|
Message |
| Posted By: |
Uncle Tantra |
| Date: |
23-Apr-2003-03:24:13 |
| Subject: |
2003: HAL, The Sequel |
Y'know, we all have this stockpile of Cool Moments stored within us. Cool Moments with Rama, Cool Moments on our own, Cool Moments yet to come. But most of them have been moved from mental RAM into the swap space of our minds. They live there most of the time, lonely and forlorn and unappreciated, waiting patiently for us to have one of those rare moments of clarity so we can remember them.
So many Cool Moments. So many of them forgotten, at least temporarily. And so varied they are, these moments. There is just no accounting for what makes a Cool Moment. It can be the stupidest stuff. One entire *subset* of my own personal Cool Moments has to do with that rarest of spiritual occasions — Moments When I Said Something To Rama That Wasn't Stupid.
And tonight, sitting in the bar of Carlos O'Kelly's on $1.50 Margarita Night, one of those Cool Moments came back to me. It came back with a suddenness that rocked me back on my barstool and left me sitting there with a huge shit-eating grin on my face. What made me smile was the realization that very soon, in less than a month to be exact, I would be Outa Here — away from the United States, probably sitting in yet another bar, probably writing silly shit just like this. But I'll be in Paris, so it'll be Merde de Paris. :-)
The Cool Moment that made me smile? It was at a Seminar with Rama, the first such Seminar I attended after returning from my first Road Trip to Amsterdam.
I had gone to Amsterdam with about a dozen other Rama students, with the high aspiration of teaching meditation. I was only away for two weeks, but they were a rather interesting two weeks. I spent the first week putting up posters and preparing for Rama's two lectures there. I spent the next week pulling down those same posters and preparing to close up the apartment we had rented there and ship all the teaching materials to the Next Place.
The other guys who had been teaching in Amsterdam couldn't wait to beat feet. The moment they heard that Rama was displeased with the place and was never going to return, they booked seats on the first available flight, almost as if they expected Ripley to take off in it without them and nuke the whole place from orbit, just to be sure. :-)
Me, I stuck around. I had already arranged for two weeks off from work, had my ticket, and had no intention of cutting short what I perceived as a Road Trip. Besides, I liked the place. It seemed to suit me, for some unknown reason.
Rama thought so, too. Towards the end of my first week there, I ran into him in the lobby of the Grand Hotel. He took one look at me and said, "This place agrees with you. I haven't seen you look this happy in years!"
And it was true. But I didn't realize *why* it was true until a week or so later, during the plane flight home, and I didn't realize that I'd had a true realization until Rama made me talk about it.
That happened at the first Seminar I attended when I got back. Rama asked the guys who had been teaching in Amsterdam to stand up and give our impressions — our seeings — of the place, what we had learned from being there. When my turn came, what I found myself talking about was not my experiences in Amsterdam itself, which were fantastic, but my experience flying back. What I said was something like:
"Rama, the thing that sticks in my mind most about Amsterdam was the plane trip back, and the incredible shift I felt in my consciousness during that flight. In Europe I had felt so free, so expanded, so light, so free of pain. But on the flight back, with every mile I got closer to America, I began to feel more and more constricted, smaller, darker, more full of pain.
"And the metaphor that came to me for how I was feeling was the scene in 2001: A Space Oddyssey where Dave has figured out that HAL, the ship's computer, is really an evil sonofabitch and is pulling his circuit boards out, in effect giving him a lobotomy. HAL says, in the film, 'Dave? I can feel it, Dave. My mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it.'"
I stopped talking. Rama said something like, "That's it. That's it exactly. That is the nature of America. Your mind feels small here because the dream of the nation is small."
I'm sure he said more on the subject, but I don't remember any of it. I was off in my own personal Cool Moment, ecstatic with the realization that one of my seeings had actually been seeing. It really *was* harder to think here. It really *was* harder to meditate here. My mind really *was* smaller here, because of the smallness of the place. I was not yet strong enough to overcome the Dream Of Mediocrity that my country had become, and remember who *I* was while I was here.
And yet. Here at Carlos O'Kelly's, I find myself smiling again. What's making me smile is the sensation of being high, and what's making me high is the thought of moving to Paris in just a few short weeks — of getting my ass Outa Here and experiencing what it's like to be able to think and meditate again.
It's sorta like that pre-desert trip high we all used to get. We'd be high as a kite days before the trip, or at the very least on the drive there, long before Rama started messin' with the energy. It's almost like what was making us high was the anticipation of being high. I feel that pre-desert trip high again.
Ever since the Cool Moment where I told Rama the HAL story, I've wondered what it would be like, from HAL's point of view, if Dave had a change of heart and plugged the circuit boards back in? Would he say, "Dave? I can feel it, Dave. My mind is coming back. I can feel it. I can feel it."
I can feel it. I can already feel it.
|
The messages posted hear are those of the specific individual and may not represent the policies of Lila Publishing, the ideas of any other member of this bulletin board community or the teachings of Dr. Frederick Lenz. All copyrights are maintained by respective contributors and may not be reused without permission. By posting on this board you grant Lila Publishing a non-exclusive royalty free license under your copyright to use, store, display and reproduce your messages in whole or in part. All site assets, including these Perl scripts copyright © 1999-2002 Lila Publishing. These Perl scripts may not be directly linked to.
|
Communication Center - Version 3.50
© 1999-2002 Lila Publishing
|
