordan River Valley. There was the usual wait at
the border crossing, a separate bus took us across the border itself,
and then we switched to a service, or communal taxi, for the trip to
Jerusalem. From there it was a brief taxi ride to the main
bus station, and onto another bus that took us to Tel
Aviv. Finally, we took a bus in the direction of the hotel
where I had reserved a couple of rooms for Cindy and
myself. The local bus route ran through a series of small
neighborhoods whose streets curved gently in both convex and concave
arcs. At each intersection, the bus took a new change of
direction, which produced a feeling of confusion in both of
us.
 I
had not bothered to get precise directions to the hotel, assuming that
we could simply ask the bus driver. When we asked him,
however, he had no idea where it was. At a certain point,
Cindy and I both became convinced that we had gone too far, and that we
were now moving farther away from the hotel. She quickly
asked one of the passengers, who agreed with her that we needed to
disembark. After doing so, we crossed the street and waited
at a taxi stop. Cindy was now becoming visibly
agitated. I asked if anything was wrong, but she ignored
me. I got the message that it was best simply to leave her
alone. I watched her take a few deep breaths and close her
eyes. There was a brief fluttering of her
eyelashes. She seemed slightly relieved, but still
nervous. Finally a taxi came, and she calmed down.
After we got situated in our rooms, we met outside. I felt
ebullient. The scent of hibiscus flowers was in the
air. We found the location of the meeting, which was in the
basement of a museum. Shlomo greeted us at the door, and
introduced me to a couple of other Eckankar members. There
was a little time before the gathering was to begin, and I walked about
the museum, admiring a series of abstract paintings in which the colors
red and gold predominated. A few other members came in came
in. One was a tall fellow whom I had met years ago on
another trip to Israel. He had a piercing gaze and a nervous
look, as if he were hiding some secret feeling, passion, or
animosity. I wondered if, due to the political tensions in
the region, he resented my coming to the meeting from
Jordan. A couple of elderly women had faces that were highly
intriguing. I went over to them, and introduced myself,
taking their hands in mine. They responded to my touch like
in a manner that was both bold and shy, gazing deep into my eyes with
expressions of deep spiritual love.
We sat down in the lecture room. It was a small meeting,
with only ten people in attendance, including Cindy and
myself. A couple of students of Eckankar made short
speeches. I raised my hand, volunteering to
speak. Shlomo seemed a bit surprised, but gladly invited me
to step up before the group. I had the strange sensation of
standing at the bow of a ship, with all my attention directed in front
of me. I thanked the group for inviting Cindy and me to come
all the way from Amman to be with them, and told them how honored we
were to be able to attend.
“We
have been speaking about Guidance, but I want to speak to a slightly
different topic, and that is Acceptance. Accepting the world
as it is. Accepting other people as they
are. Accepting yourself as you are.
“Because I don’t think we have the power to change these fundamental
things. We don’t have the power to change the
world. The world is what it is. We don’t have the
power to change other people. They are who and what they
are. And we don’t even have the power to change ourselves in
any fundamental sense. We can change our thinking, our
viewpoint, our attitude, the way we react to life, but that’s
different. If we’re in a negative state of mind, for
instance, it may be caused by our reaction to the world, to other
people, to something in ourselves or to our
circumstances. But all these things are simply symptoms of a
lack of Acceptance. THIS we can change.
“We come into the world with certain attributes—strong in some areas,
weak in others. These are the tools we have to work with in
this life. They have certain limitations built into them,
and THAT is what we cannot change. It’s like being dealt a
hand of cards. We have to play the hand we’re
dealt. You may think, ‘How cruel, how unjust. I
wish that I had a better hand. I wish the rules were
different. I wish that every person at the card table had
the same hand, or an equal hand!’ But it doesn’t work that
way.
“And if we’re on a spiritual path, any spiritual path, we will be
tested in our acceptance of this. We will be tested where we
are most vulnerable. There is always something that we feel
is so important that we can’t do without, something that we want,
something we want to keep, something or some way we want to be--and
that is probably exactly what will be taken away or denied
us. But the purpose is ONLY to build up our spiritual
strength.
