The reporter seemed fascinated that I’d left a twenty-year career in business and management because "it just wasn’t fun anymore," and that this move had led me to be placed in close, trusted proximity with a mystic. I’d been a hardheaded cynic most of my life, most keenly cynical about anything having to do God, religion, metaphysics, and goodness, so this rerouting of my life had sent me into strange, new territory and into a state of acute discernment — and fascination with new possibilities of how life was meant to be lived that began seeming vaguely possible. Unlike those cynical years before, rather than turning a deaf ear, I’d begun saying "yes" to learning more. This journalist wondered if I’d traveled to India as a "seeker" or perhaps had some desire for a "spiritual experience," but that was hardly the case. I was still heavily "mind-oriented." By the time India came up, I’d amassed a ton of knowledge about life, but little personal ownership of a reality beyond the prescribed boundaries of my previous beliefs and experience. Despite this, and despite having read Paramahansa Yogananda’s The Autobiography of a Yogi as a precocious 11-year-old, India hadn’t been a place I’d ever desired to visit, yet when the opportunity arose and I’d said "yes," it seemed that another window of opportunity had opened. The consequences of my choice caught up with me halfway around the world. Some consequences of this reporter’s choices were soon apparent. She hadn’t had much time to read the book, yet referred to tales of my encounters with lepers, sacred cows, pilgrims, wounded monkeys, et al when broaching her questions. While she seemed to enjoy the magic of the stories themselves, even the magic of synchronicity, something in her hesitancy signaled a gap between her desire and her thought that she straddled warily. The "magic" of my trip had less to do with will than my willingness to feel a different way and follow without hesitancy a new guidance I’d felt drawing me. So, I decided to leave the confines of the stories and share more with her of their intent. It wasn’t the book’s stories; it seemed to be goodness, joy, and peace that this woman couldn’t abide, because it was as my heart’s words spoke to her of these things in the midst of that caffeine-drenched room that the reporter’s decorum suddenly snapped like a brittle board. "That’s not true," she insisted, shaking her head. When her eyes met mine, they gleamed with the satisfaction of having caught me in an untruth. "Pardon me?" I asked. What, I wondered, had I done to threaten her? I’d simply begun describing quite personally how my heart felt every time I’d greeted a total stranger on the street and my sense of God’s presence and purpose in every moment. "Oh, come on, Claire," she sneered. "You talk about how leaving everything you knew behind and allowing yourself quiet time could create all this, but, come on! Face it: you were on vacation. That’s easy. That’s what everybody does on vacation: they relax, get away from everything, and nothing about their lives changes! Do you really believe any of this?" Her sneer dared me to deny her accusation, but her argument seemed so out of balance, not to mention flawed, that I figured some great fear had forced her to grab hold of the first stick she could and begin shaking it adamantly. Keep it light, I thought. "No, that’s not true," I answered, chuckling. "How many people do you know who go on vacation and fill practically every waking minute with touring, shopping, eating, and tons of ‘vacation responsibilities’ and run themselves so tired they can’t wait to come home? Or they sit on lounge chairs or visit relatives. ’Fess up. They hop buses, cars, and amusement park rides, but won’t take a moment to just simply get quiet and feel life." Her sneer tilted; her posture drooped. She’d wanted to make a point that would take us from my point of view to hers, but we both knew that when she chose that question she’d hopped onto the wrong bus. "Getting back to what I was saying," I continued, steering us around, "I still feel those feelings, that vision that is so real to me of how life is meant to be lived, how sweet we can truly be to another human being, to all nature, to everyone." The reporter sat stock-still, and I waited as she shifted in her seat and settled back; I waited, sitting inside her own silence with her. "A few years ago," she finally said, "I went on a three-week trip to Thailand. It was such a beautiful place; it was a wonderful experience, and the people were so good. It was so very different from life here. The morning of our departure I woke up in the hotel room crying." More tears saturated her eyes this evening. "There were things to do that morning, but, later, when we boarded the plane, I started crying again." Her pain-rimmed red eyes looked up into mine. "I cried the entire plane ride home, because I knew it wouldn’t be the same here." That had been a long, long cry! Her pain, anger, and longing for what she felt she’d left behind were immense. Moonlight on the Ganga had awakened sweet memories (promises?) she’d felt cheated out of experiencing — experiences she’d retreated from. I was drawn to holding this woman, but before I could, she’d sat upright again, loosing a hearty laugh that shook the last vestige of this obviously uncommon rush of sensitivity from her. Sipping her now-cold coffee, she proudly announced, "It was tough coming back, I’ll admit, but after awhile I got back into the swing of things." The "swing of things" didn’t seem all that great, but we’ve all gotten sucked into that. How many promises had I broken to myself, after all? How many times have any of us released our grasp of what we felt was good, right, and beautiful because it seemed out of our control or beyond our grasp? I told her how hard coming home had been for me; that years after the trip I’d read my journal about my "post-return" and couldn’t bear to read more than six weeks of entries. The frustration and anger on those pages was more than I could stand to relive. Yet, after my return I’d continued daily to meditate for an hour or more, looked up to the sky or any glimmer of nature, sought the heart of others, and daily allowed myself tears, not for what I’d left behind, but for the warmth of a memory that felt so good and still burned within. As I drove home after the interview ended that night, I continued to feel the reporter’s presence and understood the wakened emotion enwrapping her. I’ve drawn lots of parallels with that woman, but one primary distinction between her and me is that from the moment of my return from India, I’d kept the vision of living a new life alive. I allowed the vision be a standard of sorts, sometimes one I raised and took into battle with me as I attempted to change this overpowering, great unfeeling life I felt we’d created here which seemed to batter my flesh and psyche, completely losing sight for long stretches of time that it was, in fact, for me to change so that the world I touched would be transformed. This is the promise, challenge, and delight for each of us: to hold true to the feelings of our heart, love and nourish our sensitivity, seek beauty, offer compassion, and overlay our soul’s blueprint onto every aspect of our every moment. Author Claire Krulikowski’s writing is fueled by the flame burning within her soul. Her recently released book, Moonlight on the Ganga, is available at bookstores and Amazon.com. |
The reporter challenged me. I’d been answering her questions about my newly released book, Moonlight on the Ganga, and the transformative trip to India that had birthed it. I allowed her initial questions to direct our steps while we drank lattés at a café.