We want to grow. When we are young, we want to be grown up. When we are older, we want to grow, as well, but, since the psychobiological realization of growth has finished, at least in the sense of growing as a word for “becoming larger, faster, stronger” and “gaining cognitive functions”, we  quietly transfer “growth” into some metaphorical application.

She said she had grown spiritually in the past few months. He grew his business by wise investments. We decided that we were not helping each other to grow.

And again, we are confused by our own language. Indeed, there is no growth – just change. And even that change is not real change, but rather a change in our perspective of reality. Dogen uses the example of a person in the boat: when he looks at the shore, the shore appears to move; when he shifts his perspective to the boat, he perceives the boat to be moving. But he then follows this illustration with something that always struck me as not the logical follow-on:

Similarly, if you examine myriad things with a confused body and mind you might suppose that your mind and nature are permanent. When you practice intimately and return to where you are, it will be clear that nothing at all has unchanging self.

To me this means that both the boat and the shore are moving. Also, that, most importantly, YOU are moving.  That is, everything changes, and there is no single vantage point which is stable.

This kind of talk does not help many people. It is a deeper digression into metaphorical language, used to explain an ineffable “reality.” However, the problem is, ordinary people unconsciously apply those metaphors in their lives constantly, almost exclusively, and this confuses them.

In a marriage, people “grow apart.” The woman thinks – without really thinking – that the man prevents her from “growing.” The man feels restrained by the woman, feels that his growth is stilted by her constant desire to control him. And then, they reach the brilliant conclusion that divorce will free each from the other.  After the divorce, for many years, they may feel that they are free!  The man can drink and screw as much as his heart desires.  The woman can enroll in all kinds of self-empowerment courses, and participate in groups where people really do listen, and try to nurture one another. Ah, the things that were missing from the marriage, can be readily found, in the phonebook! Online!

But then, inevitably, the booze sours in his stomach, the Reiki masseuse seems to be a poseur, and the massages become simply painful; the groups sour, the people turn out to be self-centered, only desiring to hear their own voices, but willing to pay the price of enduring other people’s mundane whining bullshit.

You see, you can’t get free by “escaping” from someone.  No one can make you grow; no one can prevent you from growing. All the growth that was ever completed in your body, was done by your body.  Your parents did not teach you how to walk – your body knew how to walk, and through increased awareness and listening to your own body, at age 8 months, you walked!  Yes, your parents held your hand, but it was not instructional in any way, and, probably detrimental to the speed of your development. Learning is a process that takes place entirely inside you. Teachers hold your hand, for reassurance – but it is false in some ways, because ultimately, the teacher will not be there for you to rely on.  The more dominant the teacher’s presence in your s=psyche, the more difficult it will be for you to make the unavoidable transfer of trust from the teacher, to yourself (or yourself plus God, depending on your spiritual awareness).

When you are a grownup, the growing is over.  “grown” has what in grammar is called the “perfect aspect”, which means an action has finished, as opposed to the “imperfect aspect”, as in “growing.”  You really are done growing “up.” However, metaphorically, can can grow “in”, or grow “out”, or, in the worst case, grow “down.”

If we accept that this metaphorical growth is simply “change that makes you feel better about yourself”, instead of thinking of it as “improvement”, then we see that feeling better about yourself comes only from a greater love of yourself, or, a greater confidence in yourself.  And you may gain this through achieving something in your breakdancing class, that you thought you could not achieve.  But, if you open your eyes, you got nothing from the breakdancing class – instead, you simply reminded yourself that you must now trust yourself, now that you are the grown up.

What if doubt and faith really comprise the entirety of all power available to us humans. And like a mix of ethanol and rocket fuel, whether we fly or just row, is dependent solely upon the proportions?

Surely you’ve been in the situation where you are trying to attain some new cool skill, like handstand, for example. But you simply can’t do it. You see your teacher floating up into space with ease, and she says to you something like “just trust yourself “. That is, she doesn’t say something you think she should say, like, “move your hands farther back. “. No. She says some mystical new-age thing, which can not possibly be the actual secret that will enable you to do something which is physical magic This isn’t Harry Potter.

How about those really hard times in life, that will surely kill you or at least send you to the pill bottles? You think, ” I am putting all I have into this. It has to be enough. I don’t have any more. “. But then, surprise. It does require more – a lot more. And, you really don’t seem to have it. There is even a period of touch and go, maybe a long passage, where you seemingly are NOT making it.
Then  finally, when you emerge on the other side, you have been schooled. You were lucky enough to receive an opportunity in this life to see just how little you are dong with your power. You can remember thinking, if you take the time to look back,that you were certain your bones were breaking. And it was true! – at the time. You could not move your feet. Professionals told you you were not going to make it.  Friends shook their heads, and told you to get give it up, focus on something within your grasp. But, if you were able to listen only to your inner voice, and continue on “stupidly”, with blind faith, it turned out that you actually grew a stronger pair of legs, a bigger heart.

