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Life Arts    H4'ed 1/27/14

Saga of a dropout doper

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Djamila (his TM teacher) asked him to sit in a chair next to her while she stood in front of a picture of a white-bearded man in an orange robe. "This is Brahmananda, Maharishi's teacher, who gave us this meditation. Now we will thank him for the knowledge." She began singing in a high little voice in a language he didn't recognize. She dipped a flower into a bowl of water and waved it around, spraying water here and there, then laid the fruit, flowers, and cloth in front of the picture. While she sang, a calm settled over him, and his face relaxed as tension dissolved. When she finished, Djamila knelt in front of the picture and whispered a sound very softly, as if to herself, then gradually louder until he could hear it clearly.

 

She turned to him and said, "Say it with me."

 

They repeated it together, then she said, "Now close the eyes and think it silently."

 

He could see the word floating through his mind in curlicues -- a Möbius strip turning into an infinity sign. It resonated through him, first with his heartbeat then with his breath, quieting them. His whole body relaxed, and he felt he was sinking deep into the chair, into the earth even, not sitting but floating. His thoughts started to space out, with gaps of silence between them. The silence grew into a delightful emptiness. At the center of it pulsed the mantra, a blend of sound and light. It grew fainter, finer, then disappeared like a bird wing-waving away, leaving his mind alert but without content, aware but not of any thing.

 

Then he heard noises from outside: a horse snorted and stamped its hoof, a cow mooed. Distracted, he drifted onto thoughts of Wyoming, the ranch in Sheridan where his father had worked, saw faded photos of his dad. His breath and heartbeat increased, sadness wafted over him.

 

No ... don't get trapped in all that again. He brought his mind back to the mantra, which mixed with the other thoughts and eased them away. The calmness returned.

 

He inhaled lightly, tendrils of air curling into a vast space behind his closed eyes. As the sound continued, his mind became a darkness full of light, an emptiness that seemed to contain everything. Happiness welled up within him and he laughed.

 

The laughter brought him out of it, back to his body sitting in a chair. He opened his eyes; the room glowed.

 

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William T. Hathaway is an award-winning novelist and an emeritus Fulbright professor of creative writing. His peace novel, Summer Snow, is the story of an American warrior falling in love with a Sufi Muslim and learning from her that higher (more...)
 

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