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From the NITYANANDA INSTITUTE NEWS Fall 2003
A Sense of Possibilityby Swami Chetanananda
When I read the paper lately about the situation with Iraq, I think back to a time in the early Sixties, when there was another war going on. I remember what a hopeful time it was, even in the face of a great deal of social conflict. We were struggling in those days to come up with better values. We believed that there was a possibility that we could make our world a better world, and people were constantly thinking about that and working at it. It filled the media. The discussion was everywhere in the whole country. The fact that people had hope was a wonderful thing.
People not only had hope, they were doing lots of things to express that hope and thinking about how that hope might appropriately be structured in our lives so that it could be self-sustaining. There were so many people who had come together out of the same concern. It seemed we were on the verge of making life so much better for a lot of people. I thought in those days that what quality of life is, what it should be and what it could be, was on the forefront of everybody’s mind, and I thought there would be a huge transformation in our culture. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
I look back on that moment and see that the so-called commitment to change that was being expressed in our culture across the whole country, in ways that I still look back on and think were wonderful, has completely gone. What are we concerned about today? Our internet service? Our satellite TV provider?
The sense of possibility that existed for us at one point in time has evaporated as we have been satiated by the extraordinary material benefit of our life in America. That benefit should be an incredible blessing for us, but, like many things, it can also be a curse. In our quest for comfort, we, as a culture, have succumbed to greed and laziness.
But I believed then, and I believe now, ever so much more powerfully, in the truly mind-boggling possibility that lives in the core of every human being. The only thing I can see that is enduringly valuable is that we cultivate the finest part of ourselves. It is enduringly valuable that we have faith in the highest potential which lives within us and that we hold to that highest potential no matter what. When we do that, we get to some interesting places, because there is no way that we can continue in the same vein--there’s no way that we can continue to be the same person that we were--and express a higher order of the possibility that exists for us, is there?
In 1970, after a number of years of being deeply involved in politics, I was exhausted from the endless campaigns that we had done, and I pulled back. Upon reflection, I decided that politics was not the answer. I decided that before I did anything about the quality of anybody else’s life, I had to do something about the quality of my own, and that I had to have some self-realization of the hope and the possibility that I believed existed for human beings. So I turned to spirituality.
For me, at that moment in 1970, there was a gigantic change from Indiana and my rural, white, Southern Catholic background. I landed in New York City, an intense urban setting, with a Jewish Swami. How incongruous! And of course at that time, I’d been led to believe that every Swami had a long beard and was skinny as a rail and only ate brown rice and carrots. So it was an additional shock to find out that Rudi ate hot dogs and sauerkraut right before meditation.
It was a wonderful, wonderful lesson for me. The lesson was that the fulfillment of our possibility is going to require us to change enormously, and that possibility cannot look anything like what we’re accustomed to. This is a possibility which transcends anything that you can imagine. If you can imagine it, it has nothing to do with that possibility. The highest thing we can imagine only has to do with the furthest extension of our egos.
I could never imagine, for instance, finding in the middle of the East Village in Manhattan in 1970 a Jewish-American art-dealer Swami who was such an extraordinary, powerful, fine, compassionate, caring, difficult, demanding human being, who was so focused on that profound possibility. How could I have imagined that?
I remember standing outside Rudi’s house the second day I was there. I was sweeping the walk, and one of Rudi’s students came up to me and said, "So, you’re new here." And I said, "Oh, yeah, and I’m just overwhelmed by it all and so grateful to be there.” He said to me, "You know, I just don’t know how you can like Rudi. He’s so fat." That’s the way human beings are. People pray for something to come into their life, and when it comes into their life, it’s so much better than they could ever imagine, that they turn their back on it and walk away. They can’t see it for what it is, because they’re looking at it with blinders on.
Don’t bring your ordinary, lowest common denominator part of your brain to your endeavor to improve yourself as a person and to realize a very profound possibility that is present in your life. There is no way you can possibly wrap your mind around the vastness of the possibility that exists for you. That possibility, because it is so strong, so extraordinary, is not going to manifest in ways you’re used to.
A spiritual life is about discovering. It is about opening to those places within ourselves that we’re protecting, about being able to confront our ego and rise above our limitations and connect to the extraordinary flow within ourselves, which is a presence that vastly transcends our individual existence, and cultivate that flow to the degree that we realize a potential within ourself which is unforeseeable by our brain, because our brain is trying to keep us from it. Every day our ego is trying to keep us from that potential, because if we come to know that potential, our ego will be finished.
Spiritual work is about taking down walls, consciously taking down walls. It is about consciously unwinding all of the boundaries and the barriers that you hold so tightly to, which you think give your life some sense of certainty. You allow new energy, new influences, new insights, and love to nourish you and awaken you to the extraordinary and profoundly simple beauty of the life that is within and around you.
People allow their personal agendas to hijack their ideals for the sake of some low order of personal pleasure, and the profound possibility that exists for us becomes like a dream or a mirage or an illusion, when in fact that only means that the mirage, the illusion, the dream has consumed us. This is what happens to people when they experience some calling and feel within themselves some strong need for a change. In the process of experiencing that awakening, every other agenda asserts itself, taking a little of the energy here and a little of the energy there. Finally, all of this energy becomes structured within a form of life that denies us the possibility for any further change or the realization of any potential that is beyond the bounds of our social and cultural conditioning. We allow ourselves to be dominated by our ego and our personal history rather than by our sense of the possible.
There is the possibility of infinite renewal and the chance to transcend all of the negative consequences of our limitations as a person and our unfortunate choices. But it happens only if we have the capacity for perseverance. It takes a long time. Absorbing the lessons and absorbing the energy of our experience, and thoughtfully reflecting upon all the aspects of the work that we do, all the aspects of our life, takes time. To realize a possibility that is truly profound and of a higher order of magnitude than human beings are accustomed to requires that we have a deep personal commitment to changing and improving ourselves.
If you are trying to grow, then by definition you are going to be outside the box and, to some degree, outside the boundaries of what is considered socially acceptable. You have to have enough faith in yourself and enough depth of commitment to that possibility that you can travel through every scene change in your life with a great commitment to growing, a great love of life, and a passion for learning. Then you have to come to a higher place. You have to.
Life is not just light. It is light and dark and every shade and texture in between, and to be a really big person is to encompass all of it in the flow of your love. Some of it will be painful and stressful, and I doubt you’ll find out how warm and wonderful human beings are. I think mostly what you’ll do is experience the weaknesses of other human beings, and the endless disappointment that is there for people who are strong in their love of life and their commitment to growing. But we have to carry on. So love your life. Love every place it takes you. Be grateful for all of it, and just be sure in every single moment of as many moments as you can remember every day that you are as conscious as you can be of the flow of energy within yourself and connecting that flow to the highest possibility that you can be aware of.
Just keep loving God. That’s really all it takes. If you can just feel every part of yourself connected to every other part and rising up, then you will keep attracting new pieces of the puzzle of that possibility as it presents itself in your life. If you can avoid being confused by the pieces of the puzzle and keep looking for the big picture, then something unbelievably amazing can happen for you.
I encourage you not to engage your mind in issues very much. Rather, focus your attention on the potential, the creative power that exists within you and the potential inherent in that, and make it very strong. Make it bring out the light and the brightness in you, and the love. Let that be what you concern yourself about. Then, as the energy within you circulates and as the depth of understanding within you is released, very much like the fragrance in a flower or the sweetness in a fruit, the realization of your highest potentiality and the clarity to recognize the unlimited power of your own inner nature will be present and palpable.
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