“It is as Shlomo told me when I met him previously, in Jerusalem, we
have to become very meek and very humble—-as meek and humble as the
smallest, most insignificant thing in the universe. Only
when we become this meek and humble and accepting of our limitations,
will we paradoxically gain greater freedom, power, and responsibility.
 “The
world is a cruel and sad place. It WOULD be a beautiful
place, except for one thing—that is, the people who inhabit
it. One can find people living in this at every conceivable
level of awareness. They all have the equality of being
human beings, of having a human form, a human shape, and a human
physical body. Yet there is literally no way to tell where
somebody else is at in terms of his or her state of
consciousness. You may look into the face of your neighbor,
and you may see the Face of God mirrored in his or her
face. And he or she may be looking into your face, and
see…just a face, or even the face of their enemy.
“And you may think: ‘How cruel, how unjust, that there is no mutual
understanding, that people are operating on such different principles
and such different assumptions.’ But it is NOT cruel, and it
is NOT unjust, for to each according to his or her state of
consciousness!
“Guidance, I believe, cannot operate without
Acceptance. Because once we have Acceptance, it doesn’t
MATTER whether we go left or right, or up or down, or forwards or
backwards. It doesn’t matter. Because once you
have Acceptance, the world is simply open to you, and you are open to
the world. THEN—only then—you are ready to be guided.
“And so I say to you that Acceptance is the fundamental problem that
all of us must face—and not just individuals, but as whole kingdoms and
nations as well. We have to learn, individually and
collectively, to accept what is here and now. We need to
accept the people living around us and to accept ourselves, together
with our limitations, because if we do not we will not know
ourselves. We will not know our place in the
universe. And to know our selves is our first spiritual
duty! If we do not know ourselves, we will go on living in a
dream world from here to eternity, and no amount of asking or praying
or trying to rely on Guidance will change that!
“This is what I feel, this is what my experience has taught me, and
this is what I felt was important to say to you tonight.”
As I delivered my talk, I looked into the faces of those
present. Most seemed attentive, polite, and even illuminated
by my words. A tall fellow sitting in front, however, kept
his arms across his chest, looking uncomfortable, scowling, and
fidgeting. At one point, a woman raised her
hand. I had gotten to the part where I said: “The world is a
cruel and sad place.” She asked me to repeat
that. I became slightly flustered. “Of course, I
don’t really mean it that way,” I explained,
apologetically. “I guess I mean to say that it sometimes
seems like a cruel and sad place.” The questioner, and the
other listeners, seemed satisfied with this explanation, and I
continued with my talk. When I got to the part where I said
that “It is NOT cruel, and it is NOT unjust,” I realized that I had
really contradicted myself.
After the meeting, a number of the people went out of their way to
congratulate me on my remarks. A young woman spoke of the
considerable distance she had had to travel to be there that
evening. “Now I realize why I made the journey,” she
said. “It was just so that I could listen to your
talk. It was exactly what I needed to hear.” Her
face was shining as she spoke, and her words made me feel for a few
moments that everything that I had been through in my life had been
worth it. I said good-bye to everyone, and received warm
embraces from all except the tall fellow. He shook my hand,
but was unable to conceal a sour face as he did so. There
was not time that day to return to Amman, so Shlomo drove Cindy and me
to the hotel. After settling into our rooms, Cindy and I met
in the lounge. I brought up the subject of my talk in a
rather self-satisfied manner. When I mentioned the notion of
‘Acceptance’ again, she jumped all over me.
“I don’t think you got the point,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
 “The
subject of the meeting was ‘Receiving Guidance in One’s Daily
Life’. It doesn’t have anything to do with ‘Acceptance’.”
I asked her to elaborate.
“For instance,” she explained, “today, when we were waiting for the
taxi. I asked inwardly for a taxi to come, and one
did. That’s what I always do. If I want to get
from point A to point B, I always ask in this way.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said, rather harshly. I didn’t ask
for a cab to come, but it came anyway.
"Are
you trying to take responsibility for the cab coming? Even
if you didn’t ask, what makes you think it wouldn’t have come anyway?”
“That’s just a rationalization,” she said.
