all i wanted was total freedom

autobiographical

Saturday, 13. February 2010, 19:25:00

struggles, beginnings, s., bobby

even with the most sincere intention i was going to have to be a lot quicker mentally to take advantage of the good advice of my mentor. the dreamy expectations in my head were gossamer forms soon shredded by reality. the divided self had a long way to go and i never knew then that i was only on the way to unity.

i blamed my failures on chance. the hand of a friend that deposited two fat joints of panamanian red in mine with his handshake. who could resist smoking those... but those would be the last.

and i confessed my weakness to pentland at our next rendezvous. he was gentle and encouraging. and i was doing well otherwise. i had a job at a trucking company in chelsea. i was sharing my pay with julie. i was babysitting whenever she asked me to. i memorized stories to tell them at bedtime and sang songs. i was very good.

i didn't mind work but i was always a night owl and had a devil of a time screwing up my will to roll out of bed in the morning after four hours of sleep.

one sunday strolling through the 'village'  (greenwich village), an old acquaintance dropped a tinfoil gift in my grubby hand. 

it was about two grams of dense hashish; the black tar

of fantastic reveries.

i had to be at work the next day. i thought if i disolved the block of hashish in my hot chocolate i would go right to sleep. but instead i lay on my back in bed all night long, my eyes wide open as visions played behind them. i was paralysed.

when it wore off it left behind a fierce toothache and i skipped work. that resulted in a warning. i was contrite.

All I wanted was total freedom; an open consciousness. My aim was to be master of my attention and energy; to be able to ‘do’;to be able to go from point ‘a’ to point ‘b’. in short, to be god (creative) of my aim (aIm); I am.

So, they tell me I must start with an impartial awareness, just seeing (zen). I must study myself as I am, without judgment, but to separate the fine from the coarse; the real from the unreal. And all I have to do is sacrifice who I think I am with the whole panoply of dreams and desires produced in me by automaton. And I begin to see that I am conditioned to obey stimuli willy nilly. In short, I verify a mob of selves who all call themselves “i” in the moment and take turns racing the engine and depleting the coffers of the ‘treasury’ for any whim. And the worst truth of all and the hardest to accept is that I am a broken machine.

Daunting? Sure. But consider the alternative to living with eyes skinned in search of unity and the functioning of higher potentials nascent in inaccessible corners of my being.

The alternative would be to continue stumbling in the dark of the cave prison and scoff at the rumor that I might experience unimaginable worlds which are my birthright. Or you could say to opt out of the potential of a metaphysical map of the universe of being.

But then you have to have more than an inkling that ideas are not dreams. You have to be touched in the emotions because there will be no force without understanding.

So there I was at the beginning with a wonderful guide and the first thing I am asked to do is impossible for me.

“you’re asking me to jump over my knees.”

LP replies with enthusiasm. “but you can!”