If this hasn’t happened to you, then you do not have all the information you need. You have not tapped your faith, have not seen the living rise from the dead.

But if you have, when you encounter someone else who is entering the passage you have just left, you see the whole thing, with eyes that are similar  to the eyes of God, who has the ultimate faith. And you want to tell that person the great truth. But, they can’t hear you.

So my question is this: if it is just a question of the depth, quality, and intensity of the faith you put into a thing, that gives you power over it, then how can you be sure that in those times when “faith has failed you” it was really just that YOU did not wrack your soul enough, to really really believe ?
You know ?
When the Krsna followers try to levitate the roof of a building. When the Power of Prayer people pray all night and day to save the life of a child. And the roof just sits there. And the child just dies, like all children who die. Is it because it’s all just bullshit? People just die. Roofs do not levitate.

Could you really jump off a cliff, and have angels catch you, lest you dash your foot on a rock. if you had enough faith?  I mean, imagine having a lot more faith.  Enlarge your belief, and imagine that you could believe much much harder.  Just for one moment, will yourself into believing that you just haven’t come close to the faith you would need to jump off the cliff –  a real cliff – and survive, but that such a thing is truly possible.  Let yourself feel that belief for just a moment.

But don’t jump!  Not yet.  You don’t have it, yet.  You will need to open your heart and mind yet a million miles wider, before you can begin to feel the cushion of air beneath your feet. And you will not find it through drugs – thye all try to fly, within just of few hours of taking the drug, and fail.
How can you be sure? I mean, so sure that you are willing to post your own life as collateral? But then, how can anyone say they have ever tried hard enough to levitate, if they have not levitated? And how, when that little boy lay in a coma, how can you be sure, you of so little faith, that all scientific discoveries have already been made, that all attempts at world  peace have been exhausted , and that you have heard and seen all there is?

What tragic ignorance, cloaked in arrogance.

I don’t blame you.  everything you have ever eaten has been downloaded, not foraged.  with no training, you learned to defecate with the same organ you use to ingest. with no processing, you can only regurgitate.

you miss the faith. you must have the faith to chant the name of G*d, the One Energy. You can not wish me peace with the same mouth you curse me. ishvarapranidhana comes before all else, must come before all else, else there is nothing but air.

your place is litter-strewn, by your careless ego, which see nothing. hence it can not find the things which need to be picked up and discarded.  they are invisible to the eye drawn inward, but not inside, as is the essential invisible to such and eye.

your first step: accommodate just one more person in your boat; then the boat will disappear, and you will be in the ocean.

bless you. love you.

why do I have to get my head stoved in? and by some skinny girl? I have to say that my mountain of proof that people turn to shit at the slightest provocation is going to have to get divided into 2 mountains. my fault was being sincere. brave. and in the intensity of an intense situation, I was intense.

but all in all, I was laid back.  I provided support, a place to level out, tried to make a “home”. tried my best. tried to be strong and prove out the strength of true love. and none of this for  glory or fame. I felt compelled by compassion for another.

and for that, I get a misspelled note from some other skinny girl: “take a look in the mirror, old man.”

To a cardboard, I leave you push pinned, in the Candlewood Suites. A printed photo and a failed drawing both attempted with the greatest of intentions, either for one another’s solace, or some attempt at self preservation.

The time we have spent together in this hotel with scarred green carpet has been exquisitely tortuous. I thank you for your acquiescence – you were kind enough to visit me in a shroud in the middle of each night, and then again as a cat on my chest in the morning catching at my breath playfully trying to make me gasp or even feign small deaths between sit ups.

It will not feel symbolic to leave your picture hanging on that wall. Nothing about you has felt symbolic although every moment has been exchanged for a subway token or lottery ticket. All in all a cigar box of Polaroids.

So real is the night, lover, so facetious the day.

every one is on a quest, an adventure. it’s just that most fail the quest very quickly. they fail because they do not hear their instructions, fail this because they don’t even listen, or they do not heed, for those who do listen. or, because they think that one creates one’s own quest, each his own. but a quest is merely fulfilled, not, perhaps never, created, initiated. last, one cannot comprehend the quest, it is not accessible. it is the attempt to derive some cohesiveness from the quest elements which causes quick failure. you fail to see the next element, because you expect a different one. and this is the surrender: to give up understanding, to give up control. most fail instantly.