"The Tree" - and a seed of enlightenment.
As I described in a previous post, the Saturday I arrived in California was rough and the Sunday tutorial sessions I attended made me think things weren't going to get better anytime soon. So, with the intention of re-centering my scattered thoughts, I went for a walk that Sunday afternoon along a path behind the hotel that eventually made its way down to the San Francisco bay. As I started walking I was just in awe of how beautiful the weather was. The sky was a beautiful royal blue and the temperature, when combined with the light bay breeze, was perfect. As the afternoon slowly turned to evening, the sunlight took on a golden hue that reminded me of childhood summer memories.
About this time I came to a fork in the path. One fork was paved and was clearly going towards the bay, while the other was gravel, looked mostly abandoned and its destination was a bit less certain.
Not being familiar with the area, I was considering just sticking to the paved path but as I looked off into the distance I could see the gravel path led to a lonely tree and for some reason I felt drawn towards it. So to honor my intuition and to practice the art of listening with all of my senses, I literally chose the path less traveled because it had tree on it. The path leading to the tree was lined with tall flowering bushes and grasses that were all swaying in synchronization and contained wild birds that would occasionally take flight after having been startled by the sound of gravel crunching under my feet.
When I finally reached the tree I took a couple of pictures and just resolved to stand there for a few minutes to see what would happen. I mean, after all, I had felt "drawn" to the tree, I figured I should give things a chance to "unravel".. So after 10 minutes, with only my tension having unraveled, I decided it was time to move on but took a couple of additional pictures before I left.
I continued on the gravel path for another mile or so as it looped around this big man-made flood retention pond, snapping pictures as I went, and eventually I made it back to the hotel. I even managed to capture a picture of the second sun dog I've ever noticed.
When I got to my room and started reviewing the pictures, I noticed something really strange. Many of the pictures I took, starting with the picture of the tree, (again the one I'd felt "drawn" to) had little orbs of light in them (go ahead and look, I'll wait). My first thought was "it's a reflection from something on the ground" but I quickly dismissed this because these orbs were in multiple pictures. Then I figured I had something on the lens but as I progressed through the pictures, the orbs moved position in the frame of the picture. At this point I started to freak out a little bit, I mean think about it, I felt "drawn" to a tree and almost every picture I had taken since had little orbs in it!? I actually took a couple of pictures in the room (wondering if something followed me back...) but they didn't show up.
As I continued to eliminate possibilities, the thought that I might have captured something supernatural began to take hold, and as it did I felt this incredible feeling of warmth, acceptance and love. Very much like what happened to me on Wachusett on September 7th of last year (see the "About" page for more information). However, not even 5 seconds later another thought, "it's the sun" came to me. If you go back (again) and look at the pictures, you'll notice that the orbs are only visible when the Sun is in frame and the relationship between the Sun and these orbs is fairly consistent. As I confirmed my hypothesis on each picture (I have dozens) I began to feel like more and more of an ass for fooling myself. I also realized I would eventually need to deal with the fact that I had a spiritual experience over a "lens flare"... This fact kind of gnawed away at my conscience for the rest of the week. During my morning yoga sessions it would be there waiting for me in Savasana and during my walks it would appear around every corner, in every reflection off of the bay, or in the middle of every flower. Occasional ideas regarding how to internalize what had happened would appear and then vanish like the morning mist. Thursday night I went out to dinner with a friend who as it turns out seems to be going through much of what I was going through this time last year. As we spoke, I shared some of the things that had recently made a difference in my life but I was holding back many of the details because I typically don't share the spiritual side of myself with people unless I know they're open. As the conversation continued, I began to identify strongly with his feelings and the more I did the more I felt compelled to open up and share anything I could that he might find potentially helpful. I'm sure what I said came out like a rambling bunch of nonsense but I ended up leaving him with the best advice I could, learn how to relax (a therapeutic massage works for me) and then learn how to get back to that "post massage" feeling through meditation and/or yoga and the answers will come when you don't expect them to. This would turn out to be great advice for me to follow as well. After dinner I made it back to the hotel and set my alarm for 3:30 to catch a 7:00 flight out of SFO. Since I was in Sunnyvale, I needed to take a taxi which I had arranged the previous day to arrive at 4:00 AM. When I made it down to the lobby I met my driver who was a Sikh and we headed out to the airport. I tried to strike up a conversation a couple of times but he would answer my questions without elaboration, so I just let the slience establish itself and decided to relax by focusing on my breath to try to get my traveling anxiety under control. Of course waiting for me in the middle of my breath was that same gnawing feeling. This time rather than run from it, I decided to just name it and said to myself "if there really is something behind all of this spiritual "stuff" you've been experiencing, how will you be able to tell if it's real or if it's just a bunch of bullshit when you can so easily fool yourself into thinking you've had an "experience" with a "lens flare"?