I couldn’t restrain myself from arguing my
point. “Personally, if I want to take a cab from point A to
point B, I simply do all the practical things to put myself in the
position to arrive at my destination on time. I’ll go to the
taxi stop with plenty of time to spare. Then I’ll
wait. I just have faith that I’ll get where I’m
going. In most cases, the taxi comes without my ever having
to make some request for some kind of Divine
intercession. And if it doesn’t come on time, then I’m late,
and I accept that, and make the best I can out of the situation.”
“Typical male ego,” she replied. “You men are too ‘proud’ to
ask for help. You’ll only do so when you’ve exhausted every
other resource.”
“I
don’t know what male ego has to do with it,” I replied, in irritated
fashion. Are you trying to say that women have some kind of
monopoly on spirituality? Of course I wait until I’ve
exhausted every other resource. As far as I’m concerned,
that’s just a matter of economy and practicality. Why should
I waste my breath asking for guidance when what’s going to happen is
what’s going to happen anyway? As far as I can see, this
business of asking for every little thing only causes one to go up and
down in one’s expectations. Why not just not expect
anything? Then anything you get is gravy!”
“But you’re supposed to be detached from the outcome,” she replied.
“Well, if you’re supposed to be detached from the outcome, why ask in
the first place? Why not just be detached, period?”
“Well, it’s practice for the ‘big’ things,” she said, rather lamely, I thought.
I thought of questioning her snidely about what she considered the
‘big’ things to be, but held my tongue on this
point. Instead, I kept on what I considered to be the track
of a ‘logical’ argument. “If I ask to get from point A to
point B, and the cab comes—fine. But maybe the next time
I’ll ask and it won’t come. If I’ve built my faith on this
kind of a foundation, it’ll crumble.”
“Your experiences are in accordance with the thoughts you form,” she
replied. If you have the attitude that you won’t find what
you are seeking, you probably won’t.”
I bristled at this remark. “If you have to pray every time
some little thing goes wrong, you allow yourself to become upset, in
the first place. How, then, are you an example for anyone?”
At this point, the argument—for that is what it had become—settled into
a tense standoff, with neither one of us willing to delve further into
what was becoming ugly territory. We said good night in a
stiff fashion, and went off to our respective rooms. I was
really put out by this exchange, in part because I felt that Cindy was
trying to force her ideas onto me. Her behavior seemed to me
to be evidence of exactly the problem that I addressed in my
talk. I had talked about acceptance, including acceptance of
other people. But she wasn’t accepting my point-of-view as
legitimate. She was trying to change my
attitude. I didn’t feel I was doing that to
her. Nor did I feel that my talk had been antithetical to
the notion of receiving guidance in one’s daily life, nor that I was
negating her perspective. I was simply offering another
viewpoint.
At the same time, however, I was upset because something she said
struck a nagging cord. She managed to make me feel that
there was something limited about my viewpoint. After
numerous disappointments in life, I felt that I had just recently found
what seemed to be a new attitude of acceptance. Now, Cindy
was trying to tell me that I was wrong.
After that, Cindy’s presence irritated me profoundly. I
didn’t want to travel back with her, and gave her the excuse that I
wished to stay longer in Tel Aviv. As we parted company, she
apologized for being ‘cranky’ the day before. I thought to
myself, “That’s not what you should be apologizing for.” But
I didn’t say anything. I thought about Shlomo’s words, “We
must become meek and humble.”
 Still,
the problem gnawed at me. I began thinking that perhaps my
argument and Cindy’s were two sides of the same coin. And if
so, then each of us was seeing the problem from a limited
perspective. It seemed to me that she had as legitimate a
viewpoint as I did, and that there was something stubborn in my
attitude of only turning to the Divine Power for help after having
exhausted every other resource. It could be just as well
argued that God was intimately involved with these petty details—that
no flutter of birds’ wings or beat of a person’s heart went unnoticed
and unrecognized. And there was much to be said for the
notion of Guidance as a continual dialogue with the ECK, or Spirit,
which flowed through everything and came from an inexhaustible
Source. But this grudging admission to myself that there
might be some limitation in my attitude didn’t change my attitude,
itself. It only put a seed of doubt in my mind.
