Friday, January 8, 2021
A band of wanderers who traveled by thumb[1] or caravan to places they regarded as spiritually potent once gathered in the Tetons to Omfor world peace. They asked around for a tipi to use for the Om circles and somehow found me, and thus my tipi was enlisted for their mission. Among them was a songwriter whose haunting voice I can still hear, many decades later. Although her name is lost to me in the far canyons of memory, I still remember the lyrics she sang, which were something like this: “The world outside is a reflection of within. / We have the power to change it. / We can rearrange it.” Attempting to rearrange the “world outside” was the intent of those Om circles.
When I was not on Teton trails or paddling the river, I joined the wanderers to Om a few times, entranced by the harmonics through which I sometimes heard clear voices that I could never identify, saying puzzling things like: I found them. Over here. Here they are. The seeming dedication of these wanderers to serving the world was so strong that when Anwar Sadat — the Egyptian president who had won a Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating a treaty between Egypt and Israel — was assassinated, at least some of the Om folks took it personally, rededicating themselves to “rearranging” the world within that gives birth (in this view) to the world “outside.” As far as I could tell, from their perspective, rearranging the world within was mostly supposed to happen on the “inner planes,” through Om-ing.
From my viewpoint four decades later, I could not say that these wanderers were psychospiritually — or emotionally — mature (nor could I say that I was), though the Om practice did seem to offer, at least for moments, a palpable sense of peace and generosity of spirit, even compassion, toward others. The wanderers were the first spiritual seekers I’d encountered who believed — or who wanted to believe — that they were intimately connected with the unfolding of greater consciousness in the world, or with the devastating unraveling. Though even in those days, I recognized a shadow dissonance that I could not name when the seekers were soliciting money or food or airline tickets from folks with jobs rather than enacting their Om practice, I also found deep resonance with a possibility that my own manner of presence might be reflected in the “world outside” — a possibility that I was entangled in not only unspeakable beauty, but also in the aggression, rage, and divisiveness of human beings.
***
At the time, I was not familiar with the (apparently true) story that Jung was fond of telling about an old Taoist rainmaker who was called to a drought-stricken area in China. Upon arrival, the rainmaker asked to be left alone in a cottage outside the village. His meals were left outside the door. After three days in solitude, the clouds opened. When the old rainmaker was asked how he had delivered not only rain but also unseasonable snow, he declined to take credit for it. When further pressed, he offered his own explanation: “You see, I come from a place where the people are in order; they are in Tao; so the weather is also in order. But directly I got here, I saw the people were out of order and they also infected me. So I remained alone until I was once more in Tao and then, of course, it snowed.”[2]
***
I write these words the day after the U.S. Capitol building was breached by throngs of enraged people. I am enraged, too — and feel a strong, practiced impulse to loudly demean and violently condemn all those whose viewpoints and actions I find abhorrent. The “outer world” is in utter disarray with a radically divided populace, an on-going pandemic, climate instability, social and economic inequities, and more. It is easy to furiously believe that “those other people” are the ignorant, the deluded, the power-hungry, the “deplorables” or whatever other distinction I can identify separates them from me.
And meanwhile, an immense psychospiritual drought withers all of the land. The world outside may be (at least in part) a reflection of within. Just now as I write, I remember a quote that was psychically-implanted long ago: “Think as if your every thought were etched in fire upon the sky for all and everything to see. For so, in truth, it is.”[3] Do I dare to bring to consciousness the tyrants, insurrectionists, enablers, entitled ones, perpetual victims, indoctrinated conformists, know-it-alls, or heartless ones that are hidden (or maybe not so hidden) in my manner of presence, in my psychic habits, in my way of being in the world?
Over here. I found them. Here they are.
***
Of course it’s not enough to shudder with recognition when we encounter the deplorable in ourselves; of course it’s not sufficient to only Om for the world. But perhaps when we find the top-secret chambers where the tyrants, victims, conformists and others hide, we might hear and feel the tremendous grief cry that we share with all of those who are broken, lost, betrayed, oppressed, repressed, and trying to survive in worn-out systems that depend on pitting human beings against each other. From that recognition, we might find a way toward common ground.
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