I wish I could say that I said this out loud and that my Sikh driver was some kind of Guru who shared some eastern wisdom that answered all of my questions, but the only thing he offered was silence. Actually this turned out to be exactly what I needed so maybe he was a Guru after all!? In any case, at some point during this ride, once I had just resolved to let the problem simmer for a while without thinking about it, I realized that the problem was my perspective.
Ever since I can remember, I've always thought of God (or insert your label for the universal life force) as something that comes to you and intervenes when you call Him (or Her) specifically (e.g., pray) or He will kind of give you a "tap on the shoulder" (e.g., that feeling of warmth, acceptance and Love) when you are in His presence (this is what I assumed happened on the mountain; I found a place really close to God). This mindset explains why I was having such a hard time with the idea of a lens flare somehow triggered this same feeling. Basically, I felt that if I had fooled myself into thinking I found a place close to God because of the "lens flares", maybe all of the other times I'd felt this way were all just made up "fantasy" too. Throughout the week, I'd felt compelled to stare this idea right in the face and logically analyze it because I am, after all, an Engineer and we work with data not feelings. The problem was I was scared of what I would find and put off thinking about it until I finally got sick of avoiding it during the taxi ride.
So here goes, the insight / realization I had during that ride added clarity to something I've heard my entire life and is stressed repeatedly in every spiritual tradition "He is always there". What has apparently been eluding me and the additional insight I gained was "when we call Him we just realize it". Put another way, the little orbs I saw in the picture triggered me to "connect" with Him, (or the source of everything which is inside all of us if you prefer) BTW, I say "Namaste" at least two times a week to my Yoga teacher, so you'd think I would have understood this... In any case, as soon as I realized this, I thought "then it must be possible to connect with this "source" at any time".. So I tried to "connect" and succeeded (mostly) although the feeling was not as intense as I'd previously experienced. But since I was able to do it once, I decided there was no reason for me to not try and "connect" as often as possible; which I did at the expense of almost everything else for the next few days (there will be a future blog post about the importance of maintaining "balance").
OK, so some of you might be thinking that this feeling I has experienced was just an "emotion", and when I "connected" to it all I was doing was recalling what that emotion felt like. And I would say that's actually a very reasonable explanation. However, I would like to offer that if an emotion makes you feel connected to every living thing and makes you feel compelled to be a more compassionate and more loving human being, then what's the difference between "touching the source" and "recalling an emotion"? I mean for all practical purposes, like with Einstein's equivalence principle, absent any additional evidence from the outside world, either is possible.
In any case, the ramifications of my orb experience and the realization during the taxi ride are still reverberating through "my practice" but I have already encouraged me to go deeper. For example, at any point in the day, when I feel like I'm skimming across the surface, I try to "connect" and although I'm only sometimes successful in "connecting", I'm always successful in re-connecting to the moment. Now when I see those little orbs of light, I think of them as seeds that were planted to help deepen my understanding and show me a new path. Maybe even one with a Tree on it...