I tried numerous times to write about this experience, but I was never
able to do so effectively. I think that I knew the
reason. It was because I had not resolved the issue in my
mind…
It was now
over three years later. I was back in Michigan, my Middle
East experience long behind me. It was mid-March, and I had
gotten badly out of shape over the winter. I was planning to
go out West and do some serious hiking later in the spring, but I
needed to train for it. So I decided to strap on a backpack
on Sundays and just hike around, without regard for the scenery—or lack
of it. The first Sunday I went out I walked about fourteen
miles in four-and-a-half hours, and was shocked by how sore I was
afterwards. I started from the south side of Ann Arbor, got
up to Dixboro, and then made it most of the way back, with the help of
short bus ride.
The next Sunday I was determined to do better, but the morning was
overcast. It looked like it was going to rain, so I did some
work around my apartment, instead. In the early afternoon
the weather cleared up, so I decided to go out, no matter how late it
was. This time, I drove to Dixboro, parked my car behind the
general store, and started walking east on Ford Road. It was
already four p.m. I had the wild idea that if I kept walking
till nine or ten, I could make it to my friend George’s place in
Detroit, and get a ride back from him. I walked steadily,
concentrating on my momentum, with little awareness of the
surroundings. I let my mind go, and was absorbed in the
random thoughts that bubbled up to the surface.
After about two-and-a-half hours, I got to the outskirts of
Canton. It was starting to get dark, and colder, as
well. For some reason, the memory of the trip to Tel-Aviv
and the argument with Cindy, three years before, was the last thing
that popped into my mind as I stopped briefly, fished a leather jacket
out of my pack, and put it on over my other gear. Then,
inexplicably, as I started on the road again, I turned up lame in my
left knee. I couldn’t understand it. I hadn’t
made any kind of unusual movement during my brief stop. One
minute the knee had been fine, and the next—for no apparent reason at
all—it was out of commission. I tried walking a few more
steps, but it was no use. There was no way I was going to
get any further.
I
crossed over to the other side of the road. Now I was faced
with getting back to my car in Dixboro. I would be dark
soon. The Tel-Aviv experience was still lingering in my
mind, as fresh as if it had happened yesterday. I decided
what the hell. I would try it. So I asked
inwardly for a ride. Within two minutes, a man stopped,
picked me up, and took me right to the general store in Dixboro.
Now, I’m not going to say that all doubt vanished from my mind, that my
skeptical attitude was erased in one stroke. I still
reserved my trust for larger issues: that everything is ultimately for
the best, or that a Higher Power is taking care of the
essentials. It didn’t matter to me that someone came and
picked me up right away. I was prepared to spend the whole
evening on that road, and trusted that somehow I would get back home
eventually.
No,
what impressed me was something else. It was the minute
coincidences that had occurred. Why, for instance, did I
pull up lame? I could think of nothing that might have
precipitated it. Then, when I thought about it, it was
strange that this had occurred just as the sun had gone down, and it
had started to get dark and cold. If it had happened much
later, no one would have been able to see me trying to hitchhike
back. And what could explain the fact that I had thought
about my experience in Tel-Aviv immediately before I was forced to turn
around? I hadn’t been thinking of turning
around. Quite the opposite, I had been picturing myself
walking through Canton, all the way to Livonia, and farther, into
Detroit. It seemed as if something beyond my conscious mind
was operating here, overruling my intentions, and configuring events so
that I would not be stranded on the road late at night.
 But
more than that, what impressed me most was the importance of that tiny
wisp of a thought, that little sliver of memory, in my overall view of
the event. That little memory stood out, as significant as
anything else on the road from Dixboro to Canton—the condition of my
body, the waning day, the leafless trees, the cars passing by, or the
cold. It seemed to me that I had traveled two roads at two
points in time—one from Amman to Tel-Aviv, the other from Dixboro to
Canton—yet the two roads were the same. The real road I was
traveling was a road of consciousness, and that road was not one that
ran straight and continuously, but was rather one of junctures with
other roads that branched off or intersected with it at odd points in
time. And today I had stood at one of those intersections
and taken a significant step. I had taken a
turn. I felt my previous skepticism soften. I
knew that at some future point on the road, even if I felt it wasn’t
necessary, I would be able to turn within and make a request for
something needed at that moment. And I knew now that
whenever that request was made in a heartfelt manner, and was needed
and deserved, it would be fulfilled. |
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Date Submitted:
1/2/04 |
Copyright Information:
Copyright © The Spiritual Traveler, 2001 |
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