Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Ah But I Was So Much Older Then

I went through all my teens in the ‘60’s, very much influenced by Bob Dylan and the Beatles.  That was when I explored different spiritual paths with a small group led by a grey-bearded guru who seemed to be in his 60’s and about whose qualifications I have no idea.

We were more or less a Roman Catholic yoga group, as he taught us about various Indian masters, and we read the Autobiography of a Yogi, but we went to early morning masses at a Ukrainian Catholic Church and the Stations of the Cross at a Franciscan friary.  We took bottles of water to the rectory of the cathedral to have them blessed and turned into holy water, which we sprinkled around, I believe to drive away evil beings.

You could hear us approaching by the jingling of our crucifices and little medallions of St. Christopher and a host of other saints we wore on chains around our necks.  Oh, did I mention we all had to grow beards?  Our fearless leader would take us on guided tours.  I remember being introduced to some kindly old men at a festival in the Sikh temple.  I also remember following our guru, along with my brother clones, jingling into a crowded smoke-filled meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Eventually our little group drifted apart.  One of us became a librarian, another became a counsellor, another went mad, and I wandered through science labs, plywood mills, late night city streets driving taxi, and law school.  I also drifted away from the various traditions I visited and more or less gravitated to Zen, which I practiced on my own until about five years ago, when the value of sangha finally dawned on me and I joined a group considerably less unusual than the first one.

Back in the day, I never hesitated to be profound.  A friend and I, being a couple of wannabe hippies going with the flow, came across a big sluggish frog lounging on the road.  I picked it up and put it in the grass.  My friend said, "Hey, man, why did you do that? If it happens that it gets run over, then it happens."  I sagely replied, "And if happens that I come along and move it off the road, then it happens."  But I was at my most profound when a slightly younger guy who had been listening to me prattle said, "Dave, you're so wise." Without missing a beat, I said, "No, I'm a fool. I know what to do, but I don't do it."  I'm still working on that one.

When the '60's were over, I more or less kept my deep thoughts to myself. Now that I'm in my 60's, it feels like I have a few more things to say. I worry that they won't be as profound as when I was a wise man.

But I'm younger than that now.


4 comments:

  1. David, what sage dwells within you? I very much like the comment, worthy of Socrates, that you know what to do but don't do it. I can very clearly see a way of life that I could just step over a line and in to, but that line remains uncrossed. That sounds very all or nothing, black and white, but essentially it's what I see.

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  2. Hi Kate, thanks for leaving a footprint. I think we all feel like that sometimes. I'm only taking baby steps...

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  3. Thank you for stopping by my blog, David.

    I like to think that, as we age and come to realize how little we know, we are actually living our wisdom FINALLY.

    My practice of Transcendental Meditation in the mid-1970s left me with the (mistaken) notion that I knew ALL and was wise beyond my years. Oh, silly youth!

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  4. Thanks, Tara, and thank you for listing me on your blog. Yeah TM was one of my excursions too. Even went to Iowa to learn how to jump in the full lotus....

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